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.