Becky

Two days ago now I had the pleasure of meeting Becky Chief Eagle Three Stars.  Chief Eagle, as it turns out, is the last name of her new husband. Two years ago she met Dallas, at the time fixing up and selling cars, and she immediately recruited him to join her health care initiative as a role model and teacher of young men. Women are in hand, Becky days, but the high proportion of single mothers means that men are in urgent need of guidance.  Dallas is driven by his new mission, embracing it with passion. He has been working with the Mankind project, adding a Lakota angle. “It’s going to be big,” he tells me. “Bigger than gambling,” he smiles.  We agree that he better get a billboard, in that case. The billboards advertising the casino on Rosebud tower above the northern Nebraska road I drove in on. After the gps finally let me leave the I80, it was to take the 275, a road that cuts on an angle northwest through Nebraska through Long Pine and Antelope and Valentine until it comes out just south of Martin, SD, the town in between Rosebud and Pine Ridge. Becky lives in Batesland.  After gassing up in Martin I phoned her and she drove down to where the highway meets the gravel road to wait for me. I turned up in the big red truck, and she leaped out of her car to greet me with a big hug.  I began following her, and having assured herself that my big red (gas eating, she said) truck was handling the terrain ok, she took off at 60mph in a cloud of dust.  I tried to drive carefully but she was quickly losing me so I surrendered to the force and floored it.  After the second time I was airborn, the ‘fasten seatbelt light came on and stayed on, which seemed like an excellent command both literally and metaphorically.  After three hairpin bends, some rutted dried mud, we pulled in at her farm, scattering dogs around us, who leaped up to greet us both when we got out of the cars.  Becky grinned widely and ushered me inside.  Indoors were the beginnings of the intense holiday family gathering, with children from her new blended family, grandchildren and nephews, everyone teasing and laughing.  Becky had just been told that day that she is going to get a total knee replacement, but it didn’t stop her taking care of everyone. I gave her the cheese and the gallon jug of maple syrup and she threw back her head and laughed.  We immediately cut up some chunks of Vermont cheese, while Becky told her family about my thanksgiving plan to drive almost to the Canadian border, to Northwest Montana, to pick up Lewis’s long lost things. “What’s he got, gold bars?”  Dallas asked, wondering what was worth all this.  We agreed that we were gathering bits of life, and that it wasn’t a bad idea to do that.  And I was in the mood for a road trip.  Am I ever. The country across Nebraska was finally what I have been looking for. Putting the industrial strip behind me, I was driving through the giant golden landscape, the sky a stunning blue, the temperature a balmy 65f.  Even the officer who gave me the speed warning in Antelope, NB was so charmed by the day, the sun, my story that he let me off (I would have fought it, I was using the cruise control).  Becky quickly solved a problem, inviting me to drive her stepdaughter and local grade 8 valedictorian Delacina to her mother’s place in Rapid City in the morning. We agree to a 5am departure.

Back to Becky’s place.  With her family busy making dinner and Becky finally settled with her legs up on the sofa, she and I got to know each other. First she smudged, and asked me my birthdate.  She told me about the Stone Boy Women’s Society, which has been dissipated of late, with various members scattering to take care of their own health care. They have two groups, however, an 8-week parenting training and a healthy relationship training for young women. They do ceremony for quickening of the infants and her inipi out there at the farm holds 30.  “We’re sweating Friday night,” she said, glancing at me. I’d love to. I brought my dress and some towels, but there’s no way I can get back in time. Half an hour later, rubbing each others feet, it becomes clear that I am coming back through, once I pick up Lewis’s things, not least so we can go through them looking for that gold. I offer Coyote to help her do some research on her women’s groups, starting with MYMOP II (my medical outcomes) which is a very simple measure asking people to identify their worst symptom on a given day and tracking its progress.  It at the least provides some data. We talk for a while, and Becky forms a plan to connect Lewis with some people.

We eat dinner and the family gets down to games with the little ones, balancing monkeys on a tree, divets on a plastic plate, variations on tiddly winks, they laugh themselves hoarse.  Becky’s two daughters work on a name for the older one’s unborn boy, working through some Italian names they like before, they say, ‘we end up getting to Lakota names.” A little later, Dallas offers a treat, and we all go out to the barn, turn off the lights and fire up a new Charger that he has repaired. I hang out in the doorway with the twins, aged 4, who are a little nervous at the deafening roar of the motor but shriek delightedly once they realize that it isn’t heading towards them. We went back inside. I was going to play games, I really was, but I was sitting on the sofa, full of good food, and the next thing I new Becky was tucking in my feet and saying goodnight.  In the morning, I crept down to wake up ‘Cina, said farewell to a sleepy Becky and Dallas as they got up to take out the first of their turkeys, put in at 1am. We took off, avoiding cats and dogs and noting some of Becky’s ten horses posed in the brilliant moonlight. We drove along the short cut that cuts across Pine Ridge, saving some time for the long drive. I left my sleepy parcel at her mother’s and as the day broke in a line of pink behind me, took off across the badlands headed to Montana.

Lewis is in Hungary now. We spoke on the phone several times as he waited for planes, and we got a chance to say goodnight when he landed since we have rented a phone that works in Europe. We are allowed lots of texting but have to take care with speaking, but this first day it seemed ok to talk to each other. I spoke to him as I drove out of Rapid, liking the sound of his voice.