Allotment Term Analysis

Neve Harp said that she was going back to the beginning of things and wanted to talk about how the town of Pluto came to be and why it was inside the original reservation boundaries, even though hardly any Indians lived in Pluto, well, both of the old men’s faces became like Mama’s—quiet, with an elaborate reserve, and something else that has stuck in my heart ever since. I saw that the loss of their land was lodged inside of them forever. This loss would enter me, too. […]

“What you are asking,” said Mooshum that afternoon, opening his hands and his mouth into a muddy, gaping grin, “is how was it stolen? How has this great thievery become acceptable? How do we live right here beside you, knowing what we lost and how you took it?”

Neve Harp thought she might like some tea.

Judge Coutts was unwilling to confess and be absolved of his sins […] so they were married by the tribal judge who preceded Judge Coutts, on a gentle swell of earth overlooking a field of half-grown hay in which the sage and alfalfa and buffalo grass stood heavy—Mooshum’s old allotment land.

Corwin played for us of course—he was the only entertainment. When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t know what would happen to me, bad or good, or whether I could bear it either way. But Corwin’s playing of a wordless tune my uncle had taught him brightened the air. As I walked away I kept on hearing that music.