Dad was president of the Pocatello Frontier Rodeo, and he had to deal with those Indians. He said all they cared about was the money so they could go out and get liquored up.
In Fort Hall, on our way to Blackfoot to visit Grandma in the Buick, usually there were Indians who stood in front of the Trading Post. Dad told us to lock our doors, and Mom always got the rosary out — if it wasn’t already out. As far as I could tell, the Indians in front of the Trading Post were ragged and dirty, but again I never got to see them up close.
I used to think Mexicans were dirty. They lived in that ratty old Mexican house, and they didn’t plant flowers or try and take care of the yard.
But that house wasn’t their house. It was Dad’s house.
And look at Flaco and Acho, scrubbed clean every day with no running water in the house.
That day in the hospital, cotton stuffed up my nose, leaning over, damn near ready to fall out of bed I was leaning over so close, looking at the Indian, it was only then I realized.
I had lived my whole life — over sixteen entire years — next to the Bannock Shoshone Indian reservation, and I had never been in the same room with a human being who was Indian before.
The only thing I knew about Indians was what I’d seen from far away and stories about Indians.
Told by who?
My father.
So, since I wasn’t my father, and since this was the first time for me ever to be in the same room with an Indian, and since that Indian was asleep, I decided to get an eyeful.
When it came right down to it, what scared me, what I wouldn’t think about too much that day, that moment, what really made my heart go wild, was two things.
This puto maricón Indian lying in the bed next to me was sleeping.
Something about the sleeping freaked me out. He was just lying there, his chest going up and down, up and down, so slow. His head tilted to one side, his arms spread out, his hands, the fingers, spread out. He was somewhere else and his arms and his hands, his fingers, were wings, and he was like me in my dreams when I fly, and he was flying.
That’s when I saw it, the second thing.
The Indian man, Injun George, the puto maricón George Serano, looked a lot like Flaco. Sturdier than Flaco, not so skinny, and older, say maybe thirty-five. His skin was smooth like Flaco’s, though, and brown. Not brown the same brown as Flaco’s, but close. Red-brown.
What it was, though, was the eyes. Even though his eyes weren’t open, I could tell. The dark lashes and the black eyebrows and the graceful arch of the lid.
Soft the way Flaco was soft. Jesus right there behind his eyes.
I’d never eaten cottage cheese before. Cottage cheese in your mouth the first time is weird.
Outside the bay window, the silver maples were wild girls, wind whipping through them something fierce.
Somewhere way out there, a slow, low rumble so far out there, I thought it might be something inside me here in my big sore head.
It wasn’t until that night, late, after Sister Angelica went off shift, that the first blast of thunder hit so hard it shook the halo off Saint Anthony.
One thousand twenty-two counts later, the bolt of lightning hit the power plant. Everything in Bannock County went dark.
One thousand four counts later, outside the bay window, the silver maple lit up an electric green.
One thousand one counts later, thunder so loud it wasn’t a sound but a thick place that sucks air. Ants crawl in your ears, ants all down your chest and back. All you want is breath.
One thousand, and boom all around a bright flash the color of the moon. Then dark. Thunder is your skull collapsing. Lightning, God’s long fingernails, jagged silver rips in a velvet black sky. Lightning you taste on your tongue.
Lightning was the blue arch of an electric fist coming right out at me, low on the floor, from the plug-in under the bay window.
For a moment I think, This is war. This is what we bend over and kneel under our desks for, this is Khrushchev’s atomic bomb.
Another blue fist clear across the room.
That’s when I look up at the end of my bed. The shape of a man in a flash of lightning.
I yell out loud, too loud like I always do, but you can’t hear me yell. Hell, even I can’t hear me yell. My legs are pulled up into my body, and my arms are around my legs. Another flash of lightning, and my bed sheets are glow-in-the-dark folds on Catholic statues.
The hand touched my leg first. The hand was hot. The hot hand on my arm. His lips were feathers against my ear.
It is Thunderbird, the man said.
Please help me hide, he said. I’m afraid. Thunderbird wants me. Thunderbird is after me, and I’m afraid.
The feeling that I can’t breathe. There is a yell inside my mouth, but I don’t yell.
So sudden and so natural, how the man curled into me, the way he laid his head under my arm. He pulled his legs up, and his hands, the long, beautiful fingers, covered his head.
A lightning flash. A blast of thunder. I took a deep breath.
The smell, a strong smell of burnt air, or was it the smell of the man?
In that moment, I looked around at things — the neon silver maple leaves, the strobe of bright and dark, bright and dark, all around me in my ears the sound of the earth falling apart.
At first, I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t scared. Then I knew. I wasn’t scared because someone else was more scared. And as soon as I saw there was someone more scared — it was so weird — in that moment I began to accept my own fear, and by accepting my fear I began to deal with it.
I let my hand touch his fingers on top of his head, let my hand lay there soft on him.
My voice in the room: It’s all right, I said. It’s only a thunderstorm, I said. It will pass.
You got to understand. I’d never been around someone with the DTs before. Back then, delirium tremens was just a bad case of diarrhea to me.
So that night, lying there with a sick and terrified man, in room 22, on a hospital bed, in the middle of the storm of ’66, I thought: I will hold this man until the storm breaks. That’s what Jesus would do. That’s what my father wouldn’t do. In the morning, the sun will rise on a peaceful world.
But as I was about to find out, it was a differnt world than I had figured. In the first place, the man I was in bed with was no Flaco. He was George Serano, Injun George, drunk and delirious.
And the world was no Hallmark card.
My first clue this was no fine romance was his breath. Something sweet and sour at the same time. Something rotten. Then the terrified man raised his head up. His eyes were like Flaco’s all right, dark and beautiful, long eyelashes, but inside his eyes there was something wrong. I was busy trying to figure out what was wrong in those eyes, when he raised his hand, his long, beautiful fingers.
Fucking little white bastard, he said.
Then slapped me across the face. A piece of cotton went flying out of my nose.
Speak with forked tongue asshole, he said. You made us many promises, more than I can remember, but you never kept but one. You promised to take our land, and you took it.
The last time someone had hit me in the face was Scardino. For a moment, the eyes looking into my eyes were Scardino’s, but then another flash, and what I saw was something I’d never seen before. The eyes looking into my eyes were wild, gone, off somewhere else. Another blast of thunder and a flash. The storm outside was some kind of chaos.
My knee went up, and I caught George Serano in the balls, or close enough. He went flying off the bed. I sat up fast, made all of my intention one thing: the buzzer on the wall.
Of course, the buzzer wouldn’t work without electricity, now would it?
In the doorway, I could make out a nurse in a white uniform. She had her hands on her cheeks. I think she was screaming.
In no time at all, George Serano was back up on his feet. All over on his head, his hair was sticking up like he’d been hit by one of those blue
fists from out of the plug-in. Behind him the bay window was neon green and shafts of lightning. The shafts of lightning looked like they were coming out of his head.
Just like that, his hands were around my neck.
My hands were on his hands. You know, the worst thing for me is not getting any breath. Well, that’s what I was doing, trying to get breath. I doubled up my fist, and just like John Wayne I punched this guy, a jab right into his eye, then I hauled back with a roundhouse and smacked him in the side of the head.
George Serano let go his hands from around my neck. He fell against the bedpost, then down on the floor. I jumped out on the other side of the bed from him. I started yelling, Nurse! Nurse! Sister Angelica!
The amazing thing is that all during this lightning and thunder and darkness and wrestling around and women out in the hallway screaming, there was some part of me that was saying, I can’t believe this! Look! My arms are not helpless. I’m fighting back! Look at me, I’m fighting back!
From under the bed, an arm reached out and grabbed my naked foot. I let out a scream, and it wasn’t long, and I was under the bed. This guy was all over me. I was rolling and screaming and naked arms and legs kicking and punching. All around us, shit was crashing and breaking. All hell was breaking loose.
When we finally stopped, we had rolled up into the corner to the right of the bay window. George Serano grabbed my hospital gown and his fists balled up my hospital gown around my neck. He put his face right up to my face, his forehead to my forehead, his wild eyes into my eyes.
Jeez, this guy was way beyond bologna breath. He hadn’t brushed his teeth since Eisenhower was president.
Then he lets go of my gown around the neck. And what does he do? He puts his arms around me. He pulls me close into his body, so close I can feel all of him. Like there was lightning in him, the way he was jumping.
You’ve got to help me, he said.
Then he let out a howl. Some kind of animal howling, something awful and crazy and sad, weird the way he was shaking.
It’s Thunderbird, he said. Thunderbird won’t stop until he has me in his claws.
George Serano’s hands had me by the shoulders. We were face to face again. I was about to push away when he shook me in a way that made me stop. His eyes weren’t wild, gone-off crazy. His eyes were the eyes I always knew he had, something soft, broken inside. Hurt the way you don’t ever get over being hurt.
Flashes and flashes of lightning. Sweat on his forehead, all over his face. His lips, blood on his lips, blood inside on his teeth.
Thunderbird lives at the edge of the world, he said, where the sun goes down.
I wasn’t scared again. Fear was in the room, but I didn’t have it. This Indian guy had it. And if he had it, maybe lots of other people did too. Lots of people must be afraid, not just me. I wasn’t so differnt.
I loved God so much right then. Still, I tried to step away, but George Serano held me firm.
Thunderbird can take any form, he said.
Flashes of light. The blood on his lips. The blood on his teeth.
Human, plant, animal, he said. But all the forms are only one. He has no shape, but he has four legs or two legs or a fin with hooves, and the hooves have claws. His wings cover the world, his wings are clouds, the beating of his wings brings the thunder. Thunder is the sound from deep inside his throat, though he has no head, yet there are teeth in his beak and the teeth are wolves’ teeth, rows and rows of teeth. He has one eye. Lightning comes from his eye. He sees everything. He flies through the sky searching to cleanse the world of filth.
Snot from out his nose, tears down his cheeks, snot and blood. I’d never seen a man cry like that before. Break down and cry, sobbing and snorting and making all the embarrassing sounds.
Filth, he said.
I’d seen only myself cry like that. And my father when Russell died.
The next flash, and all around us were people in white, nurses and nuns, and one bald man with a stethoscope.
Now, now, Mr. Serano, the bald man in white said. I’m Dr. Overturf, and I’m here to give you a sedative.
A flash. The crazy was back in George’s eyes when he looked at the doctor.
You have run over my country, George yelled.
Now, Mr. Serano, the doctor said. Just come over to your bed and lie down, and we’ll give you something to sleep.
Dr. Overturf talked with a singsong in his voice.
No sleep! George said. No sleep! Not now. I have to stay awake and I have to hide.
Dr. Overturf took George Serano’s one hand off my shoulder. He held George’s hand in his hand. Two nurses and a nun crowded around George and Dr. Overturf and me. Everybody took little steps. George’s other hand was a clenched fist around my shoulder. Fear in his eyes. I have known fear like that.
Thunder and lightning, thunder and lightning. Donnerwetter.
A big slap of wind against the bay windows and a falling branch.
The wind is the Thunderbird breathing, George said.
Come on, George, I said. You’ll feel better if you lie down.
You have destroyed the growing wood and the green grass, George yelled.
Our tiny steps were moving us, one bundle of people, slowly, slowly toward the bed.
You have set fire to my lands, he yelled. You have devastated my country and killed my animals, the elk, the deer, the antelope, my buffalo.
Karen, get the sedative ready, Dr. Overturf said.
Yes, doctor.
If I reached out, the bed was only an arm’s length away.
You do not kill them and eat them, George said. You leave them to rot where they fall.
The human wedge of us forced George against the bed. George let go of my shoulder and sat down. Dr. Overturf pulled George’s arm out straight. Nurse Karen swabbed a place on George’s inner elbow.
George looked down at his arm, the blue vein in his arm, blue even in the dark, blue in the flash of light.
Sleep won’t stop Thunderbird, George said. If I’m awake, at least I can run.
Now, now, George, Dr. Overturf said. In just a few seconds you will get some rest.
Nurse Karen guided the needle into the blue stuck-out river in George’s arm.
George’s words out of his mouth were so slow.
Thunderbird, George said, is the giver of revelation.
The wild went out of George’s eyes, and his eyes closed. His body fell into itself. I helped the other nurse get George’s legs up on the bed.
The sides of the bed went up fast, little jail cells about a foot and a half high. Then the strap was pulled over George’s chest, another strap over his legs, straps around George’s wrists, around his ankles.
It was weird, standing there, all of us around George Serano’s bed. The way the lightning was flashing, the darkness, then the light, thunder, all of us dressed in white, in a hospital, Nurse Karen with a syringe, all of us white people staring down at the Indian.
Somewhere in my body, maybe not in, maybe all of my body, felt something familiar, yet I did not know what.
Another flash of lightning. A roll of thunder.
Moments of gesture.
We were a Frankenstein movie, the part in the laboratory, when all the townspeople are safe because the monster is sleeping.
Dr. Overturf and the nurses kept telling me I was such a brave boy. After they wheeled George out in his bed, Nurse Karen brought me some cherry Jell-O and a 7UP.
In the morning, the sun was shining through the silver maples. Shadows and light on the shiny waxed floor.
A peaceful world.
But the peace did not last long.
My madras shirt was not on the hanger. Inside the blue overnight case, my wallet and my change were gone. And something else gone. My pair of jockey shorts. Not the clean ones, the dirty ones I’d worn into the hospital.
George Serano was out of his straps, out of his bed, out of his room, out of the hospital.
I heard the two nurses tal
king.
No one in the hospital had seen him leave.
Nobody told Mom what had happened the night before. Not even Sister Angelica had the nerve.
I said nothing. I loved that I had a secret.
At the checkout window, Mom’s eyes were neon green, and her hair was a wild girl’s. Man, was she pissed. Her voice got high and her chin was up.
I’m here to report a theft, Mom said.
On the other side of the checkout window, the nurse was young and her cheeks were red.
My son’s new madras shirt, Mom said, his wallet, and his change have been stolen.
I didn’t tell her about the jockey shorts.
I paid five dollars and ninety-five cents for that shirt, Mom said. And his driver’s license was in the wallet. Took him three years to get that license.
In no time at all, Sister Angelica was white flowing robes and veils around the corner.
Mrs. Klusener, Sister Angelica said, I’m so sorry about your son’s belongings.
We try to run a tight ship around here, Sister Angelica said.
Sister Angelica took a deep breath. Her eyes went to my eyes, and her eyes were tears and had the holy look, the way she’d looked at George Serano.
Sister Angelica put her hand on my mother’s shoulder.
Mom didn’t know what the hell to do. A nun was touching her. There was lipstick on her teeth when Mom smiled.
I can assure you, Sister Angelica said, as soon as we find the culprit, we will contact you.
We walked that way down the hall to the bright outside the hospital doors, Sister Angelica next to Mom, her hand on Mom’s shoulder.
I held the door open for Sister Angelica and Mom.
You take care, Rigby John, Sister Angelica said.
I turned to look Sister Angelica in the eyes, but the sun shined hard against the glass door. Sister Angelica blurred like a photograph with too much sun.
Thank you, Sister, I said.
On the stairway, the sidewalk, in the parking lot, in the street, big tree branches lying all over. Leaves on everything. I was carrying the square blue overnight case. Billie Cody and her mom were getting into her mom’s white Pontiac Bonneville. I quick walked behind a car so Billie wouldn’t see me carrying a purse again. Billie’s face was real white, and her hair was sticking up. Her eyes were red. I don’t think she saw me.
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