John never danced. He barely talked. Indian women often approached him because he was a big, handsome buck with long, black hair. The women sat in dark corners and watched John.
“You see that big one over there? He looks like he just got off a horse.”
“Oh, yeah, enit? I think he’s Navajo. You know I’d comb his hair every night.”
The Indian women would laugh. They were always laughing. John wanted to laugh. He knew his laughter would make him feel more like a real Indian. He listened closely to the laughter, tried to memorize it. A booming belly laugh from a fat Lummi Indian. A low chuckle from Jim the Colville. A poke-to-the-rib-cage giggle from Lillian, a Makah. All kinds of laughter. All kinds of Indians. John would practice at home, stretch his mouth into those strange shapes called smiles, and laugh loudly enough to make his neighbors nervous.
John sat at the bar and laughed. Nobody paid much attention. It was not unusual for an Indian to sit alone at a bar and laugh.
“Hey.” A woman’s voice. John ignored it.
“Hey.” The woman again. John closed his eyes.
“Hey,” said the woman as she touched John’s shoulder. Frightened, he whirled in his seat. The Indian woman stepped back. John studied her for any signs of danger. She was tall and dark, her black hair cut into a stylish bob. Beautiful and confident. She wore a red shirt and blue jeans.
“You want to dance?” she asked.
John shook his head, turned back to his soda.
“Come on,” she said. “Shock me.”
She took John’s hand and led him onto the dance floor. He did not recognize the song, but it was too fast.
“My name is Fawn. I’m Crow,” she said, dancing a circle around John. She spun, shook her hips and hair. She put her hands around John’s waist and danced in closer.
“Who do you love?” she asked. It was more a step in her dance than a question or invitation. John raised his fist in the air the way that Marie had taught him. Fawn looked at his fist, at the ceiling. She laughed, raised her fist to the ceiling. Other dancers watched this happening. They raised their fists to the ceiling. Nobody knew why they were doing this. It just happened. One song blended smoothly into another, then another. John raised both fists. He pumped them into the air. One white guy was singing on the jukebox, then another, and a third. Song after song. Indians dropped quarters into the jukebox, punched the buttons, and waited for their songs to play. There were so many quarters in the machine, so many songs requested, that the jukebox would still be playing a few hours after closing time.
Fawn and John danced. Jealous Indian men watched closely. Fawn was a beautiful woman who never went home with anyone, but most of the men liked to assume they would be the first. John was taking that opportunity away from them. Ty, the Coeur d’Alene, Reggie, the blue-eyed Spokane, and Harley, the deaf Colville, watched and simmered.
“Who’s he think he is?” signed Harley.
“Sitting Bull,” signed Ty.
“No,” said Reggie. “He’s just bullshit.”
Reggie had been pursuing Fawn, without success, for a couple years.
“Hey,” Fawn shouted to John over the music. “I seen you in here before, enit?”
John nodded his head. He wondered if she was listening to the same music he heard.
“Yeah, I thought so,” she said. “You’re that shy one. What’s your name?”
“John.”
“What tribe you are?”
“Navajo,” said John.
“Hey, hey, a sheep eater!” Fawn laughed and slapped John playfully on the cheek. He touched his face. “Kind of tall for a Navajo, ain’t you?”
“I don’t eat sheep,” said John.
“I was kidding,” said Fawn, amused by John’s seriousness.
“I don’t eat sheep,” John said again.
Fawn laughed, hugged him close for a brief moment, then danced a little further away. He could not understand why this woman thought he ate sheep.
“I don’t eat sheep,” John said for the third time. The sheep were singing in his ear. The voices, which had descended to whispers for a while, began to grow in volume again. Greg Allman was singing somewhere in the distance. But he sounded more and more like Father Duncan. He was singing to John, trying to convince him that Fawn was the devil.
John turned away from Fawn, from the noise and music. She reached for him, but John shrugged her off. He walked off the dance floor and pushed past Reggie, spilling Reggie’s Pepsi. Reggie cussed and wiped at his suddenly wet and sticky shirt, but John just stormed out of the bar. Reggie, Ty, and Harley followed him. John staggered into the parking lot, hands pressed against his ears, trying to quiet the noise. There were a dozen cars parked under the dim lights. A steady stream of cars flowing up and down Aurora Avenue. A few Indians in the parking lot. Inside, most danced to Deep Purple and “Smoke on the Water.” John fell against a blue van.
“Hey!” shouted Reggie. “That’s my rig!”
Reggie did not own a car, but he was looking for a reason to fight. John looked at Reggie, Ty, and Harley. He recognized Harley, the deaf one. He’d seen him in the bar many times before. John had always been fascinated by Harley’s signing, his fingers forming words and sentences almost without effort. John stepped away from the van and stared at Harley’s hands. Harley gave him the finger.
“You were dancing with my woman,” said Reggie.
“Fawn?” asked John.
“Yeah, she’s my woman.”
Reggie stepped closer. He was much shorter than John and sixty pounds lighter, but Reggie was a veteran bar fighter backed by two friends.
“I don’t want you near my woman,” said Reggie. He poked a finger into John’s chest. John recoiled at the touch. Reggie assumed he was afraid. He shoved John back into the van.
“Oh, man,” said Reggie, pretending that John had dented the door panel of the van he did not own. “Look what you did to my van. Can you believe that, Ty?”
Ty shook his head.
“Can you believe what he did to my van, Harley?” signed Reggie.
Harley shook his head.
“I’ve seen you around, you know,” Reggie said to John. Reggie pointed a finger at him. “You’re Navajo, enit?”
John could barely hear Reggie now. The noise in his head was deafening. He wanted to tell these Indians everything. Maybe they could help him. He wanted to tell them he was not Navajo. He had no idea what kind of Indian he was. These Indian men, these warriors, would know how to be Indian. John was lost, trying to sign, twisting his hands into shapes that approximated words.
“Look at that,” said Reggie. “Now he’s making fun of Harley.”
Harley closed his hands into fists.
“Man, you Navajos think you own the world, don’t you?” asked Reggie. “Well, this ain’t Navajo land, cousin. Ain’t no sheep around here. You’re in the land of the salmon people.” Reggie slapped his chest. “I’m a salmon man. Ty and Harley here are salmon men. What do you think of that?”
John covered his ears with his hands and fell to his knees. Tears, whimpers, head bobbing in time with the music in his head.
“Look at you,” said Reggie. “You Navajos are supposed to be the toughest Indians in the world and look at you now. You ain’t tough. You ain’t nothing. Your people would be ashamed of you.”
John whimpered. Reggie, Ty, and Harley laughed, confident, though somewhat surprised by their easy victory. Reggie leaned down beside John to whisper in his ear.
“Hey, Sheep Boy,” whispered Reggie. “You don’t belong here. You ain’t Indian. If you don’t eat salmon, you ain’t shit.”