Son of a bidgin’ Indin, the heavy-footed one said. And kept on saying it in between labored breaths and the sound of his heavy feet, slipping and dislodging stones. The other one, who wasn’t so clumsy but was still making more noise than a lame moose, didn’t say anything.
I imagined Heavy Foot was just ticked off at me for making my camp two miles from the road and the last of it straight up. It may have discouraged some who might’ve hired me. But it weeded out the weaker clientele. And the view was worth it, hills rolling away down to the river that glistened with the rising sun like a silver bracelet, the town on the other side that turned into a constellation of lights mirroring the stars in the sky above it at night.
The arrowhead-shaped piece of metal in my flesh sent another little shiver down the outside of my thigh. I ignored it again. Not a smart thing to do, but I was curious about my visitors.
Curiosity killed the Chippewa, as my grampa, who had also been to Carlisle, used to joke.
For some reason the picture of the superintendent’s long face the last day I saw him came to mind. Twenty years ago. He was sitting behind his desk, his pale face getting red as one of those beets I’d spent two summers digging on the farm where they sent me to work for slave labor wages — like every other Indian kid at the school. The superintendent got his cut, of course. How many farm hands and house maids do you need? We got hundreds of them here at Carlisle. Nice, civilized, docile little Indian boys and girls. Do whatever you want with them.
That was before I got my growth and Pop Warner saw me and made me one of his athletic boys. Special quarters, good food and lots of it, an expense account at Blumenthal’s department store, a share of the gate. Plus a chance to get as many concussions as any young warrior could ever dream of, butting heads against the linemen of Harvard and Syracuse and Army. I also found some of the best friends I ever had on that football squad.
It was because of one of them that I’d been able to end up here on this hilltop — which, according to my name on a piece of paper filed in the county seat belonged to me. As well as the other two hundred acres all the way down to the river. I’d worked hard for the money that made it possible for me to get my name on that deed. But that’s another story to tell another time.
As Heavy Foot and his quieter companion labored up the last narrow stretch of trail, where it passed through a hemlock thicket and then came out on an open face of bedrock, I was still replaying that scene in the superintendent’s office.
You can’t come in here like this.
I just did.
I’ll have you expelled.
I almost laughed at that one. Throw an Indian out of Carlisle? Where some children were brought in chains? Where they cut our hair, stole the fine jewelry that our parents arrayed us in, took our clothes, changed our names, dressed us in military uniforms, and turned us into little soldiers? Where more kids ran away than ever graduated?
You won’t get the chance. I held up my hand and made a fist.
The super cringed back when I did that. I suppose when you have bear paw hands like mine, they could be a little scary to someone with a guilty conscience.
I lifted my little finger. First, I said, I’m not here alone. I looked back over my shoulder where the boys of the Carlisle football team were waiting in the hall.
I held up my ring finger. Second, I talk; you listen.
Middle finger. Third, he goes. Out of here. Today.
The super knew who I meant. The head disciplinarian of the school. Mr. Morissey. Who was already packing his bags with the help of our two tackles. Help Morissey needed because of his dislocated right shoulder and broken jaw.
The super started to say something. But the sound of my other hand coming down hard on his desk stopped his words as effectively as a cork in a bottle. His nervous eyes focused for a second on the skinned knuckles of my hand.
Fourth, I said, extending my index finger. No one will ever be sent to that farm again. No, don’t talk. You know the one I mean. Just nod if you understand. Good.
Last, my thumb extended, leaning forward so that it touched his nose. You never mention my name again. You do not contact the agent on my reservation or anyone else. You just take me out of the records. I am a violent Indian. Maybe I have killed people. You do not ever want to see me again. Just nod.
The super nodded.
Good, I said. Now, my hand patting the air as if I was giving a command to a dog, stay!
He stayed. I walked out into the hall where every man on the football squad except for our two tackles was waiting, including our Indian coach. The super stayed in his office as they all shook my hand, patted me on the back. No one said goodbye. There’s no word for goodbye. Travel good. Maybe we see you further down the road.
The super didn’t even come out as they moved with me to the school gate, past the mansion built with the big bucks from football ticket sales where Pop Warner had lived. As I walked away, down to the train station, never looking back, the super remained in his seat. His legs too weak with fear for him to stand. According to what I heard later in France — from Gus Welch, who was my company commander and had been our quarterback at Carlisle — the superintendent sat there for the rest of the day without moving. The football boys finally took pity on him and sent one of the girls from the sewing class in to tell him that Charles, the big dangerous Indian, was gone and he could come out now.
Gus laughed. You know what he said when she told him that? Don’t mention his name. That’s what he said.
I might have been smiling at the memory when the two men came into view, but that wasn’t where my recollections had stopped. They’d kept walking me past the Carlisle gate, down the road to the trolley tracks. They’d taken me on the journey I made back then, by rail, by wagon, and on foot, until I reached the dark hills that surrounded that farm. The one more Carlisle kids had run away from than any other. Or at least it was reported that they had run away — too many of them were never seen again
That had been the first time I acted on the voice that spoke within me. An old voice with clear purpose. I’d sat down on the slope under an old apple tree and watched, feeling the wrongness of the place. I waited until it was late, the face of the Night Traveler looking sadly down from the sky. Then I made my way downhill to the place that Thomas Goodwaters, age eleven, had come to me about because he knew I’d help after he told me what happened there. Told me after he’d been beaten by the school disciplinarian for running away from his Outing assignment at the Bullweather Farm. But the older, half-healed marks on his back had not come from the disciplinarian’s cane.
Just the start, he’d told me, his voice calm despite it all, speaking Chippewa. They were going to do worse. I heard what they said they’d done before.
I knew his people back home. Cousins of mine. Good people, canoe makers. A family peaceful at heart, that shared with everyone and that hoped their son who’d been forced away to that school would at least be taught things he could use to help the people. Like how to scrub someone else’s kitchen floor.
He’d broken out the small window of the building where they kept him locked up every night. It was a tiny window, but he was so skinny by then from malnourishment that he’d been able to worm his way free. Plus his family were Eel People and known to be able to slip through almost any narrow place.
Two dogs, he said. Bad ones. Don’t bark. Just come at you.