In Dahlia’s clan, they knew how to hunt and to cook, especially meat. As Big Candy told Sister Salt more than once, the person who prepares the food has more power than most people think. Candy grew up in the big kitchen where he helped his mother. That was why he preferred to work around women; he explained this to Sister Salt the night he returned from Needles with the Mojave woman. She wasn’t young but she wasn’t too old; she took one look at Sister Salt and the Mojave woman’s eyes clouded with hatred toward Sister. Big Candy only laughed when Sister complained to him later; he reminded her she didn’t work near the Mojave woman. He couldn’t let the Mojave woman go; she was a good worker. Business was booming and he needed every worker he had.
Money, money! Some nights the sound of coins seemed louder than the sounds of the earthmoving machines and woke Sister Salt two or three times during the night. She felt something or someone was about to come — maybe the letters Candy sent off would bring Indigo home — but she had not dreamed about Indigo or their mother for some time.
Right before dawn it got quiet for a while, and that’s when she got up to watch the earth. She walked to the high sandy hill above the river and looked all around: she could see how the vegetation would grow back someday, and no trace of the construction camp would remain. Even their dam would fill up with sand someday; then the river would spill over it, free again.
She gazed off to the southwest in the direction of the old gardens. She was homesick for the dunes, for the peacefulness and quiet; for the good sleep she had in Grandma Fleet’s dugout house, which was much cooler than a tent. She missed the cold clear water from the crack in the sandstone of the shallow cave above the dunes.
The only time she wasn’t homesick was when she was flirting with handsome strangers or lying with one of them on the sandy riverbank in the shade. The old-time Sand Lizard people believed sex with strangers was advantageous because it created a happy atmosphere to benefit commerce and exchange with strangers. Grandma Fleet said it was simply good manners. Any babies born from these unions were named “friend,” “peace,” and “unity”; they loved these babies just as fiercely as they loved all their Sand Lizard babies.
Sister Salt took her choice of the men willing to pay a dime for fun in the tall grass along the river. Maytha and Vedna said Chemehuevi-Laguna women like them knew how to enjoy life, but this Sand Lizard woman was lusty! Candy did not mind — he was making good money and busy himself. Her body belonged to her — it was none of his business.
“You can’t be everywhere all the time,” Dahlia taught him, “so why worry about who or what others do when you aren’t there?” Besides, Candy loved women of all ages and colors; every time Candy drove the supply wagon to Needles, Prescott, or Yuma, he took along bundles of clean rags and stale bread to give to the street corner Indian women and to the children alone in the alleys. Sister Salt thought Candy’s kindness to women was his best quality. Why should she care if Candy had sex with other women — especially the Chemehuevi twins, because they were best friends? She hoped he avoided that Mojave woman only because the woman was her enemy. It wasn’t likely, though, because the poor man seldom had time for sex with any of them; Candy worked all day and half the night seven days a week to earn those silver dollars.
Candy’s gambling and brewery tents were packed with miners and cowboys as well as construction workers most of the day and night. He hired another, older Mojave woman to work with the woman who hated Sister; the Mojave women stirred the coals and watched the roasting meat on payday. Sister watched them from a distance and knew they talked about her. Only white men were hired as card dealers or to run the dice games; when he was not cooking Wylie the elaborate meals the man lived for, Big Candy was the overseer, who stood silently behind the customers to observe the dealers to keep them honest while they dealt cards or rolled dice. A young Mexican called Juanito began to drive the wagonloads of laundry because Candy was so busy. More tents for poker and dice players went up under the cottonwood trees along the riverbank.
“I’m this much closer to Denver,” he’d say, holding his money pouch close, with a blissful expression on his face to let Sister know he was imagining his hotel’s dining room; of course, the main dining table would have to be oversize — he’d have it made in Mexico and shipped to Denver by train. Soon the hard work would pay off. Sister didn’t intend to go to a cold climate like Denver’s, but she didn’t want to discuss it; she hoped maybe he would change his mind and buy a hotel in Prescott or Kingman instead. She didn’t want to leave the area where her sister and mother were last seen.
Gamblers flocked to the tents under the cottonwood trees along the river; after sundown a cool breeze came from the river and many men lounged outside to smoke or to count their winnings. Maytha and Vedna confessed they met two handsome young Mexicans, winners at blackjack, and they went off to the willows along the river; they had the silver dollars to prove it!
Next evening when they went, Sister Salt came along with them to see if the Mexicans were as handsome as the twins claimed. The next thing she knew, she was on the smooth sand under the cover of the willows, in the arms of a handsome Mexican with curly black hair. Charlie was different; she loved his smile and his quick, clever remarks that always made her smile or laugh; she never took money from Charlie. She found herself waiting to see him again, unable to concentrate on anything else as she scrubbed overalls with the Chemehuevi sisters.
For a while Charlie visited her almost every evening after his shift ended; Candy was so busy he hardly noticed. But soon Charlie confided to Sister he felt uncomfortable, and feared somehow Candy would cause him to lose his job. In Tucson Charlie was a married man — what if rumors got back to his wife? Nothing Sister Salt said would reassure him; later she suspected a spell cast by that Mojave woman; or maybe some missionary cautioned him. Charlie kissed her good-bye: he’d miss his Sand Lizard girl, but he couldn’t afford the risk any longer.
Sister Salt never cared much what other people thought; she never minded the taunts of the churchgoers — Indian or white — who pursed their lips anuslike to spit insults at her. She blamed the loss of Charlie on churchgoers who forgot Jesus loved the prostitute Mary Magdalene and called her sister. Jesus knew there could be no peace without love — why didn’t the churchgoers remember that? Wovoka preached the corpse on the cross wasn’t Jesus but some poor white man! She herself had seen Jesus winter before last, and he looked like he might be a Paiute, like Wovoka, with handsome dark skin and black hair and eyes.
After Charlie quit her, Sister began to hate the steaming tubs of smelly overalls — now the smell of soap and dirty clothes made her vomit, and so did the odor of the yeast in the brew. Before long she realized she was pregnant; a little Sand Lizard baby was coming to keep her company.
As the flutter of the baby inside her grew stronger, she dreamed a voice she knew was the baby’s. “Get a move on,” it seemed to say. “We can’t go until we get Indigo back,” she whispered. It must be Charlie’s baby, though she wasn’t certain; it might be Candy’s — both men were always on the go, no wonder the baby was like them. Probably the baby would resemble both men since both had sex with her regularly. But now that Charlie stayed away, the baby would become more and more like Big Candy until it was his child. That was what sex during pregnancy did.