The Story Teller Read Free Page A

cultural director.
    “Why do you need my services?” she asked, handing back the folder.
    “It ain’t there.” This from the elder, who shifted sideways in his chair. The legs made a little scratching noise against the floor.
    The cultural director spoke up. “We assumed all the Arapaho artifacts in the museum were on the list.” He was tapping the edge of the desk with one hand, a steady rhythm of impatience. “But when I asked Grandfather Redman to look over the list, he said the museum left something off.”
    Vicky turned toward the old man. “You’re saying the inventory isn’t complete, Grandfather?” She struggled for a tone of respect, although the old man’s concern was hard to imagine. Surely the museum would comply with federal law. The consequences of not complying were serious: loss of federal funds, even felony indictments.
    The elder said, “My ancestor’s book ain’t on the list. I seen it in the museum.”
    Vicky drew in a long breath. Her own assumptions collided against the truth in the old man’s voice. “Pleasetell me what you saw,” she said, leaning toward him, feeling the familiar anticipation she had felt as a child when the elders began to tell a story of the Old Time—a grandfather story—and she was about to learn something she hadn’t known before.
    Charlie Redman cleared his throat, a low, gravelly sound. Eyes ahead, on that other place where he dwelled, he began: “My ancestor was No-Ta-Nee. He rode with Chief Niwot in the Old Time down in Colorado. No-Ta-Nee had the job to keep the stories, you know.” A quick glance sideways, as if to confirm that she did know. Then, at a leisurely pace, he said, “No-Ta-Nee kept the stories about the people, everything we believe and everything that happened, and he told the younger generation so they would know. One day he found one of them ledger books the government agents used, so he wrote down the story about the last days the people lived in Colorado. Wrote it all down in pictures, exactly right.
    “Many years later”—he made a movement with his hand, as if to wave away the passage of time—“No-Ta-Nee’s ledger book come to the museum. He was in a lot of battles with the soldiers, so maybe the book got lost on the battlefield and somebody picked it up and give it to the museum. I don’t know how it come there. But when I was this high,” he explained as he raised his hand to his shoulder, “one of the Jesuit priests that was here at St. Francis Mission seen the book in the museum. So he took my grandfather and me down to Denver. It was in the summer of 1920. We went on the train. And we rode one of them trolley cars down a street with tall buildings on both sides and got off at a building with white columns in front. Inside was a small glass case, and the only thing in the case was No-Ta-Nee’s book. It was beautiful.”
    A ledger book! The idea that an intact ledger book written by an Arapaho warrior might still exist sent athrill coursing through Vicky like an electric current. She had heard the elders tell about the ledger books drawn by the Plains Indian warriors—the story of actual events recorded in detailed pictographs. She had seen pages from ledger books in museums. She had even seen framed pages for sale once in a gallery in Denver. But she had never seen an Arapaho ledger book.
    Vicky glanced at the cultural director. His expression reflected her own excitement. He said, “Almost every warrior had a ledger book that he drew in. It was his own personal journal where he kept a record of all his deeds and honors. Some of the warriors, like No-Ta-Nee, were chosen by the elders to write about tribal events. Used to be hundreds of ledger books on the plains.”
    Vicky smiled at the thought. Hundreds of books drawn and prized by people the whites had considered illiterate and uncivilized.
    The cultural director shifted against the desk. “Unfortunately most of the ledger books were destroyed. There’s only a