Snapping the Fringe
By Sherman Alexie

     She was there before the camas root grew jealous of the power of her hair, after I tasted her in the fry bread.
     That full-blood beauty never wore braids.
     She was the fancydancer who didn't speak English on any reservation; she wore her shawl like a bright red promise, snapping the fringe.
     She keeps you awake, leaves you sitting all night long in the video game hall with the powwow refuse, gives you nothing to do but eat Indian tacos with too much commodity cheese.
     At three in the morning there are no locked doors on the powwow grounds. I creep among the tipis, the breathing of so many Indians like a long and slow song.
     In the distance insomniac children break glass against their braids, their easy laughter leaping into the air, shifting from pine tree to pine tree.
     A Coeur d'Alene Indian whistles from the bottom of a mud puddle.
     A Spokane Indian cracks his knuckles inside a rainwater-filled tin can.
     Then, she is there fancydancing in the dust of the rodeo grounds, in a circle of headlights, all the reservation cars beating their horns like
     drums?
     Now, during the Last Goodbye Dance, the drummers look deep into the circle of dancers dancing around them. They recognize her dark eyes.
     The old Indian men in flannel, in blue parkas, sitting in the front row, hold their breath as she dances by, snapping the fringe an inch from their faces.
     Sometimes, she draws blood.
     That full-blood beauty doesn't need to wear buckskin. The deer sleep uneasily among the trees, dreaming of the power of her touch, of the way she can cover you, good and warm.

From Old Shirts & New Skins, UCLA Press, 1993