Then I see this huge Indian guy, like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Indian warriors, walking toward me. He gets closer and closer. He’s fierce. His face and body are war-painted in ten different colors, he’s carrying this epic tomahawk, and I get scared. I wonder if he’s magic. Maybe he knows I’m not really this old-time Indian boy. Maybe he can feel that I’m just borrowing this body.
I want to run but I’m frozen. Where would I run to anyway? When you’re trying to escape from Indians, it’s probably best if you don’t start your escape from inside their huge camp.
But just when I think the warrior guy is going to chop off my head, he leans over, picks me up, and hugs me tightly. And I realize this is my father.
My father.
Well, okay, he’s the father of the kid whose body I’m inside at the moment. But as long as I’m this kid, this man is my father. And since I never knew my real Indian father, I feel like I’m going to explode.
I want to hug this guy forever and forever.
I scream out Daddy! But nothing comes out of my mouth. Huh. What happened? I try to scream Daddy! again. Nothing.
My father sets me down and then takes my hand and leads me through the camp. I keep trying to scream Daddy! but nothing happens.
I reach up, touch my throat, and feel a huge fleshy knot. It’s on my voice box. I don’t know if I was attacked by a person or by a disease, but my voice has been taken away.
Damn.
But I feel okay. This guy loves me. He’s singing to me. Who knew that old-time Indian braves serenaded their sons? It’s beautiful. I’m in love.
I wonder if this is Heaven. Maybe God sent me to Hell first. Maybe he made me watch Art kill Junior because I needed to learn from my mistakes.
Maybe I learned something.
Maybe God forgave me and sent me to Heaven.
Maybe this Indian camp is Heaven — a stinky Heaven.
And, okay, maybe God didn’t forgive me completely, so he put me in the body of a kid without a voice. But that’s okay. I can live without a voice as long as this man, my new father, keeps loving me like he does.
And then I am hit with more love lightning. I bet my new father is carrying me to our family tepee, where my new mother and my new brothers and sisters are waiting for me. I have a family. A real family. A true family.
I am happy for the first time in my life.
Eight
HAPPINESS NEVER LASTS LONG, does it?
As my new father leads me through camp, I realize this cannot be Heaven.
All these old-time Indians are doomed. They’re going to die of disease. And they’ll be slaughtered by U.S. Cavalry soldiers. They’ll be packed into train cars and shipped off to reservations. And they’ll starve in winter camps near iced-over rivers.
The children are going to be kidnapped and sent off to boarding schools. Their hair will be cut short and they will be beaten for speaking their tribal languages. They’ll be beaten for dancing and singing the old-time Indian songs.
All of them are going to start drinking booze. And their children will drink booze. And their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will drink booze. And one of those great-grandchildren will grow up to be my real father, the one who decided that drinking booze was more important than being my father. The one who abandoned my mother and me.
That’s what is going to happen to all these old-time Indians. That’s what’s going to happen to me. This is what Justice was always talking about. Old-time Indians were so beautiful, and they were destroyed.
It makes me angry. I want to spit and kick and punch and slap. I want to cry and sing, but I cannot use my voice.
And then my father stops to talk to a funny-looking Indian guy. I listen to them talk Indian. I don’t know exactly what they’re saying, but I do know they’re arguing.
This new Indian guy is short, barely taller than I am. And he’s very pale, almost white-skinned. In fact, he’s got patches of skin peeling off his back, chest, and arms. This Indian is so white he gets sunburned.
His hair isn’t black at all. Nope, it’s light brown, and some strands of it are almost blond. He’s got a single eagle feather tied into his braid and white lightning bolts painted on his body.
Oh, my God! This pale little dude is Crazy Horse, the strange man of the Oglalas!
Yes, this is the famous mystical Indian warrior who killed hundreds of white people. This guy was the greatest warrior ever.
I am looking at Crazy Horse, the magical one. Bullets couldn’t hit him. He could never be photographed. He was a holy ghost, the Sioux Jesus. Well, sort of like Jesus. I mean, Jesus didn’t kill anybody, you know? So Crazy Horse was like Jesus, if Jesus had been a warrior.
I am standing right next to him. And his eyes are gold-colored.
I think the greatest warrior in Sioux history is a half-breed mystery. I think this legendary killer of white men is half white, like me.
I look around again at the Indian camp. Thousands of tepees. Tens of thousands of Indians. Hot summer day. Dusty hills surrounding us. The skinny river close by.
Crazy Horse is here. And that older Indian dude standing over there by the horses? He sure looks like Sitting Bull does in the history-book pictorials.
I realize this skinny river is the Little Bighorn, and I have been transported back to June 1876.
I grab my father’s leg and shake him.
I scream, Daddy! Daddy! This is the camp at the Little Bighorn! Custer is coming! Custer is coming! He’s bringing the Seventh Cavalry and they’re coming to kill us! But of course I cannot actually say anything because I don’t have a working voice box.
My father stares at me. I don’t need to speak his language to know he wants me to shut up, even if I’m not really making any noise.
And then I remember that the Indians at Little Bighorn already know that Custer is — was — coming. In fact, they set up this camp so that Custer would come for them. It’s a trap.
George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry are marching here. There are only about seven hundred white soldiers riding with Custer. And waiting here in the camp for him are three or four or five thousand Indian warriors. Custer is marching toward his slaughter.
Custer is a crazy egomaniac who thinks he is going to be president of the United States. Custer is one of the top two or three dumb asses in American history.
I can’t believe I’m here. This is the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This is Custer’s Last Stand. I wonder when it’s going to start.
And then I hear gunfire in the distance. We all hear that gunfire. The Indian warriors race for their weapons and their horses.
Thousands of hot and angry Indian dudes ride out to meet Custer and his doomed soldiers.
Nine
THEY NAMED THE BATTLE all wrong.
They shouldn’t have called it Custer’s Last Stand. Oh, it was his last stand. He died there. Here, I mean. But Custer wasn’t important. He was easily replaced. There were plenty of other soldiers who were smarter and better at killing Indians.
Little Bighorn was the last real battle of the Indian Wars. After that, the Indians gave up. So Custer’s Last Stand was really the Indians’ last stand. But, oh, on that day, this day, the Indians are crazy good. And crazy ready.
I’m not stupid. I don’t want to get shot again. I’m only twelve or thirteen years old, and I’m small. So I stay in camp and listen to the sounds of battle.
I can’t see anything, but I know what’s happening. I read about this fight. I watched a TV show about it on the History Channel.