Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
Winter Counts is a fiction story centered on Virgil Wounded Horse and his nephew Nathan, members of the Sicangu Lakota Nation. Virgil works as a private vigilante on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota which is 200 miles southeast of Mount Rushmore. He believes that he is administering righteousness when he beats up men who hurt women and children. His solution to injustice: (i.e., violence) also helps him momentarily forget the markings on his winter counts, the pictograph-based calendar system used by the Lakotas. These markers are constant reminders of the losses he has suffered and the responsibilities he faces.
The author explains in the notes after the story that although private vigilantes are a part of Native life on many reservations, there has been little documentation of the profession. On the other hand, the problem resulting in the necessity of private vigilantes has been well documented. Because of The Major Crimes Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1885, federal investigators generally have exclusive jurisdiction over felony crimes on reservations, yet they often decline prosecution in these cases because of their jurisdictional complexity (e.g., Is the victim a Native American? What about the offender? Did the crime take place on Native territory? Is there sufficient evidence? Does the crime fit the statutory definition? Does the crime meet the prosecution guidelines of the U.S. Attorney’s office?).
In “The Thrill of Justice in Winter Counts,” David Heska Wanbli Weiden states that the reality is federal authorities have the right to decline prosecutions in serious felony crimes on Native lands and do frequently refuse to prosecute murders, assaults, and sex crimes referred from tribal police departments. Recent figures from the government indicate that over thirty-five percent of all referred crimes are declined and over a quarter of those cases are sexual assaults against both children and adults. If the federal government declines to prosecute, the perpetrator is usually set free. Enter the vigilante hired by the victims’ families. To read further about this issue, the author recommends American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion by Stephanie Woodard. For more recent information on this issue, I would recommend reading: “U.S. Supreme Court ruling expands states’ authority to prosecute crimes on tribal land.”
An examination of the broken criminal justice system on reservations, the betrayal of Native Americans, and the issue of native identity are the backbone of this mixed-genre thriller, crime fiction, and social commentary novel. The story begins by introducing characters and setting in a way that perfectly captures the novel’s tone. In Virgil’s words:
I opened the door to the shack that the government calls a house. Rap music was pounding, and the smell of frying meat had stunk up the place. My nephew, Nathan, had cooked up some cheap hamburger and was dipping a piece of old bread in the grease. His short black hair stuck straight up, a dark contrast to his light brown skin and hazel eyes. He was wearing his favorite hoodie, a grimy blue sweatshirt with the high school’s mascot—-the Falcons—-on the front. The music was so loud, he didn’t even hear me come in until I poked him in the ribs. [p. 7]
Another example of the author’s talent in setting a scene appears later in the novel:
Twenty songs later, we passed through the desolation of Whiteclay, Nebraska, just over the state line from South Dakota and the Pine Ridge reservation. Pine Ridge was dry, so a handful of liquor stores had popped up in Whiteclay decades ago. The town—-population twelve—-existed solely to support the beer barns that sold booze to the citizens of Pine Ridge right across the border. Of course every visiting newspaper reporter and TV camera crew had to take shots of the Indians passed out in town by the stores. The bums with the dirty clothes and the vomit smeared across their faces. Poverty porn. The camera crews never ventured one hundred miles east, where liquor was sold openly on the Rosebud rez. Sure, we had alcoholics—-I’d been one of them for a while—-but there was far less sensationalism to be filmed or written about on our rez. Instead, every TV anchorperson like Diane Sawyer had to focus on Pine Ridge and the supposedly sad Indians there. There was plenty of sadness on our rez as well, but why not cover the good things that were happening at Rosebud and Pine Ridge? All the rez artists and musicians, the skateboard parks, the new businesses, and the groups revitalizing Lakota language and culture? [p. 68]
Winter Counts has won many accolades and David Heska Wanbli Weiden is very active in supporting other Indigenous writers. He is an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, and his grandmother spent most of her life on the Rosebud Reservation except for her time at the Carlisle Indian School Project in Pennsylvania. He also wrote the children’s book Spotted Tail (Reycraft, 2019), winner of the 2020 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. He is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, a Ragdale Foundation residency, the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, and was a Tin House Scholar. He received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is professor of Native American studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. A lawyer and professor, he lives in Denver, Colorado, with his family. Mr. Weiden is working on his next novel tentatively titled Wounded Horse which will be published as a sequel to this insightful novel.
