Between Earth and Sky(102)

Stewart’s cufflinks snapped into place. Fabric rustled as he shrugged on his tailcoat.

Could she leave Asku for the gallows, let him die when she had the power to save him? In lieu of an answer, her father’s voice came to her, warm, robust, humming with excitement: We’re their salvation. He’d said those words the very first day the Indians arrived. How fervently she’d once believed them.

But then, for all their good intentions, they hadn’t really saved them at all.

“Aren’t you going to take off your duster and dress for dinner?”

She jogged her head and turned to her husband. How handsome he looked in his double-breasted jacket, the silk-faced collar shining in the lamplight. His hair was neatly combed, his cheeks freshly shaven, his hazel eyes expectant. She pulled off her coat and laid it beside her on the bed. As an afterthought, she removed her gloves and unpinned her hat too. Sweat clung to the palms of her hands. She wiped them over her skirt. “I have to tell you something.”

“Yes, we can talk at dinner.”

“No, here.”

He hesitated, then sat beside her.

She searched the silence for the best way to begin. It offered nothing. She ran her hands over her dress for the second time, then hid them in folds of fabric when she noticed her reddened and haggard nail beds. “Why do you love me?”

His brow furrowed. “What?”

“When you first saw me at the picture show and afterward, during our courtship, what made you fall in love with me?”

He flattened his lips and sat back. “I guess it was many things. Your sweetness, your intelligence, your pensiveness—”

“My frailty?”

“I never saw you as frail. Melancholy perhaps. But with that comes grit. Having borne something terrible and survived. For that I loved you too.”

“But you never asked after the circumstances.”

He shrugged. “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

At last perhaps she was.

“I told Harry what we found at White Earth. He still refuses our help.”

“What?” He started to chuckle, but the sound sputtered into a wheezing exhale. “You’re serious. Why?”

“He told me, that is, he confessed that”—Alma swallowed—“he killed Agent Andrews.”

Stewart blinked. “He’s guilty? We did all this, came all this way, to help a murderer?”

Alma winced at the word. It still seemed impossible, her beloved Asku a killer.

“Why didn’t he tell you this at the beginning? Before we wasted all that time at White Earth?” Stewart jerked to his feet and paced the length of the bedroom. The pendant light above swayed on its gilded chain, casting roving pools of light and shadow. “If he thinks I’m going to walk into that courtroom and convince the jury he’s an innocent man—”

“That’s not what he wants.” She paused. The testimonies, the letters, the fraudulent documents they’d uncovered on the reservation—they could still use them to save Asku’s life. She brought her fingers to her mouth, stopped, and let her hand fall to her lap. No. Asku had made his choice. Who were they to override it? “He wants to plead guilty. He’s ready to die.”

“As he should.”

“Stewart!”

“Alma, he killed a man. Not to mention he embroiled us in his deceit, sent us out on this frivolous hunt to uncover evidence that didn’t exist.”

“He didn’t send us. We went of our own accord, remember.”

Stewart continued to pace. He tugged at the knot of his bow tie as if his collar were strangling him. “Mr. Gates is going to be furious. Judge Baum. The whole courtroom will be in an uproar.”

“Let them be.”

“How can you be so calm about this? We’ve made a disgrace of ourselves here. Inserted ourselves into the investigation. Aroused trouble on the reservation. All this for a murderer? Tell me at least that he’s repentant.”

“No.”

Stewart balked. “No?”

“Sit down, dearest. Please.”

She gestured to the bed, but he flopped down on the chaise, brushing aside her dress as if it were a rag.

“It’s hard to explain.” She fought the tremble in her voice. “Harry knew full well when he shot the agent he would die for it. He did it for honor.”

“Honor?” His head fell back against the wall. “Honor? What does honor—”

“You saw the reservation. The corruption. The poverty.” She looked down at her dust-stained skirt. She had to say the words, as much for her own ears as Stewart’s. “It’s more than that, though. It was the school—Stover—that was the start of it.”

He stood and set again to pacing—around the bed between the vanity stool and lacquered table to the chaise and window and back. She imagined the thoughts working through his head. You said Harry thrived at Stover. How could something that happened all those years ago lead a man to murder? I thought the schools were set up for the Indians’ own good?

Whatever his thoughts, he said nothing and Alma bore the silence. In time, the clap of patent-leather shoes atop the floor softened to a hum. “Tell me what this is about, Alma. All of it.”

And so she did. She told him of the very first day she’d met Asku, how he clambered so bravely from the wagon. She told him of Minowe and the doll. Of Miss Wells and her ruler. Of their lessons and their games. She told him how they’d sneak out into the woods, dance their forbidden dances, sing their forbidden songs, speak in their foreign tongues.