White Swan

By Lono Waiwaiole

Eddie Clem was born in White Swan on the Yakama reservation in the 1950s and subsequently did what most Yakama boys did at that time—he learned to shoot hoops and rodeo, fell in love, grew into a man, had children, and then watched them repeat the same process. The way Eddie did this was unique to him, however, in several respects: • His mother dies when he is born; • His father disappears into the foothills of Mt. Adams as soon as his mother is buried; • He meets the love of his life in the fifth grade; • He accidentally kills his favorite cousin on his 11th birthday; • He turns out to be better than the other boys at both shooting hoops and rodeoing; • He comes of age just in time to spend a year as a medic in Vietnam; • The love of his life marries someone else. White Swan chronicles all of these things, but they are just the beginning of the story. How Eddie and all the people he loves eventually connect with each other unfolds in a tale that celebrates the power of love, family and a people who have been tied to each other for centuries in the space between a mountain and a river that bears their name in the heart of central Washington. Praise for WHITE SWAN: “Lono Waiwaiole’s writing in White Swan is graceful, spare, seasoned with gentle humor, never overwrought. Although I didn’t grow up on an Indian reservation, play basketball, or compete in a rodeo, I found myself really caring about Eddie Clem and the people he loved yet couldn’t love enough.” —Kathleen Tyau, author of Makai and A Little Too Much Is Enough “The characters in White Swan pull on your sleeve and insist you follow them through their lives. And you want to, because the minute you meet them they grab hold of your heart. Waiwaiole's deceptively plain writing hides depths of wisdom, like the calm surface of a mountain lake. Simply a beautiful book.” —SJ Rozan, bestselling author of Paper Son “Departing from his celebrated noir tales (The Wiley Series, Dark Paradise), Waiwaiole masterfully portrays a Native American family scarred by a father’s abandonment, who find their ultimate redemption through rebirth, renewal and forgiveness.” —Kiana Davenport, author of Shark Dialogues

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Mar 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463098165

Book preview

WHITE SWAN

Lono Waiwaiole

PRAISE FOR WHITE SWAN

"Lono Waiwaiole’s writing in White Swan is graceful, spare, seasoned with gentle humor, never overwrought. Although I didn’t grow up on an Indian reservation, play basketball, or compete in a rodeo, I found myself really caring about Eddie Clem and the people he loved yet couldn’t love enough." —Kathleen Tyau, author of Makai and A Little Too Much Is Enough

"The characters in White Swan pull on your sleeve and insist you follow them through their lives. And you want to, because the minute you meet them they grab hold of your heart. Waiwaiole's deceptively plain writing hides depths of wisdom, like the calm surface of a mountain lake. Simply a beautiful book." —SJ Rozan, bestselling author of Paper Son

"Departing from his celebrated noir tales (The Wiley Series, Dark Paradise), Waiwaiole masterfully portrays a Native American family scarred by a father’s abandonment, who find their ultimate redemption through rebirth, renewal and forgiveness." —Kiana Davenport, author of Shark Dialogues

As Hemingway did with his Nick Adams stories, Lono Waiwaiole paints America’s rural life—its indigenous people— with intense respect and compassion. He gets it. You the reader are thrown into those sometimes beautiful, sometimes sad, but always true moments, that we call Life. And like Hemingway, too, Lono Waiwaiole has given us an American masterpiece in the bargain. —Kent Harrington, author of Last Ferry Home

"White Swan explores the push and pull of family and how people are fated to be together, even though it may take a lifetime before destiny is fulfilled. A beautiful intergenerational saga rooted in the White Swan community on the Yakama Indian Reservation nestled in the mountains of Central Washington. With his indigenous heritage and current home in the Pacific Northwest, noted noir writer Lono Waiwaiole succeeds in this creative work that falls outside of mystery genre." —Naomi Hirahara, Edgar Award-winning author of the Mas Arai series

Copyright © 2020 by Lono Waiwaiole

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

White Swan

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by the Author

Preview from A Dark Homage by Wendy Tyson

Preview from I’m Dying as Fast as I Can by Jerry Kennealy

Preview from The Lantern Man by Jon Bassoff

For Emma Jane

There is a snap in a White Swan winter morning that drives hands deep into pockets and coat collars up—clear, crisp, up-on-the-balls-of-your-feet mornings born in a frozen blaze of red and orange.

On these mornings, the horizon to the east projects a crackling clarity as far as the eye can see, and the simple act of drawing in the frigid air whispers a promise of immortality.

Eddie Clem drew his first breath on such a morning, but the promise of immortality was a lie.

The Yakima River spills through Union Gap, a cut in the low hills that separates the upper valley from the lower. The river wanders aimlessly to the south and east, only skirting the lower valley. It misses Wapato and Toppenish completely—both towns smaller than the city of Yakima but plenty large enough to deserve a taste of the river—making it a preacher without a congregation, drifting down the back tracks of the valley that bears its name.

Mt. Adams rules the lower half of the Yakima Valley, not the river, the mountain brooding over the valley like a cranky feudal lord. The mountain chokes the rain blowing from the west, and the mountain nourishes the timber thirsted for by the treeless plains below. It catches the sun’s first rays and tucks the sun away when it has had enough of light.

Eddie Clem’s father, knowing all of this, stood with the morning sun on his back as his son was born. He stood within clothes that had rolled off the line in a factory somewhere—faded blue jeans, a checkered shirt that closed in the front with snaps rather than buttons, a weathered Stetson that flattened his coarse black hair and shielded his eyes from the sun whenever he turned in the sun’s direction—unlike the searching eyes themselves, which were Yakama just as the eyes of his father had been and his father’s father and every father before that from the day the first Yakama had been born.

He studied the mountain for a sign. He studied for a long while, but saw nothing. He looked especially for birds flying, hoping for an eagle or at least a hawk. He listened for the voice of the Earth. He waited.

Finally, a silver shadow glinted across the mountain’s face, slowly propelling from Yakima to Portland. He watched. When it was gone, he moved inside the house.

The shining shadow is a sign, he thought, but a sign of what?

Eddie Clem’s father listened to the soft slip of his shovel as he worked. The hole he had fashioned earlier in the day slowly shrank away. He worked easily, oblivious to the water coursing over the brim of his hat as he bent to retrieve the rain-soaked earth.

He ignored those watching him silently, all of them shedding rain without sound or movement while he worked. He turned to his brother when he finished.

I am going up the mountain, he said. The ranch is yours if you want it.

Will you be back?

The ranch is yours. Work it, or let it rot.

He felt a cold fist knotting in his chest, and he turned away. Even through the steady rain, he could see that his dead wife’s mother was crying effortlessly. He stopped before her, softly gripping her shoulders.

I’m sorry, he said.

This was not your fault, she said, shaking her head emphatically.

I must leave here, he said, holding her close against the cold, hard fist. Then he moved to his own mother, standing in the same rain but with her own tears.

We will keep the boy for you, she said as he leaned in close.

You can keep him, he thought, but not for me. He slowly tipped her head and kissed her forehead through the rain.

They all watched him move to the barn, rain flashing against his slicker and the muddy earth sucking at his feet. Inside, he tightened the tall bay gelding’s cinch and double-checked the wrapping on his rifle.

The rain had eased a little when he emerged, leading the gelding with one hand and the spotted mare with the other. The mare snorted into the damp air. He felt the family’s eyes upon him as he mounted the gelding. The wet sun splashed against his face while he slipped the lead rope over his pommel. He looked carefully at the sky, clouds now skidding rapidly in hide-and-seek with the sun.

He felt the bay bunch beneath him, eager to run with the weather. Easy, he said softly.

He glanced once at the people still standing at the freshly mounded earth his shovel had built, but he couldn’t look at them for very long. He pointed the gelding down the driveway and onto the pavement. They clapped into White Swan several minutes later, him holding his mount to a brisk walk on the wet pavement.

He looked at the handful of houses stretched out in front of him, not enough to make a town, really, or even a village, but much too populated to suit him now.

Sarah, serving coffee at the Wagon Wheel, saw the three of them—one man she recognized immediately and two horses she didn’t know at all—dance off the pavement in favor of the gravel road that ran next to the restaurant.

Robert Joe was fetching his Sunday Oregonian at Skookum’s when they cut past the school grounds, the gelding up to an easy canter by then.

And Robbin Knight, driving in from the Fort for church, saw them climbing the truck road—a spotted mare trailing a tall bay and a lean, solitary rider under hat and rain slicker. They were a good way toward the hills when Robbin crossed the truck road, too far to see the rider clearly. But he knew the tall bay and the spotted mare.

Eddie Clem was two weeks old.

The old man watched Eddie quietly, drawing on his pipe occasionally but otherwise motionless and silent. The pipe was old and worn, like the man, and had not been filled for almost a decade. Although the old man had given up the tobacco, he still used the pipe as regularly as he ever had.

Why do you use the pipe when there’s no tobacco in it? the boy had asked him once.

Because tobacco is not good for me, he had answered.

The old man watched, and the boy worked the pony smartly. The corral was layered with dust, and the pony kicked it up without effort. The dust lingered in the air, but neither the boy nor the man seemed to notice.

How’m I doin’, Grandfather? the boy said into the silence.

Fine.

Do I ride as good as my father?

What?

Do I ride as good as my father?

The old man laughed and shook his head. Maybe you’re the same kind of rider, though.

The boy eased the pony to a stop and slid to the ground. The old man fell in beside them as the boy began to lead the pony through its cooling-down.

Why did my father leave?

The boy locked onto the old man’s gaze, and the old man felt suddenly weary. The boy was unrelenting beside him, intense and alert and bursting with a lifetime of unexpended vigor.

The old man stopped to rest against the corral fence, and the boy and the pony stopped with him. The old man waved them away. Walk your pony, he said.

The boy did as he was told, and the old man rested and watched. He marveled at how closely the boy resembled the boy’s predecessor—the same wiry brown body cut from the same kind of tree in the same way, the same black hair trimmed short, the same eager black eyes, the same sudden grin that came out of the same nowhere whenever something struck him as funny.

The boy and the pony moved in easy symmetry, each in perfect step with the other. The old man shook his head in wonder. The pony has great faith in you, he said, but the boy was across the corral and could not hear him. Horses always felt the same way about your father.

When the boy and the pony had worked their way around the corral, the old man rejoined them. They completed another circuit in silence before the old man spoke. I cannot speak for your father, he said. Only he can answer your question.

The boy led the pony out of the corral and into the barn, the old man following slowly. Will I ever see him? the boy asked.

Enough with your questions, the old man said. Finish with the pony before Grandma throws our dinner away.

The old woman worked the dough diligently, Eddie watching from a chair at the rickety kitchen table. How much longer, Gramma? he said.

Don’t you have some chores to do somewhere?

Yes, Eddie conceded reluctantly. But I need nourishment, Gramma.

You need a quick kick in the hindquarters, boy, that’s what you need.

Can I get some fry bread first? Eddie said, but he already knew the answer. The grease in the pan was hot and he was certain the dough was headed in that direction very soon.

You give your Gramma a kiss on the cheek, boy, and we’ll see.

Eddie rose from the chair, delivered the kiss as directed and watched a warm smile crease the old woman’s weathered face. You don’t need fry bread to get a kiss from me, Gramma, he said.

Long as I keep making it for you, who can say?

Me, Eddie said, and he kissed her again before she dropped the dough into the pan and unlocked the sizzling fragrance that the boy loved almost as much as the bread itself.

Did you see that, Grandfather?

Of course. Don’t I see everything?

No, Eddie said through a burst of laughter. He moved happily to the fence post and removed his loop, coiling the worn lariat assuredly as he returned. The old man watched the boy in front of him and the boy who had come before him, and observed once more that the two at times like these seemed almost interchangeable.

Pretty good, enit?

Use proper English, the old man said, but he nodded slowly in response to the question while he said it. He believed the boy was already well beyond pretty good with the rope, and he was not surprised when Eddie spun out the loop again and it nestled neatly over the post.

Got ’im! the boy said. Eddie Clem wins the buckle again!

You still need somethin’ else to hold your pants up, boy. Fence posts don’t run.

I know, Eddie said, suddenly serious again, serious being normal for this boy. But am I as good as my father was at this age?

The old man chewed on his pipe without speaking for a while, his mind drifting back to similar scenes with a similar boy who had been drawn to the rope in a similar way. Sometimes I’m not sure which of them I’m looking at, he thought, but he didn’t share that thought with the boy in front of him. Enough with these questions about your father, he said instead.

Am I, though?

No, the old man said softly, and then he waited while this answer worked its wicked way across the boy’s face. When the disappointment was clearly visible, he said the rest. Your father was nowhere near this good at this age.

Really, Grandpa? Eddie said, his spirit flying again.

The old man cuffed him gently on the back of his head. Would I say so otherwise?

No, Eddie said, ducking away and scurrying after his loop one more time.

Is White Swan part of the rez? Eddie asked as the old man parked the truck in front of the Wagon Wheel.

The old man disembarked from the truck without offering an answer and the boy did the same with the question still on his lips. Is it? Eddie asked again.

Yes and no, the old man said.

I don’t understand that answer, Grandfather.

The old man paused at the door to the restaurant and studied the boy at his side for a moment, a boy old enough to think of the question but too young to comprehend the answer. He wondered how to explain a reservation that had been opened to white farmers almost immediately upon its creation, or how a school smack in the middle of it now had more white students than Indian.

I don’t understand it, either, he said. But there are many, many questions that must be answered this way.

Eddie sat next to the old man and watched the ball fly down the court and the men who flew with it, the ball moving from one man to the next without ever stopping or even hitting the floor. When Lehigh John finally rose to lay it in the basket, the ball seemed to the boy to have fulfilled its destiny somehow. It popped out of the net and into the hands of an opposing player, and in a fraction of a second it was flying down the court in the opposite direction.

The teams were almost evenly matched, the locals hosting the team from Warm Springs. The only difference was Kanim Smith, the Warm Springs shooter who caught the ball two or three strides across the half-court line. He immediately launched a shot that spun what seemed to the boy like forever before it fluttered through the net. The shot drew another in a long line of gasps from the fans that had come to cheer against Kanim Smith but knew exactly when a gasp was appropriate.

Did you see that, Grandpa? Eddie said excitedly, clearly in synch with the rest of the crowd.

What would I be watching instead? the old man said, although he could have been watching something else and not missed a thing. I have seen that shot every time this team comes to town for several years now, he thought. This team always breaks one hundred points, and it seems like Kanim Smith always scores at least half of them.

How does anyone shoot like that?

Learn to do it right, then do it a lot, the old man said.

Like getting great with a rope?

Exactly.

Can a person do both, Grandpa?

Your father did, the old man whispered to himself. Your father was one of the best I’ve ever seen here. But what he said to the boy was this: Only a person willing to work very, very hard can do it.

I would like to do both.

Of course you would, the old man thought. Our people see basketball and rodeos almost like religions now, don’t they? These are not enough to bring you a happy life, he said, no matter how good you get at them.

I know that, the boy said emphatically, although the old man did not believe it for a minute.

Your father thought he knew that, too, the old man said to himself. Just make sure your chores get done, he said aloud, even though he knew from past experience that the chores would be the first things to go.

This is Evelyn, the assistant principal said when he walked her into Eddie’s fifth-grade classroom. This was the assistant principal who everyone made fun of at every opportunity. He wore thick black-rimmed glasses under bushy blond eyebrows and always had long blond hairs poking out of his ears and his nose, a combination everyone thought was hilarious (even when he was administering discipline with the wooden paddle in his office, which he never did with quite enough authority to wipe the grin off anyone’s face for very long).

Eddie took one look at the girl and immediately forgot about the assistant principal. He forgot where he was and whom he was with and the day of the week and the month of the year. He had never seen anything like this girl, and more importantly he somehow knew instinctively that he would never see anything like her again.

She was another black-haired, dark-eyed, brown-skinned Yakama just like several other girls already in the room. Her face was a little fuller than most, maybe, and her legs might have been a little longer, but what reached out and grabbed Eddie by the throat were a very special light in those eyes that he had never seen before and a confident tilt to the head that seemed to indicate that she was not in fact a new girl even though she had only just arrived.

She just moved in from Wapato, the assistant principal said. Let’s make her feel welcome.

Welcome, Evelyn! the class chanted in unison, except Eddie’s tongue was tangled in his tonsils and he was unable to speak. And he was unable to breathe an instant later, which was when he suddenly realized that one of only two empty seats in the room was right in front of him.

Please! he thought, but he had no idea if he was silently pleading for her to be seated in front of him or on the far side of the room. It seemed to him that each option had excruciating aspects to it, and when the teacher sent her his way he despaired of learning another thing for the rest of the year.

His fears were unfounded, of course. He learned many things before the end of that year, starting that very day with the way her soft black hair whispered in front of him whenever she tossed her head.

Mama, this weighs a ton! Evelyn said, hoisting the dress in both arms.

I just need the shawl right now, her mother said. Leave the dress there.

Evelyn carefully returned the dress to its place on the card table set up in the middle of the living room for the express purpose of providing a resting place for the garment and picked up the matching shawl instead. She carried it to her mother, who was perched in her favorite spot on the old couch with a bowl of glass beads next to her and a warm smile in her eyes.

You love this, don’t you? Evelyn said.

Yes. Don’t you?

Yes, Evelyn thought, but not like you do. Which Evelyn knew was a little odd, considering she was the one who would enter the Fancy Shawl Dance competition in this very outfit and most likely win it again, as usual.

I don’t get how the glass beads are traditional, she said after watching her mother working with them for a few silent minutes.

Not all traditions are the same age, her mother said. We had glass beads long before we had the Fancy Shawl Dance.

What do you mean?

The tradition of girls dancing at powwow is younger than you are, Ev. Our culture is very old, but it’s not something frozen in the past somewhere.

I’m not sure I get that, Evelyn thought. Do we come from our culture, or does the culture come from us? She said none of this aloud, but she stared into her mother’s eyes until her mother read her mind.

Both, her mother said softly, her warm eyes wrapping around Evelyn’s unspoken question tenderly. It flows both ways, Ev.

That’s why you wanted me to learn to dance, enit? Evelyn said, the method behind her mother’s mad insistence on this dancing suddenly more evident than ever before.

Yes, her mother said through her smile. Plus watching you do it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

You know you like her, Oscar said in the middle of their fifth-grade year.

Hell I do! Eddie said.

Eddie la-oves Evelyn! Eddie la-oves Evelyn! Eddie la-oves Evelyn!

Eddie let all three of those iterations fly over his shoulder unmolested, but when Oscar went for another Eddie cracked him a good one right in the middle of his face. The next thing out of Oscar’s mouth was a tooth, which he stared at in his hand like he couldn’t believe his own eyes.

What the fuck? You knocked my tooth out!

Eddie was as shocked as Oscar. He had never knocked a tooth out of anybody’s mouth before, let alone his own cousin’s, and could not possibly have done so because he had never struck anybody before.

I’m sorry! he said, but by then the assistant principal was dragging them both to his office like a couple of rag dolls he had found discarded on the playground.

Sit! the assistant principal said, and they sat. There were three wooden chairs along one wall of the office, and they picked the two on the edges to create a wooden no-man’s land between them.

What was that about? the assistant principal said.

Neither of them answered at first, but Oscar cracked after a minute or two of the assistant principal staring at one and then the other like he had all the time in the world.

I was teasing him, Oscar said. It was my fault.

You understand that’s no excuse for hitting someone, right? the assistant principal said to Eddie.

Yes, Eddie said. I’m sorry I did it.

Good, the assistant principal said as he reached for the paddle. Stand up and put your hands on the back of that chair.

Eddie followed those instructions and absorbed five whistling whacks on his butt (whistling because the paddle had holes in it apparently to provide that particular sound effect). It turned out, however, that he could hear these blows much better than he could feel them, his rear a little warmer than it had been but nothing more when the process was completed. Even though my grandfather has never struck me, he thought, I know he could do it better