Passage I

PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from the novel The Grass Dancer by Susan Power (©1994 by Susan Power).

It was the winter of 1928, and I was eighteen years old. I had been snowbound for several days in my family's cabin and was desperate to be outdoors, where I could work the cramps out of my legs and fill my lungs with fresh air. I went for a long walk, fighting through high drifts.

I wandered onto the leased land of the Bauer ranch. I came to a shallow frozen pond. The ice was uneven, marred by tangled clumps of weeds, but I noticed a man skimming across it as if on a smooth pane of glass. He balanced on silver blades slim as butter knives, propelling his body forward and then magically backward. I had heard about ice-skating, but I'd never seen it done. I hunched beside a frozen bush, hoping he wouldn't notice me. But I was framed in white and difficult to miss. The graceful man skated toward me, and stopped so quickly his blades spit a spray of ice. He towered over me, smiling.

"You like to dance on water?" he asked me. I shook my head. I didn't know what else to do. "I'm Emery," he said. He waited, staring directly into my eyes, which made me uncomfortable.

"I'm Anna Thunder," I finally answered.

"Now that's a name to live up to." He clapped his large hands together. "Come here, this will be fun." Emery removed his skates, which I saw were metal blades screwed onto a pair of work boots. He donned the boots he'd been carrying and knelt in the snow.

"Give me your foot," he said. He was the only white man other than the doctor and the reservation priest I had ever spoken to. I watched him stuff one of his mittens in the toe of each boot and then fit the skates on my feet. He held my hands and pulled me across the ice. At first I was rigid and tottered on the slippery surface, but eventually I relaxed and pushed off, cutting the ice with confident strokes.

Our courtship was an ice dance, and Emery's wedding present to me was my own set of silver blades he'd ordered from the Sears catalogue.

Emery and I married despite disapproval from both sides. Joyce Blue Kettle protested the loudest, flapping her tongue so much I thought she might wear it thin as a hair ribbon.

"People will say you're greedy," Joyce confided to me the night before my wedding.

"What do you mean?" I only half listened, distracted as I was by the last-minute details of polishing my shoes and combing my damp hair with a clump of sage to scent it.

"They say you're marrying him to get things. What about the seven new dresses he bought you, one for each day of the week? What about the horsehair sofa and brass bed? Didn't he even build you a house?"

Earlier that day I had taken Joyce on a tour of the new house, a neat clapboard structure made of planed lumber. I felt guilty as we moved through the rooms, the number of my possessions suddenly overwhelming me. All my life Í had been taught that material goods were dispensable, things to be shared with friends and family. We were not supposed to have more than we needed, so there were endless rounds of giveaways at our dances, where people unburdened themselves of accumulated objects. But Emery was not Sioux, and his affection for me resulted in lavish offerings.

"They know Emery has different ways," I told her.

"Whatever you say." Joyce shrugged.

On our first wedding anniversary, Emery and I gave a feast for my Sioux relatives. I'd thought time would set things right for Joyce, but she remained bitter about the match. She trailed after me at the feast, and pretended to help me in the kitchen, where she sat idle, letting her mouth do all the work.

"Red Dress was really looking out for you. "She fought a sly smile. She was referring to our grandmother's sister. Joyce liked to tell people that Emery hadn't fallen for me but for the old magic I had used to spell him. I struggled for something pleasant to discuss.

Later I forgave Joyce, because when she heard about my husband's death she sent her daughter to the house to watch over my son. Clifford accompanied his daughter, offering to take Emery's personal stock of two horses and one cow to his place, where he could tend them. I was grateful to my cousin for letting her family assist me.

Before his mothers buried him, I bathed Emery's face and trimmed his beard. I filled his pockets with the lemon drop candies he favored and the deck of cards we used for gin rummy. Then I packed both pairs of ice skates in the coffin so that he would be waiting for me by a shallow frozen pond, ready to strap skates on my feet and take me ice-dancing.