Chickadee

  Makoons was lying still, drained and quiet. Omakayas sat with him, wiping his face and hands with cool leaves.

  “Brother”—his voice was thin—“oh, brother Chickadee. Please help me to live!”

  Chickadee woke with a cold chill in his heart, and tears running down the sides of his cheeks. His shirt was damp with the tears he’d cried in his sleep. The camp was quiet. Quill snored softly beside him. The ox was chewing cud beside the cart, dozing on its feet.

  “Brother,” whispered Chickadee, “I am coming as fast as I can! Wait for me. Just wait for me a little!”

  After Chickadee fell asleep again, he slept peacefully. But just at dawn, he was awakened by screams and laughter throughout the camp. Chickadee sat up and felt something drop off his neck. He brushed gently at his buffalo robe and in the half-light he could see dozens of tiny snakes slip to the ground. Turning to Uncle Quill, who snored happily on his back, he saw that his uncle was completely covered by snakes. There was even a tiny baby snake curled happily on the warm broad plane of Quill’s forehead. With every snore, the tiny snake slipped toward Quill’s open mouth.

  Chickadee reached carefully over and plucked away the snake. Delicately, he took another snake from behind his uncle’s ear. There were six curled for warmth on Quill’s chest. One poked his head out, and the curious red tongue flickered just beneath his collar. Chickadee took each one off and let it down to the earth gently, then shooed it away. They sped out beneath the flap of the robe, the way they had come in. Chickadee kept on removing snakes from his sleeping uncle until his uncle blinked awake.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, nothing. Good morning, my uncle,” said Chickadee. Quill yawned and crawled out from under the cart. The shrieks and laughter had subsided. Apparently, in the night, everyone had been visited by snakes. The baby snakes had crawled in with the people because they were warm. The snakes had slipped into peoples’ blankets and were sliding all through the camp. They were harmless snakes, black with lovely yellow bellies and clean yellow stripes down their sides. Chickadee had always liked snakes. Probably, he thought, the oxcart train had camped near a huge snake-hatching nest, a place where snakes return each year to lay their eggs. These mysterious places were ancient. Nokomis had once told Chickadee that the snake nests went back to the beginning of time. The original snakes had told the present-day snakes where to go, and they still followed their old traditions.

  Quill stretched his arms. His moccasins with the tall red leggings attached stood just behind the wheel, where he’d removed them before turning in to sleep. He lifted one and two snakes writhed to get out.

  “Aaaaagggggg! Ginebigoog!” screamed Quill. He hopped around the back of the wheel in terror, then looked around, embarrassed.

  “Here, my uncle,” said Chickadee, hurrying to grab the moccasins. He shook them out and then his uncle gingerly put his feet into them.

  “Ugh,” he shuddered. “Ginebigoog!”

  “They are gone now, my uncle,” said Chickadee.

  “I have always been scared of snakes,” said Uncle Quill sheepishly. “I am so happy they did not attack me in my sleep or crawl into my blankets! I have powerful snake medicine, though. It keeps them away.”

  “Yes,” said Chickadee, letting one last little snake go into the grass. “Your snake medicine sure worked!”

  The rocky and brutal part of the trail seemed to go on forever, but Quill was an expert driver, and he managed to come through without breaking a cart wheel or axle. Now they forded the Leaf River, the bottom pebbly and clear. They traveled up to Otter Tail City, which was only a few cabins and a trading post. The little outpost, which was hardly a city, stood on the northern shore of a lake so beautiful that everyone was glad to camp there. All of the children, including Chickadee, went swimming. The shallow and gentle beaches stretched so far that the water had already warmed. There were no stones to hurt a child’s feet. Little fish swam curiously near and nibbled at their toes. The women went out together, holding up the blankets and laughing as they bathed apart from everyone. Afterward, the carts were left up in the shade and everyone made fires and set their tents up on the beaches.

  The beach was a lovely pale brown sand, fine as powder in some places. The lake was huge. Chickadee could not see across it, and he couldn’t see a single island. The clear water seemed to stretch forever, and the sun went down slowly and spread fire across its western edge.

  Chickadee collected white beach wood, and that night he and his uncle made their own fire. Babiche brought down a duck and gave it to Chickadee as a gift. He had even cleaned and plucked it!

  “Remember this gift, and tell Two Strike,” said Babiche.

  Uncle Quill put the duck on a stick over the fire, and while the ox munched beach grass in the trees behind them, they roasted and ate the duck. It was a delicious duck, juicy and tender. Quill had bought some dried cherries at the trading post, and they ate that treat slowly, along with bannock from Antoinette. The two were quiet. Uncle Quill smoked his pipe. They did not speak, just gazed across the water and listened to the musical slap and swish of waves. Chickadee knew that in his heart his uncle missed their own lake, the numberless islands, the beautiful beaches and hidden coves where they had spent so many happy days. As for Chickadee, he could not forget his dream.

  “My brother, I am coming,” he whispered to the gentle waves.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE WIND

  When the wind blew on the plains it was harsher, louder, stronger. There was nothing to stop it. The spring wind pummeled the little cabin where Makoons lay ill again. It tore screeching at the planks of the roof. It squeezed between the chinking of the logs in soft whistles. It moaned through the eaves and hissed through the oil-papered windows. The wind was noisy and constant. The wind agitated Makoons.

  “Listen,” he sat up. “I hear my brother!”

  “No, my boy,” Nokomis said, “drink this tea and sleep.”

  But either Makoons could not sleep, tossing and turning in his fever, or he did sleep, too much, for days, frightening them all.

  “I’m sure I hear him!” cried Makoons.

  “Shhh,” said Omakayas. There were tears in her eyes.

  One afternoon there was a tap on the doorsill. It was Father Belcourt, bringing his cross and a bowl of soup. He set the bowl down beside Makoons.

  “This is light on the stomach,” he said. He felt Makoons’s forehead. “He burns.”

  “Yes, good father.”

  “Would you like me to say a prayer?”

  “No, good father.”

  Father Belcourt took a bannock from a sack he carried and laid it beside the soup.

  “I will say a prayer on my own and hope for your son’s restoration,” said Father Belcourt. He made the sign of the cross and ducked out the door. The wind plucked up his cassock and cloak and blew it around his thin shanks in a wild billow.

  “He is a good priest,” Omakayas said to Animikiins.

  “We have our own prayers,” said Animikiins. “And I have my father’s drum. He said that I should play his song when I needed his help. I need his help now.”

  Animikiins began to sing and play softly. He requested that the spirits enter the cabin. He asked them to gather around Makoons. He called their names, he called them out of each direction. He called their namesakes, the animals, from each direction. He called their colors. He begged them to come into the cabin and heal his son. As Animikiins sang, he closed his eyes and remembered how his father had come from the spirit world to help him live when he had fallen through the ice. His father had stood there in his blanket covered with his own namesake, the lightning and thunder, and helped his son find the strength to lift himself from the freezing water.

  Now, Animikiins sang to his own son, begging him to gather the strength.

  “My brother, I hear you!” said Makoons.

  Makoons sat up again and stared fixedly at the door. Omakayas began to weep. Fear tore at her heart. It
seemed to her that Makoons was talking to his brother in the spirit world. She feared that Chickadee had died after all, and now his spirit was pulling Makoons’s spirit along with it to the other side.

  “Lie down, my dear boy. Hush,” said Omakayas.

  She stroked Makoons’s arms with a cool wet piece of soft buckskin. She kept the rest of him comfortable and warm in the best blankets they had. She watched over him day and night, rarely taking a rest herself. Nokomis had to force her to sleep. She was afraid that they could lose Omakayas too. All her healing would be for nothing, useless, like that time way back in the beginning of Omakayas’s life, when there was smallpox.

  That disease had taken Omakayas’s little brother, just a baby. He had died in her arms. Omakayas was determined that she would save her son. This would not happen to Makoons. Yet no matter what she did, he did not improve. He stayed feverish and listless, and now he was hearing strange things.

  Yet, who didn’t hear strange things with this wind?

  Outside, the wind picked up, screaming like a thousand mad fiddles, and getting louder and louder. Omakayas put her hands over her ears. The screeching continued, and got closer. Nokomis held Makoons in her arms, and Animikiins stood up, slowly, in the little cabin. Two Strike was outside with the horses, battling the wind with them in their pole barn. The rest of the family was off gathering more wood for the cart that Mikwam was building. The wind howled with such insane fury that the group inside feared that a tornado might have formed, might be rushing at them. The door shook. The logs seemed to rattle in their sockets.

  “My brother is here!” Makoons shouted.

  Omakayas’s blood ran cold and along with Nokomis she put her arms around him and was about to burst into tears when the door slammed open and in walked Chickadee.

  “Brother!”

  Both brothers shouted at once, and then there was a collapse of confused feeling. Everyone was hugging everyone. Uncle Quill had come in too, and Animikiins was pounding on his back in joy. Chickadee was in his mother’s arms, along with Makoons. They were right where they belonged.

  The night was long, the wind still harsh, but Animikiins took his drum out again. This time Chickadee sang the song he had been taught by his namesake. He remembered its healing power, and put every bit of his love and energy into each word. Makoons, very weak, listened with a smile and slowly licked the other half of the peppermint stick. There were bits of dried leaf on the stick, and in places the red coloring had come off. But the flavor made him happy as he listened. He could not get enough of his brother’s singing. He would always love the sound of his brother’s voice. He asked for his brother’s song, over and over. Every time that Chickadee sang the song, Makoons could feel his strength grow inside of him.

  “Please, brother, sing,” he said.

  So Chickadee sang.

  I am only the Chickadee

  Yet small things have great power

  I speak the truth.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE OJIBWE LANGUAGE

  Obijbwemowin was originally a spoken, not written, language, and for that reason spellings are often idiosyncratic. There are also many, many dialects in use. To make the Obijbwemowin in the text easier to read, I have sometimes used phonetic spellings. I apologize to the reader for any mistakes and refer those who would like to encounter the language in depth to A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe, edited by John D. Nichols and Earl Nyholm; to the Oshkaabewis Native Journal, edited by Anton Treuer; and to the curriculum developed by Dennis Jones at the University of Minnesota.

  GLOSSARY AND PRONUNCIATION GUIDE OF OJIBWE TERMS

  aadizookaan (ahd-zoh-kahn): a traditional story that often helps explain how to live as an Ojibwe

  aadizookaanag (ahd-zoh-khan-ahg): the plural form of aadizookaan

  ahneen (ah-NEEN): greeting

  anama’eminensag (ah-nam-ah’ay-min-ayns-ug): praying berries or ropes

  Anishinabe (AH-nish-in-AH-bay): the original name for the Ojibwe or Chippewa people, a Native American group who originated in and live mainly in the northern North American woodlands. There are currently Ojibwe reservations in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ontario, Manitoba, Montana, and Saskatchewan

  Anishinabeg (AH-nish-in-AH-bayg): the plural form of Anishinabe

  baka’akwen (bah-kah-ah-kweh-n): chicken

  bezhig (bay-zhig): one

  Biboonang (Bib-oon-ung): Winter Spirit

  bine (bin-ay): partridge

  binewag (bin-ay-wug): the plural form of bine

  biwabik (bii-wahb-ick): metal

  bizindaan (bih-zin-dahn): listen

  Bwaan-akiing (Bwahn-ah-keeng): the land of the Dakota and Lakota people, two other Native tribes

  Deydey (DAY-day): Daddy

  dibi’ (dih-bih): I don’t know where

  eya’ (ay-yah): yes

  gaawiin (gah-WEEN): no

  geget (GEH-geht): surely, or for emphasis, truly or really

  gidebwe (ghih-day-bway): you speak the truth

  gigawaabamin (gih-gah-WAH-bah-min): I will see you

  giigawedaa (gee-gah-way-day): let’s go home

  giiwedin (gee-way-din): north

  gijigijigaaneshiinh (gih-jih-gih-jih-gah-nay-shee): chickadee

  ginebigoog (ghin-ay-big-oog): snakes

  Gizhe Manidoo (Gih-zhay Man-ih-do): the great, kind spirit

  gookoosh (goo-koosh): pig

  howaa (HOW-ah): a sound of approval

  Iskigamizige-giizis (Iss-kay-gah-mih-zih-gey-giizis): April

  majaan (mah-jahn): go away!

  makak (mah-KUK): a container of birchbark folded and often stitched together with basswood fiber. Ojibwe people use these containers today, especially for traditional feasts

  makakoon (mah-kah-koon): the plural form of makak

  manoomin (mah-NOH-min): wild rice; the word means “the good seed”

  mashi (mahsh-ih): yet

  mashkiig (maash-keeg): swampy place

  mekadewikonyewinini (meh-kah-day-wih-kone-iy-eh-in-in-ih): black robe/priest

  memegwesiwag (may-may-gway-see-wug): the plural form of memegwesi, little people

  miigwech (mee-gwetch): thank you

  minopogwad (min-oh-poh-gwud): it tastes good

  naanan (nahn-an): five

  nashke (nahsh-kay): look

  niiwin (nee-win): four

  niizh (neezh): two

  nimama (nee-mama): my mama

  niswi (niss-way): three

  Nokomis (no-KOH-mis): grandmother

  Nookoo (Noo-koo): shortened version of Nokomis

  waabooz (WAH-booz): rabbit

  we’eh (way-ay): namesake

  wigwam (WIHG-wahm): a birchbark house

  wigwassi-wigamig (wig-wass-ih-wig-ahm-ig): house

  Zhawanong (Zhah-wah-nung): the South

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LOUISE ERDRICH lives with her family in Minnesota and is the owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore. Ms. Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and this story—which will, in the end, span one hundred years in the life of an Ojibwe woman—was inspired when Ms. Erdrich and her mother, Rita Gourneau Erdrich, were researching their own family history. CHICKADEE begins a new part of the story that started with THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE, a National Book Award finalist; THE GAME OF SILENCE, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction; and the acclaimed THE PORCUPINE YEAR.

  Ms. Erdrich is also the bestselling author of many critically acclaimed novels for adults, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist THE PLAGUE OF DOVES and National Book Award finalist THE LAST REPORT ON THE MIRACLES AT LITTLE NO HORSE. She is also the author of the picture book GRANDMOTHER'S PIGEON, illustrated by Jim LaMarche. You can visit her online at www.readlouiseerdrich.com and www.birchbarkbooks.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  OTHER BOOKS

  ALSO BY LOUISE ERDRICH

  FOR CHILDREN

 
Grandmother’s Pigeon

  ILLUSTRATED BY JIM LAMARCHE

  The Range Eternal

  ILLUSTRATED BY STEVE JOHNSON AND LOU FANCHER

  The Birchbark House

  The Game of Silence

  The Porcupine Year

  NOVELS AND STORIES

  Love Medicine

  The Beet Queen

  Tracks

  The Bingo Palace

  Tales of Burning Love

  The Antelope Wife

  The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

  The Master Butchers Singing Club

  Four Souls

  The Painted Drum

  The Plague of Doves

  The Red Convertible

  Shadow Tag

  The Round House

  POETRY

  Jacklight

  Baptism of Desire

  Original Fire

  NONFICTION

  The Blue Jay’s Dance

  Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country

  CREDITS

  COVER ART © 2012 BY AZA ERDRICH DORRIS

  COVER ART DESIGN BY MICHELLE TAORMINA

  COPYRIGHT

  Chickadee

  Copyright © 2012 by Louise Erdrich

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Erdrich, Louise.

  Chickadee / Louise Erdrich.—1st ed.