Neither Wolf nor Dog (17 page)

I kept my silence. He was beginning the morning philosophically. Hills seemed to do that to him.

“Feel her breathe. Stop worrying about where we're going. Forget your white man ideas.”

“I'm trying,” I said. “I'm just trying to get a handle on things.” Too much was just too open-ended. I wanted some
sense of direction — what we were doing, how long it would take, if my truck was going to be okay. “I'll be okay.”

He turned to face me.

“You're lying again,” he said. “Listen to me. I'm trying to teach you some things. You're not listening. You keep worrying about that truck of yours. It's not that big a deal. Either Jumbo will fix it or he won't. If he can't, then you will go home another way. You'll get another truck. They're making trucks every day. Don't worry about that truck. Think about the day. Listen to the earth. The earth is here forever, but it will only be exactly like this on one day. Today.”

“I know that,” I said. “But it's not just the truck.”

“You're not listening to what I said,” he cut me off. There was an air of harsh authority in his voice, far different from the quiet ruminations and outbursts of anger I had come to expect from him.

“I'm trying,” I said. “I want to enjoy this. This is a beautiful day. Last night was a beautiful night. But I miss my family. I want to put some kind of frame around things. I need a sense of what's going on.”

“Yeah,” he said sarcastically, “you sure do.” Something was on his mind.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Nerburn,” he said, “you ever watched water flow across the ground?”

“Sure.”

“Where does it go?”

“To the low spots, around obstacles.”

“How long does it take?”

“It depends.”

He exhaled the smoke into the pure morning air. “That's how long we're going to be gone.”

I started to protest. He raised his hand and waved me to silence.

“You think too much about time.” He gestured toward my wrist. “I didn't think you were like that when I first met you. You don't wear a watch.”

“They feel heavy on my wrist,” I answered, feeling stupid as I made the comment.

“They are heavy. They make every minute weigh more than the whole day.”

“I still want to know how long we'll be gone. I want to call my family.”

The old man rocked forward onto the balls of his feet and stood up. He walked slowly to the edge of the hill. Then he turned back toward me. His one bad eye seemed to stare right at me.

“You still haven't figured it out, have you?” he said.

“I don't know. You tell me,” I responded.

His bad eye stayed locked on mine. It was an unnerving stare, at once empty and intense, like the gaze of a blind man. “The world is not an accident, Nerburn,” he said. “Nothing is an accident.”

I held my silence.

“Everything happens for a reason. You're here for a reason. It's time you stopped worrying about some damn truck and got about figuring out what that reason is.” He flapped his hand toward me. “Come over here.”

I stood up and walked slowly toward him. He was standing completely still, like an animal. I walked up to him like a child, uncertain of what I should do or what I would find. I wanted to look away, but dared not. His expression was completely flat and without affect, but behind it lurked a silent fury. Though I easily towered over him by a head, I felt small and afraid.

“Listen to me, Nerburn,” he whispered, placing his face so close to mine that I could feel his breath. “The Creator has given you a task, just like he gave me a task. This is not a joke.
He chose you to do this. You need to do it right.”

I felt all my defenses drop away as I stared into his tiny hard eyes.

“I want to,” I said. “I just don't know how. I really don't. I don't know if I'm the right person for this.”

“That's not for you to decide. You just do it. I need you to help me.”

With that sentence, the whole world seemed to swirl inside my head. “Help me,” he had said. The one thing I most wanted to do. The one thing I felt least qualified to do. The one thing that I feared most about being a white man working with the Indians — that I would try to help, and like so many before, would do harm and damage I could not repair.

Still, he had said it: “Help me.” Suddenly I knew the fury behind those eyes. I heard the echoes of a thousand dead voices — of women, of children, of old men too slow to run when the Hotchkiss guns were turned against them. I saw the legions of drunken Indians who had accosted me over the years, weaving over to me on city sidewalks, stinking of cheap wine and grabbing at my shoulder, asking for money and staring up at me with bloodshot eyes. I saw the defeated chiefs, weary of battle, reaching their hands out to arrogant soldiers, asking for mercy for their people.

“Help me.” It must have been the hardest sentence in the world for him to say. Images swirled out of control. The shame of my own blood surged through me. He should not need my help. His people had been whole. His truth had been singular, unassailable, in balance with the land. It was my people, my race, my heritage that had placed him before me like this.

I looked at his hard, expressionless eyes, the one white and cloudy, the other dark and unfathomable. They were strong, wise, deep; full of anger and pride — eyes that flashed, but did not reveal. All of this I could feel, like a wind upon my skin. Yet
his expression never changed. He stood before me, still and vigilant, awaiting my response.

My voice came from my mouth with a tentative quaver. “I will help,” I said. “I want to. I really do.” Then, without thinking, I whispered, “Forgive me.” The words passed from me like stones — hard, evil little balls of an illness that had stricken my soul, suddenly flung free, releasing me from years of torment. That was why I was here — not to help, but to earn forgiveness, to earn forgiveness for the shame in my blood.

“Forgive me,” I said again, confessing to unknown sins and transgressions, to my desire to leave, to my sense of righteousness and superiority, to my whiteness.

The old man remained expressionless. But something within him relaxed. He gestured over to Grover, who was slouching against the Buick, fingering the rim of his coffee mug.

“Listen to me more,” the old man said, suddenly gentler. “There is more going on here than you know. Indian people have had bad things happen to us. We don't know why. Sometimes good things happen to us. We don't know why. I don't know whether you're good or bad. But you're here. And you try. I think you are good. I think maybe you were sent here to help. But you need to stop worrying about things that aren't important and try to see what the Creator wants you to do.”

I wanted to cry. The sense of release was palpable. But the old man would not let go with his eyes. It was not my contrition he wanted, but my strength.

Out of the corner of my vision I could see Grover rummaging in the trunk of his car. Soon he emerged with a large object wrapped in a multi-colored blanket. He carried it over to us and set it on the ground.

“Sit down, Nerburn,” Dan said. He pointed to a place about ten feet back from where we were standing.

I walked over and situated myself in the sharp bristly grass.

Dan and Grover began unwrapping the bundle. Inside was a drum, about two feet in diameter. The top and bottom were made from animal hides, and the drum body itself appeared to be made from a piece of hollowed-out tree trunk. Crosslacing of animal hide held the two heads in place.

Grover spread the blanket out beneath the drum. Then he took two two-by-fours that had been wrapped in a separate bundle and placed them on the blanket. They were notched at the middle, so that when he placed them at right angles they locked together into a cross-like frame. Then he took four sticks and fitted them into holes at the end of the two-by-fours, so they stood up like posts.

He slowly reached over and picked up the drum. There was ceremony in his manner. He took one of the rawhide loops hanging from the side of the drum and fastened it over one of the posts. Then he did the same on the opposite side. Finally he attached the drum to the other two posts and stepped back. It sat there, suspended above the ground, humming slightly in the breeze.

Dan stepped forward and took a pack of Prince Albert from his pocket. He took pinches of tobacco between his fingers and placed them on the head of the drum, one in front of each post. Then he placed one in the middle.

Grover handed Dan a leather bag that had been wrapped in the blanket. The old man reached inside and pulled out a long thin stick that had been wrapped with padded leather on both ends, then handed the bag back to Grover. Grover accepted it formally and drew out a stick that had been sewn all around with beads.

The warm morning winds picked up the tobacco and swirled it around, scattering it like seeds.

The two men seated themselves on opposite sides of the drum and began to pound out a low, rhythmic beat. At first it
was almost inaudible, lost in the growing keen of the morning winds and the noise from the powwow ground below. But slowly the beat increased in volume and intensity. Then Dan began to sing in a high, warbling wail. Grover joined in, clearly following, but with a voice as strong and clear as the summer air.

I sat silently, outside the small circle they had made, and watched the two men sing. Fatback came rustling through the grass and nudged up against me. The morning sun rose higher behind us, chasing the feathery orange clouds and turning the sky a lapis blue.

The two men drummed and sang for almost five minutes. Then, as quickly as they had begun, they stopped. Dan stood up and walked away down the ridge. Grover gently and meticulously rewrapped the drum and carried it back to the car. I got up and followed him at a distance.

When Grover had placed the drum in the trunk, he walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself another cup. He smiled at me with the corners of his eyes and beckoned me over. It was alright to speak again.

“Have some more coffee, Nerburn,” he said softly. “You need it.”

I took my cup and filled it with the potent “Navy brew.” “Can I ask what the song was?” I ventured.

Grover rubbed his hand over his head. “It was a song Dan made up a long time ago. He makes up songs a lot. He calls it one of his ‘Grandfather' songs.”

“Can I know what it says?”

“I guess so. He made it for you. It goes like this:

My heart is filled with anger.
My heart is filled with anger.
It is like the prairie fire that burns.
I send my anger like smoke to the heavens.
The earth is crying now.
The earth is crying now.
We need to stop her tears.
Fire will not stop her tears.
This song is for my grandfathers.
I sing this song for my grandfathers.

“It doesn't sound so good in English.”

“I think it sounds beautiful,” I said. “How do you mean, he made it for me?”

“I made it when I knew you were coming,” said a voice behind me. It was Dan. He had come over while Grover and I were talking, and was standing directly behind me.

“When you knew I was coming?” I said.

“I wrote it when I knew I wanted to speak. I went to my hill and spoke to my grandfathers. They gave me that song. They gave it to me in the wind. They said I had too much anger to speak. They told me that anger is only for the one who speaks. It never opens the heart of one who listens. There are good white people, they told me. They want to do right. They are not the enemy anymore. The enemy is blindness to each other's ways. Put away your anger, they said. Our earth is crying now, and we need to remove her tears. That is what they told me. Someone will come, they said. Then they gave me that song.”

There was nothing I could say. I sipped at my coffee and stared at the cup. But Dan was not done. He took out a small leather pouch and began dipping his fingers into it as if grabbing for a pinch of snuff. His eyes were closed and he was half humming, half singing, another mournful-sounding song.

He picked the substance from the bag and sprinkled it on the glowing coals of the fire.

I glanced over at Grover. “Sweetgrass,” Grover said quietly. “It pleases God.”

The strong perfume of the herb filled the air. I put down my coffee cup and sat in silence. Dan continued to feed the sweetgrass onto the fire. He seemed oblivious to my presence. Then, abruptly, he stopped and turned his attention to me.

“I think it is time you should understand why you are here, little brother,” he began. “It is time you should know why I am telling you these things.”

The phrase “little brother” shocked and exhilarated me.

“The Creator gives us gifts. He did not make me a
wichasha wakan
, a holy man. He only made me a man. But he gave me the gift to see clearly. He gave me the gift to put on white man's eyes.

“My father always said I had this gift. He saw it when I would come home from boarding school and tell him the things I had seen. ‘You understand the white man,' he said. ‘You make his mind come alive for me. That is a dangerous gift. It could turn you into a white man if you are not careful. But if you stay on the good road, and if you do not hurry, you will find a way to make that gift be of service to your people.'

“I never forgot those words. I have lived with them every day of my life. There were times when I almost spoke. But always when I wanted to speak, I would wait. The time was not right. Instead I read. I wrote. I kept my Indian eyes and I kept my white eyes. But I remained patient. I did not speak.

“Now I see that it is a good time to talk again to your people.”

He inched closer to me.

“You see, Nerburn, you white people go in cycles. For a while you hate Indians. Then for a while you love Indians. Right now you love Indians, and that's good.

“Some of my people think this will pass again. They say that you will get angry with us for casinos and wanting to keep our land pure. They say you have always wanted what we have,
and that nothing has changed. They say you will turn on us again.