reached the buffalo, her knees gave in fright, she was so surprised to hear it singing the song she’d learned from the fish. Then her mind cleared and she laughed. She knew immediately how her foolish son had trapped himself. So it was, Akii hacked Nanapush out of the buffalo, laced him onto the toboggan, and hauled him to the woods. There she built a brush shelter and a fire to thaw him out. Then with the toboggan they went back many times and transported every bit of the buffalo back to their family and relatives.
When the men were given meat by the woman they had tried to kill, and the son who had protected her, they were ashamed. She was generous, but took her children and did not go back to her husband.
Many people were saved by that old woman buffalo, who gave herself to Nanapush and his unkillable mother. Nanapush himself said that whenever he was sad over the losses that came over and over through his life, his old grandmother buffalo would speak to him and comfort him. This buffalo knew what had happened to Nanapush’s mother. She said wiindigoo justice must be pursued with great care. A place should be built so that people could do things in a good way. She said many things, taught Nanapush, so that, as he lived on, Nanapush was to become wise in his idiocy.
Mooshum fell straight back, gave a great sigh, and began his soft rattling snore. I dropped off too, as suddenly as Nanapush inside the buffalo, and when I woke I had forgotten Mooshum’s story—although I remembered it later on in the day, when my father came to get me, because he said the word carcass. He was very pale and elated, and he was speaking to Uncle Edward, saying, They’ve got his damned carcass in custody. At that moment, I remembered Mooshum’s story entirely, vivid as a dream, and simultaneously knew they’d caught my mother’s rapist.
Who is he? Who? I asked my father as we walked up our road.
Soon enough, he said.
At home, my mother was up and about, cleaning, darting around the house with a spidery quickness. Then gasping in a chair, collapsed, leaving jobs started or half done. She got up again, no more than a stick figure. She rushed back and forth, refrigerator to stove to freezer. After her long retreat, this flashing energy was upsetting. She’d gone from zero to a hundred miles an hour and that seemed wrong, although my father seemed pleased and busied himself finishing her projects. They didn’t notice me at all, so I left.
Now that they had the carcass in custody, now that something was being done, I felt a lightness. I felt like I could go back just to being thirteen and live my summer. I was glad I’d quit the station. I skimmed along the road.
Cappy’s house, surrounded too by unfinished projects, stood about three miles east of the Hoopdance golf course. The golf course cut into the reservation, which was an issue between the town and the tribal council yet to be resolved. Did the tribal council have the right to lease tribal land to a golf course that extended off the reservation and gave most of its profits to non-Indians? And who was responsible if a golfer was struck by lightning? If this issue had come before my father, I was not aware of it, but everybody thought that Indians should get to golf there for free—which of course they couldn’t. Sometimes Cappy and I biked over there to look for lost golf balls, which we planned to sell back to the golfers. When I got to Cappy’s and suggested this, though, he said he wanted to do something else but he didn’t know what. I didn’t know what either. So we biked to Zack’s and Angus was there and the four of us were together.
The lake beach closest to town had a church on it—or to be more accurate, the church blocked access. The church owned the road to the beach and kept up a cattle gate that could be locked. After the gates, there were signs—no alcohol, no trespassing, no anything. At the Catholic beach there was a faded-out statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by rocks. She was draped with rosaries, one of which belonged to Angus’s aunt. Because of that rosary, I believe we felt we had the right to be there. Of course, as the Catholic church was