LAKOTA PROUD TO THE END
“I’ve been driving in my Indian Car
Hear the pound of the wheel drumming in my brain
My dash is dusty, my plates are expired
Please Mr. Officer, let me explain
I got to make it to a Pow-Wow tonight
I’ll be singing 49, down by the riverside
Looking for a sugar, riding in my Indian Car . . .” --- "NDN Kars" by Keith Secola
I don’t care what anybody says, it wasn’t me that started the fight at the Medicine Bow Reservation that ended up being the top story on the KBWS radio station evening news that night. (Must have been a slow news day.) Was I there? Guilty. Was I in the fight? Again, guilty. But did I start it? Oh, heck no! I mean, yeesh, come on! Look at me! I’m five-foot-nothing, for crying out loud. I’d have to either be a total nutjob (I'm not) or have a freaken death wish (I don't) to go to the rez and start up with those Lakota heifers all by myself.
Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Okay, time to focus. Take it from the top . . . . .
By now I’m pretty sure everybody knows I have Lakota Sioux blood. I’ve never tried to hide it or keep it a secret. It’s something I’m proud of. Not like my sister Missy. I’m not saying she isn’t proud of that part of our heritage. She is, in her own way. She just chooses not to call attention to it.
Anyway, I’m proud of my Indian blood. But that wasn’t always the case. I took a lot of abuse because of it at school. Names like ‘breed’ and 'wagon burner' and ‘Custer Killer’ were thrown at me, usually during a swim meet to throw me off my game. Or in the hallway by my locker, sometimes followed by a shove or ‘accidental’ bump. See, I was doubly cursed. Not only did I grow up in a small South Dakota town where everybody knew everything about everybody else, but I was also the shortest girl in my class. So I guess you could say I was a pretty easy target.
“Laurie, it’s Mom. Pick up. You there? Guess not. Okay. I hate leaving messages like this but you’re always busy when I call. Sweetie, I have bad news. Your Uncle Ephrem died this morning. Call me when you get a chance. Love you.”
Wow. I never saw that coming. Ephrem Twelvetrees was my Dad’s best friend. They ran together growing up, served in the Army together, laughed together, cried together, raised hell together, got locked up together, you get the picture.
A memory just popped into my head, crystal clear like it just happened yesterday and not fifteen years ago. It was the day my Dad died. That was the first time I ever saw a man cry. Ephrem was slumped in the back of his banged-up clunky old red 1978 Dodge truck, a beer in his hand, head down, eyes closed, making no sound at all. But we could see his shoulders shaking. My sister Missy was six and wanted to get a blanket so he would stop shivering. The grownups told her to just let him be. It’s funny, the things that come back to you at a time like this, things you thought you stored away in your memory forever.
We weren’t blood related. But we called him “Uncle Ephrem” or “Uncle Eph”, Missy and me. He was like a second father to us after Dad died. Uncle Eph was always around, helping Mom when something needed fixing, teaching Missy not to be afraid of riding a two-wheeler, picking me up in that old truck at six in the morning for a swim meet. At first I was mortified and slunk down low in the cab so no one would see me in that clickety knockety shaking candy-apple-red rattle-trap with the tape deck blasting and the empty beer cans rolling around in the back. You could hear him coming a good four or five blocks away. But I grew to love it after a while. With the windows rolled down and hair flying, laughing and whooping like in days of old, I felt like a true Lakota.
Now I wish I could just go for one more ride with him.
“I got to make it to a Pow-Wow tonight
I’ll be singing 49, down by the riverside
Looking for a sugar, riding in my Indian Car . . .”
I had a feeling there would probably be trouble when I got to the rez and saw who was loafing around in front of the General Store. Ramona Littlebear and her posse. To say that there’s “bad blood” between Ramona and me is an understatement, like saying the Sioux and the Crow had minor disagreements from time to time. She hates me and the feeling is mutual. Been that way as long as I can remember. And it’s not just me. When it comes to “whites”, Ramona has a chip on her shoulder bigger than Lincoln’s nose on Mt. Rushmore.
I debated whether or not to stop at the store, I wasn’t looking for a confrontation with Ramona or to make a scene. I was there to pay my respects to Uncle Eph and visit old Auntie Bedelia. That’s all. In the end, I decided to chance it and stop. It’s become like a custom or tradition for me to buy Auntie Bedelia a sack of homemade elk and chokecherry pemmican and a bag full of the black licorice she loves so much. And tradition, like Auntie Bedelia always says, is almost as important to the Lakota as life itself.
I know Ramona spotted me when I got out of my blue Buick Rendezvous and went into the store. I kept one eye on my car the whole time I was inside. No telling what Ramona would do if she had a mind to stirring up shit.
“I was wondering if you would come, Laurie Nightbreeze,” said Peter Tailfeather, using my Indian name, as he sacked my purchases. “Made the pemmican fresh last Saturday I did, be sure to tell Auntie Bedelia. That old woman is mighty particular, ennit.”
I laughed and promised to pass the information on to Auntie for him.
“Old woman got maybe four teeth in her mouth, don’t see how she can eat it no how.”
“She sucks it like a lollipop, Peter, till it’s soft. Then she gums it down.”
I waved goodbye and walked over to my car. As I opened the door, a voice behind me piped up, “Well, look who it is. Here to do a little slumming?”
I put the small sack on the seat and turned to face Ramona, who stood maybe a foot away from me, hands on her hips, legs spread, her full upper lip curled. Her cold black eyes, dead eyes, like a shark’s eyes, bore through me and I could feel the hate just oozing from her thick body. If you ever look up the word ‘bully’ in a dictionary, there will be a picture of Ramona along with the definition. She was flanked, like always, by the Yellowhawk twins Antoinette and Bernadette.
Ramona is about five inches taller than me and outweighs me by a good thirty pounds. Even though the sun was shining and it was an unseasonably warm late spring day, she was wearing her usual attire: gray long-sleeve pocket (for her smokes) tee covered by an unbuttoned red-and-black flannel work shirt, camo pants and moccasins. Me, I was casually dressed in my black Muledeer Rainbow halter top, jeans and flip-flops.
“Hi, cousin,” I said, forcing a friendly smile, trying to show Ramona that I came in peace.
“I’m not your fucken cousin,” she snarled through her teeth. “Just because some white piece of shit ancestor of yours fucked a dumb shit-for-brains Sioux squaw doesn’t make you Lakota.”
This earned snickers from the Yellowhawk twins. That didn’t surprise me. If Ramona told one of them to stick her head up the other one’s ass she wouldn’t even stop and ask how far.
I tried to stay calm but I was boiling inside. My fists clenched tightly but I struggled to keep the smile on my face.
“Ramona, I’m not looking for trouble. I’m here to pay my respects to Ephrem Twelvetrees and visit Auntie Bedelia. That’s all.”
She moved closer and leaned forward so our faces were just inches apart. I got a whiff of beer and cigarettes as she jabbed me hard in the chest with her finger and said, “You get the fuck off my reserve, bitch. You don’t belong here. We don’t want your kind.”
Her hard finger jabs pushed my back against my car and I smacked her hand away and glared up at her. Her black eyes suddenly glittered and I knew I was in for a hell of a fight. But just then Peter Tailfeather stuck his head out the door and hollered, “You girls get out of here and leave her be now! I’ll call the tribal police, see if I don’t!”
Never taking her eyes off me, Ramona hissed out of the corner of her mouth, “You mind your own business, old man! This ain’t none of your concern, ennit!”
“You in front of my store, Ramona Littlebear! And that make it my concern. Now go along with you or I make that call!”
Antoinette Yellowhawk reached out and grabbed Ramona’s arm. “We better go, Ramona. I don’t want no trouble with the police. Me and Bernadette already on probation now. And you too.”
Bernadette agreed with her sister, “It ain’t worth it, ennit?”
There was a pause that seemed like forever while Ramona thought this over. Finally, she stepped back away from me, and you could see how much it killed her to have to do that.
She spat at my foot. “I’ll see you again real soon . . . ‘cousin’.”
Peter watched them walk away. “You okay, Nightbreeze?”
I managed a small nod. Leaned against the car to keep from shaking, waiting for my racing heart to get back to normal, knowing I probably just dodged a major bullet, thanks to him.
“I’m okay, Peter. Thank you.”
“Got my T-Bird in the glove box, I ain’t got no spare
Got a feather from an eagle, I ain’t got no care
The road is empty in my bottle of desire
Daylight is breaking, the sun touches fire . . . “
“It’s all that damn Custer’s fault!”
I tried to hide a smile as I watched Auntie Bedelia knead the dough for her world-famous frybread. Okay, maybe not world famous, but it sure was the best damn frybread on the rez, probably even in the whole state. Ninety-two years old, Auntie Bedelia is, and she still makes her frybread every single day. She gives it to the kids as a reward for not skipping school, to the basketball team after they win a game or sometimes even for just showing up to play. She once made a batch for Tom Running Elk for staying sober a whole month. But she took it back when he let slip that he sneaked a cold one after doing roadwork on the Interstate one real hot July afternoon. Now Tom Running Elk is hard as nails, don’t take shit from nobody, been in and out of jail so many times he lost count. But that mean Indian almost started crying like a two year-old when Auntie Bedelia snatched away his frybread! The next month Tom made sure he didn’t slip, not once. Drank nothing but Orange Nehi the whole time. And got his frybread from Auntie Bedelia.
It’s hard to put in words just how good it is. All I can say is, you take one bite, you think you died and went to heaven. If we could get all the world leaders who are so anxious to declare war on each other to sit down to a plate of Auntie Bedelia’s frybread, there would really be peace on earth. All the time, not just at Christmas.
Anyway, I was in her kitchen, my run-in with Ramona practically forgotten, drinking a Dr. Pepper watching her work the dough to get all the bumps and lumps out. Auntie Bedelia prided herself on the smoothness of her frybread.
“Why is it Custer’s fault, Auntie?”
Everything bad that had ever happened to Indians was Custer’s fault, according to Auntie Bedelia. This time it was the cost of the can of Crisco at the general store. She placed the piece of dough over the back of her hand and started stretching it out before putting it in the hot Crisco in the pan. Then she turned to me.
“Everybody knows when Custer left for the Little Big Horn, he stopped by the Bureau of Indian Affairs office and told them, ‘Don’t do anything until I get back. Well, he never got back. And they haven’t done a damn thing since.”
“I keep telling you, Auntie, you’re welcome to come out and live with me.”
She laughed as she sucked on her pemmican. “This my home, ennit. My world. I belong here. What would I do out there, Nightbreeze?
“There’s plenty of room, Auntie, my boss says it’s okay and I know the kids would love having you around. You could tell them all the old stories you used to tell Missy and me.”
She grinned as she pulled the golden brown frybread out of the sizzling pan. “Maybe next year. We’ll see.”
“Okay, Auntie. Next year. I’m holding you to that promise now.”
“Of course you can hold me to that. When was the last time an Indian broke a promise?”
“I got to make another Pow-Wow tonight
I’ll be singing 49, down by the riverside
Looking for a sugar, riding in my Indian Car . . .”
I left my car at Auntie’s and walked the mile or so to Uncle Ephrem’s old wooden one-story house. He refused to ever have the outside painted, said a coat of paint would rob the wood of its dignity and its identity.
“No matter how hard you try to change a thing or a person, Nightbreeze, they will always remain what or who they are. A coat of paint will never hide the fact that this weather-beaten old piece of wood was once a proud tree. And nothing will ever take away the truth that you are Lakota.”
“Only part Lakota, Uncle Eph.”
“That’s enough.” He tapped his chest. “It’s in here. That’s all you need to be true Lakota.”
An Appaloosa roan quietly munched on the tall prairie grass on the side of Uncle Eph’s house. I put the fresh bouquet of pasque flowers I had picked in an old bottle full of water by his front door. Then I knelt and placed a circle of small rocks around it.
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved . . .”
No.
“Heyah heyah hey hey heyah heyahhh . . .”
Yeah. That’s more like it.
The horse moved nearer, curious and unafraid, as I closed my eyes, chanted softly and remembered the man who loved me like a daughter.
“My car is dented, the radiator steams
One headlight don’t work, the radio can scream
I got a sticker, it says “Indian Power”
I stuck it on my bumper, that’s what holds my car together . . .”
On the way back to Auntie’s, I stopped to watch a bunch of teenage boys playing basketball on the gravel and tarmac lot by the tribal meetinghouse. Rain, snow or sunshine, day or night, these boys played their never-ending game. The old ball clanged off the metal backboard before it fell through the net-less hoop. I stood by the fence watching the shirtless boys move in an intense rhythm like a tribal dance, their long shiny black hair flying free, their lean lithe muscular bodies covered in a thin sheen of perspiration.
Suddenly a heavy hand grabbed my hair from behind and smashed my face hard against the chain link fence.
“WhaFUCK!” I cried out as my cheek pressed into the fence.
Still holding the back of my head, Ramona leaned in close and hissed in my ear, “I told you we don’t want your kind here, bitch. You don’t listen, this is what you get.”
With that, she punched me hard in the kidney with her free hand as the twins giggled their approval. The hoop boys didn’t stop playing, but their game slowed down somewhat. Ramona put all her weight behind the punch, my legs buckled, and I would have sunk to my knees if she hadn’t had my face wedged into the fence. I grabbed the fence to keep my balance and kicked off my flip-flop before slamming my heel down hard into Ramona’s moccasin-covered foot. She let out a grunt of surprise and backed away a step, allowing me to turn around to face her and move away from the fence.
I knew I was no match for her in size and strength. I had to play it smart, use my speed and quickness to wear her down, attack and move, hit and run. If she ever got me down and ended up on top of me, well, I hope the paramedics are in shouting distance.
Her face was twisted in an ugly grimace and it dawned on me this was her attempt at a smile.
“I been waiting for this a long long time,” she snarled as she lunged at me, shrieking at the top of her lungs, her arms outstretched, her meaty fingers clutching and wiggling as they bore down near my throat. At the last second I scooted quickly to the side, pivoted and kicked her hard in her fleshy ass as she lumbered past.
“Uh oh,” Antoinette said in a tsk-tsk tone. “You shouldn’t’a did that, no.”
Bernadette agreed, “That only gonna make her mad, ennit.”
Ramona caught herself on the fence and turned around slowly, her nostrils flaring, her breath hissing through her clenched teeth. I backed up a few steps and stood there, tense, bobbing on the balls of my feet, fists clenched, watching her every move, waiting. I didn’t have to wait long. Kicking up a storm of dirt, she pushed off the fence with another ear-piercing blood-curdling war whoop (I guess she wants everyone in the state of South Dakota to know she’s fighting me. The hoop boys actually stopped playing, I guess Ramona’s yelling made it hard to concentrate on their dribbling.) and charged me again. She was madly throwing wild looping flailing roundhouse punches at me in a blind fury. My heart was racing but I managed to keep my head figuratively AND literally – if she connected she woulda knocked my head clean off. I ducked and dodged the punches and landed a few of my own. Unfortunately they had very little effect. Ramona is big and thick but she’s not soft. She shrugged off my attack, grabbed my top before I could move away, and flung me into the fence with all her might. I flew backwards, crashing into the chain links. Ramona quickly followed me and, as the momentum sent me back toward her, I was met by her upraised knee as she drove it hard into my belly, knocking the wind out of me.
I let out a strangled gasp as I doubled over and collapsed to my knees, clutching my belly, trying to breathe. Her eyes blazing, Ramona circled me slowly before delivering a blistering kick to my ribs that dropped me into the dirt in a heap on my side.
Bernadette gave a know-it-all nod. “Told ya. You made her mad.”
Ramona stood over me as I lay, curled on my side, my knees tucked. Her fists were clenched tight, her body tense, trembling in fury and rage.
“GET UP, YOU BITCH! YOU THINK YOU A FUCKEN LAKOTA?! YOU’RE NOTHING!”
She emphasized her rant with hard kicks to my side, back, legs and ass. I cried out when each kick landed. My eyes were filled with tears of pain and anger as I tried to gasp in some air and curl up even tighter.
(Maybe if I just lay here, she’ll stop and leave me alone . . . )
“GET THE FUCK UP, YOU WORTHLESS FUCKEN PIECE OF SHIT!”
“Leave her be, Ramona. She had enough,” Antoinette said.
Ramona reached down and got a tight grip on my hair.
She grinned over to the twins and said, “Oh, no. I’m not finished yet with the Lakota wanna-be.”
She used my hair to pull me up to my knees and drag me away from the fence. I stumbled along behind her, my palms slapping into the dirt and gravel as we moved.
(A memory. High school. Driving back from Spearfish with Uncle Eph after a swim meet.
“Why so quiet, Nightbreeze?”
“I lost, Uncle Eph. Lost bad.”
“I saw. So?”
“It wasn’t fair. I never had a chance. She was so much better than me. She's been swimming for like forever.”
“Did you give up?”
“No, but – “
“You done your best?”
“Yeah. What good it did.”
“Then you won, Nightbreeze. Maybe she beat you. Maybe she better than you, bigger, more experience. But you kept trying. You kept fighting. You did the best you could do. That’s what counts, ennit. That’s what matters.”)
I scooped up a handful of dirt and gravel in my right hand and waited for my chance. Ramona, thinking she had the fight well in control, relaxed, dropping her guard for just a second. That’s all the time I needed. Catching her totally by surprise, I reared up and hurled the dirt right in her face. She let out a screech as her hands flew to her face, wiping and rubbing her blinking eyes frantically. I managed to pull myself up to my feet even though my body was wracked in pain from her heavy kicks.
“Payback time,” I hissed as I sent my foot out hard into her left knee. Her leg buckled at impact and she dropped down to her knees moaning like a wounded buffalo. Not wasting a moment, I was on her, grabbing her long black hair, pulling her head down into my waiting knee, rattling her teeth when it connected with her chin. Ramona was still blinded by the dirt sputtering curses of rage as she clutched wildly at me with her flailing hands. I was readying myself to finish her off with another knee and never saw her right hand drop low. I never saw the uppercut that slammed into my crotch but, oh god, I sure felt it. As I doubled over crying openly now, she followed up by driving her forehead hard into my breasts pitching me backwards, leaving me sprawled out in the dirt flat on my back.
Ramona was crying too, partly from pain, mostly from anger. Her vision was coming back, unlucky for me, and she wasted no time scrambling over, dropping down and straddling me. She bounced down on my belly as I writhed and squirmed weakly under her weight. She pinned my arms under her knees and began to slap and backhand me across the face over and over. I can’t tell you how many times she hit me. I doubt if she could either. They just kept coming, over and over, more and more. I could feel my face burning from the stinging pain.
She laughed like this was the funniest thing she had ever seen. “Hey, girls, look how red her face is now! Maybe she’s a true Lakota after all!”
(A true Lakota.)
“I guess little white girl learned her lesson now, huh.”
With that, Ramona rolled off me and slowly lumbered to her feet, wincing as she put weight down on her sore knee. She brushed the dust and dirt from her clothes, a satisfied triumphant grin on her sweaty face.
(“That’s what counts, ennit. That’s what matters, Nightbreeze. It’s not always about winning. A true Lakota never gives up. A true Lakota will get back up no matter how many times she’s knocked down.”)
Ramona must have realized by the astonished looks on the twins’ faces that something was up.
Well, not just something.
SomeONE was up too.
Me.
It took every ounce of strength and will left in my body but I staggered to my feet and stood there, facing her, on shaky legs . . . but standing. I saw the grin leave her face as she turned to face me. I saw a brief second of something . . . doubt? fear? . . . flash in her black eyes before they went dead again. There was a slight metallic taste of blood from my cut tongue in my mouth. I spat the blood into the dirt by my bare feet as I balled my fists defiantly at the bigger girl.
Shaking her head in disbelief, Ramona moved toward me. As she got close I raised my right arm, it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and threw a weak looping punch at her that she easily dodged. Her answering punch was short, crisp and true. She buried her fist into my belly, putting all her weight behind it. I staggered back into the fence and slid down it, crumpling into the dust again.
Ramona stood there, watching me, breathing hard. The Yellowhawks moved forward, flanking her as usual. All eyes were on me. Maybe even the hoop boys too, but I didn’t have the strength to turn my head to see for sure. But I did manage to grip the fence with my right hand. My whole body was shaking, my brain was screaming at me to stay down, stay down, stay down. But a voice deep in my soul was urging me to try. To stand up.
And I knew that’s what I had to do.
Crying, tears streaming down my dusty swollen red face, I used that damn fence to pull myself up again. It seemed like it took forever but I made it. Finally. I even willed myself to let go of the fence so Ramona could see I was still standing.
On my own.
Our eyes met. Both our bodies seemed to relax at the exact same moment. I saw her head nod slightly. Something seemed to have changed. She had a look on her face I had never seen before. Acceptance? Probably not. Respect? Maybe. Understanding? Possibly. Friendship? Doubt it. No sense in wishing for miracles.
Anyway, she nodded again and said quietly, “I’m thirsty. I could use a beer.”
With that, she turned and walked away, followed by the Yellowhawk twins. I breathed a gasping sigh of relief and grabbed the fence again for support. Completely spent and exhausted, I sat down against the fence, brought my knees up and rested my head on them. I could hear the thump thump of the basketball again in the distance.
After a minute or so, I became aware of a shadow over me blocking the bright sun.
“You done good,” a voice said.
I slowly raised my head and opened my eyes. The Yellowhawks were standing in front of me. Ramona was nowhere in sight.
“You got nothing to be ashamed of,” Bernadette continued.
“Nothing,” Antoinette agreed.
She and her sister reached down and gently helped me up to my feet. “Come on. We better get you back to your Auntie Bedelia’s. Somebody called the tribal police.”
“I – I can make it on my own.”
This brought a smile to their faces. Not a mocking one. A real honest genuine smile.
“We know you can, cousin. We know you can.”
Cousin?
Bernadette added, “We’re just coming along for some of her awesome frybread.”
“We’re on a circuit of an Indian dream
We don’t get old, we just get younger
When we’re flying down the highway
Riding in our Indian Cars . . .”
By the time the tribal police showed up, we were long gone. The boys shooting hoops laughed and said it must have been aliens or ancient spirits or something. Then things got all crazy when the KBWS truck showed up. Either they picked it up over the police radio or someone called and left an anonymous tip as a joke. Well, Susie Sixkiller, the cute KBWS reporter, started interviewing the tribal police about the riot that wasn’t a riot and they were getting madder by the minute. The hoop boys repeated their story about ancient spirits and one of them pinched Susie in the butt. She called him a name that really shouldn’t be said on the radio and left in a cloud of dust.
Back at Auntie Bedelia’s, she cleaned and bandaged my war wounds and insisted I spend the night. I told her I was fine to drive but Antoinette said the tribal police would be staked out on the main road checking any car leaving the rez for someone who looked like they were in a war.
Bernadette agreed. “By tomorrow they’ll get bored and forget all about it. Better you stay the night, cousin, ennit.”
Cousin. There it is again. They accept me. I belong.
Driving home the next day, the windows open, my radio blasting, I could sense Uncle Eph sitting next to me, his head out the open window, letting out a long high-pitched war whoop. Of course, when I turned to look he wasn’t there.
But he WAS there. In a way.
And I AM a true Lakota. That’s something no one can ever take away from me. My name is Laurie Nightbreeze. I’m Lakota. And I’m proud of it.
“We’re on a circuit of an Indian dream
We don’t get old, we just get younger
When we’re flying down the highway
Riding in our Indian Cars . . .”
Rest In Peace, Uncle Ray (1959-2012) Taŋyáŋ ománi yo/ye / po/pe
