White Bison by Carl Nelson

Hills before you, bruise-blue and terrible, swelling like wounds in the earth. The Lakota Sioux came to this place, and they could tell it was sacred – the raw earth wore thin the fabric between our world and the one of ghosts, cold air turning skin dry as paper in the dark months.

The ride back to the Hills always feels the same, like a summons. You look out across the bristly grass (barely good for grazing) and in the distance the Hills are waiting for you, sure as the seasons. In the evening, the west becomes pink, and then orange and then red; blood of massacres long past that haunt the rusty soil and giant scabs of granite. The sun isn’t setting, no, the Hills are devouring it, pulling it down amongst the ponderosa pine, thick as the tall grass out east, purple and black in the distance. Coming back, you realize that part of you has always belonged to the Hills, a shard of your soul, broken off and buried – never whole until you are back there again, deep inside them, and they inside of you. Something resonates more purely in you then, something old and deep, as light as a whisper and as heavy as water. There, in the center of the country, amongst the flatness and oceans of grass, a place where the land boils up, a fissure in both the geological and spiritual, you are, at last home, home again.

Private Sy Wilbur Coburn has made three days ride to the northwest in the bitter cold January of 1891 only to have his horse die. The stolen surveyor’s map in his satchel indicates the presence of warm waters in the hills to his north, near the town of Hot Springs, and he hopes to reach them by nightfall, and the town the next morning – a goal made considerably more difficult by his departed mount.

Assessing his dead horse in the snow drift, Coburn considers the events of several days earlier. Coburn had stood in the muddy snow amongst the more than three hundred corpses at Wounded Knee, mostly women and children, and concluded that he wanted no part in the affairs of men and their violence, and that a life of service in the Seventh Calvary, United States Army was entirely unsuited for a man such as he. The scene still plays on the back of his eyelids like a ghastly puppet show: the Ghost Dance in the snow, he and his fellow soldiers’ suspicion, a moment of confusion when the shot erupted, the carnage that followed. Old men and women, bleeding on the ice, the cries of babies freezing to death, the shouts of terror that exist beyond language. Like the red men and women that had buttressed his feet, Coburn had lost his place, and here and there became nothing to him. The world became cold and he closed his eyes, the frost sealing his lashes for an instant.

Amongst the corpses something had caught Coburn’s attention. It was a bed, not a cot, but a real bed sitting atop the pink snow. A boy laid upon the bed, a white boy, clutching his chest and moaning. He was covered by a luminescent blanket that seemed to be made of lightening. And then, without warning, he stood before Coburn. The bed was gone.

“Did you see me?” the boy said, and Coburn stared dumbfounded. The young man pointed northwest and told him to go, to leave Wounded Knee, to leave his post and fellow soldiers. And Coburn knew he must, for there was no peace in the place where he had stood then, amongst the dead and wounded. Taking a horse, several days hardtack rations, some tobacco, a compass, his gun, and the stolen surveyor’s map, he headed north for shelter, to the fabled Black Hills that would protect him until spring, until the snow was gone and his mind was whole again.

Where was he? Oh yes, a dead horse. The beast’s mouth hangs open and steam still rises from the creatures’ tongue, but already Coburn has collected his supplies and walks on foot towards the hills in the distance. The sun, a dull orb the color of ash, hangs low in the west by the time Coburn has reached the hills, but indeed, there is shelter here, and the terrible winds of the plains are no more.

Coburn finds a warm spring in the Valley, steam rising from its surface, and reckons that the town is no more than a day’s walk away. He makes a fire, and waits for nightfall. The sounds of the Massacre subside in his mind and a strange peace fills his body. His eyes close and sleep comes for the first time since the violence.

Coburn is awoken by a sound in the brush near him. The first thing he sees are stars above him, like frost on a pane of glass. Rolling over he notices that his fire has gone out, and in the clearing before him is a sight that takes a moment to register. A white bison, plain as day stands before him, clearly aware of his presence. The creature is tremendous and alive, every part of it alive the way the Massacre wasn’t, the way that everything Coburn has run away from wasn’t. For an instant, he is confused. He knows that the bison have virtually abandoned this territory, hunted and hounded by white men looking for sport and bounty. A white variety of the species is even more miraculous considering the circumstances. He blinks once, twice, but already the creature is gone – dissipating like a spring thunderstorm, a flash of lightening that disappears before he can focus on it. Laying back down in his bed roll, he discovers that his compass has disappeared. But this is of no concern to him now, though, for he feels safe and whole again, here amongst the hills. The white bison is a good omen, the first in days for Coburn, and a man who has found his place needs no compass. Tomorrow he will find the town, and the peace he seeks.

* * * *

David Smalls is a typical young man from the Hills. Thin, and plain, almost tall, his hair is brown and eyes grey. He wears red flannel and grubby jeans, drives too fast in a car that looks like a dust-buster. He talks through his nose like men are accustomed to out here – a hum in the sinus, shaped into words at the last second. Smalls grew up in the Hills as a boy, walked home from school in the gentle winters that granite ridges provide. Summers spent driving up to Deadwood and Hot Springs to see his friends, smoking joints in the back of pickup trucks on the edge of Dark Canyon. Smalls turned eighteen and ran away for college, far out east, and it wasn’t until the first time he came back that he knew where he really came from. The first time his plane lands at Rapid City regional airport, Smalls sees the terrible beauty of his home, a wound, a scar, where white men blasted away a sacred mountain to make room for the faces of presidents – new gods of the secular empire.

This is the third time Smalls has come home – it’s winter, and poor snowfall sees the Hills dry and hungry for moisture. The air is tight against his face and he can see for miles in the evening oranges and purples that fill his eyes. Smalls’ old friend Blake is waiting for him, a smaller man, pale with hair like wheat. Blake’s red Jeep Cherokee sits in the airport parking lot reflecting sunlight, and Blake stands next to it smoking a cigarette, a habit he has promised to quit.

“Hey,” Smalls starts, testing the distance between himself and his old friend.

“Heya buddy.” Smalls is relieved to hear Blake’s old greeting, and the space between the two is shortened. Blake picks up one of Smalls bags in a sign of friendship, but he immediately appears as though he wishes he hadn’t, as its weight is considerable. Smalls contemplates taking the bag from Blake, but he doesn’t want to rob Blake of the friendly gesture. It’s been a year since the two men have spoken to or seen each other, but time is not as important as space. Respect for space is key to a friendship here at home, Smalls remembers.

“What was his whole name again?” Blake cracks the window an inch so the smoke is sucked out of the car. Smalls is busy scanning the multitude of billboards that pass the vehicle on the way into town. He takes a second to register the question.

“Thomas James Pucacek Mercer.”

“Shit,” Blake smiles with teeth. “Fucking maniac. Lara tells about the day they caught him lead climbing up the side of the school. He had his harness and carabineers and everything. Supposedly, the spikes he put in the brickwork are still there.” Blake snorts in laughter as he remembers another detail of the story. “The funny thing was, that by the time he got on the roof, the cops were waiting for him. And when they’re handcuffing him, three stories above the ground, he pumps an arm in the air and everyone cheers. Unbelievable.”

“Mercer wasn’t dangerous. He was just a smart kid in the wrong place.”

“Oh totally,” Blake says in agreement. “The guy was a god – never meant anyone harm. He was just had some reckless interests. Did you ever hear about the time he filled up an entire notebook with ratios for dry-ice bombs?”

“Yeah.”

“Genius, I tell you,” and then Blake coughs, coughs hard like his whole body is collapsing in on his lungs and pushing the air out. Once his heaving subsides, the car is silent again, as though the noise has disrupted the flow of conversation. Both men stare forward in silence as they are enveloped by the beginnings of the city, Rapid City, South Dakota: Star of West, Gateway to the Black Hills. Blake blinks like he’s thought of something important, and then he clears his throat.

“Did you want to see the stuff he left with me?”

“What?” Smalls is caught off guard by this.

“Yeah, Mercer’s left a bunch of stuff in my basement before he left for Texas. After the funeral I asked his mom if she wanted it back. She said no, started crying and said that I could keep it. I figure we could look through it tonight if you wanted – that’s if you’re comfortable with going through Tommy’s stuff.” Smalls thinks for a second.

“You’ve had this stuff for a year?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you looked through it?”

Blake coughs. “No, I wanted you to be here.”

“What about Lara?”

“No. I don’t think she’s home yet, and even if she was, I don’t think bringing up dead boyfriends would make her happy.”

Smalls considers this for a minute, not sure if he’s comfortable digging into such history.

“Yeah. Okay. We do it tonight?”

“Sure,” says Blake.

Thomas James Pucacek Mercer (say Puh –ka –chuck) is all charisma. He smiles gigantic with an energy that seems so natural, he must be channeling something from the air around him and, at the same time, putting something back into it. He laughs from the gut, a baritone sound of celebration. He is alive, every part of him alive, a boy made of skateboard decks and Saturday mornings, a miracle in every way.

One day, Smalls, Blake, and Lara are riding in Blake’s Cherokee and Tommy tells them to stop out front of the South Canyon Lutheran Church. Tommy produces his skateboard (a blank deck he painted himself with a homemade comet stencil) and proceeds to climb onto the church roof where he rides – yes rides his skateboard down three quarters of the forty degree incline until he leaps off to the side, the board tumbling into the bushes below. A remarkable event made only more remarkable by the fact that the churches’ roof is struck by lightening a year later in the same spot as Mercer’s incredible ride. Smalls drove by that evening when the fire department had blocked off the road. The lightening strike seemed like supernatural homage to the daring of Mercer’s feat, corporeal proof that the gods were on his side. So sad that Mercer had died not long after in the distant south of Texas, alone in his hotel bed – the victim of a bad heart. That was no way for a man the gods had favored to die, Smalls thought.

The part Smalls remembers the best is how Mercer descended from the church roof, giddy and laughing at his own reckless stunt, and saying, “Did you see me? Did you see me?” And Lara, leaning next to the Cherokee, calmly says with a smile, “Yeah Tommy. We saw you.” Something about that moment seemed strange to Smalls, as though Lara had seen Tommy do something no one else had – as though his ride down the church roof on a skateboard had merely been happenstance compared to something far more profound. In recalling the event, Smalls also remembered the way Mercer’s hand clenched something tightly as he climbed down the side of the building, but what the object was had never been revealed to him.

Blake and Smalls are sitting in Blake’s basement – Smalls has a bedroll set up on the couch in the main room, and Blake is busy in the laundry room next door, rummaging for something. Smalls remembers all the hours he spent on this couch back in high school – playing video games and getting high with Blake, the two talking about nothing in particular the way boys do. There’s something sterile and distant about the couch now, as though he’s seeing the object for the first time.

Blake emerges from the laundry room carrying two large cardboard boxes, both marked ‘Mercer’ in permanent marker on the sides. He sets them down on the floor and starts coughing, apparently exhausted by the small task.

“Got any weed?” Smalls ask, and Blake shakes his head.

“Just got back man.” A pause. “Should we each take one?” he asks. Smalls agrees, and they both begin to cut off the dirty packing tape with their car keys. The smell of grease, paper, and dust emanates from the freshly opened parcels. There’s something profound in the simple act to both men, as though they are children opening Christmas presents, but neither says it to the other. They each begin to rummage through their respective box, while glancing up at the other from time to time.

“Sweet!” announces Blake. “It’s Tommy’s dry ice bomb notebook! What’s in yours?”

“Looks like his old skate deck and the wheels. A few of his notebooks too, some old drawings, Legos-” Smalls pauses for a second.

“What is it?” Blake says, looking up from a pair of gold spray-painted tennis-shoes.

“It’s Lara’s third grade picture. I remember when she gave it to him.”

“Christ.” Blake chuckles. “Braces, a bad perm, and everything.”

“I think its sweet.” Smalls puts the old photo back, where it’s hidden from Blake’s teasing, and is about to close his box and go inspect the other, when something in the corner catches his attention. Smalls pushes a few Legos and a tattered sketchbook aside to discover a compass of seemingly antique origins that is curiously well preserved. The back features the words U.S. Army engraved on it, and the needle still bobs gently in suspension, miraculously pointing north despite its age.

“What you got there?” Blake asks, and Smalls shows him the compass. Blake raises his eyebrows and grunts, as though it means little to him. “Wonder where he got it. I didn’t know Tommy collected old stuff.”

“Me either,” replies Smalls, but already he is beginning to wonder about all the things that he and Blake do not know about their dead friend. Who was Thomas James Pucacek Mercer, and where did he go, less where do we all go?

Nightfall, stars frosting the fissure above you as the gentle roar of pines culls you to sleep, your wounds healed and the world whole again. The Hills are always there, breathing, the heart still beating like a Lakota drum-taught skin of the bison made into the sound of a Ghost Dance, into thunder. Once in a great while, a white calf is born to the bison, and there is hope again – the earth exhales all around, and great clouds exchange lightening with the ground, tiny points of light, static between bed sheets. The thunder speaks and calls to your heart, far away, and you answer because you must. The Hills are waiting for you and part of you waits for them, waiting, waiting for the day you can go home again.