Are you looking for a Christmas gift for a favorite reader? How about a relevant read for your church’s book group? Do you have a heart for small churches? Wipf and Stock is offering my story collection Blest Be the Tie at half off through November 30. Use the code CONFSHIP when placing your order. Media mail shipping is also free. Such a deal!
Here is a link to the publisher. You can then search for “Joann White” or “Blest Be the Tie.”
for Tillie Blackbear
“Jeezum Crow! That boy has gotten up to a lot of mischief over the years, but this takes the cake.” It was Ruth Underhill. Pastor Bob had gotten an emergency call, summoning him to Ruth’s farm, and it hadn’t taken much imagination to surmise that the “emergency” was related to Ruth’s grandson Jackie Carl. The boy just seemed to be made for trouble.
At the farm, Bob wasn’t surprised to see that Tubby Mitchell had also been summoned to respond to the crisis. Tubby sat at the kitchen table, studying his cup of black coffee, and while Ruth poured Bob his own cup, she launched into Jackie Carl’s latest escapade. It had involved the outside brick wall of the high school gym and a lot of spray paint. To Jackie Carl’s credit, the graffiti was not profane, just rude and wildly inappropriate.
“You name it, I’ve tried it,” Ruth continued, “Counseling, tough love, heart-to-hearts, prayer, bribery.” She threw up her hands. “Nothing works. Nothing!”
Now Bob was studying his coffee cup as assiduously as Tubby was. In the silence that followed, Bob could hear the kitchen clock ticking. Bob thought about all the trouble that Jackie Carl had gotten into over the years. When the boy was only in second grade, Bob suspected him of swiping the special comb that Eugenia Bergstrom used every Sunday to straighten the fringe on the altar cloth. An exhaustive search had eventually found it, tangled in the mane of a stuffed lion down in the Sunday school room. Then, there had been the time in middle school when Jackie Carl had blown out the exhaust system in his school bus by wedging an enormous potato into the tailpipe. Lately, Bob had heard about fights—two black eyes for the boy who had called Jackie Carl a red-headed loser. When Bob thought about it, the only time he’d seen Jackie Carl truly happy in the past year had been on the lacrosse field, the teenager’s lanky, freckled legs dashing down the field at a blistering pace, cradling the ball, dodging defenders, and launching a shot with a fierce intensity that made even the most steadfast of keepers shrink in fear.
Ruth wasn’t done. “I blame it on his father. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in five years. Five years! At least when he was in prison, we knew where he was. Why my daughter took up with him I’ll never understand. You know, the one time he did visit, he spent the whole time smoking cigarettes on the front porch and staring at his phone. He may have named the boy after himself, but he has never shown a lick of interest in the child.”
Tubby sadly nodded along. Tubby had been thinking, too. He remembered meeting the six-year-old Jackie Carl, all knobby knees, freckles, and carroty hair. The boy had called Tubby out of his grief for his dead son, and the two had forged a special bond as the boy tagged along to fish, camp, and hunt. Each morning of those trips, Tubby and Jackie Carl would begin the day by praying together the Haudenosaunee prayer of thanksgiving with its beautiful celebration of the unity of creation, “Now our minds are one.” For Tubby and his wife Irene, the boy had helped to heal the hole left in their hearts when Todd died in Iraq.
Tubby thought about himself, too, he’d lost his parents at a young age in a car accident, casualties of those days when addiction had been so prevalent on the reservation. Tubby knew there was a good chance that he would have ended up as wild and unsettled as Jackie Carl if it hadn’t been for his grandfather. The legendary wilderness guide had driven north to the reservation from his cabin outside the village and taken Tubby home with him. Tubby’s grandfather had always made sure that Tubby knew who he was, Tionatakwente of the Kanien’kehaka people, the great eastern door of the Iroquois confederacy, but Tubby suspected that Jackie Carl had no idea who he was. Tubby and Bob locked eyes across the table and an unspoken agreement passed between the two men.
Bob leaned forward, “How can we help, Ruth?”
This unlocked a shower of tears from Ruth, who could run her dairy farm with an iron fist but couldn’t tame her grandson. Between sobs, Ruth stammered, “I don’t know I don’t I don’t I don’t know.”
Tubby sighed and reached across the table to lay his hand on Ruth’s, “I’ve got an idea, Ruth. Let me talk to Irene about it.”
When Tubby opened the door to the cabin, he was greeted by the scent of balsam and baking. He had cut a six-foot Christmas tree and brought it home where Irene had worked her magic, winding it with lights, hanging ornaments, and topping it with an enormous God’s Eye that their son Tod had long ago made in Sunday school—bright yarn was woven around crossed sticks to remind them of God’s watchful care and protection. Irene was pulling a tray of Christmas cookies from the oven. Her cheeks were flushed and her long hair, bound by a red ribbon the nape of her neck, was shot through with gray.
Tubby leaned in to steal a too-hot cookie. He remembered the first time he saw Irene up on the reservation. He had known immediately that she would be his wife. Tubby wasn’t sure what his grandfather had said to the Clan Mother to convince her it would be ok for Irene to marry his grandson, but it worked. Their wedding day, when he had seen her in her ribbon skirt, shawl, and beaded moccasins, had been one of the happiest moments of his life. Tubby blew on his cookie.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, venturing a cautious bite.
Irene raised her eyebrows. “Thinking? That’s always trouble.”
Tubby nodded, “It’s about Jackie Carl.”
Irene smiled indulgently. “Ah. More trouble.”
Tubby started again, “Well, it’s not just about Jackie Carl. It’s about Todd, too.” Irene’s brow creased, thinking about the beautiful son they had lost in Iraq. She waited for her husband to continue.
Tubby searched for the right words. “Irene, maybe kinship isn’t just about blood. Jackie Carl needs us. Maybe in ways that Todd never did. Ruth Underhill, she needs our help. Maybe God is calling us to something new.”
One by one, Irene transferred cookies to the cooling rack, plying her spatula until the baking sheet was empty. Christmas always made Irene think of Todd. Could there be that kind of space in her heart for someone else, especially someone who was so troubled? She thought of her own parents and elders on the reservation. They told long ago stories of the healing of families that followed times of war. Beloved ones lost in battle left a hole that was sometimes filled by others—even prisoners of war—who were adopted into the clan. Still today, it wasn’t unusual to expand families in unexpected ways.
Irene turned the thought over in her mind and picked up a cookie. She took a bite. Maybe the question shouldn’t be why but why not. Why not a hot-headed teen with fiery red hair? Irene put down her spatula, “Tionatakwente, are you asking if we should adopt Jackie Carl into the clan?”
Tubby looked expectant.
Irene nodded, “Well, I’d better call my Auntie. Lord knows, that boy sure could use a new name.”
Jackie Carl was no stranger to the res. As a boy at the Powwow, he had relished eating stew with thick chunks of venison, made tender by slow cooking. His small feet had shuffled along with the men as they moved to the rhythm of the Thunder Dance. Each year right after school let out, Tubby would drive them north to the St. Lawrence to fish for enormous Muskies that lurked in weeds and promised the fight of a lifetime. Jackie Carl had learned to love lacrosse on the res, the beauty of precision passing, the crack of stick against stick, the cry of “Aho!” when the ball swished into the back of the net. Last summer, Jackie Carl had helped Tubby as the firekeeper at the sweat, carefully passing super-heated rocks with a pitchfork from the fire to the pit at the center of the lodge.
Sometimes on the reservation, Jackie Carl forgot. He forgot that his father didn’t love him. He forgot that his mother had left him. He forgot that he felt angry and rootless on most days, despite his grandmother’s efforts to provide what his parents could not.
Jackie Carl had never been on the reservation for the Midwinter Ceremony. The five days of praying, eating, dancing, and games conflicted with school, but this year, Ruth Underhill made an exception, sending him north in the back seat of Tubby’s Kingcab. Irene had been cooking for the feast for days: golden rounds of Bannock, sweet cornmeal pudding, roasted squash mixed with butter and maple syrup, and vats of potato and macaroni salad. Just thinking about it made Jackie Carl’s stomach growl. On that first day, they had pulled up in front of an inauspicious looking ranch house. Tubby put the car in park, and Irene turned to the boy. “This is my Auntie’s house. She’s the Clan Mother. Are you ready?” Jackie Carl nodded, “Yep,” and they went inside.
A teen about Jackie Carl’s age answered the door, showed them where to leave their shoes, and pointed them toward a closed door, saying only, “They’re waiting.” Inside, it took Jackie Carl’s eyes a minute to adjust to the dark. Windows had been covered with blankets and the only light came from a low fire that burned in the fireplace. This must have been what it felt like in the longhouse, Jackie Carl thought. A circle of Kanien’kehaka people sat on the floor, but just enough room had been left for the three of them. Jackie Carl, Tubby, and Irene took a seat.
At the head of the circle sat the oldest woman that Jackie Carl had ever seen. “Auntie,” Irene spoke up, “we bring you a gift.” She held out a pouch of tobacco, which was passed around the circle to the waiting matriarch. She gave it an appreciative sniff before mixing it with red willow bark and packing it into the bowl of a medicine pipe. The lit pipe slowly passed from neighbor to neighbor around the circle. To Jackie Carl, the silence of that room felt like an eternity, but for Tubby and Irene it felt like they were settling back into the ancient rhythms of their ancestors.
Finally, the Auntie spoke in Mohawk, then in English for Jackie Carl’s benefit. “What is it you seek, my children?”
Irene answered, “We’ve come to claim the right of adoption. The hole that was left in our clan when Todd was killed needs to be filled. We claim Jackie Carl, that he might have all the rights and status that would have been Todd’s.” There were sounds of affirmation around the circle, followed again by an appreciative silence.
At last, with what might have been a twinkle in her eye, the Auntie said, “It’s about time, Irene. What took you so long?”
The Auntie turned her bright eyes on Jackie Carl, “And what do you have to say about it, young man?”
Before she had even finished speaking, Jackie Carl was nodding, “Yes,” so filled with feeling that he could not find the words or trust his voice. Jackie Carl looked to Tubby and Irene, their faces filled with love, their eyes brimming with tears. Tubby placed a hand on Jackie Carl’s shoulder and for the first time in his life, the boy felt like he had a Dad.
“Very well!” the Auntie continued, “You need a name. A real name.” As if the name Jackie Carl had only been a placeholder for the true life that was about to unfold.
They sat once more in silence. The pipe was filled and passed around the circle again. After a long while, the Auntie spoke. Pointing first to the orange glow of the coals on the hearth and then to the carroty color of Jackie Carl’s hair, she said. “You, my child, are Atsila. That means fire.”
An appreciative chorus of “Aho” and laughter greeted her proclamation. “Atsila,” Jackie Carl tried the sound of his new name. It felt like the moment when the Muskie hits your line and you know you’ve hooked a big one. “Atsila.” It felt like the instant your lacrosse shot slips past the keeper and into the cage. “Atsila.” It felt like the sleepy peace that comes when your belly is full of Bannock, venison stew, and cornmeal pudding. “Atsila.” It felt like home.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied exultation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
4 For the yoke of their burden
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Great will be his authority,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
Louella Fletcher could really tell a story, and she had been spinning them all afternoon. Bob said a prayer and bid her goodbye. Louella walked with him out to the porch. As the sun had dropped, afternoon flurries had intensified into huge, fast-falling flakes. A smooth blanket of snow surrounded the house, and Bob’s Subaru was shrouded in white.
“Say, Bob,” Louella said, holding onto his arm, “Maybe you should have dinner with us and spend the night. We’re awful remote, and I don’t like the look of this.”
Bob thought about Marge and Paul back home, waiting dinner for him. He remembered his meeting, first thing in the morning. “Thanks, Louella, but I’ll be ok. I’ve got all-wheel drive.”
Louella looked as if she was on the edge of another story or a word of warning, but she shrugged and gave Bob a hug, “You take care now, pastor. Be safe.”
Bob inched along, wipers thumping, defroster rushing, headlights barely making a dent in the snowy darkness. He hesitated at the pointy corner where the main road swept to the right and the seasonal road climbed to the left. The main road was likely to be better driving, but the seasonal road shaved a good ten miles off what was proving to be a long, slow trip. “O, what the hay,” Bob said, “I imagine the Subaru and I can handle a seasonal road.” The car slowly toiled up, up, up, to the top of Hotchkiss Hill.
At the summit, Bob felt a surge of relief that soon shifted to concern. He had never noticed how sharp the descent was, no switchbacks, no guardrails, and certainly no lights way out here. Feeling like a kid on a carnival ride, all fear, butterflies, and acid reflux, he steered the car onward. About half-way down the slope, building speed, deepening snow, and an unfortunate tap on the breaks got the rear end of the Subaru slaloming back and forth. “Sweet Jesus!” Bob prayed as the car spun out of control, down into the dark, headlights flashing past huge trees. With a grinding thump, the Subaru scooted off the road and into a ditch. The rear end settled against a big white pine with a bone-jarring crack. The wipers stopped, the defroster fell silent, and the headlights went dark.
Bob thanked the Lord he was still alive and fished out his cellphone. His joy at the digital glow gave way to disappointment—no signal. Bob fished a headlamp, two handwarmers, and a granola bar out of the glovebox. He opened the warmers, gave them a shake, and slipped them into his gloves. He strapped on the headlamp over his hat. Then, he turned up the collar on his coat and stepped out into more than a foot of snow. The temperature was dropping and the wind was picking up. He debated turning back to Louella’s, but if the Subaru couldn’t handle the snowy track, then his boots surely wouldn’t. It was miles and miles to town, but if he was lucky, someone might come along and help.
Petey Freudenberg was on his way home from a day of meetings at the DEC. The ranger was more at home in the woods than in an office. He resented days like this, hours spent listening to policy wonks who wouldn’t know a mink from a fisher. As Petey’s headlights swept the darkness ahead, he glumly thought that this would be the last day he could get away with taking the shortcut on the seasonal road. It would be impassable in a matter of hours.
Not too far from the bottom of Hotchkiss Hill, Petey saw the willow-the-wisp of a headlamp, dancing along the shoulder. “Durned yuppies,” he muttered under his breath, “Come up here from the city and think they’ll have a little fun snowshoeing through a blizzard.” This imbecile took the prize, even gave him a big wave and a yell before Petey dropped the truck into low and surged off up the hill and into the night.
By the time Rhonda LaMott came along in her rig, Bob’s headlamp had failed, first growing slowly dimmer and then blinking out entirely. His trail boots really weren’t meant for this sort of weather and his feet were wet and numb. He brushed the snow from his coat and hat and ducked his head against the weather.
Rhonda had just finished plowing at the QuikMart. Folks had been resistant to a woman clearing snow—said it wasn’t ladylike. But Rhonda was good and incredibly dependable. She was headed home for the evening, but she would be back in town first thing to clear away the drifts. Rhonda was thinking about hot chocolate when she caught a glimpse of something moving on the shoulder. It was big and lumbering through the snow. A moose? A man?
About fifty yards past it, Rhonda slowed to a standstill and eyed her rearview mirror. A woman on her own in the middle of the Hotchkiss bog wasn’t safe. She checked her door locks and peered into the dark. Whatever it was, it was bellowing now and running in her direction. “Jeezum Crow!” Rhonda cursed. With her heart rising into her throat, Rhoda slid the rig into gear and sent up a shower of snow as she floored it, not daring to look back.
Now Bob was really worried. His boots squelched with melted snow. At this rate, he might have to walk all night to make it to civilization. He quickened his pace, fished the granola bar from his pocket, and took an incredibly stale bite. At the top of a rise, Bob paused and patted his breast pocket for his phone. He never did find out if he was back in range. Bob turned out every pocket with the sickening realization that his cell must have fallen out when he ran after the plow. He squinted back down the road and cursed his stupidity. In Bob’s overactive imagination, he saw headlines, “Local pastor freezes to death in November blizzard” or “Winter storm claims victim” or “Local church mourns pastor.”
About a half mile down the road, Bob stopped, pushed his hat up, and cupped his hands behind his ears to listen. There it was—jingling, like Santa’s sleigh or something else, something that told him that he was out in the middle of a full-fledged snow emergency: tire chains. He strained his eyes in the dark and glimpsed two dim beams, slowly growing brighter behind him. He heard the chugga, chugga, chugga of a big diesel engine. It was now or never. Bob took a deep breath and stepped out in the middle of the road with his hands up.
Bob had never met Chester Perkins, but he had heard stories. No one was certain exactly where Chester lived, but he was definitely off the grid. Some said he was an anti-social hermit. Others thought he was related to Big Foot. Everyone agreed that he smelled bad. Chester had seen the reflective gleam of a tail light in an empty car in the ditch at the bottom of Hotchkiss Hill, and he’d been prowling up the seasonal road in his rusted-out F-350 ever since. Maybe someone hadn’t had the good sense to stay put and wait out the storm. Chester thought about the three toes he had lost to frostbite in the big storm of ‘93. Some poor fool might need help.
The F-350 creaked to a stop about a foot away from Bob, who wasn’t certain which would be worse, getting run over or dying from exposure. Chester opened the truck door and shouted through the gap, “What are you waiting for? Get in!” While Bob’s numb hands fumbled for a grip on the passenger door, Chester kicked it wide open. He reached out a strong arm and hauled Bob up onto the bench seat.
Bob didn’t know what the source of the odor was, but it smelled bad in the truck, like dead things, body odor, and bean burritos. As Bob gagged and struggled into the seat belt, Chester passed a jar. “Drink that up, son.” Something fiery and potent, maybe moonshine, blazed down Bob’s throat and kindled warmth in his chest.
Chester pointed to Bob’s sodden boots. “Get those off,” he ordered and then passed Bob a furry pelt that looked suspiciously like it had come from a large dog. “Wrap your feet in this.” Bob did, his feet looking white and waxy in the dashboard light.
“Alright then, eat this.” Chester handed Bob a tough, salty chunk of jerky. Bob briefly wondered what sort of meat it could be but figured it was safe when Chester broke off a big hunk and began gnawing on some himself.
Chester dropped the truck into first and they crept toward town. “Where to?” he wanted to know.
“If you could take me to the manse at the Presbyterian Church, I’d be so grateful,” Bob answered, still finding it hard to believe that he just might make it out of this alive. They rode on for a few miles in silence.
Chester gave Bob a sidelong glance, “Man of God, huh? I never been to church.” Bob wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Certainly, if Chester had ever come to church, it would have been an unforgettable occasion.
With a sweep of his arm that took in the wind, snow, night, forest, darkness, Chester said, “This is my god.”
Bob nodded, thinking that Chester’s god had almost gotten the better of him that evening.
Maybe it was the moonshine, or the warmth of the animal skin on his feet, or the chugging of the truck that did it. Bob’s head fell to his chest, and the next thing he knew, they were in town, parked in front of the manse. Every light in the house was on, and Bob could see into the kitchen, where Marge looked like she was shouting into the telephone.
Bob pulled on his boots and turned to Chester, “I think you saved my life. How can I ever repay you?”
“No trouble,” Chester answered, “but it wouldn’t hurt if you promised to never do that again.”
“I promise, I really do,” Bob answered, shaking Chester’s grimy hand and knowing the grace of miraculous second chances and improbable saviors.
Chester chugged off into the night while Bob waved from the top step. Marge opened the front door, “Thank God! You’re home, Bob! We’ve been worried sick. Who was that?”
Bob reached an arm around Marge and watched as taillights disappeared at the end of the block. “Marge, that was a neighbor, a true-blue neighbor. Thank God, indeed.”
Joann White 