Thunder on the Plains Page 2

  “You owe me,” Mr. Saunders said before he left the office. “I’ll let you know just how you’re going to pay that debt.”

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief and wiped my sweaty palms on the sides of my jeans. I followed Mr. Saunders out the door.

  I didn’t know how I was going to make it to the end of the week. It was only Tuesday.

  Chapter 3

  The Bully Brigade

  I was surprised at just how smoothly the rest of the week went. To pay him back, Mr. Saunders kept me busy in the computer lab. I had to clean computer screens, polish scanner glass, and change ink cartridges every day.

  I found out why I hadn’t seen Willy, too. He got sick over the weekend and missed three days of school. He was back on Thursday but was still too weak to mess with anybody.

  But now it was Friday. I got word from Jesse that Willy was feeling more like his old self. Isn’t that nice for Willy, I thought. I turned my Willy radar back on and managed to steer clear of the bully all morning.

  At noon I was rounding the corner on the way to the cafeteria when I ran straight into Willy and his “goon squad.” My luck had just run out.

  “Watch where you’re going, Tonto,” Willy said. He pushed me to the floor like I was a stack of straw. My books scattered everywhere. Willy and his friends laughed like fiends. I tried to ignore them and just began picking up my books and papers.

  “What’s the matter, redskin?” Willy taunted. “Leave your tomahawk back in the tipi?” Then he made Hollywood Indian war- whooping noises while his goons did the Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop. That did it.

  I lunged into Willy, managing to land a hard right to his nose. We tumbled onto the floor. Willy’s gang jumped on me. They landed several punches of their own.

  Two nearby teachers broke up the fight almost as fast as it had started. But not before Willy and I each got a bloody nose and a black eye.

  Of course, we were dragged into the principal’s office yet another time. Mr. Rippleton was the judge and jury when it came to school rules. The school nurse cleaned up our bloodied faces while the principal paced back and forth in front of us. I dared not move a muscle.

  “I’m calling both of your parents, you know,” he said.

  Willy and I spoke up at the same time. I blamed him. He blamed me.

  “Frankly, I don’t care who started the fight, gentlemen,” the principal said. “I won’t tolerate fighting in this school.” He looked at Willy.

  “I’ve come to expect this kind of brutish behavior from you, Mr. Phillips. It just seems to be part of your nature.”

  Then he walked over and stood looking down at me.

  “But I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Wind. I thought those sessions we had with the counselor and your parents would have made a difference by now.”

  He began pacing again.

  “I’m going to suspend both of you for three days. That’ll give you and your parents plenty of time to consider the seriousness of the situation.” He turned to the school secretary.

  “Get their parents on the phone,” he told her. “I want to give them this news personally!” He entered his office and closed the door behind him.

  It was Bill who showed up to take me home. I knew there would be a lecture, followed by a serious grounding. What I got was much worse. Much worse.

  “Your mother is very disappointed in you,” Bill said in the car. “She told me she didn’t want to see you or talk to you until tonight.”

  That was it. No yelling. No threatening. Just a message. This was serious. When we got home, I went straight to my room and just lay on my bed—for a long time.

  When Mom got home she stayed busy in the kitchen. I could hear her in there clanging pans and rattling pots.

  Bill brought me a tray of food at dinnertime. He left it on the desk without saying a word. But I couldn’t eat. I just waited.

  At around eight o’clock, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I got up and went into the living room. Mom had changed out of her business clothes and put on a pair of old jeans and a denim shirt. Now she looked more like the mom I’d always known.

  “Yell at me or ground me or something, Mom,” I pleaded. “I can’t take this silent treatment.” I dropped down on the couch next to her.

  I’m glad none of my friends were around, because she took me in her arms just like she used to do when I was little. I calmed down and looked into her eyes.

  “Tell me the story, Mom.” My voice seemed small and distant. “Tell me how you and Dad moved from the reservation to the city. I haven’t heard it in a long time.”

  She smiled and reached over to the coffee table. Picking up our old family photo album, she opened it to the first page. I leaned against her shoulder. Inside the book was a faded picture of a young American Indian couple. She pointed to the picture.

  “Your father and I were young when we got married. We were struggling to make a living out on the reservation,” she began. “We lived with your grandma and grandpa in a small frame house.”

  She pointed to a picture of an older American Indian couple in front of a woodframe house. She turned the page to a picture of my dad riding horseback.

  “One day your father heard about a new government program that trained Indians how to do new jobs,” she continued. “The only catch was that we had to move to a city to learn the skill and get a job.” The next picture showed Mom and Dad standing in front of a pickup truck loaded with furniture and suitcases.

  “We moved into a house that the Bureau of Indian Affairs found for us on the lower east side of Los Angeles. Your dad began training for his new job as a welder.” The next picture showed my dad holding a welding torch and mask.

  “Then, a few years later, you were born.” A turn of the page took us to a picture of Mom and Dad holding a little brown baby with a bushy head of black hair.

  “That’s when we took a trip back home to Montana, to Rocky Point, to show you off to the family.” She turned to a photo taken on the reservation with all of our family standing around. “Your uncle Robert and your grandparents were so proud.”

  That made Mom think of something.

  “Your uncle Robert,” she said, closing the photo album. “I haven’t talked to him in a long time.” She put the album back on the coffee table.

  “Son, we’re going to get through this,” she said with a serious tone. “I know you still miss your father. I do, too. And even though I don’t approve of fighting, I bet he would have been proud of you today.”

  I certainly didn’t expect those words to come out of my mother’s mouth.

  “One of the teachers who broke up the fight told me what Willy did to make you go after him,” she explained. “Your father had to put up with the same kind of insults when we first moved here. He got into fights over it, too.”

  “Sometimes it really sucks,” I said. “Why did we have to be born Native American, anyway? We don’t seem to fit in with other kinds of Americans.”

  “I know it seems like that sometimes,” she sighed. “But, according to the Indian way of looking at things, each race of man has a special place in this world. A special gift or job set for us by the Creator. Our task, the Indian task, is to protect the earth and all the plants and animals that live on the earth with us. Our special gift is knowing that all things on this earth are related. This is what my grandmother taught me.”

  I had to think about that for a minute.

  “It all sounds really nice, Mom, but not really relevant in today’s world.”

  She took a deep breath. “Relevant? When did you start using such big words?” She stood up. “What’s relevant is the fact that you’ve been suspended from school,” she continued. “I have to find something to do with you for three days next week while I’m at work. So I want you to go to your room and listen to Road Kill or Road Warriors or whatever their name is and let Bill and me talk about this.”

  Bill again. Why did he always have to be involved?

  I marched i
nto my room and closed the door. Cranking up Road Warriors, I put on my headphones. I dove into the food Bill had left for me earlier like I hadn’t eaten for a week. “Don’t Hate Me” rocked full blast in my head.

  Chapter 4

  Exiled

  I stayed in my room while Mom and Bill talked about what to do. They didn’t know that I could hear what they were saying through the air conditioning vent. She told him about my uncle Robert who lived on the reservation.

  “Robert is a social worker for the Rocky Point Tribe,” Mom told Bill. “He’s an experienced horseman and all-round outdoorsman. I have a feeling that he might have some ideas about how to help Danny.”

  Bill agreed that Mom should call him, at least to see if he did have ideas.

  When Saturday came, Mom said I was grounded and wouldn’t be going to baseball practice. She and Bill had decided I would clean out the garage instead. While I was doing that, she called my dad’s brother, Robert, on the Rocky Point Reservation. They talked about me.

  Then, that afternoon, when Bill came home after working half a day at the bank, he and Mom talked about me some more.

  By the time the garage was clean, I’d had enough. I couldn’t stay on the sidelines while my future was being decided. I walked in on Mom and Bill in the middle of their talk.

  “I want to know what’s going on. I want to have a vote in what happens. I’m old enough now.”

  “All right,” Mom said. “Sit down.”

  That was a surprise. I sat on the couch.

  “Robert said this is an important time in your life,” she said. “You are starting to make the change from boyhood to manhood. You need to go through a rite of passage to mark this change.”

  “What’s a rite of passage? I’ve never heard of that.”

  “It’s something you do to help you go from child to adult,” Mom said. “Different tribes have different ways of doing that, Robert said. It’s a kind of challenge you have to complete.”

  That sounded a little scary. “What kind of challenge?” I asked.

  “We’ll get to that. Your uncle holds a camp in the summer for American Indian teenagers for just that purpose. He invited you to come up this summer for the camp.”

  “You mean go to Montana?”

  “That’s right. You can stay with Robert and your cousins. Oh, and your grandma and grandpa live with them, too. You haven’t seen any of them since you were little.”

  Spend a couple of weeks in the middle of nowhere? How could they even think I’d be okay with that?

  “Sounds like a terrible idea,” I said loudly.

  “Robert wants you spend the summer with them so you can really find out about your tribal roots. He thinks it will also help you move on from the loss of your dad.”

  “The whole summer? That’s the worst torture I could imagine! You really worked hard to come up with this punishment.”

  I paced back and forth just like Mr. Rippleton had.

  “This isn’t punishment,” Bill said. “It’s about having new experiences and learning to become a man. It will build character. It’s . . .”

  “Three months of tedious boredom.” I finished the sentence. “They probably don’t have phones, TV, or even electricity out there! I bet they don’t even have indoor plumbing.”

  “Now you’re being overly dramatic,” Mom said. “Things have changed there. They’re quite modern these days.”

  “You mean they finally discovered toilet paper?”

  That wasn’t the right thing to say, but I was mad. It made Mom mad, too.

  “You can just take that attitude straight to your bedroom, young man.” She pointed toward the hall. “And don’t come out until I tell you to.”

  I marched to my room again and plopped down on the bed. Life isn’t fair. I lay there, tossing and turning and feeling so angry. I decided to try my hand at my Star Fox computer game. As I shot down the enemy jet fighters, I imagined that each one was Mr. Rippleton or Willy Phillips or Bill. But I lost focus and went down in a fiery ball of flames.

  Just then, there was a knock at my door. Bill stuck his head in.

  “I’d like to talk to you for minute, if I could,” he said.

  Now what? I sighed and turned off the game. Bill came in and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I know it’s been hard for you,” he said. “You lost your dad and a stranger moved into your life.”

  “You got that right. It’s not fair.”

  “I know, but I want you to think seriously about this summer as a chance to start over. It could be a wonderful time for you to explore your own roots and learn about a part of who you are.”

  “What would you know about it?” I asked, glaring at him. “You’re not Indian.”

  “You don’t have to be Native American to know the pain of losing someone you love. Or what it means to discover an unknown part of yourself.”

  “I guess you don’t know about that.”

  “I’m from a Scottish family. But those roots were lost to me when my father abandoned my mother and went back to Scotland when I was a boy.”

  “That must have been tough,” I said. “It was. And it wasn’t until after I grew up that I went to Scotland to find him and discovered my roots. It made all the difference to me. Things in my life made more sense.”

  Whoa. I never knew this about Bill.

  “Besides, you can take your laptop computer and send e-mails back and forth to Jesse every day. There’s bound to be some kind of Internet access there.”

  I realized that Mom and Bill and Uncle Robert had already made up their minds. I wasn’t going to win this one.

  “Okay, I’ll go on one condition—that you let me come back home after the camp, if I hate it out there. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Bill said, and we shook hands.

  Chapter 5

  The Middle of Nowhere

  My final weeks of school zipped by quietly. Mr. Saunders had me cleaning computer screens and maintaining the lab’s printers for the rest of the year to pay off my debt to him.

  Most important, I managed to stay out of trouble, and so did Willy. He even apologized to me on the last day of school for the “culturally insensitive remarks” he’d made. Miracles do happen, I guess. Somebody must’ve really threatened him with very severe punishment to get him to say that. Did he even know what the words meant?

  Bill and Mom rewarded my good behavior at school with a trip to the mall to get me stuff for my summer adventure. They bought me some new clothes and my first cell phone, with a few game apps for the trip.

  Washing clothes and packing came next. Mom spent one whole day getting things ready. But it was up to me to pack all the real necessities of life: my laptop computer and accessories (just in case they did have electricity and phones), games, comic books, junk food, etc.

  Then, in the middle of June, it was time to head to Montana. Mom couldn’t bear the thought of me flying alone and changing planes in an airport so far away. She decided the bus was the way for me to go.

  She cried a little when I boarded. She said something about her baby leaving the nest. It was so embarrassing. As for me, I’d agreed to go along with the whole deal. But that didn’t mean I was happy about it.

  Bill had showed me on the map the route the bus would take. It headed north from Los Angeles on Interstate Highway 15 and passed through southern Nevada and Utah. During the first part of the ride, I kept busy as best I could. I watched the scenery out the window, slept, played games, and drew dragons on my computer.

  In Salt Lake City, everyone got off the bus to eat dinner in a little roadside cafe. When we got back on the bus, an old man who smelled like drugstore shaving lotion sat down next to me. The smell was so strong I had to excuse myself and move to the back of the bus so I could breathe.

  The sunset was amazing that day. Out there, away from the city, the sky seemed clearer. The big windows on the bus made everything seem closer, too. White puffy clouds moved across the sky. They changed
colors, to orange and red, as the sun went down.

  Moved by the wind, the clouds swirled around and made different shapes. For just a minute, they looked like a herd of buffalo stampeding across the sky. I’d never seen anything like it. But in the next minute, the animals melted into a row of cotton balls floating on a piece of dark blue cloth. Then the sun was gone.

  After that, I was too bored to do anything else. I slept during most of the rest of the ride through Idaho and across Montana. I woke up the next morning as the bus pulled into the station at Billings, Montana.

  I looked for the grandparents I kind of remembered from when I was little. I didn’t see them. But I did see a very old man and woman who sort of looked like them.

  It was easy to tell they were Indians. The man had dark brown wrinkled skin and long white hair tied in two long braids. The white- haired woman had lighter skin and a single braid like mine.

  “Danny?” the man said.

  “Grandpa, is that you?”

  It was them. Mom reminded me that their names were Ester and Nathan Wind. That’s where my middle name, Nathan, came from. The couple said they were very happy to see me.

  I didn’t see how they could have anything to do with me. As far as I could tell, we had nothing in common. But I was polite to them, just as I’d promised Mom I would be.

  They helped me gather up my things. We loaded it all into their old station wagon. While Grandpa Nathan drove, Grandma Ester tried to carry on a conversation with me. I mostly just said “uh-huh” and “nuh-uh” to her questions about me and my life in L.A.

  It took about us an hour to drive to the Rocky Point Indian Reservation. I still couldn’t get over the wide open spaces and the clear blue sky. As we entered the reservation, we passed through a place called Buffalo Gap, the reservation’s main town.

  I watched everything we passed, because I needed to know where I could find junk food if I ran out. Or what store might have movies to rent. If I was going to be stranded in the middle of nowhere for the summer, it was important to know how bad the situation really was.