The Love of Learning (short story)

The concrete is much harder at Pine Ridge Reservation. It is too coarse and scalding to walk-bare-footed. Samuel was of the third generation of Curtis men who wore boots. When Samuel was four years old, he watched his father drive away in a rusted Ford pick-up. He only remembered the grass of the prairie swallowing the truck’s drunken roar. “It’s been quiet for ten years.” So murmured his grandmother in her sleep for every lonely night of 1995.

Every weekend, Samuel drank with his friends until his head was numb and his body soft and he dropped the crooked cans into road ditches in the late hours of the night. He washed his long black hair with a bucket of water he pumped by hand each morning. He feasted on Hamburger Helper when the government checks came and threw the memory away after sniffing from a tank of gasoline behind the empty buildings of splintered wood that faded gray under the vast, blue Dakota skies.

Samuel had never known his morther, or anyone with money and he had never been outside the stollen borders of Pine Ridge. One sunny afternoon, when Samuel was young, he had once asked, “Why?”

“Hunhunhe michinkshi,” Hinyete answered, “None of us damned Indians have money and we were never meant to have any money neither. But you see, history has it’s own way with things that are meant to be. They ain’t always pretty.”

Samuel became solemn and thought about what the man he called “Hunka”, had said.

“But listen,” Hinyete grunted with laughter, “we’ve always lived in tiny mobile homes.” Samuel remembered laughing heartily with him.

Hinyete was the only man he knew who could make a painful reality into a valuable life lesson that almost, just almost, lifted him out of darkness. Even his little jokes and puns were not quite enough to lighten the boy’s heart. Hinyete was appointed hunka-father to Samuel by his once good friend, Marshal Curtis. Hinyete had been told as a boy that he came from a rich lineage of sacred shamans and took it upon himself to uphold his family’s reputation. After Marshal left his boy, and his elderly mother, Hinyete saw to watching over them. With no structure and guidance it was certain that Samuel would be lost to another generation of appalling deterioration.

And Samuel was deteriorating. He could feel it in his limbs as his body began to ache from mistreatment. He could feel it when he lay on the plain, lost under the great morning sky. He could feel it in his heart where the holes grew deeper and darker each passing year of his youth. Samuel Dawning Star was missing a part of himself, and could not figure out who the hell he was.

It was Hinyete who made sure Samuel stayed in school. He had casually warned the boy that if he were ever to be expelled or droped-out, he would simply loose one of the only two family members he owned. At Red Cloud High School, Samuel was only a fortunate statistic. There were only thirty-five kids in Red Cloud’s Class of ’97 and Samuel knew plenty more who weren’t in school. Half of Shannon County was under eighteen but the high school could only muster 170 students.

“We’re going to try something different this year,” his teacher said one morning. “I want to know what you’re interested in.”

The students stared blankly at the mousy woman and she took the response with stoicism. “I want to know what you’re interested in so that you can study it.” The stares held unwavering, “I want you to find inspiration in learning.”

The teacher’s words cut through Samuel like a knife through butter. She had never before entroached on his mind and he could not explain why she now stood in front of him, glowing in a sharp yellow light. He was thoroughly irritated, and yet, beyond the howling stubborness that ran in his veins, he listened intently to his heart. He wracked the dusty shelves of his consciousness for any reminence of intrigue. Watching the students around him chatter freely only irritated him more. He could not understand how they could keep unscathed from the task, when he could not.

That night, Samuel fell into a frantic sleep and awoke steeped in cold sweat. He had never before experienced the raw disturbance of stress. He soaked his shirt in the bucket of water he had saved for his hair and went outside to hang it dry. He had searched deeply for an interest, and Samuel’s fingers began to shake as he realized there were none.

“I have no interests,” Samuel said to his teacher the next day. Her face faltered with frustration – he was not the first to say this, “but I wanna find one.”

She raised her eyebrow, “Would you like me to give you a list of study topics, and you can pick one of them?”

“Yes.”

Earnesty was unfamiliar to Samuel, and the list presented to him made his life no easier. Each topic he read into, he found more fascinating. US government was so complicated and mysterious; the Paleontology of the Dakotas was rich and plentiful; and the literature of Mark Twain was so frank it reminded him of Hinyete. He had felt glorious as he skimmed through pages of an encyclopedia. The boy was surfing a giant wave and had found himself able to keep clear of it’s crashing curls. Four books were craddled his arms when he left Red Cloud Highschool that day and they happily melted into his chest, their weight balancing his stride. Samuel Dawning Star Curtis had been introduced to the world of learning and fell freely in love.

The walk home was impossible. Twenty miles from the school to Samuel’s trailer could not be done in one afternoon, but the boy walked anyway. Confusion and excitement spun in his mind like fighting brothers. The air became cold as the sun hung low on the horizon. A wash of dark sky arched above long yellow grass, waving softly with the wind. When Samuel reached the empty buildings, he collapsed beside them, opening his chest to the setting sun.

A steady engine roared in the distance as an old beaten car came down the road. It was Hinyete, and Samuel stood to greet him. The car pulled into the large empty gravel lot and Hinyete swung the door open slowly, walking over casually to Samuel.

“What you doin out here boy?”

“I was takin a break…” Samuel said as he slipped his hands in his pockets and kicked the dust lightly around him.

“Washte,” he hummed, “Something is on your mind michinkshi?”

Samuel looked off across the plain; his dark eyes were bright from the orange reflection of the sun. “What are your interests, Hinyete?”

The man paused for a long while, until he had collected his thoughts.

“I was in love once,” he began, “and I was interested in her. Everything she said and did. I once had a best friend, and I was interested in all the things we did together. My friend had a boy and then he left, and I was interested in the boy, so I looked out for him.”

Hinyete smiled at Samuel and leaned in to nudge him.

“I am interested in what I love, Samuel.”

Samuel found himself relieved and satisfied with Hinyete’s words, “Pilamayo yelo, Hunka.” He said.

“Anhe, So you’re learning! You must have realized something michinkshi.” He adjusted his white cowboy hat and paused again for another long while. Hinyete pointed his finger at Samuel and lowered his head to look him in the eyes, “You’re no Indian trash, Samuel. If you’ve found love, you should listen to your heart.”