On one side of the gravel road, the wasichu wiya pi were barrel racing. Dust kicked up in angry clouds. They wore wide Stetsons and yellow and pink ribbon shirts. The emcee read their times, occasionally pulling the microphone away from his face to spit tobacco juice into the dirt. The sun was hot. The wood of the bleachers creaked with the movement of the audience. There was no grass. On the other side, across the gravel road, grass covered the powwow grounds. Still damp and shining from the morning’s moisture but drying up quickly in the sun, which was just as hot there as across the way. The drum circles cried. The sound of bells dominated, jingle dresses tinkling, laughing. The emcee told the crowd not to drink and drive tonight, lest they hit a bump in their car and spill their drink and cry all night. Laughter spread like a ripple. Colored costumes glowed,guarding.
On the gravel road, two Indian boys swung lassos around their heads, listening to the overlapping sounds of hooves and bells, their arms light with joy.
That year, in the second week of July, the chokecherry tree in the west corner of Grandmother’s backyard stopped bearing fruit. Its branches, which had always hung low, weeping over the back fence and dropping their small crop into the grass there, became brown and brittle and twisted in on themselves. The leaves turned to dust between the pads of Grandmother’s heavy, true blue fingers. She had promised wojapi for her family, chokecherry pudding, but hers was the only tree for many miles around. It was difficult for her to renege on a promise. So, when nobody was watching, Grandmother used her arthritic hands to work the can opener that opened a can, unlabeled, that she knew to contain black cherry and blueberry pie filling. She poured the goop into the saucepan. While it heated on the stove, Grandmother had a cigarette on the back porch and trembled. The chokecherry tree hung its head. When the family served themselves, the pie filling passing as Grandmother’s wojapi looked like dark innards as it spilled from the serving spoon. The family was joyous, ate, and was adamant that this was Grandmother’s best wojapi, ever. With them, Grandmother laughed and smiled and held them with her arms.
In her room, alone, Grandmother cried and cried.
Grandfather liked to say pride. This was his favorite word. He found price in the number of his acres, in sunsets glowing orange between each of his blades of grass. For him, a sunset seen through his grass was a sunset that belonged to him. He found proud life in each iŋyaŋ, each rock. He was proud of the strength of his horses. Grandmother found only humility. She whispered to the grass, the rocks, laid her cheek on the soft haunch of a horse. She felt sickness and cancer growing inside of her, felt her body slow down, ready to meet the earth, but stayed far away from doctors and hospitals. The cancer was the last and quintessential teaching in completing her humility. Oŋsihaŋpi.
(from a short story, “Harrison One Horse Goes to Heaven”)
The steam felt like hot coals in the pit of Harry’s stomach as he breathed deeply through his mouth. He tried to keep his eyes open, better to see the pitch darkness around him. Hot and wet, a womb with the heartbeat of a drum. Leroy drummed, prayed and sang in deep, throaty Lakota. “Let’s talk for a moment,” said Leroy after he had finished praying. “What brings you to the sweat lodge, my friend?” The white man was quiet for a moment, and then answered, “God. He came to me in a dream. He told me that it was no longer my job to work or take care of my family, but that it was my job instead to help those less fortunate than I. I left my family. I quit my job, and all of my co-workers called me crazy. I came here to make sure that this is what God wants of me.”
“I see.” Leroy tapped the drum lightly so that the sound circled the wet hut, leaving a tail like a comet. Harry watched it move. “Do you think I’m crazy?” Al asked as he gulped for air through the steam. “My friend, if you are crazy then here we are two crazy men sweating together.” They laughed. Harry almost felt sorry for Al, but then wondered briefly whether the two really weren’t just two crazy men sweating together. Leroy then held the ceremonial pipe up to his lips and inhaled, flicking a Bic lighter to smolder the herbs in the bowl. “Is that traditional?” Al’s voice floated across the space. He had heard the distinct sound of the flint, saw the unwavering orange flame. “Trust me,” Harry’s father said on the exhale. “If my great-great-great grandfather had had a Bic lighter in the sweat lodge, he would have used it instead of spending thirty minutes trying to use an ember from the damn fire.” Harry felt the wet heat of Kitty’s bare foot near his, could almost feel the blood pumping in her big toe. In the complete darkness of the lodge, Harry was able to imagine that every person inside looked exactly the same. Only by the touch of their hands would he have been able to tell them apart, by feeling his father’s thick calluses. He imagined that all of their faces were made of flat, colorless skin, turned toward the rock pit. They could all have been brothers and sisters.
“All my relations,” said Leroy. “Mitakuye Oyas’in.”
“They’re frightening little bastards, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Because a single owl has all this power in its tiny, pointy head. Those far apart eyes and tufty ears. They’re bringers of news. Sometimes it’s good news, and sometimes it’s the worst possible news. You know it’s true that if an owl lands on your roof and hoots three times, it means someone’s going to die. And that someone is probably you. Happened to me this one time when I was sitting by myself in the old ranch house, the old, old ranch house, the one we had before you were born. Your aunt had passed away by then, so I was alone. And I heard it land right on the roof. Heard its little claws scratch on the tin. I sat up straight because I wanted to hear what it had to say. The thing hooted once. I stayed still, just listening. As soon as it hooted again, I grabbed my rifle. I ran out there and blasted that little demon off the roof before it could hoot a third time. I always say, that’s when I was supposed to go. But I got it before it doomed me, and that’s why I’m still here, old as hell. I stuffed it and hung it on the wall, but my brother took that one for his own house because he liked it. Good riddance, though, I always thought maybe the bastard could have come back alive again and hooted that third time, and then I would have been done for.”
“The water is good today,” the father said, splashing into the river from the muddy shore. The sky was a soulful blue, and the river seemed to trail up into it, farther than he could see with his eyes. The water was high, to his waist at the deepest point, and visibility was no further than an inch below the surface. It was milky brown with mud and minerals, moving lazily down and swollen with the recent rain. The father watched his daughter in a pink bathing suit run to the edge of the water in the inexperienced way that young children run—feet slapping hard and knees wobbling. The edges of her tiny sneakers, the ones with pink laces, were inches deep in mud. “Wait,” said the father, but she splashed into the pregnant current and immediately took in a throat full of water. The river pulled her, unconcerned, only moving further into the blue sky. She made no sound but her dark hair spread like spider legs around her head. The father pushed off hard from the soft riverbed, his toes thick with cool mud. He reached out his arm, scrambled, and let water invade his mouth and eyes until he could close his fist around her small arm. It was slick as the river bottom. He pulled her above the surface where she was limp for a moment while his chest expanded with panic and love. Then water came spouting from her mouth and nose in miniature rivers, and he could have sworn he also saw stones of turquoise that almost matched the sky. She took a gasping breath. He pressed his face to hers and attempted to give her his air. “This is good water,” the father said to his daughter. Her small pink shoes had been pulled off and floated down river, bobbing, towards the sky’s ready fingers.
I would like to thank everyone who has support Fran & I threw our Journey. Please keep following our blog for future updates.
Fran & I are having a solo show on October 8th, 2011 in Lincoln Square. Mark you calendars!! were going to have fry bread, beer, wine, and tons more stuff
