Growing Up Native American (5 page)

“The young people nowadays, it seems they don't care bout nothing that's old. They just want to go to the Moon.” He was drumming low as he spoke.

“We care, Uncle Ralph,” Sister said.

“Why?” Uncle Ralph asked in a hard challenging tone that he seldom used on us.

Sister thought for a minute and then said, “I guess because you care so much, Uncle Ralph.”

His eyes softened and he said, “I'll sing you an
Eruska
song, a song for the warriors.”

The song he sang was a war dance song. At first Sister and I listened attentively but then Sister began to dance the man's dance. She had never danced before and she tried to imitate what she had seen. Her chubby body whirled and jumped the way she'd seen the men dance. Her head tilted from side to side the way the men moved theirs. I laughed aloud at her clumsy effort and Uncle Ralph laughed heartily too.

Uncle Ralph went in and out of our lives after that. We heard that he sang at one place and then another, and people came to Momma to find him. They said that he was only one of a few who knew the old ways and the songs.

When he came to visit us, he always brought something to eat. The Pawnee custom was that the man, the warrior, should bring food, preferably meat. Then whatever food was brought to the host was prepared and served to the man, the warrior, along with the host's family. Many times Momma and I, or Sister and I, came home to an empty house to find a sack of food on the table. I or Momma cooked it for the next meal and Uncle Ralph showed up to eat.

As Sister and I grew older, our fascination with the hobos decreased. Other things took our time, and Uncle Ralph did not appear as frequently as he did before.

Once while I was home alone, I picked up Momma's old
photo album. Inside was a gray photo of Uncle Ralph in an army uniform. Behind him were tents on a flat terrain. Other photos showed other poses but in only one picture did he smile. All the photos were written over in black ink in Momma's handwriting. “Ralphie in Korea,” the writing said.

Other photos in the album showed our Pawnee relatives. Dad was from another tribe. Momma's momma was in the album, a tiny gray-haired woman who no longer lived. And Momma's momma's Dad was in the album; he wore old Pawnee leggings and the long feathers of a dark bird sat upon his head. I closed the album when Momma, Dad, and Sister came home.

Momma went into the kitchen to cook. She called me and Sister to help. As she put on a bibbed apron, she said, “We just came from town, and we saw someone from home there.” She meant someone from her tribal community.

“This man told me that Ralphie's been drinking hard,” she said sadly. “He used to do that quite a bit a long time ago but we thought that it had stopped. He seemed to be alright for a few years.” We cooked and then ate in silence.

Washing the dishes, I asked Momma, “How come Uncle Ralph never did marry?”

Momma looked up at me but was not surprised by my question. She answered, “I don't know, Sister. It would have been better if he had. There was one woman who I thought he really loved. I think he still does. I think it had something to do with Mom. She wanted him to wait.”

“Wait for what?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Momma said and sank into a chair.

After that we heard unsettling rumors of Uncle Ralph drinking here and there.

He finally came to the house once when only I happened to be home. He was haggard and tired. His appearance was much like that of the whiteman that Sister and I met on the railroad tracks years before.

I opened the door when he tapped on it. Uncle Ralph looked years older than his age. He brought food in his arms. “
Nowa
, Sister,” he said in greeting. “Where's the other one?” He meant Sister.

“She's gone now, Uncle Ralph. School in Kansas,” I answered. “Where you been, Uncle Ralph? We been worrying about you.”

He ignored my question and said, “I bring food. The warrior brings home food. To his family, to his people.” His face was lined and had not been cleaned for days. He smelled of cheap wine.

I asked again, “Where you been, Uncle Ralph?”

He forced himself to smile. “Pumpkin Flower,” he said, using the Pawnee name, “I've been out with my warriors all this time.”

He put one arm around me as we went to the kitchen table with the food. “That's what your Pawnee name is. Now don't forget it.”

“Did somebody bring you here, Uncle Ralph, or are you on foot?” I asked him.

“I'm on foot,” he answered. “Where's your Momma?”

I told him that she and Dad would be back soon, I started to prepare the food he brought.

Then I heard Uncle Ralph say, “Life is sure hard sometimes. Sometimes it seems I just can't go on.”

“What's wrong, Uncle Ralph?” I asked.

Uncle Ralph let out a bitter little laugh. “What's wrong?” he repeated. “What's wrong? All my life, I've tried to live what I've been taught but, Pumpkin Flower, some things are all wrong!”

He took a folded pack of Camel cigarettes from his coat pocket. His hand shook as he pulled one from the pack and lit the end. “Too much drink,” he said sadly. “That stuff is bad for us.”

“What are you trying to do, Uncle Ralph?” I then asked.

“Live,” he said.

He puffed on the shaking cigarette awhile and said, “The old people said to live beautifully with prayers and song. Some died for beauty too.”

“How do we do that, Uncle Ralph, live for beauty?” I asked.

“It's simple, Pumpkin Flower,” he said. “Believe!”

“Believe what?” I asked.

He looked at me hard. “
Aw-kuh
!” he said, “that's one of the things that is wrong. Everyone questions. Everyone doubts. No one believes in the old ways anymore. They want to believe when it's convenient, when it doesn't cost them anything and when they get something in return. There are no more believers. There are no more warriors. They are all gone. Those who are left only want to go to the Moon.”

A car drove up outside. It was Momma and Dad. Uncle Ralph heard it too. He slumped in the chair, resigned to whatever Momma would say to him.

Momma came in first. Dad then greeted Uncle Ralph and disappeared into the back of the house. Custom and etiquette required that Dad, who was not a member of Momma's tribe, allow Momma to handle her brother's problems.

She hugged Uncle Ralph. Her eyes filled with tears when she saw how thin he was and how his hands shook.

“Ralphie,” she said, “you look awful but I am glad to see you.”

She then spoke to him of everyday things, how the car failed to start and the latest gossip. He was silent, tolerant of the passing of time in this way. His eyes sent me a pleading look while his hands shook and he tried to hold them still.

When supper was ready, Uncle Ralph went to wash himself for the meal. When he returned to the table, he was calm. His hands didn't shake so much.

At first he ate without many words, but in the course of the meal he left the table twice. Each time he came back, he was more talkative than before, answering Momma's questions in Pawnee. He left the table a third time and Dad rose.

Dad said to Momma, “He's drinking again. Can't you tell?” Dad left the table and went outside.

Momma frowned. A determined look grew on her face.

When Uncle Ralph sat down to the table once more, Momma told him, “Ralphie, you're my brother but I want you to leave now. Come back when you are sober.”

He held a tarnished spoon in mid-air and he put it down slowly. He hadn't finished eating but he didn't seem to mind leaving. He stood, looked at me with his red eyes and went to
the door. Momma followed him. In a low voice, she said, “Ralphie, you've got to stop drinking and wandering—or don't come to see us again.”

He pulled himself to his full height then. His frame filled the doorway. He leaned over Momma and yelled, “Who are you? Are you God that you will say what will be or will not be?”

Momma met his angry eyes. She stood firm and did not back down.

His eyes finally dropped from her face to the linoleum floor. A cough came from deep in his throat.

“I'll leave here,” he said. “But I'll get all my warriors and come back! I have thousands of warriors and they'll ride with me. We'll get our bows and arrows. Then we'll come back!” He staggered out the door.

In the years that followed, Uncle Ralph saw us only when he was sober. He visited less and less. When he did show up, he did a tapping ritual on our front door. We welcomed the rare visits. Occasionally he stayed at our house for a few days at a time when he was not drinking. He slept on the floor.

He did odd jobs for minimum pay but never complained about the work or money. He'd acquired a vacant look in his eyes. It was the same look that Sister and I had seen in the hobos when we were children. He wore a similar careless array of clothing and carried no property with him at all.

The last time he came to the house, he called me by my English name and asked if I remembered anything of all that he'd taught me. His hair had turned pure white. He looked older than anyone I knew. I marvelled at his appearance and said, “I remember everything.” That night I pointed out his stars for him and told him how
Pahukatawa
lived and died and lived again through another's dreams. I'd grown and Uncle Ralph could not hold me on his knee anymore. His arm circled my waist while we sat on the grass.

He was moved by my recitation and clutched my hand tightly. He said, “It's more than this. It's more than just repeating words. You know that, don't you?”

I nodded my head. “Yes, I know. The recitation is the easiest part but it's more than this, Uncle Ralph.”

He was quiet but after a few minutes his hand touched my
shoulder. He said, “I couldn't make it work. I tried to fit the pieces.”

“I know,” I said.

“Now before I go,” he said, “do you know who you are?”

The question took me by surprise. I thought very hard. I cleared my throat and told him, “I know that I am fourteen. I know that it's too young.”

“Do you know that you are a Pawnee?” he asked in a choked whisper.

“Yes, Uncle,” I said.

“Good,” he said with a long sigh that was swallowed by the night.

Then he stood and said, “Well, Sister, I have to go. Have to move on.”

“Where are you going?” I asked. “Where all the warriors go?” I teased.

He managed a smile and a soft laugh. “Yeah, wherever the warriors are, I'll find them.”

“Before you go,” I asked, “Uncle Ralph, can women be warriors too?”

He laughed again and hugged me merrily. “Don't tell me you want to be one of the warriors too?”

“No, Uncle,” I said, “Just one of yours.” I hated to let him go because I knew that I would not see him again.

He pulled away. His last words were, “Don't forget what I've told you all these years. It's the only chance not to become what everyone else is. Do you understand?”

I nodded and he left. I never saw him again.

The years passed quickly. I moved away from Momma and Dad and married. Sister left them before I did.

Years later in another town, hundreds of miles away, I awoke in a terrible gloom, a sense that something was gone from the world the Pawnees knew. The despair filled days though the reason for the sense of loss went unexplained. Finally, the telephone rang. Momma was on the line. She said, “Sister came home for a few days not too long ago. While she was here and alone, someone came and tapped on the door, like Ralphie always does. Sister yelled, ‘Is that you, Uncle Ralph? Come on in.' But no one entered.”

Then I understood, Uncle Ralph was dead. Momma probably knew too. She wept softly into the phone.

Later Momma received an official call that confirmed Uncle Ralph's death. He had died from exposure in a hobo shanty, near the railroad tracks outside a tiny Oklahoma town. He'd been dead for several days and nobody knew but Momma, Sister and me.

The funeral was well attended by the Pawnee people, Momma reported to me as I did not attend. Uncle Ralph and I had said our farewells years earlier. Momma told me that someone there had spoken well of Uncle Ralph before they put him in the ground. It was said that “Ralph came from a fine family, an old line of warriors.”

Ten years later, Sister and I visited briefly at Momma's and Dad's home. We had been separated by hundreds of miles for all that time. As we sat under Momma's flowering mimosa trees, I made a confession to Sister. I said, “Sometimes I wish that Uncle Ralph were here. I'm a grown woman but I still miss him after all these years.”

Sister nodded her head in agreement. I continued. “He knew so many things. He knew why the sun pours its liquid all over us and why it must do just that. He knew why babes and insects crawl. He knew that we must live beautifully or not live at all.”

Sister's eyes were thoughtful but she waited to speak while I went on. “To live beautifully from day to day is a battle that warriors have to plot for as long as they can. It's a battle all the way. The things that he knew are so beautiful. And to feel and know that kind of beauty is the reason that we should live at all. Uncle Ralph said so. But now, there is no one who knows what that beauty is or any of the other things that he knew.”

Sister pushed back smoky gray wisps of her dark hair. “You do,” she pronounced. “And I do too.”

“Why do you suppose he left us like that?” I asked.

“It couldn't be helped,” Sister said. “There was a battle on.”

“I wanted to be one of his warriors,” I said with an embarrassed half-smile.

She leaned over and patted my hand. “You are,” she said. Then she stood and placed one hand on her bosom and one hand on my arm. “We'll carry on,” she said.

I touched her hand resting on my arm. I said, “Sister, tell me again. What is the battle for?”