The Passage
THE DAUGHTER OF Mink brooded on the endlessly shifting snow. I will make a fire myself, as the stinking chimookoman won’t let me near his fire at night. Then I can pick the lice from my dress and blanket. His lice will crawl on me again if he does the old stinking chimookoman thing he does. She saw herself lifting the knife from his belt and slipping it between his ribs.
The other one, the young one, was kind but had no power. He didn’t understand what the crafty old chimookoman was doing. Her struggles only seemed to give the drooling dog strength and he knew exactly how to pin her quickly, make her helpless.
The birds were silent. Snow was falling off the trees that day. She had scrubbed her body red with snow. She threw off everything and lay naked in the snow asking to be dead. She tried not to move, but the cold stabbed ice into her heart and she began to suffer intensely. A person from the other world came. The being was pale blue without definite form. It took care of her, dressed her, tied on her makazinan, blew the lice off, and wrapped her in a new blanket, saying, Call upon me when this happens and you shall live.
THIS DOG REEKS, said Nola.
I’m going to wash him some more, said Peter. He’s kind of got a natural smell.
The dog eyed Nola adoringly, bowed to her twice, then stretched its nose tentatively toward her knee.
Don’t, said Nola to the dog. She glared into its questing eyes, and the dog sat back on its haunches, struck with wonder.
You stink, said Nola again.
The dog pantingly grinned, alive to her every word.
It had wandered outside and fought. Peter had heard other dogs yapping and howling in the woods. Some years in winter the dogs from the reservation formed packs, chased and slow-killed deer. He’d shot them down on his own land. This dog had come back with a nick in its nose, a torn tail, and an injured eye.
That one eye is going to be permanently bloodred, she pointed out.
This dog loves life, he said. I’m going to tie him up, though. Keep him in the yard.
Going to neuter him?
Peter didn’t answer.
He might have eaten a lit firecracker, see? One whole side of his lip is swollen up!
Well, he’s got a story. He’s come from somewhere, said Peter, rubbing the dog all over so it grunted with pleasure. The dog’s eyes shut in bliss; its torn lip showed sharp teeth. Peter laughed. This dog will snarl forever but his eyes are joyous, he said. Even the red one.
We’re not keeping him, Nola said.
We have to, said Peter.
Nola stiffened and left the room. The dog’s eyes followed, weak with loss.
Rolfing the dog’s ears and neck, Peter whispered, Hey, you know something! I know you know something. What you gonna tell me?
As he rubbed the dog, Peter’s thoughts drifted. His mind relaxed, and so he wasn’t upset by the words that formed in the flow of ease.
I saw Dusty that day, said the dog in Peter’s mind. I carry a piece of his soul in me.
Peter put his big windburned forehead on the dog’s forehead.
I’m not crazy, am I?
No, said the dog. These are things a normal man might think.
IN THE MIDDLE of February a south wind blew through and thawed down the snow, warmly rattled the doors and windows. Landreaux was out in his shirtsleeves pumping gas into the Corolla and didn’t notice that Peter was pulled up to Whitey’s store. When Peter came out carrying a couple of dripping cold six-packs—there they were. Landreaux turned away, frowned at the quickly rising numbers on the readout.
I know. Peter was suddenly next to him. It cost me thirty to fill the tank.
The two hadn’t spoken since Landreaux brought his son to the Ravich house. Landreaux nodded and said something neutral.
Nola took the kids to Minot, said Peter. They’re staying over. I’m batching it tonight.
He asked if Landreaux wanted to drop by.
Sure, said Landreaux, not thinking of the beer but then thinking of it as he drove the ten miles to the edge of the reservation and past, to the Ravich house. He still thought of getting drunk every day, but he’d gotten used to the thought and stood outside of it. The tires crackled in the Ravich driveway. Snow thinly frosted the clipped evergreens planted at the foundation of the house. At the sight of the still windows a choking panic grabbed Landreaux, and he almost drove away. But there was Peter in the doorway, gesturing.
Landreaux slowly got out of the car and Peter waved him through the door. The dog that their family had been feeding was standing behind Peter. It recognized Landreaux and turned away after a resonant glance. Even with the dog living there now, the house smelled of nothing. Nola would light a scentless scent-sucking candle if she whiffed an odor. Her house never smelled of people’s habits. It never smelled of stale clothing, old food, or even what she was freshly cooking because she ran a hood fan that sucked the smells right up through the roof. But nothing has a smell too, and Landreaux remembered.
He left his shoes at the door, walked across the carpeted living room, sat with Peter among the polished antiques. The living room was set off from the kitchen by a long island-type counter. Without remembering, or maybe remembering too well, Peter went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He cracked a cold beer. Sitting at the table now, he invited Landreaux to do the same. He did. Landreaux didn’t see himself from the outside the way he normally witnessed his thoughts. Somehow he’d slipped around his thoughts in that moment, and as he sat down he also took a drink. When he did that, his porous brain sponged up the action, and then at a cellular level, the substance.
Thanks, said Peter, looking at the table.
Thanks, said Landreaux, looking at the can.
They allowed a swell of emotion to envelop them. Started talking about things in general, about the people Landreaux worked for and the crisis boarding school where Emmaline was the sort of director who also ended up teaching classes, about the farm and Peter’s jobs selling lumber and at Cenex, extra jobs that Peter had taken to clear up bills, but would probably keep in order to afford to farm. They finished one beer and started on another. Four or five and Landreaux would start to feel the slide; there would be no going back. He tried to sip this one calmly but the non-present presence of his son was balling up inside him, ringing in his head. The first swell of emotion had been an ache of fellow feeling. That was quickly sliding away with the second beer. Landreaux put his broad hand up, touched his cheek. His face was pitted not with old acne scars but from a case of chicken pox that had nearly blinded him as a child. He tried to veer from what was developing between them.
Have to make sure he gets that new vaccination covers chicken pox, said Landreaux. That’s what did this.
Peter’s gaze was fixed on Landreaux’s face. Nola’s periodic furies damped down his anger. He defused her with his calm. Any irritation of his would ignite her bleak fury. So the sudden, tremendous pain below his ribs was confusing. He didn’t recognize it or want to recognize it.
Chicken pox, huh?
Yeah.
Thought you’d been sprayed in the face with buckshot, you know, by some asshole with a shotgun.
Peter was surprised to hear what came out of his mouth. Unnerved, he jumped up, let the dog out, and ripped another beer from the plastic rings. He decided he was glad he had spoken. Why not. How would Landreaux take it?
With a deep, blue dive. Taking the words down with him. Holding his breath as he went. Landreaux shut his eyes. Held his hand out. Peter slapped a can into his palm. He stood there leaking aggression. Landreaux’s eyes flew open. He jumped up and swiftly brought the can to Peter’s temple—not much of a weapon—but Peter wasn’t there. He’d dropped and hit Landreaux in a tackle, tried to pin him, but Landreaux got his knees up and Peter had to lean in to throw a punch, which gave Landreaux a chance to put a headlock on him, roll him, so it went. They smashed the table over, stood up on either side of it, mouths hanging open, eyes locked in shame, panting.
/> Okay, said Peter, forget the beer.
Outside, the dog was barking.
You know about me, Landreaux said.
Yeah, said Peter, righting the table. Fuck it.
Landreaux pulled a chair around and sat down, put his head in his hands.
Go ahead. Beat the fuck out of me, he said.
I wish.
The pain was still balled up in Peter but now more familiar. I could make you into a dirty drunk. I could ambush and blow you away. I could get you somehow but it wouldn’t do the thing I want. Dusty. I dream about him every night.
Even with LaRose here?
I do, and I feel guilty, I mean, I love your boy.
Landreaux relaxed at that your boy. He looked at Peter.
I’d give my life to get Dusty back for you, said Landreaux. LaRose is my life. I did the best that I could do.
They righted the chair, the table, and sat again, nodding, but they didn’t drink another beer. Peter put his hand across his face, tipped his chair back, then came back down and looked straight at Landreaux.
As far as that goes, he said carefully, some questions need to be asked.
Let’s ask the questions later, said Landreaux.
He dropped his gaze, pushing slowly away. He was disoriented, suddenly heavy with despair. He’d been waiting for something legal. Legal adoption. He got up and walked out the door. He needed to wait some more.
MRS. PEACE SMILED at the rug. The carpet still smelled like a sweet chemical bouquet. Floating in her gray velveteen recliner, with flowers blooming at her feet. She held the tin on her lap. Almost half a year had gone by without an attack, but her enemy had sneaked in. Billy inhabited her like a wave. She fought him off. The Fentanyl was at its strongest now. Agony that had squeezed her worn old body from heart to gut was releasing her, reluctantly. It didn’t like to let her go. But there, free. Her body blossomed with each easier breath. From her clear paneled doors, Mrs. Peace could see across the snow-swept yard, past a gnarled apple tree and tangled fence line, down the long swoop of field, to the cemetery.
People had started putting sun-powered lawn ornaments alongside the other mementos they left on loved ones’ graves. She and Emmaline had staked quite a few lanterns into the ground in August. A daughter who at birth had almost killed her was down there. Her mother was down there. There was a white stone, fadingly scratched. There were so many relatives and friends down the long hill, people she loved. In an hour the homes of the dead would begin glowing milkily beneath the snow.
Pain relinquished her to dreamy ease. Her mother came to visit, walking up the hill in that old fatally thin coat. She didn’t have to knock on the door, she just came through and sat down, kicking off her galoshes, very nice galoshes trimmed with plush. Curling up on the couch with the peppermint pink afghan, she said, All is calm, all is bright.
I know, said Mrs. Peace. But that yarn was supposed to be a duller and more soothing shade of pink. I misjudged the effect.
At Fort Totten boarding school, I had a dress this color in a white and blue calico print. Well, it wasn’t the dress, which was gray like all the dresses. Just the sash. We sometimes got to wear a sash or a scrap of color in our hair. Special occasions only. After all, it was military. From a military post to an industrial military school.
I still think of you every day, said Mrs. Peace. I just have these few pictures, but I memorized your pictures. I looked at you a lot.
Her mother shivered in the afghan.
Can you turn up the heat?
Here, just watch!
LaRose had a can-snatcher, an elongated grasping tool. She used it to turn the dial on the wall. Her mother cried out with pleasure.
Pretty soon that’s going to feel so good!
I’ll make you tea.
They don’t let us have tea. We had milk. Porridge and blue milk. What’s left when all the cream is skimmed off, eh? We drank that. The bell rang. It was always the bells. All we did was to the bells. Pretty soon you started hearing them all the time.
I still hear them.
Bang around in your head, eh?
Like a feast day.
Goodness, my girl. I feel that heat coming on. The cold sinks into my bones down there, like always. That first year, they took away my blanket, my little warm rabbit blanket. They took away my fur-lined makazinan. My traditional dress and all. My little shell earrings, necklace. My doll. She’s still down there in that souvenir case, eh? They sold things our family sent along with us for souvenirs. Traded them. You wonder.
What they did!
I know! With all the braids they cut off, boys’ and girls’, across the years.
There was hundreds of children from all over as far as Fort Berthold, so hundreds and hundreds of braids those first years. Where did the braids go?
Into our mattresses? We slept on our hair, you think?
Or if they burned our hair you would remember the smell.
But with our hair off, we lost our power and we died.
Look at this picture, said Mrs. Peace. Rows and rows of children in stiff clothing glowered before a large brick building.
Look at those little children. Those children sacrificed for the rest of us, my view. Tamed in itchy clothes.
These kind of pictures are famous. They used them to show we could become human.
The government? They were going for extermination then. That Wizard of Oz man, yes? You have his clipping.
LaRose drew out bits and scraps of paper, newsprint.
Here.
THE ABERDEEN SATURDAY PIONEER, 1888
BY FRANK BAUM
. . . the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are Masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit is broken, their manhood effaced, better that they die than live as the miserable wretches they are.
1891
BY FRANK BAUM
. . . our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untameable creatures from the face of the earth.
Oh well, said Mrs. Peace, here we are. It’s a wonder.
This ain’t Oz, said her mother.
Looks like Oz down in your graveyard. All those green glowy lights.
No poppies there in winter.
I’ve got better stuff in here.
Mrs. Peace rummaged around. Under all of the papers and mementos in the rose tin, she kept her Fentanyl patches—white with green lettering, in translucent pouches. She was extremely careful with their use. She was supposed to keep ahead of the pain, but she didn’t like to get too cloudy. She let the pain crank her up until she could think of nothing else. Her patches gave the medicine out in a slowly timed release. The amount she took now would have killed her years ago.
Exterminate or educate.
Just take the pain away, she said.
It was good we became teachers so we could love those kids.
There was good teachers, there was bad teachers. Can’t solve that loneliness.
It sets deep in a person.
Goes down the generations, they say. Takes four generations.
Maybe finally worked itself out with the boy.
LaRose.
Could be he’s finally okay.
It’s possible.
The recliner went plushier. The air dripped with sound. Watery streams of soft noise rushed along her sides. She put out her arms. Her mother took her hands. They drifted. This is how she visited with her mother, who had died of tuberculosis like her mother and grandmother. It was a disease of infinite cruelty that made a mother pass it to her children before she died. Mrs. Peace had not died of her moth
er’s tuberculosis. She had been in the sanitarium in 1952, the year isoniazid and its various iterations astonishingly cured the incurable.
I was sure that I would die like you. So I tried not to get attached to anything or anyone. You are numb for years, she said to her mother, then you begin to feel. At first it is a sickening thing. To feel seems like having a disease. But you get used to sensations over time.
You were saved for a reason, eh?
Those kids, said Mrs. Peace. To knit with them, make them powwow clothes, bring them up dancing. Have our little tea parties where I put just a little coffee in their mugs of milk.
Do you ever see them now?
From time to time, the ones that lived. Landreaux, of course. And that Romeo comes around. I hear about lots of others. Successful. Not.
The two bobbed in space, still holding hands, and her mother cried out, Even I want to give you all the love I never could! I hated to die and leave you. How good that we can be together now!
NOLA DRAGGED MAGGIE to Holy Mass. While kneeling, Maggie slumped, resting her buttocks impudently on the edge of the pew. Her mother elbowed her, and Maggie slid out of reach. The sly movement triggered Nola and she struck out. In one motion, she backhanded Maggie and clawed her back into place. She’d moved with such swift assurance that Maggie gaped and plunked down. Nobody else around them seemed to notice, though Father Travis’s eye flicked as he walked up to the pulpit.
Father Travis had long ago stopped giving sermons. He just told stories. Today he told how Saint Francis preached to the birds, the fish, the faithful rabbit, and then was called in to rescue an Italian village from a ravenous wolf.
Father Travis walked out into the middle of the aisle and acted out the meeting between Saint Francis and the wolf. He described the Wolf of Gubbio, monstrous large and enthusiastic about eating people. When Saint Francis arrived at the village, he followed the wolf’s tracks into the woods and then confronted the wolf. This wolf had never been challenged, and was surprised that Saint Francis was not afraid. The wolf listened to Saint Francis and agreed to stop marauding the village. The wolf sealed its promise by placing its paw in St. Francis’s hand.