The Only Good Indians(67)

What they were learning for that week wasn’t riding or archery or any of the cool stuff, but how to dry meat on a rack.

Sitting in the heat of this lodge, that’s exactly what he feels like: one of those thin strips of meat on that rack of twigs, a slow fire burning under him, the sun baking him from above.

Except there’s words cycling through his head, shaken loose by the steam. From when his granddad was taking him through the language. From when talking like that made sense.

Kuto’yiss.

Kuto’yisss”ko’maapii.

Po’noka.

Kuto’yiss is where his dad drove him back from yesterday, pretty much. The Sweetgrass Hills, but use it in a sentence: I went out to Kuto’yiss maybe to die, Granddad. To be with Tre. But your stupid son dragged me back. I went there because you were always talking about the Sweetgrass money, do you remember? What America kept not paying us for the hills it stole?

Use it in another sentence: I’d rather die out in Kuto’yiss than under a car upside down in Cutbank Creek, like Tre.

And what about Kuto’yisss”ko’maapii? It’s not Sweetgrass Hills plus “ko’maapii,” which was hard to wrap his head around back then. And also now.

What it means is Blood-Clot Boy, the hero kid born from a clot of blood, back when shit like that was always going down, at least according to his granddad, waving one more kid into the lodge for story time.

Nathan had never told anybody, but used to, second grade maybe, his dad braiding his hair before homeroom every day, he’d secretly known he was Kuto’yisss”ko’maapii. That he was here to save the people, then become a star in the sky. Then in seventh grade Mr. Massey had explained how every young Indian thinks he’s Crazy Horse reborn.

Denorah Cross Guns had stabbed her hand in the air about this one, and Nathan sneaked a look back at her, like always.

“Not the girls,” she said.

“You all think you’re … Sacajawea,” Mr. Massey told her with a shrug, his mouth tumbling down through all those syllables like the best joke.

Because Denorah Cross Guns didn’t know enough of the old-time Indians to pick someone better, someone not a traitor, she’d saved it all up for the game that night, and fouled out, had to be dragged off the court for fighting, and her new dad had had to keep her real dad from crashing down onto the court as well.

Nathan had been there in the stands as well, yelling for her with the rest of the crowd, yelling that it wasn’t her foul. But even if it had been, right?

Denorah Cross Guns isn’t anybody’s Sacajawea. And Nathan, he isn’t any Crazy Horse or Blood-Clot Boy. He knows that now. Those three-braid days are over and done with. Never mind all this sweat lodge bullshit. Never mind his dad playing the drums out there.

When Gabriel offers the new cooler, Nathan takes it into his lap, uses the black metal thermos to scoop up some of that water that’s so cold it almost hurts.

Cass nods at him to go on, that he’s doing good.

Nathan dollops some of the water out onto the rocks and steam spits up between the three of them, stranding them in their own individual sweat lodges, almost.

Are the rocks even really supposed to be this hot?

Nathan doesn’t think so.

No way could anybody stand this for more than an hour or two. Not without coming out cooked. A round or two ago Gabriel said he’d been baked before, sure, but this was another level.

There’s still half the thermos of water left.

Nathan swishes it, swishes it again, and is about to drink when he remembers the rule: honor your ancestors. Which is what Cass told him. What Gabriel said was just to say somebody’s name, somebody who might not be getting a drink otherwise, yeah?

“Granddad,” Nathan says, loud enough for the two clowns through the steam to hear, and pours out half of what he was going to drink.

Across from him, he’s pretty sure Cass nods that this is good, this is good. Now keep it going.

Back in his place in their triangley circle, Gabriel is next to get the cooler. The one he just delivered.

“Neesh,” he says, like agreeing with Nathan, and tumps a splash down, doesn’t take a drink himself. Meaning he probably drank his fill while he was out there.

“Think he’s had enough?” Gabriel says just generally, passing the cooler to Cass.

Cass looks up, not following, so Gabriel explains: “His granddad, man. That’s two drinks already. He’s gonna have to go pee soon, think?”

He smiles after this, his mouth loose like his face is melting.

“What do you think ghost pee smells like anyway?” Gabriel’s going on now. “You think it’s like all around all the time?” He tries to haul his foot up to his nose to smell for ghost pee.

“Not hot enough for you?” Cass says back to him, then angles his face over to the flap, calls out a deep ho for another hot rock, even though the last one hasn’t come yet.

Gabriel slumps in response, looks up into the ceiling like for something to save him, and big bad Officer Yellow Tail was right, Nathan kind of knows: Gabriel and Cass are him and Tre, twenty years down the road. Or, they would have been, if Tre were still around. Or, if he were over with Tre now.

This is all you really need, isn’t it? Just one good friend. Somebody you can be stupid with. Somebody who’ll peel you up off the ground, prop you against the wall.