Two Roads

Pop tells Cal that he and his wife decided to raise Cal as white even though he is actually an Indigenous American. Pop tells Cal that the United States used to be at war with Indigenous tribes. Cal recalls that his old school taught students that Indigenous people are savage, while at home his parents taught him about the aid that different tribes provided for white settlers. Some of these tribes, including the Creeks, were eventually driven from their land and forced to walk along a long, arduous route called the Trail of Tears. Cal has never met an Indigenous person, but because of the stories his parents told him, he holds a much more positive view of Indigenous people than his classmates did. Now, Pop explains that fighting the Indigenous tribes became too difficult for the government, so it took a new and more insidious approach, creating “Indian Schools” to “educate everything Indian out of them” (65). Pop then tells Cal that he is Creek.

Cal does not understand how his father could be Creek because in Cal’s mind, Indigenous people live in tipis and do not ride the rails. He looks closely at his father and recognizes for the first time that Pop looks like the Indigenous chief that Cal has seen depicted on copper nickels.