Between Earth and Sky(22)

His words, like his gaze, lay heavy upon her. “Yes, sir. I do,” she said. But she didn’t—not really. What was so vile about their language? So barbarian about their games? What was so wrong about being Indian?

“Myself, your mother, Miss Wells, we cannot be around every moment of the day. If you see things—misbehaving, thievery, lapses into their tribal ways or language—you must tell me.”

Alma bit her lip.

“Come here.” He scooted back from his desk and patted his knee. Alma slid from her chair and climbed onto his lap. The smell of orange-blossom cologne and tobacco clung to the wool threads of his suit jacket and his neatly trimmed beard. She breathed in deeply, wishing to trap the scent forever in her lungs. “You’re getting so big, kitten. Soon you won’t fit on my lap at all.”

“Yes, I will, Papa.”

He squeezed her close, then drew back. “What we do here, Alma, it’s for their own good. Will you be part of that?”

His blue eyes glowed in earnest. She thought about the sneaking out, the stolen apples, lying to Miss Wells that very afternoon. It hadn’t seemed bad at the time, but here, seated on her father’s lap, guilt clawed at her. She swung her legs and chewed the soft skin at the base of her nails. Finally, she nodded.

A smile fought its way onto her father’s tired face. “Good girl.” He set her down on the rug and reached for the jar of bonbons on the top shelf of the nearby bookcase. “One little treat, then off to bed.”

“Can I have two? Please.”

“All right, two.”

He held up the glass lid, and Alma fished inside, her fingers brushing candy sticks and sugar drops, paper-wrapped taffies, molasses pulls, and caramel creams.

“You spoil her, Francis,” her mother said, still looking at the fire.

With a long stick of peppermint in hand and a roll of taffy between her teeth, Alma traipsed through the dimly lit foyer and up to the dormitory.

The room was dark and quiet when she entered. Miss Wells had already made her rounds and extinguished the lamps. Alma laid the candy stick on her washstand and tugged off her boots and stockings. Her sticky fingers breezed through the long line of buttons at the front of her dress. She threw on her nightshirt and worked her hair free from its braid.

A chill stole through the thin cotton covering her skin. The curtains on the far wall billowed. She crept to the open window and heard her friends’ whispers coming from outside on the roof. She hurried back to her bed and grabbed the peppermint stick—her friends had probably never tried candy before. They’d love sugary sweetness. She was just about to draw back the curtain when the echo of her father’s words stopped her. Even if they weren’t sneaking away, they weren’t supposed to be out on the roof. And the whispers she heard were not in English.

Her chest tightened and she retreated from the window. She’d promised to be a good girl, a dutiful daughter, to report such misbehavior. Her feet shuffled back another step. She should go straightaway and tell her father. It was for the girls’ own good.

Outside, the whispers cascaded into laughter—soft, quiet, free. Alma stopped. She felt stretched, like a fought-over toy that eventually breaks in two. Could her father be wrong? Surely not all the ways of the Indian were bad. And he did say they could be friends.

Wind ruffled the curtain again, carrying with it Minowe’s songlike voice, ever-present giggles. Alma glanced at the door behind her, allowing her father’s words to roll once more through her mind before tucking them aside.

She tiptoed to the window and climbed out. Afternoon sunlight had melted the snow from the roof, but the frosty night wind bit her skin. Her friends sat a few steps off, pointing up at the black sky. Alma settled beside them and broke her candy stick into three pieces. Minowe drew her into the warmth of her thick quilt.

continued the story she’d been telling. She spoke Ho-chunk mostly, tossing in an occasional word of English. It didn’t matter to Alma that she couldn’t understand. She followed hand as the Indian pointed at a cluster of stars that hung like shiny dewdrops in the night sky. The animation in face, the feeling in her voice conveyed the story.

Minowe spoke next, gesturing to a group of stars Alma knew to be the Big Dipper. “Niswi giiyosewininiwag . . .”

Alma remembered niswi, three, from a few days before. Judging from Minowe’s arms, one outstretched, the other tucked in close beside her ear like she held a bow, the following word was hunters.

Alma listened to Minowe’s voice and stared up into the blackness, imagining the three hunters wending their way through the sky.

“. . . makwa . . .” Minowe said amid a string of other words.

Alma leaned her head against her friend’s shoulder, thinking of sticky fingers and dough animals. Makwa. Bear.

How could Papa fault her? The words and stories may be different, but the stars remained the same.





CHAPTER 11


Minnesota, 1906



Stewart had already unpacked and dressed for dinner when Alma arrived at their suite in the Ryan Hotel. She hurried out of her traveling clothes and grabbed the least wrinkled evening gown from her trunk.

Who was that man in the tiny prison cell? Not the sweet, courageous boy she remembered. Not the bright, intrepid youth who’d set out from Stover bound for greatness. She threw the gown over her head. The world darkened. Trapped inside the tight, slick fabric, she battled the folds of taffeta silk, searching for the neck hole and sleeve openings. The more her limbs fought, the more bunched and constricting the fabric became. For scant reason, tears sprang in her eyes. She couldn’t even liberate a hand to wipe them away. Asku had been so happy to see her. At first. She’d believed time had left their friendship intact. How quickly that belief had changed.