Reservation Blues

6. Falling Down and Falling Apart

I KNOW A WOMAN, Indian in her bones

Who spends the powwow dancing all alone

She can be lonely, sometimes she can cry

And drop her sadness into the bread she fries

I know a woman, Indian in her eyes

Full-blood in her heart, full-blood when she cries

She can be afraid, sometimes she can shake

But her medicine will never let her break

chorus:

But she don’t want a warrior and she don’t want no brave

And she don’t want a renegade heading for an early grave

She don’t need no stolen horse, she don’t need no stolen heart

She don’t need no Indian man falling down and falling apart

I know a woman, Indian in her hands

Wanting me to sing, wanting me to dance

She’s out there waiting, no matter the weather

I’d walk through lightning just to give her a feather

(repeat chorus)

Robert Johnson sat in a rocking chair on Big Mom’s front porch. Big Mom’s rocking chair. He had no idea where she had gone. Big Mom was always walking away without warning.

“Robert,” Big Mom had said upon his arrival at her house, “you’re safe here. Ain’t nobody can take you away from this house.”

But Johnson was still not comfortable in his safety. He dreamed of that guitar he had left in Thomas Builds-the-Fire’s blue van. He couldn’t decide if he had left it there on purpose. Certainly, he had tried to leave it behind before, on trains, in diners, on the roadside. He buried that guitar, he threw it in rivers, dropped it off tall buildings. But it always came back to him.

Sometimes, the guitar took weeks to find him. Those were glorious days. Johnson was free to wander and talk to anybody he wished. He never searched for the Gentleman’s eyes hidden behind a stranger’s face. The Gentleman was just a ghost, just a small animal dashing across the road. When that guitar was gone, Johnson had even considered falling in love. But the guitar would eventually find him. It always found him.

Johnson had to work the minimum jobs, washing dishes, sweeping floors, delivering pizzas, because he could never play music for money. Never again. And just when he began to allow himself hope, he would come home from his latest job to find that guitar, all shiny and new, on the bed in his cheap downtown apartment. Johnson had wept every time. He had considered burying himself, throwing himself into the river, jumping off a tall building. That guitar made him crazy. But he didn’t know what would be waiting on the other side. What if he woke up on the other side with that guitar wrapped in his arms? What if it weighed him down like an anchor as he sank to the bottom, a single chord echoing in his head over and over again?

That guitar would never let Johnson go, until he left it in Thomas Builds-the-Fire’s blue van. Johnson felt free and guilty at the same time. The guitar would never let go of those Indians now. It held onto Victor even harder than it ever held Johnson.

Robert Johnson rocked in Big Mom’s chair and studied his hands, scarred and misshapen. All the wounds had healed, but he could still feel the itching deep down. The itch that can never be scratched. Sometimes he missed the guitar. Johnson closed his eyes against the tears and opened his mouth to sing:

Mmmmm mmmm

I’s up this mornin’

Ah, blues walkin’ like a man

I’s up this mornin’

Ah, blues walkin’ like a man

Worried blues

Give me your right hand

Then the music stopped. The reservation exhaled. Those blues created memories for the Spokanes, but they refused to claim them. Those blues lit up a new road, but the Spokanes pulled out their old maps. Those blues churned up generations of anger and pain: car wrecks, suicides, murders. Those blues were ancient, aboriginal, indigenous.

In his bed, Thomas Builds-the-Fire had recognized Robert Johnson’s voice as those blues drifted down from Big Mom’s mountain. But Thomas also heard something hidden behind the words. He heard Robert Johnson’s grandmother singing backup. Thomas closed his eyes and saw that grandmother in some tattered cabin. No windows, blanket for a door, acrid smoke. Johnson’s grandmother was not alone in that cabin. Other black men, women, and children sang with her. The smell of sweat, blood, and cotton filled the room. Cotton, cotton. Those black people sang for their God; they sang with joy and sorrow. The white men in their big houses heard those songs and smiled. Those niggers sing-in’ and dancin’ again, those white men thought. Damn music don’t make sense.

Thomas listened closely, but the other Spokanes slowly stretched their arms and legs, walked outside, and would not speak about any of it. They buried all of their pain and anger deep inside, and it festered, then blossomed, and the bloom grew quickly.

From The Wellpinit Rawhide Press:

Open Letter to the Spokane Tribe

Dear Tribal Members,

As you all know, Coyote Springs, our local rock band, has just returned from Seattle with two white women. They are named Betty and Veronica, of all things. I’m beginning to seriously wonder about Coyote Springs’s ability to represent the Spokane Tribe.

First of all, they are drunks. Victor and Junior are such drunks that even Lester FallsApart thinks they drink too much. Second, the two Indian women in the band are not Spokanes. They are Flathead. I’ve always liked our Flathead cousins, but Coyote Springs is supposedly a Spokane Indian band. We don’t even have to talk about the problems caused by the white women.

I know the band was great when it started. I even went to a couple of their practices in Irene’s Grocery, but things have gotten out of hand. We have to remember that Coyote Springs travels to a lot of places as a representative of the Spokane Tribe. Do we really want other people to think we are like this band? Do we really want people to think that the Spokanes are a crazy storyteller, a couple of irresponsible drunks, a pair of Flathead Indians, and two white women? I don’t think so.

Rumor has it that Checkers Warm Water has quit the band and joined the Catholic Church Choir. We can only hope the rest of the band follows her. They could all use God.

Sincerely,

David WalksAlong

Spokane Tribal Council Chairman

Nervous and frightened, Thomas walked with Chess and Checkers to church early Sunday morning. He wondered if the Catholics had installed a faith detector at the door, like one of those metal detectors in an airport. The alarms would ring when he walked through the church doors.

“Thanks for coming,” Chess said.

Thomas smiled but said nothing and fought the urge to run away.

“Yeah,” Checkers said. “This will be great.”

When the trio came within sight of the Catholic Church, Thomas was suddenly angry. He remembered how all those Indians bowed down to a little white man in Rome.

“Chess,” Thomas said, “no matter what, I ain’t ever going to listen to that Pope character.”

“Why should you? I don’t.”

Father Arnold greeted Thomas, Chess, and Checkers at the door. He shook their hands, touched their shoulders, made eye contact that felt like a spiritual strip search.

“Checkers,” Father Arnold said, “I’m so happy to see you again. And this must be your sister, Chess. And Thomas, of course. Welcome.”

Thomas waved weakly.

“Well,” Father Arnold said, “I’m so glad you’ve all come. I certainly hope you’re considering joining our little community. Maybe you’ll even sing in the choir?”

“Maybe,” Thomas said and looked to Chess and Checkers for help. Checkers stared at Father Arnold and failed to notice Thomas’s distress. Chess smiled back at Thomas and grabbed his hand. She held it tightly as they made their way into the church and found seats. Checkers went to the dressing room to change into her choir robe. Father Arnold shook hands up to the front of the church.

“Are you okay?” Chess asked.

Thomas nodded his head and pulled at the collar of his shirt. The church was hot, and he grew dizzier by the second. He nearly fainted as Father Arnold began the service. After all those years, Thomas still remembered the words to all the prayers and whispered along, more by habit than faith. Chess whispered beside him, and he loved the sound of their harmony.

“Lord, hear our prayer.”

Checkers sang loudly in the choir. Thomas watched her closely. She watched Father Arnold.

“You’re right about her,” Thomas whispered to Chess. “She’s nuts about him.”

“Enit?” Chess said. “I told you so.”

Thomas wished for a glass of water as Father Arnold began the homily. At first, Thomas followed the words, something about redemption, but his vision soon faded. He had never felt this way before. When he opened his eyes again, he was in a different, darker place.

Thomas, Father Arnold said, although Thomas knew the priest was still back in the church. Thomas, why are you here?

Thomas shook his head, tried to wake up, but felt the heat increase instead. He closed his eyes inside his dream, opened them again, and found himself in a sweatlodge. Inside there, it was too dark to see, but Thomas knew the smell and feel of a sweatlodge. He could also sense the presence of others inside the lodge.

The next brother, please, a voice said out of the darkness.

Thomas knew he was supposed to pray next. He could pray silently, and that would be respected. He could pray aloud, scream and cry, and that would be understood. If he sang, his brothers in the sweatlodge would sing with him.

Brothers, Thomas said, I don’t have any traditional songs. I don’t even know if I belong here. I don’t know if anybody belongs in here. People are listening to us pray. They have come into the sweatlodge to steal from us. We have to keep our songs private and hidden. There is somebody in here now who would steal from us. I can smell him.

Somebody splashed water on the hot rocks in the middle of the sweatlodge. Steam rose; quiet laughter drifted. Thomas could barely breathe. He saw images of people just beyond his vision, heard strange voices, felt the rustle of an animal beside him. That animal brushed against Thomas and drew blood.

All my relations, Thomas cried out, and the door was opened.

Thomas, a feral voice cried out as Thomas escaped from the sweatlodge. He ran past the campfire, heard the animal crashing through the underbrush behind him. The smell, the smell. He tripped, fell for an immeasurable time, and woke up suddenly in the Catholic Church in Wellpinit.

“Welcome back,” Chess said to Thomas as he opened his eyes. “I didn’t think Catholics were that boring.”

Thomas shook his head, shrugged his shoulders.

“Peace,” Chess said as she left the pew.

“Peace,” Thomas said at her back.

“Peace be with you,” an old Indian woman said to Thomas, but he heard pleased to meet you.

“Pleased to meet you, too,” he said.

The old woman looked puzzled, then smiled.

“You’re that Builds-the-Fire, enit?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad to see you here. I’m glad you quit that band. That rock and roll music is sinful.”

Thomas nodded his head blankly.

“I can’t tell you how happy we were to see that Checkers in here last week. She was saved, she was saved. Now, you’ve come and her sister, too. People were starting to talk, you know?”

The old Indian woman knelt in the pew. Thomas knelt, with no idea where Chess had gone. Then he saw her with the Communion wafers. Father Arnold worked quickly.

“This is the body, this is the blood. This is the body, this is the blood. This is the body, this is the blood.”

“What are people saying about us?” Thomas asked the old woman.

“The Christians don’t like your devil’s music. The traditionals don’t like your white man’s music. The Tribal Council don’t like you’re more famous than they are. Nobody likes those white women with you. We spit in their shadows. We don’t want them here.”

“But what about Father Arnold? He’s white.”

“He’s a good white man. Those women in your band are trouble.”

“But everybody liked us before.”

“Before you left the reservation, before you left.”

The old woman rose to receive Communion, and Thomas followed her down the aisle. Checkers sang the Communion hymn wonderfully. Thomas knew she had to rejoin the band. Coyote Springs needed two Indian women, not two white women. If Checkers rejoined, Betty and Veronica could be voted out by a majority. Thomas had felt the change in the reservation air but ignored it. At the two rehearsals they’d held since they returned from Seattle, only Lester FallsApart had shown up.

“But we still live here,” Thomas said to the old woman.

“But you left. Once is enough.”

The old woman opened her mouth to take Communion; Thomas offered his cupped hands. Father Arnold placed the wafer gently in Thomas’s hands.

“Amen,” Thomas whispered, palmed the wafer, and pretended to eat it. He walked back to his pew but discovered that the old Indian woman had gone. He searched for some evidence of her but found nothing. He knelt in the pew again, made a quick sign of the cross. Then he ran outside, crumbled the wafer into pieces, and let it fall to the earth. The reservation swallowed those pieces hungrily. Not sure why he even took the Communion wafer in the first place, Thomas felt the weight of God, the reservation, and all the stories between.

Victor and Junior staggered into the Trading Post just a few minutes after the Catholic Church bells rang for the second time that morning. Both had been continually drunk since they returned from Seattle, spending their $200 prize money quickly and efficiently. They were rapidly depleting Betty’s and Veronica’s cash, too. The-man-who-was-probably-Lakota watched Junior and Victor and shook his head. He also noticed the two white women and offered them a silent prayer.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Victor shouted. “Elvis is dead. Long live me!”

Victor and Junior stumbled around the Trading Post and searched for the beer cooler. Betty and Veronica gave up and walked back outside.

“What the hell are we doing here?” Veronica asked Betty.

“I don’t know.”

The white women had left their car in a garage in Seattle. They knew the price to get out rose a little higher with every hour that passed.

“The end of the world is near!” shouted the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota.

“We know,” Betty and Veronica said.

Inside the Trading Post, Michael White Hawk watched Victor and Junior stumble up and down the aisles.

“Dose fuckers think they cool,” White Hawk said to a loaf of bread as Victor and Junior finally found the beer cooler. They celebrated their discovery and pulled out a case of cheap beer.

“Do we got enough?” Junior asked.

“Enough’s enough,” Victor said.

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“Don’t know.”

Junior and Victor pooled their change and carried their beer to the cashier.

“We got enough, enit?” Victor asked.

“No sales tax, remember?” Junior said.

They paid for their booze, made their way outside, and shielded their eyes against the sudden sunlight. Michael White Hawk followed them, took advantage of the opportunity, and knocked the beer from Junior’s and Victor’s arms. A few cans split open and beer fountained out.

“Shit,” Victor said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Fuckers!” White Hawk screamed. “Thinkin’ you better than us ’cause you fuckin’ white women. You ain’t shit.”

“I ain’t shit?” Victor said. “You ain’t shit.”

Junior picked up a beer can and popped it open.

“Jeez, Michael,” Junior said and offered him the can. “If you want a beer, just ask for one.”

“Don’t want shit from you,” Michael said and knocked the beer from Junior.

A crowd gathered suddenly, because people always circle around a potential fight quickly. Betty and Veronica joined the circle, frightened and excited.

“Make them stop,” Betty shouted, but nobody paid much attention to her.

“Come on,” White Hawk said. “Goin’ kick your ass.”

“Fuck you,” Junior and Victor harmonized.

White Hawk rushed them and knocked both to the ground. He kicked and stomped on Junior and Victor, who were too drunk to fight back. They just curled into fetal balls and waited for it to end. The crowd cheered. A few rooted openly for White Hawk; most celebrated the general violence of it all. Betty and Veronica attacked White Hawk, clawed and punched, but he fought them off. He threw Betty against the phone booth; he backhanded Veronica and broke her nose. White Hawk was blind with rage. He might have beat the shit out of everybody, but the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota stepped through a gap in the crowd and cold-cocked him with a stray two-by-four.

“Jeez,” said one of the Android brothers to the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota. “The end of the world is upside White Hawk’s head, enit?”

“The end of the world wasn’t supposed to start here. Not with me.”

The Tribal Police and Emergency Medical Technicians showed up an hour later. The Indian EMTs stuffed Victor, Junior, and White Hawk into the same ambulance and transported them to Spokane for medical attention. All three were unconscious and had concussions. Betty and Veronica were treated on the spot. Betty held a cold pack to her bruised back, while Veronica had two Kleenexes stuffed up her nostrils. She refused to let anybody take her anywhere.

“What the fuck are we doing here?” Veronica asked Betty.

“I don’t know,” Betty said.

The Tribal Police dispersed the crowd and then went into the Trading Post for lunch. Coffee and microwave chili.

The ambulance ride was an adventure. White Hawk woke up and tried to continue the fight, but the EMT with braids smacked him with an oxygen tank. Reservation emergency medical training covered a lot of situations. White Hawk was bleeding from two head wounds when they pulled into the hospital.

“What happened here?” the emergency room doctor asked the EMT with braids.

“Car wreck,” the EMT lied. He had his orders handed down directly from the Tribal Council. The Council always tried to keep white people’s laws off the reservation. White Hawk had violated his parole by fighting, but the Council was more interested in maintaining tribal sovereignty than in putting him back in a white jail. Besides, Victor and Junior were drunk, and drunk Indians usually had a way of avoiding serious injury. Above all, White Hawk was Dave WalksAlong’s nephew, and that counted for everything.

“Shit,” the doctor said. “Car wrecks are an Olympic sport for you Indians.”

“Bronze medals all around,” the EMT said. “These three lived.”

The nurses sterilized and bandaged the Spokanes, kept them overnight for observation, and ignored them until check-out.

“You guys weren’t in any car wreck,” the white doctor said to the three Spokanes before they were sent back to the reservation.

White Hawk was sentenced only to a few weeks in Tribal Jail. Junior and Victor moved into Thomas’s house the day after they returned to the reservation, because White Hawk’s buddies had ransacked their house and stole all the furniture.

“Men with concussions should not sleep on floors,” Victor said as he plopped down on the couch in Thomas’s house. Junior just lay down in the corner, holding his aching head.

Minutes after Junior and Victor returned from the hospital, Betty and Veronica packed up their bags and waited outside for a ride to Spokane. Thomas stood outside his house with the white women and considered moving, too. He didn’t want to live with his lead guitarist and drummer.

“Where the hell you two going?” Chess asked.

“Wherever,” Betty said.

“Listen,” Veronica said, “we just want a ride to Spokane. We’ll catch a Greyhound back home to Seattle. It’s nuts here.”

“Jeez,” Chess said, “I thought you wanted some of our wisdom.”

“We didn’t want it to be like this,” Veronica said. “How were we supposed to know? Everybody always spits on our shadows. What the hell does that mean? I mean, we’re walking down the street, minding our own business, and an old Indian woman spits on our shadows. What the hell is that?”

“What?” Chess asked. “Can’t you handle it? You want the good stuff of being Indian without all the bad stuff, enit? Well, a concussion is just as traditional as a sweatlodge.”

“This isn’t what we wanted.”

“What did you New Agers expect? You think magic is so easy to explain? You come running to the reservations, to all these places you’ve decided are sacred. Jeez, don’t you know every place is sacred? You want your sacred land in warm places with pretty views. You want the sacred places to be near malls and 7-Elevens, too.”

“You’re nuts,” Veronica said. “Just plain nuts. Almonds and cashews. Walnuts and pecans.”

“Okay, okay,” Thomas said. “That’s enough. I’ll give you a ride to town.”

Thomas, Betty, and Veronica packed up the van and headed off. Chess and Checkers stood in the yard and watched them go.

“I don’t know,” Checkers said. “Those two women could really sing.”

“What?” Chess asked.

“We should’ve kept them. They could really sing.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, you’re not even in the band anymore.”

“Well, I might have been. It would have been cool to have white women singing backup for us Indian women. It’s usually the other way around.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Checkers and Chess went back inside the house to check on Junior and Victor, while Thomas drove the blue van down the driveway.

“Indian men with concussions should not get their own glasses of water,” Victor said as Chess and Checkers walked into the house.

“Indian men with concussions should not irritate Indian women with access to blunt objects,” Chess said.

The blue van rolled down the highway, past all the pine trees and rocks filled with graffiti, RUNNING BEAR LLOVES LITTLE WHITE DOVE. That van rolled past the HUD houses with generations of cars up on blocks, past Indian kids standing idly on the side of the road. Not hitchhiking, not going anywhere at all. Just standing there to watch traffic. One car every ten minutes or so.

“What is it about this place?” Betty asked and waved her arms around.

“What do you mean?” Thomas asked. “What place?”

“She wants to know what’s wrong with all of it,” Veronica said.

“Wrong with all of what?”

“This reservation, you Indians.”

Thomas smiled.

“There’s a whole bunch wrong with white people, too,” he said. “Ain’t nothing gone wrong on the reservation that hasn’t gone wrong everywhere else.”

Thomas drove off the reservation, through the wheat fields past Fairchild Air Force Base, and into Spokane. The Greyhound Station was, of course, in the worst section of town.

“You sure you’ll be all right here?” Thomas asked as Betty and Veronica climbed out of the van.

“What’s the difference between here and the reservation?”

“More pine trees on the reservation,” Thomas said.

Betty and Veronica walked into the bus station. Thomas was about to drive away when Betty stepped back out of the station. She waved. Thomas waved and drove home.

Coyote Springs spent most of their time in Thomas’s house over the next few weeks. They ventured out for food but were mostly greeted with hateful stares and silence. They didn’t go to church. Only a few people showed any support. Fights broke out between the supporters and enemies of Coyote Springs. After a while, the Trading Post refused to let Coyote Springs in the door because there had been so many fights. The Tribal Council even held an emergency meeting to discuss the situation.

“I move we excommunicate them from the Tribe,” Dave WalksAlong said. “They are creating an aura of violence in our community.”

The Tribe narrowly voted to keep Coyote Springs but deadlocked on the vote to kick Chess and Checkers off the reservation.

“They’re not even Spokanes,” WalksAlong argued. The Council was trying to break the tie when Lester FallsApart staggered into the meeting, cast his vote to keep Chess and Checkers, and passed out.

Chess and Checkers sat in the kitchen of Thomas’s house and chewed on wish sandwiches. Two slices of bread with only wishes in between.

“Jeez,” Chess said, “maybe we should go back to Arlee. They like us there. How come all the Indians like us, except the Indians from here?”

“I’m not leaving,” Checkers said and thought of Father Arnold. “And besides, we don’t have money to leave. What are we going to do when we get to Arlee?”

“We don’t have much money left to live here.”

The $1,000 prize money from the Battle of the Bands had disappeared. Thomas, Junior, and Victor had each received his monthly stipend of commodity food, but that wouldn’t last long. Thomas called small record companies in Spokane, but they weren’t interested in the band.

“Indians?” those record companies said. “You mean like drums and stuff? That howling kind of singing? We can’t afford to make a record that ain’t going to sell. Sorry.”

He even called a few companies in Seattle, like Sub Pop. Sub Pop discovered Nirvana and a lot of other bands, but they never returned Thomas’s phone calls. They just mailed form rejections. Black letters on white paper, just like commodity cans. U.S.D.A PORK. SORRY WE ARE UNABLE TO USE THIS. JUST ADD WATER. WE DON’T LISTEN TO UNSOLICITED DEMOS. POWDERED MILK. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST. HEAT AND SERVE.

The taverns refused to hire Coyote Springs.

“We heard you was causing some trouble,” the taverns said. “We don’t need any more trouble than we already got.”

Coyote Springs shivered with fear.

“Shit,” Junior said as he ate another mouthful of commodity peanut butter, the only source of protein in reservation diets. Victor strummed his guitar a little; his fingers had long since calloused over. He barely felt the burning. Thomas snuck out of the house to make frantic calls at the pay phone outside the Trading Post. Chess and Checkers sat beside each other on the couch, holding hands. The television didn’t work.

Coyote Springs might have sat there in Thomas’s house for years, silent and still, until their shadows could have been used to tell the time. But that Cadillac rolled onto the reservation and changed everything. All the Spokanes saw it but just assumed it was the FBI, CIA, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. That Cadillac pulled up in front of the Trading Post. The rear window rolled down.

“Hey, you,” a voice called out from the Cadillac.

“Me?” the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota asked.

“Yeah, you. Do you know where we can find Coyote Springs?”

“Sure, you go down to the dirt road over there, turn left, follow that for a little while, then go right. Then left at Old Bessie’s house. You’ll recognize her house by the smell of her fry bread. Third best on the reservation. Then, right again.”

“Wait, wait,” the voice said. “Why don’t you just get in here and show us the way?”

“That’s a nice car. But I can’t fit in there,” the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota said. “I’ll just run. Follow me.”

“Okay, but this ain’t our car anyway. We rented it and this goofy driver, too.”

The-man-who-was-probably-Lakota shrugged his shoulders and ran down the road with the Cadillac in close pursuit.

“Can’t we go any faster?” the voice yelled from the Cadillac.

Sure,” the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota said and picked up the pace. He ran past a few other cars, which forced the Cadillac to make daring passes. They raced by Old Bessie’s house and then made a right.

“Damn, that fry bread does smell good, doesn’t it?” one white man in the car said to another.

Thomas’s house sat in a little depression beside the road.

“That’s where you’ll find Coyote Springs,” the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota said. He leaned down to look inside the car.

“You sure, Chief?” the voice asked.

“I’m sure. Did you know the end of the world is near?”

“We’ve been there and back, Chief.”

The-man-who-was-probably-Lakota saw two pasty white men sitting in the back seat. They looked small inside the car, but the smell of cigar smoke and whiskey was huge. The driver was some skinny white guy in a cheap suit. Curious, the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota watched for a while, then ran back toward the Trading Post. He had work to do.

The driver stayed in the Cadillac, but the two other white men climbed out of the back of the Cadillac. Both were short and stocky, dark-haired, with moustaches that threatened to take over their faces. Those short white men walked to the front door and knocked. They knocked again. Thomas opened the door wide.

“Hello,” the white men said. “We’re Phil Sheridan and George Wright from Cavalry Records in New York City. We’ve come to talk to you about a recording contract.”

From a fax transmitted from Wellpinit to Manhattan:

Dear Mr. Armstrong:

We just met with that Indian band we heard about. Coyote Springs. They played a little for us and quite frankly, we’re impressed. The lead singer, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, is good, but his female singers, Chess and Checkers Warm Water, are outstanding. There may be a little dissension in the group because Checkers apparently quit the band earlier. She rejoined when we showed up. I think that shows ambition. Checkers is quite striking, beautiful, in fact, while Chess is pretty. Both would attract men, I think. Sort of that exotic animalistic woman thing.

We had the band play a few sets for us in their home, and we feel confident in their abilities. Builds-the-Fire plays a competent bass guitar, while Victor Joseph is really quite extraordinary on the lead guitar. He is original and powerful, a genuine talent. Junior Polatkin is only average on drums but is a very good-looking man. Very ethnically handsome. He should bring in the teenage girls, which will make up for the looks of Builds-the-Fire and Joseph. Builds-the-Fire is just sort of goofy looking, with Buddy Holly glasses and crooked teeth. Victor Joseph looks like a train ran him over in 1976. Perhaps we can focus on the grunge/punk angle for him.

Overall, this band looks and sounds Indian. They all have dark skin. Chess, Checkers, and Junior all have long hair. Thomas has a big nose, and Victor has many scars. We’re looking at some genuine crossover appeal.

We can really dress this group up, give them war paint, feathers, etc., and really play up the Indian angle. I think this band could prove to be very lucrative for Cavalry Records.

We should fly the band out to New York to do a little studio work perhaps. To see what they can do outside their home environment.

Peace,

Phil Sheridan

George Wright

“Father Arnold,” Checkers called, “are you in here?”

She searched the church but finally found Father cleaning graves out in the cemetery. He cleaned the graves of five generations of Spokane Indian Catholics.

“Hello there, Checkers.”

“Hello, Father.”

“I’m really sorry to hear about Victor and Junior. Are they okay?”

“Yeah, they just got their heads bumped a little. A few bruises here and there. Sore ribs. Might knock some sense into them.”

“It might,” Father Arnold said and laughed. He leaned against his rake. Checkers studied the rings on his fingers. A college ring, a gold ring. She wanted to kiss his hands.

“What about those two white women?”

“They left. I guess we were too Indian for them.”

“Yeah, I know how that is.”

Checkers looked around at all the graves. She didn’t know anybody buried there.

“So,” Father said, “I heard there was some fancy car out at Thomas’s place.”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“It was some record company guys from New York. They really liked us.”

“And?”

“And I rejoined the band.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry.”

Father Arnold dropped the rake, took Checkers’s hands. He squeezed her fingers a little, smiled at her. She tried to maintain eye contact but turned her head, ashamed.

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“No. But we need the money. We ain’t got no money.”

“Does everything have to be about money?”

“Of course it does. Only people with enough money ever ask that question anyway.”

“There’s a kind of freedom in poverty.”

That’s a lie, Checkers thought and felt worse for contradicting a priest, her priest.

“Jesus didn’t have any money,” Father Arnold said.

“Yeah, but Jesus could turn one loaf of bread into a few thousand. I can’t do that.”

“You’re right, Checkers. You’re right.”

Checkers looked down at the ground. She had not wanted to be right. She wanted Father Arnold to forbid her to leave.

“I think we should pray for all of your safety,” Father Arnold said.

“Okay,” she said.

Both kneeled on the ground, still face to face, holding hands.

“You pray,” Father said.

“Dear Father,” she began, stopped, started again. She struggled through a brief prayer.

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Checkers,” he whispered, “it will be okay.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, full on the lips. Surprised, he pulled back. She kissed him again, with more force, and he kissed her back, clumsily.

“Checkers,” he said and pushed her away.

She looked up at him; he closed his eyes and prayed.

Wright and Sheridan sat in the back of the Cadillac. Sheridan was on the car phone. It had taken the driver more than an hour to find a place on the reservation where the reception was good. They sat on top of Lookout Hill, but there was still a lot of static on the line.

“Well,” Sheridan said, “what do you think?” He nodded his head, grunted in the affirmative for a few minutes, shrugged his shoulders once or twice. He hung up the phone with a dejected look on his face.

“Oh, shit,” Wright said. “He doesn’t like the idea, does he?”

“Mr. Armstrong says he got our fax, and he loves our idea,” Sheridan deadpanned.

“You’re shitting me.”

“He wants us to go check out some duo in Seattle first. Couple of hot white chicks, I guess, just started out and already causing a buzz. Then we’re supposed to come back here next week and take, as he says, those goddamn Indians to New York.”

“Well, this calls for a drink,” Wright said.

“A couple drinks,” Sheridan agreed.

The horses screamed.

“Well, we should tell them, don’t you think?” Wright asked.

“Yeah,” Sheridan said. “Driver, take us to Coyote Springs.”

The driver carefully drove the car toward Thomas’s house. He watched the two record company executives drink directly from a flask. That flask was old, antique, stained. Sheridan and Wright had been drinking from that flask for a century, give or take a few decades. They were never sure how long it had been.

“You’ve always been a good soldier,” Wright said to Sheridan.

“You’ve been a fine goddamn officer yourself,” Sheridan replied.

Coyote Springs was sitting in the front yard when the Cadillac pulled up. Drunk, Sheridan and Wright hurried out of the car with the good news. Everybody danced: Junior and Victor tangoed; Thomas two-stepped up a pine tree; Wright and Sheridan dipped Chess and Checkers.

“When do we get to go?” Thomas asked.

“Next week,” Sheridan said.

“That long?”

“Well, we have to go to Seattle first. For some other business.”

Coyote Springs’s stomach growled.

“But we ain’t got no money,” Thomas whispered.

“No money?” Sheridan asked.

“None.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Sheridan asked and opened his wallet. “I’ve got a few hundred bucks on me. Is that enough?”

Coyote Springs took the money, bribed their way back into the Trading Post, and bought a week’s worth of Pepsi, Doritos, and Hershey’s chocolate. Victor and Junior bought beer with their share and drank slowly.

“What a fine beer,” Victor said. “A wonderful bouquet. Lovely, fruity taste with a slight bitterness.”

“Yeah,” Junior said, swished a little beer around his mouth, and then swallowed. “Gorgeous, gorgeous beer.”

“Even better with corn nuts, enit?” Victor asked.

“You’re such a fucking gourmet,” Junior said.

Sheridan and Wright left the reservation before Junior and Victor even finished that first beer and barely waved goodbye.

“We’ll see you in a week,” Sheridan said before they left. “Have all your shit packed. We’re flying you over there, so don’t take too much.”

“Flying?” Thomas asked.

“Of course. What did you think? You’d ride on horses?”

Thomas knew there was no good reason for Indians to fly. Indians could barely stay on the road when they were in cars.

“Well,” Chess said after the record company executives had gone.

“Well,” Thomas said. “What do we do now?”

Checkers felt dizzy, sat on the ground, and wished for a glass of cold water.

From a letter received on the day after Wright and Sheridan left:

Dear Thomas Builds-the-Fire,

I’ve heard you have a chance to audition for a large record company in New York. I don’t think you have a chance at landing a contract without my help.

In fact, there are many other complications involved in all of this. Your friend, Robert Johnson, is here. He’s been praying and singing for you. Please come see me at my home and bring the entire band. I’m looking forward to your visit.

Sincerely,

Big Mom