W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M
45
Garcia confessed to the "true reason" he was in no hurry for his
writings to see the light of day:
[M]y white wife and family are the only enemies In-who-lise
has got. And her who is so good to me in everything else would
now rather pick up a rattlesnake than pick up a sheet of this
story lying on the floor or anywhere else. Under those sorrowful
conditions, I have had to write for more than two years, work
hard all day around the ranch, and write till twelve o'clock at
night and instead of receiving any encouragement I only receive
blank silences about what I write. Hell will be a popping the day
In-who-lise appears in print in the Garcia family
is news so alarmed McWhorter that he apparently advised
Garcia to keep a copy of his life's work locked in a safety deposit
box. Garcia assured him. "I am not going to take any chances on
this," probably having already stashed his manuscripts in the boxes
meant for storing dynamite.
Garcia had ambitions to change readers' perspectives on Indi-
ans... He wanted to prove to the world that native women were
"capable of a beautiful love and affection that no white woman
would be ashamed to acknowledge and was not a brute, like some
writers would have you believe." His work would be "the only at-
tempt that ever was made in defense of the downtrodden, despised,
and misunderstood Indian woman."
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