Winter Counts

by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

  “Uh, yeah. It’s when a tire is filled with gas and slipped around the vic’s chest and lit on fire. The Mexican cartels do that when they’re in a turf war. They’re pretty creative when it comes to executions. Acid baths, decapitations, boiling alive, they do it all. But that stuff’s just for show. In the States, gangs don’t have the time or energy for that crap. I’ve never heard of it happening here. Well, once.”

  Necklacing. I wondered what I’d gotten Nathan involved with.

  WE DRANK COFFEE, ATE, and waited for Nathan to come back. Dennis went out to his car to make some calls.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” Marie said. “Maybe you want to come by the restaurant for dinner. I’ll make you a bison burger and some wild rice soup.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “Will Lack be there?”

  “I think so. Don’t know if you heard, but he’s leaving in a few days, going back home. He’s done training the staff and finalizing the new menu. And they’re going to give the restaurant a real name instead of just ‘Dining Room.’”

  “Yeah? What’s he going to call it?”

  “He’s leaning toward Strongbow Feast House, or possibly Red Grub. He’s thinking about opening a chain of these at Indian casinos across the country. Spread the message about healthy indigenous food. What better places than casinos? And ours will be the first one! Lack says the casinos will have to agree to hire at least fifty percent Native workers and source at least half of their food from indigenous or local suppliers.”

  Well, shit. I had to hand it to him, he had some good ideas. Even if he was Muckleshoot and not Lakota.

  She went on. “This is just the first step. He’s hoping to get a TV show on the Food Network to spread the word. Lack says real indigenous cuisine will cut diabetes and heart disease rates for Natives by twenty-five percent. But I think he’s being too modest.”

  I’d heard enough about Lack by now. “Sounds good. Sure, I’ll come by tomorrow, if I can.”

  Dennis returned from his phone calls and joined us inside. After polishing off the cookies, Marie and Dennis engaged in a conversation about baseball. I listened quietly, trying to keep my mind away from Nathan’s situation. It turns out Dennis had played college ball before getting injured. To my surprise, Marie knew quite a bit about pro baseball and the Denver team, the Colorado Rockies. Dennis was passionate about the Rockies and talked about the lack of respect the team got around the country. According to Dennis, people believed the high elevation and dry climate in Denver changed the nature of the game and made the ball travel farther when hit. He said the Rockies stored the balls in a cigar humidor to counter this effect and slow them down. The moisture changed the nature of the balls, turned them into something different. I wondered if there was a way to accomplish this for other objects. Old cars, rotten food, eviction notices. Broken hearts.

  The discussion lasted through two pots of coffee and another round of cookies. I was happy to sit back and listen to their debate, even though I didn’t grasp most of it. Then I saw some headlights in the distance shine through into the kitchen. I’d never been happier to hear the coughing and stuttering of my old car, which he’d used to get out to the dealers’ house. The front door opened and Nathan entered. He looked at us in surprise, as if he’d expected to come home to an empty house.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” he said, hesitantly.

  “Tell us what happened.”

  He took off his jacket and sat down. “You know, I just chilled for a while. It was cool, no problems.”

  “Who was there?” asked Dennis.

  “Uh, couple of dudes I don’t know. And some other guy, name of Shane, I think.”

  “Rick Crow?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “How about Loco?” asked Dennis.

  “Yeah, he was there.”

  Dennis said, “Let’s see it.”

  Nathan pulled a tiny red balloon out of his pocket. Dennis took a picture of it with his phone. It looked like a cough drop or a small piece of hard candy. Then he opened it and took a picture of the coal-black heroin.

  “I need to record a statement from Nathan,” Dennis said. “You mind if we do that in back?”

  “Go ahead.”

  They went into the bedroom to tape his statement, leaving the tar on the table.

  “I’ve never seen it before,” Marie said, looking at the drugs. “It makes me sad. Why do people want to take that stuff?”

  “Slow suicide.”

  “I’m not stupid, I get wanting a temporary escape. Get away from your problems. Go ahead, have some drinks, sure. But this stuff is so dangerous. Why lie down and die? Why not fight to make things better?”

  I shook my head. “They gave up. Don’t see any future here. Got twenty dollars, can’t pay the rent or buy a tank of propane, but you can fade away for a few hours.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I see that with some of the older people. But the kids? Shit.”

  Frustrated, she went to the tiny kitchen and started washing some dishes. I tried to listen in on what was being said in the bedroom, but the door was closed.

  After a while, Dennis came out of the bedroom, Nathan behind him.

  “Got what I need.”

  “What happens next?” I asked.

  “Nathan and I went over this. Basically, he’s going to stay in contact with the dealers. When the time is right—maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks—Nathan’s going to ask to buy some scag, but more weight this time. He’ll ask to have them deliver it at the school. We’ll need a day’s notice to put the device on him and set up a ghost car.”

  “Ghost car?” said Marie.

  “Unmarked police vehicle. We’ll have the ghost near the scene and also a van with the electronics to monitor the buy.”

  Ghost car. I couldn’t help but think of the Ghost Dance and the ghost shirts. A long time ago, an Indian named Wovoka had prophesied that, if enough Natives performed the ceremonial dance, all evil would be swept from the earth, the white people would leave North America, and those wearing the sacred shirts would be bulletproof. The Ghost Dance swept across the country, scaring the shit out of the US government, which sent troops to stop Indians from taking part in the ceremony. And the Natives who believed they’d be safe from the soldiers’ bullets? They learned otherwise.

  THE NEXT DAY Nathan was quiet and withdrawn, even more so than usual.

  “You okay?” I said, lighting up a smoke.

  “Just tired.”

  “Want to make sure you’re okay. We’ll get back to normal when all this is over.”

  “Yeah, I been thinking about that,” he said. “Like, what happens when this stuff is done. You know, the high school sucks so bad. I’m not learning anything. The teachers don’t care, they’re just losers who couldn’t get jobs in the city, so they come here for a paycheck.”

  This wasn’t really true. Rez schools got some bad apples, sure, but we also got the idealistic young teachers who wanted to change the world. Most of them burned out after a few years, but some stayed.

  “Since I got arrested, the kids at school have been really shitty. Worse than before. Now even Jimmy—you know, like my only real friend—can’t hang with me, ’cause his parents think I’m a bad influence or whatever.”

  I hadn’t known that.

  He went on. “My only friends now are the stoners and the freaks. They’re not even really friends, just dudes I gotta rat out. The other jerks make fun of me. You know what they call me?” He hesitated, as if I’d be angry to hear of the taunts cast by his classmates.

  “Chief Iyeska. Like, to ‘chief’ some weed is to smoke a bowl without passing it around. And iyeska, I been called that since the day I was born. You know, it’s like I’m not Indian enough for the full-bloods, but too Native for the white kids. I don’t fit in nowhere.”

  Iyeska. Originally, the word meant “translator,” and also “speaks white.” But over time, it became a nasty insult, shorthand f
or half-breed.

  “Nathan, listen,” I said. “I got the same sort of crap when I was in school. Plenty of assholes here, I know. They always find some way to insult you.” I tossed my cigarette butt in the trash. “But you can’t let those guys get you down. Maybe they grow up and stop being assholes, or maybe you move on with your life and ignore them. You hear me?”

  “Easy for you to say,” he said. “You don’t have to be with them every day. When you were in school, they didn’t have social media stuff. Kids are on their phones all the time, posting nasty shit about people they don’t like. Everyone reads it! What’ll happen if word gets out about the snitching? Everybody will really hate me!”

  He was beginning to tear up, although I could tell he was trying to fight it.

  “So I guess I decided,” he said. “I want to drop out in two years. When I’m sixteen. I can get a job somewhere, maybe Rapid City. Get away from those losers.”

  Drop out? He’d been talking about college just a few months ago, now he was planning to quit school and work some bottom-rung job. I wondered what sort of life he’d have if he left school. Would he end up like me, with ten layers of scars on his knuckles from punching out dirtbags?

  “Nathan, I know this is a hard time. A lot of bad shit has gone down. But don’t let them win. You finish school, then you make up your mind about getting a job or going to college. You got to hang on, okay?”

  A few tears spilled out. “It’s just that, you know, I can’t sleep or focus. Sometimes I wake up at four in the morning and my mind goes to bad places. Like, I think about all the stuff that’s happened, not just at school but with Mom dying and all that. Then I start thinking that maybe it would be better if I’d never been born.”

  Now more tears came. He turned his head so I couldn’t see him, but I glimpsed his misery. He looked desolate and overwhelmed. I didn’t know what to say to comfort him.

  Then I had a thought.

  I went to the bedroom, where I had some boxes stowed in the back of the closet. It took me a few minutes to find what I was looking for, but eventually I located it, wrapped in some newspaper at the bottom of a box full of old photos and ancient comic books.

  “This is for you,” I said to Nathan. “My mom—your grandma—gave it to me a long time ago. My medicine bag.”

  I handed it to him, the bag I’d had since I was six years old. It was a small beaded leather pouch with a rawhide cord so it could be worn under a shirt. My mother gave it to me, said that it would bring me strength and protection. As a kid, I’d carried it daily for years, but I put it away after my father’s death. I hadn’t looked at it since then.

  “What’s in it?” he asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t remember. Open it.”

  Inside, there was some dried-out sage, a few tiny rocks, and a small feather. Vague memories of gathering those items came back to me, half-remembered images from my childhood.

  “What do I do with all that?” he asked, pointing to the little tangle of objects he’d poured out on the table.

  “Give ’em to me,” I said. “You need to make your own bundle. Put stuff in there that means something to you.”

  “Like what?”

  “That’s up to you. Anything you care about.”

  “Like Mom’s ring?”

  I’d forgotten he had Sybil’s ring, a small silver piece that she’d loved and worn for years.

  “Perfect.”

  He ran off to his room, and I looked at the little pile of items on the table. The sage, rocks, and feather—objects I’d carried as a child faithfully. I stared at them for a moment, then scooped the pile all up and put it in the pocket of my denim jacket.

  LATER IN THE EVENING, I called Tommy to see if he wanted to grab some food. I agreed to pick him up, and he offered to pay for the meals, having won some money again at the casino.

  I honked my horn outside his little house.

  “V dog! Good to see you. Where you wanna eat? Can’t go to the casino restaurant ’cause they might put me to work. How about the Depot? Kitchen’s open till nine. Pretty good burgers.”

  “No, I don’t want to go there,” I said. “Too many people, too many problems.”

  I never knew what sort of reaction I’d get at that place. Some people viewed me as a champion, others wanted to avenge a beating I’d laid down. “How about we drive down to Valentine?”

  “Naw, that’s too far! Hungry like a mofo. Come on, let’s just run over to the Depot. You can go there once without getting in a fight, can’t you?”

  “All right, fine,” I said. “You got cash?”

  “Oh, yeah. Hit a pretty good jackpot, won at blackjack too. Still got a hundred left—bought all the drinks after my big win. Everybody wanted to be my friend, start up some skinships.”

  “Heard you were getting friendly with Velma few nights ago.”

  His face lit up. “Velma, yeah! She’s a real chili pepper—red and hot. Might go check her out at the dollar store tomorrow. But yo, there were some crazy cats at the bar last night.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Don’t think so. Some dude from Pine Ridge, he was tellin’ us that the Republic of Lakota is gonna happen soon.”

  “What’s that?” I looked over at him.

  “He said they filed some lawsuit to get back the land promised in the treaty of . . . 1869? 1864? Don’t know, but he was saying we’re gonna get South Dakota back, most of Nebraska and Montana too. And Wyoming! I forgot.”

  “Right,” I said. “Where are all the white people gonna go?”

  “That’s the best part. He said the Lakota government will set up reservations for the wasicus, give ’em commodity foods and open boarding schools for the little kids. Sheeit, I almost busted a gut! Taste of their own medicine!”

  He laughed so hard that I had a hard time focusing on the road.

  “All right, very funny,” I said.

  “And oh, I forgot. There was some real strange dude there. He didn’t have no arms. Had a wooden arm and one of those metal ones with the hook.”

  “Was he in the war or something?”

  “No, that’s what I thought, too. He said it happened a long time ago. Told me he put his arms down on the railroad tracks, let the train cut ’em off. Dude said he had to sacrifice them to keep the world safe.”

  “You messing with me?”

  He shook his head. “Naw, it’s the truth! He was making all kinds of jokes, too, like sayin’ his piano playing wasn’t any good now. Wasn’t funny, kind of creeped me out.”

  I’ll say. “The guy from around here?”

  Tommy shook his head again. “No, white guy from Denver. Said his name was Gabe, Abe, something like that.”

  In my head, I envisioned a man laying his arms down on the railroad tracks and having them taken off. How could a person do that?

  “Was he drunk? I mean, not last night, but when he did it?”

  “No, I asked him that. He didn’t mind talking about it, he wasn’t embarrassed or nothing. Said he wasn’t drunk or high, he was having a vision. Must have been some strong motherfuckin’ vision.”

  A vision. I wondered if I’d have the strength to follow a vision like that.

  We walked into the Depot. I hadn’t been there since I’d knocked the shit out of Guv Yellowhawk. I usually stayed away from the joint, but the hell with that. I had a right to a burger and fries.

  We grabbed two spots at the bar. The place was already packed, and the noise level was deafening. CCR was blasting from the speakers, John Fogerty telling us he ain’t no fortunate son. I looked around the bar, didn’t see anyone with a major complaint against me. Yet.

  “That crazy dishwasher still working here?” I asked Tommy.

  “Who? Melvin? Don’t see him.”

  Melvin Two Bulls had been working at the Depot for years, getting paid in food, beer, and a few bucks under the table. His only drawback as an employee was that he had the habit of taking a shower by using the spray hose by the
dish machine, so you’d occasionally get a glimpse of a naked man hosing down his parts.

  “I’m getting a cheeseburger. Rare. What about you?” I said.

  “Yeah! Some french fries, too. But good luck gettin’ a rare burger here.”

  “I thought maybe you were getting spoiled by that fancy food at the casino.”

  “That’s some good stuff—most of it—but you can’t beat a burger, am I right? Lack don’t serve no beef, says it’s the food of the suppressors.”

  “Suppressors?”

  “Suppressors, oppressors, whatever. Just gimme some cow. Dang, I’m starvin’.”

  We gave our orders to the bartender. Tommy ordered a Bud, I got a Coke.

  “Yo homes, how’s it going with Nathan?” said Tommy. “He okay?”

  “No, he’s getting some shit at school. They’re pulling that iyeska crap on him. Told me he wants to drop out.”

  “Yeah, and do what?”

  “Get a job, I guess.”

  “Not easy to find a job around here. Might be something at the casino. Hey, I’m sorry the little dude is takin’ some grief with that half-breed stuff. Seems like things never change. Mixed-blood messages, right?”

  I just shook my head. Our burgers came and we tore into them. I was looking around for some ketchup when Tommy said, “Look who just came in.”

  “Who?”

  He pointed with his lips toward the door. “Remember him? From high school? Now he’s the security dude at the school.”

  Ray Sits Poor. I’d heard he was the security officer at the high school now, the one in charge of safety; the person who ensured that bullying and harassment were kept to a minimum. It was pretty ironic he’d been hired for the job, because he’d been one of the biggest bullies when he was in school, one of the assholes who’d run with Rick Crow. Now he was the guy keeping the peace. Supposedly.

  “Don’t go startin’ nothing,” said Tommy. “Not done with my burger yet.”

  I walked over to Ray’s table. He was seated with two other guys who I didn’t recognize. I saw that he’d cut his hair and wore a military-style buzz cut now. He looked like a low-rent mall cop.

  “Ray?” I had to shout to be heard over the music.