She knocked, but the sound vanished into the din. After a long inhale, she pried the door open a few more inches and slipped inside.
A light breeze stole in behind her, sending the carpet of sawdust swirling into the air. The burnt smell of tired gears and overworked rubber commingled with the bright scent of wood. Frederick hunched over a ripsaw, feeding a long piece of wood into its spinning teeth. The gust of air ruffled his cropped hair. He blinked through the sudden storm of sawdust, eyes fixed on his work, hands steady. Not until the plank was fully rent did he reach down and switch off the machine.
He straightened and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Dirt and grease stained the rough pads of his fingers. He was just as lanky as she remembered, long cords of muscle roped around a narrow frame. He cocked his head toward the door, his face lined with displeasure. Though the sawdust had long since settled, he blinked again and burrowed his cracked knuckles into his eyes. “Azaadiins, is that you?”
“Frederick!” She swept across the room toward him, raising her arms for an embrace, but stopped short when his eyes flickered toward the open door. He wiped his hand over his leather apron and thrust it with stiff formality between them. Her smile dampened. “It’s good to see you. You look well.”
“So you’re the gichi-mookomaan-ikwe causing troubles at the agency?”
“Word spreads quickly around here.”
He shrugged and grinned. “Agent Taylor knows not the way of soft speaking.”
“I’m here because of Asku.”
Frederick glanced again toward the door. He nodded, but said nothing.
“Do you know what happened? Who really killed Agent Andrews?”
“Askuwheteau asked you to come?”
Alma dropped her gaze to the floor. Darned wool peeked through a hole in Frederick’s worn but polished boots. He’d cuffed his pants to hide a tattered hem. “No, I came of my own accord,” she said at last.
Frederick humphed. “I know nothing of the agent’s murder.”
The want of emotion in his voice made her doubt his words. “What happened to him after Stover? After Brown?”
“That’s his story to tell.”
“Please, Frederick. I’ve heard such awful things. That he’s a lush, a hobo. That he lives alone without family or friend.”
“Sounds apt.”
Alma flinched. She steadied herself against the nearby workbench. Sap oozed beneath her hand, sticking to her glove. “I don’t understand.”
Frederick leaned back against the long ripsaw table and folded his arms across his chest. “I worked as a tradesman in St. Paul for three years after I left Stover.”
“I remember. Father was so proud.”
He huffed and shook his head. “I came home because my grandfather was sick. But I was too late. He died the night before I arrive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“While my grandmother and aunts made the body for burial, many people came offering their favorite tales and memories of my grandfather.” His eyes, previously turned upward as if watching the memory play out in the shadowy rafters, swept downward and met her own. “I couldn’t understand their stories, Azaadiins. I had lost the words, the words of my people. Nookomis, my own grandmother, was a stranger to me.”
“But surely your language came back to you. And think of all the skills you had gained to use here.”
“It did come back. After some while.” He looked down at his hands and pried a splinter from the pad of his thumb. “Have you ever pulled back the husk of a corn and found that the inside is empty, all the kernels have been eaten aways by a worm or field mouse and only the cob is left? You can feel it when you hold it—it’s lighter than the others ears, has trouble holding shape.”
What was Frederick talking about? Corn and field mice? This had nothing to do with Asku or the murder. His eyes kept to the floor. One foot cut circles through the sawdust. Otherwise he was still. She started to speak, to steer him back on topic, but he continued. “That’s what we’re like, those of us returned from Stover or Carlisle or Haskell. Peel back the husk and we’re empty, hollowed out. The Indian in us eaten away.” He shook his head and drew in a long breath. “Some worse than others. When Askuwheteau came back he was nothing but husk.”
“Why should that be? He did so well at Stover. All that knowledge, how could that make him empty?”
Frederick laughed and turned away from her. “Gaawiin ginisidot-anziin.” He picked up both halves of the sundered board and tossed them into a pile of similarly sized planks. The resulting clap echoed through the small shop, shaking the windowpanes.
Alma winced at the noise. “You’re right, I don’t understand. What happened to him here?”
“Not here. It happened to him when they cut his hair and burned his clothes. It happened when your father and Miss Wells tricked him into believing he could be white. It happened to him at Stover and followed him here. It follows us all.”
“But you . . . you’re prospering.” She immediately regretted the choice of word. His mended clothes, his rough, overworked hands—this was not prosperity, not as she’d envisioned it as a girl listening to her father’s oration.
“My people are Métis. Trappers and traders. I’d seen white men before I came to Stover. Heard a few words of English. Knew of your one God. Asku, his people were different. Traditional. Still followed the seasons. That’s a more hard life to come home to and fit in.”
“Even if that were true, I still don’t see how that relates to the murder of Agent Andrews.”
“Do you know the Anishinaabemowin word for reservation?”
She frowned. “Ishkonigan.”
“But do you know its meaning?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“Leftovers.” Frederick strode across the shop toward a trestle table. Worn tools and rusty nails littered its surface. “The white man has always been generous with what he doesn’t want.”
She started to protest, but what could she say? Sawdust settled on her tongue. The truth of his words was here all around her. And it had been true at Stover, too—the factory-made uniforms, the out-of-date textbooks, the skimpy food rations. But what did that have to do with the trial? “I know there’s more to this, Frederick. Several of you here made complaints about Agent Andrews, about some allotment proceedings this past summer.”
He shook his head and rummaged through a few old cans before retrieving a small hook-shaped tool. Without answering, he stalked back to the ripsaw. The splinters of wood strewn about the dirty floor crunched beneath his footfalls.
Alma sighed and hurried behind him. “Tell me about Agent Andrews, Frederick.”
He spun around so quickly Alma nearly ran into him. His eyes had hardened into iron bullets and his nostrils flared. “Mii go izhi-booni’itoog. He’s little different than any Ogimaa that come before or any that will follow.”
Mii go izhi-booni’itoog. Leave it alone. But Alma could not. “I’m just trying to help.”
A thin, tight chuckle slipped Frederick’s lips. What echoed back from the rafters sounded like a wail. “We never wanted your help, Alma. Awas.” He turned and hunched over the ripsaw, burying his attention in its greasy gears.
“But—”
“Awas!”
Go away! Alma shuffled backward. Tears built along her lower lashes. “Please. We were friends. Nimbeshwaji’aa.”
Frederick looked up and sighed. “I don’t know who killed Andrews. Maybe it was Asku. Maybe it was someone else cheated in the agent’s dealings. Ask Minowe. She’d know more than me anyway.”
Alma’s stomach tightened. “I . . . we . . . maybe there’s someone else, a friend of Asku’s you could direct me to.” She reached for the list of names in her handbag.
“You used to call her nishiime—sister.”
Alma shifted and looked down at the scattered wood chips. “We grew apart the year after you and Asku graduated.”
“Follow the road past the a
gency office, then head eastward into the prairie. There’s a small trail. Maybe you see it. That will take you to her home.”
“Is there no one else—” His hardened expression stopped her. She took a deep breath. “How far up the road to this trail?”
“Ningo’anwe’biwin.”
“How will I know when I’ve reached her house?”
He turned back to his work without reply. For a moment a dead silence hung between them, then the ripsaw roared to life, echoing what Frederick had said.
Awas!
CHAPTER 29
Wisconsin, 1890
“What a startling transformation that boy—whatshisname—George has made.”
Alma halted at her father’s voice, nearly dropping the crochet thread she’d fetched for Mrs. Simms to use until more kitchen twine arrived from the Indian Bureau. She flattened herself against the wall and peeked in through the cracked door of her father’s study.
“Quite.” Miss Wells relaxed opposite Alma’s father in a plush armchair, her long fingers curled around a teacup. A wisp of hair had freed itself from her ironclad bun and danced about her face, transformed in afternoon sunlight from mud brown to spun gold. To Alma, she’d always seemed old. But looking upon her now, Alma realized she couldn’t be more than thirty or thirty-five.
“He must have learned more from those nuns than he let on,” Miss Wells continued. “I’ve advanced him three grade levels since Christmas.”
“Remarkable. And not a single demerit, you say?” Her father stroked his beard, his eyes bright. “The Lord does produce miracles. You’ve done good work here, Amelia.”
Color bloomed in the teacher’s cheeks. “I, well, thank you. I’m sure I can squeeze more progress out of him before the term is out.”
“It’s settled, then. We’ll graduate him with the others.”
His words hit Alma like frigid water. The oxygen bled from the air. Surely she misheard him. She leaned in closer, her eyes reaching sidelong, her ear all but pressed to the door.
Miss Wells’s fingers tightened around her cup. “He has a long way to go yet.”
“We haven’t a choice,” her father said. “That was the deal the Indian agent brokered with the boy’s uncle—two years here, until the boy reached eighteen. Our time is up. It would reflect poorly on our numbers if he doesn’t graduate.”
“The others are far more advanced—Harry, Frederick, Catherine—even that silly girl Alice reads better.”
“But he can read.” Her father’s tone was matter-of-fact, his back straight and hands laced atop his desk.
“Yes.”
“And write, and spell, and manage simple arithmetic?”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s all he’ll need.”
Miss Wells sat up and brushed the wisp of hair back from her face. “After graduation, he’ll go straight back to the blanket.”
“You think? Return to his reservation?” Her father sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Hmm . . . you’re probably right. At least we’ve reformed him from the troublemaker he once was. The agency will be grateful.”
“Another year and he could be—”
“My hands are tied.”
Alma sagged against the wall. graduate? How could that be? She felt a throbbing and looked down to see the thread unspooled and twisted about her index finger, leaving the tip fat and purple. Slowly, she unwound the thread. The pain flared with the sudden release of blood.
“A modest victory, I suppose.” Miss Wells’s petticoat rustled as she rose from the chair.
“But a victory nonetheless,” her father said. “We cannot erase in one generation centuries of Godlessness.”
Alma hastened from the door at the sound of approaching footsteps. She stumbled into the dining hall and sank onto a bench. Graduation was in June, only two months away. What would happen after? Would return home, back to the blanket, as they’d said? This was his home now, here with her.
She laid the mess of thread upon the table and nipped at her cuticles, ignoring the bitter taste of soap that spread across her tongue. They sat here every evening during study hour, she and , feigning tutelage. When Miss Wells strode within earshot, they recited times tables or parts of speech. When she moved on, ruler in hand, to scrutinize someone else, they whispered about matters of the heart, their hands clasped beneath the table. His improvement in class had been part of the show, lest Miss Wells doubt the benefit of Alma’s instruction. So in a way they’d brought the misfortune of graduation upon themselves.
“Keep that up much longer and your mother’s bound to notice.”
Alma looked up and saw Asku seated at the other end of the hall. She hadn’t even noticed him when she came in. “Hmm? Oh.” She dropped her hand from her mouth.
He closed his book and came to sit across from her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . don’t you think Tshikw’set should stay on another year? Father wants to graduate him.” She set about untangling the thread, pulling it so taut the fibers burned across her skin. “I think it’s a dreadful idea. His penmanship is awful, his spelling atrocious, his—”
“I say good riddance. It’s not like he wants to be here anyway.”
“Of course he does.”
Asku raised a brow and she knew he’d heard the doubt in her voice.
A faint tap drew her eyes to the far window. smiled at her through the filmy glass and nodded toward the woods.
She stood and hurried to the door. “I . . . er . . . I think I hear Mother calling.”
“You forgot your thread.” Asku tossed it to her, then followed her eyes to the window. Outside, loped across the yard toward the shade of the trees.
Asku’s gaze flickered back. He cocked his head and frowned. “He’s going to leave, Alma.”
She toyed with the end of the thread until it frayed. Was he right? She lobbed it back to him. “Give this to Mrs. Simms for me?”
* * *
waited for her several yards into the forest, standing in a shaft of spring sunlight. Stover’s rigid schedule and strict routine made it easy for them to slip out together. They knew at any given moment where the adults ought to be, knew when roll was counted, knew when their absence would go unnoticed.
He removed his wool jacket and slung it over the crook of his arm. The same breeze that ruffled the budding leaves in the branches above tousled his sable hair. While most of the boys at Stover had taken to using Macassar oil to part and smooth their cropped locks, refused. No part of him, not even his hair, would submit to the white man’s strictures. How he passed morning inspection, Alma had no idea.
“Took you plenty long.” He wrapped an arm around her back and tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.
“Did you know my father has a mind you should graduate?”
“Me?” He blinked and glanced back at the distant schoolhouse, a smile creeping to his lips. “Really?”
“This pleases you?” She hiked up her skirt and petticoats and stomped off. The dark soil, boggy from the spring thaw, clung to the soles of her boots. Winter’s debris lay strewn over the forest floor—snow-felled branches, decomposed leaves, weather-bleached pinecones. Though his feet made no sound, she knew followed but a step behind.
Her chest ached just beneath her breastbone. A dull, radiating pain she’d heard tell of in novels and magazine serials. Sick at heart. Flaubert, Haggard, Corelli—all their heroes and heroines suffered this affliction. To read of it was one thing, but to actually feel it—this new and persisting pain—how did one endure? Several minutes on and the sensation grew intolerable. She spun around. The thick fringe of trees hid all sight of Stover and its outbuildings. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What do you intend to do?”
expression became cloudy, inscrutable, his gaze probing. He inclined his head slightly, but said nothing.
“Askuwheteau has been accepted to Brown University. Did you know? Quite a prestigious school. In Rhode
Island. It’s all Father can talk about.”
To this, he only snorted.
“And Frederick. He has work lined up with a carpenter in St. Paul.”
“You want me to go to Minnesota?”
“No, you know that’s not what I mean.”
With two long strides, he shrank the distance between them to inches. He smelled of soap and sweat and wood chips. It took conscious effort from Alma to pull back instead of lean in. “You could stay here. Find work in La Crosse.”
His hands tightened around his jacket, released, and tightened again.
“What does that mean? That you won’t go back to the reservation? That you’ll stay?”
He didn’t respond but grabbed her hand and pulled her toward a nearby break in the trees, where afternoon light spilled through the tangle of budding branches. A wide clearing stretched before them. Alma squinted as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight. At the far end, the tufts of grass and reeds gave way to a steep incline. A wooden façade jutted from the hillside, its thick logs weatherworn and faded.
At once, stiffened. His nostrils flared and eyes narrowed. He pulled Alma back into the shadows of the nearby trees and handed her his jacket. “Stay.”
Before she could protest, he released her hand and circled around the clearing toward the wooden structure. Alma’s pulse quickened. She’d never ventured so far in this direction. To the west of Stover, scattered farms buffered them from the city limits of La Crosse. But she and never sneaked out that way for fear of being seen. Here, to the east, she was less clear on the boundaries. Surely, they were still on government land. Who then had carved this dugout into the earth?
She watched as neared the dwelling. Her hands clung white to his jacket. He moved with feline grace—long, slow, fluid strides. A few feet from the gaping doorway, he stopped. He crouched to the ground and sifted through the brown clumps of grass, examining the dirt beneath. Then, remaining low, he crept toward the entrance.
Between Earth and Sky Page 21