The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

by Ann Weisgarber

  Alise and Emma sat up and watched the dust cloud. It made my nerves jumpy. I didn’t like it when people, especially men, came by when Isaac was gone. But maybe these travelers were in a hurry. Maybe they were just passing through and wouldn’t stop any longer than to say, “Any rain these parts?” Maybe they wouldn’t expect to stay for supper. It shamed me that I didn’t have anything better to fix than snake meat. I hoped they wouldn’t stop at all. I hoped they’d just wave and keep going.

  I put my hand on Rounder’s neck, felt the standing fur. I was glad he was here.

  Mary and Liz were on the porch now, and the five of us waited, straining our eyes. We heard the wagon before we saw it, the wheels creaking, the wagon cracking as it likely swayed from side to side. We heard the horses, their slow, heavy hooves on the dirt road, and I imagined that I heard them tossing their heads, snorting, blowing grit from their noses. Shapes of people riding on the wagon began to appear.

  “Mary?” I said. She had the best eyes in the family. Isaac liked to say she could spot a stilled rabbit a half mile off.

  She stood on her tiptoes, her eyes almost squeezed shut. “Mrs. Fills the Pipe,” she said, her words coming slow. “Those are her horses. Three people up front, and I think maybe one’s a boy. Somebody’s in the back. He’s leaning over the side.”

  “You sure it’s Mrs. Fills the Pipe?” I said.

  “I’m sure.”

  A woman. And one what wouldn’t expect to stay for supper. Indians never did.

  “Been awhile since she’s been by,” I said. “Don’t know when.”

  “This spring,” Mary said. “The cottonwood was just leafing.”

  “That’s right, it was.”

  Mrs. Fills the Pipe lived at Pine Ridge Reservation, a two-day journey southwest of our ranch. I recalled how on that day when the cottonwood leaves were a fresh green, Mrs. Fills the Pipe had been on her way northeast. She was going to her brother’s at the Rosebud Reservation to care for her sister-in-law sick with tuberculosis. Since then I hadn’t given her a thought; Indians came and went along the road every week or so. Before the drought, when Indians stopped to rest under the cottonwood, I’d go down, or send Mary or John, and tell them they were welcome to drink from the well behind the barn. But it wasn’t always that way. When I first came to the Badlands, the Indians scared me silly. When I saw them on the road, I hid in the dugout and latched the door.

  “They’re harmless,” Isaac had told me then, “but keep a sharp eye. If there’s a pebble on the ground they think you might want, it’ll be in their back pocket.”

  “Where’re they going?” I asked him. “All this traveling.”

  “Who knows? Probably to another reservation. They’re all related to each other in some complicated way. Only God knows how. Clans and tribes and bands.”

  “Why don’t they all live on the same reservation then? That’s what I’d do.”

  “Army split them up awhile back,” Isaac said. “Keeps them docile.”

  Isaac was right. The Indians were harmless. I had even gotten to know the names of some of them.

  Mary rocked up on the balls of her feet. “Think that’s Inez with her, but I don’t know the boys.” She stretched her neck. “But that’s Inez and her mama all right. Maybe the others are kin.”

  Kin. The word was like a spark. Excitement rose in my chest, covering up my tiredness. Mrs. Fills the Pipe wasn’t kin, far from it. But she was a woman, and all at once, I wanted in the worst way to be in the company of a woman. I longed for a visit. I longed for a chance to talk and to share worries. Mrs. Fills the Pipe was a squaw, but she was a woman and she was handy.

  “Liz,” I said. My skin nearly tingled, I was that perked up. “Get Rounder in the barn; his barking’ll scare them off. Alise, you stay with me. Mary, go meet them on the road. Ask them up for a visit.”

  Mary looked at me, her eyebrows puckered. I knew what she was thinking: Daddy wasn’t going to like this.

  “Never mind that,” I said. “Go on now.”

  She gave me one last doubting look before turning to go. Then I thought of something. “Wait,” I said. “You too, Liz.” They turned back, Liz’s hand on Rounder’s collar. “Don’t—” I stopped. I could hardly find the words for what I had to say. The girls looked at me, puzzled. I couldn’t meet their eyes. “Don’t ask for anything,” I said.

  “Like what?” Alise said.

  “I’m talking about refreshments. Like how folks do in Chicago.”

  “Refreshments?” Mary said, and I felt foolish. This was not Chicago.

  I said, “Like how we always do when company comes. Something to eat and drink.” There was no easy way to put it. “There’s not enough for everybody. You can have a little water, but that’s all. Don’t ask, and don’t take even when others are having. Company’s served first.”

  “Water?” Liz said. “You’re giving them our water?”

  “They’re company.”

  “That’s our water.”

  “Liz. That’s enough.”

  “But Indians?” Mary said.

  I ignored her. Nothing was going to stop me from having my visit. My longing had turned into desperation. I needed to talk to a woman what understood about children getting lost, what understood how hard it was to make food stretch, and what might even know something about living with a man with a stubborn streak.

  “Hurry up,” I said. “Go meet Mrs. Fills the Pipe and get Rounder in the barn.” I turned to Alise and Emma and made them come inside with me.

  In the kitchen, excitement rose up again in my chest. Thank goodness yesterday there had been enough flour to make a half batch of soda biscuits. I carefully wiped the dust off my china plate with the hand-painted pink roses. I laid out four soda biscuits, one each for my guests. Four biscuits looked skimpy, but I couldn’t spare any more. I broke the four into halves, making eight. Likely nobody’d be fooled, but a person had to at least try to keep up appearances. Once you stopped caring about that, you might as well quit living.

  There were a couple of pinches of chokeberry tea in the bottom of the canister. It was just enough to make a few cups if nobody minded it thin. I blew on the smoldering cow chips in the cookstove, stoking the fire. I put a little water in the teakettle. Guilt twisted my heart. I wasn’t using all that much water, I told myself. Isaac would be back tomorrow with plenty more. It was all right.

  I looked out the parlor window. Mary was on her way to meet the wagon, and Liz was hurrying to catch up. Pushing my guilt to the side, I got out two of our good blue porcelain cups. Tea. All at once I felt like singing. I was serving tea.

  The wagon, I saw now, was stopping under the cottonwood. I pulled off my hair kerchief, licked my palms, and patted my hair into place. I got my straw sun hat from the bedroom and checked myself in the parlor mirror as I tied the ribbons. I looked out the window.

  The boy on the buckboard jumped down. He was tall and his shoulders had breadth to them. He wasn’t full grown but close. He put his hands around Mrs. Fills the Pipe’s waist as she backed one foot onto the high side step, and he lifted her like she was a child. Once on solid ground, she shook out her shoulders and stomped her feet to bring the life back to them.

  The boy helped Inez down. On the ground, Inez took off her duster, folded it, and gave it to the boy to put in a basket on the floorboard. The child in the back of the wagon jumped—flying, more like—over the tailboard but landed on his feet, his knees bent and his arms out before him to hold himself steady like he was daring the wind to push him over.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I was this pleased to see company.

  I hurried and put away my ironing board. I glanced into the parlor, thinking how Mrs. Fills the Pipe had probably never been in such a fine room. Not that I had any intention of inviting her inside; Isaac would never stand for that. I brushed the grit off the front of my dress, and then me, Alise, and Emma went out on the porch to wait for our company.

  I put my hand up in
greeting as the Indians and the girls walked up the rise. Mrs. Fills the Pipe raised her hand to me. She looked older and slower than she had in the spring. Her back was bent with a little hump, reminding me how women folded in on themselves when their childbearing years had passed. I straightened my own shoulders.

  Air caught in my throat. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Inez looked like a young lady—a white lady—the kind you see in catalog advertisements. She was fresh and clean as if the wind was not full of grit. Her dress was cream colored, and there was a wide pink sash gathered around her narrow waist. The dress was short, a good six inches above her ankles, showing off her white stockings. Her sheer pink head scarf was tied with a big bow angled to one side of her chin.

  Was this, I thought, what the government was passing out to Indians while hardworking, honest ranchers were making do on next to nothing?

  At least Mrs. Fills the Pipe looked the way an Indian should; that took some of the sting out of Inez’s city dress. Like always, she wore a patched-over cotton dress and beaded ankle-high moccasins. Her butternut headscarf, knotted by a firm hand, covered her hair, but all the same, strands of gray blew loose from her long braid. The skin around her black eyes was wrinkled and thin.

  Except for their hair, the boys could be sons of ranchers in their blue cotton shirts, the hems fraying some in their too-short pants. The older boy, the one what was almost grown up, had a ponytail pulled back with a strip of leather. The little boy’s hair was cut so close that it stood up in peaks. He looked to be about John’s age.

  “Mrs. Fills the Pipe,” I said, smiling. “Hello.”

  “Mrs. DuPree.” She wasn’t smiling.

  “Please sit down. I just happened to put some tea on. You can stay, can’t you?”

  “Tea?”

  My smile froze. Water from the well was all I had ever offered Mrs. Fills the Pipe. Tea? At the house? Lord, what had I done? No wonder she was frowning, Inez too. You’re right, Mrs. Fills the Pipe, I wanted to say. Why don’t you just turn around and go on home. Ranchers and Indians don’t mix. Everybody knows that.

  But it was too late to say such a thing. “Please,” I said, pointing at the rockers. “Stay awhile. If you can.”

  Mrs. Fills the Pipe hesitated for a moment and then nodded. Like me, she knew it was too late to turn around and go back to her wagon. Lifting her skirt a little, she stepped up onto the porch and sat down in one of the rockers.

  “Mary,” I said, “get the other rocker for Inez.”

  After that everything went by in a big hurry. Mary carried out my bedroom rocker and pulled the three rockers close to the house to catch the shade. I brought out a pitcher with a little water in it and, giving Liz a warning look, I told her to pass the cup around to the boys what stood stiffly at one end of the porch. Liz was just as stiff. She glared at them as they took long drinks from the cup. I offered the biscuits to the boys. Mrs. Fills the Pipe said to take only one. I told my girls to take the boys down to the cottonwood where there was a touch of shade. I could tell Mary wanted to stay on the porch with us; she was staring at Inez, admiring her city clothes. I shook Mary off, telling her with my eyes that Inez was all grown up now and that she wasn’t.

  “Let Rounder out of the barn,” I said to the girls. “If you think he’ll behave. It’s too hot in there.”

  The teakettle whistled. In the kitchen I got out my third porcelain cup for Inez. There was a dried-up spider in the bottom; I turned the cup over, then dusted it out with my apron.

  “Beautiful plate,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said a few minutes later when I passed her the biscuits. She took one. Inez did too.

  “Why, thank you,” I said, my heart puffed up with pride. “It was a wedding present.” I eased myself into the rocker on the other side of Mrs. Fills the Pipe. The three of us were lined up in a row, the sun on our knees but our laps and our faces in the shade. “It’s from my brother, Johnny. He lives near St. Louis now.”

  Inez caught my eye. She was on the other side of her mother and had crossed her legs at the ankles like a lady does. But it was her shoes I couldn’t stop looking at. They were the color of a newborn tan calf and they fit as tight as kid gloves. A row of cloth-covered buttons started at the instep and ran clear to the top, just a few inches above Inez’s anklebone.

  That must be what fashionable women were wearing in Chicago. Folks there would take one look at me in my shapeless brown dress covering my big belly, see my scuffed, dusty work boots, and take me for a backward country woman. And they’d be right.

  I blinked back the tears of shame that came up from nowhere. Through the blur of them, I watched the string of children as they meandered to the cottonwood, Mary going out of her way to stop and pat Jerseybell, tethered by the root cellar.

  Mrs. Fills the Pipe blew on her tea, then took a sip. She nodded her pleasure. “Chokeberry tea.”

  “Oh,” I said, coming back to myself and remembering my manners. “Chokeberry’s my favorite. Glad you like it too.” I put my hand over the mouth of my cup; my water was plain. “Wish I had something cold to offer. Wouldn’t it be something if we could stretch some of that winter ice clear through summer? The last of ours ran out mid-July. A cold drink of water would be such a treat on a day like this.”

  “I would not take it,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said, “when there’s chokeberry tea.”

  “Oh. Me neither, I don’t suppose.” That was polite of Mrs. Fills the Pipe, I thought. I gave her a sideways smile. She smiled back. I took a small sip of water. As I did, I saw that her moccasins were decorated with red, blue, and white beads. Around the ankles, the beads were in the shape of zigzags, making me think of lightning, making me think of courage. To my surprise I said, “I’m so glad you could stop, that you weren’t in too much of a hurry.”

  “My cousin’s place is between here and home. We will get there before dark.”

  “How nice,” I said, relieved that Mrs. Fills the Pipe knew this invitation to tea did not mean staying on for supper. “You’ll get to visit with family.”

  “That’s right. This is Inez’s last time home before she leaves.” There was pride in her voice. “She will be gone two years.”

  “Mercy, Inez. Where you going?”

  “Minneapolis,” Inez said. “The nuns have a place for me there.”

  “You’re going to be a nun?”

  “No. Nursing school. They want me to be a nurse.”

  “Why, my goodness.”

  “It’s not my idea. I want to go to California. Hollywood, California.”

  Mrs. Fills the Pipe clicked her tongue. “Doesn’t matter what she wants,” she said to me like Inez wasn’t sitting right there. “The nuns are giving her an opportunity.”

  Opportunity. The word set me back. That was the very thing Isaac had said about coming to South Dakota. Now here was Mrs. Fills the Pipe, a Sioux, sending her daughter east. Suddenly I ached with envy. I wanted to be able to send my daughters east to school. I wanted my daughters to become beautiful young women in fashionable clothes. Where did Mrs. Fills the Pipe get the money to do so much for her daughter? Must be another handout, I decided. Just like free land and free food. But instead of the government, this time it was the Catholics.

  A gust of wind caught and lifted our skirts. We each pressed them back into place before they could bellow even bigger, but in that one instant, I saw a mended tear in Inez’s right stocking just above her knee.

  Something about that made me feel better, and I had to look away to keep from smiling. A little way off from the cottonwood the older boy had a long strand of rope knotted into a lariat. Our horses stood nearby. The boy twirled the rope near his feet. Then he played it out a little and let it loop big and loose over his head.

  “Showing off,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said, also watching the children.

  Envy was the devil’s work, that was what my mother used to say about that. I told myself to put it behind me. The dress was a handout. I put my teacup to my lips and blew on it, giving
me time to push away the envy. Everything the Indians had was a handout. Me and Isaac would never stand for such a thing.

  I said, “How’s your sister-in-law? Is she feeling some better?”

  “If she stays in out of the wind, stops eating the dust. My brother does not see to Eleanor right.” She pointed her chin at the children. “Those two are his. Franklin and Little Luther.”

  “I’m sorry my boy John isn’t here. He’d like your nephews.”

  Mrs. Fills the Pipe smiled. “Boys.”

  “Aren’t they something?”

  Mrs. Fills the Pipe nodded at my belly. “That one’s a boy.”

  I couldn’t keep from smiling. “Nothing would please my husband more.”

  “Men,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said.

  I laughed, surprising myself.

  Side by side the three of us sat, each of us thinking, I supposed, our own thoughts. Our rockers creaked over the wood-planked floor as we rolled our feet, ball to heel, back and forth. The wind, caught on the south corner of the dugout, howled low.

  I said, “When you came by last, you had that quilt you’d made for your sister-in-law. It was so pretty. She must be proud of it.”

  Mrs. Fills the Pipe smiled, accepting the compliment. “My brother’s neighbor, Sadie Horn Cloud, has a new pattern. There’s a sun in the center, rising. Each square has its own sun. Some are coming up, some are higher, others are in between. It’s pretty. But it makes me hot to look at it.”

  “I can just imagine. But come winter, all those suns will do a world of good.”

  Inez said, “It never gets cold in California.”