Shooting the Snow

That squint-eyed, bow-legged old Indian standing out there in the field is my uncle. He's standing in a field that doesn't have any grass or flowers or anything else growing in it because it's all dead. Dead and covered over with about four feet of snow because it's the middle of--pardon my language--goddamn February. Yeah, that's my Uncle Tok. He's watching for the butterflies. He's standing in the middle of a frozen field, in the middle of Minnesota, in the middle of goddamn February watching for the butterflies. Oh, and he's watching for George Bush, too. Yeah, the President. No, Tok's not crazy. Not that kind of crazy, anyway. He started doing it after he had the dream. Uncle Tok will be 82 this coming June--if he makes it through the winter--and like a lot of the old ones, he believes in all that dream business. "In the old days our people had no education. We couldn't learn from teachers or books. All our wisdom and knowledge came to us in dreams." That's what he always says.

Anyway, Uncle Tok had this dream that he was sitting in a room filled with butterflies, shooting the bull with the Great Mystery, and the Great Mystery told him to expect a visitor. Said that one day, when he least expected it, Uncle Tok would be visited by an important man who possessed great knowledge. The GM also told him that he'd receive a sign that would tell him when the visitor was near and that the visitor would come by way of Highway 2, because White Earth Road is nearly impassable because of all the potholes, which won't be repaired any time soon, because those greedy sons of bitches who sit on the council voted to sink all that money into the new Bingo Palace. Now Tok's convinced that the sign will be butterflies and that the visitor will be George Bush.

What really gets me is that I'm partly responsible for this whole thing. I'm the one who gave him that stupid picture of George Bush. It was after I went to Washington last fall with my ex-girlfriend, Lila. Lila's mostly Ojibwe, like me, but she's got a streak of Cherokee from her father's side. Well, when she heard that Wilma Mankiller was going to be in Washington to get some award at some big Indian summit, there was nothing to do but go on down to Washington to stand around on the Mall, freezing our asses off, so we could watch Chief Mankiller get some medal pinned on her coat. And get this. After I cart Lila all the way to Washington to see Wilma Mankiller--you'd think they were sisters or something the way Lila carries on about that trickle of blood they share--she goes and breaks up with me. Says I've got a bad attitude and worse than that, I don't respect or honor my heritage. Well, I don't need to run to Washington or win fancy dancing contests or believe in crazy dreams to honor my heritage or show people who I am. It's written all over my face, for chrissake. Sometimes Lila acts like she's the last damn Indian. If I had a dime for every time she said, "it's who you are, Jesse," or, "don't fight nature, Jesse, dance with it." Hell, I don't even know what that means.

Anyway, that's when I got the picture of George. I just shoved it into my duffel bag and forgot about it until I got home. I gave it to Uncle Tok, because he likes stuff like that. He made me go into town and buy a frame for it. See, in the old days our people didn't like to have their pictures taken. They had this belief that their spirit lived in the picture and that if some harm came to the picture then it would come to them, too. Like if it got blown away in a tornado or burned up in a fire, the same thing would happen to them. So Tok said we had to put the picture in a frame, and he hung it on the wall in his bedroom where he could keep an eye on it. Then, a couple of months ago, he tells me he wants to write a letter to President Bush. Says he felt like George had been his guest all this time and he wanted to thank him for the honor. He made me write the letter for him, told me exactly what to say. But he wouldn't let me sign his name for him. He signed this one himself and he used his full name, Tokala Luta, instead of just "Tok," which is the way he signs his government checks. Then, under that, he put in big letters "Red Fox." When I called up Lila and told her about it, told her that I thought it was a fool thing to do, but I'd done it anyway, she just said, "Oh, Jesse," in that tired voice she always gets and then hung up on me.

So anyway, about two weeks ago, Uncle Tok gets a letter back from George Bush. It wasn't really a letter, just a postcard inside an envelope thanking Tok for his support. It's probably not even the President's actual signature on it, just one of those stamps they use. But Tok made me go into town to buy another frame so he could put that postcard in it, along with the envelope. He's got it hanging on his wall next to the picture.

Last week was when he had the dream. I got up one morning and saw him standing out there in the field. It was about ten degrees outside. I called him to come in, but he doesn't hear so well, so I had to go out and get him. That's when he told me about the dream. I try not to be disrespectful to the old ones, but I had to ask what made him think he was going to see any butterflies in that field in the middle of February. Here's what he told me. He said the Great Mystery had told him that the sign was going to be butterflies since there were butterflies in the dream, and that the visitor was going to come when he least expected it, and when do you least expect to see butterflies?

So this is what I've been dealing with every day for the past week. I let him stand out there for about half an hour or so while I eat breakfast and get dressed, and I make sure the coffee's hot and the stove is kicking before I go out to get him.

I don't mind telling you that I feel like a damn fool standing out there all by myself. Highway 2 is just across the field and everybody who drives by slows down to take a look. Except Lila. I wave, but she goes flying by on her way to work and never eases off the gas. Yesterday the wind kicked up and made my eyes water so much my eyelashes froze. Today, it's snowing. I think I'm going to take my bow out with me, just for something to do. Uncle Tok is the one who taught me to shoot. When I was a kid, he'd take me out on nights when it was snowing and tell me if I could shoot the snow, it would stop. "Shoot the snow," he'd say, "shoot the snow right in the eye." I'd get a big charge out of it the next morning, when I'd look out and see that it had stopped snowing. It's a damn hard trick, shooting snow.