She pulled Minowe into her arms, stopping her frantic clawing. “It’s not your fault.”
Minowe fought and twisted. She shook and howled.
“It’s not your fault!” Alma’s voice carried through the clearing and echoed back. Minowe stilled. They held each other and wept. Watery snot dripped from Alma’s nose, and her throat grew raw. When she closed her eyes she could still see the twisting shadow. Still hear the groaning tree branch. Still smell the torch smoke. It would be with her forever. And yet, here in Minowe’s arms, she found solidarity in her pain, an acceptance and acknowledgment denied her all these years.
Through bleary eyes, she looked out at the spindly grove behind Minowe’s house. Huge swaths of stumps scarred the earth, broken only by occasional birch or maple too small or crooked to have value as timber. Alma felt the same emptiness. Why did people always hurt the deepest those they loved the most?
Into the silence, Minowe said, “It won’t bring back.”
“What?”
“Saving Asku.”
“I know that. I’m not trying to raise the dead. Just lay them to rest.”
Minowe gave her a quizzical look. She stood and helped Alma to her feet. Dust covered them both head to foot. “Come, I’ll tell you what I can.” She led the way inside and built a fire in the stove while Alma took a seat at the table.
“Do you still keep in touch with ?” Alma asked.
“Your father sent her back to the Ho-Chunk reservation after . . . after that night. Consumption took her a few years back.”
“Oh.” Alma felt like she had swallowed thorns. Her eyes retreated to the floor. She caught sight again of the dolls, the rag doll dressed in blue, the grass dolls, and one she’d not noticed from the window, its leather skin and embroidered dress so like that of the first doll she tried to save all those years ago. “Where are your children?”
“Day school.” Minowe filled a kettle and set it on the stovetop to boil. “They’re always trying to gets me to send them to the boarding school in Morristown, but I won’t.” She walked around the room, pulling aside the tattered window covering. Light spilled in, highlighting the sharp features of her gaunt adult face.
“Where’s your husband? Does he work in town?”
“He comes and goes. Mostly goes.” Minowe shrugged. “Do you have childrens?”
Alma looked down at the rutted tabletop and traced the path of a long scratch with her finger. “No.”
The shrill cry of the kettle broke the ensuing silence. Minowe poured them each a cup of tea and then sat down across from her. From the nearby shelf, she grabbed a small cloth-covered parcel. Beneath the covering was a stack of tan granule bars, each the size of a deck of playing cards. She broke a small piece from the top brick and held it out. “Ziinzibaakwad.”
Alma placed the hard morsel in her tea. A sweet, woody aroma blossomed up with the steam. As girls, Minowe had spoken often of maple sugar, bemoaning how flavorless white sugar tasted. Alma sipped her tea. The rich sweetness spread across her tongue. “Wiin-gipogwad. It’s delicious.”
A familiar gap-toothed grin spread across her friend’s face. “You remember some of the Anishinaabe words.”
“A few.”
“This would please Askuwheteau.” She sighed and the smile melted from her face.
“I went to visit him. In St. Paul.”
Her eyes livened. “How is he?”
“He looked well,” she lied.
“Your husband is a lawyer, you said?”
“Yes, he’s taken on Asku’s case, but we need your help to prove his innocence.”
Minowe’s eyes fell to her lap. She cradled her teacup but did not drink. “None of us are innocent.”
Alma waited for her to say more, but Minowe remained silent, her gaze sweeping the room, restless, anxious, avoiding Alma’s face. “Let’s start with Agent Andrews. Can you tell me more about him?”
Her old friend’s hand tightened around the cup, the tendons bulging beneath her dry copper skin.
“Several complaints had been lodged against him,” Alma prodded. “What did he do?”
Minowe folded her arms, unfolded them, and folded them again. “He was a cheat. Always promising things—seeds, tools, foods—that came too late, too fews, or never came at all.”
“And for that someone shot him?”
“No, we was use to that. But then he took our timber lands.”
The story Minowe told filled the gaps between what she and Stewart had learned from Zhawaeshk and uncovered at the agency. The entire process had been corrupt from the start. Before the allotment, land speculators snuck onto the reservation to survey the land and spread their finding to those Indians willing to sell. An official land report went out before the allotment, but those who could not read English or understand survey maps could make no use of it.
“And Agent Andrews allowed all this?”
“He got a cut from every acre sold.” Minowe explained how deeds were crooked, boundaries redrawn. The land was given out to whomever arrived first, with mixed-bloods and white Indians up from the cities camping out to get in line early. Agent Andrews said not to worry; there was land enough for all. But he’d miscalculated the acreage and hundreds of people—mostly the less educated, more traditional full bloods—walked away with nothing.
Alma was leaning in, her elbows propped upon the table, her tea long since cooled. “How do you know all this?”
Minowe pursed her lips and looked out the window. “I worked there for a time, at the agency. It’s all filed away there, if you knows where to look. Most of it anyways. There were letters,” she hesitated, “between the agent and lumber company . . . but I doubt if they’re still there.”
“You read them?”
“I wrote them, transcribed them, that is. I didn’t make the connection between it all until after, though.”
“Even so, surely he wouldn’t be so bold?”
“If you ain’t white and ain’t a man, he assumed you had no sense.”
A smile found its way to Alma’s lips. “Miss Wells would smack you silly with her ruler if she heard you saying ain’t.”
They laughed together at this, sisters again for a fleeting moment.
“Would you help my husband find those files?” Alma asked when their laughter dwindled. “And make a sworn statement about those letters?”
Minowe rolled her mug back and forth between her hands, her face once again somber. “I don’t know. They won’t sell us back our timber. Give us back our lands.”
“It might help Askuwheteau’s case.”
“How?”
“Any one of those people who didn’t get an allotment has more cause to kill Agent Andrews than he did.” Her mind was running now. Excitement edged into her voice. “Or someone from the lumber company. With the agent dead, they don’t have to pay up.”
Minowe continued to work the mug between her palms. Her eyes skirted Alma’s, shifting about the room, and at last settling on the four small dolls in the corner. “I have to think of my childrens.”
“You don’t want their uncle killed for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Tears had returned to Minowe’s eyes. Alma fished through her dirty purse for a handkerchief and handed it to Minowe.
A fragile smile broke the tears. “You broughts a silk purse with you to the reservation? Whatever for?”
“Well . . . for moments like this, I guess.”
Minowe shook her head, laughing even as she cried. “You’ve become like your mother.”
Alma frowned and straightened. “I beg your pardon.”
“Only in little ways.” Minowe wiped the last of her tears with Alma’s hankie. “She was not all bad, your mother.”
Alma looked down at her hands—not yet wrinkled or marked with age spots, but no longer as smooth and supple as they had been as a girl. “No, I suppose not.”
Minowe held out the square of silk.
“Keep it.”
Minowe br
eathed in deeply and smiled. Her eyes remained bloodshot and her nose red. Dozens of pin-scratch creases lingered on her skin—yesterday’s joys and sorrows—and suddenly Alma found it difficult to remember the carefree face of her friend’s youth. Her fingers fluttered over her own skin and she wondered if Minowe saw a similar battle-scarred stranger.
“You don’t think Asku did it, do you?” Alma asked. “Killed Agent Andrews.”
“Before the shooting people said bad things about him. They couldn’t see he wanted to belong but didn’t know how. Now they call him Wenabozho, a hero.”
“Were they true? Those bad things?”
She shrugged. “Some. Most of them, I guess. But he came alive after this whole mess with the timber—like he’d been visited by a spirit or something—he stopped drinking so much, he set a council to get the allotment repealed, he wrote a letter to the head man in Washington and got nearly four hundred men to sign it. He was his old self again.”
Alma cheered at this. That Asku, the old Asku, would never commit murder. She sipped the last of her cold tea. The sweet taste of ziinzibaakwad lingered a moment on her tongue, then faded. Out the window a veil of cloud shrouded the sun’s face. “Can you think of anyone else who might have killed him?”
Minowe fingered her long braid, picking at the ragged ends. She opened and closed her mouth twice before finally speaking. “All this trouble Askuwheteau stirred up after the allotment. Agent Andrews began to change his mind. Thought about redoing the whole thing. Said as much in one of his last letters to the timber company.” She looked straight at Alma. “I didn’t read their reply, but I know it wasn’t good. He cursed worse than Mr. Simms and kicked over his spittoon. Took me hours to clean up the muck.”
“You’ve got to tell my husband about this.”
Minowe grabbed a woven shawl from a nearby chair and draped it around her thin frame. “What’s his name?”
“Stewart. Stewart Mitchell.”
“Is he a good man?”
“Yes, honorable and diligent and—”
“I mean, is he good to you?”
Alma looked down at her empty cup. “Very. More than I deserve.”
“ would be glad of this.”
She ached anew at the sound of his name, but the pain was less sharp, less debilitating, more like a remembrance of injury than a fresh wound. Was Minowe right? She’d never considered that even from the grave he might wish her happiness, might be willing to forgive, might never have blamed her at all.
“Bring your husband tomorrow,” Minowe said, standing. “I’ll tell him about the deeds and letters.”
Alma started to leave, but stopped short of the door. She wrung her purse in her hands, watching the dust and dirt transfer from the silk to her gloves. “I . . . er . . . Stewart doesn’t know.”
Minowe nodded, no judgment in her look, only sorrow. “I won’t tell him.”
Outside in the muted daylight, she glanced again about the sparse land and back to the tarpaper shack. Minowe stood at the top of the stairs, the shawl about her shoulders somehow reminiscent of the quilts they’d clutched about them to keep warm those nights in the woods.
“It wasn’t supposed to end up this way,” Alma said. “I hate that I believed their lies—my father, Miss Wells.”
“They believed them, too, Azaadiins. We all did.”
CHAPTER 40
Minnesota, 1906
Back in the company of the wide, steel-blue waters of the Mizi-ziibi, Alma waded through the same military formalities as on her previous visit to Fort Snelling.
“We’re preparing the prisoner for transfer to St. Paul for tomorrow’s trial.” The major glowered at her from behind his desk. “Can’t you wait and speak to him then?”
His sour expression did not touch her smile. “I must see him today.”
He uttered a curse under his breath and scratched a few lines onto a small square of paper. “Give this to the guard. You found your way to my office again, I trust then you know your way to the round tower.”
She hurried past the barracks and armory toward the old fort. Stewart had stayed in St. Paul to sort through all the documents and testimonies from White Earth. He would meet with Asku tomorrow before the trial, but Alma could not wait to deliver the good news.
The same boyish soldier stood guard inside the tower. This time, he was not asleep, but throwing his knife at a makeshift target painted onto a stack of crates. Nicks and scratches covered every corner of the crates, most far outside the bull’s-eye. He beamed at her behind a flourish of soldierly bravado and led her up the stairs.
“I’ll fetch a chair and bring it up,” he said. “Remember, none of them funny Indian words, now.”
The soldier’s voice had alerted Asku and he stood waiting at the bars, expression guarded. “Azaadiins.”
“I have wonderful news. Really, my husband should be the one to tell you.” She dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand and closed the space between. The iron bars now seemed a mere formality. A few days’ time and he’d be free. “Stewart will go over all the legal rigmarole with you tomorrow morning before the trial, but I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t bear that you should spend another night in fear for your life.”
She scanned Asku’s face for a flicker of curiosity or twitch of relief. Instead, he leaned back, the hairline creases around his eyes deepening. “I told you I did not want your husband’s help.”
“I know you’re wary, but you needn’t be. We just returned from White Earth. Minowe told us what happened with the timber allotment. We interviewed Zhawaeshk and that filthy gun merchant. Looked all through the agency’s records—”
Asku’s face darkened. “You went to Gaa-waabaabiganikaag?”
She glanced over her shoulder. The soldier clamored around downstairs, perhaps looking for a suitable chair. Still, she whispered. “I knew you wouldn’t kill anyone. When you wouldn’t talk, we traveled to White Earth to learn why.”
He stepped back from the bars and clenched his hands. White sinew streaked his knuckles. “I told you to leave it alone, Azaadiins.”
“Asku, you’re my friend, Nisayenh. How could I not help you?”
“Damn your help!” He backhanded his chair with such force it flew across the cell and struck the iron bars. The whole cage rattled. “You force it on us. Insist you know best.”
Alma shuffled backward. In all their years together at Stover, she’d never seen him lose his temper.
Footfalls bounded up the stairs. Flush-faced, the young soldier rushed into the room and puffed out his narrow chest. “What’s all this yellin’ about? You all right, ma’am?”
She swallowed her emotions and steadied her voice. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
The soldier strode to the thick bars of Asku’s cell and banged against them with the butt of his throwing knife. “No yellin’. You hear me, savage? I don’t know why, but this fine lady’s seen fit to see ya. Try to be a gentleman. Gen-tal-man.”
Asku’s nostrils flared and his full lips flattened into a razor-sharp line.
Alma touched the soldier’s forearm. “The outburst was my fault. Please, we’re fine.” He sheathed his knife but continued to leer in Asku’s direction. She drew the boy’s gaze back with a light squeeze to his arm and feigned a smile. “Please, I’ll call if I need anything. You’ll be just downstairs, right?”
Alma watched him peacock from the room, then turned back to Asku. Again the age of his face startled her—the deep furrows that cut across his forehead, the sunbaked skin and hollow eyes. “You haven’t even heard the good news. My husband thinks we have enough evidence to provide sufficient doubt. Especially if you take the stand.”
He drew his weathered hands down his face and shook his head. “Alma, I—”
“Don’t worry about your testimony. My husband can coach you.”
“You don’t understand—”
“He’s already prepared his line of questioning, you need only answer honestly and—”
/> “I’m guilty, Alma.”
“Be sure to hit on a few key—what?” She recoiled from the bars. “What did you say?”
“I killed him.” He spoke each word with matter-of-fact precision. No emotion. No contrition.
She had the strange sensation of being back at Stover, seated beside him in the classroom. Chalk dust filled the air. Their wrought-iron desk creaked. A cold draft stole through the thin windowpanes. Asku, as he was that first time she saw him—black hair brushing his boyish cheeks, dark eyes wide and curious—stood. I killed him, he said, straight-faced and serious, as if reading a phrase from the blackboard or reciting a line of text. I’m guilty.
The cry of a riverboat called Alma back to the present. She groped behind her, but the soldier boy had forgotten her chair. Her legs wavered. Why was Asku saying this?
“I shot Agent Andrews two times in the back.”
“No, it had to be someone from the timber company.”
“With a .38 Colt Lightning I bought this summer.”
“Another Indian who lost his allotment.”
“I waited behind the general store until I saw him walking down the road.” Still that calm, detached voice. “I raised my gun and fired.”
She flung her hands to her ears. “Stop.”
“I stood above him and waited for his breath to stop.” He looked her straight in the eye. “Then I dropped the gun, walked back into the woods, and waited for them to arrest me.”
“Stop!” She let the weight of her body carry her to the floor, her knees banging hard against the wood. One hand steadied herself, the other snaked around her stomach.
“Minowe said the agent had changed his mind, was considering a new allotment.”
“Agent Andrews was a crook and a coward. He never would have reallotted the timber lands. But that’s not why I killed him.” He crossed to the wall of his cell and stood there, facing away, his finger tracing the crumbling mortar between the stones. “I never wanted to come to Stover. But my father said we must, Minowe and I. Gichi-mookomaan ways were the ways of the future, he’d said. We would help our people survive, shepherd them into a new circle of time.”
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