Neither Wolf nor Dog (30 page)

“What kind of book?”

“I'm not sure. Dan had this shoe box of notes that he wanted me to put into some kind of form. But we decided to junk that and just write a kind of a story, where I watch and record and try to give some of his views on life and the world.”

“What was in the shoe box?”

“Fragments. Hundreds of them. Written on scraps of paper. A few newspaper columns. Some letters. A real strange collection.”

She sat quietly for a minute. “White people shouldn't write books about Indians.”

“I'm not writing a book about Indians,” I said, suddenly defensive. “I'm writing a book for an Indian. That's what he wants. I asked him what he wanted and how he wanted it and that's what I'm trying to do.” My apology was too long.

“Why didn't he ask an Indian?” Her responses were as direct as mine were excessive. I tried to reign myself in.

“I don't know. I've wondered that myself.”

“He must think pretty highly of you,” she said. It was almost a challenge. She looked at me strangely, as if trying to see a clue as to why her grandfather would have chosen me. Then, deciding to pursue it no further, she slipped off the tailgate and shut it with a slam. “Well, don't blow it, mister
wasichu.
Working on a reservation doesn't make you an Indian. Let's go, Delvin.”

Delvin gave me a knowing smile.

I should have let things lie, but, unaccountably, I spoke up again. I wanted to connect with her on some level. I cast about for something to keep her talking.

I took a chance. “I'm doing this for your grandpa,” I said. “Not for me.”

She whirled. “Every
wasichu
is doing it for himself. He just doesn't always know why.” It was my intentions she challenged, not my knowledge of her relationship to Dan, so I pushed a bit further.

“I'm going to do it, Dannie,” I said. “Your grandpa asked me. I wish you'd help me.” At my use of her nickname her eyes flashed a quick fury. Then she subsided and stared hard at me.

“And what sort of help can I give you? You seem to know exactly what you're about.” The bitterness and sarcasm fairly dripped from her voice.

“Can I tell you the truth?” I said.

“I wish to hell you would,” she said. Delvin was grinning from ear to ear. He had obviously been on the receiving end of her anger before.

“I'm scared of this one. I really am.”

“And I'm scared of you doing it.”

“And you should be. I could really blow it. I wanted to give it back to him so he could find an Indian to help him. But he really wants me to do it. He really does. I don't know why.”

She sat motionless and surveyed me like an animal. You could almost read the inner conversation on her face. When she spoke it
was in grave tones. There was to be no mistaking her seriousness.

“My grandpa is one of the most important people in the world to me. He's all I've got left of my dad. If my sister called you, I'll trust you. But I don't like it. I don't like
wasichu
writers coming to the reservation. Nothing good comes of it. But if Grandpa wants you to do it, you do it. But you do it his way.”

“Believe me, Dannie, I'm trying.”

She bit her bottom lip again and tensed her shoulders. She was a woman in a private turmoil.

“Did you know my dad?”

“No. I never even heard of your dad until I saw his picture on your grandpa's wall.”

“He was murdered, you know.”

I glanced at Delvin. He nodded his okay. “Delvin told me,” I said.

She looked at Delvin. He flashed his teeth from behind his sunglasses and held up his hands like a man showing he had no weapons.

“You talk a lot, Delvin,” Dannie said.

He grinned again and said nothing.

“My dad was a really good man. He really cared about people. He was going to do something good for the Indian people. Then he got killed. Along with Mom.”

I remained silent. This was her talk. I would let it go where she wanted. She sniffed once, then continued.

“He wanted to build a bridge to Grandma. That's what he always said. He wanted to build a bridge to Grandma.”

“What did he mean?” I asked as gently as I could.

“Grandpa and Grandma . . .”

“Your grandpa, Dan?” I clarified.

“Yes. Grandpa and Grandma didn't get along very well, I guess. She was
wasichu.
I don't think Grandpa understood her very well. They split up and she went back East where she came
from. My dad was still pretty little, like twelve or something. I don't know the whole story. Just what Grandma Annie told me. She knew them both.

“I guess my dad was really sad. He always blamed Grandpa. He said he was going to build a bridge for his mom to come back. That's what he told me when I was just little.

“He was such a good man, my dad. He used to take me on walks up on the hill by our house and say that we had to learn to forgive, like the land forgives. He would show me places where the land had been destroyed and say that the earth would cover it with new grasses, and that's what Indian people had to do with the white people.”

“But he stayed on the rez with your grandpa?”

“He went back East to be with his mom a couple of times. But he hated it. She had remarried to a white man. They had some other kids, and those kids didn't like him. Called him Tonto and were really mean to him. He really wanted those kids to be his brothers and sisters. Even when he grew up he used to write them. I remember seeing him sitting at the kitchen table writing letters to them. They never wrote him back. He even tried to go to college back there, but he just couldn't. He went to Haskell instead.”

She was crying now, small tears that came from deep in her childhood memory. She quickly wiped them away.

“He was going to write a book that explained things to Grandma, about the Indian way and how it really was. He was going to build a bridge between Grandpa and Grandma.”

I felt a deep flush go through my entire body. I exhaled audibly.

“How much did he ever get written?” I asked.

“I don't know. Grandpa said he used to write letters from Haskell. I know Grandpa saved some of them.”

Delvin turned toward me and smiled a close-lipped smile.
He moved his head up and down as if to say, “There you are.” I was almost shaking.

“Don't take advantage of him,” she said. Her eyes were pleading, rimmed with tears. “This is bigger than you understand.”

“I'm starting to,” I said. “This is the hardest thing I've ever tried. But I'll do it right. I promise you.”

“God, I hope so. It's really important.”

We could see Grover and Dan puttering over by the trailer. Dan still had his suspenders hanging from the side of his pants while he washed up. There was no more I could say to reassure her.

“He really is a wise man,” I offered.

“I know,” Dannie answered. “That's where my dad got it. He taught my dad in the old way. He took him out, made him look at nature. He really was good. My dad learned it all, too.”

Neither of us could bear to say the obvious.

“What sort of things is he telling you?” she asked.

“Sometimes he gives what he calls . . .”

“‘Little talks,'” she broke in.

“Right.” She smiled knowingly. “Other times he just goes off on a subject and bangs around in it.”

“Are they good?”

“Do you want to hear?” I said. “I've been recording them.”

She nodded, and I went to the car to get the tape recorder. Fatback saw me and came wagging after. She followed me back to the pickup where Dannie and Delvin had taken seats side by side on the tailgate.

“Fatback, you old hound,” Dannie said as we approached. Seeing the dog seemed to lift her spirits.

Fatback wagged vigorously and tried to rise up on her hind legs. Dannie slid off the tailgate and got down nose to nose with the dog. She made huffing sounds and ruffled the old dog's ears.
Fatback squeaked and whimpered like a happy puppy. “She's my dad's old dog,” Dannie said. “He trained her just before he died.”

“Trained her?”

“Yeah. He wanted to. Said he didn't want her to be just a rez dog. Show him, Fatback. Roll over.”

The old dog sat down slowly, then dropped to the ground, curled her lip, and rolled onto her back.

“She can't get all the way over any more,” Dannie explained. “But she used to be able to do all sorts of tricks.”

“I've seen some of them,” I said, remembering the episode on the hilltop.

“He's really close to her.” Fatback pulled playfully at the cuff of her jeans, an old gesture of friendship stored somewhere deep in their shared memories. “He thinks my dad's spirit is in her.”

“That dog's old as shit,” Delvin said, inappropriately. “I'm surprised she could make a trip this far.” I was doing some mathematical totting in my head even as he spoke. As near as I could figure, Fatback had to be almost twenty. I thought of Dan telling me she had just shown up on his porch one day, then of Grover telling me I had to watch out, because the old man would try to trick me. Things indeed were not what they seemed.

“Play the tape,” Dannie said.

I had grabbed a tape at random from the box in my aviator's bag. It turned out to be Dan speaking about the land. Dannie's face lit up as the tinny voice spoke of white men planting a flag and claiming all the land up to that point.

“Those are the same stories he told me when I was little,” she smiled. The tape went on. Dan was expounding on the difference between land and property.

Delvin picked at his teeth with the edge of a jackknife. “That old duffer's pretty smart.”

“Grandma Annie said he was the smartest Indian she ever
knew,” Danelle said proudly. “He really is good, isn't he?”

“I think he is,” I said. “I really do. That's why I'm doing this.”

Over by the trailer Dan had finished washing up. He was pulling his suspenders up over his ribbed long-sleeve undershirt.

“A long-sleeve goddamn shirt,” Delvin said in mock astonishment. “It's goddamn ninety degrees already, and he's wearing a long-sleeve shirt.” Danelle had clicked off the tape and handed the machine back to me.

“There's one thing you've got to promise me,” she said.

“If I can help you, I will.”

“Just don't listen to them about women. Especially Grover.”

It seemed a strange comment.

“What does Grover have to do with it?” I asked.

She spat her answer. “He thinks he's still in the Navy.”

“She doesn't like the way he treats women,” Delvin interpreted.

“I don't like anything about him,” she corrected.

“You know him pretty well?” I asked.

“I only met him once, but I understand him perfectly,” she said.

“We went up on a visit,” Delvin explained. “He slapped her in the tailfeathers once when she walked by. Didn't sit too well with her.”

“The hand speaks the truth of the mind,” she observed.

Delvin laughed. It was not a serious offense to him.

“It doesn't seem to be Dan's kind of subject,” I said.

“It's not. But it's Grover's. Grandpa listens to Grover too much, at least that's what my sister says. Remember, Grandma was a
wasichu
, like you. Grandpa never got over her. He doesn't know a whole lot about Indian women and the way things are today. If he says anything it will probably just be Grover talking.”

She touched my arm with her fingertips. It was a surprising
and powerful gesture; firm, without intimacy, like a nurse's. It held me in place. “Listen,” she confided. “Grandpa's doing what he has to do. I'm sure you're doing your best. But you don't understand. You can't. We women are the hope of our people right now. I don't want Grandpa saying stupid things that are all wrong.”

“I don't understand,” I said.

“That's just the point. No matter how much you care, Indian culture is just a game to you. Maybe it's something important. Maybe you think it's the most important thing in the world. But if we're gone, you'll still survive. It's not that way for us. If our culture goes, we go. Everything our old people starved for and our ancestors died for will be gone. Look at Grandma and Grandpa. That's what's left. Her sitting with those rosary beads all day. Him without any legs. They stole his body and they stole her spirit.”

“I know,” I answered. “That's why I'm here. I want people to know. You've got to believe me.”

“I believe you, but it doesn't make what you're doing right. You could just get it all wrong in your own way. See, the men like my grandpa Dan, they are still fighting. You're helping them fight. That's good. But it's our turn now — Indian women. The men are tired. They fought for almost two hundred years. Now it's our turn.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. Hers was the voice I needed to hear.

“They were warriors. They went out and struggled for us. But there were too many of you. They lost, and now they are defeated. They're angry and they're full of shame. It's in their blood. They keep trying. But their war is over.

“If honor had mattered, they would have won and we would still be strong and healthy as a people. But honor didn't matter. Numbers mattered. They fought and lost. Now they still
try to fight, like my grandpa is doing, with words. But they are the defeated.

“It was taken from them. Everything. Your people did it. That's the way it was planned, and it worked. You took their spirits and left them with shame. But no one paid any attention to us women. We kept things alive in our hearts and hands.”

She smiled knowingly and looked out over the rolling landscape, like a person caressing a secret in her mind.

“They ignored us. We were just women. But we were always the ones to keep the culture alive. That was our job, as women and mothers. It always has been. The men can't hunt buffalo anymore. But we can still cook and sew and practice the old ways. We can still feed the old people and make their days warm. We can teach the children. Our men may be defeated, but our women's hearts are still strong.”