Ruth leaned forward in her chair. “Do you really think a full-fledged uprising is under way?”
“Don’t you read the papers I pass you each morning, girl?” her grandmother said. “Those hostile bucks are burning schools, attacking wagon trains, pillaging the nearby ranches. I read just this morning the Governor of Nebraska called for troops to protect the settlers along the Nebraska-Dakota border. It’s only a matter of time before the agitation spreads.”
Mrs. Steele and her daughter both nodded, grave expressions cast upon their faces. With the sigh of a martyr, Alma’s mother collapsed back in her chair.
“No need to worry, Cora,” Old Mrs. Lawrence said. “The army will take swift care of them.”
A sudden fear gripped Alma. These buzzards were not the only ones reading the papers. Her father had taken care to hide news of the Dakota fighting from the students at Stover, even from those who might have relatives among the dead. But what of ?
Calls for safekeeping and worried expressions followed them as they left the Steeles’. Instead of steering the buggy toward Stover, Alma directed the horses downtown.
“Home, dear. I haven’t the energy to visit the shops today.”
“Mr. Simms asked if we would stop by the carriage factory and inquire about a part he ordered.”
Her mother scowled but waved them onward. Traffic thickened as they headed west. Sprawling mansions gave way to single-story shotguns, ornamented coaches and buggies to surreys and mule-drawn box carts. Pillars of smoke rose from the mills and factories that lined the Mississippi. Locomotives blared their horns. All the while Alma’s insides twisted with worry.
When they reached the Wallis Carriage Company, Alma left her mother napping in the buggy and hurried inside. Mr. Wallis greeted her from behind a small lacquered counter. Behind it, a variety of carriages stood on display. Her eyes moved beyond the shiny new models to an open door leading to the workshop. Six or seven young men labored over vehicles in various stages of repair. Among them she spotted . The tamponade around her heart eased.
“How can I help you, Miss Blanchard?”
“I . . . um . . . my father received a letter addressed to George. As Mother and I were coming to town today to call upon some friends, he asked me to deliver it.” The lie left her mouth dry and her pulse unmeasured.
“Of course, I’d be happy to give it to him.”
Her stomach dropped. “I . . . er . . . I hate to take you from your bookkeeping. I’ll take it back.”
The creases around the man’s gray eyes deepened. He looked over his shoulder at and his expression softened. “All right, my dear. Mind your lovely dress. Floor’s covered in sawdust.”
The click of her boots over the floorboards heralded her approach, and the workers looked up from their hammers, trammels, and paintbrushes. Each one nodded when she passed. Though the clamor of their labor resumed, she knew their eyes had not left her.
sat on the stool at the very back of the shop, sanding down a long plank of wood. He, too, had glanced up at her approach, his unshorn hair falling over owl-wide eyes. He brushed the strands aside and returned to his work with a coolness that both alarmed and relieved her. Since his departure from Stover in July, they met with little frequency. Their paths crossed each Sunday in church, but there only a quick word or folded note could pass unnoticed between them. She’d never before come to the shop.
He stood, set aside his sandpaper, and wiped his hands over his cotton trousers. “You shouldn’t be here, ,” he whispered.
Alma opened her satchel and rummaged through its contents, feigning to search for the imaginary letter. “I had to see you. I was afraid news from Dakota had upset you.”
His jaw clenched and his irises seemed to darken until they were barely distinguishable from his pupils. “Upset is not the word I feel.”
“Just promise you won’t do anything rash, reckless.”
He glanced at his coworkers. “We cannot speak here. Remember the dugout we found last spring? Meet me there tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll try.” At the bottom of her bag she found the dance card from a recent gala she’d attended. She folded it in half and handed it to him, just in case Mr. Wallis or the other workers were still looking.
arched a brow.
In a raised voice she said, “Father received this letter for you. Be well.” She lingered a moment longer, loath to take her leave, then spun on her heels and walked away.
Thick, heavy snowflakes began to fall before Alma and her mother reached the bluffs beyond La Crosse. Like frozen teardrops, they continued to float down from the angry sky through the afternoon and into twilight.
At supper, Alma peered through the frosted windowpanes across the dining hall, wondering if the storm still raged outside in the darkness. Voices whispered around her, quiet but electric. Minowe had noticed the copy of the La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader in the study when she came to remove the afternoon tea tray. THE MANIACAL ACT OF THE RED SKINS AT WOUNDED KNEE read the headline. She’d only managed to skim the first few paragraphs before Alma’s father returned to the room, but now, the few details she had gleaned spread with hushed voices throughout the dining hall.
“Where’s Wounded Knee?” a young Chippewa girl asked.
Minowe waited until Miss Wells moved beyond earshot. “Bwaan ishkonigan.” Sioux Reservation.
leaned across the table. “Is it true, Azaadiins? Are hundreds dead?”
Alma pried her gaze from the window. Around the table, wide-eyed Indians stared at her. The fear and pain in her friends’ faces left her breathless. Unable to hold their scrutiny, she looked down at the boiled potatoes and gristly meat untouched on her plate. “Yes.”
“Women and children?” asked.
“Some,” Alma said, then shook her head. “Many.”
Whispers swarmed until Miss Wells rapped her ruler against the tabletop. “Voices, ladies. The dinner hour is for sustenance, not idle chatter.”
Silence fell but did not last. No sooner had Miss Wells left to reprimand another table than Minowe spoke. “Who began it?”
“The papers say the U.S. cavalry were trying to disarm a group of captives when one of the Indians shot at them.”
“And you believe it so?”
Alma looked back at blackness beyond the window. The inflammatory headlines and editorials she’d read in the papers, bitter words she’d heard today in town, the palpable distress building in the dining hall all tore at her, pulling her in divergent directions.
“It doesn’t matter who started it,” she said finally. “There was no need to kill innocent women and children.”
“Ho,” said in agreement.
“What means maniacal, anyway?” Minowe asked.
“Crazy. Violent.”
Minowe’s expression soured. “Is that how the white man really see us?”
“No.” Her voice sounded hollow. “Well, maybe some, after an incident like this . . . those who are ignorant.”
“Us maniacal?” Minowe shook her head, her dark eyes unblinking. Alma touched her forearm, but her friend pulled away. “Already so many dead. Do they want to kill us all?”
“Of course not.” But again her words rang empty. She had nothing for their pain, their fear, their anger.
While the conversation continued around her, Alma retreated into her thoughts. She imagined sitting down for dinner at the boardinghouse where he rented a room. Did the others—the white boarders—get up and leave when he arrived? Did they break off their conversations and glare?
She thought too of Asku. Surely back East, at such an illustrious school as Brown, more mild temperaments reigned. With his gentle, curious nature, who could help but adore him? The depth of his bravery touched her—to travel so far from his home. If only she could see him, hear the clear, steady tone of his voice. Maybe then worry’s hold would lessen.
A shrill whistle cry rent her from her musing. She looked to the front of the dining hall, where her father now stood besi
de Miss Wells. His face, just beginning to line with age, burned scarlet. He blared the whistle again and silence fell around the room.
“What’s behind all this racket?”
No one answered.
His narrow eyes drifted over the rows of tables. When his gaze reached Alma, she held his stare. He must know news of Wounded Knee had finally broken at the school. Three of the children seated before him were Sioux, one from the Pine Ridge Reservation.
“They’re worried about their kin. News of the—”
“Now’s not a suitable time, Alma.”
“But—”
He looked beyond her at the others. “If you cannot eat with proper decorum, you shall not eat at all. Take your plates to the kitchen and then go straight to bed. This meal is over.”
Alma’s hand tightened around her fork. Her sinews showed white atop her knuckles. “It was a massacre, Father. Haven’t they the right—”
“Enough!”
She choked down her fury and followed the others into the kitchen. With her father standing watch, they washed the dishes in silence, then marched upstairs to their dormitory. She refused to look at him as they passed at the foot of the stairs. Seventeen now and he still thought her a child, oblivious to the world around her. She wasn’t, though. None of them were.
At the second-floor landing, Alma grabbed hold of Minowe’s hand and squeezed before parting for her room. Her friend’s hand was cold and wrinkled from the sudsy dishwater. She squeezed back, but only weakly.
Inside her room, Alma waited and listened. Sneaking out tonight would be dangerous—the roof slick, the freshly fallen snow a canvas for her tracks. But after the angst she’d seen at dinner, she must go.
She paced her small room for over an hour until the downstairs lights no longer glistened upon the frozen yard. The stairs creaked; the hallway floorboards whined. Her parents’ door opened and closed. For good measure, she waited another half hour, then donned her housecoat, wrapped the quilt around her shoulders, and snuck out through the hallway window onto the snowy roof.
Her first few steps found purchase on the snow-covered shingles. Then her foot caught a patch of ice. She slid toward the edge of the roof, arms wheeling, heels digging into snow. She slowed to a stop just before she reached the brink. Her body swayed, first backward, then forward as she overcorrected and toppled from the roof.
A drift of powdery snow broke her fall. The air flew from her lungs, leaving her gasping. She rose onto her hands and knees and listened. The schoolhouse remained quiet, a sleeping giant in the wintery night. After she caught her breath, she pushed herself up with wobbly arms. Her right knee had sunk through the snow and struck the frozen ground, tearing through her nightgown. Warm blood trickled down her leg.
She looked around the yard and listened once more. Melted snow dampened her gown, stinging her skin when the brisk wind licked over it. Clouds shrouded the moon; the forest before her lay black and ominous. The warmth and safety behind Stover’s walls called to her, but she drew her quilt around her and trudged onward.
Though she had not visited the hillside dugout since she and had first discovered it last spring, her feet led her there without hesitation. The smell of smoke drifted among the snowflakes. Light flickered from behind the tattered window covering and beneath the crooked door. She paused momentarily before entering. Someone else might have come to occupy the hovel—tramps from the train yard, hunters in search of winter game—but by now her entire body shook with the cold. Her knee ached and her fingers were numb. She pushed aside the plank of wood propped over the doorway and hurried inside.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw squatting beside a small fire in the center of the room. He fed a few sticks and twigs to the blaze, then stood. Instead of moving to embrace her, he stalked the width of the dugout. “Do you know what they say in your newspapers?”
The tone of his words stung. They weren’t her newspapers just because a white man had written them. The crackling fire promised warmth, but she moved no closer. “I’ve read some of what they say. Not everyone believes—”
“Murderous red devils, savage butchers!” He pulled a sheet of folded newsprint from his waistband and brandished it in her direction. “Three hundred killed, their bodies left frozen in the snow, and we’re the ones spoken of as butchers.”
“Over two dozen cavalrymen were killed as well.”
froze. His eyes narrowed over her. “Is that what we are worth? A dozen Indians for every one white man?”
“No, of course not, I was just—”
“A war of extermination, they’re calling it.” He paced again. “Do they expect that we just hang our heads and die?”
He shook his head. His chest heaved. After a moment of silence, his voice rose in a whoop. He repeated the phrase four times, the first cry long, drawn-out, the second short, clipped.
“Stop it!” She stomped her heel on the packed dirt floor. “No one is calling for a war.”
He unfolded the paper, jammed his finger at a column of dark words, and began to read. “Our safety depends on the complete annihilation of the red man. To protect our civilization, we must wipe these untamable vermin from the earth.”
She crossed the small room, grabbed the paper from his hand, and looked at the column’s author. “It’s just an editorial. The hateful words of some ignorant man.”
“Words did not kill the Indian at Wounded Knee. White men’s bullets did.” His eyes darkened. “Well, we have bullets of our own.”
Alma threw the paper into the fire. Sparks flew up, popping and snapping in the air, echoing the sounds of war and gunfire of which he spoke. The heat of the flames steadied her nerves. “, mayhem and violence won’t bring about justice.”
“Not justice. Revenge.”
“Then more will die.” He turned his head away from her, but she clasped his face between her hands and forced his gaze upon her. “There’s no honor in that. Is that how you’d have your people remembered?”
Seconds passed, and his breathing slowed. He shut his eyes and leaned into her touch. “Your hands are so cold, .” His eyes opened and looked her over, as if seeing her for the first time.
She stepped back and smoothed down the locks of frazzled hair that had come loose from her braid. His gaze traveled from her face down her body, stopping at the bloody tear in her nightgown. “What happened of your knee?”
“I . . . er . . . I slipped from the roof.”
A sudden clip of laughter filled the dugout. Alma frowned and took another step back. “It’s hardly funny. I could have died.”
But her words only made him laugh harder.
She turned from him toward the fire. Her fingers had regained some feeling, but her skin still stung with the cold. She removed the quilt from her shoulders and held it out in front of her, hoping the flames would dry it some before she had to venture back into the snow.
grew silent. She glanced back at him over her shoulder. The cheer had vanished from his face, but so, too, had the fury. With one long stride, he was beside her. He grabbed the quilt from her hands, flung it to the ground, and pulled her against his chest. When their lips met, she could feel his emotions spilling forth in their kiss—rage, sorrow, desire. Her heart bounded, at once urging her to flee and commanding her to stay. He slipped a hand between their bodies, grazing her breast on his way to the knot that fastened her housecoat. His other hand remained on the small of her back, pinning her against him. With each beat, her heart continued to battle—go, stay, go, stay. His lips moved from her mouth down her neck, wet and hot against her skin.
Go. Stay.
Within a minute, his deft fingers had pried apart the knot and both hands worked to disrobe her of her housecoat. He tugged the paisley ribbon from her braid and freed her dampened hair.
Go. Stay.
Her steadfast feet answered for her; her hands, moving to unbutton his shirt as he unfastened the top of her nightgown.
He pulled her to the ground at
op the quilt and shrugged free of his coat and shirt. The fire continued to crackle and sputter beside them, casting a tawny glow on the wooden beams and dirt surrounding them. Outside, she could hear the wind howl. It ruffled the frayed window coverings and blew a few glimmering snowflakes beneath the door.
hands traveled up her legs, pushing back the hem of her nightgown. Her skin tingled with his touch. His weight pressed against her. She closed her eyes and held her breath. Her body clenched at the initial wave of pain, then slowly relaxed. Their first movements were awkward, hesitant. Where to brace her legs; where to rest his elbow. Then their bodies found a common rhythm, and she arched into his embrace. The smell of sawdust lingered on his skin. Her tongue tasted the saltiness of his sweat as they kissed. Everything she had felt that day—all her fear and anger—receded to his touch.
Afterward, they lay side by side staring at the swirl of smoke escaping through the chimney hole. Alma knew she should feel guilty. This was not what good women did. She pushed down the hem of her nightgown and fastened the collar, but her movements were half-hearted, her capacity for guilt besieged by bliss.
rolled toward her. He propped himself up on one elbow and traced her collarbone with his free hand. “In Menominee culture, long ago, before the white priests came with their religion, a girl’s aunt or grandmother looked of the other clans for a suitable boy for her.”
“Why?”
“It’s forbidden to marry within one’s own clan. If the old women saw a boy they liked, they would speak with his family and arrange the match. Then the boy’s family would take food and deerskins to the girl’s family.”
Alma’s stomach fluttered. “And then?”
shrugged and kissed her throat. “Then she returned with the boy’s family to her new home.”
“That’s it? No priest or elder? No formal ceremony?”
“No.” rolled onto his back, resting his head atop his interlaced fingers. He lay quiet for several moments, then broke into laughter. “What would your father do if I brought him deerskins and say I was taking you for my wife?”
Between Earth and Sky Page 24