A Horse Named Sorrow

41

175 41 It was al­ ready dusk when I fi­ nally left Prine­ ville; I ­ couldn’t stay there. In the book, In­ dians had ­ called paper “talk­ ing ­ leaves,” and some­ thing about that image and An­ drew Jack­ son on the ­ twenty and all those books was night­ mar­ ish. I ­ watched the ­ loosed ­ golden ­ leaves of cot­ ton­ woods blow ­ across the road in front of me, whis­ per­ ing, ­ creepy—an old, old song. There ­ wasn’t a car in sight, in ei­ ther di­ rec­ tion. And even­ tu­ ally, five or so miles down the road, I came upon an old ­ drive-in movie the­ a­ ter, the pave­ ment all ­ turned up and full of weeds and brush. A ruin. I bet­ they’d shown some west­ erns there. The speak­ ers still stood like skel­ e­ tal park­ ing me­ ters, and the ­ screen too, enor­ mous and sin­ gu­ lar in the flat sur­ round­ ing land­ scape of sage­ brush and yel­ low ­ clumpy flow­ ers. It was peel­ ing, and ­ looked to me like a great un­ no­ ticed and un­ rec­ og­ nized por­ tal to some other world—like that big black rec­ tan­ gle in 2001: A Space Odys­ sey. Be­ cause other than it, there was noth­ ing but si­ lence, and just a small ­ breeze play­ ing in the weeds among those scat­ tered speak­ ers, now and again rip­ pling the big white ­ screen. An ideal place to camp. It­ looked like any world but the one I just came from. I ­ leaned my bike ­ against a ­ speaker and laid my sleep­ ing bag down where the pave­ ment had de­ te­ ri­ orated to dirt but was still nice and flat. I sat there, hold­ ing Jimmy, ­ propped up ­ against an­ other ­ speaker, and­ looked up at that old tat­ tered ­ screen, won­ der­ ing if it had any­ thing left to say while I ­ nursed my bot­ tle of Crazy Horse like a ­ self-satisfied in­ fant. 176 Enor­ mous in its si­ lence, white as a ghost, the wind made it dance to a hol­ low, for­ lorn song. I ­ looked at it until I was ­ nearly ­ blinded by its blank­ ness and sleep both, and ­ that’s when ­ Jimmy’s face, like a mir­ age,­ filled the ­ screen in those mo­ ments ­ between wake­ ful­ ness and slum­ ber. Vivid he was too with the big brown eyes and ­ say-nothing smile, the dark scat­ tered chin ­ scruff, the ­ Adam’s apple and ­ turned-up nose, the tat­ too for good in front of his ear, the third eye and the ­ golden ­ angel’s hair. And then Jimmy ­ morphed into ­ crow-black-haired Eu­ gene, and then Eu­ gene into sigh­ ing stoic Chief Jo­ seph, and from there all the rest of those ­ chiefs from the book: Red Cloud and ­ American Horse, beau­ ti­ ful with their ­ mouths set and their ­ chests bej­ e­ weled with ­ shells (I’d seen men like that—Jimmy, his chest cov­ ered in ­ pearls); Dull Knife and Sit­ ting Bull; Spot­ ted Tail and Hump, with their set, dig­ nified ­ frowns. And all of them with Cher­ rie Kee’s hawk nose and ­ Eugene’s pen­ e­ trat­ ing eyes. Fi­ nally, a ­ painted horse came fly­ ing off the ­ screen in 3-D and I star­ tled awake, knock­ ing over my ­ forty-ouncer, know­ ing then I’d come to Crazy Horse—the ­ screen a blank be­ cause he never al­ lowed any­ one to take his pic­ ture. I got up and ­ climbed into my bag, and when I fell back to sleep I­ dreamed the mono­ lith was an enor­ mous tree with white ­ leaves, mov­ ing in the wind. Talk­ ing. But I ­ couldn’t make out a word. Next morn­ ing, I ­ couldn’t ig­ nore it as I ­ packed up. Kept my eye on it, I did. Rid­ ing away too, look­ ing back over my shoul­ der—kept my eye on it like I had the Campanile Tower at U.C. Berke­ ley and Mt. ­ Shasta. A pil­ lar of salt. The truth and the past loom­ ing and lean­ ing down over me, the heav­ ens on ­ bended knee—God wants to make love, the old lech. Or is it death who’s horny? Well ­ whoever or what­ ever God is, he gets...