The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber

Liz was hurrying to catch up. Pushing my guilt to the side, I got out two of our good blue porcelain cups. Tea. All at once I felt like singing. I was serving tea.
    The wagon, I saw now, was stopping under the cottonwood. I pulled off my hair kerchief, licked my palms, and patted my hair into place. I got my straw sun hat from the bedroom and checked myself in the parlor mirror as I tied the ribbons. I looked out the window.
    The boy on the buckboard jumped down. He was tall and his shoulders had breadth to them. He wasn’t full grown but close. He put his hands around Mrs. Fills the Pipe’s waist as she backed one foot onto the high side step, and he lifted her like she was a child. Once on solid ground, she shook out her shoulders and stomped her feet to bring the life back to them.
    The boy helped Inez down. On the ground, Inez took off her duster, folded it, and gave it to the boy to put in a basket on the floorboard. The child in the back of the wagon jumped—flying, more like—over the tailboard but landed on his feet, his knees bent and his arms out before him to hold himself steady like he was daring the wind to push him over.
    I couldn’t remember the last time I was this pleased to see company.
    I hurried and put away my ironing board. I glanced into the parlor, thinking how Mrs. Fills the Pipe had probably never been in such a fine room. Not that I had any intention of inviting her inside; Isaac would never stand for that. I brushed the grit off the front of my dress, and then me, Alise, and Emma went out on the porch to wait for our company.
    I put my hand up in greeting as the Indians and the girls walked up the rise. Mrs. Fills the Pipe raised her hand to me. She looked older and slower than she had in the spring. Her back was bent with a little hump, reminding me how women folded in on themselves when their childbearing years had passed. I straightened my own shoulders.
    Air caught in my throat. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Inez looked like a young lady—a white lady—the kind you see in catalog advertisements. She was fresh and clean as if the wind was not full of grit. Her dress was cream colored, and there was a wide pink sash gathered around her narrow waist. The dress was short, a good six inches above her ankles, showing off her white stockings. Her sheer pink head scarf was tied with a big bow angled to one side of her chin.
    Was this, I thought, what the government was passing out to Indians while hardworking, honest ranchers were making do on next to nothing?
    At least Mrs. Fills the Pipe looked the way an Indian should; that took some of the sting out of Inez’s city dress. Like always, she wore a patched-over cotton dress and beaded ankle-high moccasins. Her butternut headscarf, knotted by a firm hand, covered her hair, but all the same, strands of gray blew loose from her long braid. The skin around her black eyes was wrinkled and thin.
    Except for their hair, the boys could be sons of ranchers in their blue cotton shirts, the hems fraying some in their too-short pants. The older boy, the one what was almost grown up, had a ponytail pulled back with a strip of leather. The little boy’s hair was cut so close that it stood up in peaks. He looked to be about John’s age.
    “Mrs. Fills the Pipe,” I said, smiling. “Hello.”
    “Mrs. DuPree.” She wasn’t smiling.
    “Please sit down. I just happened to put some tea on. You can stay, can’t you?”
    “Tea?”
    My smile froze. Water from the well was all I had ever offered Mrs. Fills the Pipe. Tea? At the house? Lord, what had I done? No wonder she was frowning, Inez too. You’re right, Mrs. Fills the Pipe, I wanted to say. Why don’t you just turn around and go on home. Ranchers and Indians don’t mix. Everybody knows that.
    But it was too late to say such a thing. “Please,” I said, pointing at the rockers. “Stay awhile. If you can.”
    Mrs. Fills the Pipe hesitated for a moment and then nodded. Like me, she knew it was too