Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain Keith Madsen
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4 Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain
5 The thing about having only one leg is that it’s much easier to mount a horse. You might
6 not think so, but six inches of stump doesn’t take a hell of a lot of clearance to swing it over a
7 saddle. At least that’s what I’ve always found.
8 So there I sat astride my favorite steed, a golden Palomino. She stood steady, gazing out
9 at the horizon with me, waiting for just the right nudge from me to send her galloping in
10 whatever direction I would choose. But there was no need to choose quickly. We could saunter
11 off to the north, where the great river Wimahl runs; we could trek to the west and the ocean white
12 men call Pacific, or we could head directly east to the mountain the Salish people called Wy’east,
13 named after the brave warrior who fought Klickitat for the heart of the beautiful maiden Loowit.
14 Of course, I have always been called by the spirit of the mountain myself. To ascend a
15 mountain is to be drawn by the Great Spirit to his own tipi, to be granted the freedom to see all
16 that a god sees, and to understand how the land which is my home connects to all that is beyond
17 it.
18 I was getting ready to head east, when a voice surprised me from down below.
19 “Where do you think you’re goin’, Chief?” A white man’s police officer. He had other
20 officers with him, while I was accompanied only by a squaw. I would have to be careful.
21 “To the east, to the mountain you call Mount Hood. I go in peace and mean you no
22 harm.”
23 “Really? What’s your name, Chief?” Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain Keith Madsen
24 “Roy.”
25 “Gotta last name, Roy?”
26 “Just Roy.”
27 “Well look, Roy – that horse ain’t takin’ ya’ to Mount Hood, or any other place outside
28 of this park, for that matter.”
29 White men never understand the power of a Nez Perce on his favorite horse. I smiled.
30 “This is a golden Palomino, a Quarter Horse bred for speed. Should I call upon her to do
31 so, she could turn and be gone out of your sight before you could even remember where you left
32 your car.”
33 The officer shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Roy. First of all, that isn’t a
34 Palomino; it’s a gilded statue of a European war horse. And second, if you look over your
35 shoulder, the squaw sculpted to ride that horse is Joan of Arc, the world’s most famous female
36 warrior, and she’s lookin’ a little pissed right now that you’ve hijacked her horse.”
37 Little did he know that Nez Perce squaws always looked pissed. I wondered if I should
38 expose his ignorance and make him lose face with his other officers.
39 “You see, Roy,” he said, speaking a little arrogantly for someone probably twenty-five
40 feet below me, “that’s a pretty famous statue of a pretty famous lady. Teenage girl who led an
41 army to free the French people from an oppressive invader. The statue is dedicated to those who
42 lost their lives in World War I.”
43 “Against an oppressive invader?” I said, mostly to myself. Perhaps she could be more
44 helpful than I had previously known. Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain Keith Madsen
45 “Roy, I’m sorry,” the officer continued, interrupting my thoughts, “but you’ve got to get
46 down from there. And, if you don’t mind my asking, how in the hell did you ever get up there in
47 the first place?”
48 I noticed that the earth-bound are always searching for the secrets of those called into the
49 sky. Still, he seemed to have a good soul. I lifted the rope near the noose-end of the lariat I had
50 used to snare this steed. “My people are raised around horses, officer.”
51 “So you lassoed the head of Joan’s horse, and you – what? -- pulled yourself up by your
52 arm strength alone?”
53 I nodded. “In a wheelchair, all you’ve got is your arms.”
54 “Nice,” he said. “Still, you’ve got to get down from the statue, Roy. You’re distracting
55 the drivers passing by.”
56 So again the call to surrender to the white man. I scanned the horizon. I scarcely could
57 view the trees without my eyes being pulled away toward the droppings of white culture –
58 including the traffic he had spoken about. Even the steed on which I rode was made as a tribute
59 to a white woman who had never even seen this land, and given in honor of a white man’s war
60 fought on the other side of the world.
61 “Tell me, officer,” I said, “had Joan of Arc fought with the French alongside my people
62 against the English invaders of this land, would they have given her a statue?”
63 I could see in the officer’s eyes that my question had gotten past his ears to his soul. His
64 eyes had softened. His jaw had lost the rigidity of one standing for the law. No quick answer
65 came. Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain Keith Madsen
66 Four birds left their branches in the nearby trees and found new places to rest their spirits
67 before the officer raised his eyes toward me and spoke again. “It’s not always fair, is it, Chief? –
68 life, that is. Sometimes you’re just screwed, and it makes no difference what you do.”
69 I nodded.
70 “Would it help for me to mention they have a statue of Chief Joseph downtown near
71 Portland State?”
72 “I know that,” I said quietly, “but they gave him no horse.”
73 “True,” he said, walking up a little closer. “Probably afraid he would be like you and ride
74 it off through the streets of Portland.”
75 “Yeah, he would.”
76 The officer took hold of the handles of my wheelchair and turned it around toward me.
77 He looked up at me again.
78 “Still, I got to tell you once more to get down from there, Roy,” he said. “I know it ain’t
79 fair, but it’s my job, and I like my job.”
80 I looked back up at the birds in the trees. It seemed they had stopped singing in order to
81 see how our little drama would play out. But I bet they knew, just like I knew.
82 I lifted my hands to the heavens. “Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and
83 sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.” Then I swung my stump over
84 the saddle and dismounted. Yeah, super dramatic. Uber-Nez Perce. It would have probably been
85 more so had I not forgotten to grab my rope – and that I was still over twenty feet off the ground.
86 ******
87 I have to admit that when you live your life on the street, it’s kind of nice spending a little
88 time in the hospital. Warm blankets. Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain Keith Madsen
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