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Indians

When I was five years old , my family moved from northern Minnesota to a small town in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota. If I had been older, there might have been some culture shock. It was hockey to rodeo, Holsteins to Herefords, snow to cactus, fish to rattlesnakes. Grown men wore cowboy boots and hats. Some things were still the same, though.

As well as I can remember (this was nearly two score years ago), everyone in northern Minnesota is Norwegian or Swedish, and Lutheran. Everyone. They gather for worship on Sunday in their quaint, lovely little country churches, recite the Apostles’ Creed and the Confession of Sin, listen to a preacher named Olson give a three-point sermon, sing robust Lutheran hymns, and then retire to the church basement to observe the Holy Sacrament: coffee and lefse. At least that’s how I remember it.

In rural western South Dakota, everyone is not Scandinavian; but a lot of them are. Some are German. Some are something else entirely: Indians! — a subject I will return to shortly. The worship is the same, although I became aware — probably because I started school that year — that the world is not made up entirely of Lutherans. There are Catholics also, and a smattering of Baptists and Methodists (with woman pastors!). The worship service is the same, and coffee in the church basement — in all denominations — is still a means of grace.

We lived there from 1970–78, Kindergarten through seventh grade, as I reckoned it. All in all, it was a good place for a kid to grow up. I’m sure it is the most colorful place I’ve lived. One crusty fellow called “Slim,” old by my single-digit standards but by no means the oldest man in town, was reputed to be the last man to quit wearing a gunbelt. He still slept with his revolver under his pillow; I know, I saw it. He had a bed under a tree in his backyard where he slept in the summer. I’m sure he’s gone now, but if I named him and the town, there are folks still living there who would remember him.

Until we moved to South Dakota, I had been surrounded by the whitest of white people. But now, as I mentioned previously, there were Indians. The first ones I saw were anything but exotic. They just looked like ordinary cowboys-come-to-town: shined boots, sharp white shirts with pearly snaps, black hats, hair neatly cut and combed. In fact, a lot of them looked a bit neater than the average pale-face cowboy.

Sadly, a great many of the Indians I encountered were not like that. The ones I most often met smelled like alcohol, and often something worse.

Bill and Nellie would show up in town from time to time. I never knew how they got there, or how they left; they surely didn’t drive. I and a friend, or one of my sisters, would be heading up Main Street to the Jack & Jill to get a candy bar (15¢), and they would be sitting on a bench in front of the second hand store. Nellie, if memory serves, was a small woman, always in a dress. Bill had an enormous nose, made me think of a potato. If an artist was to draw a caricature of the alcoholic nose, he couldn’t have done better than to sketch Bill. We’d walk past, and Bill would begin ranting. He was harmless, and after the shock of our first encounter with him, we weren’t frightened. He wasn’t angry, but he was surely earnest. We couldn’t understand a word he said. After a few seconds, Nellie would say, “Shut up, Bill,” and he’d sit back as though nothing had happened. The next day, they would be gone.

Freddie was the same story. I don’t know where he lived, he would just show up in town and be hanging around the municipal bar. I’d see him as I went to the library, which was in the same building. Also harmless, he was tall and lean, well over six feet tall, probably six and a half or more. It was said he used to be quite a basketball player. Whatever talents he may have had were now wasted away. I doubt I ever saw him sober.

Martin was certainly no athlete. Overweight and filthy, he would ask if you could help him out with some money or, failing that, give him something to eat. The first time I was near him, I’m pretty sure he’d lost control of his bowels. He didn’t seem to notice.

One bitterly cold winter night, driving what I think was highway 212, far from anywhere, we came across a man walking along the road carrying a paper sack under his arm. We stopped and picked him up. He was wearing only a light jacket like you might wear on a cool fall day, loafers, and no hat or gloves. It was so cold and he was so far from any town that we knew he never could have gotten that far on foot without freezing to death. Asked what he was doing out there in this weather, he replied, “My friends left me.” As the story came out, he had made them pull over and let him out. Why? “They were trying to take my beer.”

To be continued . . .

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