by Sonia Antaki
“Nah,” said the boy. “I’m not… Watch this.” She saw him, silhouetted against the glare, his arm raised. Something hit her ankle and the pain knocked her speechless.
Stunned, she looked at the boy. She saw the rock on the ground at her feet, the blood oozing from her leg.
“That’ll teach ’em, Rick,” yelled Jake.
She heard Rick laugh. “Why?” she asked silently.
A cloud swallowed the sun and the light changed, exposing things that weren’t visible before. Rick’s amber-colored eyes caught Red Dove’s. I’m sorry, he seemed to say.
Are you? Red Dove wanted to ask.
“Come. Now,” her mother said, frantically pulling her away.
When at last they were safe outside the fort, Falling Bird pointed to the trickle of red seeping from her daughter’s leg. “Here,” she whispered and picked up a small gray piece of fluff lying on the ground at their feet. She dabbed until the bleeding had stopped and handed the pink-tinged feather to Red Dove. “It’s from a dove, your namesake. A good omen, I think, after all that has happened today.”
›› The Dead Man’s Plum Bush ‹‹
Afternoon shadows lengthened as Red Dove limped slowly along, feeling her ankle throb and the pain in her belly get worse.
“How are you?” her mother said.
“All right,” Red Dove lied.
Falling Bird held out the water skin. “Drink. There’s enough for the trip back if we’re careful.”
Red Dove sipped slowly, leaving a few precious drops, and handed it back.
A breeze riffled the grasses that lined the hill, and the sun sank low in the sky as they climbed. The cool air was a relief, but the now-familiar ache of hunger began to claw and there would be nothing to eat that night. “Maybe we should have asked for help from the soldiers, since we didn’t get anything from the shopkeeper—”
“We will not beg,” her mother hissed. Then her face softened. “I know you’re hungry, daughter—we all are. But we cannot listen to the white man’s promises. We will find another way to fill our stomachs.”
They reached the top of the hill, where Red Dove saw the bush, thick with plums that were ripe to bursting and begging to be picked. “They look delicious,” she murmured as she stumbled along, lost in thought.
So much had gone wrong that day; so much that her mother had predicted hadn’t happened. Falling Bird had been wrong a lot—wrong about going to town, wrong about white people, wrong about finding food.
One plum couldn’t hurt, could it? Fruit that had fallen would only rot and go to waste… .
She slowed her walk and waited until her mother was well ahead and bent down, pretending to rub her burning ankle. Then she reached over and closed her fingers around a plum lying near her foot. Waving off the stinging bees, she picked it up, slipped it between her lips and felt the luscious sweetness explode in her mouth. She sucked on the scratchy little pit until all the meat was gone.
Just one more, she thought, craving the taste of another plum as hunger overcame her.
Suddenly, a hisssssss and she saw, in the shadows, a coiled shape: bead-black eyes, flitting tongue, and yellow fangs, poised to strike. Terror seized her and she ran, limping and stumbling up the path to her mother.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Red Dove said, wiping her chin with the little plum seed still nestled on her tongue.
Her mother sighed and resumed her walk; when she wasn’t looking, Red Dove spat the seed into her hand and tried to throw it in the grass. But her palm was sticky with juice and when she looked down she saw it was stained a deep purple, and the seed was stuck.
She reached out, grabbed a fistful of grass and rubbed and rubbed until the seed fell off. She next scooped up a handful of sandy soil, wiped her palms together, and watched the dust swirl up until her fingers were dry.
Mother will never know, she thought with relief as she waded through the whispering grass.
›› A Purple Stain ‹‹
Fires were lit for the evening meal when Red Dove and her mother got back to the village. Red Dove watched Falling Bird feed the flames with twigs and shreds of wood. “What are you cooking tonight?” she asked.
“Find me something to cook and I will,” her mother snapped. Then her voice softened. “The fire is for the night, Daughter, because it’s cold. Go fetch water and we’ll drink it with the last of the venison papa. That’s all we’ll have to eat tonight.”
Red Dove crawled out of the tepee. The moon was rising full and reflected off the surface of the stream, lighting the world around. She filled the empty water skin and cupped her hand to drink—and saw… .
The stain—it’s still there on my palm!
She thrust her hand into the water and scrubbed hard until she was sure it was gone. Looking around to make sure no one had noticed, she picked up the water skin and walked slowly back to the tepee, listening to the voices of her family coming from within.
I worry too much, she thought. Cheered by the promise of light and warmth, she pulled up the flap and crept inside.
Her mother was waiting for her, holding out a small piece of papa. “The last of it.”
“Shouldn’t we save it then?” Red Dove whispered.
“It will make it easier to sleep. Do as I say and eat.”
Red Dove reached for the tiny scrap of meat and bit down. She could have devoured it in one swallow, but instead, she broke off a tiny morsel, crept back, lifted the tent flap and tossed the crumb to the hungry ghosts waiting outside.
She caught the look of approval on her mother’s face.
We both know it will be licked up by ravenous animals, but after all that’s happened today, I don’t want to break any more traditions.
Red Dove followed her mother to her grandfather’s tepee. She settled herself on the worn buffalo skin and watched him prepare to tell his nightly story.
Falling Bird leaned back against the pile of folded blankets and reached for her daughter’s hand. “Things will be all right now,” she started to say and then broke off abruptly. She dropped Red Dove’s hand as if it burned. “How could you?” she hissed, and pushed her away.
Red Dove looked down and all her dread returned. The purple stain was back.
“Get out,” her mother said.
All eyes were on Red Dove as she slowly crawled outside. Alone now, she stared at the moonlit world. The small stream glistened and the trees still rustled in the wind. But somehow everything had changed.
She strained to hear the murmurs coming from the lodge. The sounds no longer cheered her. Now they were scattered, abrupt and anxious, and they frightened her.
What are they saying? Is she telling them what I did?
Once all was quiet, she crouched low and stepped back inside. No one looked at her as she found another place on the women’s side of the tent. Gray Eagle stared at the fire as he began his tale.
“The Dead Man’s Plum Bush,” he announced.
Does he know? Does everyone?
Red Dove’s face burned with shame. Desperately, she searched the faces around her. She wanted someone, anyone, to tell her that after such a disastrous day, everything would be all right—but no one did.
“We do not touch its fruit,” Gray Eagle began, “for its roots are wrapped around the body of a fallen warrior.”
I know that, Red Dove thought, bowing her head.
She watched the faces around to see their reaction. The adults were impassive, but her little cousins’ eyes were bright, fixed upon the old storyteller as they snuggled in their blankets. Firelight flickered off the walls of the tepee, casting shadows against the light.
“And we would be eating the fruit of his misfortune. Do you understand?” said Gray Eagle, leaning forward. “Our people do not speak of the dead, but I speak of him today because this lesson is important for you.”
He looked at Red Dove.
“From the seed a bush sprang up, a bush that bears its fruit all year round, in rainless su
mmers and sunless winters, protected by a swarm of bees and a single hissing snake.”
His eyes bored into her.
“We do not touch the fruit of loss, for no one is beyond the reach of fortune and everyone is to be treated with compassion and respect. That is the right way—it is our way—and if we turn from our ways, the circle will be broken, and misfortune will follow.”
Red Dove touched her throat and reached for the comfort of the turtle opahte.
It wasn’t there.
She felt her chest, her waist, her throat in a desperate effort to find it, but the precious gift was gone.
No! she wanted to scream, and lay awake, eyes staring, ears straining, until at last, close to dawn, she heard a sound.
“Hoo hoo,” it cried.
An owl? Messenger of death?
“Hoo hoo… hoo hoo hoo.”
A five-tone trill, she thought, breathing with relief. A dove, my namesake.
And finally fell asleep.
›› The Apple ‹‹
Sunlight streamed through the top of the tepee as Red Dove woke. Without stopping to smooth her hair or straighten her clothes, she scrambled out.
The smoke from the evening fires mingled with the morning mist. She pulled her blanket close, retraced her steps to the river and followed the path, searching for the turtle amulet.
Her mother was in the clearing, sitting on a log, bent over her beadwork.
Should I tell her I’ve lost it? She’s so angry about the plum. But Red Dove could bear it no longer. She had to confess.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” she blurted, rushing up to her mother.
Falling Bird cut her off. “You disappoint me so much.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “You do not listen. Maybe you can’t help it,” she went on more gently, “because your father was white.”
Her words landed like a blow. Red Dove opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“You do not respect our ways. You disturbed the dead man’s spirit. You have brought us harm.”
Moments passed.
“I’m sorry,” Red Dove said at last. “What will happen?”
“We do not yet know.” Her mother lowered her head. “But it won’t be good.”
Fear clutched at Red Dove. Could it be that for once Falling Bird was right?
Then she heard a violent clatter from beyond the trees. She saw Old Tom, perched in his wagon, urging his horses up the hill and making straight for the center of their camp.
Beside him, the white woman called “Hellooo!” as they rolled past and came to a stop near Gray Eagle’s tent. She picked up her skirts and climbed carefully down. Then she reached into her dusty black satchel and pulled out a rectangular object with two crossed lines on its cover. “Bible,” she said.
She thrust her hand in again and brought out something else, red, round and shiny. Holding it up, she looked straight at Red Dove. “Food. Eat.” She put her fingers to her mouth and then her belly.
You don’t have to act it out. I know what food is.
The woman launched into louder speech, too rapid for Red Dove to understand. Then she nodded at Old Tom, who began to translate with a question on his face, as if the words were hard for him to say.
The woman wrinkled her forehead and narrowed her eyes. “Let me,” she said, brushing him aside. “This is an apple. Ap… ple.”
“She wants you to try it,” said Old Tom, translating into Lakota. “And if you like it, there will be plenty more. For you and your family as well.”
It looks good, Red Dove thought, as she listened to yet another growl from her empty belly.
Gray Eagle came out of his lodge, but his expression told her nothing.
“Should I?” she asked her mother.
“No.”
“But if I do what the Wasichu want, they might give us food. I can make up for what I did.” She stepped forward and held out her hand.
Her mother snatched at her arm, but Red Dove shrugged her off.
She took the fruit.
And bit.
Washte, good, she thought as her teeth pierced the skin and the warm juice rolled down. It tastes wonderful.
She bit again and a shred of peel cut into the flesh of her gum. Blood and sweetness blended together, and she stared at the unfamiliar fruit. There, against the creamy whiteness of the pulp was a single speck of red.
The woman smiled. She looked at Walks Alone. “This is for you,” she said, and held out another piece of fruit.
Gray Eagle knocked it from her hand. “Hiya!”
A torrent burst from the white woman’s mouth, angry and unintelligible.
Old Tom pulled off his hat, and stared at the ground. “We’re trying to do what’s best for your children.”
Red Dove knew from the woman’s blazing eyes that she had said much more. Finally, Old Tom jerked his head towards the wagon and climbed up onto the seat. Red Dove watched the woman tug on her heavy skirts and pull herself up next to him.
“You… must… go… to… school,” she said, looking at Red Dove.
Must I? she wondered. Is that where I belong?
She had no more time to think before the white woman grabbed the reins from Old Tom and steered the wagon through the trees, along the rutted path, and down to the meadow below.
›› Just a Dream ‹‹
Sleep came slowly that night. Red Dove’s worn old buffalo robe, usually a comfort, felt coarse and scratchy. She squirmed, rolling her body over to find a better position. There was something hard, a small round lump lodged beneath her, and no matter how much she twisted and turned, she couldn’t avoid it.
My turtle amulet?
She sat up and reached under her robe. But this lump was rough and prickly, not smooth and regular like her mother’s beaded gift. She held the thing up and squinted in the darkness.
With a rush of horror, she saw what it was:
The plum pit.
She closed her eyes and slumped back down.
I have to get rid of it.
Her mind raced, her body ached, and she was desperate for sleep. Instead, she lay awake, eyes wide, waiting for the smudge of light that would announce the dawn.
At last, when she thought she would never sleep again, she fell into a dream.
A white man’s village, like the one she had visited the day before—crowded, noisy, and filled with people in Wasichu clothes—but not the heavy, round-limbed whites she knew. Instead, stick-like creatures with arms and legs of bleached-white bone. The men in long gray pants and coats, holding cross-covered books in their claw-like hands, their naked skulls rising out of stiff white collars and topped with bristly thatch. The women wearing lacy black headdresses, carrying baskets of bright red apples. The little ones scampering in short buttoned pants and frilly dresses hanging from skeleton bodies.
Red Dove, standing in the middle of the street, watching in terror, with no one noticing. How could they, with no eyes in their heads?
A voice: “Pick it up.”
What?
“Pick it up.”
Something lying there: pointed, sharp and small.
A plum pit.
Snatching it in panic, afraid to touch it, but more afraid not to. Holding it between her fingers, feeling its prickly surface, then closing her hand around it. And watching the skeleton bodies change.
Flesh growing on their limbs, covering them with pink, glowing skin. Long, narrow noses sprouting from their empty skulls and pale little eyes filling their sockets.
Turning together, towards her, circling closer.
“What do you want?”
The voice: “They cannot hear you, for they have no ears.”
A scream.
Red Dove woke.
Was it me? Did I cry out? She looked at her family. All asleep. She pulled her robe close. Why did I dream that? What does it mean? The plum pit… I have to get rid of it.
She opened her fist, but it was empty. She searched her robe, the a
rea around, but there was nothing there.
“Was it all just a dream?” she moaned.
›› Where I Belong ‹‹
“Walks Alone!” Red Dove yelled to her brother, who was sitting in the late afternoon shade of the little cottonwood tree. She had been waiting all day to talk with him. “Will the Wasichu give us food if we go to their school? Apples?”
“Why are you asking me, sister? You never take my advice.”
That’s because you never have much to give. “You know what their schools are like, from when you went to one before.”
“It’s where I learned not to trust white people,” her brother snorted.
“So do they have the things she says?”
“Food you mean? They do, and they have warm places to sleep, and light you can carry around with you. They make marks on paper so their words will not be forgotten. But they do not honor them.” He turned his clear-eyed gaze on her. “Yes, little sister, they have all that. But do you think they will share it with us?”
“I don’t know—”
“Well I do. They won’t. They’ll only betray us like your father did.”
“He was your father too,” Red Dove said, stung by the blame in his words.
“He wasn’t,” said Walks Alone. “My father was Lakota. And he died at the hand of a white man.”
Red Dove ducked her head. She knew this was a battle she wasn’t going to win. She changed the subject. “That woman said she wants to help us.”
“If we do what she wants.”
“You mean go to school?”
Walks Alone narrowed his eyes. “And give up our ways, become like them.”
“Is that so bad, if it means we’ll get food?”
Walks Alone stared at his sister, as if seeing her for the first time. “It isn’t right,” he said.
“Why?”
“You shouldn’t have to ask.” He kicked at a clod of dirt at his feet. Then he raised his eyes to hers. “If you go to their school, they will steal your spirit, your power—”
“How?”
“They will beat it out of you—”
“No one would do that.”