Between Earth and Sky(65)

“Waú!” batted Alma’s shoulder with the pillow. “A month and you didn’t tell us?”

“I wanted to tell you. I did. He kissed me and I—”

voice sparked with glee.

“Yes, we kissed. Can you believe it? Behind the schoolhouse by the old archery target.” She lay back onto the bed and grabbed the pillow, clutching it to her breast. “It was wonderful.”

“He kiss you one time. That doesn’t mean he cares for you,” Minowe said.

“Not just once. Dozens of times. Whenever we can sneak a moment.” Alma’s head sank into the mattress and she watched the candlelight dance across the plaster ceiling. “I feel like I can barely breathe without him.”

giggled. “That’s why you volunteered to go into the cellar this afternoon.”

“It’s impossible to find time alone.”

Minowe hugged her arms around her chest and shook her head.

Alma sat up again, her stomach tightening. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

Silence answered her. She turned with desperation to Hoga.

“We are, but . . .” Her friend shrugged. “Your parents will be much angry.”

Alma set aside the pillow. Cavorting with a boy, unchaperoned—her mother would faint if she knew. And Father? Student relationships were forbidden at Stover. Such foolery got in the way of one’s study, she’d overheard him say on more than one occasion. If anyone found out, she and would undoubtedly be punished. Worse, he could be sent away.

“You mustn’t tell.” Alma looked frantically between them. The more people who knew, the greater the risk of discovery. “Not anyone, please.”

nodded, but Minowe remained a statue, brow drawn, eyes inscrutable. Alma’s heart climbed into her throat. “Nindaangwe, right?”

After a heavy moment, Minowe sighed. “Yes, of course you still my friend, Azaadiins. I won’t tell anyone.” She smiled—not her sunny gap-toothed smile—but a stiff, anemic approximation, then grabbed arm. “Come on, we better go before Miss Wells find us out of bed.”

“Miigwech,” Alma said. Thank you.

Her friends tiptoed from the room. winked at Alma over her shoulder. Minowe did not look back.

She blew out the bedside candle and settled back beneath the covers. Though her friends’ warmth still lingered on the sheets, the bed felt wide, open, and lonely.





CHAPTER 28


Minnesota, 1906



Warmth came a weak and distant straggler behind the sun. Rain had fallen in the night and left the air dank. Alma kept her duster buttoned from hem to collar the entire ride to White Earth. Worry lines, something Alma had seldom seen before the ordeal of the trial, now seemed a permanent fixture upon Stewart’s face.

The events of last night, his advance and her refusal, lay open between them like an undressed wound. She tried several times at light conversation and failed. Stewart sat silent, wringing the leather reins and tugging on his shirt cuffs the way he did when he was preparing to argue a big case. He’d grown up with a good name, but not always the fortune to match. His father, he’d told her, was an impulsive man known for both singing and shoddy investments. She imagined this nervous tic to be a vestige of one of those periods of dearth when the family couldn’t afford new shirts for their growing boy.

When they reached the general store at the village center, Stewart slowed the buggy. She hated to part like this, in silence, without so much as a glance, a smile, a kiss on the cheek. She opened her mouth, but the words I’m sorry seemed insufficient.

“I still don’t like you going alone,” he said, facing forward.

“You said yourself we haven’t the time.”

“Perhaps one of Mr. Knudson’s deputies should go with you.”

“No one will be forthcoming with one of the sheriff’s men present.” A strand of hair fell into his eyes. She hesitated before brushing it away.

He captured her hand but seemed uncertain what to do next. Another day, without so much hanging over them, he would have kissed it. Today he settled for a light squeeze. “Be careful.”

“I will,” she said, when what she meant was I love you. “I’ll meet you at the agency before noon.”

She climbed from the wagon and watched him drive off. How much more could he forgive? Water splashed about the wheels and his form became ever smaller. She lingered a moment longer, then hiked up the hem of her skirt and crossed the muddy road to the general store.

Unlike yesterday, when the entire village buzzed with people, today the air was quiet. A few tents remained in the open field—most in some stage of dismantle. The merchants, with their tinware and cloth and guns, had left only bent stalks of grass and rain-filled imprints where their booths had stood. Even the stray dogs that had run about begging scraps of food had vanished into the great expanse of the reservation.

The porch that swept the length of the storefront too sat empty. The rusty hinges of the front door whined when Alma opened it. Flies buzzed in after her through a large tear in the screen even after the door had closed. Two rows of shelving ran the length of the small store. Sacks of flour, sugar, and coffee spilled into the aisles. She stepped over a jumble of shovels stacked upright against the wall and made her way to the front of the store.