Neither Wolf nor Dog (31 page)

Dannie was speaking beautifully and eloquently. I did not want to cut her off. But there was a hard question I wanted to ask. This seemed the right time.

“Dannie,” I said. “Can I ask you a tough question? I hope you won't take offense.”

“That's why I'm talking to you. So you don't get things wrong.”

“When I worked on Red Lake it seemed to me that the Indian women were strong — stronger than white women in a lot of ways. But they were strong apart from the men, as mothers, as grandmothers. A lot of times, when they were with the men, they were walking around with black eyes, or raising kids with some guy who wasn't their dad. Something was out of whack.”

“At least you're honest,” she said. “But it's like I said. You just don't understand. Sure, there's a lot of violence. You can usually trace it back to alcohol. But there are good families, lots of them,
a lot more loving than most of your white families, with the grandparents living there with the fathers and mothers, and everyone respecting everyone else.

“This is what I mean about it being our time — the Indian woman. We have always been at the center. The Indian family has been like a circle, and the woman has been at the center. White families have been like lines, with the men standing in front.

“That's why white women haven't been able to understand us. They talk about sisterhood and liberation, but their struggle is not our struggle. We don't need to get free. We need to free our men.”

She glanced to see if I was paying attention. Her fingertips were pressing hard on my arm.

“Things are different for us. We know who we are. We are mothers. We are the bearers of our race. It gives us status to do other things. We are honored for what we are. If our men are treating us poorly, it is because they are shamed. Why should we want to set ourselves against them and call that liberation? Until they are free in their hearts again, none of us Indian people will be free.”

I had found a subject dear to her heart. “This is good for you to know,” she continued. “Maybe this will help you understand. We women can go out and get a job with the
wasichu
, and we're still okay. We can come home at night and not feel like we've sold our skin. We are still honored.

“But the men can't. If they go to the
wasichu
, they are shamed, even though they won't say it. The only way to lose that shame is to give up their blood and become white. They don't want to do that. But if they stay on the reservations, among their people, there is no work. And where there is no work they can't provide for their families. When they can't provide for their families they leave, or drink, or get angry. Maybe all of those. They get mad at us, even
while they love us.

“All you see is the violence and the alcohol. All the white women see is the silence and the bruises. What we see is a broken circle, and we're going to make it whole. This isn't about men and women. This is about our whole culture and our ancestors and our children. White people always think of themselves first, and how to get your individual rights. We don't. We think about the culture and how to make the people strong within it.

“That's what we're doing. We're building the culture. That's our job. That's why it's our turn, now.”

She released her grip on my arm and slid off the tailgate. “See? It's easy,” she said over her shoulder, with just a hint of irony in her voice.

Delvin grinned and picked at his teeth with the tip of a jackknife. He held up his hands in a knowing shrug. Danelle took several steps toward the yard, then turned to face us. “Well, I should go see Grandpa,” she said breezily. She walked off toward the trailer. After about twenty feet she turned again and looked at me. “Here's something for you,” she said with a lilt. “If we're so repressed as women, how come all the white sisters come to our old ones to find wisdom? I dare you to write that.”

I pulled my pen from my pocket and waved it at her to show that I would. She gave a clever little smirk and skipped a schoolyard skip.

“She's no one to mess with,” Delvin laughed.

“None of them are,” I said.

Delvin pointed at Danelle's receding form with the tip of his knife. “They've held our people together,” he said, a tone of admiration shading into his voice. Danelle was herding two kids toward the trailer, gesturing instructions with one hand and adjusting a collar with the other. “Should've sicced them on the white man. You guys would've gone home in rowboats.”

W
e didn't leave Annie's place until well after noon. Dan had immersed himself in a long conversation with the legless man and Grover was doing something with the kids under the watchful eye of Danelle. Most of the talk was in Lakota, so I made myself as unobtrusive as possible by performing mechanical tasks like checking the oil and undercarriage of Grover's Buick. I had enough to think about to keep myself occupied.

Annie had retreated to the shade of the chair by the door, where she had surrounded herself with an array of vegetables that Delvin and Dannie had brought from the store. It was a treasure to her of almost religious significance, and her hands worked the ears and pods with the same private devotion they had lavished on the rosary beads.

I crawled under the car to check for a rattle I had heard in the exhaust system. Even if I found it, there was not much I could do without tools. But I wanted to stay out of the way. This was family — even Grover in his way — and I was not. I preferred the solitary comradeship of mufflers and shock absorbers to forced conversation or idle hanging about.

Before long, however, a pair of eyes peered in at me. They were followed by another, then another. The three children had made their way over from Grover to see what the
wasichu
was doing.

I slid out and said hello. The kids stood silently with their hands in their pockets. A burst of laughter came from across the lawn. We all turned in time to see Dan doing a strange gigue in the dirt. Puffs of dust rose from his feet and blew off across the yard.

“What's your name?” I asked the boy with the blond curls. His appearance fascinated me and I wanted to know something of his story.

“Eugene,” he said shyly.

I gestured toward Danelle. “Is that your mama?”

“Yes.”

“Who are your brothers and sisters?”

He pointed to the others, proud of knowing the answer. “Myron and April.”

The little girl covered her face and giggled. The older boy just stared. He would reveal nothing.

The little blond boy licked his lips. His correct answers had given him courage. He could talk to the
wasichu.

“Are you Grizzly Adams?” he asked. The observation made me smile. Whether it reflected my actual appearance, or some mythology that everyone around here wanted to play out, it was becoming a familiar refrain.

“No,” I said. “Do I look like him?”

The little girl giggled again and shook her head up and down.

The blond boy pressed forward. “What's your name?”

I thought for a second before answering, “Kent.” “Mr. Nerburn” seemed too formal; “Nerburn” — the choice of most of the older Indians — was ridiculous in this situation. “Kent” was what I was left with when I ran out of alternatives.

“Do you have kids?” the boy in curls asked.

“Yes.”

“Where are they?” He was running down his own list of children's concerns.

“At my house in Minnesota.”

“Are you a white man?”

I laughed at his openness.

“Sure am.”

“So's my daddy. He lives in California.”

“Have you ever been there?” I asked.

“No,” he said. His lower lip thrust out momentarily. My heart flooded toward the boy, then back toward my own son almost a thousand miles away. I wanted to grab this little fellow and give him a hug.

The other children stood behind Eugene watching the conversation. The little girl was shy and demure, as if waiting for a gift. For no apparent reason I reached in my pocket and gave her a quarter. She ran off toward her mother squealing with delight.

The older boy didn't move. I fished out another handful of change. Because he was older it seemed I should give more. I took an assortment of coins and held them toward him. He looked unsmilingly at them, then took them in a crisp gesture and thrust them quickly into his pants pocket. He did not leave.

The little blond boy was staring wide-eyed toward my pocket, anticipating a treasure of his own. I had backed myself
into a corner where anything I gave him would be either too much or too little.

“How old is your sister?” I asked.

“Eight.”

“Then you should have a quarter, too.” I hoped the absolute lack of logic would serve as an irrefutable explanation. I dropped the silver coin into his hand like a precious stone. The dark-eyed boy just stood and stared.

“So you're Myron?” I said, trying to engage him. The boy said nothing. Expressions moved across his face like reflections on the surface of a lake.

“Where do you live?” I persisted. Still no answer.

“Do you like coming to visit your great grandma?” The boy turned his back to me and walked away swiftly. He had seen me, judged me, conversed with me, and rejected me, all without a word on his part.

I looked back at the blond boy. His eyes met mine, then turned toward his departing brother, then turned back to me. He wrestled for a moment with some private indecision, then quickly stuffed his shirttail back into his belt and took off in the direction of the house.

T
he sun had lost all gentleness by the time we were ready to leave. It hung in the sky like an angry wound, barely visible through an arid haze so dry that it hurt the lungs. Even the dogs had given up their jumping and chasing and had taken refuge in small dusty hollows they had carved out for themselves in the tiny patches of shade beneath the trees.

Shimmering waves of heat rose from every object. A shrub became a man walking toward you; a man became a willowy spectre with putty limbs and melting face. The great bowl of
land that only hours ago had seemed blessed by the gentleness of the morning wind was now a tortured, desiccated cauldron.

The children had gathered in a copse of trees out by the out-house. They were sitting together, talking occasionally, drawing in the dirt with bent sticks. Delvin, Danelle, and the legless man had retreated to the thin sliver of shade cast by the overhanging roof of the tiny log house. Annie still held her post in the stiff wooden chair by the door. The work of her hands had to continue even in the harsh brittle heat. Every once in a while she lifted her head to see if we were done loading and packing. I sat protected in the shade of a wheel well of Grover's Buick; I just wanted to get in the car and get going.

Grover was walking back and forth from the trailer to the car loading various bags into the trunk. Dan was saying some final words to the legless man. They were obviously very good friends. Their exchanges, all in Lakota, had been marked by outbursts of shared laughter — two people taking pleasure in common memories.

Grover slammed the trunk. “Saddled up,” he hollered toward Dan from beneath his cowboy hat. I envied him its broad brim and the circle of shade it provided.

“Just a minute,” Dan shouted from the doorway.

He disappeared into the dark interior, only to reemerge seconds later.

We watched him move slowly back across the yard. His form shimmered and shifted in the heat. I could not decide if his long-sleeved shirt was a protection or just added to the pain. He was like an animal that paid no attention to its skin.

Grover fired up the car. Dan got in and slammed the door. No one in the house or under the trees moved. The horizon wavered in the heat. One of the young kids picked up a hunk of clay and threw it half-heartedly in our direction. We drove out of the dusty yard with no waves or good-byes.