Tangled Roots

by Marcia Talley

  ‘Could you scan that page and email it to me, Nicholas?’

  ‘Sure. Or I can bring it when we come.’

  ‘I’d like to study it ahead of time, if you don’t mind. It might answer a few questions.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll take care of it as soon as we hang up.’

  ‘When do you think you’ll arrive?’ I asked.

  ‘Hard to say, but we’re aiming for Thursday, weather and traffic permitting.’ He paused. ‘Tell you what. I’ll text you after we get settled so we can set up a time to get together. Aunt Wasula goes to bed crazy early, so it’ll probably be in the morning.’

  ‘Your aunt’s coming, too? Didn’t you tell me she’s one hundred and two?’

  Nicholas laughed. ‘Try telling Auntie not to do anything. She lives in an oil and gas area and there’s oil flares and pipelines everywhere. She had two horses drop dead from the fumes. They just started kicking, then keeled over. I’ll be pushing her wheelchair, but she’ll be carrying the “Keep Calm and Frack Off” sign.’

  I had to laugh. ‘I can’t wait to meet her.’

  FIFTEEN

  Nicholas was as good as his word. Half an hour later I had the Johnson family tree in hand.

  While I waited impatiently for Thursday to roll around, I spent time getting acquainted with the ancestors on his, and probably my, family tree. If my suspicions were correct and I had descended from either Joseph or Henry Johnson, my maternal great-grandparents would have been John Otaktay (Kills Many) and his wife, Mary Ehawee (Laughing Maid).

  In addition to the family tree, Nicholas had included a helpful note:

  Hannah: Sometime before their son Joseph was born in 1911, Otaktay and Ehawee chose the last name, Johnson, as their surname. To facilitate land transfers after the Dawes Act of 1887, the purpose of which was to break up the reservations, assimilate the Indians and turn them into land-owning farmers, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1890 ordered that all Indians living on reservations be given an English Christian name. They would retain their surname but translate it into English and shorten it, if necessary. Thus Otaktay officially became John Kills Many. The Indian agent was not happy with Kills Many, my Aunt Wasula says. He gave her father a choice between Washington, Adams, Jefferson or Monroe, but Otakay picked Johnson, naming himself after the agent. There must be a story behind that! – N.

  I didn’t know how large the Johnson’s RV was and I didn’t want to overwhelm the family with newfound relatives, but I didn’t want to meet them alone, either. Paul sensibly suggested I give right of first refusal to blood relations, but Ruth and her husband were on a Viking river cruise to the Baltic and Georgina was avoiding the topic like small pox.

  I called Emily and invited her to join me, but she demurred. ‘You should take Julie,’ Emily advised. ‘Her mom’s the one who started the whole thing, and Julie’s totally into it. She’ll never forgive you if you don’t.’

  ‘I’m not sure her father would approve,’ I said.

  ‘What’s the worst that will happen?’ Emily said. ‘Scott will never speak to you again? Sounds like a win-win to me.’

  ‘Don’t be naughty, Emily.’

  ‘It’s my job, Mom.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said with a laugh.

  ‘And Mom?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take pictures.’

  ‘If I don’t ask, they can’t say no,’ Julie said when she presented herself at my house on Thursday morning. She’d driven herself there in the Cardinale family Subaru. ‘We’re shopping,’ she said. ‘You’re buying me a suitcase.’

  ‘What happens when you come home without one?’ I asked.

  Julie tossed her car keys on my kitchen counter, shrugged and said, ‘I couldn’t find one I liked? I’m notoriously picky.’

  Remembering the words of Admiral Grace Hopper – It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission – and against my better judgment, I went along with Julie’s plan.

  From the moment we hit Route 50 outside Annapolis to the time we merged with the Washington beltway, Julie chattered non-stop. I’d told her about my FaceTime session with Nicholas and Mai, emphasizing their academic achievements, hoping they’d serve as a shining example to someone who was about to step off into a gap year of the Great Unknown. Sadly, I’d miscalculated. Julie seemed more interested in hearing about their casino jobs. ‘I wonder how much training you need to be a blackjack dealer?’ she mused.

  I handed her the Johnson family tree. ‘Shut up and read,’ I said.

  Fifteen minutes later, we took exit twenty-five toward College Park and followed Cherry Hill Road as it wound back north, passing under the beltway.

  ‘There it is!’ Julie bounced in her seat, the family tree forgotten. ‘There’s the sign!’

  I swung the wheel left onto Jayrose Drive and entered the park.

  ‘The Johnsons are expecting us,’ I told the guard at the security gate. ‘Site number four-seventeen.’

  ‘You can park over there,’ he said, gesturing to his right. ‘Near the bus station. It’s a short walk from there.’ He handed me a map of the campground. Site 417 on Crater Lake Vista was circled in pencil. I passed the map to Julie and thanked him as the turnstile rose up to let us pass.

  I’m no expert on recreational vehicles, so when Nicholas told me to look for an Allegro 31 motor home, I had to look it up on the Internet. The RV was bigger than I expected from the online photograph. It was the size of a school bus, with maroon, silver and black Nike-style swooshes painted along the side. A hand painted wooden sign hung from a hook on the door: Cikala Inipi. I wondered if that was Lakota for “Welcome”.

  I’d texted Nicholas from the parking lot, so he and Mai were expecting us, sitting outside the RV in canvas lawn chairs under a green and white striped canopy. When we ambled around the corner, they leapt to their feet, arms outstretched in welcome.

  Julie lunged forward, hugging her newfound cousins as if she had known them all her life. ‘I’m so excited!’ she said, as if we couldn’t guess.

  I extended my hand. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you, Nicholas.’

  ‘Please,’ he said while handing me off to Mai. ‘We’re family. Call me Nick.’

  ‘Father!’ Mai called out. ‘They’re here.’

  Their father, I saw now, was crouched at the rear of the RV, his head deep into one of the undercarriage compartments. As I watched, he hauled out a barbeque grill, set it on the ground, unfolded his six-foot-something-inch frame and stood.

  Cousin Samuel ‘Eldest Son’ Johnson was about my age. He wore a black T-shirt belted into slim-fitting jeans, and a pair of expensive, handcrafted leather boots. His black hair was worn long, fastened at the nape of his neck with a loop of braided leather. He whipped a yellow bandana out of his back pocket, used it to wipe sweat off his forehead, returned the bandana to his pocket, then stepped forward to greet us.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said, taking my hand in both of his.

  ‘Nick has explained Lakota names to me,’ I said. ‘But it’s still a bit confusing. Shall I call you Chaska, Eldest Son, or Samuel?’

  He smiled, revealing a row of dazzling, slightly crooked teeth. ‘Sam will do fine. Let’s go inside where it’s cool.’

  Sam held the door open while Julie and I stepped into the RV.

  I couldn’t stifle a gasp.

  The inside of their motor home was larger than some New York City apartments. We found ourselves in a bright, living room-dining room-kitchen area, fully carpeted and beautifully furnished with rich, buttery leather upholstery. In the cab to my right, the driver and passenger seats, equally plush, sat before a dashboard cluttered, at least to my mind, with screens, knobs and buttons like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

  ‘It’s roomier than it looks from the outside,’ I commented as I eased sideways into a kitchen equipped with stainless steel appliances, including a full-size refrigerator, more up-to-date than any in my kitchen at home.

  ‘We have two
slides,’ Sam explained, indicating the bedroom where the foot of a queen-sized bed covered with a Navajo quilt was just visible. ‘Once we get parked and leveled, the bedroom and the living-dining room areas pop out.’

  ‘Do you live in the RV year round?’ Julie asked. She seemed to be admiring the flat-screen television built into the wall. Underneath the television, incredibly, was a gas log fireplace. I must have been ogling the fireplace because Sam smiled and said, ‘It gets cold in South Dakota.’

  Turning to Julie, he said, ‘My wife and I live on a farm near Oglala. Aunt Wasula still lives in the house my father and I grew up in. Nick and Mai have moved in with her temporarily.’

  Julie glanced around the living area, her brow slightly furrowed. ‘But where do you all sleep?’

  I’d been curious about that, too.

  If Sam found the question rude, he gave no indication of it. ‘Mai shares the queen bed with her aunt, I sleep on the pull-out sofa and Nick … wait, I’ll show you.’ Sam strolled into the cab, released a couple of pins, reached overhead and pushed a button. A bunk bed began to emerge from the ceiling over the cab. He let the bed descend about a foot before sending it back up where it came from. ‘The seats fold back at night,’ he explained, ‘so the bed can be fully deployed.’

  I was beginning to wonder whether Aunt Wasula had actually made the trip when a door next to the television slid open and a stooped, elderly woman emerged from what I assumed was the bathroom. This had to be Wasula.

  Her hair, still predominately black but evenly streaked with gray, was parted in the middle and had been freshly-braided. It hung over her shoulders in double plaits almost to her waist. She wore an ankle-length, cotton skirt splashed with flowers, and in spite of the August heat, a red cardigan buttoned over a yellow blouse. As she shuffled toward us, the smallest pair of Birkenstock sandals I’d ever seen on an adult peeked out from beneath her skirt.

  Sam took his aunt gently by the arm and steered her toward a seat on the L-shaped sofa. ‘T’unwín-la, this is Hannah and her niece Julie, the cousins I told you about.’

  Wasula beamed, accentuating her already deeply-creased smile lines. She nodded, saying nothing but looking incredibly wise. Once seated, hands folded in her lap, she commanded the room. I found it hard to look away.

  There was a bit of friendly chatter while Mai directed everyone to a seat, and then – silence – as one by one we noticed that Wasula had raised her hand.

  Something extraordinary was about to happen.

  ‘I have many names,’ she began. ‘The Indian name given to me by my parents, their first gift to me, is Wasula. Wasula means Hair Storm, because I was born with a full head of black curls.’ She stroked one of her braids and smiled wistfully.

  ‘My Christian name is Miriam,’ she continued, ‘given to me by the missionaries after the sister of the great prophet Moses. Since I left the day school, I have not used that name, but if I ever want to travel abroad it will be the name on my passport.

  ‘Chaska Eldest Son – Samuel – calls me T’unwín-la, father’s sister.’

  She leaned back and closed her eyes, her small frame seeming to melt into the cushion. For one long minute, Wasula said nothing and I thought she might have dozed off, but then she opened her eyes and looked directly at me.

  ‘Before me, Hannah, came my two brothers. They were named Matoska and Tahatan, born two years apart. From the time Tahatan learned to walk, the boys competed over everything. Who could shoot the arrow the farthest, whose sled reached the bottom of the hill first, whose horse was faster, who got to eat the last piece of molasses bread.’ She leaned forward. ‘But when it came to races, it was Matoska’s horse that usually won.’

  Wasula’s dark eyes flashed. She turned her head toward Julie who sat rigid with attention in one of the dinette chairs. ‘The Lakota are the best horseback riders in the world. Did you know that, Julie? My brothers were cowboys. Horses were all they knew. Raising them, training them, riding them, raising and selling cattle. They worked the rodeo circuit, too, using their Indian names, White Bear and Hawk. Roping, branding, bronco riding, steer wrestling – there was no competition my brothers could pass up. And for Hawk it was always a good day when he bested his older brother.

  ‘Lakota cowboys were like rock stars,’ she continued, inclining her head toward me. ‘When our father, Otaktay, was a young man, some Lakota left their farms and joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, travelling all the way to England to perform for Queen Victoria.’ Wasula took a deep breath. ‘It must have been a spectacle. Father’s friend, a Lakota named Blue Horse was one of the performers. They billed him as chief of the Shoshones.’

  ‘All Indians looked alike,’ Nick interjected.

  Wasula smiled indulgently. ‘The English had never seen anything like the Wild West Show. Crowds thronged the streets to catch a glimpse of the cavalcade. Blue Horse told me that they travelled with eight hundred performers, nearly two hundred horses, eighteen buffalo, ten elk, five Texas longhorns and two deer.’

  ‘They re-enacted Custer’s Last Stand only ten years after it occurred,’ Sam added. ‘Remarkable, while reprehensible. It goes without saying that the Indians were portrayed as savages. Attacking wagon trains, stage coaches and settler’s cabins until Wild Bill Cody and his troops rode triumphantly into the scene.’

  Wasula smiled. ‘It was a little bit more low-key in my day. We had the annual Pine Ridge Sioux Rodeo to look forward to, of course. It was a big tourist attraction. And cowboys like my brothers often left the reservation to compete in tournaments in other cities.’

  As I waited for her story to continue, hardly daring to breathe, Wasula paused and closed her eyes. Were long-ago events scrolling past her eyelids? After a moment she raised a hand, as if reading my mind. ‘You will want to know how our families met.’

  ‘My grandmother was a nurse,’ I said. ‘I’m guessing it was in that capacity.’

  ‘You are right. About once a month, there was a doctor from Pierre, I do not recall his name, who would drive to our clinic in an old Model T. Sometimes there would be another doctor with him, too, but he always brought a nurse.

  ‘Matoska, White Bear, had gotten into a disagreement with a Brahma bull and the bull won. Just broken fingers, I was told, but Nurse Lottie helped the doctor patch White Bear up. The next month, White Bear reported for a checkup, and the next month, too, even though his hand had healed.

  ‘After that, whenever the Model T was spotted coming down the road he’d show up at the clinic, offering to help out around the place. I was only thirteen, but even I knew it wasn’t the doctor White Bear wanted to see.

  ‘When Hawk informed Mother about his brother’s interest in the nurse, I think he expected Mother to forbid such a relationship, but that didn’t happen. Everybody respected Lottie. Besides, it wasn’t all that unusual for a Lakota man to marry a white woman. Our day school teacher came from Chicago and married a Lakota. They had two children together.

  ‘I do not know if Lottie returned White Bear’s affection. She smiled and was kind to everyone. She brought flour for the women, tobacco for the men, books and candy for the children. They honored her with the Indian name, Mika, which means Clever Raccoon.’ Wasula circled an eye with her index finger. ‘Lottie wore round eyeglasses with tinted lenses. The children had never seen sunglasses before.’

  I remembered those eyeglasses. Grandmother had kept them in a beaded case on her dresser, next to a bottle of Shalimar perfume.

  ‘Julie?’ Wasula patted the empty spot on the sofa next to her. When Julie joined her, Wasula turned and took both of my niece’s hands in her gnarled ones. After a moment, she reached up to touch Julie’s cheek. ‘You look very much like her, Granddaughter.’

  I choked back a sob.

  ‘After White Bear died,’ Wasula continued, still holding one of Julie’s hands, ‘Lottie never came again. I was fourteen then, and heartbroken. Lottie would bring me lipstick. She taught me how to French braid my hair. She gave
me movie magazines.’

  She grinned mischievously. ‘I was obsessed with Claudette Colbert. I confessed to Lottie that I wanted Claudette’s eyebrows, so the next time she came, Lottie brought tweezers and showed me how to use them. The clinic had closed, but the doctor had to wait while she finished doing my Hollywood makeover.’ Wasula laughed. ‘I didn’t care that the older girls made fun of my war paint.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think they were jealous.’

  ‘Tell me how White Bear died,’ I said. ‘He was so young!’

  ‘They said he was trampled to death by a horse,’ Wasula said matter-of-factly. ‘Father found him in the horse trailer, slumped against the wooden slats. They loaded him into a wagon and drove him to the hospital in Pierre, but he died two days later.’

  ‘Massive head and internal injuries,’ Sam supplied. ‘Liver, spleen, intestines.’

  Wasula’s face clouded. ‘Wakinyan could not have done that.’

  ‘Wakinyan?’ I asked.

  Sam answered for his aunt. ‘White Bear’s horse, Thunder Spirit.’

  ‘White Bear raised him from a colt,’ Wasula said. Her eyes, unwavering, caught mine. ‘I do not know who beat my brother to death, but it was not his horse.’

  SIXTEEN

  Wasula sagged, her eyes closed. I glanced over to Mai with alarm.

  ‘She’s just exhausted,’ Mai said with a smile. ‘It’s been a long and interesting morning. Stuff I never knew.’ Mai gently stroked Wasula’s arm. ‘Nap time, T’unwín-la.’

  While Mai was helping her aunt get settled in the bedroom, we relocated to the patio where Sam had arranged a half-dozen canvas chairs in a semi-circle under the shade of a sugar maple tree.

  ‘What does the sign mean, Nick?’ Julie asked as we were taking our seats.

  ‘Cikala Inipi?’

  Julie nodded.

  ‘Mai’s idea. It means Little Lodge.’

  ‘Nick carved the sign when he was in high school,’ Sam added. ‘It used to hang in our old Airstream trailer.’ After a moment he pointed toward an Igloo picnic cooler and said, ‘I’ve got cold beer and soft drinks in the cooler. Can I get anyone anything?’