Chicago, 1912
“Two years? Has it been two years since we met?”
Aidan stood with the Persian prince and Walter Jumping Bear in the back of a dingy, crammed meeting hall listening to Indians, full-and mixed-blood, from all over: Lakota Sioux, Seneca, Oneida, Arapahoe, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, Winnebago, Apache, and other tribes he could not name. The balcony creaked above his head as late arrivals stomped up stairs. Nobody else could squeeze in the back. Hundreds were gathered to discuss an evening of entertainment in support of the Society of American Indians. Walter wore a fashionable gray suit with a few feathers in his cap, but Aidan spied several imposing figures in traditional dress.
“I’ve been to California and the Olympics in Sweden and back,” the prince said.
Aidan missed most of what he said next concerning Jim Thorpe, an Indian who won gold medals and got crowned king of the athletes. A Seminole man in a turban and a great coat belted with a bright blue sash walked under his nose, talking the language of his childhood. A short, soft-spoken fellow with close-cropped hair, he looked nothing like Big Thunder. Still, Aidan’s chest heaved and his throat ached, for his daddy and mama lost to yellow fever, for a family he never knew marched off to Oklahoma, for his people hiding in the Georgia hills and Florida swamps, chasing freedom.
“Chicago is full of Indian people,” the prince said as squabbles and skirmishes broke out in the unruly crowd. “Now different tribes making a big tribe together.”
“Yes.” Aidan wasn’t sure if one big tribe was a good thing or even possible.
“Strength in a big gathering of folks,” Walter Jumping Bear said. He and several other Lakota from the motion picture factory insisted the Society was Indians organizing and leading themselves. Aidan didn’t feel part of any clan and hadn’t wanted to come, but Walter was offering to act in Redwood’s pirate picture with one breath while persuading him to come to the meeting with another. Walter was his true friend at the studio. How could Aidan refuse? The prince went where he pleased, of course, and looked as Indian as Aidan did.
“I don’t live in a tipi,” a gal shouted. She wore a purple swamp orchid in her hair, like Garnett. Her cheeks were high and her eyes fierce. “Neither did my Maskókî ancestors.” She smoothed a white collar on a somber blue dress as Aidan, Walter, and other men eyed her. Women were sparse in this crowd.
“We are all tired of Wild West show Indian raids.” Aidan surprised hisself by speaking up. “But who pays to see Creek farmers or a Lakota romance in Chicago?”
Walter leaned into Aidan and grunted. “If we walk away from their money, where is our victory? White men will play Injun without us.”
The Creek gal smiled at their words and moved closer.
A large fellow in a finely tailored suit with a doctor’s bag stood up. “Italians, Poles, Hungarians, they leave their old world behind and become Americans. They pay a price—they must give up their tongue, their ancient ways. So can we.”
“We did not cross the great water and steal this land,” Walter said. “We are home, why should we bury our spirits and act as if nothing is sacred, like white men do?”
“I am an Apache. You are a coward Sioux in a toy Indian show. I can lick you!” The large doctor waved an umbrella in Walter’s face. Walter knocked it on the ground. Aidan gripped his friend’s arm before he did anything else. “They’ll keep us prisoners on the reservations till we are civilized,” the doctor said.
“We need a vision to follow, or else we fight over nothing.” The Creek gal touched Walter’s shoulder. He heaved a breath and studied her.
A man in the balcony took the doctor’s side. “The white man has beaten us all.”
“Well, I am not yet conquered,” Walter declared.
Everyone was shouting now. Aidan’s head throbbed.
“Don’t look so glum.” The prince grinned at the spirited exchange and clapped Aidan’s back. “I’ve seen two years of your vast country and found so many people who let themselves think … anything. This is a wonder.”
A secretary at the podium called for order.
“I’m feeling poorly,” Aidan whispered to Walter and his daddy, whose name meant something close to brave wind, but he hated this English translation, so no one spoke it.
“You are abandoning this boat?” Walter said.
“No, I just can’t take…” Aidan gestured.
Walter’s daddy spoke—he knew English, but rarely used it, so Walter translated. “Smoking a pipe with so many different Indian people makes his balls ache too.”
Aidan laughed. “I’ll do whatever show you want to support Mr. Charles Eastman and his Indian Society.”
Walter nodded, disappointed all the same. “This evening we are not at our best. Come another time.”
Aidan waved goodbye and turned to leave. The prince bowed to Walter, his daddy, and the Creek gal too.
“My father asks, what is your tribe?” Walter said before they could escape.
The prince responded in Farsi and the old man seemed satisfied with his answer.
“Why must we entertain them?” The Creek gal spoke in Aidan’s ear. “Tell me this.”
“Guess we should try entertaining ourselves too,” Aidan said.
“I have seen you both in moving pictures.” Her eyes lit up. “Is this a new plan?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is.” Aidan glanced at Walter.
“I look forward to your next picture show then,” she said.
“Me too.” Aidan hunched his back and walked on.
She took his place beside Walter. “My name is Rose. I am Hutalgalgi, of the Wind clan.” And then her voice was lost to the babble of the crowd.
“Mr. Jumping Bear has won her heart,” the prince said.
“Hmm.” Aidan barged through a knot of latecomers, out the door. Their faces looked open and eager. Aidan tried not to glower as he took off down the street. The prince chased after him, barely keeping up. Aidan wanted to run till his own heart busted. He wanted to get lost in the noise from the streetcars and belching automobiles and grind his spirit against the cobblestones. Actually, he wanted a drink. He wanted a whole jug. The firewater thirst was getting stronger every day.
“Not so fast,” the prince yelled behind him.
Aidan slowed. “All day, I make fun of myself. Where is the dignity in that?”
The prince caught up. He was wheezing and sweating, despite the winter chill in the air. He considered Aidan as he caught his breath. “You should have sons by now.”
Aidan halted. “Did you hear what I said?”
“You need heirs, then what matter these difficult moments in flickering images?”
“Here’s your motorcar.” Aidan waved ’cross the street at Mr. McGregor. “I think I’m goin’ walk the rest of the way.” He dug in his shoulder bag for Subie’s tin.
“It’s several miles. Dinner will be prompt tonight. Akhtar cooks for you all.” The prince stepped in front of Aidan before he could rush off. “I don’t mean to offend you.”
“You don’t have sons, sir.” Aidan clutched the tin.
The prince wiped his damp forehead. “I’ve offended you. Please, accept my apology.” He stood close to Aidan, saying nothing as sweat dried on both their cheeks. Finally he spoke softly, little more than a hiss. “I’ve tried many women. Not one could give me a son or even a daughter. Farah, Akhtar, Abbaseh, and I are happy even so.”
Aidan was stunned at these intimate remarks.
“And you, Mr. Wildfire?” The prince’s moist breath made Aidan blink. “What of you and Miss Phipps?” He shook Aidan’s shoulder. “Do you think of another woman? Hmm? Is it the cat that gets your tongue?”
“With me and Redwood, ain’t no real worry ’bout children, sir. It’s, well…” Redwood could barely stand Aidan laying a hand on her. But she wanted him all the same, as much as he wanted her. This was enough to make a man holler and cuss and drink and smash in the heads of anyone fool enough to ask stupid questions ’bout goddamned cats. Aidan took a deep breath. “The way of the world is against us.”
“You can’t believe this lie. The way of the world is always for you.” He gripped Aidan’s arm. “The way of men, now that can be troublesome.”
Aidan sagged. “No, it’s me. I let yesterday eat up too much of today.”
Glass exploded from a building down the street. Aidan and the prince fell to the pavement as smoke billowed into the sky. Horses and motorcars almost collided. A dog whimpered. A bloody colored man jumped, fell, or was pushed out of a second-story window. It was Reginald Jones, screaming in the air. He hit the ground with a sickening smack, and Aidan closed his eyes. Reginald had come up from Atlanta and was making a good Chicago life. Clarissa had everybody buying from his grocery. The smell of burnt food filled Aidan’s mouth. He spit out the taste and forced his eyes back open. People close by the fire hollered. The shower of glass had wounded a good many who limped, crawled, and staggered through debris.
Aidan and the prince struggled to their feet. Aidan coughed out smoke. The prince was wheezing, like he’d never catch his breath. A beat-up motorcar raced away from the catastrophe, darting through stalled traffic faster than even McGregor would drive. Pale skin and bright teeth flashed in fading sunlight. Rowdy white thugs in the front and back seats grinned at their handiwork. They almost ran down a few colored folk who were shaky on their feet. Aidan caught the driver’s eye. He’d seen the man before, a big, red-nosed fellow, who’d been having a set to with George.
“What?” the prince asked. “What do you see?” Flames painted the air smoky red.
“Nothing.” Aidan made sure the prince was standing fine and then ran toward the fire. He almost collided with a Chinaman. “Sorry,” they said in unison.
“People are still inside,” a wounded colored woman screeched, blood drizzling from her ear. “I can hear ’em in there but nothing much else.”
Everybody heard them as the building collapsed. Aidan followed two men to the door, but the heat forced them back. Wind encouraged the fire to race through the grocery and grab hold of the Chinese laundry on one side and the colored bank on the other. Laundry workers and bank clerks watched with stony, soot-covered faces. Inside the grocery, folks screamed for Jesus’s mercy as fire ate into them. Aidan raced back and forth, looking for an opening in the wall of flame and smoke. The ground burnt through the soles of his shoes to his feet. Shots rang out, and voices inside grew silent.
A black horse, his eyes spooked wide, his teeth gnashing dirt, dragged a junk wagon down the cobblestones and scattered the crowd. Aidan jigged ’round the wheels toward the door. The prince gripped his shoulder and stopped him. “What is done cannot be undone,” he said. “But you need not share their fate.”
“What was that?” Redwood stood up from her chair in the back of the club meeting room, scratching at her dress. The boned bodice and stiff lace chaffed. Her hat weighted her head down. “Did you hear that?”
“No,” Clarissa hissed as several heads turned their way. “Sit. It’s nothing.”
Redwood couldn’t hear anything now. “Maybe it’s nerves.”
Clarissa pulled Redwood back in her seat and looked anxiously ’round the room of prominent colored women—college-educated, professional women: social workers, doctors, truant officers, teachers, and the wives of important colored men, women who now thought less of Clarissa ’cause of George, and Redwood too. A singing, dancing wonder didn’t belong in a respectable family, a hoodoo witch neither. Chicago was no different than Peach Grove on that. Redwood was a fool for dressing up and coming here. These fine ladies would never support her artistic adventure. How could a pirate moving picture uplift the race?
“They’re just about to call on you,” Clarissa whispered.
“Naw, it’ll be a while,” Iris said to Abbaseh, who frowned. The prince’s third wife wore no veil and from her expressions followed what was said quite easily.
Mrs. Powell, the club president, was making introductory remarks. That might last fifteen minutes. “Over sixty percent of our women in Chicago work in laundries or as domestic servants, but too many of our girls are walking the streets in gaudy attire.”
Abbaseh was a foreigner forgiven her brassy yellow and pink. Iris had no excuse wearing gold slippers, a green-and-gold hat, and Redwood’s bright red Oriental robe with a gold feather design. At least she and Redwood both wore dresses.
Mrs. Powell continued. “Too many of our young men are gambling and drinking their lives away and offer no shelter for our young women.”
Prickly heat burned Redwood’s cheeks. Foul air made her choke. A scream, coming from a few streets over maybe, twisted her gut. Iris sat up straight, listening to something other than Mrs. Powell too. Trouble flitted ’cross her face. She clutched Abbaseh’s hand. Redwood darted past Clarissa for the windows, trying to figure what trouble they were feeling. She pulled back heavy drapes and looked out on the street. The new electrically operated traffic lights blinked on and off. Motorcars and horses were backed up beyond the intersection. Nothing else to see.
“I didn’t realize you were in such a hurry.” A flustered Mrs. Powell frowned at Redwood. “You all recognize Sequoia Phipps from her many appearances onstage and in moving pictures too.”
Disapproving murmurs rippled through this elegant set.
“I got a show tonight.” Redwood didn’t, but her lie cooled a few hot faces.
“I believe she is here to speak for poetry, that we should add poetry and artistic training to our educational and vocational plan,” Mrs. Powell said.
“For poetry, are you?” A very dark woman with sleek, straight hair piled in storm clouds sneered. Redwood remembered her as a volunteer at the settlement house. “More likely, she’s speaking for singing and dancing and cutting the fool. Negroes waste too much time on that already. Or perhaps you will tell us how to jinx white folk off our backs.”
“Wait now, that’s a trick worth knowing,” Clarissa said. A few women nodded.
“You aim to teach us hoodoo conjuring?” the dark woman said.
“Wilma, hush. I’ve seen you at Mambo Dupree’s,” Clarissa said. “You too, Bessie.”
“I haven’t said anything, but I do have a question.” Bessie was a wiry, fretful woman who followed behind Wilma, trying to do good. She’d worked the settlement too. “What makes you think you can tell a story that anybody wants—”
“Or needs,” Wilma added.
“Or needs to hear?” Bessie chewed her lip. “What I mean is, who needs to hear poetry, if you’ve come up from Georgia, Mississippi, and you’re hungry and poor and got gambling in your soul and violence in your heart?”
A reporter for the Broad Ax wrote furious notes.
“Remember, ladies, Miss Sequoia Phipps is our guest.” Mrs. Powell had taken her sweet time admonishing Wilma and Bessie for their rude interruption. “She will answer your questions later. Right now, let us welcome her.”
Half-hearted applause died out before it got started. Iris squeezed Redwood’s hand. Clarissa gave her a pat as well. Abbaseh bowed her head over a smile. Redwood crumpled her prepared speech and left it on the chair as she strode to the front of the room. It was like going to church, when George used to say, “Smile at them hinkty fools, Red, and you be surprised.” She let anger at Wilma and Bessie drain away and looked into everybody’s eyes, trying to see to their hearts, trying to feel full of their goodwill. As Mrs. Powell listed her many appearances and accomplishments, Redwood offered her warmest smile, full of sunshine and swamp breezes.
“I cannot speak for poetry.” She acted modest, mimicking Clarissa. “I cannot speak for singing and dancing and telling good stories.” They looked surprised. She wasn’t what they expected. Even if a few women still frowned, most everybody else leaned forward. “It’s what I do, like easing someone’s pain if a leg is cut or broke, or bringing a baby into this life. Who can tell you what it’s like to give birth?”
All the mamas and grandmamas in the room murmured and nodded at this.
“Being onstage is a conjuration for sure. There’s magic in show people, I won’t deny it. Why would anyone come see a show if there wasn’t? Don’t we believe in actors more than someone walking by on the street? ’Cause there’s a poem in your body up onstage. Ain’t there—I mean, isn’t there beauty and magic in an osprey soaring high? Don’t it make your heart feel free? But I can’t tell you what that means. You have to come see me or do it your ownself if you don’t like my shows—or even if you do. We make the world up, in our dreams and in our songs. Would you have a life with no music, no poetry, and just the factory snarling at you, just the blood and guts on the killing floor or dirt and filth running down the laundry drain? Would you have nothing but chicken-coop comedies and Wild West lies?” She paused. All the clubwomen held their breath. A good improvisation meant surprising yourself with truth you knew when you heard it. “I say, why only a rock smashing through the window of our dreams or flames burning our hearts down? Will we get anywhere if that’s all we can see? Singing and dancing we turn ourselves into what we want.”
Feeling faint, she gulped the glass of water sitting on the podium. “So I invite you all to the Ace of Spades Hotel. It’s not a den of iniquity or whatever you’re imagining, but a good place to feel alive. We’re putting on a show tomorrow at midnight. Go on and be scandalized if you want—and come anyhow.”
The clubwomen stared at her, stunned.
“Will you soar for us?” Bessie asked, sounding genuine, hopeful even.
“That’s all I got to say. The show will answer your questions.” Redwood hurried down the aisle. The skin on her back was burning up.
“Thank you for that lovely invitation,” Mrs. Powell said.
“Something’s wrong,” Redwood whispered to Clarissa.
Iris agreed. “Something bad happened.” She and Redwood headed out the door. Abbaseh scurried after them. Clarissa grabbed her things and followed.
Redwood, Iris, Abbaseh, and Clarissa paraded into the Dry Cleaning and surprised George. Iris threw her arms ’round his neck and hugged him like she hadn’t just seen him this morning, like she’d almost lost him for good.
“Y’all fancy ladies coming to check up on me?” He hugged his sisters, squeezed his wife a good long measure, then tilted his head to Abbaseh.
“Do you need checking on?” Clarissa asked.
George laughed too hard at this.
“I had a bad feeling,” Redwood said. “Somebody was walking ’cross your grave.”
“I’m still alive, Red. Don’t go hammering nails in my coffin.” George patted her hand. “Nobody can spook you like your ownself.”
“I seen the baron. He the one spook me,” Iris said.
“You would have been proud of your sister today,” Clarissa said.
“I wrote Red’s speech all down. I’m making a record of our lives.” Iris strutted and hopped ’round Abbaseh.
“Don’t all talk at me at once,” George said. “I can’t hear nothing.”
“Your sister spoke at the club meeting, it was beautiful to see,” Clarissa said.
“She invited all the ladies to Spades for tomorrow night,” Iris said.
George chuckled. “That’ll be something.”
“I’m goin’ do it, George,” Redwood said. “You don’t think I can, but you’re wrong.”
“You mean the pirate moving picture?” He slipped behind his desk. “You been talking ’bout it long enough.”
“It takes a lot of conjuring!” Iris said. Serene Abbaseh nodded.
“I’ll bet.” George picked at a stack of papers. “Them ole backcountry hoodoo spells don’t work so well on hardheaded businessmen. You got to deliver the goods.”
Redwood put a hand on his pile of receipts. “You haven’t seen my shows in awhile. I’m not just a clown, somebody’s joke.”
Clarissa set George’s hat on his head. “We’re collecting you and taking you home.”
“I got plans.” He pointed to the back rooms. “Work to do.”
“George Phipps, you are coming home tonight,” Clarissa said. “Miss Akhtar is cooking food from her homeland. We will all show up and dine like a decent family.”
“Well, you got Sis in a dress. I guess I don’t have to work till dawn.”
The streetwalkers were skinny and ragged. One gal barely had any hips to shake, and her tiddies looked hard. Aidan stood under a glowing streetlamp and shivered in the cold air off the lake. Winter was coming. Maybe even snow this night, and these poor gals were still showing bare skin.
“Don’t stand there scowling at us. You’ll scare the other prospects away.” This one had legs as long as Redwood’s, but she was pale as ice and her hair was bloody red. “Or maybe you think you’re enough to handle us all.” She had an Irish accent, not as strong as Aislinn O’Casey, but Aidan could hear the lilt all the same.
“I don’t know what I think, ma’am.” Aidan had been half the night digging through rubble, pulling out charred bodies, trying not to think.
“Honey’s my name. Are you a Christian reformer come to show us the error of our ways?” Her breath was sour. She smelled musty, like a rag that never dried out.
“Wasn’t planning to get here. Just walking,” Aidan said. “Trying to find a bit of green, some fresh air.”
“A fancy man such as yourself must have a wife,” Honey said. “Bet you need more than her, don’t you?”
Wet sloppy snow fell on her neck. She didn’t shiver how he did, probably used to the cold. After the heat of the fire, Aidan should have been grateful for the north wind and ice from the sky. He wasn’t. He longed for a warm swamp storm, some hot rain to rinse his ashy mouth. The other women scattered, leaving Aidan to Honey.
“Why aren’t you home, snuggling with her?” she said.
“Coincidence I run into you. Wasn’t looking for company.” Aidan started to leave.
“Don’t go.” Honey’s fingers grazed his sleeve.
He pulled his arm away, but halted. “Is your name really Honey?”
“Let’s have a drink, darling,” she said. “Your pockets look full. I know you can afford to buy us one wee drink.”
“I don’t drink, ma’am. Used to, but not no more. Not a drop.”
“Have I found a saint then? Am I wasting my time?”
Aidan pulled money from his coat pocket. “I ain’t a saint.” He placed twenty dollars in her hand. Her pale face flushed at this windfall. “I appreciate a hardworking woman,” he said. “Find yourself a warm place.”
She balled the money up in her fist. “I got a warm bed big enough for two. And a private bottle we could share.” Honey smiled, like she wanted him, not just his money. “You’re a handsome fellow. Not my usual customer.”
“Really?” Aidan smiled too. “Who’s to say you don’t have a knife at your bosom and wouldn’t rob me blind in that warm bed?”
“Same as a ride on the Ferris Wheel, darling. Danger’s half the fun.”
Aidan chuckled, almost feeling good. “You remind me of someone.”
“This is a cruel world. Snatch comfort where you can.” Honey touched his arm again. He didn’t pull away as she purred at him. “What’s she like, your ladylove? Tell me how to be and I know I can be just like her. Close your eyes and all the parts feel the same. It’ll be just like doing her, so you won’t have to feel guilty or sad or lonely. I’ll do what she won’t do, but it’ll feel just like her.”
Aidan was late. The ballroom of the Ace of Spades Hotel was jammed and they were supposed to go on in five minutes. He never came home last night. If Iris hadn’t said Aidan was fine, Redwood would’ve been worrying all night and all day. If she set her mind to it, Iris could look out and see people, even if they were far away. She didn’t recognize where, but she saw Aidan standing by dark water, shivering in cold snow, and talking Irish to someone. That was yesterday. Redwood didn’t want to ask Iris to spy on him too much. It wore Baby Sister out. Besides, knowing wasn’t always better than not knowing.
Redwood stood behind the audience, stretching her tight calf muscles, telling herself Aidan deserved a woman who could be a woman with him even if just for a night. Didn’t she love him no matter what? If you loved somebody you wanted the best for them.
“Are you all right?” Saeed asked.
“Cramp.”
“I meant you and him.”
“I don’t know.”
“We can go on without Mr. Wildfire, can’t we?”
“I guess.”
“Sometimes I am jealous of him.”
“Oh?”
“More than one way to feel that someone is yours.” Saeed squeezed her hand.
“We have enough of our own routines to fill the time.”
“You don’t want to though.”
Redwood blew air out her lips. “It took us over a year to put this show together. Where is he? This is our night for theatre magic.”
“Magic? Good. Aida Overton Walker is in the audience.”
“I thought she was in New York on Broadway.” Redwood’s heart pounded. The leading lady of colored theatre, His Honor: The Barber, Salome, sitting out there somewhere to see their little show? “Are you just saying that?”
“Why would I do that? I hear she’s come incognito, in her husband’s clothes.”
“You see her?” Redwood peered at the audience. “Where is she sitting?”
The crowd, cheering and laughing for the comedy act, was the usual mix, rowdy working folk taking a night out on the town. Aidan’s Indian buddies from the motion picture factory teased Walter Jumping Bear and an Indian woman on his arm. Nicolai and his camera crew cussed at the lights and cranked away. Saeed’s family and Mr. McGregor sat among tourists hunting down exotic entertainment. Saeed’s handsome friend, a union organizer name of Carl or Corey, drank black coffee from a tiny cup right next to Prince Anoushiravan. Club ladies nibbled sweet cakes and sipped bright beverages. Bessie Harris wore a somber gray dress and was sitting proud. Plump Mambo Dupree flaunted bright red satin robes. She sat beside a skeletal old gent in black, stabbing at her food with a large knife and gulping rum. A hot Loa was riding her tonight. A few women were dressed as gents but their faces were cloaked in shadows. Redwood spied two men who could’ve been Doc Johnson and Subie’s nephew, Clarence, but with Nicolai’s lights glaring up and her blinking away tears, she lost them in the crowd.
“You shouldn’t be crying. That’ll make you too hoarse to sing.” A hand on her shoulder had her almost jumping out her skin.
“How you sneak up on me like that?” She turned and hugged Aidan, so fiercely it would’ve knocked someone else over.
“Where have you been?” Saeed asked. “You shouldn’t do her, do us that way.”
“Sorry, there was that fire at Jones’s grocery yesterday.”
“You were there!” Redwood got a whiff of smoke from him. “You saw it.” The grisly scene raced over his face.
“Tell us later. At least you’re in costume,” Saeed said.
Aidan and Redwood both wore Seminole patchwork coats belted at the waist, and Saeed was dressed as a fine Persian gentleman.
“We got us a full house,” Aidan said. “Five hundred souls and no cooning tonight.”
“Are you a little bit happy at least then?” Redwood whispered to Aidan.
“Why only a little bit?” He pulled out Subie’s tin.
“You run out of that powder a long time ago.” She jabbed his ribs, smiling.
“Don’t know if the powder was the cure, so I don’t dare throw this ole thing away. It’s my good luck.” He touched the tin against his lips and the music called them on.
Saeed led their dance through the aisles. He leapt from the back of a chair onto a table without stepping in food or knocking over any drinks. The clubwomen at his feet squealed with delight. Mambo Dupree waved her knife, warning him not to stomp her pork ribs. He danced from table to table, while Aidan and Redwood ran onto the rickety stage. Redwood dropped her coat to reveal flowing pants and a loose blouse. She swirled like a storm rising. Saeed sprang from a front row table right at Aidan, landed on his shoulders, and pushed up into a handstand. Aidan sank down a bit at the impact, but held Saeed easily. The audience hooted and applauded.
Redwood circled the men singing I’ve been climbing, climbing Sorrow Mountain in Farsi. Shimmy-shaking, she lifted Saeed’s left hand and he balanced just on the right. As he pushed off toward the ground, she danced up Aidan’s left thigh to his right shoulder, stepping on Saeed’s shoulder when he hit the floor. The piano player slapped a sultry rhythm on an hourglass drum. The guitarman blew a Persian flute. The fiddler bowed a few high notes, wavering ’round the melody like a hummingbird’s wing.
Facing away from the hushed crowd, feeling a thousand eyes on her back, Redwood dipped down and then vaulted up off the men’s sturdy bones. She soared through the air, the fabric of her costume billowing like glorious wings. Aidan and Saeed glanced up at her, stunned. The drummer and the fiddler halted. After a few shrill arpeggios, the flute player lost his breath. Redwood floated above their heads, no wires holding her up. She soared a good while for Bessie, for Aidan and Iris, for everybody. Istî siminolî, free as a Seminole, she twisted herself ’round to face the audience and landed back on Aidan’s and Saeed’s shoulders. Each man grabbed a hand, and she cascaded down to the floor. The piano man handed Aidan his banjo. He and Redwood left dancing to Saeed, while they sang in close harmony:
I’ve been climbing, climbing Sorrow Mountain
I’ve been climbing, climbing desperate days
Have you seen that dried-up fountain?
And all those folks lost in a maze?
I’ve been climbing, climbing Sorrow Mountain
This time around, I’m coming down
This time around, I’m coming down
At a front row table, Iris, Clarissa, and Abbaseh applauded. Walter Jumping Bear and his lady were on their feet, shouting. Prince Anoushiravan, Farah, and Akhtar smiled politely. Mambo Dupree waved her knife, and a white woman in a gray suit was so excited, she knocked over a cold drink. It was the lady from the El! Nicolai and crew captured quite a show in their cameras. Milton threw roses at the stage. Eddie was slapping his hands together and so busy talking to George, he was still clapping when everyone else had stopped.
After five songs, three dances, and two encores, after cheers and toasts, and Bessie and a few club ladies pressing money in Redwood’s hand for the picture, after Mambo Dupree saying, “Blessings on you from Erzulie Dantor, no sweetie goddess she, a dragon of love, burning you free,” Redwood and Aidan slipped out the back to an alleyway.
“Next time you get it in your head to fly…” He wanted to be mad, but she caught a grin.
“I’m a magic gal, ain’t I? Got the devil in me too.” She switched her hips at him. “You didn’t think I’d fall, did you?”
“No, but that ain’t the point, is it?”
“I talked myself into flying last night. Promised to do magic if you showed up.” She stepped close. “Had the feeling for a snowy egret.” She wanted to kiss him, wanted the taste of him in her mouth, but ’stead of being bold and courageous, she folded her arms over her bosom. “So what couldn’t wait till we got home?”
“There’d be too many folks nosing ’round and walls closing us in,” Aidan said. “I just wanted dark and shadow and the stars.”
“Moon’s hiding behind the clouds.” She squinted. “Is that dark enough for you?”
“I suspect.”
“Akhtar’s mad at you. She cooked a big meal, but wouldn’t serve anything since you wasn’t there.”
“Oh. That is too bad.” He scratched his jaw. “I’ll make it up to her.”
“She promised to do it again tomorrow. So you better be there. And Iris has been writing up a storm. She want to put a Seminole farmer in our moving picture. I said fine, but she had to talk to you.” Redwood was fixing to chatter on, but he looked ready to crumble into ash and blow away. “You all right?”
“Reginald Jones’s grocery burning down, I heard them folks on fire, dying.”
“I felt it. Just didn’t know what was wrong.”
He cleared his throat and spit out soot and smoke. “I got a look at the ones who set it. White fellows, roughnecks.”
She pressed against his chest. He flinched. She didn’t pull away. “Don’t let them bad men haunt you.”
“I dug through the rubble for the dead and then I don’t know. Boneyard baron chased me ’round all night. Thought I’d freeze to death in the snow, till—” He hauled a bottle out of his shoulder bag, whiskey most like.
“What you doing with that?” She ran a finger down the glass.
He held up a second bottle. “My mama used to say, If it’s drowning you’re after, don’t torment yourself with shallow water.”
“You still have all those voices in you.” She closed her eyes and let the sound of him touch her. “Tickles me all over.”
“Ain’t you goin’ yell at me?”
“You tole me fussing and cussing don’t do no good.”
“I said fighting, but you right.”
“I’m so glad to see you. Couldn’t cuss you, even if you deserved it. I thought you wasn’t coming. I thought maybe you was gone for good.”
“Without a word? Without a fight?” He looked ready to fall over. “You don’t know me better than that?”
She clutched him. “I didn’t say it made sense.”
“I ain’t in no hurry to leave you.”
“But if I let you go?”
He threw the bottles against a wall. Shattered glass came back at them. They danced away, not quickly enough. A splinter lodged in Aidan’s thumb. “Damn it. Goddamn it.” It wasn’t like him to cuss in front of her. She pulled the glass, pulled the pain, and then held his hand in hers. “I love you, I do, Miz Redwood,” he whispered.
“And I love you too.” She kissed his hand. It was rough and blistered. She drew her tongue ’cross his palm and each finger, tasting salt, sweat, smoke, and blood. “I don’t tell you, but I feel it all the time.” She put his cold hand on her warm bosom.
“What good is keeping that all to yourself?” He held out a box cut in the shape of a comet. The tail was silver threads and blue-violet feathers from a swamp hen.
She brushed it with her fingers. “You made this?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He set it in her hands. “I know how you like shooting stars.”
“When you have time to do that?”
“Better than drinking the night away.”
“I hope you didn’t kill no bird for those feathers.”
“No. That bird had just come to the end of her days.”
Redwood shook it. “What’s inside?”
“You got to open and see.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I can.”
“What you ’fraid of?”
“Breaking your heart.”
Loud voices filled the dark. Aidan cussed soft this time so she couldn’t hear.
“This ain’t exactly the most romantic spot,” she said.
Eddie and George tromped down the alley, arguing. Seeing Redwood and Aidan, they got quiet. George’s hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief. Blood from a cut under his eye drizzled down his cheek.
“I thought you left fighting back in Georgia,” Redwood said.
“They don’t let you be a man nowhere,” George said. “I have to fight.”
“You like fighting, George,” Aidan said. “You like smashing in a face, bringing a cracker down to the dirt. Am I lying?”
“You got it exactly.” George smirked.
“That won’t make you a man,” Aidan said softly.
“And you goin’ tell me what will?”
Redwood stepped between them. “I know how hard it is for you, Brother.”
“Do you?” George looked over to Eddie’s sneering face. “Even colored don’t want you to stand up. I gotta fight for every inch.”
“We can still make our own place in the world, be who we want.” Redwood touched the wound on his face.
“Leave it.” George grabbed her hand. “Let it heal on its own.”
She struggled free. “What you want with scars? Ain’t you mad enough already, you got to look at your ugly pain every day?”
“Just ’cause you done slipped the noose, you act like this world ain’t trying to hang us all,” George bellowed.
“How you know what noose I slipped or ain’t slipped?” Redwood said. “You don’t know nothing ’bout me. Too wound into yourself.”
“You laying up in my house with this cracker saying that? I don’t care how much wild Injun running through him.”
“Let’s go.” Aidan pulled Redwood away from George.
“Wait.” She halted. Aidan was wheezing like an automobile. George had fire on his breath too. “Nicolai offered to shoot any moving picture we dream up. No charge. I got more than half the money for my picture.”
“So?” Eddie laughed. “You ain’t goin’ make no money after it’s done.”
“You got as much power as Mama ever had, more really,” George said. “But you can’t make the world turn your way. Only a crazy man would believe in that.”
George banged into Aidan as he and Eddie walked away. Aidan grabbed George’s arm. They faced off, nostrils flaring, teeth gritted. “Them crackers you hate so much ain’t the only ones telling the story,” Aidan said and let George go.
Back at the house, ’stead of romancing Aidan like she planned, ’stead of opening her shooting star and getting more of the taste of him in her mouth, Redwood fretted over George, over herself too. Was she still a naïve fool trying to make the world turn her way when danger was coming that could burn them all?
“You think he worries over you like this?” Aidan paced their back parlor room, a lion, roaring to tear the place apart.
“He’s my brother and somebody walked ’cross his grave. Iris saw the baron.”
“Whatever he’s up to, it’s a deadly game.” Aidan shook his head. “But he ain’t looking out for you. He ditched you in a swamp to go make a fortune killing birds.”
“He come back to look for me that time!” She sank down on the bed, holding Aidan’s box against her bosom, the swamp hen feathers trailing into her lap. George made her spitting mad, but she couldn’t give up on him, not yet. “I won’t be selfish to suit him. Mama said to watch over each other.”
“And you and me?” Aidan shouted.
“Shush! You ’llowed to wake the dead,” she hissed. “George is easier to sort out.” She gripped Aidan’s hand as he stumbled by. “Up all night, you ready to fall on your face.”
“I can’t stay in this house.”
“I know. I know.”
“George is … who he is. I ain’t talking against him. He got a heavy load. He just ain’t the only one. I can’t stay under his roof.” He was ready to pack his things and leave.
“Just till the moving picture’s done.”
He shook free of her. “Who knows how long that will be?”
“Not long.” She reached for him again. “Don’t you want to do our own story too?”
“Of course.” He dodged her fingers. “Then we take Iris and we go. They got land out west and moving pictures. The prince say it’s beautiful country.”
“Out west? I don’t know.”
“They got hills and valleys and good farmland. They got a sky so big, it make your head reel trying to see to the end. I know how to make things grow and I … could make you happy out there. I know I could.”
She jumped up. “You make me happy, Aidan, right here, right now. Happier than anyone deserve. It’s my fault we got troubles.”
“No. It ain’t just you.” His hands shook. “Things getting too hard to take sober. I can’t stay in this house, playing the wild Injun savage or the drunk Irishman.” He dropped on the cushions in the window seat.
“Who’s asking you to do that?” She sat beside him.
He was shaking and cold as ice. “You didn’t hear those screams.”
“No.” She leaned her forehead against his. He went dead still. “So tell me. Everything. How we used to be.”
She wrapped warm arms ’round him and pulled a blanket over them both. Squirming, he fought tears and ended in a coughing fit. When that passed, she laid his head in her lap and stroked the tight strings of muscles running down his neck.
“Ten, fifteen people,” he said, tears flowing now. “Dying in fire.”
“That many?”
“Maybe more. Can’t say who all was shopping. Shelves fell and blocked the front door. Stairs collapsed on people coming from the second floor and blocked the back. They couldn’t get out. They just couldn’t get out. Nothing left but to burn up or suffocate. Somebody had a gun, so I guess, well, there were shots, but they didn’t all get to go quick. And me just standing there, wringing my hands. All I ever do.”
“Hush. You a good man. The best I know. The evil you seen ain’t your fault.”
That made him cry more. “After the fire, I thought I wanted a woman so bad anybody would do. I need a drink to get that started. Truth be told, I was on the run, heading for a jug. But that was no good either.”
“You just tired and lonely. I’ll sleep here. Keep you company in your dreams.”
“Ain’t enough room on this window seat,” he said.
She curled ’round him, hot for once against his frosty back. “Grown man need tender too.” She pressed her storm hand to his cheek.
“Seem like I usually make your skin crawl.”
“That ain’t you,” she whispered. “You know that.”
“It’s real hard being with you and not being with you.”
“I promised myself, if you showed up at Spades tonight, I’d fly, in the show. But when it come time, when I felt the cue, I wasn’t sure. I thought I might fall. But you a conjure man, always get me to trust my magic, get me to soar.”
Redwood rubbed Aidan’s back till he was warm, breathing deep, till he didn’t fight sleep no more. She let the rumble of his chest and the rhythm of his heart fill her. And then she joined him in dreams like she promised.