Lake Sakakawea
The Guard House and Other Stories
By Ryan C. Christiansen
Copyright 2011 North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department
This work was produced under the Artist-in-Residency Program with the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department and the North Dakota Council on the Arts.
Published by Knuckledown Press, Fargo, ND
Smashwords Edition
Cover design: Copyright 2011 Ryan C. Christiansen
Photos: Copyright 2011 Ryan C. Christiansen
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Knuckledown Press
Fargo, ND
For Jodi, Henry, and Eva
and, of course, Apollo
Contents
The Guard House and Other Stories
I leave the flap on the holster open so that I can rest my fingertips against the revolver. The hot barrel singes and cures the leather. Burnt gunpowder swirls inside the chambers, except for one.
I’ve kept one shell in the cylinder, just in case.
Two or three hundred Indian braves (five or six hundred, my lieutenants say, twice as many men as we have in our camp) circle their horses at two hundred yards. They taunt us with weapons raised high and they cry victory, but they are cowards.
During the night, they hid in low ground near the camp and stole a few mules. Near the foundations for the new fort, a half-dozen hid in piles of adobe bricks. They surprised an old man on his wagon and so he spat at them (as if he might bully his way through), but they cut him off and freed his mules. They shot him dead with an arrow—point blank—and so I’ve given the order to fire.
The first of two rifled cannons launches a shell into their midst. It whistles to its mark and bursts.
“Sir, one has lost a leg,” my lieutenant reports.
With my spyglass I watch them retreat, but they regroup at 1,800 yards. I pull a long, shallow breath and burnt powder coats the insides of my nostrils. The ash cauterizes my throat like a good pipe after breakfast.
“Fire the second cannon,” I say.
I press my fingertips closer to my revolver. When the second gun pulses my mouth snaps to a smile and I taste the elixir of burnt powder on the lips. The blast has left me deaf and we’re in a pantomime now. My men gape and ambulate. The lieutenant says something I cannot hear, but even from a third-mile I can see the shell has ripped open one of their ponies. My soldiers raise their fists and my ears begin to ring their satisfaction. I take comfort we have in some small measure ripped open a crease in this hell and creation called Missouri.
Along this dirty languid river, the buffalo cross from bank to bank and get stuck until they struggle and disappear. On either side, the land runs treeless and greasy carpets meet only sky. Air burns in a heat that has been stoked by winds, which rush and carry dust into our lungs. Dull hills dare to stand, but they only crumble in the rain.
This world is Hell. Fires burn. At night across the prairie, they cast their echoes against the sky while legions of mosquitoes descend to swarm our heads and necks.
I’ve told my men (and they think I jest) that I wish to be buried in the Indian way on a platform. Anyone who has traveled here has seen these open-air tombs roosting on a hill. Ten-foot poles keep the wolves away and that’s where I wish to be wrapped from head to toe in my bedclothes. Let me lie there beneath the stars. Let me dry up in torrid summer and corrode when weather turns wet. Let my wrappings fly like streamers in the wind, because there’s nothing here for me now: my family has gone away. I watch Indians retreat in tattered leggings and they remind me of the ribbons in my daughter’s hair.
I’m a field officer. My whole career I’ve been in posts athwart this frontier. I can’t afford to leave, however, not yet—at least not before death.
And here is death: I let the cylinder on my revolver burn my fingers. It reminds me that there’s one bullet left.
“I am the caretaker,” he said, straightening his back. He barked the words, a command, not an answer to a question, for I hadn’t asked. He directed blue eyes straight into mine and though he stood as still as my transit, he tilted his head to the left. He favored that shoulder.
I explained that I was a deputy surveyor for the U.S. General Land Office under contract to survey townships in the new State of North Dakota, but he took little interest. When I offered to show him how we measured distance using the Gunter’s chain, he said nothing. He stayed near to the old guard house, which was 14 chains west of the section line.
“I am the caretaker,” he repeated. He pulled a scarlet handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. He had a severe, German countenance and hid a smile behind doggish whiskers. His blond mane turned gray and I took him to be nearly sixty, but he was tall, thin, and agile and wore spurs. I saw no horse.
“We’ll be in the area,” I said.
He only nodded.
I stepped away and measured the parade grounds: 5 chains square with its center 16 chains, 50 links from the section line. I noted officers’ quarters to the west, an old warehouse to the north, and a large barn approximately 3 chains southwest from the quarters. Two or three small outbuildings stood on the perimeter, but none of the structures were in good repair.
When we finished, I waved back to the caretaker. “Thank you,” I said. He disappeared inside the guard house.
Our survey work began May 18, 1897, to delineate a portion of the Fort Stevenson Military Reservation, the part which is embraced in Township 147 North of Range 85 West of the Fifth Principal Meridian.
On this third day of our survey, we started out on the north bank of the Missouri River at the corner of sections 10, 11, 14, and 15. We proceeded north along the section line between 10 and 11 and through dense brush and small cottonwood. After 38 chains and 20 links, we met Douglas Creek, where we marked the quarter-section point.
We continued on. At 47 chains and 20 links we left dense brush behind and ascended from the river bottom to a plateau 30 feet high. The edge runs east-west at 48.20 chains.
Six chains farther from the edge of that plateau, we found ourselves east of the guard house for the old fort, and the caretaker.
We continued north. At 57.18 chains we crossed the Bismarck and Fort Berthold road, which bore east-west along the river.
During the next couple of days, we surveyed the area north and east of Old Fort Stevenson and then returned to the corner of sections 2, 3, 10, and 11. We camped for the evening.
After dark and with our bellies full, the fire dying, we heard a whoop and a holler from the old fort.
I took one man with me. We made our way back along the section line to where we’d chained off to the parade grounds. I used my spyglass to ascertain what might be occurring inside the old fort. Near to the guard house someone had lit a bonfire and surrounded it with old logs. I saw a figure moving in the flare.
We moved in. Two chains from the fire, we hid behind an outbuilding and saw the caretaker near the fire stark-naked except for his boots and the scarlet handkerchief around his neck. He crawled across the dirt to plant a pole with red and blue swallowtails like a guidon. I shrank when I saw him raise his Remington sport rifle.
“Get yer heads down into that buffalo grass!” he yelled, “and get behind the horses! We have the high ground now, men, but we’re vulnerable. I do declare if I ever see Libbie again, there will be jubilation!”
He began shooting. He sat up, took aim, fired, and hid. Fortunately, we’d come from the east and his shots disappeared west and south.
“Expend your cartridges wisely!” He yelled. “Tom, if I die here today, I expect you to take care of Boston and Autie. Oh, how I do miss that court-martial.”
He fired again. After a few shots, he fell back and gripped his shoulder. “I’ve been hit!” he said. “General Sherman did say that I could go to Hell if I wanted to. Well, here I am.”
He pulled two pistols from his boots and commenced firing. When they emptied, he dropped them and fell back to the ground. Perhaps he thought he was dead or pretended to be, but his chest rose and fell. Clearly, he had adrenaline. More than likely, he was full of whiskey.
“Should we check him out?” my companion asked.
“No,” I said. “Leave him be. He’s the caretaker.”
The drive to Fort Stevenson State Park had been a blur. Long hours working the dragline at Falkirk Mine and the days, weeks, and years that had passed since he’d played pro ball weighed upon Pete’s shoulders. He never made it past rookie league and didn’t return to the reservation, because in Fort Berthold, baseball careers still simmered on the hot stove. Pete couldn’t stand to be reminded about what could have been. Today that’s all he could think about.
The park ranger at the entrance station smiled at Pete as he passed in his pickup. She grew somber when she saw that he had his ball cap pulled low over his face and that his bat lay across his lap. When he drove away toward the marina, she radioed the crew. “Pete’s back,” she said, “but leave him alone. He’s got his bat with him.”
Past a cable-and-post barricade, Pete stood alone where the road ended. It fell sharply to Lake Sakakawea, where whitecaps beat the opening to Garrison Bay. Soil tumbled and slid into the water.
A blacktail prairie dog stood on his hind legs nearby. He held his nose in the air and kept his eyes on Pete who held his wooden bat in one hand and a rock in the other. The stone fit well into Pete’s hand and he pretended to wrap his index and middle fingers across a horseshoe of seams. He remembered how his great-grandfather Wally had showed him to throw a fastball.
“Put your fingers on top of the stitches,” Wally had said, “and your thumb on the bottom, like this.” Pete remembered the old man’s face had fallen slack from his cheekbones. Skin beneath his chin flapped as he spoke and he wore an old Fort Berthold ball cap over long, gray locks. “No, don’t choke the ball,” he said, grabbing Pete’s wrist and pulling the ball away from Pete’s palm. “When you release the ball,” he said, “use your fingers to pull down. Use your thumb to push forward.”
Pete held his bat out and pointed, but only imagined that he knew where his great-grandfather had lived. He threw the rock into the air and said, “Arikara.”
He swung, but felt distracted. Wally had told him stories about how his people had been led out of the ground only to be chased by a monster with horns. The monster, named Cut-Nose, rose out from a lake. He led buffalo to pursue and kill. His people had escaped with help from other animals.
The rock hit the ground. He swatted the air and butterflies flew in off the lake. They tumbled through the breeze like Post-it Notes.
Pete picked up the rock. He wrapped it for a fastball, but heard his great-grandfather Skip admonish, “You can’t throw only fastballs,” he said and grabbed Pete’s wrist. He pushed the ball back into Pete’s hand so that it rested against skin between thumb and index finger. “Choke the ball once in a while,” Skip said. “You need a change-up. Slow it down.”
Pete tried to remember where Skip had lived before the flood. He threw the rock into the air, but higher this time and said, “Mandan.”
Pete recalled that Skip believed that suffering makes men stronger. During his last days as a boy, he’d fasted, and then sluggish with hunger he abided bone needles through his chest. They hung him by leather straps from the roof of the medicine lodge. In this way, Skip became a man. The visions he experienced lived inside him for the rest of his life. Pete harbored no such visions.
The rock struck the ground. Butterflies dropped on the prairie dog town like snowflakes in May.
Pete knelt to the dirt and fit the rock into his palm. He turned his grip. Once again, his great-grandfather spoke, but this time it was Bernie, the fat one with puffy cheeks. He remembered Bernie had a curveball.
“Put your fingers parallel to the seams,” he said as he held Pete’s wrist and grabbed his elbow. “Bring your arm forward,” he said, but his belly got in the way. “Snap the ball off your finger,” he said, “and spin the ball toward the plate.”
Pete looked across the lake, but he felt dumbfounded to know where Bernie had lived. He stood up and threw the stone into the air. “Hidatsa,” he said.
Bernie had been a smoker. He grew tobacco in a backyard garden. Pete remembered helping the old man to harvest the plants, and when Pete had rubbed his eyes, the tobacco stung. “Don’t steal any of my tobacco,” Bernie had said and then laughed through a liquid cough. “If you do,” Bernie said, “your hair will fall out.”
The rock tumbled over the edge into the lake. Strike three. So much of Pete’s world now lay beneath water held back by the dam.
A yellow-chested bird landed on a post nearby. He had a v-shaped, black necklace. His mouth hung open and Pete listened for his words, but the bird caught a butterfly in his beak.
Extra innings. Pete pulled a baseball from his pocket and ran his thumb over scuffmarks, dirt, and loose threads. My great-grandfather’s ball, he thought, but it wasn’t Wally’s, Skip’s, or Bernie’s.
“Sioux,” he said. He saw a great-grandfather holding his wrist again, but this time on the reservation at Fort Totten. His mother stood at a doorway chatting with a great-grandmother he’d never met while his great-grandfather, the furtive one, showed him the knuckleball.
“Dig your fingertips into the seams,” his great-grandfather had said, “and use a stiff wrist. When you throw that ball it will corkscrew through the air.”
Butterflies blossomed across Pete’s bat as he pulled for a full swing. He met the ball chest-high and launched it across the bay. The baseball struck an open coal vein and ignited fuel.
Butterflies, like treaties, left smoke trails from their burning paper wings.
I was beginning to have my doubts about Old Samuel. For one thing, he wasn’t that old, maybe middle-fifties. For another, he kept polishing that stupid tattoo of his with sunscreen. “Dog Den” it said. When I asked him about it he only said, “Over there,” and pointed east across Lake Sakakawea. I saw nothing except a few Black Angus snuffing grass on the shore.
“Old Samuel is the best,” they’d said back at the bar in Garrison, but nobody knew how to get in touch with him. “Wait for him here,” said the barmaid as she lifted my pilsner from the tap. She let the head swirl over the sides and threw down two napkins for a coaster.
“Keep the change.”
While swallowing my second glass of Miller Lite, Old Samuel sat down at the bar next to me and stared straight ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he had long, black hair in a braid beneath a Cleveland Indians ball cap. Fishing lures stuck through the bill like piercings.
Now sitting across from me in his old Alumacraft on the lake, he’s telling me how to fish, which is good, but I expected more. He promised the big one.
“Because this lake is on a river, you want to use jigs that are heavy so that they stay on the bottom,” he said. He held up what looked like an eyeball with a hook. He threaded a pumpkinseed tube over the barb. “This plastic bait will keep the minnow in place,” he said and then turned the hook through a minnow. He lifted a tray from his tackle box. “I’ve got black and brown and purple tubes, too, if you prefer,” he said and smiled. Chewing tobacco stuck to his teeth. “I’ve got leeches and night crawlers,” he said. “Whatever it takes.”
I didn’t smile back. Already we’d tried spoons, bottom-bouncers, and crank baits with no success. I looked across the bay at the boats in the marina and I wished that I’d tried waterskiing instead. The ranger at the park had promised good fishing and recommended Old Samuel, but I sat here now sizzling in his boat, because he insisted I couldn’t wear sunscreen. “The fish will smell it on your bait,” he said and so I sat beneath a floppy sombrero and felt stupid. I stretched out a tight, sunburnt arm to take the rod.
“No casting now,” he said. “Just put the reel in freespool.”
I raised the bale and let the jig sink down.
“When it hits the bottom you should feel a thunk,” he said. “That’s good, because you want to kick up silt with the jig to attract walleyes.”
I felt the jig come to a rest and so I flipped the bale to stop the line. I figured they must be at the bottom, because we’d tried everything else.
“We’re in the flats downstream from the old river bend,” he said as if he knew what was beneath. All day long he proclaimed to know about current breaks and subtle drop-offs and about the edges where hard and soft bottoms meet, but I had my doubts.
“We’ll drift with the current,” he said, “and while we do that, work the jig up and down. You’ll feel the walleye strike when the jig falls, or when you rip it off the bottom.”
Up-and-down I turned my wrist to raise the rod and let it fall. I was bored, but I’d eaten all of my snacks. I tried not to look west into the sun.
Old Samuel fixed the sleeves on his t-shirt to stay rolled up. His “Dog Den” tattoo coiled over reddish-brown skin on his bicep.
“Tell me more about Dog Den,” I said. “What’s the story behind it?” I was feeling ornery.
Old Samuel frowned. He let his jigs rise and thud.
“Sure,” he said, finally, “but only because you haven’t caught a fish.” He spit tobacco juice into the water and slouched in his chair.
“Dog Den is a butte, about as close as you can get to a mountain around here,” he said and juggled both rods into one hand. “It’s over there,” he pointed, “east about 40 miles. The nearest town is Butte. Originally, that town was Dog Den, the name my people gave to those hills. It’s one of the highest points in the state,” he said and narrowed his eyes. “You can see a long way.” He spit more tobacco into the lake.
“But why is it called Dog Den?” I asked and kept jigging.
“A lot of wolves and prairie dogs used to live there,” he said, “and for my people, Dog Den is sacred ground. It has deep ravines covered in trees and winding gorges filled with rocks. In one of those little canyons, ghost dogs snarl and growl at the mouth of a cavern.” He stuck his finger into his mouth to move his tobacco.
“That cavern leads to an underground world,” he continued with a fat lip. “They say that world has green pastures that used to be filled with buffalo, but one day, when the dogs slept, those buffalo ran from the cavern into our world. They say it was a gift from the Great Spirit.”
He worked up more tobacco and spit over the side. I wondered if tobacco juice frightens away fish.
I concentrated on bouncing my jig off the bottom until I realized that Old Samuel sat grinning.
I narrowed my eyes. “You believe that shit?” I asked.
Old Samuel lurched in his chair and dropped his rods to his feet. He laughed so hard he stopped breathing for a second or two.
“No,” he said, finally. “I’m Catholic.” He wiped away tears. “But it makes for a cool tattoo, don’t you think?”
I gritted my teeth and jigged again. This time, I felt weight.
“I’ll show you,” she said and grabbed my wrist.
Beneath the downpour my hair stuck flat. Rain ran down my forehead and dripped from my eyebrows into my eyelashes. The beads perched there until I blinked.
I let her pull me. Consumed by her grip, I knew I’d follow her anywhere, this girl with a mane that shimmered raven. Her latte-brown skin attracted mine, but I felt inferior with a pink face and blonde locks. She was smarter, too, but we shared each other’s clothes.
“I’ll show you,” she’d said.
We ran to the guard house, a building that stares with barred windows across the lake to where Fort Stevenson once sat on the banks of the Missouri River. Behind Garrison Dam, the old fort rests at the bottom of Lake Sakakawea, while the new guard house, a replica, stands high above the lake with its tower and flag. We’d spent many hours together at the guard house, but never at night. The place looked sinister in the dark rain.
As we entered the portico, runoff from the roof slapped against concrete. She let go of my wrist, but then yanked my sleeve to pull me to the ground. We sat with our backs against the spokes of a wheel on a cannon and huddled close.
I shook rivulets from my forearms. She smiled and closed her eyes and squeezed rain from her hair. We giggled and wiped our noses and I saw that her white cotton shirt—my shirt—stuck to her dark skin.
“I found something really cool,” she said and whisked water from her legs. Her flip-flops lay in a jumble with mine at our feet.
“Something cool here at Fort Stevenson State Park?” I asked and rolled my eyes. “Haven’t we seen everything already? We come here every summer.”
She pulled her knees up to her chin. “This is something you’ve never seen,” she said and slid closer. “I’m cold. Let’s go inside.”
The glass entrance doors on either side of the portico stood dark. “The guard house is closed,” I said and then she swatted my leg with the back of her hand.
“No, up there,” she said and pointed at the ceiling. An attic door hung closed with a lock.
“How do we get in there?” I asked and she rolled her eyes. She reached into the pocket of her shorts—my shorts—and pulled out a key.
“My dad works here, you know,” she said and rose to her feet.
“I know,” I said, “but what if we get in trouble?” Once again I played the party pooper, even though we’d never gotten caught.
“Don’t worry,” she said, what she always says. She reached down for my hand and pulled me up. “Get behind that wheel. Let’s push.”
We pressed our bodies against the wheel rims and held the spokes. We rolled the cannon forward and sideways in the portico and climbed on. I sat on the barrel and put my hands beneath her thighs to hold her up. She reached the lock, twisted the key, and pulled a rope. The hatch opened, and light from inside the tower spilled out into the portico.
“Let’s hurry,” she said and lifted her foot. She stepped on to a ladder in the door and I followed.
Inside the tower we closed the door beneath us.
“What if someone sees us up here?” I asked. We were in a well-lit room with two large windows. The one that faced the campgrounds had a cutout soldier standing in front of it. The other window looked out over the lake.
“We’ll be fine,” she said and turned off the light inside the tower. “Nobody comes down here at night, anyway. Besides, it’s raining.”
Drops popped against the windowpanes. I could see lights on the other side of the lake, a dark water that stretched for miles and pimpled in the rain.
“Let’s wait for it to stop,” she said and sat down on the empty floor. She grabbed the hem of her shirt and fluttered the front in an attempt to dry off. I sat down and did the same.
“What are you going to show me?” I asked. I hoped that she had a secret tattoo or maybe a hickey that she’d gotten from a boy.
“It’s a surprise,” she said, “but we have to wait until the lake is calm. You can sit by me if you want.”
We sat next to each other with legs warm together and held hands. She laid her head on my shoulder and I felt giddy, because I wanted to put my arms around her.
We listened to the rain. It rolled and then slowed to a tap. Eventually, the runoff stopped rushing out the downspouts.
She let go of my hand. “I’ll show you,” she said. She stood up and pulled another key from her pocket.
I stood behind her. She opened a door in the wall to reveal a panel of lights and switches labeled Shell Creek, Independence, Lucky Mound, Charging Eagle, Elbowoods, Red Butte, Beaver Creek, Sanish, and Van Hook.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Watch this,” she said. She flipped the switches from Off to On. “Look out there.”
We stood in front of the window. We faced the lake and she pulled my arms around her. She tilted her head and I felt her ear against my cheek.
“They’re turning on,” she said. Bright lights showed in clusters like fireflies beneath the waves.
“What do the names on the switches stand for?” I asked.
She gripped my forearms closer to her waist. “They’re the names of villages where my people used to live,” she said. “All of them were flooded when they put in the dam.”
I drew my arms back, because I knew “they” meant the government, not the Indians. “They flooded them on purpose?” I asked, but I knew the answer. She only smiled.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt guilty, but didn’t know why. Not exactly. “Do you still love me?” I asked. It was all I could think of.
She pulled my arms around her waist. “Of course I do,” she said. “You’re my friend.”
About the Author
Ryan C. Christiansen is a writer, editor, publisher, and educator living in Fargo, ND.
