Blood Memory

by Margaret Coel

  There was power in Washington, a sense that problems could be solved. That was what the Arapahos and every other tribe had always believed. She had read about the delegations they always sent to Washington to talk to the Great White Father who would solve all the problems, stop the injustices. Dozens of delegations, dozens of chiefs on horseback, bouncing over dirt roads in flimsy wooden wagons, riding the swaying coaches behind smoke-belching locomotives, and all of them certain that when the Great White Father knew what was happening to his Indian children, he would see that they had justice.

  And the tribes were still coming. She smiled at that, the way the myth had survived for two centuries.

  She got out of the cab at the corner of the Russell Senate Building and joined the groups of people filing through the entrance. The security station gave her a feeling of safety, the same safety she’d felt after passing through security at the airport. During the flight, she had fallen into the first deep and restful sleep since Maury had been shot. Even if Erik were following, even if somehow he had managed to book a seat on the same plane—the gun riding in the belly—he would not be able to bring the gun inside the building.

  She followed the corridor to an elevator, rode to the fourth floor, and joined the crowd moving down another corridor and into a conference room with chairs around the walls and a long table in the center. Everything about the room was purposeful and serious—paneled walls and thick carpeting, upholstered chairs, and chandeliers dangling from a molded ceiling.

  The room was already crowded. Still people were pouring through the doors and clambering toward the vacant chairs. She recognized some of the senators and congressmen taking the front-row seats that seemed to have been reserved for them. Staff people with briefcases and file folders moved into the row behind, leaning over their shoulders and whispering quick messages before finally settling onto the chairs.

  Senator Adkins emerged through the crowd jammed near the door across the room and sat down at the end of the table, a big man still in his forties, with rounded shoulders that strained the dark jacket of his suit, blondish Marine-cropped hair, and the nose and alert eyes of a prize fighter. Then she spotted Senator Russell making his way to one of the last front-row seats. He looked tired and haggard, worn down by years of trailing the Capitol corridors, muscling through the kind of legislation expected by the corporations and businesses that had always assured his reelection. Last spring, he’d announced he would not run again. Time to retire to the family ranch in Turkey Creek Canyon, he’d said, an old horse heading back to the corral.

  Still, Senator Russell had been around so long that he’d endeared himself to the other senators, like a piece of furniture in the Capitol, a remnant from another time, highly polished and still usable. There was every chance he could ram through a rider that would settle tribal land claims and bring a major casino to Colorado.

  The hum of conversations, scuff of footsteps, and rustle of papers filled the room. Catherine walked along the rows of chairs toward the section beyond the black metal stand with the sign that said “Press.” Dennis Newcomb sat in the second row, head bent over a notepad, the long gray braid curled over the shoulder of his white shirt. She had to slide past two other reporters that she didn’t recognize to reach the seat next to Newcomb.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said as she sat down.

  “Oh? I’m covering this story.” The rows were tight, and Catherine had to turn slightly sideways to fish her notepad and pen out of her bag before she dropped the bag onto the floor. In the seats directly across from her were Norman Whitehorse, Harold YellowBull, and Peter Arcott. Governor Lyle sat in the middle, staff members on either side. At the end of the row were two Indian people she hadn’t seen before: a beefy-looking man with gray hair pulled into a ponytail, dressed in a red cowboy shirt, blue jeans, and boots. He might have just ridden in from the plains, she thought. Beside him was an attractive woman— shoulder-length black hair, dark complexion, and black, intense eyes surveying the room. A briefcase stood at her feet.

  “You’re also being stalked by a killer,” Dennis said. Catherine turned toward him, and he shrugged. The pockmarks on his cheeks looked as if they had been dug out by a spoon. “That’s the rumor going ’round. You deny it?”

  “Are you interviewing me?”

  “After the briefing? Outside in the corridor? Anywhere you say. We can go to the cafeteria and talk over coffee.”

  “There’s no story.”

  “Bullshit!” he said. The heads of two congresswomen in the front row swiveled around. The women glared at Dennis a moment, then turned back and stared at the polished table.

  “Look, all I get from Marjorie is ‘no comment, no comment.’ Ironic, wouldn’t you say? Intruder breaks into a journalist’s home and shoots her friend by mistake. The friend dies. The killer still wants to kill the journalist for doing her job, and the editor—and the journalist— pretend it’s not a major news story that strikes at the heart of the First Amendment and all that shit. Kind of thing goes on in Afghanistan and Iraq and countries in Africa and South America run by tin-pot dictators. But never happens in the good old US of A. Right?” He clamped his arm to the armrest and leaned in close. “I’m going with the rumors. I’m gonna write everything I’ve heard, attribute it to reliable sources, and say that you and your editor refuse to comment.”

  “Listen, Dennis.” The two women in front were straining backward, heads cocked at awkward angles. Catherine lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “Sit on it for a while, will you?”

  “Why should I?”

  “You’ll give him more than he knows.”

  “Such as?”

  Catherine stared straight ahead a moment, past the dark heads of the women, past the stragglers still making their way toward the remaining vacant seats. Senator Adkins was nodding at the staff member whispering in his ear. “Look, I know more—the police know more— than he does. That gives us an advantage, okay?” She leaned sideways toward him. The faint odors of shampoo and stale coffee filled her nostrils. “I’d like to stay alive, okay?”

  “Two, three days, that’s the best I can do, Catherine. I’m not walking away from a story like this.”

  “I’ve called this briefing . . .” Senator Adkins shouted over the humming noise. “All right! Everyone!” The noise started to fall like a gust of wind passing through, and the senator began again: “I’ve called this informal briefing for the purpose of gathering information on the claims of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes for lands lost to them in the nineteenth century.” He cleared his throat and glanced down the row of senators and congressmen to the right, then the left. Catherine held her pen over the pad. The instant he started speaking again, she started writing. “Congress is aware of the many injustices the Indian people have suffered. Today we will consider a proposal to address those injustices.” He bent his head over the papers in a file folder opened in front of him. “We need information on whether it is a fair proposal that would satisfy a legitimate claim or whether it is simply a scheme to build and operate another casino in the state of Colorado. I believe Mr. Harold YellowBull is here to speak on behalf of the tribes.”

  He looked over at the elder who was getting to his feet, the chair scraping the floor. He walked with a little hop to the microphone that stood at the opposite end of the table. “I am here for my people, the Arapahos,” he said, leaning into the mic. There was the whooshing noise of his breathing. He pulled back. “Cheyenne people in Oklahoma also asked me to speak on their behalf. Terrible thing occurred at Sand Creek, Colorado, on November 29, 1864. Our people were massacred there by United States troops. You may say, ‘That was a long time ago,’ but to Arapahos and Cheyennes, it was yesterday. Many of our people died there. Women, children, entire families. We do not forget them. We think of the children they might have had, even the grandchildren down to the present day, and we say, many of our people are not here because of Sand Creek.”

  Catherine wrote down
everything, word for word. The page was filling up with black scribbles. She flipped to the next page and kept writing. “Our people had gone to Sand Creek to wait for the peace agreement they had been promised by Governor John Evans and Colonel John Chivington.” He paused and glanced along the rows of legislators. Everyone was staring at him except for Senator Russell, who was slumped in his seat, his gaze fixed on the edge of the table. Catherine wrote that down.

  YellowBull went on: “This is very hard for us. Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle ran out of his lodge and planted a pole with the American flag on it. He believed the flag would show the troops they were friendly Indians. Our chief, Left Hand, ran toward the troops and put up his hands to show that he had no weapons and was peaceful. They shot him. They shot everybody they saw. They wanted to kill all our people. It was genocide. After the killing stopped, the soldiers went about the dead bodies and took trophies. Ears and breasts, the private parts of men and women. They took their trophies back to Denver and paraded through the streets and waved them on high. The people cheered.”

  The elder turned away from the microphone. He took a long moment, a fist clenched against his mouth, before he returned to his chair. The room was still, the senators along the table, the staff behind them, everyone frozen in place. Catherine felt a kind of panic rising inside of her, shutting off her breath. She had the urge to leap out of the seat and run, but her legs and arms were heavy and numb. She couldn’t move.

  Senator Adkins cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Thank you, Mr. YellowBull. I’m sure we’re all moved by this,” he said. “But we are not here to discuss genocide and hundred-and-fifty-year-old atrocities. We are here to learn about a proposal to settle tribal land claims. I believe Mr. Norman Whitehorse has also asked to speak.”

  Catherine was still scribbling as Norman walked to the table. Professor Morrow had reached the governor, she was thinking, and the governor had informed Senator Adkins: the land claims and genocide were separate issues.

  Norman took a moment, swaying in front of the mic. “Arapahos and Cheyennes have filed a claim with the Department of the Interior for twenty-seven million acres of our ancestral lands in Colorado. After Sand Creek, we were forced off our lands. We are willing to settle our claims for five hundred acres on the plains near the DIA airport. We will then build a destination resort and casino, allowed under the Indian Gaming Act.”

  “Thank you,” Senator Adkins said.

  “Senator.” Peter Arcott was on his feet approaching the microphone. Norman stepped backward and sat down. “I’d like to elaborate on the proposal, if I may.” He grabbed the stem of the mic and shouted that he was Peter Arcott of Arcott Enterprises. The names boomed around the room. “This proposal will be of immense benefit to the Arapahos and Cheyennes, who—may I point out—are among the poorest people in this country. The destination resort hotel and casino will give the tribes an annual income of $200 million. They will have economic security for the first time. They intend to build an Arapaho-Cheyenne cultural center adjacent to the hotel and casino. The center will reaffirm the presence of these two great tribes on their ancestral lands. It will represent a true homecoming.”

  Senator Adkins cleared his throat, and Arcott held up one hand. “May I continue? The hotel and casino will also contribute $1 billion in direct revenues and other economic benefits to the state of Colorado. The resort will employ hundreds. This is a win-win proposal for everyone—the tribes and the state. I urge Congress to support legislation that will make the resort possible and permanently settle Arapaho and Cheyenne land claims.”

  “Hold on just one moment.” Adkins drove a fist onto the top of the table, scattering the little pile of papers in front of him. “I want to make sure I have this straight. The tribes are offering to give up claims to twenty-seven million acres for five hundred acres?”

  Oh, this was good, Catherine thought. She flipped to the next page of the notepad.

  “We believe the claim is realistic.”

  “Your claim isn’t real,” the senator said. He resembled a stone statue, eyes narrowed on Arcott.

  The room went quiet for a moment. Arcott seemed to hesitate, as if he weren’t certain that Adkins had understood and there was more he might say to persuade him. Finally he dropped back and took his seat. Then the woman with black hair and intense eyes was on her feet. The Indian man stood up beside her. “Senator, may we be heard?” the woman said. Without waiting for a response, she stepped over to the mic, the Indian behind her, like a bodyguard, Catherine thought, watchful and alert.

  “My name is Vicky Holden. I am Arapaho,” she said.

  Catherine felt her heart skip a beat. She felt a pang of envy toward this woman she had never seen before. Vicky Holden, Arapaho. A woman who knew who she was.

  All the eyes were turned on her, and she went on: “I’m an attorney representing the Arapaho people on the Wind River Reservation. With me is Wesley Iron Shirt from the Cheyenne reservation at Lame Deer. I want to remind the committee that the Treaty of Fort Laramie was made with the Arapaho and Cheyenne nations. Any further consideration of the $15 million settlement made in 1965 would have to be made with the entire nations, not just the people represented by Mr. Whitehorse. Our people oppose the proposal offered by Mr. Arcott and Mr. Whitehorse.” She paused and threw a glance in the direction of Senator Russell. “In our opinion the proposal is nothing more than a wedge that would allow businesses to build a casino in Colorado. We consider it a crass exploitation of the pain and suffering of our people at Sand Creek. We will never agree to any further settlement based on the proposal.”

  The pain and suffering of our people at Sand Creek. Catherine jotted down the words. All for a casino? For the first time, the proposal—the story she had been following—seemed small and insignificant against something so enormous as Sand Creek.

  Wesley Iron Shirt leaned over the microphone now. “I speak for the Cheyenne people in Montana,” he said. “We have studied Mr. Arcott’s proposal, and we have rejected it. Norman Whitehorse does not speak for the entire tribe. We will not be party to a settlement that exploits the painful history of our people.”

  “We appreciate your input,” Senator Adkins was saying as they both returned to their seats. “We’ll hear from Governor Lyle now.”

  The governor strode to the mic, file folder clutched in his hand. He opened the folder and held up a sheet of paper. “Let me begin by thanking the attorney from the Wind River Reservation for reminding everyone that the Arapahos and Cheyennes have already been compensated for their ancestral lands.”

  Arcott jumped up. “Governor,” he shouted. “Would you accept two point seven cents per acre for land in Colorado? We’re asking Congress to declare the so-called settlement null and void. Genocide was committed upon these people. I am confident that the entire nations of Arapahos and Cheyennes will eventually understand that genocide must be addressed. The 1965 settlement was nothing but extortion to silence the tribes about the act of genocide.”

  “Extortion?” Governor Lyle kept his gaze on Senator Adkins. “The tribes have filed land claims with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for one-third of the state. Property owners in eastern Colorado no longer have clear title to their lands. Now Mr. Arcott wants to settle the claim in exchange for five hundred acres on which to build a casino. That is extortion!”

  Governor Lyle shifted sideways a little and fixed his gaze on Senator Russell. “I ask you, Senator, who do you represent?”

  Russell seemed to snap awake. He blinked around the room, then squinted toward the governor. “Indians got a rough deal. You heard what the elder and Mr. Whitehorse said. They deserve to get a casino, give ’em jobs with steady money coming in every month.”

  “Who do you represent, Senator?”

  The room went quiet. Catherine was aware of the sound of her pen scratching the notepad. She had filled three pages, and she was starting the fourth.

  The man behind Russell leaned forward and whispered in the senator
’s ear. Harry Colbert, the bald circle spreading on top of his scalp, the unflappable expression pasted on his face. He was like an appendage of Russell, Catherine thought, the right hand the senator could never leave behind. She had met Colbert a number of times, spoken with him on the phone for other stories, but he hadn’t returned her calls on this story.

  “People of my state, of course.” Senator Russell straightened his shoulders and blinked several times, as if he’d just found the path he was supposed to take to a destination of which he wasn’t sure. “This casino proposal will be best for everyone.”

  “I call on you, Senator Russell, to pledge that you will not offer a rider on any legislation that will approve a casino against the wishes of the people of Colorado. Will you make that pledge, Senator?”

  Harry Colbert was leaning so far forward that, for a moment, Catherine expected him to slip off his chair. The sound of whispering was loud and insistent. Finally he sat back.

  “I am not prepared at this moment to make any pledge that could harm the people and the economy of the state I have served for many years.” He pulled himself up in the chair, as if a rod had been attached to his backbone. Something changed in his expression, and for an instant, Catherine recognized the man she had watched on television from the time she was a kid. The Old Man, her dad had called Russell. Always looking out for his folks, making sure nothing’s gonna stop the money train.

  She wrote down everything he had said. Suddenly the proposal seemed to have shifted away from the Arapahos and Cheyennes to the economy of Colorado.

  “I call on you . . .” the governor began.