Between Earth and Sky(37)

*

The road to White Earth snaked northward through dry, golden prairie. Lakes winked in the morning sunlight, roped together by winding streams. An occasional hill swelled above the flatlands. Pine forests, far to the east, painted the horizon a cool blue-green. Farms lay scattered across the land like fallen leaves, windrows of hay and rows of cornstalks bounded by unspoiled meadows. Still, for all the beauty, she couldn’t sit still.

“Nervous, darling?” Stewart asked.

“Why ever would I be?” He loosed a hand from the reins and laid it on her jogging knee. She stilled.

“Neither the judge nor that young hotel clerk seemed to think very highly of the reservation.”

“I doubt Judge Baum has ever been to a reservation. And that boy? A ninny.”

“Alma, it’s not like you to be so unkind.”

“Well, he is. You’ll see. White Earth will be like any other rural community.”

The wagon rattled onward and they crested a low hill. Alma squinted into the distance, hoping to see a collection of roofs or a spire-capped water tower on the far horizon. Only prairie and a patchwork of trees stretched before them.

Stewart was right; she was being unkind. But a decade and a half had passed since the Dawes and Nelson acts divided up the reservation into allotments. Surely the Indians’ farms were prospering. By now, not only Asku and Minowe and Frederick, but hundreds of Anishinaabe children had been educated at schools like Stover. They could read and write, had profitable skills and genteel manners.

Again Asku’s words nettled her. Did you ever think what they were doing to us was wrong? No, their visit to the reservation would prove that. Why, then, was she so nervous?

“Are there others from Stover you expect to meet at White Earth?” Stewart asked.

Her knee itched to bounce, but the weight of his hand kept it still. “The reservation is far too large for social calls.”

“Perhaps they might help with the case.”

“What time is it? Are we close?”

“They could show us about the reservation. Answer questions about Agent Andrews.”

“There’s no one!” She turned her head and stared across the prairie. “The time, please.”

His hand left her leg. His pocket watch snapped open and closed. “Half past eleven. We’ve a ways yet to go.”

An hour past noon, several miles into the reservation, they arrived at a small village. Log cabins and a few shotgun houses lined the rutted throughway. Shirts and trousers billowed from backyard clotheslines, and animals brayed in the barns. Farther down the road, the houses gave way to a spattering of shops, a two-story town hall, and a steepled Episcopal church.

Stewart stopped the wagon in front of the general store. Several Indians tarried about the entry. A strand of fish hung from one man’s shoulder. Others carried sacks or small crates filled with supplies. Birch bark baskets and cradleboards swayed on women’s backs. A group of men lounged against the storefront, talking between drags on their cigarettes.

“Pardon me, where can we find the Indian Office?” Stewart asked.

The Indians’ banter ceased and their eyes turned wary. No one spoke.

“Perhaps I should speak slower. In-di-an Off—”

Alma put her hand on his arm and turned to the Indians. “Aani-indieteg Ogimaawigamig?”

Surprise cracked through their guarded expressions. Murmurs rolled among them. After a moment, one of the men nodded toward a homestead-style building farther down the road and said in clear English, “That way.”

Stewart tipped his hat and urged the horse onward. “Much obliged.”

They passed by a large storehouse, another barn and stable, and a four-room army barracks. Shutterless windows gaped at her from the rustic buildings, their roughly fashioned doors crooked and unpainted. Utilitarian, she decided. Economical. She would not allow the word bleak.

“Aaniin. That’s the customary Chippewa greeting, by the way,” she said.

Stewart repeated the word, stumbling through the syllables. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a shortening of aaniin gidoodem—what clan are you from?”

His eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

“You can just say boozhoo.”

Again that puzzled expression. Then he smiled. “Ah, like bonjour. From the fur trading days.”

She nodded.

A flagpole stood before the agency building, the Stars and Stripes whipping in the breeze some twenty-five feet above. A similar flag, she remembered, minus a few stars, had flown proudly over the gabled roof at Stover.

Beside the flagpole, the white clapboard agency gleamed so brightly in the afternoon sun Alma had to squint. New shingles hung from its roof. Behind it stretched a fallow field dotted with canvas tents and teepees—twenty or thirty structures in all, and more under construction. She frowned. Surely they didn’t live here, like this.

Stewart tethered the horse and helped her from the buggy. “It still surprises me when I hear you speak their language. I never knew you were so close to these people.”

She squeezed his hand and said with manufactured lightness, “How boring you would find me, if you knew all my little secrets.”

“Secrets?” He laughed weakly. “I dare say, the past week has brought surprises enough to last a lifetime.”