Louise Erdrich - The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

Nector could have told her, having drunk down the words of Nanapush, that comfort is not security and money in the hand disappears. He could have told her that only the land matters and never to let go of the papers, the titles, the tracks of the words, all those things that his ancestors never understood held a vital relationship to the dirt and grass under their feet. But he didn’t say these things, because they were useless in the first place and would give him away in the next. He said nothing except to lament, with her, the former practice of folding papers and the improper classification of files and the confusing change of names and locations, superintendencies and jurisdictions over various families of Ojibwe Indians.

Nector let Bernadette natter on, directing him to accomplish fair copies of documents. Soon, he learned to use — and here the story was given an unexpected twist — the black typing machine labeled Chicago. He began to love typing and that, plus the way he could sign what he typed, put him over the top. He was now preferred by the commissioner to Bernadette because he could manufacture documents of a more official-looking nature.

He practiced at night.

By frail kerosene light he laboriously struck the grown-up keys, each letter circled by a ring of metal, until his typing was of a consistent quality and speed. Papers moldering in the bottoms of desk drawers, ragged and unfiled or filed by the system that undid those whom Bernadette wished to thwart, Nector typed from her writing and restored. He had done a great many of these old transactions, and he had a great many more to go, when he made the following important decision: he destroyed the originals.

He was now in charge of history, which suited him just fine, and he was only a boy.

NECTOR

In the midst of all that revenge and suspicion — in addition to which, he was fooling with the only thing worth having, land and land ownership — Nector thought he’d best be very careful. Therefore, he never worked past dark and made his way home by alternating routes and unpredictable bushwhacking. And he never went drinking unless with a group of cousins, never alone. In fact, he tried not to be alone if he could help it, which is what got him in trouble after all.

Johnny Onesides was one of his cousins. He was a calm, uncomplicated sort who didn’t say much. But the few words he did say made him eloquent compared with his brother, Clay, who didn’t speak at all except on very special occasions. These two were staunch friends of Nector’s, along with a third cousin, called Rockhead, for reasons that would become apparent, and a friend of that cousin named Makoons. These five stuck together for good times as well as protection.

One still day, when Nector left the agency, they were waiting outside in Makoons’s uncle’s Model T Ford touring car, which for some reason Makoons was allowed to drive for the afternoon. This exciting privilege moved them all with expectation. They wanted to drive by girls and impress them, and other people as well, with the splendor of their conveyance. So once they crammed Nector in, they started off.

The thing they soon found was that while they’d imagined crowds of people around the trader’s and the agency building and the church, it was a very quiet afternoon and nobody at all was out. Therefore, they had to hunt around to find admirers, and they did find one or two people to impress — but Mrs. Bizhieu was impressed with anything, and Father Damien, whom they encountered on a genial afternoon walk, gave no more than a distracted wave of his hand. Finding even those two took some doing and used up gas. So on their fourth time through town they paused the car just outside the door of the trader’s. They got out. Nector bought the others each a cold, refrigerated grape pop. There was, in the act of tipping those bottles to their lips and baring their throats and then wiping their mouths manfully on their sleeves, and emitting a sound of relief and pleasure, a great chance for self-display — if only, again, there was someone to appreciate their pop drinking, but there wasn’t. The dusty road, the dust on the lower leaves and branches of the trees, a tired bird, the trader himself half asleep, this was all a most unsatisfactory audience.

Rockhead now suggested that they take the car up around Matchimanito Lake, but Makoons was uneasy with the idea. The road that lumber had carved to one side, in hopes of getting all the way around the lake, was rough and uncertain. Still, there was a certain beach where young people liked to go, and there at least they had a good chance of getting themselves admired. In the end, between vanity and good sense, there was no contest. They started up the car, jumped in, and took off.

Twice on the way there they had to jump out, heave and strain, push the car from potholes. Makoons drove nervously and wanted to turn back, but was unable to find a place wide enough on the narrow track. So he proceeded with ever more trepidation in his uncle’s precious car. The road closed over them. And then opened suddenly. Displayed the lake. There, to the boys’ glory, sat a knot of people on the shore. These people had heard the auto’s tortured approach and now waited and watched expectantly.

It took only a lurch or two forward to ascertain they were Lazarres. And only a lurch backward to get completely stuck.

“What the hell do we do now?” asked Johnny Onesides.

“We can each take two,” said Rockhead, who was counting the number of Lazarres now advancing toward them. “Or three.”

“Some are girls,” said Makoons, straining for a sign of hope.

“They’re worse than the men,” said Nector. He wished he hadn’t come along. All the filing and typing hadn’t done much for his strength, not like farm work, and he was the youngest of this bunch. He wondered if he’d be killed, or just beaten until his brain didn’t work anymore and he walked around drooling like Paguk, the young fighter who’d gone down to the Cities a god and come back stupid. While he was busy worrying about this and even seeing himself lurching down the reservation roads, and even feeling sorry for this vision that he had of himself, the Lazarres approached and then surrounded the car.

There was Eugene and his brother the Half-twin, there was Mercy Lazarre, grinning with her eyes on fire — she was anything but like her name — there was Fred and there was Virgil, both solid and muscular with mean red eyes, and there was Adik, known as the brains of the group, and several cousins perhaps from the plains or prairie or maybe from hell itself, whom the boys had never seen before but who were sharing a big jug of wine and pretending to fish while they snagged their own relatives.

“This is good,” said Adik. “We’re glad you’re here. We’re glad you could make it to the party.”

“Miigwetch,” Makoons croaked. If the Lazarres beat him up, he was afraid they might then do something really bad to his uncle’s car.

“I wanna take that good-looking one in the bush first,” said Mercy, nicking her boulder of a chin at Nector, who grinned weakly.

“Show me no Mercy,” he said, which made everybody laugh, but the laughter was not reassuring, and Adik soon stopped it.

“We don’t find it funny when a Kashpaw mocks our women.”

“Well,” said Nector with complete sincerity, “I’m sorry then. I didn’t mean anything.”

“That’s good, cousin.”

There was a chilled pause, and then — it was like some malevolent force simply reached down and plucked them altogether in a ragged pile from the vehicle and set sheer chaos into motion: beating, growling, punching, kicking, yelling, the enemies fought. Nector and his cousins were tough and labored valiantly to throw off the Lazarres, but there were too many and the conclusion was foregone — soon each was pinned to the ground, held in check by at least two Lazarres as Adik decided what they would do.