Chickadee

  “I will not rest until he is with us again,” said Omakayas. She struggled for breath. It felt like a stick was breaking inside her chest.

  Chickadee’s parents clung to each other fiercely, then Animikiins turned, hiding his face, and strode quickly away.

  Two Strike stood before Omakayas. The mighty woman was ready for anything. She had a small sack of flour, her rifle, ammunition, her bow, a quiver of arrows, her skinning knife, her carving knife, her tobacco knife, her whittling knife, and two extra emergency knives she kept hidden in her leggings.

  Although as children they had disliked each other, Omakayas and Two Strike had become as close as sisters as they grew older. Two Strike was grateful to Omakayas and Angeline for bringing up Zozie, whom she loved but didn’t know how to care for. Omakayas appreciated the fierce energy of Two Strike and believed that she had inherited the magnificent spirit of Old Tallow, the much beloved old woman who had hunted bears with a spear and worn the yellow feather of a flicker in her hat. Two Strike dressed in an unusual fashion too, but that was not the main resemblance. The resemblance was attitude.

  Both Two Strike and Old Tallow had no time for fools or for civilization. They preferred to live alone in the woods and had gotten rid of their husbands as quickly as possible. They had no time for work that women usually did, but preferred to hunt. They were hard and bitter on the outside, but when it came to children, their hearts were soft.

  “I will hunt down those two men who stole your Chickadee, you can be sure. I will destroy them,” said Two Strike. She made a fist. When Two Strike smiled, there was something wild and frightening in her eyes.

  Makoons, who stood behind his mother, was glad that Two Strike loved them. He was happy that their family was under her protection. He would have hated to be either Babiche or Batiste and face the wrath of his father, his grandfather, and Two Strike.

  “Miigwech, my sister,” said Omakayas.

  She reached out and put her arms around Two Strike’s shoulders. Although Two Strike stood stiff as a tree in her sister’s embrace, it was clear that she was touched. She sniffled loudly, then lifted her voice in a ringing war cry that tingled down Makoons’s spine. Besides Omakayas, only Zozie dared embrace Two Strike. And once that was done, this woman of tremendous strength loped along, sworn to find Chickadee.

  In a state of sorrow and anxiety, the rest of the family packed up their camp and prepared to follow. If they lost the trail, the priest had persuaded them all to meet in the biggest settlement for hundreds of miles, the place where Omakayas’s brother, Quill, lived, a place called Pembina.

  EIGHT

  BOUYAH

  On and on the horses galloped. Sometimes Chickadee woke and heard the horses picking their way along or plodding through what seemed like mushy ground. Sometimes the horses stopped and he could hear them chewing. It was warm and dark in the sack, so he always fell asleep again. The horses were good runners and had the will and spirit of the best of their kind. Babiche and Batiste were hard men, but they were tender where their horses were concerned. So what Chickadee sensed from inside his mail sack was that although the horses galloped hard, they were also rested from time to time and were allowed to graze when they came across melted areas of rich winter grass.

  They came through the Pembina Hills and even managed to cross the Red River. It was in that perilous time just before the ice broke. But Chickadee slept through that crossing. He was asleep when the horses stopped. Then, suddenly, he was in the air again, thrown off the saddle. He was still in the sack. Chickadee woke as he was falling and had no way to brace himself. He rolled over and over before hitting the earth. Luckily the snow where he landed was still soft, and Batiste quickly untied the sack and let him out. The light was blinding at first, after the darkness in the sack. Chickadee rubbed his eyes and looked around.

  Where were the trees? Where were the hills? And again, where were the trees?

  There was nothing to see as far as his eyes could reach. This was the Plains. It was Bwaan-akiing, the place where the Dakota people live. It was the Red River Valley. It was Pembina country. Chickadee had heard about the Plains. Others in his family had been to the Plains. But nothing had prepared Chickadee for the sight of such emptiness.

  He whirled around, panicked by the vast sky.

  Batiste was ducking into a small log cabin. Babiche was taking the two brown horses toward a shanty built of pole logs and mud. There was a great hay pile next to it, nibbled all the way around the bottom by rabbits. As they passed the pile, the horses reached out their long necks and swiped a matted clump of hay to chew.

  Batiste came out of the cabin.

  “The mice have eaten everything again!” he angrily cried.

  “Get over here,” yelled Babiche to Chickadee. “Now you’ll learn to make yourself useful. If you don’t,” he leered, his big yellow teeth dripping with spit, “we will chop you up and feed you to our horses. They love the meat of little boys.”

  The two mild brown horses looked over their shoulders, their eyes reproachful. They didn’t look like they ate little boys, thought Chickadee, but he hurried over to the makeshift barn anyway.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Babiche swung his big fist lazily at Chickadee, and Chickadee ducked.

  “Next time you ask that, my fist will connect with your head. You do what a servant does!”

  Chickadee saw a long branch with sticks whittled out and pegged to the ends. He went over and grabbed it. He looked at Babiche, who made digging and pitching motions with his arms.

  Chickadee began to dig up the horse manure on the dirt floor. It was half frozen, but he managed to move a small pile out the door into a heap behind the barn. While he worked at this, the two brothers bumbled about their cabin yelling about the mice.

  “Get in here,” Batiste called out at last.

  Chickadee ran to the cabin. It was dark inside. There were only three small openings for light, each covered with a piece of oiled paper. It was almost like being in the sack again.

  When Chickadee’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw that there were heaps of furs and blankets on the floor. There was a small round tin barrel set on legs with a pipe running out of it. Next to it there were piles of dried brown circles of frozen stuff. It was the first time Chickadee had ever seen buffalo dung, or buffalo chips.

  “Start a fire!” growled Batiste.

  The brothers stomped out, arguing about which of them would take the first shift to deliver the mail. The mail rider would arrive from St. Paul, said Batiste, and he had ridden first last time.

  “But I rode last,” said Babiche. “So that means … I rode last.”

  “Which means you should go first,” said Batiste.

  “No, it means I am still tired out,” said Babiche.

  “Let’s send the servant,” said Batiste.

  “You are funny, my brother,” Babiche laughed. “He would get lost in no time. Our ignorant servant doesn’t know where to go!”

  “He doesn’t know how to make a fire, either,” said Batiste in a sudden rage. “He is useless! I will hit him over the head and be done with it!”

  “Wait,” said Babiche. “Look.”

  Chickadee had moistened a small chip of the buffalo dung with kerosene from the bottom of the brothers’ lamp. He’d seen a lamp like this before in a trading store, and knew the oil worked like fat. He began with the small chip and blew the ember carefully to life, then added bit after bit. The dung smoked, but burned quite well when the fire got hot.

  “Maybe he is of some use yet,” said Batiste. “Let’s get our tasty meat and flour, my brother. Let’s have our servant make us some bouyah!”

  Suddenly, Batiste broke out in song.

  Bouyah, bouyah,

  It makes a Michif strong!

  Straight to the brain,

  He never has to strain!

  Fills up his belly,

  Makes him sweet as jelly!

  Makes his hair grow thick
!

  Makes his mind so quick!

  Bouyah!

  Babiche laughed so hard his face swelled red.

  “Oh, you are too funny, my brother!” he choked.

  Doubled over, he could barely point out the flour tin and the chunks of old dried-out questionable meat that Chickadee would use in making the trapper’s stew. Although he’d never heard the word bouyah, Chickadee knew from looking at the bottom of the kettle on the stove just what the brothers expected of him. The old stuff was stuck to the bottom, and covered with mouse droppings. Even the mice had failed to eat it. Batiste told him to add the new stuff on top of the old stuff and boil it all together with melted snow.

  Chickadee tried to scrape out the mice droppings, but Batiste grinned and said, “Leave ’em in there, servant. We don’t have pepper to season it with!”

  So Chickadee filled the kettle with snow. When the snow melted, he boiled some of the old moose and squirrel meat, and he wrapped up what other meat the brothers had managed to save from the mice. He stirred in the flour and boiled it all some more. At the end, Batiste dropped in a whole dead mouse he’d found. Chickadee just kept the bouyah kettle boiling. At last, Batiste took a spoonful and declared the stew was finished.

  There were two bowls and two spoons. The brothers divided up the bouyah into the bowls, used the spoons, and left Chickadee to scrape the leavings from the pot with a stick. As he sat on the icy dirt floor of the miserable cabin, eating the awful stuff that kept life in the sons of Zhigaag, several thoughts came to Chickadee.

  Bezhig (one), the mice tails weren’t so bad, but the feet were hard to chew.

  Niizh (two), he would do exactly as the brothers said.

  Niswi (three), he would pretend that he enjoyed being their servant. That way, they would let down their guard so he could escape.

  Niiwin (four), he would figure out where to escape to. Outside, everything looked the same. Miles and miles of empty, snowy, plains. There were no landmarks. Nothing but the same horizon all around. Snow would quickly fill in the tracks they had left. He would have to be clever.

  Naanan (five), he would take care to avoid their fists and feet. And he would not think of Makoons, of Zozie, of his mother or father, until all was dark and the bouyah-stuffed brothers could not see his tears.

  Night came soon enough. Although the brothers argued about whether a servant was allowed to sleep near the masters or out with the horses, they ended up giving him one blanket and allowing him to curl up beside the stove so that he could be all the quicker to make their breakfast.

  “You will rise at dawn,” said Batiste, “while we are still enjoying our sleeps. You will make our breakfast bouyah.”

  “How shall I make that?” asked Chickadee.

  Babiche raised his fist.

  “Same as the dinner bouyah?” asked Chickadee quickly.

  “Of course, you scrap of stinking hide,” said Babiche.

  Batiste began to sing again.

  Bouyah, bouyah!

  The way to start the day!

  If your stew is full of hair,

  Just spit it out and swear!

  If your stew smells like your feet,

  There’s more of it to eat!

  The worse it gives you gas,

  The better you run fast!

  White people say it’s muck,

  But it brings the Michifs luck!

  Bouyah!

  “You are funny, my brother,” Babiche said, weeping with pleasure.

  In the dark, curled in his blanket, Chickadee mouthed the words that he realized would be repeated at least twenty times each day. If he ever got back to Makoons, he would never, ever say those words, You are funny, my brother. Thinking about Makoons led to nothing but tears and Chickadee could feel them breaking from inside of him even as the huge brothers, falling into their sleep, began a soft snoring that deepened and then widened into an avalanche of noise.

  NINE

  INTO THE PLAINS

  As Omakayas trudged along, following the trail that Deydey, Animikiins, and then Two Strike had made, she realized that if they kept going west they would be leaving the shelter and safety of the woods and hills. They would travel out of the trees and rolling prairie into the broad, flat plains. Animikiins had been there on buffalo hunts, but she never had. It frightened her to think that Chickadee was out there, somewhere, in such unfamiliar territory. Fishtail scouted for the little party. Angeline, Yellow Kettle, and Zozie made sure that the dogs pulled along their packs, and gave Nokomis a ride when her legs tired. Omakayas kept Makoons near her at all times. She could hardly bear to let him out of her sight.

  On and on the family walked. Nokomis made her way along slowly with her walking stick, holding Zozie’s shoulder. The dogs were fitted with harnesses, and they carried the kettles and extra clothing and rolls of bark for shelter. They also carried the big packs of furs that the family would sell in Pembina. Father Genin had decided to go to Pembina, where he was supposed to meet up with another priest who was starting a school. Father Genin had promised to find Omakayas’s brother, the twins’ Uncle Quill. He would put out the word that the Zhigaag brothers had stolen Chickadee.

  Someone in that big town was sure to know where those brothers lived.

  As they walked along, the air got warmer, the sky darker, the clouds lower, and bits of snow began to swirl dizzily around them.

  “There is a spring snowstorm coming,” said Nokomis. “I can feel it all through my bones.”

  “Let’s make camp,” said Omakayas. Although a spring blizzard would melt away quickly, it would be dangerous while it lasted. Sometimes, on the Plains, these fast-moving snowstorms even occurred in the beginning of summer. Omakayas had heard about their force, and now she was to experience it.

  The trees had grown scarce, and the hills were only mild bumps. They picked the best shelter they could find and set up the birchbark house. Zozie and Omakayas worked quickly and made the bark secure with straps of twine. They heaped snow against the sides for insulation. Nokomis went inside to start the fire.

  The snow stopped for a moment, and then the storm hit with a huge blast of wind. The cruel gust took the entire house into the air. Off it went, sailing into the snowy nothingness, tumbling over the icy ground, bouncing off the hard drifts with nothing to stop it.

  This was the last time the family would ever make a house of birchbark. Their house blew away, and they never saw it again. Such houses were for the woods. They were now people of the Great Plains. But they hadn’t learned yet how to live there.

  And there was Nokomis, striker in her hand, nursing a tiny circle of flame that immediately went out.

  “Get into the fur packs!” shouted Omakayas.

  Each pack of furs was bundled tightly with sinew, but by pulling out the middle furs each one of them could wiggle in. Nokomis and Makoons got in first. The snow began to drive against them, but Omakayas and Zozie tied the packs together before they got in themselves. The dogs curled near, hiding their noses in the warm curls of their tails. All together, in a heap, the family waited out the storm.

  Ahead of them, on the banks of the Red River where the snow was deep, Two Strike and Animikiins had caught up with Mikwam. Together, the three made a snow cave and curled up in their blankets to sleep there.

  TEN

  TWO STRIKE’S KNIVES

  The snow had lightly dusted the cabin of Babiche and Batiste before gathering force and moving eastward to bury Chickadee’s family. Exhausted from his second day as a servant, his stomach aching from another day of bouyah, Chickadee fell asleep. He slept so hard that he didn’t hear the mail carrier arrive from St. Paul.

  The man, Orph Carter, had ridden through the storm, knowing that to stop was death. His horse had gone this route before and was now munching from a pile of dried slough grass in the shanty with the two brown horses. Orph crawled into the cabin with the mail sacks and unrolled his blanket. Soon his snores joined forces with the roaring rapids of snores from th
e brothers. All that sleep noise became a mighty cataract. Chickadee slept right through it.

  At first light, while the men were still sleeping, Chickadee crept out of his covers and noticed that there was another lump of blankets in the cabin. He kindled the fire from the banked ashes, and added buffalo chips. Because there was another lump on the floor, which he assumed was a person, Chickadee added an extra big chunk of moldy old meat to the kettle, and slipped out for an extra dollop of snow. As the bouyah slowly warmed, he stirred in the flour. There were also plenty of mice droppings from the night before. No matter how tightly Chickadee put the lid on the kettle, mice somehow got into the stew pot. He was already used to the musty taste.

  As the stew heated up, the cabin air filled with the unsavory steam so beloved by the Zhigaag brothers.

  “Ah,” said Babiche, stirring and yawning, “how good it is to have a servant!”

  “Awee,” said Batiste, “he creates a good bouyah, this boy. He makes bouyah like our mother used to make!”

  The brothers paused and made the sign of the cross and kissed their lips.

  “Mon dieu!” they cried. “This boy was well worth stealing.”

  “Stealing?” Orph Carter had awakened. “You stole him?”

  “Har, har, har,” said Babiche. “We stole this boy from the family of Mikwam, Ice, and the hunter Animikiins, whose wife is Omakayas and whose brother is Quill. She has a sister, Angeline, whose husband is Fishtail. They have a grandmother with them and they sometimes travel with a strange woman called Two Strike.”

  “Two Strike?”

  Orph Carter jumped out of his blankets.

  “Have some bouyah,” said Batiste, spooning a glop of the stuff onto a slab of wood and passing it to Orph.

  “Are you fellows crazy?”

  “You would be the crazy one,” said Babiche, “if you passed up this delicious stew.”

  Orph pushed away the plank.