White Diamonds (14 page)

The man laughed, but it was not a happy laugh.  It was more of a sorrowful laugh, if there was such a thing.  “Not quite.  Pine Ridge has never been peaceful, not since then.  Your parents may remember the 1973 incident at Wounded Knee, but they were no doubt young children at the time.”

Malika thought about that.  He was right.  Her parents would have been around the age of ten that year.  Still, she had never heard about that, either.  “What happened in 1973?”

“There was a standoff at the little town of Wounded Knee and the entire nation became a part of it.  It was all over the media, television covered it, got a lot of play.  The Sioux and their supporters occupied the little town to defy the actions of the U.S. Government over decades and decades of, well, just plain nastiness.”

“What came of it?”

“Revival of some of our traditions for one thing.  Not much from the Government.  I guess there was a big legal deal and the U.S. Government was ruled against and determined to have to pay the Sioux.  But we never took the money.”

“Why not?”

“If we took the money, the government would own us as well as our sacred land, the Black Hills.”

Silence filled the little taxi and Malika wanted to ask the man if he was one of the Sioux.  He had to be.  He had used the word “we” too often during his sad tale.  Malika cleared her throat.  “Are you a Sioux?” she asked, in a whisper.

“Yes, I am a Sioux.  I lived on the reservation until I needed to find work when my wife became ill.  I hope to go back one day.  Well, Miss, here we are.”  He pulled up in front of an old wooden building.  “You are meeting someone?”

“Yes.”  Malika looked at her sheet of paper.  “I am meeting a woman named Mrs. Stillwater.”

“Very good.  You will find her inside.  Be kind to her.  Her old heart is true. She will never let you down.”

Malika thanked the man and insisted he take double the amount of money the meter indicated.  He thanked her many times over and helped her with her bags.  “We will meet again one day,” he said, and he drove away.

Malika walked toward the door of the old building and knocked lightly.

A woman’s voice could barely be heard.  “Come in.”

Malika opened the door and the old boards in the floor were chipped and bare.  “Mrs. Stillwater?”

“Yes.”  The woman looked old and she was in a wheelchair.

“I’m Malika.”

“Well, come on over here, dear, and let me look at you.”

Malika approached the woman slowly.  She looked tired, but she was quite spirited.

“We are so happy to have you, dear.  My grandson will be here shortly to show you to your cabin.”

“Cabin?”

“That’s what I call them.  Yours is nearly as big as this one.”

Malika looked back toward the door.  Had she missed something?  This was not much larger than her dorm room.

The door opened and a man not much older than Malika walked in with her bags in tow.  “These belong to you?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The man held all four bags as easily as if they were feathers.

“Malika, this is my grandson.”

Malika said a quick “Hi” and the two of them left the older woman alone.

“I will be back tonight, Grandmother.”

Malika followed the man to his jeep.  Amazed by his strength and impressed with his muscular body and stunning face, she had a hard time focusing on his words.  He looked somewhat Native American, though Malika had little reference, but it was quite obvious that his brown skin was not a fake tan.  He had broad shoulders and he carried himself with assuredness.

After placing her bags in the back of his jeep, he gently placed his hands on Malika’s waist.  “Let me help you,” he said and lifted her easily onto the seat of his jeep.

Malika dropped her eyes to keep from blushing.  He had been so close to her she could have kissed him.  “Your grandmother didn’t tell me your name.”

The man stiffened and he seemed to grow larger right before Malika’s eyes.  He turned and Malika could almost feel the heat from the fire burning in his soul.

What have I done? she wondered.  What did I say?

When he spoke, his words were direct and distinct.  “To your people, I am Kevin.”

Malika offered a smile, but it was not returned.  With his back to her, Kevin opened the door and said, “I will be here at eight in the morning to take you to the school.”

Malika whispered, “Thank you,” but Kevin was already gone.  “What had he meant by ‘my people’?  I don’t have any people.”  She looked around the old cabin.  One small room made up the living area with a smaller room down a very short hallway with a bed and nothing else.  There was no kitchen and the only sign of one was a wooden stove that Malika had mistaken for a fireplace.  A small sink was the only source of water and when Malika turned the handle a very small stream sputtered and stopped, and then sputtered again.  “This is worse than the dorm.”  Then she turned toward the bedroom again.  Where was the bathroom?  She opened a door in the bedroom that she had thought was a closet, to find one thing…an old toilet.  She was afraid to try and flush it.  “I can’t go to the bathroom outside.”  She pushed the handle and hoped for the best.  The thing gurgled and then slowly flushed and even more slowly filled up with water again.  “At least it works…kind of.”  She unpacked her things, which meant opening her suitcases since there was nowhere to hang anything or put anything.  She spread sheets on the lumpy mattress and tried to make the place feel a little bit like home.

When it began to get dark, Malika looked around for light switches.  She went through both rooms a second and third time, and then she began to panic.  “No electricity?”  With no candles, she was in the dark.  “But I will freeze.”  That was an exaggeration.  It was June, but it wouldn’t be too many months before it would be very cold up here in South Dakota.  She heard the howl of a wolf or something and then a loud knock at her door.  She stood in the middle of the room, frightened out of her wits, and the knock came again.  “Who is it?”  She asked the question much too quietly to be heard.

“Malika?  It’s Kevin.”

Malika thought she would never hear from him again, but she was more than happy to answer the door.  He stood there tall and muscular, holding a lantern in one hand.  He offered a slight smile.

“Thought you might need this.”

“Thanks, but I…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t know if you want it?”

“I don’t know how to use it, okay?”

He walked inside, passing by Malika who just stood there wondering if the man was smug or what exactly he was trying to do other than make her feel uncomfortable.  “Here, I will show you.”  He left her with lighter fluid and a box of matches.  “Try not to burn the place down.”

Malika watched him as he walked out the door.  His actions were sincere, but his attitude she could not figure out.  Was he mocking me?  Whatever he was doing, it was good to have a little bit of light in the place.  One old chair sat in the living room and from its appearance Malika guessed that it had been there for years.  She sat down and the chair sunk nearly to the floor.  She felt something hard tucked into the side of the cushion and pulled it out.  It was an old book and the title had been smudged so badly she couldn’t read it.  When she opened the book, she saw a black and white photograph of a man who was the spitting image of Kevin.  The book was a biography of a Native American war leader of the Lakota Sioux whose name was Crazy Horse.  Malika began reading about the man whose name meant “His Horse Is Crazy” or “His Horse Is Spirited.”  He was a hero to the people of the reservation and had fought against the U.S. government as they stole the very souls of the Lakota Sioux.  She read in disbelief the numerous ways in which the people of the region had been harmed.  The government wanted their land and they wanted to force them to speak English and forget about their native language and their ways of life.  “Is it any wonder they drink now?  They were stripped of their own culture, and yet they are not a part of the American culture.  We’ve denied them that.”  She read about Wounded Knee Creek which was one of the few things she already knew about the region.  The bones and heart of Crazy Horse were believed to be buried along the creek.

She read further about the United States ordering the army to massacre the Sioux while they were being forced to the Pine Ridge reservation.  “How awful!  I didn’t read about that in my U.S. History classes.  Guess my beloved country chose not to air their dirty laundry in public.”  Never had there been any mention of the Crazy Horse Memorial which the book stated was the largest sculpture in the world.  Everyone knew about Mount Rushmore, but Malika had never heard of the Crazy Horse sculpture.  “Oh, it isn’t finished yet.  But if it was begun in 1935, wouldn’t I have heard something about it or wouldn’t some teacher have mentioned it at some point?”

As Malika read more, she learned about the region and how the people were and still are treated by the government.  There was a second photograph of a much younger Crazy Horse and Malika gasped when she noticed it.  “Now this could be Kevin.”  The man in the photograph could have been Kevin’s twin.  Was he somehow related to the Indian war hero?  The light in the lantern flickered and died.  Malika had been reading for longer than she realized.  It was well after midnight.  She tucked the book into the side of the chair where she had found it, and tried to make a comfortable place to sleep in the unfamiliar surroundings.  There was only one clock in the little cabin, the one that Malika had brought with her.  The old wind up clock was one of the few things that worked in the place and she set the alarm for early the following morning.

At seven the next morning, the alarm buzzed, and Malika reached for the little clock.  She gathered her morning supplies of bath gel, shampoo, and smiled as she thought of a nice hot bath to get her ready for her first day of teaching.  She had taken two steps toward the “bathroom” when her smile faded.  “I have no bathtub, no shower, and the toilet is very close to its last flush.”  She opened her compact, the only mirror in the cabin, and saw a complete mess.  “I look like pond scum.”  With only forty-five minutes to prepare for the day, Malika pulled her hair into a ponytail and pulled a wet wipe from the package she had purchased at the airport.  She wiped her face as well as the rest of her body as best she could, applied a little bit of makeup hoping not to look like a clown, and dressed in jeans and a blouse.  No one had mentioned a dress code, but she thought that jeans fit very well here.

At eight o’clock, Kevin knocked on the door.  “I see the place is still standing.  Guess you figured out the lamp.”

“Yes, I did.”  She stared at him, trying to remember the men whose photographs in the book looked just like him.

“What’s with you?  Are you trying to stare a hole through me?”

“No.  I’m just a little tired.”

“You’ll get used to that.  But we don’t have time to hear all the atrocities which have clearly befallen you.”  He stared at Malika’s blouse as he said it, and she wondered if he could tell that it was a designer blouse.

“I didn’t see any cooking supplies.”

“You can eat at the school.  I’m sure it has been months since your last meal.”

Malika didn’t know about this man.  He could be sweet and helpful, but his sweet words could be quickly followed by veiled sarcasm, or not so veiled sarcasm.  He could be just plain rude or maybe he was abrupt.  Was it just his way?  One thing was certain.  The man was damned hot!  “How far is it to the school?”

“See that building?  That’s the school.  As of tomorrow, you walk.  I’m not providing a taxi service.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to,” she answered.  How could anyone be that sarcastic so early in the morning?  She could walk the distance of what was approximately two city blocks.  She had walked a lot farther across campus every day.  Malika couldn’t stop watching Kevin.  Every chance she got, she would glance over at him, marveling at how much he resembled the photographs of Crazy Horse.

“Does your family live here?”

“Yes.”

“Your grandmother was nice.  Is your grandfather here?”

Kevin stopped the jeep at the school, placed his muscled arm on the back of the seat, and turned toward Malika.  “Am I a Sioux?  Am I an Indian?  Am I one of the drunken Indians you have heard about?”

“I didn’t say that.  I didn’t say any of that.  I wasn’t even thinking anything of the sort.”

That same slight smile came across his lips and Malika couldn’t interpret its meaning.  “I am one hundred percent Lakota Sioux.  Does that answer your question?”

“No.  That was not my question.  I asked if your grandfather was here.”

“Grandfather is dead, as are my parents.  Grandmother is my family.”

Kevin’s eyes continued to stare into Malika’s and she tried desperately to hold back the tear that was ready to fall at any moment.  He nodded toward the school.  “This is where the taxi ride ends.”

Malika opened the door of the jeep and in a flash Kevin’s hands were at her waist helping her down.  How does he do that?  Sweet and sour, I guess.  “Thanks.”

He nodded slightly, his nod as slight as his smile, and Malika watched as he drove off.  She opened the door to the school expecting to find many classrooms with happy smiling children, but there were very few children and only four small classrooms.