When We Stopped A Fire.

We smoked and talked. Talked of Fire, of the heat it takes to make a Living Tree burn. He said “Can you imagine being next to that?” I said, “yes… I can… Russell Means and I put out a fire once.” “Really? a forest fire?” “Yeah, a forest fire on his TREATY Ranch and School Land…. It was a beautiful day, I recall, and we were discussing some nuances of Identity with a lawyer guy named Sheehan. We were discussing a Constitution a Lakotah Constitution I ended up seeing Russell present at a meeting we attended in Eagle Butte but anyway… Sheehan was instructing me on my “incorrect” interpretation of the 7 Fires of The Lakotah Nation. I propose they Are: Howoju, Hunkpapah, Itazipcoh, Oohenumpah, Sihasapah, Oglalah, Sicangu…Sheehan said they were something else I cannot recall but some cops pulled up, said we had to leave, a fire was coming. A forest fire coming from Wounded Knee area, someone was burning their trash and it got away and burned their trailer and was heading right for us. So, those guys all take off, but Russell and I just start walking into the hills, didn’t say a word to each other, just jetted off…the one cop starts calling for us to get back there but neither of us even acknowledged, the sergeant cop says to the other cop: ‘let him go, he’s crazy anyway’ (I am sure he meant Russell, as I was totally invisible of course)…so off we went, we met a Chippewah crew of fire fighters, they had a fire break cleared and were sitting waiting for the fire to get there. Russell says ‘It’ll burn almost my entire grass, what will my horses eat?” They wouldn’t/couldn’t do anything, so Russell and I went to the fire, got close, got used to it, there came a point I could See how we could beat that fire. Once it got to a point, we could hit it in two spots, at the fenceline, and down in a deep gully, by jumping it when it hit bottom. I said ‘I think we can fight this’. Russell says ‘dont say that!’ and gives me “that look”. I say, ‘if the wind shifts, we can fight this’…he says again ‘dont say that!’ same look too. Shit, wouldnt you fuckin know it, the Wind Shifted. I say ‘we can fight this fire if we had the tools’ and started to fight it with a stick. Turning over earth upon the fire over and over while smoke was beginning to surround us…Russell took off over the hill. I knew what he was doing so I started in, running out of the smoke and catching my orientation and breath and running back in, fighting it at the fenceline. Byt the time Russell got back with a ‘flapper’ which is a fire fighting tool I became acquainted with that day, and a shovel, we both finished off the fenceline together, and then we engaged the gully, there we had to put trees that were on fire on their trunks out, with just dirt and determination. We would lose each other and then see each other, he was fuckin valiant, man, we were bad ass that day. We Put That Fuckin Fire Out. True Story.”……..