She turned away to the open refrigerator, and began removing foil-covered pans and dishes. She handed them back to the boys, who stepped forward.
Stick ’em in the oven, she said.
Landreaux opened the oven of a clean porcelain stove and the boys placed dish after dish inside. The oven was cold. Romeo examined the dials and turned it on. The numbers went up to 500. He chose 425.
There, said the woman, rubbing her hands. Now what else?
She opened a cupboard, took out a box of saltine crackers and a tin of sardines. She put them on the table. There was already a sweating icy pitcher of cold tea.
Get some glasses.
She waved her hand at the dish drainer and sat down. The dog rose from a woven rug in the corner and came to lie at her feet. While the boys gulped the tea, she unstuck the key from the sardine can, shakily inserted it into the slot, and rolled back the top halfway.
Forks? She jerked her head toward the drawers left of the sink. Landreaux brought the forks. Romeo guessed the right cupboard and brought to the table three large yellow plates with full-skirted ladies and top-hatted gentlemen dancing around the edges. The woman forked a piece of sardine from the can, mashed it onto her cracker. She nodded at the boys to do the same. The food stuck in their craws at first, then their hands seemed to grab unwilled, loading cracker after cracker. They stuffed all the sardines down but the last, which they left for the old woman. She had been watching them, smiling, her teeth dim and broken.
Go ahead, I got enough, she said. The boys split the last bit.
Mister’s dead, she told them. It was the heart. Mine is going strong but I don’t care if it does quit. How’s your mom and dad? she asked Landreaux. They dig their cellar?
Landreaux looked at Romeo, raised his eyebrows.
They dug it? said Romeo.
The woman nodded.
Good, that’s how you keep your food for winter. We told ’em. That cold was hard on the Indians. Mister said, they’re dying off. One goes every day. So I’m glad to see you boys, glad you made it over here. Your family is the good kind of Indian. Mister always said when they’re good they’re the best friend you ever had. A bad one will steal you bare and they’re wicked when they’re drunk. You boys have always been good. Good boys.
The phone rang, jolting them all. The woman licked her lips and stood to answer it, a black wall phone, numbers worn on the dial. She held the receiver grimly to her big ear.
Just fine, she said. She was glaring at the box of the phone as if whoever had called was inside of it.
Haven’t eaten it yet, she said, her face uncertain as though it was a trick question. Yes, the stove’s off, she said meekly. I’ll go take it out. Yes, yes. I’m hungry.
A crafty look came over her face and she turned to wink at the boys. Hungrier than I ever been!
Okay, night.
She hung up the phone and said hmmph. The warming smells of all the different foods had filled the kitchen, but she didn’t notice. She sat down at the table again, frowned into space.
Should we take out the food? asked Romeo.
The woman’s mouth worked silently, then she startled.
Take them dishes out, will you, boys? Let’s eat!
Mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed corn, creamed spinach, chicken potpie with peas and carrots, corn relish mistakenly baked to a pretty good taste. A thick pork chop, which the boys divided, corn bread, soft buttered carrots, macaroni with cheese, macaroni with meat, macaroni with tuna. A thick piece of steak meat with mushrooms. More gravy. It all went down. Some of it tasted questionable, but hot and good at the same time. And on the counter underneath a dish towel was an apple pie, plump and oozing thick sweet juice, uncut.
The old woman relaxed, leaning back to marvel as she watched them eat and eat and eat.
You boys always could eat, always could, she murmured.
When they were done, sitting back, stupefied, she said, We don’t have much to warsh except our plates and forks. Ceel says to leave them soak. Says he’ll have to do them over anyways. Then I suppose you boys have to be getting back to your people. You could take summa this along, what’s left. Your brothers and sisters might go for it. I don’t need it. Can’t stop cooking for a crew of people. So, you pushing off?
We . . . we can’t go home, said Romeo. Could we stay here? With you?
The woman looked from one boy to the other.
You never done that before, she said.
It’s kinda dark, Landreaux ventured.
The old woman laughed. Your dad says Indians can see in the dark, but maybe you ain’t learned yet. Sure. Do me a favor. Go sleep in that big room upstairs with the green bedcover. Mess it up good and don’t make it in the morning. I like having my radio music at night, down here. I like listening on the couch until I nod off. It’s a good couch, but Ceel always checks if I slept there. On account of my back. Like hell. Go on! Go on! She shooed them upstairs, laughing.
That’ll fix Ceel’s leg, she said, turning the dial on the radio until she found some slow waltzlike music. She turned off the light and settled back in the pillows.
The boys, exhausted and well fed, slept long into the morning and woke to voices downstairs. The young man’s was loud, petulant, and he wore clomping shoes. They could hear footsteps rattling around, the young man’s voice fading but always audible. The woman’s voice was small and placating, like she’d been on the phone. They couldn’t tell what she was saying.
They heard him in and out of the kitchen, saying the same thing over and over. You couldnta eaten that much! And I came over here to clean your fridge out and you couldnta eaten that much!
The young man must have rummaged in the garbage.
You didn’t toss that food. Unless maybe you threw it in the woods.
The old woman said something.
Okay, okay! You wouldn’t do that. Did you sleep down here on the couch again, Mommy? Well, did you? Did you? I told you not to, didn’t I? You want throw your back out, make me haul you to the chiropractor when I got so much to do? Huh? Don’t pretend you can’t hear me. Don’t turn your head away that way.
She must have admitted she’d slept on the couch, because the young man, her son, scolded her harder. The boys were stunned, listening. Though they’d heard grown-ups fighting, this way the son sarcastically talked down to his mother disturbed the very order of love.
Okay then, the son said meanly, okay thank you for being honest with me. Okay then I don’t need to go and straighten upstairs.
By which they knew the old woman had remembered they were there.
She spoke some more, and must have finally convinced her son.
Maybe I did think there was a whole lot more food than there was. Huh. Well, I’ll just leave this sack off for you. Don’t cook it all at once, huh? You eat on this for a week. There’s still what you got left in the freezer. But hey, this pie. Mommy, now don’t lie to me! Never, ever lie to me. You make these whole damn pies but you never eat that much pie.
They heard her when she loudly said, I picked those apples off my tree! Stewed ’em, froze ’em. I can make a pie, can’t I?
And the son’s suspicious questions. There’s only two pieces left! What’s going on? You have a visitor?
The old woman must have made some story up about the dog because the son next said, He throw up? Was it in the house?
Ceel stomped around some more, looking for the puke, but apparently the dog was too old to climb stairs because Ceel didn’t come upstairs to look. He left quickly. Roared off in a big shiny white pickup. The boys peeked over a window ledge and watched the son drive a whole section of land before he was only a puff of dust.
They came downstairs. The woman was standing by the window watching the place her son had disappeared. She turned around, her face alight with emotions the boys exactly knew: the fury and shame of kowtowing to a righteous person who controlled your destiny. Threw their goodness in your face. It wasn’t something they would ever name, bu
t it would matter for all the rest of their days. The boys knew the old woman the way she seemed to think she knew them. They stood looking back and forth at one another in the living room. At last the woman seemed to collapse a bit. She passed her hand tremblingly across her chest.
I’m glad to see you boys, she said, sudden tears in her eyes. She laughed, relieved, and they saw how afraid she was that her son would realize how deeply lost she was in this world.
You hungry again? Her skeletal grin.
Later on, that morning, she spoke.
Oh, it was good land up there. We started in Devil’s Lake. A sweet lay of land. Sloping pasture, flat acres. You just had to turn the sod. Water only fifteen feet down. We had a dug well. Pure. Mister bought the land straight off your mom and dad in ’12 when their taxes come due. All the farmers were buying up Indian land cheap that year. You all moved to your grandpa’s but got a poor farm there. You might remember your mom was pretty then, Indian braids, how she come for a bit of food just like you boys and I always had something for her. Old coats, dresses, blankets, worn-out stuff for quilts. Even gave her the needle and threads. I loved your folks. Anything they hunted down, they’d bring some over, too. They died so quick. Just faded out. One thing, another. They all got sick.
And you boys, where did you go? She sat up straight and peered at them with frail intensity. Where did you go?
The boys paused, drew breath. She was staring at them, anxious.
We went to boarding school, they said.
Oh yes, she said. Of course you did. Fort Totten. Did they feed you enough?
Fort Totten had closed years ago.
Though they could always eat more, there had been food enough at their school. One of the reasons Romeo had loved it there. No, food wasn’t why Landreaux had run away. It was more to do with living smothered by alien rules, and with his grandparents who had loved him but maybe no longer existed, and with that thing he had seen in the old woman’s face—fighting to keep herself. Landreaux was reminded of Bowl Head’s know-better smile when he did something Indian. And Landreaux felt the other part of it powerfully, too, the way the woman’s son treated her, her desperation over which reality to choose.
You fed us good, said Landreaux.
The woman looked at them with her hard, folded face and her eyes from the spirit world.
You want something? Take it. She gestured all around. Take anything, before he takes it. He wants to sell it, the acreage, the house. What we lived for. And you were always such good boys. Quiet boys. Ducked your heads away. Like that, like you’re doing now, she said to Romeo, to Landreaux. Take it. Take it all.
JARS OF WATER, money, bags of food. Romeo and Landreaux walked back to the railroad tracks and continued west. In forty years the tracks would carry mile-long black steel sausage cars full of fracked oil—the trains wouldn’t stop until they blew up or reached a port. But when the boys ran away there were only occasional freight trains loading grain cars at town elevators. It only occurred to them once they walked the tracks and passed hundreds of acres of sprouting wheat and corn that there was no reason for a train to load up at a grain elevator early in the summer.
They stopped at a friendly cottonwood tree, sat and stuffed themselves with boiled eggs, sandwiches, cheese, pickles. The old farm lady had given them money from a secret sock stuffed with rolled bills. She had also tried to give them her husband’s watch, a ring with white stones, a bracelet made of yellow stones, and a clock that she said was antique. Landreaux would have taken these things but Romeo politely refused.
Man, were you nuts back there? Romeo said to Landreaux as they ate. If the cops ever caught us with that farmer lady’s stuff they would lock us in prison.
Landreaux shrugged. We should count the money.
The top bills on the rolls were tens and the inside bills were twenties and a couple of hundred-dollar bills, at which they marveled.
Oh no, no, no, said Romeo. I bet that Ceel knows about this. He will sic the cops.
Landreaux was dazzled. He kept counting. Over a thousand dollars.
The boys carefully divided the money. They pried up the insoles of their shoes and put the hundred-dollar bills and the twenties there. They each kept seventy dollars out, in their pockets, and walked on and on, treading down the cushiony money in their shoes, until they came to a town. It was a fairly large town and had a Ben Franklin dime store. They went in. The store lady followed them around; they were used to that. It didn’t faze Landreaux, but Romeo insolently waved a ten-dollar bill at her. Landreaux bought black licorice pipes. Romeo bought red wheels. They paid and went down the sidewalk to the edge of town and back, Landreaux pretending to smoke. At the eastern end they passed a small café with a sign, BUS. Landreaux was afraid to buy a ticket. Plus they argued about where to go. Home? Not home.
We should go to Minneapolis and get a job, Landreaux said, because he’d heard people say this.
Romeo stared at Landreaux.
Nobody’s going to hire us, he said. We’re supposed to be in school. If they see us, the police might even arrest us.
How did Landreaux get this far, he wondered, without understanding how things work? But Landreaux kept talking about Minneapolis and jobs until he gave in and they bought the tickets, which were so expensive that Romeo knew for sure this was all stupid. When they boarded the bus, he said, What are we doing? We risked our life not to get on a bus.
But the bus rumbled off and they were trapped on it. At least the seats were cushy and could recline back. Their stomachs were full. They drowsed, then fell into a dead sleep. They woke for the lunch break, bought soup, and gulped it down fast. Watching Romeo suck his soup down, Landreaux thought, as he had many times, how much Romeo looked like a weasel with his wedge-shaped face, close-set eyes, and avid jaws.
There was flat North Dakota and then rolling Minnesota farms. They fell silent, mesmerized by the pretty land, the neat little towns of brick and stone. Then, down an empty highway, Landreaux saw her. He grabbed Romeo and pulled him over to the bus window. A woman walked along the breakdown lane, toward them. Landreaux had seen her as just a pinpoint far away, but there was something familiar. When she was close enough he realized it was Bowl Head. Her hair was white, short, and stuck out exactly the same. They ducked as the bus whizzed past her. Landreaux scrambled to the back of the bus to see if she had recognized them. He bumped two grown-ups necking underneath a blanket on the flat backseat. Bowl Head was in the distance but she was running, he thought, definitely running after them. He knew that she was a slow runner. He had seen her chase a boy named Artan. Although Bowl Head was slow, she was steady; she never stopped. Artan ran circles around her, but she still caught him because she outlasted him, never quit, never faltered in her pursuit.
He was shaking when he sat back down with Romeo. When Landreaux told him what he’d seen, Romeo put his hand on Landreaux’s arm and said it wasn’t Bowl Head.
Lots of white ladies look like her, don’t you notice?
Landreaux calmed down, but he couldn’t stop thinking the strange thought that Bowl Head was a spirit, a force, an element set loose by the boarding school to pursue them to the end of time.
The bus brought them to the city.
When they had boarded, the driver had asked who was meeting them in Minneapolis. They were struck silent. Mom and Dad? Relatives? He’d asked. They nodded in relief. They were about to step past the driver now, but he held them back.
Wait here. I’ll escort you to your parents, he said. Okay, boys?
Again they nodded. When the driver went down the steps to open the luggage compartment they slipped off the bus and entered the station. They mingled with a group of people scanning the little crowd held to one side of the walkway by a rope. The boys ducked under the rope, darted through the glass doors, and then they were out in the street.
Noise pressed down from every side, pushing them along. Romeo tried to watch the metal signs and stay on First Avenue. They had seen stopligh
ts only a few times in their lives. Now stoplights everywhere. They copied what other people did, drank at a public drinking fountain, looked in windows or at framed menus outside of restaurants. Walked as if they knew where they were going. At a tiny corner store they bought bottles of pop and boxes of buttered popcorn. All of a sudden they came to the end of their downtown city street. There was a building made of rose-red bricks and a sign, BERMAN BUCKSKIN. A gravel parking lot, chain link, scarred walls. Beyond that a tangle of weeds, scrub, spindly trees.
They went into the weeds. A path sloped down to a broad river. They made their way down the bank to the concrete abutment that anchored the bridge. There in the brush, they saw evidence of a camp—some driftwood logs placed around the smear of a dead fire, blackened rocks, blankets stuffed underneath some boards, two large sagging cardboard boxes and bags containing empty cans and bottles. Stained pieces of carpeting were laid out where the ground was level. They drank their orange sodas and ate the popcorn. They added the bottles to the others, tore the boxes into tiny bits and threw them in the river. They watched the curls of paper float east. It was getting dark.
Let’s go up there, said Landreaux.
They tilted their heads back and looked into the iron trusses. Rusted ends of rebar in the eroded concrete pilings stuck out enough for hand- and footholds. Landreaux pulled a raggy blanket from the boards, draped it around his neck, and climbed. The blanket reeked of rot and urine. Romeo shook out a blanket, but the stench nearly choked him and he left it. The top of the concrete piling was big enough for the two of them, but dropped straight down to the river on one side. There was four feet of space between their heads and the iron girders that held the wooden trestle and rails. The train would pass over to one side of them. It would be loud, but then they’d already been inside the workings of a school bus.
They woke and squirmed together when the train passed over. After that, they couldn’t get back to sleep right away and lay awake, listening. Everything died down—the traffic, the throb and bleat of the city. It was so quiet they could hear the river muscling its way past to a rushing place, a dam or waterfall. They slept hard again. Sometime close to dawn, the light just lifting, Romeo heard people talking below. He prodded at Landreaux carefully, as Landreaux was liable to thrash around when coming to. They craned over the edge of their nest and tried to hear what the people below were saying.