A Good High Place

Chapter 27

c H A P T e R T W e N T Y - S e V e N Several weeks after Topini had been lost in the woods, they come for her. “For her own good,” they say. it seems the “good” ladies of elk Rapids are worried about Topini. Nothing that should be taken personally, they say. She is too much for one person to take care of properly. Surely izusa can see that? Mrs. campbell, spokeswoman for the group, is a small, fidgety woman with unusually large hands that she keeps clenched and hidden in the folds of her skirt. if she removes them from the skirt, it’s to wave a handkerchief around for emphasis while she sniffs dramatically over what she calls “the situation.” She has come with dr. Jamison from the asylum, a gray man with a faded mustache, a small goatee, and an apologetic expression. in surprisingly uncertain fingers he holds papers made out by judges at the county seat in Bellaire. Kachina is surprised and optimistic at the uncertainty in his face. But she knows the time is not now; The day has told her as much. izusa cries when they load a bewildered Topini into the buckboard wagon, but Kachina does not cry. instead she sits stone-faced, and when the wagon leaves with Topini, who is also not crying but instead sucking her tongue as she does when she’s anxious, Kachina simply begins walking without saying a word to izusa, stopping long enough A GOOD HIGH PLACE 139 to pick up the rubber slicker with the hole in the neck and a couple slices of corn bread from the small plank table inside the wigwam. it takes her seven hours to walk the seventeen miles into Traverse city from elk Rapids. But there is no confusion; The day presents no conflicting or alternative paths, and there is no fear like there had been the day Topini was lost. it’s hot and dusty, so she walks along the edges of the road in the tall grasses to keep the stones from becoming lodged in her shoes and the dry wind from blowing dust into her eyes. it’s midday when she starts and dusk as the hospital comes into view. Gewnaadiziigamik.Asylum.Kachinahasheardofitbefore.Aplace they’d taken several of the Anishinaabek men when they’d become liquored up one too many times in town, the result of “a continued public disturbance problem.” it is an enormous yellow-brick building that stretches out for what seems miles, with pointy spires that pierce the sky surrounded by smaller buildings Kachina will hear called “cottages,” which are also topped with imposing spires. There’s no iron gate around the front of the building. instead there’s evidence that they are replacing what appears to be a simple wooden farm fence with a low metal one. it winds along both sides of the entrance road around to the back of the property. But nothing prevents Kachina from making her way to the massive oak door of the main building. She doesn’t knock but holds the latch down with her thumb and pushes, surprised when the door swings open. The hospital, at least here at the entryway, is not what she thinks a hospital should look like but is instead like pictures she’s seen of a fancy hotel in chicago. A woman seated at a large flat desk is the only indication otherwise. She is dressed all in white with a white pointed hat on her head. The only detail that isn’t white (even the woman’s skin and hair are white, almost gray, like a birch tree) is a single dark horizontal stripe toward the top of the pointy hat that matches the rest of the spires. The light is dim in the lobby. What color is the stripe? she wonders. it might be black or brown or slag blue. or even an iron ore colored red. 140 L.E. Kimball “can i help you?” the woman says. She is quickly joined by a young man also dressed in white who comes to stand next to her. Kachina has an urge to touch the woman’s hand and then the white fabric. “i want to see my sister,” Kachina says. “A doctor came and took her away this afternoon. i want to see her.” “Visiting hours, upon dr. Jamison...