Dalva (4 page)

Duane arrived one hot late August afternoon in 1956. I found him walking up the long driveway, his feet shuffling in the soft dust. I rode up behind him and he never turned around. I said,
May I help you?
but he only said his own and Grandfather's names. He was about my age I thought, fourteen, scarred and windburned in soiled old clothes, carrying his belongings in a knotted burlap potato sack. I could smell him above the lathered horse, and told him he better jump on my horse because Grandpa had a pack of Airedales who wouldn't take warmly to a stranger. He only shook his head no, so I rode ahead at a gallop to get Grandpa. He was sitting on his porch as usual and at first was puzzled, then intensely excited though noncommittal. He had to wait at the pickup as I patted each of the half-dozen Airedales on the head before they jumped in the back of the truck. If I didn't pat each one in turn they would become nasty to each other. I loved these uniquely cranky dogs partly for the way they welcomed me, and how wildly excited they became when I went riding and invited them along. I never took them when I rode into coyote country because the dogs once dug up and ate a litter of coyote pups despite my efforts
to fight them off with my riding crop. After they gobbled up the pups the dogs pretended to be ashamed and embarrassed. Enough!

We found Duane sitting cross-legged in the dust. The dogs set up a fearsome howl but never dared jump out of the truck without Grandpa's permission. We got out and Grandpa knelt beside Duane who wasn't moving. They spoke in Sioux and Grandpa helped Duane to his feet and embraced him tightly. When we got back to the house Grandpa said I should leave, and to tell no one at our place of the visitor. Despite the passage of seven years or so he still partly blamed Naomi for letting father go back to war, and they were frequently at odds.

I'm sure I loved Duane, at least at the beginning, because he so pointedly ignored me. He came from up near Parmelee on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, and though his looks were predominantly Sioux his eyes were Caucasian, cold and green like green stones in cold flowing water. Technically he was a cowboy—it was all he knew how to do and he did it well. He refused to live in Grandpa's house but took up residence in a shed that was once a bunkhouse. Two of the Airedales decided to live with him of their own accord. Duane refused to go to school; he told Grandpa that he could read and write and that was as far as he needed to go in that area. He spent his time looking after the remaining Herefords, repairing farm buildings, cutting wood, with the largest chore being the irrigating. The only other hired hand was Lundquist, an old Swede bachelor friend of Grandpa's. He taught Duane irrigating and jabbered all day on the matter of his own Swedenborgian version of Christianity. Lundquist daily forgave Duane for the death of a distant relative in Minnesota who was murdered during the Sioux uprising in the mid-nineteenth century. The actual farmwork wasn't that onerous since Grandpa mostly grew two crops of alfalfa a year within his forest borders, and the bulk of the rest of our land was leased on shares to neighbors.

On New Year's Day of that first year Duane received a fine buckskin quarter horse from a cutting-horse strain, plus a handmade saddle from Agua Prieta on the Arizona border. Normally the gift would have come on Christmas but Grandfather had lost his religion during World War I in Europe and didn't observe Christmas. The day stands out clearly: it was a warmish, clear winter morning with the thawing mud in the barnyard a little slippery. I had gone way over to Chadron with Grandpa the day before to fetch the horse, and the saddle had come by mail. Duane came riding in on the Appaloosa from feeding the cattle and saw me standing there holding the reins of the buckskin. He nodded at me as coolly as usual, then walked over and studied the horse. He looked at Grandpa who stood back in the sunlight against the barn. “Guess that's the best-looking animal I ever saw,” Duane said. Grandpa nodded at me, so I said, “It's for you, Duane.” He turned his back to us for a full ten minutes, or what seemed an unimaginably long time given the situation. Finally I came up behind him and ran my hand with the reins along his arm to his hand. I whispered “I love you” against his neck for no reason. I didn't know I was going to say it.

That was the first day Duane let me go riding with him. We rode until twilight with the two dogs until I heard Naomi ring the dinner bell in the distance. Duane rode across the wheat stubble until he turned around within a hundred yards of our farmhouse. It was the most romantic day of my life and we never spoke or touched except when I handed him the reins.

One of the main sadnesses of my life at that time, and on occasions since, is that I matured early and was thought by others to be overly attractive. It isn't the usual thing to be complained about but it unfairly, I thought, set me aside, brought notice when none was desired. It made me shy, and I tended to withdraw at the first mention of what I looked like. It wasn't so bad in country school where Naomi was the sole teacher and there were only four of us in the seventh grade, but for eighth grade I had to take the school bus to the nearest
town of any size which, for certain reasons, will be unnamed. There the attention was constant from the older town boys and I was at a loss what to do. I was thirteen and refused all dates, saying my mother wouldn't let me go out. I also refused the invitation to become a cheerleader because I wanted to take the school bus home to be with my horses. I trusted one senior boy because he was the son of our doctor and seemed quite pleasant. He gave me a ride home in his convertible one late-April day, full of himself because he had been accepted by far-off Dartmouth. He tried very hard to rape me but I was quite strong from taking care of horses and actually broke one of his fingers, though not before he forced my face close to his penis which erupted all over me. I was so shocked I laughed. He held his broken finger and began crying for forgiveness. It was stupid and profoundly unpleasant. Naturally he spread it around school that I had given him a great blow-job, but school was almost out for the year, and I hoped people would forget.

If anything ninth grade was worse. Mother insisted I dress well, but I hid some sloppy clothes to wear in my school locker. I played basketball for a month or so but quit after another unpleasant incident. The coach kept me very late, well after everyone had left, to practice free throws, and to play one on one. While I was drying off after a shower he simply walked right into the girls' locker room. He said he wouldn't hurt me or even touch me but he wanted to see me naked. I was quite frightened when he came closer saying
Please
over and over again. I didn't know what to do so I dropped the towel and turned all the way around. He said
Once more
so I did it again and then he left. When I got in the car I almost told Naomi but I knew that the coach had three children and I didn't want to make trouble for him.

In
contrast to other males Duane hadn't shown a trace of affection in the year and a half since his arrival. All that we shared was the love of horses but that drew us together sufficiently to give me enough solace to keep going. At one point I had become so depressed I thought of maiming myself, burning my face, or ending my life. Naomi wanted to take me to
a psychiatrist in the state capital but I refused. One evening she gave me my first glass of wine and sent Ruth out of the room. I told her much of what was bothering me and she held me and wept with me. She said that what was happening to me was the condition of life, and that I had to behave with pride and honor so that I could respect myself. When I found someone to love who loved me it would all make more sense and become much better. I didn't tell her I loved Duane because she thought him so rude as to be mentally diseased.

One Saturday I was hazing some young steers for Duane so he could practice his buckskin on cutting, which is when the rider allows the horse to enter the herd, select a steer, and “cut” him out of the herd. My job was to keep the steers from dispersing and running off in every direction. The oldest Airedale understood the game and helped me to turn back especially recalcitrant steers. I think the dog stuck it out merely for the outside chance of getting to bite a steer.

That day it began to sleet so we went in the barn and practiced roping on some old steer horns perched on a pole. We practiced team roping together when the weather was good. I was the “header,” that is, I lassoed the horns while Duane was the “heeler,” which was much harder because you have to lasso the back hoofs of a running steer. Duane seemed especially cold and removed that day so I tried to tease him about a necklace he wore. He wouldn't tell me what the necklace meant no matter how I badgered him.

“I heard two footballers down at the feed store say you were the best-looking girl in school,” he said, knowing how much it bothered me. “They also said you were the best fuck in the county.”

“That's not true, Duane.” I had broken into tears. “You know that's not true.”

“Why would they say it if it wasn't true?” he asked, grabbing my arm and making me face him. “You never offered it to me because I'm an Indian.”