The small white dog the Indian police brought along loved to play with children, so they used the dog to locate them. The dog barked and wagged its tail excitedly whenever children were nearby. Now the white dog anxiously licked the girls’ legs and sniffed their hands, tied to the rope knotted above their ankles. The mules, staked out in tall grass near the wagon, were hobbled and tied in the same manner. The policemen knew from experience how fast these wild Indians could escape.
The big policeman lifted them one by one into the back of the wagon with a canvas cover; with their hands and feet tied they landed hard on the rough floorboards of the wagon. The girls wiggled close to each other and managed to sit up; they tried to brace their feet because the wagon was loaded with crates and heavy parcels that shifted dangerously as the wagon bumped along.
The big policeman who drove the wagon was kind enough to lift them out and loosen their ropes so they could step behind a sage bush to urinate. He had younger sisters himself, he said, at White River; he spoke a few words of their language but preferred to talk to them in English to show off. Neither sister would reply to him, but the big Apache did not seem offended or angered; he liked to talk. From time to time one of the other Indian policemen, on horseback, would ride alongside the wagon and converse in Apache; but the six white soldiers rode ahead separately. The soldiers were along only to protect the Indian policemen from angry parents who refused to surrender their children for school.
The first night he untied their hands and fed them the same army rations he and the others ate. He apologized for leaving their ankles tied together and told them about the Mojave and Chemehuevi children who ran away the instant he untied them. He warned them not to throw themselves from the wagon either, because last year a Walapai boy was killed that way.
“He was all tied up so I don’t know why he rolled himself out the back,” the policeman said, shaking his head slowly as he opened a little can of beans with his knife.
He knows the boy preferred death, but he won’t say that to us. What a coward this big Apache is! Sister Salt thought as she moistened the edge of the hard biscuit between her lips. All the way to Parker, the big Apache talked; he talked about his family back at Turkey Creek. He talked about his years at the Indian School in Phoenix, where he played catcher on the school baseball team.
The only time the policeman was quiet was while he ate. He tossed the empty bean can on the ground and pointed off in the distance toward the south.
“Yuma is right over there,” he said. “Don’t look so worried, girls. You’ll be surprised at how fast the train goes.”
Tears began to roll down Indigo’s cheeks the longer he talked. If Mama was in prison in Yuma, how could they ever find Mama before the train took them away? Sister Salt whispered her escape plan to Indigo: wait until the policeman lifted them out of the back of the wagon and untied their legs, then dash off as fast as they could for the hills.
“I can’t run as fast as you!” Indigo sobbed. “Please don’t go without me!” Sister Salt put her head close to Indigo’s and whispered in a soothing tone: “Don’t cry, little sister, don’t cry. Grandma Fleet got away. We’ll get away too.
“We won’t get in a hurry. We’ll save a little food from each meal, hide it so we can carry a little food with us. Cool weather is the best time to travel.”
They whispered strategies and plans to each other all the way to Yuma. They tried to say everything they needed to tell each other because it might be a long time before they were together again.
Part Two
“FIRST CHANCE you get, run!” Sister Salt had whispered to her before they dragged Indigo toward the train, where the other children were cowering or sobbing, crowded four to a seat. Indigo was shocked to learn she and her sister were about to be separated. The authorities judged Sister Salt to be too much older than the others to send away to Indian boarding school. There was hope the little ones might be educated away from their blankets. But this one? Chances were she’d be a troublemaker and might urge the younger students to attempt escape. Orders were for Sister Salt to remain in the custody of the Indian agency at Parker while Indigo was sent to the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California.
Indigo wasn’t afraid. Her eyes were dry. She was one of the older children in the group. Cocopa and Chemehuevi girls her own age who had already lived at the boarding school for three years were in charge of new students; only their skin looked Indian. Their eyes, their hair, and, of course, the shoes, stockings, and long dresses were no different from the matron’s. The matron gave the older girls orders to seize a little boy who had slipped from the train seat to the floor; she did not want to touch the little wild ones herself. Indigo tried to get one of the older girls to look her in the eyes, but the Cocopa and Chemehuevi girls were obedient; no talking to the new students.
The older girls had learned to be good Christians from the time they first arrived at boarding school. They thought they knew more than she did, but Indigo knew all about the three gods, Father, Son, and Ghost. She knew English words because Grandma Fleet and Mama knew them. The older girls hated her because she already knew English words and she had never been to school. They pulled her hair and pinched her when she recited all the English words she remembered from Needles: Jesus Christ, Mother of God, Father God, Holy Ghost, hallelujah, savior, sinners, sins, crucify, whore, damned to hell, bastard, bitch, fuck. Indigo enjoyed the shock on their faces as she cursed them with English words the teachers never used. The others ran to tell the dormitory matron. The fat matron dragged her to the laundry room with the others trailing along to watch. Indigo did not cry as she was pulled along; she spoke English to the matron, who looked Indian but behaved like a white woman.
“Hey, lady! What’s the trouble? I’m talking English — see. God damn! Jesus Christ! Son of a bitch!” The matron was a big Pomo Indian, who gripped Indigo’s arm even tighter. At the laundry sink they struggled, and one of the older girls had to help hold her while the matron shoved the bar of brown soap into her mouth. Indigo broke loose from them and spat soap in the matron’s eyes. Even with soap in her eyes the matron would not loosen her grip on Indigo. One of the janitors, hearing the commotion in the laundry room, had appeared then; he was one of those mission Indians, and like the matron, he spoke only English. He picked up Indigo by both shoulders and carried her to the mop closet and shut her inside.
She didn’t mind the darkness of the closet; darkness was safety. She had to keep spitting to get the soap taste out of her mouth. Light peeked in around the edges of the door, and gradually her eyes adjusted, just as they had when she and Sister Salt traveled at night. The damp mops smelled of mildew and the disinfectant used to clean the bed after a sick student died.
In the months Indigo was at the Sherman Institute, she had watched three girls from Alaska stop eating, lie listlessly in their beds, then die, coughing blood. The others said the California air was too hot and too dry for their Alaskan lungs, accustomed to cool, moist air.
Indigo was locked in the mop closet all night. She relieved herself in a scrub bucket; she did not mind the odor of furniture polish and arranged a pile of dust cloths into a bed. That night in the closet she dreamed about the three dead Alaskan girls; they were happy, laughing together at the edge of the ocean, with great tall spruce trees all around. The ocean mist and the fog swirled around the girls’ feet as they ran and chased one another on the beach. The girls did not speak to her, but she knew what their message was: she had to get away or she would die as they had.