Neither Wolf nor Dog Read Free Page A

“This land has never been owned by the United States. This land has never been touched by the movement of European civilization.” It was as if I were feeling a direct link to something elemental, something beneath the flow of history, and it was powerful beyond imagining. Though I was a white man, and all too aware of the effects of well-intentioned white people on the well-being of the Indian people, I wanted, from within my world, to help them retain the goodness in theirs.
    Now, a voice had come to me from a place far away, asking me to come back to that world and hear what an old man had to say.
    â€œI’ll come,” I said, half hating myself for my hesitancy, half hating myself for agreeing at all. “It won’t be right away, though.”
    â€œHe’s pretty old,” she responded.
    â€œSoon,” I said.
    â€œJust ask at the store in town. He doesn’t go anywhere much. He really wants to talk to you.” She gave me his name and hung up.
    And so this book began.

    I t was several months before I could make the trip. I packed a few clothes in the truck and made my way across the bleaklandscape of America’s northern tier. Scrub pines gave way to fields. Morning mist rose over rolling prairies. Small towns, signaled in the distance by towering grain elevators or church steeples, shot by on the side of the highway, unnoticed, unvisited, undisturbed.
    The radio came in and out, offering moments of rock or classical music before disappearing into static. I switched from FM to AM . Farm reports, local ads for hardware stores, specials on rakes and fertilizer and feed.
    I checked the map and marked my progress. The reservations were defined only by slightly off-color squares surrounded by dotted lines. I tried to imagine an America seen from within these tiny islands in a sea of invading cities and farms. I thought of how a mild sense of discomfort overcame me whenever I crossed one of these borders into a reservation, and how I felt vaguely alien, unwanted, even threatened. How must it be for the Indians themselves, traveling across great expanses of country, feeling that same threat and alienation until they could reach the protective confines of one of the tiny off-color squares that were so few and separated on the vast map of our country?
    I arrived on the old man’s reservation shortly after dark. The clerk at the local store was a heavyset Indian girl. She eyed me suspiciously when I gave her the name. Three young boys who were standing at the video rack stopped talking and watched me quietly.
    â€œOver there,” she said, pointing toward the west. “He lives about three miles out. It’s kind of hard to find.”
    I assured her that I was good at directions.
    She drew a tiny map on the back of a napkin. It was full of turns and cutbacks and natural landmarks like creekbeds and fallen trees. I thanked her, bought a pack of Prince Albert tobacco, and set out.
    Her map was good, better than I had expected. I soonfound myself bouncing up a rutted path with weeds growing in its middle. The headlights formed a vague halo in the darkness. The eyes of small animals would gleam for a second on the side of the road, then disappear as shadowy forms made their way into the underbrush.
    The road made a quick turn, then opened into a clearing. My headlights were shining directly onto a small clapboard house. Two cars sat outside. One was up on blocks. Three wooden steps made their way up to the front door. An old, low-bellied dog lay on the top stoop. When I opened the car door she came running toward me, barking and wagging her tail.
    The front door opened and a figure emerged, silhouetted against the light inside the house.
    â€œI’m Nerburn,” I said.
    â€œYeah. Come on in,” came the reply, as if he had been expecting me. The voice was old but warm. Suddenly I felt more at ease. There was that Indian sense of humor and grace — almost a twinkle