Part 2 (1/2)

”That's right!” Now Grandma's chin was pulled up to hold her laughter back. ”She called me a d.a.m.n old chicken. Right there!

A d.a.m.n old hen!”

Then they were laughing out loud in brays and whoops, sopping tears in their ap.r.o.ns and sleeves, waving their hands helplessly.

Outside, King's engine revved grandly, and a trickle of music started up.

”He's got a tape deck in that car,” Mama said, patting her heart, her hair, composing herself quickly. ”I suppose that cos ted extra money.

The sisters sniffed, fished Kleenex from their sleeves, glanced pensively at one another, and put the story to rest.

”King wants to go off after they eat and find Gordie,” Zelda thought out loud. ”He at Eli's place? It's way out in the bush.”

”They expect to get Uncle Ell to ride in that new car,” said Grandma in strictly measured, knowing tones.

”Eli won't ride in it.” Aurelia lighted a cigarette. Her head shook back and forth in scarves of smoke. And for once Zelda's head shook, too, in agreement, and then Grandma's as well. She rose, pus.h.i.+ng her soft wide arms down on the table.

”Why not?” I had to know. ”Why won't Eli ride in that car?”

”Albertine don't know about that insurance.” Aurelia pointed at me with her chin. So Zelda turned to me and spoke in her low, prim, explaining voice.

”It was natural causes, see. They had a ruling which decided that.

So June's insurance came through, and all of that money went to King because he's oldest, legal. He took some insurance and first bought her a big pink gravestone that they put up on the hill.” She paused.

”Mama, we going up there to visit? I didn't see that gravestone yet.”

Grandma was at the stove, bending laboriously to check the roast ham, and she ignored us.

”Just recently he bought this new car,” Zelda went on, ”with the rest of that money. It has a tape deck and all the furnis.h.i.+ngs.

Eli doesn't like it, or so I heard. That car reminds him of his girl.

You know Eli raised June like his own daughter when her mother pa.s.sed away and n.o.body else would take her.”

”King got that d.a.m.n old money,” Grandma said loud and sudden, ”not because he was oldest. June named him for the money because he took after her the most.”

So the insurance explained the car. More than that it explained why everyone treated the car with special care. Because it was new, I had thought. Still, I had noticed all along that n.o.body seemed proud of it except for King and Lynette. n.o.body leaned against the s.h.i.+ny blue fenders, *rested elbows on the hood, or set paper plates there while they ate. Aurelia didn't even want to hear King's tapes. It was as if the car was wired up to something. As if it might give off a shock when touched. Later, when Gordie came, he brushed the glazed chrome and gently tapped the tires with his toes. He would not go riding in it, either, even though King urged his father to experience how smooth it ran.

We heard the car move off, wheels crackling in the gravel and cinders.

Then it was quiet for a long time again.

Grandma was dozing in the next room, and I had taken the last pie from the oven. Aurelia's new green Sears dryer was still huffing away in the tacked-on addition that held toilet, laundry, kitchen sink. The plumbing, only two years old, was hooked up to one side of the house.

The top of the washer and dryer were covered with clean towels, and all the pies had been set there to cool.

”Well, where are they?” wondered Zelda now. ”Joyriding?”

”That white girl,” Mama went on, ”she's built like a truck driver.

She won't keep King long. Lucky you're slim, Albertine.

”Jeez, Zelda!” Aurelia came in from the next room. ”Why can't you *just leave it be? So she's white. What about the Swede?

can I How do you think Albertine feels hearing you talk like this when her Dad was white?”

”I feel fine,” I said. ”I never knew him.”

I understood what Aurefia meant thought was light, clearly a breed.

”My girl's an Indian,” Zelda emphasized. ”I raised her an Indian, and that's what she is.”

”Never said no different. ” Aurelia grinned, not the least put out, hitting me with her elbow. ”She's lots better looking than most Kashpaws.

By the time King and Lynette finally came home it was near dusk and we had already moved Grandpa into the house and laid his supper out.

Lynette sat down next to Grandpa, with King Junior in her lap.

She began to feed her son ground liver from a little jar. The baby tried to slap his hands together on the spoon each time it was lowered to his mouth. Every time he managed to grasp the jerked out of his hands and came down with more liver.

spoon, I I I Lynette was weary, eyes watery and red. Her tan hair, caught in a stiff club, looked as though it had been used to drag her here.

”You don't got any children, do you Albertine,” she said, holding the spoon away, licking it herself, making a disgusted face.

”So you wouldn't know how they just can't leave anything alone!”

”She's not married yet,” said Zelda, dangling a bright plastic bundle of keys down to the baby. ”She thinks she'll wait for her baby until after she's married. Oochy koo,” she crooned when King junior focused and, in an effort of intense delight, pulled the keys down to himself.

Lynette bolted up, shook the keys roughly from his grasp, and s.n.a.t.c.hed him into the next room. He gave a short outraged wail, ANN A then fell silent, and after a while Lynette emerged, pulling down her blouse. The cloth was a dark violet bruised color.

”Thought you wanted to see the gravestone,” Aurelia quickly remembered, addressing Zelda. ”You better get going before it's dark out. Tell King you want him to take you up there.”

”I suppose,” said Mama, turning to me, ”Aurelia didn't see those two cases of stinking beer in their backseat. I'm not driving anywhere with a drunk.”

”He's not a drunk!” Lynette wailed in sudden pa.s.sion. ”But I'd drink a few beers too if I had to be in this family.”

Then she whirled and ran outside.

King was slumped morosely in the front seat of the car, a beer clenched between his thighs. He drummed his knuckles to the Oak Ridge Boys.

”I don't even let her drive it,” he said when I asked. He nodded toward Lynette, who was strolling down the driveway ditch, adding to a straggly bunch of prairie roses. I saw her bend over, tearing at a tough branch.

”She's going to hurt her hands.”

”On, she don't know nothing,” said King. ”She never been to school.

I seen a little of the world when I was in the service. You get my picture?”

He'd sent a photo of himself in the uniform. I'd been surprised when I saw the picture because I'd realized then that my rough w boy cousin had developed hard cheekbones and a movie-star gaze. Now, brooding under the bill of his blue hat, he turned that moody stare through the winds.h.i.+eld and shook his head at his wife. ”She don't fit in, he said.