Distances

Up one branch to the next, swaying in the wind, the boy climbs the white-bark tree, scrambles into the billowy heights of a great sailing ship. Least that's what you used to imagine when you were a boy and sought the distance of treetops. Even now you can see through his eyes, carried by memory out over the rooftops pitched steeply, past red-brick chimneys, across the distance down to the cold river sparkling in the sun like pirate treasure.

The river, that's where you've been hanging out most of the summer, where yesterday you saw her standing under the trees up from the river beach.

She's eating fries, picking one at a time from the paper cone. Long black hair, wet and shiny. Indians hardly ever come over to the river beach. She's just beyond the picnic tables, brown skin, dark eyes. You're stopped, frozen, staring, your friends walking on. She probably lives on the reservation across the river, past the sagebrush flats, over where the mountains rise hazy and blue in the distance. A lot of people, like old Miss Maywood next door, are afraid of the Indians, say they come into town Saturday nights to drink and fight, hide sharp knives in their boots. One chased Billy all the way from the barber shop downtown, all the way up to Billy's house on Ridge Road. That's what Billy told you, but Billy talks a lot. Like bragging he can drive a car. Yeah, right!

The Indian girl's watching people coming and going from the whitewashed snack stand, looking sometimes at your friends standing now by the bathrooms. They're holding their hands in their pits, pumping arms, making fart sounds every time someone walks by. A big kid, an Indian kid who looks like he's in high school, walks out of the bathroom, looks over at the flapping arms. Your friends stop 'til he passes, over past the green picnic tables, to the Indian girl under the trees. She offers the fries to him, and you imagine their taste, hot and salty.

He hardly looks at her, they don't talk, he's older than her. Her big brother probably. He takes the fries. People say Indians spend all their food money on beer and wine. And fixing up old Chevy pickups. They say Indians shoot deer in summer, out of season. Mom tells you not to go up in the hills in deer season 'cause your dad is always saying a bullet can fly a mile, even more, and still kill you. Never even know what hit you. The girl's real pretty. Beautiful. You're glued to her like the way your dad says you're sometimes glued to the TV. Your friends say the old Indians are scared of TV 'cause they think those are ghosts in there.

You can't stop staring at her, like the foothills glowing red at night in early summer, burning away all the dead brush. Your buddies are waving for you to join them. The Indian girl turns and looks at them. She follows the line of their gestures, looks across at you. You turn away. Billy is patting his mouth, making like an Indian war whoop, except not making any sound. Billy knows you're watching the girl. She turns to the commotion, sees Billy and his stupid war whoop, your friends laughing.

You think of the previous fall, standing in the bed of Billy's dad's pickup as it bounced along a gravel road, kicking up a rooster tail of dust across the sagebrush flats. The old Indian woman walking along the road, holding the hand of a young girl. You remember Billy's arm cocking, snapping forward, the yellow apple flung.

The Indian girl's saying something to her brother, and he looks across at you and back at her. The lady who cooks the fries walks out the back door of the snack stand, lights a cigarette, starts walking stiffly toward the bathrooms. Arms start pumping, your buddies flapping like a bunch...