After breakfast I hurry to let Neewa out of the van so she can go for a run. Dad shuts off the engine. It’ll be nice and warm for her while she waits for us.
“I promise I’ll be back in a little while,” I tell her, as I get ready. “I swear, Neewa, I will come back after the game.” She doesn’t seem to mind and lays down for a two-hour nap.
***
All the players meet at the school gym for the big game. This game is between the girls’ team from our Reserve and the girls’ team here. The coaches and the team members are all Native Americans except for us. In fact, everyone in the gym is Native American but us.
I’m sitting in the first row of the bleachers, which is the team’s bench. I have the best view of the game. All around me are the players. Some of them are suited up and ready to play and others are not. Our girls know everyone on the home team and are talking with the fans, many of which are friends and relatives. Some of them know each other from having gone to residential high school together. And many come from the far corners of this Reserve. Some have traveled as much as thirty miles just to get here.
This Reserve is very big, about twenty miles wide and fifty miles long. It is located on the borderline of two states, and has over a thousand residents. The main industries here are tourism, gambling, and ranching. Near the Reserve is a big lake for fishing and lots of forests to hunt game in. And the casinos are right in the middle of town.
I’m having fun people watching. Native Americans don’t look anything like the people back east. Some of them are full-blooded and others have only one-eighth or one-sixteenth Indian blood, but they are all Native Americans nonetheless.
As I look around the gym I see many different styles of dress. Some dress in Western clothes and a few are in business suits. Many of the men and women have cowboy boots and hats with beaded headbands. And others have moccasins, deerskin pants, and ponchos. Some of the men have long straight hair and others have short hair like Sheriff Sam. Many wear silver, turquoise, and coral necklaces, bracelets, and rings made on the reserve by us.
The game has started and everyone in the bleachers is cheering. This is a fun game, competitive but fun. The girls around us are having a good time cheering and hollering for their team.
One yells, “Shoot it!”
Another girl screams, “Defense! Defense!”
One of the girls sitting with us turns to my Dad with a big bag of Redman Chewing Tobacco in her hand. She holds out a pinch of the tobacco in her fingers and looks right at Dad.
“You want a chew?” She says flashing her big blue eyes.
Dad hesitates, he isn’t even sure if she is talking to him.
Another girl sitting next to Dad elbows him hard in the side and motions with her head toward the girl with the chew. Now Dad knows she is talking to him all right.
He stutters, “Ah, no, no thanks, I don’t.”
Dad doesn’t even know how to chew tobacco. He’d probably choke if he tried it. They will laugh at him if he does.
The girl who spoke to my Dad and all her girlfriends are giggling and looking at him. Again, she looks him in the eye.
She smiles and says, “I’m Linda.”
Dad says, “Hi, I’m John.”
She says smiling, “I know who you are.”
Turning back toward the game and her friends she giggles and puts a tiny pinch of chew in her cheek.
Linda is a stunning looking woman who isn’t more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. Her long silky straight black hair falls softly around her shoulders. Her piercing sky blue eyes are set perfectly in her high cheekbones and petite nose surrounded by soft peach skin.
She has a perpetual smile, gleaming white teeth, and rose-colored lips.
She wears leather boots embossed with intricate designs, tight jeans, and a Western shirt. On her head is a cowboy hat with a beaded headband. Wow, she is a knockout with a slightly mischievous look in her eyes like a Frank Rinehart photograph.
Dad can’t stop looking at her, and she is definitely flirting with him.
I find out from one of the other girls that Linda is a college student in Denver and studying to be a doctor.
Then I heard another girl mention the party last night. It comes up a few times in conversations taking place around me in the bleachers. I hear a comment or two and a few details slip out of their lips.
I listened to the girls recount who was with who, and doing what.
One of the girls who was only one year older than me asked, “What did I do wrong? We were all just having fun? I did not do anything wrong.”
She was unsure of herself and her voice trailed off at the end. It was not my place to answer her or even change my expression.
One of the older girls heard her talking to me.
The older girl frowned and angrily said, “Oh yeah, Edwin is in big trouble when he gets back. Heather is going to put a spell on him and turn him into a frog. Then she will become an eagle and fly down and eat him for dinner. That will be the end of Edwin.”
Another girl sympathetically says, “Edwin has changed. He used to be a nice guy and then all of a sudden he’s different. I don’t see what she sees in him anyway, besides he’s married to my cousin.”
Diane is here too and she adds, “He is evil, someone will have to put him down.”
The basketball game is coming to an end. The teams are tied and a shot is about to be taken. The entire gym is silent. Then a roar comes from the crowd as the ball hits net only, “whoosh.”
“Yeah! Yahoo!” The crowd roars.
The final timer sounds “Buzz Buzz,” and everyone is cheering. The home team has won.
We all move from the bleachers onto the gym floor. Walking out to the teams, I congratulate several of our players for their effort.
Linda and her friends are also out on the gym floor, talking, and fooling around with friends and teammates. Plans for the evening are being made around us and we decide to hang around a little while longer.
All the coaches are talking with each other. The coaches know Dad from work where they have their own company team. They compete against other corporations and organizations. They call my Dad coach because he’s the oldest one on the team. It took a while for them to get accustomed to him, but now they are used to his ways and he’s invited wherever they go.
Linda, the gorgeous maiden in the bleachers, walks up to us. “You guys coming to the Pow Wow later?”
Dad asks, “We would like to go? Where is it?”
She replies smiling at Dad, “Come to the General Store at three. I will take you guys.”
Linda walks back to her friends. She waves at Dad as she and her friends walk out of the gym.
We are walking out behind them when I ask, “Dad, what is a Pow Wow?”
Dad has a dumb look on his face. “I have no idea, but I heard something about one once. I thought it was only for Indians. I didn’t know diaboos could go?”
Jackie impatient asks. “Dad, what is a diaboo?”
Dad replies, “The word ‘diaboo’ is the Indian word for non-Indian.”
The Chippewa word is waubewy'on.
I take off running to the van. Neewa sees me and jumps around inside, ready to get out.
“Neewa, good girl. Happy to see me?” I open the door.
She leaps out of the van and jumps all over me. I quickly take her for a run.
“Fetch,” I yell as I throw a stick into the snow.
“I hope she doesn’t bring back a bone again,” Jackie says laughing.
I answer, “yeah, that was too scary. I thought I was going to faint when she brought that bone back and dropped it on your feet, ha ha.”
Playing fetch with Neewa is good for her. She needs the exercise to keep her muscles and bones strong.
She can’t seem to find the stick? So I pick up another and throw it shouting, “Get it Neewa, go get it girl.”
She powers through the fresh powder to where the stick disappeared and plunges her nose down into a foot of snow. She somehow comes up with the stick. Then with her nose topped with a pile of the white stuff, she brings it back to me and actually drops it right on my sneaker.
“Ouch!” I yell.
She looks up at me with concern.
“I’m just kidding around Neewa.”
I take the stick off my sneaker and run with it and Neewa chases me down the street. We play for a while and then head back to the van.
“Neewa, later we are going to a Pow Wow and you are not allowed. You can stay in the van again. We are going to meet my new friend Linda. She’s taking us to the Pow Wow. I’ll only be another hour or so and then we are going home.” I scratch her behind the ear and rub her strong rib cage telling her, “good girl, good girl.”