Winter Counts(12)
“Not really,” she said. “He taught me a few things, but said it would be better to wait until my moon cycle ends.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t know if you heard, but I went back to college for a year. Black Hills State. Needed to take biochem and some labs—Sinte doesn’t offer those. It was weird to be back, but I needed those classes. Required for med school.”
“Medical school? Didn’t know you were still thinking about that.”
“Yeah, I finally caved in and took the MCATs. My mom and dad convinced me. And I’m getting pretty tired of my job. Been there too long.”
Marie’s parents had been pushing for her to become a doctor for years, decades even. As I recalled, they wanted her to be like her sister, who had some fancy job in finance out in California.
“Hey, that’s great,” I said. “Being a doctor. Healing the sick and all. So, which, uh, med school will you go to?”
“Not sure. It’s pretty tough to get accepted these days. You got to have solid grades and board scores. My numbers are good, but you never know. It’s all right if I don’t get in. Just sent off my application to USD.”
“In Vermillion?”
“For the first two years of school, then you go to Rapid City for rotations.”
“What are those?”
“You learn specialties, like pediatrics, internal medicine.”
“Sounds serious. You really going to do this?”
“Too early to say. I’m a long way from being admitted. Word is that USD looks down on tribal colleges. I also sent an app to the med school in New Mexico.”
“Good luck. Really.”
“Thanks.” I heard her take a breath. “So, what do you think about a yuwipi for Nathan? I could set it up, no problem.”
I paused for a moment while I thought about how to respond nicely. “You know how I feel about all that. It’s fine for some folks, but I got my own way of doing things.”
“Virgil, it’s time. Stop this tough guy routine. No more Indian vigilante posing. Nathan needs you—you’re his only family. What happens if you take on someone tougher than you?”
No conversations for a long, long time, and already she felt entitled again to tell me what to do. “No one’s gonna take me down. And shit, if I don’t do anything to help people, the assholes win. The gangs and drug dealers. That’s how I’ll help Nathan.”
She sighed. “The way to stop drugs and gangs is to teach children the Lakota way. Our values and traditions.”
“Right. How am I supposed to stop Rick Crow from bringing heroin to the rez with some Indian ceremony?”
There was utter silence, then she said, “Rick Crow? Are you sure?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. After Marie and I had split, I’d heard a rumor that she’d taken up with Rick Crow for a while, but hadn’t believed it until now. Shit.
“Think so. I found heroin stuff at his trailer. And people told me he’s the one bringing the drugs here.” No need to tell Marie it was her father who’d ratted Rick out. “I hear he’s in Denver now, getting more dope. As soon as Nathan is up, I’m going down to Colorado to put an end to this.”
I guess I’d made my decision.
She cleared her throat. I braced myself for more lecturing about the evils of violence.
“If you go after Rick Crow, I’m coming with you.”
6
Hours passed while I waited for Nathan to wake up. I’d tried to stop my mind from going to dark places, but images of my nephew as brain-damaged crowded into my head. I was proud of him, his intelligence and his curiosity and his fierce defense of music I hated; it was breaking my heart and spirit to imagine that these parts of him might be gone for good. Then I started to obsess over things Nathan had done that might have tipped me off to hard drug use. Had he been acting strangely? Maybe I should have searched his backpack and phone. I gave up trying to stop this parade of images and just sat with my fear and guilt.
The window in the hospital room was murky, like it hadn’t been washed in years, but I could still glimpse the russet hills and rolling prairie of the reservation outside in the dying light. Back in the time before Columbus, there were only Indians here, no skyscrapers, no automobiles, no streets. Of course, we didn’t use the words Indian or Native American then; we were just people. We didn’t know we were supposedly drunks or lazy or savages. I wondered what it was like to live without that weight on your shoulders, the weight of the murdered ancestors, the stolen land, the abused children, the burden every Native person carries.
We were told in movies and books that Indians had a sacred relationship with the land, that we worshipped and nurtured it. But staring at Nathan, I didn’t feel any mystical bond with the rez. I hated our shitty unpaved roads and our falling-down houses and the snarling packs of dogs that roamed freely in the streets and alleys. But most of all, I hated that kids like Nathan—good kids, decent kids—got involved with drugs and crime and gangs, because there was nothing for them to do here. No after-school jobs, no clubs, no tennis lessons. Every month in the Lakota Times newspaper there was an obituary for another teen suicide, another family in the Burned Thigh Nation who’d had their heart taken away from them. In the old days, the eyapaha was the town crier, the person who would meet incoming warriors after a battle, ask them what happened so they wouldn’t have to speak of their own glories, then tell the people the news. Now the eyapaha, our local newspaper, announced losses and harms too often, victories and triumphs too rarely.