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“What genius number one is saying to genius number two is …” Claire began flippantly.
Pinky put a gentle hand on Claire’s arm in a stop motion. Then Pinky turned to her husband.
“Honey, what Claire is saying is that it’s not possible for Jack to be her father.”
Claire and Pinky watched Prosper as the words settled and sent shockwaves all over his face.
Claire took it from there.
“We all know that Maggie is my mother. So the question I have for you is this: if Jack isn’t my father, then who the hell is?”
“Goddamn it!” Magaskawee Whitefeather muttered to herself as she looked out through the grimy screen. Her hands balled up into hard fists as she carefully made her way back across the bodies sprawled out on the living room floor in sleeping bags. She continued across to the small hallway and pulled open the ragged accordion door to the only bedroom in the trailer. Despite her frustration at finding the ancient Ford gone, Magaskawee’s anger softened for a moment when she saw that her older sister had thoughtfully moved over to leave a space for her. Tanka knew that Magaskawee preferred sleeping out on the flat roof under the stars, but she always made sure to leave enough room on the ancient, lopsided mattress just in case.
In the tradition ofTiospaye, family takes care of family, and due in large part to the housing crisis, overcrowding on the reservation had become a serious problem. There were fifteen members of Magaskawee’s family living in the one bedroom, one bathroom, mold-infested, government-issued housing. The land between the decrepit units was all dotted with the skeletons of chopped up motor vehicles. The parts of the cars that could not be repurposed had been thrown carelessly on the ground. Over the years they had become camouflaged by unmown grass. The rusted and sharp edges made the area a minefield and breeding ground for puncture wounds and tetanus.
Magaskawee Whitefeather had been born and raised on the Lakota Sioux Reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. Despite, and in direct conflict of the inherent beauty and majesty of her Native American culture, the Oglala reservation was a hopeless, barren place. Alcoholism, teenage suicide, and poverty were double the rate on the national scale. Those numbers continued to rise at an alarming pace. Although the reservation was ordered to be dry by tribal law, the neighboring town of Black Oak was not. As a matter of fact, the town’s only purpose and reason for existence was to sell alcohol to the natives who lived on the reservation and crossed over the state border in droves. The area itself was about ten square miles, and every inch of it was covered with cheap liquor stores and rundown bars. Both of which were open all day, every day.
The town was a lawless place full of addiction, danger, and desperation. It was also the place where Takoda Whitefeather spent most of his time … and all of his money.
Magaskawee needed to go out and find her brother, but more importantly, the truck that he was driving. It had all her merchandise loaded in the back. She needed to make sure the truck was gassed up and ready to go so she’d have enough time to set up in the morning and beat the other vendors to the best space on the strip of land adjacent to the highway.
Magaskawee sighed heavily as she set out on the old Huffy bike. The steering on the bicycle was loose and the tires wobbled badly. Thank goodness the rain had stopped, but the road was still wet. She’d gone less than half a mile and her legs were already splattered with warm runny streams of dirty water. Magaskawee’s calves itched from the drying mud and her arms ached from trying the keep the handlebars straight. Worst of all, she knew that the hardest part of finding Takoda was still ahead of her.
Finding one drunk in a town that by virtue of its very existence was a breeding ground for alcoholism was never easy. But this was not Magaskawee’s first time at the rodeo, and it helped that her brother was a creature of habit. Even still, there were at least a half-dozen places where he could be.
Taki, where are you?Magaskawee thought desperately as she entered and then quickly exited the first two bars. Her eyes already burned from the smoke-filled rooms, and her stomach churned from the smell of weed, booze, and unwashed bodies. By the time Magaskawee stumbled out of the fourth bar, she was dizzy and her head had begun to pound. She took a deep breath, hoping for some relief, but the stifling air offered little release. It was hot and steamy, and it settled like a thick, dirty blanket over the seedy town. Magaskawee sighed heavily and looked around in dismay. Then finally, across the street and about a quarter mile down the road, she saw it. The 1960 Ford rust-bucket-of-a-truck sitting outside of Scully’s Bar and Grill.
Magaskawee groaned inwardly. Scully’s was the worst of all her brother’s possible destinations. Unlike most of the other bars in town, which were mostly frequented by the Sioux, Scully’s did its best to also pull in traffic from the highway. To that end, there was a large sign in front that advertised the “Sunrise Specials.” The selection of offerings included an off-the-menu item called The Macho-Man breakfast. It consisted of a cup of black coffee, a shot of whiskey, a cigarette, and a twin pack of Quaaludes.
Tipping optional.
Although, both the cheap booze and the bargain-priced opioids were a strong draw for Takoda Whitefeather, it was the back room that held him spellbound. The black hole, the dangerous abyss where anyone who was stupid enough to want to gamble, could gamble. And unfortunately, Taki was definitely stupid enough.
With hopes to avoid having to step inside Scully’s, Magaskawee opened the dented door of the truck and combed the interior. But after a thorough search yielded no reward, she had no other choice but to go in. The smell of burnt toast, fried bacon, and spicy sausage was mixed with stale smoke, and the unpleasant odor hit Magaskawee like a brick wall, giving her an immediate headache. Her sneakers stuck to the floor as she made her way across the room. Magaskawee’s eyes skimmed the area, and to her utter dismay, she did not see her brother. She walked to the end of the bar with the intent to question the bartender. Magaskawee drummed her fingers nervously on the scarred counter while she waited for Johnny Bear to deliver a breakfast order to a large table full of men dressed in road leathers.
There were always bikers roaring through the long, winding ribbons of western highways, and whenever Magaskawee saw them, she experienced a jolt of envy. She longed for the freedom their lifestyle represented. Admittedly, these men often painted a scary picture with their hard eyes, inked biceps, and outlaw swagger. However, in Maggie’s experience, she had found most bikers to be not only loud and boisterous, but also friendly and generous. She and her fellow roadside merchants liked to sell to them because more often than not, they were affable, appreciative of the art, and never bothered to squabble over prices.
But Maggie also liked the bikers for other reasons. She loved to look at their license plates and dream of the places they had been and the places they were going. She would write down the name of all their home states in a little notebook. When she had time, she would ride her bike to the run down library on the reservation and look up interesting facts about each place she had catalogued. The coastal shores of Massachusetts, the sugar-maple trees of Vermont, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee, the wide expanse of the Mississippi … Someday she planned on seeing it all.
As Magaskawee waited for Johnny to finish delivering the order, her eyes passed quickly over the table. A big man sat at the end and caught her eye. He had long hair that reminded her of autumn corn: a rich deep-brown, streaked with hues of gold, copper, and chestnut, deep dark eyes, a square jaw, and the body of a warrior. He was so handsome that he took Magaskawee’s breath away. But there was an unmistakable aura of controlled violence about him, a grimness that gave her pause. He had an angry, dangerous, and world-weary look, a look that was both oddly compelling and absolutely terrifying. When his detached gaze swept over her, Magaskawee Whitefeather stood a little straighter, and as his eyes shifted away again in apparent dismissal, she was disappointed and relieved at the same time.
“Johnny, I need to talk to you,” Magaskawee said to the bartender as he strode resolutely by without sparing a glance in her direction. Though Johnny was several years older than Magaskawee, they had grown up together even, at times, sharing the same bed. They were cousins, in the same way everyone on the reservation seemed to be related to one another.
“Johnny?” Magaskawee was hot on his heels. Still, he would not turn around. He was obviously and purposefully ignoring her, and nothing made Magaskawee madder than being ignored. “I know you can hear me, Johnny!” she shouted out.
It was at that exact moment the piped-in music stopped playing, and Magaskawee’s voice sounded out loud and clear in the suddenly quiet room. When she looked around, everyone was looking at her, including the man at the end of the table.
“Jesus, you got no shame. Yelling out like that? Look around, half the customers are staring at you, the other half are laughing at you.” Johnny tried with no success to embarrass Magaskawee into leaving. “What the hell are you doing here, cousin?”
“Taki took off with the truck again. Have you seen him?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him.” Johnny frowned with resignation.
“So, you want to play twenty questions, or are you gonna tell me where my brother is?” A suspicion filled with dread hit Magaskawee hard over the head. She hoped to heavens she was wrong.
Johnny didn’t answer, instead he looked over at the end of the bar.
“He’s in there?” Magaskawee cried out. “Johnny, Taki just finished paying up the marker from last time. How the hell did he buy a seat in the game?”
