When the clan mothers came to her she had not felt ready to take on Jimmy Sanders and his problems. She had wanted to agree with Carey and stay home. But having all eight clan mothers waiting on her doorstep had simply not permitted her to make excuses or even tell them that she was not the person they thought she was. They were modern American women like her, but they were something else too. They had inherited the powers of eight women who had lived somewhere deep in prehistory, in the times when the names of matrilineal families were first represented by wolves or bears or herons. In those days the world was a deep, endless forest, and being a lone person was always fatal.
Jane glanced at Jimmy. He was asleep again. Maybe things would be all right. Maybe she had completed this errand without having to test her courage or her confidence. She watched the utility poles going by. Thirty miles an hour, she thought. As long as the train kept going, they might get through this without trouble.
After a time, her own exhaustion caught up with her again. She had been on the trail, moving at high speed, for nearly a week. Her energy was depleted. She remembered there was a bottle of water and a protein bar or two in her pack. When she opened it and looked, she saw there were two of each. She set aside some for Jimmy, and opened hers. She ate and drank, and then slept again.
Next time she awoke, it was dark. The train was slowing down, and when she looked up she could see tall buildings with hundreds of tiny windows in rows. She crouched to look out over the side of the hopper. They were on tracks that had been joined by others, so there were at least five sets in a row. She gave Jimmy’s foot a kick.
He sat up, and then knelt beside Jane to see what she saw. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.
“No idea,” she said. “I’m looking for some sign, or something I recognize.”
“If you’ve been here, you probably didn’t ride in on a load of gravel.”
“No. But it occurs to me that what we’re doing is illegal, and we’re coming to a place where there will be more people to catch us at it. There seems to be a big train yard up ahead. Let’s collect our belongings and get ready to bail out.” She knelt, rolled up her bedroll, arranged everything in her pack, and craned her neck to look ahead while Jimmy packed up his gear.
The train began to slow markedly. Jimmy said, “Ready to go?”
“Yes,” Jane said. She put on her baseball cap, hid her hair under it, hoisted herself up on the back rim of the hopper, found the first rung of the ladder with her foot, and climbed down. The train was slowing more and more. Jimmy was beside her now, so she dropped her pack, jumped, and ran for a stretch to slow her momentum. Jimmy jumped a few yards on, and then they both went back and retrieved their backpacks. Jane slung her backpack over one shoulder. “Carry it this way, so you look like a worker with a tool bag, and not a train jumper.” Jimmy imitated her, and they looked ahead. The train was moving into a huge freight yard, with fences and buildings and lots of lights, so they walked briskly away from it, toward the back of the train. They didn’t walk so briskly that they seemed to be running from something.
When they were in a darker, more deserted area, they crossed several sets of tracks, walked across a weedy plot of land that had been paved once but now had plants thriving in each crack, and came to a street. It was dark, and the old brick buildings seemed to be abandoned with the doors and windows boarded. The next street had a few neon lights, and cars passed now and then.
Jane stopped and said, “Let’s dust ourselves off and straighten up before we get into the light. That gravel wasn’t exactly clean.” They spent a few minutes getting themselves freed of dust, buttoned up, and looking a bit better. The evening was cool, so Jane took her jacket out of her pack and put it on, and then turned around so Jimmy could see. “What do you think?”
“Very respectable, and dust-free. How about me?”
“Much better.”
Jimmy put on a light jacket too. “Are you hungry?”
“Sure,” she said. “Maybe there will be a restaurant on one of the next streets, where there are lights.” She looked at her watch. “It’s only eight.”
They walked for another couple of blocks, and when they came to a trash basket, Jane looked into it, then reached down and pulled up a newspaper. “The Syracuse Post-Standard.”
“What’s the date?”
“Today’s. I guess we’re in Syracuse.”
“Okay,” Jimmy said. “Let’s see about that food.”
They walked toward the streets with bright lights, and passed a small pizzeria. They looked in the window and saw a few people at tables wearing jeans and casual shirts. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Just the smell makes me want to break down the door.”
“Give me a few seconds.” Jane stepped into the doorway, then stood still for a two count while Jimmy was still outside, partially shielded from view behind her. She scanned the people inside, saw nobody she knew, or whose face held an expression of recognition, and nobody who looked hostile. She saw a few women, which was good, because the presence of women usually discouraged the more extreme forms of male misbehavior. She saw a hallway at the back of the restaurant that led to restrooms, and another on the left leading to the kitchen. If they had to they could slip out through the exit that was sure to be at the rear of the kitchen. Jane stepped in, and Jimmy followed.
A sign said they should seat themselves, so Jane went to a table by the wall and they sat down. Jane sat so she could face the front window and door, and Jimmy could face the back. The side location of the table meant that no matter how rough things got in the place, they couldn’t be surrounded, and nobody could approach unseen.
They set their backpacks on empty seats by the wall and looked at the printed menus that had been left at every table. In a few minutes a middle-aged waitress emerged from the kitchen with a tray in each hand—the plates on the left and the drinks, which were heavier, on the right. Jane studied her. She had a weary but alert look as she maneuvered between tables. She showed relief when she set down her heavy trays on an empty table and served two couples at the table beside it. Over the years Jane had learned to check the faces of the waiters and waitresses. If there were some kind of trouble, they would see it first, and show it.
The waitress stopped at their table and took their order, then went off to the kitchen with her trays. She returned immediately with their pitcher of cola and glasses.
They poured some and drank, and Jimmy spoke to her quietly in Seneca. “I haven’t bothered to thank you for coming to help me. I know you were asked, but we both know you could have found a way out of it if you tried.”
“I suppose I could have,” she said in Seneca. “They knew I wouldn’t.”
He raised his glass of cola and clinked it against hers. “You’re more old-fashioned than my grandmother, and it’s a good thing for me.”
“They said you were innocent,” Jane said. “But I didn’t have to take anything they said on faith. I knew what kind of man you were the same way they did—by knowing you as a boy. I climbed trees with you. And in case you’ve forgotten it, you once saved me from getting raped. I didn’t forget. Now let’s talk English.” She moved her eyes to be sure nobody nearby had overheard them speaking another language.
“Certainly,” he said. “Everybody else’s food looks so good. I can hardly wait for ours.”
“Neither can I,” said Jane. “I guess we’ve both been living on protein bars and candy for too long.”
While she sat in the restaurant, Jane couldn’t help thinking about what Jimmy had said about her—that she was old-fashioned. What he meant was her attachment to old customs. She hardly ever thought about herself that way, but at times something reminded her that the Seneca ways of looking at the world were part of the structure of her mind. And she knew that one reason she had clung to Seneca traditions was to maintain the connection with her parents and grandparents—especially her father since he’d died.
She was eleven that summer, and she and her mother had been staying at the reservation because he had been away working on a bridge in the state of Washington. One day he had been standing on a steel beam as a crane lowered it into place. The cable snapped, and Henry Whitefield and the beam fell to the bottom of the gorge below. She sometimes dreamed about his fall.
In the dream, her father was wearing his bright red flannel shirt and blue jeans, his yellow hard hat and his leather tool belt. As he fell, the beam stayed beside him. He turned as he fell, doing a slow somersault, so his tools spilled from his belt pouch. His hard hat left his head and his black hair fluttered in the wind as he came right again. He spread his arms and legs and faced downward, his shirt flapping violently. In the dream the disembodied Jane was beside him. He and Jane could both see the bottom of the canyon, the thin ribbon of water winding down the gorge like a silvery snake—the water not wide enough to catch him or deep enough to do anything for him but wash his body after he hit. The white buttons of his red shirt gave way, and it opened and flew off him. But as he fell, his fluttering black hair grew longer, and seemed to spread down his back and arms, first like fringe, and then widening and flattening like feathers. And soon his arms were revealed to be wings.
His head and shoulders dipped forward and he swooped downward. As he did, he changed more, and when his swoop arced upward again she could see her father was a crow. He circled once and looked back at Jane with his black, shiny crow eyes—so much like his own bright obsidian eyes—and she felt the deep, painful love he was sending to her, all of it now because there would never be another time. When the circle was complete he began to fly straight across the open canyon to the other side.
Waking from that dream each time was like learning that he had died again. Years later, after Jane’s mother died, she became part of the feeling Jane had that her parents and her childhood were inextricable from the old ways. It was mainly the celebrations that brought her mother back—the women all bringing big bowls of soup and hot casserole dishes and setting them out on the long tables for everyone to share. They were like Jane’s mother—like the woman she had chosen to become out of love. And later, there were the dances. There were the drums and the rising voices of the singers, sometimes making her imagine she heard her father’s voice among them. Jane’s mother had been a graceful, effortless dancer. She had worn her hair long, and for these occasions she put on a traditional outfit, a long black dress with embroidered flowers, an untucked blouse, and an embroidered shawl. When she danced with the other women, she didn’t look different in any important way. There were women old enough to have white hair, which was a shade lighter than her blond hair. She was tall and thin, but there were others taller, and some just as thin. They were all beautiful together.
Their food arrived and Jimmy and Jane ate happily. Jane could feel the way the food renewed their energy and restored their spirits. When the waitress returned with the check, Jane paid with cash. Before the waitress left, Jane asked, “Do you know where the bus station is?”
“Erie. It’s on Erie, which is right down that way, south from here. I forget the number, but it must be in the eight hundreds or so.”
When they were alone outside, Jimmy said, “Bus station, huh? I hope I can get on a bus without being spotted.”
“I’ll check the place out before you go in, and make sure there aren’t police watching for you.” She paused. “Or you could turn yourself in right here in Syracuse. We’re in New York State again. I’m pretty sure they would give you a ride to Buffalo.”
Jimmy thought for a moment. “If I turn myself in to the cops where I’m wanted, won’t it seem better for me?”
“I think it might,” she said. “But if we get caught on the way, you’ll look like you’re still running away.”
“Let’s head for Buffalo.” He began to walk.
Jane hurried to keep up. “That’s fine. But if we get into a situation where it makes more sense not to try to go on, I hope you won’t be stubborn. As long as you go in voluntarily, it will help.”
“Fine,” he said.
As they walked, they moved out of the area where there were lights and restaurants and businesses into a stretch that was darker and consisted of larger buildings that were all shut down during the hours of darkness—office buildings, parking lots, and other structures that seemed to be deserted. Between them there were dark alleys and driveways for deliveries.
Jane caught a quick motion in the corner of her right eye, but as she turned her head she was already hearing the sound of the two-by-four against the back of Jimmy’s skull. As Jimmy fell forward, Jane could see the man completing his swing, holding the two-by-four in both hands like a bat. The two-by-four was about five feet long and heavy, so its momentum brought his arms all the way around, leaving his face unguarded.
Jane jabbed, hitting his nose with the heel of her right hand. The man staggered backward, his nose gushing blood, and brought his hands to his nose while the two-by-four fell to the pavement. As the second man bent over to pick it up, Jane took a step and pushed his head downward while she brought her knee up to meet his face.
The third man retained some vague conviction that the only real threat must be Jimmy, the big, muscular man who lay on the pavement. The man stepped to Jimmy’s side and kicked him in the ribs, then brought his right leg backward to prepare to deliver a kick to Jimmy’s head. Jane saw he had shifted all his weight to his left leg, so she ran at him and delivered a hard stomp kick to the side of his left knee. She felt his knee give and heard the pop as she dislocated it. He went down as though he’d been shot and clutched at his knee and rocked back and forth, yelling.
Jane had always been aware that it was stupid to try to fight a man for the space between them, and even worse to let him grapple with her. Men were much bigger and stronger than she was, and most of them had been fighting since they were toddlers. If she was cornered, her strategy was to take advantage of the man’s assumption that she was helpless, use any means to hurt him as badly as she could, and run. This time she had to stand her ground to keep the men from killing Jimmy while he was unconscious.
She danced back and forth over him for a moment, and used an instant to glance down at him. It crossed her mind that he could already be dead, but she had no time to think because the first two attackers were recovering. Jane snatched up the two-by-four and held it like a staff. As the first man lunged toward her, she left the lower end of the two-by-four planted on the pavement and pushed the upper end forward so it hit his sternum hard, rocking him back, then lifted the two-by-four straight up so the upper end of it came up to hit his chin, and brought it down hard in the middle of his left instep. As he lifted his injured foot in pain, she brought the end of the two-by-four down on his other instep.
The man’s howls were not as loud as those of the man with the dislocated knee, but they were loud enough to confirm her hope that she had broken some of the small, narrow bones in his feet. He staggered stiffly on his heels, as though his legs were made of wood.
Jane raised the two-by-four with both hands, clutching it like a harpoon, but instead of jabbing the man again, she pivoted and aimed her stab at the chest of his partner. The man’s attempt to duck her attack by crouching brought the butt of the two-by-four to the level of his collarbone. It hit the bone hard and slipped upward into his trachea. He grasped his throat with both hands and bent over, trying to protect it and breathe at the same time. Jane swung the two-by-four down hard on his head and he collapsed forward onto the pavement, dazed but conscious.
The three men were badly hurt, and as she swept her eyes to survey them, they began to edge away from her. She took out her lock-blade knife and flicked open the blade with her right thumb. She said, “In ten seconds I start cutting.”