The Brave Read Free

the bus station in Sparta in an hour. He walked down the middle of the unpaved road. No traffic this time of morning. He concentrated on his pace, feeling the muscles of his legs stretch and warm up. He let his arms swing. He enjoyed the dark breeze against his lips and eyelids.
    The pain from Hoffer’s illegal uppercut was a distant ache. He almost enjoyed feeling it.Thanks, Furbag, if you hadn’t done it, maybe I wouldn’t be on the road now, finally getting out of this dump. For good, this time.
    For seventeen years, he thought, all my life, she always dragged me back to this sad-sack Reservation when things went wrong for her, and they always did. It was always just for a week that turned into a month, a summer that stretched into a year. Mom would always say, Don’t worry, Sonny, this is just a pit stop in the big race, we’ll find our own special place real soon, but first I need to nourish my soul, touch the good earth, breathe the clean air, talk to the real people, before we face the world again.
    The world always kicked us back to the Res again. Syracuse. Santa Fe. Leave school, leave my friends. Anytime Mom couldn’t get her life together, or sell her jewelry, she’d pack us up and head back to the Res. From Brooklyn, Minneapolis, Santa Cruz. Why bother making friends? There was always room at Uncle Jake’s—he’d take us in and feed us. And after a while she’d take off again and leave me. Just a few weeks, Sonny, she’d say, give me a few weeks, Sonny, I’ll send for you, there’s a gallery in SoHo, New York City, loves the earrings.That was six months ago.
    Thinking about his mother dulled his senses. He didn’t feel the vibrations under his feet until the truck was bearing down on him, a speeding shadow without headlights. He leaped out of the way. The truck made a screaming half-turn and stopped in a gravel storm.
    â€œSonny.” Jake clambered down stiffly from the cab. He was wearing the tee-shirt and boxer shorts he slept in. His skinny old legs were bean poles in the moonlight. “Where you going?”
    â€œNew York. She’s gotta sign the papers now.”
    â€œShe won’t do it, Sonny.” Jake’s voice was tired. “You gonna have to wait till you’re eighteen.”
    â€œCan’t wait.”
    â€œYou know better, Sonny. She lost her father and brother in the Army, she ain’t…”
    â€œAnd my dad. Only Indians count?”
    â€œWasn’t around long enough to count.” Jake’s false teeth clacked together. That shut him up, thought Sonny. His sore spot. Mom was always his favorite niece, she was everybody’s favorite, smart and beautiful and talented, and the first girl off the Res to go to a big-time white college. And then she had to have a baby with a white guy. Every time they look at me, they remember that.
    â€œC’mon back,” said Jake.
    â€œI’m going.”
    â€œMaybe I been too hard on you, Sonny.”
    â€œIt’s not you, Jake. I got to do this.” He suddenly realized he would miss the old man.
    â€œI’ll drive you to Sparta.”
    â€œI can walk.”
    â€œCatch an earlier bus. Be in New York sooner.” The old man looked sad.
    â€œWhy not?” Sonny unhitched his pack and slung it into the back of the truck. He climbed up into the cab.
    They were almost off the Reservation before Jake said, “You think the Army’s going to be different?”
    â€œBe different from this.”
    â€œStill got to get along with people, follow rules, control yourself.”
    â€œI can take care of myself.”
    â€œMaybe.” The tone in his voice was doubtful. “How’s it going to be different from football?”
    â€œCoach didn’t like me.”
    â€œDidn’t like you punching out people.”
    â€œNobody walks over me.”
    â€œYou take what you got to take till your time comes,” said