Charity (21 page)

“Just follow that dirt road out, the way we came in, and take a left instead of a right when you come to the fork. You’ll go right into town. You better skedaddle if you’re going to make the train.”

“I won’t forget this, Augusta.”

Little Bull stirred on his mount and the bay did a little hop step in place. They looked ready to charge. From the direction of Dorcas’s cabin came a blood-curdling war-whoop. Madigan kicked the horse’s sides and almost lost his balance but hung on to the saddle horn for dear life as Tom trotted his bone cracking gait back the way they had come.

Will could stand it no longer. He crumpled onto the ground and began to laugh until the tears rolled down his face. The fierce countenances of braves in war paint dissolved in smiles and laughter as well. Even Gustie laughed. Only Jordis was not amused. She reached out and touched Gustie’s arm lightly, then looked out at the tiny disappearing form of Madigan on Will’s horse. “The stupid son-of-a-bitch. He thinks we’re still on the warpath.”

Little Bull dismounted. In a voice that bore no resemblance to the grunt he had uttered a moment ago, he asked “Are you all right, Gustie?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He pulled out the blade and flicked a thumb across its edge thoughtfully. “It might have been fun to scalp him.”

“When was the last time you used that knife?” challenged Jordis.

“Well, actually, I never have.” Little Bull made a fierce face in her direction and re-sheathed the knife.

Gustie surveyed the riders and clasped her hands in delight. “You all look...magnificent!!”

Some had their faces painted red, some had red stripes down their bare arms and chests. Some wore bright shirts, leather leggings, with feathers streaming out of braided hair, or headbands holding back shorter cropped hair.

Little Bull said, “Gustie, I’d like you to meet my father, Chief Good Wolf.” He escorted her to the side of the spotted pony and spoke to his father in the Dakotah language. The old man looked down upon her. His face of a thousand lines broke into a cheery smile. He replied in Dakotah.

Gustie said, “I am honored to meet you, Chief Good Wolf.” Little Bull translated.

Chief Good Wolf was very old but his eyes were bright. His thinning hair fell down to his shoulders unbraided. Long fringes hung from the
v
shaped insert at the neck of his heavily beaded buckskin shirt. The loose sleeves of the shirt were beaded and fringed as well. He wore buckskin trousers. The chief kept smiling and said a few words more.

Little Bull chuckled.

“What did he say?” asked Gustie.

“He said you were unusually polite for a wasichu.”

Gustie smiled again at the chief and then turned her attention to the young man in Dorcas’s buckskin shirt. “You must be Leonard.” He nodded shyly, and his face lit up when she said, “You will be the prime attraction of the celebration tonight.”

Leonard wore a headband of a bright red fabric. His features were unmistakably those of his father but softened, rounded a bit. Gustie had yet to meet Winnie.

Little Bull looked the part of the future chief. Two eagle feathers fastened to the back of his braided hair pointed straight to the sky. He, too, wore a beaded buckskin shirt, though not as ornately worked as his father’s. Instead of the leather insert, the shirt was left open and he wore a red bandanna around his neck and a metal medallion imprinted with the face of President Grant on a long cloth ribbon.

“Jordis,” Little Bull said, noting the doeskin dress. “I’m glad you decided to join us.”

“Dorcas wanted me to wear it. It was a small thing to do to make her happy—to let her see someone in this dress again. I am not dancing.”

Little Bull smiled. “Winnie sent this along just in case.” Leonard handed his father a red shawl with long fringes, which he in turn gave to Jordis.

“It will probably get chilly tonight. Come in handy. Thanks.” She casually draped the shawl over her shoulder.

Gustie looked over the hill and saw the large wagon, drawn by two mules, one of whom no doubt had sounded the war cry that spurred Peter Madigan east.

“We’ve got to go. We’re supposed to mark off the part of the fairgrounds we want to use as a dancing ground. Emil Withers said we should get there early to make sure nobody else sets up a wagon or anything.” He asked Jordis, “Are you ready?”

She nodded.

To Gustie and Will, he asked, “Will you come with us?”

Will was still shaking his head and chuckling. “I’ll drive with you to Wheat Lake, then I got to pick up Ole Tom and wipe the piss off the saddle.”

Gustie rode back to Wheat Lake with Will. He did not say much but grinned all the way back. Gustie knew he would have a good story to tell for years to come about the Easterner frightened off by wild Indians.

“Whoa, Old Girl,” crooned Will. He pulled back gently on the reins. Biddie came obligingly to a stop in front of the depot at the north end of town. Will jumped down off the wagon whooping, “Yo! Joe! Where are ya? Wake up! You got customers!”

Joe Gruba appeared from around the corner of the small brown building, his mouth wide in a grin that exposed blackened teeth and a gap where two were missing. “Hey there, Will! Whaddya know?”

“Ain’t got the time to tell you, Joe.”

Joe grinned again as the two men shook hands.

Will said, “This here’s Gustie Roemer. Friend of ours. Ole Tom around here somewhere?”

“Yeah, he’s in the back there. You’ll have to saddle him up. I didn’t know how long you was going to be so I took his saddle off and rubbed him down good. The fellow who left him popped off in a hurry. I thought if you didn’t show up pretty soon, I’d have to sell him to the Indians.” More grins.

Gustie tried to keep smiling.

“You lookin’ a little peaked, Gus. Maybe you otta take it easy here a while. That okay with you, Joe? We rode out pretty early this morning.”

“Oh, sure. Sure.” Joe Gruba hooked his thumbs under his suspenders, the only thing keeping up his baggy trousers. “The missus has fixed up a nice little room in the back. There’s a cot in there and she always has some fresh water and a plate of biscuits. Just for folks who need a little lay-me-down between trains. Nobody there right now. You go make yourself at home and I’ll take care of your horse.”

Gustie dabbed at the perspiration on her forehead with the back of her sleeve. “That would be nice. I do feel tired. Thank you.”

As Joe led Biddie away he said over his shoulder, “Will, why don’t you show her the room. Anything you want, Miss, you just holler. I’ll be out back here.”

Will and Gustie passed through the main room of the depot. Next to the ticket counter was a hand-written poster with ticket prices and the one rule of conduct that governed the place: “No Spitting.” The door in the back opened into a tiny room with a neatly made cot, and, as Joe had promised, a pitcher of water and a plate of biscuits set out on a small square table.

“Will, thank you for coming with me today.”

“Well, I sure wouldn’t let you traipse off with that guy by yourself. That bugger, he’s got more spite in his blood than red, I’ll betcha. No tellin’ what...” He trailed off and looked around the room. “You stuck by me, Gus, when nobody else did. Not even my own folks. Without Pard talkin’ for me I’d be a gonner and I know it. You stuck by Lena. We’ll never forget it. Don’t you worry. Yup.” He shoved his hat back on his head. “I better be gettin’ back to Duchy. She was lookin’ pretty tough when we left.”

Gustie nodded and Will was gone. The exhilaration of seeing Jordis again and her relief that Peter Madigan was gone had buoyed her through the last hour, but now she felt drained. She needed just a few moments to refresh herself before going to the fairgrounds to look for her friends. She unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse and lay down.

When Gustie opened her eyes she saw nothing but bare, whitewashed walls. She wiggled her toes. She had lain down without taking off her shoes. Now her feet were free and under a coverlet of some kind. She looked down. She was covered from shoulder to toe with the red shawl. She sat up and took out her watch. Eight o’clock. She pulled on her shoes and laced them up as quickly as the tiny hooks would allow, splashed some water on her face and tidied her hair as best she could.

Outside, Joe Gruba was sprawled in a rickety chair enjoying the evening breeze and smoking a wizened little cigarette. He grinned his blackened, gap-toothed grin. “Hey there, Miss Gustie. You had quite a sleep there.”

Gustie held up the shawl folded over her arm. “Someone was here?”

“Yup, yup. One of the dancers from the pow wow over there come over lookin’ for you. I says you was sleepin’ and she says ‘good’ and just looks in on you a minute. She was sort of nice lookin’ so I thought it was okay.”

“Yes.” Gustie suddenly felt very warm.

“She says to tell you when you woke up to come over to the dancing grounds. Over that way.” He pointed a skinny finger to the east.

“Mr. Gruba...”

“Call me Joe. Call me Joe.”

“Joe. Thank you for everything. I hadn’t expected to sleep all day.” Gustie gave an embarrassed little laugh.

“Well, you sure look a little rosier now. That’s for sure.”

“Do I owe you anything for...”

“No sir. No sir. Will and I go way back. We do favors like for each other. Any friend of Will’s... Oh, your horse is around back there. I harnessed her up again for you. Fit as a fiddle. Figured you’d be gettin’ to go pretty soon.”

“Thanks again.”

“Any friend of Will’s...” Joe Gruba grinned and took a long drag of his cigarette.

Curls of smoke rose from the cooking fires of the Dakotah camped in the pasture east of the fairgrounds. The breeze was rich with smells bubbling up from stew pots and the smoky aromas of spitted roasting meats.

Gustie had missed all the afternoon’s events. The non-Indian people were already packing up their blankets and picnic baskets and loading them into their wagons. A few were leaving the fairgrounds since, except for the pow wow, the Fourth of July festivities were over for the day. Most stayed, however, and were gathering around the dancing ground. Gustie assumed those who stayed did so out of curiosity. Since the Sioux had been prohibited from dancing for a long time, this was the first opportunity to see an Indian dance. Today the Indians had been given dispensation to dance. Gustie suspected there were some who stayed in genuine support of their Dakotah neighbors, knowing the admission fee was to support their school, and knowing also, perhaps, that their parents or grandparents could not have made it through their first winter in the Dakota territory without help from the Indians. Besides, unlike the Teton and the Cheyenne to the west, or the Santee in Minnesota, these people of the Red Sand had never risen up in war against the white settlers. Dorcas once said they didn’t fight—not because they lacked courage—but because they knew a lost cause when it landed on them.

As Gustie threaded her way through the crowd she could not see Jordis or Dorcas anywhere. The drums began. She stopped where she was and watched.

The longer Gustie listened, the more she felt the drum engulf the rhythms of her body. The drum now controlled her heartbeat. Should the drum fall silent, she felt her heart would stop.

Time passed and Gustie began to feel herself carried on a great river of sound. The shrill singing that had sounded so plaintive to her ear now held notes of rejoicing.

As she watched and listened, the boundaries between sight and sound blurred in the flash and crackle of tin bells, painted gourd, and turtle shell rattles.

A silver ring or bracelet glinted here and there, but most adornments were of soft-sheened bone and shell, feathers and fur that glistened and trembled with each movement and every breeze. Shells gleamed in white rows against the dark blue trade cloth of the women’s dresses. Glass beads sparkled red, blue, green, and yellow across arms, chests, and foreheads.

The women danced. Their many-colored shawls and blankets swaying above demurely stepping feet evoked a field of butterflies. The men danced and the field came alive with cavorting animals and birds.

Gustie singled out Little Bull at once. He wore a magnificent sheath of eagle feathers that Jordis said had been passed down from his grandfather, to his father, to himself. Every feather was sacred. His movements suggested the great bird. Never far from his father, Leonard danced his own dance. Many children danced by themselves or were carried on the backs or in the arms of a dancing mother or father.

As her mind wandered in and out of the currents of sound, Gustie longed to enter the circle, pound the earth with moccasinned feet, whirl, and give herself to whatever spirit would claim her. But she knew she would only make herself ridiculous, so she tapped her foot, swayed with the beat, and surrendered to the intoxication of sight and sound. Gustie felt a shimmering sense of the glory that was this people, and she understood with a sharp pain why Jordis refused to teach the white man’s way.

Gustie was suddenly aware of Jordis standing by her side. As Gustie handed her the shawl, they held each other’s gaze a moment. Jordis asked, “Do you want me to dance?”

Gustie felt the relentless beating of the drum carry her dizzyingly forward into unfamiliar terrain, and she wanted to cry out to the drummers to stop, so she could breathe her own breath, feel her own small heart beating by itself, and escape, for a moment, the current of Jordis’s eyes. She also felt challenged, which she disliked, and that gave her the strength to stay afloat in the forward moving turbulence around her. She hung on to that strength as if it were a tree in the midst of a flood. “I want you to be happy.”

Jordis unfolded the shawl and draped it over her shoulders. Its fringes trailed the ground. She took in the dancers, all men and boys now, a trace of a smile upon her lips. With a slight horsey toss of her head, she said, “I will dance for you.”

Jordis moved away from Gustie, out of the ring of spectators into the dancing circle, slowly, easing herself into the song, her knees rising higher and higher, her arms floating up and out. The shawl flared like wings. Gustie watched her go and tumbled headlong into the rapids.