The Personal History of Rachel DuPree_ A Novel - Ann Weisgarber [44]
“Means I served with the Ninth Cavalry in the United States Army.”
“That’s a proud thing.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s your favorite thing in the whole world, isn’t it? The army.”
He got up, took the insignia from me, and put it in one of the knapsacks in the wagon’s bed. Then he came back to me and put out his hand. I reached for it and he pulled me to my feet. He ran a finger over my lips. “Right this very minute,” he said, “you’re my favorite thing.”
We’d been married nine days and until then, Isaac hadn’t said what he thought of me. I believed that I pleased him when we laid together under the wagon at night. But that didn’t mean he’d keep me past a year. It didn’t mean I was his favorite thing. I looked up at him, grateful. Then I stood on my toes and boldly slid my hands around the back of his neck. “You are too,” I said.
In the parlor, I unlatched the glass door. Beside the insignia was a framed photograph. I couldn’t remember when I last took the time to study it. I took it out, and even though I couldn’t see it all that sharp, I knew every line and shadow in the picture. It was of Isaac, not yet eighteen, in his work uniform at Fort Robinson. It was the summer of 1890. He was sitting on horseback, his boots pointed up in the stirrups, the reins loose in his right hand, his left hand resting on the saddle horn. His shoulders, not as broad as they got to be, were held back, and he was squinting because the sun caught him full on. There was a half smile on his face like he couldn’t keep from grinning even though army men weren’t supposed to smile for a camera.
Isaac was thirty-one years old when I married him. He had done a lot of living long before I met him. I understood that Isaac told me only what he wanted me to know about his past. I supposed I did the same. When he talked about his army days, it was always of an adventure. One time, though, I heard something that made my blood run cold. It was the night when Fred Schuling stayed with us. Fred had just gotten out of the army and had been to Interior and Scenic, looking for a good place to start his tannery. It was April. Mary was almost seven months old and the dugout was just two little rooms: the narrow kitchen and our bedroom. We were having a warm spell, so Fred didn’t mind sleeping in the barn loft. He had brought a bottle of whiskey, and him and Isaac passed it back and forth—wiping the neck clean each time—a few times during supper. At first, they talked about baseball at Fort Robinson and about the pitcher what took Isaac’s place after his discharge. Then they talked about the officers and some of the enlisted men and what had become of them. After a while, Fred said something about the battle at Wounded Knee Creek.
“That ended them,” he said. “They were stubborn cusses.”
“It was the last of the warriors,” Isaac said. “A sorry day.” He handed the whiskey bottle back to Fred.
“Always wished I’d been there.”
“No. You don’t. It was the bloodiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Isaac picked up his fork, put it back down. “The snow. God, I’ll never forget that red snow.”
The hair stood on my arms. Wounded Knee Creek wasn’t all that far off from our homestead. Indians still lived there. I looked over at Mary. She was in her basket nearly asleep; her eyelids drooped. I said, “Did they kill a lot of soldiers?”
“The Ninth lost one good man,” Fred said. “But the Seventh got there first. They took it on the chin.”
“And the Indians?” I said to him. “Did you get them?”
“The newspapers called it a massacre.”
I picked up Mary and held her to me. I never asked again.
I pressed the picture of the young Isaac to me before putting it back in the bookcase. To his way of thinking, it was one thing to let Indians drink from the well behind the barn. It was another thing to allow them on our porch. They were the enemy. I had forgotten that. It was wrong