“Kill the red devil!”
“And I’m telling you we’ve had our share of Injun trouble in this town of Genoa right up to the lip. We had a liquor-crazy Shoshone cut a Cowboy’s eyes from him right here in this same saloon not more than two months back, and most of you boys saw the unGodly act. And the storeclerk’s wife caught a red devil looking in through her window when she was indecent. I tell you there aint no one safe long as there’s a red devil left in any civilized town. They don’t pay no attention to our Sundown Ordinance, and when we go and pass a law stating the particular illegal nature of an Injun consuming hard spirits in any of our drinking establishments they ignore it and walk right in as they please and order themselves a whiskey just like they was white. By God it’s about time some lessons were taught in this town. If you can’t be reasonable with the red devils you’ve got to get tough with them.” He followed his words across the room and with one swing his arm knocked the Indian across the face to the floor. He grabbed the Indian by the throat of his jacket, yanked him up and pushed him through the crowd out the swinging doors onto the boardwalk. “Do you see that,” he pointed to the sign nailed above the saloons doors. “Read it out you red devil!”
The Indian looked up at the sign. It meant nothing to him. The words painted on the board held no meaning. Long in the past the woman in the wagontent taught him how to speak the sounds of her tongue and what the meaning behind them was, but she never taught him to recognize those sounds when they were written out. He didn’t know how to read.
“I said read it out you red devil. Read out the Law!”
The Indian tried to make sense from the painted words on the sign. He moved his lips silently, trying to fit together the sounds the man wanted to hear.
“You red devil! You mock us. You mock our Laws,” Reverend Jake grabbed the Indian’s hair in his fist and yanked it, pulling the head farther back until the Indian’s eyes could no longer see the words on the sign, could only see over the sharp edge of the roof above to the clear blue of the Sky. “ILLEGAL FOR INJUNS!” Reverend Jake shouted the painted words of the sign into the Indian’s face. “ILLEGAL FOR INJUNS TO PURCHASE AND CONSUME HARD SPIRITS ON THESE PREMISES!”
“Damn if that aint him! Damn if that aint the thievin redskin,” a man shouted from the crowd which had backed itself into the saloon, along the boardwalk and into the street. He shoved his way to the front until his face was right up against the Indian’s. “Damn if that aint the thievin redskin buck what I give a ride to on the supplywagon last night. More’n half way here he sneaks into the back of the wagon, steals my whiskey, which I use only as medicine to keep my blood up on winter nights, and slips over the tailgate. Why hell, it were moren fifteen miles before I knowed he was ever gone, and it weren’t no use in goin back for him as by that time he’d been hid under a sage guzzlin the bottle down. That’s him you bet.” The man strained closer, the spit of his words striking the Indian’s face. “That’s the thievin redskin buck!” “I’m damned,” Reverend Jake let go of the Indian’s hair and pushed him to the edge of the boardwalk. “They kill, they lie, they cheat, they look at your women, they’ll steal the teeth right out of your head. They commit the most unGodly acts and it’s about time some lessons were taught.” The whistling sound of a lasso cut through Reverend Jake’s words, the loop of the rope coming down around the Indian’s head just as the Cowboy who threw it spurred his horse out into the street, tightening the rope until it locked the Indian’s arms to his sides and pulled him off the boardwalk, slamming his face into the street. The Indian stood up in the white cloud of dust his body had raised. The laughter of the men crowded around him slapped at his face. He felt the rope tug at his body. The Cowboy turned the horse and headed it up the street The rope jerked the Indian around, but he kept his footing, running behind the horse as it broke into a trot, trying to match the speed of the animal he was tied to. The Cowboy swung in the saddle and saw the Indian running behind him, he cocked his boots out in the air, then knifed the spurred heels straight into the horse’s flanks. The horse reared back, for a moment its weight hung suspended on the thrust of the back legs, then broke into a gallop. The sudden movement snapped the slack in the rope, yanking the Indian off his feet and dropping him to the ground, dragging him behind in a stream of dust The Cowboy spurred the horse to the end of the street, swung around and rode back past the cheering crowd and stopped. The Indian lay still, waiting for the horse to drag him again, but it didn’t. He raised up on his knees and tried to spit. His dry tongue caught in his dust filled mouth and choked him. He rose choking and spitting into the laughter coming from the men crowded along the boardwalks. The roaring sound of the men was more painful than the skin the dragging burned off his legs. He looked up at the Cowboy grinning down from his saddle and saw the sudden flash of spurs as they lashed into the horse’s sides. The sudden wrench of the rope seemed to tear his arms off as it pulled him to the ground. He couldn’t feel his hands, only the pain of the rope cutting in his sides. The skin on his legs flamed as he swirled across the flashing ground that was burning away the pants at his hips to eat into his flesh. He tried to keep his head up so the skin of his face wouldn’t be torn off, but the rope around his chest cut his breath. The air he desperately sucked was filled with dust from the slamming horse’s hooves. He could no longer hold the weight of his head up. He felt it sinking closer to the ground coming up and racing beneath him like the edge of a razor. The weight of his head slumped, but the horse stopped, snorting through the flare of its nostrils, its hide around the saddle wet with the caked sweat of white dust. The Indian felt the life go from him. He tried to cough the dirt from his mouth but the dry string of his throat made him heave, bringing up the whiskey in his stomach, its sudden rush clearing the dirt from his mouth. He sucked at the freed air as he tried to lift his face from the wet green stench it was lying in.
“That ought to put the lesson into your onry hide you red devil,” Reverend Jake yanked the Indian’s head up and held the blade of a knife to his swollen face. “Next time you’ll know the lesson of the White-man’s Law, you lying, cheating, stealing Washo coward,” the furious light of his blue eyes burned beneath the black rim of his hat as he raised the knife and slashed it down in a broad, quick stroke, cutting the rope that tied the Indian to the horse. “Get up you red devil. Get up and run like a rabbit!”
The Indian tried to struggle to his feet, but the rope locked around his arms held him to the ground.
“I said run!” The Reverend Jake pulled him up by the hair, but the Indian felt nothing in his legs. His tied body fell face down back into the street. “Run!” The Reverend Jake yanked him up again, then kicked him in the back, knocking him to the street again. “Damn onery red devil snake,” the Reverend Jake jerked the Indian by the hair and held his body up, then shoved him forward. “Run for your life red rabbit!”
The Indian felt his feet, he felt them in his boots and he moved them. He moved his whole body, trying to keep his balance as he ran blindly down the center of the street, but the rope tying his arms down threw him off time and he fell sliding into the dust. He rolled over, pushed himself back to his feet and ran again. Then he felt it, he felt it in front of him and slowed down to face it. Before him, blocking off the end of the street, was a straight wall of men. He turned and ran a few steps, but coming from the other end of the street was Reverend Jake with another wall behind him. The two walls came together and he was trapped.
“You know what we’re going to do to you!” Reverend Jake strode to the center of the circle the men formed around the Indian.
“YaH, tell him what it is we do to his kind!”
“We’re going to hang him!”
“Hang the red devil!”
“Hang him to a tree!”
“You can’t!”
The crowd fell silent, searching the voice that went against it.
“You can’t,” the man at the back of the crowd spoke again as all eyes turned to him. “You can’t hang him to a t
ree because there aint no trees.”
“Damned if he aint right,” an old man stamped his boot in the dust. “There aint a tree within thirty mile any direction you ride. They all been cut to the ground years ago to build the town.”
“I was in Downieville in the summer of ’51,” a man with a beard seared orange by the sun pushed his way to the center of the crowd. “It was in ’51 that the Mexican woman Josefa put a knife into Fred Cannon’s heart. In broad daylight she done it. Right in the street. I weren’t there to see it being as I was up the river panning, but there was plenty who did and soon’s I got the word I come into town and what we did with her was hang her from a bridge. She let her black hair down in the sun before they put the rope around her neck. It were the prettiest black hair I ever seen.”
“Well we cant hang this red devil from a bridge because we aint got no bridge!”
“Throw him off a roof with a rope around his neck!”
“No! That aint no good,” another man shoved to the center and stood next to Reverend Jake. “I’m from ’Bama and we got a way there with niggers. We put two ropes around their necks, lash the ends of the ropes to the saddle-horns of two horses, then spur the horses. The head comes off clean as a watermelon.”
“That’s how we’ll do it!” Reverend Jake shouted.
Two horses were ridden into the center of the crowd. The riders quickly tied two nooses and handed them down to Reverend Jake who looped them over the Indian’s neck. “Now you boys move back here. Move back and give these horses room to bolt.” The crowd separated, leaving a broad aisle all the way down the street The Indian stood alone between the two horses.
“You riders ready!”
“We’re ready Rev’rend,” the two men sitting easy in their saddles called. “You just give the word.”
Reverend Jake walked up the aisle between the waiting men and raised his hand. “When I drop my arm you riders git!” He looked down one end of the street to see the way clear then up the other, where his eyes stopped, “What in the name of Satan is this?”
Coming down the street between the two rows of men was an Indian woman on a horse with the gentle buckskin flow of her long fringed dress falling along the line of her body. Her horse was tied behind a larger one. The sun glared off the high black crown of the stovepipe hat on the man sitting straight in the saddle of the lead horse. A slim cigar was clenched in the delicate curve of his mouth as he tapped a goldtipped cane against his checkered pants. He reined his horse to a stop in front of the Indian and touched the metal tip of the cane to the ropes lynched around his neck. He withdrew the cigar from his mouth and swung in his saddle, “You gents cant hang this Injun.”
“Who in the name of God says so!” Reverend Jake shouted, the hand held high above his head clenching into a fist. “It’s ordained by the Almighty Himself! Who dares go against His Word! Just who is it that goes against His Word!”
“It’s a Bummer!”
“Just who goes against the Word of the Almighty!”
“It’s not just me, John C. Luther, saying it gents, it’s the United States Republic of America. Nevada is no longer an open territory, it was proclaimed the thirty-sixth state of the Union by a deliberate daylight act of Congress not more than five years ago in ’64. This town sits on the dirt of Nevada, and that means its men are bound to the democratic ways of the Republic. A man is innocent by Law until proven guilty. He’s got to be given a fair trial. So you see gents, being as this is a Republic, we have to give this Injun a fair trial, then hang him.”
4
THE BLACKBIRDS sing across the river.
Oh Christ, the Blackbirds sing across water where it is always flowing. The Blackbirds sing open a door and the people wait to pass through into the light of virgin Sky. The people wait oh Christ, to enter the heavens of the old ways before the time of the Whites. The people wait to enter the heavens riding the songs you brought back on the Ghost Pony the day the Sun died and fell from the heart of the Sky herself with a lance through his golden body. The people wait to sing the trees up. To sing the mountains up. To sing the lakes up. The people wait to dance their birth. To dance the birth of the Birds. To dance the birth of Animals running. The Sky is thick with feathers and fur. The days of the people are falling quickly from them. The old ways are peeling like skin from the Snake. The people are all dead or dying. We are few, the Whites are many. We are sly, we are swift. The land is sunk to the heart. The land has been robbed of trees, the rocks have been blown to powder. We ask but one thing. We have but one hope. Sing your Song oh Christ. Ride the Ghost Pony among us. Let us feast on the flesh of the Ghost. Let the waters come and wash the Earth clean of those who destroy her. Let the people stand in high places everywhere. Let the people anoint their chests and legs with the blood of all things. Of the Spirit. Let the people dance their joy and release the sacred Bird from its bed of ashes. Oh Christ we are sick. Our bones melt. We are cut from the land. We have many pains. We wait to enter through the door the Blackbirds sing over water where it is always flowing. Oh Christ, touch our wounds with your Song. Heal us into power. Lead us out from under the place where the Sun rises. Lead us on the straight path of our Fathers.
The Christ did not answer what I asked him in my heart. His body was sunk deep within his black clothes. The Sun was full over him. He had no shadow. We sat there on the flatland, the three, myself, the Christ, and the other man, one who follows. In the silence of the day the snow was melting from the clumps of sage. In every direction from us branches were breaking from their white burden free to the Sun. In the pit scooped out by the fire of the night before the yellowbacked Spider still moved simply and swiftly over the charred bones of dead wood, spinning the blossom of her web further into the surprising currents of wind. Spinning whitelight lace endlessly from the depths of her body. She turned to me and held up from the open drawer the sheet of lace, letting its folds fall open from her hands until the entire piece lay straight and intricate before her. She spread it smooth over the bed, I could hear the breath rushing short through her nostrils as her hand glided over the sheer surface shimmering like a lake. “It belonged to my mother,” she spoke not to me, but to the very air of the closed bedroom itself. “It was on my mother’s bed when she was a bride. It was only used once, the first night. The lace is pure, it’s German. It was brought across on the ship by my grandmother to America. It was the one personal thing my grandmother was allowed to take from the homeland. Each person could bring very little on the ship. She hid her bible in the folds of this lace. That was more than one-hundred eighty years ago. In 1736 the ship sailed from Hamburg to the new town of Savannah, a place where the Lutherans could build free of persecution. But it was only that way for a short while. They had to keep moving further and further to the west. I was born as they journeyed west, just this side of the Platte River. Here I am now all the way west, in the Sierra Nevada.” She spoke these soft words as if their mere utterance gave proof of her presence in these high mountains. “My husband Frank isn’t Lutheran,” her eyes traced the shimmering pattern of the lace. “But he is a God fearing man. He says with the help of the Lord he’s going to fill this valley with cattle. He is a good man, Frank Dora is. He risked his very life burning to the ground six years ago the Indians shacks up at the Elephant Head lumber mills. Those shacks were all filled with the bodies of Indians who were dying of their own Indian fever. No one asked Frank and the boys to burn the disease away. It was a job just had to be done, and they did it. They don’t ask for any thanks. But it was any one of them could have got the fever themselves and died from it.” She stopped her words and looked at me as if she just discovered I had been there all the time. “You shouldn’t hold it against Frank that he beats you. You have many faults and he’s only trying to make you into a person that could get along in this world and know the rules. A lesson taught the hard way is a lesson never forgot. It’s all for the good that he beats you when you do bad. Would you like,” she moved from the bed toward m
e, her long gray dress almost scraping the bare boards of the floor, “would you like to touch the lace?” I moved to the bed and placed my hands on the pattern of the shimmering material. It was like touching her, a secret part of her, the part I could never touch but see when she pulled her son Darrel to her body and held him without saying anything, then kissed the blond hair falling across his forehead. She never touched me. When I was first with them and still a small boy she would wash the dirt from my body every Saturday morning, raking my scalp with her nails as she worked the soap up in my hair, the whole time whispering low to me, “You’re such a dirty little boy, such a filthy little Indian, a body’d never scrub you clean.” Then she would wash hard between my legs until I was raw and she finally would notice me whimpering with the pain of her getting me clean, and she would stop. She always washed Darrel first. She sang to him and called, “My little babyboy,” and tickled his ear with the washrag. She would dry him off and dress him up next to the stove, then tell me to jump in the big tin tub sitting in the middle of the floor. I would get in, but by then the water had turned cold, the gray scum of lather from Darrel’s scrubbing floating across the top. One day she said I would have to wash myself. She said I was big enough and didn’t need anybody doing it for me. She never touched me again from that time. But Darrel was the same age in years as me, and twice as big, with hands that could break the sticks of my arms whenever they wanted. She kept washing him another year before she quit. She never touched me but it was good to be with her, to be near her. Touching my flesh to her lace spread before me across the bed was like touching her heart. I couldn’t move my hands from the pattern glaring in the shaft of sun shot through the window. I felt the blood of my head flow through my hands into the delicate texture of the lace and catch there, rooting me to her presence, alone with her in a way she had always withheld from me before. There was somewhere within me a question. Why? Why had she brought me to her bedroom, closed the door and pulled the buried lace from hiding in the big dresser against the wall. Why did she let me touch her in this way. Why was I here instead of her son Darrel? Since the beginning when her husband and the men had burned the hut to the ground with the body of my mother’s mother in it, and they brought me here as a small boy to live in the house painted the color of snow, since that beginning why had she never brought me close to her before. But before the question grew out of me to my lips she spoke, “You are going away. We are not going to keep you any longer.” She moved to the window and the gray dress of her body blocked the sun. “Another is taking you. You are twelve years old, there is work you can do. We have a son, and much hired help. There is little you can do here for your keep. We …”
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