As soon as she reached the end of the block, Rose turned the uncooperative horses and circled behind the Emporium. Tying them to the rail, she eased around to the back door, the one Indians were forced to use. White people paid little attention to the comings and goings back here. She pulled the door open slowly so it didn’t squeak and let it settle behind her without latching.
The storeroom was in twilight compared to the next room, and she took her time, gazing around at the bags of flour, sugar, and coffee alongside barrels that held whiskey and pickles. She had never understood pickles, and she hated whiskey. She was of half a mind to stick her skinning knife in the barrels to release their contents, but had more important things to do. She edged to the door and peered into the main room, where Smith hustled up and down aisles waiting on white customers, too cheap to hire help. She could do it, she knew every item in the store, where it was, and what it cost. She’d spent that much time studying what she couldn’t afford. If he caught her now, he might ban them forever. As it was, they were only allowed in on Mondays and Thursdays, never the weekends when most ranch families came to town. And they had to be gone from town by five P.M.
She thought of pulling her shirt over her head and half covering her face, knowing that it wouldn’t make her invisible to others, that it would only make her feel better. In fact, it might make her more distinct. She took a deep breath and edged into the main room, eyeing Smith as she ducked behind the counter.
A yellow-haired white woman in a plain white cotton dress filled the aisle ahead, speaking over her shoulder to the storekeeper as she shook out a remnant of gingham cloth. “I want something original, handmade. I’m surprised you have nothing made by Indians here. Surely you can put them to work beading and sewing. Why in Denver, I visited the most wonderful store full of Indian crafts.”
The yellow-haired woman wanted to buy a headdress, a pair of moccasins, a quilled or beaded medicine bag. She only wanted handmade. Rose imagined more women like her collecting tribal goods for their houses, putting her people on display as curiosities. These people stuffed the animals they killed, and would stuff Indians too if they could. Although whites thought her slow-witted, Rose was known as a wise woman on the reservation, one who could read English on her own. She’d read all the contracts her people had made with the U.S. government. She spoke with the tribal elders about the laws that changed constantly, and the ways the government cheated them out of their allotted land and food. But none of that mattered after Star was found murdered. Now she had one job: to find the man who had killed two women in her family. From what Star had said that last day at the trading post in Mission, Rose believed she had found him. Then she was killed on Bennett land. Rose knew the answers were out there, and hoped, for Dulcinea’s sake, that it wasn’t J. B. Bennett or her boys. She planned to take her revenge. No counting coups this time.
Rose searched the shelves under the counter. She had to hurry before Smith came back for the shawl and belt to show the white woman. She hoped he hadn’t the time to put it away in his storeroom. She’d made the belt for Star, but her sister was killed before she had the chance to give it to her, and Rose had vowed she’d wear it forever when she learned of her death. There it was, the white stars glowing under her shawl. He could keep that, it meant nothing. She pulled out the belt and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her shirttail over it before standing and quickly leaving the way she’d come, shoulders stiff against the fear of his voice demanding that she stop.
Some Horses waited at the edge of town, and the boys were nowhere in sight. Rose’s heart thumped at the sight of her family. Lily was the leader in the games and tricks the children played on their elders, and Some Horses was popular for his funny stories and quick schemes. He made money off any whites who happened to cross his path. Their history was a tale of survival, whether it was recorded as the winter count on the tipis or in the stories and songs they passed along their generations. Even now, the Lakota held hidden gatherings to practice the peyote religion that had made its way from the Southwest, while the Christian converts decorated their churches in traditional Lakota colors. Some of the priests understood, learned their language and studied their beliefs so the two could merge without harm. She’d even heard of one priest who secretly entered traditional life, living in his residence only when his own elders visited. Otherwise, he was a married man who supported a family, attended sweats in the lodge behind the church, and observed the traditional calendar alongside the Christian one. It wasn’t especially confusing to her people. She wasn’t so sure about the whites, who seemed able to grasp only a single thought or belief at a time. She pitied them in that.
As she drew up beside the runabout, the paint tried to buck in its traces, and she checked him with the rein, so instead he reached over and bit the fat mare’s neck. She squealed but slumped her head in defeat. Rose picked up the whip and gave him a stinging cut across his wide buttocks and cursed him in Lakota. He stood trembling, and then hesitantly twisted his head around to peer back at her. She commanded him to move in Lakota. He put his shoulders into the harness and trudged forward. She wondered where the pony came from on the reservation.
With time to think on the ride back to the ranch, Rose said a quick prayer to Star, and waited, but received no reply. It was discouraging. Either the ghost was with her or not. She had entered into a fearful bargain with her dead sister, violated all of their teachings about death. If her people knew that she’d invited the ghost back to live with her, they would shun her, or worse, insist she spend time alone, without family, and undergo a cleanse in the hope that her sister could be persuaded to the red road and home.
“I know what I’m doing,” she whispered and lifted the reins to urge the horses faster than their plodding walk so the runabout wouldn’t get too far ahead. Ten years ago, she’d learned that no one cared about her people’s dead. Seventeen soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their killings at Wounded Knee and at White Clay Creek the following day. She spit to the side of the wagon. She alone was responsible for finding her sister’s killer. Dulcinea would ask the sheriff for help, and involve the white courts, but Rose knew it was worthless.
She thought about the Pine Ridge Indian School, where she’d been forced to board, where the doors were locked night and day, the grounds surrounded by barbed wire, and the children imprisoned for their own good, or so they were told. They were punished for speaking Lakota and could not practice their religion, but their families found ways to continue their traditions. Once her mother sent a doeskin bag filled with healing plants, their uses outlined with beads and signs that a white would interpret as mere decoration. Rose still had the bag, the last gift she’d received from her mother. It was for her also that she must undertake this vengeance. A flood of warm anger spread across her chest and she lifted her head to scan the hills.
This was not her first act of vengeance. Rose was known as a fierce warrior among those who attended the school. While the whites mistook her as untrainable, she worked against them and held secret classes where the children spoke their language, performed the pipe ritual, observed the moons, and practiced dancing. They were almost never discovered, and when they were she always took the blame, which would usually be light since she was considered too dumb to learn. She found her weapon, though. In February of 1894, she set fire to the school and burned it to the ground. The snow around it melted and the earth welcomed the new freedom from the weight of the building that had held so much wrong for so long. She sang prayers for her mother’s spirit that night as the sky burst yellow and red, strong colors, from the burning building. It wasn’t enough.