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The metal sculpture of the root diggers heralded Shandra Higheagle’s return to the Colville Reservation. It had been months since she’d visited her family. However, Aunt Jo had been on the phone with her every week as they planned Shandra and Ryan’s wedding. She smiled. Less than a month the wedding would be, here on the reservation, with his family and hers present.
Shandra was excited about the doeskin wedding dress her cousin was making. There were many things she had to do and learn while she visited this week. Aunt Jo had agreed to help her incorporate Nez Perce traditions into their wedding day.
She glanced over at the Community Center and the Powwow grounds beyond when she entered the Agency. Aunt Jo had suggested she have the wedding inside the center if the weather were bad and out on the Powwow grounds if the weather allowed. Shandra was torn. She’d envisioned the wedding being held at the Higheagle Ranch.
Her heart warmed remembering how easily Ryan had agreed to all the Nez Perce traditions. However, he told her since she was marrying in clothing from her roots, he would be wearing cowboy boots, jeans, and a western cut jacket. Even though his family was Catholic, his mother was so happy he was finally getting married, she didn’t mind that the ceremony wasn’t being held in her church.
Shandra continued up the highway and into Nespelem. The small reservation town had become her second home since reuniting with her Nez Perce family three years earlier.
“If only I had known all these wonderful people while growing up.” Passing her Aunt Velma’s house, she wasn’t surprised to see half a dozen cars parked in the driveway and the street. The woman seemed to always be advocating for something in Nespelem.
When they had worked as a team to prove Coop, her cousin, was innocent of a murder, Shandra and her aunt had become closer. If there hadn’t been extra cars, she would have pulled in and given the woman a hug.
The drive along the Nespelem River to the Higheagle Ranch was green and lush. Wildflowers danced in the slight breeze, adding their yellow, purple, and orange to the landscape. The May weather was pleasant. Nothing like the harsh summer heat that would soon suffocate the area.
A bouquet of wildflowers would be pretty for her to carry in the wedding but by mid-June they would be hard to find. She’d ask Andy, Coop’s brother, if there was a chance they could find some then.
She turned down the lane to the ranch and a feeling of homecoming overcame her. Even though she couldn’t remember the ranch before her mother took her away from the Higheagles at age four, when she’d made a visit as a teenager, and then as an adult, it had felt like home. Just as her ranch on Huckleberry Mountain had felt right when she’d set foot on it.
Aunt Jo stood among her chickens, casting grain about the ground. She glanced up and smiled. Dumping the remaining feed in a trough, she exited the chicken pen.
Shandra parked beside her uncle’s pickup and grabbed her bag out of the back of the Jeep.
Her aunt met her half way to the house, hugging her.
“It’s good to see you. And with such happy times ahead.” Aunt Jo entered the house, holding the door open.
Shandra nodded. “I’m so happy everyone agreed to have my wedding on the reservation. I want all my family to be at the event.”
“It is generous of you to want everyone.” Aunt Jo wrinkled her nose. “There are a few you would be wise to not invite.”
Shandra laughed. As with every family there was always a black sheep or two. “I sent out invitations to the important people,” she nodded to the invitation she spied under a magnet on the refrigerator, “and an open verbal one to those who did not receive a paper invitation.”
“You have two hours before Velma brings you the applications from the young women who applied for your generous scholarship.” The pride in Aunt Jo’s voice put a lump in Shandra’s throat.
She’d come up with the scholarship idea while talking with people during her search to prove her cousin’s innocence. With the help of other artists she knew, they’d put together an ongoing non-profit scholarship for young women who received a high school or general education diploma and wished to continue their education at college. She, Jo, and Velma made up the committee who chose the recipient. There would be one a year. She would have liked to give more but until she brought in more sponsors and profits from her sales, only one was feasible.
“I saw there were a lot of cars at Velma’s when I came by. What group is meeting there today?” Shandra set her bag by the stairs to the rooms above and sat down behind a glass of iced tea her aunt had placed on the kitchen table.
“I can’t keep up with her organizations. But she is tickled you are having the wedding here. She’s offered to house Ryan’s parents for the weekend of the wedding.” Aunt Jo had her back to the table as she retrieved something from the counter.
Shandra wasn’t sure Ryan’s parents would be comfortable at Velma’s house. Or any house on the reservation. They were open-minded country people. While they had a fair-sized family and didn’t mind sticking their noses into their children’s lives, they preferred to keep their family private.
“I believe Ryan reserved rooms for them at the Columbia River Inn. His whole family will be staying there.” She hoped it wouldn’t hurt her aunt’s feelings.
Jo nodded. “Good. Everyone will be more comfortable that way.”
Shandra grinned. Her family was generous to a fault. They had offered. That the Greers had already taken care of their accommodations simplified matters. No one’s pride would be hurt.
They sat at the table discussing the items that needed to be accomplished this week. Shandra’s head was spinning with all the places Aunt Jo had planned for her to be while she was here. It seemed like more meetings, instruction, and planning than there would be time for in five days. She’d just written down the schedule when Velma walked through the back door carrying a folder.
“It’s good to see you.” Shandra stood, giving her aunt a hug.
The tall, broad woman blushed. “It’s been quiet around here.”
Jo retrieved another glass of iced tea and replenished Shandra’s glass. “It looks like you received more applications since the last time we talked.”
“We have fifteen to go through.” Velma eased her large body onto a chair and picked up the tea. “It’s starting to warm up. You might want Wendy to make you a bikini instead of a dress out of the doeskin. Ays?” her aunt joked, using the tagged-on Colville word, ays, that emphasized the joke.
“I’m so happy Wendy agreed to make me a traditional dress for the wedding. The work she showed me the last time I was here...It will be a prized possession and displayed in my house as a work of art.”
Velma blushed, again, but pride shown in her eyes. “My Wendy learned to tan hides from my grandmother. She would spend the weekends with her learning the old ways of making clothing.”
“It is a lost art. I’m so pleased she is teaching classes at the college in Spokane.” Shandra had asked an art professor she knew at the community college to contact her cousin about doing an adult ed class on tanning hides. Now Wendy was also slated to teach one on beading.
Shandra reached over and grabbed the folder from Velma, excited to read about the applicants.
“I’ve already picked out three that I think are deserving,” Velma said. “They’re on top.”
Shandra read the names. Jenny Wells, Lauren Minto, and Pim Solomon. Of the three, she liked Pim. She’d taken five years to complete high school but only because she’d had to drop out for one year to help with her family when her mother was ill. That took dedication to return to school and get her high school diploma. She read each one and handed it over to Aunt Jo. At the very bottom, as if Velma had wanted to hide the application, was one for Nelly Bingham.
Starring at the name, Shandra’s heart soared. This was the young woman who had given her the idea for the scholarship. A teenage pregnancy had caused her to drop out of school. Shandra had seen potential and told Nelly if she got her GED she could apply for the scholarship. She placed Nelly’s application with Pim’s.
Aunt Jo pulled another application out of the batch Shandra had passed along to her. Tammy Randal.
Shandra glanced at her aunt. “Really? A Randal?” She would never forget the viciousness of the Randal family when they believed Coop had killed Arthur Randal.
Jo shrugged. “She does come from a troubled background. She’s a Randal.”
Velma snorted.
Shandra laughed. “That’s true.” She tapped Nelly’s application. “This is the reason I started the scholarship. I feel it’s only right she is the first recipient.”
Velma pursed her lips. She’d shown her disapproval of the young woman before.
Aunt Jo sighed. “She does deserve a second chance. We all know her grandmother won’t be able to help her do better than sleeping around and waitressing at the bar.”
“What about a runner-up in case Nelly doesn’t accept?” Velma asked.
“Why wouldn’t she accept?” Shandra peered at her aunt. “Do you know something?”
“Nothing that’s fact.”
“A vision?” Shandra asked. Velma belonged to the Seven Drum Society Shandra’s grandmother had presided over before her death. They were also called the dreamer religion. The religion was starting to make a comeback with the Nez Perce after the religious orders who invaded their country pressured them to believe in Christianity rather than believing all creatures had power and were on earth before man.
“More a premonition.”
Hoping her aunt was wrong, Shandra tapped Pim Solomon. “She can be the runner-up and can apply again next year.”
Velma scooped all the papers back into the folder with the three applications they’d picked on the top. “When do we announce this?”
“Since we’ll be at the community center tomorrow for my dancing instructions, why don’t you call Nelly and ask her to come to the center at one. That will give me time to print out a certificate.” Shandra was excited to see Nelly again and learn how the young woman was doing.