A whirlpool of dead leaves skittered down the centre of the quiet track, twisting and skipping on the rutted gravel. A crumpled sheet of old news took flight before the car, cavorting with the leaves before being thrown into higher air, up over the roof and away. A red sun was poking through the fissures of cloud, revealing row after row of bleeding, blunted crops and painting gory slashes across the firmament of sky.
The sight of the sun’s bleak progress behind the black silhouettes of gnarled boughs, shrunken limbs and defoliated fingers renewed Gabriel’s feeling of anxiety; as if the Sun God’s fiery eye swept the ground, looking for his hiding place amongst the mangled husks. There was no need to search his soul for reasons. He already knew the answer:
He was going home; the home he’d never had. No, that wasn’t true. It was still his heart’s home.
Idaho.
The Reservation.
Gabriel looked at his dark eyes in the rear-view, looking for clues as to how he felt.
The sound of gravel crunching under the roll of the Studebaker’s tires grated on his frayed nerves. The road deserted, he took a left; taking the car out of the oppressive weight of trees, onto the steep decline of Split Crow Road. The long straight plunge into the Reservation. Gradually, as the car sped lower, the distant silhouettes changed into racks of caravans and trailers, clusters of campfires and clothes lines, tents and plyboard shanties. The blacked out raven coop where Cry at the Moon cared for the sacred birds. Jeeps and pickups parked in the dirt, some carcasses of rust left out to feed the scavengers. Feathered dream catchers hung from trees ringing the valley, saving the dreams of his people from the White Man.
The magic doesn’t work, he wanted to yell, to warn them, but they already knew. At least the gambling casinos hadn’t made it this far, with their feral noses scenting out Federal land. He slowed the Black Hawk, taking it all in. This was his heritage. Here he was, last of the savages, as he mocked himself, driving a piece of the Americana that had destroyed an entire civilisation with its creeping war of consumerism and plunder. Last rites and land rights, flintlocks and percussion pistols. His thoughts drifted back to the ageless women of Chinatown, locked stubbornly in their time warp, as he watched the hard skinned hands of a woman in blue jeans wring out a cotton blouse and hang it out to dry. There was no need to ask her who had won the war for her native soil, she was wearing the brand name on her buttocks.
A bonfire was burning broken furniture and stuffed cushions. Kids played with sticks. A young girl sat on a caravan stoop, watching him openly as he drove slowly by. The ghettoblaster at her feet played some kind of funky saxophone he didn’t recognise. She smiled, sorrow seeds planted in her sad eyes as her fingers drew her skirt slowly up her thigh. He shook his head, sighed.
Two rundown gasoline pumps sat in an island of sand, old fashioned, round-bodied pumps with heads like fishbowls and arrows for their smiles. A gecko had made its home in the belly of one, squatting in a bird's nest of twigs and dead leaves as if it had every right to be there. The lizard followed Gabriel with its eyes, long tongue licking out as he passed behind a trailer and out of sight.
Around the corner, an olive legged girl in blue jean cut-off’s was watching the world through the lens of a cheap-looking telescope; turned not to the stars but to the grit and the dust and the dirt of her own not so private Idaho. When the glass eye found him, Gabriel touched his fingers to his lips and blew a soft breath over them as if they were sharing a kiss over some great distance. She ran a hand through her hair. Gabriel had to imagine her smiling at the other end of the telescope.
It really should be raining, he thought again, home now as he pulled up before a lightning split tree adorned with colourful feathers and a spiders web of dream catchers. The dreaming tree, focus of the Reservation, the Spiritual Heart. He got out of the Studebaker, facing west, dust blurring his sight as he watched the marriage of desert and sky on the horizon. Closer to home a cluster of squalling seagulls bickered over freshly filled garbage bins. Gabriel concentrated on their primitive dance, fascinated by their naked savagery, wondering what had brought the scavengers this far inland.
He knelt, touching Mother Earth before smudging his fingers down the length of his nose and drawing parallel scars on both cheeks. Kissed his fingertips. Standing, Gabriel dusted his hands off on his Chinos.
His father was standing in the shadow of the doorway, the old man watching someone else’s granddaughter play hopscotch in the dust in front of his trailer. His sleeveless JC Penny shirt was open on his huge barrel of a chest, the same spread-winged raven tattooed there, half-hidden by the shirt and the thick tangle of steel-grey hair. The little girl had dirt on her knees. He raised a clay pipe to his lips, drew in smoke and held his breath, held the smoke inside, as if he had no more need of air to breathe, and then let it leak slowly out of his nose. Slowly, he tilted his head, as if listening to the sweet whisper of the wind. Gabriel had seen his father in the self same position, on the trailer stoop, listening, or so he said, to the Spirits of the dead every day he was growing up.
When he was ready, the old man walked down the steps to welcome his son. “Star That Travels has found his way home,” he said to the little girl, who giggled, and opened his arms.
Gabriel smiled and touched a finger to his lips, as if keeping a secret. “Don’t tempt the Spirits, father. Don’t invite a stranger into your home when he could be nothing less than your death come to reclaim you for First Father. There is blood on all of our hands, father. The sooner you learn that lesson, the better.”
“Always had a smart mouth, didn’t you, Star?” The old Black Foot said, remembering another time, another conversation, a parting instead of a greeting. Brushing aside the memory, he wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulder. “Whatever your reason for coming,” he gestured at the wide world with his clay pipe. “Welcome home, my son. Break bread with me. Tell me all of your stories.”