“Really?” Chess asked, impressed and not altogether happy about it.
“Yeah, he’s amazing that way.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go get Checkers.”
Chess walked into the house, found Checkers in a back bedroom, and both soon came out.
“Do you want some time alone?” Chess asked Thomas.
Thomas looked at his house.
“No,” he said, “it’s time to go.”
The trio climbed into the blue van. Thomas drove. Chess sat in the front passenger seat, and Checkers sat in the back. Thomas put the car into drive, and they pulled away from his house. There was a tightness in Thomas’s chest that he could not explain; he took a deep breath. The blue van rolled down the reservation road.
“Look,” Chess said and pointed. Big Mom was standing on the roadside with a big thumb sticking up. Thomas pulled up beside her. Checkers rolled down her window.
“Where you headed, sweetheart?” Checkers asked Big Mom.
“Over to that feast at the Longhouse,” Big Mom said. “You should come with me.”
“Nah,” Thomas said. “We’ll give you a ride over there. But those people don’t want us around.”
“Well,” Big Mom said as she climbed into the van. “I think you should eat before you go.”
“Those people will eat us alive,” Checkers said in the back.
“Where’s Robert Johnson?” Thomas asked.
“Oh,” Big Mom said, “he’s up at the house, I guess. He’s getting better every day. He’ll probably be leaving us soon.”
“That’s good,” Chess said.
“I suppose,” Big Mom said.
They were quiet until they arrived at the Longhouse. There were a few dozen reservation cars parked at random angles.
“Jeez,” Checkers said. “The whole Spokane Tribe must be here.”
“There are quite a few,” Big Mom said. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat? You can’t leave on an empty stomach. It’s bad luck to travel on an empty stomach.”
“Where did you hear that?” Thomas asked.
“I just made it up.”
“I don’t know,” said Checkers, obviously frightened. “They might try to hurt us.”
“I won’t let them hurt you,” Big Mom said. “Hey, do you have any money?”
“A little,” Thomas said.
“Well,” Big Mom said, “I have a few bucks I’ve saved up. Here. And maybe we can take up a collection inside.”
“They ain’t going to give us any money,” Chess said.
“Maybe not,” Big Mom said, “but at least you can get some food.”
Thomas’s stomach growled loudly.
“I guess Thomas has made up his mind,” Chess said.
“Let’s go, then,” Big Mom said and led Chess, Checkers, and Thomas toward the Longhouse. They could hear laughter and loud conversation inside, but everybody fell into silence when they walked in. All the Spokane Indians stared at Big Mom and her co-dependents. Big Mom waved, and the crowd gradually resumed their conversations.
“Jeez,” Chess said. “I thought they were going to scalp us.”
Chess, Checkers, and Thomas sat at a table with Big Mom. They all waited for the feast to officially begin. But the term feast was a holdover from a more prosperous and traditional time, a term used before the Indians were forced onto the reservations. There was never a whole lot of food, just a few stringy pieces of deer meat, a huge vat of mashed potatoes, Pepsi, and fry bread. But the fry bread made all the difference. A good piece of fry bread turned any meal into a feast. Everybody sat at the tables and waited for the cooks to come out with the meal, the fry bread. They waited and waited. Finally, when there was no sign of the meal, Big Mom stood and walked into the kitchen.
“What’s taking so long?” Big Mom asked the head cook.
“There’s not enough fry bread,” said the head cook.
“You’re kidding. How much do we have?”
“We have a hundred pieces of bread and two hundred Indians out there waiting to eat.”
“Do we have enough venison and potatoes?” Big Mom asked.
“Yeah.”
“How much Pepsi do we have?” Big Mom asked.
“Enough.”
“Well, you take the deer, potatoes, and Pepsi out there. I’ll bring the fry bread.”
“But there’s not enough bread,” the head cook said. “There’ll be a fry bread riot. And you remember what happened during the last fry bread riot.”
Big Mom remembered.
“Just serve the meal,” Big Mom said.
The head cook and her helpers served the Pepsi and the rest of the meal, but that only made the Indians more aware of their fry bread deficiency.
“Fry bread, fry bread,” chanted the mob.
Chess and Thomas looked at each other; Checkers and Chess looked at each other. They were ready to run.
“It’s going to be a fry bread riot,” Thomas whispered.
Just as the feast was about to erupt into a full-fledged riot, Big Mom walked out of the kitchen with a huge bowl of fry bread. The crowd, faithful and unfaithful alike, cheered wildly.
“Listen,” Big Mom said after the crowd had quieted a little. “There’s not enough fry bread.”
Indians angrily rose to their feet.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“There are only one hundred pieces of fry bread,” Big Mom said, “and there are two hundred of us. Something needs to be done.”
The crowd milled around, stared each other down, picked out the opponent they would fight for their piece of fry bread. More than a few people had planned on jumping the surviving members of the band. Thomas, Chess, and Checkers ducked under their table.
“But there is a way,” Big Mom said. “I can feed you all.”
“How?” asked somebody.
Thomas, Chess, and Checkers peered from under the table, listening for the answer.
“By ancient Indian secrets,” Big Mom said.
“Bullshit!”
“Watch this,” Big Mom said as she grabbed a piece of fry bread and held it above her head. “Creator, help me. I have only a hundred pieces of fry bread to feed two hundred people.”
Big Mom held that fry bread tightly in her huge hands and then tore it into halves.
“There,” Big Mom said. “That is how I will feed you all.”
The crowd cheered, surging forward to grab the fry bread. There was a complete feast after all.
“Big Mom,” Thomas asked later as they were eating, “how did you do that? What is your secret?”
Big Mom smiled deeply.
“Mathematics,” Big Mom said.
Robert Johnson was walking toward the Longhouse when he saw the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota sitting on a rock beside the road.
“Ya-hey,” Robert Johnson called out. He was learning.
“Ya-hey,” answered the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota. “Where you headed?”
“Over to the feast. I’m getting hungry.”
“Enit? I guess I’ll come with you.”
Johnson and the old man walked toward the Longhouse. They didn’t say much. Johnson carried his cedar harmonica, and the old man carried a hand drum. They arrived at the Longhouse just as Big Mom tore the fry bread into halves.
“Ya-hey,” Thomas said when Johnson and the old man walked into the Longhouse. “Look who it is.”
“Thomas,” Johnson said as he sat at the table, “it’s good to see you.”
“You look great,” Thomas said, could scarcely believe this was the same man he had met at the crossroads all that time ago.
“Big Mom’s been good for me,” Johnson said as a means of explaining his appearance. “She even made me this ribbon shirt.”
Johnson was wearing a traditional Indian ribbon shirt, made of highly traditional silk and polyester.
“So, what are you doing here?” Thomas asked. “Do you want to leave with us?”