Squirm, Page 3

  “Here, let me see.” I took her laptop and walked to the kitchen, where, accidentally on purpose, I dropped it on the floor.

  My clever plan had flopped. I should’ve known Mom would get totally obsessed. After her laptop came back from the repair shop, I rigged the parental controls to block out all eagle-cams. I did this for her own peace of mind. Otherwise she would have been glued day and night to those websites—basically, a bird-watching zombie.

  Soon afterward we moved to Fort Pierce, where we live now. The nest she’d found here was in a half-dead Australian pine on the shore of the Indian River Lagoon. The good thing was, from the ground you couldn’t see the eaglets until they grew taller than the edge of the nest. By then they were fairly big and strong, so Mom couldn’t get too worried about them. Best of all, the mother and father birds stayed in the area after the young ones fledged and flew off in the spring. That means we won’t have to leave again for a while, unless the nest gets wrecked by another storm.

  “You’ve got bald eagles out here, right?” I ask Summer Chasing-Hawks.

  “Sure. Goldens, too. They’re even badder than baldies.”

  “I’d like to get a picture of one, for my mother.”

  “Maybe you’ll luck out.”

  “Also I want to see a wild grizzly bear.”

  Summer chuckles and says, “Montana ain’t Disney World. You don’t just buy a ticket and stand in line for the show.”

  “You ever seen one?”

  “A griz? Yup.”

  “Really? Where? In Yellowstone?”

  “He was dead in a creek,” she says with a glum shrug. “There wasn’t much left.”

  She places another log on the fire.

  “What happened to him?” I ask.

  “Who knows,” Summer says. “Maybe a bigger bear got him, or maybe it was old age. Survival of the fittest, Billy.”

  Right now I’d rather talk about bears and eagles than about my father. Summer told me he’d put her in charge of his checkbook because she was good at math. She said he’s got plenty of money and he’s very generous to her and her mom.

  He told them he works for a security agency of the government, a drone program he’s not allowed to talk about. To me, it sounds like baloney.

  And even if it were true, why would you let a kid sign your name on all your checks?

  I don’t share these doubts with Summer, but my mind is buzzing with sketch theories about what Mr. Dennis Dickens actually does for a living. He could be a bank robber, for all they know, or a cyber hacker. Maybe even a dope dealer!

  “Where do golden eagles live?” I ask Summer.

  “High on cliffs. They eat gophers and jackrabbits.”

  “Snakes, too?”

  “No doubt.” In the fire’s glow she looks a lot younger than me, her face as smooth and round as a doll’s. The patchy old cat jumps in her lap, and the goofy-looking dog curls up at her feet.

  “Stop worrying,” Summer says. “Your dad’s a good guy. If he wasn’t, my mom would’ve dumped him a long time ago.”

  “Did he say where he was going on his trip?” I ask.

  “He never does. His missions are always, like, top-secret.”

  “But doesn’t that make you wonder?”

  “He always comes home. That’s all that matters.”

  THREE

  Summer’s mother says her Crow name is Little Thunder-Sky.

  “But everyone calls me Lil,” she adds. “Have some more mashed potatoes.”

  I’m starving, so I basically inhale everything on the plate. My stomach is still on east-coast Florida time, which is ten-thirty at night. For dinner Lil grilled buffalo sliders, possibly the best burgers ever.

  At the table not a word is spoken about my father. Lil wears her long hair in braids, and her face has a permanent raccoon stripe from wearing sunglasses all the time. She looks about the same age as my mom. Summer told me she’s a professional trout guide, rows a drift boat down the rivers.

  “Did you catch anything today?” I ask.

  “Six nice rainbows and a fat old cutthroat.”

  “Wow. Are they good eating?”

  Lil laughs. “They’re all swimming in the river. I’m strictly catch-and-release.”

  “Fly-rodders only,” Summer adds proudly. “No worm-slingers allowed.”

  I don’t know how to cast an artificial fly, but I’ve watched lots of videos and always wanted to learn.

  “The sports I had on the boat, they couldn’t hit the water with a brick,” says Lil. “It’s a miracle we landed anything. They’re from Indianapolis—one’s a dentist and the other owns a chain of funeral homes. But, hey, it’s a payday. And they had some funny stories, believe it or not.”

  “You’re in the funeral business,” I say, “you better have a sense of humor.”

  “So true.” Lil cuts up the last remaining slider and feeds it to Satan the dog. The creaky old cat shows no interest at all.

  It’s almost embarrassing to admit that Lil and Summer are the first two Native Americans I’ve met. They don’t seem so different—not that I was expecting them to live in tepees or stitch deerskin moccasins. I haven’t read up on the Crow Nation yet, but I know what happened to most Indian tribes in the Old West. That’s not a subject for a guest like me to bring up.

  After Summer and I clear the dishes, we join Lil by the fireplace. She says, “I’m sorry Dennis isn’t here. You came a long, long way, Billy.”

  “Last time I saw him, I was three years old. Maybe four. I don’t even remember what his voice sounds like.”

  “Doesn’t it make you mad he hasn’t called?” Summer asks.

  “It makes me curious, that’s all.” And, okay, maybe a little angry.

  Lil folds her hands on her lap. “Well, here’s the story of how your dad came into our lives. It was a Saturday morning, springtime, a few years ago. I was home tying some trout flies—”

  “And I was finishing an art project for elementary school,” Summer cuts in.

  “—when all of a sudden, bang! The whole trailer shook, so I knew it was too big to be a bird. Sometimes robins get confused and crash into the windows, but this was a different kind of bang. So I run outside, and there’s a major dent in the wall and this broken…thing…on the ground. I didn’t know what the heck it was. There were four little propellers and plastic wings—”

  “And a camera,” Summer says. “Like a GoPro, only bigger.”

  “I’d never seen a drone before,” Lil goes on. “Anyhow, we pick up the parts and take ’em inside the trailer. Before long, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Dennis, your dad. Blue jeans, flannel shirt, hiking boots. He’s holding something that’s beeping, which turns out to be the remote control. He says he lost his ‘aircraft.’ That was the word he used! And I say, ‘Aircraft? You mean that silly toy helicopter?’ His face gets all serious and he goes, ‘It’s not a toy, ma’am.’ So I point to the kitchen table, where we’d laid out the plastic pieces of his wrecked drone, and he says, ‘Oh no!’ I mean, the poor guy looked like his heart was shattered.”

  Summer says, “Cut to the hot romance part, Momma.”

  “So I invited him to stay for lunch. Pork sandwiches and coleslaw. He asked me out. I said no thanks. Afterward, he kept calling and calling, until finally I ran out of excuses. We dated a few months, and then he asked us to move in with him here in Livingston, me and Summer.”

  “Was it hard to leave the reservation?” I ask.

  “I’ve always liked this town. And the school’s good.”

  Summer says, “Life on the rez can be…challenging?”

  “What did my dad tell you about his actual job?” I ask Lil.

  “Some sort of surveillance work for the government. They bought him a new drone right away. Dennis says the less we know, the better.
As you can imagine, Billy, after all that’s happened, our tribe doesn’t have a whole lot of trust in your government. Originally they left the Crow Nation with thirty-eight million acres. Know what it is today? One-tenth that size. They stole back the rest and paid us five lousy cents an acre.”

  “That sucks,” I say, possibly the understatement of the century.

  “But we don’t see your dad as the ‘government,’ ” Lil adds. “He’s a good, honest man.”

  Summer nods. “He’d never hurt anybody.”

  “Nice to know. I’d really like to see him,” I say.

  “He checks in every few days to let us know he’s okay,” says Lil. “He’s never gone long, Billy. A week at the most.”

  “Can we try to call him now?”

  “I already did. His phone’s off. That’s not unusual.”

  I’ve got lots more questions, but I’m tired. The fire is beginning to die, the embers popping and hissing. Lil says I should take the spare bedroom. Satan follows me through the door, flops down on the rug, and farts.

  Before saying good night, Summer comes in and turns on the baseboard heaters because, she says, “you Florida boys have thin blood.” The temperature tonight is supposed to drop to 45 degrees—and it’s June.

  Lying in bed under a homemade quilt, I wait for Mom’s goodnight phone call. I texted her after the plane landed, but we haven’t had time to talk. She’s been out on Uber jobs all day.

  First thing she asks: “So, how’s your father?”

  “I haven’t seen him yet. He’s off on a business trip.”

  “But you told me he knew you were coming.”

  “He got called away at the last minute,” I say.

  When you’re not used to lying, it’s easy to get tripped up. I can’t tell whether Mom believes what I’m saying.

  “What kind of business trip?” she asks.

  “The usual, I guess.”

  “There’s nothing ‘usual’ about your father. Did you find out what his actual job is?”

  “I met his family. They’re really nice.”

  A beat passes before Mom says, “You mean ‘family’ as in children?”

  “His wife and stepdaughter,” I say. “They’re Crow Indians.”

  “Oh wow.”

  “I know, right?”

  Another beat. Then: “So, you like Montana?”

  “It’s a great big place,” I say. “That’s for sure.”

  * * *

  —

  Mom hasn’t remarried after the divorce. She’s gone out with a few guys, and as far as I could tell, none of them were total jerks. Belinda’s favorite was a piano teacher named James, who could play jazz, rock, and classical. One night he brought his electric keyboard to the house and put on a show. My mother clapped politely, but we could tell she wasn’t exactly enchanted.

  The guy I liked best drove an airboat, taking tourists through the Everglades. One time he gave me a ride up and down the Lopez River. His name was William, and he only had eight fingers. He’d lost both thumbs in the propeller of his airboat, in separate accidents. Mom informed us she wasn’t in the market for a clumsy boyfriend.

  These days she doesn’t go out on many dates. I’ve asked her if it’s hard being single with two kids, and she says Belinda and I are a blessing, because we scare off the men who are selfish and shallow. “The last thing they want is an instant family,” she says.

  I don’t mind not having a stepfather, though I know Mom gets lonely at times. She’ll never admit this, because in her mind loneliness is a sign of weakness.

  You might be wondering: What kind of mother lets her son fly 2,000 miles to meet a man he doesn’t even remember?

  To be honest, I was surprised Mom didn’t put up more of an argument. But here’s my theory: she’s still looking for answers about what went wrong with their marriage. Letting me go to Montana is the next best thing to going there herself, which her pride wouldn’t allow.

  At midnight she calls back to chat some more. It’s two a.m. Florida time.

  “Did I wake you, Billy?”

  She did, but I say, “No. Whassup?”

  “Listen—at the first sniff of trouble, you grab a cab to the airport and come home.”

  “Yes, Mom.” Like they have flights every hour.

  “I don’t care how nice his new family might be. If you don’t get the straight story from Mr. Dennis Dickens, I want you out of there. Is that understood?”

  “Don’t worry,” I say.

  After she calms down, Mom tells me that my sister landed a summer job as a cashier at T.J. Maxx. We talk about how weird and quiet it will be around the house after Belinda goes off to college.

  “I went out to see the eagles today,” Mom says.

  She sounds wide awake. Unbelievable. I can barely hold my eyes open.

  “One of them caught a fish. I think it was a snook.”

  “Yummy,” I try to say, but the word comes out like a caveman’s grunt.

  The wind is rattling the window of the bedroom, and the baseboard heater is making a ticking noise.

  “I should let you go to sleep,” she says.

  “Yeah, I’m beat.”

  “First I need to ask you something, Billy. What does she look like? Your dad’s new wife.”

  I’m not really comfortable with the question. “She’s brown,” I say.

  “Don’t be a smart-ass. She’s Native American, so of course she’s brown.”

  “No, I mean really brown. She’s out on the river all the time.”

  “What for?” Mom asks.

  “Because she’s a fishing guide. She’s got her own boat and everything. She rows ten, twelve miles every day. Sometimes more.”

  For a couple of moments my mother doesn’t say anything. Then: “That’s pretty cool, I’ve got to admit. What’s her name?”

  “Little Thunder-Sky.”

  “No way! How beautiful is that?”

  “She wants everyone to call her Lil.”

  “A request you will honor. Is she young?”

  “Same age as you,” I say, “so, yes, she’s young.”

  My mother likes that answer. “ ‘Little Thunder-Sky.’ Wow,” she says. “That’s mountain poetry.”

  “Mom, I need to ask you something. Why’d you always cut up the envelopes that Dad’s checks came in?”

  “Because that’s not how I wanted you to find out where he was. I wanted him to be the one to tell you,” she says. “I wanted him to want you to come see him, but he never asked.”

  “I’m going to find out why.”

  “Call me tomorrow. Love you, Billy.”

  I lie there listening to the low whistle of the wind outside. Satan jumps in bed with me, and I don’t have the heart to kick him out. Both of us are sound asleep in about two minutes.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning, Summer makes cheese omelets and bacon for breakfast. Lil packs a lunch. We load the cooler in her boat, which is hooked to her SUV, a blue Ford Explorer. It’s chilly outside, so Summer loans me a fleece that belongs to my dad. The arms are too long, but I don’t care. It’s warm.

  Lil drives to a ramp called Mayor’s Landing, where she backs the boat into the water all by herself. She tells me to get in the bow except I’m not sure which end is which, since there’s no motor. Summer finds this hilarious.

  Before we shove off, Lil gives me a quick lesson with a fly rod. She makes casting look incredibly easy, but when it’s my turn, I promptly snag myself in the back of the head with the streamer fly. It doesn’t hurt at all when Lil tugs the hook from my scalp because she’d already bent down the barb, to do less harm to the fish. She tells me to keep casting. I’m expecting a sarcastic comment from Summer, but she restrains herself.

  Th
e river is a breathtaking obstacle course—gravel beds, boulders, snags, stumps of massive dead trees. We glide through all of it, untouched. Lil rows from the middle seat, and she’s totally pro with oars, steering the boat with one dip at a time. Summer lounges in the stern, reading a book.

  “Can we try calling Dad again?” I ask Lil.

  “Sure. Summer, would you dial for Billy?”

  Summer puts down her book and takes out her phone. “Straight to voice mail,” she reports, and lets me listen. It’s an automated recording, not Dad’s voice. I end the call without leaving a message.

  “Does he do this on all his trips?” I ask.

  “Ninety-nine percent of the time there’s no cell service where he’s at,” Lil explains.

  I cast the streamer fly snug to the shoreline and something grabs it underwater. I jerk back hard—too hard—and the thin monofilament line snaps.

  “Major brown trout!” Summer says.

  I bow my head and reel up. Lil beaches the boat on a gravel bed and ties another fly on my rig. Overhead I hear a familiar cry—an osprey, just like the ones we have in Florida. Lil points out a second bird perched high in a cottonwood tree. Like eagles, ospreys often work in pairs, and they hunt by sight. It’s hard for them to find fish on days like today, when the water is cloudy.

  I’m casting like a crazed robot again, hoping for a strike from another big fish. “I need to figure all this out,” I say to Lil. “Who does Dad work for? The CIA? FBI?”

  “Don’t think we haven’t asked, Billy.”

  After an hour I finally catch something—a slippery little rainbow trout, as bright as chrome. The splashes of rosy color on its sides look hand-painted. I’ve never seen anything like it, and all I can do is stare. Lil gently unhooks the fish and it’s gone in a flash, literally.

  Later we stop to eat lunch on the shady side of the river. A flock of white pelicans floats past. This species—possibly the very same birds we’re watching—migrates all the way to Florida Bay every winter. Summer and her mother smile at each other when I tell them that.

  “Look it up,” I say, “if you don’t believe me.”