Between Earth and Sky

by Amanda Skenandore

  Though she had drawn back the drapes and flung open the window before leaving for church, the dormitory still smelled musty. In the golden afternoon light the empty room begged for life, for rumpled bed covers and furniture set askew, for laughter and whispers and pattering bare feet.

  Alma hurried through the buttons trailing down the bodice of her gown and threw open the lid of her bedside chest. The inside was empty. She glanced at the washstand. Her silver comb and mirror were gone as well. Holding the front of her dress closed, she leaned out the window.

  “Mother!”

  “What’s happened to your Sunday dress? The hem is caked in mud!”

  Her mother’s voice behind her made her start, and she whirled around. “I—ah—”

  “Your father should never have let you walk back from town alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone; Harry was with me.”

  Her mother’s eyes bulged. “You’re far too old to be gallivanting about with young men, Indian or not.”

  Alma swept the folds of her soggy skirt behind her in a futile attempt to conceal the full damage of her afternoon romp.

  “Don’t stand there by the window in a state of undress. Go change. And be sure to bring your skirt to Mrs. Simms forthwith for cleaning.”

  “I can’t find my uniform. I moved it here this morning, but my trunk’s empty.”

  “You’ll be staying in your own room this year.”

  “What? No!”

  Her mother’s expression hardened. “Like it or not, you’re a young lady now, Alma. It’s not proper for you to be living like a common boarder among these Indians.”

  “What about being an example?”

  “You can do that from a distance.”

  “I promise, Mother, I won’t go walking alone anymore. I’ll behave like a lady. Please, I’ll be so lonely in my own room.”

  “You’ve become too familiar with these savages.”

  “They’re not savages. They’re my friends.”

  Her mother’s expression turned rueful. She cupped her hands over Alma’s cheeks. “I know this pains you, dear, but it’s high time you cultivate more respectable friends—friends equal to your worth and breeding. Like Miss Lily Steele. She’s a fine young lady. And no doubt able to keep her skirts above the mud.”

  Alma sulked past her mother and down the hallway to her new prison of a room. She had plenty of “respectable” friends. Why did it suddenly matter if she had Indian friends, too? She cast off her muddied dress and donned her uniform. That word Lily had used—unnatural—came to her mind. Was it true? She closed her eyes tightly and imagined something wonderful happening—her father bringing home a litter of kittens or a brand-new pair of ice skates. It wasn’t Lily she’d run and tell, but Minowe and . And now, sleeping by herself in this awful room, she’d miss out on their late-night stories, the funny faces they made when Miss Wells turned her back during morning inspection, the secrets whispered through the darkness in their unique blend of Indian and English.

  The sound of approaching wagons rattled her window. Alma’s spirits buoyed at the sight of her friends. Natural or not, she didn’t care. She bounded down the stairs and out to greet them.

  Minowe leapt from the back of the first wagon. Though they’d been apart less than two months, her friend looked different. Her soft form had filled out, her hips wide, her chest round and full beneath her blouse. Her bronze face had thinned, drawing attention to her lovely, wide cheekbones and darkly lashed eyes.

  Alma felt a tickle of envy. “Gimiikawaadizi,” she said, trying not to let it show in her voice. “How pretty you look.” A tight hug and the feeling left her.

  They found and all exchanged quick accounts of their weeks apart. Then they walked arm in arm toward the picnic. When Alma explained her exile from the dormitory, her friends immediately offered suggestions on how she could escape to join them on the roof or at their secret stomp dances in the forest. Maybe she wouldn’t miss too much after all.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two boys—no older than six—hanging back from the crowd gathered around the picnic spread. Judging by their shaggy hair, bright clothes inlaid with ribbons, beaded moccasins, and wide, fearful eyes, they were among this year’s new enrollees.

  She left her friends and walked toward the boys. Crouching before them, she offered each a hand.

  she said, greeting them in Menominee. It was just a guess, but since that was the only tribe to send more than one new student this year, it seemed like a good one. Before she could finish her introduction, a shadow fell over her. An older boy she didn’t recognize stood above her. Thick black hair brushed his shoulders. He wore a red shirt—the same vivid color as a nearby maple—and navy brocade vest. A beaded belt cinched his waist. From his neck hung a necklace of alternating beads and quills. He put his hands on the younger boys’ shoulders and pulled them back.

  he said to them. Enemy.

  Alma stood, wincing at the word. The newcomer’s dark walnut-colored eyes narrowed into slits. Her father rarely accepted new students above the age of ten. Slower to learn and harder to train, he said. But this boy was at least her age, probably older.

  Alma felt small beneath his stare. Her fledgling smile garnered only a deeper scowl.

  He steered the younger boys away, giving Alma a wide berth, as if her skin seeped poison. Stunned, she watched them go, his condemnation haunting her ears.

  CHAPTER 13

  Wisconsin, 1906

  The short carriage ride from the train station to her mother’s residence stirred in Alma a faint nausea. Sweat dampened the velvet lining of her hat. La Crosse, though yet familiar, had altered much in the past fifteen years. Pavers now lined the sidewalk. A drugstore and soda fountain replaced the chandlery. Half a dozen more church spires pierced the horizon. But the saddlery remained. And Mrs. Westin’s dress shop. Even the Wallis Carriage Company still stood, though its windows were cracked and the storefront sign faded.

  Alma closed her eyes and fought back the rising bile.

  Upon arrival, a maid led her to her mother’s parlor. Eyelet lace shrouded the windows. The sun sneaked through, but only in winks and fits. Rosewood and lilac perfumed the air. As a girl, she’d loved to creep into her parents’ bedroom and sit at her mother’s vanity. She’d dip her fingers in the various jars of cream, pat her face with powder, and sniff the glass vials of fragrant oil. Looking into the vanity mirror, she’d imagine herself a grown woman—beautiful and elegant as her mother, wearing the same floral perfume. Now the scent only added to her queasiness.

  A familiar settee rested in the corner. Alma sat down and clasped her hands to keep from fidgeting. Countless times she’d sat upon this very settee, Minowe and beside her, their heads bent over their needlework, trading whispers and laughter. The seat was harder now than she remembered and new upholstery covered the cushion. Its cherrywood legs and armrests gleamed with polish as they never had at Stover.

  Alma looked up at the sound of footfalls. Time had spared her mother the worst of its ravages. Eyes just as blue, skin just as fair, she glided into the room with the same graceful step Alma recalled from childhood. She appraised Alma from the doorway, her face like the china figurines atop the mantel, frozen and dispassionate.

  “Where’s your husband?”

  No niceties, then. No warm hello. No tearful embrace. Alma hadn’t expected such a welcome, wouldn’t have known what do with such tender familiarity, but she felt its absence nonetheless. “He sends his regards.”

  In truth, Stewart had insisted upon coming, had fretted so over her traveling alone, but she’d convinced him he needed to work on the continuance motion with Mr. Gates. She couldn’t let him see her like this, so frazzled and exposed.

  Her mother sank into a nearby armchair. “I’d hoped to meet him, this man who forgives all sins. Or didn’t you tell him?”

  Alma’s jaw clenched. “I am not here to talk about my husband. I need a favor.”

  “Fifteen years and sh
e comes begging favors.” Her mother said this with a snicker, addressing no one but the stale, overly perfumed air.

  Alma struggled to keep rein of her tongue. “I trust you’ve heard about Harry. My husband is helping with his case. We need you to write a letter on his behalf, a testimony of character. Have you paper and pen?”

  “Surely you can spare a moment for pleasantries. Tea?” Before Alma could respond, her mother continued. “Something stronger, I should think.”

  She poured two copitas of sherry and returned to her chair.

  Alma hesitated. It was hardly one o’clock. But her mother drank half the glass with her first sip. “You remind me of your father. Always trying to help these people no matter what they do.”

  Was that a compliment? Alma didn’t think so. Even if it were, the comparison sat uneasy upon her. There was little remembrance of him here in this house: none of his books or mementoes, no smell of tobacco or pomade, his blue cap and saber missing above the mantel. Alma’s heart ached at their absence. She swallowed a mouthful of sherry to fortify herself. Another for good measure. Yet even as she set her copita down on the side table her hand trembled. “I’m nothing like him.”

  Her mother shrugged. “You certainly don’t get it from me.”

  “Does that mean you won’t write the letter?”

  “It broke him, you know.” There was a pity she’d never heard before in her mother’s voice. A sadness unfettered by her usual contempt. “He put on his suit and his glasses and sat in that musty old office every day until he died. More Indians came and went. But he was never the same.”

  The warmth of the alcohol in her stomach faded. “Mother, please, I’m here to talk about Harry.”

  The woman stood and poured herself another drink. “Made the local paper three days running, this murder business. In truth, I was surprised I even remembered him—so alike they are, and after all these years. He always seemed so . . . mild to me.”

  “He was. And smart, and mannerly. You commented on it often.”

  Again her mother shrugged.

  “He’s innocent.”

  “What does your husband think of all this? Traveling such a distance to defend a stranger.”

  “He’s happy to do it. He wants to ensure justice.”

  The smirk on her mother’s face made Alma feel like a child again, caught fibbing about broken chinaware or torn stockings. “He loves me.”

  Why then the timidity in her voice?

  “Hmm.” Drink in hand, her mother crossed to the window and drew back a corner of the curtain. Light spilled in around her—so much so that Alma had to squint. Her mother looked out unperturbed. “The foolish things we do for love . . . I know you think I was cold back then, cruel even, but I was just preparing you for life’s tragedies. I’m sure you see that now.”

  Alma opened her mouth but found her tongue too heavy for words. Was she better prepared, as her mother said? Would life have crushed her otherwise? She didn’t feel strong or resilient, but she was here, wasn’t she? And would carry on to Stover and wherever else she might have to go to prove Asku innocent.

  At last, her mother let go of the curtain. “I’ll write this letter for you, Alma, but don’t ruin what you have in search of what you’ve lost.” She threw back the last of her sherry. “Trust me, that’s no way to live.”

  * * *

  With the sun still high in the sky, Alma passed beneath the familiar arch with its wrought-iron lettering: STOVER SCHOOL FOR INDIANS. Buildings of every shape and sort crowded the once-open and rustic grounds. The forest had been beaten back, and what lawn remained was cut to haunting precision. More than her mother’s graying hair, more than La Crosse’s expanded Main Street, Stover’s transformation shook her. She felt transparent, ungrounded, like her memories had no anchor and would flit away into oblivion.

  “How many students attend school here?” she asked the young boy in uniform who met her in the drive.

  “One hundred and sixty-three, ma’am,” he said in very precise English. He pointed out the separate boys’ and girls’ dormitory buildings, a mess hall, laundry, and gymnasium. The old schoolhouse still stood, though according to her guide, only as an administrative building and staff quarters. She watched the boy as he led her there: his stiff, mirthless walk; his serious demeanor. He seemed a man of forty, not a boy of ten. Had they been so staid and formal when she was a girl here? Her memories were of laughter and games and running.

  And yet, there was something of Asku in this boy. His tidy appearance, his inquisitive eyes.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Benjamin Franklin Redtail, ma’am.”

  Alma smiled. “What tribe do you come from?”

  “I’m an American, ma’am. Uncle Sam is my father. The United States is my tribe.”

  She bent over and looked him in the eye. “Yes, but before that?”

  He paused a moment, glancing between her and the faded brick schoolhouse. His hands wiggled and tugged at his cuffs. “Ho-chunk.”

  His eyes went wide and he ducked his head down like a turtle pulling into its shell.

  With effort, she smiled again. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to get you in trouble.”

  He nodded and started up the stairs to the schoolhouse entrance. Asku’s words came back to her, ringing like tinnitus in her ears. Did you ever stop and think what they were doing was wrong? Now, as before, she struggled for an answer. If assimilation had failed even him, how could there be hope for this boy? She took a deep breath and mounted the steps. No. It may have failed others, but not Asku. Freeing him would prove that.

  The old house, with its polished floorboards, broad foyer, and double-wide staircase, revived a feeling of circumspection. Her chin lifted and back straightened as if a stack of books rested atop her head. Her feet whispered over the rug as if her mother were listening. Benjamin Franklin Redtail straightened, too, his face grave, his little hands no longer twitching.

  “I can find my way from here,” she said, and headed alone to her father’s old office. It was hard not to think of him as she’d seen him last, standing in the doorway, his face ragged, his boots caked in dried mud. The tenderness and nostalgia she had felt for him at her mother’s quickly died.

  The door to the office was open, but Miss Wells was not inside. The same oak desk sat in the center, surrounded by the same varnished bookshelves she remembered from childhood. Yet the space seemed more spartan than it had in her father’s time. No fire in the hearth. No candy jar tucked between books on the shelf. The walls were bare save for sixteen photographs—each in a simple brass frame—hanging in a grid upon the far wall.

  Her eye caught on the first photo, and the breath froze in her lungs. She crossed the room in three swift steps and pressed a gloved hand against the glass. Her fingers caressed the outline of each figure, her memories giving them life and color. Asku in the center, shoulders back and head high. Alice and Catherine holding hands to the side. Frederick, barely able to suppress a grin. And there at the edge, hair tousled, not quiet in line with the others—

  Tears blurred the image, but she could not look away. Her fingers pressed more firmly as if a thin pane of glass were all that separated them.

  “Such nice photos, are they not?”

  Alma startled and spun around, furtively wiping her eyes. Miss Wells stood before her. Alma’s pulse hitched and the blood crept from her limbs, as if she were a girl again awaiting reprimand. “Miss Wells,” she said with forced levity. “Pleasure to see you again.”

  “Likewise.” Miss Wells crossed the room and thrust out her hand just as Alma began to curtsy.

  Flustered, Alma rose and shook hands. Her old teacher’s grip was firm and brief. Blue veins showed through her thinning skin. She turned to the wall of photographs. “A wonderful chronology of the school’s success.”

  Alma swallowed. “Yes.”

  Miss Wells straightened the picture Alma had left askew. “And Harry, one of the brightest boys I ever taugh
t.” She paused, examining each of the other faces in the photo. When her eyes lit upon the last figure, her mouth pursed and the lines about her forehead deepened.

  Alma braced for whatever snide comment the woman might utter. But when Miss Wells turned around, her eyes flashed with pity. A moment later, it was gone, the stony woman Alma remembered returned.

  “I need a letter for Harry, for the trial, one that speaks to all the good qualities he fostered here.”

  Miss Wells crossed to her desk and opened the top drawer. “I thought someone would come.” She glanced at Alma, then back to the tidy stacks of paper within the drawer. “Though I didn’t think it would be you.”

  “You’ll write it, then?”

  “I’ve already prepared such a letter.”

  “You have?” Thank God. Each passing moment here cut a fresh wound.

  “Of course. I hate to think what it would do to the school’s reputation if Harry’s convicted.”

  Alma flinched. Was that the reasoning behind her ready aid? Surely she still cared for Asku, believed him innocent. The woman’s cool, businesslike expression unsettled Alma. Miss Wells had devoted her entire life to saving the Indians. But had she ever truly cared for Asku, for any of them?

  Besides, the school had survived worse scandals.

  “Ah, here it is.” Instead of handing the letter to Alma, she slipped it in her pocket. “Would you like to see the grounds?”

  “I . . . um . . . Benjamin pointed out a few things. And I’ve a train to catch at five.”

  “Only a brief tour, then.” She marched from the room before Alma could protest.

  They left the old schoolhouse and crossed the yard. Alma’s step faltered as they passed the wood shop. It was silent now, though the blare of machinery and drum of hammers echoed from her memory.