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

His idea came to him in a flash that made the other Lazarres gasp at the genius of it. No wonder people listened to him! Howah! Their agreement was unanimous. It was decided. The Lazarres would stage an accident with the car belonging to Makoons’s uncle — the car run deep into the lake and the boys drowned in their seats. That way, they would escape the suspicion of the Indian police and Father Damien, who helped them out.

“Ooh, my cousin, what a wonderful plan!” cooed Mercy. “But how shall we hold them in their seats?”

“We’ll tie them with ropes,” said Adik.

“We don’t have no ropes,” she said.

“Then we’ll use some goddamn vines,” he went on. “You go search them out right now.”

So Mercy left and for a while they heard her rummaging and tramping and swearing as she looked for rope substitutes. Finally, she came back, but the vines she found were much too stiff to act ropelike — they would not tie.

“That’s okay,” Adik said, “forget about the ropes. We’ll hit them on the head and knock them out.”

“Or you could use the rope underneath the back seat of Makoons’s uncle’s car,” suggested the silent one, Clay.

Nector and the others were so shocked to hear him speak — they’d practically forgotten what his voice sounded like — that they didn’t react to the meaning of his words at all. And in fact, Nector was just as glad not to be hit on the head — he pictured poor Paguk — so unlike the others he didn’t say a word to admonish his cousin but tried to keep his wits about him. That’s what Nanapush said saved his life on tough occasions. Not succumbing to panic. So he tried not to, but his breath tightened in his chest and he saw blurred death lights when the Lazarres pushed him into the car’s front seat and then tied his hands to the handle of the door. They tied Makoons to the steering wheel and the ones in the back seat they roped together with elaborate knots and fixed the ends of the ropes to the base of the seats.

“Mi’iw,” said Adik, dusting his hands proudly, “do you have any last words?”

Again, it surprised them very much, but it was Clay who spoke. After all, this was a special occasion.

“Every one of you Lazarres will rot in a hell of your own making” was his pronouncement, which Nector would have thought very eloquent were the car not already moving. Laughing at the curse, the Lazarres were pushing the car, rolling it down to the lake. Nector twisted and tugged — his hands were well tied, the knots were good. He admitted that, he would always admit that, he had no reason not to admit that: Lazarres could make tight knots. And he could feel the breeze on his face, the last air he would breathe, and next to him Makoons was saying his prayers as a good Catholic, and Rockhead was crying a little, Johnny Onesides was swearing but Clay was again silent.

They rolled into the water. It made a swishing sound around the tires and for a moment the car was afloat, then it sank and the water came boiling up through the floor around their knees. The Lazarres excitedly pushed it deeper. But as it settled it was suddenly harder to push. They nudged it along. The water crept up Nector’s waist, then up his chest, and he gulped air with rockets of fear going off, and then the water surged to just under his chin and the car bucked to a halt, stuck. Nector looked around and saw his friends were all just in about the same position, straining more or less, but mouths safely out of the water. No matter how hard the Lazarres pushed, the wheels wouldn’t budge an inch farther.

Adik then said, “We’re gonna have to drown the dogs by hand.” The rest must have agreed, but either there was some argument about how to do it or who got to drown whom, or maybe they just wanted to take a break, for the Lazarres gathered on shore behind them and now had a smoke and drank from a bottle. Nector could smell the fragrance of their tobacco drifting down over the water. The waves came in underneath his chin but lapped up onto his face. He couldn’t help imagining how they would be found. Once they were drowned, their dead faces would bob up once again and stare sightless across the waves. At the same time he imagined this, he couldn’t help despising the Lazarres for believing the five boys tied in a car were going to look like an accident. As he was struggling with these thoughts, and wishing he could see his mother once again, and as he also thought how good life would be without this dreadful end coming upon him, he suddenly felt busy fingers working on the knots his hands were still trying vainly to undo. He pulled eagerly — the hands held his still and then skillfully freed him. Clay, he recalled now, was very good with ropes as a result of being tied up often by his big brothers. Clay surfaced on the other side, freed Makoons from the steering wheel. Johnny and Rockhead wiggled their hands at him. They weren’t yet swimming so as not to arouse the Lazarres’ suspicions, but as soon as Makoons was free they took off their shoes and hell for leather started kicking for the island.

The Lazarres could tie good knots, but they weren’t skilled swimmers, except for Adik. He came blasting down the bank when he saw them escaping and he dived in and began swimming right after. The cousins were fast, but Adik came on like a steamboat, and as they passed over the deepest, darkest part of Matchimanito he was only feet away. That’s when Rockhead gasped, “You guys keep on. I’ll take care of him.” And he turned, treading water, as Adik lunged forward.

Rockhead’s one fighting skill was renowned, and when they’d attacked, the Lazarres had taken care not to let him exercise it. The biggest Lazarre had grabbed him around the neck and immobilized his head, while two others worked on the rest of him. Now, Rockhead’s serene stone-hard skull was all Adik saw, and the last thing he saw, as the two came face-to-face. For when Rockhead cracked him with his one effective weapon, Adik’s eyes rolled straight up to heaven. All the air went out of him and he sank straight down to the cold, bottomless, airless, black bottom of the lake, where nothing lived but a horned being and some colorless fish.

So it was another Lazarre who came out of that encounter missing, an outcome that added to the fury of the clan and deepened their thirst for revenge, which they slaked on whiskey for some time.

As for Nector and his cousins, they rested a short time, only on the edge of the island, for it was well-known that spirits lived there. And then they swam on, more slowly, and reached the other side of the shore. From there, it was a long way back to the road and Nector, only, was unafraid of that side of Matchimanito. He couldn’t persuade them by any means to go near Fleur’s cabin, though they did allow him to lead them and blundered in the dark toward the place where Nanapush kept his shack when he wasn’t living with Margaret. That’s where they stayed overnight. That’s where they told their story first.

Nanapush was a most interested audience. When they had finished, he lighted his pipe and leaned back to smoke and think.

At last he said, “Makoons will suffer when his uncle finds out.”

Makoons groaned out loud. Ever since it was clear they would live, he’d been faced with the prospect of telling his uncle that his car was in the lake. More than once, the anticipation of his uncle’s wrath and disappointment had caused Makoons such anguish that he almost wished the water had come six inches higher. But then, of course, his friends would have had to die too, which Makoons counted as unfair — especially since they believed the uncle freely allowed his nephew to borrow the precious auto when really Makoons had taken advantage of his uncle’s absence at a funeral and sneaked the car out for a spin.