“Memory is like riding a trail at night with a lighted torch. The torch casts its light only so far, and beyond that is the darkness.”

— Old Lakota saying

The late David Bunnell was known as a pioneer in the development of the personal computer, and was also a writer and magazine editor. I remember his wit and kindness. While in the late stages of pancreatic cancer, Bunnell finished a memoir tracing a 280-mile round trip drive from his home town of Alliance, Nebraska, to the Pine Ridge Indian reservation of South Dakota. There, he connected with Vernell White Thunder, a “wild, untamed, man” and “blood brother.” Vernell doesn’t drink, and his boundless energy provides an excellent foil to David Bunnell’s often nostalgic glimpses into the past.

Bunnell’s trip is an Easter week odyssey that traces his journey into a tragic past of racism against Indians while celebrating the present, including an attempt with Vernell to bring back buffalo herds. The ghosts of past sins are always present, however. Occasionally, Bunnell recounts specific crimes like the 1972 brutal beating and death of an intoxicated Indian named Raymond Yellow Thunder by four young white men out for a drunken night of fun.

The resulting trial and the appearance of 1,500 Indian warriors in the small town of Gordon, Nebraska, is one of the powerful moments in Bunnell’s book.

In addition to many Indian myths woven into the narrative, there are other contemporary stories. David Bunnell lived on the Pine Ridge reservation at the time of the American Indian Movement’s 71-day siege of Wounded Knee in 1973, and his straightforward but compelling prose puts the reader into that moment of rebellion led by Russel Means.

The two distinct threads running through the memoir, the past, including stories of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the present, are set against the harsh prairie landscape, itself, with dingy towns, dangerous bars, fast food joints, and metal sided buildings in the hot sun. Bunnell has a particular venom for the notorious town of Whiteclay, Nebraska.

“After ten more miles of glorious rock formations, tall grasses, chokecherry bushes towering pine trees, I find myself in the armpit of Nebraska, skid row of the plains, an unincorporated border town of fourteen people with a post office, a gas station, a house or two, abandoned buildings … charred foundations, smoldering trash pits, dirt streets … and four liquor stores that sell twelve thousand cans of beer a day to Indians who walk or drive from the nearby community of Pine Ridge where the sale and even the possession of alcohol is illegal.”

David Bunnell’s eventual meeting with his old friend, Vernell, is touching in an enthusiastic macho way. He describes Vernell as man who was happy “as long as he could raise horses and live the life that he calls ‘playing cowboys and Indians.’”

David Hugh Bunnell’s journey “to the rez” captures gaps and connections regarding whites and Native Americans in an evocative and honest way. St. Martin’s Press editors write that Bunnell’s book “tracks the torment and miraculous resurrection of Native American pride, spirituality, and culture—how things got to be the way they are, where we are going, and why we should care.”

This is accurate. “Good Friday on the Rez: by David Hugh Bunnell is a compelling book that deserves many readers.

Michael Corrigan graduated from San Francisco State with an MA in English and creative writing. He is a retired instructor of English and speech communications from Idaho State University. He has written several articles for various outlets, including Atticus Literary magazine online.