Scalped Book 7: Rez Blues (#35-42) PART ONE

"It should go without saying.  But I'll say it anyways.  This never happened" - Shunka

Time for the ongoing FBI investigation to go on hold for some more character studies.  Because this volume is more than seven chapters I have split it into two parts.  This actually works out very well as the first four chapters are two done-in-ones and a two-parter, and the rest is one four part arc.  So I am doing the three stories first with part two covering the four-parter in a few days time.   So as you probably know by now Scalped is the story of Dashiell Bad Horse's undercover FBI investigation into tribal leader and casino owner Red Crow set on the fictional Prairie Rose reservation.  Red Crow is something of criminal mastermind who has killed and schemed his way to the top his whole life. The tribal police bar a couple of exceptions is in his pocket and although he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, has his right-hand man Shunka do much of his enforcing.  We haven't learned much about Shunka so far except that's he's a glowering intimidatory prescence, devoted to Red Crow and always waiting for Dash to fuck up. This two-parter takes a look at the man with a surprising revelation about him.  The other two one-shots tell the story of an elderly Indian couple still working the rez and trying to stay self sufficient in their twilight years.  The other focuses on Dash's deadbeat dad Wade who so far has only been seen doing drugs around Dash when he was a little boy.  His story also gives us a very interesting thing that Dash and he have in common.  So without further ado, let us dig in.

LISTENING TO THE EARTH TURN:  Art by Danijel Zezelj (apologies if tht's wrong, his name is spelled two different ways on the cover and the credits page), the first fill-in artist whose work is up to R.M Guera's standard. He also did some fill-ins for DMZ.  We're introduced to Mance and Hazel making their way through heavy snow to their home, freezing cold, every step an effort.  Hazel stumbles and Mance catches her saying they are almost home.

Hazel and Mance.

We then go back in time a few days, Mance is working in the garden thinking how he's a man of simple pleasures. He likes doing the harvesting on his own as he likes being lost in his own thoughts working the same land his daddy worked and his daddy before him.  They live far away from the centre of town:

Mance: "Back when the rez was formed, the only Indians lived near town were the ones who had given up the fight and sold out.  The real Indians lived out as far from town as they could get.  The further out the more real you were".

He brings the last of the turnips to Hazel who is cooking.  She thinks to herself, "it ain't enough".  The garden used to be all they needed to sustain themselves but this year she had kidney troubles and Mance broke his ankle and now they don't have enough to support themselves anymore.  It's going to be a long hard winter and for the first time in forty-three years, "I don't know if we can make it."

They have a quiet meal, and afterwards Mance also thinks that they don't have enough food.  He thinks he let Hazel down not being able to bring the garden in this year.  If he can't do that "then what the hell good am I?" Hazel does some sewing and thinks that it was the well water that gave her kidney troubles, people said it is contaminated thanks to the uranium mining going on close by.  Mance had to tend to her and wasn't able to bring the garden in as usual.

He smokes his pipe in secret although Hazel knows he does spend money on tabacco, Mance gets a small pension and some social security so they can get groceries and Hazel's medicine.   She sells a quilt here and there, which gives them enough money to keep flowers on their son's grave.  He was in the army and died in an accident when his jeep flipped, no medals just a folded flag they keep upstairs in a chest.

Mance and Hazel, very much in love still.

They lie in bed together worrying seperately and listening to the sound of military aircraft flying low over their home. Mance thinks, "we ain't talking about what we really wanna talk about."  They both think they have not enough food and no money and that leaves them only one thing to do.  He doesn't want to say it, but he'll have to go into town.  He finally speaks the words even as he thinks Hazel is ashamed of him.  She holds him and tells him he's a good man, who has nothing to be ashamed of.  And they both think how much they love each other.

Next day he drives into town to the place he has been dreading, the "Nutrition Assistance" place where free food is handed out. He puts it off by doing some chores and catching up with friends, but finally he has to go, for the first time ever he needs a handout.   He loads up a box then he is handed a pencil and told to sign:

Mance: "I've fasted for eight days and hung by hooks from a sun dance pole until my flesh tore.  I've killed snakes big enough to eat a baby and reeled in paddlefish the size of small cows.  I once killed a coyote with nothing but a pocket knife.  I buried my only son and didn't cry.  But I ain't never done nothing as hard as this."

And he manages to force himself to sign for the goods.  He walks out feeling like a criminal like he's been forced to admit to the crime of being poor.  But thinking about being blessed to have Hazel in his life, he suddenly feels like a "very rich man" indeed.

Hard thing for a proud man to do

Later he brings in the firewood and finds her collapses on the floor.  He puts her to bed and think he should have forced her to go to hospital.  But she is thinking about how her mother died in hospital, "a cold and miserable way to go"   She was terrified and ashamed, so Hazel wants to die in her own bed or die on her feet.   Mance says he'll go into town to get her some medicine and she says she'll come with him.

As they drive she thinks about when they were young and would take drives all the time, making love the first time by the French Creek.  They never seem to drive anywhere now except for going into town and funerals, "so many funerals".  They make it into town and get the drugs Hazel needs, but on the way back home the truck's engine dies.  They walk through the snow and we get to the scene at the start with Hazel collapsing and admitting she's scared.  Mance cups her face and says he isn't scared and talks about the first time they made love.

When they did she blurted out that she loved him and he said they shouldn't rush into anything.  The reason he said that was because he was scared of growing up, and when he realised that a couple of days later he also realised he loved her. If he loved her and she loved him, "that'd take us about as far as we ever wanted to go."  He's never been scared since especially not of a bit of snow.  And that gives her strength to start walking again. 

They get within visual distance of their house and suddenly a military jet smashes into it, the shockwave hits them and they are both badly injured.  As they lie in the snow, Mance looking back on what happened narrates that the young pilot lost his way in the snow.  He was killed and they were barely hanging on, they both woke up in hospital full of tubes with Hazel saying she wanted to go, she didn't want to die in hospital, but they didn't die. Not that day.

Suddenly an aircraft!

Mance ended up full of screws and Hazel's kidney problems were brought under control so now she feels, "fair to middlin' again".  When they got out of hospital the military gave them a bunch of money and their friends all started looking for a place near town for them.  But they don't want to move and we end with the image of the pair of them checking over a blueprint for a new house where the old one was, holding hands as they do so.

THE FINE ACTION OF AN HONOURABLE AND CATHOLIC SPANIARD: Now the two-parter where we take a peek into Shunka's personal life.  Unfortunately the artist is Davide Furno, my least favorite of all the fill-in artists.  The story is narrated by a man called Joseph Crane.

He begins by saying he never knew much about the man called Shunka.   But he gets the feeling no one ever does.   He knows Shunka means "dog" in the Lakota language but he has no idea if that's his real name.   He knows he lives on the Prairie Rose reservation in South Dakota but he doesn't think he was born there.   He knows he works closely with the tribal leader Red Crow but doesn't know how he feels about the man.  He knows he's done some horrible things, "I know he has his share of secrets like the one that brought him to my house".

We see Shunka inside Joseph's house pointing a gun at him.   But Joseph says he knows he didn't come here to kill him. Shunka demands to know what he knows about him.  Joseph says he sees a man burdened by his secrets.  Shunka yells he's fucking lying and who told him?  Joseph says he didn't know for sure until Shunka came here tonight.  He stands up and when Shunka says he came to kill him, Joseph says "no you didn't.  Why did you come here?"  Shunka glowers then grabs Joseph and plants a passionate kiss on his lips.

Did not see that coming!

We cut to earlier and Shunka arriving at the "Potawatomi Palace Casino and Hotel".  After a tussle with the security that leaves one man downed covered in blood and the other having pissed himself in fear, the tribal elders come rushing up.  Turns out Red Crow sent him on a mission here because they have all the best acts and he thinks they've been telling people's management not to come to he Prairie Rose casino.

The leader says if Red Crow needs help booking acts he'll do so, but first could Shunka deal with a problem for them.  Their ex-tribal leader Joseph Crane who had united the tribe and had the idea of setting up a casino came out of the closet a year ago, "he's a berdache.  A gay.  And apparently quite proud of it all of a sudden."  He got voted out as tribal leader because they can't abide that sort of behaviour but he's making noises and wanting to have a Pride protest outside the casino.  Could Shunka maybe discourage him?  "How discouraging do you want me to be?" Shunka asks.

The tribal leader, "Bobby" Greenwood and Shunka visit Joseph.   Joseph says they didn't mind him speaking out when he was making them money.  Bobby says he should have stayed in the closet instead of telling the whole world his bedroom habits.

Joseph: "Right.  It's my fault for not being able to stick to a steady diet of strippers and barely legal cokeheads like you and the rest of the fine, upstanding gentlemen on the council do."

Greenwood says he's a sodomite rubbing everyone's face in it. Joseph says he gets a sackful of hatemail every day from people trying to "discourage" him.  And the occasional brick through his window.  Soon he believes someone with work up from a brick to a bullet.

He says if he's going to die it'll be as himself, "it's not healthy to live with secrets like that for so long".  Those kinds of secrets can eat a man alive and he starts staring at Shunka as he says that saying he looks like a man who knows a thing or two about secrets.  Shunka lunges at him and grabs Joseph by the collar saying if he wants to fuck boys, fuck them but "no parades, not ever."  And he tosses Joseph to the ground.

Hot man on man action time.

That night the tribal elders soak in a swimming pool and joke about putting the fear of Shunka into Joseph while he stands aloof drinking and a sex-worker says he can fuck her, she's already paid for.  Then we cut to Joseph and Shunka in a passionate clinch and they get to the fucking themselves.

Joseph: "He fucked angry  He didn't fuck out of hate or disgust or self-loathing.  He fucked like a man of intensity,  He fucked like a soldier on the eve of battle.  He fucked like a thing made of concrete and fire.  He fucked for hours."

Afterwards Joseph reflects, "he wasn't the best I ever had.  But he was close."  Shunka gets dressed say this never happened.   Joseph says Shunka must have a lot of nights like that, quick hook-ups when he gets out of town and can let his guard down.  He tells him it's not healthy, Shunka says meddling in his affairs isn't healthy.

Joseph starts to give him a lecture about the history of LGBT people in various Indian cultures.   Apparently almost every tribe had special classifications and roles for gay and transgender people, the "two-spirits" as some were called.  The Cheyenne had the "Hemanah" who served as matchmakers and medicine men.  Amongst the Navajo the "Nadleeh" worked as marriage counselors.  For the Lakota the "Winkte were teachers and prophets."

He goes on saying some tribes had up to seven different genders and the people were not only accepted but often revered.  It was only when the Christians came that "gender diversity suddenly became a bad thing". A monk wrote about a conquistador called Balboa who when he saw native men dressed as women had them fed to the dogs.  The monk called it "a fine action of an honourable Catholic and Spaniard".  He asks what Shunka thinks about that but Shunka just leaves without saying a word.

After that night Joseph narrates that he never thought he'd see Shunka again.  We see Shunka on the phone to Red Crow say he wants to hang around a few days as a vacation, Red Crow asks "what's her name?"  Then tells him to enjoy himself and hangs up.  Joseph wonders if he stuck around because of him, but thinks it more likely Shunka just needed a break.

Joseph: "Maybe he needed a break from the lie that leads back home.  Maybe go somewhere deep, deep down inside he was secretly hoping to trip up and get himself outed.  Whatever the reason. I knew he'd never dare come see me again. So I went to him".

We see him approach Shunka in the casino and whisper in his ear that he needs his help, but Shunka says to keep the fuck away from him or he's dead.  Joseph says he is dead if Shunka doesn't help him. But Shunka just tells him to stay away again and walks off. Then Greenwood slings Joseph out of the casino.

The proverbial straw for Shunka.

The next day Shunka is getting a taxi to the airport but traffic is backed up because there's been a murder. Shunka goes to take a look and sees it's Joseph's house.  Joseph says he'd been shot point blank in the face, "I was dead."  He says you couldn't blame Shunka for leaving, he didn't owe Joseph anything.  It would be crazy to stay and would involve a lot of bloodshed.  We see Shunka in the taxi leaving the rez.  He mutters about the "a fine action of an honourable Catholic and Spaniard" to himself.  He tells the taxi driver to pull over and strides back into the rez.

We then cut to Shunka looking into a bathroom mirror where the three tribal council members are sitting in and around a swimming pool. Joseph narrates that that when he was growing up his father was a medicine man and was extremely respected, but he got cancer and passed on his duties to a man who was known to be a two-spirit.  Gay.  That's when Joseph learned the history of LGBT people in Indian culture.

But his father died and as the members of the tribe who remembered the old days also died off people stopped going to that medicine man, "they started giggling about him behind his back or even snubbing him to his face."  His friends would make crude jokes and he'd laugh along with them, hating himself as he did so.   He doesn't know what Shunka was thinking that night but it might have been a similar story from his own upbringing.

Joseph: "I couldn't tell you exactly the sort of forces had shaped him over the years and led him to that point in his life.  But if he was like me, then he was sick of being despised for who he is.  He was an angry gay Indian with a gun... and he'd had enough".

He walks back into the pool room where one is relating a crude anecdote.  Greenwood says he though Shunka had snuck off without saying goodbye.  Does Shunka have any questions about "dead queers" or are they done?  Shunka pauses and then says there is one more thing and he turns and unloads two pistols worth of ammo into them.

One pissed off gay Indian.

We jump to a few hours earlier.  Shunka is sitting in a bar scowling.  Two men discuss Josephs death which is being spun as a suicide.  One of them says he obviously "could't live with being a butt fucker no more".  Shunka leaves his drink undrunk and departs the bar.  He breaks into the crime scene and immediately realises it was a murder which had been tampered with to look like suicide.

We see him approach the casino as Joseph tells us Shunka must have been wondering why he was here, risking discovery for a man he fucked once and didn't know.   A man who didn't save Joseph when he had the chance and meant nothing to him.  He probably came up with no answers except what happened next.  He walks into the pool room and confronts them over the messed with crime scene.  Greenwood asks what the "hell business is it of yours?"

Shunka says he was taken to the house to inimidate Joseph and he wants to make sure he isn't being set up.   Greenwood says they don't work like Red Crow.  Shunka says he's right about that.  Greenwood says that Joseph's death makes him happy.  He had nothing to do with his death though, Joseph was a sinner who flaunted his lifestyle and his end was bound to be violent.

He says when he was young his father told him when he was a boy he saw tribal elders lynch a man for "turning queer" so Joseph got off lightly, and he's burning in hell now.  People round there won't care about his death, they'll move on and so should Shunka.  Shunka asks if Greenwood has ever killed a man with his bare hands.  When you do that you're as intimate as lovers and sometimes "when I'm putting a man down, my dick gets hard" so does that make him a faggot?  Greenwood says it doesn't but it makes him a dangerous man he's glad to have on his side.  Shunka asks where the bathroom is.

Back in the bathroom, Joseph says he isn't foolish enough to think he was being avenged.  He was angry at those men for what they represented. 

Joseph: "A world where he would always have to hide.  To sneak around in the shadows to live in shame.  I think Shunka looked out at that world and for the first time in his life he admitted to himself... he wanted it to die.  He wanted to kill it. So he did.  He killed as much of it as he could."

And we're back with him shooting the three men.  Two die immediately, Greenwood manages to gurgle out out a "fuck... you".  And Shunka curb-stomps him on the edge of the pool.  He looks over the scene of carnage and then leaves.

Catharsis.

Joseph says he could have walked away that night and no one would know he had been there.  Instead he broke into the coroners office to get a look at Joseph's body.   Maybe he still wasn't convinced Joseph was dead.  Maybe it was his way of saying goodbye. Joseph never expected him to do that, and Shunka certainly wasn't expecting what he found.

Come the next day he walks to Joseph's house and kicks down his door demanding to know where Joseph is.  Joseph stands in front of him saying "let me guess you're not here to fuck me this time."  It turns out Joseph had a plan and it was his assissant  who killed himself and his body mistakenly was identified as Joseph's.  Joseph was "away on business" and was unaware of the what happened until tonight where he has just got back from sorting things about with the sheriff.

Oh and because of "the incident" at the casino where Chief Greenwood and some other members of the tribal council were killed, he's now tribal chief again, "funny how things turn out, isn't it?"  Shunka realises he'd been set up from the start.  Joseph says he has no idea what Shunka is talking about.  Shunka says he used him to kill those men, Joseph denies it.  "Fuck you Crane" says Shunka. "Yes. You did, didn't you and quite enjoyed it remember?" responds Joseph. Shunka puts a gun to his head but Joseph has henchmen now and they pull guns too.

Joseph, totally not dead.

Joseph thinks as he looks into Shunka's eyes that some people might look at Shunka and see only a mindless, hired gun of a killer.  He sees much more.  He saw in Shunka's eyes the desire to kill him more than he'd ever wanted to kill someone in his life.  But Shunka didn't, "and that makes me fear him all the more."  Joseph tells Shunka to have a nice trip back home and to tell Red Crow the new chief doesn't deal with thugs and criminals.  As Shunka goes, Joseph says his secret is safe with him.

Back on the rez Red Crow knocks on Shunka's door and asked what the fuck happened.  Shunka says it's better Red Crow doesn't know.  Red Crow says he fucked up and Shunka agrees.  He opens his door to show a woman in his bed, so Red Crow says to meet him at the casino when he's done.  When he's gone Shunka tosses the woman her cash and tells her to fuck off much to her confusion as they haven't had sex yet.  And our final image of this two-parter is Shunka, stony-faced, half-dressed, sharpening his combat knife...

Alone again.

FAMILY TRADITION: R.M Guera is back on art duties again as we finally get some backstory on Wade, Dash's dad.  He narrates that his great, great grandfather was a scout for the U.S. Marshals.  His great grandfather was in a submarine that sank during World War One. His grandfather flew combat missions during World War 2 but was shot down over the Philippines.  His dad froze to death in 1950 during the Korean War and Wade was born the very next day.

Now he's here in 1969 "carrying on the family tradition of fighting and dying for a country that never gave a damn about us."  And he stumbles over a tripwire in the jungles of Vietnam but the "bouncing Betty" grenade attached to it is a dud and doesn't explode.   His squad call him the "luckiest son of a bitch alive."  He was charmed.

Next brush with death is when a sniper rifle bullet bounces off his helmet and just gives him a headache. His squad laugh it up about his good luck. Next day him and two others are caught out in the open, they are cut to ribbons, he isn't even scratched, "this time there's no laughing."  He doesn't even tell them about the King Cobra that climbed out of his sleeping bag one night.   As he hears it bite someone else he doesn't feel charmed, he feels cursed.

Three weeks later they charge up a hill and mortars start falling, everything goes black and he thinks he's dying.  He's found the next day sitting there, the only survivor of a massacre, "the whole fucking platoon."  The chaplin says he was saved by God for a great destiny, he was given his papers and told he was free to leave the army, "free to face my destiny".

Wade and his destiny.

Six years later we see him laying in bed with a Vietnamese woman smoking what looks like opium.  The woman asks if he is leaving and he says yes today would be the day to do it.  She wants to come with him saying she'll be a good wife and give him lots of kids.  Wade asks what would he want with kids, he can barely look after himself.  She calls him a fucking asshole and without anger he says "yeah.  I know."

Now he's going to make one last deal before this place goes up in flames.  She says she'll be here when he comes back but he says he isn't come back.  She calls him a coward and that everyone says "Wade the Indian, he big fucking coward".  She says he's too scared to go home, too scared to stay here.  Where is he going to go now?  "Hell. I guess.  If it'll have me."

It's April 29th, 1975.  Saigon.  He hasn't much time, the NVA are encircling the city and the South Vietnamese government is crumbling.  The American embassy is being evacuated.  Once the troops roll in the Vietnam war will be officially history.  Everyone is trying to get out except for him, he still has a job to finish.

He meets up with a dope dealer he's been working with.  The man asks him how Wade thinks he'll smuggle sixty pounds of heroin out of the city.  Wade says he hasn't given it much thought.  The man says they had quite a run and their two friends back in the states must be disappointed.  They are great men the man says, Wade says they're "fucking bastards". The man asks why he works for them, and Wade says he's a bastard too.

Wade and his drug hook-up.

The dealer asks about the rumours that Wade can't be killed.  Wade says if they stick around when the NVA roll in they'll find out.  The man says he is going to Laos next, where he'll continue to produce heroin.  Vietnam has been good to him but the communists can have it now, he has two crates of poppy seeds, thirteen suitcases of US currency and even his work force.  He doesn't want to leave them behind now he has them specially trained.

He says his business will continue, Wade must also be a rich man but Wade says he spent the money he's dirt poor.  The dealer says is Wade heading home to South Dakota which he told him was a shithole.  But Wade says it's "the most beautiful place on Earth".  He trails off and looks at the workforce crammed in the back of a truck and sees them as Indians.   He drops his bags of drugs and shoots the dealer through the head and takes down his non-workforce men. 

The workforce get out of the truck as Wade says "I'm so sorry. God. I'm so sorry" and hands one of them his gun telling him to use it on him he deserves it.  But the man doesn't shoot him, he just spits on him and they walk off leaving a devastated Wade still kneeling on the ground. He leaves his bags of drugs and races to the embassy where the last choppers are evacuating Americans, he manages to make it aboard one, a soldier grabs his hand and pulls him up.  His name is Dashiell, Wade says he likes that name.

Wade comes to the rez.

Back in the USA he drives to the Prairie Rose rez and who should he be meeting but FBI agents Bayer and Berntson the two killed by Catcher and whose deaths are fuelling Agent Nitz's present day mission of vengeance.   They tell Wade they are suprised he didn't die over there, they heard the commies killed the dealer and his whole crew so Wade got out in the nick of time.  They've now got more work for him.

We get a flashback to when the two agents were MPs in Vietnam were they first offered Wade a job running drugs.  His new job will be legit this time, as they tell him he'll be working for the FBI.  Wade imagines himself killing both of them but doesn't draw his gun.

Wade: "I'm a coward.  I will always be a coward.  I should have died in Vietnam.  This is not my destiny.  Then again...maybe I've found my destiny after all."

And as he says that he sees a photo of Gina Bad Horse in the file the agents have on the Dog Soldiers who they want him to infiltrate.   And that brings his backstory to an end.

A greater destiny awaits.

Well some amazing character work in these three stories.  The story of Mance and Hazel was just what was needed after seeing so many failed and destructive relationships in the series.  Their love for each other is so pure and beautiful I found the story profoundly moving.  And the great art from Danijel Zezelj really complimented the story too.  Shunka's story despite sub-par art is also superb.  When I turned the page to see him lay a massive smooch on Joseph I was completely surprised.  I have never been in the closet myself, but I dated a woman in the US military for a while when being found to be gay was ground for being kicked out so she was a similar "Armour Closet Gay" as TV Tropes would have it.  And I recognised a lot of the same burdens of secrets, having to pretend to be someone she wasn't and only able to let her guard down round at my flat.  So I found myself really sympathising with him and his double life and it explains a lot about his attitude towards Dash which will be fully revealed in a couple of volumes time.  And of course we get yet another character living a lie, an on-going theme of the series.  The history lessons Joseph gives us are fascinating, I don't know how rose-tinted they are, but it's still interesting to know and sad that the acceptance of LGBT now in Indian circles isn't what it one was thanks to the corrupting influence of westerners and the Christian church.  I have to applaud Joseph despite his rather cruel manipulation of Shunka, it was a hell of a plan to get back to being the tribal chief, he really knew which buttons to press in the taciturn man.  Finally we have Wade's story, he always comes across as a someone pathetic individual and I have to wonder what Gina saw in him.  Tying him to the murdered FBI agents was very clever, and shows the "saints" that Nitz paints them at were just as grubby and corrupt as Nitz's ex-wife Marci said they were as well as explaining why they were coming onto the reservation clandestinally, and who the FBI mole
 was. All-in-all fantastic story telling and character work from Jason Aaron.  Come back in a few days for part two which will move focus onto Carol's story.