Sherman Alexie - Indian Killer

Fawn and John danced. Jealous Indian men watched closely. Fawn was a beautiful woman who never went home with anyone, but most of the men liked to assume they would be the first. John was taking that opportunity away from them. Ty, the Coeur d’Alene, Reggie, the blue-eyed Spokane, and Harley, the deaf Colville, watched and simmered.

“Who’s he think he is?” signed Harley.

“Sitting Bull,” signed Ty.

“No,” said Reggie. “He’s just bullshit.”

Reggie had been pursuing Fawn, without success, for a couple years.

“Hey,” Fawn shouted to John over the music. “I seen you in here before, enit?”

John nodded his head. He wondered if she was listening to the same music he heard.

“Yeah, I thought so,” she said. “You’re that shy one. What’s your name?”

“John.”

“What tribe you are?”

“Navajo,” said John.

“Hey, hey, a sheep eater!” Fawn laughed and slapped John playfully on the cheek. He touched his face. “Kind of tall for a Navajo, ain’t you?”

“I don’t eat sheep,” said John.

“I was kidding,” said Fawn, amused by John’s seriousness.

“I don’t eat sheep,” John said again.

Fawn laughed, hugged him close for a brief moment, then danced a little further away. He could not understand why this woman thought he ate sheep.

“I don’t eat sheep,” John said for the third time. The sheep were singing in his ear. The voices, which had descended to whispers for a while, began to grow in volume again. Greg Allman was singing somewhere in the distance. But he sounded more and more like Father Duncan. He was singing to John, trying to convince him that Fawn was the devil.

John turned away from Fawn, from the noise and music. She reached for him, but John shrugged her off. He walked off the dance floor and pushed past Reggie, spilling Reggie’s Pepsi. Reggie cussed and wiped at his suddenly wet and sticky shirt, but John just stormed out of the bar. Reggie, Ty, and Harley followed him. John staggered into the parking lot, hands pressed against his ears, trying to quiet the noise. There were a dozen cars parked under the dim lights. A steady stream of cars flowing up and down Aurora Avenue. A few Indians in the parking lot. Inside, most danced to Deep Purple and “Smoke on the Water.” John fell against a blue van.

“Hey!” shouted Reggie. “That’s my rig!”

Reggie did not own a car, but he was looking for a reason to fight. John looked at Reggie, Ty, and Harley. He recognized Harley, the deaf one. He’d seen him in the bar many times before. John had always been fascinated by Harley’s signing, his fingers forming words and sentences almost without effort. John stepped away from the van and stared at Harley’s hands. Harley gave him the finger.

“You were dancing with my woman,” said Reggie.

“Fawn?” asked John.

“Yeah, she’s my woman.”

Reggie stepped closer. He was much shorter than John and sixty pounds lighter, but Reggie was a veteran bar fighter backed by two friends.

“I don’t want you near my woman,” said Reggie. He poked a finger into John’s chest. John recoiled at the touch. Reggie assumed he was afraid. He shoved John back into the van.

“Oh, man,” said Reggie, pretending that John had dented the door panel of the van he did not own. “Look what you did to my van. Can you believe that, Ty?”

Ty shook his head.

“Can you believe what he did to my van, Harley?” signed Reggie.

Harley shook his head.

“I’ve seen you around, you know,” Reggie said to John. Reggie pointed a finger at him. “You’re Navajo, enit?”

John could barely hear Reggie now. The noise in his head was deafening. He wanted to tell these Indians everything. Maybe they could help him. He wanted to tell them he was not Navajo. He had no idea what kind of Indian he was. These Indian men, these warriors, would know how to be Indian. John was lost, trying to sign, twisting his hands into shapes that approximated words.

“Look at that,” said Reggie. “Now he’s making fun of Harley.”

Harley closed his hands into fists.

“Man, you Navajos think you own the world, don’t you?” asked Reggie. “Well, this ain’t Navajo land, cousin. Ain’t no sheep around here. You’re in the land of the salmon people.” Reggie slapped his chest. “I’m a salmon man. Ty and Harley here are salmon men. What do you think of that?”

John covered his ears with his hands and fell to his knees. Tears, whimpers, head bobbing in time with the music in his head.

“Look at you,” said Reggie. “You Navajos are supposed to be the toughest Indians in the world and look at you now. You ain’t tough. You ain’t nothing. Your people would be ashamed of you.”

John whimpered. Reggie, Ty, and Harley laughed, confident, though somewhat surprised by their easy victory. Reggie leaned down beside John to whisper in his ear.

“Hey, Sheep Boy,” whispered Reggie. “You don’t belong here. You ain’t Indian. If you don’t eat salmon, you ain’t shit.”

Reggie was feeling very tough.

“You’re lucky I don’t kill you,” whispered Reggie. “I eat Navajos for lunch. Then I eat white men for dessert.”

John looked up at Reggie.

“You don’t believe me?”

John kept shaking his head, sure that Reggie was lying.

“Thing is,” said Reggie, “I’m not Chief Joseph, man. None of that ‘I will fight no more forever’ crap. I’m going to keep fighting, Sheep Boy. I’m going to fight forever.”

“You’re the devil,” John said to Reggie.

“No, I’m not. I’m God.”

Reggie stood and kicked John in the ribs. John grunted with pain, closed his eyes, and searched his mind for a better place to be. Ty and Harley stared at Reggie.

“What the hell you doing?” signed Harley, genuinely afraid.

“Just giving him shit,” signed Reggie and winked.

John opened his eyes and slowly stood. He towered over his tormentors. He raised a fist in the air. Ty, Harley, and Reggie, laughing loudly, all did the same. They were still laughing as John staggered out of the parking lot. He stepped onto Aurora Avenue, turned south, and walked away from Big Heart’s. With the police patrols increased, two black-and-whites slowly cruised by John. He walked past the Oak Tree Cinemas, the World’s Greatest Sushi, Chubby & Tubby’s sporting goods and home supply store. Green Lake to the east, the ocean to the west. Water everywhere. So many places to drown.

“AARON, SON, WHAT’S HAPPENING over there?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Things are getting pretty crazy.”

“I read some Indians got jumped by three guys with baseball bats. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, son?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you telling me the truth? You know how much I hate liars.”

“Dad.”

“Tell me the truth, son.”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“And Barry and Sean?”

“Yeah.”

“Why, Aaron?”

“For David. It’s all for David.”

“You’ve got to stop this, son. You’re going to get caught. Or hurt. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“Dad, I miss him.”

“I miss him, too. But those Indians aren’t worth it. They’re not worth anything.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember that night when we shot at those Indians in the camas field?”

“Of course. We scared the crap out of them.”

“Remember how you told us to shoot above their heads?”

“Yeah.”

“I aimed for that Indian guy. I aimed right for him. And when he fell down, I thought I got him. And I was happy.”

“Why are you telling me this?”