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.