Truth and Bright Water

Tecumseh, his dog (Solider), and his friend (Lum) are hanging out by the river. Lum has a gun, and the two boys take turns shooting at the bridge to pass the time. Their conversation turns to the prospect of getting summer jobs and to the reappearance of Monroe Swimmer, a famous artist who comes from Bright Water. While the boys talk, a woman in a truck drives out to the Horns. She gets out, performs a short dance, and throws the contents of a suitcase into the river. As the boys watch, she turns the radio on in her truck before jumping into the river herself. The boys rush to the place where the woman should have hit the water. Not only do they not find her, but they discover that her truck is also mysteriously gone. The only evidence they find is what the woman threw from her suitcase—a human skull with a red ribbon looped through the eye sockets.

The next day, Tecumseh tries to tell his mother about the woman who jumped into the river. His mother, a hairdresser, largely ignores his story since she’s tending to a client. Tecumseh also tries to tell the client, Lucy Rabbit, about the jumping woman, but Lucy is more preoccupied with getting a hairstyle that will make her look like Marilyn Monroe. As Lucy and Tecumseh’s mother chat, it’s revealed that the narrator’s aunt, Cassie, has come to town and that Tecumseh’s mother will be visiting her for a few days.

Tecumseh visits his father, Elvin, who is talking to a real estate agent, Miles Deardorf, and a local named Skee Gardipeau. Miles announces that he has sold the rundown church to Monroe Swimmer. None of the men can imagine what Monroe would want with the church. The townspeople have varied memories of what Monroe was like before he gained notoriety in Toronto. Some remember him as a prankster, while others remember “a darker side” (25) to the talented young artist. As Miles tells it, Monroe became famous for painting an uncommissioned mural on a posh restaurant’s window while customers inside watched. The stunt vaulted him to national fame, but now he has allegedly returned to his hometown, though no one has seen any signs of him.

Tecumseh again visits with his father, a craftsman, who is building figurines of wolves he believes he can sell at high prices to white consumers. They head to a local restaurant, where Elvin shows the figurines to Skee, who is skeptical about whether they will earn as much money as the father hopes. Skee, Elvin, and Tecumseh discuss what job Tecumseh will take on for the summer; Tecumseh tries to broach the topic of the jumping woman, but the conversation moves on before he can.

Tecumseh relates the history of the “Cousins,” a group of wild dogs who live around the church. The locals tell many stories about the purpose of the Cousins, including that missionaries brought them to police the local population and that the dogs helped guard early encampments against soldiers and ghosts.

Soldier goes missing, so Tecumseh goes out in search of him. His search leads him to the church. He finds that Monroe has been painting the church’s exterior such that the building itself blends into the landscape around it. He finds Soldier inside the church, where he also encounters Monroe. The famous artist is nothing like what Tecumseh imagined: He uses a wheelchair, wears a wig, and assumes that Tecumseh has come in search of employment. Tecumseh plays along because Monroe tells him that he’ll be paid handsomely for his work. The nature of the work, though, isn’t immediately clear. Tecumseh sees that Monroe has painted a platform green to blend in with the grass and titled it “Teaching the Grass About Green” (43); he has also painted a kite blue and called it “Teaching the Sky About Blue” (49).

Tecumseh and his mother travel to Truth, where Cassie is visiting Tecumseh’s grandmother. Tecumseh has fond feelings for Cassie but also wonders about some of her more mysterious attributes, like the tattoo on her hand associating her with the American Indian Movement (AIM). Cassie regales the family with tales of her travels abroad, but Tecumseh notices that there’s tension between Cassie and his mother and grandmother. At one point in the conversation, the grandmother mentions the name “Mia,” and both Cassie and Tecumseh’s mother immediately avoid the subject. The discussion instead turns to Monroe’s return, and Tecumseh’s mother asks Tecumseh to leave the room and tend to the chickens outside. Tecumseh reluctantly obeys; he tries to eavesdrop on the women’s conversation but never hears anything he can make sense of.

This chapter is interpolated with Tecumseh’s memories of the time Cassie brought a Swedish woman to visit. Tecumseh remembers visiting the pair at night in their room, where the Swedish woman was wearing nothing but her undergarments. They began to play a game of poker, and the Swedish woman asked Tecumseh if he had ever seen a woman naked before. As the game went on, the woman eventually removed her bra. Auntie Cassie sent Tecumseh away late in the night.

Tecumseh describes a quilt his mother sewed that began as a conventional quilt but eventually began to incorporate hair, quills, chicken feet, and even razors. Elvin postulates that the quilt is the mother’s way of “dealing with frustration and disappointment” (62). The quilt also depicts people and places, some of which Tecumseh interprets to be himself, his father, and Truth and Bright Water.

Tecumseh theorizes about why the woman jumped into the river. His first thought is that the woman was angered by a romantic betrayal, but this idea doesn’t account for her dancing. His next thought is that she was grieving the death of a loved one and wanted to die by suicide, but this theory doesn’t explain the presence of the skull in her suitcase.

Meanwhile, Tecumseh finds Lum in his house with the skull. The boys argue about where to hide it, eventually deciding on a space in the rafters. Afterward, the boys go out to the railroad yard, where they discuss the indignity of a summer job cleaning boxcars and the possibility of getting a job that would instead take them out of Bright Water. Lum races the train as it comes in, eventually daring to get on the track in front of it as he runs.

Tecumseh remembers a time his mother planned a vacation while his parents were still together. His father, citing financial concerns, resisted the idea of a hiking vacation from the start, but his mother insisted. After a day spent in their tent because of rain, Elvin returned to town saying he’d be back to get them later that day. He never returned, and Tecumseh and his mother eventually took the bus home.