Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [103]
“I’ve seen those turtle shells. Looks like that would be a chore, to dance with all that on your legs.”
Annawake laughs. “It’s work, but it’s not a chore. I did that. But Uncle Ledger decided I would be the one of us who’d learn the white world. My brothers could do their reckless things, but I had to learn to listen to my head, every time. He made me speak English, and he pushed me to do well in school. He thought we needed an ambassador.”
“The ambassador? That’s what you are? Whatever you told my daughter Taylor scared her to death. She’s a mess, all uprooted, and now she can’t even make her payments.”
“It didn’t cross my mind that she would pack up and move.”
“Well, she did. Last time I talked to her she didn’t sound like herself. She’s depressed. It’s awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they’re no good.”
“See that guy over there?” Annawake points across the street to the hardware store where Abe Charley is standing out front in his horsehide suit, talking to Cash Stillwater.
Alice leans, to look. “What’s that, a cowskin he’s got on?”
“Horsehide. There’s a rendering plant over toward Leech where you can get horse leftovers pretty cheap. Abe made that suit himself. He’s pretty proud of it.”
“Taylor’s boyfriend wears some odd getups, from what he’s told me. But to tell you the truth, not as bad as that horsehide. Taylor just bought new school clothes for Turtle instead of paying her bills. She was scared to death of Turtle looking poor at school. You know how it is.”
“Luckily I don’t. I mean, growing up here, you don’t have to bother much with pretending you’re not poor.”
Alice is tracking Abe Charley’s flamboyant hide as he crosses the street. Annawake refines the point on her sugar heart. “People say Indians are ungrateful welfare recipients, but what they really mean is we don’t act embarrassed enough about being helped out. The young people like me, the radicals, we’ll say it’s because we had everything stolen from us and we deserve the scraps we’re getting back. And that’s true, but it’s not the point. The old people around here, they’re not thinking about Wounded Knee, they’re just accepting what comes their way. For us, it’s the most natural thing in the world to ask for help if we need it.”
Alice has finally gotten her fingers into the sheet of sugar that is spreading across the table. She draws a pig, then puts a fence around it. “I was noticing that about my cousin Sugar,” she says. “We were walking along and she saw some poke growing down in the ditch, and she just went right down there and got it. Didn’t care who drove by and saw. I was thinking, ‘Now, I’ll eat poke if I have to, but I’d hate for anybody to see I was that hard up.’ ”
Annawake smiles, remembering summers of gathering greens with her uncle.
Alice puts another fence around the pig.
“Your cousin Sugar was my mother’s best friend,” Annawake says. “Ask her sometime if she remembers Bonnie Fourkiller.”
“You had that brother that got sent away, didn’t you?”
Annawake is startled to feel tears in her eyes. “How did you know that?”
“It was in that letter you wrote Jax. He read it over the phone.”
Annawake wipes her nose with her napkin. “My other brothers are still around here, and a slew of nieces and nephews. My dad is still living, he’s over in Adair now. What about you? Do you have other kids besides Taylor?”
“Nobody but Taylor. No son, no daddy, and no husband to speak of.”
“None to speak of?”
“Well, I had me one, Harland, but he never talked. It was like trying to have a conversation with a ironing board. He just wanted to watch TV all the time. That’s what ruint him, really, I think. TV does all the talking for you, and after a while you forget how to hold up your end.”
Annawake smiles. “Interesting theory.”
“So I left him. I doubt he’s noticed yet. Now it’s just back to me and Taylor and Turtle. Seems