“Ma’am?”
Her voice trailed at the sound of a horse arriving, accompanied by yelling and loud laughter from the barnyard. Her face brightened and she strode out the door with Graver behind. “Hayward,” she whispered.
The boy rocked unsteadily in his saddle, unmindful of the lathered horse’s sides heaving for breath beneath him. Finally Hayward slumped sideways and slid off his horse, landed with a soft thump in the dirt. Struggling upright, he unbuttoned his trousers and pissed, ignoring the wet splashing. Finished, he worked at buttoning his pants until finally giving up with a shrug and turning back to tug on the exhausted horse’s reins.
Cullen pushed past them in the doorway and sprinted down the walk to where his brother tried to stand without weaving. “You were supposed to wait for me!” Cullen pushed Hayward’s chest and he fell back, landing in his own piss-soaked dirt. They fought for a few minutes until, being the bigger of the two, Hayward pinned his older brother and held him while they argued. In the end, they lay side by side, gazing at the sky, giggling, no doubt about some mischief they planned. Graver kept that to himself.
“High spirited,” Graver said. His hands clenched his hat to keep from walking out there and throwing the two of them in the stock tank until they sobered up. They could take care of the horse afterward, too. Probably ruined it, spent its heart and mind on foolishness. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to help the widow with these two.
“They need some refinements, I can see that, but they come from good stock.” She wasn’t going to give up on her boys. Her lips formed a smile that wanted to become broad, and though she held it back, her eyes were alight with joy and her shoulders fairly trembled with the urge to reach out to them. She was their mother, despite having abandoned them, peculiar as that seemed to Graver. “Hayward? Cullen.” Mrs. Bennett started down the stairs toward the gate, calling their names, her deep voice higher than before, the question in her tone letting the boys know they could ignore her.
Cullen half pulled, half shoved his brother upright, then stood and brushed at the pissy mud on their clothing, which only resulted in smearing it. He picked a glob off his cheek, threw it at Hayward, and followed with a shove that nearly sent the boy sprawling again. The wrestling match threatened to restart until Hayward glanced at his mother, ran a muddy hand through his long hair to push it off his face, and dipped his head at her. Cullen glanced at her, too, and let his body slacken, not bothering to push his brown hair back or wipe his face on his sleeve. His face wore a pout, the mouth a replica of hers except the corners turned downward in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. His white-blue eyes were small and quick, like a wild animal’s. The Bennett nose, strong, slightly hooked and crooked from being broken, sat squarely on his face, making him not so much handsome as possessing the possibility of character. Without taking his eyes from his mother and Graver, Cullen snapped his fist out and punched his brother in the arm. Hayward’s yowl brought a smile to Cullen’s mouth, leveling its corners.
“Boys.” The widow ran out of words as she searched their faces. Neither boy moved. She started to open her arms to them, then thought better of it and let them settle at her sides. “I’m sorry about your father.”
Hayward dropped his gaze to the ground and shoved the toe of his boot through the sandy dirt. Cullen stared at her with his small flat eyes, tilting his head and lifting his chin the way his mother did. Suddenly Cullen lurched forward and wrapped his arms around her, rubbed his muddy cheek against hers and nuzzled her hair, then stepped back and held his arms out and performed a deep bow. His mother’s expression was startled, then grateful, but quickly turned to anger when she saw that filth stained her dress from his mocking embrace.
“Mother—” he began. “May I call you that? It’s so kind of you to come calling.” His mouth curled in a sneer and he gave Hayward a quick cuff on the back of his head. “Say hello to your mother, stupid! You remember her, don’t you?”
Hayward stretched out a hand, realized how dirty it was, rubbed it on his pants, and then held it out again. She ignored his hand, stepped closer, and embraced him, casting Cullen a defiant glance, while Hayward kept his arms at his sides as if suffering from her touch.
The older boy nodded once, looked away, and the meanness fell from his expression, replaced by something that made his lips tremble. When his mother dropped her arms and stepped back, there were tears in her eyes, and neither boy would look at her.
“Need to take care of that horse,” Graver said.
Hayward sighed and started to turn. Cullen caught his arm.
“Who the hell you think you’re talking to?” Cullen took a step toward Graver, who shifted his left leg back a few inches, preparing to fight.
Hayward grabbed Cullen’s arm and muttered something that made the older boy glare at Graver and then turn away. Graver almost followed him when he yanked the reins and pulled the horse off balance so it about went down before managing to steady its spent legs.
“That wasn’t necessary.” Mrs. Bennett turned toward him, her chin high, face pale. When she swept past him in her dirt-streaked dress and muddy hair and face, there was an overbright glitter of tears in her eyes and it struck him to the quick. He wanted to whip those boys within an inch of their lives, make them apologize to their mother, make them comfort and care for that poor broken horse, make them sober and clean and respectable. He wanted her world to be just what she needed it to be. He would do that for her.
But she paused at the gate and called back, “Graver, help them with the horse.”
It was enough to make him feel like he’d taken a mouthful of flour, dry, tasteless, impossible to swallow. He should walk away, and he would, he thought, except he didn’t own so much as a horse, let alone the clothes on his back. And there was still the question of who shot him and killed J. B. Bennett and the girl. He meant to find out before he left.
PART TWO. AND STARS CONFOUNDED
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fall of 1889 Rose got a job in Rushville, Nebraska, which sat below the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The school gave her a letter saying she was able to perform the duties of a servant. In other words, she swept and cleaned, washed clothes, and sometimes cooked for Crockett, the white man who ran the telegraph office. He slept in the back rooms of the little house in a nest of his own sweat and alcohol and sometimes waste. No matter. Day and night, the chattering key like a trapped ground squirrel could only be escaped through drink, in his case, or by sleeping in a tipi behind the livery stable, in Rose’s. The two did not speak. He believed her mute, and he signaled her work with broad hand gestures or shouted single words. For some reason he thought she might be deaf as well.
It was the telegraph that drew her to the job. She studied his stained fingers as he tap-tapped, and then the book beside the key, the one that formed the words. It was a secret he did not want her to have, but she watched and memorized. Practiced at night while he was passed out drunk, the moon spilling a slender column of light on either side of the window cover and knifing across the counter where she sat, learning to tap the code.
Rose had always been drawn to secrets. She was a member of the Turtle Clan and knew their stories, which she would later tell only to the next in line, her daughter. She didn’t tell her the “Morse code,” though. After the taps brought the troops against her people, she wouldn’t spread its poison. She only wanted to know its power. The next year, 1890, was the summer of the “Ghost Dance,” as the whites called it. Indians on their way to Pine Ridge Reservation passed along the edges of town, and she often met with them, shared food or goods they needed after their long journeys. Word spread across the West, and the Cheyenne and Paiutes, along with her own Lakota, hurried to Pine Ridge. She longed to join them, but her mother sent word by her nephew that Rose was to stay away until she sent for her. Even then, her mother was uncertain about the white men who peered restlessly at the dancers through their glass eyes, some intent on dragging the older girls behind the tipis. Her mother feared for Rose’s safety.