CHAPTER ONE Rosalie Iron Wing 2002 "Long ago," my father used to say, "so long ago that no one really knows when this all came to be. But before you start asking questions," he added, eyeing me through the smoke he blew from the corner of his mouth, "I want you to listen." "We know these stories to be true because Dakota families have passed them from one generation to the next, all the way back to a time when herds of giant bison and woolly mammoth roamed this land. Do you know what a glacier is? Wasté. As far as your eye can see, this land was called Mni Sota Makoce, named for water so clear you could see the clouds'' reflection, like a mirror. "When the last glacier melted, it formed an immense lake that carved out the valley around the Mni Sota Wakpa, what is known today as the Minnesota River. Hard to imagine, but this slow-moving river was once an immense flood of water that flowed all the way to the Mississippi River, where it formed a giant waterfall, the Owamniyamni, that could be heard from miles away. Your ancestors, Rosie, used to camp near that waterfall and trade with other families, even with the Anishinaabe.
"Now, downriver from the great waterfall, the Mississippi River came together with the Mni Sota Wakpa in a place we called Bdote, the center of the earth. The old ones said the Dakota first came to this sacred place from the stars. That''s why we''re called the Wicanhpi Oyate, the Star People, because we traveled here from the Milky Way. Even the wasicu scientists have agreed, finally, that this is a true story. "Someday I''ll take you to hear one of the traditional storytellers who share the full creation story of the Dakota that is told when snow covers the ground. Today I''m telling you a little bit of history. When you go out into the world, you''ll hear a lot of other stories that aren''t true. You might feel bad about what ignorant people say, how they''ll try to make you feel ashamed of who you are.
I''m telling you now the way it was. "We''ve lived on this land for many, many generations. Some called us the great Sioux nation, but we are Dakota, our name for ourselves, which means ''friendly.'' We are a civilized people who understand that our survival depends on knowing how to be a good relative, especially to Iná Maka, Mother Earth. Back in the day, we moved from place to place, knowing when to hunt bison and white-tailed deer, to gather wild plants, and to harvest our maize, a gift from the being who lived in Spirit Lake. "You wouldn''t recognize this land back then. Over thousands of years, the plants and animals worked with wind and fire until the land was covered in a sea of grass that was home to many relatives. The bison gave us everything, from tado, our meat, to our clothing and tipi hides.
His dung fertilized the soil. The prairie dogs opened up tunnels that brought air and water deep into the earth. Grasses that were as tall as a man set long roots that could withstand drought. When my grandfather was a boy, he woke each morning to the song of the meadowlark. The prairie showed us for many generations how to live and work together as one family. "And then the settlers came with their plows and destroyed the prairie in a single lifetime," my father said. What I remember most, now, is his voice shaking with rage, his tobacco-stained fingers trembling as they held a hand-rolled cigarette, the way he drew smoke deep into his lungs. For the past twenty-two years, I have lived on a farm that once belonged to the prairie.
Every summer I looked out my kitchen window at long rows of corn planted all the way to the oak trees that grow along the river. Even today, after a winter storm had covered the field, I could see dried cornstalks stubbling the fresh white blanket of snow. From the radio on the counter behind me, the announcer read the daily hog report in his flat midwestern voice. His words meant nothing; they were empty noise pushing back the silence that had taken over my house. After a breakfast of toast and coffee, I closed the curtains on the window, feeling how thin the cotton had become from too many years in the sun. I stacked clean dishes in the cupboard and wiped down the counters. Routine tasks, comforting in their simplicity. No need to think, to plan, to remember.
Just keep moving. I poured the rest of the milk down the drain and straightened a stack of papers on the table. After writing a brief note for my son, I locked the door behind me. A fierce gust of wind tore at my scarf, stung my face with a handful of snow. I walked past the empty barn, half expecting to see our old hound come around the corner, eyelids drooping, swaybacked, his slow-moving trot showing the chickens who was boss. Gone now, all of them. My heavy boots squeaked on the snow that had drifted back across the sidewalk I shoveled earlier that morning. When I called Roger Peterson to tell him he did not need to plow the driveway, he asked how long I would be gone.
I hesitated. How to answer a question that would most likely get shared with my neighbors? "For a few days," I said. "I''ll call you when I''m back." He paused, and I knew what was coming next. Before he could shape his condolences into a few awkward phrases, I said a quick goodbye and hung up without waiting for an answer. I had left John''s truck running for about twenty minutes, long enough for the heater to blast a melted hole in the ice that covered the windshield. After tossing my duffel bag onto the seat next to me, I eased the truck into gear, babying the clutch. Near-bald rear tires spun slightly before finding gravel beneath the snow.
As I drove past the orchard, I ignored the branches that were in need of pruning. While my father believed that any plant not grown in the wild was nothing more than a weak cousin to its truer self, my years of caring for these trees had taught me differently. But it was just as well that he hadn''t lived long enough to see me marry a white farmer, a descendent of the German immigrants that he ranted against for stealing Dakota land. When I''d woken that morning, I knew I needed to leave, now, before I changed my mind. At the end of our long driveway, I decided against stopping for a last look at the fields behind me. Without slowing down, I turned the truck east as if heading to town, the rear end sliding sideways. I waved at Charlie Engbretson, the tightfisted farmer who''d bought George and Judith''s farm for a steal at auction. He stared after me as I passed by, hanging on to his mailbox as my truck whipped up a white cloud of snow around him.
I never did care for neighbors knowing my business. Especially not him. Not today. For the first few miles I drove fast, both hands gripping the wheel, as each rut in the gravel road sent a hard shock through my body. I drove as if pursued, as if hunted by all that I was leaving behind. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, the woman I saw was a stranger: forty years old, her dark hair streaked with a few strands of gray, her eyes wide like a frightened mouse''s, her mouth a thin, determined line, sharp as an arrow. Not terrible looking, Gaby would have said, except for the black-framed glasses, the same kind I wore as a girl, a safety pin holding today''s pair together. Beneath my puffy coat, I was wearing a flannel shirt, baggy jeans, and long underwear.
An Indian farmer, the government''s dream come true. Taking a deep breath, I eased my boot off the accelerator, allowing the truck to coast back under the speed limit. Doesn''t matter if you know the local cop when there''s a quota of tickets to be made by the end of the month. After waiting all these years, a few more minutes wouldn''t matter. I thought about slipping in one of John''s CDs, but everything in his glove compartment was country. Beer and God and flags and more beer. I preferred the quiet. My father once told me that waniyetu, winter, was a season of rest, when plants and animals hibernate, a time for dreams and stories.
I had trouble remembering what he looked like. Occasionally, a small memory was jarred loose, like the smell of wet leaves after rain, or the rough feel of a wool blanket. Today, it was the clatter of snowshoes on a wood floor, the way the wind turned white in a storm. Nothing more. Every few miles, I passed another farmhouse. I knew most of their inhabitants by a family name--Lindquist, Johnson, Wagner--even though I might not have recognized them at the grocery store. I''d quickly grown tired of the way people stopped talking when we walked into the café--they''d all seemed to know me, the Indian girl John had married--and preferred to stay at the farm. I wondered what they''d think if they saw me now, speeding down the back roads in John''s truck.
I could see gray heads nodding together in a mournful, told-you-so way. Even with the heater on high, I had to use the hand scraper on the frost that crept back to cover the inside windows. I could barely see the road through the sun''s glare on the salt-spattered windshield. It was easy to miss a turn out here, lulled into daydreams by the mind-numbing pattern of field, farmhouse, barn, and windbreak of trees that repeated every few miles. Straight, flat roads ran alongside the railroad tracks until both disappeared at the horizon. Mile after mile of telephone wires were strung from former trees on one side of the road, set back far enough that snowmobilers had a free run through the ditches as they traveled from bar to bar, roaring past a billboard announcing that JESUS SAVES. Both sides of the road were piled high with snowbanks that had been pushed aside by snowplows after each storm. In less than two months, these fields would be a sodden, muddy mess.
Small ponds often formed in low areas, big enough for ducks and geese to stop on their long migration n.