A girl in a leather halter top leaned away from her friends. Sipping soda through a straw, she watched all kissy face as Randall practiced his moves. He put his foot up on the trailer hitch, and strained to touch his toes like he was stretching his hamstrings. He did this twice and on the third time cracked a boogid. He tried to saunter off as though it hadn’t happened. The girl laughed so hard she choked and spurted her pop.
Learn from the master, said Cappy. Whatever Randall does, do the opposite.
Angus’s family was there, spilling out of and around a car, so we went to get him and find Zack. When we were all four together, we needed frybread, went and got some, and were eating in the shade of the stands when some girls from school came up to us. They always talked to Angus first, then Zack, then me, then focused on their real target, Cappy. The girls from our year were mainly named some version of Shawn. There was Shawna, Dawna, Shawnee, Dawnali, Shalana, and just plain Dawn and Shawn. There was also a girl named Margaret, named after her grandmother, who worked at the post office. I ended up talking to Margaret. Dawn, Shawn, and the others had their hair curled back from their faces and sprayed stiff, eye shadow, lip gloss, two pairs of earrings in each ear, tight jeans, little striped T-shirts, and shiny silver necklaces. I tease Margaret to this day about what she wore to that powwow—that’s because I remember every detail, down to the silver locket that contained not a photo of her boyfriend, but a picture of her baby brother.
What Cappy did to attract girls was just be Cappy. He didn’t smolder like Randall, he didn’t wear a single feather. He was dressed as usual in a faded T-shirt and jeans. His hair naturally fell down over one eye and he didn’t bother tucking it behind his ear, but used that head toss. Otherwise, he just talked, and drew us all in. The thing I noticed was, he asked the girls about themselves almost like a teacher would. How their summer was going, what their families were doing. The conversation put us on an easy footing and we walked, circling the arena behind the stands, the girls being noticed, us noticing them being noticed. We went around a few times. The girls bought cotton candy. They peeled off strips of fluff for us. We drank pop and tried to crush the cans in our fists. Things started up. Veterans brought in the American flag, the MIA-POW flag, the flag of our Tribal Nation, our traditional Eagle Staff. The head dancers followed and then the Grand Entry dancers lined up and moved into the arena by category, all the way down to the tiny tots. We stood on the top tier to watch it all: the drums, the rousing synchrony of bells, rattles, deer clackers, and the flashing music of the jingle dancers. Grand Entry always caught my breath and made me step along with the dancers. It was big, contagious, defiant, joyous. But tonight all I could think of was how to grab my pack and slip away.
I went as the crow flies, took the woods paths, crossed a couple of pastures, cut down the back roads. When I got to the house there was still light. The outdoor dog barked at me and recognized me. Hey, Fleck, I said, and he licked my hand. We waited half an hour, behind the shed, until dusk. I waited for a while after that, until it was really dark, and then I put on a pair of my mother’s leather gloves, tight ones, and walked up to the back door carrying the crowbar Cappy had left out.
When I jimmied the door the indoor dog barked, but she wagged her tail when I entered and followed me to the gun cabinet. The shatter of glass startled her, but she whined with excitement when I took out the gun. She thought we were going hunting. Instead, I put ammunition in my backpack, messed up the TV, scattered the toolbox, then said good-bye to the dogs. I walked across the road and found the path Cappy and I had marked out. I had to use my flashlight but switched it off when a car crested the rise on the gravel road. Up near the overlook, we’d already made the hole. I wrapped the rifle and ammo tight in the garbage bags and buried it, scattered leaves, brush, twigs back over the top. At least by the light of a three-quarter moon the place looked undisturbed. I drank some water and started walking back to the powwow grounds. I went back along the same paths, around the same sloughs, down the old two-track dirt roads, the woods paths that a few still cleared to log out their firewood. I crossed a horse pasture and could hear the drums from there, still going, now forty-nine songs and moccasin games. People stayed awake all night gambling in some of the tents. I made it back to our tent and unzipped the bug-proof screen. Cappy was awake. Randall gone. Cappy asked me how it went.
Smooth, I said. I think it went smooth.
Good, he said. We lay on our backs, awake. Doe would have gone home by now and found his house broken into, his rifle gone. He’d have called the BIA/tribal police. There wasn’t any way he’d know it was me. But I didn’t know how I could face him anyway.
Mornings were always the best times—waking with the cool air stirring along the fabric walls. Smelling coffee, bannock, eggs, and sausage. Outside, sun and fresh alfalfa cut for the horses. Suzette and Josey were making their plans for the day and feeding their grandchildren on flimsy paper plates, which always bent or disintegrated beneath the load of food.
Ey! Here. Put another plate underneath, you.
The children walked hunched over to the edge of the grass and ate close to the ground. Every bite was good. The sisters had a Coleman gas stove and a propane tank. They fried bacon and cooked bannock with the grease. Their scrambled eggs were light, fluffy, never burnt. Bread was toasted on the hot griddle. There was a open jar of Juneberry jam. Another of wild plum. They knew how to feed boys. A couple hours after hot breakfast there was cold breakfast—watermelon, cereal, cold bannock, soft butter, and meat. They owned a magnificent blue-speckled enameled tin coffeepot, and a stainless steel one, too, just for tea. The lawn chairs at the camp were always full of gossiping men, and the RV started out crawling with children until one of the sisters put a stop to it and locked them out. After cold breakfast, the sisters made piles of sandwiches, stashed them in the cooler under supervision of their daughters. They retired into the RV to prepare themselves for the day’s Grand Entry. Nothing could disturb them. Not pleas to use their bathroom, screams of vengeance from fighting boys, or their daughters’ feigned panic. The scent of burning sweetgrass wafted from the little pull-down screen windows. Suzette and Josey took their regalia very seriously and made sure all of the bad looks from other women, the grudge thoughts or snapping eyes, were removed from their cloth and beads by the smoke. And their own thoughts, too, perhaps, for their husbands’ eyes were known to roam although they had no proof. The interior of the RV, so cunningly fitted with cabinets and fold-up beds, drawers, cupboards, hidden chests, a tiny toilet, was neatened and perfected. When they emerged, one of them padlocked the door shut from the outside and stashed the key in the beaded striker purse or knife sheath that hung from her belt. They moved off in unison, their hair braided long with mink pelts, gray only at the temples. Grandly, gracefully, they entered the flow of the dancers. Their buckskin fringe swayed with dreamlike precision. Everybody liked to watch them, to see if they’d be thrown off by the swirl of intertribal, when anybody and everyone entered the arena. Little boys in half a grass dance outfit copied big boy moves and knocked against Suzette and Josey. Little girls with eyes glazed in concentration jingle- hopped after their glamorous sisters and tripped into their path. Suzette and Josey did not falter. They talked to each other, broke into laughter, never missed a beat or disrupted the even sway of fringe on their sleeves, shawls, and yokes.
Two skins for each dress, said Cappy. And probably another skin’s worth of fringe. If they fell on top of each other, they’d get snarled up and never break apart.
C’mon down, all you spectators, called Doe, this is intertribal! Put your feet on the ground in whatever you got—boots, moccasins, even hippie sandals. What are those? Birkenstocks, somebody tells me. We found a Birkenstock outside of Randall’s tent last night. Ohhhh, yes. Howah.
Doe was always teasing Randall and his friends about their continual efforts at snagging women.
Fuck, said Randall, behind us. Some fuckers broke into our house last night and stole one a Dad’s deer rifles.
They get anything else? asked Cappy. He didn’t turn around to look at Randall, but frowned out at the dancing.
Nah, said Randall. That rifle shows up, I’ll coldcock somebody.
How’s Doe taking it?
He’s mad, Randall shrugged, but not that mad. He says it’s odd they just took that one rifle. They might of tried to take the TV, dropped the toolbox. Amateurs. Couldn’t find any tracks or nothing. Drugheads.
Yeah, said Cappy.
Yeah, I said.
Either the dogs weren’t doing their jobs or they knew who did it.
Or somebody coulda thrown them a piece of meat, said Cappy.
Randall made a disgusted noise. Wasn’t his favorite rifle anyway. If they got his favorite, he’d be mad.
That’s good, I said.
