The Chieftainess

Monty had been away at camp for six months, and still had six months to go. For all the connections Daddy had, he couldn’t keep Monty home, but he still got off easy with only a year to serve. I missed him terribly. 

I don’t know when my crush started. Maybe when he stood up for Cochise at school. Or maybe it was my thirteenth birthday, when he gave me a hand drawn comic book as a gift. But here I was, sixteen, humming love songs while I wrote him a letter at the kitchen table.

He wrote to me every other day. He only wrote to Cochise every week. That had to count for something, right? He had to like me, too.

I mean, he always kept any other guys away from me, even our friends. He always made me ride shotgun, and made me come with him everywhere. He also took me to the cemetery to visit my mom and his dad. He called me his best friend, but there was something in his eyes when he looked at me. 

I sighed, finishing my letter and stuffed it in an envelope. Yeah right. Monty could have anybody. He didn’t want me.

Cochise rushed by the door, unlike him. He’d been struggling with Monty being gone more than me, and I knew he was having trouble at school, but he never came to me. Daddy told him he had to prove he was worthy to lead as a First Nation prince, when he could have easily handled it. Cochise wasn’t hard like Monty, no matter how hard he tried to be. I told him that didn’t matter, but neither he, Daddy, nor Monty would hear it, since he would inherit Daddy’s seat on the Council.

“Cheese, wait!” I called, leaving the envelope on the table to follow him. I caught up to him before he could get to his room and turned him around.

Anger filled me when I saw the bruises on his face. “What happened? And don’t lie.”

Cochise shrugged off his backpack. His uniform was wrinkled and dirty, with a hole at the knee. “Nick… he caught me lacking right after school. The other kids jumped in… said I’m not a real prince. They said my mom was s-some ho from outside the Nations. Our sisters just stood there and laughed.”

“Where was Pic and them?”

Cochise just shrugged.

I brushed past Cochise to go to my room. We had three sisters between us in age that hated us. They were throwaways of affairs, born from Daddy trying to birth a son. Daddy provided for them, but that was it, and their whore mothers had always hated me for being legitimate, and Cochise for being the legitimized bastard. He lived in the big house, got all the privileges, and would one day lead the First Nations, despite his mother not being part of any prominent family like they were.

I stripped out of my uniform and grabbed some leggings to pull on. Cochise came in as I slipped on a loose tee.

“Fox, you can’t–”

“No!” I snapped. I snatched a hair tie off my nightstand and began to pull my long black hair into a ponytail at the top of my head. “I’ve let this go on long enough, out of respect for you and Daddy. You will not ask me to stand down and let them punk you anymore.”

Cochise averted his eyes to the ground. “Dad says if I don’t stand up for myself they’ll never respect me.”

I wrapped my ponytail into a bun. “And that’s why after I’m done, you’re gonna get your one on one with that little nigga and beat him to the ground like I know you can.”

I slathered my face with aquaphor and placed my hands on my little brother’s shoulders. We were eye level, and he was growing every day, but he was skinny, and sensitive, and too pure for this world. He was the spitting image of Daddy, with smooth extra dark skin and a cleft chin. “Look, as long as I’m breathing, I will always stand up for you. This is going to be the last day these niggas put their hands on you. Do you trust me?”

I held out my pinky and held his eyes. After a long moment, he sighed and hooked his with mine.

“Good. Get changed.”

There were a couple places around East Kenton the First Nation kids hung out at depending on what family they were affiliated with. A quick message in our online chat room had most of them meeting at the skatepark in my family’s territory an hour later. I automatically garnered respect as Foxtail Beverly, but I mostly stayed out of the bullshit. I had a twelve-year plan I needed to be strict about if I were to become a doctor, so even if Daddy and Monty weren't adamant about me being above the fray, I still wouldn’t have been in the mix.

Still, when I called, everyone came.

I saw my friends get out of a car and amble over to us. Piccolo and Shakari could have passed for twins, both with long wavy hair in plaits and matching scowls on their faces. Tripp’s family didn’t come from the Apache reservation like ours. He was a real native of East Kenton, but his mother and mine were close, and they were accepted with open arms because of it.

Yes, Daddy was the big dog, but my mother and her family were the real power, and I know that’s part of the reason why Cochise wasn’t accepted as Daddy’s heir.

“What’s this about, Foxy?” Tripp asked when they got to us.

I hopped off the hood of my car and got in his face, pulling him by his shirt so we were eye level. “Where was y’all when Cochise got jumped earlier?”

They all glanced at Cochise before turning to me. “Man–”

“It’s cool.” I let go of his shirt and stepped back as more people began to gather. I spotted my sisters off to the side, glaring as usual, but I kept scanning the crowd. They could mean mug all they wanted, but I knew that’s all they would do.

Once most of the kids had formed a circle in the parking lot, I walked to the middle and beckoned Cochise to come with me. He rolled his eyes but his ass damn sure did stand next to me.

I looked around the sea of faces, people I grew up with, had class with, whose birthday parties I went to. We were all different colors of the rainbow, some still fully Native, some with just a drop of their ancestral blood left. Some from prominent families, children of the men who sit on the First Nations Council with Daddy, some from only affiliated families, and some who just so happened to live under our rule.

If Cochise hadn’t had been born, I would have had to lead them one day. I would have had to marry Shakari, and had two sons to inherit both our seats, as some of the families had done, as my father’s grandmother had done. And though Daddy got his son, as his firstborn, I still could challenge my brother’s claim. And by how these peons listened to me, I probably would win.

“Who am I?” I called out.

Confusion rippled through the group as I looked around. “Well?” I said, since it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

Some girl from my chemistry class raised her hand like we were still in school, so I pointed to her. “Foxtail Beverly?” she posed it like a question.

I smiled and nodded. “Yes. Apache and Odina Beverly’s daughter. A First Nation Princess. I sent a message in a chat room I don’t use to meet here and an hour later everyone came, so that proves what I say goes, right?”

I looked around as murmurs began to fill the parking lot.

“She asked y’all niggas a question!” Piccolo boomed from behind me. They all nodded then, agreeing with me so Piccolo and the rest of the boys affiliated with G$ wouldn’t start busting heads open.

“Good. But I don’t think you guys really understand where I’m coming from. Nick and Serena Bastrup, come here please.”

See, there was a reason Nick always picked on Cochise. His older sister was our sister Serena. We were closest in age, and her mother tried to pass Nick off as our brother, too, but he isn’t. They got it in their heads Cochise stole his birthright.

We were all playing adult games as teens and kids, but that was their parents’ faults for involving them.

He and his sister came into the circle, scowls on their faces, though I saw the fear hidden beneath them. Serena was the queen bee at school, taking advantage of me being out the way always studying; lording over everyone, and constantly tried to hang around Monty and the boys, so this had been a long time coming anyway.

“What, Foxtail?” her nasally voice projected.

I grinned. “Fight me.”

I ignored the shocked murmurs of the crowd and focused on my little sister by three months. 

“What?” she chuckled.

“You and your brother wanna punk mine because you can’t get to me, so I’m giving you a chance. Right here, right now. Who’s the princess worthy of the Beverly name? You win, I’ll have Daddy change your last name to Beverly and you can take over all my duties. Fair and square.”

“Fox–”

I held up my hand to silence Piccolo. I was closest to him, so I knew he'd object first. 

The gleam in Serena’s eyes told me I won her over. She backed up to hand her purse over to our other sister and came back. “All I gotta do is win?”

“Yup.”

She cracked her knuckles, and finally, the hate I knew she had for me took over her features. “I’m gonna enjoy beating your geeky ass up, and finally being Daddy’s favorite,” she hissed.

I took a couple steps away from Cochise and planted my feet on the ground. “Come on.”

Serena began to rush toward me, cocking her fist back. When she was right on me, she swung, but I reached out and snatched her wrist and pulled her forward, knocking her off-balance. Before she could fall, I bent down and shot up, knocking the top of my forehead into her nose. The satisfying crunch of bone was music to my ears. My fist hitting her in the same exact spot knocked her tall ass to the ground.

The crowd was stunned into silence. Only Tripp could be heard laughing over the blood rushing in my ears.

I looked over to Cochise, who stood by me frozen, before directing my attention to Nick.

“Cheese, get your fair one.”

My brother got up on him instantly, beating his ass. The guys got him off him as Nick lay leaking on the pavement.

I walked up to him in two long strides and cold-cocked his mouth. Blood burst from his lips as he crumpled even more. I stared down at him before spitting on his face and turned away and pointed to my brother.

“The only children of Apache Beverly are me and that one over there. Do you have anything to say, brother?”

Cochise wiped his face before scowling at the crowd.

“My name is Cochise Beverly. I’m a First Nation Prince, and future Chief of the First Nations Council.” He puffed out his chest and I felt my lips twitch.

“If you don’t want the wrath of the Beverly’s, Geronimo’s, or the Nabahi’s, then know Cochise Beverly is off fuckin’ limits. Spread the word.”

They scattered like roaches. I walked over to Cochise and hugged him. “I always got your back, Cheese.”

He hugged me back just as fiercely. “Thank you, Fox.”

*

No one bothered Cochise after that, and when that fool came home from camp, he beat Nick up again and anyone else who was involved in jumping him. Daddy wasn’t mad at how I handled it. As usual, he praised me for my cunningness, and told me I’d be a fine chieftainess.