by Tim White
Old people would stop and tell him how to play better—little kids would follow us and throw something at him to get his attention. Every young hoodlum who didn’t have a dad—he watched out for them. The little thugs of the town made up his Sunday school class. He taught nearly fifty boys in that class. Mama Elicia, Belén, and Pedro loved him—he always did the dishes and mowed our lawn. Pedro liked him because he spoke fluent Spanish and always helped on projects around the house. I ate dinner at his house and met his grandparents and all his brothers. His brothers tripped all over themselves to make me feel a part of the family. I made him picnic lunches of fried chicken and we played tennis, went fishing. We laid down on the Columbia River bank near where the archeologist would someday find the 9,000-year-old Kennewick man” (a forefather of the Nez Perce and the Mayans). We lay on his Indian blanket and just looked at the clouds for hours.
Sometimes Ulee and I talked for hours. I soon learned about the one thing that troubled him most. The story of Joey, his closest friend and older brother’s death.
As Ulee told me the story of Joey’s death fighting the bear, he shared so many things he thought he could have done. I saw the tears in his eyes, and he cried from his heart in front of me confessing his sins to me, his sister in Christ. So I slowly, with no emotion, told him that I had not been living a virtuous life. He took my hand as a friend, not as jilted boyfriend. I went on and explained that I had been abused when I was six by MS-13.
“My brother was abused and sold into slavery. I was turned out as a prostitute. I never thought I could really believe in God after this life in hell,” I said.
Ulee told me that sometimes he struggled to believe in God, but even if there wasn’t a God he wanted to be like his father and grandfather. The stars were out in full panoramic display as we sat in Columbia Park. Under those stars, he promised me that he would protect me and that hell could not keep him away from building a loving family with me.
I told Ulee as I cried, “This is a promise you cannot keep. It is a fanciful myth in the mind of a native boy who has never seen the horrible evil that I have experienced firsthand. When I was stolen away and terribly abused, I prayed with all my heart to a loving God to send me a hero to save me. I was thinking of my daddy. He must have been killed trying to be a hero. This world destroys heroes, and I know in my heart that evil is stronger than kindness and heroism.” Ulee cried as hard as I did. We just held each other lost in the pain of our broken hearts.
Ulee and I picnicked a lot. I made lunches with Honduran food and fruit pies, and Ulee tried to ride his bike while carrying this huge picnic basket. He tried to be macho, but he could not keep up with me. I was fast on my bike. We spread out the Nez Perce blanket that his grandparents had given to me. And we ate lunch and laughed. He told me how beautiful my eyes were. I don’t remember the words, but he always said I was more beautiful every time he saw me. He said he could get lost in my eyes for eternity. He was so corny, so romantic, that every time he said something, it made me laugh. Ulee never knew anything about popular culture, and every time he used a romantic line it was from a song on the radio and he didn’t know it.
He would say something like, “I’m a believer I couldn’t leave her if I tried,” or “something in the way you move,” or “Ain’t no mountain high enough to keep me from you.”
In my mind I would think of the artist that wrote those words and just start giggling. I would tell him, “That is a song,” and he would get mad and say all the rock and rollers were taking all the great lines from him.
Finally, one Friday night, Ulee got his chance to play varsity football as quarterback. It was a home game, so everyone was there. There was one person I didn’t want to see.
Hernando Cortez heard that I was in the Tri-Cities, and he appointed Raul Roberto Diablo as the head of the local chapter of MS-13 to find me. A new level of evil began to cast its shadow over our cities.
The starting senior quarterback had his hand broken as sophomore Norwegian Randy Halvorson accidently stepped on it when he was down. At the time Kennewick was behind 0 to 8. Ulee came in and it was his dream game. Ulee had thrown five touchdown passes, four to Rod Halvorson whose athleticism seemed unstoppable. Rod was six-foot five, fast, strong and could catch anything. His twin brother Randy caught the other touchdown and looked so much like Rod that the opposing team thought they were seeing double. Randy was also the punter and kicker and at a muscular six-foot five he was a formidable tackler after the kick. Randy was also a basketball star who was already being scouted by the University of Washington. Ulee had run for three touchdowns and seemed like he could score at will as Kennewick walloped Bora of Boise, Idaho, fifty-six to eight.
After the game, I ran out to kiss my boyfriend, but Raul emerged in the frenzy, grabbed me and kissed me in all the confusion. Then he showed me a handgun. Raul was strong—and maybe twenty-seven years old. He was covered in satanic tattoos from head to toe. He had that look of someone who had served hard time in prison and was a complete psychopath. A policeman at the game saw him force himself on me but he was afraid to do anything. Raul exuded hate and power. He grabbed me by my long dark hair.
“You belong to me or your boyfriend is going to die on this field.”
We walked to Raul’s car surrounded by his goons, and there stood the senior quarterback, with some of his Neanderthal senior football players.
“What the hell is going on over here?” he said with a splint on his hand and chewing tobacco in his mouth. He was trying to be a tough guy—a hero. Raul took out his gun and pointed right into the nose of the senior athlete.
“Being a hero here is a lot different than on the football field. Are you sure you want to play the tough guy?”
The senior quarterback just looked at the ground, and each of the hoodlums spit on him. MS-13 had Belén with them also. I was terrified; they had given her some kind of drug and she didn’t know where she was. Raul kissed me again, smelling of alcohol, tobacco, and just plain bad breath. I punched him in the nose—making it bleed.
“My boyfriend is going to find out,” I said, “and he does not like bullies.”
“Si little sister,” Raul said. “You mean football players are tough?” The MS-13 gang pointed their guns at the senior quarterback and his Neanderthal friends and they ran like scared rabbits.
As the tough guy senior football players ran one way, my brother Pedro ran up to the gang with his farm-working Latino friends. Raul grabbed me by the neck, and his henchmen just beat down Pedro to the point where I was afraid he would die. Remember, Pedro had served in Vietnam, and he was a tough vet, but no match for the MS-13 guys. While they were beating up Pedro, Ulee’s littlest brothers tried to help. Whitey was knocked out cold, and Dunk had his arm broken by the vicious gang members.
Just then, out of nowhere, old Argos came flashing in from the dark with primitive viciousness. He knocked over one gang member, biting him in the neck and drawing a lot of blood. He spun around like he did when he was fighting the bear and grabbed Raul by the testicles, inflicting great pain. I grabbed Belén by the hand and ran to the alley behind the science building. Belén cuddled up with Argos as he licked both of us, showing us he would protect us with his life. He was such a cute dog with his soft floppy ears. Just when we thought we were safe, we heard a deafening shot. Raul killed Argos. The gang grabbed us, laughing as we walked by my big brother and Ulee’s little brothers beaten half unconscious. We drove away. I was crying, and Belén was out of her mind, and I knew that life as I knew it was over. All my dreams, my faith and my loves were gone again. Why would God allow this to happen?
Raul took us to east Pasco to a place the police were afraid to go. I don’t know how many people were there. Half were drunk or high. Men and women were acting like gangsters. Even the Hell’s Angels were there to form an alliance over drug profits. They threw Belén around from man to man. I sat humiliated on Raul as he groped me. I was a poor example for Belen, but she was too high to notice. I s
at compliantly a slave again. Once you have suffered helplessness and abuse it is easy to fall back into the same “deer in the headlights” syndrome.
Then the door smashed opened from the force of a Harley motorcycle. It was Ulee. He looked fierce and had the black smudge that football players wear under their eyes and smeared down his cheeks like war paint.
Raul pulled his gun and swore at Ulee, “Get out of here kid or we will kill you where you stand. Ulee spoke calmly but with pent up anger.
“You hurt my two little brothers, you killed my dog, and you treat this little girl like property.
He pointed at me, sitting on the lap of a thirty-five-year-old Hell’s Angel, who was groping me. And you are molesting the most virtuous woman in the world, the love of my life, Penelope Morales Santos.
Raul laughed, “Oh you noticed, kid!”
“I am a Nez Perce warrior and I have been preparing all my life for a moment such as this.” Ulee walked up, while Raul stood up, throwing me to the side.
I cried out, “Ulee just leave. This man is evil and he will kill you. I don’t love you—I am not worth it.”
Raul pointed his gun at Ulee, pushing it into his face. Raul towered over Ulee as a muscular full-grown man and his tattoos were terrifying, covering his face. Ulee slapped Raul; Plains natives would consider it the bravest of acts to slap your enemy with an open hand. It is called counting coup.
“You offend me by treating women like this. And you offend God. Today you do not meet a victim but a warrior.”
Everyone laughed; I sobbed, afraid my prayers were answered—a hero had come to rescue me. The back doors came open, and in walked Ulee’s other brothers and cousin. In addition, were Pastor Joshua’s two sons and daughter. They had heard about the confrontation and went home to retrieve their cache of weapons. The Sundown kids were outnumbered. Then, through the other doors came the African-American gangs with about twice as many black friends with some connection to sports all carrying handguns and knives; one even carried a javelin from track. My big brother Pedro had recovered enough to be there with a shotgun; he had returned with his Latino friends, now with guns. The muscular Rod and Randy Halvorson came in with their two brothers and a half dozen Norwegian ‘Viking’ friends ready for a fight. The tables were turned; the good guys had twice as many as MS-13 and their allies had on premise.
“Okay sophomore, it’s between you and me for the Penny,” Raul said.
Raul tackled Ulee, but Ulee fell back and kicked him over his shoulder in a perfect Jiu Jitsu move. Raul flew through the air and broke a table on his way down. But he was drunk with evil rage and he grabbed a knife and lunged at Ulee, cutting him across the face and leaving a scar. Ulee pulled out his grandfather’s bowie knife and it was a bloody fight. They both slashed and punched and kicked each other, with Raul having the advantage by height and weight. Finally, Ulee took Raul’s arm and almost broke it as he took the knife away from him. Ulee threw the knives on the ground.
Now they boxed, and Ulee dominated. Every punch by Raul missed, as Ulee bobbed and weaved and landed well-practiced combinations. Raul’s face was all messed up, but there was an evil inside of him that gathered more and more strength. He grabbed Ulee, head-butted him, and then proceeded to choke the life out of him with his strong hands. Ulee did some sort of martial arts move, wrapping his legs around Raul’s neck and slamming his head onto the ground and breaking his neck. It was a horrible sight. Police sirens sounded. Everyone started running. Ulee, his family, Belén, and I were left. All the boys were handcuffed. I tried to explain but they took Ulee away in a police cruiser.
A deal was made; the prosecuting attorney was not going to file second-degree murder charges. Ulee’s grandpa Ephraim was the judge’s retired Marine buddy. Ephraim appeased the prosecutor by saying that he was going to do something about Ulee’s growing violent history. Ulee was going to join the Marines and go to Vietnam. This was something that everyone knew he would be good at, coming from a long line of Marines. It was something that the nation needed, more young men for the meat grinder that was Vietnam. And it was an out for everyone.
Ulee’s parents signed for him to join the Marines on November 1, 1968. Ulee was still too young to serve, but his parents produced a fake birth certificate showing he was older. Ulee came to see me when he got out of jail and was getting ready to leave. I met him on the porch in the moonlight. We kissed. I started to cry and to say thank you.
“To me, this freedom that I now have from MS-13 proves there is a loving God,” I said. He cried and said that he had never killed a man before, and now he had broken one of the Ten Commandments. Ulee spoke hesitantly. “To me this proved there was not a personal God who would allow something as terrible as this to take place.”
He knew in his heart that he would not come back alive from Vietnam, so this was goodbye. I bawled and said, “Don’t try and be a hero. I love you—I want to raise a family with you. I want to reach our dreams together. Remember, you are nonviolent—passive like Gandhi or Martin Luther King or Jesus Christ. Don’t be a hero—just come home.”
He took a hold of my shoulders and said, “I won’t try and be a hero, but I have to follow the path of my destiny. I have to try to do what I know is right in my eyes.”
I said, “If you no longer believe in God, then how could you have a personal destiny?”
“What about doing what is right by God not just your emotions?”
“Pray that I have a good death—like my brother Joey.”
“No I won’t pray that,” and he walked away
Chapter Five
The Trojan Horse
THE FAMILY AUDIENCE in the old Sundown lodge had heard this story before, and they would hear it again. As tragic as it was, it was our tradition to retell these stories for the young and at the same time it always felt new for those who had heard each other tell this family tale. For Native peoples it is somewhat like the Jewish Passover where the eldest of the family tells the trials and tribulations of generations of their family as motivation to challenge the future. So I began again the next night continuing the legend.
It was November, 1968, when Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown enlisted to become a Marine. We were both age fifteen. It was the same year as the Tet Offensive, when the war in Vietnam changed. The Tet Offensive turned the war from the enemy being primarily Viet Cong to North Vietnamese power. While we look back and see that the US won the Tet Offensive from a military perspective, from a public relations perspective, the American public began to turn against the war and think of it as unwinnable. As Ulee entered the blue bus for MCRD (Marine Corps Recruiting Depot) in San Diego, he seemed like such a boy. From now on he would be called bullet sponge, dead meat, and bullet catcher among other derogatory names aimed at Marines. Ulee had no comprehension of what he was headed for in Vietnam. More than 53,000 US soldiers were killed in action and 2,600 listed as missing in action. Another 800 were prisoners of war.
Some of the recruits laughed when they saw Ulee get on the bus for boot camp. He looked like a kid, and in fact was just about to turn sixteen at the end of the month. He was just over six feet tall, but a mere 155 pounds. His boyish face showed no beginnings of a beard. He wore a cross around his neck. When he arrived on the bus, an older guy from East LA named Paco tripped him, and he slammed his face on the back of a seat, giving him the beginnings of a black eye. A big guy named Bruce helped him up and invited him to sit by him. Bruce was way overweight, and though he had played offensive line in community college, he was not in football shape; he had packed on extra weight prior to joining the Marines by eating too much junk food. He introduced himself to Ulee.
“Everyone calls me Big Bruce.” He pulled out a picture from his wallet and said, “This is my fiancé, Cindy. I am going to marry her before we go to Vietnam. By then I will be a lean, mean fighting machine.”
“I am Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown.”
The guy in front of them, a big Samoan Nicknamed Luau, asked, “Are you
some kind of a hippie with that name?”
“No I am a Nez Perce warrior.”
“What’s a Nez Perce,” Luau asked.
“It’s an Indian, you big Samoan,” Paco chided.
Ulee explained. “Native, from a tribe in Oregon and Idaho.”
“Then why are you white?” Luau asked.
“Because my mother is Scottish/Irish and my father is Nez Perce, so I was cursed with this white skin.”
They nicknamed Ulee “Fresh Meat” and “Baby Indian.”
Ulee knew to keep his head down and mouth shut. Out of all the recruits, he stood out as the boy who had not shaved, but whose lean muscular body seemed in perfect shape already, and who had warpath in his eyes. There were big surfer dudes from San Diego, gang members from East LA, loggers from Oregon, cowboys from Montana, and construction workers from Arizona. Over half of the recruits were drafted, and the rest all had a story.
I myself felt lost, not hearing anything from Ulee during this period. I no longer had to worry about MS-13. I seemed relatively safe as an illegal alien, but there was a big hole in my heart. Ulee was the hero I had prayed for all my life. And every day I ached to see him again.
Ulee believed he was born for this; he was a warrior from a long line of warriors. Nez Perce had always helped the US—not because it was perfect; they knew better than most of its imperfections. Nez Perce had been betrayed by the treaties and had had to fight the US themselves when they were chased off their Holy Land—the Wallowa Mountains. Most Nez Perce were somewhat impoverished, except for their sustenance living in hunting and fishing. A job as a warrior was honorable work as long as the cause was right.