jennifer drove back to Tulsa with the radio off, her thoughts full of thunder, thirsting for revenge, and in no mood to appreciate the lovely weather.
She had put as much back into the vandalized graves as she had been able to find, and at least the bones could no longer be used for Bad Medicine, but most of the resident spirits-and more importantly, the Little People- had not been in any mood to settle. The feeling of the place was as bad as anything she had ever felt on Claremore Mound, and it was as plain to. her as the blackjacks on the ridge that the mi-ah-luschka were out for blood, arid nothing less would satisfy them. She didn't blame them, and in fact she would normally be more than pleased to let them have their way.
The trouble was, that wouldn't get back the medicine objects that had been taken from Watches-Over-The- Land's grave-and if someone who knew how to use them got hold of them-
Or worse yet, if someone who didn't know how but was open and vulnerable got hold of them-
Some poor fool trying to 'get in touch with his roots'- or at least, the one-tenth of his roots that were some kind of Native American-oh, the mi-ah-luschka would have a wonderful time with someone like that. True, he'd be a bonehead to buy artifacts from someone who wasn't a reputable dealer, but being a bonehead didn't necessarily warrant the kind of trouble the mi-ah-luschka would visit on him.
They might even succeed in killing him.
And meanwhile-meanwhile there was the very real possibility that the things looted from Tom Ware's ranch were the same ones plowed up by Rod Calligan's men. And if that was the case, the Little People would be after every man on that crew like flies on a deer carcass. They certainly didn't deserve retribution! The mi-ah-luschka might even be indirectly responsible for the dozer explosion; that meant they'd already killed. Blood fed them; there would be more killings. And the Little People were definitely of the 'kill them all and let Wah-K'on-Tah sort them out' philosophy.
She rubbed the back of her neck and stared at the road ahead, trying to think in practical terms. First, she needed to have someone alerted to the desecration, so if the relics came on the legitimate market they could be confiscated. Let me think. Nobody on either side of my family is registered with the B.I. A'., so there's no way I can lodge a formal complaint, either with the B.I. A. or with the Principal Chief.
Here was where the flip side of not being registered came up. There were ways in which Jennifer was handicapped in dealing with government authorities. Registration was a touchy point with a lot of Native Americans, and definitely with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It was a touchy point with the B.I.A. precisely because of the whole reason the B.I.A. had been created in the first place; to control Native Americans. The Bureau had theoretical control over tribal lands, tribal moneys, over the stipends that whites thought were 'welfare' and were really nothing more or less than the pittances the United States Government owed Indians for the lands that had been taken away from them, stipends paid out over so long a period of time that even some Indians didn't really know what they were for.
We take away your hunting grounds, we take away your lands, we take your children and your traditions, and in return, we will give you the food and shelter you need. That was how the treaties read, when you cut out the bullshit and fancy language. How the Bureau had carried them out was something else entirely.
Jennifer was already angry; the inevitable recollections of what the Bureau had done to every Native Nation only made her angrier. She gripped the steering wheel as if it had become a weapon.
All right, better just let the anger run its course, and not let it fester. She let the associated memories of long-ago wrongs play through.
More often than not, the Bureau read the treaties as an excuse to kidnap Indian children from their parents and lock them up in 'boarding schools' where they were forbidden to speak their own language, practice their own customs, or worship anything but the White Christian God The Father Almighty.
And people wonder why so many of us became alcoholics.
The last treaties had been written with the understanding that the Indian was a vanishing creature, to follow after the buffalo, and the Great White Father would simply look after him in his decline and move in to take the little that had been left when he was gone. And in the case of some Nations, that was precisely what had happened....
O for a time machine, and a gunpowder and rifle factory. . . .
And registration was a touchy subject now with many Native Americans because it was easy for someone to claim to be a nonregistered Indian, and attempt to cash in on the stipends, and the Native Arts Movement. Or even to claim Medicine Power and set up as a New Age Shaman, crystals and all. There was a life and a spirit to Indian art that was hard to find elsewhere, and an ability to tune into nature that many people wanted.
Just proving how hard we are to kill, either in body, or in spirit.
As a result, there was money to be made, in everything from jewelry to fine-arts oil paintings. There were quite a few artists Jennifer knew who resented white people muscling in on that market. And a whole lot more folk who resented the New Age movement hauling their crystal vibrations into traditions that white folks had tried to destroy not that long ago. Rightfully ... in many ways.
But not being registered was going to make reporting the desecration a good bit more roundabout than Jennifer liked.
Well, that's the way it has to be.
Having brought the anger around to the end of its course, she was able to let it go. What was past, was past. It was time to take care of the present.
There was a slightly more direct route to authority ... through her father and mother. He was good friends with the Principal Chief on the Osage side.
And Mom used to go to school with Cherokee Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller before Wilma and her folks went off to California. But I'd rather deal with this from the Osage side. It's our burial site, and besides, Wilma has more than enough on her plate as it is.
She briefly considered bringing in Mooncrow; he packed a lot of clout when he cared to use it-mostly he didn't.
She knew why; he was saving that 'clout' for a real emergency. This wasn't; not yet, anyway. Burial sites were looted all the time. There was no proof that this one had been looted with malice and intent.
She pulled onto the interstate behind a long-haul trucker, and settled in to let him set the pace. Clout is only good so many times; Grandfather is right. It's attacking, rather than persuading. We'd better save it for when we need it.
Given that-
On impulse, she took the Claremore turnoff. With luck, Dad would be home for lunch.
It felt kind of odd to be back here, sitting across from her father at the kitchen table, B.L.T. in both hands, windows wide open to the light breeze. The house had been built in the days when a lot of things went on in the kitchen; most of the social life of the family, in fact. The kitchen was one of the largest rooms in the house, big enough that one corner of it had been set up as her mother's office, with a phone, a fax machine, and a computer, and there was still plenty of room left over.
The kitchen table stood under one of the windows, and it was nearly as old as the house, big enough to seat eight comfortably; a real farmhouse table. Right now she and her father were the only ones occupying it. Every time she came home, she got hit with nostalgia, of eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with her brothers, of family holidays all around the big table, some of which did not correspond with things like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. . . .
'You ought to eat that instead of staring at it,' her father said, after a few minutes of staring off into nowhere on her part. 'Your grandfather says you don't eat enough to keep a bird alive.'
She started, and grinned ruefully. 'Grandfather doesn't see me hitting the fast-food stands, either,' she admitted. 'Man does not live by yogurt alone. There are also Frisco burgers, Rex chicken, and fry-bread and honey.'
Dad laughed, and she obliged him by starting in on her own sandwich. Mom had redecorated the kitchen, with new miniblinds on the windows, and refinished the old kitchen table and the cabinets, taking them down to the natural wood. So while it held a boatload of memories, at least it didn't look the way it had when she was a kid.
She'd told Dad everything she knew-which wasn't much-concentrating on the desecration and looting of the burial ground, and trying to keep speculation to a minimum. She showed him the Polaroids, and left the 35-mm film
