Read Chapter One--Medicine Man I: The Chief of All Time

I am asked many time who I would have play the main character in a movie.  So here he is: Tatanka Means, just so you can picture him while reading.

Chapter One (Excerpt)

Chance by Design

I parked the Jag in the usual spot, well away from the

trees and the unwelcome contributions the birds always

delivered to the reflective midnight-black paint. The front

bumper blocked the pedestrian crossing; recognized wealth

had its advantages. The police wouldn’t ticket the car. From

the sidewalk, I surveyed the small kiosk before me.

For many years, it had been a concession stand serving

those who frequented Lake Side Park. After undergoing

major renovation, it bore the name Salaam’s Kebabs. Instead

of hotdogs and hamburgers, it would now sell gyros and the

side items to go with them: stuffed grape leaves, Greek

salads, rice, and fries. The park offered a good place to try

out this new venture. On a tour of Europe, I couldn’t get

enough of the sandwiches the European kiosks sold and the

wonderful cucumber sauce, tzatziki, they put on them.

A stiff breeze came in off the lake. I pulled my hair out of

my face and dug in my pocket to find the leather lace I

always kept there and tied it back. My father had worn his

hair in braids his entire life. My grandfather never failed to

point out, as a man of the Niitsitapii, The Real People, my

hair belonged in braids. I no longer lived among The People,

much less on a reservation, so I let mine hang free all the way

to my waist.

Dried leaves, now free from a Wisconsin winter’s snow,

skittered across the red bricks of the patio. The benches wore

fresh coats of gray paint. The tables had new matching

surfaces with closed red and white striped umbrellas

springing from their centers. Things looked ready for the

Memorial Day weekend opening when the park would be full

of holiday revelers. I glanced at my watch. It would be more

than an hour before Carlos, the cook and manager of the

kiosk, showed up. I hated any reference to Indian time so I

always arrived early. In life, there might be time enough for

everything, but I saw nothing wrong with the everything

being on time.

Black storm clouds were piling up in great angry layers on

the horizon. An icy wind whisked across the surface of the

lake and whipped the water into a froth of white-capped

waves. The air felt charged with electrical current and

smelled of freshly thawed earth. It would rain soon; most

likely it would be a true thunder banger. The weekend

forecast called for clear skies and sunshine, but I put little

faith in those weather predictors of Television Station,

WTMQ. They were wrong more than they were right.

Near the edge of the lakefront, barely out of reach of the

waves crashing against the shore, a woman sat on the back of

an olive-drab park bench with her bare feet on the worn seat.

Many people sat the same way. Her lack of shoes struck me

as odd since winter still lingered in the chill breeze. The way

she sat puzzled me the most. Her arms were outstretched

and her palms turned skyward. Her oversized red and black

flannel shirt flapped, scarecrow-like, in the breeze. The gray

watch-cap on her head, with her long black ponytail sticking

out, only added to the strange picture.

The seagulls hovering around her hands dashed in to

snap up whatever food she offered them. Occasionally, a bird

would land on her arm and grab more than its share. She

didn’t move and her arm never wavered, as if the weight of

the large birds meant nothing.

A rolled-up sleeping bag, a bulging backpack, and a pair

of worn men’s work boots, sat under the bench. Great. The

season hadn’t even started and already homeless people were

waiting to raid the trash bins.

A huge wave crashed into the breaker rocks. Momentarily

drowning out all other sounds, it sent a spray of water

several feet into the air. One of the gulls squawked and

screeched. The bench-sitter grasped a completely white gull

around its legs. It beat against her arm with its wings. With

an arched neck, it drove its large sharp beak against the flesh

homeless woman killing the bird and eating it raw.

I extracted my money clip from my pants pocket,

unrolled the bills, and peeled off three fives from the outside.

I placed the ones around the hundreds left inside before I

shoved it back into my pocket. With determined steps, I

made my way to the bench. I would offer the fifteen dollars

in exchange for the trapped bird’s life.

At the bench, despite the bird’s upset screams and pecks,

the woman turned to look at me. I forgot what I wanted to

say. She gazed back at me with startling dark brown eyes,

surrounded by a ring of green, set in a face with cheekbones

as high as my own. She’d been without enough food for some

time judging by the prominence of those bones.

I felt like a boy taken by his first crush. My tongue

wouldn’t work. I just stared at her. Cliché lines came into my

head. I refused to utter any of their nonsense. With her

haunting looks, she’d probably heard them a hundred times

before. For a fleeting moment, a smile tugged at the corners

of her sensuous lips. My ribs felt as if they were constricting

the beating of my heart. She could’ve been some legendary

sprite who wanted to steal a man’s spirit away. The wind

blew in from the lake in a sudden gust that gapped open her

shirt to reveal the curve of a shapely breast. I tried to look

away. 

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