"I'll watch myself."
"I'd steer clear of it if it was me. They say it's wild."
J.C. laughed. "When was this brother killed, Sam?"
"Just around the start of the war. Got himself caught in something called the Zoot Suit Riots and that was all she wrote. Just plain wild."
"You know where I found Brian?" said J.C. "He was walkin up Six-Hat Road there by Petrie's, sayin he's gonna walk to the Innerstate. Seems he got his directions from old Cody Sprague there."
The men laughed. "Be better off gettin em from the buffalo," said Jackson Blackroot, "at least he's a native."
"Sprague isn't from around here?"
"He come out from some city back east, what was it, Philadelphia — ?"
"Pittsburgh."
"Right. He come out from Pittsburgh on his vacation one summer and he sees all these roadside attractions up there on go, the prairie-dog village, reptile farms, Wall Drug Store, all that, and he thinks he's found his calling. He worked in some factory all his life and always had something about bein' his own boss, owning his own business. So he takes his savings, which couldn't of been much, and buys himself two acres down on Six-Hat, the most worthless two acres in the whole state probly, and somewhere he gets ahold of that animal. Gonna build a dude ranch with the money he makes selling rides. Well it's been six, seven years now and I don't know how the hell he survives but he still hasn't got but them two acres and that animal."
"He's a nice old guy though," said J.C. "Talk your ear off, a little crazy, but a nice old guy."
"He's a character all right," said Jackson.
"He's an asshole." Bad Heart climbed into the rear of the pickup.
They had eaten all the bread and were talking about Sam's brother getting killed in Los Angeles when Jackson remembered something.
"Hey," he said, "what we gonna do about that wake they're having over there for Honda Joe? Suppose we ought to go?"
"Just slipped my mind," said J.C. "Live just five mile away from us, no way I can't make an appearance, and it slipped my mind. Listen, as long as there's all of us together and we got the truck — "
"I suppose we ought to go."
"Damn shame it is, young kid like that. Goes through all that Vietnam business with hardly a scratch, gets himself a Silver Star, then comes back to smash hisself up on a goddam motorsickle. Young kids like that seem bent on it. I remember I couldn't talk my brother out of his plan for all the world, nosir, he had to have his California."
"It wasn't this it would have been some other," said Jackson.
"If it wasn't the bike maybe he would of drunk himself to death like some others around here."
"No, I don't think so. Honda Joe was always in a hurry to get there."
"Well he got there all right. In a couple pieces maybe, but he got there."
"We ought to go look in on him, for his mother's sake. What say, fellas?"
"I never liked Honda Joe," said Bad Heart.
"Well then, dammit, you can stay in the truck."
"If there's one thing I can't stand," said Jim Crow very quietly when they were on their way to Honda Joe's wake, "it's a sulky Indian."
It was still twilight when they passed by the access road to J.C.'s place again. He didn't offer to drop Bad Heart home before they went on. They crossed Six-Hat Road, Brian was just able to make out one of Cody Sprague's signs to the right, and then a half-mile farther along they were stopped by a horse standing in the middle of the road, facing them.
J.C. turned on the headlights and they saw it was the scabcolored one that had escaped in the afternoon.
"The hell's he doin out here?" said J.C. He turned the engine off and got out quietly. He left the door open and walked slowly toward the horse, talking soft. "Good horse," he said, "nice horse. Come to papa. Attaboy."
The horse stood for a moment, nostrils wide open, then bolted off the road and out of sight. J.C. slammed back into the truck. Only Bad Heart dared laugh.
The trailer was alone and far away from the blacktops, far even from the oiled road that serviced most of the other places around. It sat as if run aground next to the dry streambed that cut through a gently sloping basin. Young men's cars, Pintos and Mavericks, Mustangs and Broncos, surrounded it, parked every which way. To the rear was an orderly block where the family men had pulled in their jeeps and pickups. J.C. slipped in among these and the men eased out. They had sobered, what with the food and the surprise rain and the knowledge of the work cut out ahead of them. They shuffled and stuffed their hands in their pockets, waiting for J.C. to lead. The mud and blood had stiffened again on their clothes, they tried to get all their scratching done before they had to go in. Bad Heart stretched out in the rear, glaring out into space. J.C. sighed and fished under the seat, behind the shotgun, and came out with a pint of gin. "I was saving this for an emergency," he said, and tossed it to Bad Heart. "Entertain yourself."
They were met at the door by two dark old Indians wearing VFW hats. Evening, gentlemen, glad you could come. There was a visitor's book to sign and no place to sit, the trailer was crammed to its aluminum gills. There were nods and hullos from the men already inside, crop and stock and weather conversations to drift into, and woman-noise coming from back in the bedrooms. Drink was offered and declined, for the moment anyway. A knot of angry-looking young men leaned together against one wall, planning to make yet another wine run up to Interior and back. Suspicious eyes lingered on Brian, coming hardest and hairiest from the young men. Brian felt extra uncomfortable in his sunlightened hair and three-day road stubble in the midst of all the smooth, dark people. He was glad for the stains of horsecutting left on him, as if having shared that gave him some right of entry.
Mrs. Pierce was on them before they could get their bearings. She smelled of tears and Four Roses and clutched at their elbows like she was drowning.
"J.C.," she said, "you come, I knew you would. And Jim. Boys. I knew you'd all come, I knew everybody'd come for my Joey."
She closed one eye when she had to focus on somebody. She squinted up to Brian. "Do I know you?"
"This is Brian, Mrs. Pierce," said J.C. "He's been workin horses over to my place."
"Well Brian," she said sober-faced, talking slow as if explaining house rules to a new kid in the neighborhood, "you just make yourself at home. Joey had him a lot of white friends, he was in the Army."
The woman had straight black hair with streaks of iron gray, she stood up to Brian's shoulders, her face flat and unwrinkled. She could have been anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. She was beautiful. Brian told her not to worry about him.
"You come to stay a while, J.C.? You have something to drink? We got plenty, everybody brang for my Joey. We'll go right through the night into tomorrow with him. Will you stay, J.C.?"
"Well, now, Mrs. Pierce, we'd really like to, we all thought high of young Joseph there, but like I said we been workin horses all day and these boys are just all in. I promised their women I'd get them home early and in one piece. You know how it is."
The woman gave a little laugh. "Oh, I do, I surely do. We'll get him home in one piece, that's what the recruiters said, come onto Rosebud when we were over there. Make a man of him and send him back in better shape than when he left. Well, he's back, I suppose. Least I know where he is, not like some that are missing or buried over there. Don't figure anyone'll want to borrow him anymore." She stopped a moment and turned something over in her mind with great effort, then looked to J.C. again. "We're havin a service Tuesday over to the Roman. Appreciate it if you all could be there."
"We'll make every effort, Ma'am. And if there's anything you need help with in the coming weeks — "
"Oh no, J.C., save your help. Won't need it. After the service I'll just hitch up and drive on out of here. Go up north, I got people. I put two husbands and four sons in this country now and I'll be damned if it gets a drop more outen me. No, I'm to go up north."