Between Earth and Sky(81)

At some point, she would have to brave the dark forest and bitter cold. At some point, before the light of dawn spilled over the horizon, they would have to let the fire die and part from the warmth of each other’s bodies. But for now, she closed her eyes, tasted his lips, and let her mind believe nothing existed beyond the dugout walls.





CHAPTER 33


Minnesota, 1906



Alma hurried down the agency steps, letting the door slam behind her. She imagined the workers jerking upright at the sound and scowling. She imagined the stacks of paperwork teetering, a document or two cartwheeling free on the unsettled air. They weren’t just citations, reports, and rolls; they were people’s lives. She admired Stewart his objectivity, wished she’d been of greater help. But the faces behind the names haunted her, their voices a constant whisper in her ear. No, her only help now was Minowe.

When she reached the road her feet stalled. She looked right, then left and right again. Frederick had instructed her to follow the thoroughfare beyond the agency, hadn’t he? So left then—north.

She took a step and hesitated again. How far had Frederick said to go before she’d spot the path off the road? Ningo’anwe’biwin. But what in tarnation did that mean? Her fingers clenched. She’d forgotten her gloves inside the agency and her nails bit into her palms. Why had Frederick been so cryptic, so utterly unhelpful? She knew she’d heard the phrase before, had once known its meaning, but couldn’t pluck it from the threads of her memory.

No use standing around. The sun, now directly overhead, had baked the road solid. Alma’s boot heels snagged on the wagon-wheel ruts and pock-like hoofprints that scarred the dirt, making her wistful of the morning’s mud. She wrung her hands and muttered reassurances to herself as she walked. This reunion was not about them. Minowe would see that. Surely, they could set aside the past, for Asku’s sake.

After a few minutes, she stopped and looked around. Field and forest sprawled around her, a gradient of yellow and brown with a few sprigs and leaves still clinging to their summer green. Nowhere did she see a side path or fork in the road as Frederick described. Insects hummed in the air, jumping and flitting through the dried grass. Had she gone far enough? Too far? Maybe she’d been wrong; maybe this wasn’t the way at all.

She spun around and marched back the way she’d come. She recalled seeing a small path through the woods, just beyond the schoolhouse. Perhaps that was what Frederick meant.

The path, wide and bright where it met the road, quickly narrowed. Towering bluestem and matted chokecherry bushes pressed in on either side. The charming houses she’d seen in town gave way to weary cabins. She studied the women tending their sparse gardens or grating their laundry against wooden washboards, but none bore any resemblance to Minowe.

Farther on she passed an old woman weaving pale rush stalks into a wide mat. Her cotton skirt was torn and threadbare, her wispy hair drawn into a knot at the nape of her neck. Several small children ran half-clothed through the yard. The sun beat off their beautiful brown skin, and their laughter lingered like drifting milkweed seeds in the air.

When she saw Alma, the old woman hollered to the children and corralled them about her. The wrinkles around her eyes and mouth deepened. The little ones peered at Alma between the fluttering rush strands and around the woman’s wide-set haunches. Alma smiled and nodded in their direction. Renewed giggles bubbled up from the children. One gave a timid wave.

Alma thought to stop and ask the woman if she knew where Minowe lived, but the old woman’s scowl kept her walking. At what point had she lost the warmth, friendliness, and curiosity so alive in her grandchildren? Maybe that wasn’t fair. She looked old enough to remember the early treaties and ever-shrinking land. She would remember the Indian Wars too. Little Big Horn. Wounded Knee. Sugar Point. Perhaps she’d seen her own children taken, sent away to boarding school, and feared Alma had come to steal her grandchildren as well.

All for the best, Alma told herself as she continued onward. But those words, her father’s words, had lost their steel. She passed more weathered cabins. More guarded glances. The old woman’s scowl haunted her. She’d read about the wars and treaties as a girl. Growing pains of the burgeoning West. The right of the strong and civilized to conquer the weak. And yet, how different it must have seemed to this woman. How different it seemed to that night they’d met in the dugout.

A sharp pang gripped her, like her insides had been cranked through a wringer. What would think of her now—all her rationalizing and excuses? Alma shut her eyes and banished the thought. Her limbs felt heavy and her feet ached. Best return to the agency. Stewart would worry soon.

But she’d not found Minowe, not made any progress in helping Asku. She forced her weary eyelids open and pressed her muscles into action. Just a little farther.

The forest thinned. Tree stumps littered the landscape. Only the small, the gnarled, or the sickly still stood. Soon the stubble of trees opened to a bald patch of land where a small shack teetered in the wind.

Surely Minowe could not live here. Alma’s whole body turned cold at the thought. She swallowed her discomfiture and forced a steady gaze. The shack sat without foundation directly upon the ground. Tarpaper covered the slab siding and shingleless roof. Square holes sufficed for windows, their rag dressings flapping each time a breeze stirred. She shuffled up to the door and raised her fist to the splintery wood. Her whole arm trembled. Her knuckles wore a sheen of sweat. She felt naked without her gloves, embarrassed, and decided it improper to call without them. But just as she stepped back the door opened.