The Only Good Indians

From her hiding place, Elk Head Woman recognizes Victor and Nate Yellow Tail as the father and son who picked her up and took her into town. Nate thinks the two men sitting together around the fire look like fools, and Victor tells him that’s the point: “They were you, twenty years ago” (185). Nate, Gabe, and Cass plan to go into the sweat lodge, and Victor will handle the hot rocks.

Victor introduces Nate to the men, and Nate is testy with them and demands they talk to him, not his father, when they talk about him like he’s not there. They explain to him that the sweat is meant to purify them, and Nate asks if Lewis was headed back to the reservation to “clean the spots off his soul” (188). Victor notices that Cass’s dogs aren’t around. Gabriel brings up the money Victor agreed to pay them; Victor supplies it, and Gabe puts it in his jeans pocket.

Gabriel and Cass undress and go into the sweat lodge, telling Victor to send Nate in when he’s ready. Unimpressed, Nate undresses, dreading the sweat and telling his dad he thinks it’s pointless.

Nate enters the sweat lodge, and Gabe and Cass tease him before letting him know some of the ground rules: He’s not supposed to get so hot he’ll pass out, and he should feel free to talk or pray to whoever he wants. Nate asks if they mean their murderer friend or their murdered friend, and Gabe tells him something that Neesh, who is Nate’s grandfather told him: No one has ever been attacked in a sweat, because it’s a holy place. Nate chides them for using the term Indian, but they insist that’s what they were growing up.

They call for Victor to bring in the hot rocks. Gabe gives Nate one chance to leave, but Nate gives them the go-ahead to begin. As the steam is poured on, Gabe sees himself in Nate, which flashes him to the moment he was checking himself in his sideview mirror and thought he saw something moving in the back of his truck bed, a thought he dismisses.

Victor gets into the cop car and puts in a tape of traditional drumming that he plays through the intercom for the sweat. He goes back and stirs the fire, then he picks up the rifle to inspect it, pointing it without knowing at Elk Head Woman. Elk Head Woman flinches, and he sees the motion. He calls out, thinking it’s Jolene or one of the dogs, and Elk Head Woman reveals in her narration that the dogs are dead.

As he’s loading more rocks into the sweat, a horse whinnies, startling him. Elk Head Woman thinks he should leave but knows that she would do anything to protect her calf. Victor gets a flashlight and looks around. When he takes his gun out, Elk Head Woman thinks his fate is decided. She waits for him to come to her, and when he shines his light on her she’s briefly dazzled. At first, he thinks she’s Jolene, but then he recognizes her as Shaney from a newspaper photo. Elk Head Woman rushes toward him.

In the sweat lodge, Cassidy thinks he should’ve been doing this a long time ago, back when he always thought of these rituals as an ordeal. He thinks he will ask Denny to restore his hunting privileges, or else marry Jo and use hers. They pass the water around, drinking some and spilling some to honor the dead. Nathan mentions Tre, a teenager who died right before he ran away from home. Cass is happy that he’s beginning to take the ritual seriously.

The three get down low to get at the cool air. Cassidy brings up the elk calf Lewis had with him—it’s the wrong season for elk calves, and there’s no explanation. But Cassidy tells Gabe that the elk cow that Lewis killed was pregnant and that Lewis buried the fetus, which Gabe never knew. Nate listens in—he’s heard of the incident from Denorah, who heard it from Denny Pease.

The conversation turns to Victor. Nate knows that both have been arrested by his father, and Cassidy says it’s only “White man’s laws […] Getting picked up, that just proves he’s Indian” (207). Nate criticizes his father, and Cassidy mentions several people who Victor has seen murdered, drowned, and killed in car crashes. He makes it clear to Nate that Victor is trying to save him from these fates.

Gabe decides they need more water in the cooler, and as he lifts the flap, they see a woman’s leg, not Victor’s. It’s Jo, so Cassidy goes out to her. He catches her up on the sweat lodge, then tells him she’s home from work—Shaney Holds was her cousin, and she just found out. She’s going straight to the Crow reservation to be with family. He tells her he’ll get the money out of the truck for her and starts to get dressed, but she says she can get it.

She goes inside to pack, and Cassidy wonders where Victor went. He gathers up some snow and returns to the sweat lodge, giving some to Gabe and Nate as Elk Head Woman lurks outside.

In the sweat lodge, Gabe thinks about going outside to pee, but Jo’s presence makes it complicated, since his clothes are outside. He tries to get invested in the sweat, which helps him see his father sitting in his living room watching public access security footage on his TV. On the screen, Gabe and his three friends show up, 12 years old and passing a Walkman around to learn breakdancing moves. He comes back to the sweat lodge and sees Ricky and Lewis there with them, though they appear with their death wounds. Gabe panics and flees the makeshift tent.

Outside, he decides to get some beer from his truck. He wonders where Victor went and decides he’s in the outhouse, then gets a beer. He begins to urinate, then realizes that he’s standing over a dead dog. He thinks it was trampled by one of the horses. He finds the other two dogs. One is still struggling to live, so he takes up a rock, but it dies before he brings it down. He decides to pretend he didn’t see the dogs, drinks another beer, and takes his cooler and a thermos he finds in his truck back to the sweat lodge so they can drink the cold water.

Being in the sweat lodge makes Nathan think of a summer camp with his friend Tre where they learned to dry meat. He thinks about traveling out to Kuto’yiss because he was suicidal after Tre’s death only to be brought back by his father. This makes him think of Kuto’yisss”ko’maapii, a legend that translates to Blood-Clot Boy. He used to think he was reincarnated from him, but he’s given up on thinking of himself this way.

He drinks, honoring his grandfather, which Cass and Gabe approve of. Gabe starts goofing off, and Cass tells him to be serious. Then he studies the thermos Gabe brought in—it’s the thermos he refers to as his safe. He rushes out, and Gabe follows him.

The narrative shifts to Elk Head Woman’s point of view as she watches the men emerge from the sweat lodge. Cass tries to get his pants on but gets tangled in a chair, which he hurls into the night as Gabe watches. Cass sees his shirt in the distance and goes after it—Elk Head Woman has put it over the dogs so he would discover them, which he does. He sees one of Gabe’s beers next to the rock, and he’s already suspicious that Gabe may have taken his thermos. He bends over to look under his truck and sees Jo there; he asks her if the thermos is there but says never mind before she can respond.

Cass confronts Gabe, smashing the thermos into Gabe’s truck mirror. He accuses Gabe of killing the dogs and stealing his money. Gabe turns out the pockets of his pants, revealing the wedding ring Cass hid in the thermos to propose to Jo. Gabe is confused, but when Cass smashes his windshield, Gabe charges the truck on blocks that Jo is underneath. Cass tries to stop him while Elk Head Woman watches, happy that her plan is working.

Gabe crashes into the truck, which is enough to break the cinder blocks it rested on. Cass screams and opens the hood—Jo’s body is there, as she’s been crushed to death while trying to scramble into the empty engine compartment. Cass takes up the antique rifle and takes a bag of stray shells he’s got in the old truck. He begins trying out the shells, looking for one that fits, while Gabe pleads with him. When he finds a shell that fits, Gabe tells him to go ahead and do it and begins singing a made-up death song. Cass’s resolve wanes, and when he sees Elk Head Woman out of the corner of his eye, he swings the rifle around and flinches, grazing Gabe’s ear.

Gabe thinks that Cass was counting coup, but he turns around to see what he thinks is Denorah in her basketball jersey, shot through the chest. Gabe collapses, thinking of all the potential and love he had for his daughter, and Cass collapses next to him. Gabe pushes him over and hits him with the thermos. The thermos rolls away, and Cass grabs it and hands it back up to Gabe. Gabe beats Cass to death with it.

Gabe takes up the rifle and intends to kill himself with it. He looks for bullets in the truck, seeing Jo’s face through the hole he once shot through the car’s floorboard. He goes to check on Denorah and realizes that it’s Nathan, badly hurt but not dead. Nathan says po’noka (the Blackfeet word for elk) and scrambles away from Gabe into the horse pen. The horses get spooked and seemingly trample him. Stunned, Gabe sits on the police car, then goes to outhouse and finds Victor, his throat seemingly ripped out.

Gabe knows he will be blamed for all this. He goes to Cass’s body and talks to him, saying at least Denorah is alive. Elk Head Woman emerges holding the rifle. She tells him her name, Ponokaotokaanaakii, then gives him the rifle and tells him he must kill himself or else she will go after Denorah. He asks her to promise to those terms, and she won’t. Gabe puts Cass’s finger on the trigger; he imagines himself like the braves who ran past Custer’s army from the story of counting coop as he pulls the trigger. Elk Head Woman leaves, intending to go after Denorah. The section of the novel closes with a blind item column from the Moccasin Telegraph about a basketball scout who was approached by Denorah’s coach and intends to come to her scrimmage.