LaRose

Romeo & Landreaux

THE DORMITORY BUILDING was made of tightly mortised red bricks. It was a simple boxy building, the main entrance opening in the center. When Landreaux pushed the dull steel of the main doors, the inside pressure changed and a hoarse vibration of sound escaped. A low sigh, the ghost of Milbert Good Road. The floors were pale linoleum tiles polished to a gloss. In late afternoon, the heatless sun blazed down the central corridor. Little boys were on one side, big boys on the other. There were large divided barrackslike sleeping quarters to either side of the hallway. There were two bunk beds to a room, four boys. The bathrooms and showers were halfway down the hall and the matrons’ glass-fronted offices were set watchfully at either end. Down in the basement there was a laundry room with banks of washers and dryers chugging day and night.

One of the matrons in the little boys’ wing, plump and freckled with blazing thick white hair in a short bowl cut, explained to Landreaux the system of demerits. His name was added to a chart in a bound book, at her office desk. If he didn’t wash or if he wet the bed, if he overslept, if he was noisy after lights-out or backtalked or went out of school boundaries, or most especially, if he ever ran away, demerits would be marked by his name. Mrs. Vrilchyk explained that if he had too many demerits he could lose recess, trips to town. If he ran away it would be much worse, she said. He might not get his privileges back. Landreaux had heard they made boys wear long green shame dresses, shaved their heads, made them scrub the sidewalks. But no, another boy had told him on the bus, they had done this in a different school and now they’d stopped. Mrs. Vrilchyk was still talking. Running away was dangerous. A girl had died two years ago. Mrs. Vrilchyk, whom everyone called Bowl Head, said that the girl was tossed in a ditch. There are bad people out there. So don’t run away, she said. Her voice wasn’t mean, or kind, just neutral. She patted his shoulder and said that she could tell he was a good boy. He wouldn’t run away.

Every time she said the words run away, Landreaux had a feeling about the word: runaway. The word bounced him up inside.

He took the bundle of clothes and bedding. A man matron stood in the bedroom and showed the boys how they were supposed to make their beds. He was an Indian, like an uncle, but with little eyes and a hard, pocked face. The matron stripped the bed he had made and told all of the boys to make their beds that way. He was called from the room. The boys who were to share the room started pawing the sheets and blankets into shape.

Except a pale, hunched boy. He sat on the edge of his bed and said, in a low voice, Go to hell, Pits. He kicked the bedclothes on the floor and stamped his foot on them. So this was Romeo. At four or five years of age he had been found wandering beside the road on the same reservation where Landreaux grew up. Nobody knew exactly who his parents were, but he was clearly an Indian. He was burned, bruised, starved, thought mentally deficient. But once he was sent to boarding school, it turned out he was one of the smartest boys. He snarled to show he was tough, but he was not. He was in love with Mrs. Peace and was working in her class to make her notice him, take him home with her. Adopt him. That was his aim, maybe high but not impossible? After all, he had graduated from the pee boys.

Romeo had stopped pissing in his sleep because he’d stopped drinking water. Just a cup in the morning and a cup at noon. Was he thirsty? Hell, yes. But within a month of enduring this great thirst he was no longer a pee boy and it was worth it. Not a drop passed his lips after noon feed, even if he got too dizzy to run around, even if his mouth turned dry and tasted of rotting mouse. It was very worth it not to piss the bed.

He heard them talking in the other bunks.

Can’t have a top bunk, Romeo. Might drip.

But Landreaux looked at Romeo, gave an open, friendly smile, and said, Nah he looks steady. I’ll sleep under.

Landreaux put his bedding in the bunk below.

Romeo was flooded with a piercing sensation that started as surprise, became pleasure, and then, if he’d known what to call it, joy. No boy had ever stood up for him. No boy had ever grinned at Romeo like he might buddy up with him. He had no brothers, no cousins at school, no connections at home except a dubious foster aunt. This moment with Landreaux was so powerful that its impact lasted days. And it got better. Landreaux never wavered. Because Landreaux called him steady, Romeo became steady. Landreaux was instantly cool with his careless slouch and rangy confidence, and he acted, simply, as though Romeo had always been cool right along with him. Because of Landreaux, Romeo stood straighter, got stronger, ate more, even grew. He began drinking water later in the afternoon. Stayed dry. Landreaux was ace at archery, hit bull’s-eye every time. Romeo could do math in his head. They became known. Other boys admired them. Many times that year, Mrs. Peace took them home with her. She was the mother of a little girl named Emmaline, who seemed to adore them equally. Landreaux ignored Emmaline, but Romeo adored her back. He sat on the floor with her, played blocks, dolls, animals, and read her favorite picture book whenever she pushed it into his hands. Mrs. Peace laughed and thanked him, because, she said, the book was repetitive. Romeo didn’t care. The little girl hung on his every word. As they grew, his love grew also, but she forgot about him.

Mrs. Peace’s home had a yard with a knotted rope dangling from a tall tree. The boys took turns clinging to the ball of rags at the end of the rope. They twisted each other up tight and then swung out, untwisting in great loops, until they got sick. After their stomachs settled, they ate meat soup and frybread, corn on the cob. Mrs. Peace made them read The Hardy Boys, which she’d taken from the library just for them, sometimes out loud. Romeo was a better reader than Landreaux, but he hid that. He listened to Landreaux strain along, his whole body tilting as if each sentence was an uphill walk. The friends were contented all fall, all winter, all spring. They stayed two summers, and were best friends. Around year three, however, Landreaux began to talk about his mother and father. They had never visited. He talked about them in fall, then winter. In spring he began to talk about going to find them.

That’s running away, said Romeo.

I know it, said Landreaux.

This one girl? She run away by crawling under the school bus, hanging on somewhere under there. She sneaked out when it got to the reservation. She run back home. Her mom and dad kept her because of how she taken the chance. They were afraid of what she might do next if they sent her back.

The boys were talking back and forth in their bunk beds, hissing and whispering after lights-out.

I dunno, said Landreaux. You could fall out. Get dragged.

Flattened like Wile E. Coyote.

Ain’t worth it, said Sharlo St. Claire.

You’re too big anyway. Gotta be small.

I could do it, said Landreaux. This was before he started eating and got his growth.

I could do it too, said Romeo.

Couldn’t.

Could.

We should do it quick then. School bus going back in a week. Nobody else gonna take us, said Landreaux.

Isn’t so bad here in summer, said Romeo. His heart hammered. What if he got “home” and there was nobody for him? Yet there would be no Landreaux, here, if Landreaux left. That was unthinkable. Romeo knew how his life was saved and knew the scars along the insides of his arms represented something unspeakable that he could not remember. He didn’t want to leave the school and didn’t want to hang beneath the bus.

Look, Landreaux. In summer, we go to the lake and swim and stuff? Right? That’s fun.

They watch you alla time.

Yeah, said Romeo.

Well, said Landreaux. I am sick of their eyes on me.

Even Romeo knew that Pits was after Landreaux, cuffed him around, so it was more than the seeing eyes.

Next day on the playground, Romeo looked at Landreaux.

Whatcha think?

Landreaux nodded.

Romeo saw the dullness behind his eyes. This opacity of spirit — well, Romeo would never have called it that, but many years later Father Travis was to call it exactly that as he considered the man hanging his head before him. Romeo knew only that when Landreaux shut that spark off behind his eyes, it meant he was asleep and would do anything no matter how dangerous. It made Landreaux look extremely cool, and Romeo felt sick.

During the weekend, they got in good with Bowl Head, who let them deliver a broken step stool to the woodworking shop. The buses were parked just beyond. After they dropped the stool off, they sneaked behind the corner of the building and then crept to a school bus, rolled beneath. They could see immediately where you might hang on.

Maybe, said Landreaux, if you were shit-ass crazy. Maybe a few minutes. Not for hours and hours.

Though you might hol’ on longer if you knew falling off would kill you.

Don’ look like much fun, said Romeo.

Don’ you believe ’bout that girl? said Landreaux.

But there was something irresistible in Landreaux’s intense planning. He could not stop thinking, talking, how they might strap themselves on with belts or ropes. How it might get hot or might get cold. Need a jacket either way.

THE DAY CAME. Romeo and Landreaux ambled into the go-home line and lingered at the very end. Bowl Head stood by the open bus door, scanning her checklist. Each student in the line held a sack of clothing. Romeo and Landreaux had sacks too. At the last moment, they ditched, sneaked around the tail end of the bus, rolled into shadow, then wormed into the guts of the machine. There was a flat foot-wide bar they could hang on that ran down the center, and beside it two catch pans that could help them balance. They put their bags in the pans and fixed themselves in place on their stomachs, feet up, ankles curled around the bar, face-to-face.

A thousand years passed before the bus roared violently to life. It bumbled along through the town streets. The boys could feel the gears locking together, changing shape, transferring power. As they pulled onto the highway the bus lurched, then socked smoothly into high gear.

They lifted their heads, dazzled, in the vast rumble of the engine. Their ears hurt. Occasionally bits of stone or gravel kicked up and stung like buckshot. Seams in the asphalt jarred their bones. Their bodies were pumped on adrenaline and a dreamlike terror also gripped them. On their stomachs, feet up, ankles curled around the bar, face-to-face, they clung fear-locked to their perch.

The pain burrowed into Romeo’s eardrums, but he knew if he lifted his hands to his ears he’d die falling off. The pain got worse and worse, then something exploded softly in his head and the noise diminished. The boys tried very hard not to look down at the highway. But it was all around them in a smooth fierce blur and the only other place to look was at each other.

Landreaux shut his eyes. The dark seized and dizzied him. He had to focus on Romeo, who didn’t like to be looked at and did not ever meet another person’s eyes, unless a teacher held his head and forced him. It wasn’t done in Landreaux’s family. It wasn’t done among their friends. It drove white teachers crazy. In those days, Indians rarely looked people in the eye. Even now, it’s an uneasy thing, not honest but invasive. Under the bus, there was no other place for the two boys to look but into each other’s eyes. Even when the two got old and remembered the whole experience, this forced gaze was perhaps the worst of it.

Romeo’s rat-colored buzz cut flattened and his pupils smoked with fear. Landreaux’s handsome mug was squashed flat by wind and his lush hair was flung straight back. His eyes were pressed into long catlike slits, but he could see — oh, yes he could see — the lighter brown splotches in Romeo’s pinwheel irises, mile after mile. And he began to think, as minutes passed, endless minutes mounting past an hour, a timeless hour, that Romeo’s eyes were the last sight he would see on earth because their bodies were losing the tension they needed to grip the bar. Arms, shoulders, stomach, thighs, calves — all locked but incrementally loosening as though the noise itself were prying them away from their perch. If they hadn’t both been strong, light, hard-muscled boys who could shimmy up flagpoles, vault fences, catch a branch with one arm, and swing themselves into a tree, over a fence, they would have died. If the bus hadn’t slowed exactly when it did and pulled into a rest stop, they would also have died.

They were speechless with pain. Landreaux gagged a few words out, but they found they could hear nothing. They watched each other’s mouths open and shut.

They cried sliding off the bar as blood surged back into muscle. From beneath the bus, they saw Bowl Head’s thick, creamy legs, and the driver’s gray slacks. Then the other kids’ boney ankles and shuffling feet. They waited on the tarred parking lot ground until everyone had gone to the bathrooms and was back inside. The doors closed, the driver started the bus idling, and that’s when they rolled out from underneath. They dove behind a trash barrel. Once the bus was gone, they staggered off into a scrim of thick blue spruce trees on the perimeter. For half an hour, they writhed beneath the branches and bit on sticks. When the pain subsided just enough for them to breathe, they were very thirsty, hungry too, and remembered they’d left their sacks stuck beneath the bus. They sharply recalled the bread they’d squirreled away with their clothes.

The rest stop was empty, so they left the bushes and went in. They drank water from the taps, pissed, wondered if they could hole up inside for the night. But there was nowhere in the bathroom, really, to hide. Digging through the trash, Romeo found a bit of candy bar. The chocolate just got their juices flowing. Walking out the door, they noticed a car turning off the highway. They sneaked around back and flung themselves beneath the trees. A family of four white people got out of the car with two brown paper bags. The children put the paper bags on the picnic table, and then the family went into the restrooms.

The instant they vanished, Landreaux sprinted for the bags. Romeo ran to the car to look for other food, and saw that the keys were still in the ignition. He signaled to Landreaux, who walked over with an easy step, slid behind the wheel, turned the key, and pulled out as if he’d done it all his life.

Romeo and Landreaux turned off the highway onto a county road. It quickly turned to gravel. Landreaux kept on going. They ate the sandwiches, deviled eggs, everything except the two apples, and kept the lemonade bottle, the hats and jackets. They left the car parked down a side road in some bushes, and doubled back to a set of train tracks they’d crossed. They started walking west on the cross ties. When it got dark, they found a shelterbelt, put on the extra jackets, and used the caps for pillows. They ate the apples and drank a third of the lemonade. Three trains passed in the night, much too fast to hop. In the morning they kept walking.

One thing I wonder, said Romeo, and hope I never know.

Whuh, said Landreaux.

How Bowl Head really cuts her hair. With a bowl the exact same size of her head or what?

That hair went brown to white in one day, said Landreaux.

The thick brilliance of her hair was truly remarkable.

Romeo did not believe it happened in one day, but he asked how.

What I heard was she went back of the dining hall and saw Milbert Good Road the way he looked after he had drowned on that school trip. He asked why she never runned for him when she saw him go under. The water wasn’t more than up to her stomach. People said she was parasite.

Paralyzed, murmured Romeo.

She yelled for Mr. Jalynski an he jumped in. Ermine jumped in, waded in, all the kids good at swimming went in, all the other grown-ups. They never found him til later. They said it was a water moccasin.

Romeo said nothing, but sometimes he wondered about Landreaux. Some kids had heard a teacher from Louisiana mention the deadliness of a water moccasin. Some kid made up that it was a moccasin made of water that slipped around your foot and pulled you under. Romeo knew it was a snake and Milbert had drowned because he couldn’t swim. Landreaux was cool, but, parasite? Water moccasin? These lapses made Romeo uneasy. Not only that, they just hurt his brain.

This train couldn’t just run on forever, with no reason, Romeo complained. Must be a grain elevator someplace.

They could see a farm many miles away. A square hedge of green on the horizon, blank flat earth all around. The sun was low and they had drunk all of the lemonade, jealously watching each other. But Landreaux gave Romeo the last swallow, saying, Kill it, reluctantly, looking away. They’d had nothing to eat for hours but the juicy ends of tall grass along the tracks.

Maybe we could get there by dark, said Romeo.

Pretty sure there’s a dog, said Landreaux.

But they went.

From a handsome shelterbelt of evergreens and old lilac, they watched the house — two story, painted white, a trim of scalloped wood all around the first story and four plain columns holding up a meager, dignified front porch. A light went on in back. The screen door creaked open and flapped shut. An old white-muzzled black dog tottered stiffly into the yard, followed by a tall old woman. She wore a whitish dress, saggy gray man’s sweater, and sheepskin slippers. The boys noticed the slippers because she walked by them on the edge of the mowed grass. The dog dropped behind and stopped before them, nose working, eyes cataracted and opaque.

Pepperboy, get over here, said the woman.

The dog stood before them a moment longer. Seeming to find them harmless, he took painful mechanical steps toward his master. The two continued around the yard. They made ten rounds, moving more slowly each time, so that the woman and her dog seemed to the dizzied Landreaux to be capturing the last of the light slanting out of the trees, taking it with them while breasting continuous waves of darkness. At last the night became absolute and the woman and dog were nearly invisible. Each time they passed, the dog stopped to measure the boys, and then caught up with the woman again. On the last round, the boys heard them shuffle near. This time when the dog stopped, the woman’s black silhouette loomed.

You hungry? she asked. I made some dinner.

They didn’t dare answer.

She walked away. After a few moments, the boys rustled out of the grass and followed her to the door. They stood outside as she went through.

Might as well come in, she called, her voice different, unsure, as if she thought perhaps she hadn’t really seen them.

The boys stepped into the kitchen, and stumbled back at the sight of the old woman in the light. She was striking — lanky and overly tall, deeply sun-beaten, her face a folded fan of vertical lines. A thick shock of white hair tipped like a crest over her forehead. The sides of her hair were neatly pinned back and her ears stuck out, drooping pancake ears burnt crisp over a lifetime. She was more than old, she was powerfully old. The milky blue of her eyes faded spookily into the whites, giving her the authority of one risen from the grave. Not only did the woman look so strange, but there was a phone in the kitchen. How long before she called the sheriff? The boys were jittery enough to bolt.

Why, you’re wearing new clothes! the woman suddenly said, and smiled toothily, gently, as if she knew them.

The boys looked down at their dirty old clothes.

She turned away to the open refrigerator, and began removing foil-covered pans and dishes. She handed them back to the boys, who stepped forward.

Stick ’em in the oven, she said.

Landreaux opened the oven of a clean porcelain stove and the boys placed dish after dish inside. The oven was cold. Romeo examined the dials and turned it on. The numbers went up to 500. He chose 425.

There, said the woman, rubbing her hands. Now what else?

She opened a cupboard, took out a box of saltine crackers and a tin of sardines. She put them on the table. There was already a sweating icy pitcher of cold tea.

Get some glasses.

She waved her hand at the dish drainer and sat down. The dog rose from a woven rug in the corner and came to lie at her feet. While the boys gulped the tea, she unstuck the key from the sardine can, shakily inserted it into the slot, and rolled back the top halfway.

Forks? She jerked her head toward the drawers left of the sink. Landreaux brought the forks. Romeo guessed the right cupboard and brought to the table three large yellow plates with full-skirted ladies and top-hatted gentlemen dancing around the edges. The woman forked a piece of sardine from the can, mashed it onto her cracker. She nodded at the boys to do the same. The food stuck in their craws at first, then their hands seemed to grab unwilled, loading cracker after cracker. They stuffed all the sardines down but the last, which they left for the old woman. She had been watching them, smiling, her teeth dim and broken.

Go ahead, I got enough, she said. The boys split the last bit.

Mister’s dead, she told them. It was the heart. Mine is going strong but I don’t care if it does quit. How’s your mom and dad? she asked Landreaux. They dig their cellar?

Landreaux looked at Romeo, raised his eyebrows.

They dug it? said Romeo.

The woman nodded.

Good, that’s how you keep your food for winter. We told ’em. That cold was hard on the Indians. Mister said, they’re dying off. One goes every day. So I’m glad to see you boys, glad you made it over here. Your family is the good kind of Indian. Mister always said when they’re good they’re the best friend you ever had. A bad one will steal you bare and they’re wicked when they’re drunk. You boys have always been good. Good boys.

The phone rang, jolting them all. The woman licked her lips and stood to answer it, a black wall phone, numbers worn on the dial. She held the receiver grimly to her big ear.

Just fine, she said. She was glaring at the box of the phone as if whoever had called was inside of it.

Haven’t eaten it yet, she said, her face uncertain as though it was a trick question. Yes, the stove’s off, she said meekly. I’ll go take it out. Yes, yes. I’m hungry.

A crafty look came over her face and she turned to wink at the boys. Hungrier than I ever been!

Okay, night.

She hung up the phone and said hmmph. The warming smells of all the different foods had filled the kitchen, but she didn’t notice. She sat down at the table again, frowned into space.

Should we take out the food? asked Romeo.

The woman’s mouth worked silently, then she startled.

Take them dishes out, will you, boys? Let’s eat!

Mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed corn, creamed spinach, chicken potpie with peas and carrots, corn relish mistakenly baked to a pretty good taste. A thick pork chop, which the boys divided, corn bread, soft buttered carrots, macaroni with cheese, macaroni with meat, macaroni with tuna. A thick piece of steak meat with mushrooms. More gravy. It all went down. Some of it tasted questionable, but hot and good at the same time. And on the counter underneath a dish towel was an apple pie, plump and oozing thick sweet juice, uncut.

The old woman relaxed, leaning back to marvel as she watched them eat and eat and eat.

You boys always could eat, always could, she murmured.

When they were done, sitting back, stupefied, she said, We don’t have much to warsh except our plates and forks. Ceel says to leave them soak. Says he’ll have to do them over anyways. Then I suppose you boys have to be getting back to your people. You could take summa this along, what’s left. Your brothers and sisters might go for it. I don’t need it. Can’t stop cooking for a crew of people. So, you pushing off?

We. . we can’t go home, said Romeo. Could we stay here? With you?

The woman looked from one boy to the other.

You never done that before, she said.

It’s kinda dark, Landreaux ventured.

The old woman laughed. Your dad says Indians can see in the dark, but maybe you ain’t learned yet. Sure. Do me a favor. Go sleep in that big room upstairs with the green bedcover. Mess it up good and don’t make it in the morning. I like having my radio music at night, down here. I like listening on the couch until I nod off. It’s a good couch, but Ceel always checks if I slept there. On account of my back. Like hell. Go on! Go on! She shooed them upstairs, laughing.

That’ll fix Ceel’s leg, she said, turning the dial on the radio until she found some slow waltzlike music. She turned off the light and settled back in the pillows.

The boys, exhausted and well fed, slept long into the morning and woke to voices downstairs. The young man’s was loud, petulant, and he wore clomping shoes. They could hear footsteps rattling around, the young man’s voice fading but always audible. The woman’s voice was small and placating, like she’d been on the phone. They couldn’t tell what she was saying.

They heard him in and out of the kitchen, saying the same thing over and over. You couldnta eaten that much! And I came over here to clean your fridge out and you couldnta eaten that much!

The young man must have rummaged in the garbage.

You didn’t toss that food. Unless maybe you threw it in the woods.

The old woman said something.

Okay, okay! You wouldn’t do that. Did you sleep down here on the couch again, Mommy? Well, did you? Did you? I told you not to, didn’t I? You want throw your back out, make me haul you to the chiropractor when I got so much to do? Huh? Don’t pretend you can’t hear me. Don’t turn your head away that way.

She must have admitted she’d slept on the couch, because the young man, her son, scolded her harder. The boys were stunned, listening. Though they’d heard grown-ups fighting, this way the son sarcastically talked down to his mother disturbed the very order of love.

Okay then, the son said meanly, okay thank you for being honest with me. Okay then I don’t need to go and straighten upstairs.

By which they knew the old woman had remembered they were there.

She spoke some more, and must have finally convinced her son.

Maybe I did think there was a whole lot more food than there was. Huh. Well, I’ll just leave this sack off for you. Don’t cook it all at once, huh? You eat on this for a week. There’s still what you got left in the freezer. But hey, this pie. Mommy, now don’t lie to me! Never, ever lie to me. You make these whole damn pies but you never eat that much pie.

They heard her when she loudly said, I picked those apples off my tree! Stewed ’em, froze ’em. I can make a pie, can’t I?

And the son’s suspicious questions. There’s only two pieces left! What’s going on? You have a visitor?

The old woman must have made some story up about the dog because the son next said, He throw up? Was it in the house?

Ceel stomped around some more, looking for the puke, but apparently the dog was too old to climb stairs because Ceel didn’t come upstairs to look. He left quickly. Roared off in a big shiny white pickup. The boys peeked over a window ledge and watched the son drive a whole section of land before he was only a puff of dust.

They came downstairs. The woman was standing by the window watching the place her son had disappeared. She turned around, her face alight with emotions the boys exactly knew: the fury and shame of kowtowing to a righteous person who controlled your destiny. Threw their goodness in your face. It wasn’t something they would ever name, but it would matter for all the rest of their days. The boys knew the old woman the way she seemed to think she knew them. They stood looking back and forth at one another in the living room. At last the woman seemed to collapse a bit. She passed her hand tremblingly across her chest.

I’m glad to see you boys, she said, sudden tears in her eyes. She laughed, relieved, and they saw how afraid she was that her son would realize how deeply lost she was in this world.

You hungry again? Her skeletal grin.

Later on, that morning, she spoke.

Oh, it was good land up there. We started in Devil’s Lake. A sweet lay of land. Sloping pasture, flat acres. You just had to turn the sod. Water only fifteen feet down. We had a dug well. Pure. Mister bought the land straight off your mom and dad in ’12 when their taxes come due. All the farmers were buying up Indian land cheap that year. You all moved to your grandpa’s but got a poor farm there. You might remember your mom was pretty then, Indian braids, how she come for a bit of food just like you boys and I always had something for her. Old coats, dresses, blankets, worn-out stuff for quilts. Even gave her the needle and threads. I loved your folks. Anything they hunted down, they’d bring some over, too. They died so quick. Just faded out. One thing, another. They all got sick.

And you boys, where did you go? She sat up straight and peered at them with frail intensity. Where did you go?

The boys paused, drew breath. She was staring at them, anxious.

We went to boarding school, they said.

Oh yes, she said. Of course you did. Fort Totten. Did they feed you enough?

Fort Totten had closed years ago.

Though they could always eat more, there had been food enough at their school. One of the reasons Romeo had loved it there. No, food wasn’t why Landreaux had run away. It was more to do with living smothered by alien rules, and with his grandparents who had loved him but maybe no longer existed, and with that thing he had seen in the old woman’s face — fighting to keep herself. Landreaux was reminded of Bowl Head’s know-better smile when he did something Indian. And Landreaux felt the other part of it powerfully, too, the way the woman’s son treated her, her desperation over which reality to choose.

You fed us good, said Landreaux.

The woman looked at them with her hard, folded face and her eyes from the spirit world.

You want something? Take it. She gestured all around. Take anything, before he takes it. He wants to sell it, the acreage, the house. What we lived for. And you were always such good boys. Quiet boys. Ducked your heads away. Like that, like you’re doing now, she said to Romeo, to Landreaux. Take it. Take it all.

JARS OF WATER, money, bags of food. Romeo and Landreaux walked back to the railroad tracks and continued west. In forty years the tracks would carry mile-long black steel sausage cars full of fracked oil — the trains wouldn’t stop until they blew up or reached a port. But when the boys ran away there were only occasional freight trains loading grain cars at town elevators. It only occurred to them once they walked the tracks and passed hundreds of acres of sprouting wheat and corn that there was no reason for a train to load up at a grain elevator early in the summer.

They stopped at a friendly cottonwood tree, sat and stuffed themselves with boiled eggs, sandwiches, cheese, pickles. The old farm lady had given them money from a secret sock stuffed with rolled bills. She had also tried to give them her husband’s watch, a ring with white stones, a bracelet made of yellow stones, and a clock that she said was antique. Landreaux would have taken these things but Romeo politely refused.

Man, were you nuts back there? Romeo said to Landreaux as they ate. If the cops ever caught us with that farmer lady’s stuff they would lock us in prison.

Landreaux shrugged. We should count the money.

The top bills on the rolls were tens and the inside bills were twenties and a couple of hundred-dollar bills, at which they marveled.

Oh no, no, no, said Romeo. I bet that Ceel knows about this. He will sic the cops.

Landreaux was dazzled. He kept counting. Over a thousand dollars.

The boys carefully divided the money. They pried up the insoles of their shoes and put the hundred-dollar bills and the twenties there. They each kept seventy dollars out, in their pockets, and walked on and on, treading down the cushiony money in their shoes, until they came to a town. It was a fairly large town and had a Ben Franklin dime store. They went in. The store lady followed them around; they were used to that. It didn’t faze Landreaux, but Romeo insolently waved a ten-dollar bill at her. Landreaux bought black licorice pipes. Romeo bought red wheels. They paid and went down the sidewalk to the edge of town and back, Landreaux pretending to smoke. At the eastern end they passed a small café with a sign, BUS. Landreaux was afraid to buy a ticket. Plus they argued about where to go. Home? Not home.

We should go to Minneapolis and get a job, Landreaux said, because he’d heard people say this.

Romeo stared at Landreaux.

Nobody’s going to hire us, he said. We’re supposed to be in school. If they see us, the police might even arrest us.

How did Landreaux get this far, he wondered, without understanding how things work? But Landreaux kept talking about Minneapolis and jobs until he gave in and they bought the tickets, which were so expensive that Romeo knew for sure this was all stupid. When they boarded the bus, he said, What are we doing? We risked our life not to get on a bus.

But the bus rumbled off and they were trapped on it. At least the seats were cushy and could recline back. Their stomachs were full. They drowsed, then fell into a dead sleep. They woke for the lunch break, bought soup, and gulped it down fast. Watching Romeo suck his soup down, Landreaux thought, as he had many times, how much Romeo looked like a weasel with his wedge-shaped face, close-set eyes, and avid jaws.

There was flat North Dakota and then rolling Minnesota farms. They fell silent, mesmerized by the pretty land, the neat little towns of brick and stone. Then, down an empty highway, Landreaux saw her. He grabbed Romeo and pulled him over to the bus window. A woman walked along the breakdown lane, toward them. Landreaux had seen her as just a pinpoint far away, but there was something familiar. When she was close enough he realized it was Bowl Head. Her hair was white, short, and stuck out exactly the same. They ducked as the bus whizzed past her. Landreaux scrambled to the back of the bus to see if she had recognized them. He bumped two grown-ups necking underneath a blanket on the flat backseat. Bowl Head was in the distance but she was running, he thought, definitely running after them. He knew that she was a slow runner. He had seen her chase a boy named Artan. Although Bowl Head was slow, she was steady; she never stopped. Artan ran circles around her, but she still caught him because she outlasted him, never quit, never faltered in her pursuit.

He was shaking when he sat back down with Romeo. When Landreaux told him what he’d seen, Romeo put his hand on Landreaux’s arm and said it wasn’t Bowl Head.

Lots of white ladies look like her, don’t you notice?

Landreaux calmed down, but he couldn’t stop thinking the strange thought that Bowl Head was a spirit, a force, an element set loose by the boarding school to pursue them to the end of time.

The bus brought them to the city.

When they had boarded, the driver had asked who was meeting them in Minneapolis. They were struck silent. Mom and Dad? Relatives? He’d asked. They nodded in relief. They were about to step past the driver now, but he held them back.

Wait here. I’ll escort you to your parents, he said. Okay, boys?

Again they nodded. When the driver went down the steps to open the luggage compartment they slipped off the bus and entered the station. They mingled with a group of people scanning the little crowd held to one side of the walkway by a rope. The boys ducked under the rope, darted through the glass doors, and then they were out in the street.

Noise pressed down from every side, pushing them along. Romeo tried to watch the metal signs and stay on First Avenue. They had seen stoplights only a few times in their lives. Now stoplights everywhere. They copied what other people did, drank at a public drinking fountain, looked in windows or at framed menus outside of restaurants. Walked as if they knew where they were going. At a tiny corner store they bought bottles of pop and boxes of buttered popcorn. All of a sudden they came to the end of their downtown city street. There was a building made of rose-red bricks and a sign, BERMAN BUCKSKIN. A gravel parking lot, chain link, scarred walls. Beyond that a tangle of weeds, scrub, spindly trees.

They went into the weeds. A path sloped down to a broad river. They made their way down the bank to the concrete abutment that anchored the bridge. There in the brush, they saw evidence of a camp — some driftwood logs placed around the smear of a dead fire, blackened rocks, blankets stuffed underneath some boards, two large sagging cardboard boxes and bags containing empty cans and bottles. Stained pieces of carpeting were laid out where the ground was level. They drank their orange sodas and ate the popcorn. They added the bottles to the others, tore the boxes into tiny bits and threw them in the river. They watched the curls of paper float east. It was getting dark.

Let’s go up there, said Landreaux.

They tilted their heads back and looked into the iron trusses. Rusted ends of rebar in the eroded concrete pilings stuck out enough for hand- and footholds. Landreaux pulled a raggy blanket from the boards, draped it around his neck, and climbed. The blanket reeked of rot and urine. Romeo shook out a blanket, but the stench nearly choked him and he left it. The top of the concrete piling was big enough for the two of them, but dropped straight down to the river on one side. There was four feet of space between their heads and the iron girders that held the wooden trestle and rails. The train would pass over to one side of them. It would be loud, but then they’d already been inside the workings of a school bus.

They woke and squirmed together when the train passed over. After that, they couldn’t get back to sleep right away and lay awake, listening. Everything died down — the traffic, the throb and bleat of the city. It was so quiet they could hear the river muscling its way past to a rushing place, a dam or waterfall. They slept hard again. Sometime close to dawn, the light just lifting, Romeo heard people talking below. He prodded at Landreaux carefully, as Landreaux was liable to thrash around when coming to. They craned over the edge of their nest and tried to hear what the people below were saying.

Slam, said a man.

Fuckin A.

Eight dollars, man. Nine dollars.

Good looks, good looks.

Well, it wasn’t your breath, said a woman.

It’s that Red Lake whammy.

Chippewa skunk oil, said the woman.

And you love it.

I don’t love it, but I might roll around in it.

Oooo, down girl.

The voices started laughing and laughing, whooping until they gasped. Something the woman must have done. Over the course of the next week, they learned that this special predawn hour was the only time they could hear the voices of the people in the camp. The city was still sleeping, the air hollow. The water gave off a fog that carried sound up to their ears. At all other times the voices could be heard only as a rising and falling mutter punctuated by blunt pops of laughter and, once, a flurry of screaming and shouting, a fight that seemed to have come to nothing as the members of the camp, always five and sometimes six, ate or slept on their carpet beds or in boxes, hidden in the weeds. Most of the people were Indians.

Romeo and Landreaux developed habits opposite those of the scraggly people in the camp. An hour or so after full daylight, when the bums were unconscious, the boys climbed down. They skirted the fire circle and the sleepers. Sometimes they swiped a bit of food, plundered a bread bag; once they took an open can of baked beans. They stepped onto a thin path that led along the river until it neared another camp, maybe a rival camp, maybe the source of the fight. The boys veered up the bank before they got too close. Once up on the street they crossed the river along a low parapet on an old bridge that was ready to be torn down. On the other side of the bridge there was a neighborhood where milk was delivered. Every so often they could lift a bottle. When the stores opened, they bought bread and a pound of baloney. In a park, an alley, or on the sunny steps of a decrepit church, they divided up the loaf and the baloney, ate it all. They never tired of this breakfast.

There were three separate movie theaters to walk to. Every afternoon they saw a matinee, gathered all the half-eaten boxes of popcorn afterward, and stowed them by their seats to eat during the next show. Sometimes if the movie was extremely good they hid behind the exit curtains until the evening shows came on. They saw: Bigfoot, The Aristocats, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Airport, House of Dark Shadows, Hercules in New York, Rio Lobo, A Man Called Horse (six times; it affected them deeply), Little Big Man (eight times; it affected them deeply), and Soldier Blue. (It affected them deeply but they were asked to leave. It was not for children because it featured a woman crying over an Indian’s severed arm. They became obsessed by this unspeakable scene.)

Because they had to see this movie again, they sneaked into Soldier Blue. While they were watching for the arm, a woman entered late and sat down a few rows in front of them. Her pale hair puffed out around her head. They slumped down in their chairs, peeked between the backrests in the row ahead. Suddenly she swiveled around. Her teeth lighted up in the dark. Her Bowl Head hair glowed and rose, detached from her body. Her hand went up. They thought she was going to crawl over the seats toward them. But another person came to sit beside her and she turned back to the screen. She hadn’t seen the boys. They crept out. Romeo’s pants were slightly peed in, but Landreaux was much worse and thought he might puke.

See, said Landreaux.

I know, said Romeo. But get hold of yourself. It looked like Bowl Head but it couldn’t have been her, man. Couldn’t have!

Still, they were disoriented and wandered sickly back to the river. They blundered into the camp, into the middle of the regulars they had been hiding from and stealing from for nearly two weeks.

A man put Landreaux into a headlock, but he smelled so bad that Landreaux puked for real and was let go.

A woman with long wild hair tackled Romeo around the ankles and pulled him down.

A man in sunglasses spoke.

Sit, he said.

He struck the ground with a long white stick propped on his shoulder. He gestured at the stomped grass around the dead fire.

Someone kicked Landreaux and he collapsed.

Romeo shrugged the woman off and sat too.

Mystery solved, said the sunglasses. He laughed. Don’t you little pricks know you can’t steal from stealers? We’re stealers and such. We steal people blind, get it? Blind!

The others laughed like people who had heard that joke before. The boys had never seen a blind person’s white stick, so they didn’t get the joke.

Now speak, the sunglasses ordered. Speak your business here.

We’re visiting our relatives, said Romeo.

This struck the stinky man as extremely funny. When he laughed, the boys could see he had two sets of teeth in his mouth, one behind the other. His mouth was so full of teeth that it seemed hard to open. He closed it carefully. In spite of nervous fear, Landreaux kept his eye on this man’s mouth, hoping he would open it again.

You’re runaways, said the sunglasses man.

Yes, said Landreaux.

You been here a while. We noticed stuff missing. But we thought it was the white bums at the other camp. Run from boarding school?

Yeah.

Sunglasses nodded. Then took off his glasses, rubbed his morning-glory blue eyes and put them back on. The rest of him looked Indian, so his eyes were startling. Very beautiful and startling. He was a lean, ropey, blue-eyed Indian with a kung fu mustache.

Okay, cool, he said.

You can stay, said the stenchy toothbound man who’d grabbed Landreaux. He built a fire with grasses, then twigs, then little branches. Immediately his fire spurted flames and made a comforting crackle. He pushed a circle of rocks just so, and added chunks of wood, tending fussily to their position while the shaggy woman painstakingly opened a #10 can of Dinty Moore beef stew with a short screwdriver. She stabbed the screwdriver viciously into the top of the can, over and over, trying to connect the holes so she could pry up the lid. The fire had blazed down to coals by the time she got it partway open, and the boys had told their story to the sunglasses. Another woman wandered quietly into the camp, two bags in her arms. She was tiny and birdlike, pitiful, with a face full of boils. There was also a silent Indian powerful in grease-slicked cowboy clothes. He sat apart watching the others with tiny, searching red eyes. He had a stomped-on-looking face.

This man spoke suddenly in a rasp-file croak and took out a long gleaming bowie knife.

You little fuckers steal my blanket?

Romeo and Landreaux surprised themselves by crumpling onto the ground. They slumped like puppets. Landreaux sobbed in sucking breaths and Romeo made tiny helpless irritating noises.

Oh shit, the man said, cleaning his nails with the knife, I killed ’em.

The others laughed, but not in a mean way.

Shut up, you, said the shaggy woman. They’re just kids. They sleep up there. She pointed up at the railroad bridge with her lips. It’s not even safe, she grouched. They should have somebody looking out for them.

The stomped-on-looking powerful Indian put away his knife. Sorry I scared you little fuckers, he said. Tomorrow I’ll get youse a nice box. You can sleep down here.

The shaggy woman threw the stick she’d been stirring the can of stew with into the weeds and took some small utensils from within her shirt. She dipped stew into old pie tins still crusted with piecrust and gave them to the boys.

You give me back my spoons once you finish, hear?

The boys nodded and ate, tears dripping into the stew.

They climbed up onto the piling that night and slept. Maybe the stew, the blue eyes, or the arm caused Landreaux to thrash and howl so hard he woke Romeo in the middle of the night. Landreaux was still asleep when he started rolling off the top of the piling. Romeo grabbed his arms and Landreaux suddenly woke up. There was a moon out, and they stared into each other’s eyes the way they had beneath the bus.

I got you, said Romeo.

Landreaux made a desperate noise.

Never fear, said Romeo as he skidded toward the edge.

He felt calm, loving, and powerful. That moment would endure in his memory. It was the last time in his life that he did a heroic thing. Romeo tried to stab his feet into the concrete and willed his arms to stop quivering. But Landreaux was heavier than Romeo. Every time Landreaux swung his leg to find a desperate foothold, Romeo was drawn closer to the edge. At last, with a wild jerk, Landreaux gained his balance. In doing so, he flipped Romeo over his head into space. Landreaux tried to cling but fell backward. They could have hit the water and waded to shore, or maybe drowned, or hit the base of the piling and died, but instead they hit the weedy earth. Romeo broke Landreaux’s fall, and Romeo started screaming. Landreaux went instantly to sleep. When he came to in the morning, with a headache, Landreaux crawled out of a piece of canvas to look for his friend. Romeo was wrapped in a bag by the cold fire and he looked dead. The shaggy woman came out of the grass and poured some whiskey into Romeo, plus she crushed up a pill and mashed it into a bit of stew. Stuffed it clumsily down his throat. Romeo fell quiet and looked dead again.

What’s wrong with him? asked Landreaux, touching the trussed bag gently.

We foun him like this.

The woman was extremely drunk. She tried to pat Romeo’s hair but kept missing his head.

We didn’t know what to do so we tied im in the bag. He says his arm and leg. Landreaux pulled the bag cautiously down Romeo’s leg. There was no blood, but the leg looked sickeningly wrong, even in his pants. And his arm was also crooked. His shoes were gone.

Let’s bring him to the doctor, said Landreaux, unnerved.

But Romeo’s head lurched up and he shrieked. No, no, no, no! Landreaux crab-scrabbled backward.

You were right. She’s here!

Romeo ground his teeth, eyes mystically flashing.

She come after us. Now I seen her.

Who?

Bowl Head, man, hissed Romeo.

See? The shaggy woman had also stepped back, impressed. What ya gonna do? She joggled the whiskey bottle.

Sonny knows where to get some more. We jus keep him here, loaded for the pain, eh? Until he’s better. We don want cops poke aroun here.

Landreaux crawled close to Romeo, touched his gray face. Romeo’s skin was cold, wet, and hard as rock. Landreaux waited, watched until he took a breath, then another. Landreaux’s eyes burned — he knew very well that Romeo had tried to save him. The sudden shame of having caused his friend’s injuries was unbearable.

I’m gonna find a way to haul you to the hospital. Wait here, he said, and ran off, his friend’s pain swelling his heart.

Landreaux bolted up the embankment. He stopped where they had fallen, and snatched Romeo’s shoes from weeds. Then he sprinted across the bridge in a panic. He slowed down, took the money from the inner soles of Romeo’s shoes, put the bills in his own shoes. He began to wander the neighborhoods they knew. He walked for hours, searching for a cop. He became so weary that he didn’t see the police car pull ahead of his path, or the officer who emerged, until he was close enough to be grabbed by a man who knew how to grab. Landreaux could feel that. It was reassuring that he could not get away, and Landreaux relaxed. He began to talk. He told the officer all about Romeo and the bums’ camp and how he needed help, how his friend looked dead.

The policeman put Landreaux carefully into the backseat of the car, which was hard plastic with a heavy mesh barrier. Someday there would be Plexiglas and Landreaux would know that too. There was a radio with a handheld microphone. The police used it, asked questions, relayed the information. Then they drove back across the river. An ambulance pulled up, and then another police car. Landreaux sat in the squad car while the others beat their way down the embankment. After some time passed the police came back.

They bugged out, said one officer.

Landreaux scrambled out of the car and sprinted into the brush, wormed through the loose links of a fence, dodged down an alley, across a street, and was caught trying to cross a parking lot. The officer tried to calm him.

You got to find him!

Landreaux yelled, blubbered, moaned, and finally fell silent. They drove him to the precinct headquarters and stuck him in a chair with a glass of water and a sandwich. He sat there for a day, then another half day. But even though he was tired of waiting, he scrambled up when the original Bowl Head walked into the station. His hair prickled up the back of his neck and his stomach tried to puke up the sandwich. He knew he had been right. Bowl Head was more than she appeared to be, even supernatural.

Much later on, when Landreaux first got high behind the water tower, he saw again that he was right, that she was the spirit of the boarding schools. She meant well and her intentions were to help him be a good boy, but a white boy.

When Landreaux begged the police for pity, she said that all the runaways acted like this. She signed some papers. A policeman walked him to the car, and he saw that Pits was riding in the passenger’s seat. The policeman put Landreaux in the backseat of the car and told him that he’d be all right now. Landreaux sat petrified, couldn’t even eat the lunch that Bowl Head bought him at a restaurant, though she urged him to and said he looked thin.

When they were almost halfway home, Pits said something and Bowl Head pulled the car over. Pits opened the back door and yanked Landreaux out, shoved him down the ditch and up the other side to a riffle of trees.

Go, he said.

Landreaux did not dare move. He heard Pits pull down his zipper. A moment later hot piss spattered the back of Landreaux’s pants.

That’s for losing Romeo; he was a good kid, said Pits.

Landreaux bolted away, down the ditch, back to the car. After they’d been driving for a while, Pits said something in a low voice to Bowl Head. She shook her springy white hair no, that he should not say what he said anyway.

Pew! Landreaux’s a pee boy now!

The emergency-room doctor at Hennepin County Medical Center thought that Romeo’s arm could be pinned together, but the leg had to come off. He stabilized Romeo and sent him to surgery. The surgeon there, Dr. Meyer Buell, had studied infectious diseases and was more conservative when it came to legs. He found out that Romeo was an American Indian. He knew that Romeo was descended of the one Indian in ten who had preternatural immunities, self-healing abilities, and had survived a thousand plagues.

I believe in this boy, he declared. Even though he is the scrawniest, stinkingest, maybe the ugliest kid I’ve ever seen, and in the worst shape, he is from a long line of survivors. He has the soul of a rat.

This was not an insult. Meyer knew rats, medical and feral. As a boy, he had been shipped from Poland to relatives here, right after the war. He respected rats. He admired their cunning will.

This will be a long operation, he said to his nurses as they helped him prepare. I will save this sad leg.

Every other morning for two months, Romeo waited for the all-seeing, stirringly kind brown eyes of Dr. Buell. He would enter the room, pause, and say with a slight accent, How goes the sad leg today? With his immaculate hands, his knowing hands, Dr. Buell unbandaged and peered at, even smelled the parts of Romeo’s arm and leg he could examine outside the cast.

One side of you will be weak as a baby when the cast comes off.

Everything hurts, it hurts so bad, said Romeo. Where are my shoes?

Don’t worry about your shoes, said Dr. Buell, for the hundredth time, in the kindest way possible.

He did not give Romeo pills anywhere near as powerful as he had known. It would be years before Romeo again tasted of the substances fed to him by the shaggy woman, but when he did, he felt reunited with the only mercy in this world.