Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2. Annie Proulx

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СКАЧАТЬ had them do it again for the camera. Put himself in as a scout. The books say it was the first documentary. The guns was loaded with blanks and only passed out at the last minute because some a the Indians wanted a use real bullets and shoot the army. General Miles was ridin around orderin everbody do this and do that. It was all very realistic and exact, and guys who’d been there almost passed out when they saw it.”

      She took a deep breath and looked at him with red-faced sincerity. “The big thing is, that movie has totally disappeared and there are people would give a lot a money for that film. There are no copies anywhere. It was only showed a couple a times, then, after Buffalo Bill died in 1917 Essanay gave it another title and started showin it. But nobody paid much attention and now it’s lost. There’s some think the government got rid of it because it was too realistic, showed the U.S. Army in a bad light shootin women and babies with that big Hotchkiss machine gun cannon.”

      “No shit! That’s the film you found in them little cans?”

      “Yeah. Or I think, goin by the labels on the cans. Can’t really tell until somebody looks at them.”

      “Hell, let’s go see. Where are they?”

      “Dad, we can’t do that. They been sealed up in those airtight cans for ninety years. You open those cans and the film will disintegrate right before your eyes. They got to go to a special laboratory specializes in film preservation. Get opened underwater or something.”

      She rattled the paper. “Anyway, there’s a couple reviews in Mr. Brawls’ boxes from when it was first showed in 1914 and one guy thought it was the greatest movie ever made and most a them wrote how nothin like it had been ever done before. But I found somebody not so crazy about that movie. They had it at the library in a Buffalo Bill folder. This Chauncey Yellow Robe didn’t like Buffalo Bill’s movie. He was a Sioux, but it don’t say from where.”

      She stepped forward and by that motion made the kitchen space in front of the counter a stage. She began to recite, her voice deepening, impassioned, and for Charlie Parrott, leaning against the wall, his daughter, eyes narrowed and jaw outthrust, became the long-dead Yellow Robe, speaking with bitter scorn. His hair stirred.

      “‘You ask how to settle the Indian troubles. I have a suggestion. Let Buffalo Bill and General Miles take some soldiers and go around the reservations and shoot them down. That will settle his troubles. Let them do in earnest what they have been doing at the battlefield at Wounded Knee. These two, who were not even there when it happened, went back and became heroes for a moving picture machine.’”

      She had become the old orator, her eyes fixed on Charlie, her right hand extended, shaking, the nail of her index finger a glowing coal. She continued, her voice swollen with Yellow Robe’s contempt.

      “‘You laugh, but my heart does not laugh. Women and children and old men of my people, my relatives, were massacred with machine guns by soldiers of this Christian nation while the fighting men were away. It was not a glorious battle, and I should think these two men would be glad they were not there; but no, they want to be heroes for moving pictures. You will be able to see their bravery and their hairbreadth escapes soon in your theatres.’”

      She stopped, put her head down, chin on her chest. Gradually she became Linny again.

      “Hey, that was scary,” said her father. “It felt like old Yellow Robe was right here in the kitchen.”

      “At least his words were.” She spoke in her normal voice. Yellow Robe had gone back into the sky.

      But the recitation had moved Charlie Parrott. He wondered if his mother were still alive. A memory of the reservation came unbidden, a blistering day, the sky white and dry, heat waves trembling above the junk cars, one of them where a woman named Mona plied her trade. Nothing moved, no dogs, no people, no lift of wind stirring the dust and trash. He recalled the awful boredom of the place, the hopeless waiting for nothing. He shuddered.

      “Tell you what. Soon as Georgina gets back we’ll go down there. To Pine Ridge. I’ll find out who is still around. You can see for yourself. We’ll take that lousy Land Rover a yours—it’ll look good on the rez.”

      “What, today?”

      “You bet.”

      “Georgina will be pissed, a lot a those boxes and papers still got to be done. Because I probably won’t come back.”

      “I know that, but I bet she can hire somebody in town, some college kid finishing out the summer. It’s not the end a the world.”

      “And how about the film cans? Like, they really are valuable. They could be worth a hundred thousand dollars to the right people.”

      There was a long silence.

      “Well. By rights they belong to Georgina. I guess it’s your decision what to do with them. Now, what say we get packed up? Georgina comes back I need a talk to her. Maybe an hour.”

      “What for? Let’s just go. Leave her a note.”

      “Unmannerly. I got a tell her what I’m doin, what the scene is. So she don’t worry.”

      “Goddammit!”

      “Linny, grow up. She means somethin a me. I’m not just walkin out without a word. And remember that all you been reading happened a long time ago—more than a hunderd years ago.”

      “No, Dad. To me it happened last week. I never knew any a that stuff. They don’t teach it in school. It gets me—” And she slammed her chest with a theatrical thump.

      “You’ll have to work it out yourself. We all do.” He knew nothing he said would be heard. She would get involved, and after a few years of passionate activism she might fall away from it and end up on urban sidewalks in the company of street chiefs and hookers. He went into the storage room off the kitchen, where she heard him shoving suitcases around.

      She understood finally that her father was weak, that all of his choices had been made passively because he let things go and go and go, waiting until situations crested, until the move was made for him. Her mother had left him, made her own way. He had ended up working on ranches even though he was smart because he didn’t have any ambition. She bet Georgina had picked him and he’d just gone along with it. She bit at her nails, an old habit from childhood. He was the classic irresponsible, passive guy, no Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull fired with resistance, but letting the whites push him around, believing that he had some kind of decent life. And, she believed, he couldn’t stand to kiss Georgina’s money goodbye—probably his last chance at real money, seeing he was in his forties. She despised his weakness but didn’t blame him. She would let him take her around the rez, introduce the relatives, and then he could go back to Georgina and the money. She’d find out the rest of it by herself.

      She packed rapidly, sorting through her clothes, cramming the short skirts and halter tops into the wastebasket. She was through with those clothes. She pulled on jeans and an overlarge T-shirt as long as a nightgown. She heard Georgina’s car pull up outside, the kitchen door slam, and the rumble of her father’s voice. The duffel bags were full. She was ready. Downstairs she heard the freezer door open and shut. She guessed Charlie was mixing Georgina a drink. He himself never drank. His voice rose and fell. What was he telling Georgina? The woman could never understand any of this. Linny sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

      After a long time her father’s voice ballooned up the stairwell. “Linny! You ready? Let’s СКАЧАТЬ