Chapter 12.
The Marriage Bed
When I first started telling Phoebe's story,
Gram and Gramps sat quietly and listened.
Gramps was concentrating on the road, and
Gram would gaze out the window.
Occasionally, they would turn to look at me,
or interject a 'Gol-dang!' or a 'No kidding?'
But as I got farther into the story, they
began to interrupt more and more.
When I told them about the message, Everyone
has his own agenda, Gram thumped on the dashboard
and said, 'Isn't that the truth!
Lordy!
Isn't that what it is all about?'
I said, 'How do you mean?'
'Everybody is just walking along concerned
with his own problems, his own life, his own
little worries.
And, we're all expecting other people to tune
into our own agenda.
"Look at my worry.
Worry with me.
Step into my life.
Care about my problems.
Care about me.
Gram sighed.
Gramps was scratching his head.
'You turning into a philosopher or something?'
'Mind your own agenda,' she said.
When I mentioned about Ben asking where my
mother was and my saying that she was in Lewiston,
but that I didn't want to elaborate.
Gram and Gramps looked at each other.
Gramps said.
'One time when my father took off for six
months and didn't tell anybody where he was
going, and my best friend asked me where my
father was, I hauled off and punched him in
the jaw.
My best friend.
I punched him right in the jaw.'
'You never told me that,' Gram said.
'I hope he socked you back.'
Gramps opened his mouth and pointed to a gap
in his teeth.
'See that?
He knocked my tooth right out.
And when I told Gram and Gramps about flinching
when Ben touched me and about how I went home
and found Dad in the garage, Gram unbuckled
her seat belt, turned all the way around and
leaned over the back of her seat.
She took my hand and kissed it.
Gramps said, 'Give her one for me, too,' and
so Gram kissed my hand again.
Several times, when I described Phoebe's world
of lunatics and axe murderers, Gram said,
'Just like Gloria, I swear to goodness.
Just exactly like Gloria.'
Once, after she said this, Gramps got a dreamy
look on his face and Gram said, 'Quit that
mooning over Gloria.
I know what you're thinking.'
Gramps said, 'Hear that, chickabiddy?
This here gooseberry knows everything that
runs through my head.
Isn't she something?'
Just before we reached the South Dakota border,
Gramps took a detour north because he had
seen a sign advertising the Pipestone National
Monument in Pipestone, Minnesota.
On the sign was a picture of a Native American
smoking a pipe.
'What do you want to go see an old Indian
smoking a pipe for?'
Gram asked.
She didn't like the term 'Native American'
any more than my mother did.
'I just do.'
Gramps said.
'We might not ever get the chance again.
'To see an Indian smoking a pipe?'
Gram said.
'Will it take very long?'
I asked, as the air screamed.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
'Not too long, chickabiddy.
We've got to cool off our car-bust-er-ators,
These roads are taking the poop out of me.
The detour to Pipestone wound through a cool,
dark forest and, if you closed your eyes and
smelled the air.
you could smell Bybanks.
Kentucky.
Pipestone was a small town.
Everywhere we went, people were talking to
each other: standing there talking, or sitting
on a bench talking, or walking along the street
talking.
When we passed by, they looked up at us, right
into our faces and said 'Hi' or 'Howdy', and,
although it sounds a little corny to say it
we felt right at home there.
It was so like Bybanks, where everyone you
see stops to say something because they know
you and have known you their whole lives.
We went to the Pipestone National Monument
and saw Indians thunking away at the stone
in the quarry.
I asked one if he was a Native American, but
he said, 'No.
I'm a person.'
I said, 'But, are you a Native American person?'
He said, 'No, I'm an American Indian person.'
I said, 'So am I.
In my blood.'
We watched other American Indian persons making
pipes out of the stone.
In the Pipe Museum, we learned more about
pipes than any human being ought to know.
In a little clearing outside the museum, an
American Indian person was sitting on a tree
stump smoking a long peace pipe.
After watching him for about five minutes.
Gramps asked if he could try it.
The man passed Gramps the pipe, and Gramps
sat down on the grass, took two puffs and
passed it to Gram.
She didn't even blink.
She took two puffs and passed it to me.
I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so
I took it.
There was a sweet, sticky taste on the end
of the pipe.
With the stem in my mouth, I gave it two little
kisses which is what it looked like Gram and
Gramps had done.
The smoke came into my mouth, and I held it
there while I passed the pipe back.
I held that smoke in my mouth while Gram and
Gramps puffed some more.
I was feeling slightly whang-doodled.
I opened my mouth a wee bit, and a tiny stream
of smoke curled out into the air and, when
I saw that, for some reason, I was reminded
of my mother.
It didn't make any sense, but my brain was
saying, 'There goes your mother,' and I watched
the Little trail of smoke disappear into the
air.
Gramps went back into the shop attached to
the Pipe Museum and bought two peace pipes.
One was for him and one was for me.
'It's not for smoking with,' he said.
'It's for remembering with.'
That night we stayed in Injun Joe's Peace
Palace Motel.
On a sign in the lobby, someone had crossed
out 'Injun' and written 'Native American'
so the whole sign read: 'Native American Joe's
Peace Palace Motel.'
In our room, the 'Injun Joe's' embroidered
on the towels had been changed with black
marker to 'Indian Joe's'.
I wished everybody would just make up their
minds.
By now, I was used to staying in a room with
Gram and Gramps.
They did exactly the same things in the same
order each night.
Gramps brought in the suitcases and tossed
them on the beds.
Gram opened up their suitcase and fished out
their pajamas.
She handed Gramps' small black shaving bag
to him and he flung it on the sink in the
bathroom.
She took out her own blue make-up bag and
carried it to the bathroom, where she set
it on the sink next to Gramps' black bag.
Returning to the suitcase, she removed a clean
shirt and clean underwear for Gramps, and
a clean dress and clean underwear for herself.
Gramps stuffed hangers into the shirt and
the dress while Gram placed the underwear
in a dresser drawer.
Then, Gram straightened the shirt and dress
that Gramps had rammed into the closet.
The first night, I watched them and then I
repeated everything they had done: I opened
my suitcase, took out what I needed, put it
away.
After the first night, I just followed along
behind them, doing everything they did.
Every night, when they climbed into bed, they
lay right beside each other on their backs
and Gramps said, every single night, 'Well,
this ain't our marriage bed, but it will do.
Probably the most precious thing in the whole
world to Gramps - beside Gram - was their
marriage bed.
This is what he called their bed back home
in Bybanks, Kentucky.
One of the stories that Gramps liked to tell
was about how he and all his brothers had
been born in that bed, and all Gram's and
Gramps' own children had been born in that
same bed.
When Gramps tells this story, he starts with
when he was seventeen-years- old and living
with his parents in Bybanks.
That's when he met Gram.
She was visiting her aunt who lived over the
meadow from where Gramps lived.
'I was a wild thing, then.'
Gramps said.
'And I didn't stand still for any girl, I
can tell you that.
They had to try to catch me on the run.
But, when I saw your grandmother running in
the meadow, with her long hair as silky as
a filly's, I was the one who was trying to
do the catching.
Talk about wild things!
Your grandmother was the wildest, most untamed,
most 'ornery and beautiful creature ever to
grace this earth.'
Gramps said he followed her like a sick, old
dog for twenty-two days, and on the twenty-third
day, he marched up to her father and asked
if he could marry her.
Her father said, 'If you can get her to stand
still long enough and if she'll have you,
I guess you can.
When Gramps asked Gram to marry him, she said,
'Do you have a dog?'
Gramps said that yes, as a matter of fact,
he had a fat old beagle, named Sadie.
Gram said, 'And, where does she sleep?'
Gramps stumbled around a bit and said, 'To
tell you the truth, she sleeps right next
to me, but if we was to get married, I--'
'When you come in the door at night,' Gram
said, 'what does that dog do?'
Gramps couldn't figure what she was getting
at, so he just told the truth.
'She jumps all over me, a-lickin and a-howlin.'
'And, then, what do you do?'
Gram asked.
'Well, gosh!'
Gramps said.
He did not like to admit it, but he said,
'I take her in my lap and pet her till she
calms down, and sometimes I sing her a song.
You're making me feel foolish,' he said to
Gram.
'I don't mean to,' she said.
'You've told me all I need to know.
I figure if you treat a dog that good, you'll
treat me better.
I figure if that old beagle Sadie loves you
so much, I'll probably love you better.
Yes.
I'll marry you.
They were married three months later.
During that time between his proposal and
their wedding day, Gramps and his father and
brothers' built a small house in the clearing
behind the first meadow.
'We didn't have time,' Gramps said, 'to completely
finish it, and there wasn't a single stick
of furniture in it, but that didn't matter.
We were going to sleep there on our wedding
night, all the same.'
They were married in an aspen grove on a clear
July day, and afterwards they and all their
friends and relatives had a wedding supper
on the banks of the river.
During the supper, Gramps noticed that his
father and two of his brothers were absent.
He thought maybe they were planning a wet
cheer, which is when the men kidnap the groom
for an hour or so and they all go out to the
woods and share a bottle of whiskey.
Before the end of the supper, his father and
brothers came back, but they did not kidnap
him for a wet cheer.
Gramps was just as glad, he said, because
he needed his wits about him that evening.
After supper, Gramps picked up Gram in his
arms and carried her across the meadow.
Behind them, everyone was singing, 'Oh meet
me, in the tulips, when the tulips do blooom...'
This is what they always sing at weddings
when the married couple leaves.
It is supposed to be a joke, as if Gram and
Gramps were going away by themselves and might
not reappear until the following spring when
the tulips were in bloom.
Gramps carried Gram all the way across the
meadow and through the trees and into the
clearing where their little house stood.
He carried her in through the door, and took
one look around and started to cry.
'In my life.'
Gram once told me, 'I only saw your grandfather
cry five times.
Once was when he carried me into that house.
The only other times were when each of our
four babies was born.
The reason Gramps cried when he carried Gram
into the house was that there, in the centre
of the bedroom, stood his own parents' bed
- the bed that Gramps and each of his brothers
had been born in - the one his parents had
always slept in.
This was where his father and brothers had
disappeared to during the wedding supper.
They had been moving the bed into Gram and
Gramps' new house.
At the foot of the bed, wiggling and slurping,
was Sadie, Gramps' old beagle dog.
Gramps always ends this story by saying, 'That
bed has been around my whole entire life,
and I'm going to die in that bed, and then
that bed will know every- thing there is to
know about me.'
So, each night on our trip out to Idaho, Gramps
patted the bed in the motel and said, 'Well,
this ain't our marriage bed, but it will do,'
while I lay in the next bed wondering if I
would ever have a marriage bed like theirs.
13.
Bouncing Birkway
It was time to tell Gram and Gramps about
Mr. Birkway.
Mr. Birkway was mighty strange.
He was an English teacher, and when I met
him on that first day in my new school, I
didn't know what to make of him.
I thought he might have a few squirrels in
the attic of his brain.
He was one of those energetic teachers who
loved his subject half to death and leaped
about the room dramatically, waving his arms
and clutching his chest and patting people
on the back.
He said, 'Brilliant!' and 'Wonderful!' and
'Terrific!'
He was quite tall and slim, and his bushy
black hair made him look like a wild native
at times, but he had enormous deep brown cow
like eyes that sparkled all over the place
(like Ben's), and when he turned these eyes
on you, you felt as if his whole purpose in
life was to stand there and listen to you,
and you alone.
Midway through the first class, Mr. Birkway
asked if we had our summer journals.
I hadn't a clue as to what he was talking
about.
Some of the other students started nodding
like crazy, and Mr. Birkway spread out his
arms and said, 'Wonderful!
I'm blessed!'
He flung himself up and down the aisles, receiving
the journals as if they were manna from heaven.
'Thank you,' he said to each journal-giver.
I was extensively worried.
I had no journal.
On top of Mary Lou Finney's desk were six
journals.
Six.
Mr. Birkway said.
'Heavens.
Mercy.
Is it - can it be - Shakespeare?'
He counted the journals.
'Six!
Brilliant!
Magnificent!'
Christy and Megan.
two girls who had their own club called the
GGP (whatever that meant), were whispering
over on the other side of the room and casting
malevolent looks in Mary Lou's direction.
Mary Lou kept her hand on top of the journals
as Mr. Birkway reached for them.
In a low voice she said.
'I don't want you to read them.'
'What?'
Mr. Birkway boomed.
'Not read them?'
The whole room was silent.
Mr. Birkway scooped up Mary Lou's journals
before she could even blink.
He said, 'Don't worry, your thoughts are safe
with me.
Brilliant!
Thank you!'
Another girl, Beth Ann, looked as if she might
cry.
Phoebe was sending me little messages with
her eye- brows that indicated that she was
not too pleased either.
I think they were all hoping that Mr. Birkway
was not actually going to read these journals.
Mr. Birkway went around the whole room snatching
people's journals.
Alex Cheevey's journal was covered with basketball
stickers.
Christy's and Megan's were slathered over
with pictures of male models.
The cover of Ben's was a cartoon of a boy
with a normal boy's head, but the arms and
legs were pencils, and out of the tips of
the hands and feet were little bits of words
When he got to Phoebe's desk, Mr. Birkway
lifted up her plain journal and peeked inside.
Phoebe was trying to slide down in her chair.
'I didn't write much,' Phoebe said.
'In fact.
I can hardly remember what I wrote about at
all.
Mr. Birkway only said, 'Beautiful! and moved
on.
By the time he got to my desk, my heart was
clobbering around so hard I thought it might
leap straight out of my chest.
'Deprived child,' he said.
'You didn't have a chance to write a journal.'
'I'm new-'
'New?
How blessed,' he said.
'There's nothing in this whole wide world
that is better than a new person!'
'So, I didn't know about the journals--'
'Not to worry!'
Mr. Birkway said.
'I'll think of something.'
I wasn't sure what that meant.
I thought maybe he would give me a whole lot
of extra homework or something.
For the rest of the day you could see little
groups of people asking each other, 'Did you
write about me?'
I was very glad I hadn't written anything.
After school, Phoebe and I walked home with
Mary Lou and Ben, who were excited about Mr.
Birkway.
'Isn't he terrific?' they said.
At the corner of my street, as I turned to
leave, Ben said to Phoebe, 'Hey, Free Bee!
Did you write about me?'
For a while, we did not hear any more about
the journals.
We had absolutely no idea of all the trouble
they were going to cause.
14.
The Rhododendron
One Saturday, I was at Phoebe's again.
Her father was golfing, and her mother was
running errands.
Mrs. Winterbottom had read out a long list
to us of where she would be in case we needed
her.
She almost did not go, because she did not
want to leave Phoebe and me alone, but Phoebe
promised to keep all the doors locked and
not open the door for anyone.
If we heard any noises at all, we were supposed
to call the police immediately.
'After you call the police,' Mrs. Winterbottom
said, 'call Mrs. Cadaver.
I think she's home today.
I'm sure she would come right over.
'Oh, sure,' Phoebe whispered to me.
'That's about the last person I would call.'
Phoebe imagined that every noise was the lunatic
sneaking in or the message-leaver creeping
up to drop off another anonymous note.
She was so jumpy that I began to feel uneasy
too.
After her mother left, Phoebe said, 'Mrs.
Cadaver works odd hours, doesn't she?
Sometimes she works every night for a week,
straggling home when most people are waking
up, but sometimes she works during the day.
'She's a nurse, so I guess she works different
shifts,' I said.
That day Mrs. Cadaver was home, puttering
around her garden.
We saw her from Phoebe's bedroom window.
Actually, puttering is not the best word.
What she was doing was more like slogging
and slashing.
Mrs. Cadaver hacked branches off of trees
and hauled these to the back of her lot where
she lumped them into a pile of branches, which
she had hacked off last week.
'I told you she was as strong as an ox,' Phoebe
said.
Next, Mrs. Cadaver slashed and sliced at a
pitiful rose bush, which had been trying to
creep up the side of her house.
Then she sheared off the tops of the hedge,
which borders Phoebe's yard.
She moved on to a rhododendron bush, which
she was poking and prodding when a car pulled
into her driveway.
A tall man with bushy black hair leaped out
and, seeing her, he practically skipped back
to where she was.
They hugged each other.
'Oh, no,' Phoebe said.
The man with the bushy black hair was Mr.
Birkway, our English teacher.
Mrs. Cadaver pointed to the rhododendron bush
and then at the axe, but Mr. Birkway shook
his head.
He disappeared into the garage and returned
with two shovels Then he and Mrs. Cadaver
gouged and prodded and tunnelled around in
the dirt until the poor old rhododendron hopped
onto its side.
Mrs. Cadaver and Mr. Birkway lugged the bush
over to the opposite side of the yard where
there was a mound of dirt.
Phoebe's doorbell rang.
'Come with me,' Phoebe said.
'But, I want to watch Mrs. Cadaver and Mr.
Birkway.
'I'm not answering the door alone,' Phoebe
said.
I went with her.
We looked out the window.
'No one's there,' I said.
'We're not supposed to open the door.
'But, no one's there.'
1 said.
I flung open the door.
No one was on the porch.
I put one foot on the porch and looked up
and down the street.
'Quick!'
Phoebe said.
'Get back in here!
Maybe someone is in the bushes'
I pulled my foot back inside.
We closed the door and locked it.
By the time we returned to Phoebe's bedroom
window, Mrs. Cadaver and Mr. Birkway had re-planted
the bush.
'Maybe there is something hidden under the
bush, Phoebe said.
'Like what?'
'Like a dead body.
Maybe Mr. Birkway helped her chop up her husband
and bury him and maybe they were getting worried
and decided to disguise the spot with a rhododendron
bush.'
I must have looked skeptical.
Phoebe said, 'Sal, you never can tell.
And, Sal, I don't think you or your father
should go over there any more.'
I certainly agreed with her on that one.
Dad and I had been there two nights earlier,
and I had hardly been able to sit still.
I started noticing all these frightening things
in Margaret's house: creepy masks, old swords,
books with titles like Murder on the Rue Morgue
and The Skull and the Hatchet.
Margaret cornered me in the kitchen and said,
'So, what has your father told you about me?'
'Nothing,' I said.
'Oh.'
She seemed disappointed.
My father's behaviour was always different
at Margaret's.
At home, I would sometimes find him sitting
on his bed staring at the floor, or reading
through old letters or gazing at the photo
album.
He looked sad and lonely.
But at Margaret's, he would smile, and sometimes
even laugh, and once she touched his hand,
and he let her hand rest there on top of his.
I didn't like it.
I didn't want my father to be sad, but at
least when he was sad, I knew he was remembering
my mother.
So when Phoebe suggested that my father and
I should not go to Margaret's, I was quite
willing to agree with that notion.
When Phoebe's mother came home from running
all her errands, she looked terrible.
She was sniffling and blowing her nose.
Phoebe asked her if she was sick.
Mrs. Winterbottom looked at Phoebe and then
straight at me.
'No,' she said, 'I think I have an allergy.'
Phoebe said that we were going to do our home-
work.
Upstairs, I said, 'Maybe we should have helped
her put away the groceries'
'She likes to do all that by herself,' Phoebe
said.
'Are you sure?'
'Of course, I'm sure,' Phoebe said.
'I've lived here my whole life, haven't I?'
I asked Phoebe if her mother really had allergies
'Well, gosh, Sal, if she says she does, then
I guess she does.
She's not the sort of person to lie.'
'Maybe something is wrong.
Maybe something is bothering her.
'Don't you think she would say so then?'
'Maybe she's afraid to,' I said.
I wondered why it was so easy for me to see
that Phoebe's mother was worried and miserable,
but Phoebe couldn't see it - or if she could,
she was ignoring it.
Maybe she didn't want to notice.
Maybe it was too frightening a thing.
I started wondering if this was how it had
been with my mother.
Were there things I didn't notice?
Phoebe sat quite straight in her chair and
said, 'Sal.
I can assure you that my mother would not
be afraid to say if something is bothering
her.
What on earth would she have to be afraid
of?
We are not exactly a family of lunatics, you
know.'
Later that afternoon, when Phoebe and I went
downstairs, Mrs. Winterbottom was talking
with Prudence.
'Do you think I lead a tiny life?' she was
asking.
'How do you mean?'
Prudence asked, as she filed her nails.
'Do we have any nail polish remover?'
Phoebe's mother retrieved a bottle of nail
polish remover from the bathroom.
'What I was wondering,' Phoebe's mother said,
'was if you think--' She stopped talking when
she saw me and Phoebe.
'Oh!'
Prudence said to her mother.
'Before I forget - do you think you could
sew up the hem on my brown skirt so I could
wear it tomorrow?
Oh, please?'
Prudence tilted her head to the side and tugged
at her hair in exactly the same way Phoebe
does.
Prudence smooshed up her mouth into a little
pout.
In the kitchen, I said to Phoebe, 'Doesn't
Prudence know how to sew?'
'Of course, she does' Phoebe said.
'Why do you ask?'
'I was just wondering why she doesn't sew
her own skirt.'
'Sal,' Phoebe said, 'if you don't mind my
saying so, I think you're becoming ever so
critical.'
Before I left Phoebe's that day, Mrs. Winterbottom
handed Prudence her brown skirt with the newly
sewn hem, and all the way home I wondered
about Mrs. Winterbottom and what she meant
about living a tiny life.
If she didn't like all that baking and cleaning
and jumping up to get bottles of nail polish
remover and sewing hems, why did she do it?
Why didn't she tell them to do some of these
things themselves?
Maybe she was afraid there would be nothing
left for her to do.
There would be no need for her and she would
become invisible and no one would notice.
When I got home that day, my father handed
me a package.
'It's from Margaret.'
he said.
'What is it?'
'I don't know.
Why don't you open it?'
Inside was a blue sweater.
I put it back in the box and went upstairs
My father followed me.
'Sal?
Sal - do you like it?'
'I don't want it,' I said.
'She was just trying to - she likes you--'
'I don't care if she likes me or not,' I said.
My father stood there looking around the room.
'I want to tell you something about Margaret,'
he said.
'Well, I don't want to hear it,' I said.
I was feeling so completely ornery.
When my father left the room, I could still
hear my own voice saying, 'I don't want to
hear it,' and I knew that I sounded exactly
like Phoebe.
15.
The Snake has a Snack
It was hotter than blazes in South Dakota.
I started getting worried in Sioux Falls,
when Gramps took off his shirt.
Passing Mitchell, Gram unbuttoned her dress
down to her waist.
Just beyond Chamberlain, Gramps got off the
freeway and took a detour to the Missouri
River.
He parked the car beneath a tree overlooking
a sandy bank.
Gram and Gramps kicked off their shoes and
stood in the water.
It was quiet and hot, hot, hot.
All you could hear was a crow calling somewhere
up river and the distant sound of cars along
the highway.
The scorching air pressed against my face,
and my hair was like a hot, heavy blanket
draped on my neck and back.
It was so hot you could smell the heat baking
the stones and dirt along the bank.
Gram pulled her dress up over her head, and
Gramps undid his buckle and let his pants
slide to the ground.
They started kicking water at each other and
scooping it up and letting it run down their
faces.
They walked in to where the river was knee
deep and sat down.
'Come on, chickabiddy!'
Gramps called.
Gram said, 'It's delicious!'
I looked up and down the river.
Not a soul in sight.
The water looked cool and clear.
Gram and Gramps sat there in the river, grinning
away.
I waded in
and sat down.
It was nearly heaven, with that cool water
rippling and a high, clear sky all around
us, and trees waving along the banks.
My hair floated all around me.
My mother's hair had been long and black,
like mine, but a week before she left, she
cut it.
My father said to me, 'Don't cut yours, Sal.
Please, don't cut yours.'
My mother said, 'I knew you wouldn't like
it if I cut mine.'
My father said, 'I didn't say anything about
yours.
'But, I know what you're thinking,' she said.
'I loved your hair, Sugar,' he said.
I saved her hair.
I swept it up from the kitchen floor and wrapped
it in a plastic bag and hid it beneath the
floorboards of my room.
It was still there, along with the postcards
she sent.
As Gram, Gramps and I sat in the Missouri
River, I tried not to think of the postcards.
I tried to concentrate on the high sky and
the cool water.
It would have been perfect except for that
ornery crow calling away: car-car-car.
'Will we be here long?'
I asked.
The boy came out of nowhere.
Gramps saw him first and whispered, 'Get behind
me, chickabiddy.
You too, he said to Gram.
The boy was about fifteen or sixteen, with
shaggy dark hair.
He wore blue jeans and no shirt, and his chest
was brown and muscular.
In his hand he held a long bowie knife, its
sheath fastened to his belt.
He was standing next to Gramps' pants on the
bank.
I thought of Phoebe and knew that if she were
here, she would be warning us that the boy
was a lunatic who would hack us all to pieces.
I was wishing we had never stopped at the
river, and that my grandparents would be more
cautious, maybe even a little more like Phoebe
who saw danger everywhere.
As the boy stared at us, Gramps said.
'Howdy.
The boy said, 'This here's private property.'
Gramps looked all around.
'Is it?
I didn't see any signs.'
'It's private property.'
'Why, heck,' Gramps said, 'this here's a river.
I never heard of no river being private property.
The boy picked up Gramps' pants and slid his
hand into a pocket.
'This land where I'm standing is private property.'
I was frightened of the boy and wanted Gramps
to do something, but Gramps looked cool and
calm.
He sounded as if he hadn't a care in the world,
but I knew that he was worried by the way
he kept inching in front of me and Gram.
I felt around the riverbed, pulled up a flat
stone, and skimmed it across the water.
The boy watched the stone, counting the skips.
A snake flickered along the bank and slid
into the water.
'See that tree?'
Gramps said.
He pointed to an old willow leaning into the
water near where the boy stood.
'I see it,' the boy said, sliding his hand
into another of Gramps' pockets.
Gramps said, 'See that knothole?
Watch what this here chickabiddy can do to
a knothole.'
Gramps winked at me.
The veins in his neck were standing out.
You could practically see the blood rushing
through them.
I felt around the riverbed and pulled up another
flat, jagged rock.
I had done this a million times in the swimming
hole in Bybanks.
I pulled my arm back and tossed the rock straight
al the tree.
One edge embedded itself in the knothole.
The boy stopped rummaging through Gramps'
pockets and eyed me.
Gram said, 'Oh!' and flailed at the water.
She reached down, pulled up a snake, and gave
Gramps a puzzled look.
'It is a water moccasin, isn't it?' she said.
'It's a poisonous one, isn't it?'
The snake slithered and wriggled, straining
toward the water.
'I do believe it has had a snack out of my
leg.'
She stared hard at Gramps.
The boy stood on the bank holding Gramps'
wallet.
Gramps scooped up Gram and carried her out
of the water.
'Would you mind dropping that thing?' he said
to Gram, who was still clutching the snake.
To me he said, 'Get on out of there, chickabiddy.
As Gramps put Gram on the riverbank, the boy
came and knelt beside her.
'I'm sure glad you have that knife,' Gramps
said, reaching for it.
As he made a slit in Gram's leg across the
snake bite, blood trickled down her ankle.
I grabbed Gram's hand as she stared up at
the sky.
Gramps knelt to suck out the wound, but the
boy said, 'Here, I'll do it.'
The boy placed his mouth against Gram's bloody
leg.
He sucked and spit, sucked and spit.
Gram's eyelids fluttered.
'Can you point us to a hospital?'
Gramps said.
The boy nodded as he spat.
Gramps and the boy carried Gram to the car
and settled her in the back seat while I snatched
their clothes from the riverbank.
We placed Gram's head on my lap and her feet
on the boy's lap, and all the while the boy
continued sucking and spitting.
In between, he gave directions to the hospital.
Gram held onto my hand.
Gramps, still in his boxer shorts, and dripping
wet, carried Gram into the hospital.
The boy's mouth hovered over her leg the whole
time, sucking and spitting.
Gram spent the night in the hospital.
In the waiting room, the boy from the riverbank
sprawled in a chair.
I offered him a paper towel.
'You've got blood on your mouth,' I said.
I handed him a fifty dollar bill.
'My grandfather said to give you this.
That's all the cash he has right now.
He said to tell you thanks.
He'd come out himself, but he doesn't want
to leave her.
He looked at the fifty dollar bill in my hand.
'I don't need any money,' he said.
'You don't have to stay.'
He looked around the waiting room.
'I know it.'
He looked away and then said.
'I like your hair.
'I was thinking of cutting it.'
'Don't.'
I sat down beside him.
He said, 'It wasn't really private property.'
'I didn't think so.'
Later, when I went in to see Gram, she was
all tucked up in bed and looked pale and sleepy.
Next to her on the narrow bed, Gramps was
lying on top of the covers, stroking her hair.
A nurse came in and made him get off the bed.
He had, by now, put his pants on, but he looked
a wreck.
I asked Gram how she was feeling.
She blinked her eyes a few times and said,
'Piddles.'
Gramps said, 'They must've given her something.
She doesn't know what she's saying.'
I leaned down and whispered in her ear.
'Gram, don't leave us' 'Piddles,' Gram said.
When the nurse left the room.
Gramps climbed back on top of the bed and
lay down next to Gram.
He patted the bed.
'Well.'
he said, 'this ain't our marriage bed, but
it will do.'
16.
The Singing Tree
Gram was released from the hospital the next
morning mainly because she was so ornery.
Gramps wanted her to stay another day.
He asked the doctor, 'Don't you think she's
breathing funny?'
The doctor said he didn't think that was from
the snake bite.
He thought it was the heat.
'Don't you think she looks a mite pale?'
Gramps said.
The doctor said she'd had a shock and was
bound to be a little pale.
Gram climbed out of bed.
'I'm not invisible, you know.
You don't have to talk as if I'm not here.'
Her breathing was rapid and raspy She said,
'Where's my underwear?'
Gramps and the doctor looked at her as she
took two steps and stopped.
You could tell her snake-bite leg was bothering
her.
'Salamanca, would you mind fishing in my suitcase
for some clean underwear?'
'I guess this cantankerous woman is getting
out of here,' Gramps said.
I think fear had made us all a little cantankerous
I had spent the night in the waiting room,
trying to sleep on a ratty, old vinyl sofa.
Gramps offered to get me a motel room, but
I was desperately afraid to leave Gram.
I had this feeling that if I left the hospital,
I would never see Gram again.
The boy we had met at the river curled up
in an armchair, but I don't think he slept
either.
Once he used the telephone.
I heard him say, 'Yeah, I'll be home in the
morning.
I'm with some friends.'
The boy woke me up at six o'clock to say he
had asked about Gram, and the doctor said
she was much better.
'I'll go on home, then,' he said.
He handed me a piece of paper.
'It's my address.
In case you ever want to write or anything.'
'Oh,' I said.
'I'd understand if you didn't want to,' he
said.
I opened the paper.
'What's your name?'
He smiled.
'Oh, yeah, right.'
He took the paper and wrote something on it.
'See ya,' he said.
After he had left, I looked at his name.
Tom Fleet.
It seemed like such an ordinary name.
As we were checking out of the hospital, I
asked if we should call my father.
Gramps said, 'Well, now, chickabiddy, I thought
about that, but it's only going to make him
worry.
If our gooseberry was staying in the hospital,
I'd call, but since we're getting back on
the road, what do you think?
Do you think we could wait to call him when
we get to Idaho?
So he won't worry so much?'
Gramps was right, but I was disappointed.
I was ready to call my father.
I wanted very much to hear his voice, but
I was also afraid that I might ask him to
come and get me.
In the car, Gramps put a suitcase on the floor
and laid his jacket across it.
'How's that for a footstool?' he said.
He helped Gram settle in and placed her snake-
bite leg up on the suitcase.
'The doctor says you should keep that leg
propped up.
'I know it,' Gram said.
'I heard him.
That snake didn't bite my ears, you know.
I heard the warbling of a bird, and it was
such a familiar warble that I stopped and
listened for its source.
Bordering the parking lot was a rim of poplars.
It surprised me that poplars grew here: they
did not seem the sort of trees that should
grow in South Dakota.
The sound was coming from somewhere in the
top of one of those trees, and I thought instantly
of the singing tree in Bybanks.
Next to my favourite sugar maple tree beside
the barn is a tall aspen.
It is out of place there.
All the other aspens on the farm grow near
the river in groves.
When I was younger, I heard the most beautiful
birdsong coming from the top of that tree.
It was not a call; it was a true birdsong,
with trills and warbles Up and down the scale
it went in a delicate melody.
I stood beneath that tree for the longest
time, hoping to catch sight of the bird who
was singing such a song.
I saw no bird - only leaves waving in the
breeze.
The longer I stared up at the leaves, the
more it seemed that it was the tree itself
that was singing.
Every time I passed that tree, I listened.
Sometimes it sang, sometimes it did not, but
from then on I always called it the singing
tree.
The morning after my father learned that my
mother was not coming back, he left for Lewiston,
Idaho.
Gram and Gramps came to stay with me.
I had pleaded to go along, but my father said
I could not go.
That day, I climbed up into the maple and
watched the singing tree, waiting for it to
sing.
I stayed there all day and on into the early
evening.
It did not sing.
At dusk, Gramps placed three sleeping bags
at the foot of the tree, and he, Gram and
I slept there that night.
The tree did not sing.
In the hospital parking lot, ram heard the
tree, too.
'Oh, Salamanca,' she said.
IA singing tree!'
She pulled at Cramps' sleeve.
'Look, a singing tree.
That's a good sign, don't you think?
It's like it's following us, all the way from
Bybanks.
Oh, that's a good sign.
I listened for another few minutes to the
tree in the hospital parking lot, and then
climbed in the car.
As we swept on across South Dakota toward
the Badlands, the whispers no longer said,
hurry, hurry or, rush, rush.
They now said, slow down, slow down.
I could not figure this out.
It seemed some sort of warning, but I did
not have too much time to think about it as
I was busy talking about Phoebe.
