The Night Watchman(6)

Three Men




Moses Montrose sat calmly behind a cup of bitter tea. The tribal judge was a small, spare, carefully groomed man who wore his sixty-five years lightly. He and Thomas were at their meeting hall, Henry’s Cafe—a few booths and a hole-in-the-wall kitchen. Order of business: the one part-time tribal police officer was up north at a funeral. The jail was under repair. It was a small sturdy shack, painted white. The door had been kicked out by Eddy Mink, who usually spent the night singing out there in his fits of drunken joy. He needed more wine, he said, so he’d decided to leave. They talked about a new door. But as usual, the tribe was broke.

“The other night I made an arrest,” said Moses. “I locked Jim Duvalle in my outhouse.”

“Was he fighting again?”

“Real bad. We picked him up. Had to get my boy to help shove him inside.”

“A cold night for Duvalle.”

“He didn’t notice. He slept on the shitter.”

“Got to find another way,” said Thomas.

“Next day, I put on my judge shirt, brought him to my kitchen court. I gave him a fine and let him go. He only had one dollar of the fine, so I took his dollar and called it square. Then I spent the day feeling so bad. Taking food from his family’s mouth. Finally, I go over there and give the dollar to Leola. I need to get paid. But some other way.”

“We need our jail back.”

“Mary was mad I put him in our outhouse. Said she almost burst during the night!”

“Oh. We can’t let Mary burst. I talked to the superintendent, but he says the money is extremely tight.”

“You mean he’s extremely tight. In the butt.”

Moses said this in Chippewa—most everything was funnier in Chippewa. A laugh cleared out the cobwebs for Thomas and he felt like the coffee was also doing him some good.

“We have to put Jim in the newsletter. So write down the details.”

“He’s in the newsletter already this month.”

“Public shame isn’t working,” said Thomas.

“Not on him. But poor Leola walks around with her head hanging.”

Thomas shook his head, but the majority of the council had voted to include the month’s arrests and fines in the community newsletter. Moses had a good friend in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Office in Aberdeen, South Dakota, who had sent him a copy of the proposed bill that was supposed to emancipate Indians. That was the word used in newspaper articles. Emancipate. Thomas hadn’t seen the bill yet. Moses gave him the envelope and said, “They mean to drop us.” The envelope wasn’t very heavy.

“Drop us? I thought it was emancipate.”

“Same thing,” said Moses. “I read it all, every word. They mean to drop us.”



At the gas pump outside the big store, Eddy Mink stopped Thomas. The matted blocks of his long gray hair were tucked into the collar of a sagging army coat. His face was starred with burst veins. His nose was lumpy, purple. He had once been handsome, and still wore a yellowed silk scarf tied like a movie-star ascot. He asked Thomas if he would stand him a drink.

“No,” said Thomas.

“Thought you was starting up again.”

“Changed my mind. And you owe the tribe a new jail door.”

Eddy changed the subject by asking if Thomas knew about the emancipation. Thomas said yes, but it wasn’t emancipation. It was interesting that Eddy had heard about the bill before anybody else—but he was that way. Brilliant, once, and still scavenging news.

“I heard about it, sure. This thing sounds good,” Eddy said. “Hear I could sell my land. All I got is twenty acres.”

“But then you wouldn’t have any hospital. No clinic, no school, no farm agent, no nothing. No place to even rest your head.”

“I don’t need nothing.”

“No government commodities.”

“I could buy my own food with that land money.”

“By law, you wouldn’t be an Indian.”

“Law can’t take my Indian out of me.”

“Maybe. What about when your land money runs out. What then?”

“I live for the day.”

“You’re the kind of Indian they’re looking for,” said Thomas.

“I’m a drunk.”

“That’s what we’ll all be if this goes through.”

“Let it go through then!”

“Money would kill you, Eddy.”

“Death by whiskey? Eh, niiji?”

Thomas laughed. “An uglier way to go than you think. What about how it will affect all the old people, people who want to keep their land. Think about it, niiji.”

“I know you got a point,” said Eddy. “I just don’t want to take your point right now.”

Eddy went off, still talking. He lived alone on his father’s allotment in a little shack. Even the tar paper on it was flapping loose. The reservation was dry so he’d gone half blind from a bad batch of bootleg. When Juggie Blue made chokecherry wine, she always gave a jar to Eddy to keep him from the bootlegger. In winter, Thomas sent Wade over on their remaining horse to see if Eddy was alive, to chop wood for him if he was. In the old days, Thomas and his friend Archille had gone to bush dances along with Eddy, who could fiddle like an angel or a devil no matter how much he drank.