The Night Watchman(52)
Mr. Cooper: I am not sure that—
Eddy Mink: Of course, if the government carts us away and dumps us here and there—excuse me, relocates us—mostly we will end up down in the Cities. And if the BIA sells off our land, problem solved.
Anakwad (translated): Do you see any rich persons here? I don’t know of anyone. I got a few cents in my pocket. That’s all I got. Ever since the white man came in 1492, they started robbing the Indian of his riches.
Juggie Blue: They are just going to take our land away from us. In five years all the land on the reservation would be in white hands and we would be trudging up the road with our children, trying to find a place to light.
Giizis (translated): We don’t want anything to do with this bill. We are going to fight it down. That is how it stands. We want things just as they are at the present and to go on as they are until something new comes out that is better than it is.
Mr. Holmes: Now can we take a break? This seat is getting pretty hot.
(Laughter)
Buggy Morrissey: I myself happened to be in Washington a few years ago. I talked with the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of Indian affairs. They said it would take several decades for the Indians to become independent. So I don’t understand this bill. Maybe the future will show we can do it.
Moses Montrose: There was no provision like that in our original agreement. It was supposed to last in perpetuity. Even if we are to get independent, we should still be in the treaty.
Eddy Mink: The services that the government provides to Indians might be likened to rent. The rent for use of the entire country of the United States.
*
The officials in the front of the room looked a little stunned by Eddy’s statement. And then the meeting went on for two more hours, but no one said anything new.
As the meeting was about to be adjourned, Moses Montrose suddenly spoke out.
Moses Montrose: Now I wonder and want to ask that in making a report after this assembly, just what manner are you going to put it to Congress?
Mr. Holmes: The various statements made here have been transcribed.
Juggie Blue: Then please transcribe this. We are all to every person against this bill.
Thomas took a vote.
For the bill—0.
Against the bill—47.
The meeting was adjourned. Everyone shook hands and left. As Thomas walked out the door, Louie stepped out next to him and said, “Remember my daughter Millie?” Thomas must have looked blank because Louie continued, “Checks, we call her?”
“Oh, Checks, yes.”
“My daughter from my first girlfriend. She was a Cloud, but not from around here. And Millie turned into a university girl. Remember she came out here asking questions? Putting together her information to get some letters behind her name?”
“Oh, of course,” said Thomas. “Our Chippewa scholar.”
“Maybe she could help us with her findings.”
“Yes,” said Thomas. He was trying not to show despair. “Let’s throw everything we can at them. They’ve got us on the ropes.”
Behind the cottony blanket of cloud, the sun’s light was so diffuse that it was impossible to determine the time of day. Thomas thought it had to be quite late in the afternoon. He heard Eddy trying to persuade Joyce and Mary to stop with him for a drink.
“Eddy wants to wet his whistle,” said Moses.
“So do I,” said Thomas. “But I better stick to a root beer with my dinner.”
“Then so will your tribal judge.”
Moses might take a sip of whiskey now and then, but never did get drunk enough for anyone to notice. It was one reason he was the judge. He was being loyal to Thomas’s vow by not drinking and Thomas knew it. And inside, he wanted a drink. It was like an ache in his brain. His thoughts swirled around the ache. A disquieted disgust gripped him, like the onset of an illness. As he walked along, it got worse. He was very large or very small, could not decide which. The absence of shadows, the flat surfaces of Fargo’s buildings and sidewalks, did not help. He felt it coming. Wanted to duck. Winced. A sensation like when he was chastised at school gripped him. Like when he went into a bank or bought something expensive in an off-reservation town. Their looks pressing down on him. Their words flattening him. Their eyes squeezing him. Isey, for shame. As his mother used to say. But it was so much worse in English, the word shame. It made him curdle inside. And the curdling became something hard and sour. It became a black sediment he carried around in his stomach. Or a thought that stabbed so hard he might cast it out in a flare of anger. Or it might stay in there hardening even further until it flew up to his brain and killed him.
These official men with their satisfied soft faces.
He hated their approval just as much as he hated their condescension. And yet this truth was buried so deep inside him that its expression only emerged, in their presence, as a friendly smile.
Later, they emerged from the restaurant they’d chosen, an inexpensive Italian place where they’d filled up on spaghetti and meatballs, which cheered them all up. Outside, Thomas saw Paranteau. He was walking on the other side of the street, warring with gravity, tipping from side to side. Every few feet he stopped to steady himself, clutching a pillar, a windowsill, a mailbox. His coat hung slack and billowed around his shanks. Thomas sent the others on ahead and crossed the street.