Free Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life by David Treuer Page B

house down. Then the perp’s family comes after the girl’s family and on and on it goes. They fight until people are in the ground and nothing is left standing unless you catch them and arrest them and stop it before it really gets going. That attitude, that fighting attitude, goes back to Chief Bagonegiizhig and Changing Feather, back to those guys. Maybe it needs to change. But it’s kept us alive, too. We’re alive because we don’t back down. There’s a message in that, maybe.”
    In the end, Jourdain was reelected, the Republicans lost their elections, and the Democrats won (largely because of the support they received from Indians in northern Minnesota). There was no flotilla of angry fishermen. Citizens for Truth in Government has not been able to persuade the state of Minnesota or the federal government to change its attitude to Red Lake, which still exists on a government-to-government basis, as all sovereign nations relate to one another. Jerry Mueller appeared in Red Lake Tribal Court in October 2006. He probably felt the way Indians on the rez feel all the time: surrounded, outnumbered, and unloved by people different from himself. He argued his case, and his defense was based on “Officer, I didn’t know and I’m sorry.” He lost. He paid his fine, and if he has fished on Red Lake since then, he has probably stayed far away from the reservation boundary. Terry Maddy was wrong. Red Lake can have its fish and eat it, too.

Sean Fahrlander and his son Aatwe, 2009
    Courtesy Brooke Mosay Ammann

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    “Just dump it in,” Sean is saying to his brothers Marc and Mike. The light is fading, and the wind is coming strong off the big lake: Lake Mille Lacs. It’s April, and the ice has retreated from the shore but the water is soupy with it. When the wind pushes the crushed ice up against the larger unbroken plates out in deeper water, it makes a raspy tinkling sound.
    Sean is tall, with large hands, perfect for gripping nets. He was a basketball star in high school, joined the navy, and worked as an air traffic controller on an aircraft carrier. I don’t know if the job was good for him. “You wouldn’t have recognized me back then. My shit was squared away A-1 tight. I was correct . Everything in place. Not like now.” Not like now. His hands shake (“Goddamn allergies,” he says). He is nervous (“Goddamn steroids, they really fuck me up”). He is a little high-strung (“PTSD is a bitch, man, a real bitch”). He also talks a lot, more than most people and certainly more than most Indians. In a rush, his words tumble over themselves, each one apparently anxious to reach the finish line—your ears—before the next. He’s an excellent ricer, and can fillet a walleye faster than anyone else I know. (“Talk to a Chippewa and you’ll end up talking about two things: fish and beaver.”) Be that as it may, Sean’s the only Indian I know who is conversant on topics ranging from storytelling to how to tap a maple tree, the meaning of life, how to hit an alternator with a hatchet so it works, the design of the National Museum of the American Indian, Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet, ancient Greek warfare, what’s wrong with Indians today, string theory, how to tell the best “drunk story,” and Genghis Khan. I think the idea of not knowing something hasn’t occurred to him yet. When you talk to Sean the conversation always finds its way back to Sean. He is, however, generous with his time and energy. Life is much better with him in it—and that’s not something you can say about everyone. Once I bought a decrepit Airstream in Wisconsin. He helped me load it onto the back of a twenty-foot beavertail trailer. We got it strapped down and he looked at me sideways: “You’ll never make it back to Minnesota alone. I’m going with you.”
    “How are you gonna get home?”
    “Fuck if I know. Just let me run home and grab some underwear and I’m good to go.”
    He was right—I couldn’t have done it