The Redfeather Pentalogy

By Paul Chrisstarlon Wesselhöft

In the spring of 1952, two occurrences upend the world of a mixed-breed Native American boy. First, an earthquake violently shakes his house. Then one day his father throws a duffel bag in the back of his truck and escapes his tortured life, leaving seven-year-old Jamie Redfeather and his mother to fend for themselves. Unbeknownst to him, Jamie will not see his father again.

Two years later, Jamies mother divorces his father and sends Jamie to live with her sisters family in Texas. As Jamie tries to adjust to his new family and his uncles harsh disciplinary methods, he explores the world around him, with help from his cousin, Emmylou. Unfortunately, Jamies life is not devoid of challenges as he endures racism and faces the loss of love and identity. Now Jamie must rely on his powerful will to thrive as he attempts to discover who he is meant to be.

The Redfeather Pentalogy shares the compelling tale of a Native American boy as he embarks on a coming-of-age journey and learns that, in the end, it is he who determines his future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781480849532

Paul Chrisstarlon Wesselhöft

Paul Chrisstarlon Wesselhöft is a Vietnam era veteran and retired army chaplain who served in the Airborne, 1st Ranger Battalion, 75th Infantry, and in combat in the first Persian Gulf War, Desert Shield, and Desert Storm. He formerly served six terms in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and is currently a Representative of Oklahoma in the national legislature of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Wesselhöft is the author of The Redfeather Pentalogy.

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Copyright © 2017 Paul Chrisstarlon Wesselhöft.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-4951-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4952-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4953-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911274

Archway Publishing rev. date: 7/24/2017

To my late mother, Virgie, one of ten children born in Oklahoma and reared by her parents, Egbert and Effie May White Trumbly.

Author’s Note

These stories have autobiographical elements and themes. However, they are works of fiction. The characters are composites, meaning they may draw traits from individuals, but they do not necessarily or fully represent any one person, living or dead.

There is some offensive language in the dialogue, but this is held to a minimum. Those words reflect the racism during the 1950s, and their use is meant to render an accurate portrayal of the era. Modern readers may find some of these words offensive. The Redfeather Pentalogy is a narrative for adults and mature adolescents.

Contents

1 The Quake

2 The Smell

3 The Scar

4 The Date

5 The Light

Epilogue

Discussion Questions for a Reading Group

The Quake

I n the spring of 1952, two occurrences—one geologically rare and the other all too socially common—shook the world of seven-year-old Jamie Redfeather.

Dirk Redfeather’s parents had moved from the country near Tahlequah to Oklahoma City during the Great Depression in order to find work. There, in 1946, Dirk met and fell in love with Gertrudie Krautlarger. Dirk was a handsome man with a dark complexion, and he wore his hair in a ponytail. Gertrudie admired his Indian ways. He had known other women with whom he shared vices, but Gertrudie didn’t hold this or other, darker degradations against him; for him, that made her special. Dirk was the first man Gertrudie had dated, and their love was intense and accelerated, much to the displeasure of Gertrudie’s mother, Effie May.

When Gertrudie missed her period, she pressured Dirk to marry her. Initially, Effie May didn’t much care for the man, especially his sleeping with her daughter, but she accepted him when he made her daughter an honorable woman.

With Effie May serving as midwife, Gertrudie gave birth to a son in an abandoned streetcar that had been converted into a home. They named him Jamie after Gertrudie’s father, Jamison Krautlarger, who had been killed in 1943 when his tractor overturned on him.

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On April 9, 1952, at 10:29 a.m., Jamie and his mother sat in the living room of his grandmother’s house. As usual, his father was out of town. All of a sudden, the house began to shake and make loud, cracking sounds. Furniture shuffled about, dishes spilled from the cupboards, and white plaster crumbled from the walls and tumbled from the ceiling.

The world is coming to an end! Effie May raised her arms in the air and began speaking in tongues, an earnest prayer intelligible only to God.

Mom, it’s an earthquake! Gertrudie shouted. Get under the bed!

Jamie could comprehend neither the phenomenon of an earthquake nor that of speaking in tongues. The world’s comin’ to an end.

Gertrudie too was frightened. The only color left in her face was that which she had liberally painted on that morning.

Before they could run to the bedroom, one leg of the antique grandfather clock gave way. The tall time machine tilted over and slammed Jamie against the wall. The boy could only cry and hug himself while the women rushed to his rescue. Blood gushed from his left eyebrow, and later, his brown eye would bulge black and blue.

After what seemed an interminable time, the quaking and shaking of the house ceased. Jamie’s hands shook with nervousness, and his eyes were wide open with confusion.

His mother held him and said, It’s over, son. You’ll be okay. Mommy promises.

Jamie saw his grandmother’s lips quiver and heard staccato syllables pour forth from her mouth. She praised God in tongues, this time for sparing their lives. Jamie was scared and bewildered. His mother placed a cold, wet cloth over his eye and put her arms around him.

Jamie, the house shook ’cause of an earthquake, she explained.

Earthquake?

Yeah, the ground under the house moved. It just moved. It shook.

Why?

Don’t know. It happens once in a lifetime. It ain’t gonna happen to ya again.

Her explanation sufficed for the moment, but she did not explain the mysterious language babbled by his grandmother. The women inspected the house for further damage and then checked Jamie’s house next door. They discovered a crack running down the middle of the floor of the old streetcar.

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Jamie’s home, 2136 Southwest Forty-Sixth Street, was just off a dirt road in southwest Oklahoma City. Their makeshift abode was one of those old streetcars taken out of service and made available for purchase. The trolley was owned by his grandmother and located on her property. Her yard usually displayed a car or truck on cinder blocks, the engine disassembled and scattered about by her son-in-law.

Dirk, whose hands were stained with grease, possessed no agility with reading mechanical manuals but boasted, If I can get my meat hooks on it, I’ll fix anything. He had transformed the streetcar into a home with two small bedrooms, a kitchen, and a toilet closet.

A cast-iron, four-legged, claw-footed bathtub sat along the wall in view of God and everyone. When bathing was in order, hot water flowed from a hose connected to the kitchen faucet. On both sides of the trolley’s ceiling hung several black, triangular hangers, originally used by passengers to steady themselves while traveling but now used to hang up the family’s limited wardrobe.

Effie May’s garden provided vegetables, especially onions, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes. In turn, Dirk provided his mother-in-law with large catfish he caught by hand or on a trotline and with her favorite meats—turkeys, white-tailed rabbits, and red squirrels that he trapped or shot along the riverbanks.

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Dirk’s mother was half German and half Potawatomi. She was a direct descendant of Abraham Burnett or Nan-wesh-mah, as was his Indian name. He was a four-hundred-pound, full-blood Potawatomi chief. Dirk’s father was a full-blood Cherokee. Both parents died of smoke inhalation from a house fire. A rancher who despised Indian encroachment into his county had started the fire, but the sheriff could never prove the allegation.

More than 850 of Dirk’s maternal ancestors, after being given whiskey to sign a treaty in 1836, were rounded up by government soldiers; forced to give up their homeland of wigwams, cabins, and fertile land; and marched at gunpoint, many on foot, for 660 miles from Twin Lakes, Indiana, to Osawatomie, Kansas. In 1838, forty died on this two-month Trail of Death, mostly of fatigue and typhoid fever. Eventually they settled in Shawnee, Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma.

In the winter of 1839, federal soldiers and the state militia of Georgia had arrested Dirk’s paternal ancestors and held them in stockades for months. Many died during this captivity. The survivors were forced to abandon their homes, taking only what they could carry. Troops forced the tribe’s removal to Tahlequah, Indian Territory. Children of his family died of whooping cough, and an elder became seriously ill from fatigue. The elder, Eldon Red Feather, remained an invalid the rest of his life. The Cherokees marked the way west with their graves, their Trail of Tears.

When Jamie was old enough to understand, Dirk told him about the Trail of Death, the Trail of Tears, and other stories about their heritage.

Boy, don’t never forget where ya come from. Hear? Our Cherokee people survived a 170-day march along the northern trail. They ate salt pork and sometimes game they killed. Ya come from a proud people, people who were forced to bend but never broke.

Their name, Redfeather—or Gi ga ge oo gi de tli—was taken from the cardinal bird and given to them by Dirk’s great-great-grandfather, Red Feather Walker. Shortly after the Civil War, the family retained Redfeather as its last name, and Dirk was determined to pass on to his son the remnants of their heritage.

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Short and skinny, Jamie had high cheekbones and braided black hair that had never been cut. His bright, brown, compelling eyes mirrored a playful disposition. He had few toys, and his clothes were limited. He was poor without knowing it. Occasionally, in anger, he blurted out a curse word that he had heard from his father.

Damn it!

Don’t you talk like that, his mother said.

Dadjumit then!

Not good enough. Stick out your tongue.

Gertrudie punished his verbal iniquities by sprinkling black pepper on his tongue.

Damn, that’s hot was his silent protest.

Jamie always looked for excitement, and he loved to fish and camp for days with his father on Deep Fork River and the banks of Red River. There, he watched Dirk hunt and trap animals, which they cooked over a fire in the evening. Dirk was determined to teach his son to be self-reliant. Surviving in the woods came to Jamie’s father as naturally as it had come to his ancestors.

Around the fire, Dirk told Jamie stories from their past.

President Jackson—he was the Indian killer. He ordered federal troops to round up our people. These soldiers marched our people to stockades. They treated Indians like animals. Son, the most important thing in life is being free. A man’s gotta be able to move about and do what he wants.

He told the boy about how gold was discovered in Georgia over a hundred years ago. "The government tricked our people into signing away their land. Sometimes they would get ’em drunk and offer ’em whiskey to sign treaties they didn’t understand. They lived on that land for hundreds of years. The land, just like the air we breathe, belongs to every man. It belongs to the beast too. It ain’t right, son, to fence off land and call it your own. The struggle for gold and money, that’s the reason men kill and treat others like