Reservation Blues

  “Where are those Pepsis?” Luke asked his daughters.

  “Outside,” Chess said and knew they were in trouble. The three rushed outside to the snowbank and discovered the Pepsis had exploded from the cold. The snow was stained brown with Pepsi. Luke grabbed Checkers by the arm and shook her violently.

  “Goddamn it,” he shouted, “you’ve wasted it all!”

  He shook her harder, then let her go and ran away. The sisters fell to their knees in the snow and wept.

  “I’m sorry,” Checkers said. “The Pepsi’s gone. It’s all my fault.”

  “No, it’s not,” Chess said, scooped up a handful of Pepsi-stained snow, and held it in front of her sister. “Not everything’s your fault.”

  “What?” Checkers asked.

  “Look,” Chess said. The snow was saturated with Pepsi. Chess bit off a mouthful, tasted the cold, sweet, and dark. Checkers buried both hands in the snowbank, away from the broken glass, and shoved handful after handful of snow into her mouth. The sisters drank that snow and Pepsi until their hands and mouths were sticky and frozen. Soon, they went into the house to build a fire and wait for their father’s return. Checkers and Chess lay down together by the stove and held onto each other. They held on.

  As he slept in the Warm Waters’ house, Thomas dreamed about television and hunger. In his dream, he sat, all hungry and lonely, in his house and wanted more. He turned on his little black-and-white television to watch white people live. White people owned everything: food, houses, clothes, children. Television constantly reminded Thomas of all he never owned.

  For hours, Thomas searched the television for evidence of Indians, clicked the remote control until his hands ached. Once on channel four, he watched three cowboys string telegraph wire across the Great Plains until confronted by the entire Sioux Nation, all on horseback.

  We come in friendship, the cowboys said to the Indians.

  In Thomas’s dream, the Indians argued among themselves, whooped like Indians always do in movies and dreams, waved their bows and arrows wildly. Three Indian warriors dismounted and grabbed hold of the telegraph wire.

  We come in friendship, the cowboys said, cranked the generator, and electrocuted the three Indians. Those three Indians danced crazily, unable to release the wire, and the rest of the Sioux Nation rode off in a superstitious panic.

  In his dream, Thomas watched it all happen on his television until he suddenly returned to the summer when Victor and Junior killed snakes by draping them over an electric fence.

  Watch this, Victor said as he dropped a foot-long water snake onto the fence. Thomas nearly choked on the smell.

  The electric fence belonged to a white family that had homesteaded on the reservation a hundred years ago and never left. All the Spokanes liked them because the white family owned a huge herd of cattle and gave away free beef. The homesteaders built the fence to keep the cows away from the forests, but the cows ignored the pine trees anyway. The fence burned on and on.

  Victor and Junior draped a hundred snakes over the fence that summer and dragged Thomas there once or twice a week.

  Come on, Victor said to Thomas and put him in yet another headlock. You’re coming with us.

  Ya-hey, Junior said. Don’t you think he’s had enough?

  I’ll tell you when he’s had enough, Victor said.

  Victor and Junior carried Thomas to the fence, where they kept a rattlesnake in a plastic barrel.

  Look, Victor said, and Thomas saw the snake.

  Where’d you get that? he asked, frightened.

  From your momma’s panties, Victor said.

  Thomas strained against Victor and Junior, but they pushed him down and held his face close to the barrel.

  Grab the fence, Victor said. Or grab the snake.

  No, Thomas said.

  Wait a second, Junior said, scared as Thomas.

  Fence or snake, Victor said.

  Thomas looked down at the rattler, which remained still. No sound, no rattles shaking. Then he reached out as if to grab the fence but grabbed the rattlesnake instead and threw it at Victor.

  Oh, shit, shit, shit, Victor said and jumped away from the dead snake.

  Junior and Thomas laughed.

  You think that’s funny? Victor asked as he picked up the rattler. You think that’s funny?

  Yeah, Junior and Thomas said.

  Victor shoved the snake in Thomas’s face while Junior jumped back.

  Eat this, Victor said and pushed the snake against Thomas’s mouth. Thomas tripped, fell to the ground, and Victor shoved that snake at him until the game grew old.

  Jesus, Junior said. He’s had enough.

  Victor draped the dead snake across the electric fence. It danced and danced, fell off the wire, squirmed its way back to life, and started to rattle.

  Oh, shit, Victor said and ran away. Junior and Thomas ran after him, kept running. Soon, in his dream, Victor and Junior ran into a large empty room. Thomas followed them. The three picked up musical instruments and started to practice.

  You know, Thomas said between songs. I hope we don’t make it.

  Make what? Junior asked.

  Make it big. Have a hit song and all that, Thomas said.

  Why the hell not? Victor asked.

  I don’t know. Maybe we don’t deserve it. Maybe we should have something better in mind. Maybe something bad is going to happen to us if we don’t have something better on our minds.

  Like what? Victor asked.

  Well, Thomas said, what if we get rich and eat too much? We’ll all get fat and disgusting.

  Shit, Victor said. I’m not Elvis.

  Ya-hey, Junior said, did you know Elvis was a cavalry scout in a previous life?

  In his dream, Thomas strummed the guitar and pleaded with Victor.

  Really, Thomas said. I’m scared to be famous.

  Well, Junior said, I think we should worry about learning to play our instruments better first.

  Yeah, Victor said. And we don’t have nothing to worry about if we keep you as the lead singer anyway.

  Yeah, Junior said. And besides, the only famous Indians are dead chiefs and long-distance runners.

  In his dream, Thomas looked at his bandmates. He wondered what they really felt. He wondered what those snakes felt on the electric fence. Thomas held his guitar closely and felt its power, then noticed that he was holding Robert Johnson’s guitar. In the dream, he hit a chord, felt a sharp pain in his wrists, but the music tasted like good food.

  “What you doing with my guitar?” Victor shouted and ripped Thomas from his dream. Thomas lay on the couch in the Warm Waters’ house with Robert Johnson’s guitar beside him. It’s Victor’s guitar now, Thomas corrected himself.

  “I didn’t want it to get cold,” Thomas mumbled, although he had no idea how the guitar ended up in the house, and handed it over to Victor.

  “Well, thanks for nothing,” Victor said. “It was hotter than hell outside.”

  “Oh, man,” Junior said as he stumbled into the house. “I got a hangover.”

  “There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Thomas said.

  Junior made his way to the kitchen just as Chess and Checkers emerged from their rooms.

  “What’s going on?” Checkers asked.

  “What’s for breakfast?” Victor asked.

  “Your ass on a plate,” Chess said. “Fix it yourself.”

  “Oh, a rowdy one,” Victor said. “I like them rowdy.”

  Victor opened the refrigerator, pulled out the ingredients for a cheese and vegetable omelet, and cooked up enough for everybody. They were all shocked by Victor’s culinary skills.

  “Where’d you learn to cook?” Chess asked. “Prison?”

  “My father used to cook,” Victor said.

  “Your stepfather?” Junior asked.

  “Yeah, only thing he was good for.”

  Coyote Springs sat down to breakfast with Chess and Checkers. The omelets tasted great. Victor wanted to say something
profound and humorous about eggs but couldn’t think of anything, so he farted instead.

  “You’re disgusting,” Chess said, picked up her plate, and walked outside to eat. Thomas gave Victor the old Spokane Indian evil eye and followed her.

  Checkers finished her breakfast, washed her plate and fork in the sink, and then returned to her bedroom. Junior and Victor watched her the entire time.

  “She’s real pretty, enit?” Junior asked after Checkers closed her bedroom door.

  “A great ass,” Victor said.

  “You don’t have a chance!” Checkers shouted from her room. Victor and Junior ate the rest of their omelets in silence.

  Outside, Chess and Thomas talked between bites.

  “You know,” Thomas said, “Coyote Springs is better than we sounded last night.”

  “I hope so,” Chess said.

  “No, really. Victor and Junior were all drunk.”

  “Do you drink?”

  “No,” Thomas said, “I don’t drink.”

  Chess smiled. When Indian women begin the search for an Indian man, they carry a huge list of qualifications. He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. He has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice. But as the screwed-up Indian men stagger through their lives, Indian women are forced to amend their list of qualifications. Eventually, Indian men need only to have their own teeth to get snagged.

  Chess suffered through an entire tribe of Indian boyfriends. Roscoe, the champion fancydancer, who passed out in full regalia during the Arlee Powwow and was stripped naked during the night. Bobby, the beautiful urban Indian, transferred to the reservation to work for the BIA, who then left Chess for a white third-grade teacher at the Tribal School. Joseph, the journalist, who wrote a powerful story on the white-owned liquor stores camped on reservation borders and then drank himself into cirrhosis. Carl, the buck from Browning, who stashed away a kid or two on every reservation in the state, until his friends called him The Father of Our Country.

  “Really?” Chess asked Thomas again to make sure. Maybe she had snagged the only sober storyteller in the world. “You mean, you’ve never drank. Not even when you were little?”

  “No,” Thomas said. “I read books.”

  “Do you have any kids?” Chess asked.

  Thomas hid his face.

  “Oh,” Chess said, disappointed. “You do have kids. How many?”

  She loved kids but placed a limit on the number of children and ex-wives she allowed her potential snags to claim.

  “No, no,” Thomas said. “I don’t have any kids. You just surprised me. I’m not used to personal questions. Nobody ever asked me any personal questions before.”

  “You ever been married?”

  “No, have you?”

  “No. Any girlfriends?”

  “Not really,” Thomas said.

  “Ya-hey!” Victor shouted from the kitchen. “I think Junior is going to throw up.”

  “You know,” Chess said, “that Victor is a jerk. And his clothes. He looks like he got in a fight with the seventies and got his ass kicked.”

  “Well,” Thomas said, “he doesn’t have any money. That’s why he’s in the band. That’s why we’re all in the band, you know?”

  “I was wondering why you put up with him,” Chess said. She and Checkers fought fires for the BIA during the summers, traveling all over the country, and struggled to make the money last through winter.

  “Only problem is we’re not making any money.”

  “Really? Even a bad band can make money, enit?”

  “I hope so. But we’re pretty good, really.”

  “I believe you, really,” Chess said. “That Junior is nice, enit? He’s good-looking, but sort of goofy, though. He sure lets Victor boss him around, enit?”

  “Yeah, it’s always been that way.”

  “Too bad,” Chess said. “Junior could be a major snag.”

  “You mean,” Thomas said, “that he’s in the way?”

  “No,” Chess said. “I mean he could be a good catch for an Indian woman. A snag, you know?”

  “Oh,” Thomas said, still clueless, so he changed the subject. “I really liked singing with you last night. You’re really good.”

  “Yeah, I had a good time, too.”

  “You know,” Thomas said, “I have an idea. How would you and Checkers like to join the band?”

  “I don’t know,” Chess said. “Do we have to dress like Victor?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I don’t know,” she said again. “We have to hang around here during the summer. In case we get called to fight a fire.”

  “Listen. You can sing great, and I’m sure Checkers can sing, too. We need you. Something tells me we need you.”

  “I don’t think so, Thomas. I mean, I like you a lot, but Checkers and I live here. We’re from here. We shouldn’t leave.”

  “You have to think about it,” Thomas said. “Give us a chance.”

  Chess shook her head.

  “Wait!” Thomas shouted. “Victor. Junior. Get out here. Let’s practice some.”

  Victor and Junior strolled outside, followed by Checkers.

  “What’s all the shouting about?” Checkers asked.

  “Thomas wants us to join Coyote Springs,” Chess said to her sister.

  “No fucking way,” Victor said. “We’re a warrior band.”

  “Well,” Thomas said. “We’re a democracy. How about we vote on it?”

  “Okay, go for it,” Victor said, confident that Junior hated the idea, too.

  “All those in favor, raise your hand,” Thomas said and held his right hand up. Junior raised his hand and smiled weakly at Victor.

  “That does it,” Thomas said. “The women are in.”

  “No way,” Victor said again.

  “You agreed to vote,” Thomas said.

  “Hey,” Chess said. “I said we don’t want to be in the band.”

  Checkers never liked her sister to speak for her, but she agreed with Chess. Forest fires paid the bills.

  “Wait,” Thomas pleaded with everybody. “How about we play some? Then you can decide if you want to join.”

  Junior ran to the van, pulled out a hand drum, and beat out a rhythm. He surprised the sisters with his sudden talent. Thomas sang the first bar of a jazzed-up Carpenters song, while Victor stood sullenly with his guitar at his side. He wanted to resist all of it, but the guitar moved in his hands, whispered his name. Victor closed his eyes and found himself in a dark place.

  Don’t play for them. Play for me, said a strange voice.

  Victor opened his eyes and hit the first chord hard. Junior and Thomas let him play alone; Chess and Checkers stepped back. Victor grew extra fingers that roared up and down the fingerboard. He bent strings at impossible angles and hit a note so pure that the guitar sparked. The sparks jumped from the guitar to a sapling and started a fire. It was a good thing that Chess and Checkers had extensive firefighting experience, and they hurriedly doused the flames, but Victor continued to toss sparks. His hair stood on end, his shirt pitted with burn holes, and his hands blistered.

  Victor raised his right arm high above the reservation and windmilled the last chord, which echoed for hours. He dropped the guitar, staggered back a few steps, then bowed.

  “Jeez,” Chess and Checkers said after a long while. “Where do we sign up?”

  Thomas, Junior, and Victor camped on the Flathead Reservation for a week after the Warm Waters joined the band, living meagerly on their shared money. The boys stayed at the sisters’ house, although Chess and Checkers objected to the smell, but all agreed the band needed to practice with its new members. Thomas even drove down into Missoula to buy a thirdhand synthesizer for Chess and Checkers to share.

  “How much that cost you?” Victor asked him.

  “Five bucks and a funny story,” Thomas told him.

  Coyote Springs rehearsed for hours in the Warm Waters
’ backyard. At first, they sounded awful, dissonant, discordant. Victor only occasionally replicated the stunning performance that convinced the sisters to join the band. Junior broke so many drumsticks that he switched to pine branches instead. Chess and Checkers sang better than Thomas, which made the distinction between backup and lead singers less sure. Thomas decided to share the lead. Still, Coyote Springs melded faster than any garage band in history.

  “We should call that Tipi Pole Tavern guy,” Victor said. “I think we’re ready to rock.”

  The owner of the Tipi Pole Tavern listened to the newest incarnation of Coyote Springs and agreed to hire them again. Coyote Springs packed their gear into the blue van and headed for the tavern.

  “Ladies and braves,” the bartender announced. “It’s a great honor to welcome back that rocking band from the Spokane Indian Reservation, Coyote Springs.”

  The crowd cheered.

  “And it’s a special honor to introduce the two newest members of the band,” the bartender continued. “Two of our own Flathead Indians, Chess and Checkers Warm Water.”

  Coyote Springs walked on stage with confidence. Thomas smiled as he stepped to the microphone.

  “Hello, Arlee,” Thomas shouted, and the place went crazy. Victor counted off, and the band launched into its first song, a cover of an old KISS tune.

  The sisters joined in on the vocals after a bit; Chess pounded the keyboard hard, like her fingers were tiny hammers. She wanted to play it right but loved the noise of it all. Checkers pulled the ties from her hair and sang unbraided. Chess picked the ties up from the floor and somehow braided her hair with one hand. Both threw a way ya hi yo into the chorus of the song.

  Coyote Springs created a tribal music that scared and excited the white people in the audience. That music might have chased away the pilgrims five hundred years ago. But if they were forced, Indians would have adopted the ancestors of a few whites, like Janis Joplin’s great-great-great-great-grandparents, and let them stay in the Americas.

  The audience reached for Coyote Springs with brown and white hands that begged for more music, hope, and joy. Coyote Springs felt powerful, fell in love with the power, and courted it. Victor stood on the edge of the stage to play his guitar. Despite his clothes, the Indian and white women in the crowd screamed for him and waited outside after the show.