Pigs in Heaven (36 page)

The man with the white ponytail tells Earlene, “That was Flester that spilt his coffee on Killie Deal. I read about that in the paper.”

“No, you did not. You’re thinking of when he showed up with coffee all down his shirt sleeve when he was running for Tribal Council.”

Leona Swimmer speaks up for the first time. “Now, why would either one of those things be in the paper? Could somebody tell me?”

Everyone turns to examine Leona. She looks very elegant and commanding, like a schoolteacher.

“Tribal politics, Leona,” Roscoe tells her with polite impatience. “You know that as well as I do.”

“Now, hear ye!” shouts Cash. “If this meeting is over with, which I’d say it pretty much is, I’m inviting Alice and everybody else here in this room to come over to my place right this minute and witness something I’m about to do.”

He turns and walks out of the room. There is a moment of stupefied silence, then a neighborly stampede.

Taylor understands she has lost something she won’t get back. Cash Stillwater is Turtle’s legal guardian. No matter what.

Taylor can still remember the day when she first understood she’d received the absolute power of motherhood—that force that makes everyone else step back and agree that she knows what’s best for Turtle. It scared her to death. But giving it up now makes her feel
infinitely small and alone. She can’t even count her losses yet; her heart is an empty canyon, so she puts her effort into driving.

Somehow she has ended up as caboose in the long line of cars following Cash’s penny-colored pickup truck. She and Turtle seem to have been forgotten for the moment. It dawns on her that she could pull out of line now and head west, and not a soul would notice. But they’re way past that point now. From now until the end of time she is connected to this family that’s parading down Main Street, Heaven. One day soon she will lie in bed with Jax and tell him every detail of this day. The Renaissance Cowboys have got nothing on the Stillwaters, for entertainment value.

“Wait till we tell Jax we want him as your official daddy,” she says to Turtle. “What do you think he’ll do?”

“Maybe put his pants on his head and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Does that mean you’re still my mom?”

“I am. But I have to share you with your grandpa now. He’s going to have a big say in how you’re raised.”

“I know. So I can be a Cherokee when I grow up. Andy Rainbow told me.”

“You like Andy?”

Turtle nods. “Those people in there? Were they Pop-pop’s family?”

“Yep.
Your
family, to be exact.”

“They’re crazy.”

“I know,” Taylor says. “But they’ll probably grow on you.”

The one traffic light in town turns red on her, just after all the others have passed under. Taylor turns on her headlights so people will think it’s a funeral, and floors it right on through the red. Nobody much was coming, anyway. If she gets separated from the others now, she’ll never know how her life is going to come out.

Cash walks out the back door of his cabin carrying his television set, and with a vigorous wordlessness, sets it on a stump. It sits there not
quite level, its short black cord hanging down in a defeated manner. While Cash stomps back inside, the witnesses arrange themselves in a semicircle facing the blank green eye. Nothing in this world, Alice notes, will get people organized and quiet faster than a TV set, even when there is nothing to plug it into but a tree stump.

Turtle takes a hop or two toward the TV, but the girl with the baby on her shoulder gently pulls her back. Taylor reaches forward and takes Turtle’s hand.

Cash appears again, carrying his rifle. “You all move back,” he says, and they waste no time.

“He’s done lost his mind,” Alice says calmly to Taylor.

“You better marry him, then,” Taylor whispers back.

Cash stands a few feet in front of them with his feet wide apart. His shoulders curl forward, hunched and tense, as he lifts the rifle and takes aim. He remains frozen in this position for a very long time. Alice can see the gun barrel over his shoulder, wavering a little, and then she sees his shoulder thrown back at the same instant the gun’s report roars over the clearing. Her ears feel the pain of a bell struck hard. The woods go unnaturally still. All the birds take note of the round black bullet wound in the TV screen, a little right of center but still fatal.

Alice’s heart performs its duties strangely inside her chest, and she understands that her life sentence of household silence has been commuted. The family of women is about to open its doors to men. Men, children, cowboys, and Indians. It’s all over now but the shouting.

This book germinated under the warm ecouragement of friends in the Cherokee Nation, especially Ron Watkins, Nancy Raincrow Pigeon, and Loretta Rapien. Regina Peace, Toby Robles, Carol Locust, and Donna Goldsmith patiently helped me understand the letter and spirit of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Joe Hoffmann, Georgia Pope, Frances Goldin, Sydelle Kramer, and Janet Goldstein helped the story find its way through the woods. Camille Kingsolver gave me five-year-old insights and reasons to keep writing.

The legal dispute decribed in
Pigs in Heaven
is not based on a single case history but was constructed from the materials of exisiting law and historical fact, insofar as I understand them. The specifics of legal process vary among tribes. Other people would tell this story differently, and none of them would be wrong.