Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Remember all those gladiolus spuds Indigo planted in their garden and everyone scolded her for planting useless flowers? Guess what? Big spikes of buds appeared in the first warm days after Christmas, and in no time white, lavender, red, and yellow flowers opened. People passing by on the road stopped to stare — the flowers were quite a sight.

When no one was around, the twins took an old bucket full of freshly cut flowers to the brush-covered shelter the flooded Christians used as a church. At first the twins weren’t sure if their peace offering would be accepted by their neighbors. But the next week, they found the old bucket at their gate, so they refilled it with flowers. Their neighbors received all sorts of food donations from other churches each month; but no one up or down the river had such tall amazing flowers for their church. So those flowers turned out to be quite valuable after all.

Indigo scooped up some stew with a piece of tortilla.

“Look,” she said to the twins. “Do you recognize this?”

“Some kind of potato, isn’t it?” Vedna fished one out of her stew and popped it into her mouth.

“Ummmm!”

Maytha stirred her stew with a piece of tortilla and examined the vegetable — it was a gladiolus spud! She laughed out loud.

“You can eat them!” she exclaimed. Those gladiolus weren’t only beautiful; they were tasty!

After the twins finished lunch, they all walked up the path to see the gardens and the spring. Now Rainbow flew along above them until he saw a hawk and returned to Indigo’s shoulder. Linnaeus walked ahead of the little grandfather to scout for any danger, Sister liked to say. Their parrot and monkey warned them if strangers approached even a mile away.

The twins especially like the “speckled corn” effect of the color combinations Indigo made with the gladiolus she planted in rows to resemble corn kernels. Maytha agreed with Indigo; their favorite was the lavender, purple, white, and black planting, but Sister and Vedna preferred the dark red, black, purple, pink, and white planting. They were closed now, but in the morning sky blue morning glories wreathed the edges of the terraces like necklaces.

Down the shoulder of the dune to the hollow between the dunes, silver white gladiolus with pale blues and pale lavenders glowed among the great dark jade datura leaves. Just wait until sundown — the fragrance of the big datura blossoms with the gladiolus flowers would make them swoon, Indigo promised.

When the girls first returned to the old gardens the winter before, Grandma Fleet’s dugout house was in good condition but terrible things had been done at the spring. Fortunately Grandma Fleet had warned Sister Salt during her visit the third night of the dance, so the girls were prepared for the shock. Strangers had come to the old gardens; at the spring, for no reason, they slaughtered the big old rattlesnake who lived there; then they chopped down the small apricot trees above Grandma Fleet’s grave.

That day they returned, the twins helped Sister Salt and Indigo gather up hundreds of delicate rib bones to give old Grandfather Snake a proper burial next to Grandma Fleet. They all wept as they picked up his bones, but Indigo wept harder when she looked at the dried remains of the little apricots trees hacked to death with the snake.

Today Indigo and Linnaeus ran ahead of the others with the parrot flying ahead of her. At the top of the sandy slope she stopped and knelt in the sand by the stumps of the apricot trees, and growing out of the base of one stump were green leafy shoots. Who knew such a thing was possible last winter when they cried their eyes sore over the trees?

They took turns drinking the cold water from the crevice in the cave wall and sat on the cool sand on the cave’s floor to listen to the splashing water for a while.

They sat so quietly the twins and the little grandfather dozed off; something terrible struck there, but whatever or whoever, it was gone now; Sister Salt could feel the change. Early the other morning when she came alone to wash at the spring, a big rattlesnake was drinking at the pool. The snake dipped her mouth daintily into the water, and her throat moved with such delicacy as she swallowed. She stopped drinking briefly to look at Sister, then turned back to the water; then she gracefully turned from the pool across the white sand to a nook of bright shade. Old Snake’s beautiful daughter moved back home.