Boy's Life (50 page)

4
The Wrath of Five Thunders

ON MONDAY MORNING I FOUND THE DEMON HAD SPURNED ME. She had eyes now only for Ladd Devine, and her fickle fingers left the back of my neck alone. It was the birthday card that had done it, and Ladd’s unknowing declaration that he had sent it. Ladd was going to be a really good football player when he got to high school; between then and now, he would be getting plenty of practice running and dodging.

     There was one last incident in the tale of the Demon’s birthday. I asked her at recess, as she watched Ladd passing a football to Barney Gallaway, how her party had been. She looked at me as if I were one shade short of invisible. “Oh, we had fun,” she said, her stare going back to the young football star. “My relatives came and ate ice cream and cake.”

     “Did you get any presents?”

     “Uh-huh.” She began to chew on a dirty fingernail, her hair stringy and oily and hanging in her face. “My momma and daddy gave me a nurse kit, my aunt Gretna gave me a pair of gloves she knitted, and my cousin Chile gave me a dried flower wreath to hang over my door for good luck.”

     “That’s good,” I said. “That’s real—”

     I had been about to move away. Now I stopped in my tracks.

     “Chile?” I said. “What’s her last name?”

     “Purcell. Used to be, I mean. She got married to a fella and the stork brought ’em a little bitty baby.” The Demon sighed. “Oh, ain’t Ladd just the handsomest thing?”

      God has a sense of humor that gets my goat sometimes.

     September dwindled away, and one morning it was October. The hills were streaked with red and gold, as if some magician had painted the trees almost overnight. It was still hot in the afternoons, but the mornings began to whisper about sweaters. This was Indian summer, when you saw those purple-and-red-grained ears of corn in baskets in the grocery store and an occasional dead leaf chuckled along the sidewalk.

     We had Show-and-Tell Day at our grade in school, which meant that everybody got to bring something important and tell why it was. I brought an issue of
Famous Monsters
to class, the sight of which would probably set Leatherlungs off like a Roman candle but would make me a hero of the oppressed. Davy Ray brought his “I Get Around” record, and the picture of an electric guitar he hoped to learn to play when his parents could afford lessons. Ben brought a Confederate dollar. Johnny brought his collection of arrowheads, all kept in separate drawers in a metal fishing-tackle box and protected by individual cotton balls.

     They were a wonder to behold. Small and large, rough and smooth, light and dark: they beckoned the imagination on a journey into the time when the forest was unbroken, the only light was cast from tribal fires, and Zephyr existed only in a medicine man’s fever. Johnny had been gathering the arrowheads ever since I’d known him, in the second grade. While the rest of us were running and playing without a moment’s interest in that dusty crevice known as history, Johnny was searching the wooded trails and creekbeds for a sharp little sign of his heritage. He had collected over a hundred, lovingly cleaned them—but no shellac, that would be an insult to the hand that carved the flint—and tucked them away in the tackle box. I imagined he took them out at night, in his room, and over them he dreamed of what life was like in Adams Valley two hundred years ago. I wondered if he imagined there were four Indian buddies who had four dogs and four swift ponies, and that they lived in tepees in the same village and talked about life and school and stuff. I never asked him, but I think he probably did.

     Before school began that morning of show-and-tell—which I had been dreading for several days because of what the Demon would offer up for appraisal—the guys and I met where we usually did, near the monkey bars on the dusty playground, our bikes chained to the fence along with dozens of others. We sat in the sun because the morning was cool and the sky was clear. “Open it,” Ben said to Johnny. “Come on, let’s see.”

     It didn’t take much urging for Johnny to flip up the latch. He may have kept them protected like rare jewels, but he wasn’t stingy about sharing their magic. “Found this one last Saturday,” he said as he opened a wad of cotton and brought a pale gray arrowhead to the light. “You can tell whoever did this was in a hurry. See how the cuts are so rough and uneven? He wasn’t takin’ his time about it. He just wanted to make an arrowhead so he could go shoot somethin’ to eat.”

     “Yeah, and from the size of it I’ll bet all he got was a gopher,” Davy Ray commented.

     “Maybe he was a sorry shot,” Ben said. “Maybe he knew he’d probably lose it.”

     “Could be,” Johnny agreed. “Maybe he was a boy, and this was his first one.”

     “If I’d had to depend on makin’ arrowheads to eat,” I said, “I would’ve dried up and blown away mighty fast.”

     “You sure have got a lot of them.” Ben’s fingers might have been itching to explore in the tackle box, but he was respectful of Johnny’s property. “Have you got a favorite one?”

     “Yeah, I do. This is it.” Johnny picked up a wad of cotton, opened it, and showed us which one.

     It was black, smooth, and almost perfectly formed.

     I recognized it.

     It was the arrowhead Davy Ray had found in the deep woods on our camping trip.

     “That’s a beauty,” Ben agreed. “Looks like it’s been oiled, doesn’t it?”

     “I just cleaned it, that’s all. It does shine, though.” He rubbed the arrowhead between his brown fingers, and he placed it in Ben’s pudgy hand. “Feel it,” Johnny said. “You can hardly feel any cuts on it.”

     Ben passed it to Davy Ray, who passed it to me. The arrowhead had one small chip in it, but it seemed to melt into your hand. Rubbing it in your palm, it was hard to tell where arrowhead stopped and flesh began. “I wonder who made this one,” I said.

     “Yeah, I’d like to know, too. Whoever did it wasn’t in any hurry. Whoever did it wanted to have a good arrowhead, one that would fly true, even if he lost it. Arrowheads were more than just the tips of arrows to Indians; they were like money, and they showed how much care you put into things. They showed how good of a hunter you were, whether you needed a lot of cheap old arrowheads to do the job, or if you had the time to make a few you could count on. I sure would like to know who made it.”

     This seemed important to Johnny. “I’ll bet it was a chief,” I offered.

     “A
chief?
Really?” Ben’s eyes got wide.

     “He’s fixin’ to make up a story,” Davy Ray told him. “Can’t believe a thing he says from here on out.”

     “Sure it was a chief!” I said adamantly. “Yes, he was a chief and he was the youngest chief the tribe ever had! He was twenty years old and his father was a chief before him!”

     “Oh, brother!” Davy Ray pulled his knees up to his chest, a knowing smile on his face. “Cory, if there’s ever a biggest-liar-in-town contest, you’ll win first prize for sure!”

     Johnny smiled, too, but his eyes were keen with interest. “Go on, Cory. Let’s hear about him. What was his name?”

     “I don’t know. It was… Runnin’ Deer, I—”

     “That’s no good!” Ben said. “That’s a girl Indian’s name! Make his name… oh… a warrior’s name. Like Heap Big Thundercloud!”

     “Big Heap Do-Do!” Davy Ray cackled. “That’s you, Ben!”

     “His name was Chief Thunder,” Johnny said, looking directly at me and ignoring the squabbling duo. “No. Chief
Five
Thunders. Because he was tall and dark and—”

     “Cross-eyed,” Davy Ray said.

     “Had a clubfoot,” Johnny finished, and Davy Ray shut up his giggling.

     I paused, the arrowhead gleaming on my palm.

     “Go ahead, Cory,” Johnny urged in a quiet voice. “Tell us a story about him.”

     “Chief Five Thunders.” I was thinking, weaving the story together, as my fingers squeezed and relaxed around the warm flint. “He was a Cherokee.”

     “Creek,” Johnny corrected me.

     “Creek, like I said. He was a Creek Indian, and his father was a chief but his father got killed when he was out huntin’. He went out huntin’ for deer, and they found him where he’d fallen off a rock. He was dyin’, but he told his son he’d seen Snowdown. Yes, he had. He’d seen Snowdown up close, close enough to see that white skin and those antlers that were as big as trees. He said as long as Snowdown lived in the woods, the world would keep goin’. But if anybody ever killed Snowdown, the world would end. Then he died, and Five Thunders was the new chief.”

     “I thought a chief had to fight to get to be chief,” Davy Ray said.

     “Well, sure he did!” I answered. “Everybody knows that. He had to fight a whole bunch of braves who thought they ought to be chief. But he liked peace better than he liked fightin’. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight when he had to, it was just that he knew when to fight and when not to fight. But he had a temper, too. That’s why they didn’t call him just ‘One Thunder’ or ‘Two Thunders.’ He didn’t get mad very much, but when he did—look out! It was like five thunders boomin’ out all at the same time.”

     “The bell’s about to ring,” Johnny said. “What happened to him?”

     “He… uh… he was the chief for a long, long time. Until he got to be sixty years old. Then he passed bein’ chief to his son, Wise Fox.” I glanced toward the entrance; kids were starting to go into the school. “But Five Thunders was the chief they remembered best, because he kept peace between his tribe and the other tribes, and when he died they took his best arrowheads and scattered them around the woods for people to find a hundred years later. Then they carved his name in a rock and they buried his body in the secret Indian burial ground.”

     “Oh, yeah?” Davy Ray grinned. “Where’s that?”

     “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s a secret.”

     They groaned. The bell rang, summoning the kids in. I returned the arrowhead of Five Thunders to Johnny, who wrapped it in cotton and returned it to the tackle box. We stood up and started walking across the playground, puffs of dust rising behind our heels. “Maybe there really was somebody like Chief Five Thunders,” Johnny said as we neared the door.

     “Sure there was!” Ben spoke up. “Cory said so, didn’t he?”

     Davy Ray made a noise like the breaking of wind, but I knew he didn’t mean it. He had a part to play in our group—the part of scoffer and agitator—and this he played very well. I knew what Davy Ray was inside; after all, it was he who had brought Five Thunders to life.

     I heard Ladd Devine hollering, “Get away from me with those squirrel heads!” Some girl screamed and somebody shouted, “Oh,
gross!
” The Demon was in her element.

     As I had predicted, the sight of cinematic monsters in her classroom enraged Leatherlungs. She threw a tantrum that made one of Five Thunders’ outbreaks seem more like Half-a-Pipsqueak. Leatherlungs demanded to know if my parents knew what kind of garbage I was stuffing my mind with. Then she went into a tirade about how all decency and thoughtfulness in this world was going to ruin, just going to ruin, and why wasn’t I interested in good reading instead of this monster trash? I just sat there and took it on the chin, like I was supposed to. Then the Demon opened up the shoebox she’d brought and stuck it in Leatherlungs’ face and the sight of those four squirrel heads crawling with ants and their eyes poked out with a toothpick made Leatherlungs beat a hasty retreat to the teachers’ lounge.

     At last the three o’clock bell rang, and school was behind us for another day. We left Leatherlungs reduced to a raspy whisper. Out on the playground under the hot afternoon sun, clouds of dust stormed through the air as kids ran for freedom. As usual, Davy Ray was ragging Ben about something or other. Johnny put his tackle box on the ground as he unlocked his bike chain, and I knelt down to work the combination lock that secured Rocket.

     It happened very fast. Such things always do.

     They came out of the dust. I felt them before I saw them. The skin at the back of my neck drew tight.

     “Four little pussies, all in a row,” came the first taunt.

     My head whipped around, because I knew that voice. Davy Ray and Ben ceased their wrangling. Johnny looked up, his eyes darkening with dread.

     “There they are,” Gotha Branlin said, with Gordo at his side. They wore their grins like open razors, their black bikes crouched behind them. “Ain’t they sweet, Gordo?”

     “Yeah, ain’t they?”

     “What’s this?” With one quick movement, Gotha tore from my hand the magazine I’d brought for show-and-tell. It ripped along the staples, and on the cover Christopher Lee’s Count Dracula hissed with impotent rage. “Look at this shit!” Gotha told his brother, and Gordo laughed at a picture of the sleek female robot from
Metropolis
. “I can see her fuckin’ titties!” Gordo said. “Gimme it!” He grabbed the page, Gotha grabbed for it, and between their hands the picture dissolved as if consumed by acid. Gotha got most of it, though—the part showing a glimpse of metallic breasts—and it went down crumpled and dirty in his jeans pocket. Gordo squalled, “You shithole, give it here!” and he wrenched at the rest of the magazine while Gotha pulled at it, too. In another second the rest of the staples surrendered and pages of dark and glittering dreams, heroes and villains and fantastic visions, fluttered through the dust like bats in daylight. “You
ruined
it!” Gotha shrieked, and he shoved his brother so hard Gordo slammed to the ground on his back and a geyser of saliva shot from his mouth. Gordo sat up, his face swollen with rage and his eyes unspeakable, but Gotha cocked a fist back and stood over him like Godzilla over Ghidrah. “Come on and try it!” Gotha said. “Just come on!”