“To tell you the truth, I don’t like to hurt somebody who doesn’t hurt me.”
“I don’t like fist games,” said Indian Head.
“So let’s play something else.”
Indian Head said the chief wouldn’t permit that. It would nullify the contest and Yozip wouldn’t be allowed to enter the tribe.
The ex-peddler feigned disappointment. He sighed audibly. Indian Head then produced a long large sheep-horn bow and cutting arrow. To test them he aimed at a tiny cloud in the sky. A black hawk striving for altitude shrieked and fell to the ground. Neither Indian Head nor Yozip had seen the bird begin its fall and both were astonished.
Bessie bolted, attempting to run, but Yozip grabbed her by the tail and deftly held tight until the horse, kicking at imaginary enemies, gradually calmed down.
The Indian braves, standing in a circle around their venerable chief, now looked at the peddler as if he might be human. Though on the verge of crying gevalt after he had been slapped red and raw by them, and chastened by the objectivity of the chief, Yozip forcibly biting his lips managed to keep his mouth shut.
Bessie whinnied in sympathy and was severely whacked on the rump by Indian Head. She moaned, shivered, and took the blow without moving. Yozip felt embarrassed for his faithful black steed.
The chief then touched Yozip’s left eye with his arthritic pinky. He blew on it. The eye was bone dry.
The medicine man in the purple headdress that resembled a dish of rags performed a frenetic short dance and uttered three bleating cries at the sky.
Then the old chief, walking backward in his soiled feathered bonnet, hoarsely announced the next contest.
Indian Head explained the rules of the bow-and-arrow game. Yozip would shoot first at the red apple Indian Head was about to place on his head. Should Yozip miss, Indian Head would then shoot at the red apple on Yozip’s head. The purpose was to hit the apple, not the head. Indian Head smiled mysteriously, and Yozip then had serious doubts about his future. This bothered him, because essentially he was an ambitious man who wanted to live a long, accomplished life.
Yozip could barely manipulate the heavy sheep-horn bow Indian Head gave him to shoot with. To pull the sinewed gut string burdened his heart. He envisioned himself falling to the ground in weakness. Again he heard snorting and derision among the braves.
The chief lectured them on courtesy and then told Yozip what he had said.
Yozip lifted his heavy bow. His arrow, after a slow shot, rose ten feet and skidded along the ground before it came to a stop.
No one laughed.
The betting commenced again and Yozip thought the odds on him could not be very high.
In the next round Indian Head, pulling his bow so strongly that his fingers quivered, seemed to be carefully aiming at Yozip’s skull. It occurred to the ex-peddler that he was on his way to being a dead man.
The arrow, shot high into the air, eventually descended before his face; he felt it cut the tip of his nostril as the apple fell off his head. Yozip was slightly wounded by the barbed edge of the expiring arrow, and thus a bit of flesh was snipped from the tip of his long nose.
Blood streamed from the wound.
A cry went up from the braves in the tribe.
The chief called the blood a magic sign.
“Your nose is pierced but you are not wounded.”
“My nose bleeds,” Yozip cried, touching the blood. He feared he would be disfigured for life.
The medicine man bent to inspect the fleshly bleeding, but he saw nothing to get excited about. He hawked up a glob of phlegm and caught it in his hand. Then he spoke aloud to the Great Spirit, but apparently the Great Spirit advised him to omit the spittle.
The chief told Yozip to rub earth on his bleeding nose. The earth would stop the blood.
Yozip followed his advice. He then picked up the heavy bow for his second shot. To everyone’s surprise the arrow rose from fifty yards away quickly and strongly in a straight line toward Indian Head’s cranium.
One Blossom shrieked, but Indian Head, after giving the matter a moment of serious consideration, was able to catch the expiring arrow with his left hand.
The braves mumbled and grunted.
The chief then sternly informed One Blossom that her cry had interfered with the sacred initiation and she would be suitably punished.
The girl gasped, for a war-painted brave was rising from the bushes and aiming his massive arrow squarely at Yozip’s head.
From a tall tree nearby a shrieking eagle rose aloft and flew with talons and wings outstretched at the painted brave with the shaven skull who had aimed to shoot Yozip in the back of his head. The other braves grabbed for their bows and arrows and swiftly shot them into the sky. Shaved Head, cursed by the chief, dived into a nearby muddy pond. The Indians loosed a stream of arrows at the black eagle and bloodied its feathers as the bird rose with magnificent force until it vanished.
One night Yozip stayed awake until the moon drew in its horns. He intended to count a thousand stars in the diamond sky but did not stop until 1,033. Dawn came serenely as he promised to do something splendid for his tribe.
Fifty buffalo had been imported from Montana and caged in a corral. When they saw the Indians approaching they battered the logs with their heavy horns and, when the fence gave way, stampeded toward a ravine. Indian Head and thirty tribesmen carrying white-feathered lances were trapped amid the frightened animals and tossed like boats on a stormy sea. The buffalo scattered thunderously among the red men. They milled around frantically and the Indians, in self-protection, began to shoot their whirring arrows at the shaggy beasts. Yozip did not know what to do with himself or where to go. He had been given a tomahawk to bring down a buffalo, but he was a confirmed vegetarian and could not bring himself to crack open a buffalo’s skull.
Indian Head shouted at him: “The trophy we must present to the chief is a buffalo’s head.”
“So let us look for another trophy.”
Indian Head raised his tomahawk at Yozip. The sight of the uplifted weapon incensed a bull, who let out a roar of fright and charged Indian Head’s pony. The bull struck the pony a blow on the hip. Indian Head’s horse screamed, reared, and dumped its rider at its feet. He went head down as though off a chute.
Yozip jumped from Bessie’s back to the ground. With all his strength he lifted Indian Head and, before the massive bull could move, settled the youthful brave on Bessie’s back and clucked loudly. Holding the brave tightly with one arm he mounted his horse and pushed forward. The other braves surrounded them for protection, but the buffalo had disappeared down the side of the ravine.
Yozip reined in Bessie, lifted Indian Head down, and began to try to revive him as the braves on their ponies looked on.
Indian Head’s eyes fluttered as he came slowly to life. His expression, as he stared at Yozip, was one of surprised affection.
A brave slapped the ex-peddler on the back.
“You Big Chief,” he muttered.
“Denks,” said Yozip.
After being accepted as winner of the contests he had entered, and theoretically as a brave who had proved his courage in the face of peril, Yozip, after receiving the old chief’s congratulations and a reluctant peck on the cheek by his sister One Blossom, became depressed, feeling he had no fate other than to win and take his place among the Indians of the tribe.
FIVE
Washington, D.C.
THE CHIEF SAID he would send Yozip to Washington, D. C. “We have not been in touch with our American friends recently.”
“Keep me here,” Yozip cried. “What do I know from strange cities ?”
“It is in some respects an evil city. My father cursed it when that actor Booth shot Mr. Abraham Lincoln.”
“So if it is evil why will you send there a man who is not far from a greenhorn? What can I tell them which they don’t know? Will they believe me if I tell them the truth?”
“I am sending you there to tell them
the truth.”
The chief nodded at Indian Head, who nodded to One Blossom. She dipped her head to Yozip, to his surprise.
“We wish you to represent our tribe,” said the chief. “We wish you to speak in our name for our cause. You must tell the Americans that we will never leave our land.”
“How can I tulk with my short tongue? Where will I find the words? When I open my mouth to tulk they will laugh at me.”
“No one will laugh at you. No one will laugh at the sound of your voice which speaks for all of us—the People. We wish you to speak to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He has asked me to sign a new paper that I will not sign. I don’t trust these papers which they send us. Others have signed and have been betrayed, but I will not sign though they threaten to move our tribe out of this valley.”
“Where will we go?” asked Yozip.
“No doubt they have in mind an inferior reservation where the soil and fishing can hardly compare to ours. I have told them that death lives on that reservation, and we cannot live with death.”
“Ai,” said Indian Head.
“Ai,” said One Blossom.
The chief said the Indian Commissioner’s threat bled their morale.
“We have managed for years through great efforts to hold the bloodsucking whites at a distance. But the time may come when we shall have to defend ourselves with arms. This is a great disadvantage because they have superior arms and all we have is our will. Although our will is of iron it does not shoot bullets.”
“I don’t like bullets,” Yozip said.
“We are sending you to Washington to speak with your eloquence on our behalf. We send you to speak for our tribe that has chosen you to be our brother. We must now do what we have never done before. You will go in our name and plead with the Commissioner to soften his heart to our request. He must be merciful to his brothers who walk in rain in their red skins.”
But Yozip was still worried. “What can a greenhorn do for you in such a city as Washington? Suppose they say I am not yet a citizen and so they keep from me my citizen papers?”
“None of us have citizen papers,” said Indian Head. “They call us native Indians and treat us as native strangers. When an American looks at an Indian he expects to see lice crawling on his head. One Blossom hides her head with her hat. The whites have no respect for us. They cheat us of our past.”
“You must go,” announced the chief. “You are capable. I am old and my children are not eloquent. If you don’t go with your vibrant voice and presence to speak for our rights they will rob us of our last spot of green land.”
“You must go,” said One Blossom. Her eyes glistened.
Yozip was already on his feet.
“I will brush my Bessie.”
“You will go on the iron train in Montana that eats up wood and spits out miles,” said the chief.
One Blossom found a pair of beaded moccasins for Yozip. He wore buckskin pants, a deerskin shirt, and a thick headband over his reddish long hair. Since joining the tribe, Yozip’s hair had turned a brownish red. Only his face was shaved clean. He shaved with a piece of plate glass the chief had presented to him. One Blossom wound a cord around a white feather in his thick hair. Yozip also wore three sets of heavy black beads around his neck. The chief had given him a pair of gold earrings, but the new Indian was too shy to wear them. And he carried a jacket a good-hearted squaw had given him, and was thinking of investing in a new pair of field boots.
Indian Head, three braves, and One Blossom accompanied him on their ponies to the iron horse that left from the station in Helena, Montana. Yozip sat in the rocking train astonished by the ride and the view. From one window he saw a herd of buffalo walking in single file in the snow. Farther up the line, two elephantine buffalo were fearfully facing the iron horse as it chugged along. Nearby a buffalo defecated in the snow.
I feel alone like him, Yozip thought, but I hope nobody will see me the way I see him.
On the train Yozip met a drummer who tried to engage him in a conversation.
“By God, an Indian. I didn’t think they let you ride on trains. At least you don’t look like a full-blooded Indian to me. Who the hell are you?”
“I go to Washington.”
The drummer fell silent, then asked, “What’s the difference between a horse’s ass and a horse who is an ass?”
Yozip could not tell him.
“None.”
“What did the hoor say to the Indian chief with the big prick?” the salesman asked with a chuckle.
“Excuse me, this I don’t know.”
“That will cost you double.” The drummer laughed hoarsely.
In five days and nights Yozip arrived in Washington, D.C., excited to be in the capital of the United States of America.
He had been given the name of a boardinghouse on N Street, and though he was stared at by some people in the house who seemed to admire his white feather, Yozip was not embarrassed. Two middle-aged men were friendly to him, and so were a courteous government lawyer and his wife, who helped him locate the building in which the Commissioner of Indian Affairs had his office.
Yozip went to this building not far from the Washington Monument to look at it twice, and he twice returned to the boardinghouse ashamed of his English. He had talked to a stranger who had listened to him with a broad smile. Since his funds were low, one morning after a short inspirational look at the White House he walked forcefully to the Indian Commissioner’s office and informed a young man with a part in his wavy hair why he had come.
“If you’ll excuse me, they sent me from my tribe I should see the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.”
The young man examined him closely. “Did you say you are a member of an Indian tribe?”
Yozip drew an unsteady breath. “I am a member of a tribe in Idaho, which they call themselves the People. The chief told me to talk to the Commissioner.”
“The People sent you to talk to the United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs?” He looked doubtful. “Do you have any official papers with you?”
Yozip produced a sheaf of papers from his deerskin pouch pocket, which he asked the young man to return to him because they belonged to the tribe. He noticed a redheaded young woman sitting on a bench nearby, regarding him with interest.
He was tempted to talk to her but said nothing.
The young man left with the papers and soon returned.
“The Commissioner will see you late this afternoon if he can be certain you are not misrepresenting yourself and the tribe you call the People.”
“This,” said Yozip, “I wouldn’t do. They told me to go to Washington, so I went.”
“Should I call you chief?” asked the young man.
“If you will call me mister will be fine.”
“This afternoon at 5 p.m., Mr. Indian.”
“Denks, said Yozip.
At five o’clock, Yozip was led to the desk of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and sat nervously still while the burly man looked him over, particularly at the white feather in his thick hair. He was a heavy man wearing pince-nez. He spat into a pocket handkerchief, brushed his lips, and then addressed Yozip.
“Where were you born if I might ask? Are you an American citizen? How did you become acquainted with the People tribe? The story you tell, as it has been conveyed to me, is not very convincing.”
Yozip said his name was Yozip Bloom. He explained that he had been initiated into his tribe. They had permitted him to become a member after he had gone through the rites of initiation.
“And you deliberately altered your nose in order to accept initiation into this tribe?”
“Indian Head hit me on the nose with a loose arrow that he shot. When it stopped to bleed it did not anymore hurt me.”
“I’m quite sure that your chief had more than one decently educated brave available who could have represented him adequately in this office. What is your explanation why you were chosen to do that?”
Yozi
p began a sentence and stopped. Then he said, “The chief told me I am capable. Long ago he signed once with the United States government a paper that it says the tribe could stay in Idaho in their valley where they live there many years. The old braves are buried there. The government now says to leave this valley but we do not wish to go.
“My chief told me also to tell you that one day he planted two poles in the valley where we live, which is fifty miles wide. He said the white men could take the land outside, but the land inside the poles is the land of our people. Inside this boundary the land goes around the graves of our fathers. We will never give up these graves. My chief says he will not sign any more papers because they all lie to him. He says they don’t speak to him the truth.”
The Indian Commissioner smiled thinly. “Why didn’t he come here to this nation’s capital and say it himself?”
“He is now an old man. It is not easy to walk if you got arthritis.”
“But I understand he speaks English?”
Yozip’s face turned red. “I told you his words.”
“Be that as it may, eventually our entire Indian population will be placed on reservations. That will be just, as well as the best possible thing for them.”
“If you will podden me,” Yozip said, “the chief and also my brothers do not like to change our reservation. He likes, and also the tribe likes, our valley, which they wish to stay there. The chief told me to say that our people don’t attack white people. He told me to say, with respect, if you will kindly let us live where our ancestors lived, and do not force us to go to another reservation, for this we will be thankful to you and also to the Great Spirit.”
Yozip had memorized this speech.
The People Page 4