Weayaya: The Sunset Woman

Chapter 5

Yvonne
Present

I lazily sat on a bench as Dolly talked to the bitchy girl called Chrissy.

I was majorly bored and Dolly noticed. She said she had to handle business with Chrissy before we did the final thing of the day. I will admit to a sigh of relief when she said that...nothing against Dolly...she was just boring.

"Yvonne!" I heard her high pitched voice call from a few feet away.

I stood up and walked toward her as the bitch called Chrissy walked off.

"Are you ready?" She smiled.

"For what?" I shrugged.

"Come on!" She continued to smile as she pulled me toward a very old house.

"What is that?!" I tried to stop her. It kinda looked like my aunt's house...just more...gross and dirty.

"The local heritage museum!" She had a firm grip on me as she forced me through the gate and up the stairs.

I hated museums.

There was always at least one lie.

"Come onnnn its freeeeee." Dolly pulled me up the stairs and through the front doors.

There was an old woman with glasses sitting at a sort of desk by the door.

"Hi Miss Gales!" Dolly chirped like a hummingbird.

"Dorcas," the old woman called Miss Gales pushed up her reading glasses and returned to her book.

"Come on!" Dolly took my hand and tugged me further inside.

Every room had a plaque that said what it was used for, and you could walk in all the rooms. There were countless signs that said "don't sit on me," "don't sit on this," "don't sit anywhere old," etc, Etc. While Dolly went around observing every piece of furniture and quilt stitching, I looked at the pictures. I had always loved pictures, they were more of telling a persons soul compared to anything else. As I sauntered between rooms and halls, lazily following Dolly, who occasionally called me to tell me fun facts about her family or the founders of the area or the few Native American/American Indian things in the rooms.

My eyes wondered over the countless black and white pictures and portraits. I found myself stopped by the stairs at a section of pictures hung on the side. There seemed to be a cluster of them. They was clearly taken out on the prairie; one had a crowd of buffalo in the background, one was of a native settlement, teepees surrounded by tools of life, and even more of the local people. Men, women, children, horses, dogs, cats, all were the subject of these photos. There was a small desk under them with even more photos neatly tucked away into photograph albums. The album slipped from my hands suddenly as I picked it up and I dropped to the ground.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" I cried. The photos were old and the album seemed brittle as everything.

"It's okay!" Dolly sank down beside me. "I've dropped this thing a bunch! It's just old." She smiled and helped me gently pick up the photo album. I noticed some pictures fell beneath the desk, so I bent down to pick them up.

While I was down there, I noticed and old frame turned upside down. I grabbed it and dragged it back out. The frame was covered in dust, the glass was cracked, and the amount of dust on the frame began to fall everywhere. As I turned the frame over to the front, I noticed a young man was the object of the portrait.

He was probably in his 20s, with deep dark eyes and hair, his skin...was also a luscious color. He was a Native American. His picture frame was cracked down the side, and I couldn't help but sigh in sadness for the man who seemed to be forgotten.