M'Lady Three nodded.
“What's that?”
“That's your outhouse.”
“What's an outhouse?”
“It's your bathroom, stupid. Once again, I advise you to hesitate a moment or two after you open the door as rattlesnakes like to curl up and sleep around the toilet at night.”
Robin froze, her eyes widening.
“We're not going to wait all day for you to go to the bathroom, girls. If you don't go now, you pee or whatever in your diapers. Move!” M'Lady Three screamed.
With great hesitation, Robin started for the outhouse and Teal and I followed behind. As we did, I started to look around more at our surroundings. Obviously we were somewhere deep in some desert. I could see cactus and brush, but outside of the immediate property, which was fenced in, there was no grass, just long, rolling, brown, crusty dirt in every direction. The sunlight wavered over it, making it look even hotter and drier. Mountains were way off in the distance.
To our right we could see dozens of pigs bumping and pushing at each other to get at feed. They slobbered through mud and their own excrement, their heads down, consuming themselves in eating. Farther to the right were four horses nibbling on hay. The gardens were on our left and from the looks of them were bigger than any other garden I had seen. I recognized cornstalks, but nothing else, not being much of a farmer or around farms ever.
Robin opened the outhouse door and jumped back. “Who wants to go first?” she asked Teal and me.
Both of us looked in. Toilet? There was nothing but what looked like a big pipe with a crude wooden seat around it. Instead of toilet paper, sheets of what looked like wrapping paper were beside it.
“Let's go, girls,” M'Lady Three called. “Every minute you waste here, you have to make up at the garden, and that's how much longer it will be before you have any food.”
Teal stepped in timidly. She started to close the door behind her and then screamed and jumped out.
“Something's crawling in there. I saw it!” she cried.
“It's more afraid of you than you are of it, whatever it is,” M'Lady Three said, stepping up. “Either pee in your pants or go in and do it now.”
“Oh, God!” Teal screamed, her hands pressed to her temples. “I can't stand this. I can't stand it!”
Her whole body started to shake. I looked at the three buddies to see what they would do, but they just stared at her, watching her cry and pound herself. She raged for a few more moments, then sank to the ground, sitting and sobbing with gasps like someone who couldn't catch her breath.
“I want to go home!” she cried. “I'll do anything, say anything, promise anything. Let me go home. Please.”
M'Lady Two turned to Robin. “Are you going to the bathroom or not?” she asked as if seeing Teal's tantrum and fit was nothing out of the ordinary for any of them.
Robin nodded and went into the outhouse.
Teal fell on her side and closed her eyes. “I want to go home,” she whispered. “I want to go home.” She said it louder: “Please, let me go home.”
“What happened to the tough rich girl whose father would be angry at us? I have news for you, girl. Listen to this headline. You've got a long way to go before you go home,” M'Lady Three told her. “And all you're doing this morning by throwing this stupid tantrum is making that journey longer yet.”
The door opened and Robin came out. She looked pale, but said nothing. I stepped in, quivering all over, and did my business. When I came out, Teal was sitting up and wiping her cheeks.
“It's all right,” I told her. “There's nothing in there but some bugs and ants.”
She grimaced, got up, and went in. When she came out, we were marched toward the gardens. I couldn't imagine working in this sun for two hours before we could get something to eat. Surely, this was cruel and these people would be held responsible for whatever happened to us. They would be sorry, I thought, and that thought of them all getting into big trouble gave me enough strength to walk on.
As we approached a new field, we saw Gia and Mindy hard at work turning over the earth. Now that we were outside with them, I could see how tan their faces were. It amazed me that Mindy was able to do any work being as thin as she was, but she seemed unstoppable, digging, turning, digging, without looking up. Gia worked the same way.
At first none of us saw the man we were told was called Natani. He seemed to rise up from the ground where he was squatting, emerging like an instantly growing, dark brown tree trunk. He looked our way, then he wiped his hands on the sides of his overalls and walked toward us. As he drew closer, I thought he was at least a hundred years old. Although his hair was black with barely a sign of gray, his face was a dried prune. He had a small build and was surely not more than five feet four inches tall.
“Here are your three new squaws,” M'Lady Three told him, and laughed. “They are very delicate flowers so you will have your hands full keeping them alive.”
He said nothing, but looked at us and nodded not to agree with her, but more to acknowledge us. He wore a pair of white muslin trousers, a calico shirt, a pair of buckskin moccasins, and a bandanna twisted and tied around his head. On his right wrist was a leather band fastened with buckskin lacing and decorated with silver and turquoise.
“I am Natani,” he said to us. “I will show you how we grow what we eat, how we care for the animals that care for us and give of themselves to us, and how we must live side by side with what is wild and true.”
He
