by Win Blevins
Custer’s old outfit.
“The Pine Ridge chiefs sent word back—the soldiers are looking for you around Wounded Knee, better swing to the east and avoid them. But Big Foot was so sick by that time, he decided to head straight for Pine Ridge, never mind the soldiers.
“Big Foot’s people and the soldiers, they met here at Porcupine Butte, everyone got ready to fight. But the soldiers said, ‘Hey, peace if you give up your firearms.’ Big Foot didn’t like this, afraid of trouble, but looking like bigger trouble if he didn’t. So he says, ‘Let the army escort the people to Wounded Knee Creek, we stay the night, talk about the weapons the next day.’
“Big Foot was really sick by this time, coughing up blood. The soldiers put him in a wagon to make the trip.
“So. Yeah. This is where it started.”
We rode in silence. I can’t say where Tyler’s mind was. Mine was on the mountain, and the people I laid with there.
In the darkness and the shadows black silhouettes stirred in a low huddle and moaned in a chorus, and of the moaners I was one. I uttered moans, and I became moans, and my soul itself moaned, was Moan.
Pete said what I saw on the mountain was Big Foot’s people at Wounded Knee, dead. My people.
The truck topped the rise and pointed down into the wide valley surrounded by low hills, the creek in the middle, the church on the hill just west of the road. I had never wanted to check out this place, to feel what was here for me. When I drove this way, I kept my eyes on the road and my foot on the gas.
Tyler pulled up in front of the big sign, WOUNDED KNEE BATTLE, turned off the engine, and went to the sign. I shambled out and stood beside him. Someone had crossed out the word battle and written MASSACRE.
The sign explained what happened here, but I couldn’t bear to read it all.
Huge hands gripped my stomach and wrung it like a dishrag.
Tyler walked around the sign and on up the hill. I followed him. It was a short walk that was very long.
In front of the small, white Catholic church (“I consider all Christian churches my enemies,” Tyler had said) stood the mass grave. It was surrounded by a low wire fence with a creaky gate. In the center was a monument listing the names of people of Big Foot’s band buried there. “Hundred forty-six,” said Tyler. “Not so many names on the monument. Joseph Horn Cloud had the monument put up, tribute to his father, name Horn Cloud. See here by the name, it says, ‘Here the peacemaker died innocent.’”
Tyler lit a cigarette, blew out the smoke. “The total Indian people killed, like a lot of other things about the massacre, it’s in dispute. Don’t matter, you can’t get your mind around it, can’t feel it, all them people snuffed. I try to picture so many, try to feel so many wounds, so many lives put out, and I gag.”
I walked to the other side of the monument, away from Tyler’s gab.
How is it you white people, so eager to tell us right from wrong, kill three hundred men, women, and children here, no reason?
And why don’t white people think there is evil in the world any more, think that’s superstition? Hey, we Lakota, we know about Iya, the Evil One, Wind Storm, and all his bad doings. You showed us.
Tyler and I stood on opposite sides of the monument and looked. I made myself breathe in and out regular.
My eyes ran up and down the list of names. “Hired civilians brought the bodies up here,” said Tyler, “dug one big hole, dumped them in, and posed for photographs standing in and around the grave.”
Partway down the first column of names, I thought, I should look for the name of Unchee’s mother and father here. Then it struck me. I know nothing about them, nothing, not who they were, how many children they had, what members of the family died with them…. I don’t even know their names.
I threw my head back, sucked at the sky with my eyes, gaped my mouth open as if to scream, and Raven shot down my throat.
Knowing, I fell, and my spirit plummeted to …
I was in a world I did not know, along a river in a canyon. The walls stood red, orange, and brown. Above, the sky was violet, and unbroken as far as I could see, ahead and to the sides, unmarked by any cloud, or even the slightest variation in color. The ground at my feet was silver-gray. In this world apparently was no vegetation of any kind, not trees, not bushes, not grass under my feet. To my left a river roiled, a great, snarling flood of yellow-orange, molten, like lava—and not flowing in the ordinary way but holding itself like a cable of twisted wire and writhing past me, downhill, the opposite of the way I needed to go.
But … where should I go?
Black shadow.
I looked into the violet sky, which had no sun at all, though I stood in bright daylight. Suddenly from behind came a black speck, growing. Its shadow fell on me, and was chill.
Raven blasted into sight over my head, immense, and roaring like a jet. He circled to the right, wingtips spread like dark fingers, and from behind me roared over my head once more. His roar was the call of all the ravens of the world, though this Raven gave none. He began to wing-flap up the valley, and I knew that I must go. Raven was my guide.
He grew to a speck in the distance.
Black fear shot through my blood.
I shuddered all over my body, I felt my limbs shake crazily. About to put my left foot out unwillingly to take the first step on a journey, I waggled my head violently and shouted, “No!”
“Blue Crow!” cried Tyler. He rocked me by the shoulders.
I shook my head again. “No!” I forced my eyes open.
I did not snap back from the strange land, wherever or whatever it was. For a moment I was completely clear about this—I had a choice. I could stay in the strange world, extend my foot, bring it down, and begin the journey with Raven. Or I could be at Wounded Knee with Tyler.
I boomed my shoulders and trunk upright and threw my arms out to prop myself. For a moment my head swirled—my physical head, here in this world—but I refused to lie back down.
Tyler put an arm around my shoulders to help me stay up. “Blue Crow, are you okay?”
I shook my head slowly sideways, back and forth. He must have thought I was saying, No, I’m not okay—because he pressed in close behind me.
“I’m all right, I can sit up,” I said, and edged away from him. “I saw something, I went somewhere. I don’t know what.” I stretched my body this way and that. “Guess I don’t know what happened for sure. Maybe I saw something, maybe I went somewhere.”
I forced myself to stand up.
Tyler eyed me hard. “Did you cross into the spirit world for a minute?”
“Maybe,” I said quickly without thinking. I wasn’t going to give room to that notion. “It’s over now.”
I want it to be over.
O strange! I am standing at the Wounded Knee mass gravesite for the first time. I have never been here, and at the same time I have always been here.
I don’t want to be here. Why would I ride across the plains and Badlands for endless miles in the winter to get here?
“Let’s sit in the truck,” I said. Somehow it seemed protective, like the air in the truck wouldn’t be the air of Wounded Knee.
While I got into the cab, Tyler came partway down the hill, found some white sage, knelt, said a prayer, and picked the sage. Back in the truck he opened the glove box, got out some shiny red ribbon, wrapped the sage, and hung it from the rear view mirror. “I asked for good things for our ride to this place,” he said, “and good things for you from this place.” He let that sit a minute. “That last one,” he went on, “that’s a hard one. Hard for you here.”
Being Tyler and always in motion, he started the truck and headed south toward Pine Ridge. We rode in silence. Finally I said, “Why do you say Wounded Knee is hard stuff for me?”
He grinned big, and his eyebrows danced like Groucho Marx’s. But he held in whatever was funny. “You know,” he said at last, “I’ve seen a lot of different reactions from people about their ancestors dying at W
ounded Knee. I’m a member of the Wounded Knee Survivors’ Association, you know about that?”
I shook my head no.
“Maybe you want to check it out. Anyway, all the reactions I’ve seen, yours is real strange.”
I looked at him, and he looked back.
“You said, ‘My grandmother’s father died at Wounded Knee.’” He looked at me and I waited. “Those were your relatives that died that day. Your relatives. How come you didn’t say that? My ancestors were murdered here.”
I didn’t have anything to say.
“There’s stuff you gotta check out, kola. About yourself.”
Tyler did his business at the tribal office and we ate lunch at Big Bat’s, the gas station–convenience store. When we finally started rolling back toward Kyle, I said, “Okay, you think I should come on the ride?”
He raised that right eyebrow at me. “I can’t say, kola. And we don’t recruit people for the rides. Curtis told us that. Don’t ask nobody. The spirits will bring those that should come. The spirits will bring them.”
The right front wheel of the truck hit a pothole hard. Nobody fixes rez roads.
“So tell me about the rides. Who are the leaders?”
“Our leader is the staff. Nobody’s the leader, we all be common as grass.” This is an important virtue to us Lakota, and hard to explain. It’s important to be common, not exceptional. “We follow. The staff, it guides us.
“In the first year there were nineteen riders and one support vehicle. Each year there have been more. Whatever number comes this year, it’s the right number. The spirits bring the right people. The ride’s been growing each year. Arvol Looking Horse been riding with us too.”
My head did a little dipsy-doo. Arvol Looking Horse was the keeper of the White Buffalo Woman Pipe. This Pipe to us is like what the Cross or the Ark of the Covenant is to you, except it’s still with us, still working, a living presence. Our ways are, more than all else, our stories, our ceremonies, and the Pipe.
The Pipe Keeper still bears the original Pipe White Buffalo Woman brought. Scientific tests show that it’s at least four thousand years old. Seldom is it displayed. When it is, our people cherish its appearance, and use the occasion to deepen their dedication to our ways.
For me, if the Pipe Keeper was involved, the Big Foot Memorial Rides were connected to the center of the sacred circle of Lakota life.
“This year we’re expecting … well, we don’t know. It’s the centennial. It’ll draw some press. Media people been in touch, but just Europeans, not the American media. Pretty funny, huh? European, not American. These guys, still carrying on the fight.”
He took a curve too fast, and a pothole bounced us to the outside. He corrected with a little jerk. His face, though, showed his mind was somewhere else. “Truth is, we’re still carrying stuff, too.”
“What do you mean?” Hoka hey, we lost the Indian Wars a century ago. The end was when they killed Crazy Horse, or when Sitting Bull gave up and went to live on a reservation.
Tyler was quiet a while. Finally he began, “Let me tell you a story. I saw this war movie with Gene Hackman. He tells a story about Korea. On the retreat from Choisin Reservoir, we were getting our asses kicked, and the ground, it was too frozen to bury the dead. Day after day, more dead, more trucks full of stiffs. Hackman says he dreamed about those dead for years.
“Guy asks then, ‘They ever go away?’
“Hackman, he says no. Then he kind of smiles. ‘Finally I made friends with them, though.’
“We gotta make friends with our dead, kola.”
We were passing Wounded Knee, and we both fell silent. My mind went up and stood in the mass grave. One hundred forty-six of Unchee’s people there. My people.
Tyler didn’t stop this time, and I was relieved. We rode on and on in silence, passed Sharps Corner and got nearly to Kyle before I broke it.
“So. What’s the program for this year’s ride?”
He looked quick at me. “The rides are hard, you know that? We tell people, you gonna ride, be sure you mean it. It’s tough. You start, you have to go through with it, can’t back out in the middle.
“We start at Cheyenne River, Big Foot’s camp. We’ll ride the old path.” His mind wandered somewhere, maybe into the previous rides, maybe into the journey of the Big Foot people.
Before I knew we were there, he pulled up behind the Lincoln at Little Wound School, stopped, and turned off the engine.
“We get to Wounded Knee, on the hill by the church we will do the ceremonies. At the mass grave. Two reasons. Release the spirits of the people killed there a hundred years ago, and wipe away the tears of all the people. We hope we can end seven generations of grief right there. We can heal.”
“And heal the riders?”
“Here’s something I’ve learned. To heal, you have to start right where you are. Right where you hurt. So you have to know that place first.”
I gave a sort of half nod, looked at Tyler’s soft eyes, and received their blessing.
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s healing in it.” His eyes were kind, and in their gaze I felt the meaning of compassion.
It was time to get out, to let Tyler go about his business, and to go about mine, whatever that was. The trouble was, I didn’t know.
From my heart I gave a lurch of words. “I want to ride.”
Tyler studied me. Finally he said, “Then getting ready starts today. You know in your heart what you need to do to get yourself ready. Nobody else knows.”
I felt a moment of panic. I didn’t know. What should I do?
I got out of the truck, said, “Washtay,” and waved. Tyler headed back to his house. I stood in the dust in the town where I’d started one kind of learning so many years ago, and abandoned another.
What should I do?
Suddenly a big breath burst out, and I relaxed. I could see the first step. Go to Grandpa and ask questions.
I didn’t know the second step, or the third step.
Hell, nothing to do but take the first one.
The Past Bites My Ass
It was a warm day, Indian summer (why do you call it that?), and Aunt Adeline was cooking in the shed kitchen. I said, “Washtay.” Having heard my car and my steps, she just nodded at me.
Grandpa was in the old recliner a few steps away—God knows where it was scrounged. An old wool blanket covered him to the waist, his hands and forearms were under it, and his eyes were closed. Since he was turned to the west, the late-afternoon sun rested on his face, and I thought maybe there was a half smile from the pleasure of the sunlight.
This was the way I found him on most of my visits the last few years. He was ninety-one now, and had the right to doze with the sun on his face if he liked. But I didn’t like it. I hated seeing him that way.
I turned toward Aunt Adeline at the wood stove. Even keeping my eyes a little down and to the side, I saw that her look was suspicious, or mean, or bitter, just like it had been for years—not welcoming for sure. No welcome for your brother’s son, I thought—strange. But hey, Aunt Adeline was over forty when I was born, and even when I was a kid she was mean.
I handed her the groceries. “Washtay,” she said. Good. She was making a stew on the old wood-burning stove, and my contribution was welcome—not only potatoes, carrots, celery, tomatoes, and onions, but ground beef. Meat was expensive, and whatever other meat she had in the stew would be what she caught or trapped, or what someone gave her. Rabbit, probably; sand turtles, maybe. If she was lucky, deer meat. We Lakota love flesh, and we like lots of different meats in the same stew. No matter how many there are, I can taste them separately, and enjoy each one.
She broke one pound of burger straight in and set to chopping the vegetables. I saw that the corners of her mouth were turned down, like always.
I took the rest of the burger, soda pop, cheese, and ice inside to the ice box. Not being on the electric grid, Adeline and Grandpa use an ice box. For years Grandpa cut ice from th
e river in winter and stored it in the ice house, though it never lasted through the summer. Now Adeline probably bought dollar blocks of ice from the convenience store, when she could afford it. Since she liked cold orange pop, a block of ice was always welcome.
I carried three opened bottles of orange pop back outside. Grandpa was still dozing. I handed one to Adeline. She was starting the cowboy coffee now, which meant we’d be eating soon. I liked cowboy coffee.
“Washtay,” Grandpa said behind me. I turned and offered my hand. “Takoja,” he said, meaning grandson, and shook my hand spryly. He was like that—one minute looking like he was dwelling half in the spirit world, and the next minute ready to joke or gossip or play cards. These days he passed a lot of time playing solitaire, which he learned in France during World War I.
It was hard for me to get over the way he was, out of this world (seemed like) one minute and all the way alert the next, and smart as anything. Guess that’s what it’s like to be ninety-one years old.
I pulled a log end up to his chair while he sat back down. “I quit my job.”
“Washtay,” he says. Good. Grandpa always thought spinning tunes and splicing them together with patter was a truly silly way to make a living.
“I quit drinking.”
“Washtay,” says he. This time there was a glint in his eye, and it wasn’t hard to read. His only son, the only one that lived, threw his life down the toilet of booze. Was still throwing it down.
“I went on the mountain.”
“Washtay,” says he.
“Pete Standing put me on,” I said.
“Washtay.”
I could see he understood every bit all the way.
“Supper,” says Adeline.
We went inside, the sun was sinking fast. Grandpa and I sat across from each other on benches at the Formica table, the sort popular in the fifties. Adeline sat next to Grandpa, and put the corners of her mouth into sourness.
It’s not our way to rush to our reason for visiting. After all, the main reason is just to be there, with your relatives. At least it should be. And eat.
After dinner, over cowboy coffee, I couldn’t wait any longer. “I’ve never known,” I said to Grandpa, “about my ancestors at Wounded Knee.”
