“Where’s the Tipi Pole Tavern?” Junior asked.
“Over there,” the woman answered and waved her arm in a random sort of way.
“Can you be more specific?” Victor asked, irritated.
The woman looked at her granddaughter, who was about five years old with her hair already gray in places. Wise old kid. The grandmother and granddaughter actually looked like sisters, except the granddaughter was forty years younger and two feet shorter.
“It’s over there, not too far,” the granddaughter answered and waved her arm in a general sort of direction.
“Jeez,” Victor said. “How do we get there?”
“Why you want to know?” the woman and granddaughter asked.
“Because we’re playing over there tonight,” Junior said.
“Playing what?” the granddaughter asked.
“Music,” Victor said. “We’re a band.”
“What’s your name?” the grandmother asked.
“Coyote Springs,” Thomas said.
The grandmother walked close to the blue van, picked up her granddaughter so she could see inside, and looked the band over closely.
“Who’s the lead singer?” the granddaughter asked.
“I am,” Thomas said.
“Well, then,” the granddaughter said directly to Thomas. “Just go back down the way you came, take a left at the first intersection after a big tree stump painted red. Drive down that road for a while and then take the first right you see. About three mailboxes down that way is the Tipi Pole Tavern.”
“Thanks, cousin,” Thomas said, and the blue van pulled back onto the highway and made its way to the tavern.
“Jesus,” Junior said. “Ain’t that the way it always is? They only want to talk to the lead singer. All they want to know is the lead singer. Lead singer this. Lead singer that.”
“Enit,” Victor said. “Where the fuck would Mick Jagger be without Keith Richards?”
“He’d be at the Tipi Pole Tavern,” Thomas said, “already done with the sound check.”
The blue van pulled up to the tavern only two hours later than scheduled. A little old Flathead man sat alone by the front door. The tavern was closed, but that old man wanted to be the first customer when it opened.
“Ya-hey,” the old Indian man called out.
“Ya-hey,” the blue van called back.
“Are you the band?”
“Yeah, we’re Coyote Springs.”
“Little bit early, enit?”
“We thought we was two hours late by real time. At least an hour late by Indian time.”
“Shit, people out here work on double Indian time. You could’ve showed up tomorrow and been okay. What kind of music you play, anyway?”
“Little bit of everything. Whole bunch of the blues.”
“Reservation blues, huh?”
“That’s it, uncle.”
Coyote Springs climbed out of the blue van and sat with the old man. They offered him cigarettes, candy, dirty jokes. Then it was dark.
“About time,” the Flathead said.
“Time for what?”
The old man pointed down the road and smiled as dozens of headlights appeared.
“Shit,” Victor said. “It’s either your whole damn tribe or the cavalry.”
“Well,” the old man said, “we heard you was an all-Indian band, and we wanted to hear you play. I guess even some of the sober ones are coming. Hope the bar has enough Diet Pepsi.”
The owner of the bar pulled up. He took a minute getting out of his pickup because of his enormous cowboy hat and dinner-plate belt buckle engraved with the name JIMMY. The cowboy hat and belt buckle walked up to Coyote Springs and the old man.
“You must be Coyote Springs,” he said.
“Yeah, we are. You must be Jimmy.”
“Nah,” the man said and looked down at his belt buckle. “I ain’t Jimmy. Not really.”
“Well,” Thomas said, confused. “We really are Coyote Springs.”
“The one and only,” Victor said.
“So,” the bar owner asked, “who’s the lead singer?”
Thomas raised his hand.
“Let’s go, then.”
The tavern soon filled with Indians of all sizes, shapes, and colors. They all waited to hear Coyote Springs for the first time.
“Look at all those Skins,” Victor said. “They must think it’s Bingo night.”
“Are you ready?” Thomas asked.
“Ready to he fucking immortal,” Victor said. His fifteen-year-old green silk shirt and matching polyester pants glowed in the spotlight.
Coyote Springs counted one, two, three, then fell into their first paid chord together, off rhythm. They stopped, counted again, rose into that first chord again, then the second, third, and in a move that stunned the crowd and instantly propelled them past nearly every rock band in history, played a fourth chord and nearly a fifth. Four and a half chords, and then Thomas Builds-the-Fire stepped up to the microphone to sing.
3. Indian Boy Love Song
I SAW YOU WALKING with those dark legs of yours
I felt you walking through my sweatlodge doors
And don’t you wonder when you’re there in the dark
Just hear the drummer beating time with your heart
I hear you talking about your Trail of Tears
If you feel the need I can help calm all your fears
I’ll be here watching and I’ll wait for your call
I’ll catch you sweetheart when you feel you may fall
chorus:
And I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey, ya-hey
I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey
And I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey, ya-hey
I want to say hey, ya-hey, ya-hey, ya-hey
I can see you playing stickgame all night long
I can see you smiling when you’re singing the song
I’ll be here guessing which hand holds the bone
I hope I choose right so I won’t be alone
(repeat chorus until end)
Chess and Checkers Warm Water, Flathead Indian sisters, pushed their way to the front of the crowd in the Tipi Pole Tavern. Both wanted to get a closer look at Coyote Springs. The audience cheered like it was a real concert rather than a low-paying gig in a reservation bar. A few Flatheads even raised lighters, flicked their Bics, and singed the braids of their friends. For safety, Chess and Checkers tucked their braids under cowboy hats. Chess wore glasses.
“They’re not too good,” Checkers said. A few inches taller than her older sister, Checkers was the most beautiful Indian woman on the Flathead Reservation, and quite possibly in all of Indian country. All the young Flathead men called her Little Miss Native American, but she still refused to listen to their courting songs. She liked the old Indian men and their traditional songs. All the other Flathead women respected Checkers’s selective ear, even as they chased the young Indian boys themselves.
“Yeah, they ain’t too good at all,” Chess said of Coyote Springs. “But that lead singer is kind of cute, enit?”
“Cute enough.”
Chess and Checkers danced in front of the stage. Chess had fancydanced when she was a teenager and shook to Three Dog Night on her childhood radio. She danced well in both the Indian and white ways. Not as obviously pretty as her sister, Chess, living up to her nickname, planned all of her moves in advance.
“God,” Chess said, “that drummer is awful.”
Junior and Victor started the evening sober but drank all the free booze offered. Thomas stayed sober but could not stop his bandmates, so they all sounded worse with each beer. Junior nearly fell off his stool when he swung and missed the snare drum completely. Victor strummed an open chord continually because he forgot how to play any other. Still, it was only the sisters who noticed that the band fell apart, because most of the audience drank more than Coyote Springs. All the other sober Flatheads had already left.