Granta 125: After the War (8 page)

He wanted to put Mother to sleep like an old cocker spaniel. I don’t know why this agitated me so; she was all but asleep anyway. I suppose it was the unexpected memories that rushed back at the thought of her no longer existing – Mother hurtling along in our old Econoline with a carload of kids, bound for a dinosaur exhibit, an opera, a ball game or off to Crow Fair to watch the Indian dancers and eat fry-bread. Crow Fair was right in the middle of when Dad and I liked to fish the Shields, which I would have preferred, while Kurt was happy to drink in all the culture with the possible exception of Crow Fair, which he considered just a bunch of crazy Indians. Maybe not fishing with Dad was why my memory was so sharp.

Or why it came to me: Mother was herding a little mob of us like a Border collie through the tepees and concessions, thousands of Indians and spectators, smoke drifting from campfires, Crow elders in lawn chairs talking in sign language, young dancers running past us to the competitions in a rush of feathers. Our guide was Mr White Clay who helped Mother lead us to the rodeo grounds, the powwow, the fry-bread stands and the drumming of the Nighthawk Singers. Mr White Clay looked more like a cowboy than an Indian in his jeans, snap-button shirt and straw hat. He was tall and dark like many Crows and it was surprising how Mother deferred to him and how well they seemed to know each other. He had quickly familiarized himself with our group and was vigilant in rounding up anyone who strayed. It was wonderful to see Mother so relaxed, so willing to let Mr White Clay handle things. We kids had to call him Mr White Clay. Mother called him Roland.

My face was burning. I cut my conversation with Ms Lowler so suddenly she was startled. I went home, burst through my front door and picked up the phone. I called information for Crow Agency and requested a number for Roland White Clay. He answered. He answered! I told him who I was, who my mother was, who my brother was, how old we were then. Mr White Clay was silent. I asked if we could come to see him and he said with odd formality, ‘As you wish.’

I had found Wowser.

I will never know why I told Kurt but that’s what I did. It took him a while to absorb this and determine for himself if I was imagining it. But he remembered too. He remembered. He said that when he was ‘Wowser’, ‘Doozy’ had given him the impression that after the War Wowser no longer belonged in a tepee. Kurt said, ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I have forensic skills.’ I told him I hadn’t noticed; but he went on rather plausibly. Evidently Wowser’s stationing in southern California had briefly transformed him from Plains Indian to Zoot Suiter; and more troublingly, Mother had gone from den mother to tart. Maybe they had fun. But Kurt wasn’t happy. He said it looked like he would have to move. My brother move away? After all these
years? I couldn’t possibly face that. Kurt was there at the Grass Dance with Mother on that faraway and now sadly beautiful day. He said, ‘We’re gonna drag that Indian back up here and let him and Mother have a grand reunion. That’s when
this
Wowser retires.’

We drove to the Rez in his little MG which he stores most of the year. I couldn’t think of a worse car to drive on a hot day on the interstate, our hair blowing in the heat, our faces getting redder. Kurt thought it would cheer him up but by the time we got near Laurel, where fumes from the refinery filled the little two-seater, tears were pouring from his eyes. At first I thought it was the appalling conditions of driving this flivver among the sixteen-wheelers, pickup trucks and work-bound sedans. But that wasn’t it. He was remembering throwing a fit at assisted living. Surely I knew that. I waited until we slowed for the Hardin exit to ask him what happened. He unexpectedly swerved onto the shoulder. Our dust cloud swept over our heads and dissipated downwind. Kurt stared at me.

‘She came on to me.’

‘It’s your own fault!’ I shouted.

‘Searching for the truth about our mother? You’re actually calling that my fault? To my face? You
never
cared about Mother!’

‘Mother never cared about me!’

Kurt lowered his voice. ‘Earl, there was a problem of course. The problem was that you were uneducable.’

‘Ah. I thought Dad was uneducable. That’s what she said. What luck she had you.’

‘I think she felt that way,’ he said with a slight toss of his head.

‘Was this when she was fucking the Indian?’

‘You need to be careful, Earl.’ I could see violence rising in Kurt’s face. ‘You need to be very, very careful.’

‘Just asking, Kurt. It shouldn’t be controversial. I’m only trying to establish a time frame.’

‘“Fucking the Indian” is not a time frame. It’s ignorant. Remember John Wayne in
Hondo
where he plays a half-breed army scout? My point is he has a hard time being accepted by Indians
and
whites, per se.’

‘Are you saying we might be half-breeds?’

‘Not per se. We just don’t want any questions like that hanging over us.’

‘Can we stop for water? What happens if we have mechanical problems on the Rez? You can’t even buy tyres for this thing.’ I was trying to change the subject and I guess I was successful because Kurt started the motor and pulled back onto the highway, the tiny four-banger sneezing under the hood. I knew perfectly well that I didn’t pass inspection around our house except with Dad. Kurt was trying to see himself in the mirror, his hair windmilling around in the heat. Then he’d look at me like a dermatologist. It didn’t take me long to figure out that he was wondering if we were half-breeds.

R
oland White Clay was some kind of emeritus tribal chairman. His office was at the end of a corridor past the drinking fountain, and sparsely furnished, a military portrait behind the desk. He wore a sport coat over his jeans and a sky-blue western shirt, his Stetson resting upside down on his desk. He met us with cordial suspicion and occasionally glanced out of his window as we met, seemingly anxious to be outdoors again. Kurt and I sat in front of his desk, as though interviewing for a job.

‘Chief – do you mind if I call you Chief?’

‘Suit yourself,’ said White Clay with a wintry smile.

‘Chief, I read all the Montana and Wyoming papers pretty much every day and I see an issue that affects Indian people very negatively.’ Here White Clay perked up. ‘And that is: rolling cars. My research indicates that with each six inches of wheelbase, the likelihood of rollovers is reduced by 18 per cent.’ I spotted this as bullshit from the get-go. ‘My thought is to appeal to the automobile industry as an altruistic salute to Native American culture to manufacture special editions of their standard vehicles with
wider wheelbases
to help prevent rollovers.’ The acid look in White Clay’s face was a wonder to behold. White Clay spoke after long silence.

‘If you think I should,’ said White Clay, ‘I can have tribal counsel sit in.’

‘No,’ said Kurt. ‘We’re just trying to learn more about our mother. She has dementia and she’s slipping away.’

He gazed at us. ‘Well, we were close.’

‘How close?’ said Kurt. You could hear the demand in his voice. White Clay mused comfortably as he looked back at him. Finally, he smiled. Just then three little boys ran in: White Clay’s grandchildren. He introduced them. All had short, crisp names, Chip, Skip and Mick. He reproached them affectionately for their muddy jeans and T-shirts. They tagged White Clay and shot out as quickly as they’d come.

‘I never married,’ he said.

‘That’s all you’re going to say?’

‘That’s all I’m going to say.’

The photograph behind the desk, grainy from being blown up, showed a smiling GI on a riverbank, propped against his M1. I couldn’t tell if it was White Clay or just another Indian kid. We had deferments which Kurt said was the only way to go if there was nothing more to fight than gooks. My asthma exempted me but Kurt could easily have been drafted if Mother hadn’t gone to the board. She had something on the woman who was running it.

‘Is Caroline suffering?’

Caroline. When had someone last called Mother that? ‘No,’ I said. ‘Except during her so-called good spells when she is confused.’ I didn’t say a word about what she might have been going through while Kurt was impersonating him, not when we were sitting across the desk from the genuine Wowser.

‘Whose idea was it to come and see me?’

Kurt barked an artificial laugh. ‘We just thought you might want to see her. Might do her a lot of good.’

A truculent cloud crossed Kurt’s face. ‘Our mother enjoys an unparalleled and dignified standing in our community that will never change.’ All I could think was that if he took a stand at this moment he could plan on being Wowser for the rest of Mother’s life. White Clay picked the Stetson up off his desk and thrust it onto his head.
He stood, still tall if bowlegged, but broad-shouldered and erect. ‘Caroline and I were … there wasn’t room for it. I’ll come to see her, if you think it would help. Might help me!’

One look at Kurt’s MG and he said he’d take his pickup. Going back in that hot headwind was awful. It nearly stopped that silly little car and our faces roasted as we headed into the afternoon sun. ‘How about the three papooses that showed up in the chief’s office? What’d he call ’em? Snap, Crackle and Pop? Something like that.’

‘C
aroline,’ said White Clay. ‘It’s me.’ Her eyes moved slightly in White Clay’s direction and Kurt threw his head back and mouthed some words to the ceiling. For him, it was all over. White Clay just moved his head very slightly from side to side, as if saying ‘no’. In a while he got up, bent over and kissed Mother on the cheek. You couldn’t tell if she noticed. White Clay turned to speak to us. He said, ‘You were a couple of cute little boys. I understood why your mother wouldn’t go off with me. Now I see you again, and you are grown men. I must tell the truth. There doesn’t seem to be much to either one of you.’ He nodded to me and went out. Then Kurt left, leaving me alone. I sat and watched Mother. There was nothing in her face, nothing like life, nothing except the rise and fall of her breathing. It felt safe, after so long, to ask her if she loved me. It was just the two of us. No reply. I didn’t expect one.

I met with Kurt at his clinic in the old ice-cream plant that had been stylishly renovated to house fashionable new businesses but fashionable new businesses failed to arrive except for a doomed florist and a malodorous brisket palace. I couldn’t wait to speak to him, and sitting in one of his examination chairs I felt I was confessing after a long interrogation. Kurt, who is never off duty, wandered around in his white tunic inspecting his weird tools while I told him the story.

‘I spent almost three hours with Mother, and don’t ask me why, she was pretty lucid.’

‘Lucid about what?’

‘I’m going to tell you. Maybe the visit from White Clay, I don’t
know, but she was kind of excited, kind of agitated you could say, and I just sat there and finally I said, “What’s on your mind?”’

‘You think she has one?’

‘Kurt, honestly.’

‘All right, so go on.’

‘Remember when Dad had his gall bladder surgery?’

‘And the septicaemia?’

‘Exactly, and do you remember when it was?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you when it was. It was the same week as Crow Fair one year later.’

‘Earl, that’s not something I would ever remember. And in some ways it speaks to some of your issues, always looking back, always regretful.’

I ignored this. I felt it was important that Kurt hear the story and that it would maybe change his views of Mother and help him realize she was only human. ‘Well, when Dad was in the hospital you remember his sister Esther came out from Spokane to help care for him. And Mom felt it was kind of insulting and she went off by herself.’

‘I vaguely remember. As I recall, Esther was a hell of a cook. But repetitious.’

‘Oh, you thought it was a big improvement. That’s another thing that may have gotten Mom, this big fuss over Esther. Anyway, she left.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘Crow Fair,’ I hissed.

‘You heard this today? What did they do?’

‘I’ll tell you what they did. They took two horses and went on a day’s ride up the Big Horn River and camped under the stars.’

‘They camped under the stars.’

‘They camped under the stars. They ate antelope. Mom said it tasted just like chicken.’

‘It’s like you’re reading a fucking poem. Antelope doesn’t taste like chicken.’

‘They swam in the Big Horn and gathered wild berries. He took her to the secret graves of the warriors. They dried their clothes on the willows.’ Kurt winced, clutching a dental tool. ‘In two days, she was back at Dad’s bedside.’

Kurt said with feeling, ‘Our mother was a cheating housewife.’

I hoped my story put a gentler interpretation of our mother and the choices she made. Of course I made the whole thing up. My only regret was some buck-toothed kid coming in and finding himself in the hands of an agitated orthodontist. But. It may have been a mistake. Kurt didn’t take it at all as I had intended. It made him see our dad as a victim. ‘He’s there recuperating from surgery eating that awful stuff Esther kept making over and over.’ Now Esther was a
bad
cook. I thought it would be strategic to egg him on. Dishes we called shit-on-a-shingle and buffalo balls.

‘Dad definitely was getting the short end of the stick. Mom out there in the tepee.’ What tepee? I could see he was moving his allegiance to Dad. Soon I’d be an orphan.

Kurt had a big job and had all the time in the world to work through our family history. I was broke and out of work. Also, my phone had been turned off. I thought I knew why but at first I was unwilling to borrow someone’s phone to find out. In the end I put on my game face, borrowed an office at my old bank for a morning and, braving a gauntlet of smirks, arranged an interview at a bank in Miles City and put several hundred miles of prairie between Kurt and me.

It was my luck that the president of the bank in Miles City, who wore a cowboy hat at all times, regarded the president of the bank that fired me as a ‘pilgrim and a honyocker’. I didn’t entirely follow this but sensed it was in my favour; and indeed it was. I was offered the job on my word alone. In middle age, I had the chance to move away from home for the first time. I was terrified because it meant leaving Mother in Kurt’s hands. Soon I was at a very similar desk doing very similar things with the same clients but with more cowboy boots. I was clawing for volition and tried to develop a personal algorithm that would predict the date I would be fired all over again. I developed
a garish fantasy life for what my last stop would be and came up with cleaning Porta Potties at Ozzfest.