“That’s why we stopped.”
The doorbell jingled behind us, and the little stick-front building opened up into an emporium of western chotchkies. The metallic aroma of leather and animal skins mingled with spicy cedar-wood slices that had been made into clocks and wooden cowboy figurines. The smell of Indian-made leather wallets and wooden trinkets. The scent of the West.
My jaw dropped. A wall of miniature guns. Little guns like pistols, ones like shotguns. And they came with tiny caps for bullets. I scooped handfuls of quartz and mica. “Dad, look at all this stuff!” Bags of fool’s gold. Piles of arrowheads tied to wooden handles. I could get used to the West.
This place was a history book where I could try everything on. It let me live in another time, be another person. I wore an Indian headdress that sprouted with long, colorful feathers and caught myself in the mirror. I’d always heard about Indians at school. How they were defeated by American soldiers. How they live on places called Reservations. But every time I thought about it I got that same strange feeling as when I saw lions in a cage at the zoo.
Grandma Edith was standing behind me. “You look just like your great-grandfather. He was part Indian you know.”
My eyes lit up brighter than two nuggets of fool’s gold. I turned around. “Really?”
“Yup,” Grandma nodded, propping her hands on her cane. “Don’t know what tribe though. But he was a half-breed.”
I stared in the mirror. “Wow.” I wasn’t just black anymore. I was black and Indian. Indiak. No, Blindian. I guess that connection I felt with the West wasn’t just in my mind. It was in my veins.
We piled back into the van with our bags of stuff, and Dad turned the key in the ignition. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Won’t start.” He hopped out and lifted the hood.
Grandma Edith put her hand on her chest. “Oh, Lord, it’s a sign,” she said, shaking her cottony-white hair.
Cybil said, “A sign of what, Grandma?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have come on this trip. Maybe we should turn around and go back home.”
Cybil sucked her teeth. “We can’t, Grandma. I have to be at Malinda’s wedding. I’m a bridesmaid. Remember?”
Mama looked back at Grandma. “Besides, Edith, it’s a little too late for that. We’re ninety million miles from home. We’re in Nebraska for goodness sakes.”
Maybe Grandma should try walking back. She’d get home. At some point.
Dad jumped in and tried it again. This time the van revved right up. “Everything’s good. Loose connection to the battery post, that’s all.”
“See, Edith,” Mama said. “You got yourself all worked up for nothing. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”
We headed to the Quimby’s house. Friends of Dad’s who owned a farm. We drove and drove, seemed like forever. There were cornfields everywhere. I had never seen so many cornrows in my life, not since Cybil and Solange’s nappy heads. Rows and rows and rows that seemed to spring into motion like a flipbook as we drove by. The stalks were so tall. Way taller than me. What if I got lost in there? What if somebody dropped me right into the middle of one of those fields, and I had to find my way out? And what if it was dark? I would be terrified. Especially if they had a scarecrow. Good thing I had that cap gun Mama bought me back at the trading post.
I hit Solange on the shoulder. “You got the Children of the Corn touch! Shields!”
Solange hit Cybil. “You got the corn touch! Shields, force fields!”
Cybil hit me.
“Too late,” I said. “Already claimed shields.” She went for Solange again.
Solange put up her hand. “Shields force fields for life!”
It was night time when we got to the Quimby house. They had more fields of corn. We turned off the road onto a long gravel driveway. We drove past the cornfields until I saw a big white house and a little trailer off to the side. “What do we do now, Dad? Isn’t it too late to knock on the door?”
“We wait ‘til morning,” he said, leaning back in the front seat and closing his eyes.
Everybody else was asleep, but I stared out into the cornfields. They weren’t far away. We had to sit here all night and wait for morning. The back windows and the dome were open, and I could hear the screeching crickets. Every once in a while, footsteps. It’s a wonder how the earth is never completely quiet. Something in nature is always humming like a machine. Going about whatever it is that it’s supposed to do. There could be anything out in those fields. If I lived on a farm, I would be too scared to go out at night. I didn’t know how these people did it. Mama grew up on a farm, had an outhouse and everything. I couldn’t imagine heading outside at night to use the bathroom and bumping into the Boogeyman on the way. Not that I believed in the Boogeyman, I’m just saying. I had to pee. I had to go so bad I could feel it in my cheeks. You know how you get that tingling in your jaw?
“Whoever is doing that shaking, stop it,” Dad mumbled.
I kept still. But not for long. Felt like I was gonna burst. “I gotta pee.”
“Well, go do it.”
Something could be out there in those cornfields. If I said a prayer the Lord would protect me. Our Father, who art in Heaven…
“Calvin, go pee,” Dad said.
He messed me up. “I will.” I tried to keep my leg still. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name...
“Well, what’re you waiting for? The second coming?”
Just let me finish. I had to start over again now. Our Father, who art in Heaven…Give us this day….I was almost done. For Thine is the kingdom, the power…
“Calvin!”
Shoot! Now I had to start all over again. I couldn’t hold it any longer. I jumped up, climbed over Grandma, and jumped out. I went to a tree behind the van, peed, and came back. I had to finish that prayer. This time I finally got to the end. I started to drift off to sleep when I realized I had forgotten about being scared while I was out there. Guess the prayer worked.
When I woke up it was freezing. As hot as it got during the day you would think it would be a halfway decent temperature in the morning, but no. I didn’t have any cover either. Cybil and Solange were hogging it all. Talk about pigs in a blanket. Grandma was stretched across the two seats in front of us. I was yanking on the cover and…Bang! Bang! Bang! I almost jumped out the bed. I peeked between the curtains and saw a heavy-set white lady standing outside.
A white lady? I guess the people Dad knew had moved? Here we were camping out on their front lawn, waiting ‘til morning to surprise them, and they didn’t even live here anymore? I was so embarrassed. Why didn’t Dad call first to make sure they still lived here? I know these white people were about ready to call the police! I shook Cybil and Solange. “Get up, y’all!”
We were in trouble now. Dad jumped out the front. I could hear high-pitched voices.
And, laughter. Who was laughing? They both were. I peeked out the curtains again, and Dad and the lady were hugging. Now Mama was hugging her! Dad actually knew these people. White people who would let us camp out on their front lawn? I was scrambling to brush my hair and put on my shoes when Dad flung the side door open and held out his hand. “Dolores, this is my mother, Edith,” he said. Grandma dipped her head and smiled. Luckily she still had her teeth in.
Then, in her real proper voice, Grandma said, “Nice to meet you, darling,” holding out her hand. She could really turn it on when she wanted.
Cybil and Solange were scrambling like mad to try not to look like a couple of wild banshees with sleep in their eyes and dribble down their cheeks, but too late.
“And