A tall, thin man, maybe 50’s, long, shiny dark hair cascading down over his shoulders, with a set of black pupils that blazed like fire, sizzled, as he addressed me. “Tell the real truth. The Cheyennes were a murderous bunch who got what they deserved at Sand Creek.”
I realized this man could move with the speed of a bullet and that he had a knife in his coat as sharp as a new razor blade.
“Listen,” I said, “It doesn’t matter what the Cheyennes did before or after the Sand Creek Massacre. What matters is that at Sand Creek, they were raped, shot, knifed, mutilated, decapitated, executed, hung, and murdered. That is what my story is about, sir.”
We were at a Hollywood bash, something that makes my stomach queasy, for some reason.
The fat-free native man pushed his deerskin coat open. The handle of his pearl-handled Bowie knife in a leather holster in his waistband glistened off a large chandelier just above us.
“You’re just as bad as they are.”
“I assume they means the Cheyenne people.”
“I’m not talking Greek to you.”
“You’re a lecturer, an actor, a writer, and a couple of other things, right? ‘Dances with Wolves.’ ‘Far And Away’, ‘Geronimo,’ ‘Crazy Horse’, ‘Return To Lonesome Dove,’ ‘Deadmans Walk’, ‘Indian In The Cupboard’, ‘The Postman’, ‘Last Of The Dogmen’ ‘Last of the Mohicans.’ ” I searched him for a reaction. His black pupils leapt at me.
“Yeah, got some mileage in the business. So…”
“How would you feel if I told you how to do your work?”
“No one can tell me how to do my work.”
“I will tell you that when I finish the “Ghosts of Sand Creek” production, I want you to call me. I will want to see if you’ve learned any lessons since then.”
I shook his hand firmly. His felt like a rock.
-Donald L. Vasicek, The Writer/Filmmaker Whisperer, Olympus Films+, LLC, http://www.donvasicek.com, dvasicek@earthlink.net