I
1931, NEW MEXICO
’M ABOUT TO DIE from snakebite. The snake and I were both surprised. Of all the things I thought might kill me, this was pretty far down the list. But not as far as gettin’ hanged for rape, so I guess if you look at it that way, maybe this won’t be half bad. My forearm and leg are turning red, purple, and black. That rattler must have had a helluva lot of juice in him, is all I can say. Things are feeling bad right about now, and I admit to feeling foggy and graysighted. I think it’s what them bible thumpers say a person’s whole life spins out in front of their eyes before God or the Devil comes to lay claim to their sorrowful soul. I’m part Navajo Indian. Part somethin’ else. My grandmother Shimasani laughed and said that the Navajo part must’ve been what went over the fence last, because sure enough, the Federal Government called me an Indian. My mother ran off and left me in a birthing hut down by the Colorado River. Then Uncle Sam left me on the reservation with Shimasani, to be raised up as a Navajo.
I don’t know who my daddy was, but I suspect his name’s Peter, because that’s what everyone calls me. Pete. Injun Pete. I was born in 1902, a time when the U.S. Government dreamed up this hare-brained program to send us Indian children to white man schools, away from our home and families, so we could learn to read and write. The whole idea was to teach us the “American Way,” even though nobody stopped to think the Navajo way was part of this country long before the white men settled it. They say history’s written by the victors, and I believe it’s true. I was swept up into a new vision for this land and set down somewhere I didn’t want to be. When I was seven years old, I found myself lookin’ out the back of a broken-down wagon, hitting every pothole and rut there was into town until I thought my bladder would bust. They crammed me and ten other boys in a dormitory at a boarding school. We weren’t allowed to talk Navajo. They cut off our braids and made us wear uniforms and shoes. Going to the white man school was confusing to us Navajo kids, and especially to me, because I was half white myself. I couldn’t seem to find my compass. I didn’t
