finally exhausted me. I turned over, away from the light, and slept.
Dad, I said, once, when he came into the room. Does Linda know? Is she okay?
He’d brought me a glass of Whitey’s cure—warm ginger ale.
I don’t know, he said. She won’t pick up her telephone. She’s not at work.
I’ve got to get to her, I thought. And then I slept hard again until late the next morning. When I woke from that sleep everything was clear. I had no fever, no sickness at all. I was hungry. I got up and took a shower. Put fresh clothes on and came downstairs. The trees at the edge of the yard swayed and the leaves showed their dull silvery undersides. I ran myself a glass of tap water and stood at the kitchen window. My mother was outside, kneeling in the dirt of the garden with a colander, picking the bush beans that my father and I had planted late. She dropped down and crawled the row on all fours sometimes. Sat back on her heels. She gave the colander a little jounce, to settle the beans. That’s why I did it, I thought. And I was satisfied right then. So she could give her colander a shake. She didn’t have to look behind her, or fear he would sneak up on her. She could pick her bush beans all day and nobody was going to bother her.
I poured out a bowl of cereal and added milk. I ate it slowly. The cereal felt good going down. I rinsed my bowl and went outside.
My mother got up and walked over to me. She put her stained palm on my forehead.
Your fever’s gone.
I’m fine now!
You should take it easy, just stay home and read or . . .
I won’t do much, I said. It’s just that school starts up in two weeks. I don’t want to waste any of my last days.
I guess they would sure go to waste if you stayed home with me. She wasn’t angry, but she didn’t smile.
I didn’t mean it that way, I said. I’ll come back early.
Her eyes, one sadder than the other with its sinking squint, moved softly over me. She pushed back my hair. I looked over her shoulder and saw an empty pickle jar sitting on the kitchen step. I froze. The jar. I’d left the jar on the hill.
What’s that?
She turned around. Vince Madwesin came by. He gave me the jar and said to wash it out. He said he likes my home-canned pickles. I guess it’s a hint. She looked back at me, closely, but I didn’t change my expression.
I am worried over you, Joe.
It was a moment I still linger on in my thoughts. Her standing before me in the riot of growth. The warm earth smell of her hands, a slick of perspiration on her neck, her searching eyes.
Whitey said you boys got drunk.
It was an experiment, I said, and the results came back negative. I wasted good vacation being sick, Mom. I think my drinking days are done.
She laughed in relief and the laugh stuck in her throat. She said she loved me and I mumbled back at her. I looked down at my feet.
Are you okay now? I asked, low.
Oh sure, my boy. I’m really good; I’m back to myself. Everything is fine now, fine. She tried to persuade me.
At least he’s dead, Mom. He paid, whatever else.
I wanted to add that he did not die easy, that he knew what he was getting killed for, that he saw who was killing him. But then I’d have to say it was me.
I couldn’t look at her and got on my bike. I rode away with her silent gaze heavy on my back.
First, I rode over to the post office. There was a chance I might run into Dad if it was lunchtime, so I wanted to slip in before noon and see if Linda was working. She was not. Margaret Nanapush, the grandma of the Margaret in my class at school, the girl at the powwow I turned out to marry, told me that Linda was using up some sick leave. As far as Mrs. Nanapush knew, she was at home. So I went there.
I was weak enough to feel that ride as endless. Out on that edge of the reservation, the wind cuts hard. I pedaled against its flow for a good hour before I came to Linda’s road, and then finally swerved into her driveway.