Chapter 8: Racial History

A week later Gran and Buck sat in a patch of late-August sunshine, watching Gran’s plastic fishing float drift around in lazy circles, teased by the gentle current in the backwater pool. A tiny gold hook baited with a single insect, a stream-bottom larvae, hung by a long leader from the float. From time to time, Gran would reel it in, check the bait, and then softly cast the float slightly upstream to drift once again into the backwater pool where it would again drift around in circles. A stringer of fat whitefish prized as a smoke-cured delicacy lay in the shallow water near her feet.

Buck watched her, admiring her handsome features. He respected her strength of character, her devotion to the girls, and her bravery. He’d never heard her complain. Reese had told him in considerable detail the dire conditions in which he’d found her and the girls, her illness, poverty, and the unexpected burden of the girls dumped on her by a frightened daughter.

He also appreciated her outdoor skills which surprised him. She was certainly not an urban flower. He learned she’d been raised on a high-country ranch in Nevada. It had been lost to hard times. Her parents were long gone. She had a few distant surviving relatives, and she’d lost her husband in that insane Middle East war the Vice President had whipped up in a greedy corporate quest for oil riches under the guise of attacking a terrorist nation. He’d even maneuvered the President into attacking the wrong country. Thousands of widows like Gran paid the price. The greatest foreign policy blunder in the history of the nation lost its grip on the oil. Only a huge increase in the national debt was left to show for the insane debacle.

Gran’s rod tip twitched, jiggled and dipped again and then — after a studied moment — Gran flicked it up and back, setting the hook. Her rod went berserk, whipping up and down, the mono-filament line streaking through the water in circles while she pulled up and reeled in when lowering the tip; she pulled up again and reeled her catch closer with steady pulls. Buck sat, watching. Gran stepped down to the water’s edge, stooped and snatched up her short-handled net. Raising her rod high with one hand, she swept the net under the silver-sided whitefish to lift it clear of the water. She stepped back, lowered it to the grassy bank and reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out a red plastic hook retriever and slid it down the line, easing it down to catch and press the hook backwards to free it from the fish’s throat. Hooking her finger in a gill cover, she took the fat 16-inch whitefish to her metal-clip stringer and added it to the others.

“I think that’s enough for today,” she said to Buck, easing back into the lawn chair beside him.

“Yep. That’s a nice batch for the smoker. I sure do like that brine recipe of yours, Ms. Happy. It’s a big improvement over what most of the old timers use around here.”

Well, you don’t be telling ‘em what’s in it, old man. It’s a Nevada secret, my family secret!” she poked him in the ribs, grinning.

“Nope, I won’t, but if you call me ‘old’ again, I might not be so tight-lipped,” he teased.

“And that’s the last day you’ll get a taste of Nevada-smoked whitefish, too!” she said.

She turned and gazed up the slope to the lodge where she knew the children were sitting at school desks that had been set up in a screened-off section of the central downstairs room. It was off to one side in a back corner facing ceiling-high windows looking out on the rear grounds. Their new home teacher, Reese’s former classmate Diane Fuller and her two sons, Augie, age 12, and Bruce, age 10, were a delightful addition to the Yankee Girl family. The boys were bright, active, and — for young boys — exceptionally well behaved. And Diane was a brilliant teacher. She struck Gran as having been born to it. She seemed to see into each child’s mind and knew exactly what needed explaining and just how to do it. They all loved her from the first day she’d set up classes and their study plans.

It was a typical one-room school setup with Nita, 13; Augie, 12; Bruce, 10; Shyla and Shayla, the twins at age 8; and on the fringe for part of the day, little Lucella, age 4. Diane was quick to assess each student’s personality and ability and within the first week she knew which older child could help with a younger student while she concentrated in one-on-one teaching with another. Academically, Nita was on a par with the younger boys; the younger boys were sometimes able to help the younger twins. Nita assisted as troop leader to guide and escort the younger kids in outside activities.

Nita sometimes found herself hanging with Augie; Bruce and the twins gravitated together, and little Bug grabbed on to any adult who got within range: “Pick me up, pick me up, I want a ride!” she’d sing out.

“Do you think we’ve heard the last of those meddling state people?” Gran asked Buck.

“No guarantees, but we probably have,” he answered. “Clarence Reeder set ‘em back on their heels pretty hard. And he and I did plant a few words in more’n a few ears when he and I went to Boise. Not to brag, Ms. Happy, but I’ve been around the block a few times. Between Clarence and I, we know a few people over there who pay a mind to our concerns. And I’m more than a little concerned at what happened. It’s not like them social services people to go off so half-cocked. It seems to me that somebody who ain’t on our side must have shook them up pretty hard to cause big trouble about you and the girls. Seems like somebody saw an opening and took advantage. ‘Cept it backfired, of course. I do admire that as fast as your daughter was runnin’ from whatever scared her, she had the uncommon good sense to get guardian documents for you. That really tipped the scales! It left ‘em no wiggle room to challenge you.

“But what has me concerned is whoever in blazes is stirring up the trouble? And why? Reeder and I have our ears open and our friends have feelers out, but so far all I have are my suspicions. Nothing more. Nothing firm.”

“So what are your suspicions, Buck?”

“It takes a little explainin’, and it ain’t pretty. First, you gotta understand that up here in the Northwest we ain’t immune from racial bigotry; we never have been. First it was hatred and oppression of the native people, ‘heathen Indians’ we called ‘em; and then it was the Chinese. The railroads imported them as cheap labor and when the work was done we passed laws to grab whatever they’d invested and then more rulings to run ‘em out of the country, all nice and legal-like.

“And the Indians, we rounded ‘em up and put ‘em on the most worthless wasteland we could find and called ‘em ‘reservations’ and the military was allowed to run any of ‘em to ground and kill ‘em if they didn’t stay put. Agreed, that was early-day history, but the hatred and bigotry survived pretty strong through the years, only softening a little when national attitudes started to swing against blatant racism. Most Northwest folks claim, we ain’t racist, not at all! ‘cause we don’t act like Southerners did with their negroes, their black people.

“And that’s a lie, Ms. Happy. We didn’t have blacks but we had ‘injuns’ to put down. And the whole time I was growin’ up all I ever heard was ‘no-good, shiftless, drunken injuns.’ an’ that ain’t changed much. Our native people are treated less than equal or worse and always have been. That’s our shame, truth be told,” Buck said.

“So, about Reese. His father studied to become a mining engineer. He first went to U of I in north Idaho, where he met and married a Nez Perce woman, a native American in today’s polite words. I swear she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. Her people are a handsome people, and smart? Whooee, don’t ever try to out-horse trade a Nez Perce horse breeder. They’ll skin yer wallet and leave you wonderin’ what happened. They raise and run the most beautiful horses with white-blanket spotted rumps, Appaloosa horses. They’re traditional to the Nez Perce and highly prized. Anyway, I’m ramblin’ ... an old man’s affliction.