Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Throughout the evening, during dinner and afterward, Edward talked about the beastly customs men — common thieves who pillaged private property — and about travel arrangements, but still Edward made no mention of her and Indigo’s detention. He expressed no regret, nor did he express any gratitude for the sizable bond which Laura pledged on his behalf.

He must be suffering shock from the ordeal, Hattie thought; he really wasn’t himself. Even his appearance seemed changed, though she could not say exactly how. He did not look directly at her but at a point beside her as if he were watching for something. His tone of voice had an uncharacteristic edge of bitterness as he blamed the Plant Industry Bureau and the Department of Agriculture. He had already sent cablegrams to Lowe & Company and to the company attorney, Mr. Grabb.

As Hattie listened a sinking feeling began to overtake her; he had been following a clandestine plan all along. She and the child were his dupes — his decoys! She watched him babble on without bothering to listen. Poor Edward, what a desperate creature you are, she thought. At last she shook her head; tears filled her eyes.

“Please,” she said, “don’t say any more.”

Later, after the lights were out, they lay awake side by side in the bed, careful not to touch each other, and talked in low voices so the child did not awaken. The marriage was over, she said. He gave a loud sigh, but did not reply. That was a sigh of relief, she thought angrily, but had to admit she felt a great deal of relief herself. Still, she cried when she recalled their engagement and the high hopes they’d both had; he patted her hand gently to comfort her. The marriage was doomed from the start, and they both shared the blame.

As the ship was towed away from the pier in Livorno, Indigo held up the cage so Rainbow could say good-bye to Italy. The color of the sea before sundown was so lovely — as clear and blue as the topaz of Laura’s ring. She would miss this color of blue — there was none like it anywhere in California or Arizona.

AT FIRST she had difficulty understanding the language her baby spoke to her from the womb, but then she recognized the Sand Lizard words pronounced in baby talk. She had not heard the Sand Lizard language spoken for a long time, except in dreams. To hear the baby, Sister Salt had to wait until early morning before dawn, after the night shift quit but before the day crews started. She lay as still as she could, holding her breath, and if the baby was awake and turning restlessly, then she could hear it talk — how its voice reached her ears was a mystery. She did not tell Maytha or Vedna because they were likely to blame the voice on witches.

Sister Salt talked to the baby whenever it kicked and moved inside her; she told the little Sand Lizard about their home and the gardens in the dunes where she and Indigo used to play games. There it was peaceful at night with no drunks or fights to send men falling against the tents. She could feel her baby’s impatience grow more urgent.

The baby did not like the noise and the dust. The place was not safe. No place is safe, she told the baby. The baby wanted her to leave at once for the old gardens. How could she leave without Indigo? Indigo was still a child.

“But she is not your baby like I am. You don’t breathe for her. You breathe for me!”

Most days he was so busy, Candy did not come to her tent until after midnight, and even then he was only taking a break — the gambling tents were full of players, and sales of beer and barbecued meat were nonstop. She did not see as much of Maytha and Vedna after she quit the laundry. The pregnancy caused her to sleep more, and the twins got busier as more workers arrived to finish the dam. Maytha and Vedna knew Sister Salt wanted company, but usually by the time they bathed in the laundry tent after work (to take advantage of the clean warm water), their “dates” arrived before they had a chance to visit her.

Sundays were days of rest — not because Maytha or Vedna were Christians but because preachers and missionaries descended on the construction camp for Sunday services and scared off their dates. So the three of them decided Sundays would be their day together; after they ate, they talked and laughed as they took turns combing and braiding new satin ribbons into their hair. They were best friends now, and the twins teased each other saying they wished Sister Salt were their twin, not the other.

The camp was a dump, Maytha said, and Vedna and Sister Salt had to agree with her; all the noise and dust drifted to their tents. They were getting tired of sex along the river week after week with the same sweaty workers who never changed what they did; sex with these men was boring and tedious. Luckily the twins had saved almost enough money to retire forever before they died of boredom here.

“It’s so bad Vedna’s started to read the Bible! All the sexy parts in the Old Testament!” The three of them laughed together. Vedna reminded them about the weird stories too — those were even better than the sex. Chariots of fire! Beasts with seven heads!

The Bible was the only book Vedna could find to practice her reading. They had gone to school and learned to read when they lived in Winslow with their father. Their Chemehuevi clanspeople were troubled because their father wasn’t Chemehuevi; he had been from Laguna Pueblo, working on the railroad, and was already married with children when he met their mother. Still, he took them in after their mother died, but kept them away from Laguna in Winslow. Their father was killed in a railroad accident when they were thirteen, old enough to go back to their mother’s people on their own. Only one old auntie, their grandmother’s sister, welcomed them inside, and poor thing, she didn’t have much — a tiny stone house on the dry floodplain of tumbleweeds and river gravel south of Needles. The government took away her farmland on the river to lease out to white men. Maytha and Vedna liked to say they had only two living relatives in Arizona — their old auntie and Sister Salt!

Later Sister had to lie down because her back ached from the baby’s constant turning. Candy looked in on her and was concerned about her discomfort; he didn’t want anything to harm his first child! His huge hands gently closed around both of her hands, and he kissed the top of her head. He was sorry he was so busy; he could see something was wrong. Nothing was wrong; she was only listening to the baby. Candy exhaled and glanced down at her belly; he had to take Wylie the evening receipts. He wanted to know how the baby could talk, how she could hear it when it was so tiny, but questions would have to wait until he got back.

Wylie was waiting at his counting table in his tent; when he saw Candy at the door, he mopped the sweat from his face and adjusted the lantern to give off more light. Wylie had finished off the pumpkin pie Candy baked the day before; the pie pan and a fork and a few crumbs were pushed to one side. The night was hot without a breeze, and Wylie wore only a nightshirt, which barely covered his private parts; Candy glanced into the adjoining tent where Wylie slept but didn’t see any women in his bed.

Wylie kept two sawed-off shotguns on the tent floor by his feet at all times; he rode his big walking horse with the shotguns in scabbards within easy reach. Candy watched him practice firing both guns from the hip at once; the stack of two-by-fours were blown into sawdust and sticks. The job of the site superintendent was to keep the contractors in line and keep the locals out of the way. Friction was bound to develop; the locals and their politicians sorely resented outsiders and federal projects, though they wanted the dams and levees.