“I heard yesterday,” said Aunt Zita, chopping at the eggs with the side of her fork, “from one of the men who drives one of the beef wagons who heard from a lieutenant at Fort Yates that the Ghost Dancing is about over.” Aunt Zita looked at her wisely, a flap of egg on her fork halfway to her mouth. Then the fork moved and the bit of egg disappeared between her thin lips.
“I don’t understand,” said Lucia.
“What’s behind the Ghost Dancing?” asked Aunt Zita.
“I don’t know,” said Lucia.
“Sitting Bull,” said Aunt Lucia.
“There’s Ghost Dancing on all the reservations,” said Lucia.
“Sitting Bull is behind it,” said Aunt Zita. “Get him and you stop the dancing.”
Lucia went pale.
The gunfire this morning, at the Grand River Camp.
“Get him,” said Aunt Zita, chewing, the side of her mouth bulging with buttered toast, “and you stop the Ghost Dancing.”
Lucia felt sick.
“There was trouble,” said Lucia, weakly. “I heard shots.”
“Well,” said Aunt Zita, shoving back her plate, “the trouble’s over now.”
Lucia picked up the plate and put it in the dishpan near the range. She would heat water and wash it later. Lucia herself was not hungry. Somehow she did not even, now, feel like coffee.
“Now,” said Aunt Zita, “tell me-and tell me honestly, mind you-what happened here when I was gone, exactly what happened here when I was gone.”
Then Lucia, numbly, pretty accurately, filled in the details of what had occurred during Aunt Zita’s absence from the soddy. She left out very little, except perhaps that Edward Chance had held her in his arms, and that she in that moment had not objected, that her lips had touched his, and his hers, and that she had lived over that moment in the hours that separated her from him a thousand times, that she would never forget that moment, an instant at midnight on a moonlit hill at Standing Rock when two human beings, each lonely, had cared for and touched one another, she and a fugitive, a stranger.
“What was the man like who was here?” asked Aunt Zita.
“He was a nice man,” said Lucia.
“A criminal fleeing from justice,” said Aunt Zita.
“I don’t know much about it,” said Lucia.
“And you thought he was a nice man,” said Aunt Zita.
“Yes,” said Lucia, “he seemed to be a nice man. I thought so.”
Aunt Zita looked at her. Her eyes sparkled like a cat’s. Her voice was measured, and the words came out one at a time, like individual drops of cold syrup pouring from a bottle.
“The prairie,” said Aunt Zita, “is a lonely place for a young girl.”
Lucia looked at her and flushed.
“Did you tell him to go away?” asked Aunt Zita.
“No,” said Lucia.
“Why didn’t you tell him to go away?” asked Aunt Zita.
“He only wanted a cup of coffee,” said Lucia.
Aunt Zita regarded her coldly.
“It would have been impolite to send him away,” said Lucia.
“Why didn’t you send him away?” asked Aunt Zita.
“I told you,” said Lucia.
“It would have been impolite-”
“Yes,” said Lucia.
“Is that the only reason?” asked Aunt Zita, her voice as pointed as a sewing needle.
“I don’t know,” said Lucia. “I don’t know.”
“I see,” said Aunt Zita. “I see.”
Outside, the prairie wind, unhurried, rustled through the sage.
Lucia looked at the older woman. “I don’t like you,” she said.
The girl arose from the kitchen table and went to the door of the soddy, opening it and looked out. She looked at the gradual, sloping hill that lay between the soddy and the school, on another hill beyond; she looked away toward Grand River; she looked at the sky, huge and gray that Monday morning of the 15th of December, 1890. She noticed, from the direction of Grand River, a bit of dust hanging in the air, horsemen, but did not think anything of it.
She could hear Aunt Zita’s words behind her. “Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother,” said Aunt Zita.
Lucia turned to face the older woman. “I did better than that,” she said. “I loved them.”
“I,” said Aunt Zita, “stand now in their place.”
“No,” said Lucia, “you are not in their place.” She felt her breath quicken. “You took their house,” she said, “you sat in their chairs, you ate from their plates, you slept in their bed, but you were not-ever-in their place.” Lucia suddenly realized her fists were clenched. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them she had regained control of herself. “Never say that again,” she said.
The girl turned away, bitterly. The bit of dust on the horizon was larger now.
“A good woman,” said Aunt Zita, “takes no pleasure in the presence of men, save perhaps an interest in the salvation of their souls.”
Lucia was watching the dust on the horizon.
“I myself,” Aunt Zita continued, “have saved the souls of many a man, whom I brought to repentance, for which they will be grateful at the time of judgment.”