Free The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie

like they were driving down a tunnel.
    Salmon Boy remembered the time his father won a free trip to Disneyland. They got half of the prize money and the whole family jumped into their blue van and headed for California. They were supposed to get the other half once they got to Disneyland, but something went wrong. There was nobody there to greet them and nobody answered the telephone back home. Salmon Boy and his whole family walked up to the gates of the Magic Kingdom and peered through the bars.
    Inside, white people were having more fun than any Indians had ever had.
    Salmon Boy remembered how all his family members counted up all the money in their pockets and discovered they carried enough coins for one loaf of bread and a package of cheese, and maybe, just maybe, enough gas to get them back home.
    For twenty-six straight hours, Salmon Boy’s father drove through the night and day, drove through a tunnel of sun, drove through a tunnel of stars, and laughed like crazy when he drove over that bridge that marked the entrance to the reservation.
    My father loved me, Salmon Boy said to Seymour.
    Well, then, said Seymour, that’s a good thing to tell the police when they finally catch us. It will explain everything.
    You think they’re still after us? asked Salmon Boy.
    The police are always, always minutes behind us.
    They knocked on the front door of the farmhouse. Seymour held his unloaded pistol in his front pocket. He felt like somebody might know how to save him.
    An old white woman soon stood on the other side of the open door.
    Who are you? she asked.
    We are two desperate men on a nonviolent killing spree, said Seymour.
    And we’re doing our best to fall in love, said Salmon Boy.
    With who? asked the old woman.
    With each other, said Seymour.
    Well, then, she said, you better come in and get yourself something to eat and drink. You’re talking about some hard, hard work.
    Seymour and Salmon Boy sat at her table while she made them lemonade and ham sandwiches. Her husband had been dead for ten long years, years that hung like lace in the attic, like an old quilt on the bedroom wall, like a coyote nailed to a fence post.
    My husband, she said, he’s buried out there, back behind the barn. You can’t see his grave right now, but it’s there, right there beneath the snow.
    The lemonade was sweet and the ham was salty and everything was near-right with the world.
    We only had one child, she said, a son, and he stood up one day, walked out that door right there, and has never returned.
    The old woman’s eyes filled with tears. She asked, Didn’t you go to high school with my son John?
    Which one of us are you speaking to? asked Seymour.
    I’m talking to both of you, she said.
    Well, then, I have to say, said Seymour, that I don’t remember anybody named John. I didn’t even go to high school.
    How about the Indian? asked the old woman.
    His name is Salmon Boy.
    Surely, you didn’t go to school with my son, she said, because I would have remembered a crazy name like that.
    She walked around on old legs and set an old coffeepot down over a blue flame.
    My real name ain’t Salmon Boy.
    Real or not, my son didn’t go to school with any Indians, she said. She stirred her coffee. All three of them stared down into its blackness.
    Anyway, she said, I think I recognize everybody who visits me. I spend whole days with my visitors, thinking I know them, thinking I have to be a good hostess. They show up in the mornings mostly, and I feed them breakfast. I feed them lunch and dinner. Sometimes, at night, I get a bed ready for them, pillows and sheets and blankets, before I realize they aren’t real.
    She looked at the men.
    Are you real? she asked.
    Seymour and Salmon Boy looked at each other. They weren’t sure.
    But listen to me, she said, an old woman telling old stories. How about you boys? And this killing spree of yours, where are you heading to?
    It’s a nonviolent killing spree, said Seymour, and we’re