Time collapsed. My head rang like I’d been clocked. Sometimes with the ancient, their breath comes so shallow it cannot be discerned. The afternoon went on and the air went blue before he finally stirred. His eyes opened and then closed. I ran for water, and gave him a little sip.
I’m still here, he said. His voice was faint with disappointment.
I continued to sit with Mooshum, at the edge of his cot, thinking about his wish for a happy death. I’d had a chance to see about the difference between Sonja’s right and left breasts, but I wished I never had. Yet I was glad I did. The conflict in me skewed my brain. About fifteen minutes before Clemence and Edward returned with the freezer, I looked down at my feet and noticed the golden tassel by the leg of the cot. I picked it up and put it in my jeans pocket.
I don’t keep the tassel in a special box or anything—anymore. It’s in the top drawer of my dresser, where things just end up, like Mooshum’s limp stray sock where he kept money. If my wife has ever noticed that I have it, she’s said nothing. I never told her about Sonja, not really. I didn’t tell her how I stuffed the rest of Sonja’s costume in a garbage can by the tribal offices where the BIA was contracted to pick it up. She wouldn’t know that I put that souvenir tassel where I’ll come across it by chance, on purpose. Because every time I look at it, I am reminded of the way I treated Sonja and about the way she treated me, or about how I threatened her and all that came of it, how I was just another guy. How that killed me once I really thought about it. A gimme-gimme asshole. Maybe I was. Still, after I thought about it for a long time—in fact, all my life—I wanted to be something better.
Doe had built a little deck onto the front of the house and it was filled, as all of our decks tend to be, with useful refuse. There were snow tires stored in black garbage bags, rusted jacks, a bent hibachi grill, banged-up tools, and plastic toys. Cappy slumped amid all that jetsam in a sagging lawn chair. He was running both hands over his hair as he stared at the dog-scratched boards. He didn’t even look up when I stepped next to him and sat down on an old picnic bench.
Hey.
Cappy didn’t react.
So, aaniin . . .
Still, nothing.
After a lot more nothing it came out that Zelia had gone back to Helena with the church group, which I already knew, and after still more nothing Cappy blurted out, Me and Zelia, we did something.
Something?
We did everything.
Everything?
Everything we could think of . . . well, there might be more, but we tried . . .
Where?
In the graveyard. It was the night of your Mooshum’s birthday. And once we did a few things there—
On a grave?
I dunno. We were kind of on the outskirts of the graves, off to the sides. Not right on a grave.
That’s good; it could be bad luck.
For sure. Then after, we got into the church basement. We did it a couple of more times there.
What!
In the catechism room. There’s a rug.
I was silent. My head swam. Bold move, I said at last.
Yeah, then she left. I can’t do nothing. I hurt. Cappy looked at me like a dying dog. He tapped his chest and whispered. It hurts right here.
Women, I said.
He looked at me.
They’ll kill you.
How do you know?
I didn’t answer. His love for Zelia was not like my love for Sonja, which had become a thing contaminated by humiliation, treachery, and even bigger waves of feeling that tore me up and threw me down. By contrast, Cappy’s love was pure. His love was just starting to manifest. Elwin had a tattoo gun and traded for his work. Cappy said he wanted to go to his place and get Elwin to etch Zelia’s name in bold letters across his chest.
No, I said. C’mon. Don’t do that.
He stood. I’m gonna!
I only convinced him to wait by telling him that when his pecs swelled from his workouts, the letters could be bigger. We sat a long time, me trying to distract Cappy, that not working. I finally left when Doe came home and told Cappy to get to work on the woodpile. Cappy walked over to the axe, grabbed it