A String of Beads Read Online Free PDF Page A

cheek. Then
     she got into her car and drove. The reservation had only a few roads, and they all
     met. She went up Parker Road past Sundown Road to Council House Road.
    She took Allegheny Road to Java, where it became Cattaraugus Road. She drove south
     to the mechanic’s shop that was owned by the Snows. She pulled close to the garage
     doorway, got out, and walked to the front of her car.
    “Janie?”
    Jane turned her head and saw a dark-skinned man about her age wearing blue work pants,
     steel-toed boots, and a gray work shirt with an embroidered patch above the pocket
     that said ray . Jane stepped up and hugged him. “It’s great to see you, Ray. I was afraid you would
     be on vacation or something.”
    “No, the guys who work for me get vacations. I’m always here, like the doorknob. Got
     a car problem?”
    “I wondered if you could do the scheduled maintenance on my car—you know, oil, filter,
     lube, check and replace belts and hoses—and then keep it here safe for at least a
     week or so.”
    “I’d be glad to. You staying around here?”
    “I thought I’d go on a hike, like we used to when we were kids.”
    Ray Snow’s brows knitted. “You trying to find Jimmy?”
    Jane looked around to see if anyone else was in earshot. She smiled and said, “Not
     me. That’s the police’s job. I wouldn’t want to get involved.”
    “Well, that’s good. A person would have to be stupid to do that.” He whispered, “Give
     him my regards.”

4
    J ane pulled her backpack up over her shoulders, adjusted the waist strap, and began
     to walk. She had known from the visit of the clan mothers that it might come to this,
     but she had not been sure until she talked with Mattie. She had not been able to tell
     Jane where Jimmy was—had not known, specifically—so what she did was let Jane know
     that maybe the answer was already there, inside Jane’s memory.
    Jane wasn’t in doubt about how to get there. When Jane and Jimmy were fourteen, they’d
     saved money all spring. They had spent a few days collecting road maps, hoarding clean
     socks and underwear from the laundry, and planning. On the third morning after school
     let out in June, they set off toward the south.
    Today, as Jane walked out of town away from Ray Snow’s mechanic shop, she made a hundred-yard
     detour so she could walk in the footsteps of the fourteen-year-old Jane. She and Jimmy
     had begun their journey on the reservation and walked to the south. The first big
     moment for Jane was when they crossed Route 5. It was an old road, one that white
     people had made by paving the Wa-a-­gwenneyu. Underneath the pavement was the trail
     that ran the length of the longhouse-shaped region that was Iroquois territory, from
     Mohawk country at the Hudson River to Seneca country at the Niagara River.
    The reason for their trip was personal and complicated. They told other people they
     wanted to explore a bit of the region. But what they were looking for was themselves.
     Jane and Jimmy had lost their fathers when they were eleven and twelve. Later, after
     Jane had become an adult, she realized that this coincidence must have been what drew
     them together and launched them on their trip. Without their fathers they had lost
     part of their link to the past, to the long history that had produced them. Changes
     that had taken place before they were born left them as two lonely Senecas, survivors
     among countless millions of other people in a world that sometimes bore no resemblance
     to the one that had formed their culture. Jane had been especially lost without her
     father, because her mother was white and didn’t speak Seneca even as well as Jane
     did, and they lived in a city miles from the reservation. Jane and Jimmy had seen
     nothing in junior high school that made them want to be part of the wider world, learned
     no point of view that gave them an acceptable place or a purpose in it.
    When they talked about this during their thirteenth