The Old Man's Lazy // Peter Blue Cloud
I heard the Indian agent say, has no pride, no get up and go. Well, he came out here and walked around my place, that agent. Steps all thru the milkweed and curing wormwood; tells me my place is overgrown and should be made use of. The old split cedar fence stands at many angles, and much of it lies on the ground like a curving sentence of stick writing. An old language, too, black with age, with different shades of green of moss and lichen. He always says he understands us Indians, and why don't I fix the fence at least; so I took some fine hawk feathers fixed to a miniature woven shield and hung this from an upright post near the house. came by last week and looked all around again, eyed the feathers for along time He didn't say anything, and he didn't smile even, or look within himself for the hawk. Maybe sometime I'll tell him that the fence isn't mine to begin with, but was put up by the white guy who used to live next door. It was years ago. He built a cabin, then put up the fence. He only looked at me once after his fence was up, he nodded at me as if to show that he knew I was here, I guess. It was a pretty fence, enclosing that guy, and I felt lucky to be on the outside of it. Well that guy dug holes all over his place, looking for gold, and I guess he never found any. I watched him grow old for over twenty years, and bitter, I could feel his anger all over the place. And that's when I took to leaving my place to do a lot of visiting. Then one time I came home and knew he was gone for good. My children would always ask me why I didn't move to town and be closer to them. Now they tell me I'm lucky to be living way out here And they bring their children and come out and visit me, and I can feel that they want to live out here too, but can't for some reason, do it. Each day a different story is told me by the fence, the rain and wind and snow, the sun and moon shadows, this wonderful earth, this Creation. I tell my grandchildren many of these stories, perhaps this too is one of them
