“I’d rather eat boiled mice,” he said.
“All right,” said Batiste, bending over the stew pot, “I’ll dig around and get some for you.”
“Two Strike? You have stolen some boy from Two Strike? She’ll gut you like a fish when she finds out.”
“Har?” said Babiche.
“She will lay in wait for you with two knives between her teeth, two knives in her hands, a knife in her hat, knives in her socks. For all I know, that woman carries a knife in her britches too. Those knives will flash out and cut you to ribbons before you can say—”
“More bouyah,” said Batiste. “What are you two talking about?”
“A savage and frightening woman,” said Babiche, but he was not worried. “She sounds like just the woman for us, my brother! Har!”
“I’m getting out of here,” said Orph. “Take the mail sack. I’m going out to saddle up Sylvia. Poor Sylvia. I’d hoped to get her more rest. But I don’t want to be here when Two Strike comes after this boy.”
Babiche and Batiste spooned their stew hastily into their mouths, tossed down the bowls and spoons to be licked clean by mice, and picked up the sacks of mail.
“We’ll ride out too,” said Babiche, “not because we are afraid of this Two Strike, but because we have taken a blood oath pledge to deliver this precious mail.”
As he bolted out the door, Orph pointed at Chickadee.
“And what about him?”
“We’ll pop him in a mail sack and take him along,” said Batiste.
“Oh, no,” groaned Chickadee. “Not the mail sack again.”
Batiste raised his fist.
Orph Carter cried out: “Do. Not. Strike. Him.”
Orph leaped onto his horse, and shouted as he wheeled to gallop south. “Don’t you fellows know why she’s got the name Two Strike?”
Orph kept yelling the reason, and they might have learned it, too, but as he galloped away in delirious haste, his voice was cut off by wind.
“I’ll climb into the mail sack myself,” said Chickadee, bolder now that he knew the brothers would not punch him. “It would be better if you left me here, though. That way, when Two Strike tracks me down, you won’t be here. There will just be me. I promise I will tell her that you treated me well!”
The two brothers looked at each other. Then Babiche shrugged. Batiste shuffled his feet around in the snow.
“We would actually like to meet this ferocious female,” said Batiste, “and the fact is … you tell him, Babiche.”
“The fact is,” said Babiche with a deep, heartfelt sigh, “although it has been a short time, our affections, they grow quick! We have actually begun to like you. Once we like a person we can never part with him! Har! Har! Awee!”
“We feel this way about few things,” said Batiste, stuffing Chickadee gently down into the mail sack. “Liking leads to love. Our horses, Brownie and Brownie, we love them with all the passion in our souls. And each other of course, we love. We do not like our father, but we will forever love our mother, the miraculous saint!”
“The saint!”
The last sight Chickadee saw that day was the brothers making the cross over their chests, and kissing their fingers, just the way they did the first time they mentioned their mother.
Maybe it is sign language for mother, thought Chickadee. But the black robe priest made that sign too. Of course, priests have mothers.... I wonder if their mothers wear black robes too....
With the mail sack shut, the darkness, and Babiche’s woolly vest cradling him again, Chickadee became drowsy.
The horses had stopped. Chickadee was gently lowered to the ground in the mail sack. Babiche let him out.
“There is trouble, my little servant friend,” said Babiche. “Look.”
On the winter-grassy ground still littered with bits of snow, lay Batiste. He was moaning incoherently, clutching his stomach.
“I blame myself,” said Babiche. “Last night, while you were sleeping, we took out a bottle of rotgut whiskey. Batiste is very sensitive. Now his gut is rotting. Terrible!”
There were tears in Babiche’s eyes.
“And just as bad, Brownie and Brownie!”
Chickadee noticed that the two horses were panting strangely, foaming at the mouth, and their heads were hanging low.
“There must have been some jimsonweed in their hay. It makes them loco-crazy. We must go on somehow,” said Babiche. “The mail must be delivered! Can you carry this sack?”
Chickadee tried to pick it up, but he couldn’t budge it.
“Can you carry Batiste?”
Chickadee tried to pick up Batiste, but he couldn’t even manage to hold up one of his heavy tree legs.
“Can you lead the horses?”
Chickadee took the reins.
Babiche looked wildly from his brother, to the heavy mail sack, and back to his brother again. He groaned as if he lay beneath a terrible weight.
“Which to choose? Do I carry my brother? Do I carry the mail? Even with my vast strength, I cannot carry both!”
The horses seemed drunk, rolled their eyes, neighed sadly and softly, spat up green saliva.
“Please tell me what to do, little servant friend,” said Babiche. “Do I carry the mail, which my blood oath compels me to deliver, or do I carry my brother, whom I love beyond all things except my sainted mother, the horses, and now, perhaps you?”
Babiche crossed his chest and kissed his fingers with tragic desperation.
“What would you do?” Babiche asked, his eyes filling with tears.
“I would carry my brother first, then lay him down and go back for the mail. Then repeat. Over and over until you get there. Meanwhile, I would send my servant back to the barn with the sick horses.”
“Not only are you a master cook,” said Babiche, “but you are wise. We will follow your plan.”
So Babiche hoisted his heavy brother onto his back and staggered forward, leaving the mail in its sack on the ground. Chickadee tugged the reins and the addled horses followed him.
“Au revoir!” called Babiche.
“Gigawaabamin!” cried Chickadee.
They began to walk in opposite directions.
ELEVEN
RIVER BREAK
Omakayas woke in silence and poked her head out of the pack of furs. The wind and snow had stopped. It was near dawn, the stars were out, and the air was warm. Omakayas took a pinch of tobacco from the pouch at her waist and put it on the ground.
“Miigwech,” she said to the Southern Thunderbirds. A southern wind had blown the snow away. There was the scent of spring in the air. The family huddled together, relieved. In her heart, Omakayas said a desperate prayer, begging the Creator to keep Chickadee safe.
From a low bush nearby, she heard the soft call of a chickadee, and she smiled in hope. Omakayas and Nokomis built a fire to boil some tea and warm their stomachs. They ate some dried meat flavored with maple sugar. Before dawn, they hitched up their dogs and started walking. They went toward the Red River, for when they reached it they would follow it north, toward Pembina. But in the blizzard, they had lost the trail.
Mikwam, Two Strike, and Animikiins woke in their cave of snow to the noise of dripping water. They had hollowed out their snow cave in the roots of a great tree on the banks of the Red River. It was a cave that led farther back into the earth, but the back wall was a heavy mat of dirt, leaves, and sticks.
As the three of them oriented themselves to the light, there was suddenly a great cracking crash behind them. With a gust of odorous steam, a huge bear scrambled and squeezed by them. The bear liberated itself so suddenly from its den, and was so surprised by its visitors, that in a moment it was gone and the three humans were blinking their eyes and rearranging themselves. Two Strike was out the entrance in a flash, but instead of following the bear, she stood rooted to the riverbank.
Before them, they could see the ice was starting to break up. From their den deep in snow, earth, and roots, they hadn’t
realized the ice had already begun to jam and melt. Already, the river was too dangerous to cross.
There was no trail for them to follow. They would have to meet the others in Pembina.
“Nevertheless, we will find that boy,” Two Strike said to the river. She hit Animikiins across the shoulders. It was her way of comforting him.
Animikiins climbed to the top of the bank. His face was still. He scanned the horizon to all sides, then he reached into his pouch and put a pinch of tobacco on the ground. He prayed to the spirits, the aadizookaanag.
“Please help us find Chickadee.”
TWELVE
THE STRANGE FAMILY
Chickadee made his way along the tips of melting snowdrifts and the edges of mush sloughs. As he walked along, he argued with himself.
“Am I the servant of Babiche and Batiste, or am I their little friend? Babiche gave me the horses to bring safely back to their barn. However, I was stolen. I am lonesome. I want to go home.”
Chickadee turned around and asked Brownie and Brownie.
“Must I be loyal to the brothers who stole me?”
The horses pawed the ground and drooled. They gave Chickadee unfocused, dreamy stares, then bent their heads down and ate some winter grass sticking up out of the snow. Chickadee let them eat. The grass was probably good medicine for them.
“No,” decided Chickadee.
He tugged the horses along, and as he walked he spoke aloud.
“My mother cries for me, my brother is lonely for me, my sister Zozie sighs. My father holds my mother’s hands in his and prays for my return. My Nokomis wipes her old eyes.”
Imagining all of the grief his family felt put him in a desperate mood, and tears of frustration filled his eyes. He stopped in the trackless, featureless, sky-filled, and windy world.
“I must go to them,” he said. “The only way I know to get to them is find the river, and then follow it north.”
Once he had made a decision, Chickadee felt better. He began to trudge along in the direction of the river. The horses, sensing that he had a destination in mind, seemed to regain their senses. They followed with an eager gait and stopped spitting foam. Chickadee didn’t have to coax them along. They walked for several hours. Chickadee got hungry, then hungrier, and at last so hungry that he longed for the bottom of that pot of bouyah. He imagined the stick he’d used to scrape the crud on the bottom into his mouth.
“If only there were something to eat,” he said to the horses. But there wasn’t anything to eat. Just streaks of old snow and winter grass sticking up in tufts or crushed down in soft packs. A rabbit might be good, but he had no jack-pine root or any sort of twine to snare one. When he got to the river, perhaps he could catch a fish—if he could make a fish trap. There was a small flint and striker in the pouch at his waist.
The river seemed his best bet. But would he ever reach it? Or would he starve first, he wondered.
Suddenly, there it was. But it wasn’t the frozen bridge it had been when the brothers had crossed in the night. It was swollen, gray, swift, and lethally cold. The ice had gone out, shattering trees in its violent passage, and making the river impassable all along its route.
For a long time, Chickadee stood with the horses. He watched the roiling gray water as it churned frozen slabs of ice along in its rapid flow. They lowered their heads and munched grass. Chickadee put a few pieces of grass in his mouth, just for the taste.
Discouraged, Chickadee walked along the banks, then away from the river. It was rising so fast he was afraid that he and the Brownies could be swept in. As he walked, Chickadee moved slower and slower. He was weak and tired. He turned to Brownie and Brownie.
“You’re going to have to give me a ride. First you, Brownie, then you, Brownie. One after the next. I am too weak to keep on walking.”
With his last bit of strength, Chickadee climbed on top of one of the Brownies. He tied the reins of the other Brownie to his saddle, then leaned forward, tangled his fists in the horse’s mane, and lay his head down on its neck.
Chickadee didn’t sleep, he was just very weak. He tried to steer Brownie toward the river, but of course when a horse is left to its own devices it will go back to the safety of its barn. So late that day, in spite of his decision to escape the brothers, Chickadee found himself back at their cabin.
“Oh, yai!”
He was disappointed, but he slipped off Brownie and took off both horses’ saddles. The brothers had roughly fenced in an area beside the shanty of a barn. There was enough old grass in for the horses to browse. The horses nickered and snorted. They pawed up clumps of grass from the snow. They seemed happy enough.
“Now for me,” said Chickadee. “Let’s see what the mice have left.”
He went into the stinking cabin and began to rummage around among the tins and sacks where the brothers kept their food. Everything was gone, it seemed, cleaned right out. There was only a bit of flour in the bottom of a sack. Even the mice were gone. They were finding more food outside of the cabin, now, than inside. Chickadee continued looking. Finally, at the bottom of a metal box, he found two things—a striker and fire-steel, which might come in handy so he put them in the pouch that hung from his belt. He found a ball of twine, handy also, and a tiny ball of pemmican—a mixture of pounded meat, berries, and fat. Food! He shouted with joy. It was surely old and slightly rancid, but he went outside and ate it, leaning against the pole walls in the fading sun. He listened to the wind boom around him, and drank from a bowl of melted snow.
He ate slowly, appreciating every stale nibble. It wasn’t much. But his stomach stopped aching and his body grew warm in the sunshine, and comfortable. To the north, a small speck appeared on the horizon. He watched as it enlarged, wavering, and slowly came into focus.
The thing was a wagon drawn by an ox. There was a driver up front, dressed in black robes, a priest. In back there were a number of huge gray creatures that resembled birds. Chickadee had heard that the white people had some animals the Anishinabeg had never seen before. He had seen a pig, a gookoosh. He had never seen the baka’akwen, the chicken. He had heard that they had an animal with a long gray snout with feet like boulders and enormous ear flaps. He had heard of the long-necked one, spotted, that could see over the tops of trees. His grandfather had once been to a city, and had seen these animals in iron houses like big traps.
Could this be one of these new animals?
Chickadee moved cautiously around the side of the house, and decided not to give himself away. The only place he could find to hide was the stack of slough grass. So he climbed to the top and lifted up a heavy mat of hay and slipped underneath. He had placed himself exactly where he could see all that went on when the wagon pulled into the yard.
Peeping out from under the hay, Chickadee saw immediately that he had been wrong about the creature. The gray wings were pieces of cloth, long stiff veils. They surrounded the faces of six white women, who also wore long cloaks of gray. Their hands were encased in gray mittens, and their feet were dainty in black lace-up boots. When the wagon stopped, they hopped down from the back. There was a small black dog with them, a serious-looking dog who jumped down to scout the area as if to make sure it was safe. At once, he barked at Brownie and Brownie, and trotted back and forth between the women and the horses as if to make sure they knew there was danger near.
Chattering like squirrels, the women in strange gray dresses went to investigate the cabin. Each ventured in and came out quickly, waving the air away from her nose.
The black robe, who wore a flat black hat and had a rosy face and twinkling blue eyes, laughed.
“We’d best be on our way,” he said. “Come along, Sisters.”
So, thought Chickadee, these were the black robe’s six sisters. This was a family—an odd family who dressed much differently than most, but probably harmless. Still, he decided to remain hidden. And if not for the little black dog, he probably would have gone unnoticed.
The black dog started b
arking. Worse, it threw itself against the haystack. Chickadee could feel the vibrations every time it smacked into the hay below. The little dog was determined to tell its family that there was someone in the haystack. Some animal, they thought.
“Gertrude probably smells a rat,” said one of the Sisters.
“Come, Gertrude. Here, Gertrude!”
But the dog barked even more urgently, threw itself madly, insistently, until it caused the hay to tremble and slide. Chickadee had to adjust his weight.
“I saw something move,” said the priest. “If it was a rat, it was enormous.”
“Come, Gertrude!”
The Sisters called the dog to them in alarm. They did not want to see an enormous rat and wanted to leave the stinking cabin and the haystack well behind them. All of the Sisters, that is, except the youngest and most curious one.
She was small, and a brown curl the same color as the Brownies coat peeked under the gray contraption on her head.
“I’ll get Gertrude, and find out what she’s so excited about. I’m not afraid of a rat, no matter how big!”
“Sister Seraphica! Please!”
But Seraphica picked her way through the muddy snow and straw of the Zhigaag brothers’ yard until she reached the dog.
“Gertrude, what is it?” she said in her gentle voice.
The dog went wild, hopping high and smashing its little body against the hay.
Seraphica laughed and stood on tiptoe. She peered up into the stack of grass and looked straight into Chickadee’s eyes.
“It’s not a rat,” she called. “It’s a … boy, I think!”
The priest came running.
“Look, Father,” she pointed.
Chickadee tried to sink into the hay, but he had hunkered down as far as he could.
“I can’t see anything,” said the priest.
“If it is a boy, then he’s hungry,” said Seraphica. Her face was round and sweet. She had green eyes with long black eyelashes, and a small round nose. Her mouth was generous and her smile was wide and full.