Between Earth and Sky(96)

“This savage ain’t no citizen,” the man who’d found Alma’s ribbon said. He grabbed the rope and began knotting a noose. His hands slid down the rough fibers, making an S, then coiling one end around it. Loop and tighten. Loop and tighten. Alma’s insides wrenched as if he’d reached inside her, as if his fat, grimy hands were squeezing her viscera. Loop and tighten.

“Really, Sheriff, I must insist.” Though he stood only a few feet away, her father’s words sounded in her ears like a muffled echo. “In God’s name, release—”

Sheriff Gund caught her father by the back of his coat and flung him to the ground. “Stay back, old man.”

The men brought forward and forced him to his knees beneath the tree. They ripped open his collar. His quill and bead necklace—the one he had kept hidden his first day at Stover, the one Alma had felt against his chest the countless times he had held her in his arms—showed in the moonlight against his copper skin.

The man with the rope laughed and ripped the necklace from his neck. He cast it aside into the dirt and in its place fastened the noose. Several men gathered at the rope’s end and the line grew taut. The branch above shook and groaned. Flecks of bark showered down like soot-blackened snow.

Alma thrashed and flailed. Several of her nails had broken off and her fingers were slick with blood. Bile burned her throat. She leaned over one foot and kicked back with the other. Her boot heel struck Mr. Simms’s knee. His arms slackened and he fell backward, howling. Alma raced forward just as rose from the ground. His hands clawed at the rope about his neck. His body writhed. His face grew red with blood.

The world around her slowed. Though she ran as fast as she could toward him, the distance between them seemed to lengthen. Somewhere far off, a train hooted. They were supposed to be on that train, she and , northbound and away from here. They were supposed to marry tomorrow. They were supposed to live happily ever after, despite the odds, despite the color of their skin.

Mr. Coleman grabbed her from behind and wrapped her in his arms. “Don’t look, Miss Alma.”

She refused to turn away. long legs flailed, the tips of his pointed toes grazing the long stocks of sedge and grass beneath him. Blood-tinged spit bubbled at the corners of his compressed lips. His once-beaming eyes now bulged from their sockets, no longer white and brown, but a crosshatch of red surrounding a pinpoint of black.

Mr. Coleman cradled her in a viselike grip, even as she struggled. Her braid had come undone and hair clung to the sweat and tears wetting her face. She pried at his hands, the last of her nails ripping off clear to the cuticle, staining his worn riding gloves scarlet. Only muffled noises reached her now: the men’s laughter, her father’s pleading, wheezing breaths, her own high-pitched scream.

The moon gaped down. The elder shuddered. arms slackened and fell to his side. Convulsions overtook him. The front of his trousers darkened and urine dripped down his legs.

Alma buried her face in Mr. Coleman’s shoulder. His jacket reeked of horsehair and sweat. Her tears bled into the fabric. Some part of her brain remembered the need for oxygen and she lifted her head for a breath.

Though she could no longer see , his shadow danced upon the scree-covered bluff, danced a moment, and then went still.





CHAPTER 39


Minnesota, 1906



The midday sun brooded high above, casting not a shadow. The air about the house hung heavy, quiet, and still. Even so, Alma felt herself slipping, unmoored from the present. She rubbed her gloves back and forth over her skirt. The blood—she had to get it off her fingertips. Her stomach heaved and she spat bile onto the ground. It was Minowe’s voice that reeled her back.

“When I told your father, I didn’t think he would get the sheriff. I didn’t know they would . . .” Minowe’s hand fluttered to her throat and her voice dried up.

“Kill him?” The words rang through the yard. “String him up like an animal beside the road?”

Minowe flinched and dropped her head. Tears fell from her eyes onto the dirt.

Alma’s hands curled to fists. Her nails bit into her palms, softened only by the thin leather of her gloves. She stamped to the nearby clothesline and curled about the post, lest she strike Minowe again. The splintery wood chafed against her cheek. How dare Minowe cry! How dare she pretend to have suffered when it was Alma whose life was ripped away. “Shut up.”

Her sobs continued.

“Shut up!”

Minowe wiped her nose on the sleeve of her blouse. “I had no choice.”

The meekness in her voice enraged Alma. She pushed away from the clothesline and spun around. The weathered post creaked and wobbled. “No choice?”

“I couldn’t let you runs away together.”

“It was nothing to you.”

Minowe shook her head, slowly at first, then with violence. The sadness in her face flashed to anger. She bent down and scraped together a handful of dirt. It spilled between her clenched fingers like sand through an hourglass. “You stole everything! Our land, our game, our timber—even the language from our mouths.”

She stalked to Alma and flung the earth at her face. It struck her like a thousand tiny pellets, stinging her eyes and choking her nostrils. Alma coughed and blinked. Fifteen years of pent-up rage roared inside her. “You harpy.” She reached out and grabbed Minowe’s collar. They tussled to the ground.