Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman Read online

  Coyote: A small canid (Canis Iatrans) native to western North America that is closely related to the American wolf and whose cry has often been compared to that of Sippie Wallace and Janis Joplin, among others.

  Coyote: A traditional figure in Native American mythology, alternately responsible for the creation of the earth and for some of the more ignorant acts after the fact.

  Coyote: A trickster whose bag of tricks contains permutations of love, hate, weather, chance, laughter, and tears, e.g., Lucille Ball.

  Spring: An ultimate source of supply, especially a source of water issuing from the ground.

  Spring: To issue with speed and force, as in a raging guitar solo.

  Spring: To make a leap or series of leaps, e.g., from stage to waiting arms of Indian and non-Indian fans.

  * * *

  The blue van, tattered and bruised, cruised down an anonymous highway on the Flathead Indian Reservation and searched for the dirt road that led to the Tipi Pole Tavern. Actually, Thomas, Junior, and Victor attempted to drive and navigate. As a result of this partnership, the blue van and its three occupants, along with their musical equipment, were lost.

  "Shit, Junior," Victor said, "there ain't but two or three roads on this whole reservation, and you're telling me we're lost."

  "This goddamn map is useless," Junior said. "There are all sorts of roads ain't even on it. This road we're on now ain't on the map."

  "Listen," Thomas said, "maps just give advice anyway."

  The blue van suddenly stopped at a crossroads.

  "Which way?" Thomas asked because he was driving.

  "I don't know," Victor and Junior said because they weren't driving.

  "Let's decide it the old Indian way," Thomas said because he tried to be as traditional as the twentieth century allowed.

  "What's that?" Victor and Junior asked because they were as contemporary as cable television.

  "We'll drive straight,"' Thomas said and pointed with his lips. "Then we find a house and ask somebody for directions."

  The blue van started again, shuddered a little bit, then traveled down the highway for nearly a mile before it came upon a HUD house. Those government houses looked the same from reservation to reservation. The house on the Flathead Reservation looked like Simon's house on the Spokane Reservation. A Flathead woman and her granddaughter stood outside in their near-yard, hands on hips, waiting.

  "We heard you coming from a long ways off," the Flathead woman said as the blue van pulled into her almost-driveway and stopped.

  "Where's the Tipi Pole Tavern?" Junior asked.

  "Over there, " the woman answered and waved her arm in a random sort of way.

  "Can you be more specific?" Victor asked, irritated.

  The woman looked at her granddaughter, who was about five years old with her hair already gray in places. Wise old kid. The grandmother and granddaughter actually looked like sisters, except the granddaughter was forty years younger and two feet shorter.

  "It's over there, not too far," the granddaughter answered and waved her arm in a general sort of direction.

  "Jeez," Victor said. "How do we get there?"

  "Why you want to know?" the woman and granddaughter asked.

  "Because we're playing over there tonight," Junior said.

  "Playing what?" the granddaughter asked.

  "Music," Victor said. "We're a band."

  "What's your name?" the grandmother asked.

  "Coyote Springs," Thomas said.

  The grandmother walked close to the blue van, picked up her granddaughter so she could see inside, and looked the band over closely.

  "Who's the lead singer?" the granddaughter asked.

  "I am," Thomas said.

  "Well, then," the granddaughter said directly to Thomas. "just go back down the way you came, take a left at the first intersection after a big tree stump painted red. Drive down that road for a while and then take the first right you see. About three mailboxes down that way is the Tipi Pole Tavern."

  "Thanks, cousin," Thomas said, and the blue van pulled back onto the highway and made its way to the tavern.

  "Jesus, " Junior said. "Ain't that the way it always is? They only want to talk to the lead singer. All they want to know is the lead singer. Lead singer this. Lead singer that."

  "Enit," Victor said. "Where the fuck would Mick Jagger be without Keith Richards?"

  "He'd be at the Tipi Pole Tavern," Thomas said, "already done with the sound check."

  The blue van pulled up to the tavern only two hours later than scheduled. A little old Flathead man sat alone by the front door. The tavern was closed, but that old man wanted to be the first customer when it opened.

  "Ya-hey," the old Indian man called out.

  "Ya-hey," the blue van called back.

  "Are you the band?"

  "Yeah, we're Coyote Springs."

  "Little bit early, enit?"

  "We thought we was two hours late by real time. At least an hour late by Indian time."

  "Shit, people out here work on double Indian time. You could've showed up tomorrow and been okay. What kind of music you play, anyway?"

  "Little bit of everything. Whole bunch of the blues."

  "Reservation blues, huh?"

  "That's it, uncle."

  Coyote Springs climbed out of the blue van and sat with the old man. They offered him cigarettes, candy, dirty jokes. Then it was dark.

  "About time," the Flathead said.

  "Time for what?"

  The old man pointed down the road and smiled as dozens of headlights appeared.

  "Shit," Victor said. "It's either your whole damn tribe or the cavalry."

  "Well," the old man said, "we heard you was an all-Indian band, and we wanted to hear you play. I guess even some of the sober ones are coming. Hope the bar has enough Diet Pepsi."

  The owner of the bar pulled up. He took a minute getting out of his pickup because of his enormous cowboy hat and dinner-plate belt buckle engraved with the name JIMMY. The cowboy hat and belt buckle walked up to Coyote Springs and the old man.

  "You must be Coyote Springs," he said.

  "Yeah, we are. You must be Jimmy."

  "Nah," the man said and looked down at his belt buckle.

  "I ain't Jimmy. Not really."

  "Well," Thomas said, confused. "We really are Coyote Springs."

  "The one and only," Victor said.

  "So," the bar owner asked, "who's the lead singer?"

  Thomas raised his hand.

  "Let's go, then."

  The tavern soon filled with Indians of all sizes, shapes, and colors. They all waited to hear Coyote Springs for the first time.

  "Look at all those Skins," Victor said. "They must think it's Bingo night."

  "Are you ready?" Thomas asked.

  "Ready to be fucking immortal," Victor said. His fifteen-year-old green silk shirt and matching polyester pants glowed in the spotlight.

  Coyote Springs counted one, two, three, then fell into their first paid chord together, off rhythm. They stopped, counted again, rose into that first chord again, then the second, third, and in a move that stunned the crowd and instantly propelled them past nearly every rock band in history, played a fourth chord and nearly a fifth. Four and a half chords, and then Thomas Builds-the-Fire stepped up to the microphone to sing.

  3

  Indian Boy Love Song

  I saw you walking with those dark legs of yours

  I felt you walking through my sweatlodge doors

  And don't you wonder when y0u're there in the dark

  Just hear the drummer beating time with your heart

  I hear you talking about your Trail of Tears

  If you feel the need I can help calm all your fears

  I'll be here watching and I'll wait for your call

  I'll catch you sweetheart when you feel you may fall

  chorus:

  And I want to say hey, ya—hey, ya—hey, ya—hey

  I want to say
hey, ya—hey, ya—hey

  And I want to say hey, ya—hey, ya-hey, ya—hey

  I want to say hey, ya—hey, ya—hey, ya—hey

  I can see you playing stickgame all night long

  I can see you smiling when you're singing the song

  I'Il be here guessing which hand holds the bone

  I hope I choose right so I won't be alone

  (repeat chorus until end)

  Chess and Checkers Warm Water, Flathead Indian sisters, pushed their way to the front of the crowd in the Tipi Pole Tavern. Both wanted to get a closer look at Coyote Springs. The audience cheered like it was a real concert rather than a low-paying gig in a reservation bar. A few Flatheads even raised lighters, flicked their Bics, and singed the braids of their friends. For safety, Chess and Checkers tucked their braids under cowboy hats. Chess wore glasses.

  "They're not too good," Checkers said. A few inches taller than her older sister, Checkers was the most beautiful Indian woman on the Flathead Reservation, and quite possibly in all of Indian country. All the young Flathead men called her Little Miss Native American, but she still refused to listen to their courting songs. She liked the old Indian men and their traditional songs. All the other Flathead women respected Checkers's selective ear, even as they chased the young Indian boys themselves.

  "Yeah, they ain't too good at all," Chess said of Coyote Springs. "But that lead singer is kind of cute, enit?"

  "Cute enough."

  Chess and Checkers danced in front of the stage. Chess had fancydanced when she was a teenager and shook to Three Dog Night on her childhood radio. She danced well in both the Indian and white ways. Not as obviously pretty as her sister, Chess, living up to her nickname, planned all of her moves in advance.

  "God," Chess said, "that drummer is awful."

  Junior and Victor started the evening sober but drank all the free booze offered. Thomas stayed sober but could not stop his bandmates, so they all sounded worse with each beer. Junior nearly fell off his stool when he swung and missed the snare drum completely. Victor strummed an open chord continually because he forgot how to play any other. Still, it was only the sisters who noticed that the band fell apart, because most of the audience drank more than Coyote Springs. All the other sober Flatheads had already left.

  "Let's go home,'° Checkers said.

  "No," Chess said. "That lead singer is staring at me."

  "Thank you, thank you," Thomas said after a particularly sloppy number. "We're going to take a short break now. We'll be back in a few."

  Coyote Springs staggered off the stage. Thomas left his guitar onstage, but Victor always carried Robert Johnson's guitar with him.

  "Did you see that woman in the front row?" Thomas asked.

  "Yeah, the one with black hair and brown skin?" Victor asked.

  "No, really," Thomas said. "Did you see her?"

  "Yeah," Victor said. "The one with the cowboy hat and big tits."

  "Don't be an asshole, " Thomas said. "I mean the one with glasses."

  "Yeah," Junior said, "I saw her."

  "She's pretty, enit?" Thomas asked.

  "She's all right," Junior said.

  "Shit," Victor said. "I'd take the one with big tits."

  "She wouldn't have nothing to do with your drunk ass," Thomas said.

  "So what?" Victor said. "Who says I want an Indian woman anyway? I see some good-looking white women here."

  Surprised, Thomas and Junior looked around the room, because they hadn't noticed any white women and wondered what Victor saw.

  "You must be having a vision, " Junior said. "I'm jealous."

  "Listen," Thomas said, "I want to play her a song."

  "Who?" junior and Victor asked.

  "The woman in the front row."

  "That white woman?" Victor asked. junior, completely confused, scanned the room again for any evidence of white women.

  "No," Thomas said, "the Indian woman. The one with glasses."

  "Why?" Victor asked. "Is Thomas trying to get laid?"

  "I want to play 'Indian Boy Love Song,' " Thomas said.

  "Shit no," Victor said. "We ain't even practiced that one."

  "I don't think so," Junior said. "Ain't no Indian wants to hear a slow song anyway."

  "Well, I'II just go out there and do it myself."

  "Jesus Christ," Victor said as Thomas walked back onstage. "The little asshole's already thinking about a solo career."

  "Well, let's go," Junior said. "We're a band."

  Junior followed Thomas, but Victor stayed behind and made goofy eyes at a blond mirage near the back of the bar. Victor had started to drink early in life, just after his real father moved to Phoenix, and he drank even harder after his step-father moved into the house. Junior never drank until the night of his high school graduation. He'd sworn never to drink because of his parents' 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. Thomas's father still drank quietly, never raising his voice once in all his life, just staggering around the reservation, usually covered in piss and shit.

  "Come on, Victor," Junior yelled from the stage. "Get up here."

  "Fuck you," Victor said, but the guitar throbbed in his hands and pulled him to the stage.

  "Thank you, thank you," Thomas said as Coyote Springs reclaimed the stage amid a drunken ovation. "We're going to slow things down a little now. I want to play this song for that Indian woman standing right here in front of me."

  Thomas pointed at Chess. The whole crowd, because they had known the Warm Water sisters all their lives, chanted her name.

  "Well, Chess," Thomas said, "this one is for you."

  Nerves and bar smoke cracked his voice, but Thomas sang loudly, shut the whole bar up, and even sobered up a few drunks. Thomas stunned all the Flatheads when he dared to serenade an Indian woman with his ragged voice. They figured he must be in love.

  "You're not going to fall for this?" Checkers asked her sister.

  "Not completely," Chess said. "Maybe just a little."

  Thomas got carried away, though, and warbled his song for Chess a few more times. He sang blues, country, and punk versions, even recited it like a poem. Once, he closed his eyes and told it like a story. The crowd went crazy and pushed Chess onstage in their frenzy.

  "Can you sing?" Thomas asked her.

  "Yeah," she said.

  "Let's do it, then," Thomas said.

  The two launched into a duet. Chess felt like a Flathead Reservation Cher next to the Spokane Indian version of Sonny, but the music happened, clumsy and terrifying.

  * * *

  From The Western Montana Alternative Bi-Weekly:

  Coyote Springs on Tipi, Crushes It Flat

  A new band, dubbed Coyote Springs and hailing from

  the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington State,

  took its first step toward musical oblivion the other night

  at the Tipi Pole Tavern on the Flathead Reservation.

  Playing a mix of blues, rock, pop, gospel, rap, and a few

  unidentifiable musical forms, the band made up in pure

  volume what it lacked in talent. In fact, Coyote Springs

  seemed to take the term rock literally and landed hard

  on all of our eardrums before rolling out the door to their

  ugly blue tour van, all headed for destinations unknown.

  It didn't help anything that two of the band members were

  drunk as skunks.

  The highlight of the evening came when Chess Warm Water,

  a local Flathead Indian, was pushed onto the stage for a

  few duets with Coyote Springs's lead singer, Thomas

  Builds-the-Fire. Warm Water has a voice exactly like her

  surname, which provided an interesting, if not altogether

  beautiful, contrast with Builds-the-Fire's sparkless vocal
s.

  The dictionary defines unforgettable as "incapable of being

  forgotten," and Coyote Springs, all considerations aside, was

  certainly that. Unforgettable and maybe even a little forgivable.

  * * *

  After the show at the Tipi Pole, Chess and Checkers helped Coyote Springs pack away all their gear. Actually, Junior and Victor passed out in the back of the van, so Chess and Checkers did most of the work.

  "So," Thomas said, "how long you two lived out here?"

  Long enough," Checkers said angrily, because she wanted to go home.

  "Don't pay her no mind," Chess said. "We've lived here our whole lives."

  "You're Flatheads, enit?" Thomas asked.

  "Yeah," Chess said. "And you guys are all Spokanes?"

  "Yeah," Thomas said and struggled to say more.

  Montana filled Thomas's mind. He used to think every Indian in the world lived in Montana. Now he had played guitar in Montana and sang duet with a beautiful Indian woman. Chess had never considered herself beautiful, but she liked her face well enough. 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 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.

  "So," Thomas said again, "is Chess your real name?"

  "No."

  "What' s your real name?"

  "I ain't going to tell you," Chess said. "You'd run off if you knew."

  "lt can't be that bad," Thomas said.

  Checkers watched, surprised that Thomas chose her sister. Checkers usually received all the attention, but she didn't miss it this time. Thomas Builds-the-Fire looked especially goofy as he stumbled his way through the first stages of courtship. They finished all the packing, even pretended to pack Junior and Victor into suitcases. The sisters stood with Thomas in the parking lot of the Tipi Pole Tavern. A few stragglers shouted lewd suggestions at Thomas, but he mostly ignored them.