From Part Two of the Sacred Clown’s Modern West Trilogy, Sitting Bull’s Mutual Funds

The Ghost Dance

Rockwell had never thought to chat up rocks or swap jokes with ferns. He could quote quarterly earnings in his sleep, yet the night sky to him was just wasted darkness, the trees were just tubes full of rubber, and the river a place where lesser lives bathed. Being impervious like those rocks learned behavior. His Reports from DestinyTerra always mentioned the seringueiros were “lazy,” congenitally late, and suspiciously good at vanishing into the jungle. But somehow, he lost the thread. The reports had also mentioned that his slaves were incurably cheerful.

When his latest brain fart came skidding out of the corner of his universe, his eyes folded into themselves. Those notes either had to be a typo or an outright lie. Poverty hates joy. The Clown smiled at that chestnut. Plenty of rich people hate joy, too. Nonetheless, the possibility that those with nothing would have greater joy than billionaires hit Rockwell like a ton of rubber balls dropped on him from the heavens. His vision of miserable, toothless, barefoot, perpetually sweat sticky jungle people now seemingly enjoying themselves was more than one man, especially a tycoon, should bear. What business could they have with happiness?  Clown chortled. Who exactly has the “lesser lives?”

Back at the plantation, his suspected backsliding seringueiros knew all about the Little Ones, the mushrooms that opened trapdoors to other universes and spiritual conversations with plumed serpents and eternal flames. The Clown mused about trapdoors and the traps that Rockwell put in his contracts. Rockwell and his minions, meanwhile, lacking in the fine points of vocabulary, confused portals with the portholes on their boats. Both were places to throw the slop from galley kitchens in the lexicon of the wealthy. The Clown knew that either definition could be the entrance to hell.

The forest people had a deeper wealth.  They had the God of Good–Mayantu—on their side. He was their healer, their curandero. Since the dawn of time, the Little Ones collaborated with Mayantu to heal and to guide with ceremony. A ceremony that would free them from being seringueiros. A ceremony that would free all the oppressed people in the Americas. It would be called the Ghost Dance. It would please the Heavens. It would be that slip of time when mortals and gods arrive at the root of the tree of the universe. Rockwell and his investors would never arrive at this tree, but if by some outrageous cosmic joke, they were whisked there, the first order of business would be to pluck it bare.

From Prairie to Paddlewheel: Sitting Bull’s River of Regret

Even the darkest river may carry you to a place where the birds sing your sorrow into song, and the world, for a moment, balances on the tip of your nose.” ~ The Clown

Sitting Bull was tired and cranky. Wandering down the foredeck of the Clavero listening to the clunk of its engines as it plodded its way southward, his mood grew dark. Why, oh why, did he allow himself to take part in Rockwell’s crazy scheme? The big water might remind some Lakota back home of the wind cutting waves in prairie grasses. But for Sitting Bull the sea smell triggered memories of the open cesspits in London. Those crazy British pooped in one place and one place only! Ómna! The prairie was more inviting.

Eyes downcast, he tasted the bile building up in the back of his mouth as swells rolled the deck. Walking the length of the ship was some exercise but also monotony. It was still the nearest thing to galloping the prairies and bonding rhythmically with a horse’s gait. Not sensing the horse’s rhythm and going with it could be a swift death. 

He missed the wide spaces and his Hunkpapa relatives. Kolas. If he hadn’t taken mistaken pity on Rockwell, he’d have been home by now, back on Standing Rock, singing, laughing, and maybe even dancing. He traded that for being captive on a tramp steamer chugging down the South American coastline.

Many days later, when the Clavero made the hard right turn and steered away from the Atlantic to the Amazon’s mouth, things began to pick up. The smell of sickly salt dissipated along with the taste in his mouth. The smokestack still belched coal smoke, but the humidity knocked it back down. He could at last see land on both sides of the ship. The steady thump, thump of the steam engine grew louder as it the sound echoed on the banks and off the thick clumps of jungle trees covered with vines. The chattering of macaws and toucans was soothing after three weeks listening to the laughing seagulls. 

Maybe buffalo were lurking behind those vines he thought. That would be exciting! Where could he find a horse in these lands?  More to his plight, how far did the captain say Manaus was? Did he understand him to say that it would take another three weeks to get there? Would he have to eat more of the semi-rotting meat and soggy white man’s vegetables? He was missing the taste of wild turnips and solid land under his feet. 

He began to sing in voice still mistaken for falsetto. Seven decades later, a dream horse would bring the same melody to Joni Mitchell. She would call that song “The Circle Game.” Every forest animal and bird began swaying and singing along. 

I am Lakota, I walk the circle’s ring,

Brave Sun rises, and the shadows sing,

Broken Moon whispers, in the night’s quiet gleam,

Slaves of time, in the eternal stream.

Weak Grass bends in the wind’s gentle call,

Pity me, as the seasons fall,

In the circle, we find our place,

Life’s endless dance, the sacred space.

He then remembered that Rockwell said that Manus was the Paris of South America. A hint of a smile came his face. Sitting Bull had admired France and Paris. Paris had mesmerized him in fifty ways that London and its stench wouldn’t. He would stroll down the Champs-Élysées, drool over Crêpes Suzette avec Grand Marnier, note the sad violins calling from bistros, and gaze intently at the La Tour Eiffel.  He mused that the fabled tower was a stolen copy of a sun dance altar. The French version provided no hope for the Lakota, however.  All in all, his favorite spot was the Place de la Concorde where many a severed noble head had found the bottom of the woven baskets. He thought whether technology was good or evil, and remembered how the guillotine had been replaced by the gatling gun as the executioner’s favorite tool. 

Perhaps there was no need for sad Lakota songs spinning off in circles to the universe when the delights of South America’s own version Paris were awaiting. He doubted that but perhaps he’d hear new songs and maybe find a new spring in his step.  He had no idea how different that singing and dancing would be.

Rubber Dreams and Beaver Hats

“The streets of a city built on mud and rubber dreams must be cleaned by rain—or the tears of those it tries to trample. Beware the man who wears a beaver hat in the jungle: he’s lost more than his way.” ~ The Clown

Manaus was a pretense. As his boat creeped to the dock, Sitting Bull gazed at the Metropolitan Cathedral that loomed over the city. Not bad, he thought. Every dusty town needs an indoor place of worship. Below the cathedral thirty thousand odd souls dodged the muddy streets, mosquitoes, pythons slithering from the jungle and onto porches, and the thieving monkeys. Their chatter brought back memories of the crowds at the Wild West Show who weren’t there to see authentic Indians as much as to hope that a stagecoach might roll over horses, Indians, or other victims. Perhaps one of the Indians would load a real bullet in his rifle and blow someone’s head off. Or maybe it’d happen to the Indian! The Clown sighed at the inevitability of it all. Cousins of those bleacher monkeys would press their beer bellies into the fences at NASCAR races in coming years getting high on the smell of rubber and waiting for pileups. Hopefully with fatalities.

The throng to greet the Clavero at the wharf had noticed the strange man on board. His steady gaze both frightened and engaged them. Sitting Bull had donned his full headdress, deerskin shirt and leggings, bone vest, and moccasins. His beadwork gleamed in the topical sun. He hadn’t dressed any finer for Buffalo Bill and if he was going to have to settle some hash here in Manaus, bring some White Men into line with the universe, he wanted his best look.

Murmurs began to cycle through the crowd. Was he a forest person? That couldn’t be. He wore too many clothes. He just arrived on a tramp steamer. Or did he? Maybe he just materialized on the dock. Several in the throng broke away and ran directly to the Cathedral to pray. The rest stood still. They’d never seen a native with a gaze so firm.

Yawning, Sitting Bull’s eyes caught familiar Parisian finery in the crowd, top hats fashioned from beaver pelts extracted from the Missouri River, and all manner of jewelry, most of it costume. Others were dressed in coarse cotton and workman’s pants. Yawning more, he heard a mix of Portuguese, Spanish, English, and native patois but nothing that sounded quite as melodic as Lakota. Where were those forest people, he thought.

A pale figure running down the street circled the crowd and approached him directly. “You would have to be Sitting Bull! Welcome to Manaus. I’m Luiz Ambicioso, Mr. Rockwell’s partner on the rubber plantation. We’re so glad that you’re here to help us with our heathen problem!”

Sitting Bull seemed to look through and beyond him. The cold gaze and the increasing nervousness of the crowd was unhinging. Did Ambicioso understand what he had just said? Would he reply? After several minutes of silence, Sitting Bull began to sing softly in Lakota while lifting his eyes to an unforgiving sun.

I am Lakota

Lakota

Looking at money man

Diggin’ the deadly quotas

Out of balance

Out of hand

We want the land

Lay down the reeking rubber sap

Don’t you hear the shrieking in the trees?

Several more minutes passed. New beads of perspiration ran down Ambicioso’s beaver hat brim downward through his collar. “Those savages know something is up. They’ve been singing and dancing since you left New York when they should have been working. I don’t know much of the heathen tongue, but it sounds like they’re invoking some spirit named Mayantu to make things better. Do you know him? I don’t know the tongue, but it seems they’re saying something about all the Europeans being sucked up by the jungle. I don’t know. We’ve beaten and killed several of their leaders but still they persist. We haven’t choked any new rubber from the jungle, and we fear mightily for the future of our plantation.”

After more minutes, Sitting Bull lowered his eyes to his host broke the silence, “You know, don’t you, that too hat you’re wearing is very rare? There are no more beavers left in Dakota Territory. You got your sun protection, your stylish looks, and we got absolutely nothing. Ecologically speaking, you people are an abject disaster.”

Ambicioso’s jaw nearly scrapped the boards under his feet. “You speak magnificent English, sir! Mr. Rockwell was not wrong about your intelligence! I don’t understand what you mean by ‘ecological’ but I stand to learn, dear sir. I’m so relieved that we can speak a tongue that both understand! I was going to try patois next.”

“I don’t do patois. And no matter the words which words sprout from your own oral cavity, I can see clearly now that they will all be forked.”

Ledger and Machete

“Call a patch of jungle ‘Destiny’ and you might fool yourself, but the vines know who truly belongs. Beware the man who brings progress in one hand and a ledger in the other—he’ll count your blessings for you, then sell them back at a markup.” ~ The Clown

Ambicioso’s escort slaves were straining, machetes were landing with a dull thud on vines that had taken over the path in the three days since he’d last been through. It was slow going. They were being watched. The sounds from birds and animals were growing closer and louder. It was weighing on Sitting Bull. He’d grown more contemptuous with each step. The Clown smiled to see the machetes lag behind the vines; numbers and scientific management had come to prune the forest, but it was always what wasn’t counted that overgrew the path.

“Why do you call it DestinyTerra? That makes it seems like your plantation was meant to be. That the Great Spirit intended this to happen. Did he?”

“Yes, we believe so. The economic potential is huge, certainly. But the United States needs this land, it needs these forest products. We’re beginning with rubber but soon we’ll also harvest teak, mahogany, eucalyptus, hemp, cinnamon, ginger, coconut oil, palm, tea, coffee and bananas. Americans will be happy to buy these products from Rockwell industries at a fair price, and the natives will prosper under our embrace!”

“This sounds most familiar. Whites told us the same thing about our land. You know. About how life would be better once the land was in chunks and crops grown. They also told us how the Lakota would sing and dance with joy.”

Waving his pocketknife at the vines and making thrusting motions, Ambicioso replied, “Oh, this is an entirely different situation, sir. Your land Dakota Territory is worthless. It grows only Buffalo and what civilized person would depend on that for a livelihood? Here, the land is fertile. Everything grows including these evil vines!” Grimacing, Ambicioso noticed that he had stabbed one of his fumbling fingers.

“All of this is good? What will they do with the wages you pay?”

“Oh, nothing yet. But, they’ll spend it all at the stores we’re going to build. We’ll have real clothes they can buy so that they’re not naked all the time. They can also buy flour, rice, and newspapers from the US. The very same papers you read in Dakota Territory.”

“I never read the news. Too many stories about how you white people steal from each other to make money. Like how you used mutual funds to finance your plantation. Depressing.”

“I see. But I fear that you believe that the forest people are somehow subject to an unfair advantage, Mr. Bull. Mr. Rockwell and I would never allow that to happen! We love our forest workers! So much that we’re building a model community to take care of them. Besides the store, there’ll be schools, churches, libraries, a gym, a golf course, sanitary toilets, and a plant for purifying water. It won’t be hard for them not to give up their savage ways when all of this is provided. For a fee, of course.”

“This sounds too familiar.”

“We will have constant innovation. Forest dwellers will learn how to properly cultivate the jungle and how to use the latest agricultural science to do so. We have professors of agronomy that will travel here and instruct the native workers. We believe with their cooperation and the superior knowledge provided by our professors, we can easily triple the output of DestinyTerra! Our shareholders will be happy. We will all dance and sing!”

“You say the forest natives are not happy now. Why?”

“Oh, they’re cheerful. My reports always say that. But, they just don’t know how to forego pleasure. Fundamentally they don’t understand that only hard work can beget happiness and harmony. Our German cousins always say, ‘work sets you free’ or ‘arbeit macht frei!’ But, still, they don’t show up for work when they’re scheduled. We start each morning at six and work through the lunch hour until eight in the evening. You’d be amazed how many don’t report for duty. Those that do frequently can’t make it through the whole day without fainting from hunger and heat. Two older natives, perhaps thirty years old, died from heat prostration just last week. But even though we were frustrated, we didn’t hang their corpses from trees. We buried them properly.”

“Do you understand that native peoples have a different idea about how to interact with the universe? We believe that consciousness is all around us. We see ourselves as the custodian of the planet. We’re not interested in raping and pillaging mother earth. You would know this if you simply talked to them. Have you? Have you talked to their leaders?”

“Those that are still alive, we let some of them live, yes. We tried to talk with them but ‘no comprende.’ They don’t want to learn English. Regardless, we have no time for backtalk and sneaking around behavior. We’ve been using stop watches to time their movements and the efficient use of their wrists but haven’t yet used these data to make life and death decisions. It’s great comfort to me as a manager, however, to know that we now have these new tools. 

We’ve settled into a standoff. We think the solution is to reward those brave forest people who keep the others in line. They’ll receive ten cents every day that they labor, two cents more than common workers and their choice of a tin lid for every twenty of their brothers they convert to better behavior. Now, how might that strike you, Mr. Bull?”