“It’s an Algonquin word, terrapin,” she said over him.
Stewart gave her a quizzical look, then glanced down at his bowl.
If only they were back home in their quiet parlor, or out for a stroll along Chestnut Street, so happy, as they had been, in each other’s company that the rest of the world fell away.
“Are you done, ma’am?”
Alma nodded up at the waiter and he whisked away her bowl. He had a maestro’s grace, but a farmer’s rough hands. How long until that part of him, the toil of his youth, faded completely? Perhaps it never would. She thought of Asku’s hands—cracked and calloused but nevertheless clean and manicured, as if he, too, were torn between competing identities. Robbed, he’d called it. But how could he say that? Her own hand found its way to her lips and she bit down hard on skin aside her nail. Like their adroit waiter, Asku had been given a chance at a better life. Where had it gone wrong? “I don’t know if Harry will agree to testify.”
“What? If he’s afraid of speaking before crowds, I can coach—”
“That’s not the reason. He’s quite good in front of crowds, actually.” She smiled, remembering how clear and eloquent Asku could be, but her lips quickly slackened. “He doesn’t want our help.”
Stewart’s brow furrowed. His hazel eyes blinked. “I don’t understand. Why ever not?”
“He didn’t say.” A little lie, but how could she tell Stewart that Asku no longer trusted the white man? “He wouldn’t speak of the murder at all. Turned me out before I could persuade him of our intentions.”
“He does realize the severity of the charges?”
“Yes.”
Stewart pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Gates said he’d been uncooperative, but I thought with you here . . . I thought you were friends.”
“We were. We—” Damn her eyes. Alma fished inside her handbag for her hankie and blotted an errant tear. “We are.”
“We can’t do this without his cooperation.”
“The truth is on our side. Isn’t that enough?”
The quiet that followed made Alma’s skin itch. The waiter returned with their main course, and the silence continued. Stewart cut his roast duck into small, precise squares. He took one bite, chewed for several seconds, then put his knife and fork down, as if he could stomach no more. “Tomorrow I’ll book our return passage to Philadelphia.”
“We mustn’t leave. Not yet.”
“Without Mr. Muskrat’s assent, there’s nothing more we can do.”
Leave Asku to die? A sudden hysteria gripped her. Asku may not want their help, but he needed it nonetheless. “What about the insufficiencies in the investigation? You said yourself there were witnesses yet to be interviewed. And the murder weapon.”
“The trial date is set. There isn’t time to—”
“I can speak on Harry’s behalf.”
“One testimony is hardly enough to sway a jury.”
Alma’s skin flushed with desperation. It was all she could do to keep her voice below a shriek. “How can you countenance this injustice? Harry is an innocent man. You might as well hang the noose yourself.”
Stewart balled up his napkin and threw it atop his uneaten duck. “Enough of this, Alma. Who is this man to you?”
“I told you. A friend, a classmate.”
“Were you lovers?”
“No,” Alma said, louder than she intended.
“You haven’t kept in contact?”
“What? You think I’ve been carrying on an affair with a man a thousand miles away? Before today I had not seen or spoken to Harry in over fifteen years. If I’d passed him on the street I wouldn’t have even recognized him, he’s so altered.”
“Then why all this?”
“I . . .” How to put into words what she hardly understood herself? “He was my father’s favorite pupil.”
“Alma, you hated your father.”
Not always. Not before that night beside the elder tree. “And the brother of my closest friend.”
“Another friend of whom you never speak.”
“Must you attack me like you do those men in the courtroom? Like I’m some criminal?”
“Darling, that’s not what I meant.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled away.
The waiter returned and cleared their plates. When he asked if they wanted dessert, they both shook their heads tersely and he left them to their silence. Stewart batted crumbs from the heavily starched tablecloth. Alma crossed her arms over her chest and gnawed again at the skin alongside her nails. How dare he riddle her with such questions. A friend on trial for murder—wasn’t that explanation enough? Never mind that there was more. Much more. She peeked up at him and felt her heart snag. “I’m sorry.”
Stewart said nothing but reached across the table and drew her hand from her mouth. Though his face remained hardened, he stroked her ragged cuticles with the pad of his thumb.
“It’s a dreadful habit, I know. Mother used to rub soap around my nails to stop me. It worked. For a while.”
Another silence.
“I may have been estranged from my father, but I never lost faith in his principles. Everything he stood for is on trial here as well. If we fail, if Harry dies, my whole life has been . . . a lie.”
“Your life is with me, back in Philadelphia. It has nothing to do with this anymore.”
A knot formed at the base of her throat. If only that were true.
Stewart sighed. “We’ll need to gather more evidence, letters of witness that speak to his character.” He pushed back from the table. “We’ll take the train tomorrow to La Crosse.”
Alma froze. “Why?”
“There must be someone there who’ll write on his behalf. Your mother, an old teacher?”
Miss Wells was headmistress now at Stover, or so Alma had heard. And she’d always been fond of Harry. But to go back, to see the town and school again. Alma swallowed. “Wouldn’t it be easier to send a wire?”
“And risk a delayed response? We can be there and back in a single day.” Renewed determination animated Stewart’s face. “After we obtain character letters, I’ll ask the judge for a continuance to delay the trial a few days. I need more time to sort through all the evidence.”
Alma bit her lip. She could end this still. One word and they’d pack their trunks and return home tomorrow. No visit to Stover. No more stirring of ghosts. Life would return to normal. But Asku would hang.
She tugged at the constricting lace about her neck. “Tomorrow, to La Crosse, then.”
CHAPTER 12
Wisconsin, 1888
Alma filed out of the church behind her parents. Her father stopped beside Reverend Thomas at the base of the stairs in the shadow of the building’s tall spire and struck up a conversation about the morning’s Scripture. Alma nodded at the reverend and slipped away through the crowd.
The morning sun painted the churchyard golden, but its rays offered only a memory of summer’s warmth. Orange and red leaves dappled the surrounding chokeberry hedge and overhanging trees. Children skipped across the yard chanting rhymes or playing tag. Adults milled about in small clusters, the men speaking of rains up north and the river’s rising water, the women of quilting bees and bake sales. Nearly fifteen now, Alma wandered listless among them. The children’s games seemed silly, while the adults’ conversation droned tedious and dull. Finally, she spotted Lily Steele across the yard and hurried over. They linked arms and strode together at an easy pace, catching up on the week’s worth of happenings.
“You’re coming to the piano program tomorrow, aren’t you?” Lily asked.
“I don’t know if I can.”
They passed a group of boys, and Lily gave a gentle toss of the head. Her blond ringlets caught the sunlight as they moved, drawing attention to her lovely face and long white neck. It was a practiced move to be sure, but judging by the boys’ ogling gazes, it worked to good effect. “You simply must come. Everyone’s going.”
Everyone,
of course, meant La Crosse’s fashionable set.
“Including my brother.”
Alma looked down to hide the rush of warmth invading her cheeks. Edward Steele. For months she’d sneaked glances at him over the worn pages of her prayer book. To see him twice in so many days, perhaps even to sit beside him . . . but then . . . “Tomorrow’s the start of the new term and I—”
“The Indians are coming back? So soon?”
“Six weeks seemed a terribly long time to me.”
“I would have welcomed the break.” Her doll-like lips puckered.
“Yes, it’s just, it’s such a big schoolhouse, you see. And to be there by oneself—”
“Father says it’s unnatural, teaching the Indians. Living with them like equals. You really should stay with us and attend school here in La Crosse. Mother just adores you. We could practice our lessons together, and pin each other’s hair, and make . . .”
The picture Lily painted was a lovely one. Music concerts and soirées. Alma’s Indian friends weren’t acquainted with the latest hairstyles or dresses. Only Asku read and wrote at her grade level and could help her with her arithmetic and essays. And yet, when she was with her friends, none of that mattered. And she had missed them. Dreadfully.
She spied Asku through the crowd. He alone had forgone going home and instead spent the time apprenticing with a local farmer. His skin had deepened to the color of rosewood from his weeks in the sun. His clothes were just as neat, his hair just as tidy, his eyes clear and beaming. He waved boisterously, his entire arm flapping through the air. She raised her hand to return his wave, but after a sidelong glance at Lily, cringed back, offering little more than a nod. Asku’s smile faltered. Though the sight of it squeezed her heart, she waited until the Steeles’ carriage pulled away before searching for him again.
However suitably dressed, the lone Indian in a sea of white faces was easy to spot. He stood beside Mr. Coleman, the farmer with whom he’d apprenticed, and his wife. Their two small children hung about Asku’s feet, tugging his shirtsleeves and hugging his legs.
“Harry’s been such a help around the farm this summer,” Mrs. Coleman said when Alma approached. “Your father does good work there at Stover.”
“Thank you,” Alma said.
Mr. Coleman clapped a hand on Asku’s shoulder. “I never thought I’d welcome a red man into my home.”
Alma watched Asku’s jaw clench and his eyes narrow. The movements were slight, subtle, little more than an aberration. When he spoke, his voice rang light and steady. “Thank you for the opportunity.”
Instead of waiting for her father to finish his conversation with the reverend and ready the carriage, Alma and Asku decided to walk. She whispered this to her father, who distractedly waved his assent.
Much of the church crowd had already dispersed. The dusty street leading from the city lay nearly empty. Asku walked a pace apart, his duffle slung across his back. To talk to him, Alma had to crane her neck and speak over her shoulder. “Sorry about before. Not waving, I mean.”
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not that I’m embarrassed of our friendship. Only I . . .”
“Boonendan,” he said. Forget it. “I understand.” But his step still seemed weighted, the soles of his boots never quite clearing the ground.
“Bet I can beat you to the tracks,” she said.
Asku looked up and at long last grinned.
They broke off running at the same time, laughter rising between their brisk inhales. After a few strides, Asku pulled ahead. Alma hitched her skirt above her ankles and dashed behind him. With each breath, her lungs fought the rigid stays of her corset. Her boot heels caught in the road’s every rut and divot. Dust swelled in Asku’s wake, stinging her eyes and scratching her nostrils. They had begun the year nearly the same height, but over the months he’d grown at least half a head taller. The soft fullness of his frame had melted away into long, corded muscle.
“You dawdler! Come on,” he said, disappearing behind a bend.
Alma scowled and pressed onward.
Several twists in the road later, Asku came back into view. He stood where the road crossed the railroad tracks at the far edge of town, brushing the dust from his clothes with an ear-to-ear grin. Despite the stitch in her side, Alma sprinted the last stretch. When she reached her friend, she stopped and bent forward, wrapping her arms around her waist and panting.
“Not fair,” she said when at last she could speak. “You’re not wearing ten pounds of silk.”
“No, but I was carrying this.” He tossed her his duffle.
Alma staggered back beneath the bag’s weight. “How many sets of clothes do you have in here?”
“It’s books.” He took back the bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Your father let me borrow a few before I left.”
“How many is a few?”
Asku chuckled. “Ambe.” Let’s go.
They skirted the eastern edge of town following the railroad tracks that wended northward. With arms outstretched for balance, they shuffled side by side atop the iron rails, or leapt from tie to tie to see who could jump the farthest. The blue-gray waters of the Mississippi winked at them from the far western horizon. At State Street they headed east, fields of windrowed hay flanking them on either side, then cut diagonally between a break in the bluffs on a narrow wagon road.
The sheer faces of craggy rock gave way to rolling hills overlain with trees. With the sun directly above them, they stopped beside a small stream to rest. Asku unwrapped a wedge of cornbread and handed a piece to Alma. She sat on a flattened boulder at the edge of the water and devoured the bread in three bites.
“Hungry?”
Embarrassed, Alma straightened and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. She tossed her head, hoping for the same graceful effect Lily had achieved, but succeeded only in wrenching her neck and entangling her hair. Hopefully, Asku hadn’t noticed. “Are you glad you stayed the summer with the Colemans? I mean, instead of going home?”
He shrugged.
“Do you miss it, the reservation?”
“I miss my family. The sound of drum circle and my grandfather’s stories . . .” He seemed to lose himself amid the memories, his eyes going uncharacteristically blank, the rise and fall of his chest slowing. A moment later he blinked, squared his shoulders, and said as if by rote, “This is better. The way of the future for my people.”
A gust of wind whipped by, rustling the trees and sending a shock of orange and yellow foliage showering down around them. Alma laughed, if just to lighten the mood, and stood, shaking the leaves from the folds of her skirt.
Asku moved beside her, their faces only inches apart. He smiled and plucked a leaf from her hair. He held it out between them, twirling its stem between his fingers, his brown eyes locked with hers.
Alma’s throat went dry, as if a chunk of cornbread had lodged there and would not go down. A strange electricity hummed in her core—at once both pleasurable and disquieting. Part of her ached to lean in closer, to touch his hand, his cheek, his lips. Would the heady sensation surge or diminish? After a moment’s contemplation, she took a step back. Asku was like a brother to her, after all. With forced levity she plucked the leaf from his hand and declared, “Wiigwaas,” recognizing the jagged edge of the tear-shaped birch leaf.
Asku looked down, the corners of his mouth dropping slightly, and nodded.
Before coming to Wisconsin, Alma had known little about the varying types of trees. Aside from Fairmount Park, Philadelphia had few trees to speak of and she saw them all the same. But her Indian friends called each type of tree a different name—mitigwaabaak, aninaatig, wiigwaas—and taught her to identify the shaggy bark of the hickory, sweet sap of the sugar maple, and saw-toothed leaves of the white birch. Azaadiins, the name Asku had given her their first year together at Stover, meant “little aspen.”
She dropped the leaf in the stream, watched it sail away atop the glassy water toward the Mississippi, and
then turned back to Asku. The short brim of his cap cast a shadow over his downturned face, but she could still read the somberness in his expression.
Half an hour later, they rounded the final bend. The thick fringe of trees cleared, and the school’s brick façade appeared before them. A wrought-iron arch rose above the rutted road where the browning lawn butted up to the tree line. Block letters crowned the arch: STOVER SCHOOL FOR INDIANS. Alma passed beneath, but Asku hesitated. He had the wary look of a fox again, his eyes sweeping the full length of the arch.
“Father commissioned it at the start of summer,” she said. “Eventually, he wants to put a matching fence around the entire grounds.”
“To keep the Indian in or the white onlookers out?”
Alma shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
Asku ran his hand down the side of the arch and nodded. “Min-waabaminaagwad,” he said, and stepped through. “It looks good.”
They walked in silence down the remaining drive. Aside from the fresh coat of white paint gleaming from the pillars, the scene reminded her of the first day she had ever met an Indian.
Mrs. Simms clucked around a long table heaped with food and pitchers of lemonade. Miss Wells strode around the house carrying a tidy stack of uniforms.
“Five new pupils this year,” Alma said. “Another Anishinaabe. One from Oneida and three Menominees.”
“Soon we’ll run out of space.”
“Father’s already talking about adding new buildings.”
A call from Mrs. Simms cut short their conversation. “Harry, dear, come help me move this table out of the sunlight. The butter’s melting and dribbling all over the linen.”
Asku set his duffle at the base of the steps and jogged over to Mrs. Simms while Alma went inside to change out of her church clothes.
These past weeks, when the creaking wood floors of Stover were largely silent, Alma had slept in the small bedroom across from her parents’ room at the opposite end of the hall from the girls’ dormitory. This morning she had awakened early, taken her black school dresses from the carved armoire in the corner of her temporary bedroom, and moved them back to their rightful place in the simple chest resting at the foot of her dormitory bed.
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