There was a time, not too long ago. In fact it might have been only yesterday or last week or something.

There was Uncle Bob, all tricked out in his powwow best, bright red, white and blue vest, kilt and armbands, sequins glistening, even the feathers of his roach dyed like a rainbow. Because you see, Uncle Bob was a veteran, of Vietnam, proud and true.

So Analiese asked him about that war, what it was like and all. And he said,

"Well, now, let me think about that some."

"What do you got to think about it for, Uncle Bob?" asked Analiese just a little bit annoyed.

"Well, now, let me see. I think it had to do with Tewungatewa actually."

"Tewungatewa?! Who's that?"

"Tewungatewa is what he called himself. He said he was Hopi and grinned too, quite a lot as I recollect. Then he'd wait for the whiteboys to recognize him, ya know?"

"Recognize him?"

"Yup!"

Uncle Bob seemed to be pondering something a little, so Analiese waited patiently for him to continue the story.

"Ah, yup, that's right I think," continued Uncle Bob. "Recognition. That's definitely it 'ennit?"

"I don't guess I know what you mean, Uncle Bob," said Analiese just little bit puzzled.

"Recognition, like the flag. You recognize it for what it's supposed to represent, liberty and justice for all, right?"

"I reckon so, if you say it that way," replied Analiese.

"Well, then those whiteboys would just stare at Tewungatewa and go about their business. And he'd stop grinning then. I wondered why? But I never asked him.

"Me and this little Dineh, called himself Dalgai, would hangout, in basic training ya know? I'd carry him and he'd carry me. For his size he was the strongest man I ever knew.

"I was bigger but no stronger in a way, even when I called on my power."

"What about Tewungatewa?" asked Analiese.

"Well, he was weak, it was plain to see. Big and chubby and kind of soft from eating too many potato chips and drinking too much Pepsi.

So he was too heavy to carry and he didn't have the strength to carry anybody else. So what good was he for?"

"I reckon I don't know that, Uncle Bob," answered Analiese.

"Well, it plain to see, 'ennit? Nothing that's what. But it seemed like he'd never go away.

"All through basic training he was there with us, kind of hovering around ya know? And grinning and introducing himself to the whiteboys thinking maybe one of them would finally recognize him, but they never did.

"By and by, we got shipped over to that Vietnam. That was kind of unusual, don't you know? Real unusual in fact, since mostly people got broke up and sent to different places, by me and Dalgai and Tewungatewa got assigned to the same infantry unit and all and we got sent as replacements ya know?

"Something else that was unusual was Tewungatewa being there. He struggled and struggled all the way through training, sweating and fainting but never giving up and so finally he passed that training and went on to advanced infantry with us and all and finally there he was in Vietnam with us, only then he was introducing himself to them gooks, ya know? Vietnamese? I guess he figured they'd recognize him, but none never did that I could see."

"So what did you three do in that Vietnam War, Uncle Bob?" asked Analiese trying to help things along.

"What did we do? Hah!! What didn't we do?!! We whored and got drunk and did dope and went on patrol at night, we did.

"And the forest would light up all around us and the whiteboys would hunker down, but not Tewungatewa. He would shoot back like a demon and scream and yell and whoop and run around the gook's flank and we'd be following, me and Dalgai, almost out of breath but shooting like demons too.

"And the sergeant would say afterwards, 'You injuns are insane!!' and we'd grin at each other, even at Tewungatewa who wasn't grinning. Just standing there with his jaw set kind of solemn like and distinguished, like he had a silver-headed cane for true. That's how he'd look.

"And we done that crazy thing a number of times and killed plenty gooks that way. But them whiteboys stayed away from us because they thought we was crazy and we'd get them killed.

"So then that sergeant made us the scouts walking point and stuff, ya know?"

"What's 'point' mean, Uncle Bob?"

"Point, like the arrow, going ahead of everybody else which was plenty dangerous, ya know? Because them gooks would hide bombs and things along the trail with trip-wires. Hard for you to see in the daylight much less the dark.

"Tewungatewa would grin though when me or Dalgai took the lead and walked real slow, I mean real, real slow, like barely moving. We'd lift our knees to our bellies with each step, all hunched over like cranes looking for fish in a pond. We'd feel out in front of us for them trip-wires and we'd find them too, and cut them and go on.

"Tewungatewa would snicker under his breath, saying we was too slow, but Dalgai didn't pay no attention to that and neither did I. We went slow, which was good deal faster than the whiteboys.

"Tewungatewa would mark the path with toilet paper that hung like spider webs when it rained and them whiteboys would follow.

"Sometimes though we got way far ahead, so far in fact, that the rain would wash that toilet paper away and Tewungatewa would have to go back to lead the whiteboys and he just loved that it seemed like. They recognized him then, they sure did. They called him, 'The-one-who-teepees' and stuff like that, and Tewungatewa would laugh and laugh."

Uncle Bob, seeming to ponder things a bit more. Analiese wondered what that meant but she kept quiet while he pondered and looked deeply into the distance it seemed. Like he was trying to see something way out on the horizon somewhere. Finally he continued the story.

"By and by, one night when we was really far ahead of the whiteboys, some gooks picked up our trail that Tewungatewa had made with the toilet paper. It was plenty easy to see, even at a distance if you'd never been raised in town where there's all them electric light poles and stuff. I'm surprised they didn't do it before actually.

"But whatever, they did then and there and come up behind us and they seen Tewungtewa taking another roll of toilet paper out of his pack and they cut loose on him ya know? Started shooting and lighting up the forest.

"Well, now, we was surprised, for true but since they was concentrating on big old Tewungtewa, me and Dalgai split up and came either side of the trail and caught them gooks in a crossfire and by and by the whiteboys come up behind them fast for a change and caught them from behind and pretty soon the shooting stopped.

"Then me and Dalgai went looking for Tewungatewa and we found him too, laying under a tree where he'd crawled with his guts dragging on the ground. He was whimpering like a puppy too, calling for his mama, saying he wasn't Hopi no more.

"When I was trying to gather them guts of his in a poncho, he grabbed me hard and stared in my face, pulling me down close to his face so I could see his wide eyes full of pain and fear and he said, 'I ain't Hopi no more! I'm gonna die and I ain't Hopi no more, see?'

"So I told him he was always Hopi to me and Dalgai, we recognized him right away, I said. We seen it in how brave he was. But he wouldn't listen. 'We're people of peace, don't you get it?' He was coughing up blood and I said maybe he should just calm down but pretty soon his grip relaxed and his spirit went out of his body right then and there.

"And I was crying like baby and didn't know why. And even Dalgai who never smiled or laughed or nothing was staring at me and Tewungatewa with wet eyes."

Analiese watched silently as Uncle Bob wiped his eyes and continued.

"The sergeant came with a body bag then and we put Tewungatewa inside and zipped it up and dragged it back, while the whiteboys was counting gook bodies and giggling among themselves.

"A few days later, Dalgai got real sick, shivering and stuff, and they took him to the infirmary and he stayed there for days.

"So when I went visiting him I asked what was wrong. And he said he'd stepped on Tewungatewa's bones and now he was going to die too unless he could find him a singer to sing some way or other for him. He told me that's how his grandma had got sick, because she had stepped on a white man's bones and the singer saw it in his crystal too so he cured her.

"I told Dalgai I had something for him and I gave him a piece of jade I'd traded for in the village, cost me fifty bucks too, and I told him that jade cured them gooks all the time. That's why they was so tough to kill.

"I guess he believed me because by and by he recovered and returned to the unit and he had that jade in a bag hanging on his neck and he carried until we both got to go back to the World, like they used to say.

"I wanted to find Tewungatewa's mama but I couldn't never do it but Dalgai found her and gave her the jade and told her Tewungatewa had died like a warrior. But she didn't say nothing or do nothing. So Dalgai went away and told me about it years later."

"What did it mean, Uncle Bob?" asked Analiese.

"What? I think maybe Tewungatewa wasn't cut out to be a warrior, but who ever is? I think maybe he just wanted to fit in with the whiteboys and be recognized and respected as Hopi and figured if he became a warrior, people would recognize him as Hopi. And they did too but by then he wasn't Hopi no more."

"That's kind of sad, ain't it?" said Analiese.

"Yup," said Uncle Bob. "Very sad. War ain't nothing to laugh about ever. It makes you crazy or dead even when you're still walking around. That's why when the warriors come back they need curing. I found an elder to cure me too or I would have been sick like Dalgai sooner or later.

"Even the whiteboys got sick, especially after they found out that the government had been lying to them about the war, about what the government aimed to do in that Vietnam, just like the government always lies to us. But a lot of them didn't have nobody to cure them and help them learn to live again in harmony with their people. That's sad too. Casualties of war."

Uncle Bob was silent then as he rolled a smoke and gave it to Analiese. He rolled another for himself and lit both from a match he had stuck behind his ear.

Suddenly he seemed to recognize something in the smoke he blew.

"I don't know too much. I'm not well educated as they say. I tried to go to college under that GI bill but I just couldn't see the point of it all.

"People said, 'You should learn how to grow a business, then you could help your people.' But I figured what was the point of growing a business if some jackass president was going to piss it all away on some war half-way around the world against people what never done nothing to him? So I just been poor and obscure and sometimes remembering things about that war, especially when I look at the medals they gave me, and marvel at my luck. I should have been killed plenty of times but I wasn't. You could go figure that huh?

"But as I look back from this ridge of years, I can still see Tewungatewa grinning and dreaming of being recognized, and I think that finally I can recognize him. But it's too late."

Uncle Bob was silent again. Analiese looked at him through the smoke billowing from her nostrils and felt hot tears on her cheeks, but she grinned anyways.

"Lookee, Uncle Bob! I'm grinning at you. Do you recognize me?"

"Yes, girl, I do for true."

"Even if I get chubby from eating too many potato chips and drinking too much Pepsi."

"Oh now, don't you be going on like that."

"Well, Uncle Bob, I think you're Hopi now, that's what I think."

Uncle Bob chuckled a little and stubbed out his smoke. The ember on Analiese's cigarette glowed bright in the gathering dusk as she sucked in more smoke.

"We can all be Hopi now I think," she said, "if we can just remember what it means maybe."

And just then a magpie squawked close by.

"See, that magpie agrees," she giggled.

"What do magpies know, child?" asked Uncle Bob.

"How to be Hopi I think," answered Analiese. "Don't you recognize him?"

"What you saying, girl?"

But Analiese didn't answer. She just watched the smoke curling in the sky.