The Road to Omaha

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suit.”
    “Wait a minute,
wait
a minute!” Goldfarb’s broad chest was halfway across the desk. “You say you didn’t think much about this, this young Indian at the time, but you’re thinking about him now. Why?”
    “Well, in light of the circumstances, dear Hy, I’m trying to think of
everything
.”
    “What you mean is he may know something he didn’t want to tell you?”
    “It’s only a possibility—”
    “Do you think you could find him again?”
    “Oh, yes. I saw which tepee he came out of, which one belonged to him.”
    “Tepee? They live in
tepees
?”
    “Well, naturally, Hyman,” replied Reginald. “They’re Indians, chap. Redskins, as you say in your cinema.”
    “There’s also a rotten whitefish somewhere,” said Goldfarb, picking up the telephone and dialing. “
Tepees
! Nobody sleeps in tepees anymore!… Don’t unpack,” he added to the couple, instantly shifting his attention back to the phone. “Manny?… Reach ‘The Shovel’ and get over to the field. You’re taking the Lear out to the state of Nebraska.”
    The young Indian brave, naked but for an odd-looking short leather skirt, stood outside the large decorated tepee and shouted. “I want my clothes back,
Mac
! You can’t
do
this. I’m sick of it—we’re
all
sick of it! We
don’t
sleep on dirt in these dumb tents and we
don’t
burn our hands trying to cook over campfires and we
do
use toilets, not the goddamn woods! And while I’m at it, you can take thatmiserable, distempered nag and ship him back to Geronimo! I
hate
horses and I don’t ride—none of us do, for God’s sake. We drive Chevys and Fords and a couple of old Cadillacs, but
not horses
!… Mac, are you
listening
to me? Come on, Mac,
answer
me!… Look, we appreciate the money and your good intentions—even the nutty clothes from that costume factory in Hollywood, but it’s all gone too far, can’t you
see
that?”
    “Did
you
ever see the movie they made about me?” came the bellowing roar from within the closed tepee. “The son of a bitch playing me had the biggest lisp I ever heard! Embarrassing,
real
embarrassing!”
    “Mac, that’s what I’m talking about! This crazy
charade
you’re putting us through is embarrassing to
us
. We’re going to get shot down and be the laughingstock of all the reservations!”
    “Not yet you’re not—
we’re
not! Although the term ‘shot down’ is kinda interesting.”
    “No it isn’t, you lotus brain! It’s been over three months now and we haven’t heard a
word
. Three months of insanity, running around half-naked or in costumes with beads that scratch our asses like hell, and burning our fingers and getting poison ivy in places
also
embarrassing whenever we have to run into the woods—”
    “Slit trenches have always been an acceptable part of military life, boy. And you can’t argue with the separation of the sexes—the army wouldn’t have it any other way.”
    “This
isn’t
the army and I’m
not
a soldier and I want my
clothes
back—”
    “Any day now, son!” interrupted the harsh, gravelly voice inside the tepee. “
You’ll
see!”
    “No, you lunatic, not any
day
or any month or any
year
! Those old farts on the Supreme Court are probably sitting around in chambers laughing their heads off, and I won’t be able to practice in the loosest court in American Samoa.… Come on,
Mac
! Admit it, it’s over—it was a hell of an idea and I’ve got to say there was maybe a grain, a
grain
, maybe, of substance, but now it’s become ridiculous.”
    “Our good people have suffered for a hundred andtwelve years, boy. Suffered at the hands of the brutal, avaricious white man, and we shall be justly recompensed and
set free
!… What’s a few more days?”
    “Mac, you’re not remotely related!”
    “In this old soldier’s heart we’re
bonded
, son, and I won’t let you down.”
    “
Let
us down,
please
? Let
me
down, and give me my clothes back and tell those two idiots who

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