The Night Watchman

Two young men appear at Thomas’s house. One asks him, “Have you ever wondered why you are here?” (168). Thomas tells he already knows and invites them in. They introduce themselves as Elder Elnath and Elder Vernon.

They explain that they’re here to see if he would like to read the Book of Mormon. Remembering his conversation with Martin Cross, he asks if they know Arthur Watkins. Thomas asks why Watkins wants to get rid of Indigenous Americans, and they deny that he wants to since “[i]t was revealed […] to Joseph Smith that you are people of the house of Jacob and children of Lehi” (171). Thomas says he’s not interested in their religion, just Watkins.

Vernon gives him a book, and the two missionaries leave.

Thomas sits with Biboon to listen to the story of his name. He had been named for his grandfather, whose name had become their family’s surname, Wazhashk. It refers to “the original and real Wazhashk,” the muskrat (172).

Biboon recounts the beginning in which the world was covered in water, and the Creator sent down his best divers. First Fisher, then Mang, and then the Hell-diver, all of whom failed to reach the bottom. The muskrat was last, and he returned to the surface having drowned. However, held tightly in his paw was some dirt, and [f]rom that tiny paw’s grip of dirt, the Creator made the whole earth” (172).

Biboon thinks that the winter might be his last, but Thomas tells him that he is needed to fight the bill. He agrees.

Patrice looks in the mirror and that the ox suit is turner her blue. She thinks that the woman she sees is Pixie, and “she would leave that girl behind starting now” (174).

She lays down to sleep and reawakens in the middle of the night, grabbing her stuff and sneaking quietly out of the dressing room. There, she finds Jack, who is clearly ill. She goes to find Wood Mountain, who she greets by his real name: Everett Blue. They agree to sleep for a few hours and then go to Bernadette’s. Exiting through the back entrance, they find Jack crumbled in the alley. Patrice goes to the hotel’s desk attendant and tells him that Jack is dying. The man says he’ll take care of it.

They arrive at Bernadette’s, and after saying that she doesn’t have Vera, she asks if they’re hungry. Another woman comes and gives Patrice the baby. Bernadette disappears behind a door, and Wood Mountain eavesdrops on her conversation. When she returns, she hands them food wrapped in newspaper.

Wood Mountain and Patrice get on a train and eat. She wraps the baby in the blanket Bitty gave her. It bothers her that people think that she and Wood Mountain are together, and this is their baby. She isn’t sure if she likes Wood Mountain or if he likes her. She also thinks about everything that happened in the city and wonders if it was all real.

Patrice tells the baby she’ll take care of him until Vera returns. Wood Mountain worries over telling Patrice what he heard through the door.

As they ride, the baby is well-behaved. Patrice hopes that her mother will take care of the baby because she feels like she can’t do it. When Wood Mountain asks what she’ll name him, Patrice says that Vera already gave him a name.

Thomas rides with Moses, his wife Mary, Joyce, and Eddy Mink to Fargo. Louis, driving Juggie’s car, passes them. Moses says he wishes the two of them would get married already, and Thomas is surprised, not having known that Louis and Juggie were together.

Eddy Mink sits in the back of the car. Thomas brought him because he is “brilliant and a shrewd talker” (183). Joyce and Mary oversee keeping him sober. Eddy states that he has nothing to say about marriage, since “[i]t’s priest-man talk” (182).

When they arrive, Thomas drops everyone off at difference places because there is no money to cover their accommodations. He stays with Moses’s cousin Nancy and her husband George.

The brief chapter focuses on Arthur V. Watkins, who, if he boxed, would have been a brawler, despite his put together appearance. He was born in 1886 in Utah, before it became a state. His father, for whom Watkins was named, wrote to Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of the Mormon church, to say that he claimed land in Utah. This happened after the Dawes Act of 1887, which divided Indigenous land into allotments. In Utah, this robbed the Ute people and the Uintah and Ouray Reservation of “of 13.8 million acres of land that had been guaranteed by the executive orders of first Abraham Lincoln and, later, Chester A. Arthur” (185).

Arthur Watkins lived on some of this land. He completed a mission in the eastern United States before returning and running for office, eventually becoming a US senator. Joseph Smith and the rest of the Mormons tried to kill all the Indigenous people they met but didn’t succeed. Watkins aims to use his office to finish this task, and “[h]e didn’t even have to get his hands dirty” (186).

Once they get off the train, Wood Mountain and Patrice take a bus before walking to Patrice’s house. Patrice hopes that her father won’t be there when they arrive. After a few miles, Wood Mountain tells her that he came up with a name for the baby: Archille, after his father. He says that it’s a temporary name, and Patrice says that his dad was a good man.

However, she calls the baby Gwiiwizens as a nickname, which was “what her people called a boy baby if they didn’t want bad spirits to find him” (188). It means “Little Boy” (188). Wood Mountain takes this as a sign that Patrice is not interested in him.

Patrice tries to push him away, doing the same things that she does to keep Barnes at bay, but she admits to herself it’s much harder with Wood Mountain.

Zhaanat greets them when they arrive, and Patrice tells her that they only brought home Gwiiwizens because they couldn’t find Vera. Zhaanat sits down, and Patrice knows that this means that “her mother would be somewhere else, unreachable, until she decided to return” (190). She tells Wood Mountain it’s best he leaves.

Eventually, Zhaanat tries to nurse the baby, telling Patrice “that sometimes in the old days, when the baby’s mother couldn’t nurse, the older women were sometimes able to take over” (191). She adds that she’s not that old, and they laugh to hide their broken hearts.

The next day, Doris picks up Patrice with Valentine, and she explains that she didn’t find Vera but brought home her baby. At work, many offer to give her baby supplies for free. Patrice offers to pay, knowing that she has money from her role as the waterjack. However, she believes that Zhaanat will be able to feed the baby herself.

The chapter closes by talking about a torus, a donut-shape, which is the result of a circle rotating around a pole, with the mechanism produce “the ideal of frictionless eternal motion” in which “[y]ou cannot feel time grind against you” (192). Zhaanat lays on a bed with the baby, floating in this “eternal motion” (192). When Patrice arrives home, she joins them.

The meeting in Fargo occurs on October 19, 1953. Four men from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) office in Aberdeen, South Dakota, rise when Thomas and other tribal members enter the room. Thomas is moved by the over forty-five who have come to speak against the bill, despite the long journey. The area director, John Cooper, greets everyone, and then Thomas asks him to read the bill, but he passes the task to Gary Holmes, the lawyer for the BIA. Thomas grows more distraught as he listens.

When Holmes finishes, Thomas asks for comments from the audience. When Louis asks what the bill means, Cooper says, “Simply, once and for all, it provides that there won’t be any more Indian service for the Turtle Mountains. You will now be equal with whites as far as the government is concerned” (197). Joyce points out that it doesn’t feel equal because the government is backing out of the agreements it made.

Another tribal member asks that the bill be translated into Chippewa. Someone also asks that Holmes read it again, and he does. Afterwards, comments continue, with suggestions that the government relocate those who are not Indigenous but are settled on their land. Thomas says that he’s not sure how the government reached their conclusion, especially since it’s clear that the tribe struggles financially.

Eddy stands up and says that the state of North Dakota will have to take over services to their land and wonders if they are willing to do so. Cooper tries to interject, but Eddy continues, saying, “Of course, if the government carts us away and dumps us here and there—excuse me, relocates us—mostly we will end up down in the Cities. And if the BIA sells off our land, problem solved” (200). Holmes tries to call for a break, but the tribal members continue. Eddy also adds that the services that the government provides act as a kind of rent payment—because the tribe was there first.

When Moses asks how this meeting will be conveyed to Congress, Holmes says that everything has been transcribed. The tribal members take a vote, resulting in 47 votes against and zero for the bill. The meeting adjourns.

They go out to eat, and, when they exit the restaurant, Thomas spots Patrice’s father, drunkenly trying to steady himself. It takes a few tries for Paranteau to recognize Thomas, and then, because they were in school together, he talks about being on the basketball team and how his nickname was Pogo. Eventually, Paranteau runs off, and Thomas lets him go, knowing that Patrice’s family is better off without him.

Barnes hits a punching bag. He is angry that Wood Mountain went to Minneapolis after all he’d done for him. When Wood Mountain enters, he can tell that Barnes is upset and tells him that Patrice isn’t interested in him. Barnes asks if he has a chance but regrets his question immediately. Wood Mountain says it’s not Barnes; Patrice is just “Hell on wheels sharp” (208).

Barnes tries to weigh who Patrice would choose between himself and Wood Mountain. He formulates it as a math equation, but he’s unsure if being an Indigenous American is a pro or con.

Meanwhile, Wood Mountain thinks about his future, which he had not considered before riding the train with Patrice and the baby. He starts training as a boxer twice as hard. After boxing practice, he carries Pokey home on his back. Patrice is asleep when they arrive, so Wood Mountain coos over the baby. Zhaanat offers him potatoes fried in deer fat with gravy. When he spots a rifle by the door, Zhaanat tells him that Patrice shot the deer, and he isn’t surprised. Patrice soon leaves the room, and Wood Mountain departs.

Barnes drives Wade home and talks to Thomas about the meeting in Fargo. He doesn’t understand why the bill is so terrible. Thomas explains that they can’t just become “regular Americans” because “[i]nside we are not. We’re Indians” (212). Barnes points out that his heritage is mixed, and Thomas offers him an example, stating:

We’re from here. […] Think about this. If we Indians had picked up and gone over there [to Europe] and killed most of you and took over your land, what about that? Say you had a big farm in England. We camp there and kick you off. What do you say? (212).

When Barnes starts to understand that Indigenous people were here first, Thomas continues:

Then say we don’t care. Since you made it through that mess we say you can keep a little scrap of your land. You can live there, we say, but you have to take our language and act just like us. And say we are the old-time Indians. You have to turn into an old-time Indian and talk Chippewa (213).

As Barnes begins to understand why there is such opposition to the bill, he asks what would happen if he married a member of the tribe. Thomas tells him that that wouldn’t make him Indigenous, but they would welcome him anyway. When he drives home, he thinks of Patrice and tries to figure out ways to make her like him more.

Zhaanat starts to be able to nurse the baby, assuring Patrice that she will do it until Vera returns.

Patrice works on the house every night, using money from being the waterjack. They put up pictures of boxers from magazines that Barnes bought for Pokey. He also gave him a winter jacket, which Patrice finds condescending. She tells her brother not to brag that Barnes buys him things and not to take anything else.

At night, she dreams of Vera in different forms, sometimes in the alley near Log Jam 26, others when she’s in the tank as the waterjack. Once more, she confides in Zhaanat, who tells her that she’s been having the exact same dreams. Zhaanat says, “She is trying to reach us” (219).