The Night Watchman(59)

He could not hold back the pictures. Knowing pierced his mind. Unbearable, what they did to her. And what they were still doing if she was alive and in their power. He cried out and felt that now he was welded by cold to the grass like poor Paranteau and his iron post.

The drumming grew louder and louder. Looking up, he saw the beings. They were filmy and brightly indistinct. How benign they were, floating downward from the heavens. They were formed like regular people, and were dressed in ordinary clothing, shirts, pants, dresses made of glowing cloth. Although he could see through them, they weren’t exactly transparent. And they looked like they’d been hard at work. He had the sense the stars were always hard at work; shining away up there wasn’t easy. One of the shining people was Jesus Christ, but he looked just like the others. They nodded to him in a comical way, understanding his surprise, and all of a sudden nothing hurt. Radiance filled him and he reared up, knowing that the drummers wished him to dance. Up in the clouds, down on earth, they were dancing counterclockwise, as the spirits do in the land of the dead, and they wanted him to join. So he danced with them. Every time he trod down on the stiff grass his feet pushed a watery brightness into the air. He was wearing an imaginary headdress that spilled light every time he bobbed his head. He looked down and saw that he was holding a dance stick made of wavering northern lights. Eyes glinting, heart roaring as the blood sprang to the tips of his fingers, he began to sing the song they gave him.

When the drumming stopped, Thomas climbed on top of his car, plucked the wire from his pocket, picked the lock to the bathroom window. He hoisted himself through that window and tapped down on the green linoleum floor. Then he walked out of the bathroom to his desk, scooped up his keys, punched the time clock, and raced out to the car. It started right up. He pulled it around to his parking place and he ran back into the building. Sat down. He was only two minutes off on his time punches. He poured himself a thermos cup of coffee and greeted the dawn.





Agony Would Be Her Name




The men smelled of hot oil, liquor sweat, spoiled meat, a million cigarettes, and they spoke in the language of the wolverine.

Their beards ground against her face until her cheeks were raw. If she wanted to get away, she’d have to run through knives.

If she got through the knives, she would have no skin left to protect her. She would be raw flesh. She would be a thing. She

would be agony. Giant motors gnashed behind the wall. Occasionally, like a reverberating gong, she heard her mother call her

name.





Homecoming




The leaves gold on green, bright in the soaking rain, padded the trails in the woods. All of the Wazhashks were hard at work. In the sloughs the little namesakes stockpiled green twigs. In the fields, the family pitchforked up the last of the carrots. Piles of squash, warty green, orange, mellow tan, solid little pumpkins, filled the cellar and were piled around the sides of the house. Braids of onions. Pale meek balls of cabbage. Crates of cream and purple turnips. Bushels of potatoes. Thomas hauled wagon loads. Wade and Martin argued themselves into the back, arranged themselves around the vegetables. Still arguing, they unloaded produce at the cafe, at the school, and at last the teachers’ dining hall. Juggie Blue gave orders, telling them where to stack and pile. Tomorrow, there was going to be a parade, a community feed, a football game, and the crowning of royalty. Sharlo was in the Homecoming court.

“You in the parade?” Juggie asked Thomas.

“Not this time. The old man is going to sit in the car and watch. I’m going to sit right there with him.”

“And Rose?”

“She’s working on Sharlo’s dress.”

“Oh! What’s the dress like?”

Juggie lighted up. She loved dresses, though overalls were her mainstay.

“Long, I think. Maybe . . . blue?”

Juggie narrowed her eyes.

“Long and maybe blue? That’s all you can come up with?”

“There’s a ruffle somewhere on it.”

“You’re useless!”

Thomas watched Juggie closely as they talked. As he walked away, he was reassured by her exasperation. She didn’t seem to be treating him as if there were something wrong with him. He had also watched Rose closely. Was he changed after the visitation in the frosty field? Had he been acting strangely before it? How could a person tell whether he himself was acting strangely? Thomas hadn’t told anyone about his experience, hadn’t said a word about the shining people. He would tell Biboon, when the time was right, but dared tell no one else. What exactly would he say to someone who was not his own father? I was at a star powwow? I met Jesus Christ and he was a good fellow? They would laugh, think he’d fallen off the wagon, worry that his mind was giving out from the strain. And also, maybe most important, he didn’t want anyone to interfere with the peace he had experienced since that visit. Although he was still tired and anxious, he wasn’t filled with dread. His visitors had left something of their comforting presence.

Every night, checking twice that he had his keys, he went outside and looked up into the heavens. He sang, low, trying to remember the song they danced to. As for Jesus Christ, he thought he’d better go to Holy Mass.



The rain let up and Saturday morning was clear and chilly. Everyone in the parade assembled just below the church, then set off in a straggling march to wind through town and end at the high school steps. Sharlo wore a bunch of yellow velvet flowers pinned to her coat, sat with her friends on the top of the backseat of the English teacher’s convertible. Fee was in the parade as a trumpet player. Pokey was in the parade too. He hopped around in a pickup bed made to look like a boxing ring. He scowled, pretending to spar with the other boys. The junior boxers had wanted to go shirtless, but Barnes made them wear their jackets. He did allow them to wear the new Everlast boxing gloves, and they had a rounds bell to ding, borrowed from the post office window. Three old traditional dancers in beaded black velvet regalia rode in the bed of Louie’s pickup. The young dancers followed. Wade had borrowed a dance outfit from his grandfather and he bobbed and hunted the ground with his eyes. A few of the women wore brown cotton dresses, imitating buckskin with cut cotton fringes. The women with the shorter bobs wore false braids made of nylon stockings stuffed with horsehair. They wore loom-beaded headbands and brilliant medallions. Two fancy dancers wore suits of red long underwear under their beaded breechcloths and feather bustles. They dipped and whirled, walked and laughed, waved and joked with the crowd. They were handing out pencils, one to every few children, drawing each yellow stick reverently from a cloth bag.