Gardens in the Dunes (36 page)

When it was her turn to tell about her plans for her money, Sister Salt hesitated before she spoke. She had so much she wanted to do, she wasn't sure how much money she would need. First she had to get Indigo home, and Big Candy promised to help her. Then she and Indigo had to find Mama before they returned to the old gardens.

“Good luck,” the twins said in unison, but they sounded uncertain. The soldiers and the Indian police were under orders to keep the people on the reservations. Besides, good farmland along the river was leased to white people friendly with the superintendent.

On the streets of Needles and Kingman there were so many hungry Indian women and children, Candy brought scraps and leftovers to them when he went to those towns. The women begged him for work, any kind of work, as he handed out bones and skin from the roasted chickens and
turkeys; he smiled and nodded and promised them all jobs when he opened his hotel and restaurant in Denver.

Big Candy saw the newspapers every week after Wylie finished with them. The heat that summer exceeded all recorded temperatures in Phoenix and Los Angeles; rainfall the previous spring was far below normal. Wells in Los Angeles and surrounding communities ran dry, and drinking water was brought in by railroad tank cars. A week did not pass without some government official or other paying a visit to the construction site to monitor the progress on the aqueduct and the dam. More workers were hired to keep the project on schedule, and the construction site village of flapping canvas over wood crates and tin expanded toward the river. Big Candy was pleased they were closer to his brewery and gambling tents and the laundry.

The heat made the workers more thirsty than ever—the beer business boomed. Candy's silent partner was his boss, Mr. Wylie; they'd worked together for a number of years from project to project. Wylie came down every evening around sundown to count the empty beer bottles; he liked to have an idea of how much money was taken in each day. After the count, Sister Salt and the Chemehuevi twins washed the bottles and boiled them before they were refilled with fresh brew.

Candy did not allow anyone else to lift the lids on the brewing barrels, and he checked them every day, sniffing at them and tasting them to decide which batches were ready to bottle. The workers joked Candy used river water to make his beer, but he took great care to haul fresh well water from Parker for his beer. He went all the way to Needles to the railroad freight office to pick up the special yeast and hops shipped from Albuquerque. Candy watched the brewing closely because beer was the staple of his business; without beer, the gamblers couldn't hear those voices that urged them to roll the dice again to see how lucky they were. Those voices they heard were the spirits of the alcohol, and Candy tended those spirits very carefully so none were offended. If the brew was bottled too late, it was flat and yeasty; but if it was bottled too soon, too much pressure built up and the glass bottles exploded. Candy left the wine and moonshine to the bootleggers who drove in from Needles or Prescott; wine and distilled spirits took too much time to make.

Candy worried if the heat got any worse, the yeast in the brewing barrels would die; so he instructed Sister Salt and the Chemehuevi sisters to wrap the oak barrels in layers of burlap sacks soaked in the river. Sister Salt loved the excuse to splash around in the warm water, which was still cooler than
the air. The moisture evaporated so fast that for a little while her skin felt cool and delightful.

Big Candy kept his word. On one of his weekly trips to Parker he went to the office of the reservation superintendent and made a written inquiry about Indigo. He was told the inquiry must be sent to the Indian Bureau of the War Department, in Washington, D.C.; that would take months. When Candy told Sister, she began to cry from anger and frustration—they'd never find Indigo if they had to ask Washington! But Candy told her to be patient, and he worked on composing a letter, night after night, even when he was so tired he fell asleep at the table. Sister Salt loved him most then, when he tried so hard to help her find Indigo. He was saving money for the train tickets; they'd go to Riverside if necessary. They'd find that girl!

Now the river was unrecognizable—rechanneled and trapped into narrow muddy chambers outside its old bed. The poor cottonwood trees and willows were ripped out and plowed into mounds of debris, where their roots reached out plaintively like giant skeleton hands. Oh poor trees! I'm sad for you. Poor river! What have they done to you? Sister whispered softly.

Two shifts of men worked day and night to complete the dam and canal on schedule. Layers of fine dust settled over everything, even the food and the bedding, and there was always the noise—the scrape and clank of the earth-moving machines, the whinnies of the mules, and the shouts of the workmen. By night the construction site was lit by big coal oil torches that trailed ribbons of flame whenever the wind caught them.

Down at the casino and bar, Big Candy hung dozens of lanterns from the cottonwood trees and from the corners of the tent frames; every afternoon Sister Salt and Maytha and Vedna refilled the lanterns with coal oil; besides providing light, the lantern fumes kept away the mosquitoes. The lamps were their last task before they got off work, and they discussed what they would do that night. After baths they sometimes went to have a beer and see who was winning at dice or blackjack.

A distance away, up on the gravel terrace of the old floodplain, next to the construction camp and the site superintendent's big tent, businessmen from as far away as Prescott and Yuma parked canvas-covered wagons filled with mattresses, and with white and black women who charged construction workers ten cents for fifteen minutes. Mr. Wiley required the wagons with the mattresses to be parked within sight of his tent so that he could keep count of the customers to be sure the businessmen didn't cheat him
out of his share. That arrangement was fine with Sister Salt and the twins—they still got more offers than they wanted to have sex for money. Big Candy warned them not to undercut the prices of the wagon women too much, or their managers, the businessmen from Prescott and Yuma, would complain to the authorities and get Mr. Wiley in trouble. Sister Salt and the others took the men into the tamarisks and willows on the smooth clean river sand, so they charged less. Their customers said they much preferred the sand to those smelly mattresses in the wagons. As long as Sister Salt and the twins worked hard at the laundry and brewery, how they earned money in their free time was their business; Candy didn't interfere.

Big Candy loved women, and he said all a man had to do was to let a woman be and she'd love him all the more. Candy's mother had been born into slavery, and after the emancipation she continued to reflect on her position as a slave and then as a free woman. Dahlia was six feet tall and weighed three hundred pounds, so when she talked, people listened, even her employer and his wife. “Wage slave,” she called herself and the others; no, they couldn't be bought or sold anymore—now human beings were worthless, and anything worthless was left to starve.

At night in their cabin, Dahlia loved to tell the stories she heard as a girl about the Red Stick people who adopted the escaped African slaves. Even before the Indians ever saw an African, the old Red Stick dreamers described them and said they had powerful medicine that the people here could use. So they welcomed the fugitives when they appeared, and it wasn't long before the Red Sticks were given some of this medicine, which allowed their warriors to move through the swamps as silently and swiftly as smoke. Heavy casualties were inflicted on the French soldiers by only a handful of warriors, and later they routed the British. Of course, the swamps' quicksand and fevers were their powerful allies.

In Dahlia's clan, they knew how to hunt and to cook, especially meat. As Big Candy told Sister Salt more than once, the person who prepares the food has more power than most people think. Candy grew up in the big kitchen where he helped his mother. That was why he preferred to work around women; he explained this to Sister Salt the night he returned from Needles with the Mojave woman. She wasn't young but she wasn't too old; she took one look at Sister Salt and the Mojave woman's eyes clouded with hatred toward Sister. Big Candy only laughed when Sister complained to him later; he reminded her she didn't work near the Mojave woman. He couldn't let the Mojave woman go; she was a good worker. Business was booming and he needed every worker he had.

Money, money! Some nights the sound of coins seemed louder than the sounds of the earthmoving machines and woke Sister Salt two or three times during the night. She felt something or someone was about to come—maybe the letters Candy sent off would bring Indigo home—but she had not dreamed about Indigo or their mother for some time.

Right before dawn it got quiet for a while, and that's when she got up to watch the earth. She walked to the high sandy hill above the river and looked all around: she could see how the vegetation would grow back someday, and no trace of the construction camp would remain. Even their dam would fill up with sand someday; then the river would spill over it, free again.

She gazed off to the southwest in the direction of the old gardens. She was homesick for the dunes, for the peacefulness and quiet; for the good sleep she had in Grandma Fleet's dugout house, which was much cooler than a tent. She missed the cold clear water from the crack in the sandstone of the shallow cave above the dunes.

The only time she wasn't homesick was when she was flirting with handsome strangers or lying with one of them on the sandy riverbank in the shade. The old-time Sand Lizard people believed sex with strangers was advantageous because it created a happy atmosphere to benefit commerce and exchange with strangers. Grandma Fleet said it was simply good manners. Any babies born from these unions were named “friend,” “peace,” and “unity”; they loved these babies just as fiercely as they loved all their Sand Lizard babies.

Sister Salt took her choice of the men willing to pay a dime for fun in the tall grass along the river. Maytha and Vedna said Chemehuevi-Laguna women like them knew how to enjoy life, but this Sand Lizard woman was lusty! Candy did not mind—he was making good money and busy himself. Her body belonged to her—it was none of his business.

“You can't be everywhere all the time,” Dahlia taught him, “so why worry about who or what others do when you aren't there?” Besides, Candy loved women of all ages and colors; every time Candy drove the supply wagon to Needles, Prescott, or Yuma, he took along bundles of clean rags and stale bread to give to the street corner Indian women and to the children alone in the alleys. Sister Salt thought Candy's kindness to women was his best quality. Why should she care if Candy had sex with other women—especially the Chemehuevi twins, because they were best friends? She hoped he avoided that Mojave woman only because the woman was her enemy. It wasn't likely, though, because the poor man
seldom had time for sex with any of them; Candy worked all day and half the night seven days a week to earn those silver dollars.

Candy's gambling and brewery tents were packed with miners and cowboys as well as construction workers most of the day and night. He hired another, older Mojave woman to work with the woman who hated Sister; the Mojave women stirred the coals and watched the roasting meat on payday. Sister watched them from a distance and knew they talked about her. Only white men were hired as card dealers or to run the dice games; when he was not cooking Wylie the elaborate meals the man lived for, Big Candy was the overseer, who stood silently behind the customers to observe the dealers to keep them honest while they dealt cards or rolled dice. A young Mexican called Juanito began to drive the wagonloads of laundry because Candy was so busy. More tents for poker and dice players went up under the cottonwood trees along the riverbank.

“I'm this much closer to Denver,” he'd say, holding his money pouch close, with a blissful expression on his face to let Sister know he was imagining his hotel's dining room; of course, the main dining table would have to be oversize—he'd have it made in Mexico and shipped to Denver by train. Soon the hard work would pay off. Sister didn't intend to go to a cold climate like Denver's, but she didn't want to discuss it; she hoped maybe he would change his mind and buy a hotel in Prescott or Kingman instead. She didn't want to leave the area where her sister and mother were last seen.

Gamblers flocked to the tents under the cottonwood trees along the river; after sundown a cool breeze came from the river and many men lounged outside to smoke or to count their winnings. Maytha and Vedna confessed they met two handsome young Mexicans, winners at blackjack, and they went off to the willows along the river; they had the silver dollars to prove it!

Next evening when they went, Sister Salt came along with them to see if the Mexicans were as handsome as the twins claimed. The next thing she knew, she was on the smooth sand under the cover of the willows, in the arms of a handsome Mexican with curly black hair. Charlie was different; she loved his smile and his quick, clever remarks that always made her smile or laugh; she never took money from Charlie. She found herself waiting to see him again, unable to concentrate on anything else as she scrubbed overalls with the Chemehuevi sisters.

For a while Charlie visited her almost every evening after his shift ended; Candy was so busy he hardly noticed. But soon Charlie confided to Sister he felt uncomfortable, and feared somehow Candy would cause him
to lose his job. In Tucson Charlie was a married man—what if rumors got back to his wife? Nothing Sister Salt said would reassure him; later she suspected a spell cast by that Mojave woman; or maybe some missionary cautioned him. Charlie kissed her good-bye: he'd miss his Sand Lizard girl, but he couldn't afford the risk any longer.

Sister Salt never cared much what other people thought; she never minded the taunts of the churchgoers—Indian or white—who pursed their lips anuslike to spit insults at her. She blamed the loss of Charlie on churchgoers who forgot Jesus loved the prostitute Mary Magdalene and called her sister. Jesus knew there could be no peace without love—why didn't the churchgoers remember that? Wovoka preached the corpse on the cross wasn't Jesus but some poor white man! She herself had seen Jesus winter before last, and he looked like he might be a Paiute, like Wovoka, with handsome dark skin and black hair and eyes.