Between Earth and Sky(29)
“He’s happy to do it. He wants to ensure justice.”
The smirk on her mother’s face made Alma feel like a child again, caught fibbing about broken chinaware or torn stockings. “He loves me.”
Why then the timidity in her voice?
“Hmm.” Drink in hand, her mother crossed to the window and drew back a corner of the curtain. Light spilled in around her—so much so that Alma had to squint. Her mother looked out unperturbed. “The foolish things we do for love . . . I know you think I was cold back then, cruel even, but I was just preparing you for life’s tragedies. I’m sure you see that now.”
Alma opened her mouth but found her tongue too heavy for words. Was she better prepared, as her mother said? Would life have crushed her otherwise? She didn’t feel strong or resilient, but she was here, wasn’t she? And would carry on to Stover and wherever else she might have to go to prove Asku innocent.
At last, her mother let go of the curtain. “I’ll write this letter for you, Alma, but don’t ruin what you have in search of what you’ve lost.” She threw back the last of her sherry. “Trust me, that’s no way to live.”
*
With the sun still high in the sky, Alma passed beneath the familiar arch with its wrought-iron lettering: STOVER SCHOOL FOR INDIANS. Buildings of every shape and sort crowded the once-open and rustic grounds. The forest had been beaten back, and what lawn remained was cut to haunting precision. More than her mother’s graying hair, more than La Crosse’s expanded Main Street, Stover’s transformation shook her. She felt transparent, ungrounded, like her memories had no anchor and would flit away into oblivion.
“How many students attend school here?” she asked the young boy in uniform who met her in the drive.
“One hundred and sixty-three, ma’am,” he said in very precise English. He pointed out the separate boys’ and girls’ dormitory buildings, a mess hall, laundry, and gymnasium. The old schoolhouse still stood, though according to her guide, only as an administrative building and staff quarters. She watched the boy as he led her there: his stiff, mirthless walk; his serious demeanor. He seemed a man of forty, not a boy of ten. Had they been so staid and formal when she was a girl here? Her memories were of laughter and games and running.
And yet, there was something of Asku in this boy. His tidy appearance, his inquisitive eyes.
“What’s your name?”
“Benjamin Franklin Redtail, ma’am.”
Alma smiled. “What tribe do you come from?”
“I’m an American, ma’am. Uncle Sam is my father. The United States is my tribe.”
She bent over and looked him in the eye. “Yes, but before that?”
He paused a moment, glancing between her and the faded brick schoolhouse. His hands wiggled and tugged at his cuffs. “Ho-chunk.”
His eyes went wide and he ducked his head down like a turtle pulling into its shell.
With effort, she smiled again. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to get you in trouble.”
He nodded and started up the stairs to the schoolhouse entrance. Asku’s words came back to her, ringing like tinnitus in her ears. Did you ever stop and think what they were doing was wrong? Now, as before, she struggled for an answer. If assimilation had failed even him, how could there be hope for this boy? She took a deep breath and mounted the steps. No. It may have failed others, but not Asku. Freeing him would prove that.
The old house, with its polished floorboards, broad foyer, and double-wide staircase, revived a feeling of circumspection. Her chin lifted and back straightened as if a stack of books rested atop her head. Her feet whispered over the rug as if her mother were listening. Benjamin Franklin Redtail straightened, too, his face grave, his little hands no longer twitching.
“I can find my way from here,” she said, and headed alone to her father’s old office. It was hard not to think of him as she’d seen him last, standing in the doorway, his face ragged, his boots caked in dried mud. The tenderness and nostalgia she had felt for him at her mother’s quickly died.
The door to the office was open, but Miss Wells was not inside. The same oak desk sat in the center, surrounded by the same varnished bookshelves she remembered from childhood. Yet the space seemed more spartan than it had in her father’s time. No fire in the hearth. No candy jar tucked between books on the shelf. The walls were bare save for sixteen photographs—each in a simple brass frame—hanging in a grid upon the far wall.
Her eye caught on the first photo, and the breath froze in her lungs. She crossed the room in three swift steps and pressed a gloved hand against the glass. Her fingers caressed the outline of each figure, her memories giving them life and color. Asku in the center, shoulders back and head high. Alice and Catherine holding hands to the side. Frederick, barely able to suppress a grin. And there at the edge, hair tousled, not quiet in line with the others— Tears blurred the image, but she could not look away. Her fingers pressed more firmly as if a thin pane of glass were all that separated them.
“Such nice photos, are they not?”
Alma startled and spun around, furtively wiping her eyes. Miss Wells stood before her. Alma’s pulse hitched and the blood crept from her limbs, as if she were a girl again awaiting reprimand. “Miss Wells,” she said with forced levity. “Pleasure to see you again.”