Reservation Blues

3. Indian Boy Love Song

I SAW YOU WALKING with those dark legs of yours

I felt you walking through my sweatlodge doors

And don’t you wonder when you’re there in the dark

Just hear the drummer beating time with your heart

I hear you talking about your Trail of Tears

If you feel the need I can help calm all your fears

I’ll be here watching and I’ll wait for your call

I’ll catch you sweetheart when you feel you may fall

chorus:

And I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey, ya-hey

I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey

And I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey, ya-hey

I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey, ya-hey

I can see you playing stickgame all night long

I can see you smiling when you’re singing the song

I’ll be here guessing which hand holds the bone

I hope I choose right so I won’t be alone

(repeat chorus until end)

Chess and Checkers Warm Water, Flathead Indian sisters, pushed their way to the front of the crowd in the Tipi Pole Tavern. Both wanted to get a closer look at Coyote Springs. The audience cheered like it was a real concert rather than a low-paying gig in a reservation bar. A few Flatheads even raised lighters, flicked their Bics, and singed the braids of their friends. For safety, Chess and Checkers tucked their braids under cowboy hats. Chess wore glasses.

“They’re not too good,” Checkers said. A few inches taller than her older sister, Checkers was the most beautiful Indian woman on the Flathead Reservation, and quite possibly in all of Indian country. All the young Flathead men called her Little Miss Native American, but she still refused to listen to their courting songs. She liked the old Indian men and their traditional songs. All the other Flathead women respected Checkers’s selective ear, even as they chased the young Indian boys themselves.

“Yeah, they ain’t too good at all,” Chess said of Coyote Springs. “But that lead singer is kind of cute, enit?”

“Cute enough.”

Chess and Checkers danced in front of the stage. Chess had fancydanced when she was a teenager and shook to Three Dog Night on her childhood radio. She danced well in both the Indian and white ways. Not as obviously pretty as her sister, Chess, living up to her nickname, planned all of her moves in advance.

“God,” Chess said, “that drummer is awful.”

Junior and Victor started the evening sober but drank all the free booze offered. Thomas stayed sober but could not stop his bandmates, so they all sounded worse with each beer. Junior nearly fell off his stool when he swung and missed the snare drum completely. Victor strummed an open chord continually because he forgot how to play any other. Still, it was only the sisters who noticed that the band fell apart, because most of the audience drank more than Coyote Springs. All the other sober Flatheads had already left.

“Let’s go home,” Checkers said.

“No,” Chess said. “That lead singer is staring at me.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Thomas said after a particularly sloppy number. “We’re going to take a short break now. We’ll be back in a few.”

Coyote Springs staggered off the stage. Thomas left his guitar onstage, but Victor always carried Robert Johnson’s guitar with him.

“Did you see that woman in the front row?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah, the one with black hair and brown skin?” Victor asked.

“No, really,” Thomas said. “Did you see her?”

“Yeah,” Victor said. “The one with the cowboy hat and big tits.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Thomas said. “I mean the one with glasses.”

“Yeah,” Junior said, “I saw her.”

“She’s pretty, enit?” Thomas asked.

“She’s all right,” Junior said.

“Shit,” Victor said. “I’d take the one with big tits.”

“She wouldn’t have nothing to do with your drunk ass,” Thomas said.

“So what?” Victor said. “Who says I want an Indian woman anyway? I see some good-looking white women here.”

Surprised, Thomas and Junior looked around the room, because they hadn’t noticed any white women and wondered what Victor saw.

“You must be having a vision,” Junior said. “I’m jealous.”

“Listen,” Thomas said, “I want to play her a song.”

“Who?” Junior and Victor asked.

“The woman in the front row.”

“That white woman?” Victor asked. Junior, completely confused, scanned the room again for any evidence of white women.

“No,” Thomas said, “the Indian woman. The one with glasses.”

“Why?” Victor asked. “Is Thomas trying to get laid?”

“I want to play ‘Indian Boy Love Song,’” Thomas said.

“Shit no,” Victor said. “We ain’t even practiced that one.”

“I don’t think so,” Junior said. “Ain’t no Indian wants to hear a slow song anyway.”

“Well, I’ll just go out there and do it myself.

“Jesus Christ,” Victor said as Thomas walked back onstage. “The little asshole’s already thinking about a solo career.”

“Well, let’s go,” Junior said. “We’re a band.”

Junior followed Thomas, but Victor stayed behind and made goofy eyes at a blond mirage near the back of the bar.

Victor had started to drink early in life, just after his real father moved to Phoenix, and he drank even harder after his stepfather moved into the house. Junior never drank until the night of his high school graduation. He’d sworn never to drink because of his parents’ boozing. Victor placed a beer gently in his hand, and Junior drained it without hesitation or question, crashing loudly, like a pumpkin that dropped off the World Trade Center and landed on the head of a stockbroker. Thomas’s father still drank quietly, never raising his voice once in all his life, just staggering around the reservation, usually covered in piss and shit.

“Come on, Victor,” Junior yelled from the stage. “Get up here.”

“Fuck you,” Victor said, but the guitar throbbed in his hands and pulled him to the stage.

“Thank you, thank you,” Thomas said as Coyote Springs reclaimed the stage amid a drunken ovation. “We’re going to slow things down a little now. I want to play this song for that Indian woman standing right here in front of me.”

Thomas pointed at Chess. The whole crowd, because they had known the Warm Water sisters all their lives, chanted her name.

“Well, Chess,” Thomas said, “this one is for you.”

Nerves and bar smoke cracked his voice, but Thomas sang loudly, shut the whole bar up, and even sobered up a few drunks. Thomas stunned all the Flatheads when he dared to serenade an Indian woman with his ragged voice. They figured he must be in love.

“You’re not going to fall for this?” Checkers asked her sister.

“Not completely,” Chess said. “Maybe just a little.”

Thomas got carried away, though, and warbled his song for Chess a few more times. He sang blues, country, and punk versions, even recited it like a poem. Once, he closed his eyes and told it like a story. The crowd went crazy and pushed Chess onstage in their frenzy.

“Can you sing?” Thomas asked her.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Let’s do it, then,” Thomas said.

The two launched into a duet. Chess felt like a Flathead Reservation Cher next to the Spokane Indian version of Sonny, but the music happened, clumsy and terrifying.

From The Western Montana Alternative Bi- Weekly:

Coyote Springs on Tipi, Crushes It Flat

A new band, dubbed Coyote Springs and hailing from the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington State, took its first step toward musical oblivion the other night at the Tipi Pole Tavern on the Flathead Reservation.

Playing a mix of blues, rock, pop, gospel, rap, and a few unidentifiable musical forms, the band made up in pure volume what it lacked in talent. In fact, Coyote Springs seemed to take the term rock literally and landed hard on all of our eardrums before rolling out the door to their ugly blue tour van, all headed for destinations unknown. It didn’t help anything that two of the band members were drunk as skunks.

The highlight of the evening came when Chess Warm Water, a local Flathead Indian, was pushed onto the stage for a few duets with Coyote Springs’s lead singer, Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Warm Water has a voice exactly like her surname, which provided an interesting, if not altogether beautiful, contrast with Builds-the-Fire’s sparkless vocals.

The dictionary defines unforgettable as “incapable of being forgotten,” and Coyote Springs, all considerations aside, was certainly that. Unforgettable and maybe even a little forgivable.

After the show at the Tipi Pole, Chess and Checkers helped Coyote Springs pack away all their gear. Actually, Junior and Victor passed out in the back of the van, so Chess and Checkers did most of the work.

“So,” Thomas said, “how long you two lived out here?”

“Long enough,” Checkers said angrily, because she wanted to go home.

“Don’t pay her no mind,” Chess said. “We’ve lived here our whole lives.”

“You’re Flatheads, enit?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah,” Chess said. “And you guys are all Spokanes?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said and struggled to say more.

Montana filled Thomas’s mind. He used to think every Indian in the world lived in Montana. Now he had played guitar in Montana and sang duet with a beautiful Indian woman. Chess had never considered herself beautiful, but she liked her face well enough. She had broken her nose in a softball game in high school, which gave her face strange angles, and it had never looked quite right since. She didn’t believe that shit about a broken nose adding character to a face. Instead, her broken nose made her feel like her whole life tilted a few degrees from center. She never minded all that much, except that her glasses were continually slipping down her nose. She spent half of her time readjusting them. Still, she had dark, dark eyes that seemed even darker behind her glasses. They were Indian grandmother eyes that stayed clear and focused for generations.

“So,” Thomas said again, “is Chess your real name?”

“No.”

“What’s your real name?”

“I ain’t going to tell you,” Chess said. “You’d run off if you knew.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Thomas said.

Checkers watched, surprised that Thomas chose her sister. Checkers usually received all the attention, but she didn’t miss it this time. Thomas Builds-the-Fire looked especially goofy as he stumbled his way through the first stages of courtship.

They finished all the packing, even pretended to pack Junior and Victor into suitcases. The sisters stood with Thomas in the parking lot of the Tipi Pole Tavern. A few stragglers shouted lewd suggestions at Thomas, but he mostly ignored them.

“Well,” Thomas said, “I hope to see you again.”

“Maybe you’ll play here again,” Chess said.

“Maybe,” Thomas said.

Checkers sent a telepathic message to her sister: Invite him back to the house, you fool. You’ve got him snagged.

“Listen,” Chess said, “you want to come back to our house? I’ve got you snagged, fool.”

“You’ve got me what?” Thomas asked. He didn’t know what snag meant, although every other Indian on the planet understood that particular piece of reservation vocabulary: snag was noun and verb. A snag was a potential lover or the pursuit of a lover. Snagged meant you’d caught your new lover.

“I meant,” Chess corrected herself, “that you must be all dragged out. Why don’t you come back to the house?”

“What about them?” Thomas asked of Junior and Victor.

“They can sleep in the van,” Checkers said.

Thomas thought about the offer, but he felt a little shy and knew that Victor and Junior might be pissed if they woke up in the sisters’ yard. Though they always pretended to be the toughest Indian men in the world, they suffered terrible bouts of homesickness as soon as they crossed the Spokane Indian Reservation border.

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “We should probably head back.

“Kind of crazy, enit?” Chess asked. “What if you fall asleep driving?”

“Well,” Thomas said. “I’ll stay for a little while. Maybe drink some coffee. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good enough.”

Chess and Checkers jumped into the van with Thomas and directed him to their little HUD house on the reservation. All the lights burned brightly.

“You live with your parents?” Thomas asked.

“No,” Chess and Checkers said.

“Oh. I was just wondering about the lights.

“We leave them on,” Chess said. “Just in case.”

In case of what? Thomas asked in his mind but remained silent.

“Our parents are gone,” Checkers said.

The trio walked into the house, left Victor and Junior in the car, and sat down to coffee at the kitchen table. Checkers emptied her cup quickly and said good night but left her bedroom door open a little.

“Your sister is nice,” Thomas said.

“She’s always crabby,” Chess said, because she knew that Checkers was eavesdropping.

“Oh, I didn’t notice,” Thomas lied.

“Tell me about yourself,” Chess said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, because she wanted to know.

“Not much to say,” Thomas replied, feeling shy. “What about you?”

“Well, we grew up on the reservation,” Chess said. “Way up in the hills in this little shack with our mom and dad. Luke and Linda Warm Water.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah, we had a baby brother, Bobby. We called him Backgammon.”

“What happened to him?” Thomas asked.

“You know,” Chess said, “those winters were always awful back then. Ain’t no IHS doctor going to come driving through the snowdrifts and ice to save some Indian kid who was half dead anyway. I don’t know. We feel less pain when we’re little, enit? Bobby was always a sick baby, born coughing in the middle of a bad winter and died coughing in the middle of a worse winter.”

“I’m an only kid,” Thomas said.

“Did you ever get lonely?” Chess asked.

“All the time.”

“Yeah, you must have,” Chess said. “I get lonely when I think about the winters. I mean, it got so cold sometimes that trees popped like gunshots. Really. All night long. Pop, pop, pop. Kept us awake sometimes so we’d all play rummy by candlelight. Mom, Dad, Checkers, me. Those were some good times. But it makes me lonely to think about them.

Thomas and Chess sipped at their coffee.

“How about your parents?” Chess asked.

“My dad’s still on our reservation, drinking and staggering around,” Thomas said. “But my mom died when I was ten.”

“Yeah, my mom is dead, too.”

“What about your dad?” Thomas asked.

“He went to Catholic boarding school when he was little,” Chess said. “Those nuns taught him to play piano. Ain’t that funny? They’d teach him scales between beatings. But he still loved to play and saved up enough money to buy a secondhand piano in Missoula. Man, that thing was always out of tune.

“He used to play when it was too cold and noisy to sleep. He’d play and Mom would sing. Old gospel hymns, mostly. Mom had a beautiful voice, like a reservation diva or something. Mom taught Checkers and me to sing before we could hardly talk. Bobby slept in his crib by the stove. Those really were good times.”

“What happened after Bobby died?” Thomas asked, although he wanted to know more about her mother’s death, too.

“You know, my dad never drank much before Backgammon died. I mean, he always brought home some food, and Mom always managed to make stews from whatever we had in the cupboards and icebox. We didn’t starve. No way. Checkers and I were just elbows and collarbones, but we didn’t starve.

“It was dark, really dark, when Backgammon died. I don’t know what time it was exactly. But all of us were awake and pretending to be asleep. We just laid there and listened to Backgammon struggle to breathe. His lungs were all filled up with stuff. No. That’s not true. It was just Mom, Checkers, and me who listened. Dad had tied on his snowshoes a few hours earlier.

“‘I’m going for help,’ he said, and none of us said a word to him. Mom helped him put his coat on and then she kissed his fingers before he put on his gloves. Really. It’s still so vivid in my head. Mom kissed his fingertips, ten kisses, before he tramped out the door into the dark.

“I don’t know for sure how long we waited for him. We weren’t even sure he could make it back. He walked out in a Montana snowstorm to find help. He wasn’t even sure what kind of help he was looking for. There weren’t no white doctors around. There weren’t no Indian doctors at all yet. The traditional medicine women all died years before. Dad just walked into the storm like he was praying or something. I mean, even if he made it to other Indians’ houses, like the Abrahamson family or the Huberts, they couldn’t have done much anyway. The Abrahamson family had their own sick kids, and the Huberts were an old Indian couple who didn’t speak English and only stayed alive to spite the BIA.”

“Your father must have been scared,” Thomas said. He didn’t know what to say to Chess.

“Yeah, he must have been really scared,” Chess said. “But I don’t know how far he walked or when he decided to turn back. I always imagined he pounded on some stranger’s door, but there was no answer.

“As he was walking back home, my mother held onto Backgammon and sang to him. Checkers and I lay quietly in the bed we shared. We heard Mom singing and the baby struggling to breathe. I reached across the bed and set my hand on Checkers’s chest to make sure she was breathing. She reached across and did the same on my chest. We felt the rise and fall, the rise and fall. We did that until we heard Mom stop singing and the baby stop breathing.”

Tears welled in Chess’s eyes. She breathed deep and looked at Thomas, who kept silent and waited for the rest of the story. Then Chess excused herself and went to the bathroom, so Thomas just sat at the table and looked around the small, clean house. The kitchen sat in the center, while the living room, two bedrooms, and bathroom surrounded it. Nothing spectacular, but spotless by reservation standards. A clean, clean house.

“Your sister left her light on,” Thomas said to Chess as she came back to the kitchen. “Is she still awake?”

“She might be,” Chess said. “But she does sleep with her light on.”

Just in case, Thomas thought.

“Jeez,” Chess said as she sat down at the table. “You’re probably tired of me babbling, enit? You want some more coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’ll be awake for weeks.”

In her bed, Checkers listened to the conversation and cried a little. She remembered Backgammon. After he died, their mom held him against her chest and cried and cried. Checkers and Chess refused to move from their bed. They knew nothing touched them when they stayed still. Their mom cried even louder after their father stormed back into the room, shouted and cursed like a defeated warrior. He shouted until his wife raised Backgammon up to him like an offering.

Luke Warm Water started to scream then, a high-pitched wail that sounded less than human. Maybe it sounded too human. Colors poured out of him. Red flowed out of his mouth, and black seeped from his pores. Those colors mixed together and filled the room. Chess grabbed Checkers’s hand and squeezed it until both cried out in pain.

“Don’t look,” Chess said to her sister. “Don’t even move.”

The sisters kept their eyes closed for minutes, hours, days. When Chess and Checkers opened them again, they buried Backgammon in a grave Luke Warm Water dug for three days because the ground was frozen solid. When the sisters opened their eyes, Linda Warm Water took a knife to her skin and made three hundred tiny cuts on her body. In mourning, in mourning. When the Warm Waters opened their eyes, Luke traded his snowshoes for a good coat, a case of whiskey, and stayed warm and drunk for weeks. Checkers remembered so much about her father. She was sure she remembered more than her sister ever did and wondered if Chess would tell Thomas any secrets.

“You know,” Chess said to Thomas in the kitchen, just as Checkers fell into the sleep and familiar nightmares of her uncomfortable bed, “I still miss Backgammon. I didn’t know him very long. But I miss him.”

“What did you do after he died?” Thomas asked.

“We mostly kept to ourselves,” Chess said. “We’d wake up before our parents and be out the door into the trees and hills. We’d play outside all day, eat berries and roots, and only come back home when it got too cold and dark.

“Sometimes we’d climb tall trees and watch the house. We’d watch our father storm out the door and down the road to town. He’d stay away for days at a time, drinking, drunk, passed out on the muddy streets in Arlee. Mom played the piano when Dad was gone, and we could hear it. We’d stay close enough to hear it.

“I used to think her songs drifted across the entire reservation. I imagined they knocked deer over and shook the antlers of moose and elk. Can you believe that? The music crept into the dreams of hibernating bears and turned them into nightmares. Those bears wouldn’t ever leave their dens and starved to death as spring grew warmer. Those songs floated up to the clouds, fell back to the earth as rain, and changed the shape of plants and trees. I once bit into a huckleberry, and it tasted like my brother’s tears. I used to believe all of that.”

Thomas smiled at her. He had just met the only Indian who told stories like his. He took a sip of his coffee and never even noticed it was cold. How do you fall in love with a woman who grew up without electricity and running water, who grew up in such poverty that other poor Indians called her family poor?

“Jeez,” Chess said, “there I go again, running at the mouth. You must be tired. Why don’t you sleep on the couch?”

Thomas stretched in his chair, rubbed his eyes.

“I am tired,” he said. “Do you think it’s okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Why don’t you go lay down and I’ll bring you a blanket.

“Okay. But can I use the bathroom?”

“Sure,” Chess said and went to look for bedding.

Thomas used the bathroom and marveled at the order. The fancy soaps waited perfectly and patiently in their dishes, but Thomas used a little sliver of Ivory soap to wash his hands and face.

“Are you okay in there?” Chess asked through the door.

“Oh, yeah,” Thomas said, unaware of the time he’d spent in the bathroom. “Do you have a toothbrush I can borrow?”

“Yeah, use mine. It’s the red one.”

Thomas picked up Chess’s toothbrush, unsure if she meant it. She brushed her teeth with this toothbrush, he thought. She had this in her mouth. He hurriedly squeezed Crest onto the bristles and brushed slowly.

“Jeez,” Chess said after he came out, “I thought you fell in.”

“I had a life preserver,” Thomas said, embarrassed.

“You can sleep here,” Chess said and motioned toward the couch. He lay down and pulled the quilt over himself. She sat beside him and touched his face.

“You know,” she said, “my mom made this quilt.”

Thomas studied the patterns.

“You think Junior and Victor are okay outside?” he asked.

“They’re fine,” she said. “It’s warm.”

“How did your mom die?” he asked.

“Of cancer,” she lied.

“Mine, too.”

“You go to sleep now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She leaned over quickly and kissed him on the cheek. A powerful kiss, more magical than any kiss on the mouth. She kissed him like he was a warrior; she kissed him like she was a warrior.

“Good night,” he said.

“Good night,” she said and walked to her bedroom.

Chess tried to sleep, but the memories crowded and haunted her. The sisters grew strong in those Montana summer days but felt weak when they crawled into their shared bed. Before Backgammon died, they had often listened carefully to their parents’ lovemaking. The hurried breathing and those wet, mysterious noises shook the sisters’ bodies. It was good.

After the baby died, those good sounds stopped. The sisters heard their father push at their mom, wanting it, but Linda rolled over and pretended to sleep. She slapped his hands. Luke fought and fought, but eventually he gave up if sober. If drunk, however, he forced himself on his wife. Sometimes, he came home from drinking and woke everybody with his needs. He fell on their mother while Chess and Checkers listened and waited for it to end. Sometimes their mother fought their father off, punched and kicked until he left her alone. Other times he passed out before he did anything.

The winters and summers arrived and left, as did the family’s seasons. Luke and Linda Warm Water raged like storms, lightning in the summer, blizzards in the winter. But sometimes both sat in the house, placid as a lake during spring or an autumn evening. The sisters never knew what to expect, but Checkers grew taller and more frightened with each day. Chess just wanted to be older, to run away from home. She wanted to bury her parents beside Backgammon, find a way to love them in death, because she forgot how to love them in life.

Then it was winter again, and Linda Warm Water walked into the woods like an old dog and found a hiding place to die. Checkers and Chess nearly fell back in love with their father that winter. He quit drinking after his wife disappeared and spent most of his time searching for her. He refused to believe she had dug a hole and buried herself, or climbed into a den and lay down in the bones of a long dead bear. Because he’d convinced himself that Linda ran away with another man, Luke wandered all over Montana in search of his unfaithful wife.

Whenever he returned from his endless searches, Luke brought his daughters little gifts: ribbons, scraps of material, buttons, pages torn from magazines, even food, candy bars, and bottles of Pepsi. One time, he brought the sisters each a Pepsi from Missoula. Chess and Checkers buried those soft drinks in a snowbank so they would be cold, cold. Luke sat at his piano then and played for the first time since the baby died. The sisters ran inside and sang with him. They sang for a long time.

“Where are those Pepsis?” Luke asked his daughters.

“Outside,” Chess said and knew they were in trouble. The three rushed outside to the snowbank and discovered the Pepsis had exploded from the cold. The snow was stained brown with Pepsi. Luke grabbed Checkers by the arm and shook her violently.

“Goddamn it,” he shouted, “you’ve wasted it all!”

He shook her harder, then let her go and ran away. The sisters fell to their knees in the snow and wept.

“I’m sorry,” Checkers said. “The Pepsi’s gone. It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Chess said, scooped up a handful of Pepsi-stained snow, and held it in front of her sister. “Not everything’s your fault.”

“What?” Checkers asked.

“Look,” Chess said. The snow was saturated with Pepsi. Chess bit off a mouthful, tasted the cold, sweet, and dark. Checkers buried both hands in the snowbank, away from the broken glass, and shoved handful after handful of snow into her mouth. The sisters drank that snow and Pepsi until their hands and mouths were sticky and frozen. Soon, they went into the house to build a fire and wait for their father’s return. Checkers and Chess lay down together by the stove and held onto each other. They held on.

As he slept in the Warm Waters’ house, Thomas dreamed about television and hunger. In his dream, he sat, all hungry and lonely, in his house and wanted more. He turned on his little black-and-white television to watch white people live. White people owned everything: food, houses, clothes, children. Television constantly reminded Thomas of all he never owned.

For hours, Thomas searched the television for evidence of Indians, clicked the remote control until his hands ached. Once on channel four, he watched three cowboys string telegraph wire across the Great Plains until confronted by the entire Sioux Nation, all on horseback.

We come in friendship, the cowboys said to the Indians.

In Thomas’s dream, the Indians argued among themselves, whooped like Indians always do in movies and dreams, waved their bows and arrows wildly. Three Indian warriors dismounted and grabbed hold of the telegraph wire.

We come in friendship, the cowboys said, cranked the generator, and electrocuted the three Indians. Those three Indians danced crazily, unable to release the wire, and the rest of the Sioux Nation rode off in a superstitious panic.

In his dream, Thomas watched it all happen on his television until he suddenly returned to the summer when Victor and Junior killed snakes by draping them over an electric fence.

Watch this, Victor said as he dropped a foot-long water snake onto the fence. Thomas nearly choked on the smell.

The electric fence belonged to a white family that had homesteaded on the reservation a hundred years ago and never left. All the Spokanes liked them because the white family owned a huge herd of cattle and gave away free beef. The homesteaders built the fence to keep the cows away from the forests, but the cows ignored the pine trees anyway. The fence burned on and on.

Victor and Junior draped a hundred snakes over the fence that summer and dragged Thomas there once or twice a week.

Come on, Victor said to Thomas and put him in yet another headlock. You’re coming with us.

Ya-hey, Junior said. Don’t you think he’s had enough?

I’ll tell you when he’s had enough, Victor said.

Victor and Junior carried Thomas to the fence, where they kept a rattlesnake in a plastic barrel.

Look, Victor said, and Thomas saw the snake.

Where’d you get that? he asked, frightened.

From your momma’s panties, Victor said.

Thomas strained against Victor and Junior, but they pushed him down and held his face close to the barrel.

Grab the fence, Victor said. Or grab the snake.

No, Thomas said.

Wait a second, Junior said, scared as Thomas.

Fence or snake, Victor said.

Thomas looked down at the rattler, which remained still. No sound, no rattles shaking. Then he reached out as if to grab the fence but grabbed the rattlesnake instead and threw it at Victor.

Oh, shit, shit, shit, Victor said and jumped away from the dead snake.

Junior and Thomas laughed.

You think that’s funny? Victor asked as he picked up the rattler. You think that’s funny?

Yeah, Junior and Thomas said.

Victor shoved the snake in Thomas’s face while Junior jumped back.

Eat this, Victor said and pushed the snake against Thomas’s mouth. Thomas tripped, fell to the ground, and Victor shoved that snake at him until the game grew old.

Jesus, Junior said. He’s had enough.

Victor draped the dead snake across the electric fence. It danced and danced, fell off the wire, squirmed its way back to life, and started to rattle.

Oh, shit, Victor said and ran away. Junior and Thomas ran after him, kept running. Soon, in his dream, Victor and Junior ran into a large empty room. Thomas followed them. The three picked up musical instruments and started to practice.

You know, Thomas said between songs. I hope we don’t make it.

Make what? Junior asked.

Make it big. Have a hit song and all that, Thomas said.

Why the hell not? Victor asked.

I don’t know. Maybe we don’t deserve it. Maybe we should have something better in mind. Maybe something bad is going to happen to us if we don’t have something better on our minds.

Like what? Victor asked.

Well, Thomas said, what if we get rich and eat too much? We’ll all get fat and disgusting.

Shit, Victor said. I’m not Elvis.

Ya-hey, Junior said, did you know Elvis was a cavalry scout in a previous life?

In his dream, Thomas strummed the guitar and pleaded with Victor.

Really, Thomas said. I’m scared to be famous.

Well, Junior said, I think we should worry about learning to play our instruments better first.

Yeah, Victor said. And we don’t have nothing to worry about if we keep you as the lead singer anyway.

Yeah, Junior said. And besides, the only famous Indians are dead chiefs and long-distance runners.

In his dream, Thomas looked at his bandmates. He wondered what they really felt. He wondered what those snakes felt on the electric fence. Thomas held his guitar closely and felt its power, then noticed that he was holding Robert Johnson’s guitar. In the dream, he hit a chord, felt a sharp pain in his wrists, but the music tasted like good food.

“What you doing with my guitar?” Victor shouted and ripped Thomas from his dream. Thomas lay on the couch in the Warm Waters’ house with Robert Johnson’s guitar beside him. It’s Victor’s guitar now, Thomas corrected himself.

“I didn’t want it to get cold,” Thomas mumbled, although he had no idea how the guitar ended up in the house, and handed it over to Victor.

“Well, thanks for nothing,” Victor said. “It was hotter than hell outside.”

“Oh, man,” Junior said as he stumbled into the house. “I got a hangover.”

“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Thomas said.

Junior made his way to the kitchen just as Chess and Checkers emerged from their rooms.

“What’s going on?” Checkers asked.

“What’s for breakfast?” Victor asked.

“Your ass on a plate,” Chess said. “Fix it yourself.”

“Oh, a rowdy one,” Victor said. “I like them rowdy.”

Victor opened the refrigerator, pulled out the ingredients for a cheese and vegetable omelet, and cooked up enough for everybody. They were all shocked by Victor’s culinary skills.

“Where’d you learn to cook?” Chess asked. “Prison?”

“My father used to cook,” Victor said.

“Your stepfather?” Junior asked.

“Yeah, only thing he was good for.”

Coyote Springs sat down to breakfast with Chess and Checkers. The omelets tasted great. Victor wanted to say something profound and humorous about eggs but couldn’t think of anything, so he farted instead.

“You’re disgusting,” Chess said, picked up her plate, and walked outside to eat. Thomas gave Victor the old Spokane Indian evil eye and followed her.

Checkers finished her breakfast, washed her plate and fork in the sink, and then returned to her bedroom. Junior and Victor watched her the entire time.

“She’s real pretty, enit?” Junior asked after Checkers closed her bedroom door.

“A great ass,” Victor said.

“You don’t have a chance!” Checkers shouted from her room. Victor and Junior ate the rest of their omelets in silence.

Outside, Chess and Thomas talked between bites.

“You know,” Thomas said, “Coyote Springs is better than we sounded last night.”

“I hope so,” Chess said.

“No, really. Victor and Junior were all drunk.”

“Do you drink?”

“No,” Thomas said, “I don’t drink.”

Chess smiled. When Indian women begin the search for an Indian man, they carry a huge list of qualifications. He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. He has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice. But as the screwed-up Indian men stagger through their lives, Indian women are forced to amend their list of qualifications. Eventually, Indian men need only to have their own teeth to get snagged.

Chess suffered through an entire tribe of Indian boyfriends. Roscoe, the champion fancydancer, who passed out in full regalia during the Arlee Powwow and was stripped naked during the night. Bobby, the beautiful urban Indian, transferred to the reservation to work for the BIA, who then left Chess for a white third-grade teacher at the Tribal School. Joseph, the journalist, who wrote a powerful story on the white-owned liquor stores camped on reservation borders and then drank himself into cirrhosis. Carl, the buck from Browning, who stashed away a kid or two on every reservation in the state, until his friends called him The Father of Our Country.

“Really?” Chess asked Thomas again to make sure. Maybe she had snagged the only sober storyteller in the world. “You mean, you’ve never drank. Not even when you were little?”

“No,” Thomas said. “I read books.”

“Do you have any kids?” Chess asked.

Thomas hid his face.

“Oh,” Chess said, disappointed. “You do have kids. How many?”

She loved kids but placed a limit on the number of children and ex-wives she allowed her potential snags to claim.

“No, no,” Thomas said. “I don’t have any kids. You just surprised me. I’m not used to personal questions. Nobody ever asked me any personal questions before.”

“You ever been married?”

“No, have you?”

“No. Any girlfriends?”

“Not really,” Thomas said.

“Ya-hey!” Victor shouted from the kitchen. “I think Junior is going to throw up.”

“You know,” Chess said, “that Victor is a jerk. And his clothes. He looks like he got in a fight with the seventies and got his ass kicked.”

“Well,” Thomas said, “he doesn’t have any money. That’s why he’s in the band. That’s why we’re all in the band, you know?”

“I was wondering why you put up with him,” Chess said. She and Checkers fought fires for the BIA during the summers, traveling all over the country, and struggled to make the money last through winter.

“Only problem is we’re not making any money.”

“Really? Even a bad band can make money, enit?”

“I hope so. But we’re pretty good, really.”

“I believe you, really,” Chess said. “That Junior is nice, enit? He’s good-looking, but sort of goofy, though. He sure lets Victor boss him around, enit?”

“Yeah, it’s always been that way.”

“Too bad,” Chess said. “Junior could be a major snag.”

“You mean,” Thomas said, “that he’s in the way?”

“No,” Chess said. “I mean he could be a good catch for an Indian woman. A snag, you know?”

“Oh,” Thomas said, still clueless, so he changed the subject. “I really liked singing with you last night. You’re really good.”

“Yeah, I had a good time, too.”

“You know,” Thomas said, “I have an idea. How would you and Checkers like to join the band?”

“I don’t know,” Chess said. “Do we have to dress like Victor?”

“Not at all.”

“I don’t know,” she said again. “We have to hang around here during the summer. In case we get called to fight a fire.”

“Listen. You can sing great, and I’m sure Checkers can sing, too. We need you. Something tells me we need you.”

“I don’t think so, Thomas. I mean, I like you a lot, but Checkers and I live here. We’re from here. We shouldn’t leave.”

“You have to think about it,” Thomas said. “Give us a chance.”

Chess shook her head.

“Wait!” Thomas shouted. “Victor. Junior. Get out here. Let’s practice some.”

Victor and Junior strolled outside, followed by Checkers.

“What’s all the shouting about?” Checkers asked.

“Thomas wants us to join Coyote Springs,” Chess said to her sister.

“No fucking way,” Victor said. “We’re a warrior band.”

“Well,” Thomas said. “We’re a democracy. How about we vote on it?”

“Okay, go for it,” Victor said, confident that Junior hated the idea, too.

“All those in favor, raise your hand,” Thomas said and held his right hand up. Junior raised his hand and smiled weakly at Victor.

“That does it,” Thomas said. “The women are in.”

“No way,” Victor said again.

“You agreed to vote,” Thomas said.

“Hey,” Chess said. “I said we don’t want to be in the band.”

Checkers never liked her sister to speak for her, but she agreed with Chess. Forest fires paid the bills.

“Wait,” Thomas pleaded with everybody. “How about we play some? Then you can decide if you want to join.”

Junior ran to the van, pulled out a hand drum, and beat out a rhythm. He surprised the sisters with his sudden talent. Thomas sang the first bar of a jazzed-up Carpenters song, while Victor stood sullenly with his guitar at his side. He wanted to resist all of it, but the guitar moved in his hands, whispered his name. Victor closed his eyes and found himself in a dark place.

Don’t play for them. Play for me, said a strange voice.

Victor opened his eyes and hit the first chord hard. Junior and Thomas let him play alone; Chess and Checkers stepped back. Victor grew extra fingers that roared up and down the fingerboard. He bent strings at impossible angles and hit a note so pure that the guitar sparked. The sparks jumped from the guitar to a sapling and started a fire. It was a good thing that Chess and Checkers had extensive firefighting experience, and they hurriedly doused the flames, but Victor continued to toss sparks. His hair stood on end, his shirt pitted with burn holes, and his hands blistered.

Victor raised his right arm high above the reservation and windmilled the last chord, which echoed for hours. He dropped the guitar, staggered back a few steps, then bowed.

“Jeez,” Chess and Checkers said after a long while. “Where do we sign up?”

Thomas, Junior, and Victor camped on the Flathead Reservation for a week after the Warm Waters joined the band, living meagerly on their shared money. The boys stayed at the sisters’ house, although Chess and Checkers objected to the smell, but all agreed the band needed to practice with its new members. Thomas even drove down into Missoula to buy a thirdhand synthesizer for Chess and Checkers to share.

“How much that cost you?” Victor asked him.

“Five bucks and a funny story,” Thomas told him.

Coyote Springs rehearsed for hours in the Warm Waters’ backyard. At first, they sounded awful, dissonant, discordant. Victor only occasionally replicated the stunning performance that convinced the sisters to join the band. Junior broke so many drumsticks that he switched to pine branches instead. Chess and Checkers sang better than Thomas, which made the distinction between backup and lead singers less sure. Thomas decided to share the lead. Still, Coyote Springs melded faster than any garage band in history.

“We should call that Tipi Pole Tavern guy,” Victor said. “I think we’re ready to rock.”

The owner of the Tipi Pole Tavern listened to the newest incarnation of Coyote Springs and agreed to hire them again. Coyote Springs packed their gear into the blue van and headed for the tavern.

“Ladies and braves,” the bartender announced. “It’s a great honor to welcome back that rocking band from the Spokane Indian Reservation, Coyote Springs.”

The crowd cheered.

“And it’s a special honor to introduce the two newest members of the band,” the bartender continued. “Two of our own Flathead Indians, Chess and Checkers Warm Water.”

Coyote Springs walked on stage with confidence. Thomas smiled as he stepped to the microphone.

“Hello, Arlee,” Thomas shouted, and the place went crazy. Victor counted off, and the band launched into its first song, a cover of an old KISS tune.

The sisters joined in on the vocals after a bit; Chess pounded the keyboard hard, like her fingers were tiny hammers. She wanted to play it right but loved the noise of it all. Checkers pulled the ties from her hair and sang unbraided. Chess picked the ties up from the floor and somehow braided her hair with one hand. Both threw a way ya hi yo into the chorus of the song.

Coyote Springs created a tribal music that scared and excited the white people in the audience. That music might have chased away the pilgrims five hundred years ago. But if they were forced, Indians would have adopted the ancestors of a few whites, like Janis Joplin’s great-great-great-great-grandparents, and let them stay in the Americas.

The audience reached for Coyote Springs with brown and white hands that begged for more music, hope, and joy. Coyote Springs felt powerful, fell in love with the power, and courted it. Victor stood on the edge of the stage to play his guitar. Despite his clothes, the Indian and white women in the crowd screamed for him and waited outside after the show.

After the Tipi Pole Tavern finally closed at 4 A.M., Chess, Checkers, and Thomas sat inside and drank Pepsi, while Junior and Victor grabbed a few beers and disappeared.

“You sounded great tonight,” Thomas said to the sisters.

“We all sounded great,” Chess said.

“Jeez,” Checkers said. “Even Victor and Junior, enit?”

“We just got to keep them sober,” Chess said. “Victor’s the best guitar player I ever heard, when he’s sober.

“I’m tired,” Thomas said.

“Where’d Victor and Junior go anyway?” Chess asked.

“Outside,” Checkers said. “Probably getting drunk in the van.”

“Well,” Chess said, “I’m tired, too. Let’s get them and go home.”

Thomas and the sisters walked outside to the van. He opened the sliding door of the van and surprised Victor and Junior, who were literally buck naked and drunk. The two naked white women in the van were even drunker and scrambled for their clothes. Thomas just stood there and stared. It was Betty and Veronica.

“Shut the goddamn door!” Victor shouted.

“Jeez,” Junior said, reached out, and slid the door shut.

“Oh, man,” Checkers said. “That’s the last thing I wanted to see.”

“I think I’m going to get sick,” Chess said.

Thomas just walked away. Checkers looked at Chess, who shrugged her shoulders. Who knew why Thomas did anything? Chess followed him to a picnic bench behind the tavern. Checkers threw her arms up, walked back into the bar, and fell asleep on the pool table.

“I can’t believe they did that,” Chess said to Thomas. “We have to ride in that van.”

“Yeah, I know,” Thomas said.

Chess sat beside Thomas at the picnic table, took his hand, studied it for a minute. Beautiful hands, beautiful hands.

“Where’s Checkers?” Thomas asked.

“I don’t know. She’s probably beating the crap out of Junior and Victor.”

Chess and Thomas sat there quietly. Thomas thought about stories and songs, but Chess only thought about those white women in the van. She hated Indian men who chased after white women; she hated white women who chased after Indian men.

“You know,” she said. “I really don’t like that. I don’t like Junior and Victor hanging out with white women.”

“Why?” Thomas asked.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s about preservation, enit? Ain’t very many Indian men to go around. Even fewer good ones.”

Thomas nodded his head.

“And you know,” Chess said, “as traditional as it sounds, I think Indian men need Indian women. I think only Indian women can take care of Indian men. Jeez, we give birth to Indian men. We feed them. We hold them when they cry. Then they run off with white women. I’m sick of it.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “I never dated no white woman.”

“Thomas, you never dated nobody.”

They laughed.

“Seriously, I think Junior and Victor are traitors,” Chess said. “I really do. They keep running off with white women and pretty soon, ain’t no Indian women going to touch them. We Indian women talk to each other, you know? We have a network. They’re two of the last full-blood Indians on your reservation, enit? Jeez, Junior and Victor are betraying their DNA.”

“Well,” Thomas, a full-blood Spokane himself, said, “do you like me or my DNA?”

“I like you and your DNA.”

Thomas agreed with Chess, but he also knew about the shortage of love in the world. He wondered if people should celebrate love wherever it’s found, since it is so rare. He worried about the children of mixed-blood marriages. The half-breed kids at the reservation school suffered through worse beatings than Thomas ever did.

“I wonder what it’s like,” he said.

“Wonder about what?” Chess asked.

“What’s it like to be a half-breed kid? How do you think it feels to have a white mom or dad? It must be weird.”

“My grandmother was a little bit white,” Chess said.

“Really?” Thomas said. “What kind?”

“German, I guess. Achtung.”

“What was she like?”

“She hated to be Indian.” Chess said. “She didn’t look very Indian. That white blood really showed through. She left my grandfather, moved to Butte, and never told anybody she was Indian. She left her son on the reservation, too. Just left him, and they hardly ever heard from her again.”

Thomas shook his head, closed his eyes, and told a story:

“A long time ago, two boys lived on a reservation. One was an Indian named Beaver, and the other was a white boy named Wally. Both loved to fancydance, but the white boy danced a step fancier. When the white boy won contests, all the Indian boys beat him up. But Beaver never beat up on the white boy. No matter how many times he got beat up, that white boy kept dancing.”

Thomas opened his eyes, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Wally and Beaver were half-brothers, enit?” Chess asked.

“You got it.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Don’t know. Maybe it means drums make everyone feel like an Indian.”

From The Wellpinit Rawhide Press:

Coyote Springs Home

Coyote Springs, our own little rock band, returned to the reservation late last night, with the addition of two Flathead Indians, Chess and Checkers Warm Water. The two sisters reportedly sing vocals and play piano.

Lester FallsApart saw the familiar blue van pull in about 3 A.M., Standard Indian Time.

“They was going the speed limit,” said FallsApart.

Father Arnold of the Catholic Church called early this morning to offer a prayer of thanks that the band returned safely.

According to an anonymous source, Michael White Hawk, recently released from Walla Walla State Penitentiary, is unhappy with Coyote Springs.

“They think they’re hot [manure],” White Hawk was rumored to have said. “They play a few shows and they think they’re [gosh darn] stars. [Forget] them.”

Coyote Springs could not be reached for comment.

After they arrived back at the Spokane Indian Reservation, Chess fell into an uneasy sleep in Thomas’s bed with Checkers, while he lay on the floor. Junior and Victor slept in the blue van even though there was plenty of room in the house. Chess dreamed of a small Indian man on a pale horse. With an unpainted body and un-braided brown hair, the small Indian looked unimposing. Even as she dreamed, Chess knew the unpainted Indian in her dream was not Spokane or Flathead, but she had no idea what kind of Indian he was. The unpainted one was unhappy as he rode into a cavalry fort. Many other Indians greeted him. Some with pride, others with anger.

Come along, an angry Indian shouted loudly at the unpainted one, who dismounted, and walked to an office. A dozen Indians stood in the office while hundreds of other Indians gathered outside. The white soldiers kept rifles at the ready, while the Indians and white civilians gossiped nervously. The unpainted one waited. Soon, a white officer appeared and told the unpainted one it was too late for talk. They all needed to rest.

Ho, the Indians called out and left the office. The unpainted one left last with the white officer in front of him, the angry Indian behind him, and two soldiers on either side. The unpainted one followed the officer without question. They led him to a small building, and the unpainted one quickly pulled a knife when he saw the barred windows and chains. The angry Indian grabbed the unpainted one from behind. In that way, both staggered into the open.

He’s got a knife!

In Chess’s dream, the soldiers trained their rifles on the Indians who might help the unpainted one. The angry Indian knocked the knife away from the unpainted one and pinned his arms behind his back.

Kill the Indian!

A soldier lunged forward with his bayonet and speared the unpainted one once, twice, three times. The Indians gasped as the unpainted one fell to the ground, critically wounded. The angry Indian trilled. Nobody stepped forward to help the unpainted one; he lay alone in the dust.

He’s dying!

Then a very tall Indian man stepped through the crowd and kneeled down beside the unpainted one.

My friend, the tall Indian said, picked up the unpainted one, and carried him to a lodge. Other Indians sang mourning songs; the soldiers shook their heads. Dogs yipped and chased each other.

In Chess’s dream, the tall Indian sat beside the unpainted one as he bled profusely. The white doctor came and left without song, as did the medicine woman. The unpainted one tried to sing but coughed blood instead.

My father? the unpainted one asked.

He’s coming, the tall one said.

The tall one greeted the father when he arrived, and both watched the unpainted one die.

Chess woke from her dream with a snap. Unsure of her surroundings, she called out her father’s name. Checkers stirred in her sleep. Chess held her breath until she remembered where she was.

“Thomas?” she asked but received no response. He’s dead, Chess thought but was not sure whom she meant. Then she heard music, so she crawled from bed and made her way to the kitchen. Thomas sat at the kitchen table and wrote songs. He hummed to himself and scribbled in his little notebook.

“Thomas?” Chess said and startled him.

“Jeez,” he said. “You about gave me a heart attack.”

Chess sat beside him.

“When you coming back to sleep?” Chess asked.

“Pretty soon,” he said. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“You didn’t wake me up. I had a bad dream.”

“It’s okay. You’re awake now.”

“Is it okay? Really?”

Chess smiled at Thomas, reached over and mussed his already messy hair. She took the guitar out of his hands and set it aside, then kissed him full and hard on the mouth.

“What was that for?” he asked.

She kissed him again. Harder. Put her hand on his crotch.

“Jeez,” he said and nearly fell over in his chair.

Their lovemaking was tender and awkward. Afterwards, in the dark, they held each other.

“We should’ve used some protection,” Chess said.

“Yeah. It was kind of stupid, enit?” Thomas asked. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“I’m sure.”

“Next time.”

They lay there quietly for a long time. Chess thought Thomas fell asleep.

“Listen,” he said suddenly and surprised her.

“To what?” she asked.

“What do you hear?”

“The wind.”

“No,” Thomas said. “Beyond that.”

Chess listened. She heard the Spokane Reservation breathe. An owl hooted in a tree. Some animal scratched its way across the roof. A car drove by. A dog barked. Another dog barked its answer. She heard something else, too. Some faint something.

“Do you hear that?” Thomas asked.

“I hear something,” she said.

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “That’s what I mean. Do you hear it?”

“Sort of.”

Chess listened some more and wondered if it was her imagination. Did she hear something just because Thomas wanted her to hear something? She listened until she fell asleep.

Coyote Springs scheduled their first nonreservation gig in a cowboy bar in Ellensburg, Washington, of all places, and drove down I-90 to get there. The old blue van rapidly collected the miles.

“Thomas,” Victor yelled from the back. “I think it’s about time we picked up a new rig.”

Coyote Springs agreed with Victor, but Thomas wanted no part of it.

“This van is older than any of us,” Thomas said. “It has seen more than any of us. This van is our elder, and we should respect it. Besides, we have no money.”

Coyote Springs laughed, even Thomas, and kept laughing until something popped under the hood. The van shuddered and stopped in the middle of the freeway.

“Shit,” said Coyote Springs in unison.

A few cars honked at the five Indians pushing an old blue van down the road.

“Thomas,” Victor said. “We need a new rig.”

Coyote Springs pushed that blue van twenty miles down the road, across a bridge over the Columbia River, into a little town called Vantage. The band sprawled around the van in various positions and barely moved when the cop pulled up. That cop climbed out of his cruiser, pulled on a pair of those mirrored sunglasses that cops always wear.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

“Our van broke down,” Thomas said.

The cop walked close to the van and looked inside.

“Is all of this your equipment?” the cop asked.

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said.

“Are you in a band or what?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “We’re Coyote Springs.”

The officer studied the band, tapped his foot a little, and took off his sunglasses.

“Where you guys from?” he asked.

“From Wellpinit. Up on the Spokane Indian Reservation.”

“How about you girls?”

“We’re Flathead Indians,” Chess said. “From Arlee, Montana.”

“Where you headed to?”

“Ellensburg,” Thomas answered. “We’re playing a bar called Toadstools.”

“I know that place. You sure you’re playing there?”

The cop waited briefly for an answer, then asked the band for identification. Thomas and the women pulled out their driver’s licenses. Junior offered his Spokane Tribal Driver’s License, and Victor lifted his shirt and revealed his own name tattooed on his chest.

“Are you serious about this tattoo?” the cop asked.

“Yeah,” Victor said.

“You all just wait here a second,” the cop said and walked back to his cruiser. He talked on his radio, while Coyote Springs counted the money for bail.

“We can take him,” Victor said. “He’s only one guy.”

“But he’s a big guy,” Junior said.

“Shut up,” Thomas said. “Here he comes.”

“Okay,” the cop said when he came back. “I called my cousin over in Ellensburg. He’s got a tow truck. He’s going to come over here and haul your butts to Toadstools.”

“Really?” Coyote Springs asked.

“Yeah, but it’ll cost you a hundred bucks. You got that?”

“Sure.”

“Well, you can pay my cousin directly, but you’re on your own after that.”

“Thanks, officer.”

“You’re welcome. By the way, what kind of music you play?”

“All kinds. The blues, mostly.”

“Well, good luck.”

The cop started to walk away, but stopped, turned back.

“Hey,” he said, “who’s the lead singer?”

Thomas raised his hand and smiled. The cop smiled back, put his sunglasses on, climbed into his cruiser, and left with a wave.

“Who the hell was that masked man?” Chess asked.

“I don’t know,” Junior said. “But if I find any silver bullets laying around here, I’m going to pass out.”

From The Ellensburg Tri-Weekly:

Indian Musicians Play More Than Drums

An all-Indian rock band from the Spokane Indian Reservation played for the cowboys in Toadstools Tavern last Saturday night, and nobody was injured.

Seriously, the band named Coyote Springs was very professional and played their music with passion and pride.

“They knew what they was doing,” said Toadstools owner Ernie Lively.

“I was kind of nervous about hiring Indians and all,” Lively added. “Worried they might not show up or maybe they’d stir up trouble.”

On the contrary, Coyote Springs served up a healthy dish of country music, spiced it with a little bit of rock, and even threw in a few old blues tunes for dessert.

“I think the highlight of the night was when those Indians sang ‘Mommas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.’ Everybody sang along with that one,” Lively said.

The blue van, repaired by an honest mechanic in Ellensburg and a few stories that Thomas whispered into the engine, traveled down the mostly empty freeway toward home. Coyote Springs rode in a silence interrupted only by the sudden rush of a passing truck or a name whispered by one of those sleeping. Thomas drove the van, and Chess kept him awake. Checkers, Junior, and Victor slept.

“Why you like freeway driving so much?” Chess asked. “But don’t close your eyes to tell me some story.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think?”

“There’s a lot of songs out here, I guess. I can hear them.”

“You want me to turn on the radio?” Chess asked.

“Yeah, but keep it low. We don’t want to wake the van up.”

“They all need a lot of beauty sleep, enit?”

Chess turned on the radio. The Black Lodge Singers still drummed away in the cassette player, but she popped that tape out and searched for a radio station. She twisted the tuner back and forth through a short history of American music until she happened upon Hank Williams.

Hank Williams is a goddamned Spokane Indian! Samuel Builds-the-Fire shouted in Thomas’s memory. Thomas smiled because so many people visited him in memories.

“Ya-hey,” Thomas said. “Leave it there.”

Chess played with the radio until Hank sang true and clear. Coyote Springs and Hank Williams continued down the freeway, past a lonely hitchhiker who heard the music through the open windows. The blue van swept by so quickly all he heard were a few isolated notes. But he heard enough to make everything weigh a little more, his shoes, his backpack, his dreams.

The music rose past the hitchhiker up into the sky, banged into the Big Dipper, and bounced off the bright moon. That’s exactly what happened. The music howled back into the blue van, kept howling until Coyote Springs became echoes. That’s exactly what happened.

“Thomas,” Chess said and wanted to explain what she heard.

“I know,” he said, wide awake, and slowly drove them all the way back home.