Checkers shivered at the thought of cancer. Cancer rose from the bodies of dead Indians and walked down the hallways of hospitals.
“Did she drink?” Chess asked.
“She did. But she quit. She was sober when she died.”
“Really? Quit just like that?”
“Cold as a turkey,” Thomas said. “She quit the morning after this really bad New Year’s Eve party at our house. This house.”
“What happened?”
“Dad got real drunk, kicked everybody out, and then took all the furniture out on the front lawn, and burned it.”
“Shit, you must have been scared.”
“Not too scared. It wasn’t that big a fire. I mean, we barely had any furniture. But then he threatened to burn down the house with all of us in it. So Mom threw me into the car, and we drove to her sister’s up in Colville. Her sister wasn’t home, so we sat in this all-night diner and waited. The sun came up, and we drove back here. Mom never drank again.”
“What happened then?”
“She kicked Dad out. Divorced him Indian style, enit? Then went to work for the Tribe as a driver. She drove the Senior Citizens’ van all over the countryside. Took the elders to every powwow. She got all traditional. Started dancing, singing, playing stickgame again.
“Jeez,” Checkers said. “That must have been some party, enit?”
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “Dad even hired a band.”
“A real band?”
“Kind of. It was just a couple of guys from the reservation. Louie and Merle. They played the blues. They were pretty good when they weren’t drunk.”
“Sounds like a couple guys we know.
“What else happened at the party?”
“Same old things,” Thomas said. “People got drunk. People fought. People got pregnant in the back rooms. A couple went to jail. One got his stomach pumped. Two died in a car wreck on the way home. And there was a partridge in a pear tree.”
“Who died?”
“Junior’s parents.”
“Jeez,” Chess said. “He must have been really young.”
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “He was the oldest, too. Had a bunch of brothers and sisters. Their auntie took them in and raised them. She died a few years ago.”
“What about Victor’s parents?”
“They’re all gone.”
“Jeez,” Checkers said. “Samuel is the only one who made it.”
Samuel rolled over on the table and coughed. He curled into a fetal position and mumbled something.
“Hard to believe, enit?”
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “The only things that will survive a nuclear war are cockroaches and my father.”
“Our father was crazy, too,” Chess said. “He’d come home all drunk and screaming. Be talking about how he was a radio man during World War II.”
“I thought all those radio men were Navajo,” Thomas said.
“They all were Navajo. And my dad was too young for the war anyway, but he kept saying it.”
“Man, you never hear about those Navajo radio guys, do you? They won the war. Those Germans and Japanese couldn’t figure that code out.”
“Yeah, just like that. Mom would tell him about all that, too. But my dad kept going on and on. He was a war hero, jumped out of airplanes. He killed Hitler.”
“Enit?” Thomas asked.
“Yeah,” Chess said. “Old Luke Warm Water told us he was the one who killed Hitler. Caught up to him in that bunker and made him drink poison.”
Thomas laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“My dad always told me he was the one who killed Hitler. They must have been on that mission together.”
“Our fathers, the war heroes.”
Thomas thought about all the imagined and real wars their fathers fought. He thought about that New Year’s Eve party, all those parties that seemed to celebrate nothing at all. He remembered the two Indians who played the blues at that party, where Samuel burned the furniture on the front lawn. Two old Indian men played blues. In sunglasses. Big bellies. Big knuckles. Thomas tried to remember if they were any good. He searched his mind for some melody they played but heard nothing.
“You know,” Chess said. “I heard beer bottles breaking so much that I got used to it. I kind of miss them sometimes.”
Exhausted, Samuel took the ball out. His body ached. Once, pain had been a drug to him. He needed pain, but then it had just become pain. Just more weight on his body.
“It’s over,” the Chief said. “You don’t have nothing left.”
Art, Scott, and Phil Heavy Burden surrounded Lester and prevented him from moving. The Chief and the two white officers guarded Samuel.
“Fuck you twice,” Samuel said.
Samuel looked at Chief WalksAlong, at all the Tribal Cops, at Lester. He shifted the ball from his left hip to his right. He spun the ball in his hands, felt the leather against his fingertips, and closed his eyes.
“What the hell you doing?” the Chief asked.
With his eyes still closed, Samuel drove to the basket, around his defenders, and pulled up for a short jumper. The ball rotated beautifully. Years later, Lester still swore that ball stopped in midair, just spun there like it was on a stick, like the ball wanted to make sure everyone noticed its beauty.
“That shot was vain,” Lester said.
“That shot was the best story I ever told,” Samuel said.
TRIBAL COPS—9
SAMUEL & LESTER—8
The man-who-was-probably-Lakota stood in front of the Trading Post every morning. He studied his watch, waited for the top of the hour, and then started his ceremony at the same exact time every morning.
“The end of the world is near!” he chanted. “The end of the world is near!”
“Jeez,” Thomas said as he heard the chant. “It can’t be six already. We stayed up all night.”
Victor and Junior stumbled into the room.
“Shit,” Victor said. “Does that crazy Lakota have to do that every morning?”
“Enit?” Junior said. “He must think he’s one of those Plains Indian roosters.”
“Jeez,” Victor said and looked at Samuel. “How’s your old man?”
“He’s all right.”
“I’m hungry,” Junior said.
“There’s some applesauce in the fridge.”
“Commodity applesauce or real applesauce?”
“Commodity.”
“Shit, we’ll eat it anyway.”
“Ya-hey,” Victor said. “Maybe we should stick an apple in Samuel’s mouth and roast him up.”
Checkers rose in anger and slapped Victor.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Victor asked as he grabbed her wrists.
“That ain’t funny. That ain’t funny.”
Victor held Checkers until she stopped struggling. He let her go, and Checkers slapped him again. She wailed on Victor. The rest of Coyote Springs remained silent, too sleepy and stunned to move. Checkers slapped and kicked the Indian man in front of her. That Indian man, those Indian men.
“Stop it!” Chess shouted as she came back to life. She tried to separate Checkers and Victor, but her sister pushed her away. Checkers balled her hands into fists and started to punch Victor.
“That’s it,” Victor said, picked Checkers up, and threw her down. Checkers bounced back up and threw a few more wild punches.
Thomas jumped Victor then, and the two wrestled around the room, bumped into walls and the other band members. Checkers crawled under the kitchen table for cover, while Samuel Builds-the-Fire slept on. Chess screamed at Thomas and Victor.
“Knock this shit off!”
Victor pulled away from Thomas. They stood face to face like boxers before a bout. Breathing hard, they stared each other down.
“You assholes,” Chess said. “Quit this macho bullshit.”
“Ya-hey,” Junior said. “I’ve got applesauce.”