That summer it was impossible to get a job. Things was so bad I end up working on a farm for a guy named Wilf Blindman. He got a big farm down to the south end of the reserve and I bet he is the richest Indian in the area, in money anyway.
I don’t like to work on a farm. I been taking courses at the Tech School in Wetaskiwin on how to fix tractors, but I never even sniffed a job doing what I been trained for. Working for Wilf Blindman I get to cut clover with a team of horses and a mower, and after it’s cut I get to make coils of hay in the field with a shiny-tonged pitch fork.
It is pretty lonely work. Wilf is the kind of guy who says “Yep,” or “Nope,” after you ask him a question. And if he strains himself and says, “Looks like rain,” that amount of conversation likely to last him for two or three days. I miss my girlfriend, Sadie One-wound, and my friends, Frank Fencepost and Rufus Firstrider. Wilf ’s farm is too far off the beaten track to walk anywhere of an evening, and usually I’m too tired anyway. Wilf only let me off on Sundays, and then on the condition, “You don’t have none of your useless friends hang around steal everything that ain’t nailed down.”
Wilf may be an Indian, but he think like a white man. I guess you have to do that to be successful. Wilf left his bank book sitting out on the table one evening and I seen he got enough money in the Bank of Montreal in Wetaskiwin to last somebody like me a couple of lifetimes. He could afford farm equipment if he wanted. But then horses work for food and I practically do too. Coal oil lamps and a wood stove is cheaper than electricity. Maybe Wilf ain’t got the wrong approach after all.
About two weeks after I got there, while I’m eating supper with Wilf, canned Campbell’s Soup, with bread and margarine—Wilf sure don’t waste any money on food, for either him or me—Wilf say to me, “Kid’s comin’ to visit.”
“What kid?”
“Brother’s kid. Girl. His wife’s dead.” That about broke Wilf’s record for speaking words in a row.
Next morning Wilf open up the door to a small bedroom off the kitchen.
“Clean it up,” he says.
Take me most of the day. There is a single bed, an old dresser with a mirror so yellow and spotted it like staring into rippling water. The room is filled with junk. Boxes might have come from an auction, some full of old magazines, other got dead flashlights, parts from vacuum cleaners, cracked dishes. There is harness strewn around, some coyote hides in the corner. Whole place ain’t been dusted in my lifetime.
Wilf is a tall, ungainly man with a slight stoop. He have bushy eyebrows, and a square, clean-shaven face, look like polished oak. He shave every morning with a shaving mug and a straight razor, after he pump a washbasin full of cold water from the cistern under his house.
His house is tall and unpainted, gaunt windows stare across the prairie. Coming down the road toward Wilf Blindman’s place, if I didn’t know someone lived there I’d think the house been vacant for years.
The child that arriving must have something to do with a letter Wilf got the second day I was working for him. The mailman, one of the Dodginghorse boys, is probably a cousin of Wilf ’s if you was to check back far enough. Instead of leaving the mail in the mailbox at the end of what must be a quarter-mile driveway, he drive his Canada Post car right to Wilf ’s door, give letters to him in person if he’s there, otherwise put them under a rock that sit on the front porch.
Wilf sat at the kitchen table what covered in a gray oilcloth, got black squiggles all over it, fit right in with the darkness of the whole place, and read the letter by the wavery light of a gas lamp, again and again. Wilf could afford light, but I think he enjoys living a dark life like a mole.
There was a good old Alberta thunder and lightning storm raging outside, lightning zippering across the sky, now and then frying a tree somewhere not far away, thunder rattling the window panes. Didn’t look like Wilf was one to make quick decisions. Look to me like he is as stolid and silent as the land he farms.
“What do you know about Wilf Blindman?” I ask Etta our medicine lady the next Sunday when I'm back at Hobbema.
Etta don’t waste any words either.
“Got his heart broke twenty years ago. Lives like a hermit. Don’t want anyone to forget he got his heart broke. Better at feeling sorry for himself than anybody I know. Probably gone bushed from living out there alone for so long.”
“How’d he get his heart broke?”
“Same as anybody else. He loved a girl; she married somebody else. Only difference everybody else sulk around for a week or two, or a month or two, then get on with their lives. Wilf still sulking.”
“Must have loved her a lot?”
“Hmmmph!” says Etta. “He enjoy being a victim. Made a career out of it. Listen, unless you being held hostage, or got a terminal illness, what you got in life is pretty much what you want.”
I’m gonna try to remember that.
“Yeah,” I say. “Kitchen floor at Wilf ’s is so dirty people wipe their feet when they get outside.”
But I changed all that. I sluiced out the kitchen, washed down the walls. I took the bedding off the bed and the curtains off the windows in what I think of as the guest room. There is no kind of washing machine on the place so I get permission to drive Wilf ’s truck to the laundromat in Wetaskiwin, and reluctantly, a ten-dollar bill to change into quarters.
The blankets and sheets wash up okay, but the curtains, which was made from what look like yellow lace, break up in a thousand pieces in the wash, look like I been laundering Kleenex.
I price some curtains at Field’s Department Store.
Back at the farm, Wilf stare at me like I’m trying to rob him. But I remembered to toss a double-handful of what was left of the curtains into the truck box.
“Look like mush I could feed the chickens,” Wilf says and almost smile. He pull out a sweaty-looking roll of twenties and peel off money for curtains.
I would have liked to suggest a toy or a doll or something bright for a little girl. Everything around Wilf ’s farm is in black and white. But, I figured I inconvenienced Wilf enough already. I get bright blue curtains, with pink kittens running all across them. Bet the bedroom is in shock to have so much color in it at one time.
“Hello, I’m Jennifer Chickadee,” the little girl says, soon as she step down out of the mouth of the north-going bus.
She is thin with gangly arms and legs, at the age where she’s growing new front teeth; she is about as ugly as she’s ever gonna be, and that’s still pretty. Her hair is in a long braid, tied with a blue ribbon; her skin is the soft, light color of buckskin. Her nose is straight, her eyes hazel, and in spite of her missing teeth she have a very beautiful mouth. In five years she’s gonna drive a lot of boys crazy.
“Hi, I’m Silas,” I say.
If I hadn’t been there I don’t know what Wilf would have done. He stand back about twenty feet from the front of the bus, look like he got the worries of the world on his shoulders.
The bus driver hand me Jennifer’s suitcase from underneath the bus. We walk back toward Wilf.
“Hello, I’m Jennifer Chickadee,” she say to him.
“Hyuh,” says Wilf, don’t make to hug her or even shake her hand.
“You look just like my father,” the little girl says.
Wilf grunt again and turn to walk toward the truck and parking lot, leaving me with Jennifer.
I ain’t gettin’ paid enough for this, I think.
I do have a young sister, Delores.
“You like Barbie dolls?” I ask after she climb up on the seat between me and Wilf.
That get her started. She tell me all about her dolls, and if her suitcase wasn’t in the truck box she would have showed me the one she brought with her.
What I’m wondering is if she’s Wilf’s brother’s child, how come she’s named Chickadee and not Blindman?
Wilf sit behind the wheel like he’s frozen, concentrate on shifting the gears, glance quick at Jennifer a few times, but never say even one word.
“Brother changed his name,” Etta say to me. “Decided he didn’t want to be Indian no more. Al Lindman used to be Alphonse Blindman. Hear he’s a big car dealer in Calgary.”
“How come her name’s Chickadee?”
“Why don’t you ask her? In case you ain’t figured it out, was her mother broke Wilf Blindman’s heart. Her mother was Sylvia Born With Long Hair. She was Wilf’s girlfriend. Wilf’s old man, Seymour Blind-man, when he knew he was going to die, called both boys together, said there wasn’t enough farm for both of them. Wilf wanted to stay on the farm, so he did. Alphonse took the money from a little life insurance policy, worth way less than the farm, and head off to Calgary.
“He buy himself a couple of old cars, fix them up, paint them, and sell them. Pretty soon he rent a lot on a main street, have Al’s Premium Used Cars. It was about that time he cut off his braids, dress like a white man, change his name to Al Lindman.
“Al come back to the reserve one Christmas, take off back to Calgary after a week or so with Sylvia.
“Like I said, Wilf been sulking ever since. Al just keep getting more and more successful. He supposed to have his fingers in a dozen or so pies, besides his Chrysler/Plymouth dealership, like insurance companies, and I hear one of his companies build highrise apartment blocks.
“About three years ago Sylvia up and died. That’s when Wilf go from just being an old bachelor to being a hermit and a strange one at that.
“I went out to the farm once, you know. I get Rider Stonechild to drive me there. I try to tell Wilf that feeling sorry for yourself is a pretty poor way to spend your life. But he blames Al for Sylvia dying. He thinks he didn’t treat her right. Says he’s gonna get even, whatever that might mean. The Blindman brothers was never close, but I don’t think they spoke a word in the fifteen years since Al stole Wilf ’s girl.
“Wilf ain’t near as old as he looks. You should see Al, looks like he could be Wilf ’s son. Al ain’t a bad guy. Word around is he offered Wilf a good job, but Wilf turned him down. Then he offered Wilf an interest-free loan to develop the farm. All Wilf said was, ‘Got my own way of doin’ things.’ What I can’t figure out is why a rich man like Al Lindman send that poor little girl for Wilf to look after. You got to stick around there, Silas, make sure that she’s okay.”
I been complaining all evening I wish I could find any kind of a job so I could get away from Wilf and his farm.
If I ever seen a little girl dying for somebody to like her, it is Jennifer Chickadee. But Wilf is perfect at ignoring her. It is like she hasn’t arrived yet.
One lunch time when me and Wilf comes in from the hay field, Jennifer has added wood to the fire box, heated up Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, and made us each a bologna sandwich. She even set the kettle to boiling tea water.
Because Wilf don’t say nothing, I go overboard praising her cooking. I stare at Wilf, my look telling him to say something nice. All he do is wipe the sweat off his forehead with his hand, dry his hand on his overalls, give Jennifer a longer than usual glance, as if he trying to decide exactly what it is of his she’s stolen.
I read where someone said that dealing with Indians is like trying to play catch with someone who won’t throw the ball back. Wilf won’t even catch the ball let alone throw it back.
Another few days and I get around to talking to Jennifer. “Is Chickadee your real name?”
“I figured if I was coming to live with a real Indian, I should have an Indian name,” is what Jennifer says. “I thought about being Blind-man like Uncle Wilf, but Chickadee is prettier. My Daddy used to say I was like one of those bouncy little black and white birds. I wish I could remember more about my mother. I was five when she died, and she is kind of like a character in a TV show I watched a long time ago. I have a picture of her, but I can’t remember her actually touching me.
“Daddy’s told me a hundred times at least never to mention I’m Indian. He says we’re Irish, Black Irish. And I heard him tell one of his friends that Mama was from Quata-malla. I don’t understand what’s wrong with being Indian. Daddy says people won’t like us if they know we’re Indian.
“Do people not like you, Silas? I guess people don’t like Uncle Wilf. He sure doesn’t seem to have any friends.”
This summer there are a record number of thunder and lightning storms. Almost every night the huge black cloud billow up out of the west like black ships and the lightning crisscrosses the sky like gold chains. The wind swirls, the trees bend and the rain begins with a few plopping drops that make quarter-sized impressions in the yard dust, then the rain turns to a torrent, slams against the windows and beats the dandelions flat to the ground. Thunder shakes the whole house, and we can hear the whine of lightning and the crash and screech as it strikes. Once it hit a lone aspen out by the county road, split it almost in two. Sometimes we can’t do much work the next day because everything is so wet. There are storms in the afternoons too. Me and Wilf have to come in from the fields and we sit and watch the windows steam up. We play three-handed Snap, and Books, and Hearts. Wilf don’t act like he enjoying himself. Soon as the rain stop he pulls on his rubber boots and slogs off toward the barn.
Another week passes. There is something weird going on here. I wish I knew what it was, and if I should be worried enough about it to tell Etta or somebody else. I sure would hate for something to happen to that little girl.
Frank Fencepost come by to visit one evening. He take a shine to Jennifer right away.
“Guess who gives the orders in a cornfield?” says Frank. “The Kernel,” he answer before Jennifer had a chance to think about the question. She smile showing the big gaps between her teeth.
“I have a photogenic memory,” Frank says, showing Jennifer how he can read something once, even upside down and then repeat it all back. The joke goes over her head, but I laugh and explain it to her.
“The bank’s looking for teller,” Frank says.
“I thought they just hired one last month,” I say, playing along.
“That’s the one,” says Frank, slap his thigh. Jennifer giggle and bounce around the kitchen like she was on a pogo stick. Wilf sit at the kitchen table, glare into a three-month-old copy of the Western Producer.
Jennifer is a city girl all the way. She at first can’t believe we don’t have indoor plumbing. She never even guessed there were outhouses. Or wood stoves. Or houses without electric light. I’m guessing she don’t even know her mother was Indian, or that she have maybe a dozen relatives with the same name as her mother, Born With Long Hair, on the reserve, and I bet hundreds of cousins in Southern Alberta on the Blood Reserve, where her mother’s family come from originally. Etta says Sylvia Born With Long Hair was light skinned and had gray eyes. I’m afraid if I tell Jennifer she has relatives on the reserve Wilf will fire me and I won’t be able to keep an eye on Jennifer.
A few days ago Wilf started talking. First he ask Jennifer if she’d like to ride on the cultivator with him, and she act like he’s taking her to Disneyland. She spend all day with Wilf, while I’m mending fences. She come in sunburned and covered in black dust. She lines up behind Wilf to wash her hands in the white enamel washbasin sit on a upturned apple box over by the cream separator.
“Uncle Wilf told me stories all day,” she says later on while we’re sitting on the front steps. “But he says they’re secret stories, and I can’t even tell them to you, Silas.”
I don’t figure Wilf for the kind of guy to know any stories.
There is a weeping birch sit about a hundred yards south of the house, on a knoll in the pasture, alone like it been abandoned. One morning early I see Jennifer in front of the kitchen window, hands on hips, studying the tree, a scowl on her face.
“What?” I say.
“Uncle Wilf says that tree is where the lightning birds live. I’ve never seen any, have you?”
The tree is broken in several spots where it been struck by lightning before. If the tree were a man it would be walking on crutches.
I don’t answer Jennifer’s question. I’ve never heard of a lightning bird.
The next day Wilf and Jennifer go into town for a couple of hours. They come back with plain groceries—I’d been hoping for some gingersnaps, or Oreos, maybe a carton of ice cream we could sit right down and eat before it melted. What Wilf has sprung for is a yellow slicker and rainhat for Jennifer. She can’t wait to try them on.
“Boy, I wish it would rain,” she says, staring at the high, blue sky. She look like a giant cowslip running in circles around the weeping birch in the pasture. Wilf also bought her a child-sized broom which she wave like a weapon.
“Soon as it rains I’m gonna put a scare into those lightning birds,” Jennifer says.
I don’t say anything.
“You ever heard of lightning birds?” I say to Etta soon as I get back to the reserve that Saturday evening.
“Uh-oh,” says Etta. By her tone I know something is wrong. “That son of a bitch,” says Etta. This from a big lady who hardly says anything stronger than oops!
“Tell me,” I say. “Should I be worried? Jennifer’s full of secrets these days,” I say.
“Hard to know what he’s up to. But I don’t figure it for good. There’s a legend, more a story. I don’t know where it come from. Might even be a white man’s story. There’s these birds with silver and gold tails the color of lightning. When they set in a tree, or roost on the roof of a building the lightning finds them. I think the story is they got to be shooed away so the tree or house or building won’t get struck.
“It’s clouding up,” Etta says to me, pointing out her window to where a thunderhead is peeking above the western horizon like a mountain.
“I seen something this morning,” I say. “I can’t believe I saw it, is why I wait so long to tell you. Just as the sun was coming up, I seen Wilf walk out to the weeping birch, stab a crowbar into the ground at the base of the tree. I can’t believe Wilf would do something like that, send a little kid out in a lightning storm?”
“If he was mad enough at her father. If he didn’t know what I know. I think you better run over to Louis Coyote’s and see if you can borrow the truck.”
“What is it you know?” I ask Etta, as we struggling to make a ramp with a couple of planks so Etta can make it up into the truck box.
The wind is picking up, the leaves are silverbacked, rustling dangerously. A dust demon whirls around my boots.
“I made a few inquiries,” Etta say mysteriously. Etta makes these inquiries without ever leaving her cabin where she don’t have a phone or a FAX or a computer. “Al Lindman’s dying. Maybe he knows, maybe he don’t, but he senses it, that’s why he’s sent his girl to Wilf. The old saying’s right, blood is thicker than anything else.”
“I can’t find the tarp,” I say, as Etta and I try to wrestle her tree-trunk chair into the truck box. Etta is too big to fit in the cab.
“I been wet before,” says Etta, ease herself down into the tree-trunk chair, both her and the truck sighing heavily.
“If Al Lindman senses trouble how come Wilf don’t? Blood don’t seem to mean much to Wilf.”
Etta motion for me to drive.
The first big drops are plopping on the hood and I start the truck down the hill from Etta’s cabin toward the highway. I drive like mad over the greasy country roads, the truck fishtailing in spite of Etta’s weight in the back. It begins to storm in earnest, the wipers only partially clearing the windshield. The thunder is loud enough I can hear it over the roar of the truck, lightning zap across the sky in silver and yellow streaks.
The ditches are rivers. About a mile from Wilf ’s I have to slow down to pass the mail delivery truck which stopped on a piece of high ground, I guess waiting for the worst of the storm to subside. I catch a glance of Etta in the rearview mirror. She look like a muskrat just poke its head above water.
There is more trouble when I try to turn into Wilf Blindman’s driveway. He have a sort of cattleguard made of poles, and the rushing water moved the poles apart enough for the front wheels to drop through. We come to a sudden stop. Etta’s chair crash against the back window, teeter as it bounce back, look for minute like it might tip over.
The road for about half the distance of the driveway is under water. Up by the house on higher ground, I can see the old weeping birch, and through the wind and driving rain I can see Jennifer in her yellow slicker and hat, broom in hand, moving in among the tall grasses, standing guard against the lightning birds.
I open the door and step out into the deluge.
Etta is standing in the truck box.
“Run!” she hollers. “Get that little girl away from the tree.”
I start out, take about ten strides when I hit a slippery spot, my feet shoot out from under me and I land right on my back in about a foot of running water. It take a few seconds for me to cough out the water, decide that nothing is broken, get to my feet and slither on. I slip to my knees one other time. I try hollering but sheets of rain and wind absorb the sound of my voice.
Jennifer is turned toward the tree so there’s no chance of her seeing me.
I’m about halfway there when Wilf Blindman burst from the door of the house come down the steps in one leap, a sheaf of papers flying from his hand and blowing away in the wind as he do. Wilf don’t see me either. He scramble up the side of the ditch into the field, covering himself in mud in the process. He take a dozen long steps, sweep Jennifer up in his arms and turn away from the crippled tree. He cross to the ditch, Jennifer’s little yellow hat falling and disappearing into the windblown grasses, and leap right into the flowing water making a big splash just as the lightning shrill across the sky again, kind of scream as it strike the base of the weeping birch, splitting it even worse than it was before.
The air is full of the stink of lightning. Thunder rattles the earth and the house seems to vibrate.
I get there in time to brace my feet extend a hand and help Wilf and his armful out of the ditch.
Jennifer is the only one of us laughing. She’s got her arms locked around Wilf ’s neck. He is nuzzling her cheek, and both of them is so wet it hard to tell if the water on Wilf ’s cheek is rain or tears. He holds Jennifer tight and strokes her wet hair. He looks at her like he finally realizes what it is she’s stolen from him. I’d guess it is something he can get along without.