Bill Payne brought his young filmmaker to Senator Harry McCallister’s house for a meeting of the minds. No one sees the soft spoken filmmaker as a disrupting influence, but early on, Logan Warren challenges the senator’s dedication to his work.
This isn’t the best way to earn points with the senator.
“We may have come face to face one time. What have you got to say to me now that you failed to say then?” Harry asked.
“I joined AIM when I turned eighteen,” Logan said. “It’s where my activism began.”
“What is AIM?” Dylan asked.
“American Indian Movement,” Logan answered.
Everyone had the same thought and looked at Logan’s face.
Indian!
“I’m looking at you, Mr. Warren. I’m not seeing it,” Harry said.
“Looks can be deceiving. Until I was sixteen, my Indian roots were relatively invisible. It’s when I went in search of them that I learned something about indigenous people,” Logan said.
“I’m aware of civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and every other right on God’s green earth, I didn’t know about Indian rights,” Harry said. “I was at Wounded Knee ten years ago and while we went to speak with the Indians, we were kept some distance away by the authorities who accompanied us and kept us safe.”
“The occupation was over a local dispute. We were on Indian land and it was a dispute between Indians,” Logan said. “When the government came the shooting started.”
“You’re whiter than I am,” Harry said. “There aren’t a lot of people I can say that to.”
“Looks can be deceiving, Senator,” Logan said.
“Give me a little help,” Harry said.
“My father’s English and Irish. My mother is Ojibwa-Seneca. When my father was sent to Belgium by State, I stayed behind with my mother’s mother. She was Seneca. She recently died. My grandfather died before I was born. He was Ojibwa. Like so many Indian men, he died of a broken spirit.”
“This is about that?” Harry asked.
“You can say Indian, Senator. It won’t offend me,” Logan said without pretense in his voice.
“Did you know this, Dylan?” Clay asked.
“Yeah. We talked about it,” Dylan said. “He said it had nothing to do with the documentary he was doing for Bill. I wanted to know more but we had a lot to do with filming.”
“Why tell my son?” Ivan questioned. “No one else knew?”
“Dylan’s my friend. It’s the kind of thing you tell a friend. He told me about you guys. It’s the kind of thing friends do. We weren’t always busy with filmmaking.”
Bill had listened closely to the conversation. He considered what he knew about Logan and what had been discussed on the Horizon while nothing of importance was happening. That’s when he remembered something Logan said that puzzled him.
“Logan, we were in the Scorpion. I don’t recall the complete exchange, but you had a sudden reaction to something I said. You made it clear you were no fan of colonialism. I didn’t have anything to say. That was about your indigenous roots?”
“I sometimes overreact. You didn’t say anything. I didn’t think you heard me,” Logan said. “You do drift away at times. I was aware you had a lot on your mind, and well, I dropped it while I could.”
“I heard what you said. I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t. People know so little history today. It’s a bit like politics, I wrote it off as something you’d tell me about if you felt like it. I can see how Native Americans see colonialism as deadly to indigenous people.”
“I did have access to the reading material AIM provided to tell the Indian story from the Indian perspective. Believe me when I say, it put perspective into the slaughter of indigenous people. I read things I never heard in history class. I’ve been schooled well. Father’s a stickler for education. Indians were rarely mentioned during mine.”
“The winners always write the history the way they want it told. Truth doesn’t enter into it if there are disagreeable deeds involved,” Bill said. “No history, as is told by governments is factual. It may contain facts they want known, but not the truth, which is often ugly.” “I needed to go to Wounded Knee to find out the Indians’ truth as told by other Indians. It’s where my activism started.”
“Why did Wounded Knee start your activism?” Dylan asked.
“The Indian wars began shortly after the first Europeans arrived. They wanted the land and the Indians were on it. Slowly, they began a migration west forcing the Indians to move or die.”
“We all know the story of the Pilgrims,” Harry said. “There was an attempt to live peacefully with the Indians. It didn’t work out.”
“When you go to someone else’s house, and you have a disagreement, you don’t throw the owner of the house out and take it for yourself, no matter how disagreeable you are. The Europeans came to our house and took it from us. We’d been here for ten thousand years. You’ve been here for a few hundred.”
“We’re still talking ancient history, Mr. Filmmaker. Tell me something I don’t know. Shock me if you can,” Harry said.
“In 1876 The Lakota under Crazy Horse and the Northern Cheyenne wiped out Custer and his command at the Little Big Horn,” Logan said. “Would it surprise you to know that the final battle of the Indian wars was fought at Wounded Knee? The 7th Calvary massacred men, women and children after surrounding their camp. Some of those men killed at Wounded Knee fought at the Little Big Horn.”
“Wounded Knee was payback for Custer?” Dylan asked. “They sent Custer’s unit after the Indians that died at Wounded Knee?”
“I did not know that,” Harry said. “What do you suggest we do? I can’t think of a single solution to correct ancient history, Mr. Filmmaker. It was a different time.”
“Acknowledge the truth and maybe offer an apology for not making an effort to live in peace and harmony. The Europeans came to take the land and they took it,” Logan said. “A simple ‘I’m sorry’ would go a long way in getting our attention. This entire country and you couldn’t spare a single state where Indians could live the way they wanted?
“No, of course not. What if there was something of value found in the state set aside for Indians? The white people would immediately lay claim to it. Sharing isn’t in your DNA, Senator.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. History is messy and people die. How we change the way things are done is beyond my wisdom. I am listening and even learning something, it seems,” Harry said. “I don’t think Europeans came here with the idea of killing the people who were already here.”
“During Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana territory and future president, wrote to ask what to do about a particularly troublesome Indian, Tecumseh. Jefferson’s reply was, ‘The policy is, and always has been, removal.’ He put it in black and white. The policy was always to remove Indians that were in the way of the European invasion of someone else’s country.
“Harrison got together his militia of over a thousand men, and he attacked Tecumseh’s village. While slaughtering the Indians there, they were so brutal they could never be sure Tecumseh was among the dead Indians. That meant Tecumseh became a legend, and the mention of his name scared the hell out of white people.”
“It was the policy. What can I do about it now?” Harry asked. “History is a messy business.”
“The present is messy. Tell the truth. That’s a start,” Logan said.
“There’s no doubt the indigenous population was seen as being in the way of the Europeans’ expansion,” Bill said. “No effort was made to live in peace and the first major conflict between the native population and Europeans came within a couple of decades after the first Europeans arrived.” “When I went to Wounded Knee, I didn’t know much beyond what I learned at my grandmother’s. I read everything AIM had in their library and got the Indian perspective of the history.”
“Indian schools? You didn’t go to a government-run Indian school?” Harry asked. “I have some questions about Indian schools.”
“No. The school I went to on the reservation was run by Indians. The government schools were run by churches. They were there to assimilate Indian children into the white people’s culture. Of course, Indians were people of color and they were never going to be accepted in the white culture,” Logan said.
“You don’t need to convince me,” Ivan said. “We live in Florida. People of color aren’t who a lot of white folks want to rub shoulders with.”
“No rubbing, please,” Clay said.
“My best friend in the world is colored,” Harry said. “You met Twila. She’s a genius with food and practically part of my family. Hell, even her son works for Ivan.”
“How much do you pay for their friendship, Senator?” Logan asked, firing a shot across the senator’s bow.
“I find that remark insulting,” Harry said.
“No matter how true,” Logan said. “I’m not saying you don’t treat black people well. I’m not even saying you can’t be friends with employees. I’m saying that people of color are not as acceptable in this country as are white folks. Regardless, Indians aren’t accepted.
“As for Indian schools, the government took children as young as five and six from their parents and tribes. They denied them any access to the culture they were born into. Preachers cut their hair, dressed them in little suits, and denied them the right to speak their language or participate in any Indian ceremonies. They were to be good Christian little boys and girls.”
“They couldn’t see their parents?” Dylan asked.
“By the time they grew up, their knowledge of the tribes they came from was faded. Many never returned to their tribes. They were taken as little kids, educated the way white men wanted, and left to fend for themselves when they finished being educated.”
“That sounds a bit like they may have been kidnapped,” Harry said. “By the government.”
“Exactly, Senator,” was Logan’s reply. “I’m glad you understand. So, no, I didn’t go to a government-run Indian school. They were run up until about the time I went to live with my grandmother. Indian schools were established about the time Jackson was organizing the Trail of Tears for the Cherokee. The Supreme Court said that removing the Cherokee from their ancestral home was unconstitutional. Jackson replied, ‘Let the Supreme Court enforce their ruling.’ I don’t know if he was laughing when he said it, but he was deadly serious.”
“Another point I didn’t know but will investigate,” Harry said.
“I’m not here to bust your balls, Senator. How often will I have a senator’s ear? I’ve learned that if you don’t speak up when you have the opportunity, you may never get another one.”
“How could they do that?” Dylan asked. “That’s wrong.”
“Yes, Dylan, it is, but what’s obvious to you doesn’t always occur to politicians who come up with that kind of idea,” Ivan said.
“They only got away with it because the people were Indians. No one cared what was done to Indians,” Dylan said.
“Amen,” Logan said.
“Remember your history, Dylan. Black people were three fifths of a person, and don’t ask me how that works. Indians weren’t people. Indians were savages,” Ivan said. “Wasn’t that convenient for the Europeans who came to take their country away from them?”
“No Indians are allowed on land white people claim,” Logan said. “No matter how long they lived on that land.”
“What does it mean to be three fifths of someone?” Dylan asked. “You wouldn’t be alive if there was only three fifths of you, would you?”
“Using force to take what you want sets a terrible precedent. Colonial powers inserted their cultures, laws, and practices in place of the cultures, laws, and practices of the people they occupied, Senator. They did this at the point of a gun,” Logan said.
“It was a different time and that’s ancient history,” Harry said.
“They called the people they occupied dirty names and saw them as less than human and always less than any European. They took what they wanted and forced their culture on the colonized people, who were far more peaceful than the colonizers, who wouldn’t have been there if there wasn’t something to gain from it,” Logan said. “They tolerated the people whose land they occupied, until they revolted, and then they were forced to eliminate the problem. So much for who was and wasn’t civilized,” Logan said.
“Let’s not get too far afield here,” Harry said. “We’ve already gone a world away from environmental issues. That’s the purpose for this meeting and my time is limited.”
“Allowing powerful countries to take over weaker countries is how things got the way they are. Small countries armed to the teeth to fend off aggressors. Why are we always preparing for war? Can’t intelligent people design a peace that endures?” Logan asked.
“I wish I had an answer, Mr. Warren. I truly do,” Harry said. “We’re here to try to preserve the earth. If we can’t do that, there will be no men. We’ll eventually exterminate ourselves, and I’m of the belief we are heading in that direction far faster than anyone thinks.”
“How come the British were all over the world?” Dylan asked.
“The British brought us the East India Company that furnished goods all around the world. They refined cultures and civilized many different parts of the world. I’m part English and Irish and my family goes back centuries in Britain. I can’t get excited by things being the way they were hundreds of years ago,” Harry said. “I like to think we’ve learned lessons and for the most part handle things differently these days. Things are relatively peaceful. Most countries held by colonial powers are free today.”
“How long has that been true?” Logan asked. “How many Europeans do you estimate have died in this century in wars?”
“A hundred million here, a hundred million there, and it begins to add up,” Ivan said. “Of course, we haven’t used nukes yet. I imagine of the four to five billion people on earth today, we could knock off half overnight in a nuclear exchange. Of course, half of the half who survive the initial exchange will die within a few days. That would still leave a billion or two.”
“How smart can mankind be if they allow weapons to exist that can annihilate most of mankind?” Clay asked. “One mad finger on the wrong button, and, puff, the world as we know it ends.”
“And Logan’s concern for a wrong done hundreds of years ago vanishes with it. Makes colonialism look quite innocent in comparison,” Ivan said. “Man is a lovely creature. Don’t you think?”
The silence told a story of its own.
“I don’t get it,” Harry said. “You’re talking ancient history. Things are done differently today. What do you want us to do, Mr. Warren? Give the land back to the Indians? Where would the people on the land go? It’s like sending the slaves back to Africa. They don’t live in Africa and never did. They’re Americans. This is their home. Their ancestors were brought here to do the work of plantation owners.”
“My Pop Pop was Lithuanian by birth,” Ivan said. “He was a fisherman. He left his country to come to America. He came here to escape the Soviet occupation of his country. If there is ever an attempt to throw out the Soviets, I’m not sure I wouldn’t...”
Both Clay and Dylan swiveled their heads to stare at Ivan. “I’d... I’d be right here renting out campsites,” Ivan said. “But I’d wish my countrymen well in their fight for freedom. I learned from Pop Pop that larger countries taking over smaller countries costs the smaller countries many of their best and brightest, who find a way to escape. Even the steel grip of the Soviets couldn’t hold men like my grandfather.”
“There is much treachery in the world,” Bill said.
“Speaking of history, what you really didn’t want was the Conquistador paying your country a visit. They left death and destruction in their path,” Harry said. “The English may have been misguided by claiming territory that wasn’t theirs, but by God, they left them more civilized than when the British came.”
“They destroyed cultures, people’s sense of identity, replacing it with little British colonies that stayed in place when they were gone. They left pieces of their war machines to help the country build its own war machine to protect against countries like theirs. It’s the legacy Europeans left behind and who can resist using a war machine, if they are left one? That’s why the world is the way it is. That legacy leaves us between war and peace much of the time.”
“It’s a violent world created by men who gladly send other men to fight for them,” Ivan said. “Their people go willingly into the darkness that even the men who survive can’t escape.”
“Not the reason I flew home yesterday,” Harry said. “I flew home to meet with men who think like me. I want them to come to Washington and tell my committee what they know. I’d like you—and your film for that matter—to come with us, Mr. Warren. You’ve got a bee in your bonnet, and while I don’t mind listening, I have other things on my mind. If you are going to tell me your story, tell it.”
“Senator, I’m with you on your plan but I have other concerns besides the environment. I believe we can accomplish more than one thing at a time. When will I meet another senator? I’ve gone twenty-nine years before I met my first one,” Logan said. “What have I got to lose asking you to listen for a few minutes? Nothing. I’m a dumb social activist who is half Indian. That half wants to be heard.”
“Does that make you a half-breed?” Dylan asked.
“In less polite times, I’d be a half-breed, or just a breed.”
“I’m a half-breed,” Ivan said. “Half Lithuanian, half Irish.”
“The Seminole have never signed a peace treaty,” Dylan said.
“Ah, Master Dylan, they actually did sign the treaty of Payne’s Landing. I think in 1832,” Bill Payne said. “Actually, local chiefs put their mark on a document they couldn’t read. Technically it was a peace treaty, and when the US tried to enforce it, the Seminole were ready to go to war. The US withdrew to fight another day.”
“I’ve never liked being ambushed. I don’t like it now, Mr. Filmmaker,” Harry said. “I must admit I’m curious about why you were at Wounded Knee. I wasn’t a congressman for long. A few of us agreed to go talk to the occupiers there. When I first saw you, I knew I’d seen you somewhere. You looked so young then, as you do now.”
“I can tell the story. It’s what I’ve wanted to do, Senator,” Logan said. “I hardly recognized my Indian blood until I was sixteen.”
“I’m listening, Mr. Warren,” Harry said.
“It didn’t start at Wounded Knee. That was where my activism started,” Logan said. “At first, everything I knew about my Indian half, I knew from my grandmother, Free Dove. My parents were heading for Belgium. Dad works for the Department of State. I elected not to go and I went to stay with my Seneca grandmother, my mother’s mother. I had visited Free Dove with my mother a few times. I had become more and more curious about being half Indian. My grandmother always told stories about the glorious past of her people, before the English came. I wanted to know other Indian boys and learn about the Indians my grandmother knew.”
“Weren’t you a little scared?” Dylan asked. “I’d be afraid to leave home to go to a place I knew nothing about, even if I was sixteen.”
“I left Tulsa, the only home I knew, when I was fourteen, Dylan. We moved here. I didn’t know anything until I moved here,” Clay said.
“Yeah, because you met me, Babe,” Ivan said.
“Yeah, I met you. I didn’t mean to interrupt, Logan. Go ahead.”
“I didn’t know anyone. I was a bright kid with lots of friends. How hard could it be to make Indian friends while living with my grandmother on an Indian reservation?” Logan asked.
“Right away we argued about where I wanted to go to school. I wanted to go to the Indian school a couple of miles away. My grandmother thought I should go to the white school off the reservation about five miles away. My Uncle agreed to drive me and pick me up. I wanted to go to the Indian school with Indians.
“It was summer and there was plenty of time to find my way around. Grandmother suggested I walk over to the Indian school and look around there. It was a good walk and when I got to the school, there were five shirtless Indian boys playing basketball. They had dark skin and flowing black hair. I thought they were beautiful. I regretted I had blond hair and blues, like my father.
“One boy stopped under the basket to look at me. The other four boys turned to look, too. They walked straight over to me. I was sure I was about to make my first friends. I started to stand up to greet my Indian brothers,” Logan said.
“It didn’t turn out to be as easy as I pictured it would be. Before I could stand up, the fist of an Indian called Dark Cloud hit me in the mouth, knocking me on my ass.
“I was more shocked than hurt. Dark Cloud and his pals walked away. Looking back over his shoulder at me, he said, ‘Wherever you came from, go back where you belong, White Boy.’
“They walked away. I didn’t have any time to tell them I was half Indian. I walked home. I tried to figure out what I did wrong. I couldn’t do a thing about the color of my skin. That’s when it hit me, they couldn’t do anything about the color of their skin either, but they became marked men because of their color.
“I walked back in the house an hour after I left. My grandmother looked at my face. She didn’t say anything. She went to get a bowl of warm water and she used a washcloth to wipe the blood off my face.
“Once she was done, she said, ‘There, now you’re my beautiful grandson again. I could have argued with you all summer, and you wouldn’t have understood why I wanted you to go to the white school. Now you know. They’ll get used to your skin, once they know what a kind and sensitive boy you are.’
“My feelings were hurt but she seemed sure I’d be accepted once they knew I was part Indian. At dinner that night, she asked, ‘Did you catch any of their names, Logan? The boys at the school?’
“‘The one who hit me was Dark Cloud. I think he growled when he hit me,’ I told her.
“‘Oh, Dark Cloud. He’s a good boy. I am friends with his mother. He lives on the next road, down about a mile. I’ll have her bring him over one afternoon. You’ll see. He’s a fine boy,’ she told me. Dark Cloud became my best friend. I started at the white school in the fall. I got transferred to the Indian school and I went there until I finished school. I was White Indian. I was assured that I wasn’t the only one. Dark Cloud knew about Quanah Parker, the most feared Comanche War Chief. He was half white,” Logan said.
“I learned a lot from Dark Cloud. He was smart and a good friend. If an Indian boy looked at me the wrong way, Dark Cloud would say, ‘White Indian is my friend. You object to that?’
“I was going to school at Syracuse. Dark Cloud called to tell me about the occupation of Wounded Knee. He asked me to go. He borrowed his father’s pickup truck and we went there. I saw a future senator there but we didn’t talk. I’ve been an activist for my people and the earth ever since. Had I not decided to forgo an opportunity to see Europe, I might have never been an activist.”
“The Indian school was not a government school run by church people?” Harry asked.
“No. It was run by Indians for the local kids. It was less structured than public schools. All the boys worked with their fathers or an uncle at something manual as part of the curriculum. They played basketball and baseball, just like at any school. I went to Indian school my junior and senior years. There was more interaction and less assignments you did on your own. I liked that we didn’t sit in school for six or seven hours a day,” Logan said. “Thank you for listening. I’m done. I’ve said my piece.”
“The world is changing,” Harry said. “If we want to have a world to live on, we’ve got to change enough to do something about its destruction. While we can agree all people should have equal rights, it doesn’t mean much if we don’t take care of the earth,” Harry said.
“Clay, do you have the reports on finding benzine as the likely culprit in the water samples where you encountered the dead fish?”
“Yeah, Harry, I’ve got the reports,” Clay said.
“Can you make twenty copies? I’ll want to hand them out to the committee. You still have the dead fish you collected?”
“I do. They’re in the freezer in the lab. I haven’t discovered a use for them yet,” Clay said.
“I’ll tell you the use I have in mind before we leave for DC on Monday. I’d like for all of you here to go to DC on Monday. You’ll stay overnight and on Tuesday you’ll appear in front of the committee.
“We’ll have plenty of time to make plans before Monday. I wanted you all here and on the same page with me. Logan, you’ve said your piece and I’ve listened. I have some questions for you. I’ve been unable to get answers. Instead of tying everyone up exploring what I need to know from you, can you meet me at breakfast in the morning? We can discuss the information I need and that you might have. I’ll be up early; I’ve got a full plate. Can I have you called at six? I leave for Orlando at eight.”
“Yes, Senator, I’ll give you what answers I have,” Logan said.”
“Algie, the second film? Can you run it now?”
“Yeah, Harry, just listening to a tale about people who have different color skin. It has a familiar ring to it. I’m just happy I have skin,” Algie said, as he clicked on the projector.