Love Medicine Read online

“I didn’t know you could run so fast.”

  “We had that rope around her neck and looped over the tree, and poor June was shaking, she was so scared. But we never would have done it.”

  “Yes!” asserted Zelda. “You meant to!”

  “Oh, I licked you two good,” Grandma remembered. “Aurelia, you and Gordie both.”

  “And then you took little June in the house. Zelda broke down suddenly.

  Aurelia put her hands to her face. Then, behind her fingers, she made a harsh sound in her throat. “Oh Mama, we could have killed her.

  Zelda crushed her mouth behind a fist.

  “But then she came in the house. You wiped her face off,” Aurelia remembered. “That June. She yelled at me. “I wasn’t scared! You damn chicken!” And then Aurelia started giggling behind her hands.

  Zelda put her fist down on the table with surprising force.

  “Damn chicken!” said Zelda.

  “You had to lick her too.” Aurelia laughed, wiping her eyes.

  “For saying hell and damn Grandma nearly lost her—god” balance.

  “Then she got madder yet …… I said.

  “That’s right!” Now Grandma’s chin was pulled up to hold her laughter back. “She called me a damn old chicken. Right there!

  A damn old hen!”

  Then they were laughing out loud in brays and whoops, sopping tears in their aprons and sleeves, waving their hands helplessly.

  Outside, King’s engine revved grandly, and a trickle of music started up.

  “He’s got a tape deck in that car,” Mama said, patting her heart, her hair, composing herself quickly. “I suppose that cos ted extra money.

  The sisters sniffed, fished Kleenex from their sleeves, glanced pensively at one another, and put the story to rest.

  “King wants to go off after they eat and find Gordie,” Zelda thought out loud. “He at Eli’s place? It’s way out in the bush.”

  “They expect to get Uncle Ell to ride in that new car,” said Grandma in strictly measured, knowing tones.

  “Eli won’t ride in it.” Aurelia lighted a cigarette. Her head shook back and forth in scarves of smoke. And for once Zelda’s head shook, too, in agreement, and then Grandma’s as well. She rose, pushing her soft wide arms down on the table.

  “Why not?” I had to know. “Why won’t Eli ride in that car?”

  “Albertine don’t know about that insurance.” Aurelia pointed at me with her chin. So Zelda turned to me and spoke in her low, prim, explaining voice.

  “It was natural causes, see. They had a ruling which decided that.

  So June’s insurance came through, and all of that money went to King because he’s oldest, legal. He took some insurance and first bought her a big pink gravestone that they put up on the hill.” She paused.

  “Mama, we going up there to visit? I didn’t see that gravestone yet.”

  Grandma was at the stove, bending laboriously to check the roast ham, and she ignored us.

  “Just recently he bought this new car,” Zelda went on, “with the rest of that money. It has a tape deck and all the furnishings.

  Eli doesn’t like it, or so I heard. That car reminds him of his girl.

  You know Eli raised June like his own daughter when her mother passed away and nobody else would take her.”

  “King got that damn old money,” Grandma said loud and sudden, “not because he was oldest. June named him for the money because he took after her the most.”

  So the insurance explained the car. More than that it explained why everyone treated the car with special care. Because it was new, I had thought. Still, I had noticed all along that nobody seemed proud of it except for King and Lynette. Nobody leaned against the shiny blue fenders, ‘rested elbows on the hood, or set paper plates there while they ate. Aurelia didn’t even want to hear King’s tapes. It was as if the car was wired up to something. As if it might give off a shock when touched. Later, when Gordie came, he brushed the glazed chrome and gently tapped the tires with his toes. He would not go riding in it, either, even though King urged his father to experience how smooth it ran.

  We heard the car move off, wheels crackling in the gravel and cinders.

  Then it was quiet for a long time again.

  Grandma was dozing in the next room, and I had taken the last pie from the oven. Aurelia’s new green Sears dryer was still huffing away in the tacked-on addition that held toilet, laundry, kitchen sink. The plumbing, only two years old, was hooked up to one side of the house.

  The top of the washer and dryer were covered with clean towels, and all the pies had been set there to cool.

  “Well, where are they?” wondered Zelda now. “Joyriding?”

  “That white girl,” Mama went on, “she’s built like a truck driver.

  She won’t keep King long. Lucky you’re slim, Albertine.

  “Jeez, Zelda!” Aurelia came in from the next room. “Why can’t you ‘just leave it be? So she’s white. What about the Swede?

  can I How do you think Albertine feels hearing you talk like this when her Dad was white?”

  “I feel fine,” I said. “I never knew him.”

  I understood what Aurefia meant thought was light, clearly a breed.

  “My girl’s an Indian,” Zelda emphasized. “I raised her an Indian, and that’s what she is.”

  “Never said no different. ” Aurelia grinned, not the least put out, hitting me with her elbow. “She’s lots better looking than most Kashpaws.

  By the time King and Lynette finally came home it was near dusk and we had already moved Grandpa into the house and laid his supper out.

  Lynette sat down next to Grandpa, with King Junior in her lap.

  She began to feed her son ground liver from a little jar. The baby tried to slap his hands together on the spoon each time it was lowered to his mouth. Every time he managed to grasp the jerked out of his hands and came down with more liver.

  spoon, I I I Lynette was weary, eyes watery and red. Her tan hair, caught in a stiff club, looked as though it had been used to drag her here.

  “You don’t got any children, do you Albertine,” she said, holding the spoon away, licking it herself, making a disgusted face.

  “So you wouldn’t know how they just can’t leave anything alone!”

  “She’s not married yet,” said Zelda, dangling a bright plastic bundle of keys down to the baby. “She thinks she’ll wait for her baby until after she’s married. Oochy koo,” she crooned when King junior focused and, in an effort of intense delight, pulled the keys down to himself.

  Lynette bolted up, shook the keys roughly from his grasp, and snatched him into the next room. He gave a short outraged wail, ANN A then fell silent, and after a while Lynette emerged, pulling down her blouse. The cloth was a dark violet bruised color.

  “Thought you wanted to see the gravestone,” Aurelia quickly remembered, addressing Zelda. “You better get going before it’s dark out. Tell King you want him to take you up there.”

  “I suppose,” said Mama, turning to me,

  “Aurelia didn’t see those two cases of stinking beer in their backseat. I’m not driving anywhere with a drunk.”

  “He’s not a drunk!” Lynette wailed in sudden passion. “But I’d drink a few beers too if I had to be in this family.”

  Then she whirled and ran outside.

  King was slumped morosely in the front seat of the car, a beer clenched between his thighs. He drummed his knuckles to the Oak Ridge Boys.

  “I don’t even let her drive it,” he said when I asked. He nodded toward Lynette, who was strolling down the driveway ditch, adding to a straggly bunch of prairie roses. I saw her bend over, tearing at a tough branch.

  “She’s going to hurt her hands.”

  “On, she don’t know nothing,” said King. “She never been to school.

  I seen a little of the world when I was in the service. You get my picture?”

  He’d sent a photo of himself in the unifor
m. I’d been surprised when I saw the picture because I’d realized then that my rough w boy cousin had developed hard cheekbones and a movie-star gaze. Now, brooding under the bill of his blue hat, he turned that moody stare through the windshield and shook his head at his wife. “She don’t fit in, he said.

  “She’s fine,” I surprised myself by saying. “Just give her a chance.

  “Chance. ” King tipped his beer up. “Chance. She took her chance when she married me. She knew which one I took after.”

  Then as if on cue, the one whom King did not take after drove into the yard with a squealing flourish, laying hard on his horn.

  Uncle Gordie Kashpaw was considered good-looking, although not in the same way as his son King. Gordle had a dark, round, eager face, creased and puckered from being stitched up after an accident. There was always a compelling pleasantness about him. In some curious way all the stitches and folds had contributed to, rather than detracted from, his looks. His face was like something valuable that was broken and put carefully back together. And all the more lovable for the care taken.

  In the throes of drunken inspiration now, he drove twice around the yard before his old Chevy chugged to a halt. Uncle Eli got out.

  “Well it’s still standing up,” Eli said to the house. “And so am I.

  But you,” he addressed Gordie, “ain’t.”

  It was true, Gordie’s feet were giving him trouble. They caught on things as he groped on the hood and pulled himself out. The rubber foot mat, the fenders, then the little ruts and stones as he clambered toward the front steps.

  “Zelda’s in there,” King shouted a warning, “and Grandma too! ” Gordie sat down on the steps to collect his wits before tangling with them.

  Inside, Uncle Eli sat down next to his twin. They didn’t look much alike anymore, for Eli had Wizened and toughened while Grandpa was larger, softer, even paler than his brother. They happened to be dressed the same though, in work pants and jackets, except that Grandpa’s outfit was navy blue and Eli’s was olive green. Eli wore a stained, crumpled cap that seemed so much a part of his head not even Zelda thought of asking him to remove it. He nodded at Grandpa and grinned at the food; he had a huge toothless smile that took up his entire face.

  “Here’s my Uncle Eli,” Aurelia said, putting down the plate of JW food for him. “Here’s my favorite uncle. See, Daddy?

  Uncle Eli’s here. Your brother.”

  “Oh Eli,” said Grandpa, extending his hand. Grandpa grinned and nodded at his brother, but said nothing more until Eli started to eat.

  “I don’t eat very much anymore. I’m getting so old,” Eli was telling us.

  “You’re eating a lot,” Grandpa pointed out. “Is there going to be anything left?”

  “You ate already,” said Grandma. “Now sit still and visit with your brother.” She fussed a little over Eli. “Don’t mind him. Eat enough.

  You’re getting thin.”

  “It’s too late,” said Grandpa. “He’s eating everything.”

  He closely watched each bite his brother took. Eli wasn’t bothered in the least. Indeed, he openly enjoyed his food for Grandpa.

  “Oh, for heaven sake Zelda sighed. “Are we ever getting out of here?

  Aurelia. Why don’t you take separate cars and drive us in?

  It’s too late to see that gravestone now anyway, but I’m darned if I’m going to be here once they start on those cases in the back of June’s car.”

  “Put the laundry out,” said Grandma; “I’m ready enough. And you, Albertine”-she nodded at me as they walked out the door-“they can eat all they want. just as long as they save the pies. Them pies are made special for tomorrow.”

  “Sure you don’t want to come along with us now?” asked Mama.

  “She’s young,” said Aurelia. “Besides, she’s got to keep those drunken men from eating on those pies.”

  She bent close to me. Her breath was sweet with cake frosting, stale with cigarettes. JAIN

  “I’ll be back later on,” she whispered. “I got to go see a friend.”

  Then she winked at me exactly the way June had winked about-OEM her secret friends. One eye shut, the lips pushed into a small selfdeprecating question mark.

  Grandpa eased himself into the backseat and sat as instructed, arms spread to either side, holding down the plies of folded laundry

  “They can eat!” Grandma yelled once more. “But save them pies! ” She bucked forward when Aurelia’s car lurched over the hole in the drive, and then they shot over the hill.

  “Say Albertine, did you know your Uncle Eli is the last man on the reservation that could snare himself a deer?”

  Gordie unlatched a beer, pushed it across the kitchen table to me.

  We were still at that table, only now the plates, dish pans of salad, and pies were cleared away for ashtrays, beer, packs of cigarettes.

  Although Aurelia kept the house now, it was like communal property for the Kashpaws. There was always someone camped out or sleeping on her fold-up cots.

  One more of us had arrived by this time. That was Lipsha Morrissey, who had been taken in by Grandma and always lived with us. Lipsha sat down, with a beer in his hand like everyone, and looked at the floor.

  He was in ore a listener than a talker, a shy one with a wide, sweet, intelligent face. He had long eyelashes.

  “Girl-eyes,” King used to tease him. King had beat up Lipsha so many times when we were young that Grandma wouldn’t let them play on the same side of the yard. They still avoided each other. Even now, in the small kitchen, they never met each other’s eyes or said hello.

  I had to wonder, as I always did, how much they knew.

  One secret I had learned from sitting quietly around the aunts, from gathering shreds of talk before they remembered me, was Lipsha’s secret, or half of It at least. I knew who his mother was.

  And because I knew his mother I knew the reason he and King never got along. They were half brothers. Lipsha was June’s boy, born in one of those years she left Gordic. Once you knew about her, and looked at him, it was easy to tell. He had her flat pretty features and slim grace, only on him these things had never even begun to harden.

  Right now he looked anxious and bit his lips. The men were still talking about the animals they had killed.

  “I had to save on my shells,” said Eli thoughtfully; “they was dear.

  “Only real old-time Indians know deer good enough to snare,” Gordie said to us. “Your Uncle Eli’s a real old-timer.”

  “You remember the first thing you ever got?” Eli asked King.

  King looked down at his beer, then gave me a proud, sly, sideways glance. “A gook, ” he said. “I was in the Marines.”

  Lipsha kicked the leg of my chair. King made much of having been in combat but was always vague on exactly where and when he had seen action,

  “Skunk,” Gordie raised his voice. “King got himself a skunk when he was ten.”

  “Did you ever eat a skunk?” Eli asked me.

  “It’s like a piece of cold chicken,” I ventured. Eli and Gordic agreed with solemn grins.

  “How do you skin your skunk?” Eli asked King.

  King tipped his hat down, shading his eyes from the fluorescent kitchen ring. A blue-and-white patch had been stitched on the front of his hat.

  “World’s Greatest Fisherman,” it said. King put his hands up in winning ignorance.

  “How do you skin your skunk?” he asked Eli.

  “You got to take the glands off first,” Eli explained carefully, ML–-also IN pointing at different parts of his body. “Here, here, here. Then you skin it just like anything else. You have to boll it in three waters.

  “Then you honestly eat it?” said Lynette. She had come into the room with a fresh beer and was now biting contentedly on a frayed end string of hair fallen from her ponytail.

  Ell sat up straight and tilted his little green hat back.

  “You picky too? Like Zelda! One time she came ove
r to visit me with her first husband, that Swede Johnson. It was around dinnertime. I had a skunk dressed out, and so I fed it to them.

  Ooooooh when she found out what she ate she was mad at me, boy.

  “Skunk!” she says. “How disgusting! You old guys will eat anything!”

  Lipsha laughed.

  “I’d eat it,” Lynette declared to him, flipping her hair back with a chopping motion of her hand. “I’d eat it Just like that.”

  “You’d eat shit,” said King.

  I stared at his clean profile. He was staring across the table at Lipsha, who suddenly got up from his chair and walked out the door.

  The screen door slammed. King’s lip curled down in some imitation of soap-opera bravado, but his chin trembled. I saw him clench his jaw and then felt a kind of wet blanket sadness coming down over us all. I wanted to follow Lipsha. I knew where he had gone. But I didn’t leave.

  Lynette shrugged brightly and brushed away King’s remark. But it stayed at the table, as if it had opened a door on something-some sad, ugly scene we could not help but enter. I took a long drink and leaned toward Uncle Eli,

  “A fox sleeps hard, eh?” said Eli after a few moments.

  King leaned forward and pulled his hat still lower so it seemed to rest on his nose.

  “I’ve shot a fox sleeping before,” he said. “You know that little black hole underneath a fox’s tall? I shot right through there. I was using a bow and my arrow went right through that fox. It got stiff.

  It went straight through the air. Flattened out like a flash and was gone down its hole. I never did get it out.”

  “Never shot a bow either,” said Gordie.

  “Hah, you’re right. I never shot a bow either,” admitted King with a strange, snarling little laugh. “But I heard of this guy once who put his arrow through a fox then left it thrash around in the bush until he thought it was dead. He went in there after it. You know what he found? That fox had chewed the arrow off either side of its body and it was gone.”

  “They don’t got that name for nothing,” Ell said.

  “Fox,” said Gordie, peering closely at the keyhole in his beer.

  “Can you gimme a cigarette, Ell?” King asked.

  “When you ask for a cigarette around here,” said Gordie, “you d on’t say can I have a cigarette. You say ciga swa?”