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Maybe we could.
“Tell me everything, Maggie,” I said with new determination. “All the dirty politics and those involved.”
* * *
After hearing her complaints about the current corporate sellout tribal leaders and the futile protest efforts of their traditionist groups, Maggie began her reverse history lesson about the core problem of her people.
“I believe it all started over a hundred years ago when we allowed our children to be physically taken from us by the government in partnership with so-called religious organizations,” she began.
“The kids were physically ripped from their families and villages and way of life and sent to state-funded and run boarding schools. There, the native-haters were able to indoctrinate the children without interference. Physical and emotional abuse was rampant. Those places were nothing more than kiddie concentration camps.”
Maggie detailed many of the incidences, as well as the lifelong trauma these children experienced. It made me physically ill at the gross atrocities, all in the name of “civilized progressive thinking”.
“Our forefathers should have seen it coming,” she added with shaking head. “They should have fought the government thugs in the guise of religious do-gooders from stealing our young away. But the village elders of the time wanted peace with the local government, so they passively handed over their own children to those monsters. Unconscionable.”
“Did any of your own relatives suffer those government schools?”
“No, fortunately,” she said. “My great-grandparents adamantly refused to allow their children to be sent away. Theirs was an unpopular sentiment amongst our people though. Still, a small pocket believed as they did and followed their lead. The village was split in this opinion.
“It wasn’t until decades later that the truth about those schools was made public, but sadly the damage to those children had been irreparably done. The few still living today refuse to speak of those times, they were so badly traumatized.”
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
Maggie let go of a breath, adding, “Me, too. I still get pissed off anytime I think about those cruelties.”
The Jeep bumped and jolted as we continued to drive up the rough road. I gripped the seat with one hand, the door handle with the other, feeling my teeth rattle.
“The blame lies mostly with our own people, though,” Maggie continued. “We’re the ones who silently accepted the sanctioned kidnapping and abuses, when our leaders should have risen up and fought off those evil men in power over us. Parents should have fought with all their strength to keep their children when they had the chance. Our people should have fought for our lands and way of life. Where were our warriors when we needed them most?”
“’The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,’” I quoted.
Maggie smirked. “As a historian you know that Raymond Burr didn’t actually say that.”
“The sentiment is true enough,” I said.
She shrugged, giving me that.
That brought up my recollection of the old sepia photograph from yesterday, the one with my heroic mountain man.
All night I had thought about him. He even invaded my dreams at one point, and I woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat for reasons I’d rather not openly admit to. I had been so disappointed that he wasn’t real that my eyes welled up and I curled into myself with an unreasonable grief.
“Hilly mentioned something about those wars back in the 1800’s,” I prodded.
“Clearings,” she corrected. “Land thieves. Legalized massacres.”
“There were some good men who tried to help the Indian villages though, she said. One in particular who succeeded on a few occasions.”
A smile curled Maggie’s lips as she glanced over to me, before facing the pitted mountain trail again. “You’re talking about Michael Bryant.”
I was, but was embarrassed to admit to it. However, my reddening face and itching silence gave me away.
“Yes, he helped,” she agreed. “A great deal, in fact. He tried to help stop many of the clearings and massacres and was even successful a few times. A true warrior’s heart. An average man with a conscience who rose to help those weaker and in need. A good man, a rarity.”
“No skanky brothels who knew him as a regular customer then?” I asked.
Maggie threw her head back and laughed. “Not that I know of. Not that he would need to pay for any woman to visit his wigwam when he crooked his finger. I certainly wouldn’t. Yeah, I saw that photo of him in Hilly’s museum, too.”
We both looked at each other, then snickered.
