Too Close to the Falls (29 page)

The Indians set up a barricade and refused to let Moses' surveyors on their land. Several of the tribe members wore their war-conference headdresses, a myriad of feathers reminiscent of the plumage worn by the Indian in the concentric circles on the old television test pattern. Capturing the national press, they smoked peace pipes and claimed they would never give up their
land, reminding the rest of the United States that they were part of the landscape before Lewiston was even a thought and that no matter how powerful Robert Moses was he was still doing something illegal.

Finally the war party of two hundred, who stood at barricades on their land, were confronted by thirty-five Niagara County deputy sheriffs, fifty state troopers with riot equipment, tear-gas bombs, and submachine guns, and a number of plainclothes detectives. No non-Indian was allowed beyond the blockade unless they were from the press — the media-savvy natives knew that the national press was all they had going for them, especially since the
Niagara Falls Gazette
had already taken a stand against them. In April of 1957 Governor Averell Harriman approved expropriation. In response, the Indians toughened their barricades.

My mother was passionately interested in history to the exclusion of the present but came very much alive for the reservoir debate because it was history in the making. She dropped her usual acquiescent role and sprang to the fore, demanding a press pass for me, saying that I was entitled to one as much as any other newspaper employee, and
The Franciscan
was in fact the only
truly
local paper. Much to my father's shock, since Lewiston was now the enemy of the Tuscaroras, I was granted interview time with the chief for the next day. My mother remained nonplussed, but I was convinced I was living the life of glamorous journalist Brenda Starr, my cartoon heroine. I secretly hoped that Basil St. John, the mysterious orchid grower who was Brenda's secret lover in his spare time, would suddenly enter my life since I was now “trailing a lead.”

My father disagreed with my going to the reservation, saying things had become dangerous as “tempers on both sides have
flared” and it was nowhere for a girl to be. He didn't forbid it, saying he never knew my mother to make a mistake in judgement; however, he said his opinion was simply “for the record.”

As we approached the reservation in our two-toned grey Plymouth with its gigantic fins, which still reeked of new-car smell, my mother was stopped by rifle-toting state troopers in front of a wooden blockade at the entrance to the reservation. She showed a pointed-lidded state trooper a press pass which stated I was the editor of
The Franciscan
and he laughed, saying that I was only a kid. Humiliated, I slumped in my passenger seat and wanted to go home immediately. My mother assumed an expression I had never seen before and said that she was unaware that freedom of speech was reserved for adults. The state trooper leaned in the car and asked my age and I said ten when I was really nine, actually believing it made a difference. He said that this was not a kid's game, and that we were in the middle of some pretty desperate characters who were refusing to obey the law. He made a circle with his arm, indicating that Mom had to turn around and leave. My mother said that she realized the gravity of the situation — she was surprised that state troopers would invade property owned by someone else. Then she, my mother, the same woman who made me call and make her hair appointments because she was afraid the hairdresser would bully her into a time slot that she didn't want, the same mother who never committed a fashion faux pas, gunned the motor, rammed right through the barricade, drove up to the longhouse, and slammed the car into park. As I looked in the rear-view mirror I saw the guards who fortunately hadn't followed us but only looked shocked and began talking on walkie-talkies. My mother never
looked back and said she was waiting in the car and I would have to go the office of the chief immediately in order to be on time for my interview. I couldn't believe that my mother, who had acted so crazy, was now sitting in the car as though she were dropping me off at Girl Scouts and I was supposed to handle this on my own. To say nothing of the fact that I had been afraid of Indians as a little girl and now that rusty arrow of terror had re-entered my heart.

My mother's face had that same set look as when she drove through the barricade. (My first thought was how angry my father would be about the scratches on his new car.) Being a quick learner I knew there was no arguing with that look, so, no longer feeling like Brenda Starr, but like a nine-year-old with a crazy mother, I opened the car door and trudged shakily through the longhouse, which was full of Indian men lounging on card chairs and looking sullenly at me or tired white men with cameras from the
New York Times
and the Canadian
Telegram
.

I slunk along the hallway to the office that had “Chief” handwritten in Magic Marker on the door. I pulled down my black-watch-plaid uniform kilt, tucked in my oxford cloth shirt, pulled up my green knee socks, straightened my tie, pulled my hair apart, tightening my blond ponytail elastic, looked down at my Bass Weejuns with the Indian-head nickels in them, and knocked.

As the door opened, there he stood in a full Indian headdress. First I recognized the eyes, the cat's-eye marbles, the large ones, the size of the shooter marbles we called bloodies. The ducktail was gone and now he had the shiny braids I had when I last saw him. Now he was six-three and I was five-seven. He leaned on the door frame and nodded. Whether it was a nod of recognition I'll never know. Neither of us was the person the other had met so
long ago. He didn't shake hands but said, “I'm Mad Bear,” and I replied, “I'm Cathy McClure.”

I had a terrified moment when I was sure he would mention the past or else say something like “How're things by the store?” or “Say hi to Roy,” to let me know he knew the incident had really happened. I had never let that incident be real. I called it a bad dream in my head and I didn't want Mad Bear to mention it now. As I stood there I knew he felt the same way and we had agreed to never let that episode be real and for some reason which I can't explain, we shared the guilt and shame of it together. The moment ticked by.

He sat down and patted a chair for me to sit next to his desk. He treated me with respect and kindness. He spoke in a slow and concentrated way and answered my prepared questions, explaining carefully that although he agreed with Moses that the Tuscarora land was unused, he didn't believe that land had to be used in order to be important to the Indians. He said the Indian view was that they were only custodians of the earth, which is sacred to all man. Land is something that cannot be sold or bartered, being held in common by all, like the air we breathe or the water we drink. The fact that the land had not been used, as Moses' aerial photographs had so clearly illustrated, made it more, not less, sacred. He called me “Miss McClure” and said he would like me to meet Elton Greene, a name I had heard nightly on the news. At the door stood Elton, but I knew him as Black Cloud from Shim-Shacks.

As the three of us walked out to the swamp, we jumped over traplines near the beaver dam. The majority of the Tuscaroras still made their living from fishing, hunting, and farming the land. As
we parted our way through the bulrushes, Mad Bear and Black Cloud knew exactly where to find the pike eggs nestled against cattails in the watery, embryonic bog. If the inlet was destroyed for the proposed reservoir, the eggs would dry up before they had a chance to hatch. Open water held too much current for the eggs, carrying and ultimately crushing them against the rocks while dry land fossilized them. The swamp was nature's incubator, giving the pike eggs the watery, warm, still protection they needed for a calm, healthy start in life. If the swamp was dammed, then the Tuscaroras' livelihood was equally damned. As we stood in our matching knee-high black boots, Mad Bear touched a tree and asked me to place my palm flat on its bark. As we caressed the tree, he told me it was alive and felt pain in the same way he and I felt pain, and when we were cut we ran blood while a tree ran sap. Without a touch of anger in his voice, speaking in a tone of patient concern, as though he were talking of the well-being of a beloved family, he explained that if the reservoir was built, all of this life teeming around us would be suffocated, as if a truck were to come along right now, dump a load of topsoil on the three of us, and bury us alive.

As they walked me to the car, I asked Mad Bear why
he
was the chosen leader of the protest. He said it was part of the Bear Clan's tradition to ward off evil spirits. His great-great-grandmother had warded off evil spirits that took the form of stone giants and flying heads with no bodies. These flying heads were terrifying the Indians until one night a head flew through the door of his ancestor when she was roasting chestnuts. His old gramma was fearless and pretended she hadn't seen the flying heads as she sat facing the fire. Every few minutes she pulled a charred chestnut out of the
fire and ate it. The flying heads thought that she was eating hot coals, and assumed a woman who could do that and not flinch was not to be messed with. Therefore they hightailed it out of the tribe as quickly as they had arrived, never to be heard from again. Mad Bear concluded by saying that, in the tradition of the Bear Clan, he had to have the courage to eat hot coals, or the cunning not to, to ward off the evil spirits that this time took a different form but were no less treacherous to the Tuscarora way of life.

I wrote up my article for
The Franciscan
entitled “When a Tree Bleeds” and it caused quite an uproar as it got carried home and disseminated through everyone's lunch pails along with basketball scores, the altar-boy schedule, and the joke of the week. Many assumed I had been duped by the Indians, and Dolores, who always had “her ear to the ground,” as my father described her folk wisdom, told me I'd had “too much of the peace pipe.” Roy said nothing, but I noticed he'd cut out my article and tacked it up on the bulletin board above his desk in the storeroom.

Father Flanagan discussed the issue at Sunday mass, saying we had some decisions to make and he hoped we'd all come to the council meeting as the apostles came to the Last Supper. These decisions should be made with God as our leader, not by the likes of Huntley and Brinkley or any other godless boys of the eastern seaboard. It was Jesus Christ our Lord who said that we are one family under God the Father; therefore, progress should benefit us all within that family.

My father remained silent on the topic at home and worked on the night of the big meeting to vote on the fate of the reservoir. I waited up for my mother and when she came home she regaled
me with who said what. Apparently she had stood up, reminding the group that Robert Moses was merely a state employee, not the ultimate spokesman for defining what was progress. He had a job to do and he wanted it done cheaply and he shut us up as opposition by pitting us against each other. She referred to this as a legal massacre of the Indians, saying that history would be the final judge.

Moses' men stood up and said that not only would 282 homes be relocated, but 2,726 men would be out of work and two cemeteries destroyed if the reservoir was in Lewiston. Niagara Falls and Lewiston took the side of the Power Authority and Moses offered to pay triple what he started out with to the Tuscaroras to placate liberal guilt. The Indians were not letting Moses off the hook that easily. They voted unanimously to reject the money, saying their land had nothing to do with money. Moses could quadruple the amount and it would make no difference. If someone offered you thousands of dollars for your family, would you take it or simply be insulted when the price was raised?

Finally the issue went to the Supreme Court and the vote was six to three against the Indians. The court pointed out that the tribe had not acquired their land by treaty but by gift and purchase from the Senecas. The three dissenting judges were Warren, Black, and Douglas. Black's dissenting words, “Great nations like great men should keep their word,” were the title of “My Last Week In Review.”