Bright colored ribbons sparkled in my long black hair. The Sun caught all the brilliance of the beaded pattern woven on my buckskin clothes as I stood high on the back of the medicine wagon, “What the people need is a bottle of Chief Hungry Horse Indian Herbs. I’m an Indian like you and this bottle I hold in my hand before you is honest. I make it, I use it, and I sell it. Now I’ve got a special Indian agent’s permit to come on this reservation and offer up for sale a remedy for all your problems. This remedy will put the Devil behind you, kill the vermin in your hair, the worms in your belly. And it is one thousand percent strictly botanical. It’ll keep you warm at night. It’ll pump you up and blow you out. Leave you as clean as a green blade of grass after a spring rain. I’ve sold this exclusive mix from Canada to Mexico, from Minnesota to Montana, and every Indian reservation in between. Two swigs of this mix will fix your fence. Two swigs of this mix will put the wind back in your lungs and the hair back on your head. Try it on. Thousands of satisfied Indians have. My clients are only the best, just you ask Charley Sheep of the Mescalero, Sharp Nose of the Arapaho, Rain In The Face of the Kiowa, Visalia Cornbread of the Navajo, Deer Dick of the Blackfeet, Gunshooter of the Flatheads. Chief Hungry Horse’s remedy has been drunk by the Uuchi, Yakima, Wichita, Creek, Caddo, Comanche, the Sioux, Shawnee, Smohalla, and Uintah, Ute, Osage, Quapaw. Every Indian across this land that is not made out of wood has drunk down a bottle of Chief Hungry Horse’s best. They’ve all had it. I sold it to Wolfneck for the same price I sold it to Beaver Belt. It sold to each and everyone for the fair price of one American eagle dollar. I’m down to my last case, get it while you can, run the Demons right out of your brains. Step up, put your dollar down, take a swig and say if it isn’t all I touted it to be.” The people came forward, I added together the coins from four or five of them until a dollar was reached then handed a bottle down before adding up the coins for the next bottle. “Come on now, get it while it’s to be got Wilson’s Prohibition Law may stop the Whites of drinking but there’s nothing in that law says an Indian can’t have his medicine. Step up and try some.” I talked fast. I could see the dust waving like a flag behind the car skidding around the comers of the dirt road leading down off the distant plateau. I pocketed the money and slammed the lid over the remaining bottles. “Happy trails friends,” I whipped the horses around and galloped the wagon for the highway that ran along the reservation border. The car was close behind me, blasting its horn. I held on tight to the reins of the frightened horses to keep the tipping wagon from crashing over on its side. The car pulled even and tried to head me off from the main road. I stood up, lashed out at the horses and swung them straight into the car. The car slammed around, its tires skidding away beneath it, swerving the metal weight in a full circle as I galloped by onto the open road just in time to see another car swing to blockade the road ahead, its engine was cut, two men got out, leaned up against its side and aimed rifles at my bead. I yanked back on the reins, rearing the horses and slamming the wagon to a halt on the highway. The other car behind me came skidding up, four men jumping from all the doors, one with a big badge on his coat that caught all the rays of the Sun as he waved his pistol and shouted, “Get down off there or I’ll shoot! Come on now, come on down with your ass up and your hands behind your back!” He waved the gun around like he was going to start shooting at me and everybody else around. I did what he asked, two of his men grabbed my arms and shoved them up double into my back. The man with the badge stuck the pistol under his belt, hooked his thumbs in his pockets and swaggered over, “Well now, Mister Chief Hungry Horse himself in person. Come to pay the Shoshone a social call. The famous Chief Hungry Horse. Well let me tell you Chief Hungry Horse!” He screamed, shaking a fist over his head like he was going to punch the sun in the face, “You’ve been getting away with it at every Indian agency over the West, bilking your own kind, selling them rotgut firewater. You’re through now, you should have known better than to run your game on my Shoshone Reservation. You made your first and final mistake. You are under arrest!” He jammed both fists into his pockets and breathed hot air into my face.
“Just one moment there sir,” one of the men leaning against the car that had blockaded the road before me strolled over with a rifle tucked under his arm. “By what authority are you making this arrest sir. Who are you?”
“By what authority!” The man pulled his fists from his pockets and waved them in the air like he was going to drag the sun down and kick it all over the road. “Who am I! I am C.C. Vornoum of the United States Indian Service. I am the Deputy Agent of the entire Shoshone Indian Agency. That is who I am sir! And just who are you!”
The man with the rifle took out a billfold and slapped it open on his leg, exposing a five-star silver badge, “I am a United States Marshal.”
“Well Marshal, you’re a little late. I have sole authority over everything that happens within this Agency.”
“I am not a little late sir, we have been tracking this Indian out of the Black Hills of Dakota, down the Tongue River right through the Crow Agency of Montana and into Idaho. This Indian sir, is a Federal offender.”
“That’s right! And he’s in my Agency. I have jurisdiction over the life of every Indian within the confines of this Agency by authority vested in my person by the Congress of the United States, and its Department of War. I am the law here!” He grabbed my arm and tugged me toward his car.
“Just hold up a minute,” the man with the rifle pointed its tip at the yellow line in the center of the road. “The southern boundary of the Shoshone Agency runs west-east, right down this road.” He tapped the gun muzzle on the center line of the road. “I am afraid you’re standing in the State of Nevada. You’re standing just over the wrong side of the boundary line. Outside of your Agency you have no authority. Outside of your Agency you’re nothing. You’re as powerless as those on the other side of this line who you rule.” He pulled iron handcuffs from his coat and clamped them on my wrists. “I suggest sir, you hightail it back to your Agency before I arrest you for obstructing Justice.”
The Agent shook his fists at the sky, puffed up his chest, then ran to the car behind his men and drove away into the hills.
“Well now Chief Hungry Horse, these Agents are all the same,” the man with the rifle unlocked my handcuffs as he looked back up into the hills. “You would think sir over all this time of working together we would have come across just one of that kind who could give us a run for the money. No sir, there’s not one of them worth his salt.”
The other man who was still leaning against the car followed the ghost of faint dust hanging in the air where the Agent had disappeared in the distance. “Tin Jesus. If you ask me that’s what they all are, just a tin Jesus.”
“That’s a real fact Bill, they’re just a tin Jesus. Toss this in the backseat for me, will you Bill,” he handed his rifle over and turned to me. “Well sir, how did they sell?”
I drew out three fistfuls of loose coins from my leather vest and handed them over. “Three bottles.”
“Three bottles sir? Did I hear you right, only three bottles? I knew they kept these Shoshone run ragged, but that’s less than we got off the Goshutes.” He counted up the coins and gave back five of them. “Well sir, I guess we can’t complain, at least we’re doing an honest day’s work.” He clapped me on the shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Chief Hungry Horse, you’re home free. This here is the State of Nevada we’re standing in now. I told you in Omaha I would bring you home to your mountains. Me and Bill are turning around here and heading back over to Wichita country. No use in us traveling this medicine show any further, these Nevada Indians are having such hard times they can’t even afford to sweat.” He released my shoulders, “Well sir you can keep those leathers you have on, me and Bill know you earned them. Where you’re headed you’re going to need everything you can get.” He walked around to the back of the wagon and flipped the lid of the medicine case up, “Here,” he threw two corked bottles over t
o me. “You’ll need these to keep warm.” He swung up on the wagonseat and flicked the rein over the horses, trotting them up the road. Bill started the car and pulled in behind the wagon. I stood in the center of the road holding the necks of the two bottles, my hands were not free to wave. He stood up on the wagonseat. I could still see him plain as day. He hollered back over the roof of the car trailing him, “Chief Hungry Horse! Don’t take any tin Jesus!”
• • •
Jesus was solid gold running ten feet into the Earth beneath my feet. Jesus was sparkling silver, lighting up all my dreams. Jesus was on my back. Jesus wouldn’t let me eat or sleep. I tried to shake him loose. I drank so hard my dry body heaved and shook, but he hung on for all he was worth. Jesus was running me down. He wanted to steal my soul. Jesus was in my saddle and he had sharp spurs. The way to buck him off was to get up on a wild horse. I got a job in Fallon bustin broncos. The rancher came up to me sitting on the corral watching the bronc busting. I was drinking corn whiskey to keep my blood pumped up high, they say if a wild horse smells whiskey on your breath he’ll think you’re his mama and lie down beneath you. The rancher took a swig off my bottle, “WHeeeeeeewww, what a kick!” He wiped the wet sting off his lips and handed the bottle back. “Ever been up on a kickin bronc?”
“Not ever that I remember.”
“It’s a winter job and fifteen dollars for every horse you break down. Want to get up?”
“I know what it feels like to be hold on to.”
“I’ve never met a Washo yet who was worth a damn in the saddle, but some Indians can ride good, I’ve seen and heard that for myself. Some Indians take to it natural and never get throwed, must be they’re blood kin of the horse, maybe you’re one?”
“Might be.”
“Go on then, we’ve got one ready, first time saddled, he’s awful mean under that load and he don’t like the taste of metal in his mouth. Staying up on him is going to be like running through hell in a gasoline jacket. He’ll buck himself to death under you before he’s broke. Go on, try your hand.”
I climbed up on the narrow chute over the horse, his broad back was right under me, thrashing against the wooden planks as he tried to kick and buck his way to freedom. I looked out into the corral, the last rider was being carried off, they were ready for me. All around the high fence men sat screaming and beating their hats in the dusty air. “O.K. Chief!” The cowboy keeping a tight rope on the horse shouted. “Drop on, grab hold, and pray!” I jumped on the horse’s back, the gate banged open and we were in the air, the horse flying into the center of the corral, whipping the wind in my face, I felt the jolt of his front legs hitting earth, knocking every sharp bone in my body right up through my head, whamming me down on the stone flat saddle and almost throwing me over the horse’s head. His hind legs hit the earth, twisting my back around until I felt it snap before he reared up. I slammed my body down on his rising neck, jamming my face into his mane, and held on. His swelling body spun, throwing his head back high, the muscle of his rising rump jolting. I held on, he was bucking in slamming bounds, banging bottom corral boards out, slashing his hooves high in the sun. I held on, to air. I was riding the turbulent wind around him, thrown off into the sky, the earth rising into my face like a fist. I felt my shoulder go out from under me and my legs slamming to the ground. I jumped to my feet. The earth roared and shook like a tree falling straight on my head as the horse jolted back and knocked me flat on my back. I could see his heaving body bucking and stamping over me. Two riders broke into the corral and rode the horse away from me along the fence, his pounding hooves crashing through the wooden planks as flying nooses dropped around his wild head. Through the haze of dust a light broke and ran its finger down my body, binning a bright circle around me. The dust rising, I beheld the Earth. The roped horse was being led panting from the corral, the power of Satan was exhausted and broken. I rose to my knees and prayed. Jesus had spirited away my soul. I was born again. All around me the men hooted and hollered.
I preached the Gospel at both ends. The people had to be saved. The people had to get busy for Jesus. The march of Christian values was on. The people had to get born again. Hallelujah. Jesus had sent me to quench the long dusty river of the people’s thirst. Jesus had sent me to turn a hungry wilderness into a fruitful place. Hallelujah. The Earth was broken, and groaned under the weight of bones, all the Birds of the heavens fled. The Earth was broken, Jesus sent me to mend the Wheel of the Lord. Hallelujah. Jesus sent me to build the road of his Way. The people must be saved. All around me the wicked do wickedly, every beat of the heart bangs evil. I am the sword within and the sword without. I am the Way. Follow me. Step into the light. Hallelujah. I know the Secret Road.
Jesus saved me. When I was the young boy and the tuberculosis was killing up all the Indian people in the lumber towns my people sent me away from the mills of Elephant Head out to the high valley of my mother’s mother. There I waited until the old mother died. The Earth was covered with the white burden of snow. All the Indian people of Elephant Head died away over the mountains. Jesus saved me for the people. The valley of the high Sierra is where Jesus wants me to bring the Word. So I traveled there with my black high hat on my head and the Gospel under my arm. Jesus pointed the way along the true path. There was thirst and hunger in the valley, I was bringing the word of Jesus to fill the people. Jesus was waiting for me when I got to Loyalton. There in the valley he gave me shelter in a small cabin by the slow burning slash-heap of the lumber mill. The cabin was bought with the money the Government gave Whistling Willy for his leg. When the time of fighting came across the Big Water Whistling Willy took his bible of the Gospel down from the shelf. He decided to gamble on Jesus. He scrawled down his career choices on slips of paper to see if he would follow Jesus or Man. Ten pieces of paper lay scattered face down on the black cover of the Gospel. Five of them read JESUS, and five read ARMY. He drew them off one by one. The first three of a kind to come up would be his fate. His fate read JESUS ARMY ARMY ARMY. He settled on the military life and went over the Big Water in 1918 to France country where he hid in a mud trench for eight months while men he didn’t know tried to kill him. The trench was always full of mud and fire. He said he saw Jesus coming like a Ghost out of the bitter fog of gun smoke. Jesus came slipping over the rolls of barbed wire and spread his snow white cloak on the mud and held up his palms to show his wounded hands. He spoke of many with wounded hands, to beware of false prophets, that all men should know the true Jesus is wounded in both the hands and the feet. He rested his bare white feet up on the black mud and displayed his crimson scars. He said on the dawn of the last morning the stars shall all sing together and He will take a Bride. He would glow like a Bridegroom and lift the Earth in the cloud of His hand. Behold. All men will eat Heaven’s own grain. All men will eat the bread of angels. Whistling Willy listened to these words with his soul until his heart asked: What are these scars on your hands and feet? Jesus gathered up His white cloak and looked over the mud strewn with bodies, then gazed down at his scars: I got these in my harlot’s house. Jesus left like a Ghost. He left across the mud. He left not a footprint. The hole of the trench was full of fire. Fire in the hole. The fire blew Whistling Willy’s leg off. They shipped him back from France country lit up like a Christmas tree with a piece of wood where his leg should be. He carved the bleeding heart of Jesus straight through the wood of the fleshless leg. Whenever he turns east the flapping wind blows through the delicate hole like a train whistle. He is my brother. I came into the valley and he gave me shelter. We are all brothers. He wept that Jesus had finally come back for him. That Jesus had sent the Word. I placed my hands on his body and prayed.
A woman came to me across the river. She brought her big brown body into the cabin and spoke, “Are you the Indian who preaches the Gospels?” “I am the lamb of Jesus.” “Are you the one they call Hallelujah Bob?” “I am all things to all men.” She brushed the thick bangs away from her heavy face and sat her body on th
e chair, I could see the bulges of padded flesh pushing out under the long sack of her dress. Her feet were small. Tiny. No longer than a boy’s hand, she crossed them beneath her and heaved out a hot breath in the small room. “There is no woman in this house. I have come to be the woman. It’s the way of the people. I can get work. I am Viola Jacks.”
She had come from Beckwourth on the far side of the valley where she worked the ranches since she was a young girl. She would walk three or five miles out to a ranch house in the middle of the valley. And she behaved like an Indian, she waited patiently in the morning hours before the ranch house until someone would come out the door and happen to see her, they would ask her what she wanted and she would say work. There was always work for the Indian woman, there was never work for the Indian man. She would be taken into the house and the first thing she would do was empty the swollen jars and pots of human waste collected in the night. She would spend the day until darkness scrubbing the soil of white bodies from stranger’s clothing. She would go down on her knees to wash the dirty floors. She would make beds, clean windows, scrub pots, wash woodwork. At the end of her labor she would walk to her distant home beyond sight from any main road. Sometimes she would earn enough silver coins to feed for one more day all the men and children living with her. Sometimes she was never paid. In the morning she would walk back out into the valley and stand before another house. She would wait She would watch for the door to open and someone to ask her what she wanted. Some days when she labored in a house its man would come to her and put his hands on her brown body. He would feel her heavy breasts beneath the sack of a dress, pushing them up in the palms of his hands. He would unbutton his trousers and free the stake of his hard white flesh, making her run her hands on it and pinch the burning red tip as he shoved her to the floor, yanking the dress up over the fat swell of her thighs, higher over the heaving roll of her blacknippled breasts. He’d put himself down on her broad hips until she was covered with a white body, his hot breath fingering her face as a burst of white skin scattered in her blood.
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