REGGIE’S APARTMENT WAS SMALL but surprisingly clean, with a huge stereo and television, a small bookcase holding college textbooks and a few novels, including both of Jack Wilson’s. Reggie, Ty, and Harley were watching John Ford’s classic western, The Searchers, starring John Wayne and Natalie Wood. Both Reggie and Ty tried to translate for Harley, who couldn’t read John Wayne’s lips all that well. Still, with his friends’ help, Harley understood the plot of the movie. Natalie Wood had been kidnapped by Indians, and her uncle John Wayne had spent years searching for her. He planned on killing her if he ever found her, because she’d been soiled by the Indians.
“What would you do if some Indians took your niece or your child?” Harley signed the question to Ty.
“I’d wonder which powwow they were going to,” signed Ty.
“Seriously.”
“Seriously, I don’t have a child. I don’t know.”
“I’d kill her,” signed Reggie. “I understand what John Wayne is feeling. How would you feel if some white people kidnapped an Indian kid? I’d cut them all into pieces.”
Reggie slashed the air with his empty hand. He thought of Bird, that brutal stranger who pretended to be Reggie’s father. Reggie wondered if he’d been stolen away from his real family. Maybe there was an Indian family out there who was missing a son. Maybe Reggie belonged to them.
“Hey, Reggie, you got to calm down,” Ty said.
Reggie glared at him.
“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?” asked Reggie.
“Now, listen,” said Ty. “Me and Harley talked it over, man. I mean, you’re just taking it too far. Beating up that white guy was one thing. Fucking up his eyes was something else. We got to stop this. People are going to think we scalped that guy. And then you recorded it, man. That’s just sick.”
Reggie, thinking of Dr. Mather’s precious tapes of traditional stories, had listened to the recording a number of times. Who can say which story is more traditional than any other?
“And now we’re beating up Indians. We ain’t supposed to be hurting our own kind, are we?”
“And how do you feel about this?” Reggie signed the question to Harley.
“You’re going to get us in trouble,” signed Harley.
Reggie leaned close to Harley’s face.
“Hey, Reggie, leave him alone,” said Ty.
“There you go,” Reggie signed to Harley. “Are you afraid?”
Harley shook his head.
“Yeah, you’re scared,” Reggie spoke now. “Read my lips, chickenshit. You know the name of the Cavalry soldier who killed Crazy Horse?”
Harley shook his head.
“Well, I don’t know either, but I know the name of the Indian who was holding Crazy Horse’s arms behind his back when that soldier bayoneted him. You know his name?”
Harley shook his head.
“His name was Little Big Man. You understand what I’m getting at?”
Reggie touched Harley’s nose with the tip of his finger. A single drop of blood rolled from Harley’s nostril. Ty jumped to his feet in shock. Harley pushed Reggie away and stood, signing so furiously that neither Reggie nor Ty knew what he was saying.
“Slow down,” Ty said.
“I’m leaving,” Harley signed to Ty. Then to Reggie. “You get yourself caught, but I’m not going to get caught with you.”
Harley grabbed his jacket and slammed out of the apartment.
“Chickenshit!” Reggie screamed after him. “Pussy!”
“Reggie,” Ty said. “You know he can’t hear you.”
“Fuck you.”
Shaking his head, Ty sat back down and turned up the television volume. John Wayne riding down on an Indian village. Yet again.
“What the hell are you doing now?” asked Reggie.
“I want to know how this ends.”