Between Earth and Sky(78)

He glanced at his coworkers. “We cannot speak here. Remember the dugout we found last spring? Meet me there tonight.”

“Okay, I’ll try.” At the bottom of her bag she found the dance card from a recent gala she’d attended. She folded it in half and handed it to him, just in case Mr. Wallis or the other workers were still looking.

arched a brow.

In a raised voice she said, “Father received this letter for you. Be well.” She lingered a moment longer, loath to take her leave, then spun on her heels and walked away.

Thick, heavy snowflakes began to fall before Alma and her mother reached the bluffs beyond La Crosse. Like frozen teardrops, they continued to float down from the angry sky through the afternoon and into twilight.

At supper, Alma peered through the frosted windowpanes across the dining hall, wondering if the storm still raged outside in the darkness. Voices whispered around her, quiet but electric. Minowe had noticed the copy of the La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader in the study when she came to remove the afternoon tea tray. THE MANIACAL ACT OF THE RED SKINS AT WOUNDED KNEE read the headline. She’d only managed to skim the first few paragraphs before Alma’s father returned to the room, but now, the few details she had gleaned spread with hushed voices throughout the dining hall.

“Where’s Wounded Knee?” a young Chippewa girl asked.

Minowe waited until Miss Wells moved beyond earshot. “Bwaan ishkonigan.” Sioux Reservation.

leaned across the table. “Is it true, Azaadiins? Are hundreds dead?”

Alma pried her gaze from the window. Around the table, wide-eyed Indians stared at her. The fear and pain in her friends’ faces left her breathless. Unable to hold their scrutiny, she looked down at the boiled potatoes and gristly meat untouched on her plate. “Yes.”

“Women and children?” asked.

“Some,” Alma said, then shook her head. “Many.”

Whispers swarmed until Miss Wells rapped her ruler against the tabletop. “Voices, ladies. The dinner hour is for sustenance, not idle chatter.”

Silence fell but did not last. No sooner had Miss Wells left to reprimand another table than Minowe spoke. “Who began it?”

“The papers say the U.S. cavalry were trying to disarm a group of captives when one of the Indians shot at them.”

“And you believe it so?”

Alma looked back at blackness beyond the window. The inflammatory headlines and editorials she’d read in the papers, bitter words she’d heard today in town, the palpable distress building in the dining hall all tore at her, pulling her in divergent directions.

“It doesn’t matter who started it,” she said finally. “There was no need to kill innocent women and children.”

“Ho,” said in agreement.

“What means maniacal, anyway?” Minowe asked.

“Crazy. Violent.”

Minowe’s expression soured. “Is that how the white man really see us?”

“No.” Her voice sounded hollow. “Well, maybe some, after an incident like this . . . those who are ignorant.”

“Us maniacal?” Minowe shook her head, her dark eyes unblinking. Alma touched her forearm, but her friend pulled away. “Already so many dead. Do they want to kill us all?”

“Of course not.” But again her words rang empty. She had nothing for their pain, their fear, their anger.

While the conversation continued around her, Alma retreated into her thoughts. She imagined sitting down for dinner at the boardinghouse where he rented a room. Did the others—the white boarders—get up and leave when he arrived? Did they break off their conversations and glare?

She thought too of Asku. Surely back East, at such an illustrious school as Brown, more mild temperaments reigned. With his gentle, curious nature, who could help but adore him? The depth of his bravery touched her—to travel so far from his home. If only she could see him, hear the clear, steady tone of his voice. Maybe then worry’s hold would lessen.

A shrill whistle cry rent her from her musing. She looked to the front of the dining hall, where her father now stood beside Miss Wells. His face, just beginning to line with age, burned scarlet. He blared the whistle again and silence fell around the room.

“What’s behind all this racket?”

No one answered.

His narrow eyes drifted over the rows of tables. When his gaze reached Alma, she held his stare. He must know news of Wounded Knee had finally broken at the school. Three of the children seated before him were Sioux, one from the Pine Ridge Reservation.

“They’re worried about their kin. News of the—”

“Now’s not a suitable time, Alma.”

“But—”

He looked beyond her at the others. “If you cannot eat with proper decorum, you shall not eat at all. Take your plates to the kitchen and then go straight to bed. This meal is over.”

Alma’s hand tightened around her fork. Her sinews showed white atop her knuckles. “It was a massacre, Father. Haven’t they the right—”

“Enough!”

She choked down her fury and followed the others into the kitchen. With her father standing watch, they washed the dishes in silence, then marched upstairs to their dormitory. She refused to look at him as they passed at the foot of the stairs. Seventeen now and he still thought her a child, oblivious to the world around her. She wasn’t, though. None of them were.