WILSON’S STUDIO APARTMENT WAS small but tidy. It was in an old building just east of downtown. He had lived in it forever even though he knew he could have moved into a larger place. He felt safe in this one. He liked his couch that folded out into a bed, the coffee table where he took many of his meals, the big-screen television filling up an entire wall, the clock radio, the chest of drawers with a black-and-white photograph of his birth parents set on top, the small desk with matching chair. His typewriter sat on his desk, along with a cup of pencils, some correcting fluid, and copies of his two published books. His kitchen was tucked into a corner: tiny refrigerator, stove, and sink. He had two plates, two settings of silverware, one cup, and one glass. Small stereo. A simple life, to be sure, but it was good camouflage from the monsters.
Wilson thought about the Indian Killer. A white man scalped, a white man disappeared, a white boy kidnapped. It was Biblical, David versus Goliath. But Wilson was disturbed by that. He wondered if a real Indian was capable of such violence. He knew about real Indians. He’d read the books, had spent long hours meditating, listening to the voices from the past. From the confusing and complicated cornucopia of tribal influences that made up Wilson’s idea of ceremony came burned sage and tobacco, a medicine pouch worn beneath his clothes, and a turquoise ring on his right hand. While beating the drum he’d ordered from a catalog, Wilson played Southern and Northern style, often within the same song. Some nights, Wilson would slip into the traditional dance outfit he’d bought at a downtown pawn shop, drop a powwow tape into the stereo, and two-step across the floor for hours. He dreamed of being the best traditional dancer in the world. Wilson saw himself inside a bright spotlight in a huge arena while thousands of Indians cheered for him. Real Indians.
Wilson sat down at the typewriter, cracked his knuckles, typed the first word, and leaned back in his chair. He cleared his throat, decided he was thirsty, and wondered if he had any milk left. He drank gallons of one-percent.
He stood up, walked over to his refrigerator, opened it, and discovered it was nearly empty. A pizza box, jar of mustard, and unidentifiable lunch meat. Opening the refrigerator had made him hungry, an automatic response, so he grabbed his apartment keys and went for some dinner at Big Heart’s Soda and Juice Bar on Aurora and 110th. In light traffic, Big Heart’s was at least a twenty-minute drive from his Capitol Hill apartment, but Wilson never minded the effort because Big Heart’s was an Indian bar, meaning that Indians frequented the place, although a white man owned it. Wilson spent a lot of time at Big Heart’s. The bar was a huge multilevel circus. On the main floor, a twenty-seat bar, a jukebox, and a dozen tables. Two pool tables on the lower level, a dance floor and bandstand on the upper floor. Three or four hundred Indians shoved into the place on a busy weekend night.
Despite all of the time he spent in Big Heart’s, Wilson had never come to understand the social lives of Indians. He did not know that, in the Indian world, there is not much social difference between a rich Indian and a poor one. Generally speaking, Indian is Indian. A few who gain wealth and power as lawyers, businessmen, artists, or doctors may marry white people and keep only white friends, but generally Indians of different classes interact freely with one another. Most unemployed or working poor, some with good jobs and steady incomes, but all mixing together. Wilson also did not realize how tribal distinctions were much more important than economic ones. The rich and poor Spokanes may hang out together, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Spokanes are friendly with the Lakota or Navajo or any other tribe. The Sioux still distrust the Crow because they served as scouts for Custer. Hardly anybody likes the Pawnee. Most important, though, Wilson did not understand that the white people who pretend to be Indian are gently teased, ignored, plainly ridiculed, or beaten, depending on their degree of whiteness.
“Hey, there,” said Mick, the bartender, who was also the owner, as Wilson took a seat facing him. “What’ll you have? A hamburger and fries, a glass of milk, right?”
“I’ve been wondering,” Wilson said to Mick after the food arrived. “How come so many Indians come here?”
Mick shrugged his shoulders.
“How long they been coming here?”
Mick looked around the bar. A few Indians were playing pool, a big Indian guy in a dirty raincoat was sitting quietly at the other end of the bar from Wilson, and one couple was slow dancing to a bad song on the jukebox. It was still early on a weeknight. Mick breathed in deep, tilted his head in thought, made clicking sounds with his tongue, counting that way.
“I guess it must be about five, six years now,” said Mick. “A few Indians just showed up one night, you know, like they were scouts or something. Then there were a few more the next night. A couple weeks later and the whole place was Indian. You know, for a while, I used to have a lot of white customers, too, but the Indians drove them away. You’re about the only white guy left.”
Mick had always referred to Wilson as a fellow white guy. And that had always bothered Wilson, who was so proud of his Indian blood. He had told all of the Indians who would listen about Red Fox, his Indian ancestor. Wilson had not told them that he was a writer, though everybody knew anyway. He thought he was anonymous in this place, picking up bits of stray information for his novels, but Wilson wrongly assumed that the Indians who went to Big Heart’s did not read any books, let alone his books. In blissful ignorance, he figured he fit in fine, though the Skins in Big Heart’s knew that he was just another white guy trying to become Indian by hanging out in an Indian bar. Wilson thought he was charming, but he had just become an expected feature of Big Heart’s, a cheap sort of entertainment, and all the Indians called him Casper the Friendly Ghost.
“Hey, Mick,” said Wilson. “Have you ever had any serious trouble around here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, have there been any killings, anything like that?”
“No way. Lot of fights, I guess, but nobody’s been killed. Why you ask?”
“Just curious.”
Mick nodded his head, then turned to wash a few glasses. There were only a few, just busy work, but he liked to stay on top of things. Mick had once come across one of Wilson’s books and was surprised to see his face on the back cover. Mick was even more surprised when he read the book. It was pretty good, although Mick was kind of tired of hearing about Indians. Still, Mick thought, Aristotle Little Hawk was a good Indian, even if he was just some character in a book. He wished more Indians like Little Hawk hung out in the bar. He knew Wilson claimed he had some Indian blood, said so inside the book. But Mick did not buy that shit. Mick’s great-grandmother was a little bit Indian, but that did not make him Indian. Besides, who the hell would want to be Indian when you could just as easily be white?
“I run a pretty tight ship here,” Mick said to Wilson. “You can’t let these people get anything started. You have to cut it off at the bud.”
Wilson nodded his head and filled his mouth with fries. Mick was always complaining about Indians. Wilson thought it ironic, since Mick depended on Indians for business. If all of the Indians abandoned Big Heart’s, Mick would go under in a few months. Big Heart’s would become a ghost town. Once an Indian bar, always an Indian bar, and the white people would never come back.
Three Indian men in their early twenties walked into Big Heart’s then, laughing and carrying on, having a good time. Wilson recognized them. One was Harley Tate, the Colville with the mashed nose who couldn’t hear or talk. Another was Ty Williams, a chubby, light-skinned Coeur d’Alene. The third was Reggie Polatkin, the Spokane Indian with the startling blue eyes.
“Hey, Casper!” Reggie shouted to Jack Wilson. “How’s it hanging?”
“Down to my knee,” Wilson said, the expected response. He had learned some things in the bar.
“Hey,” said Reggie. “Buy us a pop.”
“Sure,” said Wilson. “Three Pepsis, Mick.”
“Jeez, you dumb-ass white guy,” Reggie said, shaking his head. “Don’t you ever get it right? The Colvilles drink Pepsi, but we Spokanes only drink Coke. And those damn Coeur d’Alenes drink 7UP, enit?”
“Never had it,” said Ty, the Coeur d’Alene. “Never will.”
“Well, then,” Reggie said. “What do Coeur d’Alenes drink?”
“Blood,” said Ty.
“Hey, Mick,” said Wilson. “Make that one Pepsi, one Coke, and a tomato juice.”
Reggie and his friends laughed.
“Good one, Casper, good one. Come sit with us.”
Wilson received very few invitations to sit with the Indians in Big Heart’s, so he jumped at the chance.
“Get some popcorn, too,” Reggie said to Wilson, who filled up a couple of bowls and brought them to the table.
“You’re a good man, Casper,” said Ty. “I don’t care what everybody else says.”
Wilson blushed. These Indians could still make him blush. Harley the Colville made a few frantic hand gestures, sign language. Since they were frantic, Wilson figured he was telling a joke. Ty and Reggie, who had learned sign language, made a few signs in return. They all laughed again, Ty and Reggie loud and baritone, Harley high-pitched and slow.
“What did he say?” asked Wilson.
“Nothing important,” said Reggie, still laughing a little.
They talked and laughed, signed and laughed, although Wilson understood few of the jokes, signed or spoken.
“Hey,” Reggie asked Wilson. “Where are all the white women?”
There were a dozen or so white women who liked to sleep with the Indian men who frequented Big Heart’s. Though Reggie generally preferred Indian women, he would fuck an Indian groupie now and again. He liked the power of it. He liked to come inside a white woman and then leave her lying naked on a hotel bed she’d paid for, or in the backseat of her car, or on a piece of cardboard in an alley outside Big Heart’s.
During his senior year of high school, Reggie had been sitting with his white girlfriend and a few other white friends when a drunk Indian had staggered into the pizza place. Reggie had pretended not to see the Indian, who’d flopped into a seat, laid his head on the table, and passed out. The Indian smelled like he hadn’t bathed in weeks. As if to tell a secret, Reggie’s white girlfriend had leaned forward. Reggie and his white friends had leaned toward her.
“I hate Indians,” she’d whispered.
Reggie had tried to laugh it off, but he’d felt as if he’d been torn in half. Later that night, his girlfriend had tearfully tried to apologize to him. They’d parked on a dirt road a few miles outside of Seattle.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said. “I didn’t mean you. I love you. You’re not like those other Indians. You’re not like them.”
Reggie had not said anything. Without a word, he’d kissed her hard, stripped her naked, and fucked her for the first time. She’d cried out when he roughly penetrated her. She’d been a virgin, though Reggie hadn’t asked and wouldn’t have cared. Every night for a week, he’d picked her up from her house, driven her to that same dirt road, and fucked her. No condom, no birth control pills, no withdrawal. He came inside her and hoped he’d gotten her pregnant. He’d wanted her to give birth to a brown baby. He’d wanted to dilute his Indian blood. He’d wanted some kind of revenge. He’d wanted some place to spill his pain. After a week of painful and angry sex, his white girlfriend had broken up with him. She had not been impregnated. She would never speak to him again.
“Hey,” Wilson said. “I heard something crazy.”
“What?”
“I heard a white guy was scalped.”
The Indians stopped laughing. They stared at Wilson.
“You’re full of shit,” said Reggie.
“No, really,” said Wilson. “Somebody killed him and scalped him.”
No laughter. Harley signed. Reggie signed back.
“What did he say?” asked Wilson.
“He thinks you’re full of shit, too.”
Wilson could see that Reggie was uncomfortable.
“You already knew about it, didn’t you?” Wilson asked Reggie.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” said Reggie, who had moved his chair away from Wilson. Harley and Ty signed back and forth.
Reggie stared angrily at Wilson, who could not think of anything to say. He knew he had crossed some line, had violated an invisible boundary. He was not being a good cop, it was all too obvious, but he could not help himself.
“How did you hear about it?” Reggie asked suspiciously.
“I heard some guys talking about it downtown,” Wilson lied, still assuming the Indians didn’t know he was an ex-cop. “And they were talking about that young boy, too. They think he was kidnapped by the same one who scalped the white guy.”
Reggie nodded his head slowly, took a sip of his Coke. Ty and Harley exchanged nervous glances.
“Do you think an Indian would do something like that?” asked Wilson, leaning forward in his seat, ready to take mental notes.
Reggie stared at Wilson, a hard stare.
“What do you think?” asked Reggie.
Wilson sat back in his chair, drummed his fingers on the table.
“No way,” said Wilson. “I don’t think so. Not a real Indian.”
“No, huh? Is that your answer?”
Wilson shrugged his shoulders.
“Well,” said Reggie. “I think an Indian could do something like that. Maybe the question should be something different. Maybe you should be wondering which Indian wouldn’t do it. Lots of real Indian men out there have plenty enough reasons to kill a white man. Three at this table right now.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Reggie looked at his friends. Ty and Harley stood as if to leave.
“Wait, hey,” said Wilson. “I was just talking. Come on, I’ll buy you another round.”
“No thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, we’re sure.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you around, right?”
“Listen,” said Reggie. “You know about Bigfoot? That Sioux Indian?”
“Yeah,” said Wilson. “He died at the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890. He was Minneconjou Sioux, I think. He was killed because he was leading the Ghost Dance.”
“The Ghost Dance?”
“Yeah, it was a dance that was supposed to destroy the white men and bring back the buffalo. Ghost Dancing was thought to be an act of warfare against white people.”
“Yeah, and who killed Bigfoot?”
“The Seventh Cavalry.”
“No, I mean, who killed him?”
“Some soldier, I guess. Nobody knows for sure.”
“You’re not paying attention. What color was the man who killed Bigfoot?”
“He would’ve been white.”
“Exactly, Casper. Think about that.”
The three Indians left the bar. A dozen other Indians walked in soon after and greeted Wilson. Reggie, Ty, and Harley bumped into a few friends in the parking lot. Ty and Harley were eager to talk about Wilson and the murders, but Reggie remained quiet. He knew that Wilson was probably trying to write some book about the scalping. And he’d get it wrong. Wilson didn’t understand anything about Indians. Ty, with his voice, and Harley, with his hands, told other Indians about the scalping. The word spread quickly. Within a few hours, nearly every Indian in Seattle knew about the scalping. Most Indians believed it was all just racist paranoia, but a few felt a strange combination of relief and fear, as if an apocalyptic prophecy was just beginning to come true.