Between Earth and Sky(68)

“Why should that be? He did so well at Stover. All that knowledge, how could that make him empty?”

Frederick laughed and turned away from her. “Gaawiin ginisidot-anziin.” He picked up both halves of the sundered board and tossed them into a pile of similarly sized planks. The resulting clap echoed through the small shop, shaking the windowpanes.

Alma winced at the noise. “You’re right, I don’t understand. What happened to him here?”

“Not here. It happened to him when they cut his hair and burned his clothes. It happened when your father and Miss Wells tricked him into believing he could be white. It happened to him at Stover and followed him here. It follows us all.”

“But you . . . you’re prospering.” She immediately regretted the choice of word. His mended clothes, his rough, overworked hands—this was not prosperity, not as she’d envisioned it as a girl listening to her father’s oration.

“My people are Métis. Trappers and traders. I’d seen white men before I came to Stover. Heard a few words of English. Knew of your one God. Asku, his people were different. Traditional. Still followed the seasons. That’s a more hard life to come home to and fit in.”

“Even if that were true, I still don’t see how that relates to the murder of Agent Andrews.”

“Do you know the Anishinaabemowin word for reservation?”

She frowned. “Ishkonigan.”

“But do you know its meaning?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“Leftovers.” Frederick strode across the shop toward a trestle table. Worn tools and rusty nails littered its surface. “The white man has always been generous with what he doesn’t want.”

She started to protest, but what could she say? Sawdust settled on her tongue. The truth of his words was here all around her. And it had been true at Stover, too—the factory-made uniforms, the out-of-date textbooks, the skimpy food rations. But what did that have to do with the trial? “I know there’s more to this, Frederick. Several of you here made complaints about Agent Andrews, about some allotment proceedings this past summer.”

He shook his head and rummaged through a few old cans before retrieving a small hook-shaped tool. Without answering, he stalked back to the ripsaw. The splinters of wood strewn about the dirty floor crunched beneath his footfalls.

Alma sighed and hurried behind him. “Tell me about Agent Andrews, Frederick.”

He spun around so quickly Alma nearly ran into him. His eyes had hardened into iron bullets and his nostrils flared. “Mii go izhi-booni’itoog. He’s little different than any Ogimaa that come before or any that will follow.”

Mii go izhi-booni’itoog. Leave it alone. But Alma could not. “I’m just trying to help.”

A thin, tight chuckle slipped Frederick’s lips. What echoed back from the rafters sounded like a wail. “We never wanted your help, Alma. Awas.” He turned and hunched over the ripsaw, burying his attention in its greasy gears.

“But—”

“Awas!”

Go away! Alma shuffled backward. Tears built along her lower lashes. “Please. We were friends. Nimbeshwaji’aa.”

Frederick looked up and sighed. “I don’t know who killed Andrews. Maybe it was Asku. Maybe it was someone else cheated in the agent’s dealings. Ask Minowe. She’d know more than me anyway.”

Alma’s stomach tightened. “I . . . we . . . maybe there’s someone else, a friend of Asku’s you could direct me to.” She reached for the list of names in her handbag.

“You used to call her nishiime—sister.”

Alma shifted and looked down at the scattered wood chips. “We grew apart the year after you and Asku graduated.”

“Follow the road past the agency office, then head eastward into the prairie. There’s a small trail. Maybe you see it. That will take you to her home.”

“Is there no one else—” His hardened expression stopped her. She took a deep breath. “How far up the road to this trail?”

“Ningo’anwe’biwin.”

“How will I know when I’ve reached her house?”

He turned back to his work without reply. For a moment a dead silence hung between them, then the ripsaw roared to life, echoing what Frederick had said.

Awas!





CHAPTER 29


Wisconsin, 1890



“What a startling transformation that boy—whatshisname—George has made.”

Alma halted at her father’s voice, nearly dropping the crochet thread she’d fetched for Mrs. Simms to use until more kitchen twine arrived from the Indian Bureau. She flattened herself against the wall and peeked in through the cracked door of her father’s study.

“Quite.” Miss Wells relaxed opposite Alma’s father in a plush armchair, her long fingers curled around a teacup. A wisp of hair had freed itself from her ironclad bun and danced about her face, transformed in afternoon sunlight from mud brown to spun gold. To Alma, she’d always seemed old. But looking upon her now, Alma realized she couldn’t be more than thirty or thirty-five.

“He must have learned more from those nuns than he let on,” Miss Wells continued. “I’ve advanced him three grade levels since Christmas.”