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Preface

On the Trail documents a walk from Kansas to Washington DC that protested the

construction of a highway through sacred wetlands. For nearly 30 years, the South Lawrence

Trafficway (SLT) plan 32B was controversial: The SLT would destroy 6 miles of the Wakarusa

Wetlands located behind Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU). To many in this

community, the wetlands are not only ecologically unique, but burial ground.

HINU was founded as the United States Indian Industrial Training School in 1884, north

of the Wakarusa tributary of the Kansas River. In the late nineties, student research into the

National Archives supported the rumor that the wetlands contain unmarked graves of some of the

school’s earliest students. This allegation helped thwart the plans for the SLT plan 32B but could

not eradicate them. It pointed out a paradox that had affected other “sacred places” over the

country: the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act actually aids developers.

The act prohibits the disclosure of Native America graves, yet without that evidence, what law

would protect this site from desecration?

Lawsuits against the Kansas Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway

Administration were coming their ends, and the courts supported the construction of the SLT for

economic reasons. An ambitious junior at Haskell, my neighbor, Millie, began to organize a walk

to Washington DC, connecting the wetlands issue to the larger context of “protecting sacred

places.” Millie contacted the National Congress of American Indians, who sent her a piece of

draft legislation that would amend the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to include the

federal protection of sites where ceremonies, observance, or worship occur, in other words,

places considered sacred, such as the Wakarusa Wetlands. We named it the Protection of Native

American Sacred Places Act and carried it with us to the capitol.

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Navajo, Blackfeet, and a former Army cadet, Millie spoke with power. She led people on

tours of the wetlands, but I could envision people following her in a different way, and so I was

eager to help with and join the walk. Millie’s strong personality, however, lost many people’s

support. Nevertheless, by May we had wrangled 13 people, and we left Lawrence with the intent

to cover 30 miles a day, with three teams walking 10 miles each, like a relay. On the walk, we

soon discovered we were enormously unprepared, and the Trail of Broken Promises, as Millie

named it, became very different from what it set out to be.

All of our conflicts aside, fearing our failed campaign would be ultimately forgotten, I

compiled journal entries and news articles from the walk and held interviews in order to

reconstruct the Trail, thinking about the disappearance of wetlands, indigenous history, and

memory in general. I consider the work a documentary—it describes the SLT controversy and

the sequence of towns and trials we encountered—but it is also personal in that through the

process of writing it, I trusted my observations and described the moments I considered

meaningful. I used poetry, prose, and documents to weave an American narrative broader than

that of the Trail of Broken Promises related to rebellion and defeat—what I felt we had

experienced upon returning home, when the SLT was approved in court and Lawrence, Kansas,

didn’t know we had even been gone.

Perhaps most troubling, none of us who were on the walk could explain what had caused

our arguments on the Trail, or why the Trail was so difficult to endure. This, then, is my attempt

to find meaning in that two-month-long trek across the country that followed the route of the

1838 Potawatomi Trail of Death, crossed into other histories like that of Tecumseh and the

Prophet versus the US Army, and walked in its own path to the end.

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WAKARUSA WETLANDS

Standing in the Haskell garden, a dirt plot in the hot field,

notice the storm darken south in the spring.

Somewhere in those trees, know a tributary branches:

the quiet Wakarusa, meandering the outskirts of the town.

This was the United States Indian Industrial Training School.

The government “bedded” the land, let the water out

and the boys pulled their tools in rows through the soil.

The cemetery sprouted headstones, the water gathered still.

Ledger and legend differ: 103 tombstones. 1,000 missing students.

Epidemics of Tuberculosis, Trachoma, Runaways.

The children went into the wetlands in all three cases,

where the Wakarusa floods onto the clay-based plain.

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THE PROTECTION OF NATIVE AMERICAN GRAVES

Some put their dead in boats and they drifted off to sea

others built pyres and put their dead in the sky.

The 103 students in the Haskell Cemetery lay in boxes. They were given

Christian names when they arrived, Christian burials when they died.

But those who died in the wetlands are buried freely.

A professor told me about three skeletons

he found chained together beneath a tree. One had been shot

in the head, another’s jaw missing. The roots had grown around them.

Divide scientists from spiritualists, developers from elders.

What would it change to reveal where he found them?

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PLAN 32B

The green line on the blueprint: .75 miles south of Haskell Indian Nations University, .37 miles

north of “virgin meadows.”

Cost Project

Number

Route Type Description Start Date

$117, 000

K-9667-06

K-10

Expansion

Access Points

(Orscheln’s) on

K-10 in Douglas

County

Jun –2011

$186,100,000

K-8392-04

K-10

Expansion

Construct K-10

Connection:

South Lawrence

Trafficway

Oct-2013

$19,835,000

KA-1826-01

K-10

Expansion

Interchange

Improvements in

Lawrence (SLT)

Apr- 2014

$201,000

KA-2362-01

K-10

Modernization

Toll Feasibility

Study South

Lawrence

Trafficway (SLT)

TBD

Mah-bidz-uh-gidz

It’s a beautiful day.

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THE BUFFALO HARVEST

To promote the walk, Millie had invited the Buffalo Council from western Colorado to have a

Buffalo Harvest ceremony with us. It was a week before our departure, and the buffalo had been

shot in its cage at sunrise. I stood behind the canopies that sheltered the Council, six of whom

were women and one a child, from an erratic spring rain as they worked. All around, people were

hurriedly preparing the last of the feast additions in a cautious humidity. When it thundered, it

was like a response to the six men drumming.

LaNada Warjack, our honorary guest who had occupied Alcatraz as a young woman, drifted

amongst the people. Smoke flew from the sage braids she waved and to would offer to a person

standing near. Sometimes the thin smoke would go out. She blew into the braid until the embers

were alight, and the smoke would circle around her again. Like this, LaNada was near Shireen

and Shireen’s mother. Shireen saw the braid extended towards her and did not know what to do.

The woman’s long lips curled into a smile.

“Wash,” she said.

LaNada’s hand cusped at airy smoke and brought it close to her shoulder, then up over her long

hair.

At the boundary of trees, a van appeared. I walked away to join Mary. She was near the steel

table, on top of which thighs of the buffalo were chopped and thrown onto ice.

“The news is here,” she said.

We watched where a camera was set up and around which a group stood, and Mufasa and TC

were quick to join them. Mufasa and TC could talk ecstatically about issues like the illegal trucks

that cracked the roads on their reservations, all the while playful yet grave. Some of us were

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uneasy then, too. The feast was underprepared, a storm neared, and though people expected her,

Millie stubbornly had stayed home.

Finally the food was ready and a long line formed, but by the time Mary and I sat down with our

food by our friends, the fry bread was gone and still half the people unfed.

“This is all wrong without Millie here. She should be giving a speech, or talking to the news."

“She said these people were mean to her face.”

“Well, I don’t believe that. She did something to deserve any reactions she got, I guarantee it.”

“This meat is hard to chew.”

The meat had a wild, gamey taste. Impossible for the teeth to tear, people gnawed as they could

on the meat, but eventually spit it out for the bolus to decompose on the forest floor where,

increasingly, rogue drops of rain fell. Then, one profound clap of thunder tore what resistance the

clouds had kept for most of the day. Parents took the cue to fold up their chairs, pick up their

children, and run up the hill to the car. The teenagers reacted behind them, and the Buffalo

Council worked soberly under the tent, watching their patrons vanish between bouts of lightning.

Millie was in her room, in her bed that took up most of it, sitting upright. On the walls, Millie

had made tally marks with pink chalk that counted down the days to May 13th. Mary, Mufasa,

and I sat with her, telling her about the harvest. Several beer cans adorned her table. We played

music on YouTube, and behind it, we heard the rain stop.

Mufasa tried to change a song Millie had chosen, and she became agitated, seemingly climbing

out of the covers and into them at the same time. She told us to get out, and I did. The others

were on the porch. We stood outside in an orange evening—the sky was pink, the trees turning

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sepia, the clouds purple, traveling fast overhead. Mufasa came outside and said Millie had a

knife to her arm.

In a moment of quiet, we heard the storm coming back. Inside, we felt static in the apartment and

the Buffalo Council arriving outside as we stood around Millie. Millie had scars on her arm

already. She called her dad, and when he didn’t answer, Millie closed her eyes and started

singing in Navajo. With one hand she hit the walls until thunder was distant and three women

from the Council opened the door.

Mille stopped, leveling a dark stare at them. They saddened, and asked if they could pray for her.

Mufasa said they could. They lit sage and the woman most inside the room, which was only big

enough for two of them, said that they appreciated what we were doing. She said that if she

could, she would come on the walk. Millie said to get the fuck out of her room. The young girl in

the middle started to cry. Mufasa tried to reason with Millie but Millie held the knife closer and

yelled louder to drown out all other words, blending her anger back into the song and hitting her

fist again against the wall until only she and I were left.

We sat facing each other, but her head was bowed and her hair fell like black curtains to her

calves. She said she was glad I wasn’t saying anything, and lit a cigarette. I did, too, and watched

the smoke curl through the space between us.

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TRAIL OF DEATH

Why did we follow—backwards—the trail of the removed Potawatomi, they to Kansas from

Indiana?

Mary said, "In the beginning, we were figuring out the way we'd go, dividing up sections

according to the amount of miles our bodies could handle each day. The Trail of Death had

markers for that."

Journals and newspaper clippings settled in the museums of the old North West.

A big room with the pine smell of aged but cared-for cabinets

houses the brittle papers on which General Tipton’s diarists wrote.

Yet the physical integrity of the event, the evidence bedded

in the grasses of those small towns?

Markers were dedicated to the 859 members of Chief Menominee’s tribe,

the last Potawatomi people in northern Indiana to refuse to be dispossessed,

marched 62 days across the cold country in 1838.

We will follow the markers, half-moon boulders,

from the Kansas–Missouri border to the lakes.

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MAY THIRTEENTH

Late in the evening several of the chiefs came to headquarters and requested to remain in camp

tomorrow. But the journey being so nearly completed and the scarcity of forage and provisions

induced the conductor to deny their request and insist upon traveling.

"This is sacred wood," Millie says in the morning, kneeling before the wall of trees in the

wetlands, farthest from the road, at the end of a long, gravel-to-dirt path. "Children were dragged

here and killed, or wandered here to die."

In the woods, we say prayers around a fire, each sprinkling sage into the flame, and then walk

back through the wetlands to the medicine wheel, an earth-work, where the guys camped last

night. Half of us have never met them. Following the prayer ties that hang from the branches, we

circle the tall wheat and see their tents are empty. Itinerary is a fickle thing, we discover, sitting

in the shade by the Haskell cemetery.

A car parks—a boy lands like a tripod, sweeps long brown hair from his face, and says "I'm

Wayne." Then Mark appears, tall with a trim ginger beard, slightly bow-legged, followed by

Chad, a soldier in a fisherman's hat, and Isaac, big, quiet, eyes in sunglasses, behind them. The

four wear hiking packs, ready, they will say, to walk every mile to Washington.

This is a story that began with girls—that's why Millie's uncle flew in from Arizona, our elder

who camped for a week at the Harvest ground, why Trey, the traditional singer and drummer,

holds Millie's hand.

When we walk through Lawrence, Millie’s uncle, Moey, carries a walking stick he picked from

the wetlands. Trey warbles a traditional song as he leads our group through downtown. Chad

walks with the American flag, and the rest of us hold signs, five of which, together, read our

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name: the Trail of Broken Promises. The twelve of us look back from the bridge. Brown, red

buildings bend away, and the Kansas River, the Kaw, bows east.

Animal Team Mark, Wayne, Crisco, Isaac

Land Team Jackson, Mary, Blind Willie Science, Chad, Julia

People Team Millie, Trey

Drivers Stanley, Shireen

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SHAWNEE JIM

The United Tribe of Shawnee invited us to camp on their land in De Soto, Kansas, outside of

federal jurisdiction—the tribe consisting of “Shawnee Jim” Sr. and Jim Jr. Signs on the side of

the highway read “Cigarettes $25 Carton” and “Fireworks Sold Here by the United Tribe of

Shawnee Available Year Round,” and a driveway veers traffic into the property.

Our camp is set up around a big fire, the highway still visible.

“People coming to the tobacco shop keep asking if we’ve got squatters,” Jim Jr. says, “I tell them

yea, Johnson County.”

On benches around the fire, Shireen and the boys are loud—they seem to be quizzing each other

on obscure references.

“Dude,” she says to me, “you have no idea how epic these guys looked when I picked them up.

They were walking on the railroad track with that goddamn American flag.”

We feed the fire, make sandwiches, share cigarettes. For having never met, this group is as riled

as college friends get. People laugh and yell over each other. All the while, Shawnee Jim Jr. is

perched on a pile of fire wood, smiling and interjecting every now and then.

“You all know what Wakarusa means?” he asks. “A long time ago, a beautiful Indian girl was

walking and came to the river. She started into the water to cross it, but the water got deeper and

deeper, until she stopped and said ‘wakarusa,’ or ‘knee-high.’ Others say she said, ‘ass-deep.’”

Night falls, and Jim Jr. brings out a box of fireworks. Wayne positions the first one in the field.

We hold our breaths, he runs back and trips—it sizzles, and erupts into a little fountain. But the

next one cracks like a pistol among the new stars, filling us with an air of importance and

anticipation.

Halfway into the box, police lights come up the driveway. Shawnee Jim Jr. gets excited.

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“Hi. I’m the deputy,” he says to them. “The sheriff’s inside.”

“People are calling us because of the noise,” one officer says, and we laugh until they leave.

“Thank you for protecting our water,” Moey says after them. “Now, please protect us from those

scary Indians!”

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[Johnson County Golf Course – White Feather Spring]

In the morning, a car arrives. It’s Mufasa, joining. Land team walks from wealthy suburb to leafy

suburb, to Ruby Avenue—a rose bush by the concrete step. A dead-end street and the gorge. The

sign on the gate reads: This ancient spring marks the heart of the last Prophetstown of the

Shawnee Indians. Tensquatawa, brother of the great Tecumseh, was buried here in 1837.

As a boy, his name was Lalawethika, or “he who makes a loud noise,” and his older brother was

the strong, talented, and good Tecumseh. Lalawethika lost one eye in a hunting accident when he

was a child in modern-day Ohio, and as a man, he became a disreputable drunk. One night,

Lalawethika passed out and rolled into the fire, where he died. But he was reborn—as

Tensquatawa, “the open door.” Tensquatawa had visions. Alongside his brother, he preached of a

return to traditions, gained followers, and was called the Prophet.

When the Prophet died, again, of old age in Kansas, his burial was attended by a small group of

people, one of whom was the young Charles Bluejacket. Bluejacket would become famous for

his crossing on the Wakarusa. Sixty years after the Prophet’s burial, a man commissioned him to

locate the Prophet’s unmarked grave.

From the Kansas City Sun, October 1, 1897: “Bluejacket said he didn’t really know where he

was: the trees had grown big and the whole face of the country had changed. Some of the settlers

maintained that we were near the hallowed spot, others said it was near Shawnee; but Bluejacket

contended it was near a spring.”

A temporary marker was put on the Prophet’s supposed grave, but a permanent one never

replaced it.

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KANSAS CITY STAR

Streams of gray smoke from burning sage and cedar swirled into the air, and an American Indian

intertribal honor chant rose above the chirp of birds at Pioneer Springs Park in Independence.

Cupping an abalone shell filled with the burning embers, Millicent Goodrider—part Blackfeet,

part Navajo—waved smoke around her body from head to toe and then did the same for her 13

fellow travelers. Together they blessed the nameless Potawatomi Indian who is buried in the

park.

Goodrider said she and the other students from Haskell Indian Nations University and the

University of Kansas are on a journey — the “Trail of Broken Promises” — walking from

Lawrence to the nation’s capitol to save the Wakarusa wetlands from being paved over for the

long-proposed South Lawrence Trafficway.

The matter has been tied up in court off and on for more than a quarter century. Now, Kansas

transportation officials say, a decision from the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that is

expected later this month could finally end the dispute.

The students blessing the Potawatomi burial place on Monday had already traveled about 60

miles that day, including 30 miles on foot, starting near Lawrence.

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FRONT PAGE

After reaching camp in the evening a small quantity of shoes were distributed among the

emigrants.

Take a trip to the spigot in the morning. We tighten our shoes, shine our skin with sunscreen, and

drive to Napoleon, Missouri. About fifteen people watch us fall out of our cars—we come to the

marker and form a big circle with them, with everyone in the sun, at attention. Millie holds her

shell, Crisco assembles the flag. We introduce ourselves. And Kansas, and the wetlands, a life

story, a study, hopes and dreams (the micro-commotions in the grass) (that circle in the sun), and

the final song: a man staggers in the heat.

[Wellington—Lexington]

This morning, the Indians with Ash-kum at their head came to headquarters and informed the

conductor of some difficulties which they were fearful might occur in the exercise of the

unrestricted power claimed by I-o-weh, whom they did not choose to acknowledge as a chief of

the blood. They also requested information in regard to their annuities, etc. Judge Polke hoped

that they would cease to speak of a subject which could not be of benefit to them, but on the other

hand might affect the progress of the emigration...A child died after night some time.

The thin road gets shade from bright green corn and turns, to blind-spot us at its crook as it enters

trees. Inside, railroad tracks flirt with a glinting river, parallel with the road, which stalks both

through the forest. A young boy comes outside from his nearly hidden home. Concerned, he asks

what we’re doing, and we say “walking to DC.” He runs inside and brings us back cold water

bottles.

In Lexington, the Madonna of the Trail overshadows us—an 18-ft-tall monument of algonite

stone, the woman holding her baby to her breast, boy pulling at her pioneer dress, stony brow

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frowning west. And there, a few steps north, is the marker, like an erratic boulder, small and

misplaced.

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RICHMOND DAILY NEWS

On Tuesday, a group of 13 Haskell Indian Nation University and University of Kansas students

and a dog named Willie assembled near the markers after a leg of their own journey. The

students left Lawrence, Kan., on May 13 and will retrace the Potawatomi trail, much of it on

foot, but in reverse.

There was some rejoicing on Tuesday…when one of the walking groups reached the RHS

parking lot at around 6 p.m. Five walkers—Stanley Perry, Mark R. Olsen, Wayne Yandell, Isaac

Mitchell and Chad Chrisco—made it on foot from Lexington to Richmond.

At 8 o’clock we left our encampment and at 10 reached the Missouri River, opposite Lexington.

We immediately commenced ferrying, and shall perhaps be able to get the wagons all over

before night. We found the ferry engaged in transporting females who were flying from their

homes. Great excitement prevails. Reports are rife throughout the country of bloodshed, house-

burning, etc. The people seem completely crazed. By sunset all the wagons save a few were on

the opposite bank of the river. Early in the morning we shall proceed to cross the Indians.

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NOBLE

Outside of Richmond High, a woman comes up to us. Taking off her sunglasses, we can see her

eyes are full of tears. She says, “I’ve been waiting for you.” We are startled and apologize,

asking how long she’s waited. She says “twelve years.”

Her name is J. Noble, and she lets us camp in her backyard. Her husband and son stand in their

driveway, watching her walk us around the house. By nightfall, Trey is cooking meat on the

barbeque. J. comes outside and asks if she can pray with us. We gather in the corner of the yard

by a tree.

She begins a long prayer: “Lord, I believe you have brought these young people together to do

your divine work. They walk on this land which has seen evil, and it is the land that retains the

curse. May you help them reverse that curse!”

We are twelve following Millie, we are archetypes. I saw Millie preaching in the living room,

speaking Navajo on stage. And when the landscape opened, so did history. Mindsets. We are

reenacting something biblical. A typology waits in those selfish moments we take in the shade.

We are powerful and yet vulnerable to some fate, whether only to question if we define our own

trail, on top of these others we walk.

“May you protect these thirteen on their long journey! I believe they are your divinely appointed

people! I believe! I believe! The food is on fire!”

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[Hardin – Norborne]

The map is like an upside-down L, and there are almost no cars here. After the turn, Willie

waddles in the ditch and muddies his white fur in water that looks like the Nile, trimmed with

cattails, in the way it navigates on not exactly parallel with the road but in its own slow course—

everything about this land comes to seem low, de-elevated in relation to every other place. The

cars we see coming from far away, and we walk like lost or rambling souls, wavering in the

middle of the road. We near two men working in a field. They call out, “Where are you going?”

and we ask, “How much farther to Norborne?” “You see that water tower?” It’s on the horizon,

if you hold out your hand and measure an inch big. From then on, that water tower does not get

bigger. A Yamaha mule drives by and we hold out our thumbs. The women inside stop and look

confused but nevertheless let us hop on the back of their vehicle. In about five minutes we crane

our necks beneath that water tower and find Mufasa waiting one street away.

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CARROLTON

Journey was made long by scarcity of water and timber and the absence of provisions and

forage. Some time after our encampment the Conductor was waited upon by a gentleman, whom

it appeared had been delegated by the citizen of Richmond (a village near us) to request

assistance as they really anticipated an attack from the Mormons tonight.

In Carrolton, Trey tells the reporter:

The first song we sang was a flag song. That flag travels in front, and when the flag gets here, we

greet that flag and we sing a flag song to honor it before we retire it for the night. And, uh, we do

that every night followed by the smudge, you know, which is cedar and sage. The sage is

purification, it purifies you from negativity, where the cedar is more of a direct, uh, holy smoke,

where you bless yourself, and we do that to honor this place where we’re at, this marker where

something happened.

We were told along the way that some of these spots were grave markers for the people that fell

along the Trail of Death, and given that, we honor them by smudging ourselves, putting some

tobacco down and smudging that grave, like that, to let ‘em know that our ancestors are there,

you know, in a respectful way. Following that, usually there’s the honor song, to honor our

ancestors that were here and may still be here on this property or who have gone and taken that

journey up to heaven long ago…then we introduce ourselves, speak about our cause, the reason

that we’re walking, you know, why we’re committed to taking this to Washington, DC. And then

the closing prayer, we pray for all these people here, everyone that came here to join us today.

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BRUNSWICK

Crisco and Squirtle have blisters so they don’t walk today but set up camp by the park pavilion in

Brunswick, Missouri. A beautiful young woman, they say when we arrive, brought us dinner—

two tables are covered with food. She comes back as we are eating: a petite, dark haired girl with

her two blonde daughters, accompanied by a giant, homely man with a kind smile. She heard it

was Mark’s birthday, she says, so she brought a cake.

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[Brunswick Rest Day]

In the morning, a little diner invites us all to a free breakfast feast. Afterwards, Mary and

I do laundry at a woman’s house, playing the guitar as we wait, while half of our group mulches

trees in the park. A few of us will visit the town’s retirement home. The woman asks me to play

songs for them.

At the home, I sit between a woman in a wheel chair and man in a veteran’s cap. I play

Shenandoah, the version about the Missouri River, and then I am suddenly shy. But the man to

my right starts to talk to me. His name is Richard Moore. He’s the only of his five brothers to be

living (“I’m lucky,” he says) and his wife passed away five years ago. I say I’m from Kansas and

he says he’s familiar; he used to work in Great Bend on the roads. I’m surprised; it feels like

we’re so far away from home that Kansas has disappeared. In the latter part of summer, he and

his buddies would jump in a truck from there and drive to Washington state to pick apples for 15

cents a bushel. “I could pick a lot of apples,” he says. Another man with watery eyes asks me if

I’m married. I say no, and he says, “You should get married.”

Camp is empty. Shortly after people return, the mayor and his wife bring us fried

chicken, scallop potatoes, salad, homemade bread, and brownies. We wonder, are they fattening

us up to cook us? We have to hurry through the meal because townspeople are waiting for us by

the marker at the marina.

The group is of about fifteen people and we do what has become most natural: we stand

in a circle, Millie makes a broad introduction, then Trey and Mike and Moey sing while Millie

smudges everyone, and then we each introduce ourselves. I look around and see Richard Moore

sitting in the passenger seat of a red truck. When the ceremony is done I go over to talk to him.

He asks me to guess how old he is. I guess late seventies, and he says “92.”

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DE WITT

This morning before leaving camp, a quantity of shoes were distributed among the indigent and

barefooted Indians, the weather being too severe for marching without a covering to the feet.

Nothing occurred on the way. The cold was intense on the prairie. The country through which we

passed today is very much excited. Nothing is heard—nothing is talked of but the Mormons and

the difficulties between them and the citizens of Upper Missouri.

I want all of us to go, but only six of us get into a car for the nearby town of De Witt, where a

marker lies. In De Witt, we meet the Riddles. Don wears suspenders and smokes a cigarette

every five minutes. His wife Mary stands with her hands behind her back and laughs along to his

story about a Civil War soldier who was shot in the cheek and his only grievance was that he lost

his plug of tobacco.

People ask us questions and we tell them about the wetlands, which makes us feel good. One

woman wants to know what powwows are for and confuses “Haskell” for “high school.” They

all accompany us to the marker for a prayer, and at the end, we collect $87 in a woven basket.

“That was great you guys,” Millie says in the car. “Maybe we should pass around a basket to

non-native people and a blanket to natives from now on.” We laugh. But Chad, who sits squished

in the back seat, tenses his body up, uncomfortable or disgusted. “That’s so prejudiced,” he says.

It’s dark when we drive into camp. Mark and Shireen play checkers and the others sit around the

same table. On arriving, Millie sits on top of it. She says that she thinks next time, we should

arrive places as a group.

“So what are rest days for?” Mark asks, agitated. “I’ve been walking ten, eleven, twelve miles

for days in a row, my feet fucking hurt. It’s a ‘rest day.’”

After an argument, Millie goes to bed, which makes Mark even angrier. Mary, Chad, and I go on

a walk with the dog. We come back to the park and spot the embers of cigarettes in the darkness

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down the hill. It’s quiet when we get to the benches the boys sit on, but they soon continue their

discussion. “She wasn’t raised traditional, she just puts on a show,” one says.

Soon, Jo comes by bringing buffalo wings. You can hear the group talking and laughing around

the fire with her all night.

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[Brunswick Rest Day]

A chant wants everyone awake:

A garden patch with pikes of sage to clip

and bundle on the dark wood table.

And Moey says:

A little dog

used to yap

what’s that

what’s that?

and the adults

would laugh

at the dog

while the kids

ran around

until the baby’s

first words,

looking at

dinner, asked

what’s that?

27

THE MISSOURI RIVER

This morning was early employed in ferrying the remainder of the wagons. By 12 o'clock all

were across, and we prepared for the continuation of our journey. The bottom lands of the

Missouri being too flat and wet to encamp upon, an hour longer than was essentially necessary.

At 1 o'clock we left Grand River encampment and passing over prairies (the cold being severe)

arrived at Thomas Encampment at a little after 4, a distance of 10 miles. Subsistence beef, flour

and corn. Forage corn and corn fodder

River boats stall at the marina. Mark is in his tent, upset that Trey yelled at everyone to wake up

at 7 am. Jackson, Shireen, Crisco, Twain, Moey, and I go to the dock to meet the Missouri

Stream Team, a volunteer organization that cleans up the river. The earthy team shows us their

map.

“When high water recedes after a storm, washing machines and refrigerators and tires end up on

the banks,” a woman with dreadlocks says. “Bends in the river gather trash.” We’re going to split

up into two boats. Crisco and Shireen argue quietly about who goes in the same boat as Moey.

28

SHOWDOWN IN THE PARK PAVILION

At night, my ear is to the ground. I hear a train moaning beside the river. The ghost of history, in

dirty pinstripes, haunts the edge of town, chattering like the tracks. Mark’s voice comes from

afar. Soon it is in camp. He has been gone all day. Another voice meets his. Mary sits up to

listen. “The café offered me a job. I love to cook, man. They said they’d find me a place to live.”

“No! This is nothing!” Twain says. “This is Brunswick, Missouri! I will burn this fucking place

down.” “I can’t keep being disrespected. I’m 28 and I’m too old for bullshit.” Within minutes, all

but three are around him, trying to understand, trying to change his mind, being the only noise,

the pavilion the only light, in the middle of the dark, romantic town. “Everyone judges me

because I’ve been to prison. Now everyone thinks I’m a pussy. And look! Who hasn’t even come

out of her tent? Millie doesn’t give a shit about us.”

Finally Millie emerges, followed by Trey and Moey. Her eyes are dark and tired, indifferent

perhaps. Moey sits, crossing a leg, on the opposite side of the pavilion with Millie and Trey

standing behind him. He says that Mark is wrong to be mean to his niece. Mark says, “I refuse to

respect you.” “You are no elder,” Crisco adds. Trey’s low, hollow voice comes after him, and

soon the whole group is yelling once again. Animal team says that last night, Jo said that her late

husband had burned their house down around him to kill himself. Later, People team said they

saw his ghost as an excuse to get them to go to bed. “I’m sorry!” Moey says in his slurred accent.

"I don’t know what I do sometimes. I got hit in the head when I was a kid.” He tells a story about

boarding school in Arizona. He says that there was a spelling bee. He was asked to spell

“straight.” “S-H-I-T,” he said and was whipped in front of the school. Then he chuckles, and he

goes to bed. For some reason, in a newfound quiet, Mark says he’ll stay.

29

SALISBURY

Bittersweet Brunswick, goodbye!

In Salisbury, People Team never arrives.

A woman meets us at the marker

she stays through Mary’s prayer, hands us

a local paper, and says her family lived here

in the 1830s. On the front page:

“12 Students on Trail of Broken Promises.”

We think, there are thirteen of us.

30

[Salisbury – Moberly, Mo]

At 8 the snow commenced falling very fast. And continued during the greater part of the day.

Traveling was difficult, the road being exceedingly slippery and the snow falling so fast as to

render very cold and unpleasant the whole journey. At 3 o’clock we reached our encampment

near Huntsville, about 13 miles from Burkhart’s. The snow at night changed to rain, which

almost inundated the encampment. A quantity of straw was procured, which generally

distributed throughout the camp rendered the Indians tolerably comfortable for the night.

Six deep, step out with walking sticks

and walk, the flag followed by the Eagle staff

followed by footsteps in the gravel margin

a rhythm in the dust.

Take shapes like soldiers, formations

changing with pace, often two

and one and two behind the flag, often

two and three, first and then last.

The commotion raises dust in clouds;

we walk through covering our mouths.

31

POTAWATOMI PREIST

And Father Petit* said:

The order of the march was as follows: the United States flag, carried by a dragoon; then one of

the principal officers, next the staff baggage carts, then the carriage, which during the whole trip

was kept for the use of the Indian chiefs; then one or two chiefs on horseback led a line of 250 or

300 horses ridden by men, women, children in single file, after the manner of savages. On the

flanks of the line at equal distance from each other were the dragoons and volunteers, hastening

the stragglers, often with severe gestures and bitter words. After this cavalry came a file of 40

baggage wagons filled with luggage and Indians. The sick were lying in them, rudely jolted,

under a canvas which, far from protecting them from the dust and heat, only deprived them of

air, for they were as if buried under this burning canopy—several died thus.

*Father Bejamin Petit was a French Catholic missionary who rode alongside the Potawatomi,

performing baptisms and tending to the sick. He became ill at the end of the trail, and died in St.

Luis at 27 years old.

32

MOBERLY

Moey and Isaac sit around the stone fire pit. We clump into the chairs, too, and wait for

everyone. Later, a few of us go to McDonalds for Wi-Fi—my eyes are tired and irritated and turn

red. I call a list of people with the Trail of Death Association, one of whom asks me how I got

her home phone number. I tell her we are the Trail of Broken Promises and will be gathered

around the marker tomorrow. When we get back to camp, I go straight to sleep without a blanket

and on uneven ground. I wake up when other people enter the tent but am too tired to mind.

33

PARIS

Topographical dreams, ripped thought,

a hundred miles condensed—

Slowly getting up, slowly into the day,

smoke in streams, perforated light.

Eat and

break camp.

Land team is Mary, Chad, and me. As soon as we begin walking, the gravel shoulder of 24 E

chalks the air around us. A tired humidity burdens our steps. Against the grey sky and Chad’s

reddening back, a little yellow butterfly swims towards us. Chad reaches out, the butterfly lands

momentarily on his forearm and pushes off again.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask Chad.

“Kind of,” he says, smirking and watching his feet.

“Where are they?”

“Horrible places. Small, terrible towns.”

“Where do your parents live?”

“I don’t know. I grew up in a few foster homes.”

It surprises me that I consider us friends but didn’t know this about Chad. We try to entertain

ourselves with other talk, occasionally putting a thumb out to passing cars. We stop in the town

we pass through to get ice cream, where some workers offer us a ride, which we refuse, and

finally reaching road AA back on the busy highway, Mufasa picks us up and we drive to the

Paris, Missouri, courthouse, where the marker is in the lawn. We walk up to the group of people

on the sidewalk. I see Millie asking questions, laughing, keeping them entertained. My body is

languid and everyone gravitates together to make a circle. Two little girls and their brother stand

34

by their parents’ legs, middle-aged men and women line around, a group of middle school boys

giggle.

35

CEREMONY

Ceremony involves silence as well as speech

while words peel around a ring, and feathers

tied with leather to the staff droop

against memorial rock in the center.

The Parisians have identities—reasons, interests.

Some are proud to speak aloud. Proud to be present.

Trey plants his feet, hands behind the back, steadying

a gaze upwards, jaw clenched: a tremolo, a cry.

Know the final song. Hum along. But

the words are unknown, the meaning?

We do not always trust what we’ve said

and what we’ve heard spoken.

36

And Wayne said:

We wanted to give our respects and to remember, but we didn’t know what amount of the

spiritual stuff was sensationalism, or selling the “Native American idea.” It became expected that

everyone deal with the ceremony in this way, but that was not going to happen and not because

we’re all from different tribes, but because we have totally different lifestyles and totally

different ideas of the Native American identity, or identity in general.

37

PARIS CONTINUED

The woman I called last night is not pleased. She says we should have contacted her about our

arrival sooner, and Mufasa’s shirt is inappropriate: it reads “Stick It to Me” and features a

woman bent over. The last song Trey sang is stuck in our heads. We sit with our hands skimming

the water of a fountain, humming that final song. Trey explains it as the Red Road song—that

Tunkashila, that prominent word, means grandfather. The Monroe County newspaper editor and

his wife ask if there’s anything we need, and they back away repeating “water, fireworks, chess

set.” Later on, they bring water and a glass chess set to our campsite. A different man talks to

Moey and Millie.

“You guys hear that?” Moey yells. “If you wake up early like you’re supposed to, this man will

buy us breakfast. You hear that?”

Mark and Crisco chop up vegetables for dinner in the dark.

At 6 in the morning, we do actually manage to wake up. Jonesy’s Café is a brick building on the

main street. There are ashtrays next to the sugar. The man in the orange hat is T. Crabtree, owner

of a trucking company. He sits next to Moey.

“They look like BFFs,” I say to Millie.

The table gets decorated with breakfast. I catch a part of T. and Moey’s conversation in which

Tom says that his brother came back from the Vietnam War and killed himself.

38

OLD CLINTON

This morning as we were about to leave our encampment, a number of the Indians headed by the

chief Ash-kum came up to Headquarters and requested an interview with the Conductor and

Gen. Morgan. Ask-kum arose and in a short talk informed the Conductor that the Indians were

unwilling that Gen. Morgan whom they had been taught to recognize as principal in the

emigration should leave them. They felt, he continued, that Gen. Morgan was near to them as a

protector—he had made them pledges upon which they depended, and the fulfillment of which

induced them in part to consent to their emigration…The chief I-o-weh dissented in strong terms

from the sentiments expressed by Ash-kum. He stated that these men (alluding to Ash-kum and

his associates) were not chiefs—that they were not entitled to respect as such…Tomorrow we

shall stay in camp.

People team has their car packed so they drive out of Paris. But the rest of us don’t know what to

do, so we argue. Mark gets fed up with the procrastinating, grabs his fanny pack, and leaves. A

mile out of town, a dog on the right-hand side near a barn starts barking and lurches out, and

Mark starts to run. He looks over his shoulder a block later, the dog far behind him sitting erect.

A truck stops and asks if he wants a ride. “No sir, I’m walking to Washington, DC,” he says. Ten

minutes later Shireen picks him up with Crisco and Jackson. They take him back five minutes,

and redirect him east. Jackson joins Mark at the drop off point and they walk together.

39

LOST

“Howdy. This is the beautiful Monday, the 21st of May, and I just finished a 9–10 mile walk

from Paris all the way through Stoutsville, which has a population of a whole 36 people and now

we’re right outside on road 357. It’s a beautiful day. We saw a lot of cool feathers and an owl on

the road that was unfortunately dead,” Jackson says to the camera after Twain, Shireen, Mufasa,

and I find them by a stop sign against a backdrop of overgrown green grass and the rise of the

land the road slumps over.

“What are some of the problems on the Trail of Broken Promises?” I ask.

“Nothing we can’t handle,” Shireen says. “But, most of it is just that all of the individuals feel so

strongly about the cause and this trail…being able to coexist and work together, it’s a process.

Really, the difficulty is all the dynamics of everyone.”

“What about planning?”

“Planning is getting easier. We’ve been unofficially sponsored by McDonalds thanks to their Wi-

Fi.”

“So where’s V?” Twain asks.

“Back there,” Mark points.

“Is that where we need to be?” Shireen asks.

“Yea, if we go down V, that’s where the Old Clinton marker is,” Twain says.

“Is that where we’re meeting the Traditionals?”

Twain and Mark squint in the sunlight.

“I don’t think so,” Mufasa says, “But man, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Welcome to the club,” Shireen says.

40

HANNIBAL

Hannibal lulls the Mississippi—a harmonica-draw,

a chromatic scale to the bluffs above the valley.

The burr oak’s thick cotton veils our campsite, the hours

tick as a hatchet against wood, night falls with the break

of sobriety at a knotted wall of a tavern, cradling golden ale

secretly aside the fire upon our return. Shireen looks up and sees

too many stars so she goes to bed. Mark didn’t go to the bar:

“I didn’t want to look like a bad Indian.”

41

[Rest Day: The Mark Twain Campsite and Cave]

“How do you like Hannibal?” I ask Mufasa.

“The night is quiet,” Mufasa says, “there’s not much interference enjoying the nature around, it’s

calming. I like the feeling especially being from the Rez. It’s sweet serenity.”

Jackson holds The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to his face. He places the book down, and Mary

picks it up. Her eyes follow the lines.

“Mark Twain is racist,” she says, and puts it back down.

42

[Hannibal – Palmyra 9.4 mi]

Subsistence beef and flour. Forage corn and corn fodder. The Indian horses grazed through the

woods…Gen. A Morgan, who has heretofore been acting in the capacity of Assistant

Superintendent in the emigration, gave notice that he should offer his resignation tomorrow.

12:54 Jax and I walk from Hannibal; 31W

The marker sits in a pebble garden spot by the entrance to a Hardees’ Restaurant. We enter the

restaurant, slow and heavy. A farmer sits with his arm around a chair to look backwards at us,

slowly recognizing that he read about our walk in the paper. People fill nearly every booth. They

joke loudly. The man who knows us tells his friends, and while we order hamburgers, he’s

saying, “They’re walking to Washington, DC. It’s a little hot out to do that, don’t you think?”

43

QUINCY JOURNAL DECEMBER 2011

Vegetation overgrowth was cleared in recent weeks by professional archeologists and their

crews. This revealed three Indian burial mounds within a terraced enclosure. Prior to the

clearing work, no one knew how extensive the burial mounds were near the public pool.

44

MISSISSIPPI CROSSING

In order to reach Quincy and forward the ferriage of the river as much as possible, parties of the

emigration were detached and sent ahead at 7 o’clock. At 10 a great portion of the emigrants

had reached the river, 7 miles from the camp of last night. A steam ferry-boat which had been

previously employed, was waiting for us, and the Indians were immediately put on board. By

night we succeeded in crossing all the Indians, horses, and several wagons. The remainder will

be brought over as early as convenient tomorrow. It is with the utmost difficulty that many of the

Indians are restrained from intoxication. A guard has to be kept under arms in every town

through which we pass. Tomorrow will be employed in the payment of the officers and troops. 3

children died since morning.

Land and People teams wait for the Animals near the marker outside a Shell gas station. A

slightly sunburned man in denim shorts arrives. He is Steve Teiken, an archeologist from

Quincy, Il, who is fighting the city to preserve newly found burial mounds. Steve says he knows

how long their walk is—he walked the same route in the seventies after a fight with his

girlfriend.

A two-door Suburban parks across the way. The driver wears a veteran’s cap, a striped short-

sleeve button up, and leather vest. He announces that he has gifts. He-Who-Trips-In-Woods, he

calls himself, dubs Shireen Princess-Trips-In-Woods with the bestowal of an alpaca poncho. His

real name is Tommy.

A woman and her husband come to donate drinks and dinner foods, just in time to cheer with us

as the boys arrive.

“I read about this in the paper and just wanted to help you guys out in any way I could,” she

says. “Is Millie here? I’d love to meet Millie.”

I don’t see Millie anywhere. I tell the woman I’ll go find her.

Millie is on the other side of the building by the marker, burning sage. I tell Millie that there’s a

woman who came to donate food to us and wants to meet her. She takes a water bottle and pours

45

it around the base of the boulder. Her hair falls around her face. She stands up and walks past

me.

All the gifts are gone from Tommy’s trunk. We are about to have a ceremony around the marker.

Mark shakes Tommy’s hand, holding a new shiny walking stick.

“‘Preciate it, man,” Mark says to Tommy, “gonna take it all the way to Washington, DC.”

“Hey,” Tommy calls out to Mark after a few moments. “Tell them, tell them that’s the blood of

the people, don’t you take any more. There’s no more to be had.”

We follow Steve to an RV park across the river, past the vehicles, down a freshly mowed path to

an arena of trees. He arranged for us to camp at the foot of the recently discovered burial

mounds.

46

THE SACRED HOUR

At the hour of the wolf (the darkest

hour) as the tent walls

billow with the outside, draw an arch

and crawl onto earth.

A tall fire stirs in the pit. Slow coos

in the woods, our ashen faces turn

to find but fail. Spill

dust into our palms. We pour it again

in clockwise direction, by the edge of the fire.

Moey’s eyes shut; he prays for his niece.

47

QUINCY HERALD-WHIG MAY 25, 2012

A group of Haskell Indian Nations University students and advocates for cultural rights toured

Indian Mounds Park in Quincy Thursday.

The group left Lawrence, Kan., on Sunday, traveling on foot and by caravan to Washington,

D.C., on "The Trail of Broken Promises"…trying to raise awareness of sites sacred to indigenous

peoples that are being threatened by development.

Organizers are planning for "The Trail of Broken Promises" journey to take 58 days and run

through 44 towns. Once the group gets to Washington, leaders hope to present members of

Congress with a bill that would protect sacred sites.

48

WALKING ON MOUNDS

Millie puts the shell in my hand and tells me to smudge everyone this time. We follow Steve up

the mounds. He asks why Millie, Moey, and Trey are sitting in the car, a photographer behind us.

I say she’s superstitious. “Well, there’s thirteen of you guys, did she think of that?” he says.

Twain wears the alpaca poncho and holds the Eagle staff, narrating our cause to the cameraman.

I smudge those who stand on top of the mound. We cast confused looks down to the car.

49

[Quincy – Liberty, Il]

IN CIRCLES (WRONG TURN)

During the night we were visited by a fall of rain which rendered the traveling today unusually

pleasant. The dust has been completely allayed, and the air much cooled. Water on the route was

only to be found in stagnant ponds. At 3 o’clock we reached our present encampment, which

from the barrenness of the spot in everything save grass, brush and weeds.

A low and heavy sky descends—

Mark, Squirtle, Jackson, and I

on an empty asphalt road, the convex black top,

the cycling heat, earth, and atmosphere.

No compass, no arrows. No city or neighbors.

We’re waiting for cows. But white spray paint on the street,

a bored teenager’s scrawl: Turn Back Now.

Trees in a row begin to spiral.

A street sign. New houses. A man-made lake

the road goes around. Can we be lost

knowing we’ll end where we started—

at the entrance of suburbia?

50

A DISCOURSE IN THE PARK

We’ve come to distrust her in charge

of the funds. Why have we been eating so poorly?

Watch—they disappear in a car as black

as the darkness they’ve left us in.

We must wrestle the money away from her

and we elect you for the job.

You say you won’t take it. We know you’ll

keep the money safe, we say, we trust

you. You wring your hands and relent.

We’ll talk to her soon, and get the money.

51

PEACE PIPE

Liberty lets us sleep in the park. Setting up camp still, someone whistles in the dark, and Millie

tells him, from inside her tent already, not to draw the spirits out. In the morning, a woman

comes to us with a peace pipe, and five of us smoke it with her by the marker. Then, as we are

throwing our bags onto and into the cars, Shireen calls for a meeting. She reads from a piece of

paper: We need to arrange for Mary to handle the PayPal account and donations money. It seems

that money is not being budgeted properly for food—we’re eating bologna sandwiches too often.

Also, respect. Not all of us have the same religious, spiritual, or ceremonial values. Some among

us believe in science more than spirits. Some among us want to be seen as 21st century Native

Americans.

52

OUTSIDER

I watch the problem

chase its own tail—

the open jaw: the public

the uncatchable: identity

the animal: the trail.

I stand and observe

but am ignorant of

the dichotomy—

1. defiance via ritual

2. defiance via its rejection

1. brings the abalone shell

to the feet of a man, then

with the smoke rises,

to the crown of a woman

and downwards, then

pours water into earth.

2. holds the American flag

by the marker—a student

studying environmental

science who doesn’t

quite look “Indian.”

3. walks down the road

with a dog wearing a bowtie.

53

[Liberty – Perry 8 mi]

It was often said that Millie wanted everyone to go home so she could be the Trail, so the Trail

could be her vision—she and I walked on 104 together, down farmland road. She carried the

flag, told me she and Trey would marry in DC. That they would travel around the country and

have a family. Not to tell anybody. I listened to her explain how a girl eventually becomes very

good at math because she starts to think when my child is a certain age, then I will be this age,

and so on. She showed me how to dance at powwows, how part of the dance is being proud to be

woman. There were times plants crowded the road, growing wildly, and we were walking in the

shade of tall trees when she said she’d been praying to the Potawatomi, asking the spirits to

follow us home to Indiana. Then those trees ended and we had a big view. A farmer in a deep

field called out to us, asking where we were going. Millie came to a halt and said, “To

Washington, DC, sir!” He asked if we needed any water, and she told him we had enough.

54

ARGUMENT IN BOONDOCKS CAFÉ

Left encampment opposite Naples at 8 o’clock and reached at a little after 12 our present

encampment at McKee’s Creek, 12 miles from the Illinois River. We were forced today to leave

the road and travel a considerable distance to find water—even such as it is—standing in ponds.

The streams are nearly all dry. Subsistence: beef & flour. Forage of a good character.

In Perry, Boondocks Café

cooks us thirteen burgers and fries

and we sit in their restaurant

and yell at each other.

55

[Naples – Exeter 8.5 mi]

18. Head sw on Carroll St.

19. Turn left onto Fayette St.

20. Turn right at Dark St.

21. Left onto Main St.

22. Continue onto 275 E/ Chambers Rd.

23. Turn left onto 1500 N. /Tash Rd.

24. Turn right onto Albers Ln.

25. Continue onto Hutto Rd./Hulton Rd.

26. Turn right onto IL-1005

27. Turn left onto Apple Pie Ridge Rd.

28. Slight left on Exeter Rd.

29. Continue on Exeter Bluffs Rd.

30. Continue on Main St.

31. Left at center St.

D. Exeter, IL

56

COUNTRY ROADS

Eight of us walk from the bluff towards Exeter. Chad’s skin is all red-clay sunblock, a slingshot

is passed from hand to hand and fireworks thrown, which snap in the grass. The Illinois

landscape fluctuates, road carves up the hills and down, a farm dog follows despite the waving of

him home. After a bridge over a shallow stream, we retire the flag in the town, population 65.

The loneliest mayor lets us do laundry at his house, where in the garage we meet his satin black

mama cat, in the yard, the neighborhood cats he's unwittingly adopted. A family of three brings

soda, lunch, later, willow branches to bend, tie with twine, cover, add hot stones to, a ladle; a

womb.

We lay on a blanket in the shade. My leg is on Jackson’s back when it’s ready. Wayne comes

over and asks if the girls are going to sweat afterwards. None of us can: as Millie would say, we

are on our “moon cycles.” “Wow!” Wayne says, contemplating. “Your bodies synced

up…That’s amazing!” He walks away deep in thought.

Moey will lead the ceremony. Jackson takes his shirt off and follows all the guys, including the

mayor and the little local boy, into the sweat lodge.

Although the ferriage of the river was completed last night before we slept, it was thought

advisable by the Conductor to remain in camp today. The Indians made use of the opportunity

thus afforded, to furnish themselves with moccasins, wash their blankets and clothes, and do

many other thing necessary to their comfort and cleanliness during the remainder of the journey.

The health of the Indians is now almost as good as before we commenced our march from Twin

Lakes—a few days more will entirely recruit them. A young child died in the evening.

57

VENISON

We struck our tents at 8 this morning, and prepared for a march. Owing to the very great

curiosity manifested by the citizens generally, Judge Polke, after being solicited, marched the

emigration into the square, where we remained for 15 or 20 minutes. Presents of tobacco and

pipes in abundance were made by the citizens to the Indians, who appeared quite as much

delighted with the favor shown them as with the excellent music of the Band which escorted us

around the square.

“Millie tapped on the tent and asked if anyone wanted to scout out Jacksonville so I woke up and she,

Trey, and I drove out following the mayor’s red truck. Millie played the Black Lodge Singers loudly and

said she was going home and then was silent the rest of the drive. I protested, but Trey said she was just

“being stupid.” Around Jacksonville, we only found 2 of the 3 markers we set out for and the sun

scorched the top of our heads. The second marker said a little girl fell off a wagon and died there. Moey

told us about a girl whose foot was run over on the Longest Walk, and how people criticized them, but

they just had to keep going. We bought sandwiches to bring back for lunch and I swam and sat in the

stream with Jackson, Mary on shore. It seemed an age since the morning, and we went back to

Jacksonville to the town square, big and empty of any people like a movie set. We sat around the marker

and talked about how a friend might join us, maybe her brothers, too. We smudged and Trey sang with

the drum. Half stayed to see a movie across the street. At camp I threw fireworks into the stream with

Squirtle and Mark. Jackson, Mary, and I got a ride to an area of the stream to swim. We jumped in from a

tree root, dried from the bed of truck going down a gravel road around right before sunset. Local let us

use his shower—Germanic architecture. At camp, everyone was eating barbequed venison burgers. A few

of us went back into town to see the Avengers. After the movie, Millie got sick. We speculated it was the

venison.”

58

CAT’S KEEPER

Early in the morning we left Island Grove—traveled over a dry prairie country, 17 miles, we

reached our encampment near Jacksonville at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Nothing occurred

during our march except a child fell from a wagon and was much crushed by the wheels running

over it. It is thought the child will die. Tonight some of the chiefs reported 2 runaways who left

this morning. During the evening we were much perplexed by the curiosity of visitors, to many of

who (sic) the sight of an emigration or body of Indians is as great a rarity as a traveling caravan

of wild animals. Late at night the camp was complimented by serenade from Jacksonville Band.

We run barefoot to the road that we’d heard people drove down too fast to the site of a black cat

meowing on her side. We get the mayor. “Sorry,” he says, “but that’s not my cat,” and quickly,

she jumps to her feet and sprints into the thicket.

59

Woke up in Exeter/Animal team car missing.

[Jacksonville—Old Jacksonville Road]

We thirteen bring the electricity to the grove.

Wayne kept walking when no car came for him

charged ahead to the great trees

where the Potawatomi camped and where a man now lives

in a house of treasures, who welcomes us with cryptic talk

a lady swooning on his elbow. He breeds sapling seeds

talks of the royalties with metaphors, and winks.

The marker stands at the entrance of his driveway.

Visit Instructions: Give a good log of the adventure.

Our march was made short on account of the scarcity of water—

this being the only watering place nearer than 10 or 15 miles.

Make sure to include enough to verify your visit.

“A child died a few hours after making camp.

He is buried near this spot,” the marker reads.

Thunder shreds the sky near midnight.

Rapid taps on the tents, we scramble

around the grass to cover our negligence.

Morning dew; the leaves under feet, a reexamination

of our possessions still aright in the sun; We erupt

into a cyclical argument. What’s changed? Nothing

has been done to fix any problem, and the guys say

"She said to go home," taking up their backpacks

while every one of us shouts at someone—

In a low voice, Moey shepherds us around

heads touching, listening to his murmurs,

understanding or not, a story about a bullet

and having already overstayed our welcome,

Millie by the biggest tree gives the boys gifts and apologies, and finally

we get on the road to meet Dr. Godfrey.

West of the Old Salem United Methodist Church

facing Old Jacksonville Road, the marker

stands like a tombstone, weathered and rectangular—

60

it casts a long shadow to the white sneakers

of Dr. Godfrey—an expert on the Potawatomi

an ex-professor at Haskell University.

The history he tells us seems redundant—

Removal (exile, emigration)

Exhaustion (hunger, drought)

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[Riddle Hill—Springfield 7.3]

In order to pass Springfield at as early an hour as possible, we rose before light and at 8 o’clock

were on our way. The Indians amongst whom a degree of pride was excited, arranged

themselves into line, and with an unusual display of finery and gaudy trumpery marched through

the streets of Springfield. The wayfares were covered with anxious spectators, so much so indeed

as to threaten for a time to impede the progress of the Emigration. We passed clearly through,

however, and that too without the detention of a single Indian.

Sat beside the marker after walking through Springfield; a shadow in the screen door wants us

off their property; the marker lies in a home’s shade. Separate—Land team walked, others went

elsewhere; from the corn and the crickets, driven; away, up a hill; a tiered house with gardenlike

fences; Mrs. Godfrey welcomes us with dinner; rooms in natural light; Jesus on the walls, one

asks “Have You Prayed About It?”

62

THE GROUNDS AT HASKELL

And Corey, a Haskell student, said:

We pray for the grounds at Haskell every year. I’ve always heard since being at Haskell that

that’s where those first children would go—there was water there, so they’d be reminded of

home. And there were a lot of children I heard that went out there when they were near their time

of death and were never found. So, we take some tobacco and we burn sage and we say some

prayers out there, and we don’t do much else because we feel that’s enough.

63

NIANTIC

We confer with Dr. Godfrey about a proposal that we will present at the Clinton Global Initiative

America conference in a few days, for a “Clinton Global Initiative Native America.” It hasn’t

been written. He says he’ll contact Haskell professors for help, too, but the premise is that it is an

invitation to host leading Native thinkers at Haskell to deliberate on the same issues as CGIA

concerns, mainly, environmental and economic sustainability, with the aim to integrate

traditional methods into contemporary ones.

Because of the way Millie acts like this has been part of our agenda all along, we go with it.

However, at one point, Mufasa wonders aloud whether having a separate conference for Natives

would be racist, or at least pointless.

When we leave, someone makes a comment about how dirty we are.

We are now within a few miles of Springfield, which place we shall pass through tomorrow.

Judge Polke, the conductor, on the occasion of passing through a village of the character of

Springfield, requested I-o-weh, one of the principal chiefs, so to arrange and accouter the

Indians as to insure a good appearance. The chief was delighted with the proposition and no

doubt the emigration tomorrow will present quite a gaudy appearance. As an inducement they

were promised some tobacco which they have been much in want of for several days. The day

has been very warm, which added to the length of our march, fatigued much the emigrants. The

illness of the camp is disappearing gradually, and we may safely calculate upon a great

diminution in the number of sick at the next report of the physician. Forage and provisions

becoming plentiful as we nearer approach the settled portions of the state. 2 children died during

the night.

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[Athens–Niantic–Decatur, Friend’s Creek Conservation Area]

THE RACCOONS OF DECATUR

Left our camp at Sangamon Crossing at 8 o’clock in the morning and proceeded on our route.

The sick appear somewhat recruited. Owing to the indisposition of our physician no report has

been made since Monday. We have reason to believe that the health of the camp is returning.

The weather still continues delightful—the roads, however, are again becoming dusty.

Provisions and forage seem not so scarce as farther back—the country through which we are

now passing seems more thickly settled. We are now encamped near Decatur, Ill., 40 miles from

Springfield. A child died after dark.

Twain secludes himself in his tent while dinner cooks. At night, the beams of Mark, Jackson, and

Mary’s head lamps hit the smoke around the fire. In the bushes, we see silver eyes. We aim light

at them and find a raccoon. We look behind it and see another raccoon. I look at the tree above

my tent where two dots gleam. We look at the cars and see four, at which point we put all our

food away. Predicting rain, in one tent, we have all our bags. Crisco reminds us that raccoons

have opposable thumbs so we should bring our zippers to the top of the doorway when we close

a tent.

In the morning, Twain has gone to a bus station. He’s heading back to Texas to attend a funeral.

He says he’ll be back—most of us are asleep when he leaves. It’s misty outside, and cold. The

wind brings gusts of rain sideways, and everything is wet. Half of the group has piled into a car

and gone to town to work online. Crisco, Squirtle, Mark, Jackson, and I remain in camp. We

stand around the muddy fire pit and think about breakfast. None of us are prepared for weather

this cold. We pull the tents together, throw tarp around them and call it “tent city.”

Then we go back to sleep like we’re trying to hibernate through a winter. I wake up to someone’s

steps chomping towards our tent.

“Did you bring food?” I yell.

“It’s the police.”

The officer wears a big winter coat and asks what we’re doing. I look at tent city.

65

“We’re walking to Washington, DC,” I say, “to save the wetlands.”

He expects more.

“There’s this wetland prairie in Kansas, where we’re from, and they want to put a freeway

through it, but the wetlands are sacred.”

“Is that K-DOT?” he asks.

“Yea,” I say. He's silent.

“The park wants to know when you guys will pay for the night. So take care of that. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I say, and he leaves.

When the other half of the group returns:

Mark: “There’s nothing to cook. And it’s too rainy to cook. Someone just needs to get

something.”

Millie: “I guess we’ll go to McDonalds with $20. We’ll get 8 McDoubles and 8 McChickens.”

(Isaac: “But they use some of the money to buy themselves McDonalds and then they buy us

bologna sandwich stuff.”)

And then Crisco wakes up. Big Mike hands him the bread and the meat.

Crisco: “What is this shit? This isn’t McDonalds. This is fucking bologna for the third day in a

row.”

Crisco goes back to bed on an empty stomach.

The next morning, we’re all awakened by Mark yelling. His granola bars are strewn around the

campsite, ravaged.

“Someone didn’t zip up the tent properly!” he says.

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And Squirtle said:

“…and that’s when we decided to just split the last of the Spam and leave.”

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ANIMAL TEAM

The number of sick is 40. There have been 2 deaths since my last report, and 4 or 5 may be

considered immediately dangerous.

It’s painful to take money out so Shireen can drive the boys to St. Louis. Likewise, to think about

Shireen’s small moment of helplessness, her plea to me to “do something” as the boys loaded

their things and stood around, arms crossed, she, head rested sadly in the backseat of the car,

hiding. I took a film picture of our Friends Creek campsite after Animal Team had gone and we

had taken all of our camp down: I aimed at where the raccoons had emerged, the fire pit in the

foreground, but the picture didn’t turn out.

It feels like the Trail is over. Like we’ve lost our legs. We drive in silence, visit graves—read the

plaques on boulders in the dated town’s downtown park and along the small roads to it. We visit

three markers in a row (the second one, we have to split up to find), then go north to the Le Roy,

Illinois powwow. Our two cars arrive at the powwow grounds before dark. We pass the sunlight

with our hands at beads, stringing them into bracelets, necklaces, earrings—Shireen, the

Animals’ driver, returns without her team and goes straight to bed.

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LE ROY

This is land for farms and sunsets, water towers and dirt roads. Canopies encircle the beaten

grass. A sign at our booth by the funnel cake says “Capitol Bound” and we do face painting to

make money. Millie asks me and Mary to do the blanket dance with her to raise donations, but

Moey says we have to wear skirts—that’s why Mary declines. Near the end of the day, Millie

gives a speech over the microphone to the last powwow attendees, which are a good amount. She

talks about Haskell, the wetlands, the boarding school period and the construction to happen over

both of them, and she is received well. Then Jackson and I hold the blanket with Millie, hopping

around the circle while the powwow singers sing the Red Road song and the patrons put dollars

into our fabric.

69

BLANKET DANCE

- We made $226. Did you think there was anything immoral in that? I think the guys had said

that we were exploiting people.

- Did they say that?

- Someone did.

70

BUFFALO SUNDAY

Before we leave Le Roy, we get a ride on a hay tractor through the buffalo pen—in the back, the

herd runs across, disappears. The driver says they’re being shy today. There’s a line of bison, and

the calf sits in the shade. It reminds me that one week before the trail, after the Buffalo Harvest,

the young hitchhiker from Florida stayed in our building, quietly, coolly, until we left on the

trail. One day, he brought into the kitchen a bag of “dream herb,” which we rolled into a

cigarette, and that night, I vividly dreamed that I awoke from bed and opened my door to face a

buffalo my height with lint in its fur.

71

SADORIS AND SIDNEY

The farther we get into the prairie the scarcer becomes water. Our present encampment is very

poorly watered, and we are yet in the vicinity of timber. A child died since we came into camp.

This morning before we left the encampment of last night, a chief, Muk-kose, a man remarkable

for his honesty and integrity, died after a few days’ sickness.

The day was exceedingly cold. The night previous had brought us quite a heavy rain, and the

morning came in cold and blustery. Our journey was immediately across the prairie, which at

this point is entirely divested of timber for 16 miles. The emigrants suffered a good deal, but still

appeared to be cheerful. The health of the camp continues to improve–not a death has occurred

today, and the cool bracing weather will go far towards recruiting the health of the invalids.

72

POST-POWWOW

For some reason, in my journal, I replace words with cryptic pictures:

Le Roy to Homer—

We left the camp at half past 9. General Tipton took his leave, and Wm. Polke is now in charge.

While on the march a child died on horseback. A death has also occurred since we came into

camp this evening.

—to Catlin—

Stayed in camp as business only half concluded…A child of 6 or 8 years old died this evening.

Also late at night an adult person died.

Stayed in camp with the business of discharging troops in service, besides the weak condition of

the emigrants demanded rest. During the evening a woman and a child died. A child was also

born today. Dr. Jerolaman arrived today, assisted by Dr. James Buell of Williamsport. In their

report, they say “there are at this time 67 sick—of that number there are 47 cases of intermittent

fever—13 of continued fever and 3 of diarrhea, and 2 of scrofula. Of the whole number, 8 may be

considered dangerously ill.” Provisions and forage still continue to be scarce.

A young child died directly after coming into camp.

—to Danville—

At 8 o’clock we were loaded and in our saddles. Left 7 persons sick in camp, among them a

woman who was about to be confined…The heat along with the dust is daily rendering our

marches more distressing. The horses are jaded, the Indians sickly and many of the persons

engaged in the emigration more or less sick. The whole country through which we pass appears

to be afflicted—every town, village and hamlet has its invalids. Camped at 3 p.m. near Danville,

population 800 to a thousand, and 4 people died in town.

One long, cross-hatched cloud; a percolator;

vignettes drip; filter

lessen until the cloud

is just a puff near the sun.

73

ATTICA

As we advance farther into the country of the prairies, water becomes more scarce—the streams

are literally dried up and we have reason to fear that unless soon refreshed with rain, our future

marches will be attended with much pain, and suffering. 2 deaths took place this evening.

We walk the long road into Williamsport and remain outsiders—sitting in the grass with

Jackson, in the shade, I let my body fall backwards heavy and then watch the sky even though

there are people convening by the marker to meet us. I wonder, how could they understand?

Kim is the woman in a long violet dress with thick blonde hair by her shoulders walking tall and

confidently through the crowd. Her cheeks are high and round, her eyes, pebbles. She has been

publicizing our walk, but none of the walkers know this. Just Millie. The ceremony around the

marker is not a circle this time; rather, an audience faces us.

At the marina afterwards, a small community has brought barbeque. Mary, Jackson, and I keep

to ourselves, but a frail woman in black sweat pants, a white dress shirt, and sneakers comes up

to us repeatedly to exclaim, “I’m Ojibwe!” The river in front of us is the Wabash. A teepee

behind us was set up for the occasion. We decide we’ll sleep in it.

At night, we lay blankets around the ground and arrange ourselves to sleep. In the morning, we

drive downtown to Kim’s restaurant, Wounded Knee Café, where we take showers, are given

clothes, and where she hands us an envelope containing maps to Susan Gray’s farm.

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[Attica – Lafayette 8.9 mi]

Walk a narrow shoulder.

A walk that doesn’t need to be short or long

it just needs to keep going

farther through many different scenes

on one road! One road

and the big creek bed

and same bed but smaller

and the homes on one side

and the forest on the other

and the forest on both sides

and the field of crops

and the secrets of the left and right horizons

and the pee in the thistles

and the ditches all overgrown

and the heat reflecting everywhere

and the cool entrance of shade

and the bend

and crossing the road

and spotting the car fly into view

and waiting for the car to pass

and hearing the car coming behind

and waiting for the car to pass

and roads with lots of cars that quickly pass

and roads that don’t have any cars but tractors

and the tall land and low land

and the way the road looks

going on.

…

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But it is not the road that is beautiful,

the opposite—the road is the thing on which

the land’s little and big animals lay dead

on whose sides there is more trash

in two hundred feet than one bag could collect

the line that rips the land in two

the line that tries to mean progress

but comes to a threshold

which is the last heart of a people;

a long growth of destruction, of each other

each thing by the millions

the line that keeps us in eternal desire

for the thing we oppress (nature)

the line pouring out from fortunes;

the permanent line.

76

And a witness of the Potawatomi trail said:

Ever and anon, one of the party would start out into the brush, and break back to their old

encampments on the Eel River and on the Tippecanoe—declaring that they would rather die than

be banished from their country.

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THE EXPONENT, JUNE 5 2012

Native Americans from Purdue provided a much needed place to rest for students marching from

Kansas to Washington D.C. in order to save their cultural wetlands from a planned highway.

Millie Goodrider, a junior at Haskell who has family origins in French, Navajo and Blackfeet

tribes, is credited with organizing the march.

“Today I walked nine miles,” Goodrider said. “We walk in little sections so we can have

breaks.”

She said she is walking because markers indicating where the Potawatomi “Trail of Death,” a

march in 1838 named for the Native American children who died along the journey from Indiana

to Kansas, have already been stripped out in preparation of building the highway.

“They have already desecrated our history,” she said. “And exactly what’s happening in the

wetlands is happening all over Indian country.”

She said she wants to save the wetlands not only to keep the honor of the children who died there

when Haskell was founded in 1884, but also because she wants to save the 260 migratory birds

that have been documented there along with the 400 indigenous plants.

Goodrider’s mission to bring awareness to the wetlands was accepted as part of her Commitment

to Action by the Clinton Global Initiative University. She is scheduled to meet with former

President Bill Clinton this Friday in Chicago.

78

LAFAYETTE

Exploring West Lafayette, Land Team enters the train station and stands on the walkway above

the tracks. A train howls in the distance and rumbles beneath us, passing. We find a liquor store,

its orange sign glowing far from the city, and with those paper bags, end up at a park, a baseball

field, sitting on the bleachers, taking turns playing catch until darkness comes, turns the ball into

an orb. Later, we’re at a bar with a student in the city. We don’t care about our reputation,

because at this point we feel, or know, that no one cares about us. We tell people about our walk,

then dance on the tables. There’s a girl in black who sits down and engages Jackson to tell him

that our cause is not valid because we don’t see how progress is natural, inevitable, and

necessary.

79

THE WILLARDS

We wake up and fall asleep elsewhere. Being weak when we meet Bill and Shirley Willard at the

Battle Field marker feels symbolic or sacrilegious—our minds are distracted during the blessing

ceremony, away from, or in, or because of the sage and song—unreal, unfelt. Millie pours water

for the thirsty spirits.

Shirley Willard, Rochester, Indiana, of the Potawatomi Trail of Death Association helped with

the planning of the Trail of Broken Promises Walk. Willard is the treasurer of the PTDA and

publishes the newsletter.

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THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE

Tecumseh and the Prophet built Prophetstown between the Delphi and Tippecanoe tributaries of

the Wabash River. A source says there were once one thousand people here in the soft woodland,

where council houses and lodges were built for the communal rebellion; as it grew, General

William Henry Harrison started marching in the summer of 1811 with his army and arrived in

November. A messenger met him outside of Prophetstown. Tecumseh had gone south,

forbidding his brother to battle in his absence, and Harrison agreed with the messenger that they

could reach a compromise the next day. But the Prophet and his men crept towards the army that

night, near morning. Harrison’s army had slept with their arms, and guns fired before any other

sound at dawn—the Prophet chanted, they say, on a high eminence until 100 US soldiers were

dead, his own retreating. But the Prophet’s men did not return to his settlement. Harrison burned

away the abandoned village two days later.

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THE BATTLE FIELD

At 11 we reached and forded the Tippecanoe River. A little after 12 we passed the Battle Ground

and at 1 we arrived at our present encampment near Battle Ground. Immediately after our

arrival the Indians were collected and dry goods consisting of cloths, blankets, calicoes, etc., to

the amount of $5,469.81 were distributed among them. Nothing of importance occurred during

the remainder of the day. The Indians appeared to be well satisfied with the distribution of the

goods. A very old woman—the mother of chief We-wiss-sa—said to be upwards of 100 years old,

died since coming into camp.

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TIPPECANOE

The Willards lead the caravan from battleground to campground—we stop at Prophet’s Rock, the

mountain of slated stone that Tensquatawa supposedly stood on top of during his battle; the

markers before and after the well at Pleasant Run Creek; and down Towpath Road to Chief

Winamac’s old village, following the Wabash, through blooming, big trees.

We reached our camp at Winnemac’s old village at 5 o’clock, a distance of perhaps 10 miles

from the camp at Logan. The day was hot but we had the advantage of being in the vicinity of

water, our route lying on the northern bank of the Wabash River the whole distance. No bacon is

to be had, so beef and flour are the rations. A child died since we came into camp. A man also

died tonight after several days’ sickness.

Often throughout the entire night, around a blazing fire, before a tent in which a solitary candle

burned, fifteen or twenty Indians would sing hymns and tell their beads. One of their friends

who had died was laid out in the tent; they performed the last religious rites for him in this

way. The next morning the grave would be dug; the family, sad but tearless, stayed after the

general departure; the priest, attired in his sole, recited prayers, blessed the grave, and cast the

first shovelful of earth on the rude coffin; the pit was filled and a little cross placed there.

We pass Logansport.

I found the camp just as you saw it, Monseigneur, at Logansport—a scene of desolation, with

sick and dying people on all sides. Nearly all the children, weakened by the heat, had fallen into

a state of complete languor and depression. I baptized several who were newly born—happy

Christians, who with their first step pass from earth to heaven.

The Mud Creek marker on Indiana 25, the site of the first death on the Trail, bright beside a sun-

struck highway—

51 persons found to be unable to continue the journey and were left at Chippeway. At half past

12 reached Mud Creek and camped. The scarcity of water in the country again retarded the

progress of the emigration—the distance being either too great or too short between the

watering places. A child died on the evening of this day and was buried on the morning of the

7th. A child was born.

Finally, we come to the Fulton County museum, and then to the bank of the Tippecanoe, where

trees’ shadows glitter across the wide and shallow river. We pitch camp. People Team gets a

83

hotel. The river darkens. Delicate light on the farthest surface flickers about shadows of

branches. From the bank, blackness is a curtain.

84

THE MONUMENT

A reporter wants us to wake up for a picture. We break camp, drive down the dirt road to the

museum. We pray with the Willards by Father Petit’s memorial, then caravan to Chippeway on

the Tippecanoe River.

The day was exceedingly sultry and the roads choked up with dust. Reached Chippeway at

sunset, having traveled a distance of 21 miles, five miles further than it was the intention of the

Conductor to have gone but for the want of water. The number of horses belonging to Indians is

estimated at 286—the number of wagons engaged in the transportation 26. During the night 20

Indians escaped and took 2 horses.

When we drive north to Plymouth, where the Potawatomi were collected, we can’t turn west

because of highway construction, so we take the next road. And past Menominee’s chapel, and

then south, we come to the statue—the stone man with a hand held palm up, level to the land, on

a hill that falls into the woods. We have our own ceremony then. Millie gives Shirley her

seashell, the smudge pot with which we blessed each Trail of Death marker. She says that she

cannot carry the spirits of those who died on the Trail any longer, that it is giving her nightmares,

and that they are home now.

85

And Shirley said:

At 4 we again gathered at Chief Menominee statue for a public ceremony. There were fewer than

a dozen of the public who came. I told the history of Menominee. George Schricker, Plymouth,

recited Menominee’s speech. Trey played his drum and the students all sang. Mike Ofor said he

felt Menominee’s spirit come into the statue—he heard it thunder. (I suddenly realized I had felt

it too but did not hear it thunder).

I tried to keep up with the students on the Trail of Broken Promises Walk via the Internet. When

on the Trail of Death, many newspapers and a couple of TV stations interviewed them. When

they left Indiana, they stayed at Susan Gray’s farm at Greenville, Ohio. But after that I could not

find any news stories. I called Millie and Julie and wrote what they told me.

86

INDIANA

We sat, smoldering beneath gaunt streaks of sunlight

black oak bent over us—the Trail

tasting like instant coffee; burnt, weak, and brewed over a young fire

far from home,

where Father Petit began to sympathize with

Potawatomi marched away to Kansas.

Petals fixed in a translucency above

recalled the beginning:

Shawnee Jim's assurance that we were all diamonds,

and the Open-Door prophet, Tensquatawa's

burial near the gorge; where he retreated

after he and Tecumseh's alliances collapsed.

And then the river darkens

from the other side.

The sacred we discover

always nestled deep in dirt

or roaming

at dusk.

When we rise from the trail of 1838

and get back onto unceasing No Shoulder roads,

only wispy plumes of sage will follow

and we fear that on the outskirts of the Capitol

a rattling of trains will settle

our gritty embers into ash.

87

CONCEPTUAL ANARCHY

“History remains in a state of

conceptual a––”

We have the memory-less paradise we desire:

an island around which we determine

many peripheries and coast, drift around.

In each of us

a spinning map that creates a void

the ellipses the eye hops over—

A cobalt ocean where the ink of lost stories

accumulates and in which we occasionally dip

pens. So take note of the things that repeat:

the enduring, recurrent, the transient.

88

CHICAGO

We drive straight to Chicago because the Clinton Global Initiative is tomorrow. The MC from

the Le Roy powwow steps outside of the American Indian Center—an ambiguous number of

stories—to meet us walking up.

If the auditorium were empty, note first the large span of the floor, then the open-mouthed stage,

and around the high walls, from the ceiling, the flags of nations that hang.

A woman wearing cheetah print says, “I’m Josie, like Josie and the Pussycats.” She’ll be doing

standup tonight at a club; she wants people to remember her name. She explains how she

coordinates walks for people all the time. If we had contacted her, we could have stayed with

Dennis Banks and other AIM members. She invites us to her show at a club. We need to finish

the proposal, so we decline. Later, we sit with her and the MC on the steps.

“Yeah, this building’s haunted,” the MC says. “Everyone sees the same people…the same

ghosts.”

89

CONDEMNED

The Word document defines us. Tomorrow, people will not know who we are, and today, we do

not know what to write.

Explain the Wakarusa, the Haskell, and the Baker Wetlands. Now the SLT. Relate those to the

Trail of Death.

People return at 2 am. The darkness we write in gets divided by a projector’s beam onto the wall.

Music videos dance over the brick.

In periphery, a ghost strikes a James Dean pose while we fix our words on the screen—“I invited

you to my community,” the shadow before us says, “and you disrespect us. You need to get out.”

They pull him away, apologizing. Our work as done as it will be, we climb the stairwell in the

light of our phones, circling inside the anatomy of secrecy.

On the roof, we see the skyline and find Shireen asleep in her sleeping bag. As uncertain as it all

is, we all know Millie lied about meeting Bill Clinton tomorrow.

90

THE CONFERENCE

Trey and Moey walk. Millie prints. The center prepares us lunches. The rest of us look mostly

unprofessional outside the hotel. Jackson and Shireen scope out the event, because they look

good. They return with what news we already know: There’s a list, and we’re not on it. Tickets

were hundreds of dollars, but we only need a pass to enter the lecture halls—the third floor is

open for networking.

On the escalator, Chelsea Clinton accepts the first proposal from Millie. On the third floor, we

split into groups to hand out fliers. At 12:50 p.m., we are kicked out. “Nobody wants you here,”

the security says. Millie and I go down a floor to the food area, where she quickly hails a man

with long white hair and a turquoise bolo tie. Her hands motion importantly to the proposal as

she explains CGI Native America. “Ah yes,” he says, smiling. “I know Bill. I’ll pass this on to

him.”

“We could have made a difference,” Jackson says over coffee on the second floor, “if only we’d

done it right.” Shireen wants to go home. Millie, whom we should trust as a leader, lies. Jackson

says he was invited to be a resident assistant in Spain, and he wants to do it—it pays. My phone

rings—it’s Millie. “Bill Clinton wants to meet us after the conference,” she says. I call my mom.

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And Millie wrote:

Yesterday we met Bill Clinton. I made sure to tell him that I wrote a proposal for Clinton Global

Initiative Native America just as he had requested [at Clinton Global Initiative University].

Everyone was in good spirits. We were all happy. So happy, all but Trey and I drank. At around

7:15 Mike came rolling in telling me Shireen and Jackson were leaving. I guess they feel they’ve

been lied to. They called our meeting with Clinton luck. That’s only because they didn’t work as

hard as I did.

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ABANDONMENT

We eat celebratory pizza at a cheap place across from a noisy subway line. Shireen talks through

tears on the phone. Moey stumbles back to us—breaking his promise to Millie not to drink. At

the center, Josie tells me to check out the porch. A big group of twenty-something year olds

brought liquor. Millie burns sage until she falls asleep.

I say on the steps, to the others talking of ghosts, that we’d prayed to the spirits on the Trail of

Death. I’m about something more, but Moey shushes me. We’re drinking. At a computer in a

small room, Shireen and Jackson figure their route home.

In the night, Jackson and I run, literally, around the center with the others who showed up,

playing hide and seek on the first two levels of the center. A girl named Raven clacks her rings to

keep time on the steel table in the kitchen. Vodka soaked fruit in a bowl. Her song, I couldn’t

describe. But her voice raises goosebumps. We get more liquor on a busy city street corner, then

watch the sunrise from the roof.

Around noon, Mary says the Traditionals left. Apparently, Millie handed Mufasa money for gas

and then they headed for the powwow in Portland, Indiana. This means Shireen and Jackson

can’t leave yet, because there’s not enough room for us and our stuff without Shireen’s car. Josie

comes into the room where Mary and I pack.

“So people were smoking cigarettes in the kitchen last night?” she asks.

We didn’t see that, we say.

“The elders are pretty mad. But I mean all those kids who were here last night, that’s the first

time they’d been around here in years. They heard you guys were here.”

93

JOSIE

Chad turns twenty years old today. Josie knows we’ve been abandoned, so we let her lead us to a

Polish hot dog place. There, she stands with Chad, Mary, and Mufasa along the metal, outdoor

bar. She wipes her hands and says, “You know what, I’m coming with you. I like you kids.

You’re doing something, and you need help.” We all feel the Trail has already failed. Will Josie

take over? Will more people join us? Is it too late to become the walk we wanted to be?

After Josie gathers her stuff, including fishing gear, just in case, we head out, passing Monsanto

fields at sunset, and slowly drive through the powwow ground hours later. After cold dinner and

luke-warm showers, we lay down a tarp on the far side of the campground and look at photos on

Shireen’s camera. The camera freezes on one picture of us climbing up Prophet’s Rock; we have

to take out the battery to turn it off. “I’m glad Josie’s going with you guys,” Jackson says.

“Maybe she can fix us,” I say, and we nod our heads, hoping.

94

PORTLAND POWWOW

“This whole thing has been really unorganized,” Shireen says. “The cause has disappeared—I

just can’t do this anymore. It’s too sketchy. It’s not knowing where we’re going to sleep, asking

people to give us money when it doesn’t even go towards helping the wetlands. The guys knew

what was wrong a long time ago, and they tried to help but were ignored just like us.”

“Right,” Jackson says. “I mean I’m sad to go. I really wanted to finish the walk, but I also feel

like I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what we’re doing or how we’re helping the cause.”

Millie sits, picking blades.

“I know,” Millie says. “But, you know, I’m sorry the guys left, but I’ve been working really

hard. It’s not like I’m the one person who everyone has to follow or get permission from.” Her

voice gets softer, calm. “And, you know, while all this has been going on, Trey and I have been

slowly falling in love. We want to get married in DC.”

Josie says, “I’ve helped a lot of walks all across the country, helping them find who to meet,

where to stay and all that. But I’m here to walk with you guys. Millie, you gotta listen to what

these guys tell you. They’ve been on this walk with you throughout it all and I know that you’ve

been like a leader on this walk. You gotta know that these people are here to help, too.”

Millie nods. Drums can be heard in the distance. Shireen and Jackson drive away.

95

OHIO

1. Wetlands

…nearly 90 percent of Ohio's original wetlands have disappeared. Ohio's original wetlands were

very large. The Great Black Swamp was once 120 miles in length and an average of 40 miles in

width (about the size of Connecticut). The Scioto and Hog Creek marshes of Hardin County once

covered 25,000 acres or 39 square miles.

2. Prophetstown

There were five Prophetstowns, according to Susan Gray. The first was at the current site of

Darke County [Ohio] from 1805 to 1809. Two were in Indiana; one from 1809 to 1811, the next

from 1811 to 1812. The fourth one was in Ontario, Canada. The final Prophetstown, Gray said, is

in Kansas City, Kans., where the Prophet is buried.

96

[Portland – Greenville, Ohio]

On the two-lane road, the cars stay fast and don’t veer away even a little for us to walk the slim

shoulder, balancing steps between shrubs and the white line.

Car color and design reflect the buyer. Speed and stubbornness reflect the driver. Yet people are

absent from these automobiles.

A light rain begins to fall. We walk in the grass. The rain falls harder but in a few minutes it

stops and we are at the turn on our map.

This road dips into the distance, and where it levels, a bridge hops left. On that bridge, see dark

water through crossed branches. The road goes into many old trees.

When we are in the sun again, the line extends to a far horizon, we should be close, but we think

we may be lost. There is a house down that road to the left, no signage.

We could ask them where we are. Maybe we could ask them for sandwiches, too, like in the old

days. The home chimes with animals moving about in the barn.

We knock on the door. No answer. That was a weird decision anyway, we think, when we see an

open gate bearing a crooked sign: Tecumseh Rd.

Our road, which ends at a forest, a deep-blue pond, and a long, metal lodge with a screen door,

out of which comes three people.

“So you followed the ribbons?” Susan Gray asks. “No,” we say. “They’re too young to know

about that,” a man says, and they invite us inside to wait for the others.

97

THE FIRST COUNCIL AT GREENVILLE

They have to prove the wetlands aren’t important

Poisoned Hemlock killed Cesar

Red Cedar center is a heart

How to stop a highway

1. Blueprints

question them

2. Check with Department of Natural Resources

find out state’s wetlands laws

3. Get Federal money to preserve wetlands

park

It takes 100 years for rain water to reach the aquifer

Biotic Index: determining water quality by life

4. Look up Burial Site Protection Laws

State Historical Societies are Private Institutions

Archeological Phase 1 Digs X Preservation

5. Nature Conservancy

has the money to fight the SLT

98

BICKEL FARM

Diving into blue—a fall

away from metal,

in the middle, algae

reaches from the floor,

gone; we

do not suffocate

but surface to air,

with a song we’ve sipped on.

Then—

Indian Arrowwood,

or “bursting hearts,”

fibrous

Indian Cup plants,

Jewel Weed with

pearls of rain

neutralizes the

Nettle’s sting.

Wing Stem, wilting,

Scarring Rush

Bed Straw

and Ginger—

And what is bottomless

is the horizon,

knowing a river hides

in the timber.

99

THE SECOND COUNCIL AT GREENVILLE

And Jackson said:

I had been communicating with my school about an opportunity in Spain…but there was some

miscommunication. I didn’t want to leave the Trail for nothing. I called you and you said

“everyone wants you to come back.” There was confusion, though. I guess you guys had a

meeting about whether there would be room for me since Josie had joined, Tylord was supposed

to be coming, and then Wayne was saying he was coming back. I was excited to come back. At

the same time I was still frustrated with was going on. I had similar doubts as when I left—

what’s gonna be different, why am I dedicating myself to being misled?

100

THE THIRD COUNCIL AT GREENVILLE

We pick up Jackson, meeting him and Shireen at a half-way point. The next morning, we have a

meeting about how our money is low, and the last powwow, or our last chance to raise donations,

is across the state of Ohio. It is decided that one car will go to the powwow, the other, to a

suburb of Cincinnati, where Millie has arranged for us to stay with a member of the Native

American Church called White Wolf. Going to the powwow are Millie, Trey, Moey, and Josie,

leaving me, Mufasa, Mary, Chad, Jackson, and Willie in one car bound for a long drive to

Batavia.

101

RUNNING OUT OF GAS

I drop off the walkers and drive to the campsite. Josie cooks us hot dogs. I dream of a mansion,

of empty space and Brooklyn. Mary wakes me. With camp down, we drag our feet through a

patch of sand, tracing a medicine wheel, and say a prayer. Millie takes a pair of cowboy boots

out of the trunk and tells me I can have them. Then she, Trey, Moey, and Josie leave for the

powwow. Not long after we’ve left, the car lurches, then coasts. We push the car through the

intersection into a gas station.

102

WHITE WOLF

A professor at Haskell told Mary to postpone the walk, saying that we were spiritually

vulnerable. In the suburb of Cincinnati, the shaman White Wolf opens his door and looks up at

us—a slight sway, the bird’s feet around his eyes. We had already surmised that White Wolf

would be white, based on his name, and then I realize that he probably expected us to look

different, based on the same.

103

VIDEO

Chad holds two mallets and flings his arms, striking a thunderous, flat drum. Mufasa grips the

leather straps of a drum in one hand and hits it with the other. Mary uses her palms to play the

drum between her legs. And here come Jackson’s hips, then his legs two-stepping into the frame,

his hands shaking maracas.

PICTURE

White wolf in an emerald dashiki.

104

BATAVIA

Across the road are headstones like mossy, cracked incisors: a little Civil War cemetery. Years

ago, in the neighboring house, a double homicide, suicide by the seventeen-year-old son. In this

kitchen, a table where was a hospice bed. Crystals and gems adorn the mantle. In planters in the

corners, by the window drapes, tall cacti, grown there for years. Looking out the window, away

from the graves, old branches bloom wide and high, dotting this vast backyard with color.

A woman, Rhea, hangs out at the house with us. She is pretty, with thick, dark hair and an artist’s

big eyes. She brings a dog that looks like her. All day, we sit cross-legged in the den, at the

computer, in the living room to be alone, or, once, in the basement for a drum circle, drinking

cheap beer. White Wolf has put on a shamanic CD for attaining an altered state of consciousness:

a tribal drum rhythm, reverberating through the wood floors. This plays for the entirety of our

stay. At night, we sit around the fire pit in the backyard. There, as fire flies blink on every leaf,

Rhea tells me, “The other week, a miracle happened. A baby vulture flew into my yard—it was

wounded. It came to me, this beautiful bird. And that’s when I prayed I would meet Native

Americans. Now you guys are here.” White Wolf, though, scoffs. “Do you even know anything

about the Potawatomi?” he says. And I think, ashamedly, maybe I don’t. “The Potawatomi” he

says, “were water people.”

105

WATER PEOPLE

The dogs prance through the tall grass.

Suddenly, a skunk! Run, Willie! Run!

The reason you are somewhere, or the lack thereof, changes the landscape, the brush, the sunset

in your eyes. As we follow Rhea and her dog to the lake, the light becomes dark, the land, higher

and denser until it drops into black water. I sit with White Wolf on the cliff, strum my guitar

while the others slide down to swim. I sense White Wolf as crippled, as scared of his body.

Jackson carries him over his back when we leave, following Willie, the white dog, out of the

wood, into the moonlit field.

“That is pretty special to me,” White Wolf says to Jackson after giving him a turquoise necklace.

“I don’t want you giving it away. It’s for you.” Then White Wolf runs for his rain stick. Lifting it

he accidentally hits the ceiling, and strikes it to the ground, holding an action stance until the

rainstorm stops.

The day we leave, we restore White Wolf’s house to the way it was. The drumming continues.

We’ve piled the last of our stuff on top of the car when we find White Wolf in the small room

sitting on the carpet. Mufasa brings him a wing in red cloth, which Moey told us to give to him.

White Wolf weeps.

106

SERPENT MOUND

The sky shows the vastness

of some things: the land

with hills and trees.

I imagine the mound as a mountain.

But from an overlook, the serpent looks small.

If the mound, now manicured,

were left alone, it’d be overgrown and gone—

We clear it to preserve our find

but its meaning cannot be kept.

An asteroid trailed above and put a crater on the earth.

Within it, people buried their dead

into the shape of a serpent with an egg in its mouth.

Perhaps we call this mound sacred because it is mysterious

only reminding us that burials were rituals for people

of whom we know barely anything else.

107

COLUMBUS

Columbus makes me mad to be a better group. We drive in. Chain link fences meld the homes

together across the street. A mural on the side of the building brightens the scene. Inside, we see

People Team and Tyler. Tyler calls himself “Tylord” and took a bus to join us. I sit next to Josie

and show her the video of our drum circle with White Wolf. She laughs—we watch it over and

over. Tyler looks over her shoulder, confused.

Some of the community is present. Moey tells a story while we all eat dinner. Afterwards, we sit

on the ground with the organizer and his son. Millie and I make eye contact. She gets up, then

brings me a sweatshirt to sit on. The son holds a water drum to the ground, finding where to

press on the leather with his left hand, mallet in the right. The father sings. They switch.

At night, we put our bed stuff down on the hard ground. We fall asleep knowing that tomorrow,

we will walk through downtown Columbus all together, after which we’ll sleep in hotel rooms

courtesy of the center.

108

THE WRONGEST WALK

But Millie started walking by herself. Trey says that they got into a fight. He and Moey go to

find her, so Mary, Chad, Mufasa, Jackson, Tyler, and I walk toward the heart of Columbus with

the Eagle staff, a few signs, and the familiar feeling that we are doing it wrong. Hours later,

we’re hungry and upset beneath a bald sun. In my sketchbook, I drew chaos; erratic definition;

bad communication and bad communicators; failed trajectory. We meet Millie and the others

outside a Subway. People talk to Moey about the Eagle staff and smile as they leave, stealing a

last glance at us, yelling at each other in the parking lot.

At the center, we calm down by cutting out letters from fabric and gluing them onto a sign that

reads “Protect Sacred Places.”

109

THE HOTEL

We caravan to a hotel where we have three rooms, none of them next to each other. I wander to

the boys’ room. Moey has the contents of one of his bags on the bed. I am awestruck. Moey has

been trading and giving away gifts the whole trip, but this is the first time I see what he carries

with him: colorful blankets, bags, jewelry, trinkets.

Josie is sitting on the edge of the bed when I come into our room. She tells me she’s going to

vent for a second.

“So we’re at the powwow, and you know there’s a lot of non-Native people who are curious

about the whole thing and so I’m talking to them, and Millie and Trey are over there running the

booth. And then I hear the MC announce you guys, they say ‘the Trail of Broken Promises is

here all the way from Kansas to protect Native American sacred places,’ and they say ‘go and

sign their petition.’ Well, I look over and there’s no one there. So whose gonna be where they are

supposed to? I gotta go and do their job. I’ve got all these people, everyone wanted to sign this

petition and talk to Millie, and I still don’t know where she went. Then, hours later, I see Millie

and Trey and they say they drove out to some gas station. You know, the powwow brought food

to us. They gave us their money. If they knew what Millie was doing, there’s no way they’d do

that. You know what, you and Chad and Jackson, you’re not even Native but you gave your

whole summer for this. Millie should honor that. And Moey, you know, he’s really on your side.

He sees what Millie is doing. He knows it’s wrong.”

She says she’s going to take a bus back to Chicago.

110

THE ACT

That night, we hang out in the boys’ room. I sit on one bed facing Mufasa and Josie on the other.

“You guys don’t know what you’ve been carrying this whole time,” Josie says to me. Mufasa

nods. “The Protection of Sacred Places? That amends the American Indian Religious Freedom

Act? That’s AIM. AIM got that passed. The Trail of Broken Treaties? You guys are amending

what AIM did, riding on their backs.” They both seem to be waiting for my response.

“That’s so heavy,” I say. They crack up.

111

JUNE 19

In the morning, we take Josie to the bus stop. I wonder how we thought it was a good idea to let

Josie go to the Powwow with them—she’s so Land team. We’re sad when she goes into the

station to head back to Chicago.

And then we meet People team at a Wendy’s. We have nowhere to stay. No one wants to depend

on Millie. Jackson phones various campsites trying to find us a site. Mary calls ahead for when

we’re in the mountains. Chad and I get walking routes for today. Millie leaves. Almost everyone

says they want to go home. Millie calls us with a free campsite. She says to meet her in

Zanesville, where she is already, 55 miles away.

112

MARY’S DAD, THE PILOT

Mary’s dad is in Columbus, too, getting ready to fly a two-seater plane home, and he’s scheduled

to refuel in Lawrence. Mary says that it’s a sign she’s supposed to go home. He meets us at

Wendy’s for a little bit. We’re so close to the end. Trying to convince anyone to stay elicits a

stony look of the person dreaming past your words. Finally, Mary says goodbye to her dad, and

we start the drive to Zanesville.

70 East is full of semi-trucks and we drive a windy stretch. Chad straightens up beside me in the

backseat. He holds onto the headrest of Mary’s seat.

“Hey, Mary?” He says. “Is your dad still in Columbus?”

She says, yes, he leaves tomorrow.

“Mike, can you turn around? I need to go with him.”

Mufasa pulls over, cars flying by us.

“What’s going on man?” Mufasa asks.

He says he’s wanted to go home since the beginning. Eventually Mufasa jumps the car back onto

the interstate and we all continue to beg Chad to stay with us. The prospect of losing someone is

frightening. Narrowing down to nothing feels like a threshold we are headed towards. Willie runs

away as soon as we get to our camp.

113

RECIEPTS

And Millie said:

The June 25 Trail of Broken Promises status is "Bedford, Pennsylvania!” We stayed at a funny

little campground in Zanesville. It smelled like a sewer. Moey and Tyler accidentally walked to

the next town and didn't get back home until dark. They just went to their tents and fell asleep.

The next day we drove through Cambridge, OH, and ended up staying at Sally Buffalo

Campground next to Cadiz, OH. Trey and I barbequed while you guys swam at the designated

swimming area. I'm pretty sure everyone except me and Trey was drinking. In the morning we

split.

114

ZANESVILLE

We pack up our things, to each their own. Jackson and I say that Trey has stolen Jackson's

canteen because one has mysteriously appeared slung on his shoulder. No attention is put into

routine—the spigot is in the woods, and it smells bad in there, so our packs are light with little

water.

115

[Zanesville – New Concord, Ohio]

THE BP STATION

A rock face: the imprint in my memory. We step onto the road. Everything is monumental. The

trucks. The trees. The mountain and the severity felt beneath the overpass in the shade for a

moment, looking at the sun-struck pavement ahead. We find a sign that leads us to a pond where

we eat apples then continue—our shadows dwarfed along on an empty afternoon stretch. We go

inside a BP gas station. We exit angrily. It was a pride thing, wanting to fill our water for free.

116

SALLY BUFFALO SADNESS

A charcoal-black road curves around the lake. There's a baseball game going on at the end that

all nine of us watch at the fence, rooting for different teams. We pitch camp where we can catch

homeruns, lay out a blanket and wait for such, put on sunglasses and share swigs from big

aluminum cans. What looks like a garage behind us is an arcade, where Jackson claims to have

broken the pinball machine. That's where we change into our swimsuits.

Mary plays the guitar. We try to find words, feet pushed into sand. Moey arrives, takes off his

shirt, and dives in. When he stands, I see long scars, varicose and pale, across his chest.

Jackson says he could swim across the whole way to the dock, and no one doubts him, but Moey

challenges him to a race. Jackson and Moey start at a pace with one another, then Jackson's torso

reaches the dock, rests a moment, and swims back. He overlaps Moey in the middle of the lake.

As it darkens, our weariness comes not from physical exhaustion but attitudes: a group looking

in upon itself that used to only look out. Millie and Trey leave. Moey leaves. Our faces are

contemplative as we start our walk to camp in the dark on the gravel road. Chad says that we

don't care about him, so we stand there arguing, mad about each other and with no way to

resolve these feelings.

At camp, Moey asks us to sit with him in the grass. He passes a black bottle to Mufasa at his

right.

"I should have been a better teacher," he says. "I should have shared more with you."

Mufasa passes me the bourbon.

"When I go to universities to talk, I tell them stories. They invite me so I can share what I've

learned. I didn't do that with you guys."

The bottle gets back to Moey, who puts it down.

117

"Hey, you mind if I get another shot of that?" Mufasa asks. Moey stares at him, cracks a smile

and hands it to him.

The bottle makes the rounds.

In the morning we split.

118

CROWDED

There is no account of People team, only the abandoned but persistent Land team: Mufasa

driving, Mary passenger with Willie on her lap, Chad, me, guitar between my legs, and Jackson.

Willie sits so forward he could be the maiden on the prow of a ship.

119

CONTINUITY

A trail maps time

as place to place—

narratives of migration

like the birds’

perched in the wetlands.

120

PITTSBURGH

At the top of Pittsburgh, far removed from the city, we walk up to the Council of Three Rivers

American Indian Center. A man is waiting for us in his sports car. He gets out, an older man, and

he tells us to camp in the field. He says the center will be locked at night, so we should go to the

bathroom now. I think that he is not impressed, because three of the five of us are white. Mary

and Mufasa, nonetheless, end up talking with him about reservations. When he leaves, he says

he’ll leave one door open.

121

FORT BERTHOLD

And Mary said:

There’s so few Natives out there. The ones that are out there in politics pretty much gave up on

trying to help their own people. Then there’s Natives who say they want to help their people and

just don’t know how to go about it. I didn’t want to be that person, I guess. I wanted to do

something for Indian country. Because back home there was nothing I could do. Everyone was

so happy we were finally getting money. In the tribe, there are only about 7,500 enrolled

members. I know that a lot of people were against what was going on, but then there were the

people getting money from the drilling for oil. And they almost forgot about it, it was in the back

of their minds after they started getting checks. And in the back of my mind, I was like what’s

the point?

- So what is “it?”

The ripping people off. I mean, a lot of our elders didn’t go to school, you know, and they’re

signing contracts several pages long. They don’t know everything about the law. With my

grandma, no one was there with her when she signed the contract. When I went back there, they

were drilling on my grandma’s land, taking several barrels a day. She’s seen some money, but

not what she should be getting.

- How old is she?

She's 78. She grew up in Elbow Woods, ND. You’ve heard of Elbow Woods right?

- No.

It was destroyed because of the Garrison dam in North Dakota. It was flooded.

122

THE DESCENT

And then went down to the strip

to the street with the river at its end

names writ next to names, people crossing,

Jackson and I standing against brick, a girl yells “hey!”

her brown boots laced to the mid-calf, hard skirt, black shirt.

She asks to sign our petition then invites us to the bar.

We say we can’t, we’ve got to keep getting signatures,

she says she’ll sign a hundred different ways.

Her man joins, a thin “No” inked beneath each eye. He says they’ll buy.

So, red light pours in from the window, through the smoke from our booth

as this couple talks about the trains they ride, sunsets, city kids.

“Come drink by the river with me,” she says, “let’s get fucked up.”

We say we can’t, she whines and tries to persuade us

as Mary walks in and looks at us, drinking, in disbelief.

We leave with Mary and the girl’s man goes the opposite way,

but she follows us, whimpering from a distance.

Mary, Jackson, Chad, Mufasa, and I loiter beneath ivy-wreathed windows.

Two boys, blonde hair, tan shorts, sunglasses, and all smiles stop to sign.

“We’re about to go jump off the bridge,” one says,

“Yeah yeah, he’s done it before. You guys want to come?”

If you knew Jackson, you’d know how he felt when the group

said no. “Come get fucked up by the river,” the girl cries.

As the bridge boys walk away, another group of four

turns the corner—brown shag haircuts, scruff and slacks

guitar cases set down to sign. They get a part of our story.

“We’re playing a show right here tonight,” one says,

“you guys should come, it’ll be fun.” But no, we say

we won’t be able to—we’re not all twenty one.

“Ah, let’s just go to the river!” the girl pleads, moans

and at last saunters away.

123

The daylight’s done and the horizon holds people like a dam—

here we sit (doomed ones) little funds, bar peanuts

and a plan to play guitar on the street for gas money

when they come—stiletto’d, groping crowds, walking past us.

124

POCAHONTAS

Summer’s middle

shaped by a valley.

Driving into Pennsylvania,

it was in our heads

that we would find a statue of Pocahontas—

she had some history here

and the land made it true.

But she’s so illusive

and this day is

undocumented

(but wherever we were

there was a river

And we jumped in from the bridge

over and over again).

125

GREEN AND BLUE

Dehydrated on the road, having hidden from the police car patrolling the bridge, ready to jump

when a woman yelled from her backyard, "I wouldn't jump in that water, there could be concrete

blocks in it, you never know what's floating down." Sun-drying in the car, an arm in wind

through the hills that make valleys towards the sea. At the campground, we sit in a paddle boat at

the lake. Chad talks to women on the dock. The surface of the lake gleams pink as we walk back

to camp. In the bathroom, I shave Jackson’s hair into a Mohawk. We know that we near DC, but

somehow we can’t say when we’ll be home. June bugs dive at our faces and buzz on the cement.

126

LILA

On the way in the car to whatever camp we can find, we walk into a store and Millie pulls Mary

aside. She tells Mary that she is pregnant. I don’t know this until we are driving back to Kansas.

127

TUSCARORA STATE FOREST CAMPSITE 47 KANSAS CREEK

“Smoke from our campfire goes into the treetops, beams come down. Mary plays the guitar,

Willie waddles around. The others are off somewhere. We’re out in the middle of, on the edge

of, or at least somewhere where there is no phone reception. A little creek can be heard, instead.”

The other car goes to Carlisle without us. We set up camp without them. We explore the forest,

and then drive back down the road to get signal to call them. The car goes slow, the road on the

edge, its view of a valley.

We park where the road forks, one way into the safety of trees. I walk there, and stop by a pile of

boulders, a cairn. A wooden sign hangs above it. I think that it is a human grave, that the winter

described on the sign took the life of the burier’s best friend. Mary reads it and says it is a dog’s

grave.

128

THE ASH

“What about bears?” I say when a big can of ground beef gets peeled open. “Are you supposed

to cook meat in bear territory?”

It’ll be dark soon. We’re alone on the mountain.

After dinner, I sit on top of the table with Jackson and Tyler facing the fire. I film the flames,

moving the camera in circles—it looks like a fire dancing against blackness. When I put the

camera down, I peer into the shadows. I’m sick with thinking there is a bear walking closer in the

dark.

Moey stirs the fire. He takes the charred end of the stick and runs his palm over it.

“This is how you do it,” he says. “The ash hides you, makes you harder to see.”

He hands me the stick. I scrape the ash on the backs of my hands. Throughout the night, I re-

ashen my palms, secretively, my forehead, my cheeks, chin, enough so that I can pretend I blend

in with the shadows.

In the morning, we spend time at the stream, on its rocks in the shade, throwing Moey’s marbles

into the current as an offering. Mary says she heard a woman. She says a voice said to her,

“We’re a long way from home.”

129

GETTYSBURG

We finally walk as one group, which feels, somehow, patriotic, or something like it. People take

pictures with us. We drive into Gettysburg at sunset. Little bullet holes in the trees. The field is

empty and the grass mowed low.

130

THE OUTSKIRTS

The rim of the cup that when circled sings—

No gravity will take us in, so we skirt around

a tired line of gray and meaningless road

we could drive all night, without call to harbor

and no place to end us, like we are nothing to end.

Come from Kansas to be here, be heard

still tethered to that heart but free of the weight

that was purpose, pride, or intention; we stall

scratching lottery tickets at a gas station, stare

into an abysmal field, find vacancy in darkness.

131

LAWRENCE JOURNAL WORLD, JULY 10 2012

A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday came down decisively in

favor of a route that will allow the long-debated bypass to be built through the Baker Wetlands.

The strong wording of the ruling led leaders with the Kansas Department of Transportation to

declare that any further legal battles involving the road are unlikely.

“I think it is important to point out that the court agreed with KDOT and FHWA’s (Federal

Highway Administration) position in every instance,” said Josh Powers, a spokesman for KDOT.

“We feel like it really does put an end to this matter from a legal standpoint.”

Powers said construction on the final six miles of the roadway is expected to begin in October

2013. He said the roadway is expected to be open to traffic by fall 2016.

“We really believe this project is going to serve as a cultural and economic corridor,” Powers

said. “The project finally will connect Johnson County, Lawrence and Topeka.”

The project—estimated to have a $150 million construction cost—already has won funding in

the state’s comprehensive transportation program.

The legal issues surrounding the case were largely seen as the last remaining hurdle for the road

project.

“Finding no fatal flaws in the environmental impact statement or the prudence analysis, we

affirm the judgment of the district court,” the judges wrote in the decision.

Lawrence Mayor Bob Schumm praised the ruling.

“We’re happy to hear it,” Schumm said. “It will mean a lot of economic prosperity for us in the

future. It is a good day.”

132

IN THE WETLANDS

The entrance that reads

No Entry

Road Closed

the branches taut across the paths.

Shireen and I bend into a clearing

cupped over by pine needles where

the guys have carved

a small pit in the soil

and gathered some kindling.

A bullfrog croaks in periphery

where oak trunks lean

across pools

of rain water. Still reflections

written on as the leaves drift.

The twilight straight above

electric blue but for the black

of the branches before it

and the moon

and the white smoke that rises

too thick, an accidental distress call

we try to lessen, listening

to the movements beyond what

we can see.

Something crashes,

slightly, somewhere:

A bird’s flight

from a shuttering

tree, or security

trying to catch us.

We pour water on the fire,

which pushes its last

few embers into mud

whose sideways smoke

we follow out.