Nahoonkara Read online

  Of course, fights break out. It is inevitable. At first they are rare, but soon nearly every day. Henry doesn’t like this. Killian is already apart from it all, lost in the woods above the town, watching from afar as one miner stabs a Mexican through the eye with a broken bottle. Do you see the Mexican there, twitching in the street? How no one clears his body from the mud until the following morning and then only because a cartload of hammers can’t get through? It is then Henry decides to call a meeting.

  Listen with Killian from the corner of the room.

  “We are a community now,” Henry tells the crowd stuffed into Guller’s Saloon. “And we need to start acting like one. The first thing we need is a name.”

  “What we need are women,” Pete Myers shouts from somewhere in the crowd.

  “What you need’s a horse,” someone else shouts.

  “Now, I propose we do this democratically,” Henry says once the laughter dies down. “Let each man write down the name he thinks best.”

  “But Tom can’t write,” a man shouts.

  “Neither can Frank,” another says.

  “Seven Falls.” A man with a goose-bone pipe in his mouth stands up in the center of the room and repeats the name. “Seven Falls.” The man’s leathered skin so crosshatched with lines it looks like a fighting cock has been let loose upon it.

  “Your brother named the river that feeds this town, and it’s as good a name as any,” the man says, his pipe clenched firmly in his mouth as he speaks.

  Henry says nothing, transfixed by the web of smoke emanating from the man’s pipe, the way it drifts about us. It’s the same rich, fudge scent as Jake Mulenbach’s tobacco.

  “The name’s Will,” the man says. “Will Markey.” Watch as they vote Will Markey sheriff. Listen as he turns it down, saying he was born to work the mines. Meet Pete Myers, who foolishly steps up for the job.

  “The next thing we need is a school teacher,” Henry says. “We can’t have a proper town without a school.”

  “But we ain’t got but three kids, and they’re all Carl’s property,” Pete Myers offers.

  Henry stands upon a chair as if he could better see through the smoky haze. He notes the lack of Mexicans. The fact that they’ve already cleared out. “That’s going to change,” he says. “That’s all going to change.”

  Let us listen now to other voices as we ride the smoke round and round, round and round, until we are diminished.

  WHY WE FORGET

  Killian | Wisconsin

  “Look!” Catherine shouts when she spies the river. It’s springtime, and the river rushes with the force of the snowmelt. “Water!” she screams. Catherine points the way to the wide banks of the Big Eau Pleine. Even though she’s three, it’s she who leads me, her wobbly gait my guide.

  Eli wouldn’t take the time to follow a three-year-old through the woods, to give himself up to a child who meanders like the river, moving from flower to flower, from insect to insect and rock to rock, saying she’s a butterfly and not really human at all. Henry might do it for a time, but not trusting in her, he’d want to go his own way.

  She steps to the edge of the river, wanting to get as close as she can. Leaning into the cold mist, she teeters on the brink, and I pull her back. I don’t want to because I know she’s alive just then with the mist in her face. I can feel it. But I do it anyway. Someone has to fear. I suppose that once we’re at the river our roles reverse to the way they should be, and I’m her guardian and guide.

  I point to the calm, shady pools near the bank where the fish feel protected. I tell her that no matter how wild the river the fish can always find a safe place to hide. What I don’t tell her is that it’s the first thing a young fisherman learns, and so it’s the first place he’ll look.

  I don’t know if I can explain it, but I feel as if Catherine is my own child, not my sister, that once we walk past the line of elms that marks our property, things change.

  We go to the river every day after my chores are done, every day for a year. When you see a river that much, it’s easy to see its patterns—the rush and swell of spring as the river charges over boulders, carrying away branches, not concerned with working its way around things because it has the strength to run right over them. And then summer. Catherine told me once she could see the sun stealing the river’s breath in the summer. In fall, we count the leaves floating down, watching them get stuck on a rock where the river’s low. I tell her that the river senses the long sleep of winter—my favorite time of year—and prepares for it. She loves winter too, but not for the same reason I do. She loves the way the falling snow feels on her face. I tell her how most people think of winter as death, that people think underneath all that snow and ice the river dies. But the river’s waiting, that’s all.

  I remember a day just after Christmas, with two feet of snow already covering everything. Catherine can’t walk through the snow, so I carry her on my shoulders. She says she likes being a giant, looking down at the earth from the treetops. But then she spots a deer half buried in the snow, not moving. I figure it hasn’t been there long because the coyotes haven’t gotten to it yet. I want to take a closer look, but I don’t. This is another thing I don’t want Catherine to see. Though maybe it’s better if she does.

  She asks right away why the deer doesn’t move, and I don’t have an answer. I tell her the deer is sleeping, just like Mother tells me when I ask her to explain death.

  Ice-fingers stretch across the surface. Still, the water rushes through, always finding a way. We sit on the bank in the snow, and I wonder at the clarity of it. The cold somehow seems essential. You’d think it would be the other way around, that a frozen world would cloud until all definition is lost.

  A brown speckled trout treads the still shallow by the bank. “Is he sleeping like the deer?” Catherine asks. I stare at the trout and have to wonder myself; he’s so still.

  “No,” I say. “His sleep is different.” To make her forget, I distract her like I’ve seen Mother do, point out a spot where the water flows over the ice rather than under.

  “How?” Catherine asks. And I wonder at how she knows, how children always seem to know when you’re lying or distracting them from the things that matter. I can’t answer her, so I stare at the trout. Then Catherine asks what happens to the trout when the snow comes and the river freezes over.

  “It waits, sleeping under the ice,” I say.

  “Is the deer waiting, too?”

  I don’t have an answer for her. And I know what Mother feels like those days when I ask her all sorts of questions. As soon as you start looking, you see that most things don’t have answers, only questions and more questions. Children understand that. That’s why they never linger too long on any one question; there are too many others to ask.

  Every time we come to the river it’s different. There are the big changes that follow the seasons, but there are also smaller changes, ones you can only catch if you visit every day the way Catherine and I do—the slight rise and fall of the level marked by the bank; the choices the river makes on which way to go around a rock, (or simply to go over it); the sounds shifting from a ripple to a babble to a gush depending on the river’s mood. I find myself wondering if it’s the river that changes every day, or if we do. That’s what I want to ask Catherine. But I think she’s too young. I don’t know then that we’re born understanding and only with time do we forget. By the time we die, everything is a mystery.

  THE PROCESS OF SEDIMENTATION

  Henry | Colorado

  I was walking into Wheeler’s Bank, looking to get a loan for more supplies, when she came through the door, head lowered so that all I could see was her wide-brimmed hat with a red ribbon around the top. I would have kept going had the earth not spoken. I would have passed by, never knowing that the wide-brimmed hat was all that held the fragments and that the woman beneath that hat had just about given up hope of someone coming along to gather the parts of her and hold them together. But the earth s
hifted beneath my feet, and I pay attention to any geologic alteration. I stopped, pulled the handkerchief from my pocket, and gathered her inside.

  “I’m looking for a schoolteacher,” I said. “One who doesn’t mind the hardships of the mountains.”

  “A bank is a funny place to find one.” She kept her head down, her hat tilted to the side like a shield.

  “Can you help me?”

  “It depends,” she replied. “Are those your initials on your handkerchief?”

  “Pardon my manners,” I said, offering my hand. “My name’s Henry Gerrull.”

  “I’m Elizabeth,” she said, her hand rising to meet mine. “Elizabeth . . .” She repeated, then hesitated, as if searching the layers of her own history.

  “Just Elizabeth?” I spread the handkerchief over her hand.

  “Yes.”

  I placed my hand upon the handkerchief, took her hand in mine. “Well, Elizabeth is a grand enough name to carry the weight of two,” I said. “And I’m guessing that your face is beautiful enough to warrant such a name.” Her head remained bowed, but the handkerchief trembled between us.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” she said, stepping away from me and out the door.

  The handkerchief floated to the ground.

  I didn’t bother to pick it up, hoping to catch a glimpse of her as she reached the end of the boardwalk. She hiked up her skirts just enough to avoid the ever-present mud and crossed with a determination I would not have expected from one with so fine a hat. On the surface, she appeared a lady. But underneath, there were places chiseled hard and sharp. She had seen much of the world. Enough, at least, not to bother waiting for a man to throw his coat down over the mud.

  Denver was not so big at the time that a few well-placed questions couldn’t locate a person. Divining rare minerals beneath the earth was far more difficult than finding a lady in the newly formed city. I soon learned that the family of Bertram Wheeler, the banker, had adopted Elizabeth years ago. No one I talked to knew her last name, who her family had been, nor even how long she’d been living with the Wheelers.

  Though the “Meg” had not yet struck a definitive vein, the next day I filled my bags with what ore I had, marched into Wheeler’s office, and dropped the bags upon his desk with a thud.

  “People won’t remember gold once the ‘Meg’ hits what I know she’s going to hit,” I told Wheeler as I pulled a piece of snake-like silver from the bag.

  “A highly unlikely scenario,” Wheeler said, delicately taking the silver from my hand with his thick fingers and sniffing it. “Talk in town, Mr. Gerrull, is that you don’t know what you’re doing up there.” He tasted the silver then, flakes of it falling in his dark beard.

  “And what do you think?” I laid my last bag of silver on his desk to weigh his position in my favor.

  “I think you’ve got balls of silver, Mr. Gerrull,” Wheeler said, laughing. He extended his hand, and I took it, wishing I had not left my handkerchief upon the floor of his bank, as his palm was covered in sweat.

  “You’re a shrewd man, Mr. Wheeler.”

  “Just don’t prove me wrong,” he replied, pocketing the silver. “A present for my daughter.”

  “I didn’t know you were a family man,” I said, seeing my opening. “I’m sure your daughter is quite a charmer.”

  “That and more, Mr. Gerrull,” he replied, reaching out and pulling another piece of the delicate silver from my bag, then wrapping his thick fingers about it.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” I offered.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he replied, taking the bait. “Why don’t you come for dinner at my house?”

  “Wonderful!” I said, thinking that I had just struck two veins with one blow of my hammer.

  Elizabeth did not appear until just before dinner. Bertram (he insisted I call him that) and I passed the time in the smoking room while the servants prepared the meal and the women prepared themselves. Mrs. Blanche Wheeler greeted us first, a beautiful woman in the way that ice holds beauty, in the fineness of its features, the pale clarity of its surface. The starched collar of her dress pushed her head high, perfectly aligned with the straight set of her spine. She offered me her hand, and, as I kissed it, I looked for imperfections, cracks in her veneer, but the skin clung so tightly to the bone that what thin lines she had did not go deep.

  Blanche called Elizabeth down twice before she made her appearance. Though I had been allowed plenty of time to gather myself, I was not prepared for the odd sadness that pierces through eyes of dark green light. And though I’d seen her hands before, I could not have been ready for the way in which a man can lose himself in the forest of brown hair that falls black upon a milky shoulder.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Gerrull,” she said, once again giving me her hand.

  Without the protection of my handkerchief, I was left exposed. I extended my hand, attempting to clasp hers only to stop short, leaving but a little air between our fingers to be shaped, like a piece of clay, from the possibility of our desire. Elizabeth’s face betrayed nothing, as if it was still hidden by her wide-brimmed hat. But I sensed the gazes of Bertram and his wife as they observed the effect their adopted daughter had on their guest. It was then Bertram stepped between us, displacing the air before I could discern its shape. I remember that I couldn’t tell whether his action was a gesture of fatherly protection or the jealous stance of a threatened lover.

  “Henry is a miner,” Bertram practically shouted from his position at the end of the long mahogany dining table.

  “A geologist,” I corrected him. “Trained at Harvard. I’m here to test my theories, and so far they are proving correct.”

  “As long as they prove profitable,” Bertram replied, taking a long sip of wine.

  “I thought geology was a discredited science,” Mrs. Wheeler interjected. “We all know that the earth was created in seven days, that humans have only been around a few thousand years. How silly it all is to suggest that rocks are millions of years old.” She laughed, tilting her thin nose to the side so that it appeared the beak of a bird.

  “Pardon me for saying so, Mrs. Wheeler, but if humans continue with such thoughts we’ll never step out of the Dark Ages. The evidence in favor of an Earth that predates man is simply overwhelming. And for that we owe a debt of gratitude to geologists like Sir Charles Lyell.” I had spoken before thinking better of it, and now it was too late. I hoped to steal a glance at Elizabeth, to get a hint of where she stood, to know that if I had alienated myself from my hosts, I had at least not lost her.

  “I’ve never understood the English,” Bertram interrupted. “To all appearances they seem a God-fearing race, but then they produce devils like Darwin and Lyell.”

  It was as if I were sitting in the woods during the cold light of early morning, watching my father stand with his back to me, rifle raised, searching the sky. Where was the language that was my own, the one I had fought so hard to find? How could I speak and not lose all?

  “What do you think, Elizabeth?” I asked, surprising myself. There was silence as all eyes focused on her. She kept her hands in her lap, her head lowered. It was then I regretted my haste.

  “I don’t see why we can’t believe in both,” she said, and all at that table leaned forward to hear. “We can certainly accept the teachings of science without shattering our faith.”

  No one moved. I sensed by the coolness in Blanche’s gaze and the tight set of Bertram’s mouth that this was the first time Elizabeth had contradicted, even if ever so slightly, her adopted parents.

  Preferring to lose the afterlife rather than a profitable deal, Bertram followed Elizabeth into the middle ground. “There’s no need to be obstinate, Blanche,” he said. “We are civilized people.” Taking up his knife, he cut into his steak and began eating in earnest. The bloody juice pooled on his plate. “Certainly, we can disagree and still enjoy our dinner.”

  Blanche gazed at her husband with sleeted eyes before finally picking up
her fork. “You are right, of course,” she said. Her food remained untouched.

  When it was over, I thanked them all for a pleasant evening and bid them good night. I waited, hoping for a sign, but Elizabeth stood silently behind her parents. Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler walked me to the door, where Bertram handed me first my coat, then my hat.

  I prepared to leave, Bertram holding the door for me, when her footsteps echoed through the long hall. The air thickened between us, taking shape once again.

  “Mr. Gerrull!” she called. “I thought you might need this, as I noticed you were without one of your own.”

  She stood breathless before me, holding out one of her own blue silk handkerchiefs.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler stared on, more surprised than I.

  “That is very kind of you,” I said, taking the handkerchief from her, this time allowing my hand to linger in the space above hers. The air between us shaped itself into a single phrase, a phrase that went unspoken yet was understood just the same.

  The next morning, as I waited in the park along the Platte, I wondered what would have happened had I taken her hand, pressed it in mine. It seemed to me that it would have crumbled, that it was made of sand and would have fallen apart at the slightest pressure. I don’t know why I imagined her hand that way. She’d proven herself to be quite strong.

  As the morning passed, I waited beneath the biggest cottonwood I could find, but it offered little shade. No time had been mentioned for our meeting, and it was only then I realized that no place had actually been mentioned either. The image of it had simply appeared in my mind.

  The sun stared down from its meridian, and I was beginning to think that I would never discover what held her layers together. I wondered if, perhaps, it was best I did not. The overwhelming feeling of the night before came back to me, the thickening of air that nearly suffocated, and I wondered if I was strong enough to withstand the force of her need. I put on my hat, rose, and began crossing through the field of columbines concentrated in the center of the park. There, on the opposite edge of the blue and white flowers, stood Elizabeth, a suitcase in one hand and two hatboxes in the other.