Winter Counts(15)
In high school, Marie had tried to fit in with the super-Natives, the tradish kids who decreed who was sufficiently indigenous and who wasn’t. Those girls froze her out, which wounded Marie deeply. I guess they resented that her mom was Osage, not Lakota, or her family’s money, or maybe they just didn’t like her. She became friends with a Navajo girl, Velma, who’d somehow ended up in South Dakota. Velma was a big girl with a roaring laugh and a don’t-fuck-with-me personality. They’d drive down to Denver to shop at the thrift stores, hit the punk record shop, and go to all-ages concerts. They pasted loads of stickers on their school lockers: Wax Trax Records, Misfits, Black Flag. None of this endeared them to the popular kids, but Velma and Marie claimed they didn’t give a shit what the other kids thought.
But I knew that Marie did care. She joined every environmental and indigenous club at school, becoming president of most of them by sheer willpower. She formed teams for the hand games and Lakota language competitions in Rapid City, holding monthly Indian taco sales to pay for the travel. She graduated near the top of the class and was accepted to Dartmouth College, where her sister had gone, but she’d refused to go to school out of state, instead insisting on attending our local tribal college, Sinte Gleska University, where she could study Lakota language and culture, her qualifications as a super-Indian then beyond question. Her parents had fought her on that, long and hard, but Marie prevailed, graduating in just three years. Her father got her a job working for the tribe in the family services office, where she helped kids and elders. She’d started at the bottom, but as usual worked harder than everyone and got promoted to the commodity food program, where she had to take orders from people she didn’t like or respect.
In a sad twist of fate, her boss was one of the girls who’d been nasty to her in high school, Delia Kills in Water. A full-blood Lakota, Delia had been a cheerleader in high school, the popular girl who knew everybody but talked behind everyone’s back. They’d hated each other then, and the passage of time hadn’t smoothed things over. If anything, their rivalry had gotten worse. Last I’d heard, Marie was still working there.
I pushed aside my memories and suddenly became aware of my own physical condition. I hadn’t showered in at least two days, hadn’t brushed my teeth, and was wearing clothes that probably smelled like a locker room.
“Listen, I haven’t had a chance to clean up—”
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t know if you’d eaten anything, so I brought this.” She pulled a sub sandwich out of her bag. Black Forest ham and cheese. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, and I gratefully took it. I looked over to see if she had food for herself.
“Please, go ahead,” she said. “I already ate.”
I started eating, unable to wait.
“I came because I wanted to talk to you. In person.” She put her hand on my shoulder for a moment. I realized how long it had been since she’d touched me. I put the rest of the hoagie away and used a napkin to clean myself up as best I could.
“Thanks for coming,” I said. “And for the lunch.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled, which was nice. There hadn’t been many smiles during our last few months together. “So, have you had a chance to think about my offer?”
“You mean, you coming along to Denver?”
She nodded.
“Sorry, not going to happen. I’ll handle this on my own.”
The smile went away. “What makes you think you’ll be able to find Rick there? Do you know anything about his deals, or where he stays?”
“I found some info at his trailer. I’ll get him, don’t worry about that.”
Her face darkened. “For Christ’s sake, Virgil, Denver isn’t the rez. It’s a big city with millions of people. It’s not like you can just hang out at the corner store and eventually run into him.”
“I suppose you know where he is?” I tried to keep my voice low.
“As a matter of fact, I do. I have a pretty good idea, and if he’s not there, then I know where he’s likely to go.”
“Can you call him? On his cell phone, find out where he is?”
“No,” she said, “he uses those disposable phones, the ones you buy and throw away. Don’t know his number anymore.”
I was afraid to ask this question, but I had no choice. “How is it you know so much about him?”
Marie turned away and looked out the window. The harsh glare of the fluorescent lights illuminated her skin as she stared out at the rolling hills of the reservation.
“After I left you, I was pretty angry. Angry at you for being such an asshole. Angry at myself for not being able to help you. You were messed up, and there was nothing I could do. I saw you were hurting, but you wouldn’t talk to me. You wouldn’t say a word for days. I’m not like you. I need people, I need somebody to tell my stuff to. So I met Rick at the Depot one night. After you and I broke up. He talked to me, listened to me. I knew his reputation, but I just needed somebody. It’s my life, I don’t have to defend my choices.”
Now my anger was back and in full bloom. “So I’m an asshole and a hired thug and won’t talk, but you take up with a drug dealer? The way I see it, you’re just as bad as him if you were with him.”