“Is your sister fond of flowers? What is her favorite?”
“Stinging nettles.”
“Would you say she favors a certain color?”
“Fish-belly white.”
“What were her charming habits when she was young?”
“She could fart the national anthem.”
“The whole thing?”
“Yes.”
“Howah! Did she always have such pretty hair?”
“She dyes it.”
“How did she come to have so many husbands?”
“Obscene talents.”
“What does she think? What is her mind like?”
Our dad would just laugh wearily. “Mind?” he’d say. “Thoughts?”
“She’s got her teeth, no? All of them?”
“Except the ones she left in her husbands.”
“I wonder if she would be interested in memories of my horse-racing days here on the reservation. Those could be considered historical.”
“You only quit two years ago.”
“But they go way back…”
And so it would continue until Mooshum was satisfied with his letter. He folded the paper, setting each crease with his thumb, fit it into an envelope, and carefully tore a stamp from a sheet of commemoratives. He would keep the letter in his breast pocket until Mama went to the store, then he’d go along with her and put it directly into the hands of the post lady, Mrs. Bannock. He knew that his pursuit of Neve Harp was frowned upon, and he believed that Clemence would throw his letters in the garbage.
I PROBABLY DID not fully realize or appreciate our family’s relative comfort on the reservation. Although everyone in the family except my father was some degree of Chippewa mixed with some degree of French, and although Shamengwa’s wife had been a traditional full-blood and Mooshum abandoned the church later to pursue pagan ways, the fact is, we lived in Bureau of Indian Affairs housing. In town, there was electricity and plumbing, as I’ve mentioned, even an intermittent television signal. Aunt Geraldine still lived in the old house, out on the land, and hauled her water. Her horses were the descendants of Mooshum’s racers. We also had shelves of books, some of which were permanent, others changed every week. But because we lived in town we were visited more often by the priest. There was, in fact, one final visit from Father Cassidy, a drama that had far-reaching effects in our family. For one, our mother blamed the argument on liquor and banned Mooshum from drinking it as best she could. For another, the grip of the church on our family was weakened as Mooshum thrillingly broke away.
It was a low and drizzly summer day. Joseph and I had caught a number of salamanders after a rain and were busy restocking the back pond from a galvanized tin bucket, when Father Cassidy appeared in the yard and skipped his bulk along the grass to inspect our work. We looked up from beneath his vast belly, and were surprised to see him crossing himself double time.
“What’s wrong?” asked Joseph.
“There are some who believe those creatures represent the devil,” said the priest. “I, of course, do not hold with superstitions.”
But perhaps there was something to it, as we later found.
By the time Joseph and I had finished releasing the salamanders and come back in the house, the conversation was in full swing and the bottle, too, was out because Mama was out. The three men nodded happily at us. They were drinking not from shot glasses, but from hard plastic coffee cups, Mama’s favorite new set, harvest gold.
“We better stay here and watch over them,” said Joseph to me, low, and I dipped out cold water for us to drink. We sat down on the couch. There was no doubt things were preceding swiftly. Father Cassidy had asked of Mooshum a particular question, one he never answered the same way twice. The question was this: What had happened to Mooshum’s ear? The ear had not actually, he’d tell us later, been pecked away by doves.
Mooshum squinted, curled his lip out, and asked Father Cassidy if he’d ever heard of Liver-Eating Johnson.
Father Cassidy smiled indulgently and tried a weak joke: “He must have been from Montana!”
“Tawpway,” said Mooshum.
“Paint the picture in words, mon frère!” said Shamengwa.
Mooshum made himself into a hulking beast and clawed at his chin to show the man’s scraggly blood-soaked beard. He then related the horrifying story of Liver-Eating Johnson’s hatred of the Indian and how in lawless days this evil trapper and coward jumped his prey and was said to cut the liver from his living victim and devour that organ right before their eyes. He liked to run them down, too, over great distances.
Father Cassidy gulped and laughed weakly. “That’s enough!” But Mooshum drank from the coffee cup and barged ahead.
“Me, I was a young boy, not yet a man, alone on the prairie hunting for some scrap to eat. Turned out of my family, eh? Away across in the distances I see a someone running, a hairy and desperate man. But me, I have no fear of anything.”
Shamengwa glanced at us, tapped his head, and winked.
“I kept to my own pace, as I was searching for something to eat. A rabbit, maybe, a grouse, even a rattlesnake would have set me up good. I myself was very hungry.”
“Boys get hungry,” said Shamengwa.
“I glance around in hopes that maybe this stranger has some food to spare. He’s coming at me, still running. He’s covered with ragged skins and he has a scrawly beard and that beard, eh? I suddenly see, when he gets close enough, how that beard is all crusted with old blood. And I know it’s him.”
“Liver Eater,” said Shamengwa.
“I see that light in his eyes. He’s very hungry, too! And I begin to spring, I’ll tell you, I take off like a rabbit, quick. I’ve got speed, but I know Liver Eater’s got endurance. He’ll outrun me if we go all day, he’ll exhaust me. And sure enough, the minute I slow my pace, he’s on me. I speed up. It’s cat and mouse, lynx and rabbit. Then he puts a burst on and he jumps me!”
Father Cassidy looked aghast, forgot to drink. Mooshum slowly touched what was left of his ear.
“Yes, he got that. His teeth were sharp. But he must have lost his hunting knife, for he did not stab me. I struggled out of his grip.” Mooshum struggled out of his own arms, burst free of his own clutching hands. “I hopped out, running once again, just ahead of him, but as I charge along, blood from my ear flying in the wind, I get to thinking. Riel, if he’d won there would be some justice! This devil would not dare to chase an Indian. Hey, I think, I’m hungry too! Let’s give Liver Eater some of his own medicine, anyway. I’ve got sharp teeth. So I stop, quick.”
Mooshum jolted in his chair.
“The hairy white man flips over me, and as he does, I bite off one of his fingers.”
“Which one?” said Shamengwa.
“I just got the pinkie,” said Mooshum. “But now he’s foaming mad, so I let him come at me again. This time, I strike like a weasel. Snap, a thumb comes off!”
“Did you eat it?” said Joseph.
“I had to swallow it down whole, no chewing. It tasted foul,” said Mooshum. “I needed it for strength, my boy. We blasted out again. The next time I slowed he went for my liver — but only ripped a chunk out of my left cheek here.” Mooshum pointed at the baggy seat of his pants. “I tore a bite from his hindquarters, too, and wrestled him down and got a piece of thigh, next. I kept after him. I was young. We must of ran for twenty, thirty miles! And over those miles I whittled him down.”
“Howah!” cried Shamengwa.
“By the time he dropped from blood loss, he was down six fingers. I got one of his ears, the whole thing. I took a couple of his toes just to slow him down. Those, I spit right out. And I got his nose.”
“Yuck,” I said.