The Spawning Grounds Read Free Page A

saddle, pulled his rifle from the scabbard, and tipped back his cowboy hat as he aimed the gun at Alex. Alex stopped in mid-step and gave Hannah a look that said,
Here we go again
.
    “Grandpa, put the gun down.”
    Stew ignored her, peering at Alex through the scope on his gun. “What the hell do you want?” Stew yelled. “What are you doing on my land?”
    Alex held out both hands as if to offer himself up. “If you’re looking for something to fill your freezer, I’ll take you moose hunting on my uncle’s hunting ground,” he called to Stew. “Nothing but tough meat on these bones.”
    “So you
are
off the reserve, then? You look Indian, though it’s hard to tell these days. All these red-haired, blue-eyed Indians. My granddaughter here says she’s going to college with a blonde who claims she’s Cree. Says she’s got status and everything.”
    Hannah felt the heat rise to her face. She realized her grandfather didn’t recognize Alex, even though he had been to the farmhouse many times over the years. To him, Alex was just another trespasser, another protestor, another Indian.
    “Grandpa, this is Alex. You remember,
Coyote
.”
    Alex made a face at hearing the nickname. His aunt Sara had given it to him, not because she thought Alex was the archetypal trickster of many of the stories he told, but because his aunt felt he—like Coyote—spent too much of his energy on getting laid. Or at least that used to be the case, before he went to university, when he seemed to have a new girlfriend every week. Hannah should have been too young at the time to be jealous, but she had been.
    “Alex is Dennis Moses’s grandson, his great-grandson,” Hannah told her grandfather. “He comes over to our place, remember?”
    Recognition crossed Stew’s face, and he lowered his gun. Alex took that as his cue to continue walking towards them. He joined Hannah on the outcropping over the river.
    “Grandpa’s pissed because the protestors left the far gate open,” Hannah told him. “The cows got out.”
    “What the hell are you protesting anyway?” Stew asked Alex. “You people are always getting worked up about your bones. What does it matter? The kid is dead, isn’t he?”
    “How would you feel if I dug up old Eugene’s bones?”
    “You don’t even know who that kid is.”
    Alex licked his thumb and rubbed a smudge from Hannah’s cheek before responding. She wiped her face with her sleeve, embarrassed both by his touch and her grubby appearance.
    “He’s family,” Alex said to Stew. “I’ll tell the others to shut the gates if they go through the pastures. Most of them will be gone in a couple of hours anyway. But you’ve got to stop fishing. Zach is threatening to call Fish and Wildlife.” He waved and his cousin Zach waved back from the bridge. Zach was in his early thirties, several years older than Alex. He was more political than Alex, and bitter. Hannah did her best to avoid him.
    “Nobody’s going to tell me I can’t fish in this river,” Stew said. “I’ve been taking fish out of these waters all my life, just like my father and his father before him.” Stew lifted his chin towards Eugene’s Rock. “Every generation of my family—going all the way back to Eugene Robertson—fished here. And goddammit, my grandson is going to fishhere too.” Bran biked towards them now down a path so slender it was hard to believe Stew’s cattle had created it. One cow had followed the steps of the next, their hooves slipping neatly into the hoof prints of the one before them, much like his own family had.
    “Oh, I know all about it,” said Alex. “My family fished here for thousands of years before you guys turned up and trashed the place. Keep it up and there won’t be any fish here to catch.”
    “When are you Indians going to get over the fact that this land belongs to us now,” Stew said.
    “You remember what my grandpa Dennis told you every time you asked him that?”
    Stew looked away.