It seemed to Thomas that the stars were drumming in the moonless deep.
And yet deeper, far deeper, below those beings, there was the fire of creation, which had been buried at the center of the earth by stars.
Roderick had never had so much company. And they were glad for somebody new. Glad he stayed behind. They argued with him. Why go back there? Who’s waiting for you?
With a lot of boiling, you could eat them.
I put her ashes in the Mississippi River not because she ever noticed the river or gave the slightest indication she wanted that, but because it was a way to think of her as she’d always been, wordless and inert, pulled along by a strong, hidden current.
And so when they tell you that I was heartless, a shameless man-chaser, don’t ever forget this: I loved what I saw. And yes, it is true that I’ve done all the things they say. That’s not what gets them. What aggravates them is I’ve never shed one solitary tear. I’m not sorry. That’s unnatural. As we all know, a woman is supposed to cry.
My name is Lily Florabella Truax Beaupre, named after the woman who helped my mother, the woman who became my ghost.
Her voice was often heavy with dismissed hope.
Sometimes I dream I am a man,” said Millie, which was the sort of statement neither of them could meet with a response.
This whole book was an excuse to get rid of Indians,” said Thomas.
Eau de Better Than Manure,” said Doris. “The farm girl’s friend.
You can never get enough of the ones you love, thought Thomas, rubbing his chest slowly, to vanquish the pains. “Here I have Biboon with me to this great old age, but I am greedy. I want him longer.
We looked out over the lake. The sun was shards of brilliance. ‘It’s a poem out there,’ I said for some reason. ‘You should write it, Tookie. It’s yours.
But every so often the government remembered about Indians. And when they did, they always tried to solve Indians, thought Thomas. They solve us by getting rid of us.
So as usual, by getting rid of us, the Indian problem would be solved. Overnight the tribal chairman job had turned into a struggle to remain a problem. To not be solved.
The buffalo provided the fuel for fires that smoked their own meat.
Went outside to answer Snowy Owl’s question, Who? Owl not satisfied with answer.
I reached over and held Pollux’s wide hand as we slowly drove along. There was a slick of rain on the empty, peaceful streets. ‘Why can’t it always be this way?’ I asked Pollux. He gave me an odd look. I turned aside. The empty street swished beneath the tires. Perhaps I should have been ashamed. Why was it that I felt this was the world I’d always waited for?
Who but an NDN would know that some days truth is a ghost who shouts in the voice of no one in particular and other days it is a secret nostalgia poured into the coffee cups of the living?
This time, the rapids sent them through a dark tunnel that seemed timeless, blind, malevolent. A yawning throat of water.