Having Everything Right Read Online Free PDF Page B

victory for flight. I could follow the events and feel, in my faint of hunger, a shred of what the original cast of this drama lived. But where I sat in the car, all this was nothing. The windshield wore the small debris of shattered yellow bugs.
    What did I expect? The past wears an armor that thickens, and I was a fool to think hunger and a wish could pierce it. I had learned the dates and the map, had seen in photographs a long-braided woman and the anguish of old men. I had browsed on books in the National Battlefield gift shop, and I was fed full with history, with news that stays fact:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  During the morning of August 9, 1877, . . . 163 soldiers of the U.S. 7th Infantry and 33 civilian volunteers endured a 36-hour siege as the final scene in the Battle of the Big Hole. The battlebegan with a dawn attack by the military force upon a camp of 800 Nez Perce men, women and children encamped in 89 tipis on the grassy bank across the river. . . . Follow the trail and explore the military defensive positions. Recreate the struggle of the besieged men and the hostile feelings of the surrounding Nez Perce warriors.
    I folded the brochure, and closed my eyes. My government was trying hard to help me. They had made a building and a show. They had scratched out a trail and numbered it, had given me a brochure with matching numbers. I would follow the path. I was grateful. Still my head was a vacant room. Before I took the trail, I had one more try.
    Inside, at the headquarters reception area, a ranger with his flat-brim hat on the desk beside him was tallying information from the guest register.
    â€œI bet you get people from all over.” I faced him over the glass display case filled with books and souvenirs.
    â€œExcuse me one moment,” he said. “1984 to date, out-of-state 87 percent total.” His tanned fingers worked the blue ballpoint as if it were a shovel, scooping figures off one page and tossing them neatly onto another. Then he looked up at me. “Yes, from all over the world. Have you had a chance to sign the register?”
    â€œRight here.” I pointed to the word “Oregon.” The space for my remark was blank, but the column above that blank was filled with “Beautiful display,” “Very moving,” “Worth the drive,” “Howdy from Texas,” “My third visit and better than ever.” The ranger glanced at me, then turned away to usher a couple wearing identical sunglasses into the small auditorium for the slide show. I could hear the music begin as he closed the door behind them.
    â€œI’m curious,” I said. “How many Nez Perce people visit the battlefield?”
    The ranger turned to the register, then to his tally. “We had a woman from Iowa last year who said she was one-quarter Nez Perce.” He looked into the air between us for a moment, then back at me. There was a pause, and I could hear the muffled pulse of gunfire from the auditorium. My eyes asked the obvious question, and he answered it.
    â€œWe know others visit the battlefield itself,” he said. “They just don’t come here to the Visitor Center to sign the book.” He looked into the air again. We both knew this was the part of the show about the Nez Perce warrior named Rainbow—how he was shot as he ran through the dawn mist, how his comrade Five Wounds would have to die the same day by the vow they had shared. We heard the tapered scream of Rainbow’s wife, a century distant through the auditorium wall. My eyes asked him again. This time he paused. I had to ask it aloud.
    â€œWhen do they visit the battlefield?” I looked out the window behind him, as he studied my face.
    â€œThey come at night,” he said, “and no one sees them.” He paused again. “They have their ceremonies in the place, and we respect that.” Something brushed my sleeve. He turned. A woman held out four postcards and