Chapter 5- Trouble in Wolf Point
August 2nd, 2009- My time in Oswego was brief, however an old white man told me not to stay the night in Wolf Point on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, as the town was known as the murder capital of the US, located 25 miles to the East of where I currently was. I didn’t really listen to his advice, I heard it but I wasn’t about to turn around and go back to Seattle. I just got back on the bike and kept pedaling. I had pedaled 120 miles that day just to make it to Wolf Point and at about 6 pm I made it. At that point, all I wanted was a place to set up my tent and go to sleep.
I started to look for a campground in town, but nobody knew of one. I was on the "res" now. It seemed that there really was no where to set up my tent unless I just picked a field to set up in outside of town but that seemed very sketchy as there were not very many trees or a place to hide. I found the little downtown, which was just a few blocks of businesses and I just went right past them all. A few blocks down the road, I saw that there was a Pow-Wow being set up behind the Sherman Hotel in a vacant, grassy lot. There were a large variety of tents and teepees being set up and so I thought that I would just camp there. How lucky!
As I was about to enter the premises from the adjacent street, a blue Subaru slowed down, stopped, all the windows rolled down and a several large Native American men leaned out of the windows, one of them pointed his outstretched finger down the road with a frown on his face. He didn't say a word to me, just kind of shook his head as if to say, “don't even think about coming to the Pow-Wow". I thought that maybe I misunderstood, like maybe he was indicating the direction for camping or something, but as I headed in that direction, I realized that he was pointing me out of town. The only thing in that direction was a very exposed uncovered horse arena.
I wasn’t very happy about my situation as I had pushed myself hard the whole day to get to this town. I really did want to leave but instead of skipping the town, I decided to go around the block and back towards the center of town. Just around the corner there was a casino, so I figured that they would know where to camp. I went in and the first person that I asked about camping was the cash handler, standing behind a metal mesh cage. She was a beautiful, tall woman. "C" told me that I should camp at the Pow-Wow. She said, “everyone is welcome”, in fact that was part of the point of the event. So I told her, “I could go, but, a man pointed me out of town as I was trying to enter”. Her face turned red and I could tell she was pissed off, she said that her great uncle started that Pow-Wow and she felt ashamed. She said, “You are staying with me and my family”, I was very welcome to camp in their backyard. She called her boyfriend to come and pick me up. D picked me up in a beat up Chevy truck that had the entire front window cracked and smashed. There was a hitchhiker in the truck that he picked up on the way to come get me. They both had open beers; the truck stank of cigarettes. We pulled up to a double wide house about fifteen blocks away from the center of town, the yard was surrounded by a five foot tall barbed wire fence and I was taken around the building to the back of the house where I could set up my tent. The dried grass and dirt yard was infested with green and brown grasshoppers. There were so many of them that as I took each step, literally hundreds of them hopped away trying not to get crushed.
I propped my bike against the house and we went inside and he told me to make myself at home, so I got my shower, plugged in my electronics to recharge and relaxed. He had some errands to do, so he left me there. I had time to set up the tent, eat some oatmeal they had sitting on the stove and let my muscles loosen up a bit. When D got back, he told me that his girlfriends' brother wanted to talk to me. I didn't know what to think of that, I thought that maybe I was in trouble or did something wrong. Eventually, Corinne got back from the casino and they whipped out a bottle of Black Velvet whiskey. I couldn't remember the last time that I had the stuff, it was probably in my early college years. She told me that her brother was on the way and that he wanted to "visit with me". They used that term often, I thought that it was a nice thing to say.
The fifty year old man named G was brought into the house in his wheelchair being pushed by "a cousin"; he introduced himself as an elder of the Wolf Cub Tribe, a people who were originally not from this area but forced on the reservation here in Eastern Montana. He told me that his grandfather was the last Native American to be born in a teepee in this area. He also spent time explaining that the Missouri River, just a few hundred yards away was very sacred. He heard about what happened to me trying to enter the Pow Wow and he told me that he was deeply dishonored by what transpired. The purpose of the Pow-Wow was to celebrate, and to come together as people and be welcoming as guests. He said to me in a sincere voice, “I have a gift to honor you with, keep it with you and it will protect you on your journey. Don't crush it, don't get it wet and don't lose it”. It was a bundle of fabric, so I unrolled it and inside was the largest bald eagle feather that I had ever seen. I was so touched by this person’s actions, as I did with the words that were carefully chosen by him. I cried, I felt so blessed, it was the sacred symbol of their ancestors and of the Great Spirit.
That night I was told many stories, as other family members came by. Many of the stories had to do with the proximity of the Missouri river to Wolf Point; about 200 yads away. They showed me pictures of the log cabins that they grew up in, and older pictures of their grandparents dressed in full traditional costumes. The older men remembered having to pump water in the morning from the well and many people still had horses at that time.
D had been cooking moose ribs all day, and I was given a well marinated section. I don’t know if I have ever eaten anything in my life that melted so easily in my mouth; the tender meat fell off the bones as I picked up each rib section, and each bite was savory and juicy. One benefit of being native is that you are allowed to hunt year round. One of the cousins was the hunter in the family and the meat I was eating came from a four year old moose that he spotted at a friends’ ranch. He had to borrow someone else's gun, and he was able to shoot it before it ran off. They also told me about a prehistoric looking bottom feeding fish that grows up to six to eight feet long. I wasn't sure if they were pulling my chain but someone had pictures of the creature to prove it. In order to catch one of these giant fish, a person has to use a hook similar to one used to catch sharks.
The elder, G, asked me to stay for a couple of days, the family wanted me to go and see the Pow-Wow, so I obliged. By the end of the long evening of stories and drinking, we were all drunk and unfortunately, their tempers were starting to flare towards the cousins and family members; apparently some of the family members were only half breeds and so not being pure blood was looked down upon. The elder was wheeled home about four blocks away and I retired to my grasshopper haven. I just don’t know why people have to be proud to the point of putting someone down because of blood line or purity. We are all here on this planet together, we are all one, there is no need for this kind of senseless name calling or putting someone in a lower status. The following morning, I was up early and they fed me grits; I had two heaping bowls with a pile of sugar and butter. I was feeling the pain in my legs from the day before and I basically didn’t want to do anything but sleep, eat and write. Throughout the day there were more cousins (such as Don who lived two blocks away, he was paralyzed on his left side and was coming over to the house constantly looking for whiskey and cigarettes). There were more brothers who wanted to meet me, and they of course brought Black Velvet and Coke. The constant cigarette smoking in the house made me sick, so being surrounded by three to six people with a fag in the mouth at all times made an unpleasant, unnatural environment. There was a big feed the next day at the elder's house, so I had to stay in town until then as they requested. I had a late morning the next day because I slept inside one of their spare rooms. One problem is that I can’t tell when the sun is coming up when I sleep in a house. We went down to the river in the pickup and they described to me about how the river runs through this particular section of Montana. The Missouri is a shallow, dangerous river with ever changing sandbars, so it is hard to predict where they are; there are whirlpools and a swift current that can suck you down before you know it and you have to avoid the sandbars while floating down the big muddy river. The family used to have a business, taking people down the river in canoes but no longer did this.
We later went to "the feed" and I helped carry out the twenty or so pounds of meat that was prepared at our house. Unfortunately, Don got to the Black Velvet before the food was done and his drunken self was driven home because he was swearing up a storm and there were kids there. The food was delicious, from the home made potato salad to the pork loin, moose meat, and scratch apple pie. I don’t know what happened then, but the couple I was staying with started to get into it and D was cursing worse than Don, he also had drank too much of the BV. He was told to leave, and it took him a long time. I even had to forcibly take the bottle away from him.
When things calmed down, I left with one of the cousins to go to the Pow Wow. It was amazing to see all of the beautifully, and colorfully dressed people dancing. I was even pulled out onto the open pavilion dance floor and learned the basic dance step. I felt as though I was being accepted into the community and was taking a part in some very real, very ancient way of life. I even bumped into Lee, it was no coincidence that he was also there, after all, we were heading in the same direction.
This was a traditional Pow Wow, where you come out in full costume only for a reason such as honoring a soldier who was away; sometimes there are dance competitions where you can win thousands of dollars, but they don’t do competitions at a traditional event such as this one. There was an announcer who would call out the next portion of the event, such as a kids dance where they had to hold a ball between their noses and walk around until it falls, the last "couple" wins a prize. There were many musical groups representing various tribes from the area who sang songs and pounded their huge drums, each song was generally dedicated to ancestors or a family member.
When I returned to the house with the cousin, there was a whole lot of commotion going on, shouting, cursing. C's nephews, who were all dressed like thugs were yelling about how they wanted D dead. She made them leave as I came in, I didn't know what was going on. C had to call them earlier when she was being pushed around, and hit by D. I went to my room and when entered it, I saw D lying face down on my bed. There was blood spattered all over the room and my things had all been tossed to the side. Everything was a mess, and D was trying to say something to me. His face was all bruised and smashed, I was very scared to be there so I got my things together as fast as I could and told him that I was leaving.
It was after midnight and I couldn't just leave town that late in the evening for safety's sake. So I went to my tent and tried to get some sleep. It didn't last long because the nephews had returned and had brought back beer to the house. I don't know where C went. I was attempting to sleep just outside of the dining room window, and they didn't know I was still there. They were reveling in their victory and the leader of the group told his friends that he had been working on some songs. So he started chanting and singing at the top of his lungs like I heard earlier at the Pow Wow which only seemed to be adding fuel to their fire. After a couple of hours of their partying, D was stirring and started yelling at them. I heard some crashing and glass breaking inside. They were yelling, “I'll kill you, bastard, I swear it!” The leader kept saying that he had no problem murdering him. It was too much for me to take, so I packed my tent up as quickly and quietly as I could and I left at 4 am that morning in the dark without sleeping much or saying goodbye. The only thing that I focused on that morning was not thinking about what had transpired earlier that day (nothing bad happened to me personally, but someone else was seriously injured). I was told that there is no police force on the reservation that has any power, that the families enforce the law themselves how they see fit. This is why the nephews were taking that responsibility to the extreme.
There was a serious lightning storm rolling in and I took shelter at the Town Pump gas station where I had some stale coffee and a moldy doughnut that I had to exchange for a less moldy one. I talked to a “police officer” who passed me by earlier and he radioed in my inquiry about when the Sherman Hotel started to serve breakfast. So I hung out in the empty hotel restaurant for about forty five minutes until about six when all the white old men in town came in to get their daily breakfast buffet of fake eggs and greasy sausage links, I devoured three plates in about twenty minutes and left town. My whole experience during my three days in Wolf Point was full of reverence for the deep spirituality of the people I met mixed with destitution, it made my heart ache. When I was about one mile outside of town, I erased what had happened the night before from my mind and concentrated on the rest of my journey instead. It was easy to do, all I had was one goal in mind: make it across the United States alive.