Native Americans

Native Americans As Portrayed by Sherman Alexie in his novel Reservation Blues 1. Mysterious man wanders into the Spokane Indian Reservation: "In the one hundred and eleven years since the creation of the Spokane Indian Reservation in 1881, not one person, Indian or otherwise, had ever arrived there by accident. Wellpinit, the only town on the reservation did not exist on most maps, so the black stranger surprised the whole tribe when he appeared with nothing more than the suit he worse and the guitar slung over his back. As Simon drove backward into town, he first noticed the black man standing beside the faded WELCOME TO WELLPINIT, POPULATION: VARIABLE sign” (3) 2. Robert Johnson, an outsider to the village, was describing why he went into Wellpinit. He had to fulfill a deal he made with a gentleman: "He'd caught some disease in the womb that forced him to tell stories. The weight of those stories bowed his legs and bent his spine a bit. Robert Jonson looked bowed, bent, and more fragile with each word. Those Indian kids were ready to pounce on the black man with questions and requests. The adults wouldn't be too far behind their kids” (6) 3. After Robert Johnson first arrives at the Reservation and is greeted by Thomas, he takes in the surroundings and states: "This is a beautiful place," Johnson said. "But you haven't' seen anything," Thomas said. "What else is there?" Thomas thought about all the dreams that were murdered here, and the bones buried quickly just inches below the surface, all waiting to break through the foundations of those government houses built by the Department of Housing and Urban Development” (7). 4. Big Mom hears screaming and moaning from the horses, she runs outside and is watching and standing by as her horses are slaughtered and shot by European white settlers. There is one horse left and it is scrambling around trying to find a way out frantically, but the white settler whispers something in the horse’s ear. Once the horse hears this it immediately calms down and is shot in between the eyes and falls to the ground as Big Mom watches from a distance. “Big Mom watched the Indian colt circled by soldiers. The colt darted from side to side, looking for escape. One soldier, an officer, stepped down from his pony, walked over to the colt, gently touched its face, and whispered in its ear. The colt shivered as the officer put his pistol between its eyes and pulled the trigger. That colt fell to the grass of the clearing, to the sidewalk outside the reservation tavern, to the cold, hard coroner’s table in a veterans hospital” (10). 5. At the beginning of Reservation Blues, Sherman Alexie profiles one of the protagonists, Thomas. Thomas' simple trip to the Trading Post gives a lot of insight into what his community (Wellpinit and the Spokane Indians) is like. "Thomas smiled and walked into the Trading Post, one of the few lucrative businesses on the reservation. Its shelves were stocked with reservation staples: Diet Pepsi, Spam, Wonder bread, and a cornucopia of various carbohydrates, none of them complex. One corner of the Trading Post was devoted to the gambling machines that had become mandatory on every reservation . The tribe installed a few new slot machines earlier that day, and the Spokanes lined up to play. Dreams of the jackpot" (12). 6. Alexie describes Thomas Builds-the-Fire's storytelling and the power it emits to every listener:

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"Thomas Builds-the-Fire's stories climbed into your clothes like sand, gave you itches that could not be scratched. If you repeated even a sentence from one of those stories, your throat was never the same again. Those stories hung in your clothes and hair like smoke, and no amount of laundry soap or shampoo washed them out" (15). 7. Junior and Victor are passed out in the water truck after drinking at the Tavern. They both dream of their families. "Junior dreamed of his parents' funeral in the Spokane Indian Longhouse. His siblings, who had long since dispersed to other reservations and cities, couldn't afford to come back for the funeral. None of his siblings had enough money to mourn properly" (24). 8. Junior and Victor have passed out after a night in the Tavern. This is before they have discovered music, in fact when they awake is when they find Thomas playing the guitar and decide to join the band with him. However, this night they both dream about their families, and the destruction of them. In particular Victor dreams of both his step-father and his biological father. Victor dreamed: “He could smell the dead body, his real father’s. His real father had died of a heart attack during a heat wave in Phoenix and lay on a couch for a week before a neighbor discovered him. Victor hadn’t seen his real father for years before his death. Victor could still smell that dead body smell. That smell never fully dissipated, had always remained on the edges of Victor’s senses” (25). 9. The band uses one of the reservation's rundown buildings as their rehearsal spot. David WalksAlong, the Spokane Tribal Council Chairman, stops by. After a loud song, he complains to Thomas. "I said you're disturbing the peace!" "Yeah," Thomas shouted. "We're a three-piece band." "No, I said you're too loud!" "Yeah," Thomas agreed. "It is a pretty good crowd!" WalksAlong was visibly angry. "Listen," the Chairman said, "you better quit fucking with me! You're just like your asshole father!" "Really?" Thomas asked. "You really think we're rocking? You think my father will like us, too?" WalksAlong jabbed Thomas's chest with a thick finger. "You might think you're funny!" he shouted loud enough for Thomas to understand him, "but I can shut you down anytime I want to! I just have to give the word” (37-38)! 10. Michael Whitehawk is the nephew of the Spokane Tribal Council Chairman David WalksAlong. Alexie talks about Michael's family and childhood: ""Mother died of cirrhosis when he was just two years old, and he'd never even known his father. Michael was conceived during some anonymous three-in-the-morning pow-wow encounter in South Dakota. His mother's drinking had done obvious damage to Michael in the womb. He had those vaguely Asian eyes and the flat face that alcohol babies always had on reservations. But he'd grown large and muscular despite the alcohol's effects" (39). 11. Thomas exclaims the reason he gets to write the songs for Coyote Springs is because he has the money: "He had forty-two dollars in his pocket and another fifty hidden at home, much more than Junior and Victor had together. Victor understood the economics of the deal, how money equals power, especially on a reservation so poor that a dollar bill once changed the outcome of tribal elections" (46). 12. Coyote Springs is at one of their first gigs playing at the Tipi Pole Tavern. During one of the band’s breaks Alexie inserts this passage giving more information about Junior and Victor, specifically their drinking.

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“Junior never drank until the night of his high school graduation. He’d sworn never to drink because of his parent’s boozing. Victor placed a beer gently in his hand, and Junior drained it without hesitation or question, crashing loudly, like a pumpkin that dropped off the World Trade Center and landed on the head of a stockbroker” (57). 13. After Coyote Springs' first performance, the band meets Chess and Checkers. The girls are helping the band put away their instruments. Thomas is asking questions about their background which makes Chess think about her past. She had broken her nose in a softball game in high school, which gave her face strange angles, and it had never looked quite right since. She didn't believe that shit about a broken nose adding character to a face. Instead, her broken nose made her feel like her whole life tilted a few degrees from the center. She never minded all that much, except that her glasses were continually slipping down her nose. She spent half of her time readjusting them. Still. she had dark, dark eyes that seemed even darker behind her glasses. They were Indian grandmother eyes that stayed clear and focused for generations” (60). 14. The first childhood story that Chess tells Thomas. After the emotionally painful death of their brother, Backgammon, Chess explains how the family could not handle his death and changed for the worst. Their mother played music whenever their father was gone and Chess and Checkers both were greatly affected by the strength of these songs. They felt that music was powerful enough to scare and physically harm animals, that it changed nature and the world around them, and Chess explains these feelings: " 'I used to think her songs drifted across entire reservations. I imagined they knocked deer over and shook the antlers of moose and elk. Can you believe that? That music crept into the dreams of hibernating bears and turned them into nightmares. Those bears wouldn't even leave their dens and starved to death as the spring grew warmers. Those songs floated up into the clouds, fell back to the earth as rain, and changed the shape of plants and trees. I once bit into a huckleberry, and it tasted of my brothers tears. I used to believe all of that' "(66-67). 15. Coyote Springs has just spent the night at Chess and Checkers' house. They wake up in the morning and Victor makes breakfast. Thomas and Chess eat outside and are talking about the Coyote Springs show that Chess saw the night before. Thomas reveals that he does not drink, and Chess is pleased: "When Indian women begin the search for an Indian man, they carry a huge list of qualifications. He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. he has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice. But as the screwed-up Indian men stagger through their lives, Indian women are forced to amend their list of qualifications. Eventually, Indian men need only to have their own teeth to get snagged" (75) 16. Union soldiers escorts two Indians--one painted, the other mean-looking--to a small building. The unpainted one tries to kill the Union soldiers with a hidden knife, but the angry Indian knocks the knife from the unpainted Indian's hands: “Kill the Indian! A soldier lunged forward with his bayonet and speared the unpainted one once, twice, three times. The Indians gasped as the unpainted one fell to the ground, critically wounded. The angry Indian trilled. Nobody stepped forward to help the unpainted one; he lay alone in the dust” (85) 17. In the beginning of the chapter "Father and Father", Coyote Springs returns to the reservation to find Thomas' father passed out drunk on his lawn. This conjures memories from the life as an Indian living on the reservation for this is not an uncommon occurrence. Each member can easily relate to this experience and knows how that they must sleep in order to forget and hide from the sad truth. "Decorated veterans of that war between fathers and sons, Junior and Victor knew the best defense was sleep. They saw too many drunks littering the grass of the reservation; they rolled the drunks over and stole their money. When they were under age, they slapped those drunks awake and pushed them into

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the Trading Post to buy beer. Now when they saw Samuel Builds-the-Fire passed out on the lawn, they crawled into different corners of Thomas' house and fell right to sleep" (96). 18. Chess and Thomas are talking after they pulled Samuel Builds-The-Fire off of the lawn where he had passed out and into the house. They talk about drunks who wander the streets of town begging for money: "Like when you're walking downtown or something, and you see some drunk Indian passed out on the sidewalk," (99). 19. Thomas heads outside after exchanging stories with Chess and Checkers while his father lays passed out on the table: "He walked outside while the women stayed inside. They understood. Once outside, Thomas cried. Not because he needed to be alone; not because he was afraid to cry in front of women. He just wanted his tears to be individual, not tribal"(100). 20. Victor recounts the story of his mother and step-father leaving him. He runs in to the house to grab his suitcase and runs outside. "Wait for me, Victor shouted..., dropping his suitcase. He ran after his stepfather's car, followed him down the road as far as he could, He galloped down the pavement, his suddenly long hair trailing in the wind. He ran until his body lathered with sweet. He ran until he fell on all fours” (107). 21. Samuel and Lester are playing the six tribal cops in a game of basketball. Samuel and Lester are being accused of drunk driving. “Lester kicked and screamed on the ground. The Tribal Police celebrated their first basket, while Samuel stood with hands on hips and knew it was the same old story. ‘That was a foul,’ Samuel said. ’We didn’t see nothing’” (110). 22. At this point in the story we have learned a little about Junior's life. We know he doesn't have any family on the reservation, and that both his parents are dead. We don't know how they died or what happened to his family. This passage is from when Junior was dreaming about his family and the night his parents died. He dreamt that he was in the car, and that his parents and all his siblings were in the car too: "He cried as each of his siblings climbed out of the car and ran away on all fours. They ran into the darkness; hands and feet sparked on the pavement. They ran to other reservations and never returned. They ran to crack houses and lay down in the debris. They ran to tall buildings and jumped off. They joined the army and disappeared in the desert. Junior cried until his parents came out of the bar at closing time.” (111) 23. Junior dreams of carrying his drunken parents home to their beds, speechless and quite disappointed until he let the music speak to him: "He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He strained and strained, his vocal cords ached with the effort, but nothing came out. Then he heard music from the radio beside the bed. He turned up the volume until the walls and bed shook. His parents stared with fixed pupils. They danced on the bed. Their arms and legs kicked wildly, until their fingers locked, and they pulled each other pack and forth, back and forth" (113). 24. Thomas, Chess, and Checkers have just come home to find Thomas' father passed out, drunk on the front lawn. There is then a long dream sequence with the basketball game between the Cops and the Indians, then it goes back to real time and the three talk about their own fathers' drinking problems. "Checkers also saw her father in Samuel's face, in Thomas' eyes. She saw that warrior desperation and the need to be the superman in the poverty of a reservation. She hated all of it" (114).

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25. Chess and Thomas trade stories about their families and growing up. They open up to each other about the hardships they faced growing up. At one point, Chess says: "Thomas thought about all the imagined and real wars their fathers fought. He thought about that New Year's Eve party, all those parties that seemed to celebrate nothing at all. He remembered the two Indians who played the blues at that party, where Samuel burned the furniture on the front lawn. Two old Indian men played blues. In sunglasses. Big bellies. Big knuckles. Thomas tried to remember if they were any good. He searched his mind for some melody they played but heard nothing. 'You know,' Chess said. 'I heard beer bottles breaking so much that I got used to it. I kind of miss them sometimes'" (120). 26. Coyote Springs is traveling to Seattle to play their first major gig in a big city. On the way, they briefly stop to rest at a place called the Indian John Rest Area. When Junior and Victor step inside to use the bathroom, they are confronted by a curious young white boy who is awed by the sight of "real Indians". He says: "'Hey, Daddy, there's a real Indian out here.' A huge white man stepped out of the stall. 'Who are you talking to?' the white man asked his son. 'This Indian. He's real.' Junior waved weakly to the man. Victor turned away and pretended not to know Junior. But they were the only two Indians in the bathroom. Both wore white t-shirts that had Coyote Springs scribbled across the front, although Junior had on jeans and Victor had on his purple bell bottoms. 'You're an Indian, huh?' the white man asked. 'Yeah,' Junior said and prepared to run. On a reservation, this white man would have been all alone. In America, this white man was legion" (Alexie 128). 27. The band is on their way to their first off Reservation gig in Seattle. After waving goodbye to Checkers, who is thinking of stopping by the church while the band is gone, the band hops in the van and drives away. They stop at the Indian John Rest Area, where Victor and Junior encounter and boy and his father. The boy asks if they are real Indians and then shows his father the real Indians. Victor and Junior joke and say they are the great-grandsons of the Indian the rest area is named after, Indian John. After the father, “almost believed them but came to his senses and stormed away with his son in tow. ‘What took you so long?’ the white man’s wife asked. ‘Just some Indians,’ the white man said. ‘Just some Indians,’ the little boy repeated.” (128-129) 28. Because Checkers left the band she is at the reservation visiting the Catholic Church, while Coyote Springs is at the Battle of the Bands competition. Checkers recalls this moment about her childhood as she goes to pray. “Checkers and Chess slumped into the store, sat in the third aisle, and tried on tennis shoes, those supermarket shoes constructed of cheap canvas and plastic. Other shoppers, white people, stared as the Warm Waters tried on shoes; Checkers saw the pity in their eyes. Those poor Indian kids have to buy their shoes in a supermarket. Both sisters cried as they paid for the essential food items and those ugly shoes. Ever since her father had gone, Checkers bought the most expensive pair of shoes she found” (137). 29. Checkers was talking with Father Arnold in the church while the rest of the band was on the road. She was talking about Father James' nieces: "I wanted to go with them. I wanted to go live in the big city. I knew I wouldn't get in the way. I'd sleep with their perfect dolls and eat crackers. I wanted to be just like them. I wanted to have everything they had. I knew if I was like them, I wouldn't have to be brown and dirty and live on the reservation and spill Communion wine” (141) 30. Checkers has just met Father Arnold before Saturday morning church services, and in an effort to get to know her better, he asks Checkers about her faith. She confesses that she is troubled by Junior and Victor's relationships with the white women, Betty and Veronica, even going so far as to say she hates

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the white women. She goes on to express the origin of these bitter feelings: "'When I was little and we'd go to shop in Missoula, I'd see perfect little white girls all the time. They were always so pretty and clean. I'd come to town in my muddy dress...Dad drove the wagon...The horses and wheels would kick up dirt and mud. Chess, my sister, and I always tried to hide under blankets, but it never worked. There'd be mud under our nails, and we'd grind mud between our teeth. There'd be dirt in the bends of our elbows and knees...Anyway, all those little white girls would be so perfect, so pretty, and so white. White skin and white dresses. I'd be all brown-skinned in my muddy brown dress'" (139-140). 31. After arriving in Seattle for their first big show, the band sees many things that are not common on the reservation. The reservation lifestyle is not very diverse and people don't even know about people who are different. There is little knowledge of life outside of the reservation with these people One site that surprises them a lot is the site of two men holding hands: "They watched, dumbfounded, as two men held hands and walked down the street" (149). 32. Victor just talked to some drunk Indians on the streets of Seattle after the band spent the night in their van: "So many drunks on the reservation, so many. But most Indians never drink. Nobody notices the sober Indians. On television, the drunk Indians emote. In books, the drunk Indians philosophize” (151). 33. Chess is defending her belief in God and her attendance at church to Thomas and he decides to "tell her a story." "We were slaughtered at Wounded Knee. I know there were whole different tribes there, no Spokanes or Flatheads, but we were still somehow there. There was a part of every Indian bleeding in the snow" (167). 34. Coyote Springs has just won the prize money at the band contest in Seattle. They are driving back to the Spokane Reservation. Chess and Thomas are in the front seats talking. They are arguing about going to a church that killed so many Indians. Thomas is telling a story about the slaughter at wounded knee, and saying that he and Chess were there. "I can see you running like a shadow, just outside the body of an Indian woman who looks like you, until she was shot by an eighteen-year-old white kid from Missouri. He jumps off the horse, falls on her an you, the Indian, the shadow. He cuts and tears with his sword, his hands, his teeth. He ate you both up like he was a coyote. They all ate us like we were mice, rabbits, flightless birds. They ate us whole” (168). 35. Chess and Thomas are discussing the fact that white people, specifically Betty and Veronica want to be Indians. Thomas says: "You know, I've always had a theory that you ain't really Indian unless, at some point in your life, you didn't want to be Indian" (169). 36. Thomas is at church with Chess and Checkers when he talks to an old woman about Betty and Veronica. They talk about how the white women are trouble and how they as a band are no longer liked in the community because they left. "Then [Thomas] ran outside, crumbled the wafer into pieces, and let it fall to the earth. The reservation swallowed those pieces hungrily. Not sure why he even took the Communion wafer in the first place, Thomas felt the weight of God, the reservation, and all the stories between” (180). 37. After winning the Battle of the Bands, a Cadillac pulls up to the reservation looking for the band. It pulls up to Thomas’s house, and the men inside the car reveal that they are record producers, looking to sign the band. The two men, Phil Sheridan and George Wright write a letter to their boss, Mr. Armstrong, telling him about the band.

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“Overall, this band looks and sounds Indian. They all have dark skin. Chess, Checkers, and Junior all have long hair. Thomas has a big nose, and Victor has many scars. We’re looking at some genuine crossover appeal. We can really dress this group up, give them war paint, feathers, etc., and really play up the Indian angle.”(190). 38. Immediately after rejecting Coyote Springs, Sheridan is furious at the band members for making him look bad. He says that they are so lucky to have a free trip to New York and that they are ungrateful for his help. He says he'll treat them to a nice evening: "Sheridan pulled out his wallet and dropped a few bills on the floor near victor. Chess and Checkers quickly picked up the money and threw it in Sheridan's face"(229). 39. Junior and Victor have just run away in New York. They have gone to a bar. Thomas, Chess, and Checkers are all about to go find them. “If any New Yorkers had stopped to look, they would have seen three Indians slow dancing, their hair swirling in the wind. The whole scene could have been a postcard. Wish you were here. It could have been on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine” (230). 40. Victor imagines himself destroying the lives of whites parallel to ways they ruined Indian lives. It is right after the record company rejects Coyote Springs and he is furious: "Victor roared against his whole life. if he could have been hooked up to a power line, he would have lit up Time Square. He had enough anger inside to guide every salmon over Grand Coulee Dam. He wanted to steal New York cop's horse and go on the warpath. He wanted to scalp stockbrokers and kidnap super models. He wanted to shoot flaming arrows into the Museum of Modern Art. He wanted to lay siege to Radio City Music Hall. Victor wanted to win. Victor wanted to get drunk"(Alexie 230). 41. After traveling to New York, and being denied a record deal, the band spends a night on the town. What would the band be without a little drinking: “Victor and Junior sat in a smoky lounge with a half dozen empty glasses in front of them….It was the fourth bar that Junior and Victor have been in since they ran away from the rest of Coyote Springs. The bouncers had tossed them out of the first bar for fighting”(232). 42. After Coyote Springs' audition, when Checkers is being haunted by Sheridan in the hotel room: "Sheridan kneeled down beside Checkers and tied her hands behind her back with his necktie./ I remember once, he said, when I killed this Indian woman. I don't even know what tribe she was. It was back in '72. I rode up on her and ran my saber right through her heart. I thought that was it. But she jumped up and pulled me off my mount. I couldn't believe it. I was so angry that I threw her to the ground and stomped her to death. It was then I noticed she was pregnant. We couldn't have that. Nits make like, you know? So I cut her belly open and pulled that fetus out. Then that baby bit me. Can you believe that?" (Alexie 237). 43. When the band goes to New York to record in a studio, they don't fit in at all. In fact, Junior and Victor get in large amounts of trouble and Thomas, Chess, and Checkers are extremely worried about being mugged while these three look for the guitarist and drummer of Coyote Springs. Fortunately, they don't look rich enough to even get mugged: "'Why aren't we dead?' Chess asked Thomas as they sat in a booth. 'Probably because we looked too pathetic to mug,' Thomas said" (238). 44. Wright is in Coyote Spring's hotel room (in New York) talking to the rest of the band after he woke Checkers up from her nightmare. It is the night after Coyote Springs failed as a band in New York. Wright, one of the owners of the studio, visited Checkers who had been waiting in the hotel room for Chess and Thomas to find Victor and Junior. When the others arrive back for Checkers, they see Wright, who

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"looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked at his own white hands and saw the bloodstains there" (244). 45. Coyote Springs has just imploded and ruined their chance at a record deal with Cavalry Records, and to fill their "economic need for a viable Indian band" the Cavalry Records executives are brainstorming possible ways to turn Betty and Veronica into a "real" Indian band. "Can't you see the possibilities? We dress them up a little. Get them into the tanning booth. Darken them up a bit. Maybe a little plastic surgery on those cheekbones. Get them little higher, you know? Dye their hair black. Then we'd have Indians. People want to hear Indians." "What do you think?" Armstrong asked Wright. "I don't have anything to do with it." Wright said and left the room” (269-270). 46. Later in a conversation between Sheridan and Armstrong: "I mean, they had some grandmothers or something that were Indian. Really. We can still sell that Indian idea. We don't need and goddamn just-off-the reservation Indians. We can use these women. They've been on the reservations. They even played a few gigs with Coyote Springs. Don't you see? These women have got the Indian experience down. They really understand what it means to be Indian. They've been there" (Alexie 269). 47. Wright looks down at his own tombstone in the cemetery and meets his dead wife, remorseful for what he committed toward the Indian. "Shh," Margaret whispered. "It's okay. I forgive you. Wright closed his eyes and saw the colt standing still in that field. He remembered that he had taken a pistol from a private. This is how it's done, he had said as he dismounted from his own horse. He pressed the pistol between the colt's eyes, pulled the trigger, and watched it fall. "Oh, God," Wright sobbed to his wife on their graves. The grief rushed into his lungs. "I'm a killer. I'm a killer." "You've come home," Margaret whispered. "You're home now” (271). 48. Chess, Checkers, Victor, Thomas, and Big Mom are in the Spokane Tribal Cemetery for Junior's funeral. "Chess looked around the graveyard, at all the graces of Indians killed by white people's cars, alcohol, uranium. All those Indians who had killed themselves. She saw the pine trees that surrounded the graveyard and the road that led back to the rest of the reservation. That road was dirt and gravel, had been a trail for a few centuries before. A few years from now, it would be paved, paid for by one more government grant. She looked down the road and thought she saw a car, a mirage shimmering in the distance, a blonde woman and a child standing beside the car, both dressed in black. Look, Chess said and ran down the road toward the woman and child. She had so many questions. Why did you love him, that broken Indian man? Chess asked the white woman. Why did you conceive him a son? Chess wanted to tell the white woman that her child was always going to be halfway. He's always going to be half Indian, she'd say, and that will make him half crazy. Half of him will always want to tear the other half apart. It's war" (282) 49. Junior had recently killed himself and Victor keeps seeing his dead body. Victor misses talking to Junior and all the time they spent together. Since Junior's death Victor hadn't gotten drunk and when Victor was talking to Junior, one of the reasons Junior said he killed himself was because he didn't want to be drunk anymore. Victor decided he wanted to give up drinking and symbolically threw his flask into the lake:

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"Like some alcoholic magician, Junior pulled flask after flask from his clothes and handed them to Victor, who threw them out the window into Turtle Lake” (291). 50. Big Mom gets the attention of the entire feast crowd and proves that she can feed the whole group by braking the bread in half and sharing it with everyone. Sharing is a new concept to the Indians and it never occurs to them to share anything in their life, so much as to think sharing is magical. “ ‘By ancient Indian secrets,’ Big Mom said. ‘Bullshit!’ ‘Watch this,’ Big Mom said as she grabbed a piece of fry bread and held it above her head. ‘Creator help me. I have only 100 pieces of fry bread to feed 200 people.’ Big Mom held that fry bread tightly in her huge hands and tore it into halves” (301-302). 51. When Thomas and Chess and Checkers are leaving Thomas's reservation for the last time, they imagine horses running alongside the van, keeping them company: "Those horses were following, leading Indians toward the city, while other Indians were traditional dancing in the Longhouse after the feast, while drunk Indians stood outside the Trading Post, drinking and laughing...Big Mom taught them a new song, the shadow horses' song, the slaughtered horses' song, the screaming horses' song, a song of mourning that would become a song of celebration: we have survived, we have survived" (306).

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