Through Rushing Water (27 page)
Now what? If he sat here much longer, this close, he'd make a fool of himself. He nodded at the letters. “Sorry I can't get more heat upstairs.”
“Dear Will.” She did that dance with her eyelashes, warming him faster than the stove. “Russians are used to cold. Although I am surprised at the dearth of snow.”
She called him
dear
? Did she think of him in a special way, or was she stuck in letter-writing mode? “Other years, we've had more. And more wind.”
She stacked the letters. He'd heard of people having a haunted look, but this morning was the first time he'd seen it. Sophia stared at the windows, too frosted to see through. “So many deaths . . .”
The kettle rattled. Will fixed her tea, then his coffee, then came back to the table. “What helps me is knowing Julia's with Walking Together and little Timothy in heaven.”
She rolled the teacup between her hands, holding her face over its steam. Will reckoned it was a sign of their friendship, that neither of them felt obliged to fill the air with talk.
Finally she turned to him with a smile, with peace in her eyes. “Thank you. Yes, it does help.”
W
ill heard the kitchen door close and hurried to catch up with Sophia. If he dawdled too much, she'd head out without him, ready to handle any problem with her pistol. He grabbed the stewpot off the stove and followed.
Sophia stood in the yard, bundled in her fur coat, surrounded by the yellow dogs. Was she still sneaking food to them? The pups sat for their treat, then loped off. Sophia turned to him. The morning light through thin clouds made her look even more out of the ordinary, as if she'd escaped from a painting. Lazy snowflakes caught in her hair and sparkled like diamonds. She turned at the scrape of his boots. “Snowshoes are not necessary today, I do not think.”
Will shook free of his addlepated musing. “Only a flurry.” Since Christmas, the weather had been bitterly cold, allowing the school to open only four days in the last three weeks. Will set the stewpot in the sled, slipped the traces over his shoulders, and headed out. “So, Teacher, what's your plan for today?”
“The students are writing down traditional Ponca stories, how the world was created, where the tribe came from, how they hunted buffalo.”
“Hope Henry doesn't find out.”
Sophia pressed her lips together and gave a slow blink with her eyebrows raised. She had a whole collection of interesting expressions he didn't see on American women. “I am surprised at how much their creation story resembles the first chapters of Genesis. Do you think God could have spoken to them?”
“That's a question for Henry.”
“I am asking your opinion. You know what they believe.”
Another compliment from Sophia. Will's swelling chest threatened to burst the buttons off his coat. “All things are possible with God, right? Nothing in the Bible says God didn't talk to them.”
A cold gust hit him at the knees, carrying a few more enthusiastic snowflakes.
“And also, I have been thinkingâ” She seemed to do an awful lot of that. “About accomplishments. I am learning to see God's hand at work. Through changing trains, running aground, the broken stateroom lock, He kept me safe on the journey here. And He kept me safe here through attacks of the Brulé and angry whiskey dealers. The school books the church sent were the ones the students needed. The shoes arrived before the first snow and were enough so every student had a pair. Your sister sent socks.”
“I see what you're getting at,” Will said. “With the situation so bad here, if anything goes right, it has to be God.”
“Exactly. So my goal is to see more clearly what God is doing, so I know better what I am to do.”
“Seems likeâ” He turned to look at her and gasped. A large dark cloud was barreling over the bluff, dumping snow on the village.
They needed shelter. Fast.
Sophia followed his gaze. She must have seen this kind of blizzard in Russia too, because in a heartbeat she turned and pivoted the sled back toward the agency house.
There was no time to think, no time even to pray. The only prayer that came to Will's mind was,
Help, Lord!
The return trip faced them into the wind, a wind that sucked the breath out of him and peeled the skin off his face. Within a minute or two, blowing snow hid the village, the nearest house, the path.
Jesus, guide us!
he thought. They could lose their way, lose each other, wander until they froze to deathâwhich, as fast as the temperature was dropping, might not be long.
He grabbed her elbow. “Sophia!”
Her eyes held a glint of adventure. Surely she knew how dangerous this blizzard was.
With quick, sure motions, she pulled his hat down to his eyebrows and his scarf up over his nose. Then she took the right trace from his arm and slipped it over her shoulders. Ah, yes, now he could keep track of her, and together they pulled faster. She bent and found their footprints, rapidly filling in, and set a fast pace.
The woman was fearless. No whimpering or complaining. Experienced with the toil of winter. God had sent exactly the right person for this job.
A house appeared an arm's length ahead of them.
“Whose is this?” she yelled over the wind.
“Standing Buffalo's.” Will recognized the government-issue, knot-filled pine. The knots had popped out, leaving holes that let in drafts and vermin. Standing Buffalo's mud patches gave it a pockmarked appearance. “This way.” He steered the sled left. Now Sophia took the brunt of the wind. “Want to switch places?”
“We are almost there.”
Will wrapped his arm around her and placed his mittened hand on the side of her face. With this angry weather and the heavy sled, she had to be tired, but still he could feel her energy through their heavy coats. He had to work to keep up with her, to match her pace.
What sort of man would be a match for her? Someone remarkable, that's for certain.
At last the agency house appeared, the only house in the village with a porch.
Will leaned toward where he guessed her ear hid under her scarf and hood. “Go in!”
She turned to slip out of the trace, close enough to kiss.
Kiss? What was he thinking? While he went all soft-headed over the snowflakes on her eyelashes, Sophia hefted the stewpot, which probably weighed as much as she did. Will propped the sled on the porch, then helped her haul the pot inside.
“Lord have mercy!” Nettie said as she hung up their coats and handed them towels. “I woke James up to go look for you.”
“Why? With Will as my guide, I had no trouble.”
There she went again with her button-busting comments. She wiped Will's face with a gentle touch. “Truth to tell,” he said, “I think you were the one leading me.”
Sophia's eyes lingered on his mouth as if he had snow stuck to his mustache. He gave his face another scrub. She blinked, then scurried closer to the stove. “Well then, if we are not having school, I might as well write another letter.”
James leaned on the doorway. His face drooped, and he breathed unevenly, as if someone had shot his best dog. He crumpled a telegram in his fist. “Too late.”
R
eady?” Will asked.
Sophia buttoned her coat. “Certainly,” she said. The truth was she would never be ready to do what lay before her. But she had no choice.
Nettie shoved her hands into mittens and nodded grimly. The three of them set out for church into a January day too sunny and beautiful for the bad news they brought to the tribe. James and Henry had already left.
“How will they manage?” Sophia asked. “I cannot imagine how difficult this will be. I have never felt the attachment to place that the Poncas have.”
“Nor I,” Nettie agreed. “The church moved us around. No town holds my heart.”
“I don't know where my people are from or where they're buried.” Will nodded at the bluff, the Ponca cemetery. “But for the Poncas, this land is their history.”
A gust off the river swirled dry snow across the frozen ground.
Nettie shivered. “It's got to be warmer in Indian Territory.”
Sophia took the older woman's arm, walking on her west side to block the wind. “Is there any possibility the move will be good for the tribe? Might life be easier for them?”
“So far the Indian Office has had nothing but bad ideas.” Will frowned. “If they really want the Poncas to become Americans, shouldn't the choice be theirs? Isn't that what this country is supposed to be about?”
“Good morning, Will, Teacher, Miss Nettie!” Brown Eagle and his family joined them.
Rosalie took Sophia's hand. “Teacher? Are you crying?”
“The wind.” Another lie. She wanted to gather Rosalie and all her students, hug them, and vow to keep them safe. Who could she write to? Perhaps the president could reverse Congress's decision.
“Elisabeth still feeling poorly?” Will asked.
Brown Eagle nodded. “With all of us out of the house, I hope she can rest.”
Sophia scanned the congregation as they settled in. Standing Buffalo and his family were absent. Who else was ill? Bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, scrofula, or influenza? Measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, smallpox? It did not matter. In the absence of medical care, illness ravaged all.
“We should pray,” she whispered to Will at her side.
“I am.”
Henry led the congregation in singing “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.” His sermon's first point was that God's people were mobile. He gave the example of God telling Abraham to move from Ur to the Promised Land.
“The Commissioner of Indian Affairs isn't God,” Will muttered to Sophia. “And Indian Territory isn't the Promised Land.”
Point two was that the Son of God had no place to call His home. By point three, heaven is our real home, the adults shifted in their seats, exchanging worried glances over their children's heads.
Henry stepped down from the pulpit and attempted to smile. “The Poncas have had terrible times these last few years: illness, raids from hostile Sioux, grasshopper plagues, poor hunting, bad weather. The Great White Father has heard of your plight and provided money for the tribe to move to Indian Territory. The chiefs will meet here Friday to plan the move.” He raised his arms for the benediction, but few heard over the clamor.
Brown Eagle and the other men crowded around Will. Henry counted himself the spiritual leader, and James's title was Indian Agent, but the tribe looked to Will for answers.
“What did he say?”
“Move to Indian Territory? Are we not in Indian Territory now? We are Indians and this is our territory.”
“We made peace with the Brulé.”
“My children are buried here. My parents and grandparents are buried here. I cannot leave.”
“My house is built. My land is plowed.”
Marguerite slipped her hand into Sophia's. “Will we have school tomorrow?”
“We will have school whenever the weather permits.” It would not do to burst into tears. She pretended to open the top of Joseph's head and peer in. “Do you have room for more? What should I teach?”
“The fourth reader!” Joseph suggested.
“Certainly! And mathematics: percentages and interest rates.” Sophia prayed God would not allow anyone to cheat these fine people. “And science: how your body works, plants, animals.” Whatever she could discover about the flora and fauna of Indian Territory. “History, government, how to write a good letter.”
“Music. I would like to learn to read music.”
“Me too!” said the students milling about.
Sophia smiled. These people were as resilient as Russians, with half the pathos. She gave in to impulse and hugged Rosalie. “Yes, we shall sing every day.”
