Faraway Places by Tom Spanbauer Page A

propped against a pile of bricks at the edge of the lawn. Endicott started to turn back to the house, holding up the whistle with his hand. I ran to the rifle, picked it up, and aimed at Endicott’s head. Endicott had the whistle in his mouth. He was almost to the door. The cross inside the sights of the .25-20 was between his right eye and his ear. I pulled the trigger but nothing happened.
    Endicott’s hand was on the knob, turning.
    I cocked the rifle and the cross was right on the back of his head, just above the larded wrinkle. Then he turned around. Endicott had heard me cock the rifle. He turned around and looked straight at me—the cross was on his forehead. He looked me in the eye, that whistle of his in his mouth.
    â€œForevermore,” I said.
    His eyes locked on mine, squinting down the sights. I set the cross on his left eye. Soon as I did, his eye changed. An arrow pierced it. Then his right eye wasn’t there either; it looked off into the distance. Endicott stepped back, the whistle fell from his mouth, then his knees gave way. He knelt for a moment, then fell forward. His ear was to the ground again, the way I’d seen him the other day, and his lard ass in the air.
    Geronimo was standing on the lawn, just at the edge of the river, bow drawn, eyes fierce like a hawk’s, like a snake’s. He was naked except for a string around his waist with a patch of leather that hung down in front of him. There were beads on it—the beads that bought Manhattan—and a hunting knife in a sheath hanging from the string. Around his neck was a necklace with beads the color of the sky at night. Geronimo’s face and the right side of his body were covered with designs in muddy red paint-designs like you might see on rattlesnakes, or maybe butterflies. He did not move for some time. He just stood there pointing at Endicott lying there with his ear to the ground, pointing out Endicott’s death to the world.
    I did not know how to uncock the rifle—my father had never shown me, not that I’d wanted to learn—so I pointed the .25-20 at the grass and pulled the trigger. The sound of the blast echoed through the trees and went up the river and down the river and up into the sky. After that it was quiet except for the rain. Then I heard another sound like children crying or lots of people way far away cheering—I couldn’t tell which—but then I knew that the sound was coming from Geronimo. He had started to sing the kinds of songs Indians sing—songs that are like animal sounds.
    Geronimo started to move toward his prey then, laying his bow down gently. His step was more like dancing than a walk, and he was still singing as he went. Geronimo bent over and smelled Endicott like a dog would smell him. Then he circled around him again and again, dancing and singing the whole while.
    Geronimo placed his foot on Endicott’s mouth and pulled the arrow from his eye. Heya, heya, heya , Geronimo sang. Then he made a crying sound, then a howling dog sound. He pulled the whistle from Endicott’s neck and held it up to the sky along with the arrow, like he was showing the sky, showing God, that Geronimo had gotten the whistle, finally. Heya, heya, heya, I got the whistle . And then Geronimo put the whistle around his own neck.
    Geronimo took the knife out of its sheath and showed the blade to the sky, like he was telling the story as he was living it.
    As I watched, I realized he wasn’t really a nigger. He was an Indian, like Sugar Babe. But then, watching him there in the rain like that, watching him like he was, I decided he was just himself, pure and simple: a person, like me. He was Geronimo being himself in our free country.
    Geronimo brought the knife down and sliced part of Endicott’s head off, sliced along that lard wrinkle in the back. He took Endicott’s scalp and raised it up; showed it to the sky and told the story. Then he put the knife back