Gardens in the Dunes
Page 21
“She looks like one of those desert Indians, don’t you think?” one of the women said to the others. “Look how round her head is!”
“Look what nice shoes those were before she ruined them in the sand!”
“She’s really dark,” said another.
“If she isn’t one of yours,” the farmer said with a look of concern on his face, “I wonder what I should do.” No one spoke. Now that it was clear the lost child did not belong to the small settlement of Matinnecock Indians near Manhasset Bay, the farmer began to reconsider. The big house the child had indicated was the Abbott house; old man Abbott went from one crazy philanthropic scheme to another; maybe this Indian child was part of a new scheme. The farmer paused a moment to decide what to do next.
Indigo looked at the children who gathered around the wagon with the older folks; she saw no one her mother’s age. They all looked at her with wide eyes; then from behind the houses a big woman, tall as a man, with big strong legs and arms, approached Indigo’s side of the wagon.
“Where did you come from, little one?”
Indigo pointed to the southwest horizon.
“But how did you get here?”
“On the train.”
“Where is your mama?”
Indigo again pointed to the southwest. The big Indian woman chuckled and shook her head as she went back to the farmer’s side of the wagon.
“She’s probably been sent from an Indian school for the summer to work in one of the big houses here,” the woman told the farmer. She smiled at Indigo.
“You stay with me. I’ll take care of you until someone comes for you.” Indigo nodded shyly.
“We’ll look after her,” the big woman announced. The farmer was hesitant; he was not sure what he would do with the Indian child otherwise, so he agreed. Indigo stepped down from the wagon seat into the big woman’s open arms; she squirmed because only babies were carried and the woman set her down. The beach sand was deep and warm through her kid slippers; she looked past the other children, who were watching her. Tall grass and scrubby little bushes covered the dunes that went on and on until they met the blue-gray sea.
After the farmer was gone, everyone crowded closer to get a good look at her. The younger children touched her dress and her shoes shyly.
“You must be from the Carlisle Indian School,” the big woman said. “They put students to work for white people in the summer.”
Indigo shook her head.
“No?” The woman looked puzzled, then shook her head slowly and smiled. “You must be hungry.”
Indigo nodded her head vigorously.
“Come on, this way,” the big woman said and took her by the hand.
Behind the houses and shacks, Indigo saw a number of people who appeared to be digging in the sand not far from the water’s edge. An old man and two boys each carried baskets of odd white rocks to the hole. When Indigo got closer she saw the hole was actually a cooking pit lined with smooth flat stones nestled in a thick layer of hot coals. The baskets of flat smooth rocks were emptied into the cooking pit and then the pit was covered with large flat stones. Everyone sat down with their baskets by their feet while they waited for the meal to cook. Indigo was quite interested to learn how the people cooked and ate the odd flat rocks they gathered on the beach; Sand Lizard people knew how to eat nearly everything but they didn’t know how to cook and prepare rocks. She expected the rocks might have to cook overnight, but it wasn’t long before the flat stones were removed and the people began to use their baskets to scoop up the steaming white rocks.
How amazing! In just that short time, the flat white rocks cooked and cracked open. A little animal lived inside. Indigo watched the other children scoop out its remains, and she copied their example. The meat felt a little odd when she bit into it, but its ocean flavor was wonderful. Indigo ate until there was a small mound of shells on the ground in front of her. The other children no longer stared at her, and as they finished eating, they drifted away in the direction of the ocean’s edge. When she noticed the big woman gathering up the shells, Indigo began to help her. They put them in a large old basket by the front door of her little house. Next to the basket was an old bench with a flat stone, the sharpened tip of a deer antler, and a black flint chisel; nearby lay a clamshell with a circle cut out of the shell’s thickest edge. The flat stone had long grooves worn into it; bits of shell dust glittered on the stone’s surface. While Indigo looked at her workbench, the big woman brought out a small flat basket from inside the shack.
“Look,” the woman said as she scooped up a big handful of the shining shell disks and let them cascade back into the basket. Indigo turned the disk over and over in her hand. One side of the disk was pure white shell but the other side was a silvery rainbow of color. The woman held up the antler chisel and the flint awl, then put one of the shell disks on the flat rock; she took a stone hammer and began to gently tap the antler chisel into the center of the shell disk. When she had made an indentation on the shell, she reached for the flint awl and began to roll it rapidly between her hands, to drill a hole in the shell. When one tiny hole was completed, she drilled another.
“A button,” she said as she handed the finished work to Indigo. Fifty buttons brought a quarter, and with a quarter they bought lard, flour, and salt to supplement the clams and fish.
“Where are your gardens?” Indigo wanted to know. The woman pointed at the hills above the beach, where Indigo saw only weeds and shrubs. The woman looked at the hills for a long time and Indigo understood her silence as her answer; the land where their gardens used to grow was taken.
Yet they possessed a last, great, bountiful farm, the woman said with a smile as she turned from the hills to the heaving restless blue ocean. Indigo watched as the woman waded into the water and bent over and picked up a long strange ribbonlike plant with a knob on the end. In a tiny freshwater stream that emptied in the ocean, the woman showed Indigo how to rinse off the kelp with freshwater before she cut it into pieces for drying in the shallow basket hanging from the ceiling of the shack. Once the washed seaweed was dried, it tasted much better. She passed Indigo a smaller basket with odd dark pieces of dried seaweed for Indigo to try. The smell of the ocean was strong on the dried kelp as she raised it to her mouth, and at first she only licked the kelp with the tip of her tongue. The faintly salt taste and the strange texture were interesting, so she put the whole piece in her mouth. Dried kelp was surprisingly good. The woman smiled, but then her expression became serious.
“Were the people who brought you here unkind? Is that why you ran away?”
Indigo shook her head. “I didn’t run away,” she said. “I was just going for a walk when those men grabbed me.”
“Then the people who brought you will be very upset, and they’ll come searching for you.” Indigo nodded. The big woman was nice and the other people and children were friendly, but she was beginning to feel a little tired now. Those men who grabbed her got her lost. Why was it no one ever let her go where she wanted? Sister Salt and Mama would be worried about her by now; they might think she was dead. Indigo sat on the little log stool and did nothing, when big hot tears began to roll down her cheeks.
Edward rode east for nearly two miles along paths in the old-growth trees that crowned the ridge above the sea. From time to time he encountered vast clear-cut sites where excavations for foundations were under way or construction already begun. He rode until he was satisfied no child could have walked such a distance, then turned the horse back.
Hattie was annoyed the farmers had taken Indigo away. She could imagine the child’s terror, and it was all so needless because Indigo had pointed to the house, but the farmers refused to believe her. Mr. Abbott asked Lloyd to trot the team a bit faster when he saw the expression on Hattie’s face; he had not seen such fierce determination since the debate over her thesis topic.
“Glen Cove? There aren’t any Indians in Glen Cove!” Hattie exclaimed. Time was passing and still they
had not found her. Mr. Abbott patted Hattie on the back and reassured her; Lloyd knew of some Indian families living on the salt marshes just outside of Glen Cove, on Manhasset Bay.
“I didn’t know there are Indians nearby!” Hattie exclaimed. Lloyd nodded his head and glanced over his shoulder at Hattie. He held the reins in one hand to point at the peninsula of land ahead of them. Hattie could see a few small shacks in the sand above the salt marsh and shore.
A large Indian woman was standing outside the shack to greet them as the buggy pulled up. She was smiling but scrutinized her visitors.
“We were told we might find a lost Indian girl here,” Mr. Abbott began. The woman nodded.
“A tired little girl,” she said. “Please come inside. She’s asleep.”
Mr. Abbott and Hattie followed the woman inside the shack. On a pallet in the corner, covered with an old quilt, Indigo was sound asleep. The Indian woman knelt down and spoke softly to Indigo.
“Wake up, dear. Your friends are here,” she said. Indigo sat up with her eyes open wide. For an instant she did not know where she was, but then she remembered the ride in the farmer’s wagon. Hattie knelt next to her.
“Oh Indigo, I’m so sorry this happened!” Indigo rubbed her eyes and got to her feet. As she lifted Indigo into the buggy, Hattie thanked the big woman again and again for her kindness to Indigo. Her father reached down from the buggy seat and extended two silver dollars in his hand, but the Indian woman refused the money.
“If she needs a place to stay, please remember she is welcome here,” the woman said as Lloyd lifted the reins.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Hattie said, then shook hands with the woman before she stepped into the buggy.
“Good-bye,” Indigo called out to the woman, who waved at her until the wagon turned onto the road. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I hate that English word!” Indigo said, fiercely wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her dress.
“Don’t you have a word in your language that means ‘good-bye’?” Mr. Abbott inquired gently.
“No! ‘Good-bye’ means ‘gone, never seen again’! The Sand Lizard people don’t have any words that mean that!”
“What do people say to one another when someone leaves on a journey?”
“They say, ‘We’ll see you soon,’ or, ‘We’ll see you later.’ ” Indigo replied so vehemently Mr. Abbott was taken aback.
She flung herself down on the buggy backseat and covered her face with both hands.
“She is so unhappy,” Hattie said in a low voice as Mr. Abbott glanced back at the sobbing child. “I feel as if I should let Edward go on without us and take the child back to her family.”
“But I thought you wrote that the child is an orphan.”
Hattie shook her head. “Apparently there is some confusion. She says she has a mother and a sister.”
But Edward was depending on her, and Aunt Bronwyn was looking forward to their visit, though it would be brief. The government red tape would take months to untangle; in the meantime Indigo was better off with them than at the school. Hattie reached over and patted Indigo’s back soothingly.
“Indigo, I promise. As soon as we return, we’ll find your mother.” Indigo sat up on the seat and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.
“And Sister Salt!” Indigo cried out. “Don’t forget her!”
They did not get home until nearly three o’clock. Edward and Hattie’s mother met them at the door.
“You three look exhausted!” Mrs. Abbott said.
“It was the anxiety that was so exhausting,” Hattie said as she removed her hat and duster.
“I’ll have the maids heat water for baths.” Hattie nodded as she and Indigo climbed the stairs hand in hand.
“That was quite an adventure you had today, wasn’t it?” she said. Indigo nodded solemnly.
“We’ll bake cookies later this week and bring some to the nice woman who took care of you.”
“I would like that,” Indigo said. “Maybe we could ride there on ponies.” She did not want them to forget. She hoped Edward borrowed a nice pony.
Over breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Abbott announced the arrival of their invitations to the Masque of the Blue Garden, two weeks away.
“How perfect that you’ll be here!” Mrs. Abbott exclaimed, her face animated with pleasure. Everyone who had attended the ball the year she and Edward met would be there. Hattie set her cup down in its saucer. During their yearlong engagement, close relatives and acquaintances, both hers and Edward’s, invariably mentioned how divine it was they had met at the Masque of the Blue Garden. Hattie was not sure she could endure an entire evening of similar exclamations and remarks from people she barely knew. Hattie looked across the table at Edward to gauge his reaction, but he seemed unconcerned.
Mrs. Abbott knew how to translate silence from Hattie, so she quickly added, if the Masque of the Blue Garden was too much, she and Susan would plan a series of dinner parties in their honor to allow family and friends to visit with Hattie and Edward. Hattie did not relish either prospect and decided the Masque of the Blue Garden was preferable; all the probing glances and questions about them and their new life in California would be relegated to one night, instead of six nights. Hattie was grateful the conversation turned to horseback riding; Indigo was anxious to know when they were going. As soon as they finished breakfast, Edward replied.
Indigo discovered riding horses wasn’t as easy as it looked; the pony’s fat sides were difficult to grip with her legs. Hattie explained how to press her boot heels down hard in the stirrups to brace herself, though her legs must flex up and down to keep time with the horse’s trot. The reins were the tricky part; if Indigo forgot to hold them just right, the pony stopped and refused to move. Indigo tried to pet the pony and talk to it, but the pony’s brown eyes were angry.
“He doesn’t like to be ridden,” Indigo called out to Hattie, who was trotting her horse up and down the paddock.
“Don’t worry! He’s a spoiled pony but you’ll show him who’s boss!”
Indigo began to have second thoughts. She didn’t want to be the boss of any pony that didn’t want to be ridden, but Hattie gestured for her to come on. Indigo cautiously nudged the pony’s sides with her heels. The pony pinned back its ears at the irritation but followed the horse Hattie rode. Indigo remembered to post up and down in the stirrups as the pony trotted along. Though Indigo tried to pull the pony’s head to the left, the pony refused to take the middle of the path; instead it veered along the path’s edge as close as it could get to the branches of trees and shrubs to scrape her boot and riding skirt.
Hattie’s horse ran on ahead, but the pony refused to change its course despite Indigo’s sharp tugs on the reins. Now the heavy twill fabric of Indigo’s riding skirt was pulled and snagged by sharp branches as the fat pony tried to scrape Indigo off its back. She felt the sharp point of a branch poke her right knee through the cloth; closer and closer the pony ran to the bushes and trees next to the path; now the leaves and twigs of the branches were slapping her face and pulling her hair. Suddenly she felt a sharp stab in her ankle and felt the fabric give way with a ripping sound. Her ankle ached from the blow and she felt the stinging sensation of a deep scratch, but she could do nothing but flatten herself against the saddle, head down, and hold on as best she could with a fistful of the pony’s mane. The ground flashed by faster and faster as the pony ran out of control.
Hattie glanced over her shoulder and saw Indigo’s distress. Hattie pulled back hard on the reins and wheeled the thoroughbred around to block the path of the runaway pony. As soon as the pony saw its stable mate turn back on the trail ahead, the pony began to slow; it stopped next to Hattie’s horse.
“Indigo! Are you all right?” Hattie called out as she dismounted and went to Indigo’s side. Indigo’s heart was pounding as she cautiously released her grip on the pony’s mane and sat up straight again in the saddle with both hands on the reins.
“Oh Indigo! I’m so sorry!” Hattie said as she helped Indigo dismount. The child was shaking and Hattie gathered her into her arms and hugged her.
Edward rode up just then and led their horses behind his horse while they walked home. He was feeling rather discouraged about the success of the visit so far. He didn’t blame the child. She was a welcome diversion from the thoughts crossing and recrossing his mind. So much depended on the success of the trip abroad; he could feel the anxiety stir in his chest. He longed to be gone from the Scottish gardener and the Welsh pony, to be under way to Bristol, to be one ocean closer to the citron trees in the dry hills of Corsica.
Hattie assumed Indigo’s tears were due to the deep scratch on her ankle, and she tried to soothe the child with promises of medicine for the pain. Indigo did not reply; she felt nothing as sharply as the hurt feelings, the sadness at the fat pony’s betrayal of her daydreams about flying along on horseback. She should have known better. Grandma Fleet used to warn her about approaching unfamiliar dogs or mules because sometimes mistreated animals attack without warning. It would have been better to take days or even weeks to make friends with the fat pony before she tried to ride him. Edward might know a great deal about plants and Hattie might know a great deal about books, but they didn’t know much about ponies.
Lucille washed and dressed the scratch on Indigo’s ankle.
“I won’t ride ponies anymore,” she told Hattie as Lucille wrapped the bandage, “but a bicycle might be fun.”
The afternoon was spent resting; while the child slept, Hattie went to Edward’s room, where she found him adding columns of figures. She put her hands on his shoulders and he put down his pencil and took her hands in his. She leaned down and brushed her cheek lightly against his, but felt him tense when she glanced down at the figures.