Winter Loon(80)

In my mind, it was clear. Jolene and I would get out of Loma together and head west into the sunset. I’d traced the route on a foldout map. We’d cross Minnesota and North Dakota, through the head of the Badlands into Montana, then down through Billings and across the mountains to this postmarked town. “So about that.” I pulled my boots on and took her hand. “I’m going to go look for my father. I want you to come with me.”



WE MADE OUR WAY DOWNSTAIRS and into the kitchen, barely dodging getting caught by Mona. “It’s not that I don’t want to help you,” Jolene said, pouring us each a glass of milk. “What about school?”

Mona was putting groceries away and chimed in. “Wes, maybe you should wait until spring or summer even. The information isn’t moving.”

“If you wait,” Jolene said, “I’ll go with you.”

“Hold on, now. We need to talk this through. As a family. You don’t get to take off as you please.”

“I’ll be eighteen,” Jolene said.

“Yes, I know that. But I don’t want you leaping before you look. There’s a lot to consider. Let’s slow down here. We can talk about it with Troy when he comes in later. No one’s going anywhere right now.”



MY GUARD WAS UP WHEN Troy took me aside that night, said he wanted to have a man-to-man with me. We sat in the dining room and I told him my plan.

He nodded slowly in that way of his, head bobbing and swaying to some natural rhythm. Then he stopped and looked right at me. “You can’t take Jolene with you, Wes. Come on,” he said, backhanding my arm. “Let’s take a walk.”

The leaves were long gone, piled up and burned in the gutters. Pickup trucks had plows attached, ready to combat the feet of snow that would fall. I caught an icy chill. I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked next to Troy, trying to form my argument.

I offered a compromise. “I could wait until Christmas, I suppose. More time off from school.”

“Not good enough.”

“No disrespect, but I think we’re old enough we can decide for ourselves.”

“I agree. But you need to decide not to take her. She needs to decide not to go.”

We rounded the corner, out of sight of the house. Troy shoved me hard and I fell, pile driving my shoulder onto the frozen ground, wrenching my hand under me.

I stood up, flexing the sprained wrist, and stared him down. “What did you do that for? It’s because I’m white, isn’t it? You and Mona never thought I was good enough for her.”

“Get up and stop acting like a boy, Wes. Take your hands out of your pockets.” He kept walking and I had to step quick to catch up with him. “This is your journey to make. If your dad is out there somewhere, you need to see him as a man, your arms swinging free. Having Jolene with you, you’d put her in your pocket, check on her, make sure she was alright. You’d snuggle her and hold her,” he said, sweetening his tone to tease me. “You’d be thinking with little Wes down there, wondering when you could tangle her up in the sheets again.”

I dropped my head and flushed with the truth. The road trip I’d drawn for myself was one part domestic, one part pornographic, though I didn’t admit that to Troy.

“You know I’m right. We set rules. You break them. We know what you two are up to. I’m telling you, Wes. You take her with you and you’ll get sucker punched. You won’t know what hit you. You’ll fall back on her and you’ll be needy and pathetic.”

The picture he had of me, this sniveling kid, was as much a blow to me as his knocking me down. “That’s really how you see me? A weakling?”

“To be honest, she is tougher than you. But you’re not weak. I don’t think that at all. You need to keep looking for your strength. You have to piece yourself together. That’s the sort of thing a man has to do on his own. You’ve got to make yourself whole again. Solid,” he said, raising his arms like a boxer. “You’ve heard me talk about Nanabozho before.”

I nodded.

“His mother was human but his father was a manitou, a spirit. Right after Nanabozho was born, his mother, Winonah, died and his father left him. So Nanabozho was raised by his grandmother, like you. Maybe that grandmother was a little bit nicer. Anyway, when he got older and learned that he was a waebinigun, a castoff, he got so mad thinking maybe his father caused his mother’s death, made him miss out on her love, that he goes to look for him, to get even with old Dad, heads west, since that’s where his father is said to reside. Sound familiar?”

“You made that up.”

“Now, you know I wouldn’t do that, mess with the stories that way.”

“So, what happens?”

“Too long to tell now and Mona’s going to start to wonder. But here’s what I want you to know: Being hateful won’t get you anywhere. Wisdom is not gained through vengeance.”

The sadness of it all swept over me. What was I getting myself into? “Will you tell me this? Does Nanabozho survive? Does he come back in one piece?”

“He does. Now let’s go before my wife tans my hide.”

“Who’s getting pushed around by a woman now?” I asked.

“See, Wes? That’s the thing. When you know yourself, you can rest. The strong need to rest, too. The strong need to be able to close their eyes, trust sleep.”