Dorothea, Marjorie, and Rosalynn stood eagerly pressed against the streaked windows, watching the couple and clapping, remembering days long ago when they had whispered beneath a blanket with a lover;
or had shaken the package of their future, trying to see inside; had maybe even danced in the rain. Cassie listened to the rich, woven sound of the old women’s laughter, a different kind of music entirely, which seemed as fresh as the giggles of young, courted girls.
She stared into Will’s eyes as they crossed the threshold into the storm. Splashing through puddles, she could feel herself stepping on his feet, feel the baby in her rolling slow, feel the rain cool against her cheeks. It washed everything away. For a lovely, sodden moment, Cassie truly believed that it could stay like this.
HALFWAY BETWEEN MARJORIE TWO FISTS’S HOUSE AND HER OWN home, Dorothea sat down to think about the ways that history repeated itself. It wasn’t that she was tired, or that the bag that contained her beadwork had suddenly grown too heavy. It was that all of a sudden the spirit of Anne, her late daughter-in-law, had been walking beside her, and the frost of her breath on Dorothea’s neck made it impossible to go any farther.
Zachary, Dorothea’s only child, had fallen in love with the white schoolteacher thirty-six years earlier, and although she had never wanted to hurt her own son, Dorothea had done everything in her power to stop the attraction. She had left the appropriate roots and dried flowers under Zachary’s mattress; she had prayed to the spirits; she had even consulted Joseph Stands in Sun. But this was meant to be. In fact, the day that Anne left Pine Ridge to distance herself from Zachary, the day that Zachary saddled a horse and rode miles to find her, Dorothea had been standing only yards away, watching the whole thing and shaking her head.
Dorothea would never have admitted it at the time, but Anne became her obsession. When it was clear that Zachary was going to marry her come hell or high water, Dorothea told him not to expect her as a wedding guest. But she made a point of watching the woman who would be her daughter much more closely. She stood outside the classroom of the school where Anne taught and familiarized herself with the lifts and valleys of her voice. She followed her into the general store and kept track of the items Anne bought: talcum powder, ginger drops, blue eyeshadow. She went to the government offices and memorized her credentials, her blood type, her Social Security number.
Three days before the wedding Anne had fallen asleep beneath a cottonwood outside Dorothea’s house while waiting for Zachary. Dorothea had silently knelt beside her and touched the incredibly translucent skin of her cheek. Mesmerized, she crouched for nearly ten minutes, committing to mind the map of pale veins that crossed the white line of Anne’s throat.
“What are you doing here?” Anne asked in English when she woke up.
“I might ask you the same thing,” Dorothea said, speaking Lakota.
Anne struggled to a sitting position, aware that ‘Waiting for Zack’
was not the answer to the question Dorothea was really asking. “I love him just as much as you do,” Anne said quietly.
“That,” Dorothea answered, “could be the problem.”
She stood, ready to make her way back into her house, but she was stopped by Anne’s voice. “I’d like you to come to the wedding,” Anne called out, in Lakota.
Dorothea immediately switched to English. “I won’t set foot in a white man’s church,” she said.
“Still,” Anne said, almost casually, “I’ll see you there.”
Dorothea whirled around. “And how do you know this?”
Anne smiled. “Because nothing could keep you away.”
The day of the wedding, Cyrus had begged Dorothea to reconsider, if only for Zack’s sake, but Dorothea remained in her housecoat, sitting on the worn brown couch. The minute he left, however, she dressed and walked to the nearest road, hitchhiking her way into town. She arrived at the church, and true to her word, stayed outside, peeking through a crack in the makeshift wooden walls. The minister was offering his final blessing, after the damage had been done. Muttering to herself, Dorothea watched Zachary’s dark hand gently squeeze his new wife’s.
When Dorothea looked up, Anne wasn’t staring, besotted, at Zack, or even paying attention to the minister. She was half turned to the back of the church, looking right through the crack in the wall at Dorothea. She winked.
Dorothea stumbled backward into the dusty street, and then she let herself laugh. It was the first of many times her daughter-in-law had exceeded her expectations. The first of many times Dorothea had admitted to herself how much she liked Anne, how much respect she had for her, and—now that she was gone—how much she missed her.
“You know that after the accident, Zack let go because of you,”
Dorothea said aloud. “He wouldn’t have lived without you.” She knew it would be that way with herself and Cyrus, too—once one of them joined the spirit world, the other would die quickly so they would be together again. It had taken Dorothea years to understand, but now she was a firm believer: love was that way. You could not render it in black and white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of gray.
CASSIE SAT BESIDE CYRUS ON A LOW FOLDING BEACH CHAIR IN THE shade, waiting for the beginning of the Sun Dance. The four flags at the top of the sacred pole waved in the dry wind: white, yellow, red, and black, like the four races of man. An eagle looped lazily overhead, which sent a cheer up from the observers. “Good medicine,” Cyrus whispered to Cassie.
It was the final day of the powwow, and Cassie was entranced. She had walked with Dorothea among the heavily laden trading tables, picking out a wide hammered bracelet for herself and a brightly woven swaddling blanket for her unborn child. She had peeked into the canvas tipis set up by the families who lived farther away, amazed at the juxtaposition of eagle-feathered war bonnets and Levi’s blue jeans, draped side by side on wire hangers.
Today was the last day of the Sun Dance, the most sacred dance of the festivities, the only one that required months of preparation and training on the part of the participants. Cyrus had not told her much about it, just that it was a ceremony in praise of the sun, a ritual for growth and for renewal. For the past three days, Will had been one of the dancers, much to Cassie’s surprise and delight. She liked seeing him dressed like the others, stamping and whirling around the central pole the way his ancestors had been doing for years. “I don’t know what made you do it,” she had told him after the first day of dancing, “but you’re a wonderful Indian when you try.” And Will had grinned at her, had almost looked proud to see himself through her eyes.
Cassie sat forward as the men filed out of the sacred lodge, led by Joseph Stands in Sun. Like him, they were all wearing long red kilts, their chests striped with blue paint. They wore wreaths on their heads woven of sage, and they carried eagle-bone whistles. Cassie tried to catch Will’s eye as he moved past her, to wish him luck or to say break a leg, but he kept his face turned up to the sky.
Joseph Stands in Sun walked up to Will, waiting beneath the forked cottonwood pole. He murmured something in Lakota, and then lifted a bright silver skewer. For a moment he held it up, and Cassie watched the sun reflect off its polished, speared tip. Joseph leaned close to Will, whose back stiffened. It was not until Joseph brandished a second skewer that Cassie realized that the medicine man had pierced the skin of Will’s chest, that blood was running down his stomach.
Like the other dancers’, Will’s two skewers were tied to rawhide thongs that dangled down from the top of the sacred pole. With Joseph leading them, the men began to dance, much as they had the other three days. The drums beat, but no louder than Cassie’s pulse. She gripped the armrests of her chair, her face drawn and white.
“You knew,” she whispered to Cyrus, although she did not take her eyes from Will. “You knew and didn’t tell me.”
Will whirled and sang. His entire chest was slick with blood, since every time he twisted he tore the wounds. He pretended to pull away from the skewers, and Cassie stared, horrified, as his skin stretched to its limit.
