Just North of Nowhere by Lawrence Santoro Page B

Still...
    The Injun splashed away down around the bend in the river.
    “Hello, Injun,” the boy said to the river.
    He soon tired of saying hello, and not being hello'd back. Soon after that, he’d grown. After that he got old. The Injun was still coming through. Still running. But he was running slower, running and looking around a little. The boy, who was now old, old, old still said, “hello, Injun,” but he was real tired of it and said it with little enthusiasm. A habit.
    When he died and got buried at the Lutheran, the little boy in him came back to the river to wait for Feather Proud, very next morning.
    “Why’re you running?” the little boy asked the Injun.
    Feather Proud stopped. For the first time in he couldn’t say how long, he stopped. Dead. He looked at this new spook. He’d seen other spooks before, sure. This was the first time any of them bothered to ask Feather what he was doing. Spooks were mostly just interested in their own problems.
    “I’m running for help,” Feather Proud told the little dead boy. “My people are being starved in the caves by the Animals Who Think They’re People.”
    The boy nodded. “Figured it was something important,” he said, and watched as the Indian ran around the bend in the river. “Knew it was!”
    After all these years, Feather Proud was disappointed. The Shadow Land wasn’t what he'd thought it might be. He'd figured it would be warm, at least. Figured there'd be a lot more ease being there: good hunting, fat fish, women greasy, wet and ready. Maybe he had been a not-good man. Maybe this was punishment, this running, running, running.
    Feather Proud had slowed over the years. After talking to the shadow boy, he slowed even more. He’d run his run since before the soft shirts came, before their buildings and hard trails had cut the ground and wounded the forest.
    All that stuff, railroads, highways, towns. Well, it distracted from the longness of death. Now, he took his time with the days, he strolled through town, looked at the stores, peered in windows. He looked at the colored magazines in the Rexall; tried to figure out the stuff in the wilderness outfitters store.
    He still looked for help. Of course he did. Feather Proud figured help could be in this town of soft shirts as well as anywhere along the trail of the world. These shirts, they had warriors. He'd seen the small people in the TV box at the Wagon Wheel Tavern.
    And what was along the trail and up the river anyway? He didn't know.
    He'd found himself wearing clothes sometime during this hundred year. Gradual. By the time he first stopped at the American House—Eats he was in full dress, stiff jerkin, ribbed chest plate with shells and bones that rattled when he ran, skin leggings, hide moccasins. He looked like he was courting a chief's daughter.
    He jogged down one side of the street, up the other, down various roads and back. He looked at people. Now and then he'd stop at the Wurst Haus. Karl, who ran the place ignored Feather. Probably didn't see him. Tourists, ones who saw him, figured he was a local character or, better yet, figured he was an actor from the Valley Tourism Board and was meant to be scenic.
    From the first, Esther saw but couldn't tolerate him. Every day he'd poke his damned head, step in and stand like a doofus, sniffing. He never sat to eat or even order take-out. Couple years back, the skinny girl, hired for the summer, had come over, smiled at him, stuck out a menu like she’d been told and could she show him a seat?
    He stared at her and said, “I'm not here. Don't speak to me.” Something like that.
    She never! Anyhow it hurt the skinny girl's feelings and she was ever after a little spooked by customers. Never could get it right.
    On the other hand, clientele at the American House—Eats, could be spooky even when they were alive.
    It was winter, white, deep, and bear-snoozing. Feather Proud showed, opened the door, stood looking in. A 40-below arctic clipper