Gardens in the Dunes (3 page)

Before deep snow came, Grandma Fleet went with the others to the mountains to gather piñons, pine nuts, and acorns, but they often did not have enough to eat in the winter. The hotel did not have as many winter guests to dirty the linens, so there was not as much work for Mama. The white man who managed the hotel allowed her to take home vegetable crates and other wood scraps to burn on cold nights. As sheets or towels became badly frayed or stained, their mother showed the linens to the hotel manager; if he agreed, she was allowed to take the rags home. When someone smoking in bed burned a blanket, Mama brought home the half of the blanket that remained, and with a quilting needle made from a sharpened wire and string Grandma Fleet retrieved from the dump, Mama sewed them a family quilt with the singed blanket and the ragged towels.

On the coldest days, when the winds whipped the snow and sleet into a blizzard, the four of them huddled together under the family quilt in their lean-to. Grandma Fleet and Mama told the girls old stories about the land of perpetual summer, far to the south, where the ground actually smoldered on the hottest days. Mama recalled her captivity at Fort Yuma, where the army tents filled with white heat at midday and sometimes caught fire. Sister Salt and Indigo imagined the summer heat, and the cold winds were not so oppressive. How delicious the warmth of the fire felt, but fire was also dangerous near the dry willows and scrap lumber of the lean-to. At bedtime, the fire was damped with dry river sand, and Grandma Fleet scraped away the sand floor in the middle of their lean-to and buried hot coals under layers of sand to keep them warm as they slept together under the big quilt. The cold winters made Grandma Fleet homesick for the south, for her dugout house at the old gardens. The refugees might have eaten everything in sight at the old gardens, but her dugout house with its fine roof of layered palm fronds was much more weather-tight, much nicer than the empty packing crates they called home in Needles. The hard years passed slowly.

One day a white man and two Indian policemen walked through the lean-tos. The Indian policemen called out; if someone came to the door, the white man wrote in his black book and they moved to the next shack. Mama was still at work, but Grandma Fleet knew immediately why the men were there. She told Sister Salt and Indigo to hide, quickly, under the big quilt. Whatever happens, she told them, don't make a sound, don't move. Grandma Fleet watched the government men move from shack to shack; when only two other shacks but theirs remained, Grandma Fleet sat down on top of the quilt. She almost sat on Sister Salt's head, but she moved, and Indigo moved her foot that Grandma was sitting on. They got themselves arranged, then Grandma spread her basket-making materials and a half-woven basket around her. She pretended to be crippled when the Indian policemen called her outside. She invited them to step inside, knowing they would refuse; the white man was afraid of disease and the Indian policemen feared witchcraft. They asked to see the two children reported to live there. Grandma Fleet pretended to cry; oohhh, she moaned, she was all alone now, an old woman all alone. The Indian police were not satisfied with her answers; they whispered to each other. They wanted to know about the others. They knew the Paiute women lied, because there were complaints about Paiute children begging for money from passengers at the depot. The Paiute children belonged in school. All Indian children must go to school; that was the law. Grandma Fleet pretended she was afraid of the Paiutes and claimed to know nothing about them. The Indian policemen conferred with their boss.

“Old Sand Lizard woman, dirt digger! You're lying! We'll drag you off to prison with all the rest of them!” one of the Indian police muttered as they left.

Grandma Fleet did not move for a long time after the police left in case it was a trick and they returned. Indigo squirmed because the circulation to her left foot was cut off by Grandma's leg; Sister Salt pinched her to make her be still, so Indigo kicked her in the shin. Grandma Fleet finally stood up and walked to the doorway to look both ways before she pulled back the quilt.

“It's a good thing they were gone when you girls started your commotion!” she said, shaking her head sternly. That evening when their mother came home from work she had news: the government man and Indian police had taken away six Walapai children to school. Grandma Fleet said it was time to go back to the old gardens; Sister Salt was almost a young woman and Indigo was just the age to be sent away to school. Mama agreed
but wanted to work at the hotel a little bit longer so they could buy supplies to take back with them; they would have enough money if she worked awhile longer.

Each day while Mama and Sister Salt were at their work in town, Grandma Fleet took Indigo with her. Some days they prowled the arroyos to gather willows for basket making; other days they walked in the sand and sagebrush hills outside town to gather grass seeds to grind into flour. Most days Grandma Fleet and Indigo ended with a walk through the town dump, where they surveyed the refuse and Indigo scrambled down the sides of the garbage pits to retrieve valuables the townspeople carelessly threw away. String, paper, scraps of cloth, glass jars and bottles, tin cans, and bits of wire—they washed their discoveries in the shallows of the river and reused them. Grandma Fleet saved seeds discarded from vegetables and fruits to plant at the old gardens when they returned; she poked her stick through the debris in garbage piles behind the café and hotel. Grandma kept her seeds in the little glass jars with lids they found at the dump; she kept the jars of seeds in her bedding for safekeeping. The apricot pits were her special favorites because she remembered the apricot trees of her childhood at the old gardens. Grandma Fleet held the jar up close to her face and spoke to the seeds;

“Mmmm! You will be my little sweethearts, my little apricot trees!”

♦   ♦   ♦

Grandma Fleet planned to take along Sister Salt and Indigo when she returned to the old gardens after the winter rains arrived; their mother would send food and make visits from time to time. That winter more people came from the north; remnants of many desert tribes, mostly children and women, came to Needles because the winter was so hard and they were so poor.

The Paiute visitors told a strange story; their people were starving but they were not worried because they were waiting for someone, someone named Messiah. A Paiute prophet named Wovoka died and visited Messiah, who gave him instructions to take back to the people. The Paiute women described encampments of hundreds of people all dancing in a circle as Wovoka instructed. The Paiutes were reluctant to talk about Wovoka because many white people feared and hated Wovoka. If white authorities heard the Indians even speak the name, there was trouble. Far to the north there were rumors the soldiers killed dozens of dancers.

On cold mornings, smoke from the campfires drifted across the sky
above the river. Now the lean-tos and shacks extended up and down the sandy floodplain on the west side of the river. Their life was different now that there were more people living around them. The smell of roasting meat became more familiar, and so did the sound of voices and laughter at night. A few Paiute boys and old men appeared later on; they stayed in the camp or hunted the river dunes for rabbits. The men were careful not to show themselves in town.

Mama made friends with a Paiute woman who talked about Wovoka. Wovoka lived an ordinary life until one day he died and saw Jesus in heaven. Jesus was sad and angry at what had been done to the Earth and to all the animals and people. Jesus promised Wovoka that if the Paiutes and all the other Indians danced this dance, then the used-up land would be made whole again and the elk and the herds of buffalo killed off would return. The dance was a peaceful dance, and the Paiutes wished no harm to white people; but Jesus was very angry with white people. As the people danced, great storm clouds would gather over the entire world. Finally, when all the Indians were dancing, great winds would roar out of clear skies, winds the likes of which were never seen before; the winds, for weeks without end, would blow away all the topsoil and strip the trees of all leaves. The winds would dry up all the white people and all the Indians who followed the white man's ways, and they would blow away with the dust.

The Paiute woman had seen Jesus surrounded by hundreds of Paiutes and Shoshones and other Indians who heard Jesus was coming. Jesus wore a white coat with bright red stripes; he wore moccasins on his feet. His face was dark and handsome, his eyes black and shining. He had no beard or whiskers, but thick eyebrows. The people built a big fire to throw light on him. Then, as Jesus sang, hundreds and hundreds of people began to dance in a circle around him. They danced until late at night, when Jesus told them to stop. The next morning Jesus talked to them, and talked all day. He told them all Indians must dance, everywhere, and keep on dancing. If they danced the dance, then they would be able to visit their dear ones and beloved ancestors. The ancestor spirits were there to help them. They must keep dancing. They must not quarrel and must treat one another kindly. If they kept dancing, great storms would purify the Earth of her destroyers. The clear running water and the trees and the grassy plains filled with buffalo and elk would return.

The Paiute woman said when the dancers saw their dead friends and
family members, they fell to the ground shaking and twitching, then lay silent. When they woke up, they all were happy and excited because they had seen the Earth reborn.

Grandma Fleet said all that was fine and good, but why had these Paiutes run away from the Christ and his dance? Mama shook her head. There were rumors the soldiers were on their way to kill the Messiah and all his dancers. Grandma Fleet shook her head. She wished the Paiutes could have stayed up north, but they had no choice. Now that there were so many Indians living along the river, the white people watched them more closely. Grandma Fleet had watched white people long enough to know they would tolerate a few Indian women and children so long as there was no trouble. But white people got uneasy when they saw numbers of Indians gathered in one place.

One cold morning Sister Salt awoke to the sounds of hundreds of crows. Mama and Indigo were still sleeping but Grandma was up. She had already made a little fire and was squatting next to it. The air smelled moist. The sky was overcast with thick gray snow clouds that dimmed the sun's light. Sister Salt peered in the direction of the cottonwood trees that towered above the riverbank; dozens of crows darkened the bare pale branches of the trees. The birds frolicked, swooping and circling above the trees, playing chase. Grandma gave her a tin can full of warm tea brewed from wildflowers she helped Grandma gather in early fall. Grandma Fleet studied the crows; ordinarily, there were only ten or twelve resident crows, who roosted in the cottonwood trees above the river and roamed the town dump, hopping along the ground with their wings spread as they searched for tidbits. Later that day Grandma Fleet talked with the Paiute woman and learned the flocks of crows were a sign that Wovoka and the Messiah were coming.

One evening after sundown, Sister Salt and Indigo came home from selling baskets at the depot to a strange spectacle: the river sand a short distance from the camp had been cleared of pebbles and debris. Indigo took one look and stopped short. A fire had been built in the middle of the smoothed area and dancers moved slowly in a circle around a fire. The earth under the dancers' feet was the color of old blood. She didn't want to go any closer. The hair and faces of the dancers were painted completely white, and they were all wrapped in white shawls. The girls did not recognize anyone. Sister Salt guided Indigo by the arm away from the dancers and toward home, but nothing looked the same. Someone had gone from shack to
shack painting big streaks of ocher red around the entrances; it wasn't dried blood but finely ground red clay. Indigo cautiously touched a finger to the red clay and was about to taste it when Sister Salt batted her finger down; the red clay belonged to the spirits.

The girls hurried to their lean-to. So many people had come; their small bundles and ragged bedrolls were neatly stacked outside their lean-tos of willow branches. They passed a campfire where people were lined up waiting to be painted by a stranger and his two assistants. When they reached home they found red clay dust smeared over the scrap lumber of the doorway, and red dust was even sprinkled on the floor inside, but Mama and Grandma Fleet were not there. The ashes in the fire pit were cold. Sister Salt hid the baskets under the quilt and they went out again to find Mama and Grandma Fleet.

The winter sun was weak and low in the sky, and a cold wind prowled out of the mountains and swirled around the camp. Indigo gripped Sister Salt's hand; gusts of wind flung stinging sand into their faces. Grandma and Mama used to talk about the celebrations in the old days when everyone came to dance and to feast and to give thanks for a good year. The people had not celebrated for years, not since Sister Salt was a baby. They did not see any familiar faces; in one afternoon, hundreds of strangers had arrived. But where were Mama and Grandma?

They slowly approached the line of people waiting to be painted, looking for a familiar face—the neighbor lady, anyone who could tell them the whereabouts of Mama and Grandma. Indigo's dress did not reach her ankles so she huddled down, trying to keep the cold wind off her legs. Sister Salt was wrapped in a piece of an old rug the hotel man gave to Mama. The people stepped back so the girls could warm themselves by the fire, and Sister Salt recognized the Paiute woman who lived next door.

“Have you seen our grandmother or mother?” she asked. The woman nodded and pointed in the direction of the dancers in the circle. The girls started to go, but the woman shook her head and motioned for them to come to her.

“You must not disturb your mother or your grandmother,” the woman told them. “They are dancing. They won't recognize you.” The woman looked at Indigo, who was shivering, and motioned for one of the men applying the white clay paint. The man reached down to a big bundle near his feet and pulled out a piece of white canvas. The woman helped Indigo adjust the shawl around her shoulders; the white cloth reached past her ankles;
its warmth was delicious. The woman helped Indigo wrap it just as the people dancing had wrapped themselves.