Prudence

by David Treuer

  Three of Dick Bolton’s boys asked the girls from the village to dance. The farm boys continued to hold the girls’ coats. The loggers whooped and set off on the dance floor until Harris barked at them from behind the bar.

  “You gonna chew up my floor with your hobs!”

  Dick turned to look at his crew. “Boys,” he said.

  The men looked at one another and shucked their boots into a corner and spun the girls in their stocking feet. The song ended and Harris put on another.

  You’re completely unaware, dear, that my heart is in your hand

  So for love’s sake won’t you listen and try to understand?

  They’d had three good years at Flandreau Indian School. Three good years. Before that, after their mother died, they’d lived like squirrels in a shed next to the agency, eating what food they could find, scrounging blankets, enduring—oh, it was better not even to think about what had happened there. They made it through one winter, then Prudence got them into Flandreau and they traveled there by train. What a change that had been! What a delicious change. They were given clothes, the dorms were snug enough. And they were safe. Gracie was safe. Every morning began with the ringing of a metal triangle. They lined up by company—A for the oldest down to E for the youngest—though there was an “L” company for the laziest children, the ones who needed to be punished. The triangle rang and they scurried into formation and marched out in step and got their tooth powder and washed their hands and faces and combed their hair. Then the triangle rang again, and they marched into the yard where, no matter the weather, they did their exercises. The triangle rang again and they marched to the classrooms, where they spent the morning on book learning. And again the triangle, and off to dinner for a half hour. The afternoons were spent on “vocation,” which meant sewing, cooking, cleaning, milking cows, currying the horses. Then, in the dimming day, the triangle would ring again and, still in their companies, they marched to chapel. As the sun ground down to the earth, they quietly, with hands clasped, practiced their devotionals.

  Prudence had done her best not to end up in Company “L,” and she was never once reprimanded. She didn’t see Gracie much during the days except on Sundays, when they got to eat together. Other than that, Gracie was just another head of black braided hair tucked in the rectangle of her company. But that had been, barely, enough. She was there and she was safe. The summers were the best—they were sent to work on farms across South Dakota. And for two blessed months for three summers, Prudence and Grace were sent to the same farm near Vermillion. The work wasn’t much different from what they did at Flandreau. They milked and picked eggs and killed chickens, mucked out the stalls, and churned butter. The farmer and his wife didn’t have any children of their own and they were kind enough.

  I want you so, more than you’ll ever know

  More than you dream I do, I dream of you

  They’d had three good years at Flandreau. But then she had to leave. The superintendent called her into his office and congratulated her on graduating. They had found a place for her in New Glarus, Wisconsin, wasn’t she pleased. Oh, yes, sir. There’s a war on. Yes, sir, of course. You’ll be working at the Swiss Miss Textile Mart and Lace Factory, they make chevrons and insignia, don’t you know. I didn’t, sir. Thousands of our boys will be wearing those, don’t you know. I didn’t, sir. You’ll be doing your part, Prudence. Aren’t you glad, don’t you know. What will Grace be doing, sir? she had to say. But Grace wasn’t ready yet, of course. Three more years. Three more years and she would graduate, too. I see, sir.

  Three more years proved too long. Too long for Gracie and too long for Prudence. Prudence lasted the summer in New Glarus, then she’d packed her things and made her way back to Flandreau and taken Gracie away.

  The song ended, and Davey stepped away from her and wiped his hand on his trouser leg. Prudence blinked widely and wiped her forehead with her hand.

  “Well, now,” she said.

  Mary, doubled over, two gallon jars in her arms, stood straight and heaved them with a grunt onto the bar. One held pickles, the other pickled eggs.

  “Belly up,” said Harris. “Belly up, and merry Christmas.”

  The dancers parted. Some went back to their tables. Others, including Dickie’s men, walked to the bar and accepted the pickles and eggs Harris lifted out of the brine with a ladle.

  “Hungry?” asked Dave Gardner.

  “Thirsty,” said Prudence.

  “Jesus, Prudy. You a fish or what?”

  “Be a doll, Davey.”

  “Whiskey and Coke all right?”

  “If it’s all right with you.”

  The farm boys, looking at one another for approval, finally set down the girls’ coats they were holding and brought their empty beer bottles back up to the bar.

  “Thank you,” said the oldest.

  “Thank you,” and “thanks,” said the others.

  Clarence Brown, the stationmaster, came in. He wore a green Mackinaw, a blue cap, deerskin choppers, and pac boots.

  “Mr. Brown!” said Harris.

  “I pray to God it’s warmer for our boys in Belgium,” said Mr. Brown, stamping his feet, though no snow stuck to his boots. He had a thick mustache, which was iced over in the middle. He combed out the frost with the back side of his glove.

  “That’s the right prayer,” said Father Paul, with his eyes shut. “That’s the right prayer.”

  “What’s the news?” asked Dickie Bolton.

  “They’re holding on. They’re calling them the ‘Bloody Bastards of Bastogne.’” He held up his hand in the direction of Father Paul. “No offense, Father.”

  “You’re reporting the news.”

  “Skies are finally clear. They’re dropping supplies.”

  “Finally,” said Harris.

  Dickie nodded.

  “Funny,” said Mr. Brown, “you know what the temperature is at twenty-nine thousand feet? An interesting fact. Same as it is right now, right here where we are. Minus thirty.”

  Prudence drank deeply from her whiskey and Coke.

  The farm boys talked among themselves, sneaking looks at Prudence.

  Clarence Brown took off his coat and folded it neatly in half. He handed it over the bar to Harris.

  “Just a mo,” said Mr. Brown. He leaned across the bar and took a sheaf of yellow telegrams from the patch pocket and brushed them dry and stowed them in his breast pocket underneath his vest. “Obliged,” he said.

  “What can I do you for?” asked Harris.

  “Hot toddy would agree,” said Mr. Brown. He set his cap on the bar and clapped his gloved hands together. He looked much like a walrus. “Don’t that beat all?” he continued. “Five miles up”—he pointed past the tin ceiling—“and it’s the same as right here.” He pointed down. “But our boys got their ammunition now. They’ll break out.”

  Prudence finished her drink and sighed.

  “Be a gent,” said Harris to Mr. Brown, pointing at the kettle on top of the stove along the far wall. Mr. Brown walked across the dance floor and lifted the teakettle off the stove with one of his gloves. “Make way,” he said, though no one was dancing. Harris put another record on and turned to take the kettle in his ungloved hand. Helen Forrest came on, singing “I Had the Craziest Dream.”

  I never dreamt it could be

  Yet there you were, in love with me.

  Prudence adjusted her hair band and smoothed the front of her skirt and walked across the dance floor toward the farm boys. Only one held her gaze as she approached.

  “Dance with a girl, wouldya?”

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. No one’s gonna mind?” He looked past Prudence to Davey Gardner.

  “I don’t mind,” she said, and offered him her hand.

  He led her around the dance floor. He was unsure where to look. He looked her in t
he face, and then his gaze slid over her shoulder and down at the dance floor.

  “You’re really pretty,” he managed.

  “Oh, baby,” she sighed. “You’re a peach.”

  “I ship out in two weeks,” he said to the floor.

  “You’ll be fine,” she said.

  * * *

  At first she and Gracie had walked at night. All they had were two of Gracie’s school uniforms and a set of sheets they used to cover themselves at night, as protection against the bugs. It was warm. They slept in windbreaks and in sheds. Between Flandreau and Crookston they ate in cafés until Prudence’s money ran out. In Crookston, a farmer discovered them in one of his sheds, with green potatoes in their pockets. He brought them back to the farmhouse, and his wife set a glass of milk and a piece of bread in front of each of them without saying a word. When they were done, the woman asked them if they knew how to milk cows. They nodded. Can you pluck? They nodded again. The man and woman spoke with strong accents. Show, said the man. They milked the three cows. Then the farmer brought them to the chicken coop and pointed at the door. Prudence and Grace scooped up a chicken each, tucked the heads under their wings and swung them through the air as they’d been taught, then twisted the heads off. By the time they’d finished scalding and plucking the birds, it was late. The farmer showed them to the pump house behind the main house. His wife had set up two pallets on the cement floor. And that’s where they stayed till they couldn’t anymore, and then they set off again.

  I found your lips close to mine so I kissed you

  And you didn’t mind it at all.

  Prudence and the boy turned and turned. He couldn’t look at Prudence for very long. He had limp, sandy hair and a very large forehead that came up to Prudence’s chin. She could see a faint rash of acne across his forehead. They had moved close to the stove and Prudence tried to steer them away but the boy wasn’t looking. His body slid past hers. She felt his erection glide over her thigh. His face colored and he bit his lip.

  “Oh, God, sorry.”

  Prudence looked past his shoulder and smiled to herself.

  “Oh, honey. Oh, honey. Merry Christmas.”

  The song ended and the boy held out his hand. She shook it and he turned back to his group. The other boys said something and he said, “Stop it.” One of them slapped him on the back. They all laughed.

  “They’ve got to pay for what happened in Malmédy,” Mr. Brown was saying. “That’s not what civilized people do. They’ll be judged for it, mark my words.”

  “God will be the judge,” said Father Paul, pointing one chubby finger toward the ceiling. It looked as though he were pointing at the stuffed pike.

  “They ever do anything like that in the Great War, Dickie?” asked Mr. Brown. “You ever hear of anything like that?”

  “Worst two goddamn years of my life that was,” said Dickie.

  “Why’s that?” asked Harris as he took a mixing bowl from Mary and began whipping the egg whites.

  “Ahh,” said Dickie with a shrug. “How about for you?” he asked Harris.

  “Oh, you know,” said Harris, staring down into the mixing bowl as the egg whites began to set.

  “I hope to Christ Dickie Junior has a better go of it than I did.”

  “Where’s he at?” asked Harris.

  “Last we heard, Marseilles. But they could be anywhere. Better there than up north. Colder than a witch’s tit in the Ardennes. They say it’s as bad as it is here. Them flyboys have it worse. Can you imagine?”

  “Can’t say I can,” said Harris agreeably. He glanced at Prudence.

  “Army doesn’t know a goddamn what it’s doing,” said Dickie to his beer. “It’s nothing to them’s in charge.”

  “Now, now, Dickie. Language,” said Father Paul.

  “Father, would you?” asked Harris. He jerked his shoulder toward the record player behind him.

  “My pleasure, my absolute pleasure,” said Father Paul, and he minced behind the bar and sifted through the 78s, holding each of them up to the light.

  Prudence wiped her face gently with a handkerchief from her clutch and applied more lipstick. Mary walked past her, carrying two gallons of milk from the icebox.

  “Johnny-on-the-spot,” said Harris to Mary. He set the mixing bowl on the counter and poured in the milk and began beating the egg whites and milk together.

  “Perfect,” said Father Paul to the mirror behind the bar. He placed a record on the spindle and set the needle down with a fussy flourish.

  Thought there’s one motor gone

  We can still carry on

  “How about another, Davey,” said Prudence.

  “Jesus, Prudy, how many is that?”

  “Oh, you know . . .” She waved her hand in the air.

  “Same thing?”

  “You only live once. Make that a rum and Coke.”

  “Rum and Coke, please, Harris.”

  “Hold your horses, Pony Boy. These Tom and Jerrys is almost done. Dickie, would you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  Dickie walked around behind the bar and began upending coffee cups on the counter.

  “Make way,” said Harris, and he carried the mixing bowl out from behind the bar across the dance floor to the woodstove. He set the mixing bowl on top. It hissed and subsided. He continued to whisk the milk and eggs.

  “Ten minutes, everybody. Ten minutes.”

  “Dickie, be a doll,” said Prudence. She took one of the coffee mugs that Dickie had filled halfway with brandy.

  “Hey now.”

  “Can you reach the Cokes?”

  Dickie set one on the bar top.

  “Let me get that, Prudy,” said Davey. He opened it and poured it into her mug. She drank, blinking against the fizz that popped up into her eyelashes she’d darkened with stove soot and a dab of grease.

  “Ahh, that’s the ticket.”

  “Father, you got your toast ready?” asked Harris from across the dance floor.

  “It’s ready right here,” he said, tapping his temple as he turned sideways through the bar flap.

  The radio sets were humming

  They waited for a word

  The song died out and Dickie set the arm of the record player back on its rest. “Ready, boss,” he said. Harris took the steaming milk and egg whites back to the bar and added vanilla and nutmeg and cinnamon. He ladled it into the mugs.

  “Come on now,” he said.

  Dickie’s men were first in line, then the girls from the village. Some of the men from the tables stood and took a mug in each hand, one for themselves and one for their wives.

  “Might as well grab yours,” said Dickie. Prudence finished her brandy and Coke and pushed it away and blew her hair out of her eyes. She reached out and took the hot mug in her hands and blew on the top. Some foam flew off and landed on her dress.

  “Cheers, Mr. Brown,” she said.

  The stationmaster had been lost in thought.

  “Cheers, Prudy.”

  She eyed his breast pocket.

  “You wanna dance, Mr. Brown?”

  “Oh! I think I’m too old, Prudy. But you’re sweet to ask.” He wiped his eyes and sipped from his mug with one finger extended.

  She set the mug back on the bar very slowly and walked unsteadily across the dance floor to her clutch and took out her handkerchief and brushed off the foam. Harris finished ladling out the rest of the drinks. He wiped his hands on a bar towel and nodded at Father Paul, who was back in his spot at the end of the bar, with his eyes shut and his chin raised toward the pike.

  “Father. You’re on.”

  “Oh, already? If you say so. If you think so.”

  He reached out and took the mug Dickie handed him with his thumb and forefinger. He cleared his throat.

  “Friend
s and neighbors,” he began. “Yes, I think we can say that. Friends and neighbors.” Mary crossed in front of him with an armful of split wood. She used a piece of it to lift the stove handle and swing the door wide. Smoke billowed out and rolled across the ceiling. The coals glowed red. She placed the wood in the firedogs, then closed the door and latched it and shook her fingers and clomped back toward the storeroom. “Friends and neighbors,” resumed Father Paul. “We live in remarkable times. Fact. We live in remarkable times indeed. The last four years have been hard ones for all of us. I look out on you just as I do in the blessed confines of our holy church and there are many of us missing. Our young men have gone off to war. They are in the Pacific. They are in Italy. They are in France. Our young men are scattered all across this world. Fact. They are on boats. They are in tanks. They are on foot. And they are in the sky over our heads. Some of them won’t be coming back to us. Fact. No, they won’t be coming home to us. Instead they will enter the gates of heaven and sit with Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. They are in God’s great arms in the great by-and-by. Fact. And why is it a fact? It is a fact because we know God is on our side. God is on the side of freedom. We didn’t want this war but now it’s up to us to finish it. And we will finish it. Yes, we will. We will finish it and bring our boys home. You might be wondering what you can do.”