The Night Watchman(21)
Thomas woke, at 11:04, and shut off the alarm before it sounded. Before this job he’d sing out the old hobo wake-up call, “Roll out, snakes, it’s daylight in the swamp.” He thought it now, anyway. He stepped into his pants, tied on his work boots, and grabbed his briefcase. He threaded his way in the dark through the sleeping children and opened the front door slowly. Before he stepped out, he said, “Ooh yay! Bizaan! Mii eta go niin omaa ayaayaan. Ninga-maajiibiz endazhi-anokiiyaan.” The dog understood Chippewa, and his tail beat on the dirt as Thomas trod down the steps. In the beginning, Thomas had set out a circular driveway so he didn’t have to back the car out. He didn’t use headlamps until he was well on his way. The Indian Service road was pitch-black. The moon behind clouds. The only yard lamp was in the big farm and the light gleamed off the silver silo. He passed through town and then left the reservation. On this stretch of highway he was afflicted. It felt as if his heart was being pierced by long sharp needles. He flashed on his father, the two of them sitting in late sunshine, gathering its fugitive warmth.
You can never get enough of the ones you love, thought Thomas, rubbing his chest slowly, to vanquish the pains. “Here I have Biboon with me to this great old age, but I am greedy. I want him longer.”
His chest relaxed as he drove along. But an even sharper sensation dogged him. It made him want to stop the car, get out, and then what? He glanced over at his briefcase, which held the papers Moses had given him. For days, he’d tried to make sense of the papers, to absorb their meaning. To define their unbelievable intent. Unbelievable because the unthinkable was couched in such innocuous dry language. Unbelievable because the intent was, finally, to unmake, to unrecognize. To erase as Indians him, Biboon, Rose, his children, his people, all of us invisible and as if we never were here, from the beginning, here.
The case sat heavy on the passenger seat. The itch of dread intensified. Thomas pulled into the parking lot. The solid slam of the car door never ceased to satisfy. He walked a few steps without the briefcase, then turned back, leaned into the car, yanked it out, and hauled it along. But he didn’t open it until well into the night, when he cracked his lunch box and unwrapped his sandwich from a clean old red bandanna. He poured black medicine water into the cap of the thermos. He needed to sip at coffee, to nibble at a browned and salty crust of bannock, as he read the papers again. These little comforts gave him strength.
He had been night watchman for seven months. In the beginning, his post as chairman of the Turtle Mountain Advisory Committee could be dealt with in the late afternoons and evenings. He’d been able to sleep most mornings after his shift. When lucky, like tonight, he even grabbed an additional catnap before driving to work. But every so often the government remembered about Indians. And when they did, they always tried to solve Indians, thought Thomas. They solve us by getting rid of us. And do they tell us when they plan to get rid of us? Ha and ha. He had received no word from the government. By reading the Minot Daily News, he’d found out something was up. Then Moses had to pry the papers out of his contact down in Aberdeen. It had taken precious time to even get confirmation, or see the actual House Resolution stating, as its author said, that the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa was targeted by the United States Congress for emancipation. E-man-cipation. Emancipation. This word would not stop banging around in his head. Emancipated. But they were not enslaved. Freed from being Indians was the idea. Emancipated from their land. Freed from the treaties that Thomas’s father and grandfather had signed and that were promised to last forever. So as usual, by getting rid of us, the Indian problem would be solved.
Overnight the tribal chairman job had turned into a struggle to remain a problem. To not be solved.
The Fruit Crate
Barnes had seen her fade back into the leaves. She was barefoot. He found that charming. And so appropriate for a darling Indian girl. Ever since he was a child, there had been pictures. Advertisements. Luscious illustrations on fruit crates and dairy cartons. A lovely Indian maiden in flowing buckskin. She would be holding squash, apples, peaches, cucumbers. She would be offering a little box of butter. Perhaps the memory of these pictures swirled vaguely around his decision to come to the reservation, leaving his parents’ print shop in Des Moines. Also, after high school, it had entered his head that he would not really like to continue on with the print shop. He liked math. Long division had won his heart from early on. Barnes had craved each new level of knowledge. Even now, if he wasn’t boxing, he puttered around with polynomials. Numbers befriended him throughout the day. He noticed connections, repetitions. Out of license plates and telephone numbers he made equations. Even boxing was based on numbers of minutes, rounds, penalties, points. Numbers also attached to people. He saw Pixie as a 26, though she was just 19 years old. But he loved the swoop of the 2 and the snail of the 6. It went with her. He had a feeling for 2 to the 6th power. It didn’t go further than that. He had only spoken to her in passing, and was waiting for the right moment to present himself.
He thought that he might go to her house. Would that be strange? Possibly. Probably. But he’d waited to run into her, even to the point of placing himself in spots she might linger on the way home from work. The dime store. The mercantile. Henry’s Cafe. But no luck. One evening when the wind had dried the roads, hopefully the path to their house, he brought Pokey home. When Pokey got out, Barnes did too.