Snakebit

1931, NEW MEXICO

I’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 know on what side of this world I belonged and had no way of knowing which side I wanted.

In town, I sure enough was an Indian then. People looked at me as though I might scalp ‘em, and half the time I wished I could. Not one person ever cared or asked if I was part white. I was Pete Drinkwater and that was that.

As soon as I was old enough to grow into my legs, I walked out of that damned school and never looked back. Wasn’t missed none, either. I just headed down that same rutted old road back to the reservation, where I lived for a while with Shimasani.

She showed me the old ways, the best ways, the Indian way. How to track a deer, make a fire, or gentle a horse. We talked in the Navajo language, and she told me stories about the ancient ones, the brave warriors, and Eagle feathers.

That’s what I always wished I was—a warrior, instead of some loser who walked the railroad tracks at dawn, looking for anything I could eat, sell, or trade. Over the years, I’ve begged for jobs, slept on the ground, and lived with an empty stomach. I’ve licked the booze out of old tossed-away bottles, and learned that the burn in my belly matched the fire in my head.

I never stooped so low as to steal, but sometimes my hands itched to grab at something and run like hell. But then I thought of my grandmother, so I held my head up and paid no attention to the growling in my gut or the hollowed out part of my soul.

It was hard to find work back then. Times were tough for anybody, much less an Indian. I considered myself one lucky sum-bitch when I got a job on the railroad. I did all the grunt work and took the abuse, liftin’ the heavy stuff the white boys didn’t want to carry. They tripped me and cussed, but come pay day, we were all alike. I took my coin like everyone else, and ate and drank every Friday night in whatever town the railroad took us.

I never made enough money to save much, but I’ve got a gold tooth in my mouth for a rainy day. Figured I’d pull it out if I’m starvin’. It oughta buy me a few rounds of whisky and a loaf of bread or two. In the winter, that damned tooth’s cold as hell when I run my tongue over it, and in the summer, it’s warm like desert clay.

I worked the rails for five years before the Depression hit. Then, when the bottom dropped out of this country, the railroad decided that white men were the only ones who got to work. The rail boss left me high and dry in a chaparral town in New Mexico, with just a couple of bucks in my pocket. It wasn’t even enough money to buy a ticket home to Shimasani and the reservation.

I slept outside behind the only church in town while I thought about what to do. The preacher found me one morning, and instead of kickin’ me off the property, he gave me a job paintin’ the clapboards and weeding the cemetery. He said I could sleep in the church on a pew if I kept out of trouble.

The church was quiet at night, except for the rustlin’ of the wind through the trees in the graveyard. Sometimes I thought maybe it wasn’t the wind at all, but the sighs and sobs of the dead. I wondered if they were happy with how their lives turned out, or if regrets haunt ‘em every time the wind whistles over their graves. It was confusing to figure where I belonged and what I should do. I even had a notion I might stay right there in that town, instead of walkin’ away.

Looking back, it was clear I was headed plumb to hell through no fault of my own. And it was just because I have darker skin, and my hair’s the color of a raven. I shoulda stayed among my own kind and give up any dream of being something more than what I was. But that damned gold tooth and a few bottles of whisky got me thinkin’ I was startin’ to channel the white side of me.

She was just a girl in that high desert town. A gal who slaps your food down in front of you in the cafe and walks away. The kind of girl who for sure seen better days, bloomed out before she could even ripen, her eyes already saying goodbye a few steps ahead of her.

After a while she started talkin’ to me at closing time, and I’d hang around until she turned off the lights and locked the door. Well, one thing led to another, and one night I found myself pouring her over the top of the counter and givin’ her what for. Looking back, it was an act of desperation for both of us. One of us wanted to fly, the other to belong. It felt good enough to me, and I suppose for her, that my feet found their way back there about every other night or so.

Things were going along okay until her boss walked in on us one night. Right away, she started cryin’. When he asked if I’d raped her, she hung her sorry head and said yes. I fumbled for words as I fumbled for my fly, and all I could think of was that I was about to die.

I tried to run for it, but the man hit me in the back of the head and knocked me cold. The next thing I knew, I was bein’ dragged out of that cafe by my hair and down the street like a dead deer. It was at this point I found my feet, and with a quick jerk, I busted loose from the men who had me. I kicked ‘em in the crotch with my steel-toed railroad shoes, butted them in the head, and took off like a bat out of hell. Now I had assault added to the rape of a white girl. I’d swing like a wind chime.

So there I was, miles from nowhere, wandering around the desert when I saw a dead rabbit lyin’ under a bush. The flies had already got to it, and its eyes were picked clean out of its head. Hungry as I was, there’s no way I’d eat it. But finding that carcass gave me this crazy idea to get me some Eagle feathers. That way, when they lynch me, I’ll have ‘em wove in my hair as a sign of bravery.

Shimasani told me how to go about it. She learned from her great-grandmother, a Cheyenne who lived on the Great Plains. One night, after tucking a chaw of tobacco into her cheek, she leaned back against a Palo Verde tree and peered up at the stars.

“There’s a way to get them eagle feathers, Pete, but it takes some work,” she said. “You snare a rabbit, wring its neck, then dig a deep hole in the ground. Drop yourself in like a lost spirit, then cover up the opening with sagebrush, sticks, and tumbleweeds. Set the rabbit on top, above your head, then sit and wait. Chant and pray that the Eagle sees the rabbit and swoops down after it. Then, just as he reaches out for that meat with his talons, poke your hands through the sage and sticks and grab his legs. Then hold on for dear life until one of you gives up. He’ll try to hook your eyes out, and you’ll do your best to hold him down and grab at them feathers.” She spit some juice into the dirt, wiped her mouth, and laughed. “It won’t be easy, but what in this life is?” She patted my shoulder, her hand as soft and worn as old deer hide.

That night, I sat under the tree long after Shimasani went to bed, thinkin’ about what she said. So when I saw the dead rabbit, I figured it was a sign from God, and this was the right time. The same boots I used for kickin’, I used for diggin’. It took me a while to make that hole, but it was a sight to behold when I finished. I found old twigs and sagebrush for the cover, then dropped myself in the pit and built the trap over head.

I crouched in there so long my legs went numb. The sun rose and set, and still I sat, sweatin’ and thinking of that girl, and the men lookin’ for me. I thought about my ancestors, the reservation, the U.S. Government and Shimasani. I remembered the white man school I went to, bare feet forced into leather shoes, walking in two worlds the way a ghost would.

And I wondered if I would die brave.

The sun was straight overhead when I saw a shadow slippin’ above me, goin’ right for the dead rabbit. I tensed and peered up through the brush, but didn’t see much. Then, without warning, a rattler dropped right into the pit with me. We stared at each other for a second, then he coiled himself up in the corner, movin’ his head like one of them Egyptian dancers I once saw in a side show at the circus.

I knew I was as good as snakebit, so I reached down and tried to grab him, hopin’ to fling him out. He struck first and fast into my left calf. I barely felt it, I was so full of fear and such. I grabbed at his head and wrapped my fist around it, but not before he got me good on my arm. Then I shook the hell out of him and tossed him out of the hole. He didn’t move much, limp as day-old bread. I think I broke somethin’ because he didn’t slither away. But he got his revenge. My arm and leg swelled up, and the pain shot through me like a shaft of sunlight, right between the eyes.

So there I was, about to become a dead man, and that damned snake didn’t care what color my skin was. No judgment there.

That’s when I heard a cry from way up above the clouds, and when I peered out from under the sagebrush, I saw him.

There in the sky was a great Golden Eagle, his wings so wide they blocked the sun. He tucked ‘em in like an arrow and shot straight down at this little scene in the desert; me, the rabbit and the snake.

Quicker than the venom gallopin’ through my blood, he grabbed that writhing snake off the ground and flew up into the blue. That Eagle was gone before I even had a chance to laugh. In the white man school, they’d have called this irony.

Partin’ the twigs and brush, I stood up and looked around. The rabbit was still there, still dead, and nothin’ else but sand for miles.

But there in the dirt was an Eagle feather. It fluttered on the ground like a living thing, golden and soft, the way it looked in my dreams. I cried, thinkin’ about Shimasani, that girl in town, and all the things that walked into my life, good and bad, that brought me here.

Strugglin’ out of the pit, I picked up the feather and stuck it in my hair for bravery. Lyin’ here on the ground, I’ve stretched my good arm out like some sort of half-breed sundial, pointin’ towards home. I’ll rest awhile, then chant for my spirit guides to take me up and set me back where I belong.

Sharon Frame Gay

Sharon Frame Gay lives in Washington State with her little dog, Henry Goodheart. She grew up a child of the highway, playing by the side of the road, and spent a lot of those years in Montana, Arizona, Nevada, North Dakota and Oregon. Interested in everything Western, and in horses in particular, she bought her first horse when she was twelve.

Although she is a multi-genre author, she has a special fondness for writing Westerns. Her Westerns can be found on Fiction On The Web, Rope And Wire, Frontier Tales, Typehouse Magazine, and will soon be appearing with Five Star Publishing in an upcoming Western anthology.She is also published in many anthologies and literary magazines, including Chicken Soup For The Soul, Crannog Magazine, Lowestoft Chronicle, Thrice Fiction, Literally Stories, Literary Orphans, Adelaide, Scarlet Leaf Review, Indiana Voice Journal and others. She has won awards at The Writing District, Owl Hollow Press, Women on Writing, and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.

You can find more of her work on Amazon, or as "Sharon Frame Gay-Writer" on Facebook, and Twitter as sharonframegay.