1974, Farewell Bottomlands
The inevitable is no less a kick in the ass just because it was inevitable.” ~ The Clown
The lake slapped at the prairie making new mud. Elbowood’s grand old trees were incarnated as the grey driftwood piled up on the shore. The wages of progress. When North Dakota’s power grid needed a jolt, the dam engineers hurled open the turbine gates forcing the lake to shed its tears.
Near the frozen shore, Albert Antelope Ears, almost eighty and still upright, parked the old truck with his son. Last night’s arctic blast had punished the rez, freezing the last tendrils of any plant bold enough to sport any shade of green one month after the fall equinox. Soon the government issued wood stoves in their government-built houses throughout the rez would be calling for something with more BTUs than driftwood. “You ever stop and think, Johnny, how we stood in this spot and said goodbye to the Bottomlands twenty years ago?” His sigh was almost a moan, “Never this cold or dry down there.”
Examining a driftwood stick, Johnny Antelope Ears nodded slowly. “I do, dad. It’s like we got hit with one of those nuclear bombs. We’re tough people but none of this ever felt right. Our memories drowned under that water. Even the old fish don’t remember Elbowoods anymore.”
“We lost more land to that dam than any tribe along the Missouri. Some of us suffer more than others,” the judge’s voice sounded far away. “We are tough, but we win by bearing witnesses to horrific events, not by letting them win.” A holdover gust from yesterday’s arctic clipper rippled the bottom of his overcoat. The Clown smiled. Nothing like a little shiver up the old spine to set the mind running down a righteous path.
“I saw some twisted stuff in the war. Never dreamed all that evil could happen in North Dakota. We’re no strangers to sneaky. We’ve seen it every day since Lewis and Clark, but this dam was thrown right in our faces.” Johnny’s mind wouldn’t let him forget other things. Staring at all the driftwood he found himself musing about the piles of corpses he’d seen on Iwo Jima. His gasp turned into an icicle as soon as it left his lips. His next thought wasn’t warm either. “Dad, did I tell you that I ran into Mamzer Hearsay recently?”
“He She? That little conniver?”
“The one and only. He’s working as a bartender up in Minot. Still crazy. Doesn’t know what he’s said after he’s said it.” Both men shook their heads, “He had plenty of company in selling us down the river. Most of those bastards convinced themselves that they were being kind. Trading our Bottomlands for the rocks and clay of the prairie where no one make a living. The BIA’s allotments are too small to sustain farming, too little for ranching. We traded our homes for dust and thin hope. We should call our new home Mamzer Acres”
The stick he tossed had landed in the shallow water and stood up in the mud like a frozen snake. Defiance. Nice throw thought the Clown. No wonder you were a hoops star. Johnny’s oratory wouldn’t let him notice. “You know what hurts most? After the flood the Army Corps of Engineers just sat back. Didn’t do a thing for us. Didn’t replace our bridges, our hospital. Instead, they became real estate brokers. If I was wealthy and white, I could have muscled in on those exclusive contracts to build marinas and resorts on our lake. Meanwhile, a sneaky class of crooks took over the White House, and the promises made to us… Well, they tried to break us both on and off the basketball court and couldn’t do it so they’re ripping up promises.”
Shuddering, the judge thought back about integrity. “I took a solemn vow to defend law and order, many times against great odds. I may regret saying this later, but I’ve become a fan of the American Indian Movement—they’re making the old spirit wake again. Not waiting. Taking things in hand. And see that? The Three Affiliated Tribes are finally calling themselves something we can all sink our teeth into—the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.”
Johnny was happy that the judge let his hopes fly, “There’s a new thinking vibrating across this prairie. We can’t drain that lake and take back the Bottomlands—they’re lost forever—but managing what’s left, growing our meager resources into something for all of us, that’s our fight now.”
The raw breeze picked up again almost drowning out the judge’s verdict, “Sustained.”
Downstream on the Missouri River, the Fort Yates Warriors, an upstart team, had won the State A Basketball Tournament in three overtimes in 1973. They were the second Native team to win a North Dakota state championship and inspired the children of the heroes of 1942, the Elbowoods Warriors, to stir. They would soon demand that the stolen trophy owed to the first conquering Native team be returned. Now we’re finally moving the right train down the right track mused the Clown. Hope they find more than fast firing driftwood to fire up that engine.
1984, Truth’s Last Stand
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell
Orwell nailed it well before 1984 dawned and without setting shoe leather on the rez. On Fort Berthold twisted truth was easy to spot. Easier to spot were those who made a living fondling twisted truth. Odin kept his fire going by circling, a bad coyote hoping for a lazy grouse, dropping anonymous editorials in favor of trickle-down economics. He’d purloined most of his writing from Ronald Reagan’s speechwriters whose “plain speaking” was designed to make the lame feel good about every promise not kept. The real game? Hoping the tribe would be grateful for scraping all the last crumbs from a table stacked against them.
Spotting his cousin as he entered Filthy Lil’s, Johnny’s spirit surged and then just as quickly sagged. Drooling all over his perch, the bartender, Mamzer Hearsay, shot daggers his way. Collecting himself Johnny pulled up a chair and leaned on the table. “The beer don’t taste the same no more, Eric. I feel it all in my bones. This old World’s spinning faster every day, but we’re still stuck in the bullshit.”
“My sins have caught me, too.” Eric winced as he raised his glass. Arthritis was eating him from the inside out. Beer was an antidote. Downers were better but hard to find these days. The War on Drugs starved prairie bars of barbiturates, part of Nixon’s federal mess, making nights even colder and bones feel more tragic.
Johnny sighed, “It’s not just us getting old and creaky like. The whole country’s gone to hell. It’s run by those snakes at the top—crocodiles, really. Reagan sittin’ up there, sellin’ us crumbs while they get the good stuff.”
“Reagan or ray guns, the lies keep coming.” Eric thumped his palm on the counter. “Watergate pulled back the curtain, but we been seeing the puppeteers for decades. I mean, yumpin’ yiminie, the price of lutefisk is skyrocketing! I don’t see none of them elites being disappointed what with all of them free meals they get for keepn’ us veterans down.”
Mamzer He She put down his tattered copy of Atlas Shrugged and put his hussy voice on. “Will you two crybabies ever grow up? I had to pull myself up by my shoelaces and look what a success I’ve been. I straightened out the Indians single handedly. I built the Garrison dam for Chrissakes. Try it for yourselves! Roll with the punches, you losers.” Odin rolled on the floor, greasy braids sticking to the stale beer on the linoleum.
Ignoring the Mamzer, Johnny stared into the bottom of his beer glass, “Forty-two years since my team tried to bring that championship home—we were the boys of Elbowoods. We played for all of us, they gave us hope. You took some of that hope away with your old man act, but now you see things the natural way. Our way. That takes courage. I celebrate you my Olson brother.”
“And here we are, smarter but older. Faded like those days, but still vertical. Still watchin’ Still abiding.” The Clown smiled. There’s no hope for the satisfied man.
“Truth in a time of lies, Eric. Maybe that’s the last fight we got left.” Johnny buoyed himself with his own words. Back home his rap about storming the North Dakota High School Activities Association was catching on. He brought it up whenever he could and was pleased that it was no longer being ignored by tribal members. The newly indignant banded together. A well-crafted letter signed by the tribal council had asked the Association to revisit this injustice after forty years. The Association had responded with milk toast. Its letter back said it might “determine to re-open the matter when new evidence presented itself, but it was very busy addressing the possibility that someday in the not-too-distant future transsexual school children would dominate the North Dakota sporting scene. Given this and other pressing issues before the Association there could be no guarantee that any grievances, whether rightful or not, on behalf of Native Tribes could find a respectful airing.” Never mind that several members of the 1942 team had crossed over to the spirit land and the rest were living out their seventh decade on earth.
“Maybe I can help in that last fight,” Eric again slapped his palm on the bar. He began to think about his letter to the Association and how he would confess once again to playing that championship game as an overaged athlete. He would compose this letter with his infirm hands to urge reconciliation. He knew in his heart of hearts that his letter, too, would go unanswered. The Association even ignored Mamzer He She’s letter recounting the ways that Indians habitually whined about a loss that they had coming every time they came to his bar. If only these malcontents would read Ayn Rand, their clocks could be reset. The Clown sighed and thought about paper thin promises and the circus of crooked rules and silent betrayals. Same moves, different hopes. Nuts.
1994, The Tip of the Spear
They drilled sideways for fortune but sacred ground laughs last.” ~ The Clown
The tribal council offices held a gathering of three generations of Antelope Ears. Albert, nearing a hundred years, and Johnny Senior, now 72, were joined by the pride of the clan, Johnny Junior, approaching fifty. Johnny Junior had earned his law degree a decade ago and now served as the tribe’s chief legal arm. Their words centered on the bedlam that was the rush for oil rights on tribal lands.
Outside, the first rigs were arriving. The landmen had divined likely targets and now was the time for actual ground pounding. Jumping from their trucks the roughnecks, loud and full of greasy food, were filling the air with yells and dirty jokes. They had no good sense of where they were, whose bones they were soon to defile, but they knew how to set up steel. They also knew they’d be bored. And very soon. The Clown smiled. Boredom meant sloppy work. Accidents. Natural Selection would soon kick in and the bored would be gone. At least this wave of bored.
Above the din, Johnny Senior began, “So, son, you’ve got that fancy law degree. Think you can fix what years of broken promises and crooked deals couldn’t?”
Albert, coming up on a century on earth, leaned back, “Nearin’ a hundred, Johnny Junior. Seen a lot. You really thinkin’ that law degree’s gonna fix what generations of crooks couldn’t?”
Fifty years after the deluge, oil money wasn’t a fever dream anymore. Sideways drilling. Fracking. New toys for extracting what lay buried. The Clown knew exactly where those bits were heading—slithering miles beneath the surface, chasing jackpots of gas and oil. The landmen pretended they knew the same things, but not quite. Ignorance, carefully managed, made Indian leaseholders feel adventuresome. Part of the team. And when you’re feeling that good, your share shrinks real easy.
“I’m here to try, Dad. The laws aren’t on our side, but knowing them? That means we can play the same game they do. Just as good.” He paused. “There are no simple solutions. Our lands are a patchwork. A mess. We can’t even hang a criminal on our own ground.”
The old judge agreed, “True. The courts have their limits, but legal knowledge is power. You’re the tip of the spear now, grandson. These corporations think tribal law enforcement is a joke. Time to make them take us seriously.” Life may be hard and tragic, thought the clown, but there isn’t much evidence that we shouldn’t wince.
Johnny Senior smiled grimly, “They brought helicopters and SUVs onto our lands, drilled sideways under our dirt like thieves in the night. And when they broke laws—those crimes against our people and especially our women by horny roughnecks—they laughed in our faces.”
Tribal law enforcement was a joke to the oil men and a minor inconvenience to the corporations behind them. “That stops now,” Johnny Junior glared at no one in particular. “We’ll fight every spill, every illegal well. Every missing tribal member. We’ll hold them accountable. But it’s not just about the oil—it’s about protecting our sovereignty and our home.”
The judge leaned forward, “The law can be either a rifle or a blunderbuss. Use it wisely, son. And remember the burden you carry forward—our people’s trust is hard-earned and easily lost. Your dad was a basketball hero; you be a legal hero.”
Johnny Senior looked softly at his son. “You know how proud of you I am, Junior. It’s your fight now—the fight for justice, for our land, for our future.” He smiled widely and made a pronouncement, “And don’t forget that stolen trophy. I’m not getting any younger.”
Outside money started flowing slowly at first and then rapidly, just like a properly drilled well. The Clown knew where those bits were and where they were headed. The Clown always knew. It was the gift—or the curse—of seeing straight through the world’s foolishness. The landmen pretended not to know and the roughnecks were oblivious. Contracts or tribal approval be damned. Not all of it flowed downhill, one trickle at a time. Some of that loot was moving up the bluffs and into the wrong pockets. I can hear the underground laughing the Clown said quietly to no one in particular, but to everyone listening.
