Free Fall

by Michael Corrigan

AN old reservation story told of an Indian working the airport and catching an ancient, near frozen rattlesnake; somehow, the employee smuggled the snake aboard a plane full of white skydivers. The snake crawled free and—angry now— struck the pilot who panicked and took the plane into the ground. No one knew if the old story was true. There were many similar legends describing revenge on the white invaders.

At the old airport, the three Indians watched the single engine plane circle above. A cold wind blew across the dry grass of early spring. Hernandez spat once, zipping his old leather jacket while Hayball took another drink. He had a deer rifle in the pickup truck, but knew the plane was too high.

“They buzzed us last week,” Hayball said. “Whites—ugly Tyboes in airplanes. I oughta shoot ‘ em down.”

“You can't bring down an airplane with no rifle. Just no good. Right, Johnny?”

Johnny Towersap said nothing. Hayball gestured with the bottle.

“You can if you got a good shot. This is our land,” he added.

“One dollar,” Hernandez agreed. “During World War II, we sold this land to the Army for one stinking dollar. Now I got no place to land my airplane.”

"Hernandez—you don't got no airplane.”

“Sure I do.”

“Where is it, then?”

“I keep it hidden. Too many crazy Injuns around.”

A mile away, shuttle planes flew in and out of the small main airport. Johnny Towersap remained silent. He wore a black hat and a long black coat. Hernandez didn't like Towersap's eyes; they had a direct baleful stare unlike local Indians. Perhaps it was because he was part Arapaho, not pure bred Bannock-Shoshone like themselves. Why had the Arapaho Tribe rejected him?  There were whispered stories of the Towersap clan and unmotivated violence, though no one knew about Towersap's foster parents who returned one night to find their pet cat hanging from the front door. Now Johnny Towersap glared at the plane as the first series of jumpers left, the chutes opening, the bodies floating down. They could hear the distant drone of the engine. Towersap turned to Hayball.

“Get your old gun and pick off a few.''

“Too far away,” Hayball said.

“For you, maybe.”

They watched the chutes open like blossoms against the gray sky. The plane made another circle, and they knew a van would pick up the jumpers. Hayball. handed the bottle of wine to Hernandez.

“So,” Hayball said. “Johnny—you want a shot?”

“From the bottle?”

“My gun.”

“That piece of shit? No.”

Hernandez finished the bottle. Occasionally, white social workers came out to the Fort Hall Reservation and informed him that alcoholism was a plague for Indian people. Hernandez agreed. Tuberculosis and poverty were also plagues. Too many white people was the worst plague. Only the casinos gave the tribe some economic power. Then again, that attracted so many white gamblers. The middle-aged white ladies who played bingo made him nervous. He could endure them, but there was something particularly insulting about the white skydivers jumping over their stolen land.

“Johnny Towersap is a warrior,” he suddenly told Hayball. “He don't need your gun. That's what the Game Warden says. Heap big Arapaho warrior.”

When Towersap faced him, Hayball didn't like the sudden malicious turn in his eyes, fueled by suppressed fury.

“Warrior? That's right. The Bannock-Shoshone are a chicken shit tribe.”

“Says who? I hear the Arapaho eat dog,” said Hayball.

“You never had dog?” asked Hernandez. “Why put on the dog when you can eat one? I like dog.”

Hernandez and Hayball laughed. Towersap ignored them. Then he pointed and they saw a man beneath a chute drifting toward them. He wasn't using his toggle lines for  guidance . Even as they watched, Towersap pulled open his coat and they saw the shotgun. Two carved pawing stallions fought on the stock.

In the plane, John Garth had watched the jumpers plunge through the doorless space, knowing that soon he had to jump without the automatic trip line. A cameraman man leaned out and shot film. Every jumper had his own style: some screamed the cliché ‘Geronimo' and others swore, one giving Garth the finger as he fell away. Garth had jumped with his brother, Jamie, many times before; he knew the brief moment of free fall before the chute opened, and then the quiet ride down. The patchwork of light and shade spread out below the jumpers, and gradually sounds drifted up as the magnet earth pulled them down. This time, he would savor the free fall and determine the moment to open the chute. John Garth had studied his brother in training.

            “When you pull the cord, wait for the snap as it opens. If you get a May West so it looks like a bra, or it doesn't open at all , manually pull out your reserve chute and feed it with the wind, not into it. You don't want to wrap the reserve chute around yourself. Don't land near the Warhoops who like to shoot off a round now and then.”

He remembered the laughter, but at twenty-one, John Garth suddenly felt afraid. He had dreamed of falling into a deep glacier. The day felt different. The new pilot was doing the skydivers' club a favor, and Garth felt a little sick looking down at the gray pattern of earth and fields and houses and the overgrown abandoned landing strip. The sky was clear, however, and it was a good day to jump. Later, it would be nice to see his girlfriend, Cindy, and spend the night with her after a good meal.

“Let's go!” his brother shouted. “Jump! I'm right behind you.”

It was difficult to fall out of the roaring shaking plane. As long as the pilot banked the aircraft with the jumpers, the skydivers had to force themselves out against the wind and pressure. The pilot now looked over at the two men still in the plane. Holding a strap, the filmmaker gripped his small super eight millimeter camera.

“Go,” Jamie repeated, shouting into his ear. “And don't forget to pull that cord.”

“I can't,” screamed John. He tried to push himself back into the plane. He didn't see Jamie signal the cameraman and pilot who suddenly banked in the opposite direction, sucking both skydivers from the plane. Instinctively, John Garth straightened his body in free fall but yanked out the reserve chute instead of pulling the ripcord. His brother flew by him, soaring in free fall before opening his main chute. John Garth saw other jumpers riding toward the target area while the winds carried him toward the old airfield, cracked and overgrown with weeds. His chute was now a sail he couldn't control. Garth saw the pickup truck and the three Indians as he floated over them and landed, running, pulling against the chute blowing in the wind. Twisted in cords, he finally freed himself and lay across the still rippling chute. Two of the three Indians began to cheer.

“Yeah. Tybo? You need a lift?”

“He's not a ‘ Tybo .” That's insulting—like nigger. Show respect. He's a white. Sir? Can we give you a ride? My truck runs real good.”

“You might catch cold out here,” the taller Indian added.

The third Indian kept silent.

“I'll walk,” Garth replied. “But thanks.”

“Where is your horse?” the shorter Indian asked. He carried an old deer rifle.

“I don't have a horse, gents,” Garth told them as he rolled the chute and prepared to walk back and join the others.           

“You need a horse in this country… our country,” the first Indian insisted. He fired his rifle into the air. Garth looked at them. The third Indian had a disturbing stare and his silence was unnerving. His hair hung in braids beneath a black hat and he didn't smile. Garth realized the other two Indians, who looked somewhat alike, were tipsy.

“I better go, boys.”

“I'm Hayball, this is Hernandez—and this crazy Arapaho Injun is Johnny Towersap .”

“Johnny? That's my nickname,” Garth said. “Pleased to meet you.”

He turned and began walking.

“We don't got no airplanes to jump out of,” said Hayball. He still carried the rifle.

“Yeah—and this was our airport, too!” added Hernandez.

“Maybe the club should pay you a skydiving fee.”

Garth heard the deer rifle again, and he saw the distant skydivers looking at him across the brown field. They seemed so far away. Remembering a policeman's training about people with firearms, Garth bolted. He now felt as though he were running out of his body, Indians screaming behind him and firing the old rifle. As he ran, he heard the old truck starting. He felt the cold wind on his face. The cheering Indians drove close behind him, shouting out words he didn't understand. For a moment, Garth wanted to turn and spit in defiance, but holding the chute, he kept running, and then he dropped the chute and ran full out until he stumbled and fell. When he got up, he saw the third Indian step off the truck's running board. Garth looked down at his scraped hands.

“This was our land,” the one called Johnny said, speaking for the first time.

Exhausted, John Garth saw everything in clear images: the younger Indian, the black hat and long black coat, the few rocks with patches of snow, the wind lifting the tied braids, and the disturbing eyes.

“I'm sure it was. Look, I'm sorry if we disturbed you, boys, but I got to get back—okay?" Garth turned to walk but the young Indian blocked him. The two Indians inside the truck cut the engine. For a strange moment, the one called Johnny Towersap seemed almost calm, perhaps forgiving. He even seemed to smile. Perhaps he already saw the tragic ending that folks would discuss on and off the reservation, a story of senseless murder and revenge, about a slain white youth and an Indian boy hunted down and dragged behind a truck, beaten and then dumped into the Snake River. At the autopsy, the Game Warden, Teton, would wipe his weeping eyes and say he suffered from allergies.

“Our land,” he repeated. “Whites took it for a dollar.”

“Here,” Garth said, reaching into his pocket. “Let me give you guys a few bucks.”

Then John Garth saw the small shotgun with two carved horses fighting on the stock. He didn't cry out. He remembered Cindy's beautiful face and the massive Iguazu Falls in Brazil. Johnny Towersap knew two and possibly three lives would be ruined as he cocked the double triggers. The young brave stepped closer and without haste, fired both barrels. John Garth didn't hear the shot. He felt himself spinning and saw his brother racing toward him over the flat earth, moving without touching the ground, then the faces of the two Indians inside the truck peering out, their eyes wide with shock. John Garth felt himself surging along with a current that became a hot wind until he soared, dropping in free fall.