IN SEARCH OF SILENCE: WORDS ESCAPE ME
WORDS ESCAPE FROM ME: IN SEARCH OF SILENCE, braided story years 2017 and 1805.
May 6, 2017, afternoon, Searching for Nathan.
OFFICE CLOSED read the sign on the MOTEL door, a one story building of a dozen or so doors, plopped on a hill in the middle of North Dakota, at the edge of a town called Riverdale.
“I’m looking for Nathan.”
“I can help you Ma’am.” A biker with arms covered with weather worn tattoos leaned away from a dusty Harley. It, pockmarked with rust spots and metal, matched his face and its dark patches, some menacing red, others pale. He sauntered towards Alma and his pack of similarly adorned cheroot smoking men turned away.
“That’s ok, just need to know where he is.”
The man pointed towards a building labeled LODGE. “Down there working on the new wall.”
The gravel covered road and hill lead to an open basement: no one visible, just machinery sounds, engines running.
“Uh, ok.” Alma turned away, not so fast as to tweak her lame right hip, but definite enough to close the conversation.
Alma clicked her remote key and the lights on her Prius flashed. Was it too obvious she was really uncomfortable, that she was alone, that she was that vulnerable? “Too late now,” she whispered and walked down the gravel towards the open basement.
She approached the excavated area. A scissors lift inched towards a wall. It carried an iron cross beam moved back and forth in a confined area. “Up higher, to the right, more to the left, closer to the wall.” The beam raised slowly.
Alma watched, wondering who the hidden voice belonged to, and which man here was Nathan.
“Don’t let it slip,” a younger man’s, hidden behind a wall directed the movement. “A little higher, over to the side.”
“Nathan around here?” Alma ventured.
“Yes.” The lift operator nodded in the direction of the hidden voice.
“I’m Alma.”
“Yeah, Dad, tell her I’ll be down in a minute.” The voice behind the wall.
The beam stayed elevated and a young man, broad shouldered, blue eyes with hair spiked straight up, walked around the wall. “You’re here.”
“Today was the day, right?”
“It’s just that, Dad?” Nathan looked up at the cross-beam.
“Put her up in the school, room 1.”
“Hey Alma, follow me, I’m in the truck, oh, you’ve got the Prius, yep that makes sense.”
“Uh huh, I’ll follow you.”
His truck’s tires spun out dust and rocks and Alma kept a safe distance and still
“ate the dust” as she followed up the street. She crossed one “Missouri” and turned left on “Iowa.” She turned left away from a white wood sided country church and towards what used to be a high school. Nathan parked his truck behind several cars parked against the school wall.
“ate the dust” as she followed up the street. She crossed one “Missouri” and turned left on “Iowa.” She turned left away from a white wood sided country church and towards what used to be a high school. Nathan parked his truck behind several cars parked against the school wall.
Outside Harley Davidsons alternated between pick up trucks all covered with a slip of dirt coating the vehicles like the coating around pottery before it is set in a kiln. They lined up side by side along the hotel.
Nathan rattled several keys and tried several doors until he found one that worked. “Here you are.” He opened the door marked Second Grade.
The smell of stale cigarettes poured out of the room, Alma’s eyes watered as she walked in. They obviously didn’t have a no-smoking policy. It was either this or sleep alone in a park in a tent. She recalled what her sister and brother and daughter has said: “what about ‘this is a dangerous idea’ that does not seem clear to you.”
“Nathan, thank you.” She extended her hand and when he left she tried to figure out how to lock the door, even the chain lock was broken.
Several shadows of people wandered in and out of the unlit hallways. No one talked.
Alma fussed with the chain and it was useless, the keys did not fit in the handle. Exhausted she flopped on the bed, legs on top of the cover, surrounded by the smell of stale cigarettes in a room with no air movement. A wall filled with a cork board, and a small podium a teacher used to use. A shower in the corner, and a kitchen set up in the middle of the room, two doors opened to the outside.
She checked her phone: no service.
***
The next morning the put the front tire on her bicycle, then tried it out. The wheels clanked with every turn, “whap, whap, whap.” Alma only hoped it would last the twelve miles it took to reach the terminus of the North Country Trail. Highway 200 was paved and the twenty-mile an hour wind was at her back.
“Fine,” she said to no one in particular, as though she reluctantly agreed in a lost argument.
Nine am, the North Dakota wind predictable in its force and effortless dance across the prairie. The wind buffeted her and she tracked right and left to stay on road, and avoid a fall. Cars gave her a wide berth. She pushed her bicycle’s speed to stay ahead of the wind.
As she crossed the Garrison dam, she remembered its history. A dam that succeeded in flooding the richest land on the Mandaree Reservation, creating a lake named Sakakawea.
February 11, 1805, birth of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau I imagine it went something like this.
Meriwether Lewis listened to the groans of the only woman he would ever assist in delivery. He shouted to the other leader of the Discovery Corps, “Clark, I don’t know what to do here!”
“What, you’re the medical doctor here, you must have something!” William Clark met him outside the Hidatsa tribe home, covered in the hide blanket he negotiated for from the woman’s husband, Charbonneau. He still shivered from a cold that had never reached any state in the newly formed United States with this kind of intensity. Both he and Lewis measured it daily and recorded the numbers in their journals.
“But delivering babies?” Lewis carried his box of tinctures to the door, he still wore his cloth uniform under a large beaver long coat he transported from Virginia.
“This woman is our only hope to make it past the Shoshone tribes!” Clark, pulled the hide around him. The wind whistled across the ice frozen landscape of what would become North Dakota.
“Well, let’s see, I’ve heard the rattlesnake’s rattle can hurry the delivery.” Clark pointed at the domed home. More screams emerged. “But I don’t have that here!”
William Clark added, “She’s in so much pain, that scream!”
“You’re right it must be bad!” Lewis opened the door to the home.
“Leave!” groaned Sakakawea. “I don’t need you.”
“It’s amazing, the way she speaks so many languages.” Said Clark as he waited with Lewis outside the door.
“We can’t let her die!”
“I’ll speak to Charbonneau, where is that man!”
“Busy, drinking, I’d guess.” Lewis shrugged his shoulders.
“Gambler and drinker, and finagler.”
“That means…..” Lewis walked towards the Hidatsa dome where Charbonneau gambled and bought hides from the tribe.
“For the right price…I’m sure he’s waiting for us!”
Lewis and Clark walked together, as they discussed their plan.
“But the Hidatsa tribe, they let him get away with how he treats their women?” said Clark.
“You know they understand him, I’ll bet the Hidatsa only keep Charbonneau around to ensure the fur trade,” said Lewis.
“We need to help her, she knows so much, speaks all the Indian languages she hears,” said Clark.
Charbonneau stood at the door, “I was wondering what took you two so long.” He didn’t bother with English, assumed everyone would have to speak French. “This will cost you.”
“I’ll mix that rattle with some water, I think that’ll work.” Said Lewis, as they walked back to Sakakawea.
Lewis ground up the rattle with a grinding stone and mixed the powder with a pine nut drink that Sakakawea had created for them. He brought the drink to her. “This should help!”
The young woman nodded her head, “I trust Clark, if he says it is ok, I will drink it.”
“Clark tell her.”
“It’s ok Sakakawea, Lewis only wants you to be ok, you are too young to be having a child, he wants you safe for our travels.”
“So I’ll go with you?”
“As a special guide and translator, and your child will travel with us, he and you will forever be welcomed in my heart and home,” Clark bowed as he spoke.
Sakakawea smiled and another wave of pain pushed through her. She held her tight swollen stomach and as it started to soften she reached for the drink.
“I’ll go with you. You both can go now. Otter woman, stay with me.” Her best friend stayed with her as she pushed and groaned with each push.
“I’m going with them.” Sakakawea smiled between each push.
“You deserve more than Charbonneau and this tribe,” said Otter Woman.
“My baby will be called Jean-Baptiste,” said Sakakawea, and she pushed again.
“He will travel the world,” said Otter Woman. “I saw it in my dreams last night, the only one to leave this prairie life, will be your son.”
May 6, 2017, afternoon, Searching for Nathan.
OFFICE CLOSED read the sign on the MOTEL door, a one story building of a dozen or so doors, plopped on a hill in the middle of North Dakota, at the edge of a town called Riverdale.
“I’m looking for Nathan.”
“I can help you Ma’am.” A biker with arms covered with weather worn tattoos leaned away from a dusty Harley. It, pockmarked with rust spots and metal, matched his face and its dark patches, some menacing red, others pale. He sauntered towards Alma and his pack of similarly adorned cheroot smoking men turned away.
“That’s ok, just need to know where he is.”
The man pointed towards a building labeled LODGE. “Down there working on the new wall.”
The gravel covered road and hill lead to an open basement. No one visible.
“Uh, ok.” Alma turned away, not so fast as to tweak her lame right hip, but definite enough to close the conversation.
Alma clicked her remote key and the lights on her Prius flashed again. Was it too obvious she was really uncomfortable, that she was alone, that she was that vulnerable? “Too late now,” she thought, and walked down the gravel towards the open basement.
She walked down the excavated area to see the open area, an iron cross beam moved slowly in a confined area. “Up higher.”
The beam raised slowly on the scissors like machine that raised it up to the roof.”
Alma stood watching,
“Don’t let it slip,” a younger man’s voice hidden from view, “A little higher, over to the side.”
“Nathan around here?” Alma ventured.
“Yes,”
“I’m Alma.”
“Yeah, Dad, tell her I’ll be down in a minute.”
The beam stayed elevated and a young man, broad shouldered, blue eyes with hair straight up, approached. “You’re here.”
“Today was the day, right?”
“It’s just that, Dad?” Nathan looked up at the cross beam.
“Put her up in the school, room 1.”
“Hey Alma, follow me, I’m in the truck, oh, you’ve got the Prius.”
“Yep.”
He flipped up some dust and rocks under his truck and Alma ate the dust as she followed up the street. She noted named Missouri and crossed “Iowa” and turned away from a church, towards what used to be a high school. Behind a long red fence, there were several cars parked against a school wall, she turned in behind him a parked. He had several keys and opened several doors until he found one that worked, “Here you are.” He opened one of the doors in what used to be the elementary school. Alma was entering The Second Grade.
The smell of an ashtray poured out of the room, Alma felt defeated, but she didn’t want to sleep alone in a park in a tent, not after her sister and brother and daughter has said, “what about ‘this is a dangerous idea’ that does not seem clear to you.”
She thanked him and tried to figure out how to lock the door, but the chair lock was broken.
Several shadows of people wandered in and out, no one said hello.
Outside Harley Davidsons alternated between pick up trucks all covered with a slip of dirt coating the vehicles like the coating around pottery before it is set in a kiln. The lined up side by side along the hotel.
Alma fussed with the chain and it was useless, the keys did not fit in the handle. Exhausted she flopped on the bed, legs on top of the cover, surrounded by the smell of stale cigarettes in a room with no air movement. A wall filled with a cork board, and a small podium a teacher used to use. A shower in the corner, and a kitchen set up in the middle of the room, two doors opened to the outside.
She checked her phone: no service.
***
The next morning her bicycle wheels clanked with every turn, “whap, whap, whap.” Alma only hoped it would last the twelve miles it took to reach the terminus of the North Country Trail. Highway 200 was paved and the twenty-mile an hour wind was at her back.
“Fine,” she said to no one in particular, as though she reluctantly agreed in a lost argument.
Nine am, North Dakota wind predictable in its force and effortless dance across the prairie. Like the wind buffeted she tracked right and left to stay on road. Cars gave her a wide berth. She pushed her bicycle’s speed to stay ahead of the wind.
The Garrison dam was near, a dam that succeeded in flooding the richest land on the Mandaree Reservation, creating a lake named Sakakawea.
February 11, 1805, birth of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau
Meriwether Lewis listened to the groans of the only woman he would ever assisted in delivery. He shouted to the other leader of the Discovery Corps, “Clark, I don’t know what to do here!”
“What, you’re the medical doctor here, you must have something!” William Clark met him outside the Hidatsa tribe home, covered in the hide blanket he negotiated for from the woman’s husband, Charbonneau.
“But delivering babies?” Lewis carried his box of tinctures to the door.
“This woman is our only hope to make it through the Shoshone tribes!” Clark, pulled the hide around him. The wind whistled across the ice frozen landscape of what would become North Dakota.
“Well, let’s see, I’ve heard the rattlesnake’s rattle can hurry the delivery.” Clark pointed at the domed home. More screams emerged. “But I don’t have that here!”
William Clark added, “She’s in so much pain, that scream!”
“You’re right it must be bad!” Lewis opened the door to the home.
“Leave!” groaned Sakakawea. “I don’t need you.”
“It’s amazing, the way she speaks so many languages.” Said Clark as he waited for Lewis outside the door.
“We can’t let her die!”
“I’ll speak to Charbonneau, where is that man!”
“Busy, drinking, I’d guess.” Lewis shrugged his shoulders.
“Gambler and drinker, and finagler.”
“That means…..” Lewis walked towards the Hidatsa dome where Charbonneau gambled and bought hides from the tribe.
“For the right price…I’m sure he’s waiting for us!”
Lewis and Clark walked together, as they discussed their plan.
“But the Hidatsa tribe, they let him get away with how he treats their women?” said Clark.
“You know they understand him, only a gambling ploy to keep Charbonneau around for other trade.” Said Lewis.
“We need to help her, she knows so much, speaks all the Indian languages she hears.” Said Clark.
Charbonneau stood at the door, “I was wondering what took you two so long.” He didn’t bother with English, assumed everyone would have to speak French. “This will cost you.”
“I’ll mix that rattle with some water, I think that’ll work.” Said Lewis, as they walked back to Sakakawea.
Lewis ground up the rattle with a grinding stone and mixed the powder with a pine nut drink that Sakakawea had created for them. He brought the drink to her. “This should help!”
The young woman nodded her head, “I trust Clark, if he says it is ok, I will drink it.”
“Clark tell her.”
“It’s ok Sakakawea, Lewis only wants you to be ok, you are too young to be having a child, he wants you safe for our travels.”
“So I’ll go with you?”
“As a special guide and translator, and your child will travel with us, he and you will forever be welcomed in my heart and home,” Clark bowed as he spoke.
Sakakawea smiled and another wave of pain pushed through her. She held her tight swollen stomach and as it started to soften she reached for the drink.
“I’ll go with you. You both can go now. Otter woman, stay with me.” Her best stayed with her as she pushed and groaned with each push.
“I’m going with them.” Sakakawea smiled between each push.
“You deserve more than Charbonneau and this tribe,” said Otter Woman.
“My baby will be called Jean-Baptiste,” said Sakakawea.
“He will travel the world,” said Otter Woman, “I saw it in my dreams last night, the only one to leave this prairie life, will be your son.”
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