The Bones of Paradise (26 page)

“Larson Dye, ma'am,” he introduced himself, although Dulcinea used to know him and his wife, who died in the diphtheria epidemic years before.

“Yes, I remember, Mr. Dye. Please come in.”

He nodded at Rose, and she ducked her head shyly.

“We were just discussing whether we could purchase some chickens from you tomorrow. If you have any to spare?” Dulcinea said.

Larson Dye appeared surprised, his head startling to the side as if she had slapped him. He struggled to form the words, and she remembered he had a slight stutter when nervous. He must have practiced his greeting on the way over.

“See, that's just it!” he managed to say. “I brought you a whole crate! I, I didn't figure, since J.B, and you come back, and all.”

“Why thank you.” Dulcinea offered her hand, which he stared at as if he had no idea what to do with it. Then he daintily held the tips of her fingers, moved them up and down two inches, and let go.

The men in J.B.'s study burst out laughing, and Larson Dye's head swiveled in their direction, confusion on his face.

“I'm sure you know the other men. Care to join them?” She gestured for him to give her his hat and he handed it over reluctantly, nodded once to Rose and once to her, and ambled through the parlor to the men.

“At least that one brought something. Crate of chickens won't last long, though.” Rose was interrupted by the sudden wild squawking of the chickens and the cracking of wood.

“The dogs!” The crate, chickens, and dogs were rammed against the door, and by the time they opened it, the crate was reduced to splinters, chickens running blindly into the dark, and the black-and-white dog stood with a dead bird hanging half out of his mouth. Since they were better trained, the other dogs simply whined and barked at him.

They closed the door and leaned against it, shoulders shaking with laughter they didn't want the dog to hear.

“Guess there'll be a hunting party tomorrow. Fresh deer or antelope. Turkey if they can get close, or grouse.” Rose stretched and yawned. “I should leave you to your suitors.” The merry expression returned to her eyes and a smile tugged at her lips.

“If anyone else shows up on this doorstep, shoot them,” Dulcinea said.

W
hen the Sioux family stopped at the ranch in late November of 1890 to trade for food, their story of the coming messiah and the dancing that would welcome him stayed with J.B. until he finally left Higgs in charge, took Hayward, and rode up to Rushville, arriving midmorning. He wasn't a religious man, but he'd heard rumors of the Indians gathering since summer and decided to see for himself. If he could find Dulcinea, he'd leave the boy with her. He tried the telegraph office, but couldn't give them her address so he gave up on that notion and thought maybe he'd see her in town. The place was teeming with cavalry troops, newspaper writers, politicians, and curious citizens.

Unable to secure a bed for the night, J.B. had to choose between returning to the ranch and pushing on. Despite the boy's cries of hunger and sobs of Mama, Mama, J.B. held him in the front of his saddle. By the time they rode up to the military encampment, Sibley tents stretched wide across the flat landscape, while the thin winter light outlined every object as if it were drawn by a sharp pencil. The tents glowed white against the brown grass and dirt, and the horses in the rope corrals were silent, hipshot, heads down.
The smoke from cooking fires and mess tents rose lazily into the white-gray sky.

On a small rise to his right, J.B. saw a man with a box camera on a tripod sighting on the camp in the late-afternoon light. Across the country newspapers printed drawings based on photographs of the Lakota encampment, the dancing, and the cavalry. He figured their reports were largely exaggerated. The
Omaha Bee
one of the worst for rumors and outright lies. The
Omaha Herald
tried harder for the truth, but it eluded them when there were powerful money and business interests at stake. He wondered what the government wanted here. He'd heard the Indian agent, Royer, was a fool and a coward, and called in the troops as soon as he could to stop the dancing. Some of J.B.'s men bragged about coming here to fight the “murdering redskins” and to save the white women and children who had earned their rightful place on Indian land. Another reason to come see for himself. If he had to hold his men at gunpoint, he would.

After a night on the hard ground, J.B. woke covered in blankets soaked with cold dew and frost. He saddled their horses and woke Hayward at sunrise. He didn't want any further discussion, and refused to gratify Hayward's desire to spend time with the rough soldiers. Once the boy was mounted, J.B. handed him two cold biscuits stuffed with bacon and a canteen of fresh water. He could eat like a cowboy on the trail. Last night he heard that Drum was prowling, and he wanted to avoid him if possible.

The dancing was well under way when they reached the Indian encampment, and J.B. was stunned by the number of tipis and people. Pulling up beside two white men in a buggy along the ragged edge of spectators, he used his binoculars to scan the dancers and supporters. The only guns seemed to be in the hands of young men acting as guards, who blocked anyone who tried to break into the circle and disrupt the dance. Women wore white cotton dresses with blue around the V-neck, painted with flowers and birds and animals. Men wore pale blue shirts painted with butterflies, buffalo, deer, and flowers . . . the life they would bring back when the
road to the spirit world opened again. Later, he was told the people believed their garments bulletproof, but that story only appeared among whites after the cavalry drew close and trained their guns on the dancers, who fled to the Stronghold and Wounded Knee Creek.

The dancers moved slowly around the circle, lifting legs with the beat of the big five- and six-man drums. Soon J.B. felt the drumbeat move into his own body; his blood pulsed in his veins, throbbed in his head, demanded he keep count. Beside him, Hayward lifted his feet and knees in rhythm, too. Powdered by months of dancing, the dirt gave beneath his feet, springing back as the earth answered his step. Thoughts began to recede in the distance, and he was on a long road away from the land he knew. The ground itself carried the thudding rhythm into his feet and up his legs. It climbed his spine and encircled his chest, shoulders, neck, and finally smothered his skull until he almost danced himself, his heart beating as one with the others.

“Stay with your pa, boy.” A stranger pulled Hayward back. J.B. nodded his thanks and looked down at the boy, who was as dazed as he was. Maybe they were both tired of being alone. He felt the hope here. Hope in the people dressed in rags, without shoes even in the cold, beloved children running and playing, dogs bouncing at their sides, patched and torn tipis with smoke trickling from the tops, big kettles of watery stew for the dancers outside the loose circle, old men and boys returning from the hunt with barely enough rabbits to feed themselves, the elderly and sick lying on the ground or propped on blankets around the circle so their spirits could encourage the dancers. None of it mattered as much as continuing the dance that would redeem their land and heal the rents the whites had torn in its fabric. J.B. was overwhelmed by the profound sadness: a vision of so much hope in a doomed world. What had he done? It was the first time he questioned his right to the land his father claimed, the land for which he had paid a terrible price.

“That's a scalp dance,” the bearded white man next to him announced.

“No, that's an Omaha dance. It's harmless. Women aren't part of a scalp dance,” another man said. J.B. glanced at him, noticed the priest's collar and black robe under the heavy black wool coat. Mission priest. He might know something. J.B. introduced himself and discovered one was a storekeeper from Gordon named Swan, and the other a Jesuit from the Rosebud mission school named Hansen, a tall, thin man with thick blond hair and pale blue eyes.

“There's that photographer fellow again, Morledge, he's been here since summer.” Swan pointed to a young man in dark clothing who drifted between groups, apparently welcome by all. “Goes out among them like he's on a Sunday picnic. Lucky if he doesn't leave that fine head of hair behind.” Swan was not to be persuaded about the dancers, despite the women and even children who danced through the next several hours without respite. If anything, the rhythmic chanting and steady nodding shuffle took them to the edge of transport, such as J.B. had seen in Missouri tent revivals as a young man. He had never felt it his place to decide another person's religion, and if the messiah appeared to other folks, so be it. He just hoped to make it through a day.

“Can I look?” Hayward stretched up a hand for the binoculars.

The priest nodded at J.B. as if to say he was doing a good job bringing the boy here to witness.

“Sure hope those troops get off their duffs and put a stop to this nonsense.” Swan pointed to the steady stream of Indian families making their way into the encampment. “Folks around here, whites that is, are scared to death they'll lose everything they've worked for now. Religion, my ass.” He snorted loudly.

“Those whites are squatters wanting to carve up more reservation, Mr. Swan,” the priest said, his tone dry.

“Indians don't use a tenth of what we gave them. They got no money and they won't work, what good are they? We beat 'em fair and square. Now the government gives them food so they don't have to farm. Beef so they don't have to ranch. Wish I could join
up!” He gave a war whoop and did an exaggerated dance step, knees rising like the great pistons of a draft horse.

The priest shook his head and glanced at J.B. with a smile. “Maybe you should.”

J.B. thought about the beef issue on annuity days that he'd witnessed last summer when it was so dry and the ranch struggling. He'd culled the best steers he could find and driven them to the reservation. The families standing on the perimeter looked half-starved and tried not to appear anxious for their cut of beef once their relative rode it down on horseback and shot it, a poor replica of their buffalo-hunting days that made the white spectators cheer and clap as if at Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. A quarter of skinny beef was to last each family a month, regardless of the number of children or relatives. Last month Royer, the Indian agent, suspended the allotment until the people stopped dancing, and now the families must be hungrier than ever. J.B.'s stomach clenched. If he could, he'd find a way to push some cattle to the reservation, maybe in a place that wasn't so heavily guarded. He'd think on that. Maybe the priest would help, unless he was starving them to accept his Christian god.

“Will you look at that young fellow!” Swan pointed toward the photographer, who had loaded his equipment on his horse and made his way toward the dance. The guards immediately stopped him, but after some negotiation, allowed him to join the crowd as long as he didn't unload his camera. J.B. nodded to the two men and led his horse toward the dance, his son behind him.

They stayed a day, talking and watching, sharing the food cooking in big pots over campfires in front of tipis. J.B. liked how his son seemed interested and open to anyone who came near, soon joking and sitting with younger boys and girls resting from the dance or joining in their games. Close to dark, J.B. accepted the priest's offer to spend the night in his tipi. At least they wouldn't wake to wet blankets. After a supper of cornmeal in a thin meat broth of some sort, a Ghost Dancer named Jack Red Cloud, son of the famous
chief and one of the first dancers, came to the tipi to discuss the increasing presence of the cavalry. A handsome young man with strong features, he posed the question that had bothered J.B. for months. Jack Red Cloud refused to look at the stranger as he addressed Father Hansen, and asked, “You have your religion, why won't you allow us to have ours?” The Jesuit shook his head once and stared at the fire in the center of the tipi, until finally he said, “It's not up to me. Ask the president. Ask Congress.”

“American Horse agrees with them, says don't fight the white government. We'll all be killed. How can that be right?” When the priest didn't reply, instead staring moodily into the fire, Jack Red Cloud stood and left, muttering to himself. J.B. was torn by the argument. He thought every person had the right to believe as they wanted, but the Indians were in a tricky position. Was it really so important to continue a doomed cause? The government was wrong to starve the families, but maybe the Indian leaders should consider their survival, instead of insisting on make-believe. But if it was make-believe, why were white people so upset about it? Surely they didn't believe the Indians regained their power by dancing. J.B. threw a stick on the fire, watched the flames lick then gather it in until it turned orange and powdered into red coals. He glanced at Hayward asleep in his blankets, dark blue circles under his eyes like bruises.

“They have to be careful,” the priest said with a sigh. “Big Foot is very sick, in the hands of the military. Who knows what they intend to do with him. Tribal factions and the military want Sitting Bull dead. Royer wants Little arrested, but the dancers protect him.” He hunched, holding himself. “This isn't going to end well. More people arriving daily. Indian agent calling for troops to stop the dance and the so-called threat. Man's a fool!” He suddenly stood and flung something into the fire that looked like a rosary. J.B. couldn't be sure as it sank into the ashes and disappeared.

J.B. left Pine Ridge after three days and felt he'd witnessed a historic moment: the conversion of thousands of people to a new religion. Everywhere he sat and talked to Indians who spoke only of living in peace with creation again, without war and hunger, a world where their children could return to their families and be raised in the traditional ways in harmony with the animals and all people. It was a Christian vision without hell and damnation. On his way back through the cavalry encampment, J.B. stopped at the tent of General Brooke. He explained his assessment, saying, “The Indians are only practicing their religious beliefs. It's peaceful. No threat at all.”

Brooke laughed openly at him. “All respect, sir, but you have no experience with these people.”

“There are a lot of elderly, women, and children out there. Hardly anyone has a gun. Most of the young men have died or run off,” J.B. protested.

The general nodded and stared at him. “You're lucky the hostiles didn't slit your throat or steal your guns, my friend. You don't know the force we're dealing with. They have weapons hidden all over that camp, and I intend to find them, or they will be made to pay.”

A glint in his eyes assured J.B. that the general believed his words, and would happily massacre the entire camp without a thought. The military seemed bent on retribution for Custer and the Seventh Cavalry's defeat at Little Bighorn. And when the Indians were finally blotted out, the Black Hills and all the reservation lands would be open for white settlement. The argument still raged in Congress. There was money to be made here.

J.B. went through Rushville again, and noted the train that arrived loaded with more troops, horses, and supplies, as if a major battle would soon be fought. It worried him, but he reassured himself that it was a religious celebration, nothing more. Surely the military would eventually recognize that. He stopped at the telegraph office again, noticed the Indian girl tidying the place. The operator, Crockett, was notorious for his slovenly ways, and it was a treat to
enter the room without the stench of sweat and garbage. When he asked after Dulcinea, Crockett shook his head, and from the waves of alcohol coming off him, J.B. felt he probably didn't understand the question. The Indian girl paused after Crockett stumbled to the back, and motioned him closer.

“Chadron,” she whispered. He thanked her and quickly composed a message saying he'd be in Rushville late December if she sent word. The girl looked at him, read the message, and glanced toward the other room where Crockett's drunken snores rattled the dishes. J.B. laid the coin on the counter and left reassured.