“What you doing with my guitar?” Victor shouted and ripped Thomas from his dream. Thomas lay on the couch in the Warm Waters’ house with Robert Johnson’s guitar beside him. It’s Victor’s guitar now, Thomas corrected himself.
“I didn’t want it to get cold,” Thomas mumbled, although he had no idea how the guitar ended up in the house, and handed it over to Victor.
“Well, thanks for nothing,” Victor said. “It was hotter than hell outside.”
“Oh, man,” Junior said as he stumbled into the house. “I got a hangover.”
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Thomas said.
Junior made his way to the kitchen just as Chess and Checkers emerged from their rooms.
“What’s going on?” Checkers asked.
“What’s for breakfast?” Victor asked.
“Your ass on a plate,” Chess said. “Fix it yourself.”
“Oh, a rowdy one,” Victor said. “I like them rowdy.”
Victor opened the refrigerator, pulled out the ingredients for a cheese and vegetable omelet, and cooked up enough for everybody. They were all shocked by Victor’s culinary skills.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” Chess asked. “Prison?”
“My father used to cook,” Victor said.
“Your stepfather?” Junior asked.
“Yeah, only thing he was good for.”
Coyote Springs sat down to breakfast with Chess and Checkers. The omelets tasted great. Victor wanted to say something profound and humorous about eggs but couldn’t think of anything, so he farted instead.
“You’re disgusting,” Chess said, picked up her plate, and walked outside to eat. Thomas gave Victor the old Spokane Indian evil eye and followed her.
Checkers finished her breakfast, washed her plate and fork in the sink, and then returned to her bedroom. Junior and Victor watched her the entire time.
“She’s real pretty, enit?” Junior asked after Checkers closed her bedroom door.
“A great ass,” Victor said.
“You don’t have a chance!” Checkers shouted from her room. Victor and Junior ate the rest of their omelets in silence.
Outside, Chess and Thomas talked between bites.
“You know,” Thomas said, “Coyote Springs is better than we sounded last night.”
“I hope so,” Chess said.
“No, really. Victor and Junior were all drunk.”
“Do you drink?”
“No,” Thomas said, “I don’t drink.”
Chess smiled. When Indian women begin the search for an Indian man, they carry a huge list of qualifications. He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. He has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice. But as the screwed-up Indian men stagger through their lives, Indian women are forced to amend their list of qualifications. Eventually, Indian men need only to have their own teeth to get snagged.
Chess suffered through an entire tribe of Indian boyfriends. Roscoe, the champion fancydancer, who passed out in full regalia during the Arlee Powwow and was stripped naked during the night. Bobby, the beautiful urban Indian, transferred to the reservation to work for the BIA, who then left Chess for a white third-grade teacher at the Tribal School. Joseph, the journalist, who wrote a powerful story on the white-owned liquor stores camped on reservation borders and then drank himself into cirrhosis. Carl, the buck from Browning, who stashed away a kid or two on every reservation in the state, until his friends called him The Father of Our Country.
“Really?” Chess asked Thomas again to make sure. Maybe she had snagged the only sober storyteller in the world. “You mean, you’ve never drank. Not even when you were little?”
“No,” Thomas said. “I read books.”
“Do you have any kids?” Chess asked.
Thomas hid his face.
“Oh,” Chess said, disappointed. “You do have kids. How many?”
She loved kids but placed a limit on the number of children and ex-wives she allowed her potential snags to claim.
“No, no,” Thomas said. “I don’t have any kids. You just surprised me. I’m not used to personal questions. Nobody ever asked me any personal questions before.”
“You ever been married?”
“No, have you?”
“No. Any girlfriends?”
“Not really,” Thomas said.
“Ya-hey!” Victor shouted from the kitchen. “I think Junior is going to throw up.”
“You know,” Chess said, “that Victor is a jerk. And his clothes. He looks like he got in a fight with the seventies and got his ass kicked.”
“Well,” Thomas said, “he doesn’t have any money. That’s why he’s in the band. That’s why we’re all in the band, you know?”
“I was wondering why you put up with him,” Chess said. She and Checkers fought fires for the BIA during the summers, traveling all over the country, and struggled to make the money last through winter.
“Only problem is we’re not making any money.”
“Really? Even a bad band can make money, enit?”
“I hope so. But we’re pretty good, really.”
“I believe you, really,” Chess said. “That Junior is nice, enit? He’s good-looking, but sort of goofy, though. He sure lets Victor boss him around, enit?”
“Yeah, it’s always been that way.”
“Too bad,” Chess said. “Junior could be a major snag.”
“You mean,” Thomas said, “that he’s in the way?”
“No,” Chess said. “I mean he could be a good catch for an Indian woman. A snag, you know?”
“Oh,” Thomas said, still clueless, so he changed the subject. “I really liked singing with you last night. You’re really good.”
“Yeah, I had a good time, too.”
“You know,” Thomas said, “I have an idea. How would you and Checkers like to join the band?”
“I don’t know,” Chess said. “Do we have to dress like Victor?”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t know,” she said again. “We have to hang around here during the summer. In case we get called to fight a fire.”
“Listen. You can sing great, and I’m sure Checkers can sing, too. We need you. Something tells me we need you.”
“I don’t think so, Thomas. I mean, I like you a lot, but Checkers and I live here. We’re from here. We shouldn’t leave.”
“You have to think about it,” Thomas said. “Give us a chance.”
Chess shook her head.
“Wait!” Thomas shouted. “Victor. Junior. Get out here. Let’s practice some.”
Victor and Junior strolled outside, followed by Checkers.
“What’s all the shouting about?” Checkers asked.
“Thomas wants us to join Coyote Springs,” Chess said to her sister.
“No fucking way,” Victor said. “We’re a warrior band.”
“Well,” Thomas said. “We’re a democracy. How about we vote on it?”
“Okay, go for it,” Victor said, confident that Junior hated the idea, too.
“All those in favor, raise your hand,” Thomas said and held his right hand up. Junior raised his hand and smiled weakly at Victor.
“That does it,” Thomas said. “The women are in.”
“No way,” Victor said again.
“You agreed to vote,” Thomas said.
“Hey,” Chess said. “I said we don’t want to be in the band.”
Checkers never liked her sister to speak for her, but she agreed with Chess. Forest fires paid the bills.
“Wait,” Thomas pleaded with everybody. “How about we play some? Then you can decide if you want to join.”