Winter Counts(70)

The next morning Nathan went off to school, where he’d set up the purchase. He’d call me when it was confirmed, then he’d come home and meet with Dennis. They’d need about thirty minutes to get Nathan wired up. The reality began to sink in.

“Are you ready for this?” Marie asked while she brewed some tea, the Sparrow’s Tears blend.

“Don’t have a choice. Just hope Nathan can keep it together today. This shit is tough on me, must be a hundred times worse for him.”

“One more thing,” she said, pouring herself some black tea and adding a little sugar. “I don’t know if this is the right time, though.”

“Go ahead. Nathan’s stuff won’t get going until later today.” I watched Marie stir the tea, little swirls of darkness in her cup.

“Okay. So, here’s what’s going on.” She hesitated. “I guess you know I’ve been kind of down. The thing with Lack and Delia. Delia, she’s always been terrible, but I thought Lack was a good man, my friend. To find this out, it’s been . . .” She shook her head. “Now I don’t have a job, and it doesn’t feel right to work at the restaurant anymore. So I’m thinking maybe it’s time for a fresh start.”

She poured herself more tea, even though her cup was nearly full.

“Thing is, I have to give my answer to med school in two weeks. The one in Albuquerque. You know, I didn’t want to say anything about this while Nathan was around. But I have to make a decision soon. Be sure I’m comfortable. With everything.”

I’d been putting Marie’s med-school issue out of my mind. But now it was here.

“What are you going to do?”

“It’s what I’ve been working for, right?” she said. “Maybe I can do some good for the people this way. I mean, everything I did at the tribal office was for shit. And my folks are absolutely hysterical about it. They’d have one daughter who’s a banker and one doctor. That’s their dream, to show how accomplished their children are—not rezzy at all. Mom says she’ll disinherit me if I don’t accept. She hates it here, wants me to leave and move to a city. But this is my home.”

“Is this your dream, or your parents’?”

She looked away from me and began putting away the clean dishes in the drying rack. She’d come up with a new pattern of stacking bowls, cups, and dishes, a configuration she said made more sense than the haphazard scheme Nathan and I had been using.

“I don’t know anymore. Maybe it never was my thing. The school’s so damn far away. I mean, would you be able to visit me? I could come back for winter break and a few weeks in the summer. But that’s probably it.”

She stopped for a moment and looked closely at her teacup, like it had a minor flaw that no one but she could see. “I guess I’m wondering about you and me. What’s going to happen? You know, we’re good together. It’s different—better—than it was before. You’ve changed. A lot. You’re not trying to run away anymore—from what’s been chasing you.”

She put the cup down. “But what happens if I leave? Will you go back to being an enforcer? Do I get a phone call in a year telling me you’ve been killed, so I have to mourn the man I love?”

Love. A word we’d never used before. Did I love her? Of course. I always had. And if I loved her, then I had to do what was best for her. But I didn’t know what that was.

She looked over, waiting for me to say something.

THERE IS NO WORD for goodbye in Lakota. That’s what my mother used to tell me. Sure, there were words like toksa, which meant “later,” that were used by people as a modern substitute. She’d told me that the Lakota people didn’t use a term for farewell because of the idea that we are forever connected. To say goodbye would mean the circle was broken.

I pondered this. I sensed we needed to say goodbye to our old lives, whatever they were. Soon Nathan would cross a line he never knew existed, and Marie would be committing to a new life and career in New Mexico. Could I say goodbye to her?

And me? I didn’t know what was in store for my world. Maybe it was time to stop taking vigilante jobs and get a new profession. I couldn’t even remember the person I’d been before I started beating people up. All around me I saw Natives doing good work: Marie with medical school, Ben at the tribal council, even Tommy with his new passion for cooking. Perhaps it was time for me to take up something new, something that didn’t involve using my fists. I remembered that before my father died, I’d helped him fix cars. He’d give me some little job and show me how to do it. Even though I must have been only seven or eight years old, I recalled the satisfaction I’d felt when I’d helped him with some minor repair. Taking out some part of an engine, putting it back in. The feeling of fixing something, not breaking or damaging things—or people. Maybe it was time for a long goodbye, farewell to what we’d known and lived, breaking the circle, severing our ties.

IN THE AFTERNOON I put my thoughts aside while I waited for Nathan’s phone call. Drug dealers were not known for their reliability, so the buy might not happen right away. I watched an old movie on TV, something about a con man and his mother. Then the door opened, and Nathan walked in.

“Everything all right? Thought you were going to call,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Got really hungry, didn’t have any money for a snack.”