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WHERE COURAGE IS LIKE A WILD HORSE CONTINUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WILLING CO-CONSPIRATORS Seen through the small rectangle of my window: the distant, three-story brick façade of the boys' dormitory. I don't see it very well now; my window is filled by the fair face and figure of Ruthie Tenkiller. Ruthie's one of the big girls -- sixteen, I think -- and she's the one I want to grow up looking like. Ruthie is a beauty. Her hair is long and black and lustrous. It reminds me of the magnificent tail of the black mare in our horse pasture, but Ruthie's is ever so much softer and finer. She has big black eyes and the kind of fine, slim nose you don't see much around here. She's not really allowed to wear lipstick, but she does sometimes. She's wearing lipstick tonight, though I know it's too far and too dark for her boyfriend to see. It's bright red, a color they would call sinful in church, but I think it looks wonderful. She stands in the window, fingers on my light switch, sending some sort of pattern of long and short flashes. Her teeth and eyes gleam in my darkened room. Across the way, on the third floor, second room from the left, her boyfriend sends a return message in Morse code. You may have wondered why I've mentioned only one adult in this narrative. Surely, even someone as enormously competent as Mrs. Joseph could not have run the Murrow Indian Orphanage on her own. Yes and no. I mean, it never occurred to me to wonder about administrators and boards of governors. So, yes, as far as the day in, day out life went, and barring any medical emergencies, Mrs. Joseph was the adult in charge on the Murrow Orphanage grounds. But, no, she didn't do it alone. She had the help of our cook, Mrs. Treat, for one thing. And the big girls, the teenage girls who were wards of the state until their eighteenth birthday, did much of the real work. They made those awful Sunday meals, for one thing. They watched over us while we did our chores -- making our beds, dusting the big staircase, watering the plants on the sun porch, washing the linoleum on the floor of that long second-floor corridor, taking the dry clothes off the line on hot afternoons. They hauled the dirty clothes to the laundromat on Saturdays and hung them out on the line. They planted and weeded our garden patch. They washed the dishes in our kitchen and at the college cafeteria. When we had visitors, they did the serving. They ironed all those clothes of ours and did the hard cleaning -- toilets, stoves, sinks. As I run down their chores, I feel like I'm writing up the list of Cinderella's housework. And, indeed, Cinderella was an orphan, just like Ruthie and her friends. The state could be every bit as unfeeling and cruel as any wicked stepmother. When I first heard that story, and it might have been Ruthie who read it to me, I thought of her as a Cinderella. Beautiful as she was, and worn down with work, yet so bright and bubbly with hope. There was one big difference: Ruthie didn't have any Prince Charming living in the neighborhood castle. All she had was Elmer Catches over in the dark brick boys' dormitory. Elmer was okay, I guess, but even Ruthie would admit that he was no Prince Charming. She thought he was the best available. I never heard her say any more about him than that, but I believe that she thought he was her ticket out. The reason I know that much about secret, grown-up things between the big girls and boys has to do with the one job that the teenagers like the least at Murrow. Each girl was appointed big sister to two of us little girls. Which meant they were supposed to look out for us -- to keep us from falling if they could and bandage our scrapes if they couldn't. They were supposed to wipe our noses when we were sick, keep the strong from tormenting the weak, and hug us when the lonelies got hold of us so hard that we thought we'd dissolve in tears. Of course, Mrs. Joseph was too busy to check on how well they were doing all that. And they were teenage girls, all alone in the world, with troubles enough of their own to keep them more than occupied. So, for the most part, they didn't pay their "little sisters" as much mind as they were supposed to. We did have one thing going for us, which explains why Ruthie was in my room that night. Our little girls' rooms were on the wing that faced the boys' dorm. So if our big sisters wanted to arrange secret meetings with Indian boyfriends they had to sneak into our rooms after hours to do it. After one time or another, most of the big girls used their little sisters' rooms for just that purpose. They'd worked out a kind of Morse code with the boys, and our light switches were their telegraph keys. On some Friday and Saturday nights, rooms would be flashing light and dark all up and down the second-floor corridor. It was a sight to see. We little girls felt flattered, in a way, to be included in these very grown-up goings-on. Even if we didn't get along with our big sister, we never withheld our permission. And, believe me, we never ratted on anyone for their late-night indiscretions. Now, don't get me wrong: for all the flirting and teasing and midnight message passing, Ruthie was a very proper young lady, as I remember it. She once told me that she believed in love enough not to confuse it with sex. Of course, she whispered that in the strictest confidence; sex was not a word we said out loud at Murrow. When the time came that Ruthie wanted to use our room, she was especially good to us. An hour after dinner she gave us each half a Mounds bar. We didn't get candy very often, and the coconut and dark chocolate tasted wonderful. I hated to swallow, and I guess Jackie felt the same way, because a few minutes later Ruthie said, "Now, I'm not supposed to be bringin' you girls candy. Look at the mess you're makin'. You'll get me in trouble." And indeed Jackie had held all the candy in her mouth; dribbles of chocolate were running down her nightgown. Ruthie spent a good five minutes rubbing on the white nightie until all the stain was gone. She seemed very severe, but I heard her laughing about it with her friends later. After she got Jackie cleaned up, she sat each of us on her lap in turn, unbound our hair, and brushed and brushed. That felt wonderful; living in the country as we did, our hair often got dirty and tangled. Getting our hair brushed was a real treat. "Now, girls," Ruthie said when she finished with us, "I'm going to ask a very big favor. Elmer and me, we got to make some plans. And it's hard now they know we're stuck on each other. They make it tough for us to get together. So I've got to use your room; it's the only way I know. I'll be real grateful. You girls know I like you. You're like the little sisters I never had." At the time I didn't have any qualms about helping her. Whatever Ruthie may have felt about us, I knew I loved her like a sister. I mean, I admired her. I thought she was beautiful. I knew she was strong and brave. I bet that when she was my age, she was holy hell out on the grounds. She took grief from no one; Ruthie may be the only person I've ever known I can honestly say that about. So when she asked, I didn't think twice about my "sure." Jackie snuck into my room fifteen minutes after lights out. We weren't used to staying up late, and it wasn't easy in the dark, quiet room. We didn't dare talk to each other or do any of the other things that might have kept us awake. We whispered about one thing and another, especially the day Jackie spent in school without me, and all the brave things Phyllis did to keep those town kids in line. That Phyllis, she was getting almost as high in my eyes as Ruthie. About midnight a slim shadow slipped soundlessly past our curtain. Ruthie was wearing her white terry cloth robe, but her face was all made up with mascara and rouge and lipstick. I think she wanted Elmer to see her looking pretty from all that distance, and at night. Otherwise, I can't explain the Toulouse-Lautrec getup on a girl who usually had such excellent taste. Ruthie seemed nervous. She brought in a bottle of coke and some paper cups and put them on the floor. I wasn't sure if she wanted us to pour ourselves a drink, but I didn't dare do it without some sort of permission. She rushed right to the window; by happy coincidence, our light switch was in easy reach. She flipped the switch to flash a series of light and dark dots and dashes; it was a weird and disorienting feeling to sit in our room while the lights flickered on and off, off and on. Apparently, Elmer understood the code, because he signed back to her. The earnest conversation with talking lights lasted a few minutes. When it was over, Ruthie looked happier than I'd seen her in a long time. We sat down together, co-conspirators, and each savored a glass of cold coke. Now, please understand just what a cold pop was for us. The only place you could get it was at the general store, a half-mile down the road. That place was strictly off-limits to us; and when we could talk someone older into bringing us back a store-bought drink, it was invariably warm. How Ruthie kept this cold remains a mystery to me to this day. As she poured our cups of pop, Ruthie touched each of ours with hers. It was a gesture I didn't understand. "To a happy future for all of us," she whispered. "To love. To love. Oh, wish me luck, girls. I'm going to need it." I had no idea what she was talking about, but I whispered back, "Good luck, Ruthie." And Jackie echoed, "Good luck." Ruthie shut off the room light. We drank our cokes in dark silence. When she stood up to go, Ruthie gave each of us a hug and a kiss on the forehead. A strange light shined in her eyes, though it was so dark in the room that neither Jackie nor I saw the red lipstick on our foreheads until we stood in the clothes line the next morning.
Sharon Skolnick (Okee-Chee), an enrolled member of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, is an artist and gallery owner. Manny Skolnick is the author of "Alford Waters: The Story of an American Indian" and "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light." They live in Chicago. Reprinted from "Where Courage Is Like a Wild Horse" by Sharon and Manny Skolnick by permission of University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 1997 by the University of Nebraska Press. |
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