The Night Watchman(32)

Joyce Asiginak said, “They want to ‘relocate.’ That’s fancy for ‘remove.’ How many times were we removed? No counting. Now they want to send us to the Cities.”

There was silence and the rustle of paper. Moses read the words out loud.

orderly relocation of such Indians



He set down the paper, unable to continue.

“Such Indians. Such Indians are we,” said Louis Pipestone in a slow leaden voice. “Such Indians as can be the wasted in battle. The sergeant waved my son forward. He went alone. Test the water.”

Nobody spoke. Pipestone’s boy had lost his mind, it was said, from being burned. Louis had gone to visit him. Come home and said no word for five days. Thomas broke the silence by suggesting a petition to protest the termination bill. Figure out how to get as many tribal members as possible to sign it.

“I will type out this petition,” said Juggie. “Staple pages to the back for people to sign. We should also get hold of Millie.”

Millie Cloud was Louis Pipestone’s daughter. She was in college. Maybe she could do something, Juggie said.

“And me,” said Louis, “I will bring these papers around to everyone and I will get it signed.”

“Are you sure you want to take it on?” said Juggie to him, quietly.

Louis was a big man, like a buffalo, with a massive head and hunched shoulders. His legs were short and bowed, as if they’d bent under the strain of the top half of Louis. When Louis smiled, his cheeks bunched up like small round apples. His nickname was Cheeks. Now he smiled at Juggie. His big face sweetened.

“I got to do something. Can’t just sit.”

Thomas knew that Louis was not just sitting. He had an allotment on the edge of the reservation, on grazing land. He had help. His young daughter worked it with him, and Wood Mountain came over there to pitch in, but still. A small ranch was a difficult proposition. They kept a racing horse or two. Brought them up to Manitoba. Louis’s son had sent a letter home from boot camp, Thomas remembered. Telling his father that army discipline was easy after Fort Totten. Louis was really saying that even the small amount of sitting he did was unbearable.

“Good,” said Thomas. “It’s important to get this going right now. It looks like this bill—we should call it by its name, House Concurrent Resolution 108, HCR 108—may it go down in infamy—”

“Hear, hear,” said Moses Montrose.

“House Concurrent Resolution 108, we need another copy now. So bring along the one we have with the petition. Explain it, what we learned, how we view it. Would anyone like to move so?”

There was a motion, a second, a vote. The papers were turned over to Louis Pipestone.

“Also,” said Thomas. “I would like to move we refer to House Concurrent Resolution 108 as the Termination Bill. Those words like emancipation and freedom are smoke.”

“Hear, hear,” said Moses, in a lordly way that made people laugh.

The next order of business was getting together a group of people to meet with the BIA in order to have the bill explained. That meeting was going to be held down in Fargo. A distant drive. They had a week to arrange to get down there and attend the meeting.

“It can hardly be done!” said Juggie. “To take off work. To get the people together. Nobody even knows what this thing is.”

“They will start knowing tomorrow,” said Louis.





The Waterjack




2214 Bloomington Avenue was a battered brown three-story house, peeling white paint, broken windows blanked out with cardboard. An assembly of mailboxes hung by the front door. Next to the mailboxes, what looked like a list of inhabitants. Patrice paced questingly in the dead yard. Jack stood on the sidewalk, smoking.

“I’ll stay here and watch for signs of life,” he said.

The front steps had collapsed and there was no obvious way to get onto the porch. Patrice dragged a few things over from the littered yard, then assembled and climbed a makeshift pile of milk crates and boards. There was no name on the list that resembled her sister’s. Patrice knocked on the front door. Abruptly, one of the rusted tin mailboxes gave up and clattered onto the porch, spilling a few envelopes. Even with the loud noise, nobody appeared. But the crash reverberated. Patrice had the sudden sense that the house had warned her. She shook off the feeling, knocked on the window next to the door. Thought she heard a scuffling sound inside. A dog started barking. Its bark was rough, high, desperate to live. She froze. Tears started into her eyes.

“Jack,” she called. He didn’t answer. The dog’s voice weakened until it stopped. Patrice waited. Nothing. She picked up the scatter of envelopes to stuff back into the mailbox. Read the addresses first. One belonged to Vera Paranteau. The letter had come to her only, not to her husband, whom she had followed down to the Cities and who had apparently not married her, as she still had her own name. Patrice kept the envelope and stepped gingerly off the porch.

Standing on the sidewalk next to Jack, she tore open the envelope.

“Felony right there,” he said.

She frowned at him.

“Tampering with the mail.”

The letter was a personalized Last Notice (underlined in red) to inform Vera that her electricity would be turned off. It was dated July, two months ago.

“Next move,” said Jack.