The Beet Queen

Russell Kashpaw is to be in the Beet Parade as a local war hero. Attendants have put him in full dress uniform, with all his medals pinned to his chest. They wheel him onto the back of a float, where he watches the events in silence. Suddenly, he sees his sister Isabel, who has been dead for many years. He tries to follow her but is struck by the absurdity of the people of Argus “solemnly saluting a dead Indian” and begins to laugh (300). His laughter jolts him back to life, and he cannot return to his sister.

Wallace is concerned about Dot. With each passing year, she becomes angrier and more difficult. She does not get along well with her peers, who tease her even though they fear her too much to bully her outright. Wallace believes her low self-esteem is making her unpopular, so he conjures up a scheme to boost her confidence. He inaugurates an annual Beet Festival—a celebration of the harvest that put Argus on the map—and includes in his plan a beauty pageant. There will be many queens—a Snow Queen, a Pork Queen, a Homecoming Queen—but the queen of all queens will be the Beet Queen, and Wallace will make certain that Dot wins the crown. Wallace works so hard to put together the festival, the parade, and, most importantly, the rigged vote that will snag Dot the title that his health begins to fail.

An unrelenting drought causes the townspeople to call on Wallace to cancel the festival, but he refuses, resolute in his desire to uplift Dot. A few days before the festival, Celestine shows Wallace a card from Karl: He is coming back to Argus. Wallace panics because he knows he looks terrible, strained by exhaustion and overwork. Still, he soldiers on, and the festival begins. He is slated to take a turn in the dunk tank, where people pay to throw baseballs at a target that will plunge him into the water below. He is feeling terribly ill as he climbs in, and, suddenly, he almost faints. He asks to be let out, but just at that moment, he sees Dot in her shiny green Beet Queen dress marching toward the dunk tank. She is clearly furious. She throws the ball, hitting the target, and as he sinks in the water, “[he] hear[s] the next two [balls] hit home” (311).

Father Jude Miller comes to Argus, using the old-fashioned train rather than the new bypass. He is looking for Kozka’s Meats, which Mary has long since renamed The House of Meats. His mother has given him the letter Sita wrote long ago; Mary forwarded it, without opening it, to the address for Catherine Miller after Sita’s suicide. Jude has come to discover the truth of his origins. When he happens upon the butcher shop, he finds it closed. He has arrived during the festival, and everyone is enjoying the parade.

Karl reflects on his life, always traveling and never owning anything or owing anyone. He has started to think he might want something more. He begins to want everything he has discarded—“the cars repossessed after fifteen payments, the customer’s houses”—but, more importantly, he thinks, “what [he] really want[s] [is] their future” (317). Celestine has sent Karl the newspaper clipping reporting on Dot’s imminent crowning as Beet Queen. He drives back to Argus the day of the parade. He remembers his wedding to Celestine and Celestine’s firm refusal to have him in her or Dot’s lives.

When he arrives in Argus, the parade has just finished, and he manages to park on the far side of the route. He sees Sita sitting in Mary’s truck and climbs in next to her, hoping to take a nap. He is too exhausted to wonder why Sita will not speak to him, almost falling asleep immediately, but he follows Sita’s steely gaze and catches a glimpse of Wallace falling into the dunk tank. When he sees that Wallace simply sinks to the bottom, Karl jumps out of the car, runs to the tank, and jumps in, hauling Wallace to the surface.

Mary and Celestine sit in the stands waiting for the coronation of the Beet Queen, their beloved Dot. They are still worried about the situation with Sita, but once the procession begins, their attention turns to Dot on the stage. She appears to be glowering, her hands clinched into fists and her gown crumpled around her. Before the ceremony gets fully underway, Wallace and Karl show up, drenched and breathless. Wallace tells the women that Dot knows that he has rigged the honor for her.

Meanwhile, a small airplane is warming up its engines—Wallace has arranged for the plane to write “Queen Wallacette” in the sky—and the announcer kicks off the ceremony. Suddenly, Dot bunches up her dress, leaps off the stage, and runs to the airplane. She jumps into the cockpit, and the plane takes off. The mayor, unfazed, reads from his script, telling the story of the beet’s success in Argus and naming Dot the Beet Queen. Dot’s family watches the sky, the four of them waiting for her return.

Dot recounts the events of the parade day from her point of view. She despises her shiny green dress, especially in comparison to what the other contenders are wearing, and she hates the ceremony itself. Her uncle Wallace is acting as if she has already won, so she feels like “[she] should have this float to [her]self alone” (330). On the float during the parade, the other girls speak openly about the fact that the vote has been rigged and that Wallace is behind it all. Dot is stunned, then angry: “They are making me dangerous,” she thinks (333). Then, they tease her about her cheap, ugly dress. By the time the parade has ended, Dot is enraged. She stalks up to the dunk tank and accuses Wallace of cheating before she throws the balls that land him in the water.

Once on the grandstand, she spies the plane and remembers the stories she heard about her grandmother, Adelaide. Once in the air, however, she is overwhelmed, both by the vastness of the sky and by the looping of the airplane as it writes “Queen Wallacette” above the town. Back on the ground, all she can think about is getting home. Everyone has gone except for Celestine, and they walk home together. They see that Karl is at Wallace’s house as they pass by. At home, Dot changes out of the green dress while Celestine makes her some eggs. Rain begins to fall, breaking the drought.