Staggerford (27 page)

Annie looked him in the eye, brought an insolent pucker to her lips, and said, “It
still
sounds like a dumb idea.” Her eyes flashed the same anger he had seen yesterday when she got off the school bus in Sandhill, the same anger he had just seen across the street in the eyes of her father.

“It’s part of the governor’s plan to avoid violence, Annie. It’s the only way.”

“All right, I’ll change.” She started toward the locker room.

“There’s not time to change. The noon-hour bell rings in twenty minutes.”

Miles and Annie went out the back door of the school and down an alley and across Main Street. Annie’s red shorts, too big for her tiny waist and skinny brown legs, were gathered at the belt like a potato sack. She wore an oversized pair of white tennis shoes that flapped when she walked. The initials
J N
were printed in black on the rubber toes.

The Norquist house had gone to seed. What had once been an attractive bungalow at the crest of a sloping lawn
was now hidden in a tangle of vines and overgrown shrubbery. The lawn had been left uncut all summer.

As Miles knocked at the front door, Annie said, “I’ll knock on Jeffs bedroom window,” and she disappeared around the corner of the house.

Miles knocked three or four times. Finally Mrs. Norquist came to the door. Miles had not seen her for a long time—not since her daughter Maureen graduated—and he was surprised how much older she looked. She was wearing a worn-out bathrobe and smoking a cigarette.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Norquist, but it’s imperative that Jeff come to school right away.”

“If you think you can do anything with him, Mr. Pruitt, be my guest.” She stepped aside to let him come in.

At that moment, Annie and Jeff came around the corner of the house, holding hands, and set off toward school.

“God, look at that, would you,” said Mrs. Norquist. “What a pair.”

“Please excuse me, Mrs. Norquist. I have to get right back.”

“I almost wish they’d run away and leave me in peace. It’s coming up on eight years since my husband drowned, Mr. Pruitt. My only comfort in life is my daughter Maureen in New Jersey. She’s married, you know. She writes every week.”

For lack of anything better to say, Miles blurted, “Thank you,” and he followed Annie and Jeff across Main Street.

Jeff was short and broad. His back muscles bulged under his tight T-shirt. He lit a cigarette, turning to make sure Miles noticed, and he gave Annie a drag. His curly hair stood out from his head in a massive blond afro.

Twice Jeff asked Annie, “What’s going on?” but Annie wouldn’t tell him.

Miles followed them down the alley and through the back door of the school. They got to Wayne’s office one minute before twelve. The office was empty.

Miles opened the blinds and saw Wayne and two highway patrolmen standing at the base of the flagpole across the street. The patrolmen were dressed in burgundy uniforms
with braid at the shoulder and wide, flat-brimmed hats like Lyle Kite’s ranger hat. Alexander Bigmeadow was speaking to them. Bennie Bird had turned his back on them, and with his arms folded he was glaring at the sky. All 507 Indians, preparing to invade the school, were on their feet now, crowding through the ticket gate and gathering at the curb.

“Jeff,” said Miles, “you see those people out there? They would like to have a word with you.”

Jeff looked out the window, then backed into Wayne’s closet.

“Don’t worry, Jeff. They just want to have a word with you.”

“Don’t be afraid of fat bastards like Alexander Bigmeadow,” said Annie. “Where’s your guts?” She tried to tug Jeff out of the closet. So that (thought Miles) was why she hadn’t told Jeff what he was in for. She knew he would turn coward.

If it had been Spanish rice day or hamburger soup day, no one in school would have bothered to eat, but the menu called for everybody’s favorite, sloppy joes, and when the bell rang the faculty and students dropped into the basement, then rushed outside, still chewing, to watch what many of them hoped would be bloodshed. The students packed themselves into the street, leaving only a narrow passage between the front steps of the school and the opposite curb.

The Indians began shouting, “Norquist come out!!” and the students took up the chant. It sounded like a football cheer.

“They’re calling my name,” said Jeff from deeper in the closet.

“Don’t worry,” said Miles. “Just come outside with me and see what they have to say.”

“You think I’m crazy?”

“There’s nothing to fear. The state troopers will keep them under control. I see another patrol car coming.”

“It would take five of them Indian bastards to knock you down,” said Annie, pulling on Jeffs arm.

“NORQUIST COME OUT!”

Jeff shook Annie loose and pulled the closet door shut.

Miles spoke through the door “Mr. Workman wants you to help him negotiate.”

Annie added, “If they want to fight, I’ll help you fight, Jeff. I know how to kick them fat bastards where it hurts.”

“NORQUIST COME OUT!”

“Are you coming out?” asked Miles.

“Bigmeadow’s all flab,” shouted Annie.

A state trooper in a burgundy shirt, having come in by a back door, suddenly appeared in the office and introduced himself as the governor’s official arbitrator. He was a giant in sunglasses. Miles, for all his size, felt suddenly diminished, for he stood no higher than the trooper’s shirt pocket. Except in a sideshow one time, Miles had never seen a man so large. The trooper’s shirt front and sleeves were a collage of decoration: a badge, a rope of gold braid, a miniature American flag, a leather holster strap, and several cloth patches with the messages you read on bumper stickers,
KEEP MINNESOTA GREEN
, said one.

“Are you the principal?”

“No, my name is Miles Pruitt. And this is Annie Bird. And in here”—he tried to open the closet door—”is Jeff Norquist. He’s the one they’re after.”

“What’s he doing in there?”

“He’s a chicken!” said Annie.

The governor’s Giant pulled the closet door open and looked in at Jeff. Jeff looked up, astonished at the man’s size.

“Stay the hell out of sight,” said the Giant, and he shut the closet door.

“But the governor recommended—” Miles began.

“Never mind. The worst thing to do would be to bring the kid into it. We can’t bring the kid into it till everybody cools down. I’ve been through this kind of thing before. You don’t just throw a kid to an angry mob. You wait a day or two, till everybody cools down.”

“You call that bunch of fat bastards a mob?” shrieked Annie. “They’re nothing but flab. I could handle two or
three of them myself.” In the Giant’s presence Annie did not diminish the way Jeff and Miles seemed to.

“NORQUIST COME OUT!”

Miles went to the window. Bennie Bird, dragging little Hank by the arm, was crossing the street. Alexander Bigmeadow and Wayne Workman and the troopers (four of them now) were a step behind, followed by the rest of the Indians.

“They’re coming,” said Miles.

“Stay the hell out of sight, kid,” the Giant said to the closet door. Then to Miles: “See that nobody gets the kid. I’m going to try to break up the mob before they get inside.”

“I’ll help you,” said Annie, clenching her fists. She followed the Giant out of the office, her tennis shoes slapping the floor.

Miles watched from the window. Delia Fritz, one of the few people left in the building, came across the hall to watch with him. She threw open the window to hear what was said.

As Bennie Bird, dragging his son by the arm, approached the school, the governor’s Giant stepped out the front door. Everyone, including the students in the street, drew back a step, startled by his size. The Giant slowly descended the steps and put his hand on Bennie Bird’s shoulder and swore in the name of God and the governor that Jeff Norquist was nowhere in the building.

Annie stood at the Giant’s side and said, “Yeah.”

Bennie Bird said, “We want satisfaction for the tooth he knocked out of Hank’s mouth. Satisfaction from that goddamn no-good Norquist.”

Annie spat at her father. He lunged at her but was restrained by two patrolmen.

“How come you’re sober this late in the day?” she screeched, hopping in her excitement from one foot to the other.

Little Hank stepped up to his sister and said, “Blow it out your ass.” Annie punched him in his bruised eye, reopening one of yesterday’s lacerations. Bennie Bird lunged
again at his daughter, but was held back. Little Hank whipped out a knife—this time a paring knife—but before he knew what was happening the Giant lifted him off the ground and handed him to another patrolman, who put him in a patrol car and drove off toward the hospital.

By this time there were six or eight patrolmen on the scene, mingling with the Indians and looking very majestic and unruffled in their burgundy shirts and gold braid. The pair restraining Bennie Bird seemed not to notice that he was struggling helplessly in their grasp.

A silver car with a siren and a flashing red light pulled up, and the Berrington County sheriff stepped out. He was wearing knee-high boots, a riot helmet with goggles, and a bulletproof vest. A number of Indians thought he was funny.

Alexander Bigmeadow turned and looked at his followers and sensed that their determination was leaking away. Most of them were hushed, straining to hear the cursing of the Birds.

“Satisfaction!” shouted Bennie Bird. “Goddamn missing tooth! Goddamn Norquist!”

Annie kicked her father in the crotch.

“Good Lord,” said Delia Fritz.

Annie skipped up the steps and into the school.

Her father was bent over in pain. This amused the carnival-hatted Indian who had earlier found Wayne’s voice so entertaining. Three or four of his friends joined him in open laughter. At that moment the Staggerford Uprising (as Editor Fremling was to refer to it in the
Weekly)
fell apart. Bigmeadow knew it was over. He put his hands up and waved his people back to the football field. Was it a gesture of disgust or relief? Miles wasn’t sure. While most of the Indians moved back to the football field, a few went uptown for picnic supplies.

Two patrolmen picked up Bennie Bird by the armpits and with his knees drawn up to his chest they carried him across the street and set him down at the base of the flagpole.

“Ring the bell,” Miles said.

Delia Fritz looked at her watch. “It’s ten minutes early.”

“Ring it anyway.”

She went across the hall and did so. The faculty and students came inside and filled the halls with a great racket and then dispersed into their fifth-hour classrooms, where they discovered too late they had been tricked.

Miles went to his class and took roll, then was summoned once more to Wayne’s office—this time to be party to the negotiations. The office was packed. The governor’s Giant, still wearing sunglasses, sat behind Wayne’s desk. Wayne shared a bench with Albeit Fremling, who held his high-speed Graphlex on his lap. Chairs were brought in for Alexander Bigmeadow, Bennie Bird, the sheriff from Berrington (still in riot helmet and goggles), and Doc Oppegaard, chairman of the school board. Miles stood in the doorway, adding nothing but his presence to the Articles of Arbitration, which the Giant wrote on a sheet of paper:

* * *

Arriving at these terms was the work of half an hour, and when all was settled Doc Oppegaard (who because of prostate trouble interrupted every meeting he attended) stood up and said, “Is this your bathroom, Wayne?” and opened the door to the coat closet. There on the floor sat Jeff Norquist, terrified.

“There’s the son of a bitch!” said Bennie Bird, leaping to his feet. “You said he wasn’t in school!” Instead of attacking Jeff Norquist, Bennie took a swing at the Giant across the desk. Alexander Bigmeadow and the sheriff carried Bennie outside and deposited him with a group of patrolmen chatting in the street.

Bigmeadow returned to the office and said that because the Giant had lied about Jeff Norquist, the whites would have to make two concessions. To the Articles, therefore, these points were added:

Fifth-hour English was eager to hear the terms of the agreement. Miles told them, adding, “Thus the Chippewa nation returns to the reservation without getting what it came for.”

“It isn’t the first time,” said Nadine Oppegaard.

Alexander Bigmeadow, Bennie Bird, and little Hank left school and went across the street to join their friends, who were lunching on peaches, sandwiches, and beer. Doc Oppegaard went back to his office with Stella. The governor’s Giant drove Jeff Norquist home.

When everyone had cleared out of his office, Wayne Workman went into his closet, shut the door, and smoked a cigarette in the dark. Then he went to the home ec room where Thanatopsis gave him a neck rub, a cup of cocca, a
tranquilizer, and a pat on the back. ‘The crisis is over,” she said.

“Till Saturday,” said Wayne.

He returned to his office and sat down and looked across the street. The Indians were drifting off the field and climbing into their cars. The flag was run up the pole by Sorenson the janitor, who then unlocked the ticket booth, brought out a waste barrel and a pointed stick, and began to pick up the bread wrappers and six-pack cartons scattered across the field.