The Toughest Indian in the World (13 page)

“How?” said the Indian woman who was not pregnant. For the first time, I noticed her beauty. She was beautiful even with her head shaved bald. I could not imagine how beautiful she must have been before her hair had been taken. I imagined her hair had been a black river flowing down the landscape of her back.

“Tell us,” she said. “Tell us how we’re supposed to get out of here?”

There was no possible answer to her question. If we could have somehow crawled out of the belly of that underground prison, we would have found ourselves standing alone in the desert, without water, without shoes, without compass, without destination, without home.

“I don’t want to die here,” said the two Indian girls, together, as if they possessed only one voice. They were small and dark.

“If they were going to kill us,” said the beautiful Indian woman, “they would have done it already. They need us for something.”

“I told you,” I said. “They want our blood.”

“It has to be more than that,” she said. “We must have some disease. The Black Plague or something.”

“That couldn’t be,” said the large Indian man. “Those soldiers weren’t wearing masks. They were breathing in some of the air we breathed out. They weren’t afraid of us.”

“But they kept talking about blood,” said the boy with old eyes.

“Yes,” I said. “I saw a soldier get beaten because he killed two Indians.”

“No blood, no blood,” said the two Indian girls together. “They kept saying that. No blood, no blood.”

“You’re right,” said the pregnant woman. “It’s our blood. There’s something in our blood.”

“You’re all wrong,” whispered the small Indian man. His voice sounded like a house fire.

We all turned toward him.

“You’re all wrong,” he said again.

“What do you think?” asked the beautiful woman.

“None of you,” said the small man, pointing a finger at each of us. “None of you knows who you are anymore. None of you knows who we’re going to be.”

“You’re talking riddles,” said the large man.

“Listen to me,” said the small man. “I’m talking truth. Don’t you know what we are to them? What we have always been?”

“No,” I whispered.

“You see,” said the small man. “Right outside that door, those soldiers, those people are getting things ready. They’ve got their own ceremonies, you know?”

The small man stood. He was barely over five feet tall, though his hands were large, his fingers long and feminine. His skin was as dark as a black man’s.

“Right outside that door,” he continued, “they have big rooms. Big rooms filled with the dead. Filled with their dead. All the dead white people lined up in rows and rows and rows.”

“What dead?” asked the large man.

“All of them. Every white person who has ever died. They’ve got them lying on beds, all clean and perfumed and naked.”

“Naked?” I asked.

“Every man, woman, child. Naked. White skin everywhere. White skin so bright and shining it will blind you. And we will go blind down here, you know? Living down here like rodents, like worms.”

“I’m no worm,” said the pregnant woman.

“Yes, you are, you’re a worm. You’re less than a worm to them. You’re an exile, you’re a leper, you’re a pariah, you’re a peon, you’re nothing to them. Nothing.”

The short man stood on his bed. He was shouting, spittle flying from his mouth, and raising his arms like he was some kind of preacher. And maybe he was a preacher.

“Smell the air,” he said. “Smell the air!”

I inhaled. I could smell nothing except the antiseptic walls and floors of our cell and the fear and fatigue of my fellow prisoners.

“Do you smell that?” asked the small man. “That’s a feast you’re smelling. That’s roast beef you’re smelling. Venison. Lamb. Veal. That’s vegetables of every kind. That’s fruits so sweet they’ll make your mouth burn. That’s bread from a hundred different countries.”

My stomach rumbled with the thought of so much food. With a full belly, I believed I could begin to have some hope.

The short man ranted on. We were all entranced by him. He was our momentary savior and we were his temporary disciples.

“And do you know what they’re doing with all of that food?” he asked us. “They’re piling it on every one of those dead bodies. There’s a feast on the chest of every one of those dead white people out there. And that food is soaking up all of the hate and envy and sloth in those white people. That food is soaking up all of the anger and murder and thievery. That food is soaking up all of the adultery and fornication and blasphemy. That food is soaking up all of the lies and greed and hatred.”

We prayed; he preached.

Call and response, call and response.

He preached; we prayed.

Call and response, call and response.

“Children,” he said. “There’s a white body in there for each of us. There’s a feast in there for each of us. There’s a feast of sins shining on every one of those bodies. And tomorrow morning, those soldiers are going to lead us all, you hear me, lead us all into that room and they’re going to force us to kneel at those bodies, and they’re going to force us to devour those feasts, devour those sins.”

The small man fell down on the floor and I fell facedown beside him because I believed.

Early the next morning, or during what they wanted us to believe was morning, three soldiers, one black and two white, forced the large Indian man from our room, despite our cries and protests, and we wondered if we would ever see him again.

“He’s gone forever,” said the small Indian man, our prophet. His name was John, a Colville Indian. We all looked at one another and wondered who would be next. I closed my eyes and saw the room filled with the corpses of white people. I saw the feast piled on the chest of the white man I had been chosen to save. I opened my eyes and looked into the eyes of the Indians I would soon call my family.

“What are your names?” I asked.

The boy with old eyes said his name was Joseph. He said he was a Seminole Indian from Florida. He said he could run for days and days. The beautiful Indian woman said she was Navajo. She was a librarian, she said. I’ll miss books, she said. The two girls who held each other and refused to let go were the same two girls who also refused to speak to us. They just cried and whimpered, so we left them nameless. The pregnant Indian woman lay on her bed with her back to us.

“What is your name?” I asked her.

“Leave me alone,” she said.

“Please,” I said. “We want to know who you are.”

“I don’t care,” said the pregnant woman.

She stood, ran across the room, and smashed her big belly into the wall. She punched herself in the stomach again and again. Four of us, the prophet, the boy with old eyes, the beautiful woman, and I, all had to work together in order to hold her down.

“Let my baby die!” she screamed. “Let him die!”

We fought her. We wanted the baby to live, not because we loved him or loved the idea of life, but because we knew his death would take something else from us, and we had so little left to call our own.

Hours later, after the pregnant woman had passed out, after exhaustion had taken all of our energy, three other soldiers, including the soldier-who-looked-like-me, came into our room, and despite the cries and protests, which had grown considerably weaker, I was taken away.

I could hear the other Indians call my name as I was led away.

“Jonah,” they said.

With two white soldiers walking a few steps behind me and the soldier-who-looked-like-me walking a few steps in front, I marched farther down the bright hallway, past those countless white doors. I knew there were Indian prisoners trapped behind every one of those doors. I wondered if they could hear us marching down the hallway, if they could hear the rhythmic stomp of the soldiers’ boots and the soft shuffle of my bare feet. If I had pressed my ear to the cold metal of those white doors, I might have heard the stories, the rumors whispered so often that in just a few hours they had become myth. I might have heard the rumors about rescue attempts, about the half-breed Indian rebels who had broken out of their own prisons and who were now trekking across the desert to save us, or about the Indians who had avoided capture and who were now being secretly trained by sympathetic white soldiers, or about the multiethnic armies, formed by black, red, white, and brown soldiers, formed by men, women, and children, that were only awaiting a leader, a white man on a pale horse, to come along and lead them to victory.

I wondered if I was just a rumor as I walked down that hallway, between those white doors, with those soldiers marking time with each disciplined exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale. I wondered if I had been forgotten by the Indians still left in my room, in my cell. I wondered what had happened to the large Indian man after they had taken him from our room, and if they were now taking me to the same place where they had taken him.

I was young and small. I could have stepped inside the body of the soldier-who-looked-like-me and been lost forever.

I closed my eyes and easily marched in a straight line. All the while, I was convinced they were marching me toward a large room that was filled with the corpses of a million white people. The damp smell of disinfectant and indestructible mold could have been the smell of a terrible feast. I heard the hum of machinery and wondered if I was hearing a country of flies all speaking at once.

“Stop,” said the soldier-who-looked-like-me.

I stopped.

“Open your eyes,” he said.

I could not open my eyes. I was afraid of what I might see.

“Open your eyes,” he said.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Open your eyes before I pry them open and staple your eyelids to your forehead.”

I held my breath and opened my eyes. I was standing in a very small room with a stainless-steel table bolted to the floor. Black leather restraining straps were lying like sleeping snakes across that table. As with every other wall in our prison, the walls of that room were white and clean, clean, clean.

“Take off your jumpsuit,” said the soldier-who-looked-like-me.

“Where’s the large man?” I asked.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the soldier-who-looked-like-me.

“The large Indian man,” I said. “The one with the birthmark on his face.”

“Strip,” one of the white soldiers said as he pushed me to the floor. I looked up into the face of the soldier-who-looked-like-me. He pushed the muzzle of his rifle against my narrow chest.

“Stop looking at me,” he said.

“Where’s the large man?” I asked again.

“Get on your feet,” he said as he looked down at me along the barrel of his rifle. I wondered if he was going to murder me. I dreamed of a hero’s grave, a white cross, the proper flag.

I stood and stripped. It was cold, so cold that I could barely breathe, though it had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature of that room.

“Get on the table,” said one of the white soldiers. I looked at him but could see only the blue of his eyes.

I tried to walk but my knees buckled. I sank to the floor.

“Get your ass up,” said blue eyes.

I could feel the blood flooding through my veins. At that moment, I was convinced that most of my blood, the plasma, the red and white blood cells, was so close to the surface that it would take only a few moments to completely empty me.

“Stop,” I said or thought I said. It did not matter.

The soldiers forced me onto the table and strapped me facedown with the black restraining belts. One belt on each ankle, one across the back of each knee, another across my lower back, another across my neck and shoulders, and one for each wrist. The only movement I could make was turning my head from side to side. I could see the silver belts circling the soldiers’ waists. I could see their hands tightly gripping their rifles.

“Put the mask on,” said blue eyes.

A black leather hood was pulled over my head. I was blind. I thrashed and struggled against the mask and the restraining belts, against the laughter of the soldiers.

“Please,” I said. “Stop.”

One of the soldiers slapped my bare behind and then all three of them walked out of the room. I heard the door click shut. I heard the lock turn. I heard the sound of their boots as they walked away. I heard everything.

When you are blind, there is no such thing as silence. In the dark and din, I waited. I waited. I whispered my name over and over, and whispered the names of my parents, and whispered the names of all of the trees and plants growing on my reservation, and whispered the color of my family’s home and the color of the sky at three in the morning when I walked outside to use the outhouse, and whispered the date of my birth, and whispered the dates of my mother’s birth and my father’s birth, and the birth date of my twin brother, who died in the womb and was little more than a handful of flesh when he fell out of my mother’s body. I was worried that my fear might take away all of my memories, as it had already eradicated the memory of my parents’ faces, but as I listened to my own voice, as it traveled from one corner to the next, as it slid along the clean white walls and bounced off the clean white floors, I knew that place was being filled with my rumors, my myths, my stories. With my voice, I suddenly believed, I could explode the walls of that room and escape.

So I lifted my head and shouted my name.

My voice pushed against the walls.

The walls did not move.

I lifted my head and shouted my name.

My voice pushed against the walls.

The walls did not move.

Exhausted, I lay my head against the cold metal table and waited.

I waited.

I waited until the door opened again and I heard the soft squeak of leather shoes, four shoes meaning two people, and the cacophonous rattle of four wheels. The two people pushed a cart, a table, something into the room until it bumped against my table.

“Excuse me, young Mr. Lot,” said a male voice, accented, British perhaps or Australian, cultured, refined, as smooth as the clean white walls of the room.

“Don’t hurt me,” I said.

“I will certainly do my best not to,” said the British or Australian man. I felt his cold hands touching my arms, my legs, pushing and prodding.