I woke up in the bed of my El Camino — red as a red dog, my skin almost seared. I sat up and saw sparks of light. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been out. What had happened to me?
The doctor took one look at the scattershot wounds that’d blown clean through my arms and legs and asked if I needed counseling. When I said no, he shook his head. “You don’t like yourself,” he said. I called in sick.
A little over a week later I limped my way back to Custer’s and sat at the rickety picnic table. I didn’t have enough energy to get a drink. The Indians kept their distance and I couldn’t blame them. I looked worse for the wear — torn up. Nina came out with a cup of coffee, a weak offering. She sat across the table from me. “I should have warned you,” she said. “But really, it’s nothing you need to know. And nothing that can be any good for you.”
I didn’t understand but knew I wasn’t meant to. “You mean, it’s none of my business,” I responded.
She patted her lips lightly. “That wouldn’t be exactly right. I’m not trying to scold you.” She touched my hand. “I’m trying to save you.”
I didn’t ask questions. I figured she’d tell me what she wanted to tell me, eventually. My ribs ached. Dry heat pulsed in my throat. I gulped my coffee.
“My grandfather didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. A car passed by on Highway 93 and we heard the tick tick tick of studs. Nina was watchful but didn’t look at me as she spoke. “Grandpa Magpie is scary crazy these days. He sees things other people don’t. It’s hard to explain. If it were only his dementia...” She shrugged. “If he doesn’t like someone, well, that person kind of goes away.” Her Salish accent gave the bad news a lilt.
The other Indians had gathered at the table behind her, listening to our conversation. “He got help, don’t he?” Myra Little Bull asked. “Sure, he got that social worker. Snooping around. Shaking her big white finger. That’s what those social workers do. Aye.” The other Indians laughed and jostled each other.
Nina reached over for Joe Elder’s cigarette. She pulled a long smoke then streamed it out her thin nose. “You guys didn’t hear?” she said. “She disappeared about a week ago. They found her car straddling the road edge.”
They quieted down. Angelina Thump Bird gazed at me. “Don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
“All I need,” Nina said, “is to have Squint follow me. Wouldn’t that be great. I even told the tribal police not to go up there. To wait it out until I got some help.”
Little Bull gripped her elbows and rocked back and forth. “We need a medicine doin’s.”
“Go home and heal up,” Nina told me.
A car pulled up to the stand and a family threw open their doors but didn’t move. They argued about the menu. “It’s a joke,” the woman said, applying her bright pink lipstick. “I sure as hell wouldn’t eat here.”
A fat boy struggled out of the backseat. “I want a JOE-RAN-imo,” he announced.
Nina turned to me. “I gotta go, but come back when you’re feeling better. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
I’d had all the surprises I could take. I’d been off work for more than a week and I had some thinking to do. I told the boss I couldn’t shake the flu and that I was giving notice. I hated to do it; I’d just been promoted to yard foreman and I liked my job.
I went home and slept. Out my door, Flathead Lake lapped the rocky shore. I drifted off and imagined I was swimming out to the deepest part of the water, out where the Flathead Lake Monster was hiding, and woke with the idea that there were things beyond my knowing in these mountains that only the Indians understood.
I thought about Nina working endlessly in Squint’s hellish kitchen, how Custer’s Last Stand really was a joke, another way for the white man to grind the Indians down and trivialize their victories. Can’t beat ’em, make fun of ’em. Nina was between a rock and a hard place. I didn’t understand what was going on with her grandfather, but knew it had something to do with dementia and his medicine powers run amuck, and deep down I was afraid. What if her grandfather did have the power to kill someone with his feelings? Or worse: what if he knew what I had done? I turned the idea over and over in my head until I was sick with it.
I was nursing a cup of coffee at the Polson Bakery. I didn’t want to keep showing Nina how weak I’d become, how I’d got the stuffing knocked out of me, so I’d begun avoiding the stand. I was about ready to settle up when Squint came into the bakery and plopped down at a table not far from me. I’d lost so much weight I didn’t think he’d recognize me. He slurped his soup and chomped his sandwich in three bites. His appetite sickened me. Squint surveyed the coffee shop, nodding at a few customers who shifted uneasily. He was about to leave when he took a hard look in my direction. I kept my head down as he sized me up.
He swaggered over to me and pushed back his hat. “I don’t allow vagabonds in my town,” he said. “And if I see you around here again, I’m going to haul you in.” He stabbed his toothpick between his front teeth and smiled. “And if I catch you near that squaw again, it’s not going to be pretty — she’s not going to be pretty. Get my drift?” He gazed around the room to make sure he’d been heard.
My first thought was to be flattered, bowled over with giddiness, and that’s when I knew I was in a world of shit. A man can get in trouble with the law; he can be obsessed with motorcycles and fast cars; he can drive himself to ruin with gambling and drink — but if a woman even shadows the frame of his life, if she begins to be his first thought in matters where he should be thinking, then he’s already gone. I’d fallen in love with Nina Three Dresses, and Squint saw me as a threat. One big, glorious hallelujah!
I decided to keep my mouth shut and let it pass. I’d get even with the son of a bitch another way. But just as he turned to leave and his grubby mitt touched the door, I got a stab of inspiration.
“You don’t have to worry no more,” I called out.
Four old men who’d been gossiping stopped midsentence and glared at me, then at Squint.
“The two of us are heading south this evening. All she’s gotta do is pack her bags and we’re outta here. You get my drift?”
Squint gave me the kind of look that could fry eggs. He stopped picking his teeth and let the toothpick teeter in his mouth. “We’ll see about that,” he said. “We’ll just see about that.” I’d stepped into a scene from High Noon, an old-fashioned showdown between men where the woman would take the hurt.
My heart was a furiously ticking time bomb. I’d taken too big a risk. I should have headed over to the stand, talked to Nina, told her what I’d done. But I knew Squint would be on my tail. I’d counted on that, hadn’t I? It was my ace in the hole. He’d follow me. Jesus, he’d follow me to hell.
I waited until Nina got off work and then I waited awhile more. The seconds ticked. Stink rolled down my rib cage in small rivulets and stars circled my head. I wondered if I’d ever feel right again. Yet that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Nina, her future, and her happiness.
When the evening light rippled over the lake and the stars emerged, I got in the El Camino and headed slowly into town. I picked up a carton of cigarettes at the Town Pump. I checked my rearview mirror but saw no sign of Squint. I waited and then drove like a weary old man. I smoked three cigarettes while I searched. I canvassed the alleyways, the spaces behind the 4B’s, and Walmart, but caught no sign of him. I blasted music. Bass thundered through the soles of my feet, edged up my spine, and flared out the windows like a flag, and still no sign of Squint. I rubbed my wet palms on my jeans and drove on, a man determined. I’d banked everything on an idea only a nutcase would believe.