"We're going to die," I said.
"Probably," Rowdy said.
So we walked over to the tree and looked up. It was way tall. I got dizzy.
"You first," Rowdy said.
I spit on my hands, rubbed them together, and reached up for the first branch. I pulled myself up to the next branch. And then the next and the next and the next. Rowdy followed me.
Branch by branch, Rowdy and I climbed toward the top of the tree, to the bottom of the
sky.
Near the top, the branches got thinner and thinner. I wondered if they'd support our
weight. I kept expecting one of them to snap and send me plummeting to my death.
But it didn't happen.
The branches would not break.
Rowdy and I climbed and climbed and climbed. We made it to the top. Well, almost to
the top. Even Rowdy was too scared to step on the thinnest branches. So we made it within ten feet of the top. Not the summit. But close enough to call it the summit.
We clung tightly to the tree as it swung in the breeze.
I was scared, sure, terrified… but it was also fun, you know?
We were more than one hundred feet in the air. From our vantage point, we could see for miles. We could see from one end of the reservation to the other. We could see our entire world.
And our entire world, at that moment, was green and golden and perfect.
"Wow," I said.
"It's pretty," Rowdy said. "I've never seen anything so pretty."
It was the only time I'd ever heard him talk like that.
We stayed in the top of the tree for an hour or two. We didn't want to leave. I thought maybe we'd stay up there and die. I thought maybe two hundred years later, scientists would find two boy skeletons stuck in the top of that tree.
But Rowdy broke the spell.
He farted. A greasy one. A greasy, smelly one that sounded like it was half solid.
"Jeez," I said. "I think you just killed the tree."
We laughed.
And then we climbed down.
I don't know if anybody else has ever climbed that tree. I look at it now, years later, and I can't believe we did it.
And I can't believe I survived my first year at Reardan.
After the last day of school ended, I didn't do much. It was summer. I wasn't supposed to do anything. I mostly sat in my room and read comics.
I missed my white friends and white teachers and my translucent semi-girlfriend.
Ah, Penelope!
I hoped she was thinking about me.
I'd already written her three love letters. I hoped she'd write me back.
Gordy wanted to come to the rez and stay with us for a week or two. How crazy was that?
And Roger, heading to Eastern Washington University on a football scholarship, had
willed his basketball uniform to me.
"You're going to be a star," he said.
I felt hopeful and silly about the future.
And then, yesterday, I was sitting in the living room, watching some nature show about
honeybees, when there was a knock on the door.
"Come in!" I shouted.
And Rowdy walked inside.
"Wow," I said.
"Yeah," he said.
We'd always been such scintillating conversationalists.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I'm bored," he said.
"The last time I saw you, you tried to punch me," I said.
"I missed."
"I thought you were going to break my nose."
"I wanted to break your nose."
"You know," I said. "It's probably not the best thing in the world to do, punching a hydro in the skull."
"Ah, shoot," he said. "I couldn't give you any more brain damage than you already got.
And besides, didn't I give you one concussion already?"
"Yep, and three stitches in my forehead."
"Hey, man, I had nothing to do with those stitches. I only do concussions."
I laughed.
He laughed.
"I thought you hated me," I said.
"I do," he said. "But I'm bored."
"So what?"
"So you want to maybe shoot some hoops?"
For a second, I thought about saying no. I thought about telling him to bite my ass. I
thought about making him apologize. But I couldn't. He was never going to change.
"Let's go," I said.
We walked over to the courts behind the high school.
Two old hoops with chain nets.
We just shot lazy jumpers for a few minutes. We didn't talk. Didn't need to talk. We were basketball twins.
Of course, Rowdy got hot, hit fifteen or twenty in a row, and I rebounded and kept
passing the ball to him.
Then I got hot, hit twenty-one in a row, and Rowdy rebounded for me.
"You want to go one-on-one?" Rowdy asked.
"Yeah."
"You've never beaten me one-on-one," he said. "You pussy."
"Yeah, that's going to change."
"Not today," he said.
"Maybe not today," I said. "But someday."
"Your ball," he said and passed it to me.
I spun the rock in my hands.
"Where you going to school next year?" I asked.
"Where do you think, dumb-ass? Right here, where I've always been."
"You could come to Reardan with me."
"You already asked me that once."
"Yeah, but I asked you a long time ago. Before everything happened. Before we knew stuff. So I'm asking you again. Come to Reardan with me."
Rowdy breathed deeply. For a second, I thought he was going to cry. Really. I expected
him to cry. But he didn't.
"You know, I was reading this book," he said.
"Wow, you were reading a book!" I said, mock-surprised.
"Eat me," he said.
We laughed.
"So, anyway," he said. "I was reading this book about old-time Indians, about how we used to be nomadic."
"Yeah," I said.
"So I looked up nomadic in the dictionary, and it means people who move around, who keep moving, in search of food and water and grazing land."
"That sounds about right."
"Well, the thing is, I don't think Indians are nomadic anymore. Most Indians, anyway."
"No, we're not," I said.
"I'm not nomadic," Rowdy said. "Hardly anybody on this rez is nomadic. Except for you.
You're the nomadic one."
"Whatever."
"No, I'm serious. I always knew you were going to leave. I always knew you were going to leave us behind and travel the world. I had this dream about you a few months ago. You were standing on the Great Wall of China. You looked happy. And I was happy for you."
Rowdy didn't cry. But I did.
"You're an old-time nomad," Rowdy said. "You're going to keep moving all over the world in search of food and water and grazing land. That's pretty cool."
I could barely talk.
"Thank you," I said.
"Yeah," Rowdy said. "Just make sure you send me post cards, you asshole."
"From everywhere," I said.
I would always love Rowdy. And I would always miss him, too. Just as I would always
love and miss my grandmother, my big sister, and Eugene.
Just as I would always love and miss my reservation and my tribe.
I hoped and prayed that they would someday forgive me for leaving them.
I hoped and prayed that I would someday forgive myself for leaving them.
"Ah, man," Rowdy said. "Stop crying."
"Will we still know each other when we're old men?" I asked.
"Who knows anything?" Rowdy asked.
Then he threw me the ball.
"Now quit your blubbering," he said. "And play ball."
I wiped my tears away, dribbled once, twice, and pulled up for a jumper.
Rowdy and I played one-on-one for hours. We played until dark. We played until the
streetlights lit up the court. We played until the bats swooped down at our heads. We played until the moon was huge and golden and perfect in the dark sky.