The Education of Little Tree Page #5

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you up there is bread and water.

Little Tree?

I found this.

If you look through it,

it turns everything blue.

...in peace and harmony,

beneath the vast American sky,

under God, with liberty

and justice for all.

Wave goodbye to the nice

ladies and gentlemen!

- Bye!

- Thank you!

They come here so they can feel good

when they get drunk at the country club.

All right, inside!

- Thanksgiving dinner!

- Whoopee.

Would you like this?

- I don't mind.

- It's yours.

You can see...

Come on!

Granpa!

It was Willow John that

heard you. So I came.

Tell me true, you want to come home?

- Yes, sir. I do.

You're shut in here

like goddam livestock.

Think they'll come and take me back?

Let 'em come on.

Them woods want to

make sure it's you.

They're happy to know

you're back is all.

- Something's wrong.

- What's that?

I couldn't feel the trail, Granpa.

And you can have them clobbers!

And you can have them clobbers, too!

Now, you'll stay.

Granma!

Blue Boy, come on!

Thank you, Willow John!

I remember that moment. The four

of us standing there together again.

It was then I knew I was tome.

I also knew it couldn't last.

Maybe we all felt

the time getting close,

but we didn't speak of it.

Granpa's step got slower, so I

carried more of the whiskey jars.

We didn't speak of that, either.

"Tom appeared on the sidewalk

with a bucket of whitewash... "

Granma pushed me on learning.

I read to them at night,

with Granma helping some.

- "... Mel... "

- Melancholy.

"... melancholy settled

down upon his spirit.

"30 yards of board fence,

9 feet high.

"Life to him seemed hollow. "

The politicians came to

take me back to Notched Gap.

Each time, Granpa led us up the high

trail where nobody could find us.

She's coming alive.

It was on the high trail

that Granpa slipped and fell.

He kept telling us,

"I'll be all right directly. "

But something horrible

tad happened in that fall,

and he wasn't going to be.

Give me my hat, would

you, Little Tree?

It's been good.

Next time, it'll be better.

Be seein' you.

Damn... stupid...!

I knew where Granma

was taking Granpa.

It was to his secret place,

at the top of the high trail,

where he'd watched the day

birth and never got tired of it,

and never quit saying,

"She's coming alive",

like each time was the

first time he'd ever seen it.

Maybe it was.

Maybe every birthing is different

and only Granpa could see it.

Not long after that day, Granma

took me aside and told me again

about how her and Granpa were

moving closer to the understanding,

so that I shouldn't be sad

because when their bodies died,

they'd still be together,

always, their spirits knowing.

And that was the last thing

Granma ever said to me.

she died in the night.

I found a note which read,

"Little Tree, it's been good.

"Next time it will be better.

"Remember

if you need us, any time,

"just look to the Dog Star,

and we'll be there. "

I went up the high trail that same

night and I asked Granma and Granpa,

reckon I could get closer

to the understanding as well,

so I could catch up to you?

It was lonesome, I told them,

always being left behind.

I didn't know that Willow John

was looking to the Dog Star, too,

and talking with Granma and Granpa.

He told me they were sorry they tad

to go before my education was done,

but if I went off with Willow John,

he could teach me

all there was to know...

about being an Indian.

Y'all come!

I have not made it back to

the cabin since, but I will.

I've been ranging across

this country, me and Blue Boy,

digging oil with the Cherokee,

riding fence with the Navajo,

gettin' caught up

in white man's wars.

But no matter where I am,

in the dusk of evening,

I look to the Dog Star.

And I say to

Granma and Granpa,

and to Willow John,

"Wait for me.

I'm still learning the Way.

"But someday I will catch up to you.

"And we'll all of us be

together again...

"Always.

"Our spirits knowing. "

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