In a dream, Chess, Checkers, and Thomas sat at the drum with Big Mom during the powwow. All the Spokane Indians crowded around the drum, too. They all pounded the drum and sang. Big Mom taught them a new song, the shadow horses’ song, the slaughtered horses’ song, the screaming horses’ song, a song of mourning that would become a song of celebration: we have survived, we have survived. They would sing and sing, until Big Mom pulled out that flute built of the bones of the most beautiful horse who ever lived. She’d play a note, then two, three, then nine hundred. One for each of the dead horses. Then she’d keep playing, nine hundred, nine thousand, nine million, one note for each of the dead Indians.
In the blue van, Thomas, Chess, and Checkers sang together. They were alive; they’d keep living. They sang together with the shadow horses: we are alive, we’ll keep living. Songs were waiting for them up there in the dark. Songs were waiting for them in the city. Thomas drove the car through the dark. He drove. Checkers and Chess reached out of their windows and held tightly to the manes of those shadow horses running alongside the blue van.
Acknowledgments
WITH THANKS TO DONNA Brook, David James Duncan, and Dick Lourie for their editorial help, and Nancy Stauffer for her continued support and friendship. Special thanks to Jim Boyd, my Colville Indian songwriting partner. I want to acknowledge Christiane Bird’s The Jazz and Blues Lover’s Guide to the U.S., Carl P. Schlicke’s General George Wright: Guardian of the Pacific Coast, Benjamin Manning’s Conquest of the Coeur d’Alenes, Spokanes, & Palouses, Robert H. Ruby’s and John A. Brown’s The Spokane Indians: Children of the Sun, and Mari Sandoz’s Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas for valuable historical material. I want to especially acknowledge the influence of the Columbia Pictures film Crossroads, directed by Walter Hill and written by John Fusco, which was released to a very quiet reception in 1985. Most of all, I want to honor the memory of the real Robert Johnson. Without his music, none of the music contained in this book would exist.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
“Cross Road Blues” and “Preachin’ Blues” (“Up Jumped the Devil”). Words and music by Robert Johnson. Copyright © (1978) 1991 King of Spades Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
All of Coyote Spring’s song lyrics have been reprinted by permission of Jim Boyd and Sherman Alexie.
Copyright © 1995 by Sherman Alexie
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4804-5717-1
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Reservation Blues Page 27