Three Days Before the Shooting ... (156 page)

“Hickman, what I’m telling you is true, all of it. He was reminding me that I had gone West and come back from the dead. So I looked at the young man and managed a smile. I myself would have liked to have been his daddy, because then I could have trained him in the ways of the People. Anyway, about that time one of these double-winged airplanes flew low over the houses and I could see the Eagle resting in the top of a tree with the sun glinting on his neck and the point where the white and black feathers formed such a fine pattern. He was looking at that man-made bird with contempt, and then he stared across the yard and into the house at me. So then not knowing what was going to come out I said, ‘I can remember a time when folks used to run out of the house to see one of those—do you remember?’ And he shook his head.

“‘I do,’ I said, ‘just like I remember when the picture shows, the movies, first came to town. But that was long before you were born.’

“So he just looked at me and remained silent. Then I rocked a bit in my chair and looked out to where the sun filtered through the leaves of the trees. By now my right foot had started itching and aching, and on the rug my big toe began drawing a circle—as though it was remembering and meant to get on with the ritual even though I was reluctant.

“‘That’s Mrs. Gresham’s chicken yard over there,’ I said, ‘and there’s an eagle hanging in the sky above it….’

“So then he bent over and looked out, and after a while he said, ‘Where is it? I don’t see it and neither do those chickens.’

“So I thought, Well at least he hasn’t forgot everything he used to know. And sho enough, when I looked out those chickens were scratching the ground and dusting their feathers undisturbed. But when I took a look at the sky the Eagle was still there. And by that I knew that he was
my
Eagle, the Eagle of the People, and the same who instructed me after I had died and been chosen to possess the People’s Medicine. I knew then that I was really in trouble….

“So I told the boy, ‘Although you don’t see him and can’t, I do. He’s my own Eagle, the one who instructed me after I died and whose spirit entered me when I was chosen to be the vessel of the People’s medicine. I told you about it when you were little, but you don’t remember.’

“To that he was silent, but he looked at me with doubt in his eyes.

“So I said, ‘Here’s how it is so there’ll be no confusion: You call it science, psychology, and other such words, but the People put them all together and call it medicine.’

“‘I understand,’ he says, then he gets quiet but he’s pressing me hard.

“‘I believe you do,’ I says. ‘You’ve read some of those cowboy-and-Indian stories and seen moving pictures, so you have that kind of understanding. But I’m speaking of something more serious. What I mean by medicine is the feeling and understanding that connects a man both to his people and to those who came before him. To the elements and animals, and to all that lies deepest in his own mind.’

“Well, to this he just nods his head, but he keeps asking me with eyes that keep pressing. So I look out again and see that the Eagle is still there, hovering in the air like a kite against the sky. The chickens were still there too—white leghorns and demoniacs, but they were all the boy could see. Being of the People, I could see both, and therefore I was still being reminded of my oath and my duty. And that’s exactly where he had me, and had me even though he didn’t know it. But I understood. He was pressing me because he was desperate and I was old and had been here and known his mother. Yes, but he couldn’t see the Eagle who was helping him. Then I tried to con myself. I told myself that maybe I was caught up in a coincidence, because I couldn’t see where the boy fitted into what was happening. That maybe the Eagle had returned for other reasons.

“So I said, ‘Old friend, why’d you come back?’—speaking to the Eagle—but not understanding what was happening the boy said, ‘Because I
had
to.’

“So I nodded to the Eagle and looked at the boy. ‘Drink your whiskey,’ I said. ‘Or if that man’s drink is too strong there’s some soda pop in the icebox.’

“Which made him look up like he’d been challenged—which was true—and he took a drink of the liquor.

“I said, ‘One day there were three men who drove into town in an automobile. They came from the East, and I was standing down there in front of the drugstore talking with the man who published the newspaper we had at the time. So I had a good look at the three and at the car.

“‘On the backseat where one was riding they had a lot of round shallow cans all strapped together, and strapped to the running boards there were big lights on black stands and what turned out to be a movie projector….’

“Then I stopped and studied his face and saw a puzzled look take over his eyes. But he didn’t break the silence, and when I looked out and saw the Eagle I knew by that I would have to keep going.

“So then I asked the boy, ‘How old are you now?’ and he said, ‘Twenty-six.’

“Then this was sometime before you were born,’ I told him and waited. In fact, it was no more than nine or ten months before. But since even men who are conceived in the light are born in the dark, I didn’t feel it wise to go further. Because even though what he wanted to know was things that could be seen in the daylight, daylight has its own dark places and shadows.

“I said, ‘These three fellows from the East brought along some presents; Kewpie dolls, and little bottles of five-and-dime perfume, chocolate candy in boxes tied with red ribbons, shiny pictures of actresses and actors, and other such junk.
Stuff they must have got from bankrupt carnivals and circuses. Later we found out that they meant to give it to the young women.’

“‘What kind of men were they?’ he said, and I told him. I said, ‘That was Editor Dunhawse’s question, who said, “Tell me, Love, what manner of men are these?” ‘ And I said, ‘Well, Editor, there’s three of them and they come here from the East, so draw your own conclusions.’ Then Editor slapped me on the back and laughed. But the boy just stared and kept pressing.

“So I said, ‘We could see that there were only three of them and they all looked white. Later we learned that one was a Rebel, one was a Jew, and one was black. Or at least that’s what he
said he
was, even though you couldn’t tell it from looking at him.

“‘In looks he was like the others, but not in his actions. Wore the same high-laced boots as the others, the same khaki shirt and britches as the others, and like them he wore his cloth cap with the bill turned to the rear, like he was looking backwards while walking forward. And like them he wore the same kind of goggles on his forehead like he was keeping a weather eye out for bad weather. In all this he was like the others, but although he was always in an agitated rush like a caged badger he was more inward and quieter than his buddies. And it turned out that he was also the leader and the shrewdest among them. He was as white as them too, even though he said he was black.’

“‘What did you think?’ the boy asked me, and with that I knew he was hooked.

“I said, ‘Look at me: To the eye I’m black, and before you were taken from Janey folks considered you black. So think about the difference between us. There are many ways of being black. There are the ways of the skin, and the ways of custom, and the way a man feels inside him. So I had no way of knowing how this one felt inside, but if he could appreciate the hardship and rewards—Yao!—and the honor of being taken for black it was fine with me. But
whatever
this fellow happened to be, I could see that he was definitely different. A heap of other folks did too, and they accepted it as being due to his being black behind a white skin. Some of the religious State Negroes were even glad that he was black because it made the three seem more like those wise men who were supposed to come out of the East.’

“At this the boy laughed and I joined him, because it was good to join him in a joke after so long a time. But while I was laughing I could see the Eagle making agitated movements high above the trees, where he was plunging and rising and beating his wings like he was attacking a sidewinder or rattler. Which meant that I had to keep going.

“I said, ‘The three fellows didn’t spend much time in the street that evening. For a while they just sat in that auto looking out from behind those goggles, then they got out and stretched and began asking questions. That was about all. Then the tall one, the one who had been sitting in the backseat with the camera, he
came up to me and was about to ask me a question when something in my face stood him off. So he veered away and put his question to the crowd that had gathered.

“‘He wanted to know where he could find the moving-picture house, and before anybody else could tell him, Logan’s little bowlegged boy was out in the middle of the street pointing down the block to where it stood. At the time it was only a sheet-metal shed, but Logan’s little jaybird of a boy was yelling, “There it is, Mister, it’s right down there. We have us a keen one!”

“‘So the three fellows took a look and exchanged a word or two between them.

“‘By now the crowd was all set to pile after them, with Logan’s little boy in the lead. But instead of giving the place a closer inspection—its name was the Sunset—they climbed back into that car, a Franklin, and drove west, up the hill and down to the main business section.’

“So then the boy said, ‘Why are you telling me this?’ and I tightened the reins.

“‘Just listen,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where they went down there, but they came back in the night. Because when I went out the next morning they had posted their paper on every fence, building, and lamppost in the section. Even on a few of the trees, the big ones.’

“‘Paper,’ he said. ‘What kind of paper?’

“‘Posters,’ I said, ‘playbills. Back when I worked with the 101 Ranch we called it paper. The ranch had the names of the top acts and pictures of cowboys, Indians, and circus girls on them. There’s one with a picture of Bill Pickett on it tacked to the wall over there.’

“So he got up and took a look. Then he sat back down and said, ‘I remember Pickett, he was a bulldogger.’ ”

“Me too,” Hickman said. “I saw that outfit any number of times, but what were they doing with the 101 Ranch?”

“Training horses,” Love said. “The boy asked me the same thing and I answered him with a question. I said, ‘Don’t you remember Astarte, that gaited mare of mine? You ought to, because you used to tag along begging me for a ride.’ So then he remembered how I used to exercise her in the afternoon, and how all the younguns would come running to watch me put her through her paces. He seemed to get pleasure from remembering how she high-stepped, waltzed, and cakewalked along the street while younguns like him sang her the music. But then the smile died on his face, so I got back to the three strangers.

“I said, ‘So next morning they had posters up announcing that they were making a movie….’

“‘A moving picture,’ he said. ‘What kind, and why make it out here?’

“‘That’s just it,’ I told him. ‘The posters didn’t say what kind it would be, but what got everybody so excited was the news that they’d be using neighborhood folks for the actors, and that they’d be running a contest to see which of the young women would win the part of the leading lady.’

“‘The leading lady,’ he said, ‘well, I’ll be damn!’ ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘The young woman who raised the most money by selling the most tickets would end up playing the part of the female lead.’

“So with that he got still and sat there staring at me. Then my nose started bleeding again and I wiped it away and wondered what he was making of what I was telling him. Because after all the time that’s passed and all the things that’s happened, when you tell a youngster a thing like that it sounds like a lie and the damndest gimmick those three could have come up with. But that’s always the way it is when you put one thing after another in words. You have to leave out all the things that surrounded it at the time it was happening. It’s like looking at a stuffed grizzly after all the power and the fierceness is gone. So I studied the boy’s face, but all I could tell was that he wasn’t letting up the pressure, no matter how much he might doubt what I was saying. He was still pressing, forcing me back into those days and times. Then I saw the Eagle again and knew I was wrestling with him as well, because I had no way of knowing if I was getting at the boy’s question.

“So I hushed for a while and took me a drink and just let myself climb back to those times so that I could see things more clearly. And right away I was looking for the girl who became his mother. But it was later, after the three fellows had whirled through here and took off. By then she’d got caught, missed her monthlies, and with the boy on the way she came to me for advice. That’s how it was….”

“But why
you
,“Hickman said, “instead of a doctor or Janey?”

“And you call yourself a man of medicine? A man of both worlds? Hell, it was because she was ashamed and protecting her secret. I was not of the town, so maybe she came to me because at some time or another her folks on the reservation down at Anadarko had told her that I was of the Eagle; I don’t know. But she came to me in much sorrow and pain of her spirits, so I told her:

“‘So this thing has come to you which according to some is a very bad thing. But since the seed has sprouted and taken its root, you can’t dig it up. So without instruction you have entered into the mystery of womanhood, and being a man I have no knowledge of how to undo what has happened, and wouldn’t even if I did. For while you’re of the town you are also of the People, and that is not our way.’ Then I shook my head and waited.

“‘But what shall I do?’ she said, and I told her. ‘Think about it a bit and you’ll see that it’s the State part of you that’s unhappy, not the part that’s of the People. That part is happy because a beautiful girl has begun the cycle which connects her with them and to the things of nature. You are both of the People and of the State Negroes, so use it to your advantage. While you wait for your time stretch out your arms to nature. Listen to the singing of the birds and don’t worry about the gossip of those who are mean and narrow. You have education, so now is the time for reading good books. Read all you can of the best you can find and do not worry. Because what is happening will happen as it has happened to others. It
will be a trial but not important because you are young and healthy. So watch the rising of the moon and the sun and their setting, and give yourself up to their rhythms. Listen to the shrill of the hawk and the call of the quail at sundown,’ I told her. ‘And watch how the smoke weaves in the sky in the quiet of the day, and hear the story told by the wind as it passes through the fields and the trees. Listen to the talk of the trains in the nighttime, and to the argument between the wheels of the freights and the sleepers lying under the hot steel rails. And study the stars. Study the stars and learn tranquillity and the long view of life, the view of the People. Yes, and drink of the clear water and warm milk. Go sit on the earth alone and think in the moonlight so that you can communicate with yourself as you listen to the thunder of the great drum in the sky.’