The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo by Kent Nerburn

Author:Kent Nerburn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New World Library

The feel of the house had changed radically since my last visit. There had once been an air of disheveled festivity about it, with people coming and going and the TV blaring; now it felt sepulchral and desolate. Cheap curtains had been hung over the windows, leaving the single living area bathed in a sickly half-light.

The same decrepit furniture was still there, but it felt unused. The cushions on the old, sagging wooden-armed motel couch had split open, allowing the stuffing to spill out, and the kitchen table, once the scene of late-night laughter-filled poker games, was piled high with shoeboxes full of magazine clippings and miscellaneous objects. The whole place had the air of a house where someone was living out his last days. A thin layer of dust covered everything.

Wenonah flicked on the fluorescent light over the kitchen table. Its single exposed tube blinked several times, then buzzed into life.

I looked at the piles of boxes and clippings. “I see he’s still a collector,” I said, trying to inject a little levity into the situation.

She smiled wanly. “Packrat’s more like it. He keeps what he ought to throw away and throws away what he ought to keep.”

She squared the edges of a stack of magazines on the table as she passed by, while Grover bent down and broke off a piece of loose linoleum that looked like it might cause the old man to trip if he caught his toe on it. I caught a glimpse of To Walk the Red Road, the oral history book I had done with the Red Lake students those many years ago, on a small table in the far corner. It was a grim reminder of better, more vibrant days when Dan and I had first met.

“How weak is he?” I asked.

Wenonah nodded toward the closed bedroom door. “You’ll see. But first I want to explain something to you.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“You consider yourself my grandpa’s friend.”

“Yes.”

“And he considers you his friend, too. But he’s still an elder. And now he’s getting ready to pass. You’re still acting like a white person, being all familiar and treating him like you’re his equal. You’re not his equal. He’s an elder. Do you understand me?”

The comment stung. “Have I been too familiar?” I asked. “I haven’t tried to be.”

“You think your friendship opens every door. It doesn’t. It just gives you the right to be in his presence. He’ll decide what to say and what not to say. You need to just let him talk.

“When you go in there to visit with him, you just remember where you are and who he is. It’s okay to joke when you see him. He expects that of you. He likes it. But when it’s time to give him the book, you are a messenger, not a friend. Do you understand?”

I nodded my assent.

“Do you have some tobacco?” she asked.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the pack of Prince Albert I kept at the ready.

“Just give it to him before you hand him the notebook,” Wenonah said.

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