Saucer in the Dunes

20 The Chief

 "Chief, I'm not gonna tell you again, No!" Mr. Ronson shouted emphatically.

The Chief just stared straight at him, unblinking.

"No way in hell I am going to dig up half my store, the new half, mind you, all because you have some old map. I'm really sorry, but I'm not about to do it."

Chief Narjoe kept staring at Mr. Ronson calmly, silently, like a statue.

We coasted across the street, our chains clanking as we navigated the bumpy semi-paved road. We parked our bikes in the alley between Mr. Ronson's Hardware and the furniture repair shop. We slowly walked around to the front of the hardware store. The Chief was still standing there looking at Mr. Ronson.

Mr. Ronson wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with an old blue handkerchief and walked back inside. He stopped in the doorway, reached over his head, turned on a large black oscillating fan, and then disappeared behind the tall octagonal counter in the center of the store.

"You come in here every week, and the answer will always be the same. Look, I don't come out to your farm, out there, and ask you to tear up your floor and dig up the ground underneath, now do I?"

You could tell Mr. Ronson was aggravated, but he was trying to be level-headed.

"Do you have a map? Do you need something there?"

Mr. Ronson shook his head and waved the Chief off without answering.

The Chief was just how Ronnie described him. He was a big man with broad shoulders, kind of like a boxer. His hair was gray and black and long. He had two braids that stuck out from under an old tan hat. I had always heard Indians were red, but they were more tan than red. Ronnie said that Indians weren't really red. The Chief's skin proved it. His face was big, too, and it looked like he had been in the sun a lot, but he was not scary looking. He looked like some of the field workers I had seen when riding with dad on his trips south during summer vacation. I couldn't see his eyes from where we were, but Ronnie had told me they were black. Not solid black, but instead of brown or green eyes like mine, the Chiefs were black. I wanted to see them.

We waited while Chief Narjoe finally walked inside after Mr. Ronson. Ronnie elbowed me to let me know it was time to follow.

"Look, Chief, I bought this property fair and square. Hell, I bought this property from my father, and he had brought it fair and square way back when. We didn't take it from anyone."

Still no reaction from the Chief, only stares.

Mr. Ronson didn't even notice us walk in. We stood behind the recently filled Lance Jars on the left side of the counter.

"How in the hell am I supposed to know that's a real map anyway? It certainly doesn't look like an old Indian map. It doesn't look like no county map either."

"How many have you seen?" The Chief finally spoke.

"Ahh," with another frustrated hand wave in the air was Mr. Ronson's only response.

"Sir, we do not want the land. We want only to take our people from it and put them back on their own land, on Creek land, where they belong. We are willing to help rebuild afterward. Everyone in the tribe has committed themselves to this."

Chief Narjoe's voice was deep, and when he spoke, there was no difference in his words. I mean, you couldn't tell if he was excited, angry, or sad. Every word was spoken with the same tone, not highs or lows; they were all even. It all sounded the same, but something made you want to listen.

Mr. Ronson was a nice man. Ronnie said so himself, and he was nice to me the couple of times I had seen him, but he was really mad that day. His face was red, and he was sweating more than anyone in the room.