THANKS-TAKING

A Tale of the Last Lakota Shaman, 

Wolf Howl

I studied Dyami ...  the Whites here in New Orleans called him Captain McCord ... among less cordial names.  I flicked my eyes to Mesmer, the fabled cat who owned this French Quarter restaurant.  

I wondered what Dyami saw when he looked at her.  Being the last Lakota shaman, I saw something ... someone quite different.

Dyami cleared his throat, "Wolf Howl, I know you don't celebrate Thanksgiving ...."

"Thanks-Taking," I corrected.  "The Indians gave those Pilgrims food to keep from starving, and afterwards, the Whites thanked every tribe they met by taking everything from them they wanted: land, children, a future."

Dyami sighed, "Long before the White Man arrived, the Delaware warred with the Iriquois; the Crow with the Cree, the Navajo with the Hopi ...." 

"Oh, yes," I said, "let us talk of the Hopi, who graciously welcomed the Spanish explorer, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, and aided him on his way.”  

 Mesmer growled low in her throat, matching my mood, 

"And in gratitude, the Spanish occupiers enslaved the Hopi populace, compelling them to endure forced labor and hand over goods and crops."

Dyami shook his head.  "I wanted to bring you here to thank you for all you did for me and New Orleans, not ...."

I shook my own head.  "I did not do it for the Great White Father, but for those young girls you placed under my protection."

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Dyami said, "I will get Bush to call off his dogs for all you did."

I laughed without humor.  "He hunts you now."

"I'll think of a way."

I nodded, "I know you will try, but ...."

A hollow-eyed white man burst into the restaurant, waving a poorly maintained automatic.  "I want all your money!"

It hit him then that despite the smell of food from the kitchen, there was only me, Dyami, and a cat to rob.

"Well, shit!" he eloquently said.

I looked to Dyami, "Like all white men, he thinks a gun in the hand means the world by the tail."

"That gun's pointed right at you, Injun!"

I studied this white man, trying to decide just how painful to make his dying.

Dyami was looking out the swinging door and sighed, "Wolf Howl, he has a frightened wife and hungry children out there."

I sighed, "Life conspires to take away all my joy."

I met the man's uncertain eyes.  "I tell you what: I will buy that poorly kept gun of yours for a thousand dollars."

"W-What?"

I gestured with my fingers, turning the silverware in front of me to gold-ware.  "It is yours ... on one condition."

"Wh-What condition?"

"That you bring your family in here to share our food."

My words seemed to hit him like a fist, and his face fell in on itself like the crust of a badly baked pie. 

"I ain't never done anything like this before but Katrina's put us out on the streets. I was at my wit's end."

I thought that had not been a long trail but kept that to myself.

He softly, hesitantly placed the gun on the table, and I slid the gold utensils to him.

The White Man tucked them quickly into his pockets.  "W-Why are you feeding my family after what I tried to do?"

I flicked my eyes to Dyami.  "Tradition."

As the man rushed out to gather his wife and children, Dyami smiled sadly at me and said what I could not bring myself to, "Happy Thanksgiving."

EARLY BLACK FRIDAY

Thanksgiving Night.

Meilori’s is a magnet for lost souls, predators, and victims waiting for the cobra’s strike.  

 It is a place where anything might happen and almost everything has.

I sat alone at my rune-carved table, supposedly where 12 knights and a very naïve King 

ruled a fantasy kingdom, doomed to end in betrayal and regret.

The Moonlight Sonata was playing softly overhead, but still I heard snatches of conversation at the tables around me.  

 I flicked both eyes and ears to the nearest.

“A conquistador,” the woman with the trapped look to her eyes said.

“Very good, Sue,” said the man.   

“They arrived in the 16^th Century and took over.  That’s what I’m doing.”

Sue flinched, and he said, “Why do I frighten you, kitten?”

She took long moments to answer, 

“When I was a little girl, I used to go with Dad to his plant.  There was this giant room with a huge machine that towered to the ceiling. I squeezed his hand tight whenever we walked into it.”

Sue shivered.   

“It had this enormous hammer thing in it at the top and when it rammed down to the ground, you could feel the thud in your feet go up your spine.  It seemed relentless, unstoppable … unfeeling.”

She cleared her throat, “I just knew that one day, it would smash me into nothing.”

The man nodded, “Not too flattering, kitten.”

Sue whispered, 

“You don’t care about me as a person.  I’m pretty.  I clean up well.  But it’s my father’s company you want.”

His eyes became dead. 

“That’s exactly it.  And there isn’t a thing you can do about it.  Katrina took your father so there is no hand to hold.  Only me.”

Sue said very softly, “I hate you.”

“That’s a strong enough emotion, kitten.  It will do.”

I got up and slowly made my way to the table.  The man looked up, irritation in his flat eyes.  

 “This is my table, Cowboy.”

I sat down, shaking my Stetsoned head.   

“No, it’s mine.  All the tables in Meilori’s are mine.  I’m just letting you use this one.”

At the three closest tables, wide-shouldered men started to rise but froze when three of my Grimms, what some call Hell-hounds, sat in front of them.

Usually they cleaned up the messes in my jazz club.  But sometimes they made them first.

The man looked scorn at Sue.   

“You really believe that garbage about this place?  That’s why you suggested me taking you here?”

He sneered at me and withdrew five hundred dollar bills from his wallet.  

 “Look whoever you really are, here’s 500 bucks.  Now, strut back to your table like the hero you pretend to be.”

I nodded.  “Let’s shake on that, shall we?”

I ripped the glove from my right cursed hand and took his own.  He sucked in a wet gasp.   

I stiffened as his life force, along with his memories surged into me.

Faces of his victims.   

His own in the mirror as a child, crying at another of his father’s beatings.   

The burn of his first taste of whiskey.  

 The thrill of victory as he forced his will, his body upon another woman.

Thud.

The now-withered man lay sprawled across the table.

Sue choked out.  “Y-You are a monster like they say!”

I got up.  

 “Reckon so.  But now at least one of us has something to be thankful for today.”

As my Grimms approached to make their own Thanksgiving meal of a human turkey, 

I thought that for them Black Friday had come a day early.