Between Earth and Sky(35)

Moonlight cut through the canopy and revealed a teasing twinkle in Minowe’s eyes. flashed her dependable grin. Alma’s unease retreated and she pulled her friends closer. The promise of winter hung in the chilly air. The musty smell of fallen leaves swirled about them.

“What were you all giggling about during study hour?” Alma asked. “I heard you clear from the parlor.”

smile broadened. “Someone put chalk dust inside ledger book. When she opened it, the dust spilled out all on her dress.”

Alma stifled a laugh. Walter had christened Miss Wells Oneida word for skunk—several years back when she’d given him thirty demerits for accidentally lighting fire to a textbook. The name stuck. “She must have been furious. Who did it?”

“No one owned to it,” Minowe said. “We all of us got ten demerits.”

A frown swept Alma’s face. George. “When are you going to stop defending that boy?”

shrugged. Minowe stared forward with a moony expression, as if she’d hardly heard Alma’s words.

“Father ought to send him home. He’s an utter dunce.”

“No,” Minowe said. “He’s much brave.”

“Brave?”

“Weyi,” agreed.

Alma shook her head but let the subject drop.

A low, steady rhythm sounded in the distance. With each step, the drumbeat swelled, accompanied by familiar, high-pitched chanting. Alma’s heartbeat quickened, matching the lively pace. Firelight broke through the thickness of trees, and dancing shadows stretched along the ground like spokes on a giant wheel. Dust clouds bloomed as feet struck the earth in time with the song.

When they entered the clearing, Alma squinted in the bonfire’s sudden brightness. Smoke perfumed the air. Chatter buzzed over the song and the crackle of the fire. The tone was light, the words an easy tapestry of Indian and English. Back at the schoolhouse, the watchful gaze of adults followed them everywhere—from morning bed inspection to evening prayer. Here in the forest they mingled freely, not as schoolmates but as siblings, cousins, and friends.

A steady stream of dancers stomped and shuffled around the fire. Others lounged at the periphery. A Ho-chunk boy had sneaked a flute from home and played along with the drums. Dried gourds rattled in time with the music.

Minowe pulled Alma into the circle of dancers. They shuffled side by side, bouncing with the song’s rhythm. Minowe moved like an eagle, her arms spread wide, her quilt stretched like wings, its colored pattern feathers fluttering through the air. She kicked up her knees, twirling as she moved.

Alma hitched her nightshirt above her ankles and followed after her friend, losing herself in the song. Here her dance was free, unscripted, nothing like the measured movements of the waltz or polka her mother insisted she learn. Her skin, numb from walking through the frigid forest, began to thaw. She threw her head back and drank in the full moon’s brilliant glow.

Without warning, a hand circled around her arm and yanked her from the thick of dancers.

“You don’t belong here,” George said, loud enough for the entire camp to hear.

What? Alma rattled her head. He spoke English?

Silence spread through the clearing. The singers dropped out one by one. The drummers’ hands slowed. The dancers’ feet deadened. All faces turned toward her and George. Minowe, hitherto beside her, shuffled back into the crowd.

Alma pulled free from his grasp. “Who are you to say who may attend?”

“You are no Indian.” He turned to the crowd. “Who invited this , this paleface?”

The fire answered with a pop and crackle, a nearby owl with a lonely hoot. Her friends, however, said nothing.

“I have as much right to be here as you.” Her voice sounded thin, but she held George’s stare, stilling her trembling hands into fists.

“Get out of here. ! Go home to your white man’s school.”

Alma opened her mouth in reply, but her voice found no hold. Tears threatened in her eyes. She cast a desperate gaze at Minowe. Her friend’s eyes darted to the ground, her silence as biting as a hundred hateful words. Never before had Alma felt so alone.

Then a voice rose from the gaggle of onlookers. “I invited her.” Asku pushed forward, moving between her and George. “She stays.”

George closed the distance, bringing his face only inches from Asku’s. They stood equal in height, Asku slim but solid, George broad and gangly. “She’ll betray us. The white man always does.”

“She is Azaadiins—friend and sister to us. Our secrets are her secrets.”

George said, turning to the crowd with a sneer. “He is foolish, the white man’s pet.”

A few chuckles rose from the silence. Alma’s heart skittered in her chest.

“And you live in the past,” Asku said. “I learn the ways of the white man so the Anishinaabe have a future. You are gagiibiingwe—blind—if you do not see it.”

The crowd grew quiet. A few heads bobbed in agreement, but otherwise no one moved. The air seemed thick, electric, too dense to breathe. George glared at Asku, but finally stepped back. He turned to Alma and held out a closed fist thumb-side down. Firelight glinted in his narrowed eyes. He extended his fingers and said, “

She’d never heard the phrase before, but judging by his scowl and the gasps of the other Menominees, it was hardly a friendly remark or gesture. Her knees softened, but she refused her feet a backward step.