Indian Killer (26 page)

“The scalping, of course.”

“You think Indians are the only ones who know how to use a knife? And do you think Indian men are the only ones who know how to use a knife? I’m pretty good with a knife. I bet even you, the adopted Lakota that you are, can wield a pretty fair blade yourself, enit? Who’s to say I’m not the Indian Killer? Who’s to say you’re not the Indian Killer?

“I mean, calling him the Indian Killer doesn’t make any sense, does it? If it was an Indian doing the killing, then wouldn’t he be called the Killer Indian? I mean, Custer was an Indian killer, not a killer Indian. How, about you, Doc, are you an Indian killer?”

“Ms. Polatkin, I beg your pardon.” Dr. Mather laughed nervously. “I am certainly no murderer.”

“Are you scared of me, Dr. Mather?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, I think you are. I’m not quite the revolutionary construct you had in mind, am I?”

“Ms. Polatkin, I wish…I wish you’d take your…your seat,” he stammered. “So we may continue with our class.”

“I’m not an Indian warrior chief. I’m not some demure little Indian woman healer talking spider this, spider that, am I? I’m not babbling about the four directions. Or the two-legged, four-legged, and winged. I’m talking like a twentieth-century Indian woman. Hell, a twenty-first-century Indian, and you can’t handle it, you wimp.”

“Ms. Polatkin, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the classroom. In fact, I strongly suggest that you drop this class entirely.”

Marie turned away from Dr. Mather, gathered her books, and headed for the door.

“Dr. Mather,” she said before she left. “An Indian man is not doing these killings.”

J
OHN KNEW THE DARKNESS
provided safety for Indians now. But long ago, Indians had been afraid of the darkness. During the long, moonless nights, they had huddled together inside dark caves and had trembled when terrible animals waged war on each other outside. Often, those horrible creatures would find the cave and carry off one of the weakest members of the tribe. Indians had been prey. This had gone on, night after night, for centuries. Then some primitive genius had discovered the power of fire, that bright, white flame. Fire pushed back the darkness and kept the animals at bay. During the night, Indians still huddled together in their caves, but a fire constantly burned at the cave’s mouth. At first, those small white flames were a part of the tribe. Neither male nor female, neither old nor young. Neither completely utilitarian nor absolutely sacred. Still, despite the Indians’ best efforts, the flames began to rebel. At first, in small ways, by refusing to burn. Then, by scorching a finger or hand. And finally, by pulling a careless child into their white-hot mouths and swallowing it whole. And always, always, the flames were growing in number and size. John knew they became candles, then lamps, then cities of lamps. Those white flames re-created themselves in the image of Indians. They grew arms and legs, eyes and hair, but they could never make themselves dark. They built dams that sucked white light from the rivers, and wires, crackling with white light, that connected houses, and houses filled with thousands of white lights. Those white flames could build anything. They tore everything down and rebuilt it in their image. Bright lights everywhere, cities casting their lights upward until the dark sky could not be seen, animals with neon in their eyes. But those white lights could not make themselves into Indians. And those white lights envied the Indians’ darkness. Their white-hot jealously grew into hatred; hatred grew into rage. The Indians became prey again, and now, for hundreds of years, the Indians have been burned, then dropped to the ground as piles of smoldering rags. Reduced to red ash that floats in the wind.

Now, as John walked through downtown Seattle, as white people walked wide circles around him, as they crossed busy streets to avoid him, as they pointed at him and whispered behind their hands, he began to see them as they truly were. White flames. A family of white flames, mother, father, daughter, son. A flame riding a bicycle. Flames crowding onto the Bainbridge Island ferry. A flame playing a battered guitar. Flames sitting in the cars passing by. One flame leaning out a pickup window, shouting obscenities at John. He wondered if Father Duncan, before he disappeared in the desert, had begun to see people as they truly were. Had Father Duncan, in his beautiful black robe, looked into the mirror and seen the white flame dancing at his neck? There were flames everywhere in downtown Seattle. Three large white flames surrounding a tiny, old Indian woman beneath the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

“Hey, Indian Killer,” the brightest flame taunted the old woman, who wore dark sunglasses and carried a white cane. “Come on, Indian Killer, come on. Show me how tough you are. Kill me, kill me.”

The old woman had no escape. Painfully skinny, her elbows and knees larger than her arm and leg muscles, her head and feet large and out of proportion, she looked more manufactured than human. She raised her fists to the three white flames surrounding her.

“Get away from me!” shouted the old woman. “I ain’t done nothing to you!”

John easily pushed aside the three flames and stood beside the old woman. John faced the three flames. John, feeling as strong as water. The flames wavered in his presence. A small crowd had gathered to watch. Other flames. A few of them shouting protests.

The flame that burned brightest had to smile, raise his empty hands and clap them together. The old woman was startled, but John didn’t react. The flame laughed. He pointed at John, and then all three flames piled into a pickup and drove away. The crowd of white flames that had gathered to watch soon dissipated.

“Hey, cousin,” the old woman said to John. “You showed up just in time. I was about ready to hurt somebody.”

“They’re gone,” John said.

“What tribe you are?” asked the old woman.

“Navajo.”

“Ah, Nah-vee-joe, huh? N-a-v-a-j-o,” the old woman spelled. She sniffed at John. “Yeah, you do smell like the desert. You a long ways from home, enit?”

John didn’t reply.

“You got some place to stay, Mr. Nah-vee-joe? Me, I’ve got lots of places to stay around here. All these white people think I’m homeless. But I ain’t homeless. I’m Duwamish Indian. You see all this land around here.” The old woman waved her arms around. “All of this, the city, the water, the mountains, it’s all Duwamish land. Has been for thousands of years. I belong here, cousin. I’m the landlady. And all these white people, even the rich ones living up in those penthouses, they’re the homeless ones. Those white people are a long way from home, don’t you think? Long way from E-u-r-o-p-e.”

John looked at the white flames around them. Just a few now. It was getting late. He saw flames crossing an ocean of gasoline.

“Hey, cousin, what’s your name?”

“John. John Smith.”

“Well, John-John, you want a drink?”

John looked at the bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. He was disappointed in the old woman.

“I don’t drink,” John said.

“Heck, John-John, it ain’t a-l-c-o-h-o-l. It’s water. Bottled water at that. You can’t tell anymore what they put in the tap water, you know?”

John knew they could put poison in bottled as well as tap water, but he didn’t want to scare the old woman.

“What’s your name?” John asked.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” she whispered. “My Christian name is Carlotta Lott, but my real name, my Indian name is…” The old woman sniffed the air to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. “My Indian name is…are you sure you can keep a secret?”

John nodded.

“Okay. My real name is Carlotta Lott.”

John was confused. The old woman was laughing loudly. She clapped her hands, slapped her belly with unmitigated glee. John reached out and touched Carlotta’s shoulder.

“John-John,” said Carlotta, suddenly serious. “There’s a big difference between what those white people think about Indians and what we know about us. A big d-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-c-e. And there’s even a bigger difference between what Indians think about each other, and what you and I know about ourselves.”

John released Carlotta’s shoulder. She took off her sunglasses and John stared at her dead eyes that were as white as salt.

“You see, John-John, I think I know a little about you. I think I know a little of what you want. I can feel it in here.” Carlotta touched her chest. “You got something special about you, enit?” Then lower and deeper, as if her voice were coming from a different place inside of her. “Real special.”

John nodded. Carlotta reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, rusty knife. Just a small paring knife rescued from a restaurant Dumpster. The old woman found John’s hand and folded his fingers around the knife handle.

“This is my magic,” said Carlotta. “And I think you know about magic. There’s good magic and there’s bad magic. This knife is both.”

John held the knife. It was small and pitiful.

“I think you know about the knife, don’t you? K-n-i-f-e. Silent K, John-John, silent K.”

John tried to give the knife back to the old woman. He didn’t think he needed it.

“No, no, Mr. Nah-vee-joe, it’s my gift to you. From a Duwamish Indian to a guest, a visitor.” Carlotta bowed deeply. “You honor me with your presence. H-o-n-o-r.”

“I have nothing for you,” said John.

“Yes, yes, you do, your ears, John-John, your ears.”

John touched both of his ears, one and then the other.

“Listen to me, John-John. I used to see. I have seen many things. Things that were good. Things that were bad. Things I wasn’t supposed to see. We’ve been good to white people, enit? When they first came here, we was good to them, wasn’t we? We taught them how to grow food. We taught them to keep warm. We was good hosts, enit? And then what did they do? They killed us.

“But we’ll get back at them, John-John. I’ve got me a time machine. And I can show you how to use it. You can go back to that beach where Columbus first landed, you know? You can wait there for him, hidden in the sand or something. C-a-m-o-u-f-l-a-g-e. And when he gets on the sand, you can jump out of hiding and show him some magic, enit? Good magic, bad magic, it’s all the same.”

The old woman pointed in the general direction of the puny knife in John’s hand.

“Magic, magic, magic,” chanted the old woman. “You want to go back? You want to know how to use the time machine?”

“Yes.”

The old woman stuck her right hand in her pocket. She wiggled it around as if searching for something.

“You want to see the time machine?” asked the old woman. “I got it in my pocket.”

“Yes.”

“You sure you want to see it? It’s powerful. And once you see it, there ain’t no going back. N-o.”

“Yes.”

The old woman whipped her hand out of her pocket and held it out to John. It was empty. John could see the dirty, brown skin, the four fingers and opposable thumb. John stared at Carlotta’s empty hand, and then at the knife in his own hand, and understood.

“W
HAT’S MY NAME?” ASKED
Reggie. He held a tape recorder in front of the white man.

“I don’t know,” sobbed the white man. He was on his knees while Ty and Harley held his arms at painful angles behind his back. They were all on the Indian Heritage High School football field, just a few blocks from Big Heart’s Soda and Juice Bar. It was late. Loud traffic on Aurora Avenue to the west and Interstate 5 to the east. Reggie was recording all of it.

The white man had been camping on the football field, after having hitchhiked into town. He’d dropped out of college a few months earlier and had been exploring the country ever since. He had one hundred dollars in cash, two hundred in traveler’s checks, three ripe bananas, a Jim Harrison novel, and various articles of clothing. Also, a sleeping bag, small one-man tent, first-aid kit, flashlight, portable radio, and an Eddie Bauer backpack.

“What’s my name?” Reggie asked again.

“I don’t know.”

Reggie kicked the white man in the stomach. Hard enough to bruise, but not enough to cause permanent damage. Reggie was good at this. He looked down at the kneeling white man.

“Hurt him,” Reggie signed to Harley.

Harley nodded and twisted the white man’s arm. Howls of pain that Harley could not hear. Howls of pain that Reggie recorded and would listen to later.

“Now,” Reggie said. “What the fuck is my name?”

“Please. Please stop. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“My name is Ira Hayes,” Reggie said.

“Okay, okay,” said the white man. “Your name is Ira Hayes.”

“Yeah, you know I was one of those guys who raised the flag at Iwo Jima?”

“Iwo what?”

Reggie kicked the white man.

“Iwo Jima, asshole. An island in the Pacific. During World War Two. One of the bloodiest military exercises of all time. Thousands and thousands died. But I survived, man. I climbed to the top of Iwo Jima and helped plant that flag. I was a hero. And now I’m dead. You know how I died?”

“No.”

Reggie kicked the white man again.

“You know how I died?”

“How?”

“Exposure. I fucking froze to death in a snowbank.”

The white man looked up at Reggie, who then slapped him hard across the face. Reggie held the recorder close to the sobbing man.

“Why’d you let me freeze?” Reggie asked.

“I…I didn’t.”

Reggie slapped him again.

“Why’d you let me freeze?”

The white man shook his head. Reggie grabbed him by the hair.

“What’s my name?”

“Ira Hayes.”

Another slap.

“Wrong. What’s my name?”

“Ira Hayes, Ira Hayes.” The white man pleading now. Reggie slapped him twice.

“What’s my name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do it,” Reggie said to Ty, and he twisted the white man’s arm until something popped. The white man screamed into the tape recorder.

“Somebody’s going to hear us,” Ty said to Reggie, who then took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and shoved it into the white man’s mouth.

“What’s my name?” Reggie asked the white man, who could not respond intelligibly. Reggie slapped him.