Philipp Meyer - The Son

There is something in the white man that loves a sorrel but the Indians had no use for them; there were only five horses we cared about: red paints, black paints, Appaloosas, red medicine hats, and black medicine hats. The medicine hats had dark bands around their heads and dark ears and a blaze in the shape of a medieval shield on their chests. There was one type — the pia tso?nika or war bonnet — that had black eye patches as well and from a distance looked like a skull or death’s head. Centuries of hard living had made them as frothy as panthers; they had as much in common with a domestic horse as a wolf has with a lapdog and they would stave in your ribs if you gave them half a chance. We loved them.

I SLEPT WHEN I wanted and ate when I wanted and did nothing all day that I didn’t feel like doing. The white in me expected any minute that I would be ordered to do chores or some other form of slave labor but it never happened. We rode and hunted and wrestled and made arrows. We slayed every living thing we laid eyes on — prairie chickens and prairie dogs, plovers and pheasants, blacktail deer and antelope; we launched arrows at panther and elk and bears of every size, dumping our kills in camp for the women to clean, then walking off with our chests out like men. Along the river we dug up the bones from giant bison and enormous shells turned to stone and almost too heavy to lift; we found crayfish and shards of pottery and carried it all to the tops of cliffs and smashed it on the rocks below. We arrowed bobcats at night while they stalked ducks in the cane and the weather was warming and the flowers coming out, the yucca had shot their stalks and big white flowers hung ten feet in the air; there were patches of bluebonnet or blanketflower or greenthread that went on for miles, now it was green, now it was blue, now it was red and orange as far as the eye would carry. The snow was gone and fat high clouds hung everywhere, and the sun blinked on and off as they moved across the wind, heading south toward Mexico, where they would burn away forever.

It was considered a sure thing that a few of us would be asked to go raiding. I was the oldest, the only one whose short hair had come in, but I was also deficient; I shot fine from the ground but the other kids could hit pheasants and rabbits from a gallop. Still, when Toshaway came out to the pasture one morning carrying his pistol and a new buffalo-hide shield, it was me he picked out of the crowd. The others made comments but I ignored them.

We walked a good distance and set the shield against a runty cottonwood and he handed me the gun.

“Go ahead.”

“Just like that?”

“Sure.”

I shot and the shield fell over. It was smeared with lead but not dented. He grinned and set it up again and I shot it until the gun was empty.

“Okay,” he said. “A shield will stop a ball. But if a ball ever hits a stationary shield, you are an idiot.” He put the straps over his arm and moved it in quick circles. “Always it’s moving. Of course the feathers hide you, but more important is that a stationary shield will only stop a pistol ball. A rifle ball will go through it, the same as if you jump from a high tree and land on flat ground, you will break your legs, but if you land on a steep hill, you will be fine. A moving shield will stop a rifle ball. Nahk usuaber u? ”

I nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Now we come to the fun part.”

We walked a few more minutes to the middle of an old pasture at the edge of camp. Whatever was going to happen, everyone would see it. A dozen or so braves were sitting in the sun playing t ukii but when they saw me they got up and retrieved some equipment. Each man was carrying his bow and a basket of arrows.

“Okay,” said Toshaway. “This will be very easy. You will remain standing here and these men will shoot you. I would prefer if you used the shield as much as possible.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t want to be shot!” He grinned and patted me on the head.

The braves formed a skirmish line a hundred yards away and when everything was arranged Toshaway shouted at me and waved an arrow. “ Ke mat uumutsip u! They are blunt!” The warriors found this humorous. “They have no spikes!” he repeated.

People were trickling out from their tipis to watch and I wondered if Toshaway had actually checked each arrow, as by certain lights it would be a very funny joke if there were a few spikes mixed in with the blunt ones. I was only worth a horse or two and plenty of people in the village still had no use for me.

“Tiehteti tsa maka?mukit u-t u!”

I nodded.

“Keep the shield moving!”

I made myself small. Arrows take a few seconds to go a hundred yards, which seems like forever unless they’re coming toward you. Most thumped off the shield; one or two missed entirely; others hit me in the thigh and shin and then again in the same shin.

This was thought hilarious and several of the warriors began to imitate me, hopping around on one foot and calling out anáa anáa anáa until Toshaway made them go back to their places.

“You have to move!” he shouted. “It is too small to hide you!”

The hilarious Indians opened fire and my legs took another pounding. One arrow grazed my forehead where I had looked over the shield.

“You don’t have to block the ones that will miss you,” someone shouted. I was in a crouch, trying to make myself as small as possible; it was the funniest thing the Indians had ever seen and it went on until they were out of ammunition.

I started to limp back to the village, but there was an uproar from the audience so instead the braves and I switched sides so they could collect their arrows.

“It is for your own benefit,” someone yelled, but now the sun was in my face. I squinted at one particular arrow that seemed to not be moving at all.

Sometime later I woke up. Toshaway was standing over me, murmuring like a pulpiteer.

“What?” I said.

“Are you awake now?”

“Haa.” I felt my breechcloth. It was dry.

“Good. Now if you can listen for a moment I will tell you something my father once told me. The difference between a brave man and a coward is very simple. It is a problem of love. A coward loves only himself…”

I got very dizzy and I could feel the cold ground. I wondered if my skull was cracked. You could shoot a blunt arrow through a deer if it was close enough.

“… a coward cares only for his own body,” Toshaway said, “and he loves it above all other things. The brave man loves other men first and himself last. Nahk usuaber u? ”

I nodded.

“This”—he tapped me—“must mean nothing to you.” Then he tapped me again, on my face, my chest, my belly, my hands and feet. “All of this means nothing.”

“ Haa, ” I said.

“Good. You’re a brave little Indian. But everyone is bored. Get up and let them shoot you.”

A short while later I was down again. The warriors went back to the shade and gambled while Toshaway gave me cool water and wrapped my head with a blanket scrap. Only my eyes were exposed. This caused more hilarious laughter but it worked like a helmet and I stopped being afraid. By the end of the day they had cut the distance in half and the shooters were working hard to get their hits. After a week they couldn’t hit me at all.

As A GRADUATION ceremony I held the shield while a big fat buck named Pizon, who made no secret that he thought I ought to be a na?raiboo rather than a member of the tribe, aimed at me with Toshaway’s pistol. All the slack went out of my rope but I blocked each shot and kept the shield moving the whole time. Pizon gave me a look that said he would have liked if I had gotten my lamp blown out, but I got to keep the shield. Being a sacred item, it was kept in a protective case far from camp. If a menstruating woman ever touched it, it would have to be destroyed.