Mni wiconi - Water is life

Chapter 24

Leo stared through the window at the icy blue sky. The cold had long since moved into the reservation, chasing away the warmth of late summer. Leo pulled the patchwork blanket that Jenny had given him the day before with shining eyes tighter around his shoulders. She had been working on it in secret. She had painstakingly breathed new life into old pieces of fabric. She was skilled with needle and thread; he could not deny that. She had also done a lot of the housework herself lately.

He looked at his wristwatch. Jenny was still asleep. Should he wait until she woke up, or should he go straight to the camp? She would certainly welcome the opportunity to have breakfast with him. On the other hand, Maggie was probably already waiting for him.

For days, veterans of the US Army had been traveling from all over the United States to support the activists in their fight against the oil company. The former soldiers acted as human shields out of conviction. To protect women, children and men from the violence of the police.

As one of them aptly put it.

I don't want an untrained person in their twenties or thirties to be killed by the United States government.

So far, Emily was the only one who had lost her life to protect the drinking water. But how long would it stay that way? The violence intensified. Water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets were just some of the non-lethal weapons. The arrests increased.

And now the weather was going crazy.

The snow that had fallen in the previous days glistened so much in the sunlight that you had to protect your eyes with sunglasses to keep the car on the road. And then there was the weather forecast, which did not promise anything good. Leo sighed cautiously.

Quiet footsteps approached. "You are still going to help Maggie at the camp today?"

"Yes, Grandfather." He turned his head to loosen his tense neck muscles a little. "It's good for me to talk to so many people about common problems." The post-traumatic stress disorder that still caused him to wake up some nights. Less agonizing since the Inipi ceremony, but still a nuisance.

Time, that's all you need.

The words of an old veteran who had served in the Vietnam War were simple and complicated at the same time. Months? Years? Or would it take decades for him to get his thoughts under control and function normally?

You can't force anything. Never forget that everyone reacts differently to trauma. You and I can have experienced the same horrors at the same time and still come home completely different.

Some of the veterans were highly employable, others struggled to get through the day at some stages. Unlike the latter, Leo managed to pull himself together quite well. Despite the huge size of the camp, he now felt at home there.

He smiled wistfully. Emily would be pleased that the protests had received this much support. Even without her blog, which she had never gotten the chance to do.

Some nights, when a nightmare had woken him up again, he blamed himself for her death. He hadn't managed to save her from fate. Perhaps because he hadn't expected the danger to come from his best friend.

Sammy.

He was in prison awaiting sentencing. According to Matt, who checked in with Leo regularly, the Lakota remained stubbornly silent about his motive. This caused speculation on the reservation. Quite a few activists were convinced that Sammy had wanted to disrupt the protests. Some went so far as to allege that he had tried to turn Leo into an instrument of murder. Perhaps even to have the camp cleared.