A Gift From a Four Legged

March 23, 2010

It was April 1st, 1995. In another nine days it’ll be fifteen years ago since this memory happened. The summer before, July 1994 I had just moved to the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.

Habitat for Humanity was originally the purpose for relocating. After the Jimmy Carter Work Project thirty home blitz build was over, I had stayed to find a place to live as well as to continue a creative life.

After a short while I was staying in a 20’ long or short really trailer that someone had let mme sleep in for the summer months. A winter stay was out of the question. The little camper/trailer was not set up to withstand winter months. Besides that it was smaller than tiny.

I had to move. At the end of summer being at the right place at the right time really I had acquired a little thirty two foot long by twenty six foot wide, green metal pole barn garage. It had two roll up doors, and one entry door. It was on a single ‘city’ lot 50 feet x 150 feet deep.

It had no windows but it did have a little electricity. It also had a nice cement pad throughout. Basically that was its floor. The tin roof was good; the side walls were also in good shape. The structure belonged to a house a local friend of mmine had bought as his main residence.

He didn’t want the garage so he had passed the name of the same owner to mme so I could see if in fact it too was for sale. It was. I acquired the pole barn located on the gravel road a month or so later.

I could see the potential for a two story home that would be located in town on the rez and. Not living on the rez very long I didn’t want to move out to the country until I knew how to survive in such a remote place. This was also a first house; everything was new and foreign.

Shortly after buying the deeded property I began to remodel it into what would become home. It was the fall of 1994. Winter was coming quickly. An immense undertaking, it wouldn’t be long before the cold winters surrounded the tin sides. The freezing weather began quickly.

I tried to work fast but no matter how fast, I was still working with what would be considered an empty shell. I was also working alone. That’s the way I wanted it really; not to mention that I couldn’t pay a crew to help either. Even if I could, I’d still rather build it alone.

There was nothing in the shell except what I’ve already mentioned. Plumbing? None whatsoever. I had installed a 220 electrical power cord for a stove I thought I’d purchase down the road. Another necessity was to install a propane line for a dependable heat source I acquired at a later date. Most of the building materials were recycled.

In other words I was designing everything personally and loving every minute of each process. Before the winter began I had acquired a huge pot belly stove burning wood inside the big empty space. I worked hard to try and survive the harsh winters of Sough Dakota.

Before snows did arrive I had also purchased a new and very good make and model chain saw. I wasn’t fooling around with a used anything where the main heat source was concerned. I traded a car I had bought at a farm auction in exchange for a used ‘rez truck. The truck was to carry anything; cords of wood, building materials, etc….

When winter did come, I had a few cords cut, stacked, covered and sitting just outside the house. I was going to survive this first winter and didn’t want to depend on anyone for anything if at all possible. I worked every day from sun up to way past sundown most days. Sometimes until well past midnight; sometimes all night to sunrise.

No matter how hard I worked or how long, it seemed like I couldn’t get warm. Even with the huge pot belly stove burning six big logs all day long. Before moving to the rez I had purchased an insulated suit that I also had slept in. I thought wearing it would help; but it didn’t.

South Dakota has 50 below winters many days. A tin building with no insulation was like living in a freezer with the door shut. The owner before had left a long, grungy, dirty couch I used as a bed. I placed it right next to the stove barely feeling the heat in the big open space.

I usually woke up all hours of the night usually until the next morning shivering to death. In hindsight there were things I could have done to stay warmer but finding this out later didn’t help back then. I was a city boy trying to survive in a first time ever environment.

After a few months that were colder than any place I’ve ever experienced in mmy whole life. Luckily another friend, the very first person I had met on the rez, Gilbert offered a room in his house. He and his wife Grace said I could stay for the winter. They and their two boys went out of their way to offer a warm and kind friendship.

They also fed and basically treated mme like part of their family. They gave mme a room and said I could stay there as long as I liked or until I felt it time to move into mmy own home. They would help mme get whatever I needed in the way of information or help of any kind when or if I ever needed it. They basically saved mmy life a few times.

I can’t tell you the debt of gratitude I feel for Gilbert and his family for all they did. Grace, Gilbert’s wife is no longer with us. She died of cancer a year or so after we met. The truck mentioned earlier is what Gilbert asked to trade for the car. He said Grace needed something more comfortable to travel to Rapid City for her cancer treatments. We traded straight across; gladly. I needed the truck and vice verse.

The ‘rez truck’ was just that. It had four flat tires, two broken windows and a broken key in the ignition. It was still a good trade for both of us. It also had a lower gear than first. I pulled many a stuck car out of the gumbo mud or the deep snow with that truck; ‘Ol Blue.

Of course another great story is having the ignition fixed by a local friend, Ira. An amazing feat by one of the guys on the rez who I admired a hell of a lot; not only for that feat but for he and his wife raising their kids as well as they did with what very little they had.

They’re both monuments to anything anyone cares to do in life. One of their sons, Casey just graduated I think from either Annapolis or West Point. If anyone has ever been to a rez, seen or knows the odds; the things the people who live there are up against, just to survive, you’d think they both deserve a medal or definitely a salute. Hau….

I worked until I just couldn’t keep warm at night any more. I was losing too much sleep just trying to keep the fire going. The cement floor and the tin sides weren’t conducive to keeping in any kind of heat. I got out of bed to work with one bare light bulb blaring rather than lay there and be colder. It was a pretty dire situation. No toilet.

MMy hands were constantly frozen. After fighting it as long as I could I finally decided to take Gilbert and Grace’s offer and move in with them; at least until spring came or I could get the house much warmer to work inside. I didn’t have much to move. Most of the things I moved from Pittsburgh were stored somewhere else on the rez.

Every morning I’d get out of bed about 7:30 to enjoy cowboy coffee with Grace and Gilbert before setting out to work on the house. Some days passed where I couldn’t get to the house mostly due to the unbelievably inundating snowstorms with blizzard conditions.

Whiteouts like the ones on the rez are times I never dared to go out for fear of never finding the house or even coming back for that matter. There have been too many deadly occurrences I’ve heard about. People were not able to see two feet in front of them. It just wasn’t worth the chance. The house over a half mile away wasn’t close.

One morning after a big blizzard had subsided; I decided to take a chance. Usually in a place like that, one has to plug in the vehicle into an electrical source so as to keep the oil warm; otherwise the engine won’t even turn over. MMy van was parked to the side of the house located in a little enclave or subdivision called No Heart.

I had bundled up good with all the layers of clothing underneath the insulated suit. I pushed the door open while moving about fourteen inches of snow away from the opening. The van was covered with snow. Luckily a few days before I had plugged the plug to keep the oil from freezing. The sun was shining but it was still well below freezing

I walked around to the side of the house the van was parked on and kneeled down to unplug the plug. As soon as I did that a little black Labrador puppy came running from around the back of the house.

I looked up because I heard his paw steps in the crunching snow. He came directly towards mme. When he was close he stood between mmy knees as I was still bent over unplugging the plug.

His tail was wagging a mile a minute. He had something in his mouth that he immediately dropped in mmy lap. I began petting him or her. Before I could spend any time looking for a collar or give more pets, he or she took off running just as fast as when it had arrived.

I was still kneeling while whistling and trying to call the puppy back but it just kept running on. It seemed like it had a place to go. Freezing cold doesn’t help one feel anything especially with all the clothes on. I looked down. Still in mmy lap was the gift the puppy had left.

I picked it up with cold gloved hands. It was caked with the pure white crusted snow. I could see bits of what looked like fur sticking out from under the layer of snow. I began rubbing and scraping the snow off. The more I scraped the more fur I could see until I had scraped enough off that I could see that it wasn’t fur at all.

It was feathers. I kept scraping and scraping. The feathers were becoming more and more visible. It was beautiful. The designs were like a painting Mother Nature would paint on one of her creatures.

After spending about five more minutes scraping the snow off the feathers I could see what the puppy had dropped in mmy lap was a whole back of a big flying something. It wasn’t bloody in the least.

I didn’t know it was a Red Tailed Hawk until I brought it inside to show Gilbert and Grace. They said it was a welcoming gift from the spirits and that I’d might like to share it with others. I gave them each a gift. A feather for Gilbert and one of the delicate plumes for Grace.

From that day on I’ve handed out almost the entire gift. The bird’s back was huge. I can’t count how many feathers I’ve given away including the plumes (for women).

I still have a few left. Every time I look at them they remind mme of not only the rez, Gilbert, Grace, their two boys and our times together but the day the puppy dropped them on mmy lap. Thanks to the black Labrador puppy, the memory has brought many warm days.