I can barely hear her answer. “Doug. His name is Doug.”
“He was too young to be in one of my classes. Does he live nearby?”
I reply, “Few summers ago when I drove through Colorado and Wyoming, I saw hundreds of bikers on the interstate, headed for Sturgis … all of them riding Harleys. My brother goes every year.”
“Half a million last summer, but we stay away. We don’t like the desecration of nearby Bear Mountain—the drinking, drug dealing, and rape that goes on there.”
Suzy continues: “Bear Mountain—in Lakota, Mato Paha—is one of the last sacred grounds. Many generations climb it for prayer and fasting—if you go there, you will see prayer cloths hanging from all the trees near the trail.
“There is a secret cave where Maheo, the Spirit Creator, gave the people four sacred arrows. Vernell’s great-grandfather, the first Chief White Thunder, was the Keeper of the Arrows.”
“So what does it mean that your great-grandfather was Keeper of the Arrows?” I ask Vernell.
“He was the Cheyenne medicine man who guarded them at all times from being touched or seen by anyone except those in a Sacred Arrow ceremony.”
Suzy adds, “This is one of the stories Vernell told to Chris and Ellen when they were little.”
Vernell takes the cue:
During the “Year of the Starving Winter,” around the year 1840, there were very few buffalo—people were hungry and complaining to the warriors. Some of the warriors decided they would ride to the lower Platte River to seek out a Pawnee camp where they could steal food and maybe a few horses. But they were discovered by a bigger group of Pawnee warriors, who trapped them, killed them, and cut their bodies into little pieces, which they threw into the river.
When the murder site was discovered, our people were really angry and wanted revenge, but Chief White Thunder said they should wait one winter, use this time to build up their strength, then move the sacred arrows against the Pawnee. He sent war pipes to headmen of other bands of Lakota and Arapahos, inviting them to join together in one big camp.
The following spring, scouting parties searched for many weeks before they found the Pawnee, and once again, the young warriors wanted to attack right away. My great-grandfather tried to hold them back, saying, “We must first hold a Sacred Arrow ceremony to protect our warriors,” but the young men galloped off in defiance, not even taking the arrows with them. Because Maheo forbade White Thunder from carrying the sacred arrows into battle, White Thunder gave them to a fellow medicine man named Bull and told Bull to chase after the warriors. So Bull tied the arrows in a bundle to his lance and followed after.
It was bad luck for us that an old Pawnee decided this was his good day to die. He got off his horse and sat on the ground in the path of our oncoming warriors. When Bull saw him sitting there all alone, he charged to count coup. Bull leaned to the side of his horse to strike the old Pawnee with his lance, but the old Pawnee suddenly reached up with both hands and grabbed it. To keep from falling from his horse, Bull had to let go of the lance. By the time our warriors came back to kill the Pawnee, it was too late—the sacred arrows were lost.
Without telling anyone, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother rode out of camp with a few horses and supplies. It took them ten days to find the Pawnee. Slowly and peacefully they rode straight through the Pawnee camp. People were shocked. They could only look on with respect at this brave act by their old enemy chief.
Chief White Thunder stopped in front of Pawnee chief Big Eagle’s lodge, handed the reins of his horse to my great-grandmother, and with no weapons, walked in. Using sign language, he told Big Eagle he wanted to make peace, wanted the sacred arrows back.
You could see the arrows; they were hanging behind Big Eagle in the back of the lodge.
Big Eagle too was impressed with White Thunder’s courage. He said, “I will give you one arrow for one hundred horses.” Not a great deal, but without at least one sacred arrow, Chief White Thunder knew his people would be unprotected and would go hungry. So he picked out one of the arrows and left. Big Eagle got his horses, but he never returned the other arrows.
Ten years later, in 1850-something, during the month they call “Winter of Stealing Arrows from the Pawnee,” a Brulé Lakota warrior named Iron Shell raided a band of Pawnees and luckily captured the other arrows. My great-grandfather wrapped the arrows in a bundle and returned them to the holy cave at Mato Paha. They are still hidden there.
“They want to drill oil at Mato Paha,” Suzy says. “The people own the land, but the government manages it and can issue the leases.”
“Now you see why I am studying to be lawyer,” Vernell exclaims as he again jumps up from his chair and motions to the living room. “Let’s move back to my conference room.”
As I shuffle behind him into the tiny living room, Vernell mentions that he is taking law classes at Oglala Lakota College, which seems amazing for a fifty-eight-year-old, but at that moment I didn’t think he could be really serious about becoming a lawyer.
“Next summer I graduate, then I will have my law degree. I already found somebody to help me study for the bar exam.”
“Wow. You could be that far along—how the hell did you get to be so smart?”
“I don’t know, but if you had only taught me how to spell, it wouldn’t have taken so long.”
* * *
I was working at a computer company in Albuquerque when Vernell graduated from Crazy Horse High School in Wanblee in 1975. He was offered a scholarship to study at Dartmouth, which in and of itself is mind-boggling, an unheard-of accomplishment. When I asked him how he had managed this, he said, “I don’t know. I just filled out the application and mailed it in.” He was really excited about Dartmouth until he found out he would need to pay for his own room and board, books, and transportation. Normally the tribe would have helped cover these costs, but post–Wounded Knee, the tribe was broke. Everyone was too distracted by all the disappearances, suspicious fires, and drive-bys to care much about a seventeen-year-old Lakota boy who wanted to become a treaty lawyer.
“Even with a full scholarship, I could not afford to go.”
“So if you couldn’t follow your dream, what did you do?”
Suzy laughs. “He followed me to Rapid City.”
Disillusioned because he couldn’t go to Dartmouth, Vernell got a ranch job. He was digging fence posts, breaking horses, living in an unheated bunkhouse when he got a postcard from Suzy. She was leaving Kyle for Rapid City to study at the University of South Dakota and would be gone for a least a year. A few days later, Vernell sold his horse, used the money to buy a ’63 Chevy, threw his clothes in the trunk, and drove up to “Rapid,” where he easily got a job unloading and loading the semitrucks on the loading dock at Sears & Roebuck. “I lived at a cheap motel, ate bologna sandwiches and drank soda, which I stored in my cooler. That and some Jack Daniel’s.”
“Don’t forget you used my cafeteria card,” Suzy says. “It was supposed to last all semester, but I was feeding him, so it went really fast.
“Vernell still has his Sears name tag,” she adds.
By now Suzy’s chewy coffee has worked its way through my system. I tell Vernell I need to use the bathroom.
“You don’t say that here,” Vernell says in a semi-stern voice. “Here you say you got to count your money.”
“Excuse me, I’ve got to count my money.”
“That’s better.”
In the bathroom I wonder how long Suzy lived here before Vernell installed hot water for the shower. A couple days … or did she tough it out for months or even years? The bathroom, like the rest of the house, is much improved and spotless. I also wonder if as Vernell grows older, he will depend ever more on Suzy, the way Russell Means depended on his wife.
Probably so.
When I come out, Suzy tells me Vernell is outside waiting. “He wants to give you a ride in one of his race cars.”
Standing on the front steps, Vernell points
to a beautifully restored ’57 Ford Fairlane two-door sedan—metallic blue with a creamy white top, creamy leather interior—a hot car powered with a rebuilt V8 and factory supercharger parked in his rutty dirt driveway in the middle of the reservation, and says, “Hop in.” I’m not too surprised. The last time I was here, he gave me a ride in a 1931 Ford Phaeton Model A.
“You must have a thing for Fords.”
He turns the key just as he answers me—vroom! vroom!—so I don’t hear him except for something about “cheaper parts.” The engine sputters, growls, and emits another vroom! vroom! and we head up the hill with ease, out the White Thunder Ranch gate, cruising toward Kyle. I sometimes wonder what people living here think of Vernell. They say it is not acceptable for a Lakota to draw attention to himself, to show off, even though their history is rife with great leaders who did just that—adorned themselves with beads and feathers and war paint and had many wives, many horses, and many followers. Red Cloud was fond of ribbons and eagle feathers; his long, black-bear-greased hair was plaited around the wing bone of an eagle to signal elegance and propriety. You might even say Crazy Horse’s minimal style was just a way to be different; his war paint was a simple yellow lightning bolt down one side of his face. No war bonnet, a single feather in his ponytail, a pebble behind one ear—much like Steve Jobs’ jeans and black turtleneck, his simple garb made him cool.
Vernell’s working cowboy dress, his friendly demeanor, even his laugh are completely ordinary … the same as many Lakota men’s. But he drives around the reservation in vintage automobiles, has the most beautiful horses, an educated blond wife—tourists from Europe and even Japan come to visit his ranch. I worry that some people are jealous of Vernell and might want to harm him, but nothing like this has happened and I’ve never seen him get angry with anyone—disappointed, but not angry. Perhaps his eccentricity is overlooked because he is otherwise authentic, about as pure Lakota as anyone could possibly be; he lives the spiritual life, speaks the language, has ridden in every Big Foot Ride, and is one of the last great storytellers—Vernell is a human repository of the rich culture and history of his people.
He slows the Fairlane and points out a newly opened café in a rotting old building with a frontier façade and chipped red paint, which looks like it must have come from the set of Gunsmoke. A hand-painted sign announces the name: THE FOOD STOP CAFÉ. It has a drive-up window, but no separate “Order Here” station … you stop at the window, tell someone inside what you want, and wait for it to be cooked and handed to you. If there is a car behind you, they have to wait until you drive off before they can order.
“People say they have the best hamburgers on the rez, but I prefer Burger King.”
“Yeah, competition must be fierce!”
We both laugh.
“I’d eat Burger King every day if Rapid City were closer.”
“Good thing you work so hard or you’d be diabetic.”
“Many people here die from diabetes; Norman Underbaggage died from diabetes.”
I’m stunned. I was going to ask Vernell about Norman, hoping we might even get the chance to see him. Now I feel even older; I never thought I would outlive my students, students permanently fixed in my mind as teenagers.
“Who else has died?” I ask.
“Calvin and Myron Fire Thunder. They got into a car accident. Francis Harlen, his three sisters. David Black Bear.”
We drive on, Vernell now and then revving up his 500-horsepower engine. We pass by the outdoor basketball courts behind Little Wound School, stop to watch a game in progress. It’s much faster than the style of ball played by white kids and even by black kids—a visual frenzy, a blur of arms and sneakers, nonstop weaving, head faking, cutting, passing on the run, behind the back, between the legs, three-point shots, blocked shots, follow-up dunks … the boys are up and down the court so fast it is like watching a Ping-Pong match, all the while whooping and laughing, their athleticism undeniable.
“Rezball,” Vernell says. “That’s what we call our style of basketball. When I played in high school, we didn’t do all those fancy things, but we always out-hustled the white teams, wore them down. They said it was unfair. Whenever us Indians find an advantage, white people try to change the rules.”
One of the boys yells out to Vernell, “Nice wheels,” and the other boys stop for a moment. They look over at us, wave. The game continues.
We drive onto an old dirt road that curves down to a body of brackish water, the Kyle Dam, where all too many of Vernell’s high school contemporaries took their girlfriends to drink beer and have unprotected sex. Another item in the Lakota litany of woes: the high rate of teenage pregnancy, irresponsible teenage boys, and responsible grandmothers stuck with the consequences.
“We used to fish here,” Vernell says with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Yeah, I bet you did.”
“Remember that time we got drunk when the Vista workers had movie night, how they terrorized the little kids by showing scary movies? You were trying to hit on that Vista woman with big boobies, no bra. That was funny.”
“Fortunately, I do not remember.”
I do, however, remember the Vista girl. She was thin, biracial with wild curly hair, wore no bra, was constantly smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Inhaling brought attention to her large breasts. I visualized them filling up with smoke, but I don’t remember being particularly attracted to her. Besides, her boyfriend was always hovering about; they argued bitterly.
Changing the subject, I ask Vernell about horses. “Why don’t I see horses running free, young boys riding bareback? When I lived here, there were always horses.”
“Too many people, too many cars. Back then people drove slower, thirty or forty miles an hour. Now they go much faster.”
“This land is no longer free range?”
“No. When it was free range, a tourist from Minnesota killed one of my horses. He wanted me to pay for the damages to his car. I told him as long as a person is a responsible horse owner, he is not the liable party. The man didn’t believe me, but his insurance company sent me a check.”
As we drive back up the dirt road from the dam to the teacher housing section, we pass by a small section of one-bedroom houses reserved for single teachers.
“Vernell, do you remember Maggie, the pretty young teacher with red hair and freckles who taught seventh grade?”
“Yeah,” Vernell says. “All us boys liked her.”
“There was a rule against single teachers having an overnight visitor of the opposite sex. When I walked to work one really cold morning—temperature below zero—her boyfriend, who had driven all the way here from Oregon, was sleeping out front in his car.”
“So if she was a lesbian and had a girlfriend over, that would have been OK?”
“Even now, I don’t think the BIA would admit they have lesbian or gay teachers.”
“We always had gay Indians,” Vernell says. “We call them ‘winkte.’ Some like to do women’s work and they like to care for the children. In a naming ceremony, if a winkte names your child, it brings good luck and fortune to that child.”
* * *
Vernell stomps on the gas pedal; the Fairlane’s V8 howls, its spinning wheels kick up a massive dust devil, and we peel down the gravel road, rocks spraying every which way. “Spent all last winter working on this baby,” Vernell says. “Got to have a little fun with it.”
And then he says, “Want to see where I get my spare parts?”
“Sure, Vernell. I would like to see where you get your spare parts.”
BOMBING RANGE
WAR BONNET OF THORNS
As we travel east past what Vernell calls the “Kyle city limits,” even though there are no city limits, I spot a wooden sign near the edge of the road—the silhouette of an Indian warrior running alongside the silhouette of a running buffalo. The sign says WELCOME TO THE HOME OF TANKA BAR. About a hundred yards down a gravel drive behind the sign, near the Kyle water tower, is a small,
industrial-looking brown building with a double-door front entrance, a few small windows, cars parked along the side. I presume it is the Tanka Bar headquarters.
“Wow, I didn’t know they made Tanka Bars in Kyle … I bought some at Big Bat’s.”
Vernell is not a fan and complains about a shortage of Lakota people in top management, aside from the CEO, Karlene Hunter.
“Tanka Bars don’t even taste good to me,” he says.
As there is a certain finality to his pronouncement, I don’t ask Vernell anything else about Tanka Bars.
“Here’s my turn.” Vernell effortlessly twirls the Fairlane steering wheel with one hand, simultaneously stomping on the accelerator. Vroom! Vroom! Spitting gravel, we’re spinning off the pavement onto a deeply rutted dirt road clearly marked by a new road sign that looks like it belongs in a suburban development, the intersection of BIA Highway 2 and Bombing Range Road.
“What does the bombing range have to do with spare parts?” I ask.
“Have you been there?”
“No. I didn’t know you could go there.”
“Only if you know the roads. I’m about the only person who comes here.”
Vernell stops at a barbed-wire gate, hops out and moves the fence aside, jumps back in the car, tells me he’ll put the gate back when we return.
“Some white ranchers lease this land, but we don’t care if their cattle get lost.”
I have to ask. “Do people steal cows here?”
“Not long ago a rancher was checking on his cattle when he saw several strange lumps on the ground. As he got near these lumps, he could see they were his cows. Rustlers shot them, butchered off the front and hindquarters, left the rest. He was really angry.”
“Must be hard for white ranchers around here to get livestock insurance,” I joke.
Vernell smiles.
The bombing range is a good twenty miles from this gate, along bumpy tire tracks that branch off in different directions every few hundred yards. The going is slow. Good thing Vernell knows how to navigate the ruts. Bad thing his car has no seat belts.
Good Friday on the Rez Page 14
