The first time the fat dormitory matron turned her back, Indigo took off, running at full speed. She ran past the big boys’ dormitory, past the steamy soap and starch smell of the school laundry, past the dairy barn’s warm cow smells. She headed for the row of palm trees that marked the eastern boundary of the boarding school property. She did not look back. She stopped by the palm trees to catch her breath; she leaned against the tree and felt the odd curled bark against her back. She could hear voices in the distance.
She crouched low as she moved away from the tree; she glanced once over her shoulder, and seeing no one, she took off running, just as she had the morning she and Sister Salt escaped the soldiers and Indian police who pursued the Messiah’s dancers at Needles. Sand Lizard people were not afraid of capture because they were so quick. Grandma Fleet taught the girls to wait and watch for the right moment to run.
Indigo heard the sound of horses’ hooves and the rattle of a wagon in the distance; that would be the superintendent with the big boys to track her down. She removed the school shoes so she could run faster; the shoes rubbed sores on her toes and left the soles of her feet too soft. The ground burned her feet, but she found, if she ran quickly, she barely felt the heat. The skin on the soles of her feet would callus in no time. Once before, right after she first arrived, she ran away, but made the mistake of heading directly into the desert, where they easily tracked her and caught her within a few hours. This time she headed for the orange groves down the dusty road from the school. The orange trees would hide her better than the low desert brush.
The ground was cooler in the orchard, and the air perfumed by the orange blossoms; under the canopy of blossoming trees, there was the low steady hum of bees. Here she stopped to rest and to listen for her pursuers, but the only sound was the bees, a soothing sound that reminded her of the bees that hovered at the spring above the old gardens. When Indigo was little, Grandma Fleet used to tease that the bees sang a lullaby for Indigo’s nap so she must not disappoint them. The sound usually made her feel sleepy, but not when she was on the run. She did feel a bit tired, so she sat with her back against the tree trunk and closed her eyes. Wherever they were, Sister Salt and Mama must have thought about her at that moment because suddenly she was thinking about them too. She felt their concern for her and their love; tears filled her eyes. Grandma Fleet still loved them and prayed for them from Cliff Town, where the dead went to stay.
The bees’ hum, the perfume of the orange blossoms, and the dampness under the trees made the air heavy; Indigo felt drowsy as she sat there. She checked the position of the sun in the sky; it was still early enough that the superintendent and the big boys were probably still driving up and down the dusty farm roads, between the lemon and orange groves, searching for her. The old buggy creaked and rattled so loud she could hear it a mile away, with the jingle of the harnesses and the clip-clop of the horses. She was safe there and would wait for darkness. She smiled because Sister Salt and Mama would be proud of her.
The sound of the buggy and the loud voices of the big boys and the superintendent woke her. There were so many — half the summer staff at the school must be searching for her. She took off running again, deeper and deeper into the rows of orange trees; now and then she caught sight of a grove of tall trees, much taller than the orchard trees, up ahead. She was thirsty, and tall trees meant water nearby.
She left the cover of the orchard and bolted across open ground and a road to reach the tall trees. She stopped and listened. Nearby, the buggy horses moved at a walk while the big boys trotted alongside, talking and laughing as they searched the orchards, row by row. She ran with all her might, all her being. She ran to escape them all — the white teachers with the sour faces, the dormitory matrons with their cruel smiles and quick pinches; she ran from the other children too, because they teased her and pulled her hair. They wanted to make her cry because she was from the Sand Lizard people with their odd ways — they preferred cliffs and sand dunes far from the river, far away from churches and schools.
Get away, get away; the words sang inside her head. She ran until her lungs and legs were burning and the sweat ran into her eyes so she caught only glimpses of the grove of tall trees up ahead. She felt the ground change under her feet. Smooth dirt, a road, then suddenly she stumbled and fell hard; the breath was knocked out of her, but she wasn’t on dirt anymore. The surface was absolutely hard and flat, scorching hot; she jumped up breathlessly and she saw the white stone tile that tripped her was part of a walkway into the grove of tall trees. She could hear the wagon and the voices of the searchers. The stone tiles were not quite as hot as the ground. She ran down the stone path until she reached the bushes that enclosed the grove of tall trees. If they were so smart, let them try to find her tracks on the stone walk. She glanced over her shoulder and saw no one; then with both arms in front of her face she dove under the thick green bushes the way Grandma Fleet taught her and Sister.
She lay motionless until she caught her breath. The cool damp of the rotting leaves smelled so good. The palms of her hands and her knees were stinging from skin scraped away by her fall; the damp earth soothed the pain. Her face felt much cooler pressed against the ground. She closed her eyes. Suddenly the sounds of the horses’ hooves and the rattle of the buggy were right there on the road across from the bushes. She held her breath and watched; through the leaves she saw the superintendent’s angry face as he scolded his posse of Indian boys.
“She can’t have got very far,” he told them, but the older boys leaned against the buggy or squatted on the ground while they caught their breath. They were tired; they gave up. The superintendent motioned furiously for them to get in the buggy, then took one last look at the lilac bushes as he took the reins in both hands; it seemed as if he was looking straight at her, right into her eyes, but he saw nothing. Then they were gone and silence returned.
Indigo dreamed about the old gardens. Grandma Fleet and she were making little windbreaks for the bean seedlings from dry twigs. Somehow Grandma Fleet made crackling sounds with the twigs, sounds that seemed so odd Indigo had to ask Grandma what she was doing. Her own voice woke her. Only the crickets were awake; desert singers like them knew the night was made for music and love, but the heat of the day was for sleep. Under the bushes it was dark, but beyond she could see outlines emerge from the predawn light that kept shifting — from dark gray, then dark blue, then violet that lifted to lavender that faded to a rosy gray streaked with pale yellow. Faster, faster, faster, the gray sky vanished, and now the eastern horizon was a blaze of red-yellow. Somewhere Sister Salt and Mama looked up at the same sky. She was not so far away from home: some of the same birds lived here — little speckled cactus wrens were calling one another around the lilac bushes, and though she could not see him, a desert curved beak greeted the dawn with trills of praise.
She was thirsty. Grandma Fleet taught them to smell water, to catch the scent of dampness early in the morning before the heat of the day scattered it. She tried to see beyond the bushes, but the foliage was too thick. Her knees and hands were sore as she crawled, head down, pushing aside the twigs and leaves. She saw the trimmed lawn just ahead of her just as she heard a woman’s voice call a name over and over. Suddenly a little bearded man no taller than a turkey stood in front of her; he seemed surprised to see her too. He crouched down so he could look her in the eyes. He wore red leather around his little neck. His eyes were golden brown and calm. Timidly he extended his tiny hand toward her face. Just then the woman’s voice rang out: “I see you! You little monkey! Come! Come! Linnaeus! Here, sweetie! Come!” As the woman knelt to reach under the lilacs to pick up the monkey, she gave a little shout of surprise when she saw Indigo.