Mia Darien - Good Things

Looking again up to the sky, the thermal had carried the bird high enough that his markings could no longer be seen. “Maybe going to the reservation won’t be so bad.” Jemi’s words were as quiet as Gabby’s had been. Knowing she had a place to go if this didn’t go well made the fear of getting there ease.

Leaning back on the table, Gabby smiled and just let the quiet of the rest stop fall over them. That was until a big truck pulled in, rumbling and groaning as it found its way to a stop on the hot pavement. “Shall we move on? Maybe stop for gas and tea up ahead?”

“Only if the tea is cold,” Jemine said. She could not yet get used to the fact that Gabby drank hot tea even when it was ninety degrees outside.

“It’s a deal,” Gabby said, then slid off the table, offering her hand to the young woman at her side.

Looking at the sign of peace and connection offered before looking into the blue of Gabby’s eyes, Jemine took the hand with a smile and nod.

For the rest of the trip, the silence became filled with soft chatter, about the road, about nature, and more about Jemi’s people and the towns ahead. A weight had lifted from her in a way, having someone she trusted to share all these things with and allow relaxation to just settle in.

The terrain gradually changed, gullies and wild lands on the sides became more farmland. “Whiteclay is ahead,” Jemi said softly. “We may not want to stop there, a lot of people come there just to drink.”

“Wherever you wish to stay, Jemi. We can go up to Oglala or even up to Rapid City, though the information we find will be better locally,” Gabby spoke gently. Jemi felt her guidance, but was thankful it was not insistence. “If we have to stay the night, we can go to the casino.”

“We go through Pine Ridge and Oglala before reaching the casino, maybe drive through and decide what to do?” Jemi replied after a few moments of thought, her fingers drumming nervously on the door’s armrest.

She looked out the window as the town came into view. Weeds and small green trees gave way to a white building with red awnings that said “Divided……We Fall” on the side with a mural painted in blues and browns of the first people and the bluffs. A wooden cross high the front the early afternoon sun cast its shadow on the crumbled concrete. At the corner, the sign of her people in this community, were bodies sleeping, or passed out, in the shade. Jemi turned her head away, almost embarrassed for Gabby to see this.

The buildings were in disrepair, and there was trash in the streets. A reddish building marked with Lakota Arts & Crafts on the outside had more people sitting in front of the store, taking advantage of the shade it provided. It was no more than a blink of a town, and none of it was attractive.

After they were through, Jemi tried to release the tension in her shoulders. Looking back at the town in the side mirror, she saw a shadow at the edge of her vision. Turning, she could not see anything, but no matter where she looked, she sensed something moving with them.

Looking at Gabby to see if she felt anything, she saw the older woman keep checking the rearview mirror. “You feel it too? Or see it? What is it?”

Gabby’s heavier frame shuddered. “One, I think we just crossed a border, a defined space that we cannot see but has been long established. Two, since we stopped to talk, I have been feeling the presence of something working with us, guiding us forward. I didn’t want to say anything if you didn’t feel it, though. Some people are more sensitive to different energies than others.”

“Like the energies you called when you were working at the fire? The spirits of my people liked the calling,” Jemi said. It was the first time she had admitted this to the other woman.

“Yes… Wait, they did?” Gabby said, looking at her.

Jemi nodded slowly. “Yes, you called them outdwellers and then thanked the land there and they were curious and watched you all.”

Gabby looked surprised. Her mouth opened then closed before she spoke, “It is what we hope. We know our religion is not that of your people, but we hope to honor the spirits that were here before us and give them and the land thanks for hosting us. We do not want them forgotten.” She focused back on the road. “You saw them?”

Admitting these things among most whites would have had her ostracized or in child services again, but she trusted Gabby. “Since meeting you, I have seen spirits. Wolf came to me at your fire, that is why I decided to stay close. Anog Ite comes to me in dreams, even in foster care. She tries to teach me the ways of the women of my people, but I am not with them.”

“Anog Ite?” Gabby asked.

“She is the double-faced woman, one face beautiful and one ugly. She teaches the young women in their dreams. Wolf, though, usually guides a hunt or war,” Jemi explained. The memories of the stories she had been told as a child came forth.

“Wolf might be guiding your hunt for your family?” The older woman’s question was gentle. “I can sense energy but I have never seen the spirits except in my dreams and mind’s eye. I kind of envy you.”

“Most people think those that can see are crazy, even among our some of our people,” Jemi said with a shake of her head. “Grandmother used to say that Great-Aunt Winterhawk said I sensed the spirits even when my mother was pregnant with me. Every time she came over, I would kick my mother and she would complain.”

“What a gift,” the driver said, shaking her auburn hair. “No wonder you feel at such a loss away from your lands. If that border we crossed means anything to me, I think it means you will feel more at home soon.”

Jemi grew quiet, wondering if Gabby would be right. She was so nervous about this trip that she thought she would not really feel comfortable until, or if, they found her great-aunt.

It only took a few minutes before Pine Ridge appeared ahead of them. A small group of houses to the east, then a sandwich shop and gas station. Pine Ridge was much better kept than Whiteclay had been, it was almost night and day in the differences on the main road. Up ahead, a white church gleamed in the afternoon light. “Do you remember where your grandmother lived?”

Jemi nodded. “Go right at the light then past the Pizza Hut and a left at the next light.”

Gabby followed her directions, Jemi taking in the slightly more rundown area on the edge of town. There was graffiti on the walls of some buildings, less pride taken there than with the main road towards the casino. “The first left, then past the stop sign, the house on the right after it.”

Soon they reached the house, trees and a fence surrounding it. Gabby pulled over and looked at Jemi. “Here?”

Tears were in the young woman’s eyes again as she remembered being taken from here by her neighbors after she found her grandmother dead in bed. Watching from the window across the street as the emergency vehicle lights illuminated the house in the night. Then the tribal police came. They knew she had no one left but Winterhawk, and asked the neighbors if they would watch her until they could get ahold of the elder woman, which they said they would. It was the next day when one of her teachers had come with a white woman in a grey suit. The woman was from the county and without proper custody ever being taken for Jemi, the woman had taken her off the reservation. Jemi couldn’t respond to Gabby’s question as she just looked at her home.

They looked around the sides as they heard a sound. When they turned back, there was a coyote on the hood of the car. “What the f…” Gabby said then paused, because beyond the coyote was a tall man in a tribal police uniform.

It was hard to see his face, as the cowboy hat he wore shaded it, but with a sharp word, the coyote jumped down and sat at his side. It looked more dog than coyote now that it was sitting in the dirt, panting up at the man as if saying, “Look what I found for you.”