On the Rez and Other Stories

By Barbara Wyatt Olson

Fifteen stories of quiet longing and desire, of second chances, and no chance at all. In On the Rez, when youre broken down and abandoned in Indian territory, on the dusty back roads of Kansas, there are certain to be monsters and fiends. In Ask for Anything, a family escaped into the Blue Ridge Mountains learns you do not always get what you think you want. In Florida Blues, a former lover on a prison visit must face regret, heartache, and frustration. While in California Quarter, a lady friend has not agreed to starving on the trip home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504926393

Barbara Wyatt Olson

Barbara Wyatt Olson lives with her husband, Clark, in Springfield, Illinois, where she writes fiction with support from Jackie Jackson’s writer’s group. On the Rez received honorable mention from Glimmer Train. Other books include the travel memoirs Gondar, Ethiopia, and Christmas in Gondar.

Book preview

On the Rez

Ebeneezer Hamm’s nearly-new SUV was too powerful for a city boy who’d driven cross country barely five times in all his fifty-two years. Eb knew the eight-seat, five wheeler was too fancy for a man who started out merchandising odd-lots and over-stocks for the family business, third generation, cheek-to-jowl with dusty grain operations along the River on Levee Road in Kansas City. And Eb knew damn well this thing was too new to be broken down and stuck in a ditch in the scrubby hills, thirty miles to the north. But it was.

Eb sat inside, nervous and sweating. Had been ever since his future business partner, Norman Newman, walked off an hour earlier to get help. Norm took the phone with him, saying, "Can’t use it here, some sort of No Service Zone."

"Might as well both go," Eb told Norm, as he was worried about being left alone on the deserted highway.

Nope! Norm snapped. This startled Eb. Eb was older, had more business experience, and for a moment he thought Norm might be quite a handful when their partnership finally went through. Eb gave the ignition key one more twist, but there was still no response. Whatever had shut down the electrical system, locked the windows too, along with the lights and radio, but at least the doors opened. Norm climbed out to go for help, and took the water bottle as well as their only flashlight.

Eb was a city boy whose tastes ran to television and air conditioning, now here he was, stuck on his own in raw scrub country with the sun going down fast. The truck was suffocating. He ought to prop a door open to catch the breeze, but rejected the thought as rash.

Sweat puddled in his chest hairs. Wet half moons spread down his shirt from under both plump arms. Thank goodness the temperature got cooler at dusk; on the other hand, he was afraid of the dark. Never know what might creep into the truck, couldn’t tell something was there ’till it got a big bite out of you!

Eb pushed away thoughts of wild things with feral eyes and dug around in the tool chest for a screw driver to jimmy a window for some air. Surroundings pressed in, a desolate expanse of storm-broken trees, thistles, and unrelenting heat. Eb’s nerves wound up tighter and tighter so that before long he was surprised to find himself pounding on the steering wheel and growling out a string of curses. Pounding and shouting eased his nerves, so he tried it again, yelling out the partly opened window into the deserted terrain.

Earlier that day, Eb and Norm had headed out past Leavenworth Road to look over a warehouse auction of odd-lots and over-stocks, everything from carpeting and second hand tractor parts to fertilizer. Sure, there are a million of these warehouses on the Internet, Norm had admitted, but we gotta see a few with our own eyes, walk through a couple. Maybe even look into that Indian junk yard over in Little Town, see what they have to offer, before bidding on anything.

Eb said it sounded like a good idea to him. He was part owner/manager of Hamm’s Mercantile, a family business first established as a horse and cart enterprise by his paternal grandfather. The Hamms were German, honest although opinionated people, all of them taller than average, blond haired and blue eyed. All but Eb, who resembled his Scots Irish mother, with Irish black hair (more gray now and considerably thinned), large, sleepy brown eyes, a short nose, and fair skin which turned red and freckled in the sun.

Eb prided himself on having good business sense, inherited from both sides of the family. He knew what sold, what the public wanted, and was able to predict what his local customers would buy before they knew it themselves. Norm Newman had a small operation just outside Overland Park, which specialized in home construction, plumbing, and electrical systems. A few weeks earlier, Norm approached Eb, suggesting they merge operations to deal with the competition. We could call it Newman and Hamm’s Mercantile Mart.

Eb wasn’t sure he liked that name, but the idea sounded smart to him. So when the Hamm family came together for its weekly Sunday dinner, Eb brought the proposition to the table. There, Eb’s wife and son, along with Uncle Johnny, his deceased father’s only sibling, agreed merging with Newman’s was worth a try. Before long, long before the paper work was signed, serendipity kicked in, and both businesses began to prosper.

Eb’s wife, Sally (short for Salome, but as she told a friend, The name may be biblical, but it’s far too exotic for the mercantile trade) was already reaping benefits from the pending merger. For the first time since marriage, she was able to wallpaper the living room and modernize the kitchen.

Their son’s name was Broadcast. That naming thing must be a family curse, Eb said when his wife told him she wanted them to name their baby Broadcast because it ran in her family. Broadcast was so impressed with his father’s new affluence that he sold his mother a bright blue, nearly new SUV, (Eight passenger and strong as a pick-up, Broadcast bragged) at just a small profit, right off his used car dealership lot. Coming home one day and finding the SUV in their driveway, Eb protested, What are we going to do with a monster thing like that?

Our son was so proud, Sally said. It’s way below list price. We can’t take it back!

Now here Eb was, broken down on the side of the road. He took a deep breath and screamed, Oh, no! Don’t even think about taking it back! I’m just going to be buried in this damn thing! It’ll be my coffin! Pausing to catch his breath, he took another look outside while there was some light. All of Kansas, out to the long grass prairie in the west, was caught up in drought, and both the Kansas and Missouri Rivers were running low. Vegetable and flower gardens, lawns, all was burnt up back home, and it wasn’t any better out here. Hot, dry, and nothing moved, no live stock, and no traffic.

As much from boredom as for reassurance, Eb tried screaming again out the truck’s partially opened window, and again he was surprised at how it eased his tensions. Bury this damn cow, he screeched, kicking his foot up under the dash board several times.

Eb never was a screamer, not at football games when he was a boy, not during car races at the local speedway, and not as an adult joining in the general ruckus of the crowds at the Realto Cinema over on the edge of town, where they specialized in the horror films to which nearly everybody, including Eb, seemed addicted.

I don’t understand what you see in those horror movies, Sally would say. You can’t stand getting emotional, even with me.

Oh come on Sally, why get scared? It’s just a movie, Eb said. Forget that feelings stuff. I’m stoic, like my old man. At this point, Sally interrupted, I knew your father, Eb, and you’re nothing like that old man. You take after your mother, Molly.

Eb wasn’t listening. All those aliens, vampires, ghouls, that’s silly kid’s stuff. I like the business end of it, the technology and trick photography, those special effects. Now that’s really spectacular.

But Sally knew technology was not her husband’s passion. That best described their son, Broadcast’s current project, constructing solar panels using plastic extrusion and 3 D Printing, but not her husband. No, what Eb liked best were movies where the good guys won, where no matter how hopeless the predicament, how threatened by villainy, eventually the fiends were overcome.

A deeper secret, one Eb barely admitted even to himself, was the envy he felt when customers around him at the Realto were able to let themselves go, screeching and screaming as ghouls rose from graves and psychopathic killers ripped through doors with power saws into innocents huddled beyond.

Norm had been gone more than an hour when the call of nature forced Eb from the truck. First he checked for creatures lurking in the shadows. Next, clutching the screwdriver close, he climbed down, hanging onto the open door, ready to jump back inside if he had to. While relieving himself, Eb peered around. There were no signs of life, everything looked okay, so he took a deep breath and tried yelling again, this time something from the movies he loved.

Satan help us! They’re alive! which was from the movie Ghoul City. He repeated this line three times, at first, in the booming baritone of the action hero scientist who comes up with a DNA cocktail that fixes everything. After this, he tried screaming the same words in the thin, wavering voice of the old farmer who is dissolved by ghoulish saliva early in the film. All this screaming was encouraging, so he tried imitating the high, squeaky voice of the pretty, albeit slatternly, young woman who everyone knew wouldn’t last long, Satan help us! They’re alive!

Imagining himself as one of those famous radio announcers he’d once admired, he said in a loud voice, "Taken from that incomparable classic, Ghoul City."

Emboldened, he went on. Don’t open it. That space ship is alive! Which he repeated two or three times, followed by, Oh my God, that creature’s not alive! Then, after a pause, he boomed in his best announcer’s voice, "From Trojan Warriors."

Braver now, Eb tried words that made his blood run cold no matter how often he heard them, No! No! Not my liver! Oh no! Not my stomach. Please, please, not my heart! But, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the movie’s title.

Eb stood deep in thought, half way through the words about getting his living heart ripped out of his quivering torso, when he sensed a strangeness in the air. His eyesight cleared, at the same moment a fast-setting sun left him wrapped in shadows. The hair on his arms stiffened, a prickling worked its way from scalp to his toes, and he caught the whiff of smoldering rags, a ghoulish, evil odor burned his eyes, penetrating up his short nose.

Eb was not alone. Something dark and heavy plunged towards him; something big, something fiend-like, crashed through the underbrush, growling as it came.

The advancing lump was almost upon him. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think. The growls became a guttural voice that was yelling, "Wolf Fiend! Wolf Fiend!"

Eb wrapped one arm around the side view mirror to hold up his sagging legs, and he cocked the other back with a threatening fist, prepared to stare down a bear as they recommended in the outdoor section of the newspaper, but all he managed to do was squeak out, Get away before I shoot you!

The fiend slowed down, then stopped at the edge of the shadows. "Wolf Fiend. It’s from Wolf Fiend. And that fake wolf never could have eaten anybody."

Getaway! I could kill you.

"You can’t do that," the lump replied.

How do you know? Eb said, trying to climb back into his truck. "You just turn around and leave.

No, no, he said, changing his instructions. Walk on down the road, stay in sight so I can see you’re leaving.

You got no gun. You made so much noise, I’ve been watching you. I recognize you from the city.

Anyway. Get out!

You’re telling me to leave? Man, you’re on my rez!

Rez! The word burst from Eb’s lips. Reservation? You mean Indian reservation?

Eb had been raised in a family where Indians were real-life monsters, both feared and hated at least on his father’s side, and talk of Indians wasn’t permitted inside the home. Back then, Hamm’s Mercantile had a big sign in the front window, NO INDIANS ALLOWED. But Eb knew his old man gouged Indians at twice the price if they wanted to buy anything from sidewalk bins set up outside the store.

Eb’s mother was more open-minded. She occasionally spoke of reservations that existed in the country when she was a girl. But, all in all, his father’s intense dislike, along with Eb’s increasing preoccupation with business over the years, had left him with a faint distaste and a vague fear of Indians.

Reservation? Eb now repeated. People back there have been listening to me? Why didn’t anybody come out to help?

It’s just me, the other said, gesturing in a vague circle out into the distance. For miles and miles, the shape added, stepping closer, so Eb was startled to be looking into the serious, plump face of a woman of indeterminate age. Realizing that she had been listening to him made his cheeks flush. Eb pressed on, posing question after question, which to his chagrin she made no effort to answer, instead responding with questions of her own.

What are you doing, sneaking around in the bushes?

That beautiful truck broken down?

Can you take me to a garage mechanic?

Your friend has been gone a long time.

It’s an SUV. You got any friends who fix SUVs?

Come on, she said, retreating back into the shadows. A flashlight appeared in her hand. She made a trail of light, indicating he should follow.

An inner voice urged Eb to climb back into his vehicle and lock the doors, but instead he followed close behind. They pushed through underbrush still ashy from fire, broken trees entangled in dead vines he suspected were desiccated poison ivy. That damn stuff could still make you itch, he thought.

Masses of nettles and thistles accumulated on the legs of his pants, stinging like the bug-bots in Ghoul City. But Eb said nothing, pushing on even faster, afraid to be left behind. Part of him expected at any moment to come upon a full service Shell Station, or at least an old garage surrounded with rusted car bodies and surly Indians.

The lump of cloth stopped, reached into the shadows, lifting out a kerosene lantern, which when lit, revealed a tarpaulin spread out on the ground. She sat, indicating the other end was for him.

I’d better get back, Eb said, but looking into the dark at the surrounding wilderness, he did not leave, but sat. His mind was teeming with questions which he fired off as soon as they were formed. Maybe you can lend me that flashlight? Who are you, anyway? Which reservation are you talking about?

She was pouring something into two cups, handing one of them to him. At first it smelled the same as she did, acrid with smoke. Next he smelled coffee, hot, sweet coffee. He sipped.

This is my away time, to think things over, she finally replied. You stay here, you’ll be okay.

Peering more closely, Eb realized this Indian woman was young, surely not more than thirty years old, but she was so wrapped up in blankets it was difficult to tell. He introduced himself, My name is Eb. Ebeneezer Hamm, from Kansas City, around Kaw Point.

"Yes, I know, Mr. Hamm. I’m Calico Black Bear, of the Meskwaki Red Earth People, daughter of Joe Night Eye and June Red Fox. You might know them, we live over towards Little Town. Been in the Mercantile, that store of yours off Levee Road. My family works a lot with applique, weavings, various textiles, di-se-ka, shirts and traditional clothing for our powwows. We come all the way in because your prices are good."

My wife probably knows, Eb said. That’s her department. Eb made a mental note to check with Sally when he got back home.

Eb’s father died five years earlier, and right after the funeral (and with no fuss at all, except from Uncle Johnny who was as prejudiced towards Native people as his brother had been), Sally took down the NO INDIANS ALLOWED sign from the store’s front window. From then on, they were welcomed to shop at the Mercantile like any other customer.

At the time, Broadcast said, How’d the old man ever get away with a sign like that? It’s a wonder he wasn’t sued.

Don’t talk foolish, Boy, Uncle Johnny said. With all the nice customers in the Mercantile, we should never have let in those dirty, ignorant savages.

Eb was accustomed to Johnny’s mean words about Indians, and all he said at the time was, Dad swore that sign was good for business, encouraged our best customers. And I don’t recall anybody making a fuss about it. Who in the world would ever notice?

Sally didn’t say anything, but she was the first to yank the sign out of the window when the old man died. And she’d never much liked Uncle Johnny.

Calico held out her big thermos and Eb held out his cup. He recalled what his mother, Molly, had told him about Native people. They’re the First People, Eb. You should sit still and wait. Don’t ask questions. They laugh at us with all our questions.

Eb decided it couldn’t hurt to be silent, and taking a clue from his hostess, he barely moved. But that didn’t last long, there was a limit to this kind of thing, so he asked, Did you say this is your away time?

Calico did not reply. Again, Eb asked, You’re camping out here?

Still no reply. Eb waited a while, then thought he would try to apologize. Guess it’s like being on a quest. I’m sorry I interrupted. She said nothing.

Eb bit his tongue now, vowing he would wait for this young woman to speak first, no matter how long. But after about about three minutes, he had to try again, "About that movie, Wolf Fiend, what do you mean the wolf couldn’t have eaten anybody?"

"Wolf Fiend is a great movie, she said, but they could have used some help with the wolf. The Meskwaki have many stories. Wolf is dangerous, but foolish too, because he is so vain and proud."

Eb had found the key. Calico loved horror movies, and this question got her talking.

In the stories we tell our children, Wolf sleeps so soundly he doesn’t wake up, even when Raccoon takes some of his own dung and rubs it in Wolf’s eyes, making him think he’s blind. Wolf stumbles around all the trees of the forest, he believes anything the others tell him, until he falls into the water.

Well? Eb realized he was asking another question.

Well, anyway, Calico said. I told you the name of the movie you couldn’t remember.

Eb sat quietly, but then had to ask, How did you learn so much about movies? It was too dark to read the expression on her face. He continued, I mean, how can you see movies, living out in the wilderness like this, in middle of nowhere?

Calico voice was sharp, Be careful saying that around our young people.

Saying what? Eb said. You mean how can you see movies?"

This isn’t nowhere, Mr. Hamm. It’s somewhere. Around here, this is our land, it’s all of our history. Once, this was all First People land, before your people stole it. But now many of our families bought their own place. Nice people around here. She gestured broadly, All our relatives. A good place to live, and we are planning to stay here forever.

At a loss for words, Eb finally said, I’m glad they let you in at the Realto.

I teach at the college, the history of our Sac and Fox Nations of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska. But most of my students would rather go to the horror films. They go to cheer for the aliens, hoping the fiends will win, and sometimes they do.

Eb