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.