Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

Teheyapami
Home
Achiska:
1961–Present
Silver
I. Forge
It’s my earliest memory. A man presses a woman
into a stucco wall, holds a knife to her throat. A small
child in a white cotton dress and white leather shoes
sits in a corner and cries. She needs to be picked up.
Maybe she’s wet or hungry or tired. There is a fourth
presence in the room. It’s fear.
The man is my father, the woman is my mother. I
am the screaming child. The knife—a kitchen knife,
silver and bright—is my fear.
I remember a little more. Now I’m three years old.
We are still living in the barrio, my mother, father,
and me; we are like Stone Age people giving way to