Gardens in the Dunes (34 page)

Next she sought out the Sand Lizard people Grandma Fleet had talked about, the ones who moved years ago to the Parker reservation on the river. But only a few people she spoke with had even heard of her people. Most thought the Sand Lizards were all gone. An elderly Mojave woman who cleaned houses for the white people took her aside and whispered she should be cautious because the Sand Lizard people were still remembered for their odd ways. The woman smiled and patted Sister on the arm as she said this; the old-time Mojaves had a great deal of respect and affection for the Sand Lizard people, who used to hide the Mojaves whenever the Mexican slave catchers pursued them. The help they gave others was one reason the Sand Lizard people got killed off; Grandma Fleet used to say there never were many Sand Lizards in the first place.

The superintendent of the Colorado River Indian agency referred to the old army barracks as “the school,” but there were no teachers or books; the school taught them how to boil the dirty laundry of the superintendent and his wife and the other government employees in big steel tubs of soapy water over hot coals. Sister Salt knew all about laundry because Mama did the hotel's laundry in Needles. But the other young women—Cocopa, Yuma, and Mojave—were used to washing their clothes in the muddy water of the river, or not at all.

Each week Sister Salt made an escape plan, then changed her mind; which direction should she go to find Mama? She did not want to return to the old gardens without Indigo. The boarding students were allowed to come home once a year in the summer; so she decided to wait. The soldiers
and Indian police brought ragged hungry people out of the canyons to the reservation at Parker every week, and she hoped to find someone with news of Mama.

Years before, the Mojaves and Chemehuevis were given tiny reservations along the river near Needles. The reservation at Parker held all the other Indians who used to live along the Colorado River before the white people came; so it was the most populous reservation on the river, and the largest too. Unfortunately, most of the land was above the fertile river bottom, on old floodplains impossible to irrigate.

Sister Salt had never seen such an ugly place—no wonder Grandma Fleet and the others refused to come in from the hills. White farmers claimed the best river bottom land. Along this stretch of the river not even the cottonwood trees or willows wanted to grow; the ground was hard-packed clay and old floodplain gravel. Only a small portion of the reservation land was fertile river bottom land, already allotted to regular churchgoers; all the others were left to grow what they could, on land that was too far from the river to irrigate and too parched by the sun to grow much.

The Parker Indian school superintendent called it a school, but he ran the place as a moneymaker for himself; he charged the soldiers and survey crews twenty-five cents per bundle for the dirty laundry that Sister Salt and the other young women washed in the school laundry. After the first week, Sister Salt began to mutter under her breath; this was no school, this was a prison. Maytha and Vedna said that all they had to do was get pregnant and the school superintendent would tell them to go as soon as their bellies got big. Sister Salt told them she did not plan to wait that long.

Sister Salt took every opportunity to get away from the school dormitory and laundry tubs to explore. The people were not permitted to farm their traditional fields any longer, and without water nothing grew in the old floodplain gravel. A few old people tried in the beginning by carrying water on their backs uphill to their fields of corn and beans, until they were defeated by the evaporation and the heat. The alluvial plains above the river were good only for sagebrush and rabbits.

The tin shacks built by government contractors were no better than the lean-to they had in Needles. Sister Salt was saddened by the quarreling that went on between the different tribes all crowded together there. The Chemehuevis and Mojaves were lucky to have their own reservations even if they were small, and many of the people at Parker envied the Mojaves
and Chemehuevis, although they didn't have enough farmland to go around either.

At Parker, if some poor person had even one parent who was Chemehuevi or Mojave, the others might jeer and tell them to go back to their own reservation. Sister Salt waited for someone to tell her to go home, but no one ever did. The few Sand Lizard people who remained were married to people of other tribes; they went to church every Sunday and spoke English. They did not turn Sister Salt away, but they shook their heads and whispered behind their hands about the fierce young Sand Lizard woman. Poor thing! She lived out in the hills too long!

Sister Salt watched the women who sat outdoors under
ramadas
made of tamarisk and willow branches to escape the oven heat of the tin shacks. Here they threw the old gambling sticks and drank cactus wine to pass the day. Lard, cornmeal, salt, and a little sugar were issued once a week. She saw women quarrel over cards, scream, and pull one another's hair until Mr. Syrup, the Parker reservation policeman, was called to take them to jail.

The men were required to show up every morning to be assigned their work for the day by the superintendent; those who hunted rabbits in the sandhills outside reservation boundaries did so at the risk of jail. The people shuffled along with eyes dulled by the heat, and the tin shacks were to blame; if the people had been allowed to dig old-style houses partially underground they could keep cool until sundown, when traditionally work began in the hot months. But the authorities feared the Indians would take the opportunity to run away, and forbade work at night, when it was coolest.

The superintendent said the Indians must learn to stay put on the new reservation because a great many changes were on the way. Utah won statehood a few years before, so Arizona couldn't be far behind. The surveys were completed for construction of the dam, and the digging for the canal to Los Angeles was under way. No one seemed happier about the construction activity at nearby Parker Canyon than the reservation superintendent. All winter he had important visitors in suits who patted him on the back and shook his hand.

The construction crews began to arrive in big freight wagons. Sister Salt counted the workers, then told Maytha and Vedna she had a plan: they would go into the laundry business for themselves. They hid when the others left for school, and met upriver where the clear side pools stood amid
the willows and cattails. They dug soapweed yucca roots and hung them in the willows to dry first before they used them. They had no tin laundry tubs, so one night they borrowed an old oak barrel used to collect garbage from the rear of the dormitory. At first Maytha and Vedna were hesitant, but Sister Salt dumped the contents from the barrel; the stray dogs will take the blame, she told them. They rolled the barrel for what seemed like hours; the hollow noise of the barrel rolling along striking rocks set off the barking dogs, and they feared someone would alert the agency policeman, Mr. Syrup.

“Old Syrup sleeps like a rock,” Sister Salt said. “Don't even worry about him. If he comes along right now I know where to touch him so he won't tell anyone.” Maytha and Vedna giggled at Sister Salt's remark; she was like the old-time people their mother talked about—before the missionaries came. In those days, the Chemehuevis really knew how to enjoy one another; only Sand Lizards knew how to enjoy sex more, Maytha joked, and Sister Salt nodded proudly. It was true: Sand Lizards practiced sex the way they all used to, before the missionaries came.

Maytha and Vedna complained the site of their laundry camp was too far to walk, but Sister Salt pointed out Mr. Syrup wouldn't walk that far, so they'd be safe. They swore the other girls in the school laundry to secrecy and promised them a share of the money if they didn't tell anyone. The dormitory attendants took roll only in the morning, so afterward they left the other girls in the school laundry while they hurried to the makeshift laundry along the river.

The first Saturday they walked upriver to the edge of the construction camp, only a few of the workers gave them bundles of laundry to wash. But in the following weeks the word got around: clean laundry for half the price the school superintendent charged.

Distinguished visitors from Washington, D.C., and excitement over the beginning of the aqueduct from the river to southern California kept the reservation superintendent occupied for weeks, and he did not immediately notice the decrease in receipts because more workers arrived every day. As their business grew, Sister Salt and the Chemehuevi sisters shared their laundry customers with the others girls, who used the school's laundry facilities to make a little money.

Down along the river Sister Salt sometimes forgot everything but the sound of the water and its coolness over her legs; later when she lay in the shade on the river sand, surrounded with the perfume of the willows, she imagined she was back in the previous year when she and Indigo were still
together safely at the old gardens. She knew she must not permit herself to dwell on their separation for fear she might become too sad to move, too sad for her stomach to digest food. Instead, she kept busy; she scrubbed the dungarees and overalls on the flat sandstone. She began to wonder: if Jesus really was such a loving being, why did he disappear with their mother but leave her and Indigo behind?

She saved the coins from her share of the profits each week in a jar buried under a cottonwood tree by the river. The tree was old and so big that Sister Salt could not come close to reaching her arms around its trunk when she closed her eyes to embrace it and lay her cheek on its nubbly bark because she was so lonely for the touch of someone who loved her. With her arms around the tree, she thought of Grandma Fleet and Mama then, and Indigo, and she cried until her eyes felt tiny and hot. She did not know what to do next. Where was Mama? How would she get Indigo home? She saved up money, but what good was it to her? She let go of the tree and let her arms drop down to her sides as she sank down on the river sand.

Suddenly she sensed she was being watched. She jumped up and without taking her eyes off the thicket of willow and tamarisk, Sister Salt reached down and picked up a fallen branch. She carried it raised like a club in both hands as she began to make her way back to the school dormitory. They all knew stories about women and even little girls attacked by whites or black men or Mexicans who worked for them.

She was breathing hard and her heart was pounding so loudly she couldn't tell if the rustle in the bushes was quail or an enemy. The memory of a Cocopa girl beaten and bloodied after an attack filled her with anger. She gripped the stick tighter and felt the anger lift her; her legs felt stronger and lighter; the club seemed light in her hands. Suddenly she wanted very much to find her stalker. She crept along the path next to the river silently as she did rabbit hunting, stopping frequently to listen as she held her breath. She made a circle, crawling under the tamarisks and willows on her hands and knees, dragging the club in one hand. Up ahead she heard the crackle of twigs underfoot—it was a big foot in heavy boots. From around her neck she brought out the rawhide pouch with the flint blade Grandma Fleet gave her.

She crept up behind the large figure squatting in the rice grass and was about to spring on him and stab him in the throat when she recognized the muscular back and huge forearms and hands.

“Hey!” she yelled and the big man startled and never looked back; he tumbled forward on his hands and knees and crawled madly into the
tamarisk seedlings in fright. He looked so frightened, despite his size, Sister Salt started laughing. The sound of her laughter made him stop and turn his head with a sheepish grin.

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Big Candy said, pretending to feel his chest over his heart. Sister Salt laughed harder. He was their favorite laundry customer because he was so jolly, always teasing and making jokes about himself and his huge overalls he claimed he ordered from a tent manufacturer in St. Louis. She told him he ought to be more careful or he might get hurt. He'd learned his lesson, he said, with a make-believe shudder and big grin as he looked at the flint knife in her hand. He nodded his head dramatically; all the while Sister Salt watched his eyes—they were even blacker than his face. What beautiful teeth he had; she noticed them the first time he brought his laundry to them. Big Candy was the cook and right-hand man for the construction site superintendent, Mr. Wylie.

“You can see what a good cook I am,” he told them the first time they met him, as he showed off his big stomach. After that, even when he was too busy to come himself, he sent his bundle of dirty laundry along with little gifts—leftover cake or pie saved from Mr. Wylie's table. The black and Mexican construction workers were the only ones who acted friendly or tried to talk to the Indian girls. The churchgoing Indian girls ignored them and refused to look them in the eyes because the minister warned them every Sunday about the dangers of Negroes and Mexicans.

In the beginning Sister Salt talked to Big Candy only to practice her English, but he made such funny jokes about himself she found herself laughing as she had with Indigo and Grandma Fleet. Still, Sister was surprised Candy tried to follow her along the river, where his bulk and the tangle of tamarisk and willow made tough going.

“The churchgoers say all you want from us is adultery,” Sister Salt said, idly swinging her club by its handle, still gripping the stone blade. Candy brushed the dry leaves off his overalls and pulled twigs from his hair. He smiled and shook his head slowly.

“That's all those churchgoers think about.” He looked Sister Salt in the eyes. He seemed relaxed as he sat there on the ground looking up at her. Sister Salt threw down the club and sat on the ground not far from him. She rubbed the stone blade carefully between two fingers to test its edge and waited for him to say something; she and the Chemehuevi girls always laughed at him because he liked to talk so much. She cleaned the dirt from under her fingernails with the tip of the blade, stealing sidelong glances at him. The churchgoers said don't get near the black men or your babies will
be born with monkey tails, but Sister didn't believe anything the churchgoers said because they were wrong about Jesus Christ. They claimed he died on a cross long ago, but Sister saw him with her own eyes last winter.