Keeper'n Me (20 page)

“All you need to do is sign your name on these sheets of paper here agreein' that when I come around the first of ev'ry month you'll pay me five bucks for more radio. I'll be around in the next week to install your own radio unit in your home.

“Then one week from tonight, an' from six to ten ev'ry single night after that, the Red Sky One Radio Network comes into your home! An' the thing of it is … an' here's the best part … you don' even need electricity an' you'll never haveta buy another battery!”

This was met with murmurs of delight, shock and polite disbelief. Keeper was grinning like I never seen him grin before and I think he was kinda proud of Wally for standing there and pressing his case.

Well, needless to say there was a big rush for the signup sheets and no one even stopped to ask about what they could expect from the radio. Five dollars seemed like a hell of a deal for four hours a night of crystal-clear radio, and Wally's enthusiasm pretty much caught on with everybody. There was even people dancing around together while old Hank kept singing away in the background. One week started to feel like an awful long time to wait for lotsa folks.

“Hmmpfh,” Keeper said. “Hmmpfh.”

“You watch what happens now that this radio's comin' to White Dog,” Keeper told me a few days later when we
were heading out to gather cedar. “People gonna change. Prob'ly real fast too. Them outside things move fast make people move fast too. You watch.”

“You don't like it? Think it's a bad idea?”

“Not a bad idea. More like bad timin'. Things like this gotta come slow, give people time to find balance with it. It's an important thing havin' balance.”

“What's balance gotta do with it?”

“Balance is a big thing in the Indyun way. Somethin' you gotta have. Kinda like carryin' a load too big'n awkward for you. Make you walk all funny underneath it, maybe fall, hurt yourself. But you take time to find a balance, that load's easier to travel with. See?”

“Well, yeah, maybe but not really.”

“It's like this. You see them eagle feathers hangin' up at my place there?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Eagle feather's good tool for teachin' 'bout balance. Help us remember one o' the biggest teachin's comes from the eagle. See, bird gotta have balance to soar around like he does. Us we like seein' him up there. Looks real free to us. Make us wanna be like that. Trick is, though, we gotta have that same kinda balance. That's why we admire the eagle so much. Somethin' inside us wants to be able to soar around our world like that too.

“But that eagle took a long time to learn about balance. Soarin's just the result of a lotta effort. Lotta work an' learnin' to see an' feel.”

“See and feel?”

“That bird's soarin' on air. Air's movin' all the time. When he's floatin' around up there so graceful he's floatin' on moving air. That bird knows when that movin's right for soarin' an' when it's not. Eagles don't soar all the time. Sometimes gotta work hard to stay up there.

“When he's learnin' to fly he's learnin' to see the way the clouds are movin' or if it's clear he's learnin' to see how the treetops are movin' in the air. Gets to know what's what up there. And he's learnin' to feel the air against his body. Learns when it's gentle enough to soar or wild enough to make soaring dangerous. Takes a lotta time for him to learn but he learns. Learns to see and feel so he can know when he can balance against the air an' float around like we always see him do.

“You watch sometimes. See a real young eagle tryin' to soar when that wind's really blowin'. Flies right up into the face of it. Spread his wings like he wants to soar but that wind just pushes him around. Tries again and again. Same thing. Keeps on gettin' pushed around till he learns that that kinda wind's no good for soaring. Gets real tired from the effort. So he learns to sit through it and wait.

“Us we only see the freedom, we don't see the work that went into it. We see the balance in the sky but not the time it took to get it. It's slow coming, that balance. Same for us.”

“But what are we balancing?”

“Living mostly. Living. Us we gotta learn to see and feel in order to live good. See what's good around us and
feel what's not. Kinda weed out the things that make us uncomfortable. Pick out the bad air from the good air so we can soar. Takes time. That's why we give feathers sometimes. Recognize someone for takin' time to learn balance an' put it into the way they live their life.”

“Hmmpfh. So how does that fit what's happening with Wally's radio?”

“It's not just Wally. Got more to do with you really.”

“Me?”

“You're feelin' lost here again. I can tell you're wantin' some of that fast livin' again. Way you walk, way you talk sometimes, way you look at things. I figure you were talkin' it up to Wally and tellin' him all about how fast'n shiny that world can be. Kinda got him thinkin' about this radio. Right?”

“Well, yeah, we talked, but I never figured he'd start up a radio station.”

“Lotsa people around here like you on accounta you seen the world. Know more about it than them. Makes you kinda special. They listen when you talk about it. Wally just kinda took off on his own after that.”

“So what's this balance thing got to do with me?”

“You'll learn about that from what's comin'. See and feel. Find a way to balance this world you live in now with the other one you came from. Big lesson for you. Big lesson. Gonna need it all your life.”

“Do you know what's gonna happen?'

“Not really. But people are gonna bump up against the outside world through this an' have to find their own
balance with it. Wally. You. Me. Everybody. Can't stop it now. Keep our eyes open. You'll see something for yourself through this.”

“Hmmpfh,” I said. “Hmmpfh.”

Three days later Wally's plan swung into action. Him and his brother Frankie were out bright and early in Roy Cameron's old orange pickup dropping off big bundles of wire around the townsite and even carrying some off into the bush a ways. Looked to be about five miles of wire lying out there by the time they were done.

Turned out that Wally's uncle Charlie, who's been on the band council for about a hundred years, had okayed a loan of seven hundred dollars for Wally's use. That news really had Bert Otter steamed since Bert had applied for some money to replace the old shortwave outfit Wilbert had trashed. Anyway, Charlie told me down at the store one day that Wally'd gone to town and spent it all at the Radio Shack. He'd borrowed Roy Cameron's truck and come back with a big load of wire, connectors and speakers. It sure didn't sound like any radio set-up I'd ever heard of and I was wondering how old Wally was gonna get all set up with a transmitter, antenna and studio in the three days left before the big kickoff.

“Gonna haveta wait like ev'rybody else, Garnet,” Wally said when I pushed him on the issue. “Can't be givin' my secret radio formula out to just anyone, you know. This radio's one highly competitive business an'
you never know who's listenin'.” He said all this while squinting around real fast and cupping a hand to one ear for emphasis.

He was busy in his bedroom scribbling song titles in a brand-new three-ring binder and having a bit of a tough time on accounta the Brylcreem was dripping off his sweaty brow and making slimy little puddles on the paper. He looked like a real executive at work.

“Final phase shifts into gear tomorrow,” he said, not looking up and scribbling away like Chief Isaac on a fiscal funding deadline. “People gonna know by then what it's like when the world comes to White Dog, by golly!”

Well, what happened the next day is this. Wally and Frankie, who by now was referring to himself as the Senior Vice President of Subscriptions and Membership, dropped by everyone's house delivering small black speakers, which they wired up, dropping the end of the cable through the bottom of the nearest window. Next, with Wally directing, the senior vice-president began unrolling all those big bundles of wire between pretty near every house on White Dog. They connected the cables hanging out the windows to the one main cable hanging out of Wally's bedroom window. Took them right up into the night to get it all done and folks were pretty puzzled by it all.

When the big day for the official kickoff of the White Dog One Radio Network arrived, excitement was at an all-time high. No one could talk about anything else and
big plans were being made for how to spend the money folks were thinking of winning in those big radio contests they'd all heard about. Or some were planning on where they'd take the big cruise vacations they just knew were gonna be given away too. They were talking about the big blackout bingo games to come and of course the latest in country music, since Wally's singing was getting a bit much for most everyone.

By the time six o'clock came on opening day there wasn't a soul out and about on the whole reserve. Even Uncle Buddy and his pals were huddled up around somebody's radio speaker. The whole reserve was quiet as a ceremony.

Wally hadn't been seen since they'd connected the houses an' we all naturally assumed that the final preparations for bringing the world to White Dog were taking up all his time. Frankie wasn't saying anything and told us all to be patient and be sitting by the speakers when “this damn place blasts off into the twentieth century!”

At six o'clock nothing happened. By six-twenty nothing was coming over and by six-thirty people were starting to get a little shifty-butted in their chairs. Even Ma, who's the most patient person I ever met, was starting to think a little less kindly of Wally.

“Coulda used that five bucks for beads or somethin' insteada sittin' aroun' waitin' for that Wally. Boy, when I see him I'm gonna—” Ma's ramble was cut short by a sudden blurt from the speaker.

It wasn't much at first. Sounded like someone shuffling papers, moving the microphone around, sniffling and cussing at the same time. Then there was a long silence. Finally the sound of a scratchy record playing that old fiddle tune “Maple Sugar.” Them old fiddle tunes are big favorites around here and whenever my uncle Joe pulls out his fiddle and starts playing on his porch people appear from everywhere for dancing and clapping along.

Well, Ma broke into a great big smile and started tapping her toes along to the music and even I had to agree that even though the record was scratchy it was a lot better sound than anything we'd heard in a long time. Except for Ma's old tape player we used for the blues and stuff. Anyway, when I listened out the front door I could hear the Copenaces next door hootin' and hollering and I could see shadows dancing by the windows. Next door is like a quarter mile out here but the sounds of clappin' and hootin' and hollerin' were plain as day. Seemed like Wally's big dream was off to a rip-roaring start.

Then the music stopped. The final strains of the song died down and I think everyone was just like me, kinda leaning in towards the speaker eager to hear what came next.

“You're listenin' to the White Dog One Radio Network and this is your host and special musical guest Wally Red Sky sayin' hello and welcome to White Dog's own radio station!”

Wild cheering could be heard all over.

“Yes indeed, the Red Sky One Radio Network … where we play the tunes you wanna croon. The only radio station that plays music … by reservation only! And the only place where you can hear the vocal talents of that gifted Ojibway singer, yours truly, Wally Red Sky, between each and every record we play!”

Well, the groans could be heard from all over too. Me, I just laughed and headed on over to Keeper's to finish listening to this big night in radio history just as Wally launched into his version of “Lovesick Blues.”

But I wasn't the only one out and about. People were scrambling from their houses in herds and headed in the direction of the White Dog One studios at top speed. There was Indians pouring outta the bushes faster'n you see in them corny Westerns, and for people with a language that doesn't have any cuss words they were doing pretty well with the English ones that night.

By the time I reached Wally's there was a huge crowd all piled into his room and Wally was pressed up against the wall with a microphone in his hand begging someone out there in radioland to call 911. There was a big smear of Brylcreem across the wall where he'd slid along and people were slipping and sliding around on the drops that had fell to the floor in their frenzy at wanting to get ahold of Wally.

It was Keeper who finally saved him.

Somehow the old guy managed to get heard over top of all the pushing, shoving and shouting around.

“Quiet!” he yelled. “Quiiiiii-et!”

The noise died down to the level of one big mass grumble.

“Means no hockey, I guess,” said Wilbert Fish.

“An' no big-money bingo either,” said Velma Crow.

“An' no special request lines,” moaned Cameron Keewatin.

“An' no way to turn off Wally once he launches into those tunes of his!” said Wally Senior, looking more than a bit disgusted.

“The boy tried,” Keeper said. “Maybe not so good as you all think it could be, but us we gotta look at what's not here insteada what is.

“Lotta them old records you like and no one's sayin' you can't get a bingo started, Velma. And think how easy it's gonna be to get hold of someone clear across the reserve now that we're all connected up. An' me, I think even Wally's gonna get tired of singin' for four hours ev'ry night and maybe we can all pitch in to get him more records to play.

“Who knows, maybe even we can get a real radio station in here once the government sees how much we done on our own.”

The room was suddenly full of nodding heads and hopeful grins. “Hey, I can set up a bingo real easy. Maybe make some money for the kids' sports aroun' here,” Wilbert Fish said, although everyone kinda knew there'd be a gambling side of this to be sorted out later.