Winter Counts(9)
When I returned, Nathan handed his phone to me and I looked down at the screen. MARTIN ANGEL, WELLNESS RELIEF CENTER, 1280 S. FEDERAL, DENVER.
Wellness Relief Center? What was it, a massage parlor? Then I scrolled down further. COLORADO’S BEST CANNABIS DISPENSARY.
4
The next day, I decided I’d give one last shot to learning more about Rick Crow’s activities, whatever they were. It was no surprise that Rick Crow had a marijuana connection down in Denver. But that didn’t necessarily mean he was involved with heroin. On the other hand, I needed the money, and I liked the thought of putting the hurt on Rick. I just had to make sure that I wasn’t stepping in someone else’s mess. If anyone knew what the deal might be, it was Jerome Iron Shell. Jerome was a medicine man and knew everyone and everything in town. He ran a sweat most Saturdays at his house, so I could talk to him there.
When I pulled up, he didn’t seem surprised to see me. His long gray hair hung down over a bright-blue Pendleton-style jacket, the kind you buy at powwows for forty bucks and a wink.
“Need any help?” I asked him.
“Sure. Give me a hand with these stones.”
I grabbed the pitchfork and wedged it under one of the grandfather stones in the pit. Jerome and I took turns moving the grandfathers to the fire box.
“You want to take a sweat?” he said. I was surprised he’d asked—he knew that I didn’t do ceremonies. But maybe if I did sweat, he’d be willing to give me some information. Or maybe I’d hear something from one of the others there. And hell, it couldn’t hurt.
“Yeah, okay. But I got to head home right after.” I grabbed another stone with the pitchfork. “Hey, ask you a question?”
He nodded.
“You hear anything about Rick Crow selling heroin?”
“Heroin?” He shook his head. “No, that’s not his deal. He smokes some peji, sells a little. Why? You gonna go after him?”
“No, just asking. Listen, keep this quiet, okay?”
I noticed Jerome’s grandson Rocky and about fifteen other people standing outside the lodge. Jerome pointed at the crowd, and Rocky placed three buckets of water inside the lodge. Jerome nodded, and everyone took off their shoes and the men took off their shirts. Some were wearing gym shorts, others just towels. The people wearing eyeglasses stuck them in their shoes outside the tent. I briefly wondered if I was wearing clean boxers, then stripped off my jeans and shirt and crawled into the lodge with the others. I sat down next to the drummers. It had been a long time since I’d sat in a sweat lodge, and I wondered if I’d remember what to do in there.
After a few minutes, the drums started pounding and someone began to sing. After they finished, Jerome started to pray in Lakota. I listened to his words, not understanding most of it, though I could grasp the basic meaning. Then Jerome poured a bucket of water over the rocks. I heard a hissing sound like a large, angry snake as a huge cloud of steam filled the lodge. Then he closed the door, enveloping us in darkness. I tried to get comfortable, but my legs kept bumping into someone else’s. It was hard to breathe, and I could feel sweat already pouring down my chest. The heat was excruciating, beyond words, and I lost track of time. My lungs felt like they were burning from the inside, and I tried to keep my mind off the extreme temperature by listening to the sound of my own breathing and the drums, which had started again.
I tried to focus on the beat of the drums, but became distracted by someone sobbing on my left. It sounded like one of the women, but it was hard to tell. The crying and wailing went on for what seemed like hours, and it began to rise and lower in pitch, so it became less like sobbing and more like a chant of some sort. Then it sounded like the sobbing was somebody speaking or whispering very softly. It seemed important that I understand what was being said, and I tried to quiet every thought so that I was utterly still.
At some point I must have fallen asleep despite the heat, because I dreamed that my sister, Sybil, was next to me. She whispered things I didn’t understand at first, and I felt sad and told her to go away. But she kept telling me, over and over, to remember the birds. And to hurry. Remember the birds. And the lost bird. What does that mean? I asked, but she wouldn’t say any more.
We must have gone through four rounds in there, but I couldn’t remember. The sweat ended when Jerome shouted “Mitakuye oyasin!” and I crawled out into the light. As I drank cool water, I thought about my dream and what it meant. Then it came to me.
The year our mom died, Sybil and I had drawn a picture of dead birds on our winter-counts calendar to represent her death. That winter, not only had our mother passed away, but it had been so cold on the reservation that many birds froze to death as well. To us, that time had always been the year our mother and the birds left us.
BY THE TIME I GOT HOME from the sweat, it was late. The lights were on, so I knew Nathan was there, probably asleep or playing video games. He’d been alone all day, but he knew how to take care of himself. I was exhausted and hungry. No fresh food left in the fridge, but I found an old frost-covered Tombstone Pizza in the bowels of the freezer. I heated it up in our ancient microwave, which required five extra minutes to cook anything.
I settled back with my soggy pizza and contemplated the Rick Crow situation. I still couldn’t figure out why Ben would offer me five large to take care of Rick instead of just going to the feds. I understood why he wouldn’t go to the rez police. By federal law, tribal police couldn’t prosecute any felony crimes that happened on the rez. Jerome had told me that this law was because of the murder way back in the 1880s of Chief Spotted Tail. The killer had been banished, but not jailed. He said the wasicus were so upset by the Native way of justice that they passed a law taking away our right to punish our own people. So tribal courts could only charge misdemeanor crimes—little stuff, like shoplifting or disorderly conduct. The tribal police had to refer all felonies to the federal investigators. But the feds usually declined to prosecute most of them. They’d follow through on some, usually high-profile cases or violent crimes. But standard sex assault cases, thefts, assault and battery—these crimes were usually ignored. And the bad men knew this. It was open season for raping any Native woman, so long as the rape occurred on Indian land.