F
INGERNAIL MOON. A WHITE man name for the nights mother moon hid all but a slice of her face. The boy allowed himself one more moment under the night sky and then he squatted, worked his way under the building, careful not to bump the new wounds that crisscrossed his shoulders against the underside of the sleeping quarters. Tears ran hot on his cheeks. He could not remember the true name of this thin crescent of pale light, the Osage name for the moon that hid hunters and warriors alike, the moon under which braves rode to steal the horses of the intruder Cheyenne and the women of the enemy Kiowa. In this sterile place where he was taught to hate his Osage ways, trained to walk and talk and read like a white, for almost seven years now in this place of death and pain, the words of his people had been beaten from his mind. “You will be a prophet to your people,” Brother James insisted when he grew tired of the endless memorizations from the white man’s book. “Because of your intelligence and strength you have been chosen by God to bring the salvation of Our Savior to the Indian.” Brother James’s face would
shine when he said these lies, lit as though from within, his hand like a talon on the shoulder of the boy he called John. The boy tilted his head upward so that his face pressed against the underside of the wood plank floor. The stink of lye sent his heart racing and his hands to shaking. “I am Montega.” His voice soft as the night’s sweet breath through buffalo grass. “New Arrow. Like my spirit animal the bear, I am sharp clawed and fierce. I give ground to no man or animal.” He squeezed shut his eyes, did his best to connect with the spirit of his people. The Osage hid from the Blue Coats, eked out an existence and died in the canyons and hills that were once their own and now belonged to farmers who tore at mother earth and destroyed the land they stole. His people had fought and lost, were all but destroyed. The boy did not fear the rod or the box or any of the inventive punishments Brother James claimed he concocted to raise the Indian boys in his care above their savage origins. What Montega feared was that the admiration of whites, even false admiration, grew
