country life

indians and the country

We hitchhiked out to California, but when my husband and I returned to Oklahoma, we drove a used station wagon with my tipi, lodge poles and all, in a bundle on the roof, tied to both bumpers. My husband, Midge, chose the car from a lot in New Mexico, and we bought it for $100. The only time Midge worked on it during its hard life of several years was when we drove up to Red Rocks in Colorado, and he had to adjust the carburetor for the altitude.

We picked up my tipi there, after saying hello to everyone.

It was a quick trip to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, and the day we arrived, we pitched the tipi near his mother’s house, which was the center of life in that countryside. Midge said hello to many siblings and cousins there, while I shyly held his hand. I’d met them before, but that was during the beginning, and I was unsure of things.

Anyway, my little tipi would be our new bedroom, and we wouldn’t take needed space in Rose’s house anymore.

We put an old metal frame for a double bed inside, a mattress and blankets, a nightstand with an oil lamp and an ashtray on it, and a little chest for our clothes. Because it was summer in the country, I tied the liner inside to discourage bugs and things from joining us, and Midge put an old window screen in the smoke hole up top for the same reason. No fire would be needed in that season. We felt very clever.

After dinner with the family in Rose’s kitchen, we went to the tipi, which had formerly been my ‘room’ at Red Rocks. I felt right at home, and Midge was pleased. That night, even with the porch light on at Rose’s house, a bright circle of light nearby, no bugs came in.

It was perfect.

We settled down and blew out the lamp. The night was full of little rustles in the woods to the left, small noises all around, but it was comforting. The night was clear and the woods were naturally busy.

We told each other “Good night!” and lay still.

Almost immediately, I noticed an unnatural silence. I think Midge did, too. It was as if the silence was not just a lack of background noise, but a silence that was created.

What could it be?

Then there was a soft “whump” right on top of the tipi poles. We listened. A burbling “Hoo, hoo, hoo!” began.

Midge groaned and covered his head with the blanket.

I whispered, “What? It’s an owl.”

He said, “Yes, it’s an owl!” His voice was muffled by the blanket.

“You don’t like it?” I whispered.

“Get it off!” He was quiet but adamant.

The owl continued its “hoo, hoo, hoo” until I threw my lighter against the canvas side of the tipi and said “Shoo!”

It must have flown away then, because the silence in the woods was so certain for a moment.

Soon the little creatures of the night began their noises again.

I was comforted.

Midge was not. He got right out of bed and began dressing.

“I cain’t sleep here,” he said. “Not with no owl landing on top. An owl means someone’s gonna die...”

His voice trailed off.

“It does?” I said. I lit the lamp. He was almost out the canvas door.

“Come with me,” he said. “We’ll sleep in Mom’s living room tonight. Or in the car. Anywhere but here!”

His fear was contagious, even though I didn’t know anything like that about owls.

We slept in Rose’s house.

The next day, we took the tipi down and leaned it against the side of another house. It was a clapboard house that had been on that large property for about a hundred years, and it looked it.

I was sorrowful about the tipi, but the old house, which would be our new ‘bedroom’ for some time, was fascinating. Midge made up a bed inside one big old room next to what had been a kitchen. Nothing there was usable. The windows were intact, though, and held glass so old it was wavy, trying to drip back down into a liquid state. The walls were covered with chipped paint in some places and old strips of wallpaper in others. The house was two stories, but I didn’t explore upstairs. Midge didn’t think the floor or stairs would necessarily hold me.

I knew for sure there were mice inside the house. There were signs of them almost everywhere. Someone had tried to store commodity food in cabinets along the kitchen floor, and the mice made themselves at home. A bag of yellow cornmeal spilled open, and so did a bag of pinto beans. I didn’t like it, but hoped the mice would stay their distance. I’d certainly stay mine. I even closed the cabinets as well as I could.

So, on the first night, I felt good next to Midge, warm, safe and cozy under the blankets.

I dozed.

And woke suddenly to a loud “thump” inside the wall.

I instantly thought of stories by Edgar Allen Poe. I took Midge’s hand.

There was another “thump.”

It began to go down in the wall, whatever it was. It sounded like something big inside a vertical pinball machine, something that hit every obstacle. It must have been hitting the struts and joists inside the wall.

“What’s that?!” I gasped.

“Huh?”

“Midge, what’s that noise in the wall? Hear that?”

Thump, thump - now right next to the bed....

Midge nearly laughed.

“Oh, that,” he said. “That’s an old bull snake hunting mice. You don’t like mice. You should like that old snake.”

“Can it get out?” I was rigid.

“Nah,” Midge said. “Well, it could, I guess, but it would go outside if it wanted. It stays in the walls. Go to sleep.”

Easier said than done. I didn’t like snakes, either.

In time, I became accustomed to the noise, to the place, and to the man. Midge had his own fears, like the owl, but they were apparently shared by the entire family. They all disliked owls. None of them feared mice or bull snakes.

I slowly learned to be an Arapaho, and became a true member of the family.

For years, I also thought owls were harbingers of death, and that mice and snakes were normal in a house.

Now I guess they’re all part of a big circle of life and death.

That husband is gone. So is his mother, his father, and most of his siblings. Years ago, I returned to Oklahoma to say ‘goodbye’ to Midge at a memorial meeting arranged a year after his death. Our daughter and I stayed there a few days. She received many of his possessions, as was rightful. I was given things, too. That was the way things were done. After the meeting, there was a give-away.

Later, I went to the home place again to say a real goodbye to Midge’s beloved mother, dying of cancer and soon away.

What was the most important thing with her then, with my Arapaho mother?

That we laughed.

That we told each other stories of husbands and owls, mice and snakes, and we laughed a lot.