I did exactly that, and the defeated clerk led us over to the selection of Stetsons. Quickly I picked out a pearl-gray Junior Stockman model, the dress-up kind without a high crown or wide brim—even President Truman had one like it—while Herman glommed on to a white floppy ten-gallon type until I convinced him he’d look like the worst duded-up greenhorn this side of Hopalong Cassidy in it, and talked him down to about an eight-gallon one in sensible tan. Without a whimper the clerk shaped the hats for us, working the brims in the steam machine until we each had what we wanted—mine with a neat downward crimp in front, Herman choosing to have his curled up on the sides like the cowboys on the cover of Deadly Dust.
Next to each other, we gazed at ourselves in the full-length mirror. “Get you,” I laughed to Herman. “You look pretty good in Mr. Stetson’s shade.”
“Not so bad your own self,” he grinned back at me in the reflection. “We can go be punchers of cows now, ja?”
“Huh-uh, not quite yet,” I declared. Whipping out the autograph book, I laid it open on the counter, startling the clerk morosely compiling the paperwork of our transaction. All the cross-country letter writing had kept me too busy to hunt inscriptions on the bus to the extent I wanted and I was bound and determined to make up for it. Seeing what I was up to, Herman started to say something, but held back. “People have been putting stuff in it for me all during our trip, see,” I reeled off to the clerk staring at the spread pages in confusion. “I’m getting a real good collection, but I don’t have any Green Stampers in it yet, so can you write something?”
The clerk stood on one foot and then the other, as if he couldn’t decide even that much. “I’ve never been asked for this before. I don’t know what to put in it, except—” He dipped his head shyly. “There’s our song. We sing it at company picnics. Will that do?”
“Sure! Anything!”
Oh, S&H, S&H,
What would I do without you
To stretch my wage?
To trade for stuff
Page by page?
Everybody craves ’em,
I bet even Jesus saves ’em.
Little green stamps, little green stamps!
Sperry & Hutchinson
Does wonders for my purchasin’.
My book is full at last,
I better spend ’em fast.
I’ll get that lamp with the frilly shade,
I’ll fill the tub with free Kool-Aid.
Oh, those bonus-givin’
Guaranteed high-livin’,
Super-excellent little green stamps!
18.
I SPOKE TRUER than I knew when I assured Herman we had reached the part of the country to take our hats off to. The next day, the Fourth of July, he and I hopped off the local Greyhound at Crow Fair, and into a vision of the West that Karl May and Zane Grey at their most feverish could never have come up with.
As if to greet us, what appeared to be a mile of Indians slowly riding in file was headed in our direction. At last! There we were at the fabled gathering, the tribal heart of the Indian world. Herman looked as happy as a tabby in catnip. As was I. We grabbed a spot along the parade route with several thousand other paleface onlookers to watch the approaching procession.
It was led by the flag-bearing color guard of war-bonneted Crow veterans marching in khaki, the same army uniform my father had worn, and those of us with hats held them over our hearts as those modern warriors passed. Then, as parades go, this one spared no form of horsepower. First came ranch trucks and hard-used pickups turned into floats with bales of hay as seating for the participants, the sides of the vehicles draped with handprinted banners.
THE CROW NATION
WELCOMES
ITS INDIAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS
AND
WHITE FRIENDS
CROW FAIR
A PROUD TRADITION
SINCE 1904
CROW FAIR PRINCESS 1951
VALENTINA BUFFALO CHILD
SPONSORED BY THE WIGWAM CAFE
And so on. The genuine thing for us, though, was the Crow nation saddled up in its glory, the horses’ hooves stirring up little eddies of dust as the spectacular column of riders approached. The Crows were dressed top to bottom in powwow regalia, men in beaded leather vests that caught the sun in brilliant dazzles and women in red velvet dresses decorated with elk teeth. Even the Appaloosas and dappled ponies the riders were mounted on glinted with finery, dazzling beadwork on saddlebags and rifle scabbards.
“Whoo,” I let out in awe as the long, long horseback procession continued, while drums kept up a constant beat we could almost feel in the ground, and the air vibrated with the chant of “Hey-ya-ya-ya, hey-ya-ya-ya” from every side. Herman was simply speechless, taking in the Indian world like a dream come true.
We watched until the last decorated pony and lordly rider of the cavalcade passed. Such is fascination, the spellbinding moment of imagination coming true. I can only speak for myself, but surely Herman, too, felt like a spectator into a world beyond any dreaming that day. Back then, the term “Native Americans” had not come into common usage, but definitely the traditions of the people who were here before Columbus, like the first owner of my precious arrowhead, were on living display beyond anything museums could capture. As far as we were concerned, “Indian” was word enough to carry the magic of the past, and here it was on full show, as if just for us.
? ? ?
“OH MAN, that was as good as it gets!” I still was giddy afterward. “Did you see those saddle blankets, even? They use Pendletons!”