* * *
That night, Alma lay awake in the darkness of her room. Behind her closed eyelids, she could see handsome face. Her hand trailed over her cheek, down the length of her arm, and along the curve of her waist. She inched up the hem of her nightshirt. The sweep of soft fabric sent a delightful shiver over her skin. Her breath hitched.
The doorknob rattled and her door opened with a whisper. Alma froze. Cold air whirled in behind the faint patter of footsteps. Her hand shot toward the bedside table, groping for matches.
“Who’s there?”
Before she could light her candle, the mattress sagged with the weight of a new occupant. She opened her mouth to scream, but the breath caught in her throat, allowing for only a meek whimper. Her heart flapped against her breastbone.
“Shh, Azaadiins!”
The familiar timber of the voice dampened Alma’s anxiety. Her hand steadied enough to light the bedside candle. Not one but two forms appeared in the flare of yellow light.
“Waú! You could have told me you were coming.” She pulled back her blanket and let Minowe and climb under. They squeezed in close to keep from falling off the narrow bed.
With lying between them, Minowe rolled onto her side and raised her head. “Okay, Alma. Speak it.”
“What?”
“I told you she’d not tell,” said.
“After Charles’s accident you were . . . gigashkendam apane,” Minowe said. “Sad.”
nodded. “Gloomy.”
“Now, since four weeks, you . . . you act odd. My brother says you don’t study in class, at dinner you don’t eat. You nearly ruined the pie today.”
“You didn’t even brings up the right jars from the cellar,” added. “Who wants to eat a pie made of beets?”
Alma bit her lip. “Sorry about that. I’ve been . . . distracted.”
“We know,” said. “By who?”
“By whom. Who is a subject pronoun.”
turned to Minowe. “Did we mistake and crawl into bed with Miss Wells?”
All three of them giggled into the pillow. Silence followed in the wake of their laughter. Minowe and wore expectant looks, their brown eyes anchored upon her.
Over the years she’d confided everything to them—from silly disagreements with her mother to the arrival of her monthly courses. And she’d meant to tell them about too. After their first kiss, the news had buzzed inside her all through dinner, but in waiting for the right moment, the right mood, and sufficient privacy, the evening had come and gone without it breaching her lips. So, too, passed the next day and the one following. She met again in the stables. They shared a hurried embrace in the stairwell. Notes—hidden between the pages of arithmetic and grammar books—passed between them in class. After each exhilarating encounter, each lingering stare, she’d set out to tell and Minowe. Each time the words stuck like honey to her tongue.
Even now, she struggled to name what she felt, to describe how one errant kiss had grown and deepened into so much more. “I think I’m . . . I’ve fallen in love.”
Minowe gasped. squealed.
“Shh,” Alma said, even as she giggled. “You’ll wake the whole school.”
“With who? I mean with whom?” half whispered. “That Mr. Ellis you danced with at the Christmas party?”
“Actually, it’s—”
“Of course not that stinky man,” Minowe interrupted. “It only can be that sun-haired boy.” She turned to Alma. “It’s Edward Steele you’ve fallen in love with, yes?”
spoke again before she could answer. “There was that other boy at the dance too. What his name? Van . . . Van—”
“Paul Van Steenwyk?” Alma scrunched her nose and shook her head. “No, not him. And certainly not Edward Steele.” She drew the quilt like a hood over her head and leaned in close.
The excitement drained from her friends’ faces. brow furrowed. Minowe jolted upright, losing her balance and falling clear off the bed.
Alma winced at the loud thud. “Are you okay?” She leaned across and offered Minowe her hand.
Minowe batted it away. “What you say?”
“I asked if you were okay.”
“Before that,” Minowe said, still seated on the floor, rubbing her backside.
Alma nodded.
“Giiwanaadizi.”
“I’m not crazy.”
Minowe rattled her head. “Not many months ago you hated him.”
“I didn’t hate him,” Alma said, though she could feel her skin flush with the lie. “We just didn’t get along.”
“Brute, you called him.”
“And swine,” added.
“Dunce. Scoundrel. Fop.”
“Okay, okay. I may have said a few unkind words when he first came. A girl can change her mind.” Alma sat up and traced her fingertips over the brightly colored squares of her quilt. “He’s different now. I’m different now.”
Minowe clambered from the floor and dusted off her nightshirt. Her fingers trembled and her skin looked greenish in the dim light. “Like I says, giiwanaadizi.”
“What’s wrong with us being in love?”
“Us?” Minowe snorted. “You think he love you, too?”
Alma’s gaze retreated to the flickering candle. Wax dribbled down its sides, pooling in the brass drip pan. The camphor smell from the match head still lingered in the air. Did love her? He’d not said as much. Neither had she, though, not until just now. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you wanted and me to get on better.”
Minowe kept her distance from the bed, one foot shuffling back and forth atop the wool rug. She looked to be wrestling with some emotion—sadness perhaps, or anger—and Alma felt immediately contrite. “I’m sorry, I know I should have told you straightaway, I—”
“You’re a gichi-mookomaan-ikwe. He’s an Indian.”
Alma’s muscles tensed. “It never mattered before that I’m white.”
Silence seeped between them like spilled molasses. , still lying beside her on the bed, broke the impasse. “When did all this happen between you and ?”
“About a month ago.”
“Waú!” batted Alma’s shoulder with the pillow. “A month and you didn’t tell us?”
“I wanted to tell you. I did. He kissed me and I—”
voice sparked with glee.
“Yes, we kissed. Can you believe it? Behind the schoolhouse by the old archery target.” She lay back onto the bed and grabbed the pillow, clutching it to her breast. “It was wonderful.”
“He kiss you one time. That doesn’t mean he cares for you,” Minowe said.
“Not just once. Dozens of times. Whenever we can sneak a moment.” Alma’s head sank into the mattress and she watched the candlelight dance across the plaster ceiling. “I feel like I can barely breathe without him.”
giggled. “That’s why you volunteered to go into the cellar this afternoon.”
“It’s impossible to find time alone.”
Minowe hugged her arms around her chest and shook her head.
Alma sat up again, her stomach tightening. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”
Silence answered her. She turned with desperation to Hoga.
“We are, but . . .” Her friend shrugged. “Your parents will be much angry.”
Alma set aside the pillow. Cavorting with a boy, unchaperoned—her mother would faint if she knew. And Father? Student relationships were forbidden at Stover. Such foolery got in the way of one’s study, she’d overheard him say on more than one occasion. If anyone found out, she and would undoubtedly be punished. Worse, he could be sent away.
“You mustn’t tell.” Alma looked frantically between them. The more people who knew, the greater the risk of discovery. “Not anyone, please.”
nodded, but Minowe remained a statue, brow drawn, eyes inscrutable. Alma’s heart climbed into her throat. “Nindaangwe, right?”
After a heavy moment, Minowe sighed. “Yes, of course you still my friend, Azaadiins. I won’t tell anyo
ne.” She smiled—not her sunny gap-toothed smile—but a stiff, anemic approximation, then grabbed arm. “Come on, we better go before Miss Wells find us out of bed.”
“Miigwech,” Alma said. Thank you.
Her friends tiptoed from the room. winked at Alma over her shoulder. Minowe did not look back.
She blew out the bedside candle and settled back beneath the covers. Though her friends’ warmth still lingered on the sheets, the bed felt wide, open, and lonely.
CHAPTER 28
Minnesota, 1906
Warmth came a weak and distant straggler behind the sun. Rain had fallen in the night and left the air dank. Alma kept her duster buttoned from hem to collar the entire ride to White Earth. Worry lines, something Alma had seldom seen before the ordeal of the trial, now seemed a permanent fixture upon Stewart’s face.
The events of last night, his advance and her refusal, lay open between them like an undressed wound. She tried several times at light conversation and failed. Stewart sat silent, wringing the leather reins and tugging on his shirt cuffs the way he did when he was preparing to argue a big case. He’d grown up with a good name, but not always the fortune to match. His father, he’d told her, was an impulsive man known for both singing and shoddy investments. She imagined this nervous tic to be a vestige of one of those periods of dearth when the family couldn’t afford new shirts for their growing boy.
When they reached the general store at the village center, Stewart slowed the buggy. She hated to part like this, in silence, without so much as a glance, a smile, a kiss on the cheek. She opened her mouth, but the words I’m sorry seemed insufficient.
“I still don’t like you going alone,” he said, facing forward.
“You said yourself we haven’t the time.”
“Perhaps one of Mr. Knudson’s deputies should go with you.”
“No one will be forthcoming with one of the sheriff’s men present.” A strand of hair fell into his eyes. She hesitated before brushing it away.
He captured her hand but seemed uncertain what to do next. Another day, without so much hanging over them, he would have kissed it. Today he settled for a light squeeze. “Be careful.”
“I will,” she said, when what she meant was I love you. “I’ll meet you at the agency before noon.”
She climbed from the wagon and watched him drive off. How much more could he forgive? Water splashed about the wheels and his form became ever smaller. She lingered a moment longer, then hiked up the hem of her skirt and crossed the muddy road to the general store.
Unlike yesterday, when the entire village buzzed with people, today the air was quiet. A few tents remained in the open field—most in some stage of dismantle. The merchants, with their tinware and cloth and guns, had left only bent stalks of grass and rain-filled imprints where their booths had stood. Even the stray dogs that had run about begging scraps of food had vanished into the great expanse of the reservation.
The porch that swept the length of the storefront too sat empty. The rusty hinges of the front door whined when Alma opened it. Flies buzzed in after her through a large tear in the screen even after the door had closed. Two rows of shelving ran the length of the small store. Sacks of flour, sugar, and coffee spilled into the aisles. She stepped over a jumble of shovels stacked upright against the wall and made her way to the front of the store.
A plump white man stood behind the counter. When he looked up, his full pink lips wobbled, as if caught between a grin and a scowl. “You must be that woman up from St. Paul. Agent Taylor’s worked himself into a downright dither over you.”
“No offense—Mr. Larson, is it?—but Agent Taylor can dither all he wants. I’ve got work to do here.”
The shopkeeper chuckled—a deep, jolly sound—and winked a blue eye at her. “No offense taken, ma’am.”
“Alma Mitchell.” She extended her hand across the counter.
He wiped a palm on the faded apron tied high across his belly and shook her hand. “Pleasure to meet ya.”
Behind her, the shop door creaked open. A woman with a cradleboard strapped to her back lumbered in. Alma’s breath caught a moment, then tumbled free. The eyes, the mouth—it was not a face she knew.
Mr. Larson waved to the woman. “Boozhoo.”
She smiled back and headed for a shelf crammed with various rolls of fabric and thread. Her dark eyes flickered warily to Alma as she shifted through the stock.
“You speak Anishinaabemowin?” Alma asked the shopkeeper.
He shrugged. “A word or two here or there. Good for business, ya know.”
“Maybe you can help me, then.” She took a folded piece of paper from her purse and handed it to him. “I’m looking for these men.”
He squinted over the paper, running a finger down the list of names, and chuckled again. “Good luck. Ain’t seen any of them around here for a while.”
“Perhaps I could find them on their farms. Do you know where their land allotments are?”
“Men like these are still living like the old days. They don’t farm or keep to their allotments. Besides, in all likelihood they’ve sold their lands.”
“The government holds the land in trust. They’re not allowed to sell.”
Mr. Larson’s smile dampened. He glanced over to the woman with the cradleboard, then back to Alma. “New law says they can. If the agent deems ’em competent. And these men had debts. Big drinkers, them five.”
“Who bought the land?”
“Depends. If it were prairie, probably some Easterner wanting to try his hand at farming while the gettin’ is still good. If they had timber lands, more likely than not was that greedy lumber company.” He sighed and shook his head. “Ain’t right, if you ask me.”
“Where do they live if they haven’t their own tract of land?”
“Here and there, I suppose. Drifting between kinfolk.”
Alma frowned and took back her list just as the Indian woman approached. She laid a bolt of blue and white striped calico on the counter. Mr. Larson asked how much she needed in near-perfect Anishinaabemowin.
While he measured and cut the cloth, Alma’s eyes drifted to the baby cooing on the woman’s back. Everything about him was beautiful—his colorfully embroidered swaddling blanket, his fat cheeks and crescent eyes, his wild tufts of downy hair. He freed one arm from his wrappings and grasped playfully about the air. Alma couldn’t help but reach out. He grabbed her finger in his chunky hand and giggled as she wagged it back and forth.
“Miikawaadizi,” she said to the mother. “He’s adorable.”
The woman smiled, but shifted slightly so the babe’s soft hand slipped away. She paid Mr. Larson for the cloth and turned to go.
“Here,” he said, pulling out a red and white candy stick from a nearby jar. “For the little one.”
Alma watched them leave with a curious ache between her lungs. She tried not to wonder if Minowe had children. Tried not to picture them with her lovely brown eyes and moon-shaped face. It took a moment to clear her head and remember why she’d come to the shop at all. “You’re sure you don’t know where I might find these men?”
Mr. Larson shook his head. “Afraid not.”
She crumpled the list of witnesses and shoved it back into her handbag. If he couldn’t help her, she had to find someone who could. She’d come this far, after all, roused so many memories. What was a few more? “How about a woman named Medwe-ganoonind? Do you know where she might live?”
Another shake of the head.
“May, that was her Christian name. Or a man called Peter. He went by—”
“Mrs. Mitchell, I wish I could help, but you’d have far better luck over at the Indian Office. They’re the ones with the roll books, after all.”
The thought of returning to that stuffy white building empty-handed made her stomach turn. “Just one more.” Her mind dredged through the list of long-silent names. “Frederick. He’s tall, mid-thirties. He called himself . . .” She couldn’t remember his Indian n
ame.
“I know half a dozen men fittin’ that description. I couldn’t tell you where any of them live, though.” He gave her an apologetic smile, then grabbed a rag and began wiping down the scratched countertop.
Alma watched his movements, the light grip on the rag, the small circles he made over the wood, and thought back to the grand foyer at Stover. She could see Frederick bent over on hands and knees working off demerits. The scent of floor polish stung her nose. He must have hated the work, but in her mind’s eye he was smiling, humming some tune.
“Nesayegun. That’s what he called himself,” she said to herself, turning to leave.
“What’d you say? Nesayegun? I think a fella by that name does some work over there in the agency wood shop.”
“Really? Which direction is the shop?”
“It ain’t steady work, mind you. Fixes things for the agency when they break or fall apart. He mightn’t be there today. And he mightn’t be the Indian you’re looking for. But you can go check. Five buildings down on the right. Between the barracks and barn.”
“Thank you, Mr. Larson. Thank you so much.”
He blushed. “Ain’t nothin’. Just glad to be of help. Good luck to ya.”
Alma hurried down the road in the direction of the shop. Mud splashed and slurped around her boots. Though she had to hold up her skirts an inch or two higher than proper, she slowed only to navigate the largest puddles.
Little differentiated the dilapidated street-side barn from the wood shop. Dry, sun-bleached pine sided both buildings. The stench of dusty fur and manure rose from the barn. The shop smelled like a forest—earthy, with hints of vanilla. Its filmy windows rattled from the roaring machinery within. One of the large double doors lay ajar, exposing a sliver of the dim room within.
Her heart flapped like a moth inside a mason jar. Sixteen years stood between them. Life, with all its meanderings, seemed to shrink the friendship they had once shared. Would he even remember her? Her hand fluttered over her dress, her hair, her hat—smoothing, arranging, adjusting. Flecks of dried mud dotted the hem of her skirt and she suddenly wished she’d taken more care to avoid the puddles.
Between Earth and Sky Page 20