The Toughest Indian in the World: Stories

by Sherman Alexie

  Finally, at the bottom of the last staircase, at the bottom of the world, I was marched into the darkness of the very last tunnel. Inside, it was cool, nearly cold, but dry. Beyond the walls, I could hear strange machinery working. I could hear voices in the distance. Screams, too. I walked with seven Indian strangers: two young girls who huddled together; a teenage boy whose eyes were twice as old as his face; two women, one of them pregnant; and two men, one of them large and imposing with a port-wine birthmark that covered half of his face and the other one smaller than me. With our shaved heads, in our red jumpsuits, we looked like we had been in a concentration camp for years, though we had been prisoners for only a matter of hours. Together, led by the soldiers, including the soldier-who-looked-like-me, we walked for miles, or for inches, I could no longer tell the difference. We marched through the darkness until we could see a bright light in the distance. The light grew larger and larger. I was afraid of it. I wanted to give it a name, so I called it Father.

  Soon, the eight of us were marched out of the dark tunnel and into a long white hallway where white doors were evenly spaced along both sides like God’s teeth. We were marched through an open door at the end of that hallway and into a circular room. In the room, eight beds, each with clean sheets and thin blankets. In the room, an exposed toilet. In the room, a water faucet, a large plastic bucket, and eight small plastic cups. In the room, a surveillance camera.

  No secrets in a circular room.

  “Grab a bunk,” said a soldier with a large nose. His voice shook the floor of our room-cell and reverberated in the hollow bones of my feet.

  Each of us, the eight Indians, chose a bed. I could not tell north from northwest. I only knew my position by the faces and shapes of my neighbors. On my immediate left, the pregnant Indian woman, then the two girls huddled together on one bed, then the small Indian man, then the other Indian woman, then the boy with old eyes, and then, to my immediate right, the large Indian man with the port-wine birthmark.

  “Okay, listen up,” said the large-nose soldier. “I want to welcome all of you here. Now, I know you’ve been through a rough journey and the accommodations here are a bit spartan…”

  “Why are we here?” shouted the large Indian man.

  A nervous white soldier gently placed the muzzle of his rifle against the large Indian man’s forehead. The man was suddenly quiet. Though he had never fired a gun, had never been threatened with a gun, had never had the desire to use a gun, that Indian man understood the meaning of a gun held in white hands and pointed at a brown face. Genetic memory.

  “Sir,” the large-nose soldier said, nearly whispered, to the large Indian man. “We don’t really have the time to answer your questions. We have quite a bit of work yet to do here.”

  The large Indian man said nothing. The large-nose soldier studied the Indian’s garish red birthmark.

  “Pity about your face,” said the large-nose soldier.

  “They want our blood,” I said. “They’re vampires.”

  Large nose turned away from the large Indian man, walked up close to my bed, and kneeled down in front of me.

  “Son,” he said. “What is your name?”

  “Jonah.”

  “Ah, that’s a good name. Very strong name, that Jonah.” The large-nose soldier smiled. “Jonah, you can call me Ishmael. You see, we all have our whales.”

  Then he slapped my face so hard that I momentarily blacked out. In those seconds, I dreamed of my mother and father, though I dreamed only of their hands because I could not remember their faces. When I regained consciousness, Large nose was standing again in the middle of our room.

  “First of all,” he said, “we have a couple of basic rules here. Number one, you will not speak unless spoken to. Number two, you will follow our orders exactly. And by exactly, I mean you will not deviate in any form whatsoever. Any deviation will result in severe punishment. Continued rebellion will result in isolation and restraint.”

  Large nose looked around the room.

  “As you can see,” he said, “you have access to an unlimited amount of water for bathing and consumption. And you will receive six small meals a day. Three times a week, for one hour a day, you will be escorted into a recreation room where you will exercise your body. The lights will be dimmed for eight hours every night so that you may sleep.”

  I wanted to lie down on my strange bed and fall asleep forever.

  “Citizens,” said large nose, “you are here to perform a great patriotic service for your country. The sacrifices you have made and are going to make have been and will be greatly appreciated by your fellow Americans. And remember, please, that you are here for your own safety and we plan to take good care of you. Now, I wish you all a good night.”

  Without ceremony, large nose and all of the soldiers filed out of the room and locked the door behind them. I harbored a brief and dangerous hope that the soldier-who-looked-like-me would turn back, open the door, and release us, but the locked door stay locked. We, the eight Indians, waited together in the silence as thin and strong as our own skins. None of us said a word for minutes that slowly became hours. I looked down at my bare and dirty feet. I felt the rough cloth of my red jumpsuit. I studied the meager details of the room until I could close my eyes and see them, in exact reproduction, on the blank walls of my imagination. The two young girls, who had been strangers before and would never be more than a few feet apart for the rest of their lives, continued to huddle together and weep. The pregnant woman laid down on her bed with her back to us, with her face toward the curved wall, and pretended to sleep, or fell asleep and made all of us jealous with her ability to hide in plain sight. The other Indian woman drank cup after cup of water.

  Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen.

  The large Indian man pounded on the closed door while the small Indian man softly sang a tribal song. The boy with old eyes stared at me and I stared back. His eyes were two abandoned houses standing together on a grassy plain burned brown by the sun. Wooden flesh fell away from those houses and left only two skeletal frames. Crows and owls perched on rotting timbers. Wild grass and prodigal weeds burst through the foundation.

  Everything is reclaimed, everything is reclaimed.

  The boy with old eyes stood and walked toward me. He leaned down so close to me I could see the old black woodstove still smoldering in the houses of his eyes.

  “Jonah,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” I whispered back.

  “Everybody here is full-blood.”

  “I know.”

  “What happened to the others?” he asked, meaning the half-breeds, the mixed-bloods, the people with just a trace of Indian blood, and the white people who had lived among Indians for so long that they had nearly become Indians.

  “I don’t know,” I said, but I assumed they had been shipped to prisons of their own.

  “The soldiers want our blood,” said the boy with old eyes.

  “I know,” I said. “I dreamed it.”

  “I dreamed it too.”

  “We all dreamed it,” said the pregnant woman as she rose from sleep, or the illusion of sleep.

  We all moved closer to one another, except for the small Indian man. He sat alone on his bed and continued to sing.

  “We’ve got to escape,” said the large Indian man. He looked strong enough to tear down the door.

  “How?” said the Indian woman who was not pregnant. For the first time, I noticed her beauty. She was beautiful even with her head shaved bald. I could not imagine how beautiful she must have been before her hair had been taken. I imagined her hair had been a black river flowing down the landscape of her back.

  “Tell us,” she said. “Tell us how we’re supposed to get out of here?”

  There was no possible answer to her question. If we could have somehow crawled out of the belly of that underground prison, we would have found ourselves standing alone in the desert
, without water, without shoes, without compass, without destination, without home.

  “I don’t want to die here,” said the two Indian girls, together, as if they possessed only one voice. They were small and dark.

  “If they were going to kill us,” said the beautiful Indian woman, “they would have done it already. They need us for something.”

  “I told you,” I said. “They want our blood.”

  “It has to be more than that,” she said. “We must have some disease. The Black Plague or something.”

  “That couldn’t be,” said the large Indian man. “Those soldiers weren’t wearing masks. They were breathing in some of the air we breathed out. They weren’t afraid of us.”

  “But they kept talking about blood,” said the boy with old eyes.

  “Yes,” I said. “I saw a soldier get beaten because he killed two Indians.”

  “No blood, no blood,” said the two Indian girls together. “They kept saying that. No blood, no blood.”

  “You’re right,” said the pregnant woman. “It’s our blood. There’s something in our blood.”

  “You’re all wrong,” whispered the small Indian man. His voice sounded like a house fire.

  We all turned toward him.

  “You’re all wrong,” he said again.

  “What do you think?” asked the beautiful woman.

  “None of you,” said the small man, pointing a finger at each of us. “None of you knows who you are anymore. None of you knows who we’re going to be.”

  “You’re talking riddles,” said the large man.

  “Listen to me,” said the small man. “I’m talking truth. Don’t you know what we are to them? What we have always been?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “You see,” said the small man. “Right outside that door, those soldiers, those people are getting things ready. They’ve got their own ceremonies, you know?”

  The small man stood. He was barely over five feet tall, though his hands were large, his fingers long and feminine. His skin was as dark as a black man’s.

  “Right outside that door,” he continued, “they have big rooms. Big rooms filled with the dead. Filled with their dead. All the dead white people lined up in rows and rows and rows.”

  “What dead?” asked the large man.

  “All of them. Every white person who has ever died. They’ve got them lying on beds, all clean and perfumed and naked.”

  “Naked?” I asked.

  “Every man, woman, child. Naked. White skin everywhere. White skin so bright and shining it will blind you. And we will go blind down here, you know? Living down here like rodents, like worms.”

  “I’m no worm,” said the pregnant woman.

  “Yes, you are, you’re a worm. You’re less than a worm to them. You’re an exile, you’re a leper, you’re a pariah, you’re a peon, you’re nothing to them. Nothing.”

  The short man stood on his bed. He was shouting, spittle flying from his mouth, and raising his arms like he was some kind of preacher. And maybe he was a preacher.

  “Smell the air,” he said. “Smell the air!”

  I inhaled. I could smell nothing except the antiseptic walls and floors of our cell and the fear and fatigue of my fellow prisoners.

  “Do you smell that?” asked the small man. “That’s a feast you’re smelling. That’s roast beef you’re smelling. Venison. Lamb. Veal. That’s vegetables of every kind. That’s fruits so sweet they’ll make your mouth burn. That’s bread from a hundred different countries.”

  My stomach rumbled with the thought of so much food. With a full belly, I believed I could begin to have some hope.

  The short man ranted on. We were all entranced by him. He was our momentary savior and we were his temporary disciples.

  “And do you know what they’re doing with all of that food?” he asked us. “They’re piling it on every one of those dead bodies. There’s a feast on the chest of every one of those dead white people out there. And that food is soaking up all of the hate and envy and sloth in those white people. That food is soaking up all of the anger and murder and thievery. That food is soaking up all of the adultery and fornication and blasphemy. That food is soaking up all of the lies and greed and hatred.”

  We prayed; he preached.

  Call and response, call and response.

  He preached; we prayed.

  Call and response, call and response.

  “Children,” he said. “There’s a white body in there for each of us. There’s a feast in there for each of us. There’s a feast of sins shining on every one of those bodies. And tomorrow morning, those soldiers are going to lead us all, you hear me, lead us all into that room and they’re going to force us to kneel at those bodies, and they’re going to force us to devour those feasts, devour those sins.”

  The small man fell down on the floor and I fell facedown beside him because I believed.

  Early the next morning, or during what they wanted us to believe was morning, three soldiers, one black and two white, forced the large Indian man from our room, despite our cries and protests, and we wondered if we would ever see him again.

  “He’s gone forever,” said the small Indian man, our prophet. His name was John, a Colville Indian. We all looked at one another and wondered who would be next. I closed my eyes and saw the room filled with the corpses of white people. I saw the feast piled on the chest of the white man I had been chosen to save. I opened my eyes and looked into the eyes of the Indians I would soon call my family.

  “What are your names?” I asked.

  The boy with old eyes said his name was Joseph. He said he was a Seminole Indian from Florida. He said he could run for days and days. The beautiful Indian woman said she was Navajo. She was a librarian, she said. I’ll miss books, she said. The two girls who held each other and refused to let go were the same two girls who also refused to speak to us. They just cried and whimpered, so we left them nameless. The pregnant Indian woman lay on her bed with her back to us.

  “What is your name?” I asked her.

  “Leave me alone,” she said.

  “Please,” I said. “We want to know who you are.”

  “I don’t care,” said the pregnant woman.

  She stood, ran across the room, and smashed her big belly into the wall. She punched herself in the stomach again and again. Four of us, the prophet, the boy with old eyes, the beautiful woman, and I, all had to work together in order to hold her down.

  “Let my baby die!” she screamed. “Let him die!”

  We fought her. We wanted the baby to live, not because we loved him or loved the idea of life, but because we knew his death would take something else from us, and we had so little left to call our own.

  Hours later, after the pregnant woman had passed out, after exhaustion had taken all of our energy, three other soldiers, including the soldier-who-looked-like-me, came into our room, and despite the cries and protests, which had grown considerably weaker, I was taken away.

  I could hear the other Indians call my name as I was led away.

  “Jonah,” they said.

  With two white soldiers walking a few steps behind me and the soldier-who-looked-like-me walking a few steps in front, I marched farther down the bright hallway, past those countless white doors. I knew there were Indian prisoners trapped behind every one of those doors. I wondered if they could hear us marching down the hallway, if they could hear the rhythmic stomp of the soldiers’ boots and the soft shuffle of my bare feet. If I had pressed my ear to the cold metal of those white doors, I might have heard the stories, the rumors whispered so often that in just a few hours they had become myth. I might have heard the rumors about rescue attempts, about the half-breed Indian rebels who had broken out of their own prisons and who were now trekking across the desert to save us, or about the Indians who had avoided capture and who were now being secretly trained by sympathetic white soldiers, or about the multiethnic armies, formed by black, red, white, and br
own soldiers, formed by men, women, and children, that were only awaiting a leader, a white man on a pale horse, to come along and lead them to victory.

  I wondered if I was just a rumor as I walked down that hallway, between those white doors, with those soldiers marking time with each disciplined exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale. I wondered if I had been forgotten by the Indians still left in my room, in my cell. I wondered what had happened to the large Indian man after they had taken him from our room, and if they were now taking me to the same place where they had taken him.

  I was young and small. I could have stepped inside the body of the soldier-who-looked-like-me and been lost forever.

  I closed my eyes and easily marched in a straight line. All the while, I was convinced they were marching me toward a large room that was filled with the corpses of a million white people. The damp smell of disinfectant and indestructible mold could have been the smell of a terrible feast. I heard the hum of machinery and wondered if I was hearing a country of flies all speaking at once.

  “Stop,” said the soldier-who-looked-like-me.

  I stopped.

  “Open your eyes,” he said.

  I could not open my eyes. I was afraid of what I might see.

  “Open your eyes,” he said.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Open your eyes before I pry them open and staple your eyelids to your forehead.”

  I held my breath and opened my eyes. I was standing in a very small room with a stainless-steel table bolted to the floor. Black leather restraining straps were lying like sleeping snakes across that table. As with every other wall in our prison, the walls of that room were white and clean, clean, clean.

  “Take off your jumpsuit,” said the soldier-who-looked-like-me.

  “Where’s the large man?” I asked.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the soldier-who-looked-like-me.

  “The large Indian man,” I said. “The one with the birthmark on his face.”

  “Strip,” one of the white soldiers said as he pushed me to the floor. I looked up into the face of the soldier-who-looked-like-me. He pushed the muzzle of his rifle against my narrow chest.