Chapter 23: Marilee Fights

The leather was beautiful. Ken Granger sat at his workbench, running the soft strips through his hands, admiring its suppleness, its golden amber color, the fine texture of the grain.

Goatskin! Who would have imagined such a common animal could produce such beautiful leather! Actually, the more he considered it, the less he was amazed. Goats and deer and antelope are closely related, and each produce a fine grade of leather, soft and supple when properly tanned. He had been reluctant to harvest skins from wild deer. Over the long years of hosting their visits at his river bottom home, he’d grown fond of the animals’ trust and acceptance when they entered his sanctuary.

Whiskey Johns would not spend $15 to have a goatskin tanned, so he’d ordered Graydon to toss the hides away. Graydon carefully cleaned and saved the hides from the wethers he butchered each fall. His stepfather decided to trash them rather than fool with them. It was a senseless waste, so Graydon gave them to his friend Ken who sent them out to a tannery. Good leather was valuable; prime goatskin was especially so. Ken had grown fond of the boy, now a young man; he arranged for a woman in the community who was an especially talented seamstress to make a fully fringed leather jacket for Graydon. It was to be a surprise.

Ken had also conspired with Mike Peterson for color sketches of beadwork patterns that would be appropriate for an apprentice shaman.

“Use these patterns. There is no innate power in them, but they do serve to focus the spirit. There is great value in that. They serve another purpose, as well. When a person with evil motive gazes upon these symbols, their evil is refocused and reflected back. Once seen, these symbols will haunt a dark mind, reappearing in dreams, sleeping and waking. It is powerful medicine, as my northern cousins might say. Mike smiled to himself as he remembered times in his life when these symbols had worked their effect on the predatory minds that he’d faced.

Helen Granger saw that her young niece possessed a special gift. The first moment Marilee saw watercolor sketches of the beadwork patterns, she insisted that she be given beads, waxed thread, and needles. She asked her Uncle Ken for scraps of thin leather for practice pieces. Within a week she showed Mike her first samples and was delighted to be told that they were perfect.

The Grangers took Marilee to Indian museums scattered around the fringes of the Colville reservation northeast of Omak and Okanogan; on another weekend, they visited Seattle and the museum displays of Coast Indian garments and beadwork. She was satisfied that she could do work equal to theirs, given practice and patterns to learn.

She wanted to repay her young soul mate. Before she was done, he would have sacred emblems sewn upon his own headband, moccasin leggings, and the breast and collar of his new jacket. She asked Uncle Ken to make the headband first, so she could replicate Mike’s drawings for the forehead as her first piece. It was this headband, freshly cut from the thinnest, finest belly leather of the best of the tanned skins that Ken had just finished shaping and was now running admiringly through his practiced fingers.

“It seems that somehow this was meant for him. I’ve rarely seen anything so fine come from the tanner’s art. He raised this animal, respected its life, sacrificed it for his family’s welfare with homage to its spirit, and preserved this fine hide that it might not be wasted. Now it comes to my workbench as a superb leather. This strip will come back to him, richly decorated with the skill and love of his mate. Who could claim there is not a great wheel of life? Respect and love comes full circle to those who have the eyes and the heart to see it!”

Ken rose from his bench and walked to Marilee’s room. Without a word he handed it to his young niece who sat surrounded with her baskets of beads and sewing materials. She smiled. No words were necessary. She was ready to begin.

Helen and Marilee emerged from the post office in town with a double handful of advertising circulars, taxidermy supply catalogs, a few letters including a precious letter for Marilee from her parents, and the usual assortment of utility and household bills. It was the first of the month, so the Granger’s postal box was stuffed full.

“If you’d like, why don’t you go over to the soda fountain across the street in Baker’s Drug, and get yourself something? I want to visit for a minute with Mrs. James in the craft shop. I’ll only be a moment, and I’ll join you. Okay?”

Marilee agreed and angled across the one street that passed as the single shopping avenue in the village. Shops and stores stretched for only three blocks, with the majority of them along the half block either side of the river road junction where it entered town across a small, concrete bridge adjacent to the Forest Service offices and shops. The soda fountain counter inside the general store and pharmacy was a town gathering place. It served a hand-scooped milkshake that was thick, creamy, and filling. Her young mouth watered at the thought.

“Hey, gorgeous! Fancy bumping into you here!” The tall boy standing beside the entrance grabbed her elbow and pulled Marilee roughly to him, dragging her away from the door and out of view of anyone inside. A tall van parked diagonally at the sidewalk blocked most of the street view.

“Let go of me,” she gasped. She was panicked, despite herself, and on the verge of hysteria. She wanted to flee from this rude boy. What will he do? She tried to twist herself from his grip but it was useless. He was much bigger and stronger, and a few years older. He was one of the arrogant valley boys who made Graydon’s life so violent at school. He was the one who shoved the younger girl against the school building and pushed his hand roughly up her skirt. The school authorities refused to act. Other students were complicit in the bullying or were afraid to protest.

Marilee tried to scream but the boy clamped his hand over her mouth and held her pinned with his other arm. He pressed his body against hers and shoved her roughly against the side of the building. His leg moved up between hers while he ground himself hard against her belly. He stared into her face, her skin flushed with rage and fear, her eyes shut tight in refusal to see him.

“So, little girl, you’re the new piece who’s been staying at that cripple’s place, that old bitch teacher’s husband, right? I hear you come from back east, and you run with that freaky snake-lovin’ weirdo we got in school with us. Maybe you’d like somethin’ better, huh? I got somethin’ here I think you’ll like!” The bully pushed himself harder against her and moved from side to side, feeling her soft body under himself. Marilee was screaming in her mind, silently shrieking in rage and fright. If only she was stronger; if only she had some weapon in her hand to strike this bastard down, to smash his face, to beat him senseless. She screamed her silent frustration and struggled as fiercely as she could, but it was so futile. She could barely squirm away from his obscene movements, pinned helplessly against the wall by his stronger body.

A searing light flashed in Donny’s mind. He lost sense of place. He could no longer feel the girl, his weight, or his place on the sidewalk beside the storefront. He felt suddenly alone, isolated, immersed in a blaze of red heat that filled his skull, his senses, all of his awareness.

___”Let her go!”___

Donny fell back, staggered, and would have fallen into the gutter but for the grill of the van that held his falling body upright. Marilee raced back to the doorway, flung the heavy door open and ran straight to the woman standing behind the store’s cash register.

“Oh, God ... oh ... help, please! Call somebody. He attacked me, he ... he... !” The cashier stared at the frantic girl, then ran to the window and saw the high school boy sprawled awkwardly, leaning back against the store’s delivery van, his eyes and mouth gaping open, hands flung up as if warding off an attack. He was alone. There was no one else near, no one on either side up or down the sidewalk. He was waving his arms and hands, clearly in some sort of panic, but against what? His mouth was gaping open as if to shriek, but there was no sound.

“Who attacked you? Where, when? Was it that boy?” the cashier turned back to ask Marilee, who stood frozen against the checkout counter, flushed and gasping, with streams of tears running down her face. She was gripping herself with her arms, trying to pull herself together. She was ashamed of her lack of control. She must be stronger, she must fight! Fear is useless. I must overcome this! she raged at herself.

“Yes! It was him. That tall boy with the black crew cut and the red shirt. He grabbed me when I tried to come in the store. He pulled me away from the door and shoved me against the wall. He pressed himself into me, and he was going to... “ She stopped short. She would not go there. She would not say whatever she guessed he might do next. It seemed so grotesque ... an attack, on the street, in public, in broad daylight? It seemed so absurd, but it happened!