Sherman Alexie - Flight

Oh, shit! I’m in the body of a guy who hunts Indians. God is definitely one funny deity-dude.

“I want you all to take a good hard look at Gus,” General Mustache says. “He’s an old man, and you might think he’s weak and useless, but this is the bravest, strongest man I have ever known. I have fought alongside him for twenty years. I believe in him. I trust him. I would follow him anywhere.”

I guess I am some kind of hero.

“Two months ago, in Kansas,” General Mustache continues, “a group of settlers was attacked by wild Indians. They were all slaughtered: men, women, and children. Whole families. Those savages murdered twenty-five Christian folks. And Gus here, all on his own, went looking for the Indians who did it. And he found their camp on the Colorado River and he’s going to lead us there. And we are going to deliver unto them the swift and deadly blow of justice.”

Okay, so this is not good. I am supposed to lead one hundred white soldiers into an Indian village.

I can’t do it.

I’m in control of Gus now so I’m just going to lead all these soldiers away from the Indian village. That might be a little difficult, I suppose, since I have no idea where the village is. I don’t even know north from south. But my lack of direction will probably be a good thing. I don’t need to get lost on purpose.

So that’s my plan. I’m just going to get on my horse, point it in a random direction, and get very, very lost.

Of course, when you’re a time-traveling mass murderer, you can’t really expect things to work out as planned. If there are rules for time travelers, I don’t know them.

But things are not just happening. None of this is random.

You see, I try to get lost. I try to lead the soldiers astray. But it doesn’t work that way.

Some part of the old Gus remains inside of me. I still have Gus’s abilities. Whenever I zig, Gus makes me zag and so, zigzagging through the trees and grass and hills, we make our way toward the Indian camp. And even though I keep thinking, I want to be lost, I want to be lost, I want to be lost, I can’t do it. Gus won’t let me. What it comes to is this: I can’t completely control Gus. I can move his arms and legs. I can talk with his voice. And I can think my own thoughts. But Gus is stronger than I am. His memories become my memories, too. This is new. I couldn’t see into the past of the other bodies I’ve inhabited. I’m scared that Gus might reclaim his body and drown me in his blood.

And so here we are on the ridge above the Indian camp. The sun is hot over the hills. And Gus remembers — and I remember — what he saw when he came upon those slaughtered white settlers.

Dead white bodies stripped naked and mutilated and ruined.

There was the body of a little girl, blond, blue-eyed, pretty even in death. She was still wearing her little blue gingham dress. She was the only person still wearing her clothes. The Indians had shown her that much respect: They murdered her, but they didn’t strip her naked. They let her die as an innocent.

Three arrows in her stomach. She was still clutching a rag doll.

Gus’s eyes water at the memory. My eyes water.

I weep on the ridge above the Indian camp. I stare with watery vision down on the camp where that little girl’s murderers are sleeping and eating and laughing and telling stories and having sex and dancing and singing.

It’s Indians down there. And I’m an Indian. But we’re not all the same kind of Indians, are we?

No, those Indians down there killed a little girl. Shot three arrows into her belly and left her to die. And two feet away from that little girl’s body lay the naked body of a woman. Three arrows in her belly, too. A blond and blue-eyed woman, bloody and violated, her right hand forever reaching out toward the little girl.

Yes, the girl’s mother, as she was dying, crawled across the grass toward her dying daughter and didn’t make it.

The mother died two feet away from her daughter. Separated. They are cursed to be ghost mother and ghost daughter and will wander the grassy plains in the endless search for each other.

These are not my thoughts. This is not my sadness. This all belongs to Gus, and his grief and rage are huge, so my grief and rage are huge, too, and I scream as I lead one hundred soldiers down the hill into the Indian camp.

THIS IS WHAT REVENGE can do to you.

I lead those one hundred soldiers down the hill toward the Indian camp.

We are killers.

As we ride to the bottom of the hill and race the short distance across the flats toward camp, I can feel Gus’s rage and grief leaving my body. With each hoof-beat, I lose pieces of my rage, until I am left with only my fear.

I had wanted to kill, but now I just want to stop.

I throw away my rifle. I don’t want to use it. But I keep riding. I am unarmed. I think I want to die. I think I want Gus to die.

I think I want to lose this fight.

We didn’t really surprise the Indians with our attack. We didn’t even try to sneak up on them. We wanted them to know we were coming. And so, yes, they knew we were coming, and they’re ready.

But only twenty-five Indian warriors ride out to meet us. Most of them are boys. And only a few of them have rifles.

The rest have bows and arrows. And, sure, they’re accurate. I see one soldier get hit in the chest with an arrow and another get hit in the stomach.

But we have repeating rifles.

It’s one hundred repeating rifles versus seven rifles and eighteen bows.

We only lose a few men as we roar toward the Indian warriors. They are screaming and crying. They must prevent us from reaching their camp. If we reach it, we will kill old people, women, and children. We will destroy families. But the warriors can’t stop us. They are riding to their deaths. And they are singing their death songs.

Most of them fall before we’re even close to them. One hundred rifles equals one hundred bullets every three seconds. In the twenty-one seconds it takes us to close the distance, we shoot seven hundred bullets.

Only a few of the warriors survive that crash of bullets.

And then we swarm into them. Ninety-five surviving white soldiers attack eleven Indian warriors. We barely pause as we kill all of them, with bullet and fist and saber and boot.

I don’t kill anybody. But I ride with killers, so that makes me a killer.

We ride into camp. There’s only twenty or thirty tents arranged in loose circles. I don’t know what tribe. Gus doesn’t care. He almost makes me not care.

We are attacked as we ride through the camp. A few of the women have bows and arrows, too. And a few old men.

And one tiny Indian boy. He can’t be more than five years old. He holds a bow. He is Bow Boy. Is he strong enough to even use his weapon? Can he pull back the string and let loose an arrow?

No, he can’t.

He bloodies his fingers on the taut string. And he cries out in pain. But he keeps trying to shoot us. And he bloodies his hand again and again.

I see a soldier slam his horse into an old woman. She falls. The soldier spins his horse around and tramples her. He spins again and rides over her one more time.

A soldier dismounts and chases down a woman and her little daughter. He shoots the woman in the back. She falls. The daughter drops to her knees beside her mother. Daughter wails. The soldier shoots at the daughter. But his gun jams. He pulls the trigger again. Nothing. So he grabs the barrel of his rifle, still so hot that it burns his hands. But he doesn’t feel the pain, not yet, as he smashes the gun down on the girl’s skull. He hits her again and again. Keeps hitting her until his rifle breaks in half.