Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. Her arms ached from the weight of her bags. How many minutes had passed since she left Stover? Thirty? Forty? However much time had elapsed, she could not afford to rest. She ignored the cry of her aching limbs and listened instead to the music of the stream. Silver moonlight sparkled atop its glassy surface. Minnows schooled in the shadows of submerged rocks. An aspen leaf floated past, riding the gentle waves.
At this, she thought of Asku, the time the two of them had traveled together beside this very stream. Her heart felt raw as it always did whenever he crossed her mind. Would things have been different if he’d stayed? Could he have convinced her father to let she and marry? Could he have softened Minowe’s anger?
She shook her head and sighed. Such questions were not fair to ask. He’d worked so hard to win a place at Brown. He belonged there. She pictured him strolling down the streets of Providence in a fine suit and bowler hat, lounging in smoky parlors engaged in heady conversation with his classmates. He and she were trading places, in a way, trading worlds, as would say.
The rolling forest began to thin. She could see the backside of Grandfather’s Bluff in the distance. Her carefully guarded joy burst like wellspring. waited there. He’d take her hand and tomorrow they’d wed. She no longer felt the ache in her limbs. Her feet no longer plodded but skipped through the underbrush. A narrow road appeared through the trees and bowed toward her. She left the stream bank and scampered to the drive. Her heart beat lively now, and it took all her will to pause and listen before leaving the cover of the woods. So late an hour should bring few, if any, travelers, but she could not chance an encounter.
Behind her, the stream murmured along its course. Wind played the leaves like a symphony, stirring them to frenzy, then decrescen-doing into silence.
She surveyed the road in both directions and then walked out of the bushes onto the level ground, laughing at her undue paranoia. Who would be out at so late an hour? And here, a good two miles from the nearest house.
The road skirted around the bluff, descending through the trees toward the plains and farmlands below. When she reached the westernmost side, the forest dwindled into scree and grass. At the bottom of the hill the road merged with several other small drives and cut across the flatlands toward La Crosse.
There, at the intersection, waited . She could see him clearly in the moonlight, clutching the strap of his canvas haversack, rasping his boot back and forth over the gravel. His tied-back hair had come loose at the front and fell like glossy feathers around his temples to below his chin. A rosy flush colored his cheeks. He tugged at his collar, opened the top button, then fastened it again.
Her lips parted and her entire body hummed. The last of her buried doubts and regret vanished. She ran toward him, dirt crunching beneath the soles of her boots. looked up. His entire face smiled and he jogged to meet her. His beaming eyes sent another thrill skittering deliciously over her skin. It mattered not if they made their home on a reservation or within a towering metropolis. It mattered not that she was white and he Indian. All that mattered was that they were together.
The final stretch of road cut steeply downward to the bluff’s base. Alma slowed only enough to keep from falling. Her gaze flickered to the ground to maintain her footing. When she looked up again, had stopped some fifty yards away, his eyes wide and mouth gaping. He said something she could not hear.
A body crashed into her from behind, and a thick arm encircled her waist. She and her assailant skidded forward. Her bags fell from her hands and she wheeled her arms to keep from tumbling head over foot. The body behind her arched backward, pulling them both onto the ground.
Alma turned to her captor. In the pallid moonlight she recognized the trim beard and small blue eyes. “Father?”
How had he uncovered their plan? Her eyes darted back to as she tried to wrestle free. He sprinted up the road toward them.
A rumbling to the west caught her attention. A great glow moved in their direction. The yellow blur sharpened into several separate balls of light. The low rumble grew into a steady beat of horse hooves.
stopped.
“Father, what have you done?” Alma whispered. She locked eyes with and screamed, “Run! Hide away in the woods.”
He stood frozen for the span of several heartbeats. His eyes flickered to the approaching mob, then back to her.
“Forget me! Just go. !”
Finally, he ran. The face of the bluff was too steep to climb, so he doubled back down the road and circled around the base toward the forest. Alma lost sight of him just as the riders reached the intersection. Four broke off and galloped after him while the others reined their horses and waited. Torchlight danced against the hillside.
Her father stood and pulled her up beside him. She fought to break away, but he grabbed hold of both her arms and wrenched them behind her back. “What devil has possessed you, daughter? Have you no shame for your sins?”
He muscled her down the road to where the riders tarried atop their steeds. She recognized the white hair and leathery skin of Mr. Simms. Beside him was Sheriff Gund. Alma’s gaze flickered from his mustached face to the bullet-studded gun belt around his waist. Her heart tripped and sputtered. Her mouth went dry. ran fast, she reminded herself. And he knew the woods. They would not catch him.
She sucked in a deep breath and studied the other men. Mr. Coleman, the farmer Asku had done his first summer outing with, sat among the riders, as did Mr. Krause, the grocer, and the senior Mr. Steele, looking out of place in his posh chesterfield topcoat. The other two riders Alma did not recognize.
Mr. Simms dismounted. “Fetched the law, just as you asked, Mr. Blanchard.”
“I see that,” he said through gritted teeth. The anger in his eyes sharpened to alarm. “And several more along with it.” He thrust Alma onto the old groundskeeper and approached Mr. Gund. “Sheriff, I appreciate you coming out at such a late hour. Mr. Simms might have misinformed you, but there’s only one troublesome Indian I’m after. I dare say, an entire posse is not needed. Perhaps some of these gentlemen would rather return to their beds.”
The sheriff looked off in the direction had fled. A stream of tobacco-stained liquid flew from his mouth. Then he turned back to her father. “It’s a serious crime, trying to kidnap a white woman. Gotta be careful with these Injuns. They’re slippery.”
Alma’s face twisted with a scowl. “He didn’t kid—”
Mr. Simms’s burlap palm flattened over her mouth and her father shot her a fiery glare.
“I only accuse the young boy of trespassing.”
Sheriff Gund spit again, this time right at her father’s feet, then nodded toward Alma. “Why she here, then?”
“I . . . you see . . . my daughter and I . . .” Her father broke into a lengthy explanation. He had little practice lying and it showed in this halting speech. His words faded to a hum as her eyes raked the dark woods into which and the riders had disappeared. Each passing minute bolstered her hope that he had escaped. When her attention circled back, the men’s conversation had grown strained.
“You may be an Injun lover, Mr. Blanchard, with your school and all that. But I’ve gotta protect the interests of this town. Ain’t that right, boys?”
“Don’t want no red man seducing my daughter,” one of the men Alma did not recognize said.
“Here! Here!” rejoined Mr. Steele.
The men’s tempers had scarcely cooled when the other riders emerged from the woods. Four men—she counted them twice as their horses cantered closer. Her entire body breathed thanksgiving. He’d escaped. Then, as they ventured into the reaches of torchlight, she saw trailing behind them. Thick ropes bound his hands, and a grease-stained cloth smothered his lips. Alma’s throat constricted to the size of a willow branch and her heart battered against her ribs. Blood trickled down his face from a gash above his eye. His clothes were dirty and torn, as if all four riders had wrestled him to the ground.
“I’ll s
tate again, trespassing upon the grounds of Stover is this boy’s only crime,” her father said. Alma could hear the nervous edge in his voice. He glanced at the bloody and winced. “To insinuate otherwise is an insult to my daughter’s honor. Take him back to town, throw him in the jailhouse, and let’s all of us to bed.”
One of the men who had ridden after approached the sheriff. “Found him hiding out in an old trapper’s dugout couple miles yonder. Put up some fight.”
“I see that.” The sheriff curled his lips and smoothed down his mustache.
“Let him go, please let him go,” Alma screamed into Mr. Simms’s hand.
“I’ll contact the Indian agent in the morning,” her father said. “He’ll take the boy back to the reservation where he belongs.”
“We also found this in that there dugout.” The man thrust a silk ribbon up at the sheriff.
Alma blanched. She’d used that ribbon to tie off her hair the night she met in the forest, the night they’d made love and first talked of marriage. struggled against his bindings, the thick, fibrous rope cutting into his skin. The rider beside him kicked him with his boot heel square in the face and fell to the ground. Alma screamed again, tears smarting and stomach roiling.
The sheriff’s eyes raked over her and he spit. He dismounted and stalked over to her. With a rough hand, he grabbed her long braid and held it up to the torchlight. The paisley ribbon fastened at the end of her hair matched cut and color the one taken from the dugout. “Still think your daughter ain’t been seduced?”
“That, that proves nothing. I’m sure every girl in La Crosse has a . . . has a similar ribbon,” her father said.
But Sheriff Gund was no longer listening. He released Alma’s braid and pulled a thick coil of rope from his saddlebag. “String him up, boys.”
A few of the younger riders cheered. Mr. Krause looked greenish; Mr. Coleman shook his head.
Frenzy gripped her. She bit at Mr. Simms’s salty palm and stomped down on his toes. When he dropped his hand from her face she shrieked loud into the night.
Her father spun around and smacked her. “Keep quiet, you sinful girl.” Though his cheeks blazed red with anger, his eyes looked frantic, fearful. He scuttled behind the sheriff. “Please, you can’t do this. There’s no justice in this. It’s against God’s law!”
“You brought this upon yourself with that heathen school of yours.”
A lone box elder tree stood at the base of the bluff where the road split. New leaves trembled on its skeleton-like branches. The sheriff tossed the rope to one of the men, who in turn flung it over a thick branch high in the tree. Alma fought and struggled. She threw her weight in every direction, but Mr. Simms’s grip held. She clawed at his hands and forearms, leaving pale, ragged scratches in his suede jacket and gloves.
“If nothing else, this boy deserves a trial!” Her father’s voice had grown thin and pitchy.
“This savage ain’t no citizen,” the man who’d found Alma’s ribbon said. He grabbed the rope and began knotting a noose. His hands slid down the rough fibers, making an S, then coiling one end around it. Loop and tighten. Loop and tighten. Alma’s insides wrenched as if he’d reached inside her, as if his fat, grimy hands were squeezing her viscera. Loop and tighten.
“Really, Sheriff, I must insist.” Though he stood only a few feet away, her father’s words sounded in her ears like a muffled echo. “In God’s name, release—”
Sheriff Gund caught her father by the back of his coat and flung him to the ground. “Stay back, old man.”
The men brought forward and forced him to his knees beneath the tree. They ripped open his collar. His quill and bead necklace—the one he had kept hidden his first day at Stover, the one Alma had felt against his chest the countless times he had held her in his arms—showed in the moonlight against his copper skin.
The man with the rope laughed and ripped the necklace from his neck. He cast it aside into the dirt and in its place fastened the noose. Several men gathered at the rope’s end and the line grew taut. The branch above shook and groaned. Flecks of bark showered down like soot-blackened snow.
Alma thrashed and flailed. Several of her nails had broken off and her fingers were slick with blood. Bile burned her throat. She leaned over one foot and kicked back with the other. Her boot heel struck Mr. Simms’s knee. His arms slackened and he fell backward, howling. Alma raced forward just as rose from the ground. His hands clawed at the rope about his neck. His body writhed. His face grew red with blood.
The world around her slowed. Though she ran as fast as she could toward him, the distance between them seemed to lengthen. Somewhere far off, a train hooted. They were supposed to be on that train, she and , northbound and away from here. They were supposed to marry tomorrow. They were supposed to live happily ever after, despite the odds, despite the color of their skin.
Mr. Coleman grabbed her from behind and wrapped her in his arms. “Don’t look, Miss Alma.”
She refused to turn away. long legs flailed, the tips of his pointed toes grazing the long stocks of sedge and grass beneath him. Blood-tinged spit bubbled at the corners of his compressed lips. His once-beaming eyes now bulged from their sockets, no longer white and brown, but a crosshatch of red surrounding a pinpoint of black.
Mr. Coleman cradled her in a viselike grip, even as she struggled. Her braid had come undone and hair clung to the sweat and tears wetting her face. She pried at his hands, the last of her nails ripping off clear to the cuticle, staining his worn riding gloves scarlet. Only muffled noises reached her now: the men’s laughter, her father’s pleading, wheezing breaths, her own high-pitched scream.
The moon gaped down. The elder shuddered. arms slackened and fell to his side. Convulsions overtook him. The front of his trousers darkened and urine dripped down his legs.
Alma buried her face in Mr. Coleman’s shoulder. His jacket reeked of horsehair and sweat. Her tears bled into the fabric. Some part of her brain remembered the need for oxygen and she lifted her head for a breath.
Though she could no longer see , his shadow danced upon the scree-covered bluff, danced a moment, and then went still.
CHAPTER 39
Minnesota, 1906
The midday sun brooded high above, casting not a shadow. The air about the house hung heavy, quiet, and still. Even so, Alma felt herself slipping, unmoored from the present. She rubbed her gloves back and forth over her skirt. The blood—she had to get it off her fingertips. Her stomach heaved and she spat bile onto the ground. It was Minowe’s voice that reeled her back.
“When I told your father, I didn’t think he would get the sheriff. I didn’t know they would . . .” Minowe’s hand fluttered to her throat and her voice dried up.
“Kill him?” The words rang through the yard. “String him up like an animal beside the road?”
Minowe flinched and dropped her head. Tears fell from her eyes onto the dirt.
Alma’s hands curled to fists. Her nails bit into her palms, softened only by the thin leather of her gloves. She stamped to the nearby clothesline and curled about the post, lest she strike Minowe again. The splintery wood chafed against her cheek. How dare Minowe cry! How dare she pretend to have suffered when it was Alma whose life was ripped away. “Shut up.”
Her sobs continued.
“Shut up!”
Minowe wiped her nose on the sleeve of her blouse. “I had no choice.”
The meekness in her voice enraged Alma. She pushed away from the clothesline and spun around. The weathered post creaked and wobbled. “No choice?”
“I couldn’t let you runs away together.”
“It was nothing to you.”
Minowe shook her head, slowly at first, then with violence. The sadness in her face flashed to anger. She bent down and scraped together a handful of dirt. It spilled between her clenched fingers like sand through an hourglass. “You stole everything! Our land, our game, our timber—even the language from our mouths.”
She stalked to A
lma and flung the earth at her face. It struck her like a thousand tiny pellets, stinging her eyes and choking her nostrils. Alma coughed and blinked. Fifteen years of pent-up rage roared inside her. “You harpy.” She reached out and grabbed Minowe’s collar. They tussled to the ground.
Minowe ripped off Alma’s hat and with it a fistful of hair. Alma boxed her flat handed in the ear. All of her was dirty now, not just her face, and Minowe too. But her hands only clutched tighter. Minowe’s fingers dug into her arms as they rolled and jostled, each trying to mount the other.
“I couldn’t let you steal him, too,” she said.
“Steal him? Steal him!” Alma clawed at Minowe’s shoulder until the seam of her blouse split with a groan. “I loved him. I would have given up everything to—” She reared back with a clenched fist, but stopped short. Minowe’s dark eyes seemed to look right through her, wild and reddened with tears.
Alma’s hand went limp. How had she not realized it as a girl? The way Minowe had spoken of him, the way she looked at him, the countless times she took his side over Alma’s. “You loved him, too.”
Minowe pushed Alma off her and crawled away. A large swath of her blouse flapped down from the shoulder seam, revealing a thin, yellowed chemise. Her dark hair hung wild about her face. “I only meaned to stop you. To make you see the madness.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It isn’t right for our kinds to mix.” She began to rock, her hands scratching at her skin. “All I did was tell your father. You led them right to him.”
“That’s not true, I—”
“You could have saved him.” Minowe fixed her with desperate eyes. Her fingers dug deeper, drawing blood. “Why didn’t you save him?”
It was like staring into a looking glass: the guilt, the pain, the same tears that wetted Minowe’s cheeks streaming down her own.
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