And The Children Shall Lead

by Michael J. Bowler

  Jenny understood and smiled. “They’re adopted.”

  Dakota nodded, but said nothing.

  “Sit, Dakota,” Arthur went on, extending a hand toward an empty seat, “and give thanks this day for family and friends.”

  The boy looked at Lance, who smiled and tilted his head toward the chair next to Chris. “This is our other brother, Chris,” he said, as the young Lakota moved to the chair and sat.

  Wide blue eyes fixed on the young man’s buckskin jacket, Chris blurted, “Wow, a real Indian!”

  Everyone laughed, but Dakota did not change his facial expression, causing Lance to wonder if the kid ever smiled.

  Lance introduced him to Reyna and the others before more food was passed around. Dakota eyed each person cautiously and then heaped great amounts of everything onto his plate, causing Lance and Ricky to eye one another. Lance could tell Ricky was wondering the same thing–when did this boy eat last?

  There passed a few awkward moments while everyone eyed the young Native and his heaping portions of food, but then conversation returned to normal.

  Lance and Ricky nudged and elbowed each other playfully, causing Dakota to watch them with curiosity. Between mouthfuls of turkey and stuffing, Lance asked him, “So, Dakota, you said your tribal council was interested in our CBOR?”

  Cheeks bulging with mashed potatoes, the teenager squinted curiously at Lance’s choice of words.

  Lance laughed. “Sorry, man, that’s what we call the Children’s Bill of Rights, so we don’t have to say the whole thing every time.”

  The young man swallowed his food. “It does not include native children, your bill,” he said soberly, “and my tribal council would like you to add them in.”

  Lance frowned. “Why wouldn’t native kids be part of our bill? It’s for all kids.”

  Dakota ceased shoveling the food into his mouth, pushed back his flowing hair and eyed Lance peculiarly. “Native children are treated differently by your government. Didn’t you know that?”

  Both boys shook their heads. Differently? What did that mean?

  “How? They’re American citizens, right?” Ricky asked as everyone halted their eating to follow the conversation.

  Dakota paused a moment, his youthful features scrunched with consideration on how best to answer. “Our tribal lands are like a separate country with its own government. The state and the federal government can’t tell us what to do ’less there’s a big crime committed.” He stopped here a moment and looked down at his food. “Then the FBI has to be called. But they usually don’t care about crimes against natives.”

  “But what about the kids?” Lance asked when the young man fell into a brooding silence.

  Dakota looked up at him and met his gaze. “They are taken from their families by South Dakota’s department of social services and given to white families to raise because your federal government pays the state a lot of money to do this. It’s in the letter.”

  Lance could feel himself paling at the boy’s words. “That’s sick!” he blurted, more angrily than he’d intended, and turned to Arthur and Jenny. “Did you hear that? Just like they tried to do with us!”

  “But they failed, son,” Arthur reminded him in a calming tone.

  His blood already pounding, Lance turned back to Dakota. “Can’t you guys stop them?”

  Dakota shrugged sadly. “The courts allow it to be so. My people have been trying to fix the Indian Child Welfare Act for many years, but….” He let the thought trail off because there apparently was nothing left to say. “It’s in the letter.”

  Lance fumed, pulling the letter from his pocket and starting to open it, but Jenny reached over to lightly touch his hand. He looked at her sharply.

  “I know that look, Lance,” she said gently. “It’s a horrible thing, but we’ll work on it tomorrow. Sam can help. For now, enjoy your dinner.”

  “But Mom,” Lance began, but she squeezed his hand and he settled down. Injustice like this truly rankled him, but he understood her meaning. The same children would be away from their homes tomorrow, just as they were tonight, and nothing could be accomplished through anger.

  She pulled her hand back and he slid the letter back into his pocket. He turned to face Ricky, who gave him the ‘look.’ He smiled, and Ricky’s eyes danced with joy.

  When Lance glanced over at Dakota, he saw the new boy eyeing them strangely before quickly dropping his gaze back to his plate and rather inexpertly shoveling more food into his mouth. He began to wonder if maybe Dakota was the only person on earth who didn’t know about him and Ricky.

  He also noted the odd way the boy held his spoon––he gripped it like one might the handle of a saucepan and used it like a shovel. Odd, he thought, before returning to his own meal.

  Just then the same young maid re-entered the dining room and gingerly approached Arthur and Jenny. “Excuse me, King Arthur, but there’s another young man at the door looking for Sir Lance.”

  Chris looked up from his food with a big grin. “Another Indian boy?”

  Lance knew he was joking and smiled. But the smile faltered when Maria replied, “Yes, Sir Chris, I think so.”

  Lance and Ricky turned to each other with one of their almost patented ‘wtf’ looks, and then Lance turned to Dakota. “What’s with you native guys and Thanksgiving?”

  The young man’s poker face displayed no emotion. “I told you, we don’t celebrate it.”

  Lance sighed. “Okay. I’ll go check it out.” He turned to Ricky. “Wanna come?”

  “Where you go, I go.”

  Lance smiled and looked across the round table at Ryan, already rising to his feet and fingering his sidearm. “Uh, nino, let’s just open the door this time. No commando tactics.”

  Ryan looked at Gibson, who shrugged, and then back at Lance. “Okay, Lance. But I open the door.”

  “No problem,” Lance said as he and Ricky stood to follow the detective from the dining room.

  Once more crossing the cavernous and empty lobby, their boots clicking against the marble floor, Lance hurried to catch up with his godfather. “No lone ranger stuff, remember.”

  Ryan grimaced, but agreed. His right hand slipped to the gun in its holster, but did not draw it, as they stopped before the double doors. Lance and Ricky stood just behind him as the sergeant reached out with his left hand and eased one of the doors open.

  Standing outside was a smallish teen boy of indeterminate age. He wore jeans, Vans, a flamboyantly orange Hollister t-shirt, and denim jacket. A duffel bag slung over his shoulder completed the look. His long, pitch-black hair was woven into two dangling braids, and he wore a multicolored bandana wrapped around his forehead. His eyes, Lance noted, were thinner than his own, or even Ricky’s or Dakota’s, almost like the eyes of the Asian knights he knew.

  Lance immediately stepped around Ryan, and Ricky followed. “I’m Lance,” he offered. “You’re looking for me?”

  Almost a polar opposite of Dakota, this boy broke into a grin that spread so far across his face Lance thought it would break through the skin. His eyes positively danced with laughter. “Of course you are,” he gushed, eyeing Ricky, as well. “And you’re Ricky. Wow, it’s so cool to meet you guys.”

  Lance and Ricky grinned, and then Ricky asked. “What’s yer name, man?”

  “Kai Begay,” the boy answered, still beaming with delight.

  Ricky’s smile faltered, and Lance was also taken aback.

  “Did you… just call us gay?” Ricky asked almost breathlessly.

  The boy’s smile crumpled into a look of apology. “Oh, no, guys, sorry, that’s my name. Kai Begay. B-E-G-A-Y.”

  The boys exchanged a curious look. “That’s yer name?” Lance asked, not sure he’d heard right.

  The boy laughed, and Lance found it an open, infectious laugh. “Everyone says that when I tell them my name. Actually, Begay is a very respected Navajo name going back all through our history. My great-great uncle was a code talker in World War II.�
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  Lance and Ricky visibly relaxed. They’d been reading ahead in their history text and had heard of the Navajo Code Talkers. Their language, Lance recalled, was the only code the Japanese couldn’t break.

  “Cool,” Lance responded, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you, Kai.”

  Unlike Dakota, this boy shook hands with both of them.

  “Lance,” he heard Ryan’s tight voice behind him. “Let’s take this inside, please.”

  Lance glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah, nino.” He turned back to the newcomer. “C’mon in.”

  Once safely back within the lobby and with the doors secured, Lance faced the eager new boy with raised eyebrows. “So what brings you to New Camelot on Thanksgiving?”

  Still smiling, the boy said, “Oh, we don’t celebrate that.”

  “Yeah,” Ricky chimed in. “We just found that out. So what’s up?”

  Almost breathless with excitement, Kai gushed, “Well, I want to join the Round Table, you know, and become a warrior for right. Oh, and I bring greetings from the tribal council of the Navajo Nation.”

  He dug into his bag and fished around a moment before extracting a large, sealed envelope and holding it out to Lance.

  Lance couldn’t help but smirk knowingly as he took it. “Let me guess, no email and you don’t trust the government.”

  Kai’s broad grin faltered, but only a little. “That’s right. How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess,” Ricky added, drawing a fit of giggling from Lance, who quickly recovered.

  “Inside joke,” he muttered, bringing giggles out of Ricky, and a huge grin to Kai’s smooth, hairless face.

  “You guys are good together,” the young Navajo said, nodding as though to confirm his assessment to himself.

  Lance looked straight into those laughing brown eyes for malice or ill intent, and found nothing but openness with not a trace of guile. He smiled. “Well, c’mon in, Kai Begay of the Navajo Nation, and have some dinner. I don’t know about this fool––” He indicated Ricky with a thumb. “––but I’ve spent more time at the door than the table, and I’m hungry.”

  Ricky laughed and elbowed him. To the amazement of both, and what seemed a sheer impossibility, the newcomer’s grin grew even larger and he chuckled with delight. “Thanks, man. I’m hungry, too.”

  Feeling more relaxed with this one than Dakota, Lance ushered the boy forward.

  “By the way, Kai,” Lance asked as they started down the long hallway toward the dining room, “how’d you get past the guard out front?”

  Kai laughed airily as though the question was foolish. “I’m an Indian, Lance.”

  Lance eyed Ricky and they snuck a smile between them. Indians, Lance decided, must travel in stealth mode, and he filed away for future reference his desire to learn that particular secret.

  Upon entering the dining room, Lance indicated the table with Dakota’s things for Kai to deposit his duffel bag. As the four of them stepped toward the table, Ryan slipped around to his seat while everyone looked up and eyed the newcomer curiously. Dakota had his head down, still downing food like he hadn’t eaten in days, his long hair obscuring his peripheral vision.

  As Lance and Ricky led Kai around toward Arthur for introductions, Dakota’s head popped up like a duck coming up for air, and his eyes narrowed. Kai stopped suddenly, causing Ricky to plow right into him.

  “Cloudy Boy,” Kai said, all trace of laughter gone. He looked surprised, and yet something in his tone struck Lance as “off.”

  Dakota squinted at Kai with what looked like distaste. “Laughs A Lot.”

  As though on cue, Kai laughed, but it was a nervous one, his eyes taking on a lost, wistful look that touched Lance. “It’s been a long time,” Kai said, his voice breathy and filled with deep emotion.

  Dakota said nothing. Everyone was exchanging looks and eyeing the suddenly awkward boys in silence.

  Finally, Reyna cleared her throat. “I take it you guys know each other.”

  “Yes,” both newcomers answered at the same time.

  Reyna guffawed and elbowed Esteban. “Oh, great, another pair.”

  “Another pair of what?” Dakota asked Reyna, his tone laced with suspicion.

  “Another pair of boys who think the same things at the same time,” she answered. “Like those two over there.” She grinned and pointed at Lance and Ricky, who returned the grin and bowed ceremoniously.

  Then Lance introduced Kai to Arthur and Jenny. Kai gushed with enthusiasm and energy.

  “I want to join the Round Table and become a knight like Lance and Ricky,” he said, almost breathlessly.

  “You shall be most welcome,” Arthur replied with a smile of acceptance.

  Dakota grunted into his cider. “He’s no warrior, that one. He draws.” He said that last word almost sneeringly.

  Kai’s buoyant face flushed red and he looked down at the carpet. Arthur placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and he looked back up. “We are warriors of right, Kai, not might, and all talents are welcome.”

  Kai beamed with gratitude.

  Lance watched his father charm this boy, make him feel good about himself with just a few words, and marveled at the ease with which it could be done. Why, he wondered for the umpteenth time, couldn’t more people be like Arthur?

  Kai sat next to Dakota, which seemed to Lance to make the Lakota boy uncomfortable. But clearly Dakota was too proud to admit anything that smacked of weakness.

  True to his earlier statement, Kai was hungry, and devoured nearly as much food as Dakota. It almost seemed a race between them to see who could consume the most the fastest.

  Reyna was amused by their antics, but made no snide comments. She’s growing up, Lance decided, and learning the art of self-control.

  By the time pumpkin pie came around, everyone was stuffed and content, even the two Indian boys who, they’d learned were both seventeen years old. That revelation concerned Arthur and Jenny after their previous wranglings with the Department of Children and Family Services.

  Jenny looked over at both boys. “Do your parents know you’re here, boys?”

  The two looked up from their food and, mouths full, nodded.

  Jenny exchanged a look with Arthur, and then looked back at them. “We might need to talk to your parents,” she said uncertainly. “Just to avoid problems with our own children’s services out here.”

  “My mother sent a note,” Kai explained while swallowing some turkey. “It’s in the letter.”

  Jenny eyed Dakota, whose face became even darker and stormier than before. “If you ask my mother, she’ll say she has one son, my brother. She has no phone.” He resumed eating without awaiting a response.

  Kai took a swig of cider and said, “Not many phones on our rez, either, ’cept the pay phone at the general store. ’Sides, we’re seventeen. You do your vision quest yet?”

  The last was directed at Dakota.

  “Course I did,” Dakota grunted in annoyance.

  Rather than look insulted, Kai laughed as though it was the response he expected. He turned to Lance and Ricky. “At seventeen, us Indian boys go through our vision quest and become men. In our culture, we’re not kids anymore.”

  “Huh!” Dakota grunted into his goblet.

  That drew a curious look from Kai, and Lance exchanged a look with Ricky, who shrugged. These two intrigued him.

  Jenny looked at Arthur and he said, “Well, we will consider you men within the Round Table, but out in the city you are not yet legal adults, so we all need to be cautious.”

  The Indian boys nodded, but said nothing as their mouths were full once again.

  Lance noted how Kai continually tried to engage Dakota in conversation, but the young Lakota merely offered grunts or nods in response to questions or comments. Finally, Lance thought to ask the question he’d wondered about earlier.

  “Say, guys, why don’t you Indians like Thanksgiving?” he asked. “I thought, like, you know in 1620, or mayb
e it was 21, the pilgrims thanked the Indians for helping ’em by throwing a big dinner and they all ate together. Isn’t that a good thing?”

  Dakota snorted and swallowed some cider. “It would be if it was true,” he said planting his goblet hard on the tabletop.

  “Whadda you mean?” Ricky asked, now just as interested as Lance.

  Kai saw that Dakota wasn’t going to answer and said, “What Cloudy Boy is trying to say is, that version of Thanksgiving was made up by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War to, you know, mend fences and stuff.”

  Lance glanced over at Jenny, who was listening attentively. “You ever hear this version, Mom?”

  “No. Please continue, Kai.”

  The young Navajo sighed. “Well, there was a good harvest in 1621 and the pilgrims did have a feast, but they didn’t invite the Indians to eat with them. The Indians just showed up with food and so they kind of had to eat together so nobody got pissed off. The real Thanksgiving holiday was started in 1637 by Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was a big celebration cuz his people came home after massacring like, seven hundred Pequot men, women and children. They were thankful for the victory over us savages.”

  He fell silent then, and no one moved or scarcely even breathed.

  “That’s horrible,” Reyna whispered, taking Esteban’s hand in hers.

  Lance and Ricky exchanged an appalled look, and Chris’s mouth hung open in shock.

  “That’s what we been taught, anyway,” Kai added solemnly.

  “And that’s why we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving,” Dakota said quietly as he turned to fix his brown eyes on Lance.

  Lance felt sad and wistful that these boys carried the weight of such history on their shoulders.

  Dinner ended shortly thereafter, that story having dropped a subdued mood over the entire table. Reyna and Esteban left to return to their homes, Arthur and Jenny took Chris upstairs to get him ready for bed, while Lance and Ricky led Dakota and Kai up the grand staircase to the second floor to find them rooms.

  Not sure why he did so, though maybe, he surmised later, it was because these two had some history together, Lance led them to the only other two rooms on the second floor with an adjoining door between them.