A String of Beads (2 page)

“All this time, you’ve been watching me?”

“We watch and we listen. Years go by, and the sights and sounds add up,” said Ellen.
“Don’t you think we wanted to see how you turned out? Your mother was an important
member of the Wolf clan. She gave me the dress I wore to my senior prom, and helped
me cut it down to fit. She drove me to Bennett High School in Buffalo so I could take
the SATs and get into college.” Ellen paused. “Then she took me to lunch at the restaurant
in AM and A’s. She was so beautiful. I can still see her.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not making her sound different because she wasn’t born Seneca.”

“Some people are born where they belong, and some have to find their way there,” said
Alma Rivers. “There’s no difference after that.”

Ellen said, “Jimmy needs to be found and persuaded to turn himself in before the police
find him. They think he’s a murderer, someone who killed a man with a rifle. They’ll
be afraid of him, and if he resists, they’ll kill him too.”

“I knew him, and he was a close friend when we were kids,” said Jane. “But that doesn’t
give me—”

“We think the one most likely to find him is you.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Who, then?” asked Ellen. The eight women stared at her, waiting.

Jane kept her head up, her eyes meeting Ellen’s, but there was no answer.

Ellen stood up. “All right, then.” In her hand was a single string of shell beads.
Each shell was tubular, about a quarter inch long and an eighth of an inch thick,
some white and some purple, made from the round shell of the quahog, a coastal clam.

Jane’s eyes widened. The Seneca term was
ote-ko-a
. The rest of the world called it wampum, its name in the Algonquin languages. Ellen
placed the string in Jane’s hand. Jane stared at it—two white, two purple, two white,
two purple, the encoded pattern signifying the Seneca people as a nation. Ote-ko-a
was often mistaken by the outsiders as a form of money, but ote-ko-a had nothing to
do with monetary exchange. It was a sacred commemoration, often of a treaty or important
agreement. Giving a person a single string of ote-ko-a was also the traditional way
for the clan mothers to appoint him to an office or give him an important task. “Come
see us soon.”

“I really don’t know where Jimmy is.” She fingered the single string of shell beads,
feeling its weight—like a chain.

“Of course not,” said Alma Rivers. “I’ll let his mother know to expect you. You were
always a great favorite of hers.”

Dorothy, Daisy, Alma, and the others all stood up too. One by one, they thanked Jane
for her hospitality and hugged her. They were all softness and warmth, and together
they gave off the smells of a whole garden of flowers, some mild and subtle and others
spicy or boisterous. Senecas were tall people. Most of the older generation of women
were shorter than Jane, but when the eight clan mothers hugged her they seemed to
grow and become huge, like the heroes of myths, who only revealed their true size
at special times.

In minutes they were gone, driving off in the two cars to the east toward the reservation.
Jane stood alone in her living room looking down at the single strand of ote-ko-a
she held in her hand. She tried to set it on the mantel, but that seemed wrong, almost
a sacrilege. She put it into her pocket, where she couldn’t help feeling the weight
of it as she went about collecting the cups and dishes.

WHEN CAREY CAME HOME AT
eight, Jane was already preparing. He came in the front door, and she called, “I’m
in here.”

He came into the kitchen dressed in the white shirt and tie he changed into after
his morning surgeries and wore until he’d made his hospital rounds. He kissed her
and said, “Something smells good. Is that dinner?”

“I’m sorry, Carey. When I came home from my run, the clan mothers were here waiting
for me. I had to start hauling things out of the freezer so I wouldn’t seem to be
a terrible wife. As it was, I looked like a madwoman, all sweaty with my hair all
over the place. Dinner is one of the things I pulled out but forgot about, so it started
to thaw. It’s some stew.”

“I remember that stew. I liked it.”

“You’re such a liar.” She poked his stomach with her finger. “But I made you a pie
as an apology. It was the best I could do, up to my armpits in clan mothers.”

“Clan mothers? Not just Ellen Dickerson?”

“All of them.”

“Is that normal?”

“No.” She slipped by him, plucked pieces of silverware out of the drawer, then two
plates, and went into the dining room. She returned and got two water glasses and
two wineglasses.

“So what was it about?”

“What?”

“The visit. All eight clan mothers coming to see you, all in a bunch.”

“That’s another story. I’ll get to it. Meanwhile, I’d rather hear about your day.”

“As surgeries go, they were all good, with no sad stories waiting to be acted out
afterward when the anesthesia wore off. Everybody will be alive on Christmas if they
look both ways before crossing the street for the next few months.”

“Great,” she said. She slipped past him again carrying two plates of salad, then came
back and brought the bowl of stew. “Open a bottle of wine.”

They came to the table, Carey poured the red wine, and Jane ladled the stew into bowls.
They each sat down and took a sip of wine. Carey said, “So stop evading. What did
they want?”

“You know that when I was a kid, my mother and I used to move out to the reservation
every summer. My grandparents had left my father a little house there, and the idea
was that I wouldn’t lose my connection with the tribe, and I’d be better at the language,
and I’d have the fun of running around loose in the woods with the other kids. My
father was always gone in the summer, off in some other state building a bridge or
a skyscraper or something. On the reservation my mother always had a lot of other
women to hang out with.”

“You were lucky. Other kids just got to go to camp and pretend to be Indians.”

“I liked it, and I suppose it gave my father peace of mind to know that she and I
were safe surrounded by a few hundred friends and relatives. I got to spend summers
running around in the woods and hearing people speak Seneca. But I found out today
that the clan mothers were watching me then, and never stopped. They knew things I
didn’t think they knew.”

“Such as?”

“Yes. That. They knew what I was doing for all the years from college until I married
you.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I made a careless mistake one time, or somebody I helped told
them. For all I know, one of them found out in a dream.”

“Have they told anybody else?”

“No. They don’t tell people things. They just know, and maybe they never use what
they know. Or maybe years later they use it when they have to make a decision or solve
a problem.”

“You sound as though you’re afraid of them.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I am, a little. They’re eight ladies, most of them
old, and a little chubby, but they have power—the regular political kind, but something
else, too. When you and I are here in the house together, with the lights on, I believe
in quantum mechanics and the big bang and relativity, and everything else is crap.
But there’s the power of history. When your ancestors built this house, they had to
get the permission, or at least benign acquiescence, of eight clan mothers, who could
just as easily have had them disemboweled and roasted. But I feel something else in
those women. And there’s a ready-made explanation that’s been waiting in the back
of my mind since before I was born, if I let myself pay attention to it. They’re drenched
in
orenda
, the power of good in the world that fights against
otgont
, all the darkness and evil.”

Carey said, “Sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

“Thanks for not laughing at me until I leave the room. What they said was that a little
boy they saw me playing with on the reservation twenty-five or thirty years ago has
grown up, and he’s in trouble. He got into a fight, and a short time later the man
he fought was murdered. He took off and hasn’t turned up.”

“What are you supposed to do about that?”

“They asked me to find him and bring him back.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Find him and bring him back.”

Carey stopped eating and sat back in his chair. His eyes were staring, and he took
several deep breaths. “Really?”

“I know.”

His face was tense with dismay and growing anger. “It’s hardly a year since you came
in the kitchen door barely able to walk. The burns on your back have hardly had time
to heal even now. Tell me—when you go out running, don’t you ever feel a twinge on
your right side and remember what caused it?”

“Of course I do,” she said. “I know this sounds to you as though I’m out of my mind.
But I’m not going off with some stranger who’s got people chasing him down to kill
him. They want me to find an old friend and tell him that coming back is for his own
good.”

“I can’t believe that you’d even consider getting involved in something like this.
We have police. We have courts. In spite of everything, most of the time they do their
jobs and get things right. It almost never makes sense to run away from them. This
is just madness. For a long time you told me this part of your life was over.”

“I’m sorry, Carey. I know this is difficult for you to understand. I don’t want to
go. I especially don’t want to spend any time away from you. But this time I have
to.”

He stared at her for a moment. “If you honestly believe that’s true, then I guess
I have to accept your judgment. I can have my people postpone my appointments and
go with you.”

She shook her head. “They’re not just appointments. They’re surgeries. People could
die if you don’t help them. And what I have to do might be possible if I do it alone.
It won’t be if anyone goes with me. That’s why the clan mothers came to me.”

“You know that if you shelter him from the police, even for a day, you can be arrested
and charged with a crime.”

“I know.”

He sat unmoving. He looked as though he was about to give in to the anger, but she
could tell he was fighting it to keep his composure. “I think you’re making a mistake.
That’s for the record. But I can see you’re going to do it anyway.”

“I’ll try to make it as quick and painless as I can.”

“I hope you succeed.” Dinner was over. He got up, tossed his napkin on the table,
and walked to the staircase.

When Jane finished clearing the table, loading the dishwasher, and cleaning the counters,
she went upstairs. Carey had gone to bed.

3

J
ane drove away from the McKinnon house early the next morning. The traffic on the
New York State Thruway going eastward away from Buffalo was light, even though the
incoming traffic was heavy.

The Tonawanda Reservation was about three miles north of the Thruway, just northeast
of Akron. After the Revolutionary War, George Washington had signed the treaty letting
the Senecas retain roughly two hundred thousand acres of land in this single plot.
During the next half century, a cabal of prominent New York businessmen formed a land
company and stole legal ownership of the reservation with the help of federal Indian
agents who were openly on their payroll. The Tonawanda Senecas, led by the clan mothers,
could only repurchase eight thousand acres. What was left was mainly swampy lowlands
and second-growth forest, but various parts had been farmed as long as the land had
been occupied.

Jane drove through Akron to Bloomingdale Road, then to Hopkins Road. The houses she
passed were all ones she had known since she was born. She knew the people who owned
them, and knew the complicated network of kinship that connected one family with another
throughout the reservation, and even some of the connections with people from other
Haudenosaunee reservations in New York and Canada. Jane turned and drove up to the
house on Sand Hill Road that belonged to the Sanders family. She stopped her white
Volvo beside the road and studied the place for a few seconds. There had always, for
Jane, been a profound feeling of calm in the silence of the reservation. The thruway
and major highways were too many miles away to be heard. The roads on the reservation
didn’t allow for much traffic, and didn’t lead anywhere that big trucks wanted to
go. Today the only sounds were birdsongs and the wind in the tall trees.

The Sanders house was old, but it had a fresh coat of white paint on it, and Jane
was glad to see the shingle roof was recent too. Jane got out and headed for the wooden
steps to the porch. She had always loved the thick, ancient oak that dominated the
yard and shaded the house, so she patted its trunk as she passed. She remembered how
she and Jimmy had made up stories about it when they played together as children.
They agreed that a great sachem had been buried on this spot thousands of years ago,
and an acorn planted above his heart had sprouted into this tree. They decided that
the buried sachem’s power inhabited the tree, and so the tree had always protected
the family from harm.

The front door of the house opened while Jane was still climbing the steps, and Mattie
Sanders came out. “Jane?” she said. “You’re looking wonderful.”

“So are you, Mattie. All I did was grow taller.”

Mattie Sanders hugged Jane tightly. She was about five feet nine inches tall, with
long, thick hair that had been jet black when Jane had come here as a child. Now it
was hanging down her back in a loose silver ponytail, the way Jane wore hers to do
housework. “If you came to see Jimmy, I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

“I heard about his troubles yesterday,” Jane said. “I came to see you.”

“Well, then, come on inside.” Mattie looked up and around her at the sky and the trees.
“Or we could sit out here if you’d like.”

“Out here would be nice,” Jane said. “It’s such a spectacular day.”

“Yes,” said Mattie. “Of course, I see a day like this, and I hope that Jimmy’s somewhere
getting the benefit of it. It could still get cold and wet even at this time of year.”

They went to a small round table on the porch under the roof, and Jane sat in one
of the four chairs. She thought about how pleasant this spot was during a late spring
or summer rain, and felt sorry for Jimmy.

Mattie went through the screen door into the small kitchen. She would feel compelled
to observe the ancient customs, so Jane knew she would be back with food and drinks,
just as Jigonsasee had, six or seven hundred years ago when Deganawida and Hiawatha—the
historical one, not the Ojibway hero Longfellow later used in a poem and gave Hiawatha’s
name—had stopped at her dwelling beside the trail. Jane sat alone and listened to
the chickadees and finches calling to each other in the big old trees. Mattie returned
with a plate of brownies and a pot of tea, and resumed the conversation. “So you heard
about Jimmy’s problems.”

Jane took a brownie and nibbled it. “These are wonderful, just as I remembered them.
Thank you.”

Mattie nodded.

Jane said, “I got a visit from some of my mother’s old friends, and somebody remembered
that Jimmy and I were close friends when we were kids, and thought I’d want to know.”

Mattie looked at Jane’s face for a second, and in that second, Jane knew that she
had already seen through what Jane said to what she hadn’t said.

Jane braved the look, like swimming against a current. “Since I heard, I’ve been worried.
What happened?”

Mattie looked at the surface of the table for a second, then up. “Jimmy isn’t the
boy that you knew, any more than you’re the little girl he knew. You both grew up.
You’re like the woman I thought you would be. Maybe girls are more predictable. He
fooled me. When boys are little you can’t imagine them getting into fights in bars.
Or some of the other things they do either. Jimmy is a good person, a good son, but
he’s all man.”

“Where is he?” asked Jane.

“I don’t know,” said Mattie. “He didn’t say he was leaving. After he was gone he didn’t
call or write to say where he was going or when he’d get there.”

“Do you think he needs help?”

Mattie sighed. “Anyone who’s alone and running needs help, whether he knows it or
not. I just don’t know where he went. And I assume the police are watching me to see
if I get into a car and drive.”

Jane said, “I think I can find him.”

Mattie said, “You can only get in trouble, and that would be twice as bad.”

Jane said, “South?”

Mattie sat motionless for a second, then nodded. “Maybe like you two went south that
time when you were teenagers.”

Jane said, “And how about you, Mattie? Are you getting along okay here?”

Mattie shrugged. “I always have. I have my Social Security, and a pension from the
school system.” Jane remembered Mattie had worked as a janitor in the Akron schools
at night. “I also work four mornings a week at Crazy Jake’s. It gives me a few bucks
to save.” Crazy Jake sold tax-free cigarettes and gasoline just outside the reservation.

Jane said, “If Jimmy gets in touch, please tell him I’d like to help. I know some
good lawyers.”

“We probably wouldn’t have what they charge.”

“I’ll get him a deal.” Jane heard the sound of a car engine, and then the squeak of
springs and shock absorbers as a police car bounced up the road toward them. The car
stopped, a tall state trooper got out and reached for his Smokey Bear hat, put it
on, and walked toward the porch. A second car, this one a black unmarked car, pulled
up behind. The driver sat there staring frankly out the window at the women on the
porch. Jane and Mattie sat motionless as the state trooper climbed the steps to the
porch. “Good morning, Mrs. Sanders,” he said. He nodded to Jane and said, “Ma’am.”
He turned to Mattie. “I came by because I was wondering if you had heard from Jimmy
yet.”

“I haven’t,” said Mattie.

“Sorry about that,” said the trooper. “If he calls or writes, please let him know
we’d like to talk to him. Thanks, ladies.” He got into his car and drove up the road.

Mattie said, “They drive by my house day and night, hoping they’ll see Jimmy. They
must have seen your car and hoped it was him.”

“I suppose that’s to be expected,” Jane said. “I’m surprised they’re so obvious, though.
I guess they thought they couldn’t fool you anyway.” She took another sip of her tea
and finished her brownie. Then she stood and hugged Mattie. “It’s been great to see
you again. I wish it hadn’t been at such a bad time.”

“Me too,” said Mattie.

“I’ll come and see you when things are better.” She bent to kiss Mattie’s cheek. Then
she got into her car and drove. The reservation had only a few roads, and they all
met. She went up Parker Road past Sundown Road to Council House Road.

She took Allegheny Road to Java, where it became Cattaraugus Road. She drove south
to the mechanic’s shop that was owned by the Snows. She pulled close to the garage
doorway, got out, and walked to the front of her car.

“Janie?”

Jane turned her head and saw a dark-skinned man about her age wearing blue work pants,
steel-toed boots, and a gray work shirt with an embroidered patch above the pocket
that said
ray
. Jane stepped up and hugged him. “It’s great to see you, Ray. I was afraid you would
be on vacation or something.”

“No, the guys who work for me get vacations. I’m always here, like the doorknob. Got
a car problem?”

“I wondered if you could do the scheduled maintenance on my car—you know, oil, filter,
lube, check and replace belts and hoses—and then keep it here safe for at least a
week or so.”

“I’d be glad to. You staying around here?”

“I thought I’d go on a hike, like we used to when we were kids.”

Ray Snow’s brows knitted. “You trying to find Jimmy?”

Jane looked around to see if anyone else was in earshot. She smiled and said, “Not
me. That’s the police’s job. I wouldn’t want to get involved.”

“Well, that’s good. A person would have to be stupid to do that.” He whispered, “Give
him my regards.”