Montana 1948 (14 page)

“He's supposed to have beaten up some Indian,” Grandfather said.

“What?” asked my father. “What are you saying?”

“That's what Gloria said. Something about assaulting a goddamn Indian. Since when do you get arrested in this part of the country for taking a poke at a man, red or white, that's what I—”

“Whoa!” my father interrupted. “Wait. What did Gloria say?”

My grandmother's faint, quavering voice answered him. “She said you arrested Frank for assaulting an Indian.”

My father must have gotten up, because his voice grew louder and softer as if he were moving back and forth in the room. “Mom. Dad. I didn't arrest Frank for simple assault. I don't know what Gloria told you. This is for sexual assault. I arrested Frank for . . . for taking liberties with his patients. With his Indian patients.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake!” Grandfather said. “What kind of bullshit is this?”

“There's cause. I've done some investigating, Dad.”

“You—
investigating?”
In those two words I heard how little respect my grandfather had for my father and anything he did.

“I've even found some women who are willing to testify. And some others who aren't quite ready to talk. Yet. But I'm betting that once they see their friends come forward, they will too. There are a lot of them, Pop. A lot.”

The living room fell so silent I checked to make sure the register hadn't flapped shut.

Then my mother spoke, in the accomodating, eager-to-please way that she used only with Grandfather and Grandmother Hayden: “We could hardly believe it ourselves.”

Misinterpreting what my mother said, Grandmother quickly, hopefully, said, “A girl could be so easily mistaken. A trip to the doctor. The fear. The confusion. An Indian girl especially—”

“Please, Mom,” said my father. “Not
a
girl.
Many.
There's something to this. Please. Don't make me say more.”

“Go on,” Grandfather said, “get on out of here. Let him say it to me.”

My mother said, “Come on, Enid. Let's go out to the kitchen.”

For a moment I thought of changing my station, of running to a different register so I could hear what my mother and grandmother would talk about, but since the conversation in the living room promised to be more revealing, I stayed put.

“Ever since the war,” Grandfather began, “ever since Frank
came home in a uniform and you stayed here, you've been jealous. I saw it. Your mother saw it. The whole goddamn town probably saw it. But I thought you'd have the good sense not to do anything. Now you pull a fucking stunt like this. I should've taken you aside and got you straightened out. If it meant whipping your ass I should've got you straightened out.”

There was another long silence before my father said softly, “Is that what you think?”

“That fucking uniform. If I could've got you in one, maybe we wouldn't have this problem.”

“Is that what you think.” This time it was not a question.

“What the hell am I supposed to think? Screwing an Indian. Or feeling her up or whatever. You don't lock up a man for that. You don't lock up your brother. A respected man. A war hero.”

“Stop it, Dad. Just stop.”

But I could tell Grandfather couldn't stop. He had his voice revved up—after all the grumbling, the motor caught and couldn't be shut off. “Is this why I gave you that goddamn badge? So you could arrest your own brother?”

“Don't try to tell me law. Don't.”

“Some Indian thinks he put his hands where he shouldn't and you're pulling out your badge.”

“It's not that. If it was only that....” Here my father's voice faded. I couldn't tell if he was walking away or if he had come up against something he didn't want to talk about.

Grandfather continued to press. “Well, what is it? What
the hell's so big you have to take an Indian's side and run your brother in?”

My father said something that I couldn't hear. Neither could Grandfather, because he said, “What? What are you saying? Goddamn, speak up!”

My father's single-word response boomed so loudly I pulled back from the register.

“Murder!” my father shouted. And a second time even louder:
“Murder!”

What sounded like a gasp—it had to be Grandmother's, as she and my mother ran into the room at my father's shout—came rushing through the grate like a blast of hot air from the furnace. And then something occurred to me that made it difficult for me to put my ear back to the register.

On the other end of the house, in the basement, Uncle Frank might have been doing exactly what I was doing, listening to his family's voices boom through the ductwork and discuss his fate. And to hear the shouted word “murder,” Uncle Frank wouldn't need the aid of the heating system.

I couldn't shake the image—my uncle Frank with his ear to the basement ventilator—and then it seemed to me that if I were to return to my listening post, Uncle Frank and I could be connected, two ears attached to the same sheet-metal system. And what if Frank should speak, should suddenly shout his innocence—his voice would travel the entire house unheard to arrive at my ear!

After a couple of moments I calmed down. The voices
below were going on without me, like a furnace that doesn't care if anyone is there to feel its heat or not.

Grandmother was sobbing, a series of jerky breaths like hiccups.

Grandfather said, “My God, boy. Look at this. Look at what you've done to her.”

My mother said, “Here. Let me.”

“I'm sorry,” said my father.

“Who the hell's dead anyway?”

“Marie.”

“She was sick! She had pneumonia, for Christ's sake!”

“He didn't deny it, Pop. There's evidence—”

Grandmother's crying intensified, and I could tell she was having trouble breathing.

“Evidence? What kind of evidence? Go-to-court evidence or a wild hair-up-your-ass evidence?”

“That's for Mel Paddock to decide.”

“You brought Mel in on this?”

“Not yet.”

“My God. My God, boy. Stop this now. Stop this before I have to.”

“This isn't for any of us to stop or start. This has to go its own way.”

Not for any of us? I thought again of how I held my uncle in the sights of my pistol, of how I held, even tighter, the secret information that Uncle Frank had been in our house the afternoon Marie died.

“Oh, Wesley, Wesley,” Grandmother said in that special
tone that mothers use when pleading with their sons. Could my father withstand its power? I couldn't hear him make any response.

“Get up,” said Grandfather in a calmer voice. “Let's go. We're not going to beg him.”

There was a general rustling about, some footsteps, and I knew they were moving toward the front door and away from my hearing. I heard my mother's voice, but the only word I could make out was “please.”

The front door closed, but I waited before going downstairs. I don't know what I was apprehensive about: my grandparents were gone, my uncle was locked in the basement, yet I had reached the point where I was afraid of being with my parents as well. There was so much unpredictable behavior going on that it seemed unwise to depend on anyone. For the moment it felt safer to remain alone on the bedroom floor, within earshot yet out of sight and reach.

What finally lifted me from the floor and moved me back down the stairs? It was trivial, yet it bore out what a boy I was when all this was going on. In the kitchen was chocolate cake. My father had stopped at Cox's Bakery the day before and bought a cake, and it was sitting on the counter. A murderer may have been locked up a floor below and the molecules of his victim's dying breath still floating in the air, yet these were not strong enough finally to stand up to my boy's hunger for chocolate cake.

As I approached the kitchen where my parents were, I heard my father say, “Help me with this, Gail,” and a chair
scraped across the linoleum. I thought he might be moving furniture or changing a light bulb and needed her help.

I was wrong.

I came into the kitchen and saw my mother sitting by the table. My father was on his knees before her, and his head was on her lap. She was rubbing the back of his neck in a way that was instantly recognizable to me: it was exactly the way she rubbed my neck when I had a headache. Overhead, insects flew frantic circles around the kitchen light.

Before I could speak my mother saw me and said so softly I wondered for an instant if my father was sleeping, “Hello, David.”

My father lifted his head and I could tell by his red-rimmed eyes that he had been crying. But that was not what concerned me.

At that moment my father looked so
old
(he was only thirty-eight at the time), and I knew for the first time how this experience with his brother was ruining him physically. Was that the moment I realized my father would die someday? Perhaps. At any rate I knew that the puffiness around his eyes, the deepening creases of worry across his forehead and around his mouth, his pallor, his slow, stiffening gait were all signs that he was growing weaker. I also knew that to continue to stand up to Grandfather, my father needed all the strength he possessed. And perhaps that would still not be enough.

As if she could read my mind, my mother said, “Your father's just tired, David.”

Using his good leg to brace himself, my father pushed himself to his feet. “We're all tired,” he said. “Let's hit the hay.”

I wasn't tired, and I didn't want to go to bed. I wanted my parents to tell me what happened when Grandfather and Grandmother were there. Though I knew exactly what was said, I wanted my parents to interpret it all for me. I wanted them to explain it so it wasn't as bad as the facts made it seem.

But since my father was embarrassed because I saw him on the floor, I had to go to bed. My mother gave me a sympathetic look but said nothing. I turned to go up to my room but my father stopped me.

“David.”

“Yes.”

“If Grandpa should come here when I'm not home, you're not to let him in, understand?”

“What should I say?”

“You don't have to say anything. Just don't answer the door. It'll be locked. Front and back both.”

“What about Grandma?”

My father blinked and tilted his head back the way you do when you're trying to keep tears from spilling over. “Not Grandma either.”

“Not ever?”

“Not until I tell you different.”

That night I cried for the first time since that whole sad, sordid, tragic set of events began. My tears, however, were not for Marie, whom I loved, or my uncle, whom I once idolized, or for my parents or grandparents or for my community or my life in it—all, all changed, I knew, by what had happened. But that night I cried myself to sleep because I believed that I would never see my horse, Nutty, again. I remembered the way he lowered and twisted his head when I approached, as if he were waiting for me to whisper something in his ear, that long ear whose touch reminded me of felt. I remembered how I used to rub my fingertips against the grain of the tight, short hair of his forehead and then smooth the hair back down again. I remembered how, when I first put my foot in the stirrup, he seemed to splay out his legs slightly, as if he were lowering himself and bracing for my mount. One of the great regrets of my childhood had always been that I couldn't live on the same grounds as my horse. Now the distance between us seemed too great for either Nutty or me to travel ever again.

The next day was hot and windy. My mother stayed home from work, and though she said it was because she had a headache, I knew that was not the reason. She was staying home so I wouldn't have to be alone in the house with Uncle Frank. Early that morning my father took breakfast down to Frank and stayed down there about half an hour. When he came up he said to my mother, “I'm going to see what other arrangements we can make.”