Gardens in the Dunes

Part Nine

THE PERFORMANCE of the dog circus drew a big crowd — not only the construction workers and off-duty soldiers, but miners and cowboys from outlying areas heard about it and came. The early arrivals bought beer and tried their luck in the gambling tents just as Big Candy hoped they would. A quick survey of the cash receipts proved this day to be their best by far. Even the women who worked in the wagons and the Prescott businessmen they worked for came to see. Candy estimated their number at close to two hundred, and both Wylie and Big Candy were enthusiastic about hiring the dog circus to travel with them when the construction camp moved to Twentynine Palms.

It took a good while to dress the seven dogs and to keep them from tugging at their lions’ manes of horsehair and the long striped tiger tails of painted burlap. For the mother dog, who led the troop despite her lameness, Delena had fashioned a strange cape of long black horsehair, which was quite unsettling as the dog approached, so Sister Salt and the twins dubbed her the Bear.

Delena covered her dress with a long cape of burlap covered almost entirely with bits of red, yellow, green, blue, and white ribbon that flickered in the breeze, trimmed with dozens of little dangling baubles made of tin cans, which jingled as she moved. By the time Sister Salt and the twins helped Delena arrange a circle of smooth river stones for the ring and piled kindling on two sides of the circle, the sun was down. The girls took turns beating an old tin bucket with a stick to announce the performance. More and more onlookers gathered and the buzz of voices and barks of the dogs added to the excitement.

Delena called to the crippled dog, and the others followed her inside the circle of stones. She talked to the dogs constantly in a low voice Sister Salt could barely hear, but it soothed them and kept their attention on her. In pairs, the black dogs danced together on their hind legs around and around as Delena waved her wand — a willow stick tied with strings of sparrow feathers; the crippled dog sat motionless on a keg in the center of the ring.

Delena left them dancing while she lit the oil-soaked rags wreathed around two hoops she fashioned from scraps of wire. As the crowd cheered her on, a fiery hoop in each hand, she called first to the crippled dog, who leaped off the keg and through one hoop after the other to wild applause from the audience that had consumed a large amount of beer. The other dogs followed their mother through the hoops eagerly, and barked excitedly as they raced around the ring.

Next Delena rolled in other empty nail kegs and arranged scraps of corrugated tin roofing for an elevated track around the ring, which made resounding thunder as the dogs raced over it. While the “lions” and “tigers” pounded the tin, now gaily chasing one another’s cloth and horsehair tails, Delena stepped out of the ring, and the crippled black dog in the bear costume followed her into the shadows, where a moment later she returned with an old ladder, which she held upright in both hands while one after the other the dogs climbed on, until she had six dogs at once balanced on the rungs of the ladder. Later the twins and Sister Salt did recall the absence of the crippled dog in her bear costume; at the time they did not make much of it — they assumed the dog was too disabled for the ladder trick.

The last trick consisted of the dogs each sitting up on their hind legs on a keg while Delena rapidly tossed them wild gourds, which they caught and held in their mouths before dropping to catch another. When each dog had six gourds by its keg, Delena bowed to the crowd with a flourish, spreading both arms to direct their applause to the dogs on the kegs behind her. Then, while the crowd continued to whistle and cheer, Delena reached down into her gunnysack of costumes and props and brought out a strange doll almost two feet tall, made of white canvas, with a long beard of white horsehair and a matching wig topped by a paper top hat painted with stripes of red, white, and blue. The doll wore no clothing, but around his neck was a string of little round tin bells.

At the sight of the doll, the dogs became alert and some of them began to wag their tails in anticipation; Delena sternly commanded them to stay put before she took the doll’s hands in her hands and began slowly to dance around and around the ring. The light from the lanterns and from the two small fires at either end of the ring trees threw giant shadows of the doll and the woman across the audience, which was drunk and disorderly now; those in back attempted to push forward to get a better view. A drunk miner bumped a drunk soldier, who stumbled against a drunk cowboy, and a fight broke out in front of the gambling tents. Big Candy ordered the dealers to shut down until the crowd was more orderly, and halted the sale of beer for the time being to avoid more trouble.

Now as Delena whirled faster and faster with the strange doll, and her dogs danced around with her on their hind legs, barking excitedly, a drunk soldier staggered into the ring and pulled the white doll out of her hands to dance with it himself. The dogs took this as their cue to grab the white doll for their finale, and grabbed hold of its legs and arms and head. The drunk clung to the doll’s torso with both hands even after the dogs pulled him facedown hard and began to tug and pull the doll and him around the circle. Once the dogs tore off the doll’s hat and wig, they pulled off the beard and tugged at it between them before one of dogs grabbed hold of the drunk’s shirt, and then all of the dogs were on the man, pulling and tearing at his clothing while the crowd laughed and urged them on.

Soldier friends of the drunk who tried to push their way through the crowd to stop the dogs met with resistance; the resentment many felt toward the presence of the army surfaced, and fistfights broke out. Oblivious to the disorder that spread through the crowd, the dogs gaily tore to pieces the drunk’s uniform but ignored the naked man on the ground. Once the uniform was shredded, the dogs began wild tugs-of-war with their own costumes. In their excitement they tore off the horsehair lions’ manes and tigers’ tails and the burlap capes trimmed with tin jingles. Their mistress made no effort to stop them; in fact, Delena was nowhere in sight.

The crowd surged, then swelled like floodwater over one another to the protests and yells of those pushed and trampled. Sister Salt held the baby close to her in both arms as she ran to escape the fighting mob. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Big Candy with a shotgun cradled in his arms in front of the gambling tents. She ran a short distance downriver until she saw a dense stand of willows; with the little black grandfather safely cocooned she crawled as far back into the willows as she could. She could hear the voices — the curses and shouts, and then the shotgun blasted twice, followed by three or four pistol shots and more shouts. The little black grandfather’s eyes widened at the gunfire and he waved his arms furiously but did not cry. “Yes, you were right all along,” she whispered to him, and the cards were right too — a big flood came all right, but it wasn’t the river that wiped out everything.

Wylie was on his horse behind the crowd when the riot broke out; he pulled the six-shot thirty-two special out of his right boot and took the two-shot thirty-eight derringer from the left boot. He regretted leaving his sawed-off shotguns in his tent. He could not see Big Candy for the mob that boiled around the tents, but he heard Candy’s shotgun fire and then more shots. Wylie knew there were bound to be off-duty soldiers involved, so he turned his horse away and raced off to alert their commanding officer to send military police.

Suddenly Sister Salt saw fire — flames engulfed all the tents. Not only were the gambling tents and laundry and brewery destroyed; the tents the twins and Sister Salt lived in went up in oily black smoke. Fortunately Maytha and Vedna had already moved out of the tent and kept their bundles of belongings with them that terrible night.

Was the fire an accident, or deliberate? The crowd had been drinking beer since early afternoon, and the workers were unhappy about overtime work without pay. By the time the military police were summoned, the rioters ran up the ridge to the wagon town and robbed and looted until the military police fired warning shots to disperse the crowd.

The fires consumed the tent canvas and left only the smoldering skeleton of chairs, oak kegs, and planks that served for poker and dice tables. Up on the ridge a number of wagons burned and a Prescott businessman was accidentally shot, but no one was killed, and the commotion didn’t end until sunup.

At daybreak, the first question from Wylie was, where in the tents was the money kept? He passed Big Candy his silver brandy flask from the saddle. The cash boxes were fireproof, but they emptied the flask waiting for the fires to burn out and the ashes to cool off enough to search the smoldering debris.

Big Candy used the smoking remains of the gaming tables to orient himself in the ashes. With a shovel he cleared away the hot coals to the scorched sand and struck metal; the box itself was still chained to the smoking wood stub of a table leg, but the lid of seared metal was wide open; a piece of baling wire used to pick the lock was still stuck in the keyhole. Candy felt light-headed and nauseous when he saw the wire in the lock; he ran with a shovel to dig up the cash boxes from the other tents.

Wylie found him exhausted and brooding in the shattered bottle glass and smoldering remains of beer barrels, the melted remains of an open cash box at his feet. Neither man spoke at first. Wylie commented whoever robbed them knew the layout. Then Candy inhaled sharply — the dream about the exposed open coffin shaped like a safe! That had been a warning; instantly the sweat on his brow felt icy; Candy left Wylie standing there without a word and took off. He ran fast for a man his size; the white sand of the path reflected the dawn light but the willows remained in deep shadows. Candy prayed as he ran: Let the floor safe be buried deep enough!

The deep shade of the big cottonwood hid the truth until he stood on the pile of damp sand above the hole where the floor safe lay, its thick lead door wide open, empty. Candy tried to swallow but his throat was dry; he coughed until tears filled his eyes. He cried out in fury at the top of his voice; off in the hills above the river, coyotes howled in reply. Dog paw prints were everywhere in the sand around the base of the cottonwood tree, and he found one set of small wide shoe prints but no others. So the thief was that Mexican dog circus Gypsy! He knew he could catch her.

Wylie let him take his good walking horse. He took a canteen but no food — he was too upset to eat anyway. He rode south for hours searching for tracks in the sand along the river until he began to feel the horse tire. They’d lost all their savings — he didn’t want to kill Wylie’s favorite horse too. There were no traces of the dog circus woman; she might have gone any direction. He leaned away from the horse to vomit until he had dry heaves. He got off and walked to spare the horse; it was late afternoon before he got back to the ruined camp.

Big Candy was half crazy, frantic to recover the money. Sister Salt could tell by the expression in his eyes he blamed her and the twins because they were friendly with the woman. She pointed out she had lost everything too, but Big Candy’s face was rigid with anger. He didn’t look at her directly and he didn’t glance down at the baby, whose face was getting fat and cute now. At that moment he wasn’t the man she knew; he was someone different. He wanted to know what she knew about the dog circus woman and where she might have gone from here. When she shrugged, he looked as if he wanted to strike her but managed to hold his temper.

Sister told him what she knew about the uprising in Mexico, and about the crippled dog trained to sniff out cash. But she didn’t tell him Delena bragged about how much the dog circus would make for her that night. Sister remembered vividly the amused expression on Delena’s face as she said, “A dog circus like this can make more money than you might think.”

“How’s that?” Maytha had asked, and Delena only smiled and nodded slowly; just wait and see, she told them. Now they all saw but it was too late.

♦ ♦ ♦

That floor safe was so full of cash and coins, the money-sniffer dog easily located the safe’s burial spot days before the finale. The most difficult part of the operation had been to learn the safe’s combination. Though she disliked high places, she climbed the cottonwood tree above the buried floor safe to wait in the dark for the bobbing light of Candy’s lantern. Candy had been full of the boss man’s brandy by the time he brought the sacks of the day’s receipts to the safe; often he was singing and talked to himself. But the hours watching from the treetop paid off because each night she listened intently and counted the clicks of the safe’s dial. The sand stuck in the dial and some nights he had difficulty getting the safe open, and he’d get impatient and repeat some of the numbers out loud as he turned the dial again. Once she knew how to open the safe, she might have emptied it any night and fled; but she wanted to make a clean sweep.

What a night it had been! The dogs were amazing and did everything she taught them. That audience got their money’s worth all right! The banknotes, silver, and gold locked up in the airless darkness deserved to be set free, to go south where it was needed, where it would be circulated — where the little gold pieces and $5 bills would get free air and sunshine!

She dared not follow the river because searchers would go that way; so she and the dogs headed for the hills toward the southwest, in the direction of the old gardens Sister Salt used to talk about. She packed each dog with a portion of the cash and coins, but the dogs’ packs carried only water and no food, to reduce the weight of the load. She went south, along game trails in the foothills far from the river, to create a hardship for her pursuers’ thirsty horses.

She memorized the creeks and rivers from confiscated army maps before she left on her mission. In a sandy floodplain she used yucca to wipe away their tracks before she and the dogs abruptly doubled back a distance north again to reach a creek that later joined the Havasupai River, then south to the Gila River junction with the Santa Cruz. From there it would be a straight shot south to Tucson, where their group had dedicated supporters and the local merchants loved money far more than they feared the law. They would sell as many boxes of rifles and cartridges as she wanted to buy for cash — no questions asked.

♦ ♦ ♦

The disturbance and fire so near the construction site spoiled the dinner plans with Wylie’s associates; strangely this cancellation of the dinner seemed to accelerate Wylie’s replacement as site supervisor by the army officer with the troop detachment. Although the water dispute between California and Arizona farmers that initially brought the troops had subsided, the camp rampage was evidence of worker unrest and the possibility of sabotage to the new dam.

Wylie was placed on leave with full pay and benefits for the duration of his contract; an assistant to the secretary of the Interior Department wrote Wylie a letter commending his years of service on federal construction sites. Wylie looked at his dismissal as a paid vacation; besides, he’d lost much more money in the bank crash of ’93.

Wylie tried to put their loss into perspective: Candy had escaped losses in ’93 because he never used banks. One time it paid Candy not to use a bank; but now Candy suffered a loss that a bank prevents. Even so, Wylie still preferred to take his chances with his money in a hole before he’d watch the bankers rob him again. Bankers were untouchable, but the Mexican woman and her dogs might be tracked down and caught, though it wouldn’t be easy. She might be dangerous, she might ambush Big Candy along the river, and one man could never fight her and shoot all those dogs at the same time. She might have accomplices hiding out in the hills who would pick off any pursuers one by one. If they got the army or law enforcement involved, they’d never see the money again even if the woman was caught.

“No, forget it,” Wylie told him. They would make back that money in a year or less if they opened a hotel and restaurant together in Los Angeles. Wylie had money buried in the backyard of his mother’s house in Ohio. Enough to get them started. Think of the abalone flesh white as the breakers, their taste as delicate as the scent of the sea breeze; only Big Candy knew how to make the delicate breading of sherry, egg white and walnut flour before he braised the abalone in sweet butter. Los Angeles was waiting for a chef like Candy to show them how to cook.

Candy felt anger sweep over him as Wylie spoke. Easy for Wylie to talk — he still had money. Hell, he started with money! Candy lost everything — years of working day and night. A man could do nothing for himself without money; here a man, white or colored, was nothing without money.

He saw Wylie truly wanted him to accompany him, Wylie really was his friend — he didn’t blame Candy or criticize his judgment. But somehow that only made the loss worse because his friend Wylie trusted him to take care of the floor safe and he failed. Now everything was meaningless except recovering the stolen money as soon as possible.

Wylie even invited Sister Salt and the baby to come along too, but Candy shook his head. He told Wylie to go on ahead to Long Beach without him. He couldn’t explain to Wylie but he was consumed by the feeling he had failed to measure up, and only by finding that dog circus woman and their money could he be restored.

Wylie was amazed at the effect of the theft on Big Candy; he was inconsolable, transformed so Wylie barely knew him. Nothing else mattered — Wylie even offered to loan Candy money to go ahead with his plans in Denver, but Candy refused.

Before he left, Wylie gave Candy the address in Long Beach where he’d be staying. He finally persuaded Candy to take his old shotgun, $50 for food, and one of the big mules to ride. All Candy needed was a little time and he’d get over it and start thinking clearly again. Wylie just hoped, in the meantime, Candy didn’t go off and get himself killed.

Delena and the dogs trotted slowly but steadily away from the river over the sandy ridges to the dry gravel flats that stretched east and south. From time to time they stopped to rest, and she checked each dog’s pack to make sure it was secure, and not rubbing off any hide. Though the days were still hot, now as the morning star rose a light wind stirred and chilled her until she started moving again. Finally, just before dawn they reached the precipitous edge of the big arroyo that would take them to Havasupai Creek.

She waited while the dogs scouted the steep clay bank until they located a game trail down. Even so she found herself sliding down on her seat, the slope was so steep. It was much cooler down there; as she hoped, there were still muddy water holes along the creek bottom from the rain the month before. After she drank and refilled her canteen, she walked until she found a pocket of deep fine sand at the foot of the clay bank. Oh the soft sand felt so good as she dropped to her knees and hands; she removed her backpack to scoop out a bed for herself. She used the pack for a pillow; it was heavy and hard, not with cash but with the big canteen and the chunk of roasted beef she grabbed off the grill. That and any rats they might catch was all they had to get them to the Havasupai River. The money sniffer curled up with her and one by one the other six dogs took their place until Delena was covered with dogs. She patted and scratched each dog — not too long or the others would get jealous and want to fight. Yes, I know you love me, she said; you love me for that big piece of roast beef in my pillow.

The last few days and nights she got very little sleep as she feverishly prepared the dog circus performance and spied on the buried safe. Now she was exhausted. Almost as soon as the last dog pressed itself across her shoulders, she was asleep so deeply the dogs’ barks at coyotes scarcely roused her.

When the sun was midway overhead, the dogs began to get up, stretch, and go off to relieve themselves and drink. When only the crippled money-sniffer dog remained, Delena sat up; the warmth of the sun felt so good she wanted to lie down again and sleep more, but she knew they had to get going again.

She was curious about her pursuers so she brought out the Gypsy deck from the bag she wore inside her dress, around her waist, and spread the satin cloth over the sand to see what the cards had to tell her.

The Gypsy cards were oddly unmatched and had little to say about her pursuers; she realized then there must be only a few pursuers, maybe only one, and that was the reason for the cards’ meager information. The unusual disarray of the cards gave her suspicions of invisible intervention to protect her lone pursuer. He must be a fool to come after me and my dogs by himself. No wonder his ancestors took pity on him and tried to block the cards. Still, she could feel the golden threads of the radiance from across time that turned the cards and spoke the truth about her pursuer, like it or not.

The figure of the Owl was lying on its side against a blood red background; the Owl wore a gold crown and was tied to a branch with a golden chain. Too bad for her pursuer! The Owl’s position meant his plans will fail! She let out a shout of joy that brought all the dogs to stare at her. She remembered the message of the cards to the Sand Lizard woman, that greed would be punished — this Owl bound by a gold chain must be the Sand Lizard’s husband.

The figure of the Four-leaf Clover on dark purple lay on its side, the same as the Owl, and meant a misunderstanding, something her pursuer didn’t know, maybe about her or maybe about himself. Good, good, she whispered to the cards, and the dogs nearby wagged their tails.

The last figure was of the white Lilies upside. “Oh poor Sand Lizard girl, your husband is very confused.” The poor man was beset by useless doubts for no reason. Now that she knew who her pursuer was and his state of mind, she wasn’t in such a hurry. Even a good tracker would find it difficult to tell the difference between coyote tracks and her dogs’ tracks; their paws were callused like the coyotes’. She was careful to walk on hard-packed ground and in the sand to step from rock to rock when she could; on long stretches of sand she stopped from time to time to wipe away her tracks.

Her pursuer had to decide which way she went, and the fastest, easiest route to Mexico was straight south along the river to Yuma. Even if he guessed right and rode east, he still had to catch her; the most stout horse or mule would soon tire from toting a man that heavy; the mount would need water and food — a great deal more water than he’d find on the route she was on.

She and the dogs slept in the shade all afternoon, moving from one side of the wash to the other as the sun shifted. As the air cooled off before sundown, the dogs got up, stretching and sniffing the air. They managed to locate a nest of baby cottontails in the clay bank, but gobbled them all before Delena could get any for herself. “OK,” she said, “if you won’t share, then I won’t either”; she cut herself big pieces off the roast in her pack but gave none to the dogs.

She drank and washed her hands and face a last time in a rainwater hole the dogs hadn’t muddied. Before she set out again, she peeked at the Mexican cards in their pouch: she was happy and relieved to find La Estrella, the Star, on top of the deck. The stars were celestial beings, all related to the most beautiful and beloved star, the morning star. She never forgot the devotion in her homeland to the Shining One the Christians call Messiah.

Indigo was too excited to sit still. She opened the hatbox to give the orchid plants sunshine after the first night on the train, just as Edward suggested. Hattie said they were among the nicest plants he had. She must remember to give them morning sun but not too much water or they would rot. She checked to make sure the paper envelopes of seeds were still neatly tied so none spilled, and felt each little cotton sack of gladiolus corms to make sure they were still dry in the bottom of the valise.

Hours before the train approached Needles, she cleaned the monkey’s cage as she promised she would if Edward allowed her to bring Linnaeus along. She put down clean newspaper she saved after Edward finished reading it.

Out the window she saw the jagged dry peaks of the Paiute mountains hazy blue in the distance across the gravel and sand of the plain. As the sun got lower in the sky and they got closer, the mountains changed colors — light blue to violet to fiery red-orange as lovely as any flowers. Then as twilight settled over them, the fiery reds shifted to bright pinks that settled into lavender and finally dark purple. The window in the compartment was open only a bit but Indigo put her face to the rushing air and was delighted to smell the greasewood and the rocks.

It was not dark yet when the conductor called out, “Needles.” Indigo felt her stomach flutter and her heart beat faster. As the train pulled into the station, she saw the station lanterns were lit along the platform, where eastbound passengers and people meeting the train were gathered. She dreamed and imagined many times Mama and Sister Salt would be there in their place on the platform beside the Walapai and Mojave women.

She was so excited she could hardly wait. Even before the train jerked to a stop, Indigo was ready; the cover of the parrot cage was on and Linnaeus was in her arms, his cage left with the other luggage. She walked ahead of Hattie and Edward, but the other passengers swept around her and she had to hold the covered parrot cage tightly in both arms to keep hold of it. Hidden inside, Rainbow endured the bumps and noise in silence while Linnaeus clung to her piggyback with his eyes hidden against her shoulder. Here she was at last! The smells of the burnt coal, tar, and hot axle grease of the platform were just as she remembered from years ago. As the crowd of passengers and others began to clear the platform, her heart pounded with anticipation. She had dreamed about this moment so many times — how Mama and Sister Salt would be shocked, and then come running to greet her.

She stopped until the surge of people passed around her, and lifted the cage cover a bit to give Rainbow fresh air. She heard Hattie call out to ask if she was all right, but she was intent on the end of the platform blocked by the crowd. But as the platform cleared, she saw that the place near the station door where Mama and Sister Salt used to sit was empty.

As she looked up and down the long empty platform, the burning ache in her throat hurt so much when Hattie reached her, she was in tears. Her sobs frightened the monkey, who gripped her neck tighter until she had to set the parrot cage down on the platform and take him in her arms. They were gone, they were all gone, and now she’d never find Sister or Mama.

At the hotel, Hattie tried to reassure Indigo as she helped her pull the bedding onto the floor the way the child liked it. At dinner Indigo refused to eat or drink anything; then as the meal was over, she insisted that the food on her plate be wrapped to take back to Linnaeus and the parrot. Edward, annoyed at her insolence, attempted to correct her but the child shocked them by telling him to go to hell, then refused to speak at all.

Hattie had anticipated a joyous arrival and expected Indigo to be in good spirits now she was in her homeland. The return of the child to her family had become the primary focus of Hattie’s attention, especially now that she and Edward agreed to separate. She realized she loved Indigo dearly — Edward’s deception and all the rest did not matter so long as she secured Indigo’s happiness.

Hattie again promised they would not leave the Colorado River until her sister and her mother both were found. But the child was inconsolable; tears rolled down her cheeks even as she arranged the parrot cage and monkey cage on either side of the bedding on the floor so she could touch them during the night.

In the adjoining room, Edward was at the table by the lamp, reading. He marked his place with a slip of paper before he closed the book and looked up with a smile. Now that they had agreed to live separately, the tension between them was gone. Tomorrow Edward would take the train to Winslow for the buggy ride to the meteor crater while she and Indigo would begin the search for her sister and mother.

In Riverside they agreed neither of them was suited to the married state, and left it at that. No further mention was made of his reckless deception or his unforgivable defense of the Australian doctor. The child seemed to be calmed now, no need for concern. They said good night and Edward turned back to his reading as she closed the door.

She was still saddened Edward seemed so relieved by their decision; she must have only imagined Edward’s devotion to her just as she misread Mr. Hyslop’s attentions. In any case, she would not make that mistake again. Before they left Riverside, she wrote to her parents to announce the mutual decision to obtain a legal separation as soon as possible, but gave no explanation. They were bound to hear all the details from Susan and Colin.

She agreed to a generous separation settlement and made arrangements with her bankers in New York to arrange a line of credit for Edward until his mother’s estate and his debts were settled. She had no plans beyond the immediate goal of finding Indigo’s sister and mother, but she did not want to return to New York. Oyster Bay belonged to a previous life, dead and buried with her manuscript.

Perhaps she would return to England or Italy — she dreamed about the gardens often. Aunt Bronwyn’s old stones danced in one of her dreams, and in another dream, Laura’s figures of the snake and bird women sang a song so lovely she woke in tears.

♦ ♦ ♦

The wagon road above the riverbank was dusty and hot. The footpaths through the willows along the river were shady and cool, Indigo told Linnaeus and Rainbow. The buggy had a cloth top but it was black and held the heat. She amused herself by pointing out places along the river and telling Linnaeus and Rainbow about the escape she and Sister made downriver the morning the dancers were attacked.

She felt more hopeful today because, the night before, she dreamed she was with Sister Salt at the old gardens, which were filled with great tall spikes of gladiolus flowers in all colors of the rainbow. Sister Salt cradled Linnaeus like a baby and Mama let the parrot sit on her shoulder; even Hattie was in the dream — she carried water from the spring in a big gourd balanced on her head.

As they drove out of town, Indigo watched people on the street point and stare at the empty monkey cage on top of the pile of luggage, and Linnaeus in her arms. The sandy hills were green with grass and weeds — a sign of good rain weeks before, and good news for the terrace gardens in the dunes. The corn plants would be tall, the amaranth thick, and the bean plants and sunflowers fat with seeds enough to see them through the winter. She had forgotten how big the sky was and how blue it could be when there were no clouds. Sand Lizard girl, you are almost home now, she whispered to herself.

Just south of the Chemehuevi reservation, they stopped for the night at a small trading post called Road’s End, where the storekeeper’s wife accommodated overnight guests in a small back room. At first the wife was reluctant to allow the monkey and parrot cages indoors, but Hattie gave her an extra half-dollar and promised to keep them caged, a promise Indigo did not keep. There was scarcely room for the cages and luggage around the small bed they shared. All night Hattie tossed and turned, and each time she felt another horsehair poke through the bedding from the mattress. In the morning, Indigo kept scratching at her legs and when they looked they saw little red welts of insect bites.

The following morning, the table in the kitchen was set with only two places; their driver seated himself at one but when Hattie asked, the wife told her the Indian girl could sit in a chair out on the front porch. Hattie said nothing, but removed her plate and cup from the table and joined Indigo, who was already out on the porch playing with the parrot and monkey, the four pots of orchids out of the hatbox in the sun.

All morning Hattie felt out of sorts from the wife’s rude behavior, and exhausted from lack of sleep. The reflected glare of the sun off the metal of the horse’s bit temporarily blinded her but when she closed her eyes, the burning white flash remained and quickly developed into a headache. She managed to sip a little paregoric from the bottle in her purse and then leaned back and closed her eyes to try to sleep. Instead her thoughts swarmed around and around — her mother’s disapproval, her father’s disappointment, her foolishness in believing Edward truly cared about her. She tried to control her thoughts by visualizing the lovely carved gemstones from the spring at Bath, the bright orange carnelian carving of Minerva seated with her serpent at her side, a pale yellow carnelian of a long-neck waterbird standing on its nest with its chick, and the cloudy chalcedony of the three cattle under the oak tree.

Edward was reluctant to part with any of them, but felt obliged after she agreed to make the loan. He sorted through the gem carving and gave her the three he didn’t want. Perfect, she thought; I don’t want anything he wants!

Indigo called out and Hattie roused herself to see what it was; up ahead on the river was a large earthwork — the dam to feed water to Los Angeles. Indigo was amazed at the changes all around; the river was trapped, and only a narrow stream, muddy red, flowed south. The river was stripped naked; all its willows and tamarisks were gone, its red clay banks scraped; and exposed piles of white skeletons of cottonwood trees dotted the swaths of scraped red earth. The deep gouges made to build the dam had trapped rainwater and now were filled with weeds and sunflowers. Rows of army tents lined the ridge above the river, and nearby were clusters of wagons, their canvas covers painted with prices for lamp oil and tobacco.

As they continued south, Indigo noticed the cottonwoods and willows were dying of thirst because the flow of the river was so meager. Parker wasn’t actually a town; it was more like a stagecoach station at the edge of the reservation. A barbed-wire fence marked the entrance to the reservation. As they arrived, the children ran out to meet the buggy and they pointed at her and at the monkey and parrot and they shouted and laughed.

As they neared the superintendent’s office, someone — probably the older boys — threw rocks at the buggy until the driver turned on the seat and swore at them, with no apology to Hattie. Dirty animals, he called them. He was the son of the livery stable owner who kept a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, and he made it clear he thought Hattie a fool or worse. The driver let them off outside the office of the reservation superintendent and drove away without a word, in the direction of the trading post.

Indigo waited outside the superintendent’s office with the parrot on one shoulder and the monkey on her hip. She was careful to stand close to the wall around a corner where no one passing by the office could see her because she was afraid the children might hit Linnaeus or Rainbow with a rock.

Hattie was heartened by the reservation superintendent, who was new to the job but nonetheless located a file of correspondence written on behalf of Indigo’s older sister, named Salt. Hattie noticed on the file Indigo’s surname was listed as Sand. The last known address for the sister was in care of the construction site at the Parker Canyon dam. However, there were no records of their mother, but the superintendent admitted there were many more Indians along the Colorado River than were listed on the Indian Affairs census. The Indians moved a good deal. Apparently some of the tribes did not get along with one another and others complained the river bottom land wasn’t healthy.

The superintendent shook his head. He had just transferred here from Oklahoma two months ago. The Indian Bureau lacked the resources to hire more officers to keep them on the reservations and to track down those who drifted back into the canyons and hills. He hastened to add they posed no threat to white people.

He picked up the file on Indigo for a moment before he glanced up to ask if she intended to adopt the child. Hattie was so surprised at his question she felt her cheeks flush, and for a moment she lost her composure.

There was no reason to adopt the child if she had an elder sister nearby, was there? The superintendent shook his head and moved another file on top of Indigo’s file. The child’s elder sister had been jailed for theft by the previous agency superintendent. She might still be there if her fines had not been paid by a contractor hiring workers for the site of the dam construction. The superintendent’s face colored a bit as he added young squaws the sister’s age often resorted to prostitution.

Hattie gathered her purse in her lap and thanked him for all his help. He reminded her the child was under his jurisdiction; if she was not returned to the boarding school in Riverside, she must be turned over to him, under penalty of federal law. Hattie assured him that she understood the conditions and promised to stay in touch.

The driver had bloodshot eyes when he finally returned for them; Hattie was furious because he kept them waiting on the porch of the superintendent’s office for more than an hour, but the odor of liquor on his breath persuaded her to say nothing. Indigo’s excitement and happiness at the good news far outweighed the irritation of the rude driver. Indigo could hardly wait to get there to see her big sister; if they got going now there was still time to get to the dam before dark, so Hattie directed the driver to go back upriver.

Hattie could not get the superintendent’s words off her mind. What would happen to a child like Indigo, accustomed now to decent shelter and clothing and nutritious food? All the education she’d managed to get would be for naught if she came back to live here. Except for the vicious rock throwers, the reservation at Parker seemed lifeless; the few Indian women and men she saw had eyes full of misery. Indigo’s beloved little monkey and the parrot would likely be stolen or killed almost at once. Perhaps adoption would be best for Indigo; the superintendent implied he could authorize the adoption himself.

Sister Salt recognized the old Walapai woman at the street corner in Needles and called to her. The old woman looked a long time as if trying to identify her, then suddenly a big toothless grin spread over her face and she called out and motioned for Sister to come over. First she wanted to see Sister’s baby, and pronounced the little black grandfather healthy and fortunate, then she asked if Grandma Fleet was still weaving those little baskets shaped like turkeys and frogs. Sister Salt’s face fell and she shook her head slowly; the Walapai woman knew immediately, and tears filled into her eyes. “And your mother?” she asked. “Is she still traveling with the dancers?” Sister Salt nodded, then asked if anyone had heard news of their whereabouts.

How long had it been — two winters almost, wasn’t it? Sister Salt nodded. People here were afraid to dance because of the soldiers and Indian police. But if the people would just dance like before, then the Messiah and the dancers would return.

Maytha and Vedna were waiting for her across the street. They’d come into Needles to buy nails and check the town dump for pieces of scrap wood or tin they might use for their new house. They paid to ride on the back of the freight wagon that carried the mail between Parker and Needles twice a week; it was a two-day ride from Road’s End to Needles, so they had to bring along their own water and food. The little black grandfather began to twist around in his bundle impatiently, and Sister Salt was about to excuse herself to go when the old Walapai woman put a hand on her arm.

“Wait! I’ve got important news for you,” she said, “about your little sister.” Sister Salt’s heart pounded as she listened. Two days before, the Walapai woman saw Indigo get off the eastbound train; at first she didn’t recognize her because she’d grown so much, and she wore fine new clothes and shoes. But it was her! She carried a colorful caged bird, and a funny furry creature clung to one arm; she was accompanied by a rich white man and woman with a great deal of luggage. They left the station in a rented buggy.

The woman’s Walapai sisters agreed; they’d seen them too. But other Indian women, mostly Havasupai and Mojave, came over to disagree with the Walapai women. They said not to listen to her; the old Walapai woman had been crazy since she was kicked in the head by a cavalry horse, and her Walapai sisters drank too much beer.

Sister Salt politely thanked the old woman and her sisters; were they mistaken as the others said? Indigo was at boarding school in California, not with a white couple; she must have seen another girl. Deep down though, she felt hope and excitement; what if the Walapai women were right?

Later Sister showed the twins the place along the river just south of town where their lean-to had been; the ring of blackened stones that marked their hearth was still there, but nothing else. On trips to Needles with Big Candy, Sister used to avoid the place; for a long time she couldn’t even bring herself to look directly at the high sandy hill above the riverbank where the Messiah and his family fled that morning. Instead she glanced at the hill from the corner of her eye, afraid that if she looked directly at it, she might cry.

After the dancers were arrested, all the shelters were torn down and burned. The Walapai women and the others relocated to the dry wash behind the train yard, so they had the riverbank by the town dump to themselves. But now, with the little bright-eyed grandfather in her arms, she felt heartened to be at the place they last were all together and happy, even if it was Needles. In the midday glare of the sun, the sandy slope of the hill looked different than it had that morning after dawn when the raiders came.

The days were shorter now, and the nights were cool. In a few more months the snowstorm clouds would return to the mountain peaks, and with them the Messiah and his family and the dancers. If the people gathered here and danced again, the Christ and the others would return, and Mama with them.

The twins suggested they camp there until they caught the mail wagon back to Road’s End. As she lit the fire on the same hearth Mama and Grandma had used, she felt happy. But as the night wore on, she was saddened only the circle of burnt stones remained. Big Candy was gone, and with him went the help she needed to find Indigo. All the money she saved for the search and their return to the old gardens was gone. Damn money! She hated it but needed it too.

God damn that Mexican woman and all her dogs! God damn the war that sent her their direction! Sister knew better than to talk to strangers, but Delena seemed so nice. Although Big Candy didn’t accuse her or the twins of aiding the thief, still in his mind they were connected, and that was enough. Even if Big Candy caught up with the woman and got back the money, Sister doubted she would ever see him again.

So much for the Sand Lizard notion that sex makes allies of strangers. She had months of sex with Candy but lost him as her ally anyway; he went off crazy after that Mexican woman and the money. Money! You couldn’t drink it or eat it, but people went crazy over it.

That night the little grandfather snuggled against her breasts and talked to her as she slept. When she woke herself answering him, she found his black shining eyes gazing at her; the approach of dawn was milky gray across the east horizon. He wanted to return to the old gardens. Money wasn’t necessary there — all the food the two of them needed could be gathered there. His little auntie, Indigo, would return there — she wouldn’t forget the way home.

She pulled her shawl snuggly around them both, and adjusted the old blanket across her legs, careful not to wake Maytha and Vedna, both snoring softly nearby. As sunrise approached, she watched the light touch the slope of the high sandy hill, and imagined the Messiah and the others slowly descending the slope, ankle deep in the sand. But the angle of the sun was wrong — still too steep this time of the year — and she knew she could not see the Messiah and the others yet.

The twins stocked up on the things they’d need to live at Road’s End — everything cost so much. The twins were good to her and shared their food without reproach or meanness, so Sister made herself useful by staying at their campsite with the little grandfather to guard the supplies the twins already bought. She bundled him onto her back and searched along the river for wild onions and watercress; she dug up cattail roots to boil for soup.

She was grateful now for all the meat and grease Big Candy fed her because her fat made milk for the baby even if she didn’t have much to eat. He was getting so big and plump now and he could lift himself up and roll over; but the expression in his gleaming black eyes was still piercing and cranky, like that of an old man. He wanted to return to Sand Lizard country, away from the river dampness that caused fevers.

Bright Eyes she called him one day when he was gurgling and smiling on his blanket — he loved to feel the air on his bare bottom. She wanted to buy cotton cloth and a wool blanket to keep him cozy the coming winter, but she had no money. When they got back to Road’s End, she would cut and soak yucca leaves and try to make little yucca baskets the way Grandma Fleet had — in shapes of turkeys or dogs; then she could bring the baskets to sell at the depot every two or three months. She practiced braiding and tying willow bark while Bright Eyes slept.

The day before the mail wagon left for the south, while the twins were busy tying bundles and packing, Sister went to visit the old Walapai woman a last time. Road’s End was so far from any place — she didn’t expect to get back to Needles again for months, and she wanted to see if the head injury really had affected the old Walapai woman, the way the others alleged. What if Indigo had returned with the rich white people?

Earlier she heard a westbound train arrive, so Sister looked for the women on the outdoor platform of the station. But when she saw the tourists flock around the women to buy their strings of cedar berry seeds, three for a penny, Sister stopped.

She was about to turn to leave when two tourists surprised her from behind and asked her and “the papoose” to pose for their camera. Sister started to turned away from them but out of the corner of her eye she saw a silver dollar between the white man’s fingers. She’d seen only lucky gamblers with silver dollars; the workers used to pay her for walks along the river with nickels and dimes. Sometimes it might take her two days to earn a dollar, but she had fun naked and laughing along the river with the men.

She turned back to the tourist and nodded at the silver dollar in his hand. She gripped the silver dollar in her hand, her face hot with shame, and refused to look at the camera; instead she stared down at her feet. Hastily she pulled the baby’s wrap up around his ears and chin so the glass eyes of the camera could not see his face and steal his energy. When the tourist finished she felt so ashamed she hurried away without telling the old Walapai woman good-bye.

She vowed never to let that happen again, no matter how much money she was offered. Fortunately the baby was not affected, but she felt weak and slightly nauseous after the encounter with the camera. The eye of the camera was the worst! Preachers condemned the sale of sex, but Sister always felt happy after her walks with the men; they always told her she was the prettiest — way prettier than the mattress women, who cost more. Naked on the river sand she always felt as free and joyous as that River Girl character in the old stories the twins heard at Laguna. The River Girl walks with Whirlwind Man and the poor receive venison and deer hides; when she goes off with Buffalo Man during a famine, the buffalo agree to give the starving humans their meat.

On the wagon ride back to Road’s End, she surprised the twins with the silver dollar, for her share of the expenses. Maytha asked how she got it, but Sister shook her head and avoided her eyes. Vedna pestered her to tell until she confessed. They were concerned about the weakness she experienced immediately after the photograph; they’d heard stories at Laguna about old people who died within days of being photographed.

The people at Road’s End were Chemehuevi Christian converts who kept to themselves. The twins found sheep and goat droppings on one end of the land — evidence their neighbors had been using their auntie’s land in her absence; probably they hoped no one would claim it after the old woman died.

The day after they got back with their supplies from Needles the three of them were struggling to get the hole in the roof patched. Maytha stood precariously on the roof to pull the rope while Vedna, on a ladder, and Sister Salt, on the ground, lifted and guided the sheet of corrugated tin up. Just then a kind Chemehuevi man passing by on the road saw their struggle and stopped to help them. He was not young, but he was able and strong as he climbed the old ladder and took hold of the end of the tin and guided it into place. He was on an errand somewhere, because he carried a rope halter, but he stayed and helped them lift the other piece of tin roofing into place and even showed them how to nail it down to prevent leaks.

Late that afternoon, before sundown, the work was finished and they invited him for rabbit in amaranth soup, and he quietly accepted. He said nothing while they talked excitedly about how fast the old roof was becoming snug again. Now that the roof was on, they could welcome the winter rains, and not shiver.

They each thanked the man for his help before he continued down the road, the rope halter over one shoulder. But the following morning they were shocked to see an angry wife and her two sisters walk into the yard, their walking sticks firmly in their hands, ready to thrash someone. They called the twins and Sister prostitutes and told them to keep their hands off other women’s husbands or else they’d call the Indian police to arrest them. They’d heard about the twins and their Sand Lizard pal going to jail in Yuma for stealing soap, so they better not steal anything else either.

Edward was saddened to see Hattie and the child on the station platform waving good-bye to him; the sight of the little monkey frolicking on the child’s back brought tears to his eyes. He never imagined the marriage would end like this. Perhaps they were better suited to each other than to marriage itself. He had no regrets — he was accustomed to the single state. But he felt sorry for Hattie, who apparently suffered from the sort of nervous disorder recently reported in German scientific journals, an affliction found almost exclusively among highly educated women. In any case, they would remain cordial with each other; if Hattie later wished to petition for annulment, he intended to cooperate fully. She generously arranged a line of credit for him at her bank since time was of the essence in the purchase of the mining claim. Dr. Gates was negotiating with the prospector who owned the mining claim on the meteor crater site.

As the train traveled farther east, the bleak plain of gravel and sand scattered with sagebrush gave way to the juniper and piñon of the higher elevation. Now the great majestic peaks of the San Francisco Mountains could be seen, pale blue in the distance; though it was only September, caps of snow gleamed on the peaks. He was glad he packed along his camera despite its bulk.

Dr. Gates met the train and accompanied him to check into the hotel next to the train station. The following morning, after breakfast in the hotel restaurant, they set out in the buggy for the crater, some twenty miles to the southwest. The dry grassy plain was scattered with pale yellow sandstone ridges and occasional dark outcroppings of volcanic rock and crossed by a number of ravines that, though sandy and dry now, carried enormous floods of runoff during the wet season. The air was so clear the San Francisco peaks, snow-tipped and blue, stood out vividly on the horizon to the west.

The low silhouette of the ridge formed by the debris from the meteor impact was visible in the distance when the doctor directed the driver to turn the buggy into a sandy wash. They followed the wash some distance to the foot of a pale yellow-orange sandstone mesa forty feet high.

The prospector made the discovery the previous week while digging for Indian pots. They walked forty or fifty yards from the buggy up a sandy slope to the foot of the sandstone formation, where a large crevice provided hand- and footholds to reach the mesa top. The doctor halted on a ledge below the final ten feet to caution Edward: here the Indians must have used a ladder of some sort because the sandstone was steep and offered few hand-or toeholds to a climber. Edward looked up and then he looked back; he had come this far and he did not want to stop. He nodded for Gates to proceed and watched his companion scramble skillfully up the sandstone, his fingers and toes barely braced in shallow indentations of the rock.

Once on the top, Gates knelt and offered a hand to Edward, who took a deep breath and sprang upward, arms and feet seeking any means to hold long enough to propel him higher to the doctor’s outstretched hand. For a moment he feared he would not have the momentum to make it, but he threw himself with all his might upward and the doctor pulled him to safety.

He was out of breath but exhilarated to reach the top of the mesa safely, and it wasn’t until he followed the doctor over the low mounds of grass and fallen stones that he realized he might have strained the muscles in the weak leg. He stopped then briefly to gently stretch the leg to prevent its stiffening.

Gates led him to a mound next to a large boulder where the outline of a dwelling was visible. Next to the boulder Edward saw piles of freshly disturbed sand at the corner of a room. A large piece of canvas covered the excavation, which reached into the wall and under the boulder. Gates pulled back the cover with a flourish, and there in the stone cavity, Edward saw a most remarkable object: wrapped in the remains of a garment of feathers and cotton string was an iron meteorite. On one end of the iron were tiny stone beads once strung as a necklace, and nearby were two small pottery bowls. The doctor reached into one of the bowls and handed Edward a tiny pottery whistle in the shape of a bird.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Oh quite wonderful,” Edward replied as he turned the little clay artifact over in his palm. The burial objects with the meteorite — the tiny stone bead necklace and the toy whistle — were intended for a child.

“Well you haven’t seen anything yet!” his companion exclaimed as he carefully pulled back the remains of the feather blanket from the “head” of the meteorite to reveal a glittering “eye” in the lustrous black iron.

“White diamond!” he said triumphantly.

Edward spent a good deal of time on his hands and knees examining the object and its site. He regretted his camera was down below in the wagon and the ascent so difficult; otherwise he might have recorded the Indian burial of the meteorite. In the catalogue of North American meteorites he had been amazed to read about a three-thousand-pound meteor iron discovered in Indian ruins in northern Chihuahua in a room with human burials, wrapped in native cotton just like the others. The prospector wanted to removed it at once, but the doctor managed to persuade him to wait until Edward could see the wonderful object just as it was found. Edward hoped the prospector would agree to sell it at a reasonable price.

From the mesa top the doctor pointed southeast, where the circular lip of the crater easily could be seen; tons and tons more of diamond-bearing iron waited for them there.

The descent was made easier thanks to the rope their driver tossed up and the doctor secured around a sturdy boulder, but effects of the strain on his leg were evident. The pain subsided as long as he managed to keep the leg propped up straight in the back of the buggy during the remainder of the ride. Later that evening in the camp on the rim of the crater, the doctor examined the leg and the redness and swelling around the scar. He gave Edward a handful of morphine tablets to take as needed for the discomfort but saw no need for concern. The buggy driver was a retired railroad engineer who hired on to drive and to serve as the camp cook. That evening he prepared a brace of quail he shot the day before, and Gates brought out a bottle of fine brandy to celebrate Edward’s arrival. The brandy enhanced the effect of the pills, and the pain subsided.

The prospector arrived after dark on a mule, towing a donkey loaded with his gear. He was a tall wiry man with a trimmed beard; he wore dusty overalls and a faded shirt, but his boots were new. His skin was sun darkened black as a Negro’s but his bright blue eyes and long, pinched nose allowed no mistake, nor did his hair, sun bleached white-blond even under his wide-brim hat. The prospector was content to let others do the talking, but behind the wire-rimmed glasses, his blue eyes took in everything.

The following morning, despite the stiffness and swelling, the doctor pronounced the leg safe to proceed. Edward swallowed more pills for the pain and eased himself up into the buggy for the half-mile ride to the bottom of the crater. The test drilling rig was in place to begin a first series of test holes and there were high hopes all around. The plan was to put down test holes to determine the locations of the largest deposits of the meteor irons.

The bottom of the crater was covered with strange white and gray silica flour — melted sand particles pulverized in the meteor’s collision. The drilling rig was sidelined by water seepage into the drilling hole; the crater was a natural rain-catchment device. Heavy rains some months before had flooded the ponds they used to dispose of water pumped from the drill hole. Now long canvas fire hoses snaked out of the pond of standing water around the drilling rig. The mule team was hitched to a large cylinder that operated bilge pumps to clear the exploration hole of water seepage, but an equipment breakdown halted all activity.

Dr. Gates and the drilling foreman spread open the map to show Edward the distribution of meteorite debris, which suggested the main mass of metals would be found here in this northeastern quadrant. The prospector stood by patiently with the assay lab reports in his hand. They estimated the mass was buried under the southern wall some two thousand feet deep, and the meteorite itself weighed ten million tons.

Edward could hardly control his excitement as he read the assay reports. The most recent samples taken from the test hole proved to be almost pure cadmium with platinum, and traces of iridium, and palladium studded with white and black diamonds of industrial quality.

The following morning on their way back to the hotel in Winslow for baths and clean clothing, Gates confided the prospector was bored with the test drilling, accustomed as he was to roaming in search of mineral samples or Indian ruins to dig. The prospector decided to sell his mining claim, and offered it to the doctor first.

Naturally Edward understood the urgency of buying the claim lest a stranger buy it and gain control of the site. As soon as they reached the hotel and washed up, Edward sent a telegram to the bank in New York City for funds to be wired to the bank in Albuquerque.

♦ ♦ ♦

At the construction site Hattie spoke with the army officer in charge, who could only tell her some weeks before a number of workers and others had left after a violent disturbance broke out. Indigo stayed in the buggy to make sure Linnaeus and Rainbow had plenty of shade. She was teaching the two of them to get along with each other — Linnaeus learned to hold a sunflower seed in two fingers between the cage bars for Rainbow. As long she watched him, the parrot politely took the seed, but if she turned away, Rainbow tried to pinch the monkey’s fingers with his beak.

The officer in charge consulted with his aide-de-camp, who left the tent to find the young Mexican, Juanito, who might know. The young officer insisted Hattie take his field chair and have a cup of water while they waited. He was from Pennsylvania and this was his first assignment out west. His face lit up when Hattie mentioned New York and Boston; the dust and the heat here were almost unbearable.

The aide returned with a young Mexican man, who listened to Hattie’s description of the young Indian women she sought; yes, of course he remembered them, he said with a smile; they were a lot of fun. Hattie’s cheeks colored and she looked away; the captain cleared his throat. Did he know where they went? Juanito nodded. The Chemehuevi girls bought land at Road’s End and the other girl went with them.

Hattie asked if there were accommodations for travelers nearby; it was half past four, much too late to start out for Road’s End. The captain consulted with his aide briefly, then offered her and the child his tent for the night, and invited them to dine with him. Gallant Captain Higgens even found space in a tent with enlisted men for the buggy driver, who declined the offer with a sullen shake of his head. Hattie was determined to replace the man as soon as they returned to Needles.

Indigo took the monkey cage down to the river to clean out and wash; the buggy driver muttered under his breath about “the stink of monkey shit and Indians.” She found a shallow puddle and washed out both cages even though Rainbow’s wasn’t dirty.

Later that evening, over supper, the captain alluded to the driver’s rudeness and local resentment at the presence of federal troops. Of course, Arizona had been Confederate territory, and the captain suspected the locals resented the army’s protection of the Indian reservation boundaries. He smiled at Indigo. She certainly was intelligent and well mannered, thanks, no doubt, to Hattie’s efforts.

Hattie smiled and nodded, but she was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable with the captain’s enthusiasm. Her wedding ring was in plain view but he may have assumed she was widowed. She told Indigo to get ready for bed, and the captain excused himself and said good night.

The army cot was terribly uncomfortable, and in the middle of the night, Hattie pulled the bedding to the tent floor next to Indigo. She fell into a deep sleep then, and dreamed she was back in the hidden grotto in Lucca alone with a cleft oval stone, which began to softly shimmer and glow until it was lustrous and shining, too bright to look at directly. The light itself, not the stone, spoke to her, though not with words but feelings.

She woke still embraced by a sense of well-being and love; she wept from a happiness she did not understand. Later she decided the young captain’s attentions, not surprisingly, had affected her sleep. In any case, the captain and his men were gone by the time she and Indigo got dressed and repacked. The captain’s cook had set a table in the officers’ mess tent for the two of them. Eat hearty, he warned them; Road’s End was a long way from anything like real food. At the end of the meal Hattie asked if they might wrap up some biscuits to take along. Later the cook not only gave them biscuits; he rinsed out a whiskey jug and filled it with fresh water.

In the early afternoon the driver stopped to rest the horses under a lone cottonwood tree at the mouth of a gully near the road. Hattie and Indigo walked a distance away into the greasewood brush to relieve themselves; they took turns keeping watch for each other in case the driver followed.

They ate biscuits in the buggy in silence and did not try to offer the driver any. The young man fairly seethed with anger if Hattie even asked the distance they’d gone. Whenever he stopped to rest the horses, out came the knife to carve more toothpicks from green twigs off the nearest tree. The first few times she saw the knife, Hattie felt sick with apprehension, but gradually she became accustomed to his hostile behavior.

They reached the trading post at Road’s End in the afternoon before sundown. An Indian woman and her little boy were browsing in the aisles of the store, but Hattie saw very little to buy on the dusty shelves; some dented canned goods, peaches and tomatoes, matches, lamp chimneys, nails. The trader and his wife seemed barely to recognize Hattie from their stop there night before last until Indigo peeked in the door with the parrot on her shoulder and the monkey in her arms. The couple scowled in recognition, and the trader’s wife announced no animals in the store.

Hattie inquired about the three girls who recently moved there — twin sisters and their friend — but the trader shook his head while the wife turned away her face full of contempt. Don’t ask them; ask the Indian agent.

Hattie pretended to shop but she wasn’t sure she wanted to touch anything in the store; the thick gray dust on the shelves was peppered with rodent droppings. Finally she picked up a can of coffee, a can of peaches, and a can of cream corn, and asked where the sugar and flour were kept. The trader indicated two wooden bins behind the counter where he stood and she asked for five pounds of each. As he poured the flour from the scoop into the paper sack on the scale, Hattie could see the tiny weevils wiggle. The last item she bought was a half-gallon tin of lamp oil, which she regretted almost immediately because its odor seeped out no matter how tight its lid. Hattie was surprised at how much these few items cost, then remembered this was the only store for miles. The bright-colored candy balls in the glass jar next to the cash register were the most appealing items in the store, so she bought a sack of them for a quarter.

The woman and her little boy stopped their browsing to watch Hattie, and the boy’s eyes widened when he saw the big sack of candy balls. As Hattie passed them on her way out, she reached into the sack and gave the boy a handful of candy. The boy smiled and his mother nodded, and they followed Hattie.

Outside the boy and his mother watched with amazement as Indigo showed them the parrot and the monkey; they wanted to touch the monkey, so Indigo showed them how Linnaeus would shake hands. The little boy shook hands with the monkey, then looked at Indigo closely and asked if she was an Indian. His mother nudged him and whispered in his ear. “Oh,” he said and looked down.

Hattie explained Indigo was sent away to school, but now they were looking for her sister, who was living with two other girls, twin sisters.

The driver was annoyed at the delay and moved the buggy out from under the cottonwood tree to signal his impatience. Just as Hattie and Indigo were about to go, the Indian woman pointed east to the ridge above the river.

“See?” she asked, still pointing. Hattie squinted and looked in the direction she pointed, but could see nothing that resembled a house. She thanked the woman and got into the buggy after Indigo. She pointed in the same direction the woman had for the driver, who shook his head and exhaled impatiently as he picked up the reins and released the brake.

All along the river there were large fields with plows and cultivators parked nearby; melons, beans, and corn grew by the acre. There was another crop, which Indigo did not recognize at first glance — dark green bushes covered with small white flowers. Hattie pointed out the bolls of cotton Indigo mistook for blossoms. Here and there at the edge of the fields they saw little lean-tos for shade, but no people.

Above the river on an ancient floodplain, they passed a small wooden church neatly painted white amid a cluster of small wooden houses also painted white. Each house had a little garden of corn and sunflowers; some had pens with chickens or goats.

Was the buggy high off the ground, or what? Indigo wondered, because everything seemed so small. So this is what happened to your eyes if you looked at white people’s things too long. Hattie wanted to ask someone to be sure they had the right directions but no one seemed to be home. Indigo kept quiet; she knew no one would come out while the white man was there. They continued up the sandy road to the low ridge above the river bottom where the woman pointed.

Now that they were close, Indigo put both the monkey and the parrot back into their cages; her heart beat faster as they started up the last incline of river stones and sand to a little house of mud and stone with patches of new tin on its roof.

The clatter of the buggy wheels over the river cobblestones at the top of the ridge brought two heads cautiously out the doorway; they looked just alike — twins! This was the right place! She grabbed the sideboard and swung herself down to ground before the buggy was fully stopped, landing so hard her feet stung.

The sight of the loaded buggy, and a dark girl in a fancy blue dress who jumped before it even stopped, left the twins speechless for a moment. Inside Sister Salt was nursing the little grandfather but he let go of her nipple to listen, and ignored the drop of milk on his cheek. For an instant Sister was worried and gathered him up, ready to run; but Vedna turned back from the door, eyes wide, and nearly breathless. She said, “I think it’s your sister!” then followed Maytha outside.

Sister stood up with the baby just as Indigo appeared in the doorway. For an instant she almost didn’t recognize Indigo because she had grown so tall; now her features resembled their mother’s a great deal. Indigo threw her arms around Sister and she put her free arm around Indigo and they embraced each other, while the little grandfather squirmed between them. They held each other and cried until the baby got angry at being squeezed and let out a howl that made Indigo step back.

“Oh Sister! A baby!” she said, tears still running down her cheeks. “Look at him! He’s cute!” The twins stood in the doorway and watched them, but they kept glancing outside too. Finally Sister got curious and turned to look outside too; then Indigo remembered Hattie in the buggy and her pets.

“Come meet my friends,” she said.

They ignored the driver, who sat in the buggy and glowered at them as they invited Hattie inside. They gave Hattie the crate they used as a table to sit on while they sat on their bedrolls on the floor. Sister and Indigo talked nonstop in a mixture of English and the Sand Lizard language.

At first Hattie and the twins listened while the sisters talked, but after a while Maytha got bored and asked Hattie questions about where they’d been and how they tracked down Sister. Hattie described the visit to the superintendent at Parker and the stop at the site of the dam. When she mentioned the kind woman with the little boy who directed them here, the twins exchanged glances, and Vedna remarked, “Oh I guess someone here doesn’t hate us!” Then she laughed.

Outside in the wagon, the parrot began to call Indigo with loud screeches, which silenced Sister and the twins. Oh! Indigo jumped to her feet and looked at Hattie. They all went outside and Indigo handed the parrot cage down to Hattie and opened the monkey cage for Linnaeus, who climbed on her back; the empty cages were easier to lift. Indigo pulled out her luggage and the hatbox with the orchid plants from Hattie’s luggage piled in the back of the buggy and handed them to the girls. The driver looked straight ahead, chewing hard on a toothpick, and made no move to help. Maytha nudged Vedna and they both made faces at the driver behind his back, then laughed.

Hattie saw the driver look around at the lengthening shadows, then glare at her impatiently as the sun settled toward the horizon. Finally as the girls took Indigo’s luggage inside, the driver cleared his throat loudly, spat on the ground, and asked her if she was staying or going. She better decide — because he wasn’t staying here tonight.

Hattie felt her face flush, and the palms of her hands were damp; her heart pounded and she began to feel light-headed. She told the driver to wait for her in a sharp tone of voice she hadn’t used before, and scarcely noticed his scowl. She realized she hadn’t prepared herself for parting with Indigo; she hadn’t really believed they’d locate her sister so easily or so soon. She parted with Edward because it was the right thing; neither of them wanted the marriage to continue. But she loved Indigo with all of her heart; without the girl she didn’t know what she would do.

Hattie watched from the doorway as the girls chattered happily inside, laughing all together. It was clear how much Indigo’s homeland meant to her, and how she loved her Sister Salt. The two girls delighted in each other. She’d never seen Indigo’s face glow with such joy. She scarcely would have recognized the laughing, chattering child as Indigo.

Hattie felt relief and pride too that she’d reunited the sisters, but another sensation began to emerge — a dreadful sense of how alone she was. But that was silly, she scolded herself; both her parents were in good health, and Edward and she were not estranged; they would still correspond.

She had to get hold of herself for Indigo’s sake. The two sisters were reunited, but what about their mother? If the mother could not be found, would the authorities allow Sister Salt to care for Indigo? The reservation superintendent said the law required Hattie to give him a full update on Indigo’s whereabouts, the sort of family her sister had, and what school she would attend.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sister saw the white woman watch them from the doorway, and she wondered what the woman wanted. Why did this woman take Indigo away from the boarding school?

“Good-bye,” Indigo heard Hattie call and looked up from her unpacking.

“Oh! I thought you would stay longer,” Indigo said as she walked Hattie to the buggy. The other girls followed; Sister held up the little grandfather so he could get a good look at Indigo’s white friend. Maybe tonight after they were asleep, the little grandfather would give her information on that woman. He watched his auntie and the white woman intently.

Hattie hugged Indigo once and then again; she’d be back to check on her next week, and maybe have some news for the girls on the whereabouts of their mother.

“You could stay here if you wanted,” Indigo said, glancing at the driver, then looking Hattie in the eyes. They both knew what she meant.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Hattie said, but she was too upset by their parting to worry about the driver. She doubted there would be any trouble because he was in such a hurry to get to Needles. He started the horses almost before she was seated, but Hattie had to smile because the girls all made faces at him for her benefit. Hattie was beginning to have a plan for the weeks to come; it all revolved around Indigo and her sister.

Indigo gave the twins the smelly can of lamp oil and the bundle of canned goods, sugar, and flour Hattie bought at the trading post. She opened the valise of seeds and gladiolus corms only long enough to remove the tin of seeds and grain to fill the cup in Rainbow’s cage, and filled the other cup from their water bucket with the flat sandstone lid.

“Oh candy balls!” Maytha called out as she held up the paper sack.

“Too bad she didn’t buy us some lard or coffee — we could have had tortillas and coffee for supper!” Vedna said as she stuffed two candy balls into her mouth. They all helped themselves to the candy.

Indigo took out her color pencils and her notebook to show off her drawings of flowers to Sister while the twins lifted the fine linen underwear and petticoats from the trunk. They oohed and aahed over the chambray dresses trimmed in satin ribbon, and joked with one another about how much money they could sell them for — enough to eat for months, they laughed.

Indigo unpacked her two other pairs of new kidskin slippers and held them next to Maytha’s bare feet; the shoes were too small, but Maytha and Vedna didn’t care. They stretched the kidskin and forced the slippers on their feet, and wore them proudly.

The little grandfather was in his bundle propped up in the corner of the room so he could watch. Sister opened the big hatbox and lifted up a pot of orchids for a better look. Indigo cautioned her sister to be careful with the plants, which irritated Sister.

“You think I don’t know what a flowerpot is?” She put it back in the hatbox just as she found it. Indigo saw Sister’s hurt expression and felt terrible; she apologized over and over until Sister told her it was all right. Indigo tried to hand her the hatbox of orchids — she insisted she take them, but Sister shook her head; she knew nothing about these plants; she’d only kill them.

Indigo hated herself for hurting Sister’s feelings — she loved her more than anyone, as much as she loved Mama and Grandma Fleet. If Sister didn’t want the orchids, then Indigo didn’t want them either. She tossed the hatbox out the door; it landed with a thud on the sand, and all the pots overturned, dumping bark, orchids, and all. Later Sister took pity on the poor orchids and scooped them back into their pots and gave them a place on the windowsill.

It was getting dark now and Maytha filled their lamp with oil; they hadn’t bought lamp oil in so long they didn’t bother to replace the lamp chimney after it shattered. They used a piece of rag for the wick, and Vedna lit one of their precious matches; a lovely orange-yellow flame glowed in the dark room. Without the proper wick or chimney it gave off puffs of sooty smoke, but they didn’t care.

They finished off the candy balls but had no way to open the tins of peaches and corn. Sister laid down the sleeping baby and took the cans and the axe outside. Whack-whack-whack, they heard, and a moment later Sister returned, both hands cupped around the can dripping sugary peach juice. Indigo shared her portions of the peaches and the corn with Linnaeus, then put him to bed in his cage next to Rainbow. After they finished off the can of corn, the twins and Sister took the tin of tobacco and rolling papers outside for a smoke before bed.

Indigo realized then she had no bedding, no blanket, so she arranged her wool coat and raincoat on the sandy floor near Sister’s bedding. For covers she used her nightgowns one on top of the other, and slept in her clothes as the other girls did.

♦ ♦ ♦

Hattie noticed the buggy driver was acquainted with the trader and his wife; all the white people here seemed to know one another. “Strength in numbers,” she supposed, since whites were outnumbered by Indians here. The driver probably stopped there overnight each time he drove to Parker or Yuma. Hattie smelled fried chicken and biscuits, but the woman said nothing about food. She wasn’t really hungry anyway; she was worried about Indigo. Maybe she was wrong to leave the child at Road’s End. Indigo’s sister and her friends seemed nice enough, but they’d created a good bit of notoriety for themselves along the river.

The trader’s wife put her in the same room as she and Indigo had shared the night before last; the sheets on the bed had not been changed. She brought out the bottle of paregoric syrup Edward gave her for emergencies, to help her sleep. She pulled the bedding to the floor off the horsehair mattress, and wept because this was Indigo’s custom, to sleep on the floor. Blankets! Indigo had no blankets, nothing!

Hattie rolled over and sobbed facedown in the pillow, so the others did not hear. She took two good swallows of the paregoric and lay back with her eyes closed, listening to her own heartbeat. Gradually her heart and her breathing slowed and the anxiety over Indigo without blankets gradually passed. Her sister and the other girls would take care of Indigo; it was plain how much her sister loved her, and the other girls seemed very kind. Hattie would simply buy Indigo blankets and other necessities the girls might need and return to Road’s End next week, but this time with a new driver. She drifted away to sleep as she imagined warm white wool blankets piled next to the parrot cage in the little mud house.

She dreamed the bright orange carnelian carving of Minerva seated with her snake was a life-size sculpture in a fantastic garden of green shady groves and leafy arcades. Next to the path stood a life-size waterbird and her chick carved from pale lemon yellow carnelian. In a thicket of holly she heard rustling and twigs cracking as if something large were approaching. Oddly, she wasn’t afraid when she saw the old tin mask rolling down the grassy path as if it were alive.

She woke and struck a match to see the clock: half past twelve. She lit the lamp on the table and opened the trunk and brought out the little carvings. She arranged them on the nightstand so they were at eye’s level from her pillow, and thrilled at their lustrous surface and transparent glow. Where were you in my dream? she asked the milky chalcedony carving of the three cattle. She took a sip of water and put out the light; oddly, the tin mask no longer seemed threatening.

Hattie ate the breakfast the woman served them, and was surprised at how good the eggs with biscuits and slices of smoked ham tasted. She was relieved the others at the table ignored her; nothing she could say or do would change their opinion of her: white squaw. Fortunately, her year of graduate classes prepared her for obnoxious conduct.

Now that she had decided her course of action, even the ride back to Needles seemed shorter. As the buggy passed through the business district of Needles she noticed a large mercantile and dry goods store on the corner; tomorrow she would shop there for Indigo’s blankets and the others things the girls should have. She needed to visit the local bank to arrange for a transfer of funds from her account in New York.

The hotel desk clerk studied her signature after she signed the guest book and handed her a letter from Edward, postmarked Winslow. Edward described the campsite at the bottom of the meteor crater and the sorry condition of the equipment, especially the drilling rig, which broke down more days than it worked. But all that would be corrected very soon. He and the doctor were about to board the train to Albuquerque with the latest discovery — a wonderful meteor iron studded with white diamonds — to have it assayed. New mining equipment would also be purchased on this trip, and he hoped he did not have to exceed the credit line she arranged for him.

He described in colorful detail the mesa climb and mentioned “a slight stiffness” in his leg, but devoted the remainder of the letter to a description of the Indian burial — the “baby,” or meteor iron, wrapped in layers of feather blanket, wore a tiny necklace and matching bracelet of tiny beads. Funeral offerings of food and a toy whistle were carefully arranged in the stone cavity with the meteor iron.

That night Hattie dreamed Sister Salt’s live baby was in the stone cavity, but Edward and the Australian doctor insisted on using a large steel pick and heavy shovel to excavate the baby. She woke soaked with sweat and shaking; in her dream one of them struck something and Edward yelled. She saw blood spurting everywhere and a tiny severed leg; but the infant in the stone cavity was unharmed, even smiling.

She just finished dressing when there was a knock, and a telegram envelope was slipped under the door. Her heart beat furiously in those moments before she opened the telegram. It was sent from Albuquerque and all it said was: “Urgent. Come at once. Your husband hospitalized.” It was signed by the chaplain of St. Joseph’s Hospital.

If she packed only one bag and hurried, there was still time to make the eastbound train to Albuquerque. She felt light-headed and had to sit down on the edge of the bed.

♦ ♦ ♦

Indigo woke up before the others and took Rainbow and Linnaeus for a walk along the river; the sun had just come up and she thought the early start might get them more food. The first day she walked the river, Indigo realized others from the settlement of houses by the church walked along here to search for greens or other plants to boil and eat. Before the government drew reservation lines, there was plenty for everyone to eat because the people used to roam up and down the river for hundreds of miles to give the plants and animals a chance to recover. But now the people were restricted to the reservations, so everyone foraged those same few miles of river.

Up in the sandhills and high foothills, Indigo’s luck was better; she knew the higher ground and what grew there better than she knew the riverbank. Anyway, long ago when they asked why Sand Lizards refused to live along the river, Grandma Fleet told them that too much time along the river put one at risk for fevers.

Indigo found a stand of sunflowers gone to seed near the mouth of an arroyo; ordinarily she would have only taken some and left the rest for the next hungry being who came along, but she was afraid her parrot would suffer if she did not take all the seeds, so she filled the pockets of her skirt. Linnaeus loved the seeds too, and Indigo began to plan a small winter garden for peas and greens and beans. Too bad the sunflowers had to be sowed in June, but next season she would sow rows and rows of the giant sunflowers. Next year she would harvest the big flat faces full of seeds for them all; but this year they were going to have to sell some of her clothes and things to buy food.

When she returned with her cache of sunflower seeds, the twins were snoring in unison, but Sister was sitting up on her bedding with the little grandfather at her breast. She proudly showed Sister all the greens and seeds she’d collected for the monkey and parrot. “What about me?” Sister asked. “Won’t you offer me any?” She made the words sound like they were a joke, but Indigo knew there was truth in the joke too — if they barely had food for themselves, how could they spare food for pets?

Indigo opened the trunk to the compartment with the dresses and her light wool coat; she took them off the hangers and folded them carefully in stacks on top of the open wool coat. She tied the arms of the coat around the bundle and turned to Sister.

“Maybe we can trade someone this stuff for some beans and corn, and maybe some meat.” Sister gave a short laugh at the mention of meat. The people here were Christians but they were still poor. Who could afford to trade food for a dress? Only the trader and his wife might have the money. It would be better to sell them in Needles, if only Needles were not so far and rides on the mail wagon didn’t cost so much.

That afternoon Indigo put Linneaus and Rainbow in their cages, and Vedna snapped the huge padlock on the door of the little house; they were off to the trading post with the dresses bundled in the wool coat. They were disappointed to learn the trader was gone to Yuma, and they almost left the store before the trader’s wife asked if they had something they wanted to sell.

First she reached for the wool coat, but Indigo held on to it, and told her it wasn’t for sale. The wool coat was part of her bedding. The woman held up the dresses at arm’s length and examined them carefully, although a number of them had not been worn even once. She bought all the dresses, then called her Chemehuevi laundress from the back room to boil the dresses. Indigo protested that the dresses were clean, but the other girls shook their heads to quiet her. As it was, the trader’s wife allowed them only $7 in trade for all the dresses.

The twins motioned for Sister to come to the rear of the store, where the three of them huddled and discussed something — Indigo wasn’t sure what it was about. They left the trading post with big sacks of beans and cracked barley, a little coffee, a small can of lard, and a big sack of colored candy balls; they still had the sugar and the wormy flour Hattie gave them.

It wasn’t much for the lovely dresses trimmed in blue satin ribbon, made especially for Indigo, but it was better than starving. They walked back to the house with their mouths full of candy balls and smiled. The cracked barley was to brew beer or something similar to it; they didn’t have all the other ingredients but they’d watched Big Candy and they figured they could get the recipe close enough to brew beer or ale or something to get people drunk. Maybe the Christian Chemehuevis at Road’s End would not buy it, but the twins said drinkers would come from miles around. At least they could make enough money from the brew to feed themselves until the garden fed them.

They put on a big pot of beans to simmer on the coals all day while they all pitched in to prepare the garden to plant the winter seeds. The land the twins bought from their old auntie was across the road from the best farmland, irrigated by a system of ditches from the river. At one time the ditches brought water to their land too, but they were buried under the sand now.

In the rich moist fields close to the river, tiny green sprouts could already be seen; seeds planted too early sprouted, but quickly got scorched to death in the fierce autumn sun. If they didn’t get their seeds planted now, later the ground would be too cold to germinate the seeds.

Among the old and broken hoes and rakes the twins found when they moved in were tobacco cans of seeds saved by their auntie. Maytha and Vedna argued over the worth of old seeds, but Maytha was right; these seeds were all they had except for the seeds Indigo brought; those seeds might not know how to survive here. At least a few of the seeds in the cans were bound to germinate, so they all worked away with rakes and hoes; none of them had gloves, so their hands got blisters and calluses. The twins and Sister joked farming wasn’t any better than laundry for a lady’s hands.

For their winter garden, they planted amaranth and all kinds of beans and black-eyed pea seeds they found in the cans. Indigo planted only a few of the seeds from her collection; all the others she intended to plant in the old gardens when they got home.

Linnaeus learned to follow along behind Indigo without disturbing the seeds she just planted, but Rainbow was naughty and hopped off her shoulder to rake his beak through the sand to expose the seeds and eat them. His parrot waddle was so cute she couldn’t bear to scold him or lock him in his cage. She picked him up and kissed him and told him to stay put on her shoulder, then replanted any seeds he ate. But Linnaeus was a good worker; with his sharp eyes and quick fingers he caught sucking beetles and cutworms and ate them head first.

When they took a break for lunch back at the house, Indigo opened the trunk to the compartment with her seed collection; she untied the drawstrings on the cotton sacks of gladiolus corms Laura gave her and felt each one to make sure they remained healthy. At the time Laura gave her the seeds, Indigo used her color pencils to write the color names on the envelopes of gladiolus seed. Now she couldn’t resist the temptation to plant just a few gladiolus corms among the pea seeds Aunt Bronwyn gave her. Since she and Sister probably would be moved back home by the time the corms grew blossoms, Indigo decided to plant just a few gladiolus.

Then Indigo found she had a great many black gladiolus corms, so she planted them for a border around the peas; between the beans and the spinach she planted two each of the scarlet, purple, and pink gladiolus. As she planted them, she imagined how this corner of the field would look, and she added white and yellow corms too. What a surprise the twins would have in a few months!

Later that day, when the planting was finished, Sister sent Indigo and her pets down the road to the neighbors’ corral to look for long strands of tail hair the horses might have snagged. Sister and Indigo wove horsehair snares the way Grandma taught them and carefully strung them in the weeds around their garden; later that evening they had fresh rabbit meat to go along with the beans.

After dinner they sat outside to smoke and watch the stars before bed; there was no moon and the stars seemed to shine closer and brighter than Sister ever saw; Grandma Fleet said the stars were related to us humans. The twins agreed; at Laguna they’d heard stories about the North Star, who acted as a spy for Estoyehmuut, Arrow Boy, the time his wife, Kochininako, Yellow Woman, ran off with Buffalo Man. The North Star tipped off Arrow Boy, otherwise he never would have found her.

At first he was uncomfortable outdoors at night, but quickly Big Candy got reaccustomed to the soldier’s life out on the trail. He didn’t build fires and slept with his shotgun in his hand. The mule was young and stout; but on the morning of the fourth day of the chase, the mule pulled up its left hind leg and refused to leave Tonopah. Big Candy traded the mule for dried apricots and mutton jerky, and an old handcart he towed with a strap around his chest. That first day the miles blistered his feet, but he shot a covey of quail before dark and cooked himself a feast. His feet healed after he took a knife to the boots and cut them open at the heels and the toes.

This wasn’t a race. He would keep on her trail steadily, and he would find her. He didn’t care if he had to follow her all the way to Mexico City and back; she wasn’t getting away with his money. The days were still hot but nothing like the summer, and the nights were almost cold enough to want a fire.

The next day the going got harder, as the trail left the Aguila valley and ascended the stony brush mountains of Gila Bend. Here the wheels of the cart hung up on lava rock outcrops in odd shapes that reminded Candy of the mushrooms he once stuffed and cooked for Wylie.

He camped outside town at Gila Bend so he could scout the trails to the west and south to make sure she did not double back on him and head for Yuma after all. The extra miles to sweep the trails left Candy too exhausted to eat that night. After the first week, the waist of his dungarees was too loose to button; he tightened his belt two notches and recalled the old stories Dahlia told about their Red Stick ancestors who trailed enemies for months through the swamps and bayous as silent and swift as water snakes. Those first days he dreamed about the trail and the tracks he followed by day, over and over; if he thought about Wylie or Sister and the baby, he quickly refocused his thoughts on the pursuit.

When he did not turn back at the Sand Tank Mountains, Delena realized how bitterly determined her pursuer was; so she took the long hard way across the mountains to give the fat man a good workout. After the first day, she doubled back to see if he gave up and turned back yet; but no, there he was, trudging along with his food and supplies in a pack strapped to his back. He abandoned the handcart, which wasn’t suited to the narrow trails. He was thinner now but still looked strong.

Seven dogs drank a good deal of water, so he tried to anticipate her trail according to her dogs’ requirements for water; he didn’t know about the big canvas water bags each dog carried in its pack. At Quilitosa, the tracks of the woman and her dogs abruptly changed course and followed a dim old path into the mountains to the west. This could be a trick, or she could be headed for Yuma after all. She must know some spring or rainwater pool not shown on the map. The water he carried should last him three days if necessary, and according to the map, he’d be out of the Sand Tank Mountains in two days. He was wrong, but by the time he realized his error, he was too far to turn back.

In the mountains she and the dogs were concealed and it was cooler, so they traveled by day. Every morning she rationed out the water to the dogs as they sat in a row to wait their turn for water. From each dog’s pack she took its water bag and filled the tin pie pan. They lapped up the water eagerly, then looked up into her eyes to beg for more; they were hungry too — even the pack rats were scarce in these mountains; the dogs had only found grubs and roots since the day before. She smashed pine cones for the green nuts and built a small fire just to roast the agave hearts and roots she gathered. She didn’t care if the fat man saw the smoke — he’d never catch her.

Later that day, a breeze came up from the southwest, followed by big fluffy clouds moving rapidly overhead. “Stop awhile over these dry hills,” she said to them, though one look around told her something was wrong here. Too much taken away and not enough given back — the clouds avoided places where people showed no respect or love.

Distances were deceptive in the dry clear air but she had not counted on the broken rock or the steep incline of the trail. When they finally came down out of the mountains, she had finished off her water and the dogs’ water, and they were still a day and half or two days from water. The risk to herself and the dogs was worth it; these mountains would stop the fat man. To save her strength, she no longer bothered to double back to spy on the fat man’s progress after he followed her into the mountains; if he turned back now it was still too late for him.

The following day she figured the fat man was just about finished, but now she would be lucky to get herself and the dogs to water before they died. She and the dogs traveled much more slowly now, and they stopped to rest more often. The clouds still passed overhead in great woolly herds, though not as fast as before; in the shade with the dogs lying around her, Delena began to think about her comrades in the south; they fought the federal troops from ambush with sticks and rocks. What a difference repeating rifles would make!

She asked the ancestors for help to get her and the dogs safely to water now that they were back on the hot gravel plain. What a pity it would be to die here with so much money the people needed so desperately.

Big Candy made two days’ water last until the morning of the fourth day, when the trail descended out of the mountains onto the dry plain. He stood and gazed into the distance on the plain for a long time but saw no sign of water or even a mud hole left over from past rain. No water behind and no water ahead — the words repeated themselves to the rhythm of his feet on the trail. In the army he heard plenty of stories about those who choked on their tongues swollen out, blistered, and black; some thought the hallucinations of the dying gave them comfort in their last moments — they often raved as if they were bathing in cool water as they rolled on the ground and tried to swallow the sand. He intended to use the shotgun before that happened.

At night Big Candy woke himself again and again with dreams of water — icy glass pitchers of pure water, cascades of springs over rocks, topaz blue pools shaded by tall trees, even the muddy red Colorado water swirled around him so invitingly. Sometimes in the dreams he saw the tiny black baby near the water — it walked and moved as if it were grown up and it laughed at him but never spoke. Candy knew his meaning — the baby was alive and would live; he was the one who was going to die.

Before dawn he woke to the sound of a drum; it wasn’t his heartbeat, he was sure; he sat up and listened but heard nothing but the breeze over the rocks. When he laid his head down again he heard it distinctly — the drumming was underground. So this was how it begins, he thought, not at all as he imagined dying would be. Who were the drummers who came to accompany him? He drifted off to sleep again, where the little black baby stood at the edge of a clear fast-moving stream to gesture and jeer at him. You’re the one who’s almost dead, not me!

He woke crying but he had no tears; he failed the Sand Lizard girl when the baby was born — in Dahlia’s kitchen they always praised the tiny newborns, and spoke cheerfully to encourage them. Poor Sister! He let her down when the baby was born and now all the money she’d saved was gone too. He felt the need to urinate but was too weak and dizzy to stand up; he rolled over to one side, unbuttoned himself, but was able to make only a few drops of urine. His eyes would quit first, so he kept the shotgun right by his side.

Delena looked back at the mountains of grayish purple stone and wondered if the fat man turned back in time. As the sun moved overhead, she and the dogs crawled under the greasewoods for shade. She shook her canteen and listened to the last mouthful of water slosh inside; the big clouds moved slower today, their silver backs and bellies streaked blue-violet. Ancestors, she said, never mind about me; what about the others who are depending on me — hear their prayers!

That day months ago as she set out with her dogs on her mission, the old women and old men cried as they embraced her one by one; their task was to pray for her every day she was gone until she returned. Others prayed for their people fighting the federal troops, but her mission was so important, those assigned to pray for her had no other task but to bring her back safely with the rifles.

Now that the water was almost gone, the best strategy was to keep still in the shade; this trail across the dry plain wasn’t much traveled but someone — maybe prospectors — might happen along before death came. She always wondered how the cards would tell her about her own death; she shuffled them and began to lay them down: First the card that stood for her, the Guitar upside down. Useless for play — yes, that was her! Next the Flowerpot upside down on its flowers — yes, this was her situation all right! Even the saying that went with the Flowerpot was true: “The one born in a flowerpot doesn’t leave the hall”—beings that depend on water should not cross the dry plain. There it was! The Bell overturned, the third card, which represented the obstacle — death — that must be overcome. She had to smile; even at the end, the cards spoke truthfully.

She lay down the others. The Songbird upside down couldn’t make anyone’s heart sing, but the Rose upside down still was lovely; Mother of the Indians, Guadalupe, was still there. But then she turned up the Frog by a pool of water, followed by the Umbrella upside down to catch the rain, not shed it. Good to see the Frog, child of the rain, with the Umbrella, also a companion of the rain. The Drunkard card was upside down, so the liquor in the bottle poured into his mouth; the Heart was upright and its saying promised, “I will return.” The Apache card stood upright under the Sun card — the warrior strong and ready under the Sun, who is the protector of the poor. The overturned Bell was the truth — she faced death, but the other cards were her hope.

She glanced up at the sky at the clouds; they were no longer in such a hurry as they swelled and ascended into great pyramids and towers thousands of feet high.

“Oh you are beautiful!” Her throat was so dry her words made a croaking sound; all seven dogs feebly wagged their tails, mistaking the compliment for themselves. Poor dogs! Dumb to the end!

“My good soldiers!” she said and patted each one’s head before she removed their packs with the empty canteens and the cash bundled up in old rags. Let the poor dogs at least die in peace without burdens. She piled the bundles together. Far, far in the distance a coyote howled for rain, and one by one the dogs began to howl mournfully in reply. She knew it was their death song and hers too — no one would pass by on this trail in time to save them.

She opened each bundle to expose the stacks of currency and the silver and gold coins; as she did, the money-sniffer dog wagged her tail and laboriously got to her feet to press her nose against the stacks of bills. Besides her dogs, her most prized possessions were the decks of Mexican and Gypsy cards. She removed them from the cloth bag around her waist and laid both decks on top of the money.

She glanced up at the clouds again. She found it difficult to swallow now, and took the canteen with the last mouthful of water and sprinkled it over the dogs. She removed her dress and her shoes and placed them on the money pile, next to the decks of cards. This was all she possessed except her last breath and her body. Take it all, she told the sky.

She lay down in the greasewood’s thin shade and looked up at the clouds pushing and bumping one another as they climbed the pyramids and towers that darkened under their weight. Now her eyes felt dry and it was more comfortable to keep them closed; the dogs were all lying close to her now. “Good dog army,” she said as she drifted off.

Hattie took a cab directly to the hospital from the station. She carried her small bag with her; it was heavy and made her regret she had not checked into the hotel first. The nun at the reception desk showed her upstairs to the third floor, for the most critical cases. Three doctors were consulting in the corner of the room; Hattie felt her heart lurch when she heard that awful Australian accent chime in with the others — of course Dr. Gates would be here. Edward seemed feverish but he recognized her at once and called out her name. She felt her cheeks redden as the Australian turned to look at her.

Edward looked grayish and weak, but she forced herself to smile and asked how he was feeling. He sat up and leaned forward.

“How dear of you to come,” he said as he took her hand between his hot dry palms. The diagnosis was pneumonia, he told her, but he felt better now. Dr. Gates was concerned about the possibility tuberculosis would follow the pneumonia, although the other doctors disagreed. Today the fever seemed on the wane, after Dr. Gates’s experimental doses of manganese and raw gland tissue extracts to fortify his blood.

Though obviously quite ill, still he seemed alert and did not appear to be dying. Now Hattie regretted her haste — she might have taken Indigo the blankets and other things she would need for the winter, then come to check on Edward. He was in good hands here with ample medical resources, not to mention the moral support of his business partner, who oversaw his treatment.

As the doctors left the room, the Australian with them, Hattie exhaled slowly. To be in the same room with Dr. Gates was almost intolerable; she was determined not to speak to him. She would enlist the hospital chaplain to speak for her if necessary. Though somewhat feverish, Edward seemed anxious to visit with her. He caught cold one afternoon as he hiked the rim of the crater. A sudden thunderstorm came up; as he hurried to rejoin his companions at the drilling site, the stiffness of the old leg injury slowed him, and in the confusion of the lightning bolts, the others drove off without him. He was drenched and shivering by the time his companions realized their error and returned for him. The cold lingered no matter what he tried, and then last week, when they brought new assay specimens to Albuquerque, a high fever developed.

He began to cough and fumbled for the basin; Hattie gave it to him then turned away as he spat. It was a mistake to come — the legal separation was almost final, she thought irritably. Why had Edward asked the chaplain to send her the telegram?

Hattie felt exhausted, almost ill herself. What could she do? What did he expect? Nurses in white habits appeared pushing a cartload of medical instruments and an odd apparatus that looked like a bellows connected to a piece of rubber tubing. It was time for his breathing treatment and the nurses asked her to wait downstairs.

Back at the hotel she soaked in the bath until the water cooled off, trying to sort out her feelings. She missed her parents, especially her father. She deeply regretted the disappointment they must feel over the separation, but she saw it in a positive light — she wasn’t suited to marriage. After her bath she sent Susan a telegram to come at once, Edward was seriously ill. She would stay to look in on Edward until Susan arrived.

Her letter to her parents began with a description of Aunt Bronwyn’s white cattle grazing under the old apple trees in the ruins of the cloister orchard. She wrote of her amazement at the cloudy chalcedony portraying three white cattle under a tree, excavated from the sacred spring at Bath. Aunt Bronwyn with her old gardens and old stones changed her outlook entirely. She did not tell them Edward’s betrayal influenced the change as well.

She knew her father would be interested in her bout of sleepwalking and the luminous glow she’d seen; she wasn’t the first to see such a light in Bath. She recounted the story of the queen terrified by the luminous glow in the King’s Bath. She experienced a gravity of well-being and peace as she gazed at the glow; later she felt traces of that odd gravity from the old stones Aunt Bronwyn protects; it was the same gravity exuded by the carvings in her possession.

“I wish you had been with me to see the professoressa’s black gladiolus garden with the ‘madonnas’ in their niches,” she wrote. “The rain garden serpent goddesses were quite wonderful. They won me over entirely.

“I know Mother will be relieved to hear I’ve abandoned the thesis.” She gave no further explanation, except she wished she had studied old European archaeology instead.

“The child was a good traveling companion, and the parrot was lost and found again only once,” Hattie wrote, but could not bring herself to write anymore about Indigo, so she wrote about Edward’s illness, and how anxious she was to return to Arizona to look in on Indigo and her sister. She made no mention of their detainment by authorities in Livorno.

Susan did not reply to the telegram; another week passed as Hattie made brief visits to the hospital twice each day, and learned her way around Albuquerque to shop for Indigo. Although Edward seemed better, Dr. Gates ordered the treatments increased so there was scarcely a time she found poor Edward in his bed.

Edward tasted camphor and felt its vapors in his lungs for hours after the treatments. He did not remember much about the procedures beyond the face mask and the pump for the camphor because Dr. Gates gave him injections before and after the treatments. He did not ask what the injections contained, but recognized the morphine from the sense of well-being and euphoria it gave him. Dr. Gates discussed his theory behind the experimental therapy with Edward, one scientist to another: Gates believed there was a great risk of tuberculosis following pneumonia unless special treatments were given.

The hotel next door to the train station had a small courtyard garden with a quaint Spanish-style fountain; the sound of the splashing water soothed her. She calmed her anxiety with long walks through downtown Albuquerque. Here the cleaning and menial tasks seemed to be performed by Mexicans. She saw very few Indians on her walks except at the train station, where Indian women sold small pottery and beaded pins to the tourists. On the whole the Indians here looked much more prosperous than the poor women she’d seen in Needles. She added items to her list and began shopping for Indigo and her sister.

What was wrong with Susan and Colin? Were they away on vacation? Or was their silence an expression of their disapproval of Edward, or of her? Still she could not simply abandon him; he was quite ill, and asked her to stay until Susan arrived. She didn’t tell him Susan hadn’t responded. The weeks of illness changed Edward’s appearance dramatically; the hair at his temples had grayed noticeably. His hands suffered tremors now, and he was terribly thin with no appetite; yet he seemed to be in high spirits.

In downtown courtyards and along the Rio Grande, the leaves of the cottonwood trees went from greenish yellow to pale yellow and finally to a golden yellow in the weeks Hattie was there. One morning she woke to see snow on the tops of the mountains but the weather in Albuquerque remained sunny and warm. She was anxious to get blankets and supplies to Indigo before the nights were freezing cold; if she did not hear from Susan by the end of the week, she was determined to return to Needles.

The nights were chilly, but the days were lovely; she took long walks from the hotel down Central Avenue to the old town square in front of the church. The spice of burning piñon wood filled the air. From a bench in the shade by the bandstand she watched the old Hispanic women dressed in black file inside for mass. Sometimes she heard snatches of the chants or caught a whiff of the incense as the church doors opened and closed, but it seemed quite remote and strange to her now.

The repeated bouts of therapy with the bellows and rubber tubing wore Edward down, and the raw extracts of glands upset his digestion. On Sunday Hattie found Edward dozing in his bed; he looked much weaker, and his color was not good although the fever subsided. The local doctors disagreed with Dr. Gates over the treatments and withdrew from the case, but Edward insisted the experimental treatments be continued. He said the local doctors couldn’t be blamed for their lack of sophistication in regard to the latest scientific developments.

Hattie feared the local doctors were right, but if he refused to listen to the medical doctors, he would not listen to her — better to agree and reassure him. Hattie was grateful not to encounter Dr. Gates at the hospital, but gradually she realized he must be trying to avoid her as well. At last a telegram announced Susan’s arrival the next week, but on the appointed day, another telegram came with a new arrival time three weeks away.

The injections left him in a dreamy state for hours; he drifted in and out of consciousness, deliciously numb. The injections slowed his breathing but relaxed the bronchial spasms as well. Later as the injection’s effects waned, he felt quite lucid and energized. He kept a pencil and paper on the table at his bedside and made notes of ideas for the locations of the other mine shafts or questions to ask his friend Dr. Gates.

By then his thoughts were as vivid and detailed as dreams and he was content to sit back and think for hours on end. If he thought about the mine, immediately he envisioned a long glittering tunnel into the center of the crater, its walls embedded with black and white diamonds. At the end of the tunnel was the ore body of the meteorite itself, lustrous soft alloy of pure silver streaked with gold.

He and their company would be able to repay Hattie’s loans, and he could settle all he owed Susan and Colin. He recalled Susan the night of her ball in the rich sapphire blue silk brocade that cost hundreds. The mother lode of the meteor crater would put him back in good standing with them. Livorno, even Hattie and the separation, would scarcely matter beside the wall of silver and gold.

Now when he dreamed, not only was the Riverside property all his, but his father was alive in the dream, standing with him between rows of mature citron trees directly west of the house. But when he looked back, he saw only the terrace fountain and lily pond and the terrace garden walls, but the house and all other outbuildings were gone without a trace, as if they had been removed long ago.

He intended to discuss with Hattie the equipment purchases and the overdrafts in one of his lucid periods between the injections. He wanted her to know her loan to him was secured by the machinery and the leasehold. But when she came that afternoon, she was upset over Susan’s silence, and he had to reassure her.

Hattie was furious with the woman; what was wrong with her? She refused to be delayed with her plans any longer, and began packing the blankets and other supplies for the girls in sturdy tin trunks. Prices and quality were much better in Albuquerque, a much larger town than Needles. She bought a great many canned goods, and found dried apples and dried apricots, dried beans, and corn sold by the local farmers. When she had everything packed, she realized her luggage would completely fill a buggy. That night she slept more soundly than she had in weeks, and woke early for breakfast and a visit to the hospital before the afternoon train west.

Edward was confident he wasn’t dying, but he felt strange and not entirely in his body since the last treatment. Now as the effects of the injections began to wane, he experienced agitation from disquieting thoughts laced with regrets. He should have bribed the customs officers in Livorno before they embarked to Corsica. He should have concealed the citron slips more ingeniously.

What bothered him most was his memory of the piles of meteor irons he left behind in Tampico; he always intended to return to the town market to acquire those meteor irons from the hostile blue-faced woman. Oh the burn of regret lest someone knowledgeable see the neat pyramid stacks of the irons and buy them before he did! He drifted off on the Pará River once more, his head rested on gardenia blossoms in the big Negress’s lap in the canoe; when he looked up at her face it was sky blue.

Hattie saw the Australian doctor and the nurses outside Edward’s room and her heart sank. She did not make eye contact with the doctor and was about to enter the room when one of the nuns told her the priest was with him now to administer the Last Rites; Edward slipped into a coma during the night.

Hattie burst into tears and surprised herself with the grief she felt; she knew she was mourning the absence of Indigo as well as the loss of Edward, who was still a friend, after all. Dr. Gates hurried away down the hall as if he sensed her anger. That wretched Australian criminal! His quack treatments destroyed Edward’s health!

When the priest left, they allowed her to stay alone with him; his breathing was in slow labored gasps and she reached down to take his hand in hers and whispered, “Rest in peace.” Poor thing! Moments later his breath left him in three loud snores.

The nuns offered condolences and the priest offered to accompany her to the chapel, but Hattie firmly declined. She shocked them further when she announced Edward’s sister would make the funeral arrangements. She paid the hospital bill and left a bank draft with the hospital accountant to pay the undertaker to keep Edward’s coffin in the icehouse until Susan arrived.