July's People

On the way home from the awkward meeting with the chief, Bam and Maureen are cautiously silent, which goads July into uncharacteristically airing his feelings. He asserts that the chief’s scheme to “fight” the Black rebels and their allies is just “talking.” The chief, he says, is a poor man, largely a figurehead: He never challenged the white men when they pushed him around and took his cattle, and he has no means of fighting off his new, Black rulers when (and if) they come. Bam and Maureen enter their dark hovel with sinking spirits, trying to tune the radio for news. Like safecrackers, both try, in turn, to find a station, without success. Recalling a previous report that suggested the US might arrange airlifts to rescue Americans and European citizens, Bam fumes to himself that their family might have become Canadians, if not for Maureen’s objections.

Bam broaches the absurdity of the chief’s request that he help defend the old man’s meager estate against other Black people with his one shotgun, but as Maureen points out, the chief likely believes that Bam, being white, can provide Army weapons as well. Bam struggles for words to help him process this new reality, but all he finds is stilted terminology from “back there” that offers no real insight into these unprecedented events.