The Brave Read Free Page A

Jake.
    â€œMaybe that’s the Redskin way. Not my way.”
    Jake grunted and turned off the dirt Reservation road onto the paved county highway. They were silent until the lights of Sparta appeared on the horizon. Jake said, “No man ever got to be a Running Brave without taking a dangerous journey. Maybe this is it for you.”
    â€œNo more old stories, Jake.”
    â€œWoods, city, don’t matter. Got to survive, get strong as the buffalo, speedy as the deer, wise as the owl. Be a leader for your people.”
    â€œSell it to Hollywood.”
    They were in Sparta. Jake stopped for the first red light of the trip. He turned to Sonny. “You got to follow the Hawk.”
    â€œI’ll look him up in the phone book.”
    â€œFind the Hawk inside you and let it loose and follow it.”
    At the green light, Jake turned the corner. A Greyhound was idling at the curb outside thebus station. The driver was loading baggage.
    Jake said, “Good luck, Sonny. You can always come back.”
    â€œDon’t hold your breath.” Sonny climbed out of the truck. “Thanks for the ride.”
    By the time Sonny came out of the station with his ticket, Jake was gone. The driver looked him over, registering the beaded headband, the ponytail, the embroidered denim shirt. His voice was hard. “No booze on my bus.”
    â€œDon’t have any.”
    â€œThen we’ll have no problems, boy.” He punched the ticket.
    The closer to the Res, thought Sonny, the more they hate Indians. For the first hour or so, he knew, no one would want to sit next to him. After that, everybody would want to sit next to an Indian, especially kids. He climbed into the darkened bus and took a window seat in the rear.
    He opened his backpack to get his headphones and cassette player. His sketchbook and the box of pencils and charcoals were near the top. He had packed them last, unsure if he really wanted to bring them along.
    Leave it, he had thought, it’s the old scared Sonny, trapped on the Res, hiding in the backseats of junkyard cars, drawing birds and leaves and sometimes even Running Braves.
    He had finally decided to bring the sketchbook, but throw it away when he got to the city. He didn’t want to leave it for someone back there to find and say, Look what goes on in that crazy, half-breed brain.
    He slipped a Grateful Dead tape into the player. It had been his dad’s favorite music, in college, when he’d met Mom.
    Sonny was asleep before the first tape ran out.

3
    S ONNY STEPPED OFF the bus and the city smacked him in the face, an explosion of moving bodies and sudden noise, gusts of diesel fumes, hot grease, sick flesh. He fought panic. When you’re going into the woods, Jake always said, first cut a path with your eyes.
    He tracked a skinny kid with cinnamon skin gliding out of a shadow to block his way.
    â€œWelcome to the Apple.” He offered a palm to slap. Sonny glared it away. “Right thing. Never touch a stranger. You people are wise. What tribe you from?”
    Sonny grunted and kept marching across the bus terminal, his ponytail slapping time to the rap of his boots on the marble floor. The kid skipped alongside in unlaced white sneakers. Sonny looked him over from a corner of his eye. He wore a round, brown leather cap on a boxy bush of orange hair. His body was lost inside a Free South Africa tee-shirt and plaidBermuda shorts. He carried a walking stick, a thick, knotted, highly polished club with a steel tip at the bottom and an ivory snake’s head on the top. A black leather bag hung from his shoulder. He barely reached Sonny’s chin. He could be fourteen years old.
    â€œNever speak to a stranger who could twist your words. Right thing. No wonder you Native American peoples have survived.”
    â€œBeat it,” growled Sonny. He lengthened his stride to lose the little creep. This may be the woods, but I’m not the hunter