Indian Killer (8 page)

After seeing the reading list, Marie knew that Dr. Mather was full of shit.

“Excuse me, Dr. Mather,” Marie said. “You’ve got this Little Tree book on your list. Don’t you know it’s a total fraud?”

“I’m aware that the origins of the book have been called into question,” said Mather. “But I hardly believe that matters.
The Education of Little Tree
is a beautiful and touching book. If those rumors about Forrest Carter are true, perhaps we can learn there are beautiful things inside of everybody.”

“Yeah, well, whatever was inside that man, it wasn’t Cherokee blood.” Marie’s voice grew louder. “And there are only three Indians on this list, and their books were really written by white guys. Not exactly traditional or autobiographical. I mean, I think there’s a whole lot more biography than auto in those books. And there aren’t any Northwest Indian writers at all.”

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Mather said. “And your name is?”

“Marie. Marie Polatkin.”

“By your appearance, Ms. Polatkin, I assume you’re Native American.”

“I’m Spokane.”

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Mather said. “I taught a Spokane named Reggie Polatkin. A relative of yours?”

“My cousin,” said Marie suspiciously. She knew Reggie and Mather had been close at one time. But Reggie had been expelled from the University after assaulting Mather for reasons that were never clear. While Marie recognized that Mather was a pompous jerk, she also knew that Reggie was no saint. In fact, he’d been involved in more than a few fistfights in his life. And after he’d been expelled, Reggie had simply disappeared. No member of their family had heard from him in over a year. Marie didn’t want Mather to give her a poor grade simply because she was related to her crazy cousin. If she was going to get a poor grade, she wanted to receive it because of her own craziness.

“I trust you are aware that Reggie and I had, well, let’s say it was an academic conflict.”

“Yeah,” said Marie.

“Well,” said Mather with a smile. “I hope you don’t hold a familial grudge against me, Ms. Polatkin?”

“Reggie is Reggie. I’m me.”

“Fine, fine. Now, let’s see, where were we? Ah, yes. The Spokane Indians. Columbia Plateau, Interior Salish, closely related to the Colville, Coeur d’Alene, Flathead, and others. A salmon tribe whose reservation is bordered by the Columbia River to the north, the Spokane River to the south, and Chimakum Creek to the east. A veritable island of a reservation, is it not?”

“I guess,” said Marie.

“Well, Ms. Polatkin, I understand your concerns. But I must correct your math. We do have four Native American authors in this course. Mr. Black Elk, Mr. Lame Deer, and Ms. Crow Dog did have help transcribing their stories, but many people use professionals to help write their books. And Mr. Wilson, as you can see by the syllabus, is a Shilshomish Indian, which, unless I’m mistaken, is a Northwest tribe.

“You see, Ms. Polatkin, I envision this course as a comprehensive one, viewing the Native American world from both the interior and exterior. One would hope that we can all benefit from a close reading of the assigned texts, and recognize the validity of a Native American literature that is shaped by both Indian and white hands. In order to see that this premise is verifiable, we need only acknowledge that the imagination has no limits. That, in fact, to paraphrase Whitman, ‘Every good story that belongs to Indians belongs to non-Indians, too.’”

Mather dismissed any further questions with a slight nod of his head, and proceeded to launch into a detailed lecture about the long tradition of European-Americans who were adopted into Indian tribes. A red-headed, green-eyed Irish and British mix, Mather proudly revealed that he’d been adopted into a Lakota Sioux family, an example of the modern extension of that long tradition.

“Dr. Mather,” Marie said. “What about the long tradition of white guys who were killed by Indians? How about the white guy they found dead in Fremont? Can we talk about him, too? How about the modern extension of that long tradition?”

“Ms. Polatkin, I hardly see how the murder of one poor man has anything to do with the study of Native American literature.”

Dr. Mather tried to ignore Marie, but she felt compelled to challenge him and constantly interrupted his first lecture. She was enjoying herself. She’d found an emotional outlet in the opportunity to harass a white professor who thought he knew what it meant to be Indian. For Marie, being Indian was mostly about survival, and she’d been fighting so hard for her survival that she didn’t know if she could stop. She needed conflict and, in those situations where conflict was absent, she would do her best to create it. Of course, conflict with whites didn’t need much creating. Her struggle with Dr. Mather, which started out as intellectual sparring, became personal, and intensified as that first class hour went along.

David Rogers, who had taken the class because of a specific sense of guilt and a vague curiosity, was fascinated by Marie. She seemed exotic and impossibly bold, speaking to a college professor with such disdain and disrespect. He had never known any woman who behaved in such a manner. David’s mother had died when he was five years old, so he had only vague and completely pleasant memories of her. And most of the white girls in his hometown had been quietly conservative and unfailingly polite. David had not bothered to approach those few hometown white girls who had been even slightly rebellious. And he had never spoken to an Indian woman.

David had grown up on a farm near Marie’s reservation. Throughout his life, his only real contact with Indians happened in the middle of the night when reservation Spokanes crept onto his family’s farm to steal camas root, the spongy, pungent bulbs of indigenous lilies that had been a traditional and sacred food of the local Indians for thousands of years. The Spokanes arrived in the middle of the night because David’s father, Buck, refused to allow them to gather camas, even though it grew on a few acres of their otherwise useless land.

On one particular night when he was twelve years old, David Rogers had been sitting for hours in the family hunting blind with his older brother Aaron and their father, Buck. Twenty feet off the ground, the blind, camouflaged by leaves and sod, had stretched between trees in a stand of windbreak pines. Ordinarily, the blind was used to hunt for the deer that often wandered through the open fields of the Rogers family farm. That night, however, Buck Rogers and his sons had been waiting for the Indians who came to steal camas root.

“Is that weapon clean?” Buck Rogers had asked Aaron.

“Yes, sir,” Aaron had said and had given a smart salute. Though only a year older than David, Aaron had been much more experienced with weapons and held a vintage AK-47, semi-automatic, a full clip.

“How about yours?” Buck had asked David.

David had looked down at the small twenty-two-caliber rifle in his hands. Wood stock, metal trigger, smell of gunpowder. He’d looked back at his father and older brother.

“It’s ready, sir,” David had said, his voice breaking a little. He’d been scared.

Buck had heard the fear in his youngest son’s voice. David had always been a strange one, and if left to himself, would have spent all of his time reading. Buck loved David, but thought he was probably queer. Buck had always known that Aaron Rogers was a whole different animal. He had been staring out into the camas fields, waiting for the Indians to appear. Wanting the Indians to appear.

“You see anything?” Buck had asked.

“No, sir,” Aaron had said.

David had peered out of the blind. The fields brightly illuminated by the moon. Fallow fields reaching north to south. To the west, a dirt access road. David had swallowed hard when he saw the car, without headlights, appear over the horizon.

“There,” Aaron had said, surprised by his own giddiness. He’d wondered if this was how the great Indian-fighters, like Custer, Sheridan, and Wright, had felt just before battle.

“Oh, we got them now,” Buck had said. “We got them good.”

The car had rattled down the access road and stopped beside a camas field. The engine had idled for a few moments before shuddering to a stop. Slowly and quietly, five, six, seven Indians had crawled out of the car. David had not understood how seven people could have fit into that small car. Four children, David saw, and a man and woman, perhaps the mother and father of the children, and, following behind them, an elderly woman.

“Tell me when, tell me when,” Aaron had whispered to his father.

“Patience, patience.”

The Indians had walked across the field until they were standing less than fifty feet away from the hunting blind. With his finger lightly feathering the trigger, Aaron had stared down the barrel of his rifle and sighted in on the Indian father.

“When? When?” Aaron had asked.

David had watched as the Indians, even the children, pulled out strange curved tools and began digging in the earth. Digging for camas root. David had wondered why the Indians loved the root so much. Why had they come in the middle of the night? After Buck had threatened them with physical violence? Even the Indian children, who David had always seen as wild and uncontrollable, quietly and respectfully dug for those roots. David had no idea the Indians had been root digging for thousands of years.

“Get ready,” Buck had whispered. David, knowing what was expected of him, had reluctantly raised his rifle.

“They’re just kids,” David had whispered.

“Lice make nits,” Buck had whispered as he raised his rifle.

The Indians dug for roots. As the old woman dug, she’d remembered when she had come here with her grandmother.

“Remember,” Buck had whispered. “Shoot over their heads.”

David had aimed his rifle at the moon, not wanting to even see the Indians as they ran away. He’d heard the soft laughter of the Indian mother. David had wondered if she was beautiful.

“Now,” Buck had said and pulled the trigger. David had squeezed off a bullet and then had turned to look at his brother, who had not yet fired. David had seen the look in his older brother’s eyes and had known Aaron was sighting in on the Indian father. Not above his head, but at his head.

“No!” David had shouted as Aaron pulled the trigger. The Indian man had fallen to the ground. He didn’t move for a brief moment, long enough for David to cry out, but then the Indian man had jumped to his feet and, apparently unharmed, raced to the car. As the Indians drove away, Aaron and Buck had laughed and whooped loudly.

“You tried to shoot him,” David had accused his brother.

“What are you talking about?” Aaron had asked.

“You aimed at him. You tried to kill him.”

Buck had stared at his sons with recognition and love. Aaron, who had always wanted so much to be like his father that he wore the same shirts. And David, who had been scared of everything, but would fight Aaron for the slightest transgression.

“David,” Buck had said. “Aaron wouldn’t do something like that. We were just trying to scare them. Right, Aaron?”

“Right, Dad.”

David had thought his big brother was lying.

“Did you see them Indians run?” Aaron had asked his father.

“I saw it,” Buck had said.

“Just like the old days must have been, huh?” Aaron had asked. “Just like the old days!”

David had looked down at the rifle in his hands. He’d felt like crying.

“Hey,” Buck had said to David. “What’s wrong with you?”

David had looked at his father.

“Oh, Jesus,” Buck had said. “You ain’t going to cry?”

David had ducked his head.

“You look at me when I’m talking to you,” Buck had said impatiently. He hated it when his son avoided eye contact. It showed fear. Buck had always hated fear.

“Yes, sir,” David had whispered. With great effort, he’d looked into his father’s blue eyes. David and Aaron had inherited the same color and shape of their father’s eyes. Buck had seen a shadow of his face in his youngest son’s. More important, he had also seen his late wife’s fine features in David’s face.

“Listen,” Buck had said, softening. “I know this is a tough thing to do, shooting after people like this. But we ain’t trying to hurt them. We’re just trying to teach them a lesson. They’re stealing from us, son. This is our land. My land. Your land. Your brother’s land. This land has been in our family for over a hundred years. And those Indians are stealing from us. They’re trying to steal our land. We just can’t have that. Okay, son?”

“But they were kids,” David said. “And an old woman.”

“Indian is Indian,” his father had said, close to losing his temper.

“Hey, Dad,” Aaron had said, trying to divert attention away from his little brother. “Let’s go see if those Indians dropped anything. Maybe one of those weird digging sticks.”

Buck had stared at David for a few seconds, trying to understand how this boy could have been his son. But there could be no getting around it. David was his son, one of two. All the family he had left in the world. Buck had shrugged his shoulders, mussed David’s hair, and then climbed down from the stand. Just before he’d followed, Aaron smiled at his brother.

“Hey, bro,” Aaron had said. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get them next time.”

Thinking about the camas field, David Rogers barely heard Dr. Clarence Mather lecturing during that first session of the Native literature class.

“Jack Wilson is much more than a mystery novelist,” said Mather. “He is a social realist. Unlike many other Native writers whose work seems to exaggerate the amount of despair in the Indian world, Wilson presents a more authentic and traditional view of the Indian world.”

“Oh, God,” Marie blurted out.

“Do you have something to add, Ms. Polatkin?” asked Dr. Mather. “Yet again?”

“How can Wilson present an authentic and traditional view of the Indian world if he isn’t authentic and traditional himself?” asked Marie. “I mean, I’ve done some research on this guy. He isn’t even Indian at all. How would he know about the despair, or happiness, in the Indian world?”

“Ms. Polatkin,” said Dr. Mather, speaking very slowly. “Since this is the first session of this class, perhaps you might let me actually conduct the class? But, in answer to your questions, Mr. Wilson is, in fact, a Shilshomish Indian.”