Big Wheat by Richard A. Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

Twain,” he said. “Damn good writer, for a white boy.”
    “I’ll take your word for it. We don’t have a library back home.”
    “We don’t have them in the Nations, either, but once I hopped freight trains all the way to Chicago and worked in the stockyards for a while, herding cows into a slaughterhouse. Not a place you want to be, Chicago, but you could get books there. Would you believe I am Ten Bears?” He was grinning now.
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I seem to remember that Ten Bears was some kind of warrior chief who died out in Arizona or New Mexico in the Plains Indian Wars.”
    “You’re pretty smart.”
    “I went to school.”
    “It was New Mexico,” the man said, nodding. “He was a Comanche.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t tell one from another.”
    “Comanches look mad all the time. Always did. I am Lakota.” He held out his hand again. “George,” he said. “You couldn’t pronounce my other name, but it means raven wing.”
    “I’m glad to meet you, George Ravenwing.” He shifted the shovel handle into his left hand and offered his right one to shake. “I’m Charlie Krueger.”
    “We have boiling water, Charlie Krueger. Now you will see how an Indian makes coffee.”
    “If it’s coffee, I’ll like it, no matter how you do it. I’ll fix us some eggs.”
    Charlie used his knife to slide the bacon rashers off the shovel and onto a piece of waxed paper, being careful not to spill the grease. Then he carefully propped the hot shovel level on a patch of bare ground and began breaking eggs into the grease. He couldn’t see the rest of the eggs surviving another day in his pack, so he cooked them all. “I haven’t got any bread left,” he said. “Sorry.”
    “I have some. It’s Indian bread, though. You ever have any?”
    “No, but it’s got to be better than grass or straw.”
    “And they say white folks are stupid.”
    “Who says?”
    “All the real people.”
    He couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he concentrated on the eggs. When the whites had turned completely opaque, he did a quick flipping motion with the shovel, tossing them neatly into the air like birds in formation and catching all but one in the properly inverted position. One was crumpled on its own edge, the yolk broken and running into the hot grease. “I’ll eat that one,” he said.
    “Not unless you want to fight me for it.” George Ravenwing laid out roughly sliced rounds of coarse white bread on the grass and motioned Charlie to slide the eggs onto them. Then he poured coffee for both of them. Charlie hadn’t realized how badly he wanted some until the smell hit him from the rim of his cup. He made a small gesture of salute and thanks, and George nodded approvingly. The bacon was cool enough to handle with their fingers now, and they ate it that way. If he had been on his own, Charlie would have had a bit of trouble figuring out how to eat the eggs, with neither bread to make a sandwich nor a plate to put them on.
    “Seems to me if you’re planning to camp out for a long time, Charlie Krueger, you need a lot better bunch of gear. Or maybe you’re on a vision quest?”
    “I don’t know what that is.”
    “Young Cheyenne braves, sometimes Lakota, too, go out to starve a little and to hear the voices of the wilderness and learn the truth of their souls. They don’t take any gear with them, except a knife and maybe a water bag.”
    “I don’t want to hear the truth of my soul, and I damn sure don’t want to starve. I’m just looking for a job.”
    “Well, there’s plenty of them around these days, unless you’re an Indian.”
    “Yeah, right. And unless you’re bent out of shape, I bet.”
    “I can say such things about my own people,” said George, “but you should not. No matter how you mean it, it comes out sounding full of hate.”
    “You’re probably right,” said Charlie. After a moment of thought and a flickering memory of his spite-filled parents, he