23
“Ooh, it is smelling good in here sister,” came a faintly familiar voice from the open tent door. “Whatcha cooking, good looking?”
“Oh, just a potful of onions so far, but you’re just the woman I was hoping would stop by.”
“Lemme guess,” Tiana suspected, as she hunched into the kitchen. “Frybread?”
“If you have time.”
“You do remember that I just did all that yesterday, don’t ya?”
“Yeah... but... Indian tacos.”
“Well, alright, alright, alright, why didn’t you just open with that part?”
“Good, Miles over there has never had one, gonna break him in the right way tonight.”
Tiana’s cheer coagulated as she realized they weren’t alone, a quick glare in his direction silenced her remaining body language, she was probably reconsidering her commitment. The rest of the muffled conversation was lost to the sizzle of onions, Miles assumed the worst, until she eventually bit the bullet and started gathering ingredients.
“Sup,” and a nod were the only notice he got, and the only he returned. She was going to be a tough piñon to crack.
“I gotta run next door real quick,” alerted Becca. “You two will be okay in here, right?” She was looking directly at Tiana.
“Yes mom,” she unconvincingly assured. “Just peachy.”
“Good. Lots of love remember, that’s what it’s all about,” and as the tent doors closed behind her they heard one last reminder from the other side, “Have fun in there.”
After an extended session of fun, and silent contests, she finally lost the game, like you just did. She spoke up, but the cheer he’d noticed earlier was tucked away somewhere a little more private.
“You know, it’s a good thing, you being in here with Becca. It’s a good place to get to know camp, a good way to pull your own weight, at least until you figure out what else you’re here to do.”
“Yeah, I like it in here a lot. I’ve already learned a bunch of invaluable stuff.”
“Uh huh,” she was unimpressed with his kindergarten lesson. “So what are you here to do?”
She clicked on the polygraph.
“Whatever you need I guess. Not sure what all there is. Dishes probably.”
He smiled. She didn’t.
“Why did you come here?”
It was going to be one of those.
He tried to think of a conscious answer to a question he’d never considered, he hadn’t even known he was coming until yesterday.
“I used to live my life lost in a world I didn’t believe in, long given up on being able to do anything about it, I was just biding my time until it was over. Then I met someone who inspired me to get into the world and start living my change, which led me to this off-grid place that made me feel alive like never before, which led me to here. I’ve met a few Water Protectors and they all have the same strength and drive to better the world, and they convinced me that it’s possible, and I want that in my own life as I figure out my role in it all.”
“So you’re just here for yourself? To make yourself feel better?”
That’s not what he meant. He thought it had sounded way better than, I dunno.
“And I want to stop the destruction of the environment,” he tried again. “Climate change and all that. I know that we’re at a tipping point and if we don’t do something soon, it’ll be too late. I know that the rest of the world seems to think that it’s not their problem, as they just try to pretend it all away. And I haven’t known what to do about it for a long time, I’m new to all this kind of stuff, and this is the first place that offered me a way to affect the world outside of my own little bubble.”
“Better,” she sounded even less impressed. “But not good enough. Some altruistic fantasy of saving the world doesn’t count for much when we’re in the shit. Out there, survival is what matters. Just like on the rez. And our people are struggling to survive everyday, and the white world just keeps taking and taking til we have nothing left. This battle is personal, we’re defending our entire way of life from the tyranny of your government’s oppression, we’re putting our lives on the line in defense of our home. Sure, that includes the whole planet’s worth of devastation, we’re all related, but we’re fighting for our actual home. Our ancestors lived and died here, their flesh and blood make up the soil we walk on, we drink the water from that river everyday, and we’re the ones who will be left without a home if this pipe goes in.
So that’s where I’m coming from, that’s why I’m here, and I’m not gonna put my family on the frontline in the hands of anyone who’s here on some kind of self-searching vacation.”
What could he possibly say to that? Luckily, Becca returned to pull him from the fire.
“Girl, don’t be running off my help now. Did he tell you he’s friends with Annie? Annie with the hair and the freckles? Oh never mind, you were on the other side of the river, weren’t you? Well anyway, Annie was cool, and so is Miles, and you think you could make me a batch of that with almond milk instead?”
“Yes mom.”
“We try to have something vegan every night,” Becca pushed the subject to Miles’ side of the room. “I’m vegan, so I know how to switch stuff around to make it work, but of course we also have everyone’s favorite dead flesh entrees.”
“Does it bother you to be cooking meat? Or cutting it and stuff?”
“Not too bad. I’d prefer not to, I’ll let you mess with all that stuff today, but in the end, I’m here to feed my people, and this is what they eat, I don’t really have to think twice about that one. I don’t taste it as I cook though, so who knows how it tastes when it’s done, luckily our audience is as captive as the beef was.”
“We eat meat,” chanted Tiana from her dough station. “That’s what my uncle always says, that’s how we survived the brutal winters of the plains. Of course, he’s talking about the free roaming buffalo that were part of a living landscape, not the cornfed cowshit of the agricultural prison system.”
“I had a piece of wild buffalo heart at camp,” bragged Becca. “Raw. The first animal I’d eaten in years, or since. It completely transformed the way I understand food. I felt pure energy flow from my mouth to the rest of my body, it was like this wave of intense clarity rolled over me or something, I think I could think faster. And it wasn’t just because I was vegan, everyone else felt it too, it was the single most impactful food experience of my entire life.”
“The buffalo is sacred,” shared Tiana. “And the heart the most sacred. And you felt that sacred exchange of energy in a good way. Now just imagine what it was like when every bite anyone ever took was a sacred gift of the Earth.”
“The food didn’t just keep them alive, it made them live. At least until someone rearranged the kitchen.”
“What?”
“Nothing, never mind, what were you saying?”
“Well I don’t know now, you got me all thinking about kitchen renovations or whatever, oh yeah, I remember. You know, the buffalo used to migrate vast distances, and we followed them to survive. And we chased the deer along in the process, and the wolves followed the deer to survive. And they chased the rabbits along in the process, and this whole traveling ecosystem swept through the country like a weather pattern on a radar, while local ecologies depended on the caravan’s arrival and renewal of life. And these kinds of low impact systems were working all over the place, interconnected as they revitalized the land, the animals were free and the people were freer.”
Nomad mojo, thought Miles.
“Then America happened,” said Becca.
“They witnessed it firsthand,” Tiana acknowledged. “With the massive chestnut groves and the entire way of life they supported in the East. Plenty of abundance to share, which is what we tried to do, but John Smith had a more colonized concept of owning another living being. So they evicted us at gunpoint, and made it a tradition, but at least Britain’s Royal Proclamation of 1763 promised not to emanate their domain beyond appalachia.
Of course that lasted about as long as any treaty does. Once the revolting Americans took over, no mans land was up for grabs, but they had a little trouble killing us off as they tried to manifest destiny. You’d think that some dirt worshipping heathens, who barely scrape by on nuts and berries, would simply starve to death once they were forced from their berry patches, but what do you know, it turns out that indigenous food systems were far more evolved than the headmasters of agricultural hierarchy.
So what other choice did they have? They burned our orchards and built chests from our nut trees, and they nearly wiped our buffalo from the face of the Earth. The government supplied free bullets to anyone slaughtering buffalo, not even for food or pelt, they just shot them from the train to let them rot. Millions of them.”
“A hundred million is what they’re estimating now,” pointed Becca.
“Jeez. I hadn’t heard that number yet,” admitted Tiana. “Makes sense though. Exterminate a hundred million buffalo, to eradicate a hundred million natives, to plant a hundred million acres of what you guys call corn. All adds up, I guess. And then we still beat them at their own gunfight, even after they assassinated our war chiefs during a white flag parlay, sure showed old Custer that we don’t fuck around though, hey.
So America was forced to surrender its flag of white pride, their farm raised flesh just wasn’t as fit to survive as our Earth tones were, and we just wanted the violence to stop, so when they offered us a few concessions to stand down, we took the deal. A continent’s worth of sustenance had been vaporized, coulda been plenty to sustain both our populations, but that’s not how a civilized society capitalizes on feeding its people, so we settled for the same commoditization of life as the rest of the trading slaves.
Flour, oil, milk, and of course sugar and rum, they’re the most classic components of colonial takeover. But for some reason, the troops who were ordered to hand over the goods were still a little butthurt, about us kicking their ass and all, so they didn’t comply. And we continued to starve. Until eventually, when someone must have remembered that American treaties are supposed to be the supreme law of the land, and you can’t argue with that kind of rational explanation, so they had no choice but to grudgingly hold up their end of the bargain. Of course, it was the same pile of shit that had been hanging around the fort for months, spoiled milk, putrid flour, rancid oil, here you filthy savages, good luck with dinner.”
“It’s obscene,” cringed Becca. “The way we treated fellow human beings. And for what? Because they wanted to exist? Because we couldn’t be happy with getting to live in such a magnificently vast garden, we had to own it, every single little piece. We had to be in charge, and we couldn’t possibly share with the folks that were here first, so we killed and tortured and maimed and molested. And worse.”
“And it’s still going on today around the world,” sighed Tiana. “They take what they want, they leave a trail of tears wherever they go, and the colonists at home eat it up, because gas is cheap and bananas are good. And just like the majority of settlers who never shot an Indian but still ate from the spoils, today’s average consumer has about zero personal responsibility for the casualties of the American lifestyle.”
“Ain’t that right sister.”
“That’s right. But we’re putting an end to that blinded way of life, and out of the ashes will rise a new way to live, a community conscious of their surroundings, a culture of understanding. And just like how my ancestors learned to take those rotten ingredients and transmute them into a delicate staple of our ever-evolving vibrance, the Earth will be reborn and life will be renewed. Because tonight...” Tiana closed her sermon. “...we eat frybread.”
“Aho. And if you thought you got props for washing dishes,” Becca warned. “Just wait til you carry this in there.”
“Do I smell frybread?”
“And tacos?”
“And Indians?”
“Indian tacos?”
“Indian tacos!”
The menu received critical acclaim, Miles scooped meat or tempeh onto each passenger’s tostada as the assembly line chugged through a hundred cars, chefs rode the caboose, it was more than worth the wait in gold.
“Yo,” Jordan caught his attention from the door. “Crushed it on the tacos. When you get done here, you wanna kick it up at security for a while? I’m heading there now to work the overnight shift.”
“I’m down. Guess I’m ready now too,” Miles looked to Becca. “If you’re done with me, that is.”
“By all means, stay in the now. Go protect that fire and it’ll protect you. You did good today, you know.”
“Thanks.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”