Moonbird Boy Read Free Page B

trade sex for the protection of a man from other men," Dura explained after Bo had been at Ghost Flower Lodge for a few days. "That's always there when she hasn't got anything else left to sell. Lots of street people are black, lots are Indian. The children they make are black Indians. And no tribe will refuse a home to a child whose mother can claim membership, whether that child has red hair and freckles like you or black skin like my husband. Except that it was his father who was Indian, not his mother. And that is why Zach has his own story."
    That afternoon this tag line had pulled children from all over the lodge to Dura as if she'd blown a whistle. Sun-bronzed Indian children of the Neji Band of Kumeyaay, Dura and Zach's darker brood with their curly hair, who were also members of the band, and Mort's pale little boy, Bird, all ran to fling themselves on the floor at Dura's feet. Bo had been reminded of Pavlov's experiments with dogs. Except these weren't dogs, she noted, but people. And the reward for their response would be the ultimate human treat—a story.
    "John Crooked Owl," Dura had begun that day many weeks ago, pointing to an amateurish oil painting of an old but bright-eyed Indian man over the lodge's stone fireplace, "once had a brother named Catomka. But something happened to Catomka. Something sad. In the old days the people believed in witches, and they said a witch had put a special stone in a spring that is in our mountains. A very terrible stone."
    In the dramatic pause the children's eyes grew somber.
    "This stone could hurt people's minds if they drank the water. This stone could make people hear voices that nobody else could hear, and see things that nobody else could see. This stone could make it so people couldn't think!"
    Bo had thought she was just listening to a children's story, but her eyes filled with tears as she realized what was really being taught. The children, who had obviously heard the story many times, shook their heads sadly.
    "But John Crooked Owl's brother, Catomka, drank from that spring," Dura continued. "Which is just a story-way of saying he got an illness in his brain. And Catomka heard voices that nobody else could hear, and saw things that nobody else could see, and couldn't think right anymore. And so his brother, John Crooked Owl, took care of Catomka for a long time until Catomka died. He took care of Catomka right here on his own land, the Neji land. John Crooked Owl cared for his brother, Catomka, until Catomka died and John was very old. Do you want to know what happened next?"
    Embarrassed, Bo had caught herself answering, "Yes," along with the children.
    "John Crooked Owl was the last of the Neji Band, the last of the Kumeyaay people who lived on this land. He never married because he had to care for his brother, and so he had no children. If he died, there would be no one to inherit the land, and the United States government would take the land and own it. It wouldn't be Kumeyaay land anymore."
    "Nooo," the children whispered.
    "So John Crooked Owl walked down into San Diego and looked and looked for a wife to love and have his baby even though he was an old man. But the people there just thought he was a stupid old Indian, too silly to talk to."
    "Hah!" came a chorus of small voices.
    "Finally John Crooked Owl was ready to give up and go home alone, when he found a lovely black lady who was running from a bad man and had no food and no place to sleep. Her name was Bea and she came here with John Crooked Owl to hide from the bad man and they began to take care of other people who were like Catomka. People who had no one to care for them. After a while Bea had a baby boy with John Crooked Owl, and they named him Zachary. He grew up and Bea went away and John Crooked Owl died, but Zachary Crooked Owl stayed. And that is how the Neji Band and the Kumeyaay land were saved. And that is why we care for people who are like Catomka at Ghost Flower Lodge to this very