“Where is my father?” Billy says.
“Oh, I expect he’s around somewhere, Nephew. I haven’t seen him. You are sure you’re not hungry?” Marked Face sits up on the cot, the little bones tied into his hair rattling softly. He leans his back against the wall of the cabin, smiling, pointing at the other cot against the opposite wall. “Sit, Sagiistoo, sit. You look tired.”
Billy edges near the cot, uneasily. The room is over-hot, stifling, and the smell of the stew is making him sick. He can feel sweat at the small of his back. The cot gives a weary, low squeak as he settles into it.
“Where have you been, Uncle? It’s been years.”
Marked Face raises a hand, waves it vaguely. “Oh, around. The world is a big place, Nephew. How is my brother?”
“You really haven’t seen him?”
The smile bleeds off his uncle’s face. “When I say a thing, it is said, boy.”
“He’s the same, Uncle. Same as before. Back at the hospital, with me. Or he was before he ran off, couple days ago. I was hoping to find him here.”
“My brother has always been a crazy one. I expect he’ll turn up. He always has, before.”
“Before.” It’s a word that’s become completely inadequate to the task of conveying its meaning.
“Yes, before. When we were young he was prone to go after visions. Our mother was the same, would talk to spirits that only she could see, would do very strange things. One of our uncles was this way too. At first, we thought that maybe Bad Bird was destined to become a great shaman but, really, his thoughts would just go out of his head, from time to time. And then all that we went through with the whites probably cracked him for good. It’s a shame because, once, my brother was a good man. Maybe the best of us.”
“The best of you.”
“There’s an echo in this room, maybe. Yes, he was the best of us. He had a beautiful wife. Not your mother, one before. Such a beautiful girl, but she died young. Maybe that hurt my brother’s thoughts some, too. She died in a bad way, that girl. I can’t even remember her name, now. A bird name.”
“Dove.” It’s out before Billy even thinks it.
“Yes, Dove, that’s it. She was a lovely one, Dove. Ah, those were bad times.” He shakes his head sadly.
“Father told me that Dove was your wife, Uncle. That you killed her, that that’s how you got your medicine. That you killed her and ate her. Ate the baby inside her. He told me.” Billy is breathing hard. “That’s how you got your power. And my father told me how to take it from you, Uncle. He told me how to use it.”
For the first time he can remember, Billy sees a look of real surprise on his uncle’s face. Gone is the smug sneer, the anger, that flat and watchful distaste that usually roosts there. Marked Face’s eyes widen, the brow furrowed, jaw slightly open.
And then he laughs: long, loud, braying laughter, head bumping back against the wall of the cabin. It’s disconcerting, to say the least. “My power?” Marked Face says once he has control of himself again. He rubs with a knuckle at the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. “My power, you say?”
The fear is gone now and Billy wants to put a fist in the old man’s face. Drop it over and over until his hand breaks, pound that goddamn smile down that old, lying throat. “Yes, your fucking power, Uncle.”
Marked Face sits up straight, holding his hands out, palms up. Putting himself on display. “Behold me, then, Nephew. Behold mighty Marked Face, who has to get up a dozen times at night to make water. Behold Marked Face, who has no money, has one change of clothes, who lives in a falling-down shack on a tiny slice of poor government land. Marked Face, scourge of the whites, champion of the People! Marked Face, the powerful, whose prick will not rise any more and whose knees ache always. Behold my power!” He starts off laughing again.
It’s too much. Billy is up and across the room, fist raised. Before he can bring it down, though, his uncle brings up an arm, quailing, seeing what’s coming. With his free hand, Billy grabs Marked Face by his dirty, ratty shirt, pulling him off the cot. He seems to weigh nothing, like a husk. Billy pulls his fist back again, tries to push it forward. But he can’t.
Marked Face is just an old man. A tired, rheumy eyed, shabby old man. Something has changed, either in his uncle or inside himself. Something is different.
He lets his uncle go, backing up until the cot hits the backs of his knees. Feeling weak inside, he sags back down to the cot, putting his head in his hands. He doesn’t understand anything any more. For a long time, they’re both quiet, not looking at each other. Something akin to shame hangs in the air between them, like a stink.
“Let me tell you a thing, Nephew,” Marked Face says, finally, softly. He closes his eyes, head resting back against the cabin wall. “Bad Bird was always a storyteller, even as a boy. He knew all our songs, knew some that perhaps he just made up on his own. Maybe this one, about his poor Dove and this supposed power of mine, is one of those. I think maybe those stories got into his head, with his thoughts loose as they were. He was always obsessed with those stories of Maatakssi and his brother Siinatssi, the fathers of the People, too. Maybe he saw something of himself in those stupid Old Ones, saw a power in the world that is no longer there. Wanted to see it, needed it, maybe. He’s always said he sees the world as it truly is. But he is broken, my brother, and he is mad. They are just stories.”
“We have had our differences, my brother and I, have them still, though I love him and have tried to protect him, as best I could. I always have, even when we fought. I have lived a long time, Sagiistoo. I have maybe not lived a good life and have been cruel at times but, even after my brother gave me this scar, I have tried to protect him.” Marked Face taps his cheek and is quiet again. “Ah, poor Dove,” he says, finally, breathing out a sigh. “Let me tell you a thing, Sagiistoo, which will maybe help you to understand your father and the rest of it.”
He sings: