In this dream, she is at a pow wow and no one will look at her. Everything smells like flesh, fry bread, and beer. She is searching for her siblings – a brother, a sister – but everyone looks too much like them, brown and short, comfortable. Having conversations that involve lots of laughter and familiarity. She’s tall, white, anxious. She reaches the clan seating and feels her hands go numb and when she wakes up she thinks: a little on the nose, no?
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It made Smokie feel worse, actually, that she felt relief as soon as she hit northwestern Arkansas. It was as if she was a child again, or an approximation of one. There were only the foothills, the thick, brambly brush and cedars, the blue-yellow light and immediacy of nature all around. It looked like home, or, once more, an approximation of one. It didn’t really matter if it was enough.
The practical point of the matter was – the housing market was currently on fire, like most things in the world. To be fair, Smokie wasn’t completely sure that it wasn’t always on fire. She had never bought a house, nor been close to someone in the process of buying a house, which from the vague snatches of conversation she had heard seemed exhausting, expensive – prone to showcasing the evils of humankind. Moving into her dead father’s house was the most practical option, even though she hadn’t seen him, or the house, in years. To not take this option, when it was right in front of her, after all that had happened, would be impossibly, unforgivably stupid.
She wasn’t stupid, generally. This was a gift – an approximation of a gift. She just had to reach out and take it.
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Smokie’s half-brother was a dental hygienist who ran the occasional marathon and enjoyed all manner of crash diets. He had been married to a wealthy, older woman for what seemed like Smokie’s entire life: Daphne. She was even older than her father-in-law at the time of his death. She was a nice lady, all things considered. She was fond of saying: You’re such a cool customer, Mo. And even if the woman hadn’t bought every pair of shoes Smokie owned for the last decade, she wouldn’t have argued. It was, to some extent, like all things, true.
Smokie’s brother was called El by his wife, friends, and coworkers. His mother called him Sonnyboy. Their father had called him his full name, never anything else – Running Elk.
Hi, Big Brother, Smokie said. She hadn’t seen him since the burial, that unusually hot fall day where nothing went right, and everything had taken on a sickeningly bright quality, like a flashlight being shined directly into the eyes without the possibility of closing them. Running Elk was a brief, brisk texter, and preferred to talk on the phone, or not at all. He looked the same, which is to say – like his mother, but with their father’s eyes, if they had focused vision.
Hi, Mo, he said. He was holding a toolkit and a pair of keys on a cactus printed keychain. He walked quickly to the side of the car as if to help her unload, but then paused. Actually, he said, come on in the house first.
Their father’s house had been vacated for nearly two years. It was painted a deep green color, like the pines and other leafy things surrounding it. It, like her brother, looked the same, except there were new spray-painted names on the concrete porch: Bri Hummingbird and Baby Hogshooter – and a Blair Witch Project looking dreamcatcher hanging from a nail, half-finished.
Smokie exhaled a breath that came out more like a wheeze, maybe from all the vaping, which kept her awake on car rides, and gave her something to do with her hands that wasn’t picking at her own face until it bled, and said: Okay.
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The inside of the house was, to no surprise, also covered in spray-paint. She recognized some of the names from outside. It was also strikingly clean – Running Elk had called her earlier in the week to tell her, good-naturedly, that he had to stop Daphne, and her two adult daughters, from scrubbing the walls. There was a recliner and a couch, both covered in sheets to prevent leather shavings from falling on the freshly sanitized floor, and a few wooden tables Smokie obliquely remembered her father making. The laminate floor was coming up, as if it had been installed while blind drunk, or willfully not sober — which, to be fair, it probably had. The bedrooms had been emptied, and the holes in the walls, as if a fist or elbow had gone through, had been stuffed with paper towels. Some of her father’s items – multiple paintings of Sitting Bull, more dreamcatchers, tomahawks wrapped in what seemed to be an old softball shirt, and his ancient stickball sticks – were piled in a box in the back of the hallway. It was as if the man, a registered full-blooded tribal member, was trying to prove to someone that he was Native. It also, somehow, felt a little appropriative to Smokie but that might have been the long drive.
Still. It was a whole house, and it was Smokie’s.
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Smokie was named after the Great Smoky Mountains, which her father’s people called the Blue Smoke Mountains. Her father always insisted that they should be called the Great Smokie Mountains instead, said it looked better to him linguistically, though he was no expert. Everyone called her Smokie or Mo, never Blue, and never Blue Smoke, which was the name on her birth certificate. Well — once someone had, but that was long ago, and it stung to remember.
Her father’s real name was Mountain-Buffalo-Who-Stomps-Through-the-Woods. His other name was Henry. He had a massive cardiac event, that’s what the EMTs called it, and smashed his face against his, now Smokie’s, bathroom sink, and died probably instantly, though no one could really know for sure. Sometimes she wondered if he had suffered, and if she could bear it if he had. Either way, it had probably traumatized the tiny, squirrely man that had been with him in the house at the time, high on something metallic smelling, though again, no one could ever really know for sure. He came up to Smokie and El at the funeral and shook their hands, shaking, shaking and said, looking like he’d seen a phantom – I didn’t know he had children. It made Smokie laugh, hard, almost hysterically. El said nothing at all, which was even worse.
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Daphne came by and brought dinner – real Mexican food. Smokie liked her sister-in-law, even though Daphne said she was comfortable instead of rich, which she was. Smokie liked her, and not just because of the shoes thing. Or the LSAT thing. Or the GRE thing once the idea of law school made her want to die. And the groceries, and the sweaters, and the if you ever need anything, Smokie, call us.
They sat in camping chairs around TV trays to eat. Because they were Daphne’s chairs they were very cushioned, and because they were Daphne’s TV trays they were sturdy and decorated in a mosaic pattern. They probably cost, all together, as much as Smokie’s phone. Running Elk and Daphne picked at their food. Smokie ate as much as she could hold. After greetings, and Daphne’s chipper questions about the drive, few words were exchanged. It was better that way.
Before they left, Daphne insisted on making up the air mattress. And once she was alone, Smokie laid down and thought about everything she’d ever done wrong. She was worried her brother would say – I don’t know how you turned out to be such a horrible person, because she didn’t, either. To blame their father was repulsive to her – didn’t he, too, blame his father for everything that had happened? To blame anyone else wasn’t truthful enough. She thought about her used washer and dryer set, her couch, her pots and pans, all gone, bought with her grad student stipend, her blood and sweat and meager number of tears, lost to the duplex she shared with an older woman named Tammylynn, whom she met through her previous housing situation – a room in another older woman’s attic. She had played on Smokie’s emotions about recovering addicts and invited what Smokie thought was her boyfriend but turned out to be her cousin to live with them for a few days, and a few days turned into a month, into nearly six months and –
It was awful, of course it was. Smokie would never see a dime of back-rent, or an apology, or her precious, precious couch again – it was sky blue and reminded her of Oklahoma, and her friend, the one she didn’t talk to anymore. She barely even got to use that couch. The moment she had tried to enforce one, singular boundary Tammylynn had gone ballistic. First was the fake hospital stay, then were the claims of cruelty, of not being able handle anything on her own, of having to sort it out with the cousin, not her. It had been the worst two weeks of Smokie’s life, of squirreling granola bars away in her room, of barricading the door, of –
She was out, that was it.
She called her brother crying, sobbing really. She was frightened, anxious in a way that predated her. El said he would come get her. He said he would help. She said – where will I go where will I go where will I go and he said, just come home, Blue Smoke. Just come home.
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Sometimes, in the night, before his death and especially after, she thought about everything she would say to her father given the chance. Most of it would have to be screamed. Some of it whispered. I’m sorry, maybe. Or worse: can’t you just love me for a minute? I’m so scared.
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Running Elk and Smokie’s paternal great-great-grandfather was the first person to farm wheat at Shell Branch. He spoke their tribal language, but learned some English eventually, mostly curses. Smokie tried to remember this factoid, keeping it in her head like a talisman, as she reported to her new job as a speaker services specialist, which the tribe’s website marketed as: “Providing a proactive service to the remaining tribal First Language Speaking population. This position will actively engage this population through community functions, home visits, phone visits, etc. to assess their needs to better advocate for them.”
Smokie spoke mostly English but had learned some of the tribal language as a teenager, mostly curses.
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When she was a child, Smokie’s father was warm and friendly, but often drunk, which warped his personality into senselessness, sarcasm, and a complete disregard for anyone but himself. He never had any money yet always had drugs and a new girlfriend. Sometimes she hated him. It helped so that her love for him, her want for his affection, wouldn’t completely derail her, make her grieve. In the spring, before, after a string of long, winding voicemails that said things like: little sister why don’t you ever call me let’s go hunting have you ever shot a gun do you know what city is called the Big Easy railroad crossing watch for cars can you spell that without any R’s, she told him to never contact her again. She was cruel, exhilaratingly so. She said – don’t even respond to this text, and he didn’t.
He died in the fall. It was the punishment she thought she deserved.
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The day of the funeral, Running Elk and Smokie sat next to each other in companionable silence, saying nothing much except things like – Did we get the programs yet? Do you think people will be able to find the cemetery? Who was that guy again? Daphne bustled in and out of their father’s house, letting the caterers in, patting the siblings on the shoulder, handling the small crowd. She would occasionally direct someone she deemed worthy over to them, so they could awkwardly hug and receive condolences. No one said, He loved you all so much or He was a great father, but Running Elk and Smokie were glad for it. A long time ago they had had a sister, golden and gleaming, who had vanished before she could ever really become anything at all. If she were here, she would probably be drinking, joking, cursing – she would have entertained everyone, then dissolved into loud, theatrical weeping the moment someone tried to say something important. Smokie missed her, and she knew El did, too. They couldn’t talk about her – the ten years she had been gone had proven that. Still, her image lingered for both of them. She looked the same as when she had disappeared – terrible highlights in her beautiful hair, knock-off Ugg boots, a smile that spoke to being in on the secret.
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The first few days at Smokie’s new job are paperwork, endless paperwork. Her office is not at the tribal complex itself, but at a remodeled rural tri-community fire station with solar panels on the roof. It’s quiet, the only real sounds being the wind and the whistle from a passing train, which tended to vibrate the building. She liked to pretend she was the last outpost before a dangerous journey, or at an old Western saloon, keeping the books. Whatever the imagining was, it helped pass the hours. Today, though, was different. She was to meet her first client, a woman named Elvina. The notes the last specialist had left were brief: 75 years old, diabetic, illiterate. They mentioned that her husband, a white man, did not allow Elvina to teach their children the language, nor allow her to speak it at home, and that he had died last year, when her case began. The picture attached showed a tiny doll of a woman with deep set wrinkles and a home perm.
Who are you? Smokie wondered.
Then again, she often asked herself the same question.
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Elvina’s home was like her father’s, built by the tribe in the seventies or eighties. It had the same number of windows but was painted red. Smokie carried her phone, for audio transcription, and a yellow legal pad with a pen attached. She hoped she looked like someone who could be trusted, or at least tolerated. She walked to the door. She knocked. When Elvina opened the door she said nothing, so Smokie said nothing either.
Elvina ushered her in, still saying nothing. Smokie went. The house was cluttered in a homey way. On the walls were needlepoints and old calendars with birds on them. On a shelf above the wood stove were family pictures, mostly yellowed, some in warped metallic frames. Others were newer, obviously made by a teenager with access to a collage app. Smokie couldn’t look away from one, a picture of a lovely young woman holding a baby with chubby legs. Something clicked together in her memory. It was one of her sister’s high school friends, all grown up. What was her name? Sky? Summer?
It didn’t matter. She just looked so happy to be alive.
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The truth: They didn’t look for her because she was just another Indian. No one would say it, but it deserved to be said. Smokie wanted brutal honesty. She wanted to watch them face it. She wanted all those smirking officials to —
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After, a missing and murdered Indigenous women’s group came to speak to Running Elk and their sister’s mother, and told Smokie’s mother to bring her, too, that she was family, and that she could go play outside during the worst bits. Smokie doesn’t remember much of that day except her mother handing over a stack of photos to the group’s leader. But Smokie refused to let go of one. In it, she was wrapped up in a blanket on their sister’s lap, and their sister was beaming at the camera, and it made Smokie feel so warm and safe that she couldn’t part with it.
The group’s leader said they had enough photos anyway. Then she ran a gentle hand over Smokie’s head, barely a touch. She might have been shaking. Then, she said: my little girl had hair just like yours.
And Smokie thought, oh. Oh.
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There was no funeral because there was no body and since there was no body there were no traditions.
They lived their lives around this fact. The smallest glimmer of hope. She could come home, she could.
They lived their lives around this fact. Without the traditions, she could never. She could never.
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In college Smokie posts something on social media. Not about their sister, that is too private and heavy, but about another missing Indigenous woman. She uses an MMIW hashtag. An anonymous commenter says: Apparently more than four in five ndn women experience violence in their lifetime. Are your men just fucking animals? I’m surprised you can read.
Smokie responds: I hope you die alone in a fire. I hope no one mourns you. I think you know they won’t.
The next morning when she wakes her account has been banned for life.
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When Smokie dreams of her, she is the most beautiful thing to ever live. Her hair is black cornsilk and she hates when people spell their last name with an actual numeral and not letters, like every other name in the English language. She has a canine that overlaps on one of her two front teeth, it glitters like a charm. She gets close to Smokie’s face, pressing their foreheads together. Bluey, she says. My Blue Smoke. But Smokie cannot hear the rest.
She never can.
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Again.
Running Elk had been the one to sit with their father in the hospital, the heart institute, the emergency room, the doctor’s office. He didn’t begrudge anyone this, in fact, it felt like his due. He paid his father’s electric bill, his phone bill, his other, accumulative bills that seemed to follow no external or internal logic. He paid them out of his own accounts, not his wife’s considerably larger ones, even though she would have wanted him to.
Though he was now the eldest sibling, he was actually five years younger than their sister, and Smokie was ten years younger than him. It felt like a lifetime. When their sister had been lost, Smokie had still been a little girl.
Running Elk and their sister had been raised by their mother and Smokie had been raised by her mother, yet when they came together it felt natural, like meeting your best college friend, or someone who had appeared once in a dream, only to see they were in front of you at the grocery store. They used to pitch a tent in Running Elk’s mother’s yard, where she would bring them popcorn and homemade rice crispy treats, and allow them to run an extension cord outside so that they could watch movie after movie.
Their sister adored Smokie, as did he. Rare, he supposed, for a boy his age – but he had always been sentimental, sweet. He had to be – he didn’t want his mother to look at him and see his father. He would have never recovered from that.
Their sister would brush Smokie’s hair back from her face, hold her close, read to her from nature books and the newspaper, Junie B. Jones and Alice Munro. Running Elk did these things, too, but after something like that happens – well, there’s only the shadow. No going back.
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Before he married his wife, Running Elk had been engaged to a man who went to the same dental school. The man, called David, was gentle and soft-spoken. At night they would whisper to each other in bed, nothing above a murmur. They separated for a collection of reasons – David wanted to live in a big city, he wanted to adopt immediately, he wished that when Running Elk was upset or angry that he would be able to tell.
David still came to visit sometimes, called it a country getaway, said it was good to keep in touch, they were still friends, weren’t they? He kissed El’s cheek, hugged him deeply. He brought his husband, who was from Ireland, and their three children. They lived in a city with no backyard and barely any grass. He always asked after Smokie, saying some variation of how’s the baby?
A minute or less after saying goodbye to David and his family, Daphne would be on him. She would want to make love, as she always called it, and Running Elk always obliged. He loved his wife’s body, her mature face, her streaked with grey hair. Still, he thought she meant to mark her territory. He really didn’t think she knew why she was doing it, why the need had consumed her so suddenly. Sometimes, but only sometimes, El thought of other lovers. He would close his eyes tight during these memories, as not to be revealed. One could, in the right light, mistake his expression for ecstasy.
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He was happy to provide a place for Smokie to land, even if that place was their father’s house. His name was currently on the deed, as he had been the only child speaking to their father when he died. Their sister, even, refused to show up in their father’s dreams. He complained about it, often. How could his children be so ungrateful? He hadn’t been that bad, had he?
The house was their father’s first and last gift to his youngest child, his only white child. He didn’t think of it that way, but he knew Smokie did.
That day when Smokie came back, standing on their father’s concrete porch, she looked as if the entire world had collapsed around her. Running Elk wanted to hold her head in his hands, tilt it around, inspect – but he refrained. She might spook easily in this state. Like a horse. Or, what he thought he remembered being said about horses, he didn’t know. They terrified him.
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Smokie sent him a screenshot of what she had sent their father.
She said: “This is Smokie. Thanks for the good wishes but I’m asking you not to contact me anymore. Don’t contact my mother either. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t need to. If you feel guilty about anything, don’t. It’s over now. I don’t care. I want to be left alone. Let’s both move on with our lives. I don’t want to keep reliving all this, I can’t. Once you read this, feel free to delete my number, block it, whatever. I’m not going to keep having this conversation.”
Running Elk wished that he could say that. He texted back: I respect your decision, Mo.
What he wanted to say: Don’t you wish you could hit him or is that just me?
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Daphne was efficient, mostly kind, and refused to live in the town Running Elk and Smokie had grown up in, so they lived right across the state line in Arkansas, in a colonial style mini mansion.
Most of Daphne’s family was out west. Her father, who was nearly one hundred and three years old, had ties in oil, the railroad, soybean farming, and as a hobby, antique firearms, though he did support the gun control lobby. His name was Leonard and he called Running Elk, Chief. The only time he had met Smokie, at a Christmas Eve dinner, he had called her Tiger Lily. This, Running Elk thought, was probably the least of racist names he could have called her. Still, the smile Smokie gave Leonard made Running Elk’s heart squeeze, just once, painfully.
Smokie had heard this before, at the bank she worked in at high school, crossing the street during study abroad. She knew, too, that this was the least of the racist names Leonard could have called her. They made eye contact over the table. Leonard looked down to cut his country ham with a fork and knife that looked like they had come over on the Mayflower. Daphne started talking about essential oils to make up for the silence.
Later, while Running Elk and Daphne rode in what he considered non-oppressive quiet, she said: My father’s not racist you know. He loves you. He loves Smokie because she’s a part of you. Sometimes he just says racially charged things. He’s an old man, he grew up in a different generation – you can’t blame him for that.
Running Elk, once again, didn’t say anything. He saw then a hundred scenarios, what could happen here or there. He could have said – what’s the difference between racist and racially charged, I really want to know. Or, oh cut the shit, he just thinks he loves me, people who love other people don’t talk like THAT. He stared out in front of him. I know, he said. These things happen, he said.
Then he noticed something outside the headlights. Something in the ditch like a giant snake, an anaconda, maybe, following them. The elders of the tribe had a different word for this kind of serpent, but Running Elk felt that he shouldn’t speak, or think, the name at night. So he thought instead of how his life was made up of a million tiny silences. And he wondered, of course, when they would finally come together into one Big Silence, smothering them all.