Such attitudes were common upstate in those days. Happily, things have changed, although you can still find pockets of such views among the old timers.
Now a balding Rosen greeted me. "I remember you, Mr. Newbury. What can I do for you?"
"Not a medical problem," I said. "I've been seeing my aunt, Mrs. Wilder."
Rosen shook his head. "I keep telling her to cut back on carbohydrates."
I told Rosen about the Huns. "I hear you've had a brush with them, too?"
Rosen stared. "You might say so. The whole thing has an unpleasantly familiar sound. Not that I was in Europe during the Holocaust—1 was right here, building up a practice—but naturally I take an interest in such things. This campaign has already cut into my practice."
"What did you do to antagonize them?"
He shrugged. "With my background, I didn't need to do anything. When I heard that Marshall Nicholson was turning the motorcycle club into some kind of neo-pagan cult, complete with blood sacrifices, I told Jack Nicholson that his son needed psychiatric care. Old Jack scoffed, saying Nick had a right to freedom of religion like everyone else. Presumably the story got back, and that's what touched it off."
"The First Amendment doesn't let anyone sacrifice unbelievers to Mumbo Jumbo—at least, not unless the Supreme Court gets even goofier. What about these alleged supernatural feats? The lightning business."
Rosen snorted. "The usual moonshine. When lightning hits twice within a radius of half a mile, some folks suspect that God or a local witch has it in for someone in the target area. As a man of scientific training, I take no stock in such talk."
"I hope you're right," I said, "but I've had a scientific training, too, and I've seen enough oddities to be skeptical even of my own skepticism."
The next time I went to visit Aunt Phyllis, I drove down the line to Gahato. I stopped at Virgil Hathaway's curio shop, the sign before which read:
CHIEF SOARING TURTLE
INDIAN BEAD WORK-POTTERY
Hathaway was selling a customer a Navaho blanket made in Connecticut. When he had finished, I said:
"Virgil, those eyeglasses somehow don't fit the Amerind decor."
"I got to be able to read my own price tags," he said. "Anyway, it dunt matter nowadays. When I started the business, I used to play up to the kids, talking funny English and saying ugh and how. But kids are smarter'n they was."
"You still have your braids."
"Ayuh, but that's what-you-call-it functional. Saves me three or four bucks a month getting haircuts. What can I do for you?"
"You told me about some medicine man out at Tonawanda. How could I get in touch with him?"
"You mean Charlie Catfish. Ain't seen Charlie in two-three years, but we send Christmas cards." Hathaway consulted an address book and gave me a telephone number.
At the farm, Phyllis Wilder threw herself upon me, nearly knocking me flat. "Oh, Willy! Do you know what those wretched young thugs have done?"
"What now, Aunt Phyllis?" said I, staggering back in her embrace.
"They spoiled the deal with Mr. Fife, at least for now." Fife was the developer. "He came over with his surveyor to look the place over. While he was here, the Huns rode up the driveway on their motorcycles and circled the house yelling, like a tribe of Indians riding around a water hole. It scared Mr. Fife so he went away, saying he couldn't consider buying the place while the neighborhood was so disturbed."
"Did you call the troupers?"
"Yes, but by the time they got here the Huns were gone. Trooper Talbot told me afterwards they went to Floreando and talked to the Huns, but they just denied everything. I'd have to file a formal complaint, and I'm afraid of what they'd do. They'd be out on bail, delaying the case for months or years ... You'll stay the night, won't you, Willy? I'm so scared."
"Sure, I'll stay. Speaking of Indians, there's one I want to call. He might be able to help."
"An Indian? How do you mean? To get up a war party, the way they did two hundred years ago—but no, Willy, you wouldn't do anything so silly. You were always the sensible one, praise be. What then?"
"You'll see when he gets here—if he does. I thought—no, wait. I'll meet him in the village. If I like his looks, could you put him up here along with me?"
"I guess so. At my age, nobody'll suspect me of entertaining a redskin lover." She gave a girlish giggle.
I called the number that Hathaway had given me and asked for Charles H. Catfish. When a man answered, I gave Hathaway's name and sketched my aunt's difficulties. I ended:
"Hathaway suggested that you might be able to help out, by means of your—uh—your special powers."
"Mought," said Catfish, "If it was made worth my while. Means I got to take time off from my job."
"What do you do, Mr. Catfish?"
"I sell Chevrolets in Kenmore. What was you thinking of paying?"
After consultation with Phyllis Wilder, I went back to the telephone and agreed with Catfish on a daily retainer. He promised to meet me in Panther Falls the next day.
"What time?" I asked.
"How about lunch time?"
"You'd have to get up pretty early. It's a four or five-hour drive, even with the Thruway."
The voice chuckled. "I know. Getting up early don't bother me none. It's an old Indian habit."
That night nobody came near Wilderfarm. There were, however, ominous sounds from the direction of Floreando: drumming and chanting. I suppose it was cowardly of me not have gotten dressed and gone skulking over there to see what the Huns were up to.
Charles H. Catfish kept me waiting in Panther Falls for over an hour. I do not want to generalize, but I fear that punctuality is not an outstanding American Indian virtue. At last a new, shiny Chevrolet sedan drove up.
My medicine man was a roly-poly fellow, about my age, in a handsome sports jacket, a necktie bearing Amerind motifs, and big black horn-rims. He wore his stiff black hair in a crew-cut brush. One had to look twice at his copper complexion and Mongoloid features to realize that he was an Indian and not just a middle-aged, sun-tanned fat man.
"Hello, Mr. Newbury," he said. "What's your problem? When the palefaces get stuck, they come around to sons of bitches like me for help."
Over lunch at the Panther Falls Diner, I told Catfish about my aunt's troubles.
"Have to think," he said. "Maybe old Eitsinoha can help us out. She ain't what she used to be, on account of having so few followers; but still, a great spirit is a great spirit."
Catfish proved a garrulous joker and storyteller, al- though my aunts would not have approved of many of his jokes.
"A few years ago," he said, "a damn funny thing happened to me. There was an assembly of professors from all over the world, at Ithaca—some learned society. Well, the guys at Cornell wanted to show these frogs and squareheads and dagoes some Indian stuff. Now, I got friends who try to keep up the old dances and ceremonies, and sometimes we put 'em on for pay. So I says, what the hell.
"I got Brant Johnson and Joe Ganogeh, and Joe's two boys, and we went to Ithaca with our feathers and junk. Of course, I know no real old-time Iroquois ever wore a Plains Indian war bonnet. Joe's older boy was the only one with anything like a proper Seneca hair crest and leggings. But these foreigners would never know the difference.
"So we did the corn dance and the war dance and the rest, beside Lake Cayuga, where all these wise guys were having a picnic. They gave us a good hand—all but one frog, a Catholic priest in a long gown and a berry hat. He stood with his back to us.
"When somebody asked why he wasn't watching, he said: 'Je dimontre contre les injustices infliges sur les peaux-rouges!' You know French? This guy didn't know I knew it, on account of I've worked in Quebec. Then one of the Russkies snarled at him: 'Oui, et maintenant par les francais dans 1'Algerie!' This was when the Algerians were giving the French such a hard time that the frogs pulled out a little later.