Chess ran down that road toward the white woman and her half-Indian son, because she wanted to save them from the pain that other Indians would cause.
Your son will be beaten because he’s a half-breed, Chess said. No matter what he does, he’ll never be Indian enough. Other Indians won’t accept him. Indians are like that.
Chess wanted to save Indians from the pain that the white woman and her half-Indian son would cause.
Don’t you see? Chess asked. Those quarter-blood and eighth-blood grandchildren will find out they’re Indian and torment the rest of us real Indians. They’ll come out to the reservation, come to our powwows, in their nice clothes and nice cars, and remind the real Indians how much we don’t have. Those quarter-bloods and eighth-bloods will get all the Indian jobs, all the Indian chances, because they look white. Because they’re safer.
Chess wanted to say so much to the white woman and her half-Indian son. She closed her eyes, opened them again, and the white woman and her son were gone. They’d never been there.
“What is it?” Thomas asked Chess. The rest of Coyote Springs, Big Mom, and Father Arnold had already begun the walk away from the cemetery. Lester FallsApart and the three dogs followed closely behind. Chess still stood at the graveside, staring into the distance.
“Chess?” Thomas asked again. “What is it?”
“Thomas,” Chess said and took his hand, “let’s get married. Let’s have kids.”
Thomas was surprised. He couldn’t respond.
“Really,” Chess said. “Let’s have lots of brown babies. I want my babies to look up and see two brown faces. That’s the best thing we can give them, enit? Two brown faces. Do you want to?”
Thomas smiled.
“Okay,” he said.
Checkers went straight to bed when they returned to Thomas’s house after the burial. Thomas and Big Mom sat in the kitchen and talked about making lunch. Victor jumped in the blue van and drove away. Father Arnold stood alone outside on the front lawn, feeling unwelcome.
“Checkers?” Chess asked her sister. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Checkers said. “I’m just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Those nightmares, enit? Does Sheridan keep coming back for you?”
“It ain’t Sheridan anymore. It’s Dad who comes every night now.”
“What?” Chess asked. Luke Warm Water rarely entered her dreams.
“Yeah,” Checkers said. “He stands in the doorway of the bedroom. Just like he used to. He’s been drinking. I can smell him. He doesn’t say nothing. He just stands there in the doorway, holding his arms out to me. Then I wake up.”
“Do you think it’s really him?” Chess asked.
“Yeah, it’s him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s crying the whole time.”
The sisters sat for a long while in silence. They held hands; they cried.
“We’re leaving soon, you know,” Chess said after a while. “Thomas and I are leaving for Spokane. Are you coming or not?”
“What are we going to do about money?” Checkers asked.
“I got a job. At the phone company. As an operator.
“Enit?”
“Enit. It’ll hold us over until you and Thomas find jobs.
“Does Victor know?”
“No.”
“Does Big Mom know?”
“Probably. You should tell Father Arnold.”
“I don’t want to talk to him, “Checkers said. “I don’t care what he does.”
A knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Chess asked.
“It’s me, Big Mom.”
“Come in.”
Big Mom stepped in, and Father Arnold was right behind her.
“He wants to talk to you,” Big Mom said to Checkers. “Alone.”
Checkers shook her head.
“Okay,” Big Mom said. “How about if Chess stays?”
Checkers looked at her sister. Chess nodded in the affirmative.
“Good,” Big Mom said and left the room. “I’ve got some lunch to make.”
Arnold closed the door, sat in a chair at the foot of the bed.
“Hello,” he said.
Checkers looked at Chess.
“Hello,” Checkers said to Arnold.
“How are you?” he asked. He looked scared.
“I’m okay.”
Arnold looked at Chess, then back at Checkers.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“About what?” Checkers asked.
“About us.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The three all looked uncomfortable, exchanged glances, stared at the floor, walls, and ceiling.
“I’m sorry for everything,” Arnold said.
“You should be.”
“This is all my fault. I led you on.”
“Well,” Checkers said, “none of that matters much now. We’re leaving the reservation. So you don’t have to worry about me. I’m leaving and you can stay.”
“You’re leaving?” Arnold asked, feeling a combination of sadness and relief.
“We’re moving to Spokane. Chess got a job as a telephone operator.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Soon,” Checkers said and reached under the bed. “And here’s a bottle of your Communion wine. I stole it because I was mad at you.”
“Why’d you steal that?” Chess asked, shocked at her sister.
“I was going to get drunk. But then Junior shot himself.”
Arnold took the bottle. There was a long silence.
“Do you forgive me?” Checkers asked Arnold.
“Yes, do you forgive me?”
“I don’t know. Am I allowed to?”
“Yes, you’re allowed to.”
“Well, then. I don’t think I do. Not yet. I mean, I still love you. I still feel that, you know? It ain’t like that changes. But I can still tell you to shove your God up your ass. But I don’t know if I mean it. I don’t know what I mean. I don’t know nothing, and you don’t know any more than I do.”
Arnold didn’t say anything. He agreed with Checkers. He’d been just all of the other performers in the world. He’d wanted to be universally loved. He wasn’t all that different from Victor, Thomas, or even Junior. They all got onstage and wanted the audience to believe in them. They all wanted the audience to throw their room keys, panties, confessions, flowers, and songs onstage. They wanted the audience to trust them with all their secrets. But Victor, Thomas, and Junior had fallen apart in the face of all of that. Arnold had fallen apart, too. Junior could never be put back together again, but maybe the rest of them could.
“Discipline,” Father Arnold said with much difficulty. It was only one word, but he needed to find the one word that would make Chess and Checkers understand. “I knew how to pray with discipline. I can do it again.”
Chess and Checkers both understood but still felt suspicious. They’d grown up with priests and their churches. The sisters had loved them all. The sisters had loved to kneel in the pew and pray in exactly the way they’d been taught. For years, the sisters said those same prayers over and over, as if sheer repetition could guarantee results. As if their little prayers had a cumulative effect on God, adding one on top of another, until all of their prayers were as tall as a priest’s single prayer.
“Checkers,” Father Arnold said, “I can’t believe you stole the Communion wine.”
“Enit?” Checkers asked. “Not very original, was it?”
“No,” Father said. “And that stuff is awful anyway. How did you ever think you could drink it?”
“Discipline,” Checkers said and laughed. Chess and Father Arnold laughed, too. But it was forced, awkward, as if everything depended on it.