Scalped Book 1: Indian Country (#1-5)

"Here we are, still forgotten, still a third world nation in the heart of America" - Lincoln Red Crow

For this month and most of the next I'll be looking at all ten volumes of Scalped, a sixty issue Vertigo series that debuted in 2007 and ended in 2012.  It is a crime noir story that initially has us following the story of American Indian Dashiell Bad Horse as he returns to the Oglala Lakota Prairie Rose tribal reservation in South Dakota a couple of weeks before a new casino opens.  The rez is racked by poverty, politics, alchoholism and drug addiction as the people span two worlds, the ancient Indian culture that some still cling too and the modern world which has abandoned them.  After the initial focus on Dashiell the story opens up, with side characters given their turn in the sun building up a more complex picture of life in and around the rez. With the ongoing investigation of an FBI agent with a grudge into corrupt tribal leader Lincoln Red Crow there is a lot of death and misery portrayed here, but with enough brighter spots to prevent darkness induced audience apathy setting in. The writer is Jason Aaron and the main artist is R. M Guera, with some fill in artists along the way. This is split into two arcs, Indian Country and Hoka Hey. So lets begin.

INDIAN COUNTRY: We begin with a shabby drunken man who we later find out is called "Catcher" talking to his horse "Festus".  He says he can smell it on the wind, "I'll be goddamned if we ain't in for one helluva shitstorm".  Elsewhere a man has come to a Indian drinking establishment and goads them into fighting him, the man Shunka asks if he is trying to commit suicide?  The man has been winning a lot of fights lately, now Boss Red Crow wants a word with him. 

Dashiell Bad Horse.

So they won't kill him "just cripple you a little."   The man gets out his nunchuks and tells them to "skip all this goddamn foreplay ladies." And the fight begins. Outside looking in, Catcher says the man is "Dashiell Bad Horse", and it's been years since he was on the rez.  He leaves on Festus saying "suddenly I'm feelin' a mite fuckin' sober."

Later Dashiell has been dragged, badly beaten into the unfinished casino and handcuffed to a chair in Red Crow's office. Red Crow says he wasn't expecting him back here, and he's impressed with his fighting prowess.  "I'm fair to middlin' I reckon" responds Dashiell.

Red Crow says he though Dash might remember his "uncle Red Crow as someone not to be fucked with".  He makes a crude remark about Dash's mother and that Dash left the rez when he was thirteen on track to become as big as waste of space as his father, then:

Red Crow: "I may be long in winters kid.  But I still know a thing or two about a thing or two.... most important, I know how to take a big knife, make an incision from the forehead to the back of the neck... and tear someone's fucking scalp off."

Dash isn't intimidated.  Red Crow says he's been away from "The People" too long, he has no troubles with the law himself he's the President of the Oglala Tribal Council now.  Also Sheriff of the Tribal Police and chairman of various commitees and finally managing director of this new casino.

Lincoln Red Crow and Dash chat.

Round here he's "I'm the Father, the Son and the Holy fucking Ghost all rolled into one."  He shows Dash his knife saying it's killed more men's lives than typhoid.  Dash asks to be let go saying he's just passing through staying one step ahead of the heat.   Red Crow has a better idea.  He needs more police officers to deal with the people protesting the casino and Dash has the perfect temperament, plus he's a full blooded Indian, he's sick to death of goddamn half-breeds.   He gives Dash no choice in the matter and so Dash becomes a tribal cop.

Three days later, he and the cops and Red Crow's enforcers led by Shunka are gathered outside a house where the protestors meet.  They start to make a plan, but impatiently Dash just kicks the door down.  They get everyone on the floor in there and start making arrests.  Thirty minutes later a woman called Gina shows up, she's one of the protest leaders and she is told there was a stockpile of explosives and unlicensed firearms in there. She asks one of the protestors if that's right and he says that "protest signs ain't winning us shit.  This is a fucking war".

A white man says he's right, Gina tells him to shut the hell up.   She yells at them that they are just givin Red Crow excuses to run them off the rez, "we can only win this fight by staying true to the old ways".  Red Crow wants to corrupt them with gambling but his greed will be his undoing and... then she sees Dash and tails off.

Gina Bad Horse and Diesel.

She then gives him a slap across the face shouting "asshole!"  She tells him he makes her sick and drops into Lakota speak. He grabs her saying she just assaulted an officer of the law and to give him one reason why he shouldn't run her in right now.  The white guy says he has one and holds a knife to Dash's back.  Dash points his gun in the man's face and then everyone pulls out their guns.

Gina calms the situation saying that "this fascist prick isn't worth it."  She calls the white man "Diesel" and says the rest of them should leave now.  They depart and Shunka says Gina must have been a fine lay thirty years ago.  Dash says she seems like a cold hearted bitch to him. Shunka says "you'd know I guess.. she's your mother."

Carol.

Back at the casino, Red Crow tells Dash to come for a drive with him.  They go over the border to White Haven Nebraska a slum where alchohol abuse is rampant.   Red Crow takes Dash in for a beer and they see his daughter Carol.  Red Crow dismisses her as "the type of cooze what drags men down black roads."  She's married to a "wasichu" (White man) if Dash can believe that.

Red Crow: "She's a whore and a liar.  And if you got a lick o' goddamn sense... you'll stay way the hell away from her."

They drive some more and Red Crow tells Dash about a protest group he was part of thirty years ago.  But in 1975 two Federal Agents stumbled onto their land unannounced and got shot, "you'd have thought the fucking world ended." He believes the casino will change things, they'll take back the money the white man took from them.

Dash says he never gave a shit about all this Lakota bullshit before "and I certainly don't care now."  Not the powwow, or the rain dance or stories about the good old, bad old days.  "The Indian wars are over and you guys fuckin' lost.  So you can take your great spirit and you can blow it out your ass."  Red Crow laughs and says "welcome to the world of the disenchanted.  Welcome home."

One week later we meet two FBI agents a younger one called Newsome and his boss Agent Nitz.  Nitz grills Newsome on what he's learned about Lincoln Red Crow.  It's quite a rapsheet, including drug trafficking, illegal arms, prostitution and running his own private army of thugs.  Nothing can be proven though, "welcome to Indian country" says Nitz.

Someone approaches and they kill the car lights.  They secure the perimeter and get ready to shoot whoever is coming their way. The person is expected, he's part of Nitz's new angle on nailing Red Crow.  And the person finally reaches them.

Nitz: "We wanna keep this rendezvous real intimate like.  Just you, me... and FBI Special Agent Dashiell Bad Horse."

Newsome is surprised that "this redskin punk is a Federal Agent?" Nitz introduces them.  They are still pointing guns at each other and Dash says if Newsome pulls the trigger he'll be doing him a favour. "Tough first week on the job" sneers Nitz.

Dash's secret revealed.

Five days ago  we see him in another raid on a meth lab.  One of the tweakers throws some corrosive chemicals at one of the raiders and in the commotion the leader escapes.  But Dashiell chases him down and shoots him in the back.  Another tweaker comes flying out the front into the path of the young man Dino Poor Bear.

Dash approaches him and Dino babbles that he just met them and he isn't a meth dealer or a tweaker.  He was just running errands for them to get money to get his car running.  He begs not to be busted as he still has three months on paper.  Dash fixes him with a hard stare, then lets him go saying he better not see him near a meth lab again.

Dash threatens Dino Poor Bear.

We cut to Red Crow showing off to the press, saying that although they struggle with unemployment, alchoholism and a life expectency fifteen years below the national average they are not a defeated people.  He's called them here to demonstrate the revival of the reservation.  Not just the casino, but all the methamphetamine they've seized is on display.

Then officer Falls Down appears and takes the drugs away saying that whenever evidence is left in his boys hands it tends to disappear. Falls Down is the only tribal cop not on Red Crow's payroll.   Red Crow wasn't overly thrilled about that.  Shunka scowls and Red Crow whispers, "I know what you're thinking.  Just hold that thought."

Four days ago Dash approaches Officer Falls Down who says if he was sent to kill him "I'd say I'm a tad insulted."  Dash says he's not meant to kill him, at least not yet.  They chat for a bit then Dash asks about his name.

Falls Down: "Redskin 101, Officer Bad Horse.  We don't all get cool animal names".

They banter some more then Falls Down advises him to get some sleep, he looks like shit.  It seems like it's not working out how he planned, "playin' Injun" and he walks away from Dash.

Back in the present Dash tells Nitz that it's not going to work, he's been beat to shit, shot at and almost killed.  And he has no idea what he's supposed to be doing, "I got no backup. Nothin' I'm out here all alone." Then we go back to three days ago, Dash is playing pool in a bar and he's approached by Carol, Red Crow's daughter.

She tells him he broke her fucking heart when he left, he says his mum sent him, Carol says it was for a little while but he never came back.  He left his sweetheart alone "on this goddamn pigsty of a rez".  Dash makes the excuse that he was theirteen. Carol says she let him watch her pee isn't that some lasting commitment, "speakin' of which... I'm still waitin' on ya to show me yours."

Carol attempts some seduction.

Dash asks how she can get so "lit in a place that doesn't serve alchohol."  She says come to the bathroom and she'll show you.  Dash says she shouldn't say that to a cop.  She sits seductively on the pinball machine, Dash asks about her where her husband is and she yells "fuck if I know! Why don't ya ask him yourself".

And her husband walks in calling her a "goddamn fuckaholic hussy".  And who the hell is Dash?  She rages at her husband to get off her ass, he yells back "how 'bout you learn to keep your clit in your goddamn pants?"  Dash then gets a call over the radio telling him to come to a drunken brawl in progress and he gladly leaves.

Two days ago, Red Crow is at an emergency council meeting and not happy about it.  The others on the council have concerns, like the hiring of Gina Bad Horse's son to be a tribal cop.  Red Crow says it was for muscle and nothing more.   They think he has a soft spot for the protestors seeing as he used to be one. Red Crow angrily says haven't they more important things to be doing putting their cousins on the tribal payroll?  The others depart saying he's only Chief because they let him and leave as he says to himself, "just keep thinkin' that, you fuckin' dipshits."

When they are gone, Shunka says they are right about Dash, he's "too much of a goddamn cowboy".  He keeps to himself and has a hell-for-leather and a smart-ass attitude.  He respects no one, not him or Red Crow.   He supposed to be shadowing Falls Down but it seems he has eyes for Red Crow's daughter. Red Crow says nothing.

Elsewhere a man with a skull-like burned face has been contacted by someone, a hit is being arranged through him.  He is delighted at the prospect of some violence.  Red Crow on the phone to him says:

Red Crow: "I don't want him 'harmed' Lister.  I want him dead.  And I'd rather you didn't set everything on fire this time."

Back in the present Nitz says Dash is still here isn't he?  Newsome says Red Crow can't be on to him that fast.   Nitz says if Red Crow wanted him dead, he'd be dead he's just lost his nerve.  Dash says he knows a setup when he sees one.

Dash and Officer Falls Down about to raid.

Eighteen hours ago. Officer Falls Down and Dash tool up to raid a meth house.  But it's only the two of them this time. Dash says fuck it lets get it over with.  Falls Down says he'll get his wish one day, the kind that ends in a hail of bullets, "... somewhere out there is a blaze of fuckin' glory.. with your name written all over it." Inside the shed the armed assassins wait for them to enter.

As they get ready to start the raid we get a flashback to a wintry scene from Dash's youth.  The tribe are carrying out an execution on a murderer and Gina forces Dash to keep looking at the bloodstained body telling him to think about that anytime he feels like picking up a gun.

He keeps flashing back as he and Falls Down smash down the door of the supposed meth lab. Inside the armed men open fire on them.   There is chaos but amazingly Dash and Falls Down gain the upper hand. Then Falls Down takes a bullet and drops leaving just Dash, he does some double gun firing while leaping sideways and finally takes the last man out as his guns run out of bullets.

The ambulance comes to collect Falls Down who is still alive despite taking a bullet to the chest. Dash asks if he thinks Red Crow set them up.  Falls Down has no doubt he did, "what're gonna do about it?"  And in the present Nitz asks what Dash did?  Did he attack Red Crow?  Dash says he didn't do nothing to nobody.  He just needed to talk to the motherfucker is all.

Seven hours ago. Dash knocks down the men standing guard outside Red Crow's council room.  Dash comes up behind him and holds a gun to Red Crow's head.  Dash demands to know why they were set up, but Red Crow doesn't admit to that. Dash says not to test him, he's shot unarmed men in the back before.  Red Crow says if he wanted him dead, he would be dead.

Dash tries to threaten Red Crow.

He tells him to look round the room at the members of the Tribal council. They are the ones behind the meth labs "Goddamn Christian fucking sell-outs, every one". Then he says he likes Dash but he's pushing his luck, if he's ever stupid enough to pull a gun on him again he must be quick and "don't fucking miss."

Outside, Gina comes over to Dash and tries to talk to him but he brushes her off and picks up a call to go to a domestic disturbance on Fools Crow Road.  There a Dash arrests a man for hitting his wife.  Dino says he hadn't seen moves like Dash used since Tekken 5 (a fighting videogame).   He asks Dash where he's been all these years and could he teach him some of those kickass moves.  Dash just drives off with the arrested man.

He sees another car and races madly after it getting it to pull over.  Inside is Carol, she has a black eye. Dash demands to know where her husband is, Carol just says he gets crazy jealous "he might hurt you".  She then asks if they can forget her husband for a minute and she stretches out the car window and kisses Dash, then drives off.  Watching over all this is Catcher on Festus.

Catcher is always watching.

Lister is meeting with Red Crow to admit he fucked up with the ambush, he lost three men and another is in a prison hospital.  He says he shot Falls Down three times, but it's not enough, he isn't dead.  Red Crow says he knew Bad Horse would survive but he thought they could at least take out Falls Down.  And for this failure Lister has outlived his usefulness to Red Crow and he orders his death telling his men to "mind the carpet boys."

In the present Nitz asks about Lister, Dash says he never heard of him before.  Nitz thinks they were gunning for Falls Down and Dash just got in the way. Or maybe it was Red Crow testing his mettle.  Or maybe it was a warning about staying away from his daughter.  Dash pretends he's never heard of her, but Nitz sees through the lie.

Dash then says he wants out.  But Nitz threatens him by saying he'll send him back to "bumfuck Alabama" where he'll spend his days rounding up redneck cockfighters and inbred whores.  Dash says yes please.  Nitz yells when he brings him Red Crows "grimy fucking melon on a plate then you can piss off to oblivion for all I care."  But for now he's to stop whining and do his job.

Nitz: "Or have you forgotten what I can do to you... with one fucking phone call?"

He then says he doesn't understand what Dash's problem is, he's going undercover as himself.  Angrily Dash drives off.  Newsome asks how such an arrogant punk got hooked up with the bureau?  Nitz says he's stubborn, reckless, out of control, a borderline sociopath with an unconcious death wish and a definite danger to those around him. "He's fucking perfect" finishes Nitz.

Watching up on a ridge behind them is Catcher and Festus.  Catcher tells Festus he's not as dumb as you think I am. "Them Thunder Beings ain't never yet lied to me yet.  No siree bob."  He contemplates some more then says that he's looking at a "Goddamn shitstorm" and that brings this first arc to an end.

HOKA HEY: We begin in the past, thirty years ago on June 20th 1975.  Two FBI agents lie with bullet wounds in them.  A young man is checking them and tells Gina they are both dead as Gina vomits.  He says the place will be swarming with agents because of this. Gina recovers somewhat and yells that she said "no fucking firing. Goddamit! This is his goddamn fault.."

That fateful day in 1975.

We then jump to the present and Red Crow has come into Gina's house, he picks up the album she was looking at commenting that Dashiell was a cute kid.  She angrily tells him to say what he's come to say and then fuck off.  He says he can't protect her any more.  There is a lot of serious money tied up in the casino and they're starting to think that her and her band of protestors have fucked with their investment long enough, "if it weren't for me, you'd be dead already."

Gina: "My God. Listen to you Lincoln.  You've actually started to buy your own 'noble savage' bullshit, haven't you? Only you're still the same two-bot hustler that you've always been.  You just dress better now is all."

He retorts that she's a blind and bitter old hag.  She's trying to take them back to the 70's when the rez was a shooting gallery.

Gina says she was wondering if he still remembered those days. He tries to reason with her saying she fought a good fight but the casino is opening in nine days and her safety is out of his hands now, "just walk the fuck away."  She angrily asks him what about a man called "Lawrence Belcourt" who is rotting away in prison for two murders he didn't commit. He was the younger guy in the flashback.

She supposes a big shot like Red Crow doesn't remember a little thing like Lawrence or that day in 1975.  Red Crow yells that he remembers everything about that day.  Gina tells him that Lawrence has exhausted his final appeal he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail.  She's going up to Kansas to see him so she won't spoil the opening of the casino.  But she will come back and reclaim everything he has stolen from the rez and from her.  Red Crow says he didn't steal her son from her and if she doesn't believe him, speak to Dash himself.

Gina looks for Dash.

So the next day she tries to do just that, driving round the rez askings where Dash is, never finding him.  He's actually in White Haven spying on Carol as she has sex with a man whose name she doesn't know.    When the man goes to wash himself, Dash gets out of his car with violent intent.

Inside the casino, Dash returns and is told by Dino that his mother was there asking after him.  Dash ignores him and heads for Red Crow's office. Red Crow asks where the hell he's been? Dash says "nowhere".  Red Crow says this "nowhere" wouldn't happen to be anywhere near his daughter Carol? Dash deflects, and Red Crow asks what Dash is doing to help protect his ninety-seven million dollar casino.

Later Dash is back watching Carol having sex with another man.  Over the radio he is told his mother called again.  We then return to the casino, Gina is asking after Dash again. The bartender says they don't open for another week, but he can take a message for him.  She starts to say something and is overwhelmed by memories of him briefly, then just says to tell him she was here, "just tell him I wanted to see him".  We then see Dash heading for the man Carol was having sex with.

Dash spying on Carol.

Red Crow is in bed with a woman, she asks him who Gina is because he's called her that five times now.  We then flashback to 1975.  Lawrence is panicking, Gina tries to reassure him, Red Crow says they have to run as fast as they can for the "fuckin' hills."  Gina calls him a "motherfucker", the men are dead and she points a shaking gun at him saying they could have worked things out.  He grabs and hugs her then kisses her.  The chapter ends with Red Crow brooding on his balcony, Gina brooding on the drive to Kansas and Dash brooding in his car on the edge of the rez.

The last chapter begins in a pub in the past again.  It's 1975 and Red Crow, Gina (with a very small Dash) and Catcher are celebrating beating the rap on a double murder. Red Crow gleefully says that there were no murder weapons, no eye witness testimony, the only chance the FBI had was turning them against each other.  But "we stayed true.  We beat the motherfuckers."

Red Crow: "So here's to the Dog Soldiers, now and forever.  The sewage of Europe does not flow in these veins!"

Gina is less than enthused and says she and Dash are leaving as soon as her boyfriend Wade, Dash's dad, comes back from the bathroom.  Catcher doesn't drink either so Red Crow imbibes alone.

Back in '75, a vendetta begins.

However also in the same bar is a young Nitz who makes a sarcastic toast to the "faggot-ass Judge and the twelve shit-for-brains jurors" that let the three of them off.  He also toasts the two dead FBI agents, the finest he ever knew, worth "ten times more'n y'all... or a hundred other no-account redskin fucks just like ya." And throws drink on Red Crow. At that Red Crow grabs him, but the others stop him throwing a punch.

Then Nitz tells them that they picked up Lawrence Belcourt and after todays events they are going to charge him with both murders.  Gina says that's bullshit, Lawrence is just a kid who never fired a shot that day.  Nitz says he knows that but when he is done, Lawrence will "look like the biggest goddamn criminal mastermind since Nixon".  And it's all on their heads.   He leaves telling them that this isn't finished until he finds a way to finish it and trust him, he'll find a way, no matter how long it takes. And we cut to the present with him pissing on an advert for the new casino saying to himself, "I'm still the one gonna finish it".

It's opening day for the casino, Red Crow is meeting the press who are asking how he justifies a casino on a rez where the average yearly income is three thousand dollars a year, and overturning prohibition on a rez which has the highest rate of alchoholism in the nation, and also that he's been accused of embezzling funds to line his own pockets. Before Red Crow can answer, Carol comes raging up and yells "go fuck yourself!"

She slaps him saying he has no say in who she fucks and that sending his goons to beat up whoever he has sex with isn't going to make her his daughter again.  She screams to call off whoever is following her around and get him off her fucking ass.  Red Crow tells his flunkies to get her out of her then find him Dash.

Dash drowns his sorrows.

Who is sitting in the empty casino bar, when he mentions his name the bartender says his mother was in there about a week ago asking after him.   He says she seemed desperate to speak to him.  Dash says she had all the chances in the world to talk to him. He then gives a list of important moments in his life that she wasn't present at because she was off protesting, such as watching her on TV getting arrested on his thirteenth birthday protesting a Redskins game.

He says he was thirteen when he left this shithole rez behind and he never looked back.  The bartender says well he's here now isn't he? Maybe it was a woman who brought him back.  "Not quite" responds Dash.  And that sends us into another flashback.  Nitz is at the FBI academy.  He's being told that Dash isn't fit to be an FBI field agent but he says if he doesn't get him, Nitz will resign effective immediately.

He says that if it's his mother being a member of a domestic terrorist group that's the problem, he hasn't seen her in ten years.  Since she sent him away, he's kept himself busy.  Playing football, training in Jeet Kune Do, taking part in unlicensed boxing tournaments and finally in the military stationed in Kosovo.  Nitz says he's come to the FBI because he belongs home on the range not marking targets for Tomahawk missiles.

They'll start him off in the Deep South "then when he's ready, when he's got a little gravel in his guts.... ya give him to me" says Nitz.  One of the others there asks Nitz if he is still trying to settle old scores and Nitz says he is. It is noted that Dash changed his second name to Bradford and said he absolutely did not want to work on an Indian rez.

Nitz: "He'll do it, because deep down, he can't wait to do it. 'Cause waht's this all for if he can't go home to show his mother just exactly what he's become? So let him talk all he wants about how he hates being an Indian, because deep down, I'm tellin' ya... Dashiell Bad Horse is dyin' to get back to that rez."

And we return to the present and Dash is in Carol's house where she is in bed with two men.  He pulls a gun and tells them to get out and Carol realises that it's been Dash following her around all this time.

He asks where her husband is and she says out of town and does her dad know he's doing this? She sneers that's she's touched by his personal campaign to make her monogamous.  Then she tells him to get the hell out.  He grabs her and slams her against the wall.  She says does he wanna hit her, how original.  He says he wants her out of his face.  She says he's the one who broke into her house.

Sexy times!

They break apart.  She asks what he's doing back here and what a coincidence it is that he returns right before the casino opens, "you're playing an angle." She then takes her bra off and tells him is this what he's after.  He says she has nothing to offer him, but she presses against him "why are you following me?  Why'd you come here tonight?  And why's your dick so fuckin' hard?" And they start having wild sex while elsewhere Red Crow officially opens the casino.

We finish with Catcher, completely naked, coming out of a sweat lodge speaking to the Thunder Beings. He asks for his strength to be restored to walk the soft earth and stride the black road once again.  He goes into his trailer and his wall of newspaper clippings about his friends from long ago.  Asking what hope they have now they are all so far apart. And the final image is of Gina Bad Horse's dead body lying in a huge pool of blood.

Gina, murdered.

This is an excellent introductory volume, quickly setting up the various important characters and their relationships.  With Nitz's vendetta being the thread that will run through the whole of the series.  The characters shown so far are all very flawed people and so far there are no heroes to cheer along.  Dash might nominally be the main character but he's an angry, bitter, shell of a man.  With good reasons, and he'll gain some nuance as the series progresses as do all the major characters, but so far he's a man with a barely concealed deathwish and something of a deconstruction of the "Badass" archetype. The death of Gina Bad Horse is secondary plot mystery that'll also run through several volumes and like so much of what is going on in the present day it is bound up tightly with what happened in the past.  Jason Aaron's writing and plotting likes to play around with time, bouncing backwards and forwards between past and present as we see what happened and the reasons for what happened play out side by side.  R. M Guera's artwork is wonderful.  Darkly gritty with shots of great beauty interspersed amongst the grime.  All-in-all this is a superb start to the series and I hope you'll return in a few days for some Casino Boogie.