The Road to Omaha: A Novel

  “The what, my dear?”

  “Stills, Mr. Pinkus. The most intoxicating drink ever devised by civilized or uncivilized man. The Mohawks say they invented it, but we refined it and made it twenty times more potent. It’s totally banned on the reservation, but if anyone could find those old stills and put them to use it would be that bastard, Johnny Calfnose!”

  “I’d say at this moment he’s totally legitimate, both in birth and in timing,” said Devereaux.

  “So that’s how you—we—people swindled the Western settlers,” said the Hawk.

  “That’s irrelevant, General.”

  “Yes, but interesting—”

  “Let’s go in,” said Cyrus, his voice now commanding. “That kind of juice has two effects—oblivion and the sudden recognition of remembered responsibilities which brings on panic, which we don’t need. I’ll open the door.” He did so and added. “You first, General.”

  “Quite correct, Colonel.”

  MacKenzie Hawkins strode into the large mahogany-paneled room, his feathers flying, his supporting contingent following in dignity, when suddenly the blaring, deafening sounds of a frenzied Indian war chant, drums and voices, filled the sacrosanct enclosure. Up on the semicircular dais, the previously stern-faced judges reacted in panic, as to a man and a woman, they fell below the surface, one by one emerging, wild-eyed and terrified, but relieved that no violence had ensued. Mouths gaped at the feathered monster below them; they did not rise, but remained, their faces in shock.

  “What the hell have you done?” whispered Sam behind the Hawk.

  “Little trick I learned in Hollywood,” answered MacKenzie under his breath. “A soundtrack heightens a climax when the words don’t do it. I’ve got a triple-volume, high-impedance tape recorder in my pocket.”

  “Shut the fucking thing off!”

  “I will just as soon as those quivering pumpkins recognize that Thunder Head, chief of the Wopotamis, is in their presence and his tribal position demands respect.”

  And once again, one by one, the stunned justices of the Supreme Court rose slowly off their knees—no one, however, above the chest. The music diminished and then stopped. The justices looked questioningly at one another and returned to their chairs.

  “Hear me, you wise elders of this nation’s justice!” roared Thunder Head, his voice echoing off the walls. “Your people have been caught in an insidious conspiracy to defraud us of our rights of proprietorship, to take from us our fields and our mountains and our rivers that provide us with the necessities of life and survival. You have confined us to the ghettos of barren forests and unwatered ground from which nothing grows but the most unwanted weeds. Was this not our nation? Our nation in which a thousand tribes existed both in peace and war as you did with us, and as you did with the Spanish, then the French and the English, and then finally among yourselves? Have we no more privileges than those you conquered and then forgave, absorbing them into your culture? The blacks of this country have gone through two hundred years of servitude; we have endured five hundred. Will you now in this day and age permit that to continue?”

  “Not me,” said one justice quickly.

  “Nor me,” said another, even more quickly.

  “Certainly not I,” protested yet another, violently shaking his head, his jowls jiggling.

  “Oh, Lord, I’ve read that brief ten times and each time I cried,” said the lady justice.

  “You’re not supposed to do that,” said the Chief Justice, glaring at the woman, then instantly turning off the microphones so the Court could confer in quiet.

  “I love him,” whispered Jennifer in Sam’s ear. “Mac said it all in a few sentences!”

  “He never swam thirty-seven miles through a hurricane at sea!”

  “Our general is very eloquent,” whispered Pinkus. “He knows his subject well.”

  “I’m not too happy about his black comparison,” said Cyrus, also whispering. “Hell, his Indian brothers and sisters weren’t put in chains and sold, but his thrust was right.”

  “No, Cyrus, we weren’t,” added Redwing. “We were merely slaughtered or driven to places where we starved to death.”

  “Okay, Jenny. Checkmate.”

  The microphones were turned on again. “Yes, well, ahem!” said a justice from the right end of the Court. “As the distinguished attorney from Boston, Counselor Pinkus, is in attendance with you, we certainly accept your credentials, but are you aware of the magnitude of your suit?”

  “We want only what is ours. Everything else is negotiable—anything else is intolerable.”

  “That wasn’t necessarily clear in the brief, Chief Thunder Head,” said the black justice, in his eyes a glaring disapproval as he picked up a single page of paper. “Your attorney-of-record is one Samuel Lansing Devereaux, is that correct?”

  “It is and I’m he, sir,” replied Sam, stepping forward beside Hawkins.

  “A hell of a brief, young man.”

  “Thank you, sir, but in all fairness—”

  “You’ll probably be shot in the head for it,” continued the judge, as if Devereaux had not spoken. “However, throughout I find an underlying streak of vitriol, as if you were not so much interested in justice but in vengeance.”

  “In retrospect, I was offended, sir, at the injustice.”

  “You’re not paid to be offended, Counselor,” said a justice on the left side. “You’re paid to present the truth of your petition. Without the many long-since-deceased alive to defend themselves, you’ve made startling insinuations.”

  “Based on the evidentiary materials uncovered, sir, they were, indeed, insinuations, or, if you like, speculations. None, however, were without corroborative historical foundation.”

  “You’re a professional historian, Mr. Devereaux?” asked another.

  “No, Mr. Justice, I’m a professional lawyer who can read and follow lines of evidence, as I’m sure you can, sir.”

  “Nice of you to grant our colleague that ability,” said yet another.

  “I meant no offense, sir.”

  “Yet, in your own words, you’re capable of being offended, Counselor,” observed the lady justice. “So I must assume it follows that you can give offense.”

  “Where I believe it’s justified, madam.”

  “That’s what I was getting at, Mr. Devereaux, when I mentioned that streak of vitriol in your brief. It didn’t strike me that you wanted anything less than abject surrender on the part of the government, a total capitulation that would place an extraordinary burden on every taxpayer in this country. A liability far beyond the nation’s ability to absorb.”

  “If the Court will allow me to interrupt,” broke in Thunder Head, chief of the Wopotamis, “my brilliant young counsel here has a reputation for righteous indignation when he feels a cause is just—”

  “What?” whispered Sam, his elbow crashing into Hawkins’s ribs. “Don’t you dare—”

  “He dares to tread where angels fear to, but who among us can fault the truly honest man who passionately believes in justice for the disenfranchised? You, sir, stated that he’s not paid to be offended—you’re only half right, sir, for he’s not paid at all, merely offended on his own time, no reward in the future for his passionate beliefs.… And what are those beliefs that drive him so on our behalf? Let me try to explain. Or better yet, rather than any explanation on my part, have each of you visit a dozen reservations on which our people live. See for yourselves what the white man has done to our once proud Indian nations. See our poverty, our squalor, our—yes, our impotence. Ask yourselves if you could live that way without being offended. This land was our land, and when you took it from us, we somehow understood that even a greater, single nation could evolve, and that we would be a part of it.… But no, that wasn’t to be. You cast us off, shunted us aside, consigned us to isolated reservations without any share in your progress. That is documented history, and no one can dispute it.… Therefore, if our learned counsel has filled his brief
with a certain anger—‘vitriol,’ if you like—he’ll go down in the chronicles of twentieth-century law as the Clarence Darrow of our day. Speaking for the victimized Wopotamis, we worship him.”

  “Worship, Chief Thunder Head, is no part of this Court,” said the large black justice, scowling. “One can worship his god, or a bull or an icon or the newest guru, but it has no influence in a court of law, nor should it have. We here worship only the law. We adjudicate on the basis of provable fact, not on convincing speculation derived from unsubstantiated records of over a hundred years ago.”

  “Hey, now just wait a minute!” cried Sam. “I read that brief—”

  “We thought you wrote it, Counselor,” interrupted the lady justice. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes—well, that’s another story, but let me tell you, I’m one hell of a lawyer and I’ve scrutinized that brief, and the historical evidentiary materials that support it are damn near irrefutable! Furthermore, if this Court disregards that evidence for pragmatic concerns, you’re a bunch of—of …”

  “Of what, Counselor?” asked a justice on the left side of the bench.

  “Goddamnit, I’ll say it—cowards!”

  “I love you, Sam,” whispered Jennifer.

  The voluble astonishment of the entire Court was broken by the stentorian tones of Chief Thunder Head, a.k.a. MacKenzie Lochinvar Hawkins. “Please, great deliberators of justice in this stolen land of ours, may I speak?”

  “What, you feathered termite?” shrieked Chief Justice Reebock.

  “You have just witnessed the outrage of an honest man, an outstanding attorney who’s willing to throw away a brilliant career because he found the truth within the hidden transcripts that were never meant to see the light of day. Such uncompromising men have made this country great, for they faced the truth and understood its majesty. The truth, both good and bad, had to be accepted in all its glory and all the sacrifices it demanded, a shining light that led a new nation into its own majesty, its own glory. All he seeks, all we seek, all the Indian nations seek, is to be a part of that great land we once called ours. Is that so difficult for you?”

  “There are grave national considerations, sir,” said the black justice, his scowl receding. “Extraordinary costs, severe taxes upon the body politic that may not be tolerated. As many have said before us, it is all too frequently an unfair world.”

  “Then negotiate, sir!” cried Thunder Head. “The eagle does not stoop to destroy the wounded sparrow. Instead, as our young counsel phrased it, that mighty eagle soars through the skies, a marvel of flight but far more important, a constant symbol of the power of freedom.”

  “I said that—”

  “Shut up!… Oh, ye judges, let that wounded sparrow find a measure of hope in the shadow of the great eagle. Do not cast us out again for there is no place left for us to wander. Give us the respect that is long overdue—give us the hope we need to survive. Without it we die, our Slaughter complete. Do you wish this on your hands—are they not bloody enough?”

  Silence. Everywhere. Except:

  “Hey, Mac, not bad,” whispered Sam, from the left side of his mouth. And:

  “Magnificent!” whispered Jennifer from behind.

  “Hold it, little filly,” replied the Hawk, in hushed tones, turning his head. “Now comes the crunch, like when my buddy, General McAuliffe, said ‘Nuts’ to the Krauts in the Battle of the Bulge.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Aaron Pinkus.

  “Listen up,” whispered Cyrus. “I know where the general’s coming from. Now he’s got to sting ’em where it really hurts. Right in their own bladders. That’ll put the bullshit in concrete.”

  “It wasn’t bullshit,” protested Redwing. “It’s the truth!”

  “For them it’s inescapable truthful bullshit, Jenny, because they’re between a rock and a very hard ’nother rock.”

  The microphones were turned off once again while the justices conferred. At last, the seemingly emaciated judge from New England spoke. “That was a moving peroration, Chief Thunder Head,” he said quietly, “but such accusations could be made on behalf of numerous minorities everywhere. History isn’t kind to these people, much to my personal regret. As one of our Presidents said, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ but it must go on for the betterment of the majority, not the unfortunate minorities who suffer. We all wish with all our hearts that we could change that scenario, but it’s beyond our providence. The ‘brutality of history’ was the way Schopenhauer described it. I loathe his conclusion but I recognize its reality. You could open floodgates that might drown whole communities across the country far, far in excess of the litigants.”

  “Your point, sir?”

  “Considering everything that’s involved, what would be your response if the Court in its wisdom decided against you?”

  “Quite simple,” replied Chief Thunder Head. “We would declare war against the United States of America, knowing we’d have the sympathy of our Indian brothers across the land. Many thousands of white men would not survive. We would lose, but so would you.”

  “Holy shit,” intoned the nasal-twanged Chief Justice Reebock. “I have a house in New Mexico—”

  “The land of the warlike Apaches, sir?” asked the Hawk innocently.

  “Two and a half miles from the reservation,” answered the justice, swallowing.

  “The Apache is our brother in blood. May the Great Spirit grant you a swift and relatively painless death.”

  “What about Palm Beach?” asked another member of the Court, his brows arched.

  “The Seminoles are our cousins. They boil the blood of the white man to remove its impurities—while the blood is still in the body, of course; it tenderizes the meat.”

  “Aspen …?” said yet another, haltingly. “Who’s there?”

  “The impetuous Cherokee, sir. They’re even closer cousins, due to the geography. However, we’ve frequently voiced disapproval over their primary method of retribution. They strap their enemies face down over killer anthills.”

  “Augh!” gasped Jennifer.

  “Lake … Lake George?” asked a pale-faced justice on the left, his expression conveying sudden fear. “I have a lovely summer home there.”

  “Upper New York State, sir? Need you ask?” MacKenzie lowered his voice, as if to confirm the unspoken terror. “The hunting and burial grounds of the Mohawk?”

  “Something like that … I imagine.”

  “Our tribe is an offspring of the Mohawks, sir, but in all honesty, we felt we had to flee and travel west, away from our closest blood brothers.”

  “Why was that?”

  “The Mohawk brave is perhaps the most ferocious and daring of us all—but, well, I’m sure you understand.”

  “Understand … what?”

  “When provoked they torch their enemy’s tepees at night, as well as setting fire to all their enemy’s property. It is a scorched earth policy that we found too severe for our branch. Of course, the Mohawks still consider us one with them. The ties of blood are not easily washed away. Without question, they would join our struggle.”

  “I think we should confer again!” snapped the Chief Justice, as the microphones went silent and the Court, their heads whipping back and forth, whispered among themselves.

  “Mac!” hissed Redwing. “None of what you said is true! The Apaches are from the Athabaskan people and are no part of us, and the Cherokees wouldn’t strap anybody over an anthill, that’s preposterous, and the Seminoles are the most peaceful tribe of all the nations!… The Mohawks, well, they like to shoot craps because it brings in money, but they never attacked anyone who didn’t attack or steal from them first, and they certainly would never scorch the land because then you can’t grow anything on it!”

  “Please, daughter of the Wopotamis,” said the Hawk, standing imperiously in his feathered headdress and looking down at Jennifer. “What do the dumb palefaces know?”

  “You’re besmirching all the Indian nations!”

>   “What have these people been doing to us all these years?”

  “Us?”

  The microphones crackled on again, and again the sniffling, nasal voice of the Chief Justice shot out of the speakers. “Let the record show that the Court will recommend to the government of the United States that it will enter into immediate negotiations with the Wopotami nation to seek a reasonable solution for past malfeasances. Without argument, the Court upholds the plaintiff’s case. It will be announced forthwith. We are adjourned sine die!” And then, without realizing that the microphone was still operative, the Chief Justice added. “Someone call the White House and tell Subagaloo to shove it! That son of a bitch got us into this mess, he always does. He probably had our goddamned air-conditioning shut off, too. I’m sweating right down to the crack in my ass!… Sorry, dear.”

  News of the Wopotami triumph reached the lobby and the steps of the Supreme Court in a matter of minutes. Chief Thunder Head, in full regalia, strode down the marble corridor toward the great hall expecting the adulation and the celebration of his people. A celebration was, indeed, in progress, but what the celebration was about appeared somewhat irrelevant to the celebrants. The huge gallery was filled with men and women of all ages, dancing, prancing, from awkward waltzes to hard rock, the participants whirling and wiggling to the recorded sounds of upgraded, speeded-up versions of original Indian chants from enormous speakers. Even the guards, the tourists, and the D.C. police joined partners hither and yon; the revered great hall was the scene of a wild carnival.

  “Oh, good God!” exclaimed Sunrise Jennifer Redwing as she walked out of the elevator with Sam and Aaron on the first floor.

  “It’s a joyous occasion,” said Pinkus. “Your people are rightfully jubilant.”

  “My people? Those aren’t my people!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Devereaux.

  “Look! Do you see a single Wopotami, a single painted face or Indian skirt dancing or singing or shouting?”

  “No, but I see a lot of Wopotamis out on the floor.”

  “So do I, but I can’t understand what they’re doing.”