Rabbit Boss

by Thomas Sanchez

  “Draw red man! Even you have a sportin chance, a stopped clock is right twice a day!”

  The Indian flipped over a red 4.

  The Bull Cook turned a Joker up right next to the 4. “Joker’s wild redman! You lose!”

  The Indian did not move, the gold glow of the coins warmed his face in the cold of the room, the ancient Birds bursting in his lungs. He doubled over coughing, the blood spitting into the sleeve of his greatcoat.

  “Go on now redman, haul out!”

  He straightened up, his brown face stiffening as he choked his throat free of blood, “I have one more bet.”

  “One more bet ol trout! You aint got nothin! Why don’t you bet your boots!”

  “Let me see your boots!” The Bull Cook grabbed one of the Indian’s boots and twisted it up, “That aint a bet! A team of Teamsters could drive a wagon through the size of that hole. He’s got more sock covering his sole than leather!”

  “I bet this,” the Indian pointed to his greatcoat.

  “That? That’s an old Union coat back from the War ’tween the States. It’s still got the cannonball holes in it!”

  “The ol trout don’t mean that, Bull Cook. He means what’s pinned over his chest.”

  “You mean the badge?”

  “It was sent to him from Washington D. C with a letter from the Department of War appointing him Peacemaker over all the Washo.”

  “Peacemaker of the Washo! What the hell do I want that for!? It’s only tinplate!”

  The Indian unpinned the silver shine of the star, “I bet.”

  “Goddoggit!” The Bull Cook spiked his boot into the floor, “I’ll come up to your bet! I’ll win your tin badge and strut around camp as Peacemaker! Big Boss of the Washo! I’ll see your bet and quadtriple it!” He banged six gold coins on top of the six already heaped on the table. “Put your tin badge up!”

  “You win that off’n the ol trout Bull Cook and he won’t have no power left with his people. You’ll win all his power.”

  “Come on redman, don’t stand there with your face hangin out! Bet the badge!”

  The Indian weighed the silver star in his hand. The white faces watched. The five points of the star shined in the earth color of his palm. The song of Birds jumped from his head to his heart. He pinned the star to the greatcoat and walked across the splintered floor into darkness.

  In the darkness Captain Rex could see the old days along the Big Lake of the Sky when the blood of the people ran so cold they built up fires from green boughs and danced around the flames, their wild figures leaping through sparks jumping across snow. Now the dances were gone, the fires grown over with ice, it was too cold to even die. The white burden had followed the rain. The mountains were silent. The people watched among themselves. The people watched over the frozen ground. The wail of the wind came up around them and rattled the blades of ice hanging from trees. The Spirit from all the old men was gone. The smoke from many winters passed had diseased their eyes and they sat sightless on the frozen ground, longing for the white burden to melt and the soothing black mud to be spread on the eye of their pain. The Sun was hidden from the people, they had not seen it pass the Moon. The people had forgotten the color of the Sun. Rattles Ruggles stood on his one leg among the people beneath the torn canvas flaps of the big winter house with the feathers of his Magpie hat dangling about his ears.

  “If there is no more Sun, there are no more Washo. If there are no more Washo, there is no more life. The people are all dead or dying. The Whiteman has stolen our dreams. He has hidden the Sun. We have lost our power. We die.”

  Captain Rex spit blood, “It is too cold to die.”

  “Listen to Captain Pigweed! White Beast, mad White beast, wild white Musege!” One Arm Henry pushed to his feet, the brown eyes screaming from his shrunken face, “Listen to the wild Bear. You are not respected, you are feared!”

  “I am your Brother.”

  “You do not travel on the road of the people, mad sly Bear!”

  “I am the Peacemaker. The people do not have to stay around me, they can travel away, such is the road of our fathers.”

  “The people do not stay because of you, they stay because you bring fire. You are the Firemaker!”

  “And now Captain Pigweed, the fires have all grown cold with ice,” Rattles Ruggles shook the black and white feathers about his head. “The people are all dead of dying. Look to the people,” he flung his arm about his head to the people lying on the frozen earth beneath the stretched canvas of the big room, their bodies shaking, their voices crying as they shuddered under the skin of Rabbit blankets worn bare of fur. “The people freeze and hunger about you. There is no strong meat for the young, there is no heart and liver of the kill to feed the old people. The White power you have been given to wear over your heart like a silver star cannot save the people. Your medicine is broken. The wegaleyo of the White is too big for one man. The Whiteman has shot a sickness into all Indians, we are dead or dying. You are too weak to suck the magic of the White wegaleyo from all Indian people. I have strong water, I have dreamed of a medicine so strong that will come and break the power of your silver badge. I am the Man of Medicine. I will suck the White wegaleyo from the Spirit of the people. I will stand alone as the Boss.”

  “I am the Peacemaker. If you go up to save the people and fail, I will kill you.”

  “Listen to the wild beast.” One Arm Henry tugged his Squirrel hat over the cold throb of his ears, the blade of his stumped arm flashed at his brother, “Captain Pigweed has become so much the Whiteman he acts just like Coyote, always ready to bark and eat!”

  Captain Rex watched through the rips in the canvas all around him as gray turned to black over the ghost stumps of trees. He slept under the thin blanket of Rabbitskins that also covered the shivering bodies of Walking Shoes and his woman. He listened in the blackness to the blood coming up in his throat and choking his dreams. He pressed his back close to the woman of Walking Shoes to support the wracking muscle of his chest coughing and spitting blood. He held the bloodstained sleeve of his coat over his mouth to hold the life breath in him, but it spurted and wheezed out, its sound freezing in the cold air. Then stopped. His lungs burned red beneath the blue cold of his skin. But the sound of life breath still spit and coughed in the air. The blood was coming up in the throats of all the people. The blood was coming up and choking their dreams. He felt the soft flutter of wings in his Spirit. He listened for the songs of Birds sung long ago to sing from his lips, but blood rushed into his mouth. His old hard body shook and kicked, the blood screaming in his head. The scream cut down his spine, it was the scream of the woman his body pressed against beneath the blanket. The woman of Walking Shoes trembled and wept in blackness. Old sisters came running to her and put their hands all over her swelled body. The hump of her belly throbbed with new life, her thighs had gone stiff and pressed up against the Rabbit blanket. The old sisters began singing and chanting, “Crawl out. Hurry on up. Come on out new Washo. We want to see you. We are waiting. We are watching!” The woman choked and moaned, the blood screaming in her mouth and splattering on her chin. Rattles Ruggles was above her in the darkness, his cocoon rattles shaking the air as he danced and whipped the Magpie feathers of his head around. He knelt next to her and put his hands onto the throbbing hump. “Listen! There is new life in here! It has grown big and waits to come out. But the Whites have shot their wegaleyo into this new life, the Whites are trying to kill this new life, the Whites are trying to rob this new Washo before it gets to us. I must suck this wegaleyo out. This Ghost is a poison, it rots the Spirit.” He rose again in dance, the hollow cocoons whizzing in air, he dropped one black and white feather onto the chest of Captain Rex, “Firemaker! Go and bring fire. I must smoke. It will take many smokes to suck the Ghost out. Run Captain Pigweed. Run and be a Firemaker!”

  Captain Rex pulled the greatcoat up around his chin and ran from the shelter onto the high white burden frozen over the Earth, his old legs wobbled a
nd cracked as he ran through the ghost stumps of trees with the lid of the Sky rolling gray over him, he could see the wooden buildings of the big camp, the smell of frying Ducks came to him across the snow, the smell was sharp and whistled in his head until his mouth ran wet like a Dog’s as he pounded on the door of the cookhouse, he pounded until his fist beat air. The Blondhead was standing before him in the open doorway.

  “What d’ye say Cap, you’re up early. The jacks are still all bunked but their breakfast are fryin on the stoves. Smell that duck fat cookin Cap, better’n those acorns you eat for breakfast aint it?”

  “We are dying!”

  “Don’t want to let the Bull Cook catch you in camp Cap. Bull Cook says no Injuns in camp, that’s the Law of the new Bull of the Woods, and the Bull Cook says any you Washo leavin their tent shacks and comin into big camp is going to be run back with their heads shaved and ears cut off. He told you that the last time you come beggin for fire at this door. The Bull Cook he don’t mind me none even though I got halfblood in me, because I’m from Wyomin, I got blond hair. The Bull Cook he says my hair looks like goose hair, he says my Mama musta had a goose pecker in her one night.” He jammed a hand into the blond bush on top of his head and scratched the scalp, “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “We need fire!”

  “Lookit out there behind ye Cap, it’s beginnin to fall again, lookit that Cap, those snowflakes is bigger than silver dollars.”

  “We are dying!”

  “Well ol Cap, my teeth are chatterin like a box o dice with all this cold air comin in and I got duck a fryin, you better git while you still got your ears,” he shoved the heavy door closed.

  The Indian pushed the arm of his thumbless fist between the door jamb, his stiff fingers clutching at air, “Fire!”

  The Blondhead pulled the door off the Indian’s arm and looked into the face browner than his own, “What ye give me for it?”

  “We are dying!”

  “Three good jackrabbit blankets for a buckskin is what I want. Blankets is worth gold in this camp, and jackrabbit blankets is the best. I know, I was a trapper, but a trapper is a hermit’s life, that’s why I give it up and come down to civilization. But I sure do miss the high country, up there is the only place on earth a man can breathe the same air as angels, there’s no end to the amount of work a man can do up there, the air will make him sleep like a baby and wash ever bit of tiredness from his bones.”

  “The tall trees have all been cut, the small trees are buried in snow, the Earth is frozen from sight, all the people have gone weak from coughing up their strength in clots of blood. We die without fire!”

  “Shutup Cap!” The Blondhead grabbed the Indian’s face, locking his hand over the mouth, “Listen … you hear that! That’s the Bull Cook comin! You wait here.” He ran back into the cookhouse and spiked open one of the ironlids of the long stove, the flames jumping up at him as he shoved the narrow joint of a log into the heat until the tip burned in an ember the size of a fist. He jerked the log out and waved it through the air, catching a flame on the end. He turned to run to the Indian but saw him stooped into the woodbin gathering logs into his greatcoat. He swung the flaming log in a smoking arc against the Indian’s face, knocking him to the floor, “Goddam you pecker! Goddam you Washo!” He yanked the Indian up, the logs crashing from the greatcoat. “If you ever come in my sight again I’ll cut your ears off!” He jammed the flaming log into the Indian’s hand and threw him up against the wall, spinning him through the door as his boot came up and kicked him straight in the back, knocking him out into the snow.

  The Indian rose to his knees, the tip of the log burning and twisting smoke. He pushed to his feet and ran stumbling across the snow with the flaming torch held high above his head.

  The gray light rolled over the head of Rattles Ruggles, the hanging black and white Magpie feathers of his close-fitting hat glistened in the dull dawn, “I sometimes smoke for somebody. I light tobacco for a smoke. That is why they call me a doctor. But I cannot smoke without fire. My big pipe is cold. Captain Pigweed lets the people die. He does not make fire. His power with the Whites fails.” He placed the palms of his hands on the throbbing brown hump of the woman’s stomach and pressed, “This life cannot wait for Captain Pigweed. This life cannot give up the Ghost. The Ghost will destroy this life unless it is sucked out!”

  The man with one arm hung his head between his knees, the blood boiling out of his throat to the frozen ground, “Captain Pigweed has abandoned the people. The White power of his silver star has been broken.”

  Rattles Ruggles turned his sagging brown face up, the gray light fading through the rips in the canvas walls washed over the wrinkled web of his face surrounded by Magpie feathers. He stood, smelling something in the air, something he had not smelled for long days, the smell of smoke. “He comes! The Firemaker Comes! Captain Pigweed comes the Firemaker!”

  Captain Rex ran in among the people, his lungs wheezing and blazing, the fiery torch swirling smoke held high over his head in a thumbless fist.

  “Captain Pigweed comes the Firemaker,” Rattles Ruggles danced around the torch in quick little hops. “I can smoke tobacco with fire, That is why they call me a doctor.” He took the torch and waved it in the air, its warm smoke touching all the people, then he placed it in the black firehole and spread the fan of a Hawk wing open, waving it over the smouldering log until the life of the flame jumped into all the cold embers. The people came around the smoking pit and put the soles of their feet to the warmth while the Man of Medicine smeared hot ashes into his palms, rubbing them into his scalp beneath the Magpie bonnet until lice began to fall dead from his head; he streaked the black soot on his face and spit at the wingless bodies of dead lice, “I am the dream doctor. Sometimes I smoke for somebody and make them well. I suck out bad wegaleyo!” He scooped up more hot ashes and clutched them in his fists, “The Whites kill all our babies with their magic. I say don’t kill our babies anymore. I say the dream doctor is here to suck the White wegaleyo from the new life growing in this woman.” He held his clenched fists over her stomach, then separated the thumb from the fingers, letting a stream of warm ash spill over the throbbing brown hump of flesh. He took a medicine basket up in his hands, stroking the pattern of the weave, his hands moving over the pattern of Sunrise among the hills as the chant broke from his lips, “Stars shine over the graves of our Ancestors, the Moon glides over their bones.” He opened the basket and unwrapped among the dampened leaves a horned Toad, “The Moon glides over their bones.” He stuck the Toad on the throbbing hump of the woman’s flesh, “Suck! Get full of blood! There is a bone in the forehead of the new life, it is wegaleyo shot into this new Washo by the Whites. Suck this wegaleyo out. Get full of blood! Puke. Die!” He pressed the cold struggling body of the Toad to the woman’s stomach. “I will use tobacco now. There will be many smokes. I will think now.” He filled the great blackstone pipe with tobacco of the sage and lit it to the fire of the smoking pit, “I will smoke now all you people. I am Doctor Toad. I will suck the wegaleyo out. Get full of blood. Puke. Die.” He held the Toad clamped to the moaning woman and blew smoke over her humped belly, “If there is no more Sun, there are no more Washo. If there are no more Washo there is no more life,” The gray light rolled over the swaying Magpie feathers of his head, the chant of his smoke rising into the blind air of night, becoming nothing.

  With the morning Captain Rex passed through the rows of tent shacks where the people slept around fires grown cold. He went unnoticed among the ghost stumps of trees leading through the big camp where the smoke of many fires fingered the Sunless Sky and the wood-eating Engine was already beginning to churn its wheels along the Iron Road, the great steel arrow of the snowshield slicing white waves through snow covered tracks. He ran with the Engine, his chest flaming and beating blood to his throat as he swung up onto the dead body of a giant pine trunk chained to the length of an entire flatbed car. The Engine whistle blew ten feet over his head and th
e warm smoke came back slapping in his face all the way off the mountain down into Truckee where the yellowmen cooked in shiny pots in the room full of men wearing spiked boots that could rip the Earth and walk up the bodies of trees, fat arms of logs burned in the open fireplace, reeking and hissing steam from the burning blood of their sap, the steam rose everywhere in the room, from the hot pots of the yellowmen, off the cold coatbacks of the loggers and teamsters stuffing burnt potatoes into the cold breath of their steamblowing mouths. He moved through the steam and talked to a yellowman as white clouds rose everywhere. He unpinned the silver star from his greatcoat, its five points beamed and glittered in the steam dulled light of lanterns swinging from rafters. The yellowman came back to him through the steam and took the silver star away, giving him two glass bottles, one filled with golden water, the other with mud, he drank the one of golden water and put the other beneath his greatcoat, hugging it to his body all the time the train spun its iron wheels and plowed through the snow back up to the top of the Elephant Head where he could hear all the coughing and hollow spit of blood sounding across the snow from his people gathered around fires grown cold in the tent shacks where Doctor Toad sat slouched over the throbbing brown hump of the moaning woman, his dangling black and white feathers pointing like blades to the frozen Earth while the people ripped the Rabbit blankets apart, tearing and chewing the tough dried fat from the worn hides.

  Doctor Toad turned the watery earth of his eyes up at the man in the greatcoat, “If there is no more Sun, there will be nothing to eat. If there is nothing to eat there will be no more Washo. If there are no Washo there will be no life.”

  Captain Rex pushed him aside and pulled the glass bottle from under his coat, dumping from the packed wet mud struggling bodies onto the ash covered hump of the woman’s stomach. The leeches squirmed across the throbbing skin, the rings whipped around the lance of their flattened bodies contracting and blowing as the suckers at both probing ends smacked and drew blood through the throbbing flesh.