Charity (27 page)

So, it was the day the people on the Red Sand got their annuities, thought Gustie. But why were they just standing there? She spotted Dorcas sitting in the back of a wagon that was crowded with older women huddled close to each other. Her feet were dangling over the edge and her knees were covered with a blanket. A younger woman held on to another blanket that sheltered them both.

Gustie turned Biddie down the street in their direction. She didn’t answer Lena’s “What are we doing?” but handed her the reins and jumped out of the wagon almost before it came to a halt. She stepped gingerly through the people sitting on the ground, old men and women, young women with babies and children, sullen young men. All looked nearly frozen.

She stopped in front of Dorcas. Dorcas had seen her coming, but made no move or any sign of greeting. Her head was covered by a wool scarf tied under her chin. Gustie said, “Dorcas? What are you all doing here?” The younger woman with whom Dorcas shared a blanket looked familiar.

“Waiting for annuities.” Dorcas did not focus on her. She could have been answering anyone, or voicing a thought in her head.

“Why are you out here? Why don’t you go inside? What’s happening?”

Gustie looked around at the people again. From their weary cold faces they clearly had been waiting for some time. The agency doors were shut. There seemed to be no activity inside the building.

“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you getting your rations?”

Dorcas shrugged. “Frye is sleeping. We wait till he wakes up.”

“You mean he is in there drunk!” Gustie knew Jack Frye’s reputation. “He’s passed out and you have to wait out here till he comes to?”

Dorcas nodded once at each statement.

Even in the cold wind, Gustie felt hot with anger.

“Why don’t you just go in and take what’s yours? Why are you all out here freezing?” No one responded. She did not know if anyone besides Dorcas even understood her words. She asked Dorcas, “How long have you been here?”

“Since this morning. Maybe six o’clock. Maybe.”

Again, directly to Dorcas, Gustie demanded to know, “Why don’t you go in?”

“We do not take stuff. Has to be written in the book or they say we steal it and we do not get nothing next time.”

Gustie took a deep heavy breath and let it out with a noisy sigh of frustration. “Where’s Little Bull? Where’s Jordis?”

“Jordis never comes here. Little Bull is busy. He comes later. Maybe. Winnie is here for their stuff.” Now Gustie knew why the younger woman next to Dorcas looked familiar. She had seen the shadow of her face in Leonard.

Gustie stomped over to the agency door, ready to pound it down with her fists if she had to. It was not locked. She pushed it open and went in. Lena was right behind her. “Gustie, what in Sam Hill are you doing?” Then she wrinkled her nose. “Phew! It stinks in here!”

Gustie went forward to a door just opposite the one they came in. She assumed it opened into the agent’s living quarters. It did. Jack Frye lay on a dirty cot, in filthy long johns, snoring loudly. The room smelled of whiskey, sweat, and urine. Lena peeked under Gustie’s arm as she held open the door. “Good night. Not another one!” she said. Gustie shut the door then turned and faced the room.

“I’m going to give these people what’s theirs. You can take Biddie and go to your sister’s. I’ll come along later.”

“Well, I sure won’t leave you alone here.”

“I’ll be fine. If you’re going to stay, would you please move Biddie around to the side of the building out of the wind and put her blanket over her? I’m going to look for that book.”

Gustie found the book immediately. It was not hard to find—a big, leatherbound affair with the names of the people along one column and a number by each name, then more columns. A check in each column under dates indicated each time they had shown up to collect their annuities. Gustie saw another door to the right and believed that led to the storehouse. She opened it and, again, was proven correct. Filling the room from floor to ceiling were bags of flour, coffee, salt, sugar, boxes of bacon, canned goods and other foodstuffs, bundles of blankets, clothing, even boots and shoes.

Lena was back adding kindling to the stove and stoking up a blazing fire. She heaved in a large chunk of wood and shut the stove door with a clank. Gustie went outside and addressed everyone. “Will you come in now—as many as can fit in here—and get yourselves warm? Then, a few at a time, give me your tickets and I’ll check you off in the book.”

Nobody moved.

A few men had gathered at the end of the street. They had apparently just come out of the saloon around the corner, attracted perhaps by Gustie’s raised voice. They looked warm from the heat of the saloon, the wool in their shirts and coats, and the whiskey in their blood. Gustie noticed them but had no time or thought for their amused faces or their remarks. She knew that most people thought her an oddity, if not a little crazy. But Lena saw them and her blood boiled. She stepped down off the agency porch and headed straight for them. A few feet away from them she stopped. “What are you gawking at?”

They were good natured in their reply. “Oh, nothing, Missus. We’re just passing by.”

“Well, just keep passing. You should have better things to do than stand here looking your looks at Augusta Roemer. She’s a better Christian than all of you put together. You all, this whole blame town, just squatted here all day while these people here have been out in the cold. Did one of you offer to open a door for any of them to come in and get warm? Not so much as a hot cup of coffee. Not even for the children, for goodness sakes. You could have taken in the children. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,’” Lena quoted in righteous wrath. “He might also have said, looking at the bunch of you, ‘and ignore them not!’ It is enough to make the Savior weep. You all make me sick and tired. Go home!”

The men dispersed, some with the smile shamed off their faces, others with Lena’s name added to their list of crazy women. Lena returned to the agency building to check on her fire.

The Dakotah had listened to Gustie but had not stirred. Finally, Dorcas said a few words to the women in the wagon with her. They nodded and word went softly through the crowd of people.

They began to bring their children and then the old ones into the agency building for warmth.

Dorcas was the first to come to the counter where Gustie stood ready to mark the book. She presented her ticket and Gustie matched the number to the number in the book and read what she was supposed to get, so many pounds of this and that. It was all listed on the back of her ticket.

“Go back there, Dorcas, and Lena will show you what you get.”

A large man with a hooked nose and pock marked face stepped forward. Gustie recognized him. “Red Standing Horse. Hello. How are you?”

He nodded. “I will help,” he said. A few other men joined him and the procession began of people to the counter, where Gustie marked the book, back to Lena who pointed out what they were to get, and then laden with bundles and bags and boxes, outside to their wagons and travois. Dorcas was also the first, but not the last, to point out that she was taking more than she usually got. “That’s what it says here you’re supposed to get, so take it.” Gustie realized with a growing rage that the agent had been cheating them all along. Most of them couldn’t read and did not know what they were supposed to get. He could short them in small ways, and they would not notice. The excess, no doubt, he sold and pocketed the money. Gustie found herself getting angry with Jordis and Little Bull. They could read. Where were they?

An hour passed smoothly with several families packed up and already on their way back to their homes. There were stirrings from the back room. Lena heard them and came out of the store-room. She scanned the wall next to the door. A key hung there. She took it, slipped it into the lock and turned it. A loud click signaled that Mr. Frye was securely locked away. She put the key in her pocket with satisfaction and went back to the store-room. After some minutes they heard Jack Frye fiddling with the door. At length, he realized in his half-drunken, wholly hung-over state that he was locked in. He began to yell and bang on the door. “Hey! Open this door! Who’s out there? Let me out of here!” His yelling turned to howling and his language became more obscene as his frustration grew.

After fifteen minutes of listening to him, Lena muttered, “He’s making me tired. I’ll put a stop to this.” On her way to the back door she grabbed a cast iron skillet that hung from a hook above the stove. She opened the door. Jack Frye was standing there in his long johns. Lena hit him over the head with the frying pan. He crumpled. Outrage-turned-to-surprise melted fast to unconsciousness before he even hit the floor. “There. He’ll be quiet for awhile. Can’t stand that hollering.”

Lena hung up the skillet and went back to work. Gustie was open-mouthed. “You might have killed him!”

“Well, what if I did?” Lena snapped. “He’s a thief and a drunk and they can throw me in the poky for it. I don’t care. Things can’t get any worse.”

Red Standing Horse looked down on Lena. Her nose came to just above his belt buckle. “We do not see nothin’.”

Three hours later, most of the people were gone except for the families of the men who had helped all the others load up. Gustie looked at the bottom of the first page in the book. There was noted a certain number of head of cattle.

She asked Red Standing Horse, “Are you supposed to get cattle, too?”

“Yup.”

“Where are they?”

“Back down the hill over there.” He pointed with his head to somewhere vaguely south of Wheat Lake. “There’s some corrals down there. They put ’em there when they come off the train.”

“Can you men go get them? I’ll mark it off here. I’ll sign it. My responsibility. Just go get them and divide them among yourselves?”

“Yup.”

“Good. Take the rest then, whatever is in there, for yourselves and we’re finished.”

When they were gone, Gustie looked at Lena with approval. Lena had done more than her share, her distaste for hypocrites at last overcoming her prejudice against the Dakotah, and her love for children overcoming all as she asked to hold the babies while mothers loaded their things.

Except for Lena’s sermon on the corner and the ruckus with Frye the whole operation had been carried out more or less in silence. Lena had been eager to get the job over with, Gustie had been choking on her rage, and the people seemed anxious to collect their annuities and get going before the agent woke up again—if he woke up at all.

Gustie wrote in the book, “I, this day of November, 1899, have distributed annuities to all who were present, as marked in this book.” She signed it boldly
Augusta Caine Roemer
, so there would be no doubt who was responsible. Then she sat down and put her head in her hands. “He’s been cheating them. He is supposed to help these people.” She raised her head. “Look at this place.” The agency was supposed to be a place the people of the Red Sand could come for their annuities, to trade, and to buy things. The shelves were poorly stocked, and what was there looked too old to be of use anymore. In fact, many things that had looked usable Gustie had moved into the store-room and added to the rations given away that day.

Gustie sighed. Lena sat down, too, knowing better than to say anything.

Gustie put her hands on her knees and looked up and around, “It’s not going to continue.”

“What are you going to do?” Lena was alarmed.

“I don’t know. Something. Let’s get out of here.”

They were putting on their coats when they heard a sliding, scratching sound in the back room. Jack Frye was not dead after all. He was pulling himself up and over to the door. “Don’t hit me,” he whined. “Just open the door. I gotta have some water bad. I gotta pee. Real bad, Ma’ams.”

Lena jumped up and grabbed the skillet again. “I’ll teach him a lesson. I’ll break his head open, the little scheister,” she said vehemently as she opened the door.

Jack Frye cringed. “Don’t hit me. Just some water. I’ll sit right here.” He backed up with his hands in front of him to ward off any blow and sat on the edge of his filthy cot. Spindly legs and arms, a four-day growth of whiskers, a pot belly peeking through his long johns where buttons had popped off—he was not a pleasant sight. His greasy brown hair stuck to his head. He had the temerity to point a grubby finger at Gustie, “But you, Ma’am, I’m going to report you to the gov’ment.”

Gustie was buttoning the last button on her coat. “I hope you do. Indeed, Sir, I hope you do.”

Frye looked surprised and unhappy. “Let’s go. Your sisters will be wondering what has happened to you.”

Lena picked up her muff and threw the key at Jack Frye. “Get your own water, you pig.”

That night by candle light at Dorcas’s table, Gustie drew out her writing papers, pen, and ink from the case she always carried with her now, and wrote letters—detailed, scathing letters—to the Department of the Interior, the President of the United States, and, finally, to a man widely known for his devotion to justice and his connections to people in high places, no less so than the United States Senate. She wrote:

Dear Father,

I know I have disappointed you. I write to you now, not as a daughter who has never ceased to think of you often and with love and respect, but as a citizen writing to a man who is passionate about correcting wrongs. For a terrible wrong has come to my attention which I cannot ignore...

She wrote far into the night. When she finished, she addressed the envelope:
The Honorable Magnus August Roemer
. Then she added a postscript to her letter:

My dear Father, as you know, when I left, I didn’t take any part of my inheritance or any of the money you offered me. I felt that since I had disgraced the family and hurt you so deeply, I had no right to it. I have changed my opinion. If you have a mind to send it, I could use some money. Always, your loving Augusta.

She addressed and sealed the other envelopes. When she finished, Dorcas, whom she believed had been asleep for hours, said from beneath new blankets on her new bed, “Won’t do no good.”