The Only Good Indians

by Stephen Graham Jones

Only stupid Indians brush past a bunch of hard-handed white dudes, each of them sure that seat you had in the bar, it should have, by right, been theirs. They’re cool with the Chief among them being the chain monkey, but when it comes down to who has an eyeline on the white woman, well, that’s another thing altogether, isn’t it?

And Lewis knows for sure she’s dead. He knows because, ten years ago, he was the one who made her that way.

Dealing with cops is like being around a skittish horse: No sudden movements, nothing shiny or loud. Zero jokes.

What process had Lewis broken by popping this elk back in illegal country? “You’re thinking crazy,” he tells himself, just to hear it out loud. He’s right, though. These are the kind of wrong thoughts people have who are spending too much time alone. They start unpacking vast cosmic bullshit from gum wrappers, and then they chew it up, blow a bubble, ride that bubble up into some even stupider place.

An elk mother, cornered, will slash with her hooves and tear with her mouth and even offer the hope of her own hamstrings, and if none of that works, she’ll rise again years and years later, because it’s never over, it’s always just beginning again.

It’s where hunters carry the animals they shoot, isn’t it? It’s where they put you, ten years ago. Don’t smile too much about this, just work your way under the toolbox. The night is almost here. It’s the one you’ve been waiting for.

If the only good Indian is a dead one, then she’s going to be the worst Indian ever.

This is all you really need, isn’t it? Just one good friend. Somebody you can be stupid with. Somebody who’ll peel you up off the ground, prop you against the wall.

She can see her real dad dead in that burned-down sweat lodge, the back of his head gone, but she can also see him up the slope ten years ago, shooting into a herd of elk that weren’t his to shoot at, and she hates that he’s dead, she loved him, she is him in every way that counts, but her new dad shooting the elk beside her isn’t going to bring him back, and as long as she keeps dribbling behind her back when she doesn’t have to, then her real dad won’t even really be gone, will he? He’ll still be there in her reckless smile. Because nobody can kill that.