M i n n i e

​

               Those boulders had a redness to them and moss ran over their callused faces. Minnie, as young as she was, always expressed wonder dat the moss always stayed there, even in the winter time with the snow fallin' onto the ground, makin' a white carpet dat one could fall onto and feel comfort, which we both did, until the native boy saw us. Dat boy must've saw how hungry I was, even under my fur coat, with its collar dat erupted from 'round my neck like a lion's mane. As thick as it was, I sure did look slim. It was worse in my hands: shakin', blue, and bloody. I hadn't killed anything, ’cept foe a few hares dat I trapped the night befoe, but it was the bitter cold dat dried out my skin, dat cracked my flesh with every movement of my hands. Or maybe it was my face dat caught his attention, even if it was a white man's face, even if it was the first time he saw a white man. My face, a rotten pomegranate, bought in New Orleans and, weeks later, thrown on the side of the trail upon the first sight of mold; left there foe days, nibbled on by rodents, until the peel was thin and wrapped 'round a jagged core. There was the cheeks dat fell inwards, instead of outwards, and there was the purple underneath the eyelids. Dat's how I imagined it looked like after Minnie told me. We didn't have a mirr'r. I foegot to grab one foe shavin' when we left Clara, or maybe I just decided not to grab one. I never really wanted Minnie to see what she looked like anyways. She'd always get all beat up ’bout it. And she did, when dat native boy pulled a few pieces of dried fruit out of his satchel, holdin' it out to me, between those boulders, barren tree branches framin' the boy dat was ’bout to save our lives. He smiled a little, until Minnie stepped out from behind me. He looked scared when her saw her. Minnie's head, apple shaped, the top mo' like a dome than anything, larger than the rest. She had trouble sometimes holdin' it up. Veins dat ran up 'long her foehead. Her big eyes, narrow nose, and her hair only growin' halfway back from the front of her head. Just like her sister. His mouth opened wide and he clenched dat dried fruit, lookin' like he just saw whatever hides deep in the trees. Hands shakin'. At first, I thought it was 'cause he never saw a white man befoe. Then I realized his gaze. It was locked, not on me but on Minnie. Oh, dat tore her up, just like her starvin' stomach dat night, when we had no food left and I came back empty handed after an afternoon of huntin'.

               I had to explain to her dat dat native boy didn't know what he was lookin' at. He didn't know how to handle beauty. But she saw through the lie. She told me how no man thinks a woman is beautiful when dey're four-foot-tall, fifteen years old, and look fifty-five. It upset me and I lashed out, said dat God made her like dat and nothin' she can do ’bout it. Told her dat native boy didn't know nothin' bout her and she don't need to worry ’bout what he thinks. Dat upset her even mo', me admittin' the Indian was scared of her and not me. Things just got complicated and I couldn't deal with dat.

               She said she was goin' to take a quick walk 'round the campsite. We were camped below a small alcove on the side of a mountain, surrounded by prairie grass dat brushed against our cold bodies with every swift of the wind, so I wasn't worried ’bout her. It was dense, but we were in the valley. I could see her little white head wherever she wandered off to. She was tall ’nough dat she would just barely reach above the prairie grass, which wasn't as thick as it was durin' the summer.

               "Fine," I told her. "Go have a walk and get yoself together, but don't go down there, over dat embankment. I cain't see you very well and I think there's a frozen pond over it. I don't want you to fall through the ice between those rocks."

               It really beat her up thinkin' bout how she looked. Part of it was ’cause her sister, four years younger than she was, two months befoe we took off foe Indian territory, died of a faint heart, or so the doctor said. The only one with a faint heart was Clara, even though the doctor said Minnie prob'bly had one too. Clara never could get over dat girl's death. She didn't even want to bury her; kept her in the house a full week, in dat tin bathtub, going to town every single day, buyin' ice to keep the body from smellin', even though the ice was always melted halfway through by the time she got home. And everyone in town started gossipin' bout her. The newspaper talked ’bout her. Dey had no one else to talk ’bout, ’cept foe maybe Jesse James, who'd died months befoe, whose ghost still kept people talkin' bout him. It was the same way with the sister. Even when dey buried her, everyone kept talkin'. The newspaper kept printin'. The po’ man on the street corner kept writing those poems ’bout her. He said she'd been buried in a wooden casket, her head cradled in a bouquet of lilacs. Purple lilacs. None of dat was true. He just romanticized dat. He prob'bly thought she was a grown woman and found some kind of beauty to her, with her childlike features and her shortness. I told him one day dat she was just a child and didn't need no romanticizin' and he threw a fit. After dat, his poems got worse.

The rest of this story is available in Volume 2, Issue 2 of Night Picnic.