Disgraced (24 page)

THIRTY-EIGHT

The women stacked small
squares of red crepe paper in piles of six, pleating each pile with brown fingers so gnarled as to seem incapable of such dainty work. Each woman selected a long green wire from the pile in the middle of the table and wrapped one end tight around the middle of the pleated sheets. They wielded scissors with deft sharp snips, triangling the ends of the sheaves, bits of red paper floating down around their ankles like bloodied snowflakes. The paper rustled and whispered a conversation of its own beneath the elders' desultory voices.

“Cold's holding off. Good thing. Want to get these in the ground before a hard freeze.”

“But not too long before Veterans Day. Don't want them to be all faded for the ceremony. Hey, Dolores. Why you make your flowers so big, hey?” Laughter all around, eyes glazed with age crinkling at the corners, hands lifted to cover toothless grins.

“She wants Mike's grave to shine bright.”

Dolores, a big woman, puffed larger, suddenly fierce in aspect, not unlike the chicken she'd pawned off on her unsuspecting victims some months earlier. “Don't he deserve it, though?”

Smiles vanished. The women's hands stilled. Even the paper held its breath.

“That other boy. The one killed ours. He's in jail now, right?”

“Long time. They got him on the murder. Still working through the rape thing.”

“Huh. Maybe in jail, he finds out what that's like. That girl gets justice one way or the other. Bet he cry for his mama. Big boys like him, they always cry. So brave until it's them.” Lips stretched in expressions too frightening to be termed smiles.

The eldest among them, a woman so small her head barely edged the tabletop despite the cushion thoughtfully placed beneath her bony rear, took it upon herself to bring the flower-makers back to their proper mood. “So, Dolores, you've moved yourself right in with Delbert. You got your man.”

Scissors flashed in Dolores' hands. She spoke righteous as the new preacher at the reservation's fundamentalist church, who no doubt would be scandalized by the women's conversation. “Him and that girl, they're setting up to ranch again, just like Delbert and her father used to do. Going to get themselves some cow-calf pairs, see if they can make a go of it. Last thing he needs to worry about is cooking, keeping house.”

“Oh. You're
looking after
him.”

Dolores fluffed a carnation so assertively she shredded the petals. She tossed it onto the floor.

“He keep you up all night? That why you're so clumsy today with your flowers?”

Shoulders shook. Laughter pealed. Order was restored.

The cold held off, one balmy day after another, aspen trembling golden on the flanks of the Winds, sky an ethereal blue, even the wind briefly becalmed. Harsh edges seemed softer. Wyoming briefly became the place on postcards, calendars, tourism brochures. Newcomers publicly complimented themselves for their great good sense in moving there. Old-timers held their tongues and spent as much time outdoors as possible, storing up the bluebird days against the inevitable.

The Shoshone elders scooped armfuls of the paper flowers into black plastic leaf bags and handed them off to young people with strong thighs and backs, who spent a weekend pulling the old, faded flowers from the humped graves in the Sacajawea Cemetery and inserting the new stems into the ground, one close by the other, until a scarlet blanket adorned each grave. At the last minute, Dolores decided she didn't trust anyone else to give the job the attention it deserved. Despite her arthritis and Delbert's various aches and pains, they spent a long afternoon kneeling beside Mike's grave, placing flower after flower, stopping frequently to sit and stroke the surface of the dirt, crumbling the larger clods and patting them smooth.

Two weeks later, they were back. Winter came with them, the sky grey and heavy and unyielding as steel, a great weight pressing down on the small crowd assembled at the cemetery. A rude wind spit snow into the wrinkled faces of the elders, tore at the eagle feathers on the veterans' war bonnets, tossed the buckskin fringes dangling from the lances, and snatched the honor song from the drum and carried it away. The veterans, Delbert among them, slitted their eyes against it and held heads high. Pal waited off to one side with Shirl Dillon. She had insisted that this shattered man, who now bore the shame that once burdened Delbert, join them. “Your son, Cody,” she said, “at least he was sorry. He punished himself. Not like those others.”

Charlie and Lola and Margaret stood beside them. Margaret tugged with mittened hands at the scarf wrapped around the lower part of her face. Lola's own hands were bare. She clasped them together against the cold, the fingers of her right hand worrying the tiny diamond ring on the third finger of her left. The ring was a compromise—Lola's acknowledgement of someday, along with Charlie's that something flashier would have represented too strong a push. Charlie took her hands in his own, enfolding them in warmth. They turned toward Mike's grave. A veteran, one of the younger ones, pulled a bugle from beneath his arm, where he had tucked it for warmth. He raised it to his lips. Lola's eyes met Pal's. The two women nodded, then faced front as the sound of taps rose and bumped against the sky and hovered there above them as Mike St. Clair was finally accorded the honor he deserved.

the end

Acknowledgements

So many people to thank: The empress of editors, Terri Bischoff, and the rest of the Midnight Ink crew—development coordinator Kathy Schneider, publicist Katie Mickschl, freelance editor Gabrielle Simons, proofreader Melissa Mierva, book designer Bob Gaul, and cover designer Ellen Lawson; also, to agent Barbara Braun.

Deep gratitude to Glenda Trosper of the Eastern Shoshone Tribal Council, who patiently answered my questions; J.J. Hensley for an early read; Tom Avril, whose story about his Aunt Pearl's Fourth of July celebration I appropriated for my own purposes; and my niece, Gina Florio Sous, for lending the name of her diabolical cat, Jemalina, to my fictional and equally diabolical chicken.

The Badasses, the lovely Badasses—Jamie Raintree, Kate Moretti, Aimie Runyan, Andrea Catalano, Orly Konig Lopez, and Theresa Allen—helped keep both my writing and my sanity on an even keel.

Profound appreciation for my partner, Scott Crichton, and his unwavering support for this crazy writing life. All love to my children, Kate Breslin, whose fearlessness gave me my Margaret, and Sean Breslin.

About the Author

Veteran journalist Gwen Florio has covered stories ranging from the shootings at Columbine High School and the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, to the glitz of the Miss America pageant and the more practical Miss Navajo contest whose participants slaughter a sheep. She's reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, as well as Lost Springs, Wyoming (population three). Her journalism has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize and her short fiction for the Pushcart Prize.
Disgraced
is her debut Midnight Ink novel. Learn more at http://gwenflorio.net/.