Ancestor Approved

by Cynthia L. Smith

  When my father died a year ago, he was electrocuted in a bucket truck while doing electrical work on the big power lines. He wasn’t a lineman for anyone anymore. Listening to him sometimes still made me cry. Sometimes it made me happy.

  I scanned the kid’s clothes for a simple tribal identifier. My own T-shirt read Siyo! That’s Cherokee for “hi.” If I saw someone else wearing that shirt, I would guess they were Cherokee as well.

  The kid was tall, with longish dark hair. He had it sandwiched between a cowboy hat and a sheepskin-lined denim jacket. He reminded me of photos I had seen of my dad when he was that age. He was studying the cover of the book I was reading. I couldn’t tell if he had a tribally specific T-shirt. I tried to be sneaky with my observations.

  “That book looks cool,” he said. He talked like he’d grown up around people for whom English was a second language, maybe a Rez, maybe Texas, maybe Canada.

  I shrugged. I was reading S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders for the umpteenth time. Before he’d died, my dad had bought it for me. It was one of the few books my dad had enjoyed in school, and it fit in my back pocket. Music, not books, had been my dad’s thing. Nowadays, there are better books out there for girls, Indian kids, and other outsiders, several by Indian authors.

  “Have you read Tex?” the boy asked.

  I shook my head.

  “She’s an okay writer,” he said.

  Impressive. A lot of people assumed S. E. Hinton was a man, not a young woman who had written a book and published it when she was only eighteen. My dad hoped I’d be a writing prodigy, too. He’d had more faith in my writing than I did.

  “This piece,” he said, touching the buckle. “Who made it? What tribe?”

  “Diné artist donated it.”

  “Nice.” The kid whistled. He reached in his pocket and took out a twenty.

  I frowned. The doors hadn’t officially opened, and my aunt had gone to get change. I wondered if the kid’s family was selling or dancing or both.

  “I can’t break that,” I said, “unless you’re buying twenty tickets.” That quip was as close as I was going to get to trying to make a sale.

  “What’s the money going to be used for?” the kid asked.

  I stood up, intending to point to another handwritten sign, but realized I had forgotten to make it.

  I took a deep breath and recited, “The money will be used to make pamphlets addressing the prevention of diabetes and HIV and promoting elder care and early childhood development in our urban Indian community.”

  “All good causes,” he said as he set the buckle down. “Well, I’ll be back.”

  I picked the buckle up and polished the fingerprints smudged between the stamped indentations. It was warm from being held.

  I wondered if I should make a sign that said Don’t touch.

  I smelled the fry bread before I saw it. I looked up and the Indian rodeo kid of undetermined tribal origin was back. He held a plate with a big Indian taco on it.

  “I got change,” he said.

  “And the World’s Greatest Fry Bread.”

  He laughed. “I’ll let you know.”

  “My friend Joey’s mom makes it. He brought me some earlier. It is the best.”

  The kid nodded and handed me a dollar. I pulled out the raffle tickets, gave him one, and handed him a pen. He wrote a phone number, but under the name and address he just wrote Tex.

  I took it and squinted at him. The only tribes I knew with Reservations in Texas were the Tigua, the Kickapoo, and the Alabama-Coushatta. A lot of Lipan Apaches and the Texas Band of Yaquis, too. The Choctaws and Chickasaws in Oklahoma lived close to the border with Texas. I looked for some evidence pointing to one of those tribes.

  Nothing.

  “Long way from home,” I said.

  “Yeah.” He looked around. “You finish that book?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want to trade?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a beat-up book with a motorcycle on the front. It was the one he had asked me about earlier. Tex. “I’ve read this one a bunch. I haven’t read The Outsiders,” he said, extending the book toward me.

  I hesitated. It was silly to think giving a paperback book to someone was like giving away a piece of my father. My father’d be glad someone was reading a book he liked.

  I got the book from my backpack.

  The kid was touching the fringe on the donated shawl. I still hadn’t made that Don’t touch sign. “You dance?” he asked, as I handed him the book.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know yet, I guess.

  “Yeah, me either. My stepdad’s a fancy dancer, though.” He paused. “When’s the drawing?”

  “Tomorrow at six p.m. When they announce all the contest winners. But you don’t have to be present to win.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  My aunt Mabel sent me to go take pictures of Grand Entry. My mom wanted to see Virginia in the jingle dress. I took one of her and Uncle Roy, portrait quality. I took another photo while they danced in with everyone else for Grand Entry. I sent them to my mom, and she texted back immediately two emojis, one happy, one crying. Pic of you? she added.

  I ignored the message.

  The first intertribal was at one thirty p.m. An intertribal is when everyone is invited to dance, all nations. I kept watching the clock.

  At about one fifteen, my aunt asked me how I was going to wear my shawl. I could fold it and hang it over my arms in front of me, or I could wrap it around my shoulders. My aunt took the shawl off the hanger. “Come here, Maggie.”

  I stood. She wrapped the blue material around me. I stretched out my arms and grabbed the corners of the shawl. This was the first thing my mom had sewn in years. Making time between work and classes probably cost her some sleep. But the stitches were straight and the fringe was evenly spaced. Knowing how many hours fringing it had taken, I wondered if she had found someone to help her with it so she could mail it in time for the powwow. I brought the corners up close under my chin, and it smelled like home. Strange how a smell put you back in your kitchen, talking to your parents at the dining table.

  “Let me get a picture for your mom.”

  I slipped it off and felt like I was going to cry. “Maybe later,” I said. “Why don’t you go dance this time? I’ll go tonight.”

  My aunt nodded. She got her shawl and went to find Uncle Roy and Virginia. I sat down and went back to reading Tex. I had no idea S. E. Hinton was so crazy about horses.

  The Tiny Tots exhibition was set for three thirty p.m. My aunt and a nurse named Shawna were taking turns covering the booth. Shawna watched the table while we all went to watch Virginia dance for the first time. The exhibition was for children six and under. Virginia was five. If she kept up the jingle dancing, she would be competing in less than two years.

  On the way to the arena, Virginia was unusually quiet. She turned and caught my eye and slid her hand into mine. I knew she was nervous.

  My uncle checked her braid and barrettes one last time, while my aunt adjusted the number pinned to her back. We found an opening in the circle to send her through. The singer started and when the drum began, Virginia danced away from us, into the circle.

  When it was over, everyone cheered for the Tiny Tots. The emcee called all their names and their nations, encouraged them to keep dancing, and gave them each five dollars.

  Virginia beamed. “I want to go buy fry bread with honey!”

  We all looked at her in her beautiful jingle dress. I said what we were all thinking: “Not in that outfit, Virginia.”

  We got her into her street clothes, and she ate a giant piece of fry bread dripping with honey. The whole thing. She only got a little honey on her shirt. Most of it was on her fingers. Soon, Virginia crashed out, snoring softly on the blankets underneath our table.

  Our booth was toward the back of the vending area. Occasionally, a swarm of people would show up because the emcee had reminded the crowd we were there, doing free and anonym
ous health screenings. We weren’t getting as much traffic on our raffle as my aunt wanted.

  At dinnertime, my aunt sent Uncle Roy and Virginia for plates of food and she told me to walk around selling raffle tickets. My sales strategy was to carry the jar of tickets and stand around and wait for an older person to ask me what I was raffling. It was pretty effective.

  At one of the supper tables, I saw the rodeo kid with his family. He was eating slowly while reading. I couldn’t tell what tribe his mom was, or if she was Indian at all. I assumed the man with them wearing a Blackfoot Pride T-shirt instead of his fancy dancer regalia was his stepdad. When I stopped at the crowded table they were sitting at, the kid looked up.

  “Selling my belt buckle?” His mom looked at him, and he explained he’d bought a chance on the raffle. She bought him another ticket but put her name on it. I examined the ticket as I walked back to our booth, but I couldn’t guess what tribe he was from her ticket, either.

  Virginia and I had moved in with my aunt Mabel at the beginning of the school year, and I really hadn’t made a lot of friends. My aunt said it was because I preferred books and my own company. Maybe. I had friends back in Tulsa who I texted occasionally. I didn’t see any point in making a bunch of new friends temporarily.

  Missing my dad kind of filled in the space where I should have been lonely. I mean, I already felt so full of sadness there didn’t seem to be any room in my life to be lonely. Sometimes, I tried writing stories and poems about him, about us. When your dad dies, you might appreciate everything you can remember about him. And all the things you never got to do with him loom large.

  Suddenly, I remembered that I had been using a poem I wrote about my dad as a bookmark. It was in the copy of The Outsiders I had loaned the kid. The poem was about grief and not dancing and the loss of my father. Would the kid read it? Worse, would he read it and think it was terrible?

  My worry was interrupted by a group of rowdy Elders crowding around the table.

  “Achukma! This looks good!” one shouted at another. They were Choctaw.

  “Looky here, Amafo Billy! Aren’t these colors the same as the college your granddaughter is going to?”

  “They sure are. That shawl sure is pretty.”

  “Give me twenty tickets!” his wife said.

  Her friends laughed. “Why don’t you just buy all the tickets, Joanna?”

  “I have a good feeling. Twenty is enough,” Joanna said confidently.

  Everyone laughed and helped her fill out her tickets. A few of them asked about the health screenings. They joked about getting their blood sugar measured after eating all that fry bread and disappeared into the crowd.

  Shawna had come back to take over the health screenings for the rest of the night. Uncle Roy went to talk to his friend the emcee. I managed to avoid the last intertribal of the night by offering to watch the raffle part of the booth while my aunt and Virginia went to dance.

  My uncle showed up and helped me break down our booth. We walked out to the car to lock the prizes and raffle money in the trunk. We got into the car and turned the heater on high while we waited for Virginia and my aunt. Uncle Roy turned on the overhead light so I could read the book the kid had loaned me.

  “Hey, Uncle Roy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think I’m ready to return to the powwow circle. Could you help me with a giveaway basket?”

  Uncle Roy smiled. “I already got everything.”

  We got to sleep in a little later the next morning because everything was all set up at the powwow. When we got there, Uncle Roy took Virginia and me to meet the powwow committee and tell them we were donating a basket in honor of our father. “Bring it with you at four thirty,” Sheldon, the emcee, said.

  When I went to our table, Shawna had my copy of The Outsiders. “Rosebud Sioux kid dropped this off for you. And he bought another ticket for the raffle.”

  I looked at the ticket he had filled out. Once more it just said Tex. I didn’t know if that was his name or address. I never would have guessed Rosebud Sioux from Texas. Then again, I was an Oklahoma Cherokee on Ojibwe land. Indians went wherever we wanted to, just like everyone else.

  I wondered if the kid had finished reading my book as I flipped through it. The bookmark was missing. I felt more nervous again, the way you feel when you get called on in class. I hoped it hadn’t fallen out and been read by some random stranger, or worse yet, someone who knew me. My name was on it. It was modeled on the pattern of “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost. It’s an important poem in The Outsiders. I’d impressed a few English teachers by memorizing it.

  The kid’s copy of Tex was tucked into the back pocket of my jeans. I’d stayed up late reading it, so we could trade back. I hoped he still had my bookmark.

  Uncle Roy and Virginia showed up in time to take me to dance during the intertribal. I was looking forward to it now. When you love someone and they die, you feel like the whole world should notice—all good things should stop. Not dancing for the year had been the only way I’d had to mark that, to silently tell the world around me this loss mattered. Around me the world had gone on, but I hadn’t danced.

  Before we went into the circle, Aunt Mabel took a picture of me wrapped in the shawl. She texted my mother immediately. I think she caught me smiling, even.

  We joined the circle together. It felt good to follow my baby sister in the dancing, to know my aunt danced in the circle next to me. She gave me and Virginia some money to drop on the blanket in front of the drum. Now that I had finally joined the dancing, I was sad when it stopped.

  Later that afternoon, we all attended the giveaway hosted by the powwow committee. Virginia and I carried a laundry basket full of groceries. Well, I carried the basket. She carried a jar of honey from home that tasted of Oklahoma clover.

  I didn’t have to hold it very long. The emcee announced to the crowd, “The Wilson family would like to return to the dance arena. They are presenting a basket in honor of a family member who passed a year ago.”

  I hadn’t expected to find myself crying while I stood holding a basket of groceries. But there I was. One of the powwow committee members came and took it from me. She shook my hand and took the honey from Virginia and shook her hand. The jingles on Virginia’s dress tinkled happily.

  In some traditions, they don’t say the names of the recently deceased because it is like calling them back to our world. I wondered if that would be such a bad thing.

  Just before six we stopped selling raffle tickets and took the jar and the prizes to the emcee booth.

  “Before we announce the winners for the dance competitions, we’re going to pull tickets for the raffle. I’m going to let my friend from the Cherokee Nation, Roy Wilson, take over. I’m going to go see if I can have all the leftover fry bread,” Sheldon finished.

  The crowd laughed as Uncle Roy took the microphone. You could hear the smile on his face. I held the jar of tickets. You didn’t have to be present to win, but it was always more exciting if you were.

  “The first prize is this beautiful Pendleton, donated by Louis Stephenson. Virginia, can you draw a ticket?”

  Virginia stuck her hand in the jar and pulled out five tickets. I noticed one of them clearly said, “Tex.” I reached out and grabbed them, and handed Uncle Roy one of the others.

  “The winner is Jack Headbird.”

  A cheer went up from the drum group, and they banged their drums in celebration.

  “Looks like the drum group will be able to keep warm in their camp tonight.”

  Everyone laughed and the drums pounded.

  “Let’s give away the next prize, this beautiful belt buckle.”

  I gulped. I was still holding Tex’s ticket in my hand with three others. Virginia had gotten them all sticky. I tried dropping them back in.

  Uncle Roy put his hand in, and it came back out with one ticket pinched between his fingers and the one with “Tex” written on it stuck to the back of his hand.
/>   He laughed. “Looks like I have the next two winners picked. The winner of the belt buckle is Joanna Tingle.”

  The group of Choctaw Elders roared with laughter. The Choctaw grandma got up and smiled. She walked toward us, took the buckle, and stood next to me.

  “The winner of this beautiful shawl, donated by Elizabeth Wolfe, is . . .” He paused while everyone held their breath and then said loudly, “Tex!”

  The kid’s family erupted into cheers and laughter, too.

  The kid looked sheepish and blushed. He waved at us and walked quickly up. Before he made it to us, the Choctaw grandma stopped him. He leaned down and she whispered to him. He smiled real big as she handed him the belt buckle. She stepped forward and took the shawl.

  Everyone cheered. The Choctaw Elders were the loudest.

  The kid stepped back where I was standing. He was polishing the belt buckle with the corner of his shirt. Virginia may have gotten some honey on it, too.

  “Is your name really ‘Tex’?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Did you get your book back?”

  I remembered his book in my back pocket. “Um, yeah, but—”

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry. I took your bookmark out because I was afraid it would get lost.” He pulled out his wallet and took out the folded paper I had used as a bookmark. On the outside of the wallet it said Rosebud Sioux. That was how Shawna knew what tribe he was.

  “Rosebud Sioux aren’t a Texas tribe,” I said.

  He smiled. “No, we’re not. But it’s home for now. Did you like the book?”

  “Yeah. What about you?”

  He smiled. “Needed more horses and some Indians. I really liked the poem, though.”

  I quoted the first two lines of Robert Frost’s poem.

  “I meant the other one. The one on the bookmark.”

  I froze.

  “You’re a good writer, Maggie Wilson,” he said.

  I smiled in spite of my blushing face. “Thanks, Tex.”

  We stood there quietly for a few minutes. He seemed to be admiring his new belt buckle, but then he said suddenly, quietly, “Sorry about your dad.”