Between Earth and Sky(86)
“I have spent my life working for the advancement of your kind!” He slammed his hand down upon the desk. “Equality is one thing. Miscegenation is another thing entirely. The idea of you with my daughter! It’s unnatural, criminal! If God had intended for the races to mix, he would not have put us down on separate continents.”
“Then why are you here? If your God gave this continent to the , what right have the white man to be here at all?”
Mr. Simms grabbed his arm, but shrugged him off. His wide, dark eyes fixed on Alma. She brushed away her tears and stared back at him, saying with her eyes what her lips could not. His expression softened, just for a moment; then he shouldered past Mr. Simms and stomped from the house.
When the sound of his angry footsteps disappeared, Alma sank to the floor and wept. Her father glared at her, and her mother fixed her with an expression of disgust. “Think of the ruin you almost brought upon this family, Alma!” she said. “Do you think any eligible gentleman would be interested in you if he knew you have been consorting with some wild man from the woods?”
“I don’t care about those men. I love .”
Her father moved around his desk and helped her mother from the chair. On the way out of the room, he stopped and looked down at her. His face held none of its former kindness or affection. “I am gravely disappointed in you, Alma. You’re not to see that Indian ever again.”
Who was this man? Surely not her father. Not the man whose lap she’d sat upon listening to stories. Not the man who slipped her candies and swung her in his arms. Not the man who brought her among the Indians, dressed her in a matching uniform, told her she could be their friend.
“Please, Papa,” she wailed, long beyond caring who heard. “Please!”
He closed the door on her cries. She lay for several minutes atop the scratchy rug, his words playing through her mind like an ostinato passage of music. Only the key was off, the piano untuned. This wasn’t how the night was meant to end. This wasn’t the man she’d believed her father to be.
Alma staggered to her feet. From the top bookshelf, his jar of bonbons caught her eye. She grabbed it and hurled it at the door. The jar shattered, sending a spray of glass and candy onto the rug. She watched them scatter, the peppermint sticks and toffee wheels rolling into dusty corners and beneath chairs. The dwindling firelight glinted off the broken glass, and licorice perfumed the air. The once-sweet smell made her ill.
She tramped atop the wreckage to the dented door, candy and glass crunching beneath her slippers, poking through their soft soles at her tender feet.
CHAPTER 35
Minnesota, 1906
Alma felt every bump and sideways jostle as the buggy rambled along the faint road toward Detroit Lakes. The same wind that had hassled her all day followed her still, its cold fingers sneaking beneath her scarf, nipping every inch of exposed skin. It cut through the trees, ripping leaves from the branches and sending them in an upward flurry before abandoning them to the ground. Its low howl made conversation impossible, but for this Alma was grateful. She could read the anger burning in Stewart’s face.
He’d spent all evening searching for her through the village, had called upon the sheriff, the deputies, the agent, even the grocer to keep watch. When she’d ridden up on the back of the Indian’s mule, he’d pulled her down and embraced her so fiercely she thought her ribs might snap.
Now, even though their shoulders brushed as the buggy rocked, he felt a mile away. The oil lamps they’d borrowed and fastened to the frame creaked and swayed on their hinges, casting roving pools of light on the uneven road. She should repeat her apology, take his hand, and swear she’d never be so reckless again. Instead, she sat motionless, letting the wind frazzle her hair and spoil the delicate silk blooms on her hat, searching the darkness for some mental foothold, some way to make sense of the day.
Dinner was nearly over by the time they arrived at the hotel. Alma’s limbs felt as heavy as sandbags changing from her day clothes into eveningwear. Her head throbbed. The blister on the back of her heel had bled through her stocking, but she had not the time nor care to change them. Instead of remaking her hair, she smoothed back the fuzz around her temples with water and then tucked whatever errant strands remained behind her ears.
Stewart awaited her in the sitting room adjacent to their sleeping chamber. The anger that had brewed on the long ride home still showed in the hard angle of his jaw, the way he stared beyond her, through her, never quite meeting her eyes.
Downstairs, they took their places in the small dining hall alongside the hotel’s only other guests, an older couple on vacation from Des Moines who were finishing the last bites of their gummy apple cobbler.
Alma tried to feign interest as the gentleman regaled them of his fishing exploits in the nearby lakes. Tepid pork and mushy potatoes slid tastelessly down her throat. Somewhere between two seemingly identical stories of “walleye so big they just about snapped my pole” Alma’s mind drifted back to the shabby cabins and shacks, to the overlogged forests and barren farmlands, to the meager annuities and rations. The reservation wasn’t even supposed to exist anymore. Assimilation, integration—lies her father had told, lies she’d believed. The truth mocked every moment she’d shared with her Indian friends, every laugh, every smile, every kiss.
“Alma . . . Alma.” Stewart nudged her with his knee beneath the table. “They’re asking how we met. Would you like to tell the story or shall I?”