Reservation Blues

9. Small World

INDIAN BOY TAKES A drink of everything that killed his brother

Indian boy drives his car through the rail, over the shoulder

Off the road, on the rez, where survivors are forced to gather

All his bones, all his blood, while the dead watch the world shatter

chorus:

But it’s a small world

You don’t have to pay attention

It’s the reservation

The news don’t give it a mention

Yeah, it’s a small world

Getting smaller and smaller and smaller

Indian girl disappeared while hitchhiking on the old highway

Indian girl left the road and some white wolf ate her heart away

Indian girl found naked by the river, shot twice in the head

One more gone, one more gone, and our world fills with all of our dead

(repeat chorus)

A week after Coyote Springs staggered from Manhattan back onto the Spokane Indian Reservation, Junior Polatkin stole a rifle from the gun rack in Simon’s pickup. Junior didn’t know anything about caliber, but he knew the rifle was loaded. He knew the rifle was loaded because Simon had told him so. Junior strapped that rifle over his shoulder and climbed up the water tower that had been empty for most of his life. He looked down at his reservation, at the tops of HUD houses and the Trading Post. A crowd gathered below him and circled the base of the tower. He could hear the distant sirens of Tribal Police cars and was amazed the cops were already on their way.

Junior unshouldered the rifle. He felt the smooth, cool wood of the stock, set the butt of the rifle against the metal grating of the floor, and placed his forehead against the mouth of the barrel. There was a childhood game like that, Junior remembered, with a baseball bat. Standing at home plate, you placed one end of the bat on the ground and held your forehead against the other. You were supposed to spin round and round the bat, once, twice, ten times. Then you had to run from home plate to first base, weaving and falling like a drunk. Junior remembered. He flipped the safety off, held his thumb against the trigger, and felt the slight tension. Junior squeezed the trigger.

The night before Junior Polatkin climbed the water tower, Checkers Warm Water crawled out of a bedroom window in Thomas Builds-the-Fire’s house. She had to climb out of the window because the Tribal Police had ordered the band to stay inside the house. The death threats had started soon after Coyote Springs returned to the reservation, and the Tribal Police weren’t taking any chances. Michael White Hawk had been released from Tribal Jail but didn’t have much to say about the band. He just walked blankly around the softball field with his huge head still wrapped in bandages, like some carnival psychic. The Tribal Cops kept suggesting that he should go to Indian Health Service, but White Hawk refused to go and just stood for hours at the softball field. He wouldn’t say anything at all, but then he would burst into sudden frenetic conversations with himself. He swung his fists at the air and tried to dig up that grave in center field before the Tribal Police calmed him down. White Hawk had been crazy and dangerous before he was knocked twice on the head. Now he had become crazy, dangerous, and unpredictable. Even White Hawk’s buddies were afraid.

“He’s just acting,” White Hawk’s friends reassured each other. “He’s just trying to fool everybody into thinking he’s goofy.”

White Hawk was asleep on third base when Checkers slipped out of the window in Thomas’s house. Thomas didn’t even move, but Chess stirred in bed as Checkers slipped away. Even sound asleep, Chess reached out for her sister. Checkers had not slept well since her return from New York. Phil Sheridan had come back again and again. Sometimes he threatened her. Other times he remained on the edge of her dreams. No matter what she dreamed about, Sheridan sat in a corner with a cup of coffee in his hands. He wore a wool suit or his cavalry dress blues. Sheridan had eventually forced Checkers to abandon her own room and sleep on the floor beside the bed that Thomas and Chess shared.

Wide awake, Checkers climbed out the window and snuck past the Tribal Cops asleep in their cruisers. She avoided the roads and cut across fields. There was no moon on that night, and the walk was treacherous. She stepped in gopher holes, tripped over abandoned barbed wire, heard the laughter of animals. Checkers wasn’t afraid of the dark. She was afraid of what waited in the dark. She heard rustling in the brush, the scratch-scratch of unseen animals as they climbed pine trees.

But she made her way through to the Catholic Church. She saw its lights in the distance, and it grew larger and brighter as she approached. Checkers wasn’t sure how long the walk had taken. But the church was still lit up, bright as God. She walked boldly through the front door and stepped inside.

Father Arnold kneeled at the front of the church. His whole body rocked and shook. From Checkers’s viewpoint, she couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying.

“Father?” Checkers whispered, but he didn’t respond.

“Father?” Checkers said louder, and Arnold turned around. He had been crying, was still crying. He wiped his face with a sleeve of his cassock. He stood.

“Father?” Checkers asked. “Are you okay?”

She slowly walked toward him. She had dreamed of this moment. Even as Phil Sheridan floated on the periphery, Checkers had dreamed of taking Father Arnold in her arms. She dreamed of the smell of his hair, washed with cheap shampoo, all that a priest could afford. She dreamed of the kiss they shared just before Coyote Springs left for Big Mom’s house, for Manhattan.

Checkers wasn’t dreaming as she walked across the church, her muddy feet leaving tracks on the wood floor. She trailed her right hand over the pews, felt the splintered wood. Father Arnold had once told her those pews were over fifty years old. But Checkers didn’t really care about the age of that wood. She walked up to Father Arnold and stood just inches away.

“Checkers,” Father Arnold whispered.

“Father.”

Checkers closed her eyes and expected the next kiss.

“Checkers,” Father Arnold said, “this is not going to happen. It can’t. I’m sorry.”

Checkers looked up at him.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

Father Arnold led Checkers to a pew and sat beside her.

“I’m leaving the reservation,” he said. “I’ve lost my direction here.”

Father Arnold had served the Spokane Indian Reservation for five years and ministered with self-conscious kindness. He effusively praised even the smallest signs of an Indian’s faith. He had cried at his first service when Bessie, the oldest Spokane Indian Catholic, presented him with a dreamcatcher. Other priests would have dismissed the dreamcatcher as Indian mysticism or mythological arts and crafts, but Father Arnold was genuinely thrilled by its intricate system of threads and beads. He had laughed out loud when he noticed the dreamcatcher was actually decorated with rosary beads.

“Hang this over your bed,” Bessie had said, “and it will catch those Protestant nightmares before they can sneak into your sleep.”

“But what about Catholic nightmares?” Father Arnold had asked.

“Protestants are a good Catholic’s worst nightmare.”

Father Arnold had rushed home and hung it over his bed. Later that night, he stared up at the dreamcatcher over his head. He willed himself to think of the worst possible things. Murders, rapes, loss of faith. Father Arnold imagined that he was nailed to the cross. He heard the dull thud of hammer on nail.

“Come on, nightmares,” Arnold had whispered. “You can’t touch me now.”

“Where are you going?” Checkers asked Father Arnold. “Where are they sending you?”

“They aren’t sending me anywhere,” Arnold said. “I’m leaving the church. I’m letting it all go.”

Checkers leaned back in the pew. She felt some winged thing bump against the interior of her ribcage. She felt the slight brush of wingtips as it struggled between her ribs and left her body. She had no name for it. Checkers heard that winged thing flutter against the stained-glass windows. Then it flew so close that she felt a slight breeze. She closed her eyes, and the winged thing was gone.

“But I love you,” Checkers said.

“I love you, too,” Father Arnold said. “But not like that. It can’t work that way.

“But you kissed me.”

“I know I kissed you. It was wrong.”

“You can’t do this. You can’t. Not now,” Checkers said. She didn’t know how much she had left. Coyote Springs had failed, had not even bothered to bring their instruments home from Manhattan. Checkers could see the guitars and keyboards strewn around the studio. Victor’s guitar was smashed into pieces, but everything else was just as useless.

“Would you like some headphones?” the attendant had asked Checkers during the flight home from Manhattan. Checkers just shook her head. The rest of Coyote Springs refused the headphones, too.

Checkers sat next to the window, Chess in the middle, and Thomas in the aisle seat. Junior and Victor sat directly across the aisle, one on either side of an empty seat. It was the only empty seat on the plane.

Coyote Springs didn’t have much to say on the way home. They all drank their complimentary Pepsis and ate their roasted peanuts. Junior and Victor didn’t order any booze. They didn’t have the money. They might not have drank anyway, even if given the chance. After they returned home, both just sipped at tall glasses of ice water.

“Thomas and I had a talk,” Chess whispered to Checkers somewhere over Iowa. “We’re going to move back to Arlee. We want you to come with us.”

“Why Arlee?” Checkers asked.

“What do you mean? Those are our people. We don’t have anywhere else to go anyway.”

“We can go anywhere. We can stay on the Spokane Reservation.”

“Jeez, Checkers. Will you get your head out of your ass? They don’t want us there anymore.”

“How do you know that?” Checkers asked. “Besides, it’s only that White Hawk causing all the trouble. The people at the church still like me.”

“They only liked you because you quit the band,” Chess said. “And all you’re worried about is Father Arnold anyway.”

The plane bounced through rough air, but Coyote Springs barely noticed. Junior looked out his window and wondered how he would feel if the plane lost power and began the long dive to the ground. The oxygen masks would drop from the ceiling while the flight attendants rushed from row to row, speaking in calm and practiced tones.

Remove your eyewear. Remove all jewelry. Make sure the aisles are clear. Buckle yourself in tightly. We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it. Don’t panic. Panic is your enemy. Don’t feel guilty that you left college in the middle of an English class. During a boring discussion about the proper way to write an essay. Remember that you had no idea she was going to get an abortion. It’s not your fault. You didn’t want the baby either. Not really. Not until she didn’t want you anymore. Not until she didn’t want some half-breed baby. Not until you thought about how much her parents hated you. How they deserved a half-breed grandchild. How would they explain it to their friends? Please, breathe slowly. Hold on to the hand of the person next to you at impact. Don’t let them go. Don’t let them go even when the flames roll through the cabin and melt you into your seat. She had no other choice. She had no other choice. Our pilot has thousands of hours of flying experience. The whole crew has been trained to deal with these emergencies. No matter what happens, the coroners will be able to identify you from your dental records. Indian Health Service keeps excellent records. And if you do survive the impact, survive the flames and the toxic smoke, then you will hear music. A cedar flute perhaps. Follow that music. Even though you don’t deserve it. Follow that thin music.

Junior closed his eyes and listened for the music. He didn’t hear anything. He looked over at Victor, who was fighting back tears. Chess, Checkers, and Thomas could not have seen Victor from where they sat. Nobody could have known exactly why he was in mourning. The rest of Coyote Springs might have assumed it was because he had lost his chance to be a rock star. But he mourned for the loss of that guitar. Junior watched his best friend mourn, but he wanted to reach across the seat, touch Victor’s arms, and point out the exits.

“You can’t leave,” Checkers said to Father Arnold. “You can’t leave me, us, alone.”

“The Bishop will send another priest,” Father Arnold said. “They won’t have any other option. They can’t leave the community alone. I’m sure the new priest will be here soon. They can arrange for a few visitors to conduct the services until he arrives.”

“That’s not what I mean. You know that’s not what I mean.”

Father Arnold searched his soul for the right words, the right prayer. He had always had them before. God, he had been sure of the answers. Self-deprecating and modest, he had still believed he was a great priest. He knew he was a great priest, in a quietly arrogant way. On some spiritual scoreboard in his head, he had kept count of the people he was saving.

Checkers had taken all that away. No. That wasn’t fair to Checkers. She didn’t love him any more than other parishioners had. Father Arnold had resisted advances before. It happened to priests often enough to warrant a few good-natured jokes in the seminary. But Checkers had truly shaken Father Arnold and his vows. He dreamed about her every night. In those dreams, she led him into a tipi, lay down with him on a robe, and touched him. Frightened and aroused, Father Arnold woke and prayed that his dreamcatcher would work. He prayed that his dreams of Checkers would be trapped in the dreamcatcher’s web.

“I dream about you,” Father Arnold said to Checkers.

“I dream about you, too.”

“No,” Arnold said. “I don’t want to dream about you. I’m a man of God. I belong to God.”

Checkers reached for Father Arnold, but he stood and stepped away. He had always loved how his flock kept a respectable distance away, coming closer only with his permission.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you need to leave. I need to leave.”

Father Arnold reached out to Checkers, reconsidered, and then quickly walked out of the church. Checkers didn’t follow him. She leaned back in the pew and stared at the crucifix nailed to the wall. Jesus nailed to the cross that’s nailed to the wall. She felt a sharp ache deep in her chest. She curled her knees up next to her breasts, wrapped her arms around her legs, and slowly rocked back and forth, back and forth.

On the day before Checkers made her escape to the Catholic Church, Victor Joseph sat alone on the couch. The rest of Coyote Springs was out on the front lawn, talking to the Tribal Cops. Victor had no use for Tribal Cops, even if they were supposedly protecting him. Victor stared at the space in the room where the television used to sit. Upon their arrival home, Coyote Springs had thrown out the television, which didn’t work anyway, three radios, and a pair of squeaky cowboy boots. They didn’t want to hear any kind of music. Victor stared at that space until he fell asleep.

In his dream, Victor sat alone in the house and heard a soft noise in the distance. At first, he thought it was the conversation outside, but the noise took shape and became a C chord, then a D, F, and G. He clapped his hands to his ears, but the music would not stop. He stood and looked out the window at his bandmates and the cops, but they just continued, oblivious to the music. He searched the house for the source. The two bedrooms were empty, as were the bathroom and kitchen. The music grew louder as Victor descended the stairs. In the unfinished basement, the blankets that served as walls swayed with the force of the chords.

Victor searched under the stairs, in the bedrooms, and still couldn’t find the source. He opened up the downstairs bathroom door and was knocked back by a vicious open chord. The guitar was leaning against the wall.

I think you left something behind in New York, said the guitar. Victor stepped inside the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and reached for it.

Take it easy there, the guitar said. You can have me back. You can take me and you can be anybody you want to be. You can have anything you want to have. But you have to trade me for it.

Trade what? Victor asked.

You have to give up what you love the most, said the guitar. What do you love the most? Who do you love the most?

Outside, while Victor dreamt, Junior Polatkin thought he heard his name called out. He looked at the Tribal Cops, who just continued to flirt with Chess and Checkers. The Warm Water sisters ignored the Tribal Cops and talked to each other. Thomas sat on an old tire swing. Junior heard his name again and recognized Victor’s voice. He looked toward the house, but he was the only one who heard it. Junior heard Victor whisper his name.

On the night before Victor Joseph dreamed about the guitar, Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Chess Warm Water lay awake in bed. Both assumed Checkers was fast asleep on the floor, but she listened to their whispered conversation.

“Thomas,” Chess said, “what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to go back to Arlee.”

Thomas didn’t say anything. He stared up at the stained ceiling. Water stains. He remembered the rain that had pounded his roof, seeped through the insulation, pooled in the crawlspace, and then dripped down onto the bed.

“I want to go back to Arlee,” Chess said again. “You said we could go back to Arlee.”

Thomas had agreed to go back to Arlee as Coyote Springs waited in Kennedy Airport in New York. He had never felt farther away, never felt more away than at that moment. He didn’t want to get on the plane for the flight home to Wellpinit. He wanted to get on a different plane and fly to someplace different, somewhere he had never even heard of. Some strange place with a strange name. He wanted to grab a map of the world, close his eyes, and spit. He would live wherever his spit landed on the map. Still, he knew he would probably spit on his own reservation, just a green-colored spot on the map.

“I’ll go wherever you want to go,” Thomas had said but still knew that every part of him was Spokane Indian.

“Good,” Chess had said, but she also saw the doubt in Thomas’s eyes. She knew what it felt like to leave her own reservation. She had felt something stretch inside her as that blue van pulled off the Flathead Reservation all those weeks ago. She had looked back and felt a sharp pain, like the tearing of tendon and ligament from bone. She had left her reservation because of that goddamn guitar, that sudden fire it had lit inside her. But that fire had consumed almost everything, and despite her years of firefighting experience, she had not been able to stop it. She had not dug fire lines, had not provided herself with a quick escape route. She loved the music, she loved Thomas, she loved the fire. But Thomas was all that she had left, and the Spokane Indian Reservation was threatening to keep him.

“Thomas,” she had said just before their flight number was called.

“What?” he asked.

She had taken his hand in hers, studied the way their fingers fit together, and almost wanted to stay there in the airport forever. She had almost wanted to stay suspended between here and there, between location and destination. She squeezed Thomas’s hand and waited.

“There’s nothing left here for us,” Chess said to Thomas in bed. “There’s nothing left here for you.”

“I know,” Thomas said. “But they’re my people. They’re my Tribe.”

“Of course. But the Flatheads are my people. And they ain’t threatening to kill us.”

“Not everybody wants to kill us. Nobody wants to kill us. They’re just talking. We just let them down.”

“Don’t make excuses for them. You don’t need to make excuses for them.”

Checkers rolled over on the floor. She knew her movement would make Thomas and Chess stop talking. She didn’t want to go back to the Flathead Reservation, and she didn’t want Chess to convince Thomas to move. Even if Chess and Thomas left, Checkers knew she would remain behind. Indians were always switching reservations anyway. For love, for money, to escape jail time. Checkers was still thinking of Father Arnold.

“Thomas,” Chess said after a long silence. “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t have to go to Arlee. I mean, I really want to go home. But mostly, I just want to leave here. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Where would we go?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere but here. Maybe we should go west. All the white people did and look what they got.”

“What’s west of here?”

“Everything’s west of here, Thomas. Everything. We could move to Spokane. Is that west enough?”

Spokane, a mostly white city, sat on the banks of the Spokane River. Spokane the city was named after the Tribe that had been forcibly removed from the river. Spokane was only sixty miles from the reservation, but Thomas figured it was no closer than the moon.

There was nobody waiting for Coyote Springs in the Spokane International Airport when they deboarded the plane. They had crossed three time zones and still had no idea how they worked.

“It’s like fucking time travel,” Victor said.

Coyote Springs had waited at the baggage carousel until all the passengers had picked up their luggage. All except Victor. All the other passengers on the plane had been greeted by family and friends who took the luggage from their hands. All the other passengers had already left the airport. Coyote Springs waited for Victor’s bag.

“Shit,” Victor said. “What happened?”

Coyote Springs was just about to abandon the bag when a guitar case slid down onto the carousel. The rest of Coyote Springs took a quick step back, but Victor reached for it and grabbed the handle. He pulled the guitar case off the carousel and turned back toward the rest of the band.

“It’s my guitar,” Victor said. “It’s my guitar, goddamn it. We can start over. We can get the band going again. We don’t need those fucking guys in New York City. We can do it ourselves.”

A young white man with a white shirt and dirty jeans came running back into the baggage area. He was in a panic but relaxed visibly when he saw Victor holding the guitar case.

“Oh, God,” said the white man. “I can’t believe I almost forgot it.”

Coyote Springs looked at him blankly. He stared back.

“That’s mine,” the white man said and pointed at the guitar case. “I almost forgot it.”

Victor pulled the guitar up close to his body.

“That’s mine,” the man repeated. “That’s my name there on the side.”

Coyote Springs looked at the black guitar case with “Dakota” written in white paint.

“Your name ain’t really Dakota, is it?” Chess asked.

“Yeah, my dad is way into the Indian thing. He’s part Indian from his grandmother. She was a full-blood Cherokee.”

“If he was Cherokee,” Chess said, “then why did he name you Dakota?”

“What do you mean?”

“Cherokee and Dakota are two different tribes, you know?”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

Coyote Springs took a deep breath, exhaled.

“You ain’t supposed to name yourself after a whole damn tribe,” Victor finally said. “Especially if it ain’t your tribe to begin with.”

“Well,” said the white man, “it’s my name. And that’s my guitar.”

Victor had known the guitar inside the case wasn’t his. He had only wanted to be close to any guitar.

“Here,” Victor said. “Take the damn thing.”

The white man took the guitar from Victor and walked away. Coyote Springs watched him. Then he turned back after a few steps.

“You know,” he said, “you act like I’m stealing something from you. This is my guitar. This is my name. I didn’t steal anything.”

Chess and Thomas finally agreed to leave the Spokane Indian Reservation for anywhere else. There was no doubt that Checkers would come with them, but she lay on the floor, fuming. She didn’t want to leave. She was still angry when she fell asleep. After Thomas had fallen asleep too, Chess climbed out of bed and walked quietly into the kitchen. She sat at the table with an empty cup. She kept bringing the cup to her lips, forgetting it contained nothing.

She rubbed her eyes, brought the cup to her lips again, set it back. She cleared her throat, thought about the cup again, and then the sun rose so suddenly that she barely had time to react.

“Good morning,” Thomas said when he walked into the kitchen. “You’re up early.”

Checkers shuffled in a few minutes later, while Victor and Junior slept on. Those two found it was easier to just sleep, rather than wake up and face the day.

“Morning,” Checkers mumbled. She poured powdered commodity milk into a plastic jug and added water. She stirred and stirred. She stirred for ten minutes, because that powdered milk refused to mix completely. No matter how long an Indian stirred her commodity milk, it always came out with those lumps of coagulated powder. There was nothing worse. Those lumps were like bombs, moist on the outside with an inner core of dry powdered milk. An Indian would take a big swig of milk, and one of those coagulated powder bombs would drop into her mouth and explode when she bit it. She’d be coughing little puffs of powdered milk for an hour.

“Do you want some breakfast?” Checkers asked Chess and Thomas. Neither of them was very excited about the milk, but they had to have something for breakfast.

“Okay,” Chess and Thomas said.

Checkers poured milk into their cups and into a cup of her own. The three sat at the kitchen table, took small sips, then a big drink, and coughed white powder until Victor and Junior could not sleep through the noise.

The day before Chess and Thomas decided to leave the Spokane Indian Reservation for good, Robert Johnson sat on the porch at Big Mom’s house while she sat in her rocking chair. Johnson’s vision had improved tremendously during his time on the reservation. Back in his youth in Mississippi, he saw everything blurred. White spots clouded one eye. His sister bought him glasses when he was ten years old, but he never wore them much. But now he could see the entire Spokane Indian Reservation when he looked down Wellpinit Mountain. He watched Michael White Hawk march dumbly around the softball diamond. From home to first base, second, third, and back to home.

“Home,” White Hawk whispered to himself. Then he marched around the bases again.

“What’s wrong wit’ him?” Johnson asked Big Mom.

“Same thing that’s wrong with most people,” Big Mom said. “He’s living his life doing the same thing all day long. He’s just more obvious about it.”

“What d’y’all mean?”

“Well, think about it. Most people wake up, have breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch television, and then go to sleep. Five days a week. Then they go see a movie, go to church, go to the beach on weekends. Then Monday morning comes, and they’re back to work. Then they die. White Hawk’s just doing the same thing on a different level. He’s a genius. It’s performance art.”

“Well, I guess. You pos’tive ’bout that? Maybe he just got hisself knocked too hard on the head. Like a fighter. I seen how fighters end up gettin’ slugged too much.”

“Maybe.”

“You ain’t serious ’bout that, are you?”

“Maybe.”

Robert Johnson and Big Mom sat for hours in silence. Big Mom thought about the young Michael White Hawk, who had come to get help with his saxophone. She remembered that version of White Hawk, who had nearly believed in Big Mom once, before he went to prison for assaulting that grocery store cashier. But Johnson had never known that White Hawk. Johnson watched him walk circles around the softball diamond. Home, first, second, third, home again.

“It happens that way,” Johnson whispered. “It really does happen that way.”

Son House, preacher and bluesman, had been a star in Robinsville, Mississippi, way back when. Robert Johnson was just a teenager when he started to follow House from juke joint to joint. Johnson only played harmonica then, but he was good enough to join Son House on stage every once in a while. Johnson loved the stage. He only felt loved when he was on stage, singing and blowing his harp. But it still wasn’t enough. Johnson wanted to play guitar.

“Oh, God,” Son House said to Johnson after he let him play guitar at a juke. “I ain’t lettin’ you play no more. I ain’t ever heard such a racket. You was makin’ people mad.”

Ashamed, Johnson packed up his clothes and guitar and left town. He just disappeared as he walked north up Highway 61. Just vanished after the first crossroads.

Robert Johnson looked over at Big Mom. She was carving a piece of wood. Johnson had given up on carving a new guitar out of that scrub wood he had gathered when Coyote Springs was still practicing at Big Mom’s house. That wood was still in a pile out there in the pine trees. He barely remembered his dreams of a new guitar.

“What’s you makin’ there?” Johnson asked Big Mom.

“None of your business,” she said.

“That a good piece of wood?”

“Good enough.”

Johnson looked down the mountain and watched a group of Spokane Indians carrying picket signs and marching in circles around the Tribal Community Center. The very traditional Spokanes carried signs written in the Spokane language and chanted things in the Spokane language, too. But they all sounded pissed off. The Indian Christian signs read COYOTE SPRINGS NEEDS TO BE SAVED and REPENT, COYOTE SPRINGS, REPENT! while the nonsecular signs said COYOTE SPRINGS CAN KISS MY BIG RED ASS.

“What’s goin’ happen down there?” Johnson asked Big Mom. “What’s goin’ happen to Coyote Springs?”

“I don’t know. It ain’t up to me to decide.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“I say it because it’s true. What do you want me to say?”

“What do you want, Mr. Johnson?” asked the Gentleman. A handsome white man, the Gentleman wore a perfectly pressed black wool suit in the hot Mississippi heat. He leaned against the crossroads sign, picking at his teeth with a long fingernail.

“I want to play the guitar,” Johnson said.

“But you already play the guitar.”

“No. I mean, I want to play the guitar better.”

“Better than what?”

“Better than anybody ever.

“That’s a big want,” the Gentleman said. His lupine eyes caught the sunlight in a strange way, reflecting colors that Johnson had never seen before.

“I want it big,” Johnson said.

“Well, then,” said the Gentleman after a long pause. “I can teach you how to play like that. But what are you going to give me in return?”

“What you mean?”

“I mean, Mr. Johnson, that you have to trade me. I’ll teach you how to play better than anybody ever, but you have to give me something in return.”

“Like what?”

“Whatever you love the most. What do you love the most, Mr. Johnson?”

Johnson felt the whip that split open the skin on his grandfathers’ backs. He heard the creak of floorboard as the white masters crept into his grandmothers’ bedrooms.

“Freedom,” Johnson said. “I love freedom.”

“Well, I don’t know,” the Gentleman said and laughed. “You’re a black man in Mississippi. I don’t care if it is 1930. You ain’t got much freedom to offer me.”

“I’ll give you all I got.”

The horses screamed.

The Gentleman leaned over, touched Johnson’s guitar with the tip of a fingernail, and then smiled.

“It’s done,” said the Gentleman and faded away. Johnson rubbed his eyes. He figured he’d been dreaming. The hot summer heat had thrown a mirage at him. So he just turned around and walked back toward Robinsville. He’d only been gone for a few hours. Nobody would even notice he’d left, and he was foolish for leaving. He’d forget about the guitar and play the harp with Son House. Johnson vowed to become the best harp player that ever lived. He’d practice all day long.

“Where you been?” Son House asked when Johnson walked into the juke joint. House sat in a chair on stage.

“What you mean?” Johnson asked. “You act like I been gone forever. I just walked out to the crossroads. Then I changed my mind and came back.”

“You been gone a year! Do you hear me? You been gone a year!

Stunned, Johnson slumped into a chair on the floor below House and laid his guitar on his lap. He heard an animal laughing in his head.

“Don’t you know where you been?” House asked.

“Been at the crossroads,” Johnson said. He looked down at his guitar. He looked at House.

“Well, boy,” House said, “you still got a guitar, huh? What do you do with that thing? You can’t do nothing with it.”

“Well,” Johnson said, “I’ll tell you what.”

“What?”

“Let me have your seat a minute.”

House and Johnson exchanged seats. Johnson sat onstage, tuned his guitar, while House sat on the floor, the very first audience. Johnson pulled out a bottle, a smooth bottle, and ran it up and down the fretboard. He played a few songs that arrived from nowhere. Son House’s mouth dropped open. Robert Johnson was suddenly the best damn guitar player he had ever heard.

“Well, ain’t that fast,” House said when Johnson finished.

Big Mom carved her wood while Johnson stared blankly at the Spokane Indian Reservation. He watched Victor sleeping. He could see Victor’s dreams. That guitar, that guitar.

“I feel bad,” Johnson said.

“About what?” Big Mom asked.

“About that guitar of Victor’s. I mean, my guitar. I mean, that Gentleman’s guitar. I mean, whose guitar is it?”

“It belongs to whoever wants it the most.”

“Well, I guess it don’t belong to nobody anymore. It’s all broken up back in New York, ain’t it?”

“If you say so.”

Johnson knew the guitar had always come back to him. Sometimes it had taken weeks, but it always found its way back into his arms and wanted more from him at every reunion. That guitar pulled him at him, like gravity. Even though Victor had owned it for months now, Johnson could still feel the pull. Johnson wondered if he’d ever really be free again.

The day before Big Mom carved a good piece of wood into a cedar harmonica while Robert Johnson watched the reservation, Father Arnold stood in the phone booth just outside the Trading Post. He had dialed the Bishop’s phone number a dozen times but hung up before it rang. Father Arnold just held the phone to his mouth and pretended to talk as Spokane Indians walked in and out of the Trading Post.

“The end of the world is near!” shouted the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota as he stood in his usual spot.

Father Arnold dialed the Bishop’s number again.

“Hello,” answered the Bishop.

Father Arnold held his breath.

“Hello,” said the Bishop. “Is there anybody there?”

“Hello, Father,” Father Arnold said. “It’s Father Arnold. Out on the Spokane Indian Reservation.”

“Father Arnold? Oh, yes. Father Arnold. How are you?”

“I’m good. Well, no. I’m not. I have a problem.”

“What ever could that be?”

“I don’t think I’m strong enough for this place. I’m having some doubts.”

“Really? Tell me about them.”

Father Arnold closed his eyes, saw Checkers Warm Water singing in the church choir.

“I don’t know if I’m being effective out here,” Father Arnold said. “I think we might need a fresh perspective. Somebody younger perhaps. Maybe somebody with more experience.”

Silence.

“Are you there?” Father Arnold asked, his favorite prayer.

“Father Arnold,” the Bishop said, “I know it’s never easy ministering to such a people as the Indians. They are a lost people, God knows. But they need you out there. We need you out there.”

“Please.”

“Father, we have no one to send out there. We have a shortage of priests as it is. Let alone priests to serve the Indian reservations. Father John has to serve three separate reservations, did you know? He has to drive from reservation to reservation for services. No matter the weather. Did you know that, Father?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“If Father John can serve three communities, I think you can serve just one.”

“Yes.”

“For better or worse, you and those Indians are stuck together. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Well, perhaps you need some more time in study. More prayer. Ask for strength and guidance. Quit worrying so much about the basketball out there and worry more about your commitment to God.”

“Yes.”

“Well, then. Is there anything else?”

“No,” Father Arnold lied.

“Okay, then. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Dial tone.

Father Arnold felt the connection break, hung up the phone, and opened the phone booth. He couldn’t face Checkers again. He was ashamed and had to leave the reservation, no matter what the Bishop said.

“I’m leaving,” Father Arnold said. “I’m leaving.”

“The end of the world is near! It’s near! The end of the world is near!”

On the day after Coyote Springs returned to the reservation, just a day before Father Arnold decided to leave the Catholic Church entirely, Betty and Veronica sat in Cavalry Records’s recording studio in Manhattan.

Betty and Veronica had already heard the story of Coyote Springs’s disaster in the studio and weren’t all that surprised. The white women had been truly shocked when Wright and Sheridan showed up at their very first show in Seattle.

What a coincidence, Veronica had said to Sheridan. I can’t believe you’re going to sign Coyote Springs. We just left them. Did they tell you about us? Is that how you heard about us?

No, Coyote Springs doesn’t know anything about this, Sheridan had said. And we’d like to keep it that way. A little bird landed on my shoulder and told me about you. Told me to bring you to New York City. What do you think?

“These the girls from Seattle?” Armstrong asked Wright and Sheridan in the control booth. Betty and Veronica shifted nervously on their stools in the studio.

“Yes, sir, they are,” Sheridan said. “We think you’re going to love them. They have a unique sound. Sort of a folk sound.”

“Folk doesn’t sell shit.”

“Yes, sir, folk hasn’t been much of a seller for us,” Sheridan said. “But I think these girls might change all of that.”

“What do you think?” Armstrong asked Wright.

“They’re talented,” Wright said. He felt sick.

“You said those Indians were talented, too,” Armstrong said.

“Listen,” Sheridan said to Armstrong, “these two women here are part Indian.”

“What do you mean?” Armstrong asked.

“I mean, they had some grandmothers or something that were Indian. Really. We can still sell that Indian idea. We don’t need any goddamn just-off-the-reservation Indians. We can, use these women. They’ve been on the reservations. They even played a few gigs with Coyote Springs. Don’t you see? These women have got the Indian experience down. They really understand what it means to be Indian. They’ve been there.”

“Explain.”

“Can’t you see the possibilities? We dress them up a little. Get them into the tanning booth. Darken them up a bit. Maybe a little plastic surgery on those cheekbones. Get them a little higher, you know? Dye their hair black. Then we’d have Indians. People want to hear Indians.”

“What do you think?” Armstrong asked Wright. “I don’t have to have anything to do with it,” Wright said and left the room.

Wright walked out of Cavalry Records and hailed a cab. The driver was an old white woman. She had beautiful blue eyes.

“Where you going?” asked the driver.

“I just want to get home,” Wright said.

The driver laughed and took Wright to a cemetery in Sacramento, California.

“How much I owe you?” Wright asked when he climbed out of the cab.

“You don’t owe me anything,” the woman said. “Just go on home now. Just go on home.”

The cab pulled away. Wright watched it disappear in the distance, then he walked through the cemetery to a large monument. He studied the monument, remembering the ship that went down in the Pacific and the water rushing into his lungs. He read the monument:

Gen. George Wright, U.S.A.

and his wife

died

July 30, 1865

Lovely and pleasant in their lives,

and in their death they

were not divided

“Margaret,” Wright said as he lay down on top of his grave. “I’m home. I’m home. I’m so sorry. I’m home.”

Margaret Wright rose wetly from her place and took her husband in her arms. She patted his head as he wept and remembered all those horses who had screamed in that field so long ago. He remembered shooting that last colt while Big Mom watched from the rise.

“I was the one,” Wright said to his wife. “I was the one. I was the one who killed them all. I gave the orders.”

The horses screamed in his head.

“Shh,” Margaret whispered. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

Wright closed his eyes and saw the colt standing still in that field. He remembered that he had taken a pistol from a private.

This is how it’s done, he had said as he dismounted from his own horse. He pressed the pistol between the colt’s eyes, pulled the trigger, and watched it fall.

“Oh, God,” Wright sobbed to his wife on their graves. The grief rushed into his lungs. “I’m a killer. I’m a killer.”

“You’ve come home,” Margaret whispered. “You’re home now.”

Betty and Veronica watched Armstrong and Sheridan talking in the control booth.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Betty asked.

“The assholes are probably wondering how our asses will look on MTV,” Veronica said.

“Hey, girls,” Sheridan said over the intercom.

“Yeah,” Betty and Veronica said.

“Could you come in here?”

Betty and Veronica set their guitars down, walked into the control booth.

“Listen,” Sheridan said, “Mr. Armstrong and I have been talking about your potential. Well, you see, there’s a market for a certain kind of music these days. It’s a kind of music we think you can play, given your heritage. But there’s a whole lot of marketing we have to do. We have to fine tune your image.”

“What do you mean?” Veronica asked. “What’s our heritage?”

“Well,” Sheridan said, “there’s been an upswing in the economic popularity of Indians lately. I mean, there’s a lot of demographics and audience surveys and that other scientific shit. But I leave that to the boys upstairs. What I’m talking about here is pure musical talent. That’s you. Pure musical talent shaped and guided by me. Well, I mean, under the direction of Mr. Armstrong, certainly.”

Veronica looked at Betty.

“Now,” Veronica said, “what the hell are you talking about?”

“Well,” Sheridan said, “our company, Cavalry Records, has an economic need for a viable Indian band. As you know, Coyote Springs self-destructed. We were thinking we needed a more reliable kind of Indian. Basically, we need Indians such as yourselves.”

“But we ain’t that much Indian.”

“You’re Indian enough, right? I mean, all it takes is a little bit, right? Who’s to say you’re not Indian enough?”

“You want us to play Indian music or something?”

“Exactly,” Sheridan said. “Now you understand.”

Mr. Armstrong shifted in his seat. He was bored.

“Cut to the chase,” Armstrong said.

“Okay,” Sheridan said. “What it comes down to is this. You play for this company as Indians. Or you don’t play at all. I mean, who needs another white-girl folk group?”

“But we want to play our music,” Betty protested.

“Listen,” Sheridan said, “you do things for us, we can do things for you. It’s a partnership. We want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s the business we’re in. The dream business. We make dreams come true. That’s who we are. We just ask for a little sacrifice in return. A little something in exchange for our hard work. What do you think?”

Betty and Veronica looked at each other. They could hear drums.

Coyote Springs staggered onto the reservation a couple of hours after they left the Spokane International Airport. Actually, they were hiding beneath a tarp in Simon’s pickup. Coyote Springs had managed to walk only a few miles on Highway 2 before Simon pulled up. He’d been back on the reservation for just a few days after his visit with relatives on the coast. He only drove his truck in reverse, using the rearview mirror as guide, even on white people’s highways. He’d never been caught.

“Jeez,” Simon said, “I thought you guys were in New York City.”

“We were,” Thomas said. “But everything went wrong.”

“Oh, man,” Simon said. “I don’t know if you want to go back to the reservation. Ain’t nobody too happy with you up there. I can’t believe it. It’s like the Spokane Indian Reservation has become Republican or something.”

“Enit?” Chess asked. “What are you?”

“Shit,” Simon said. “I’m a Communist. A goddamn pinko redskin. Joe McCarthy would have pissed his pants if he ever saw me.”

“Well,” Thomas said, “we have to go back there. We ain’t got any money. We ain’t got no place to go.”

“Well,” Simon said, “if you insist. Climb in the back and get under that tarp. I don’t want nobody seeing you.”

“What if they do?” Victor asked.

“Any problems,” Simon said as he patted the rifles hanging in his gun rack, “and I’ll have to take care of business.”

“Are those loaded?” Junior asked.

“You bet your ass,” Simon said.

Coyote Springs climbed under the tarp and pulled it over them. They had no idea where they were at any given time. They could only guess by certain curves in the road, the sudden stops, the sound of water rushing over Little Falls Dam as they crossed onto the Spokane Indian Reservation.