Two Medicine (53 page)

“
Ride the snake, ride the
snake…”
The Doors played on from Ronnie’s
car.
“To the lake, the ancient
lake…”

More meteors, more music, more wine. Saint
Lawrence was crying indeed, but, for what, I could not tell. As I
lay there, shooting stars streaking overhead intermittently, I
pictured Alia lying beside me, watching with me, holding my hand.
She was wearing her now-eternal outfit – the clothes I had last
seen her in: white t-shirt, thin, barely hiding her light-tan skin,
little jean shorts, smooth legs ending in bare feet. Her fragrance
lifted and passed over me; her hair brushed against me in the night
breeze.

I took a deep breath, but smelled nothing
now, nothing but the grass and smell of dirt far off. I looked
around me in the dim shimmer of moon light, and I decided to let
Alia go. I spun the leather string around my wrist, feeling the
beads between my fingers. I took pulled the leather string off my
wrist and placed it next to me on the grass. Keep her there, I
decided, but no longer in my head. As the music played I let her
go, maybe up into the stars.

The moon had come out now, low over the
horizon, and it cast a thin silvery light onto us, barely
noticeable. I looked over at Katie, who lay motionless, blinking
slowly up at the sky.

The song ended and started again. Ronnie had
put it on repeat.

“
So I heard you quit Two
Med,” Sky said. I looked over at her.

“
Unfortunately.”

“
Why?”

“
It’s
complicated.”

“
Because you were
attacked?”

I shook my head, glancing at her for a
moment to see her expression, which was mute.

“
Because I was
saved.”

I expected her to ask what I meant, but she
didn’t. I watched the sky for a moment, but the meteors seemed to
be on pause.

“
Why were you out in the
woods looking for Clayton that night, Sky?” I asked her.

“
You never get tired of
that question, do you?”

“
No.”

She paused a moment. A sliver meteor with a
sparkling tail shot across the sky so fast that I hardly saw it.
“Clayton was looking for Alia. He knew she had spent the night at
the store, with you, and he was in a rage. He was still in love
with her – I didn’t know what he may do, so I followed him in my
car.”

She stopped and didn’t continue, but she had
already gotten too far.

“
So how did you find Alia
off in the woods?”

“
I was driving real slow
towards Two Med, and I saw somebody with a flashlight run off in
the woods to a truck and then take off like a madman.”

I listened for her to finish but she stopped
again.

“
Did you see who it was?
Would you recognize the truck again?”

“
No,” she said, “it was
too dark and they did a u turn and took off the other
way.”

“
But I saw where he had
been, and I turned my car in the road in that direction, and saw
the body off in the middle of the trees. I knew it was her from the
clothes, and I…”

She stopped again. I heard her breathing
change and grow harsher. “I drove off and called the police after I
got back home. I didn’t even follow the truck – I panicked and
fucked everything over.”

I heard her breathing slow down after a
moment, and leaned back to watch the sky. “You told the police all
of that?” I asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Then you did everything
you could have. The truck would have lost you anyway.”

She sighed deeply, and I could hear her pour
more wine in her glass.

“
Where are you going to
live?” she asked after a minute or two. Her voice seemed changed,
bolder. “Where are you living now?”

“
With a friend. But I
think Jamie may be getting me a job, so I’m going to look for a
place tomorrow.”

“
Those park jobs don’t
start till October though. What are you going to do till
then?”

“
I’m up for ideas,” I
said, taking a sip of my wine.

Sky didn’t say anything for a while. The
wind picked up, and the moon rose stronger overhead. The overhead
sky was misting up with a thin layer of clouds.

Ronnie stood up and stretched, yawning
loudly. “Well,” he said, “time to pack up, kids. See you next
year.”

As we got up and began to gather our stuff,
Sky walked up to me. “You can work at the diner with me, Will, till
you start the park job.” She gave me a piece of paper with a phone
number on it. “That’s the owner’s number, Susan. Call her tomorrow
and tell her you need a job; tell her I sent you.”

I thanked her and she walked off and said
her goodbyes to Jamie and got in her car. She honked as she drove
off. I was a bit wary about Sky’s sudden warmness towards me, not
because of any possible ill will or intent, but more so because I
wanted to avoid getting close to any woman for a while – a long
while. But I was surrounded by women in Montana, of all places; and
I couldn’t live with Greg forever…

Katie came up to me and said, “Ok, boy, help
me with this crap. I’m tired.” I helped her pack the things into
Ronnie’s trunk.

So ended the Tears of Saint Lawrence; his
weeping done, he could rest at peace in the heavens, at least until
next summer. Ronnie got us back into his car and drove us towards
Two Med. I got dropped off at Greg’s, and then they drove off into
the darkness. I snuck into the house as quietly as possible, since
it was about two a.m., and went to sleep in the guest room,
thinking of Sky and my new job prospects.

Forty-Four

The next morning Ronnie and I drove over to
Browning and I went in to see Susan at the Sunrise Diner. I had
seen her before, and she had already talked to Sky before we got
there, so lining up the job wasn’t difficult. I had never waited
tables before, but being close to the end of the summer she only
needed help about for a short while, so she wasn’t looking for any
stellar performance.

Ronnie and I stayed to have breakfast, and
Sky dropped by to eat with us. She told me she had found a nice
two-bedroom place that she was moving into, and that I was welcome
to check it out and move in, if it fit what I was looking for.

On the way back to Greg’s, Ronnie
congratulated me sarcastically on my “new squeeze” but I told him
he had it wrong.

“
She’s not gunning for a
new boyfriend,” I told him. “Just a new roommate. Clayton and Jake
are still in jail, and facing some serious shit. She wants a
dependable
roommate now,
after all that unrest.”

“We’ll see…” Ronnie said.

He dropped me off at Greg’s and I spent the
rest of the day helping Dee and Ophie take up some vegetables they
had planted in a small garden on the side of the house. We were
harvesting onions and potatoes, when I heard a loud motorcycle
drive up.

I walked over to the front of the house and
saw Thunderbird setting the bike on its kickstand. Ophie came
running over but then stopped next to me, curious, amazed and
afraid all at the same time, I imagined, at the spectacle of
Thunderbird in the flesh. He had on a sleeveless black t-shirt with
a red bandana holding back his long flowing grey hair, which added
to his wild appearance.

“Big Will!” Thunderbird thundered cheerily.
“What’s happening’?”

I smiled at him welcomingly. “Thunderbird,
this is Ophelia.” I gestured down to the little girl, and she
stared wide eyed up at him like he was some grizzled super hero
sprung out of a strange comic book. She had warmed up to me since I
was living at the house.

“Hey Ophelia!” Thunderbird said to her, and
then he walked over and bent down to her level. He was wearing
jeans and black leather chaps ending in big, gnarled old black
leather boots. He reached out to her and held his hand out for her
to shake. She stood like a statue.

“She’s kinda shy,” I told him.

“Wait!” He said and went over to his bike.
He reached into one of his saddle bags and drew out a wrinkled,
brown paper bag. He unfolded it and drew out a small dream catcher,
a circle with woven string in the middle, with some small feathers
hanging below the circle on strings of beads.

He came back and bent down and offered it to
her. Dee had walked up and was smiling at him as he held it out.
Ophie bit her lip and looked back at her mom, then reached out and
took the catcher out of his hand carefully. She looked at
Thunderbird and then back at the catcher.

“She likes it, Thunderbird,” I said. I
reached down and ruffled her curly brown hair. She walked back over
to her mom to show her. Dee said it was beautiful and thanked
him.

Dee and Ophie went to go hang her catcher in
her room, and Thunderbird and I walked over to the back porch. “I
came to talk to you, Will,” he said, “I’m really sorry about what
happened.”

“It’s not your fault.” I reflexively ran a
finger over the scar on my neck, now healed enough to have no
bandage. The puncture wound on my check was almost healed and
barely visible.

“I shouldn’t have left you there – not
without some protection,” he said sadly.

“Why
did
you take off like
that?”

He stared down at his boots and crossed his
legs, hooking his thumbs through the belt loops on his jeans.
“Floyd Crow asked me to go; he said he needed me to take back the
money from the entrance fees and put it in the safe back at the
council office.”

I remembered the grizzled, slow-talking
tribe chief who seemed to be so interested in my connection to all
that was happening to the tribe. I hadn’t heard from him since the
attack, however.

“
He wanted me to pay him a
visit after the powwow,” I said. “Thunderbird, have they asked you
to run the money back like that in years past?”

“Nope,” Thunderbird said, shaking his head.
“But it’s a big deal; and I was honored.” He wiped his nose with
the back of his hand and looked at me. “Will, I heard about Jake
and that stuff he was involved in – everybody knew about it, in the
tribe.

“But,” he continued, “I
wanted you at the powwow
so
bad
, I didn’t worry
about all that. I knew you
had
to go, because of Alia’s spirit on you. It was
really important that you went to the sweat – the spirits told
me!”

He nodded with a serious expression on his
big face as he looked me over. “And it worked! She’s at peace, and
not struggling with your spirit, I think.”

“She is at peace,” I said.
“And I’m
glad
I
went, Thunderbird, even with the scars. Because of all that
happened, I can put her to rest. I would have gone through any
amount of trauma, to get that.”

Thunderbird smiled at me, a big goofy grin
spreading across his bearded face.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, smiling back at
him.

“I just thought back to when I first met
you, at the store, at the snack bar. You’re a different man
now.”

I definitely agreed.

We chatted a
while more, but eventually Thunderbird had to get
back to Browning to get some things ready for a big road trip he
was taking, which was going to end up on the coast in California. I
figured it would be the last time I would see him in a while, maybe
forever, so I shook his hand and thanked him for everything, before
he got back on his bike. He kept smiling as he got his bike
situated and cranked it up – and he waved wildly back at me as he
took off down the road.

I realized I missed Thunderbird as he drove
off. I think it was because he was so simple and honest. The two
often go together, unfortunately, as the sophisticated among us
often lack honesty. Also, Thunderbird’s face always told the truth,
he didn’t hide anything. It was refreshing.

Forty-Five

Two days later I moved in with Sky, into a
three-bedroom little house with a couple acres of land, a few miles
from Browning proper. It wasn’t the apartment she had originally
found because that place didn’t allow pets. She had, unannounced to
me, bought a Saint Bernard puppy from Nancy, and moved him in with
us.

I had so little stuff when I moved in that
the house seemed pretty empty, even after I helped Sky move in her
stuff. We had some furniture and a kitchen table, but not much
else, so we went thrift storing at the local Salvation Army to get
some knick knacks and kitschy décor.

We spent the first couple of evenings
hanging out on the little stone back porch the house had, getting a
feel for the new place, watching the Saint Bernard, which was named
“Maddy.” It would romp around in the grass, chewing up the rubber
dog toys we got in bulk at the Salvation Army, and slobbering over
everything. Nancy had told us that Bernards went through toys like
Kleenex.

I started work at the diner a few days after
moving in. I would work days mostly, which was breakfast and lunch
shifts. Thankfully, the diner didn’t open at the crack of dawn like
many I knew did, but instead at eight a.m. I could shuffle in a
little groggy at seven and get things ready.

A single cook named Buster, who was an old
Vietnam vet who still wore a spiky flat top and had old, faded,
military-style tattoos, worked the kitchen. He had to be in his
seventies, but he smoked Marlboro Reds almost in a chain, stepping
halfway outside the back door and still watching the grills cooking
on the inside.

He never got behind on the orders though –
we were never that busy anyway. It was actually an enjoyable job
for the most part. Most of the customers were regulars and took
things slow, were in no hurry to eat and leave. They drank coffee,
read the paper, and chatted in a slow, relaxing murmur that I could
hear from the kitchen. The crowd was different, more sedate, than
the excited tourists we served at the store. The sun would stream
in the large windows that made up the front of the diner in the
mornings, and flood the restaurant with a warm, glowing haze.