Many days in many houses she would expect the white man to come to her. When she would find herself in a back room and hear the rap of bootsteps on wood floors she would roll the length of her dress up under the arms and stand waiting for him to come through the door and see the strong glint of light shining off the coiled hair between her thighs. She would think he was her man. She would think he was husbanding her Spirit She brought her body to him as a gift of heart. If she did not already have a first husband she would come to build a shack by the ranch house so she could be close to the white man who let her labor in the house of his life and was husband to her soul. She would take his name and make it part of her own. She lived only to labor for the man. He gave to her the food in her belly, the fire in her stove. It had always been. But sometimes, the white wife of the house would not want to share her man so she would run this second wife off. Other times the first wife of the house did not know the man was husband to two. Many times the Indian wife would have the husband’s child growing in her. She might spend many years growing his children out of her. Sometimes she might grow in her lifetime the children of many different husbands. But they were the children of husbands and she loved them all to her heart, and for them too she went into the ranch houses and cleaned away the daily dirt of white lives.
Viola had cleaned the dirt in Jacks’ house. He had put his flesh in her and she took him to be her husband. She built up a little lean- to on the backside of the barn and every morning she went into the house to clean the dirt. People knew her as Jack’s Viola. When the baby of blond hair grew out of Viola the first wife of the house sent someone to pull it out of Viola’s arms and take it from her sight. There were too many wives at that house so Viola took her labor away and came under my womanless roof. I took Viola Jacks back to the river and put her body under the water, washing her soul clean of her original sin. Her soul was clean as Rabbit’s fur. She was born again. I read her the Gospel. I told her to ask forgiveness. I showed her the Secret Way. She got down on her knees and prayed. She begged Jesus to take away the shame. She begged for his Divine leadership. She labored on the ranches. There was only work for a woman. She knew I had been saved by Jesus to free the people from thirst and hunger and fill them with the Word. The people were everywhere in the valley, in the mountains, on flatlands. I had to have a car to bring all the people the Word. A preacher without a car is like a Jesus without a cross. Viola labored in the White houses. She would come into the cabin after darkness and put her few coins in the clear glass jar on the dresser top in front of a plastic Jesus twisted in agony on the cross. In darkness we lay together. To me she spoke, “It is always you, and you forever, in the past especially.” My fingers rested in the soft fat of her thighs and I said out to darkness, “Jesus wants us.” “Yes, He has taught us the Word.” She rolled over to her side, my hand leaving the skin of her standing body. A short rip sounded and the sulfur flash of a match was lifted under the glass shade of the lamp, touching fire to the kerosene wick. “You will see,” she looked down at my body growing visible as her hand turned the flicking flame high beneath glass. “Now you will witness my salvation.” The thick line of black bangs falling at her eyes and the sides of her cheeks cast a shadow over her broad face. She went to the wall and took down the leathersheathed knife. “Jesus died for us. Jesus wants us.” She slid the blade slowly from its leather, her fingers touching the razor curved edge as she turned it to catch the reflected beam from its light in her eye, “You are to me and have always been. I am to you. No knife can cut apart our embrace. No knife can cut what I believe. No blade will ever kill our love for Jesus.” She let her free hand fall across the swelled fat rolls of her belly to the surface of her thighs. “They did not take this,” she fingered the pushing strands of hair at the center of her body. “They have failed. It cannot be taken.” Her hand came up to the gentle fat rolling belly, “Look at it. Look at me. At the flesh. They have come to take this, to take this because it is given in the labor of love. It is what they are not, it is without their mark.” The hand glided to the bottom swing of a blood heavy breast. “Look at this,” she pushed the flesh heavy swell up with her palm. “They came to take it, to kill it. Because it is perfect. But it is you. It is me. It cannot be marked by them. It cannot be stolen by their touch.” The blade rose and rested lightly on the thick prick of her nipple. “Look at this, look at us. Witness.” The blade slit swiftly over skin, her arm jerking down, slashing the large bulge of flesh. She raised the knife to the other nipple and drew the blade straight across the throat of her breast. The blood rose on her skin. She set the knife in the glow of the lamp. “Jesus taught me this. Jesus was wounded for our sin. Jesus died for us. I am marked by Jesus for all to see. When they come to take my body in the embrace of a lie they will see the mark of Jesus upon it and turn away.” The blood was running off the broad swell of her breasts, curving down in a trickle around her waist and over the globed flesh of her ass. She gazed at her bleeding breasts. “These wounds will heal into deep scars. I carry the wounds of Jesus.”
Viola went out every morning in the valley to the ranches to labor for love of Jesus. I went about doing good. Gathering up my flock. I preached in the back rooms of stores in the winter. I gave the Word of Jesus along the cool river in the sweat of summer. I went up on the mountain to save the poeple. The wind whistled through the tops of pine trees. Everywhere about me the people sat waiting to see the Way. They sat on high boulders, in big meadows, against tree trunks. They had heard the Word would be delivered. The people came from all across the land to be saved by Jesus. To be born again. And I came among them, going to the mountaintop in my car. Viola labored long, I had taken the clear glass jar of coins she had labored for into Loyalton where the newspaper reporter had talked of selling his car. He had the car out on the main road of town. I came up to it and put the clear glass jar of coins on the hood. The reporter scratched his mustache and nodded, “So you want her for your own Chief.” “A preacher needs a car.” “This isn’t just some car Chief, it’s the first Model Τ made with front doors, before this one came along they didn’t make them with any doors atall.” He kicked the fender and it rang out like a gong. “Listen to that, it’s a metal body too, not wood like alot of them are made out of. How much you got in the jar?” “Sixteen dollars.” “That isn’t much dough Chief. This here is a special car. I was expecting at least twenty-five for it. Why this car is so smart when I fall asleep it knows the way home. It’s apples or oranges Chief, twenty-five dollars, not sixteen. Why don’t you get yourself a horse?” “A horse is not like a car. A horse you have to saddle before you ride, a horse you have to feed everyday, keep his hooves shod, build a barn for him, and when you’re through riding him you have to take his saddle back off and put him away. A car is not like a horse. A car you just crank, get in, and drive away. At the end of the day you just switch it off.” “I never thought of it in that particular light before Chief, but I think you should stick to horses like the rest of your kind. No Indian in town has a car, no need for you to be the first. Besides, you can’t drive a nail straight let alone a car.” I placed my hands on the clear glass jar of coins and looked the reporter in the eyes, “A preacher without a car is like a Jesus without a cross.” He waited a minute, looking off up at the sun, then turned back to me. “Oh, so that’s how it is, you want this car for religious purposes. As long as I sell it to you for reasons of religion I don’t see how people can hold it against me. As long as you’re going to use the car in a Christian manner there’s no reason you can’t be the first Indian to have a car.” He took my money. You had to push the car to start it. I got in and he pushed it about a half mile before it came to life. He said the car was called FORD. “Chief, now that you own a FORD let me give you a piece of philosophy for life: You can put on 10,000 miles in one day, or 10,000 miles in ten years, but it’s still 10,000 miles.”
I drove the FORD to the mountaintop. The people had come up from the land to hear the Word of Jesus.
I drove the FORD among them and switched it off, then climbed up and stood on the hot hood. I looked down from the FORD at all those who came to be saved. I raised my hand to the Sky, “The great sin of man is his distance from Jesus and his closeness to the Devil! I know, Jesus was on my back, he wouldn’t let me eat, sleep or work. Jesus ran me down. I wanted salvation so bad I got up on my knees and prayed. I stepped into the light and begged forgiveness. Hallelujah! Give thanks to Jesus. I tell you what it’s like denying Jesus, it’s like having your face eaten away by dogflies. We all have to come to Jesus sooner or later. When you put up a fence you fence more out than in. If people just knew that. A pine tree won’t grow in a pot, it needs soil. If people just knew that. When Jesus saved me I got up on my knees and shouted LORD JESUS, Open the door to my heart and walk right in! Jesus took me captive. Jesus does answer prayer. He stole my heart. Hallelujah praise His name! It’s been said by wiser men than myself that if you give a man a fish a day he can eat, but teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for the rest of his life. Hallelujah! I say teach a man to pray, teach a man to open his heart and ask Jesus into his home. Teach a man to bring Jesus into his heart and he can feed himself for the rest of Eternity. But what is it we see today? On every side of us the wicked walk while the vilest of men are exalted! Heed this! If you break the law of Jesus he will break you! Don’t forget, even this Country is under the Divine leadership of the Almight Jesus. This Country is ruled by popular virtues. We must march at the head of Christian values. We Indians are the chosen vessel of Jesus. We are the descendants of the righteous Branch of Joseph. The Indians are the children of the Ten Lost Tribes written in the Book. The Indians will step up into Celestial Government. We people of the Lost Tribes will stand in high places everywhere. The silence of Jesus is Sovereign, only we hear his Word, our hardened hearts melt. Jesus is coming back for us. Jesus is going to wipe the mark of the Beast from the Indian soul. Bless Jesus! Oh my soul! Only Jesus holds the Keys of Power. Only Jesus can restore all this land which is the Indian heart. Only Indians standing in high places everywhere will see by day the Cloud, and by night the Pillar of Fire. Hallelujah! Jesus will return Zion to the Indians. Those who kept us in bondage will eat grass as oxen, Jesus will strike the rock until all water will rise over them, the east wind will move strong from the south and rain flesh on them like dust. The dog will return to his own vomit. But we must pray for the forgiveness of these men who are stoning the Indian people to death. We must not let our hearts harden, we must keep our Souls high where the wild Birds build their nests, we must survive until the Sun rises. We will be given hail for rain. The more you know the more you suffer. We dwell in the House of the Harlot. We Indians dwell in Baylon the Great. She is the Mother of Harlots and of all abominations on Earth. We will witness the time when the Great Harlot is drunk with blood. Her tongue will rot, the flesh drop from the bone. She shall be burnt with Fire, laid to waste, stripped naked. The Messiah will strike the rock and Water will rise higher everywhere, covering the Sea. The people will stand in high places everywhere. The Messiah will come with the Clouds. HE will smite the Earth with the rod of His mouth, the breath of His lips shall slay the wicked, every eye shall see Him. Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power! He comes with His bride on a white horse. He is clad in a robe of blood. He rides faithful and true. Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword. The Sea gives up to corpses. Hallelujah People! The Righteous stand in high places everywhere! But the people must not be betrayed by a kiss. Beware of the false prophet rising. Beware of He who brings up great signs and wonders. The people must take care that no one misleads them. Those who rule over us and keep this land sunken to the heart will send rumors of wars, rising up people against people. There will be fire in the hole. They will rise up a false prophet, when he speaks frogs will come from his mouth, they will send the people forward into the Desert to him. The righteous shall not go out, they will see the lightning shoot from east to west. The carcass lies in the desert, vulture feathers grow from it like skin. On this day the Sun will die, the stars drop from heaven, the Moon darken. We must survive until the Sun rises. When we see its sign in heaven the Son of Man will appear in the Clouds with His bride on a white horse. Every eye shall see Him. All tribes on Earth will rise up standing in high places everywhere with great Glory and Power. HALLELUJAH!”
I drove the FORD off the mountaintop. When I got back to the valley Whistling Willy was standing in front of the cabin, the smoke of the slow burning slash-heap going up behind him. He told me Jesus had taken Viola, she was working at the ranches and Jesus put a pain through her heart and took her away. I remembered she only had one prize in this temporal world, and that was to have a machine that washed clothes. There was one out at the dump. It sold for one dollar. It had two big roller-ringers up at the top, but it leaked all around the bottom, that was all right because it was an electric and we didn’t have any electric power. I drove the FORD out to the dump and paid my dollar. The machine wouldn’t fit in the FORD. I had to pull and slide the machine back to the cabin through the dirt roads. I could sometimes get my back up against the heavy white side, lift it from the ground and move a few steps before staggering beneath the burden. I carried the machine through the night, then went to sleep by it. When the Sun rose I bent to my burden again until I got it up to the cabin. Whistling Willy helped me wrestle it onto the porch, and there I left it so anybody passing by could see Viola had a machine.
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 the chair, “There is no woman in this house. I have come to be the woman. I am Medicine Maggie, sister to Viola Jacks. You are now husband to me. It is the way of the people.” “I don’t need a woman in this house, I have Jesus.” “Jesus can’t cook.”
Medicine Maggie cooked all the food and went into the valley and labored at the ranches. She would come home in darkness, bring her big steaming body over and sit it on my lap. I would be holding Viola’s small dog, petting its bony back while Medicine Maggie steamed in the room, then she would shout, “It’s not the dog that needs pettin and kissin, it’s me!” Medicine Maggie never ate fruit with a pit in it, she was afraid she’d swallow the pit and a tree would grow inside her, the same with gum, she said if you swallowed gum it would grow into something horrible, but when a woman had a baby growing in her Medicine Maggie was the first one there, holding a thread and dangling a needle over the woman’s bulged stomach. Medicine Maggie could tell by the swing of the needle point whether the growing would come out a boychild or a girlchild. Every spring she herself would have something growing in her just like clockwork with the old Devil himself ticking off the seconds. She would laugh alot and say, “Whistling girls and crowing hens always come to some bad end.” Then her face would go serious and she’d whine, “Do you want me to go to Truckee to the Chinese doctor who washes dishes in the hotel? Don’t make me. A girl I know died of some dope he gave her for the pain.” Most of the babies she had were dead when they came out of her big body, but two lived, I named the boy Joseph and the girl Sarah. Medicine Maggie liked the washing machine in front of the house and told people it was hers. I preached the Word of Jesus at her but it went into her head and I never saw it again. I was patient. When you go to the field and capture a small bird you bring it home and put it in a brown bag, if you bring it home and put it straight in a barred cage it will beat its feathered body to death on the metal bars. You have to wait until the bird is tame before you can release him from the paper bag into the metal cage. I tried to tame Medicine Maggie and make her into a true Christian believer like Viola, but she always ended up wagging her finger in my face and saying, “Two women can put on the same dress but it will never look the same.” So I did what Jesus did when he saw evil in the Temple. I sl
apped her in the face. I slapped her and slapped her. For days and weeks. But it was like slapping water. I slapped her so much it sounded in her head like a bead rattling around in a bureau drawer. Finally she said, “Why do you beat me, I’m a good cook.” She asked me to plant a shade tree for her in front of the cabin. I told her that wasn’t the way, Washo men did not plant the Earth, Washo men hunted and harvested only what the Earth gave up to them, if the Earth gave plenty there was plenty, if the Earth gave little there was hunger. But she brought her big steaming brown body over and used it on me until she got her way. She told me Frogs can see better than people, that the Animals in the lake eat only when the Moon passes over. At night she taped all the window cracks so the Ghosts couldn’t slip in and steal her Spirit. In the middle of her pretty fat stomach she kept a silver dime stuck in her bellybutton. She said her own bellybutton was not nice and round but long like an ear of corn, so she kept the sparkling dime in to look glamorous. She only took the dime out whenever she got me down on the bed and she’d make me look at her in the light. Her big steaming brown body smelled like warm bread, she got the blood pumping in me so I wanted to rip her body open and kiss her heart. The shade tree in front of the cabin grew up and covered the porch with its leaves. She made me take her to the rodeo in Winnemucca. I didn’t want to go but she said it was an ALL-INDIAN RODEO. So I threw her big body in the FORD and took off for Winnemucca. Jesus sent me to this great gathering of Indian people as a sign. I had to save the people.
We drove out across the hot lands, following the road along the railroad tracks to Winnemucca. We got up in the stands with the people. Down in the dirt arena a tall darkening girl came to the center and made the signs of greeting and full life to the people. She stood straight, the electric microphone before her, the Sun flared on the swaying leather fringes of her long dress as her voice boomed over the loudspeakers delivering the Lord’s Prayer. She fell to one knee and clasped a hand over her heart. AMEN. The applause of the people covered her as she ran off the field, another Indian riding past her on a white horse, flying white leather fringe, white feathered war bonnet. He reined his horse tight in the center. Supported against his thigh was a flagstaff, red white and blue stars and stripes flapped off in the wind over his head. He held himself tall as the people rose in the stands around him with hands over their hearts and pledged their allegiance to the flapping flag. He rode off with the flag as the music of the Star Spangled Banner burst into the arena. The loudspeaker blared over the music, flooding the arena with the boom of a bodyless voice: “WELCOME TO THE POW-WOW! How bout that music! Pretty good huh! That’s the All-Indian Band and those are the Pyramid Lake boys playing in it! We want to thank Chieftain Yellow Brow for leading us all in the Pledge of Allegiance. We’re awful proud of Chief Yellow Brow in these parts, he is the Shoshone who went over to war and came back a Sergeant Also our praise to Miss Betty Four Hands who led us in prayer, a Miwuk all the way here from western California. Whoops. Look at those clowns down there in the rodeo arena. They’ll be with us all afternoon. You may think they’re just men in funny clothes but they’re ready to face the world and risk their lives for a fallen Cowboy, they’re three Goshutes out of Utah. We should be going here in a minute, I see some action down in Chute 1. You’re going to see some fast calfroping here today. LOOKOUT. Here they come! And you guessed it, riding high in the stirrups after that little calf is Galloping George from Montana, a Flathead straight to us from the great Calgary Stampede Rodeo. George is pretty high with the stakes winners. He’s got him. A BEE-UTE-EYE-FULL lasso. Bull that doggie down Cowboy! Look at that rope work. There go his hands up in the air, he’s got him hogtied. Will have George’s time in a minute. Kick that next doggie out of the chute with an electric shock! Who’s after that doggie? It’s Sonny Joe from Idaho. What action! There’s nothing to equal the sheer beauty of a fast ride, rope and tie. Whoops, he’s got that doggie from the wrong end, see if you want Sonny to run your dairy, he’s a rearview milker. Listen to those applause. The folks like you Sonny, you’re a true blue Bannock Indian. Out of chute 5, a Cherokee, Running All Day, he’s the boy who stayed home from school one day and roped his way to fame, he’s been widely acclaimed throughout the country from Nevada to Wyomin. Whoops. He missed the throw. The rope slid right off that slippery little heifers neck. We’re going to have some Brahma ridin here quick so grab yourself another bottle of beer. You won’t want to miss the Wooly Bullys we’ve got lined up for you. Before you grab that ice-cold beer we’d like to stand a moment in silence to the memory of Long Eddie Kiss, a Modov who was throwed for the last time in his life this year at the Salinas Silver Dollar Rodeo. Long Eddie will be missed around the circuit, he was a quiet peaceful man, he liked to hear a good joke. Aren’t those clowns wonderful! They’re sure getting alot of action down there. We’re about to kick the first Wooly Bully out for your entertainment. Ease down in that chute Cowboy, that Brahma’s got heartburn. There he goes! The suicide ride! Bull that bull down! Tuna Tom is hanging on, if only by the tail, that’s one way of putting on the minutes and seconds. Don’t forget folks, the famous Mighty Whitey bronco horse is going to be rode here today. I wonder what lucky Cowboy drew him. It’s a good thing we have a hospital set up here. We want to thank CARL’S HARDWARE AND FEED for donating the paint for the rodeo corral, and I think we all ought to give a big round of applause to all the Paiute kids who took time out after school to do the painting. That’s just another reason that makes our rodeo so great. The best in Nevada. Heads Up! Who’s out of chute 2. A real tough one. Hang onto that rope Cowboy! Look at that Bull buck! That buckin bull must be Moby Dick! Hang On! That was Hollering Face riding, a Washo. As soon as he hit the dirt he got out of the way fast, nobody is going to pin any wings on that old boy. Out of chute 3 again. Smokey Dog. Hang On Smokey! That’s our action! Smokey’s the Indian who was given five dollars to vote for a Justice of the Peace or something, now he figures he won’t vote unless he gets paid for it. Ohhh! That’s too bad. A hard fall Smokey. We’ll have this time in a minute. I think we’re getting close to some fast bronc riding. I can see one kicking up the chute boards down there now. I tell you I’d rather ride mule back. Yes sir, they’re cutting him loose now. Watch Out! Look at him, aint he something! It’s a pretty snowwhite blooded stallion! It’s Mighty Whitey being rode by Hump, a Navajo. What some men will go through to win a silver studded harness and eighty bucks worth of handtooled saddle. WhooHoo! What a Kavayo, look at that horse buck! That boy’s going to bust his jeans before he bust that bronc! He better get himself a new pair of FRISCO JEENS. Like the advertisement says YOU CAN’T BUST EM! What a bucker! I tell you, when you’re up in the saddle of one of those things you’re afraid to do right for fear of doing wrong. Mighty Whitey’s thrown him! Ooh! Hump almost fell through the earth. Who’s up now? We here in this part of the country like our action fast. Heads Up! It’s Toby Riddle riding Powder Puff. You don’t see one beam of daylight between his tailbone and the saddle leather. WhoooPS! Now he’s getting bucked. If that saddle was sandpaper he’d be a toothpick. That’s like riding five horses at one time. What did Custer say? Ride or get off. Toby can’t handle it, he’s going off! Good time! Good ride! Hold on folks, pretty quick is coming up the steer wrestling for you, nothing but straight Bull-Doggin. What’s all that commotion down in chute 4. Good thing we have that hospital here. Ease down into that chute Cowboy. That’s a wild horse in there. Ride em Cowboy!
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