by Will Weaver
“Pehrsson,” Wicks said. “I was hoping I’d see you. We need to sit down and have a little talk.”
Guy paused. Wicks’s eyes returned to the passersby as he spoke. He watched them for weapons. “That day we met on the road—you remember, by the irrigator?”
Guy nodded.
“You dropped something,” Wicks said. Still without looking at Guy, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a clear plastic Baggie. Inside was the thimble-size brown-glass bottle of cocaine that Guy had thrown into Hank Schroeder’s field. Guy felt the gym contract. Felt the lights brighten. It was like he was in a basketball game where time had run out and the score was tied and his free throw was bouncing off the rim.
Wicks turned to stare at him, but Guy couldn’t take his eyes from the tiny brown jar. “Took me a while to find it,” Wicks said. “You see, I stopped down the road a ways and took a look back at you with my big glasses. It’s a habit of mine. I saw you throw something. After you drove off I came back and looked for a long time. I was just about to give up when the sunlight caught the glass just right. My good luck, huh?” Wicks grinned.
“Your good luck, my bad,” Guy said. He shrugged.
Wicks stared at him for a moment longer before looking back to the walkers. “I like you, Pehrsson,” he said. “You got . . . style. That’s it, style. You don’t break for the door. You don’t give me no bullshit about it not being yours.” He turned again to Guy. “It took me a while to get the lab report back from Minneapolis. Those fuckers down there think the world of crime begins and ends on Hennepin Avenue. But we know better, huh, Pehrsson? I got a thumbprint of yours that’s clear as bird shit on a windshield. Plus the lab report on the coke. Ninety-two-percent pure. The real shit.” Wicks grinned again. “Like I said, Pehrsson, you’re a man of style. You like the finer things in life. I like that.”
Guy looked around, then back. “Get down to it, Brad,” he said.
Wicks turned his gaze back to the stream of walkers. “No hurry,” he said. “I’m on patrol tonight. Why don’t I drive by the farm, pick you up. We’ll take a little ride around the reservation. We can talk about what we oughta do. That is, if you’re still in Minnesota tonight. Which I would recommend.”
“Why would I want to leave?” Guy said. “Everybody here is so friendly.”
Wicks’s mouth curled in a grin. “Pehrsson, you’re a real kick. I like you. I really do. See you tonight, right?” Guy walked on. From the crowd someone called his name. It was Madeline.
“Are you all right?” she asked immediately as Guy squeezed in beside her. “You look white.”
“It’s the light,” Guy said, looking up briefly at the big fluorescent bulbs.
She stared at him for long moments, then turned to survey the crowd.
“Where’s Tom?” Guy said.
“He’ll come when Stanbrook comes,” Madeline said. She looked to the far end of the gym, to the emergency fire door, then back to the podium.
Guy followed her eyes with his, then looked closer at the crowd. Below, close to the stage and centered in several rows of white faces and seed caps, was a large placard held by a fat woman. The sign read, “Township Defense League—Save Our Land for Our Children.” Guy looked closer. The woman holding the sign was Mary Ann Hartmeir.
“Jesus,” Guy said.
Madeline followed his gaze.
“Look closer,” she said.
Guy stared. Seated near Mary Ann he saw Kurt Fenske. The regulars from Doc’s, including two men with bandages across their noses. Doc himself. A collapsible wheelchair, then Jewell Hartmeir. And only one seat away from Jewell Hartmeir, Guy saw Martin.
“Shit,” Guy murmured, but at that moment the crowd began to clap. From the right door white TV lights blinked on as Senator Howard Stanbrook trotted onto the gymnasium floor. Cassandra Silver and several short young men in blue and gray suits were visible in the foyer. Stanbrook was tanned and trim and light on his feet. He was over fifty but spent a lot of time in the congressional health spa, Guy guessed. His hair was walnut-brown and shiny. From thirty rows and a jump shot away, Guy could see the makeup, the blue eyeliner, the brown shadow that made his small eyes look larger.
As Stanbrook took the podium, from the left side of the gym the fire door swung open. Four huge, shirtless Indians wearing mirrored sunglasses, braids, leather pants, leather vests came through the door. They carried stubby, polished billy clubs under their arms. The clapping for Stanbrook petered out. The crowd turned to stare. Tom LittleWolf trailed the big Indians. Passing beneath the basketball net, he looked up and for a moment altered his step, as if he might go up for a jump shot. Above him, on the gym wall in tall, faded letters, were the tomahawk logo and the words “Go! Fight! Win!—Flatwater Indians!”
Stanbrook stepped down from the podium and walked toward Tom with hand outstretched. Tom hesitated. Boos and hisses came from the crowd. Tom briefly shook Stanbrook’s hand. Stanbrook smiled broadly and gestured for Tom to precede him onto the stage. Tom’s escorts seated themselves cross-legged in a row in front of the podium. Then the local chairman of the Republican Party, the town barber, stammered through an introduction of Senator Stanbrook.
“Thank you so much, Bill, and what a pleasure it is . . . ,” Stanbrook began. His voice was resonant and smooth. Stanbrook began with an anecdote about President Reagan.
“Before I left Washington the President said to me, ‘Howard, I hear you’ve got some Indian trouble out in Minnesota.’
“‘Yessir,’ I said. ‘But I think we Minnesotans can work it out if we work together.’” A small ripple of applause came from the crowd.
“‘Well, Howard,’ the President said to me, ‘if you have any trouble, just give me a call. After all, I’ve got a lot of experience when it comes to Indian trouble.’
“‘How’s that, sir?’ I said.
“‘In the movies I played a cowboy, remember?’”
A wave of laughter swept the auditorium. Even some of the Indians grinned.
Stanbrook went on to talk of the spirit of compromise, the metaphor of the American melting pot. He quoted from Carl Sandburg. From Eisenhower. From Bruce Jenner. From Stevie Wonder. From Eldridge Cleaver. “That must be from Cleaver’s later work,” Madeline whispered.
Smoothly, Stanbrook moved from Cleaver and melting pots to the land on White Earth. “I bring to you today legislation that will clear disputed land titles on the White Earth Reservation, that will make restitution to heirs of Indians for whom the federal government failed as trustees nearly one hundred years ago.
“The families of current landowners bought and worked the land in good faith, assured that their purchase was secure and legal under the prevailing laws. But a 1977 Minnesota Supreme Court decision, The State of Minnesota vs. Zay Zah, clouded their land titles. This prevented landowners from selling their land and from using it as collateral for farming or business loans,” Stanbrook called to the crowd.
“You got that right,” someone shouted from the crowd.
“Since the federal government failed the Indians by not clearing the sales so long ago, the federal government has a responsibility to make restitution.”
Some of the Indians clapped, but then stopped when the rest of the crowd turned to stare at them.
“My bill, Senate Lands Bill 885, soon to be introduced, would clear land titles, make restitution, and prevent this issue from dragging through the courts for decades.”
“How soon?” someone from the crowd shouted.
Stanbrook faltered momentarily. Then he loosened his tie and spoke louder still. “My bill, ladies and gentlemen, will offer twelve million dollars to the Indian heirs of White Earth—”
A sharp sucking in of breath came from the Indians in the crowd. Many turned to look at each other and grin.
“Twelve million dollars!
That will mean thousands of dollars for every man, woman, and child—thousands of dollars to be reinvested by the proud natives of White Earth. Jobs! Industry! Self-determination!” The crowd, including some of the Indians, began to cheer and stamp its feet.
Tom LittleWolf quickly stepped forward. He took the microphone away from a surprised Stanbrook. “Money but no land!” Tom said. “You can’t eat money! You can’t walk on money! You can’t hunt on money!” he called.
The whites jeered. A can of beer looped toward the podium; one of the big Indians leaped to his feet and deflected it. The other Indians stood with their billy clubs cocked.
“Easy—easy—steady, my friends,” Stanbrook called. He quieted the crowd with his hands. “My Indian friend wishes to speak; let him speak. I’ve said my piece. I’ve made my offer.”
The crowd cheered. Stanbrook waved.
Tom stood before the microphone and stared at the crowd.
“Pull the plug,” some shouted. Others hissed.
Tom waited until the gym quieted to a general rustling. Then he pulled from inside his vest a thin, tattered, yellow book.
“This is a book, Ten Little Injuns, I remember reading as a child,” Tom began. His voice was steady, resonant as he read:
Ten little Injuns standing in a line,
One went home and then there were nine.
Nine little Injuns swinging on a gate,
One tumbled off and then there were eight.
Eight little Injuns never heard of heaven,
One kicked the bucket and then there were seven.
Seven little Injuns cutting up tricks,
One went to bed and then there were six.
Six little Injuns kicking all alive,
One broke his neck and then there were five.
Five little Injuns on a cellar door,
One tumbled off and then there were four.
Stanbrook’s mouth slowly came open as he listened to Tom. Then he recovered himself and looked to the side for his aides. But even Cassandra Silver’s eyes were fixed on Tom LittleWolf. As he read on, the gymnasium fell silent.
Four little Injuns climbing up a tree,
One fell down and then there were three.
Three little Injuns out in a canoe,
One fell overboard and then there were two.
Two little Injuns fooling with a gun,
One shot the other and then there was one.
One little Injun living all alone,
He got married and then there was none.
Guy looked at Madeline. Her eyes glistened.
“We Indians,” Tom began quietly, “are at the end of our lives as a people. For us the sun is setting, never to rise again. We are nearly extinct. For a few minutes, then, I want to summarize how this came to be.”
Tom began with the arrival of Columbus and moved rapidly forward in time as he spoke of Indians pushed west, always farther west. He told the story of the Chippewa/Anishinabe in the Midwest, came quickly to the establishment of reservations in Minnesota. He worked his way toward the present without notes, with nothing in his hands except the small yellow children’s book that he swung to punctuate the even flow of his words.
He told of the treaty of 1785 in which the Chippewa ceded all their land to what was now the state of Minnesota in return for smaller tracts of land for each band, the reservations.
In 1867 another treaty established 837,120 acres for the White Earth Reservation—tax-exempt, inalienable land.
In 1885 white settlers adopted a resolution demanding the opening of the reservation to white farmers and white timber companies.
1887, the Dawes Act, better known as the General Allotment Act. This congressional bill began the allotment of land to individual Indians with the intent that they could do with their land what they wished. The great timber companies began to set up operations in towns near the reservation such as Akeley and Park Rapids and Bemidji.
1889, the Dead and Down Timber Act. This permitted Indians to sell off timber that was dead or had fallen. Great timber fires became a regular occurrence on the reservation. Though the fires often were set by agents of the timber companies, many Indians burned their own forest allotments in order to sell their timber. For the next decade or more, the timber companies had a free hand on the reservation. The sawmill in the tiny town of Akeley became the biggest mill in the world.
1902, the Dead Allotment Act. Congress enacted a law allowing the sale of inherited interests by Indian heirs if approved by the Secretary of the Interior. This law marked the first inroad into the reservation for outsiders to acquire land as well as timber.
1904–1910. The Clapp Act. The Steenerson Act. The Clapp Amendment. The Burke Act. The Probate Act. Combined, all of these congressional bills gave whites the ability to buy Indian lands, which they usually did through liquor and fraud. The fraud became so blatant as to cause a congressional investigating committee to journey from Washington to Minneapolis, then on to Detroit Lakes.
Guy thought of the copy of the old congressional report he had seen in Cassandra Silver’s briefcase. 1912. It had to be the same one.
“. . . thousands of pages of printed testimony . . . land fraud, collusion . . . stripping of the White Earth lands . . . ,” Tom continued, his voice rising. People in the crowd were shifting in their seats and fanning themselves with handkerchiefs and feed caps.
“We don’t want to hear that old shit,” someone shouted. “That’s all in the past—we want to hear about today!”
“Yeah—that’s right—today!” several other voices called.
Tom paused briefly, then moved rapidly from 1912 forward. He paused at 1920 to describe fee patents, which were issued to all living adult mixed-blood Indians on White Earth. Fee patents removed their land from trust status, made it taxable. “What did we know about taxes?” he called to the crowd. “Nothing,” he said in answer to himself. “Our lands went tax-forfeit and were bought up by whites—another way we lost our land!”
Guy looked at Madeline, then she at him. “Helmer,” Guy whispered. “That’s how he bought the farm. I remember him talking once about tax-forfeited land.”
Madeline nodded. They stared at each other for long moments, then turned back to Tom.
“Today—yes, let us talk about today,” he said, swinging his children’s book at the crowd. “Today, of the original 837,120 acres of White Earth, only a few thousand acres—patches of land here and there—are owned by Indians. All the rest of the land is gone. Gone to farms. Gone to resorts. Gone to timber companies.
“So, too, are the Chippewa/Anishinabe people gone. They are gone to Indian ghettos in Minneapolis. They are gone to alcohol and drug rehabilitation centers. They are gone to prisons, where they grow their hair long, where they drum and chant, and sit in sweat lodges and dream of a better time. And they do not come back to White Earth. There is little left here for them. The Indian people are shrinking away, disappearing like smoke in the wind. But you can help us,” Tom said suddenly to the crowd. “There are other lands to farm, other forests to cut trees on. Give us back—”
“You had your chance and you blew it!” someone shouted from the United Township Defense League section.
Tom stared.
“Yeah, what do Indians do with the land? Nothing—that’s what. Farmland ought to be farmed, grown trees ought to be cut. That’s what the land is for—to feed people and make houses for them.”
“Without the land the Indian is nothing!” Tom called out to the crowd.
“Indians are nothing—you got that right!” someone shouted.
From somewhere near Guy’s father a single egg arched toward the podium. It splattered across Tom’s chest and face. More eggs came. Stanbrook leaped nimbly off the podium. Tom’s Indian guards ran toward the egg thrower
s, who were seated in the Defense League. People shouted. The bleachers trembled and swayed as people coursed for the door. Stanbrook waved once to the crowd and was hustled to safety by his aides. Cassandra Silver was among them.
The fighting at floor level widened. Bradley Wicks shouted and waved his billy club. Finally he drew his .357 Magnum and fired it once into the ceiling of the auditorium. The bullet shattered an overhead light. Glass showered part of the crowd with fine, snowlike slivers. Dots of blood began to grow, then run on people’s faces and arms. There were screams.
People ran. Guy grabbed his mother and hustled her down the bleachers and across the floor toward the side door. Then he saw Tom, standing alone on the podium. He stood there staring at the fighting. Egg yolk dripped and ran down the black rivers of his braids.
“Turd—come on!” Guy hissed.
Tom looked around. His eyes were bright with tears.
“Come on, Tom,” Madeline called.
Tom wiped his face and stepped down from the podium and walked slowly toward them.
“Keep him here, I’ll bring the car,” Guy said rapidly.
Outside, the sidewalks and street were filled with onlookers as two police cars wailed toward the gym with red lights flashing. Guy found the Mercedes. Beside it, two Indian boys in black T-shirts were lifting a battery from beneath the hood of a GMC pickup. They saw Guy. “You got some sort of crazy hood latch, man,” one of them said to Guy.
“It’s on the inside,” Guy said, hurriedly unlocking the door. “People steal the battery otherwise.”
The two boys grinned and trotted off with the pickup battery.
Back at the side door of the gym, Guy drove the Mercedes onto the sidewalk. Madeline came out pulling Tom along. Someone spotted Tom and shouted, “There he goes!”
