Free The Blue Between the Clouds by Stephen Wunderli Page A

at it. We could see ourselves floatin’ off into a golden sunset. We had to find Emmett. We ran to his bedroom truck and peeked in the window. He wasn’t there. We looked everywhere—the barn, Ma’s kitchen, the henhouse. Finally we found him bent over the old Model T, workin’ on the carburetor. We stood behind him and watched. He worked fast and pulled the carburetor gently off and held it in his hands like a bird’s nest. Then he walked carefully to the plane. He held the two carburetors side by side, lookin’ carefully at their parts. Then he shook his head and dropped them both on the ground. He stared at the plane for a long time. Then he turned and walked to his bedroom truck and shut the door behind him.
    Well, me and Two Moons didn’t quite know what to do. At first we thought Emmett would be right back. We found some red barn paint and painted the plane. Then we sat there, waitin’ for Emmett. It couldn’t be that hard to make this little carburetor work, we thought. I mean, we were so close. A piece this small couldn’t stop us from flyin’. But it did. For days we waited for Emmett to come out of his truck and fix that carburetor. We moped around like Christmas was late at our house. Every minute that ticked by put Two Moons closer to Bozeman. We decided there was only one thing to do. Go see the medicine man.

10
    HOW I GOT MY INDIAN NAME
    Early the next Saturday morning we were ridin’ with Pa to the reservation again. This time, no one greeted us at the end of the dusty road. There were naked little kids runnin’ around, teasin’ dogs. The ovens were smoking. They looked like giant beehives. The sun was already hot and we took our shirts off.
    â€œGray Horse lives on the edge of the village,” Two Moons said. “He will be making the sand painting that talks about Grandfather’s death.”
    We walked slowly through the village, watchin’ the children. Some of the women came out to hug Two Moons, but most of them tended their ovens or ground corn into meal. Finally we came to the biggest hogan in the village.
    â€œThis is where the tribal council meets,” Two Moons said. “They study the sand painting that is the history of our people. Then they decide what is best for the tribe.”
    â€œIs it where they decided you belong in Bozeman?” I said.
    Two Moons didn’t answer. He never disagrees with the council. “The council knows more than my life,” he has said to me many times. I guess I would tell them it was my life and stay out of it. But Two Moons, well, he has a lot of respect for his elders. Still, it doesn’t seem right that they send him away from his home.
    The hogan was dark and filled with smoke. Small pots of cedar beads smoldered in the corners of the big room. The medicine man was kneeling with a bowl of fine sand in his hand. He would take a handful and let it carefully sift through his fingers, makin’ patterns on the floor. His hair was braided with eagle feathers and a red bandana. He had a necklace of bear claws and turquoise danglin’ from his neck. It reminded me of an Indian man Pa found one winter by the mine. He was froze to death and nobody knew who he was. Pa found him one mornin’ when he was checkin’ the generator. The Indian was sittin’ upright in the snow, his elbows on his knees and his head down. His hair was also braided with eagle feathers, and he had a small bag over his shoulder, a medicine bag like Two Moons’ grandfather’s. He was very old, and his hair was gray. No one knew him at the reservation, so we figured he must’ve come a long way. Pa brought him to the house that night to get him ready for burial. That’s where he learned about the sheep. When the tribe found out about the burial, they sent the chief and the medicine man. They chanted and sang in our barn where the body was. I was real small then and don’t