“Everybody on the lookout for low flying planes...”

I haven’t read the paper for days. Is the current terror alert on yellow or orange? I don’t know, but I take a moment to imagine the dam bursting and flooding out Northeast Utah, no more Flaming Gorge Recreation Area, no more Green River for the fly fishermen to fish, no more lights for the condos and million dollar chalets lining all the ski resorts, no more power for Provo and Salt Lake City...

“What a nightmare it would be if some terrorist took out this dam,” says Bob, “except, of course, for the environmentalists. They’d just love that.”

We reach the other side of the dam and begin a gradual climb into the mountains. The road winds up and out of the canyon and we emerge into a forest of trees. A mule deer is on the road before us, and Bob has to honk the horn to get its attention. It finally runs off into the trees, and we all watch it dance away. We see another deer, and then another, and then all around us, deer. I have never seen so many at one time, down in the trees, up on the slopes, standing at the side of the road. They ignore us as we slowly pass, and another walks out in front of us. Bob honks, flashes his headlights, stopping just in time.

“They must come down to the road because it retains heat,” says John.

My mind wanders back to my reading on the plane, ...they wanted to have a road up through our country...They told us that they wanted only to use a little land, as much as a wagon would take between the wheels, but our people knew better. And when you look about you now, you can see what it was they wanted.

Dad works the radio, searching for a clear station. He lands on the voice of George W. fumbling through a speech, explaining that we only intend to occupy Iraq until the newly liberated populous can fend for themselves. Bob adjusts the rear view mirror, and I can see him now looking directly at me,

“I don’t care if he can’t speak clearly, or that he was a drug user, or that he barely made it out of college, Florida and Enron, I just care that he makes the right decisions, that’s all that matters. So far, he’s done that. He’s just what we need right now. Everything else is bullshit!”

I think about the speech Junior made two days before the war began, the one where he mispronounced “nuclear” seventy-five times. Newcular newcular newcular. That’s how they say it down in Texas. Don’t mess with Texas. Y’all. As if on cue, the tension is broken when we drive into a new herd. But this time, it’s a herd of elk. There are dozens of them, surrounding us. I’ve never seen elk up close, and they are bigger and more regal than I’ve ever imagined, their heads are as high as the SUV. One wanders out onto the road ahead and faces us, staring at us in the twilight. Bob flashes the lights, honks the horn, but the elk holds its ground. I am a Lakota of the Ogalala band. My father’s name was Black Elk, and his father before him bore the name, and the father of his father, so that I am the fourth to bear it.

Coda

The plane approaches LAX, gliding above suburban sprawl, following the 105 freeway. An offshore wind has blown the brown, chewable air out into the Santa Monica Bay, and the city is unusually clear. I can see the twin towers in Century City, and Downtown L.A. skyscrapers glisten in the distance like the Emerald City in the Land of Oz. There is still a hint of snow on the surrounding mountains, but I focus on the Hollywood sign, its white letters blazing on the foothills announce that this is the land of dreams, where millions have come to make a life of pretend and pretension. This is the very place that drove Hemingway, with its failed renditions of his once clear, lucid prose, into self-doubt and electroshock therapy.

Dad has hired a town car to shuttle us home in luxury, and we are met by the driver, dressed in a black suit and flashing a sign with our name on it, at Baggage Claim. We retrieve our bags and find our way out to the curb. We are waiting, reasonably, for the driver to bring the car, and I re-acclimate to the surroundings I left just five days ago. There is no more Green River, there are no more trout rising, no regal elk standing in the road. Instead there are buses, taxis, cars, and swarming masses of people making their way out into the city and suburbs beyond.

Next to us is a group of African Americans, all home from a long trip, their luggage is piled on the curb before them. The cop standing behind us is African American as well, and he looks about the size of an N.F.L. lineman. He walks up to us and smiles,

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. And how are you this fine day?” He sees our fly rods resting against our bags. “Looks like you’ve been fishing. How was it?”

“Great,” says Dad, “we were at the Green River in Utah....”

Dad is about to continue, when an Acura sedan pulls up in front of the group of African Americans. A pretty girl with cornrowed hair and a bright smile jumps out of the driver’s seat to greet them.

“Hey, y’all!”

A man in the group shouts back in protest, “Yo yo yo! Damn girl, done took yo’ sweet time!”

The cop has moved beyond earshot, but just to be sure, Dad lowers his head to my ear, his voice nearly a whisper,

“How come some of them speak so well, and others talk like Yo, yo, yo...done took yo sweet time...?”

My father, who loves Hemingway, who lives unchanging and without apology, who speaks Spanish and Russian fluently, who is on the board of directors of his country club, who looks forward to playing golf with Bob next Sunday, who has a portrait of Reagan hanging on the wall of his den, who celebrates any good Rush Limbaugh diatribe, is entirely serious with this observation.

I think about what to say, looking out on the stream of vehicles circling past the terminals, watching as our driver pulls the town car up in front of us, and decide that, still, all but one-eighth must remain beneath the surface.

“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know...”