INDIANS

From book 2 – POOR NO MORE

CHAPTER 17 – ENTER SANDMAN

Legend had it that when whitey first arrived on the spot now known as Thunder City, it was evident that there was a massive silver mine close by. The natives, Basher’s people, had oodles of the precious metal. And whitey wanted it.

The Indian God, Nanabijou, neither liked nor trusted the pale faces. “Look at them. They are ghosts,” he told his people. “They are possessed by a lust for obscene material wealth, and they will be happy to slaughter you all to get it. Already, they are destroying you with their firewater.”

Nanabijou made it clear that his people should never reveal the entrance to the natural vaults that contain the mountains of silver, and they all vowed that it would be so. But one of the crafty, evil ghosts plied one of the Indians with firewater until he betrayed Nanabijou.

When he saw the ghosts hauling fortunes in silver out of the vault, Nanabijou lost his shit. He stormed up and down. Day turned into a dark and stormy night, the sky filled with lightning, the air with thunder and torrential rain. Nanabijou kept this up for forty days and forty nights before lying down over top of the entrance to the silver vault and going to sleep forever more. That, of course, is how Thunder City got its name.

There were still two entrances by which humans could get under/inside the Sleeping Giant: the one that Jesus disappeared into after shooting those two cops, and the one that Basher had brought Taffy to.

“I don’t know, Basher,” Taffy had said, “no one ever comes out of there.”

“That’s only true for white people,” Basher assured the Gypsy.

“I thought that was true for anyone who isn’t one of your people,” Taffy replied.

“You sure you don’t have a little Indian in you?” Basher asked.

“Quite sure,” Taffy answered.

“Do you want to have a little Indian in you?” Basher said with a laugh.

It took her a second, but Taffy figured out what Basher was thinking. She laughed, “Is that what you call it? The little Indian?