The Night Watchman

The focus shifts to Patrice Paranteau, who has always been called “Pixie” because of her elfin eyes. She is trying to get others to use her full name because she is now an adult working in a factory. She also thinks that she “was above petty incidents like Bucky Duvalle and his friends giving her that ride to nowhere, telling people how she’d been willing to do something she had not done” (5).

Her father, who is a person with alcoholism, frequently gives her brother Pokey a hard time and asks Patrice for money.

Patrice rides each day to work with her friend Valentine and a white girl named Doris Lauder. At the factory, their boss, Mr. Walter Vold, observes their work, complimenting Patrice. Her period starts.

At the end of the day, Doris drives Valentine and Patrice home. She drops Patrice off at the end of the path leading to her house because she doesn’t want her father to come out and ask Doris for a ride into town. She also doesn’t want Doris to see her house, which is dilapidated.

Patrice thinks about her sister Vera, who had applied to the Placement and Relocation office, which secures homes and training for jobs for Indigenous people. She has left for Minneapolis with her husband. Patrice misses her and thinks of how her sister handled their father’s misuse of alcohol.

When she enters the house, she hears her father asking her mother for money, and she refuses. Patrice goes out to chop wood. Her brother Pokey often teases her about how particular she is about the piles of wood she constructs, but Patrice knows he looks up to her, especially since she was the first person in their family to have a “white-people job” (13). Patrice is saving her money from her job to go find Vera.

After doing the breathing exercises he learned in boarding school, Thomas begins writing letters to a United States senator and the county commissioner, requesting meetings with both. He also responds to questions he has received about the tribe.

He then writes a letter to his son. Feeling foggy, he senses that someone is watching him. He sees a little boy wearing the same uniform he had one at the boarding school in Fort Totten.

After he goes to the bathroom, he returns and eats at his desk. He thinks about his penmanship. He falls asleep briefly, then goes on his final round. It’s quiet and dark, and he looks at the sky, thinking about how he learned about the stars from both his grandfather and from the boarding school.

He goes back in and reads the newspaper. He then gets into his car and falls asleep until he is woken by LaBatte, the janitor, who asks how Thomas’s night was. Thomas comments that he saw a little boy, then remembers that LaBatte is superstitious. LaBatte asks if the boy was Roderick (Thomas’s boarding school friend who died from tuberculosis), and Thomas says it was just the car. He leaves, saying that he has a meeting.

Patrice wishes she had a watch because she has no reliable way of telling time. If she misses her ride to work, then she could lose her job and “[l]ife would go back to zero” (20).

Zhaanat, her mother, knows that Patrice’s job is important for all of them. She was raised by her grandparents only speaking Chippewa and was hidden away from the boarding schools. Her calling is passing down traditional knowledge. Patrice speaks Chippewa, but she can also speak English and has converted to Catholicism. She has decided not to get married.

Moses Montrose and Thomas sit at Henry’s Café. Moses tells him about how he arrested a man because he was fighting and then also served as the judge and gave the man a fine. The two men slip into Chippewa because “most everything was funnier in Chippewa” (23).

They discuss the proposed bill of emancipation for Indigenous Americans. Moses says, “They mean to drop us.” Thomas questions this, saying that the word “emancipation” means freedom, but Moses replies, “Same thing […] I read it all, every word. They mean to drop us” (23).

The chapter shifts to the gas pump where Eddy Mink asks Thomas for money for a drink. Thomas refuses. Eddy mentions the bill, which surprises Thomas. Eddy thinks it sounds good because he could sell his land to the government for a profit. Thomas pushes back by saying, “But then you wouldn’t have any hospital. No clinic, no school, no farm agent, no nothing. No place to even rest your head” (24).

Eddy says he doesn’t need it and that the “Law can’t take my Indian out of me” (24). Thomas tells him to think about it, and Eddy acknowledges that he has a good point.

The chapter shifts again to the Wazhashk farm, which Thomas’s grandfather bought in 1880. Thomas enters to find his wife Rose arguing with her mother Noko.

Noticing that they’re out of water from the well, he says that he’ll get some when he wakes up, and Rose reluctantly agrees to hold off on washing the clothes, which Thomas appreciates because he knows she prefers to do it earlier in the day.

He gets into bed and falls asleep thinking of his father.

Lloyd Barnes is math teacher and boxing coach. He trains boxer Wood Mountain. Barnes learned to box from his uncle, Gene “the Music” Barnes. He has been in Turtle Mountain for two years and likes it. He also has his eye on a local woman.

Barnes trains several boys at the school, including Patrice’s brother Pokey. Thomas’s son Wade also wants to box, but Rose won’t let him. He does speed training with them and then drives most of them home. He always drops off Pokey last because hopes to see Pixie.

He returns to the teachers’ dining hall where the cook, Juggie Blue, has a warm plate waiting for him. Her cooking is the reason many teachers renew their contract, a fact that the superintendent knows, which gives Juggie some sway. Knowing that Barnes is going to go to train Wood Mountain, who is her son, she gives him the boy’s dinner.

Barnes then goes to train Wood Mountain, whose father Archille Iron Bear came from a place called “Wood Mountain.” The boy’s real name is Everett Blue.

Thomas wakes up and goes down to the kitchen. Noko, Rose’s mother, sees Thomas and doesn’t know who he is. Rose reminds her, but Noko doesn’t believe her, saying, “That man’s old. Thomas is a young man” (38). She accuses Thomas of being after her daughter, and he tries to assure her that she knows him.

She tries to get up, and Thomas catches her. She says she wants to die, and Thomas tells her that she doesn’t and that she did a good job raising Rose. He takes her to her bed.

He and Wade go to get water. Wade tells him he wants to box, but Thomas says that he shouldn’t fight and should use words instead. Wade tells him about a fight between Wood Mountain and Joe Wobleszynski the next weekend, and Thomas offers to take him and Rose.

Vera has not contacted anyone in the last five months. Zhaanat summons her cousin Gerald to help find her, which “was one of the things the jiisikid did” (43). Gerald, “or the spirit who entered” him would go to the Twin Cities in a trance and investigate Vera’s whereabouts.

The ceremony starts, and they stay in their tent while the spirit comes to Gerald. Zhaanat falls asleep; Patrice thinks about how tired she is, especially since her father has left. They aren’t sure where he is, but last they heard, he was on a train.

Gerald finds Vera, who is motionless but alive. Next to her is a child.

The next day Doris takes Valentine to work. They talk about Betty, who took her time off to have her tonsils removed but returns today. On her last day before leaving, she’d given Patrice a note that read, “I heard your looking for your sis. My cousin lives in the Cities. She saw her and wrote to you—with her L hand because she broke her R finger pointing out my flaws. That’s Genevieve for you. Watch the mail” (47).

On Saturday, Patrice walks to the post office, but she is picked up by Thomas and Wade on the way to the well. Thomas is her mother’s cousin, though Patrice isn’t sure what that means since “‘cousins’ was considered a general word that covered a host of relationships” (48). She thanks him and he reminds her that the last time he picked her up, it was because she swam to his fishing boat.

Patrice speaks to him in a Chippewa and Cree, telling him about Gerald.

On the way back, Patrice reads the letter she received from Betty’s cousin, who saw Vera in a hallway with her baby. Vera wouldn’t speak to her. She begins to walk home, thinking of Vera and how she left because she had fallen in love. Out loud, Patrice tells Vera that she’s coming.

When the clouds start to darken, Patrice takes off her shoes and runs, enjoying the feeling of being connected to the earth.

As she arrives home, she sees Barnes dropping Pokey off. She tries to stay hidden in the leaves.

Thomas and his family are on the way to watch Wood Mountain’s boxing match against Joe Wobleszynski. They decide that he will win. Wade tries again to convince his parents to let him box, but they say no.

Joe’s family has been trying to take some of Juggie’s land, sending their cattle to graze there. Resentment built until “it so happened that a boy from each family began to box in the same weight category and provided the perfect focus” (53). Joe beat Wood Mountain once before.

The fight starts, and the crowd is filled with both others who cheered for Joe and with Indigenous Americans rooting for Wood Mountain, though they outnumber the other section. They cheer loudly, reminding the farmers that they are not just “deferential Indians” (55).

Thomas is paying close attention, sensing that something is about to happen while the rest of the crowd watches Wood Mountain take hit after hit from Joe. With one minute left, Wood Mountain finds his opening and goes after the other fighter. Then, too early, the bell rings. Barnes hops into the ring, calling a foul. The referee chastises the timekeeper; everyone realizes that he cheated for Joe on purpose, ruining Wood Mountain’s momentum. The round restarts, and Wood Mountain ends up losing.

Thomas, however, sees that the boy has improved and hopes that Barnes can help him do even better. He then thinks of Wood Mountain’s father, Archille. One year, he and Archille had been working in Texas when the police swept them up with a group of Mexicans for deportation. When they tried to explain that they are American and Canadian, the sheriff says, “Oh really? Well, consider this Custer’s payback,” to which Archille replies, “Since my grandfather killed him […] there is a certain justice to the idea” (58). The sheriff has them thrown in a truck, and they’re deported to Mexico. Eventually, they sneak back across the border, finding Juggie waiting for them at the train station, even though there was no way for her to have known which train they were arriving on.

Juggie and Archille get together, but Archille dies soon after of tuberculosis. Many children at Thomas’s boarding school had been sent away because of it, which makes him think of Roderick. In his head, he speaks to Archille, telling him about Wood Mountain and Juggie. He also thinks, “I’m fighting something out of Washington […] I don’t know what, Archie. But it’s bad” (59).

Mr. Vold is Patrice’s boss, though Betty has nicknamed him “Grasshopper” because of how his jaw and mouth move. Patrice sits across from him, explaining the situation with Vera and asking for time away. He offers her a leave of absence with no pay and no guarantee that her job would still be there. She already gets three days off but is concerned it won’t be enough time. She asks to think about the leave, and he agrees.

At lunch, Valentine can tell that something is wrong, and Patrice explains that she’s worried about losing her job by taking leave. Valentine, however, hadn’t known that they have three days of sick time with half pay. They go back to work, and, at the end of the day, Valentine comes up to her and tells her that she asked Mr. Vold if she could give Patrice her sick days, and he agreed. Patrice thanks her, saying that she’s surprised by her generosity, to which Valentine says, “I’m all contradictions” (62). This will be Patrice’s first trip anywhere.

Patrice goes to the Relocation Office and sees advertisements for the Twin Cities. Frustrated, she asks about her sister, saying that she’s doing their job tracking her down since Vera moved through the office. Concerned that Patrice doesn’t have a place to stay, the desk attendant gives her the address for Juggie’s daughter Bernadette Blue. She also gives her contact information for a priest, which Patrice says she won’t need.

On Saturday, when everyone is out of the house, Patrice retrieves her money from a cookie tin stored under a linoleum tile near her bed. She has $106. She leaves some for her mother and then waits for Doris, who is driving her to the train station.

Zhaanat comes back as she is waiting. She hugs Patrice and tells her not to go missing. When Zhaanat notices Patrice’s clothing, she tells Patrice in Chippewa that she looks like a white woman, and Patrice is pleased with her disguise.