The Round House Read Free Page A

were seamed with dried blood. The nurse came in, raised the end of the bed with a crank. Laid another blanket over her. I hung my head and leaned toward her. I tried to stroke her wrapped wrist and cold, dry fingertips. With a cry, she snatched her hand away as though I’d hurt her. She went rigid and closed her eyes. This action devastated me. I looked up at my father and he gestured for me to come to him. He put his arm around me, walked me out of the room.
    She’s not all right, I said.
    He looked down at his watch and then back at me. His face registered the humming rage of a man who couldn’t think fast enough.
    She’s not all right. I spoke as if to tell him an urgent truth. And for a moment I thought he’d break. I could see something rising in him, but he conquered it, breathed out, and gathered himself.
    Joe. He was looking strangely at his watch again. Joe, he said. Your mother was attacked.
    We stood in the hallway together under patchy, buzzing, fluorescent lights. I said the first thing I thought of.
    By who? Attacked by who?
    Absurdly, we both realized that my father’s usual response would have been to correct my grammar. We looked at each other and he said nothing.
    My father has the head, neck, and shoulders of a tall and powerful man, but the rest of him is perfectly average. Even a little clumsy and soft. If you think about it, this is a good physique to have as a judge. He looms imposingly seated at the bench, but when conferring in his chambers (a glorified broom closet) he is nonthreatening and people trust him. As well as thunderous, his voice is capable of every nuance, and sometimes very gentle. It was the gentleness in his voice now that scared me, and the softness. Almost a whisper.
    She doesn’t know who the man was, Joe.
    But will we find him? I asked in that same hushed voice.
    We will find him, my father said.
    And then what?
    My father never shaved on Sundays, and a few tiny stubbles of gray beard showed. That thing in him was gathering again, ready to burst out. But instead he put his hands on my shoulders and spoke with that reedy softness that spooked me.
    I can’t think that far ahead right now.
    I put my hands on his hands and looked into his eyes. His leveling brown eyes. I wanted to know that whoever had attacked my mother would be found, punished, and killed. My father saw this. His fingers bit into my shoulders.
    We’ll get him, I said quickly. I was fearful as I said this, dizzy.
    Yes.
    He took his hands away. Yes, he said again. He tapped his watch, bit down on his lip. Now if the police would come. They need to get a statement. They should have been here.
    We turned to go back to the room.
    Which police? I asked.
    Exactly, he said.
    T he nurse didn’t want us back in the room yet, and as we stood waiting the police arrived. Three men came through the emergency ward doors and stood quietly in the hall. There was a state trooper, an officer local to the town of Hoopdance, and Vince Madwesin, from the tribal police. My father had insisted that they each take a statement from my mother because it wasn’t clear where the crime had been committed—on state or tribal land—or who had committed it—an Indian or a non-Indian. I already knew, in a rudimentary way, that these questions would swirl around the facts. I already knew, too, that these questions would not change the facts. But they would inevitably change the way we sought justice. My father touched my shoulder before he left me and approached them. I stood against the wall. They were all slightly taller than my father, but they knew him and leaned down close to hear his words. They listened to him intently, their eyes not leaving his face. As he spoke, he looked down at the floor occasionally and folded his hands behind his back. He looked at each of them in turn from under his brows, then cast his eyes down at the floor again.
    Each police officer went into the room with a