The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie Page A

black soldiers, and the soldier-who-looked-like-me. I sat a few seats behind the black soldier who was driving the bus. In the back, Arlene and Kim, the Cox twins, hugged each other and wailed. Farther forward, the five Juniors, four boys and one girl, pushed their faces against the windows. There were two boys named James—one who went by Jimmy and one who went by Jamie—and three Johns. Jimmy was the chess player and Jamie was dyslexic. The three Johns hated one another. Randy Peone, the green-eyed Spokane, was shouting curses in English and Salish, the languages of our tribe. A white soldier quickly pinned Randy to his seat, tied his arms behind his back, and covered his mouth with duct tape. There were three Kateris, all named after the Mohawk woman who was canonized when her smallpox scars disappeared. Two of the Kateris prayed quietly, while the third had long ago discarded her faith and was now trying to pry a spring loose from her seat to use as a weapon. Teddy, who had a white father, sat with his half-brother, Tyrone, who had a black father. Billy the Retard was smiling. I wondered if this new world was the world he’d been living in all along and if he was now happy that the rest of the Indian kids had finally joined him. Sam the Indian, who was really white, trembled in the seat across the aisle from me.
    “Jonah, is it real?” asked Sam the Indian. He was a small boy, the subject of a thousand reservation schoolyard taunts, but none of that mattered in the bus. At that moment, as we all traveled together down the longest highway in tribal history, Sam the Indian was instantly loved and beloved by all of the Indians on that bus. Sam the Indian was a white child who loved Indians, who had come to live among us, and who had never been allowed to learn any of our secrets. As we Indians cowered in our seats, we all made silent apologies to Sam. We all said silent prayers for his safety because we had all, collectively and unconsciously, just decided that Sam’s pale skin contained some kind of magic. We thought the white soldiers would notice Sam’s white skin and call him brother. We thought they’d lift Sam to their shoulders in celebration, in some kind of strange and raucous ceremony, and carry him away while all of us Indian children made our escape. We all thought Sam could save us, but I was the only one who spoke to him.
    “Help us,” I said to Sam.
    Sam did not understand.
    “Jonah,” he said. “Is this real?”
    “It’s real,” I said.
    “Quiet,” said the white soldier standing between us.
    Sam the Indian looked from me to the soldier and back to me.
    “Why is it real?” asked Sam the Indian.
    “Quiet,” said the white soldier again without looking at us. I was happy I didn’t have to answer Sam’s question. I’m not sure what I would have said. And if I had told the truth, if I had given Sam an answer that was close to the truth, I might have lost all hope and faith. I might have closed my eyes and never opened them again.
    “Why is it real?” asked Sam again.
    “Shut up,” said the white soldier. He swallowed hard. I wondered if he hated us. I couldn’t see any obvious hate in his blue eyes. I studied the eyes of all of the soldiers. Five of the white soldiers had blue eyes, one had green, one had hazel, and the other had brown. One of the black soldiers had light brown eyes but I couldn’t see the eyes of the other black soldier, who was driving the bus.
    I studied the face of the soldier-who-looked-like-me. He was the tallest soldier. He had a cross tattooed on the back of his right hand. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen. He had brown eyes and skin. His hair was blacker than mine. He had a thin purple scar that arced from the corner of his left eye back toward his ear. His eyes passed over me as he scanned the faces of his prisoners. It was not enough. I wanted him to study my face as carefully as I was studying his face. I wanted him to tell me why