Salt Page 2
and starts talking fast—not sure what they’re saying, but it looks
like Anikwa would push Isaac back in the river if Kwaahkwa didn’t
stop him. Anikwa takes off his moccasins, squeezes out the water, and
puts them back on, glaring at Isaac the whole time. He walks away with
Kwaahkwa, glancing at the river where the dead frog floats downstream.
Isaac shakes himself like a dog trying to get dry. See? he says to me.
That boy just attacked me for no reason! I told you they’re not on our side.
SALT’S LONG, SLOW JOURNEY
The earth lifts and tilts.
Water flows
from high ground
to low, around
and under rock.
Salt carried by water
moves through sand.
Salt and sand
through time,
pressed into stone.
ANIKWA
Seven raccoon,
one fox, four otter, sixteen beaver,
two deer. Their meat has fed us; now Father
counts the pelts he’ll trade. Grandma has
a basket of maple sugar. Toontwa
has a rabbit skin and I have
two skunk pelts.
Mink made three extra
pairs of moccasins to trade. Now
we’re ready. We start down the trail, talking
about what we need: a pair of socks, a ball of twine,
a new blade for the ax. A copper cooking pot. Needles, thread.
Cotton cloth. Red, blue, and yellow ribbons. Salt? asks Mink.
Father scowls and says, When I was a boy, we walked
to the salt licks, or our Shawnee friends brought
salt when they came to visit. I don’t like
to buy it from the traders.
Mink is quiet.
We have to have salt—
without it, we get sick when we work
in the hot sun. But she understands. We’ll get salt
next time, she says. A blackbird flies past.
Aya, niihka, I say. Hello, friend.
JAMES
Anikwa comes up the trail with his family. I haven’t seen him since Isaac
killed the bullfrog—is he mad? At me? Hello, I say. He answers, Aya … niihka.
He names the pelts he’s carrying. Paapankamwa (fox). Amehkwa (beaver).
And others—too many words to remember. I carry a basket for his grandma,
and she smiles and calls me myaamiinse—that means “Miami child.” This basket
is full of maple sugar, and she always has a little extra. While they’re trading,
Anikwa plays a tune on a willow whistle. Could I make one? I point to the whistle
and take out my knife. We go find a willow tree, and Anikwa shows me how
to cut a stick at an angle, make a notch through the bark, and tap the stick all over
so the bark comes loose and slips right off. After I slice off a piece of wood
to make a mouthpiece, he helps me cut another notch and slide the bark back on.
I put the whistle to my mouth and blow—it works! The sound it makes is lower
than Anikwa’s. He plays fast, and I play slow; soft, loud, then soft again.
We sound so good, two yellow birds stop to listen and sing along with us.
ANIKWA
When we
walk into the trading post
playing our whistles, they’ve finished
with their trading. Grandma saved
some maple sugar, and gives
us each a big piece
(a tiny piece
for baby Molly). James’s father
gives us each a stick of licorice candy—
it tastes like flowers and honey mixed together,
and I suck on mine as we start home. So does Toontwa.
But Rain Bird puts hers in her pocket without even tasting it!
She’s never done that before. What’s wrong with her?
Mink glances a quick question at Grandma,
who raises her eyebrows for a second
as they both look at my sister.
A quiet smile crosses
Rain Bird’s face,
like a bird
landing on a branch,
then flying off again. I notice something
for the first time—some people might think Rain Bird
has a pretty face. This smile makes her
look older.
JAMES
Ma gives Molly a hard crust to chew—she has two new teeth, ready
to pop through. Play with her, will you, James? She’s so fussy, you’re
the only one who can make her smile. I let her pull my hair—she likes that,
but the trouble is, she’s getting stronger and it hurts! I wiggle my toes
in the new moccasins Ma got for me today—she knits wool socks to trade
for moccasins Mink makes. They’ve done that all my life. Ma says to Pa,
The trading seemed fair today. He doesn’t answer right away. Yes, he finally
says. Then: The President and Governor have asked me to try to sell more goods
to the Miami than they can afford, to deliberately get them into debt. Ma says,
We don’t go into debt ourselves. It would be wrong to encourage others to do so.
Pa explains, We’d get paid next time they sign a treaty. If they sell some
of their land, the government will pay off their debt as part of the agreement.
At first it sounds fair, but then I think about it more. If they sell their land,
where will they hunt and pick berries and plant corn? Where will they live?
ANIKWA
I figured out why
Rain Bird hid her licorice candy.
We’re all playing tossball when I notice
Kwaahkwa’s mouth is stained black,
different from makiinkweemina
stains. Rain Bird gave
her licorice
to Kwaahkwa! Why would
she do that? I try to act like I don’t
notice, but Toontwa sees it too, and he can’t
swallow his laughter. I toss the ball to him to make him stop
laughing long enough to hold it up and decide where to toss it next.
Miililo, Kwaahkwa shouts. Give it to me! Toontwa forgets about
the licorice and throws the ball to Kwaahkwa—happy
because Kwaahkwa noticed him. Kwaahkwa’s
happy too, because Rain Bird is watching
when he makes a goal—she
has that same smile
on her face.
When the game is over,
we gather round the fire to eat:
roasted raccoon, hot corn, beaver soup.
Fireflies light up the edge
of the dark forest.
JAMES
Wish Molly would hurry up and get big so she could help
find moss to plug the cracks between the logs. Gotta do it,
or the wind will blow right through our walls. Ma never stops
fretting about winter, even now when we’re all sweating
in the summer sun. We’ve never yet frozen to death—I doubt
it will happen this year. But Ma handed me a sack and said,
See if you can fill it, so here I am, lifting moss from rocks, shaking
off the sticks and spiders. When I look up, a mother deer with two
fawns is watching me—one of them has a white patch on its leg.
Now here come two bucks. They all stand there together, trying
to make me lonesome. When they turn and walk away, I could follow
to see where they go. I could tell Pa where they are so he could go out
and get one. He’d be happy; the meat would taste good. But those little
ones … naw. My moss sack is full. I go home and help Ma stuff the cracks.
; ANIKWA
We’re down by the river,
cutting cattails to make walls for the longhouse.
Toontwa calls us over: Look, he says, fresh tracks in the mud.
One set of big tracks, two sets of small ones—
a mother black bear and her cubs
came here to drink, early
this morning,
and we don’t want
to surprise them or disturb them.
Grandma speaks quietly, in case they’re nearby:
We’ll go home on the other trail, and come back later. We’ve
been here all afternoon, and now we spread the cattails in the sun.
We should have enough to sew together into three more mats,
to cover the frame we’re working on. We’ve cut saplings,
dug holes to set them in the ground. Next, we’ll tie
the frame together. We’ll finish this longhouse
before the geese fly south. When it’s cold,
the cattail walls will keep out
wind and snow.
Our fire will keep us warm
inside while we tell winter stories. Today,
these cattails spread out on the ground make me think
of winter. In winter, the longhouse will
remind me of this summer day.
JAMES
Isaac comes to the door. Let’s go do something. Not sure I want to—
doing things with Isaac usually leads to trouble. But we head out,
walking by the river. He finds some cattails and whacks them on a tree
to make the brown parts burst. All the fluff goes flying—looks like fun.
Let me try that, I say. Where’d you get those? Then I see: cattail reeds are
laid out on the ground beside the long green leaves, drying in the sun.
Isaac grabs as many reeds as he can hold. Leave them alone, I say. People
put these here—they’ll be back to get them. But Isaac never listens to me.
He keeps busting up the cattails’ fluffy parts and walking on the reeds,
leaving muddy boot prints all over them. Then he stomps across all the
animal tracks so I can’t see what animals have been here. Hey, look! he says,
pointing. A hornet nest! Before I can stop him, he whacks it with a stick—
the hornets come raging out, and we run off. I get stung six times! Isaac:
not once. I’m hollering in pain. He’s laughing his head off—just like usual.
ANIKWA
Four men
went out looking for
the black bears—they followed
the tracks around a bend
in the river, then
farther, until,
two hours
from Kekionga, they saw
where the tracks crossed a shallow place
to the other side. Even though they didn’t find the bears,
now we know it’s safe to go back for our cattails. They should be
lighter, easier to carry home, after drying out here in the sun all day.
The weather’s good: warm, but not too hot, no rain, not many
flies or mosquitoes. Black and orange butterflies
all around us, like flying flowers,
and others, deep purple-
blue, the color
of the
sky
on a half-moon night.
Here’s where we left the cattails.
What? Who did this? Why are all these hornets
flying everywhere, so lost
and angry?
JAMES
What happened to your face? Ma asks. Don’t want her to know about the cattails.
Hornet nest, I say—maybe that’ll be enough. But she keeps asking questions
until she figures out what happened. Like I expect, she says, You’ll have to
go back and cut new cattails. Then: I’ll go with you. As we walk, Molly laughs
at the butterflies fluttering around her, the wind blowing through her hair.
Could’ve been a good time. No hornets—no Isaac. But when we get to where
the cattails are, Anikwa is already there with his family, studying the tracks
around the broken reeds. My moccasins and Isaac’s boots—the same size.
They look at my feet. Do they notice that it’s Isaac’s muddy tracks, not mine,
that ruined all their cattails? Anikwa’s grandma looks at me like she can
see my thoughts. She searches around, picks some plants, takes my face
in her hands, and presses leaves on all the hornet stings—cool on my hot skin.
I don’t look at her. (Sometimes I’m glad she can’t talk English.) I watch
to see what Anikwa does—then take out my knife and start cutting cattails.
SALT CRYSTALS SHINE
Sunlight travels
through the sky
as water flows
within the earth
dissolving salt,
carrying it on.
When salty water
surfaces to light,
salt crystals shine,
a jeweled ring
around this shallow
pool of brine.
ANIKWA
The longhouse
is finished. Now we’re helping
Kwaahkwa’s family put the roof on their log
house, and stuff the cracks with moss.
Soon it will be time to bring in
our corn and dry it
for the winter.
If we dry enough corn
and fish and meat; if snow doesn’t
come too soon, or last too long; if no one
gets sick this year—maybe we will all survive until
next summer. Today lots of friends and relatives from
other villages are coming. We’ll have games—
lacrosse and tossball—food and music,
stories, dancing. Come on, Toontwa,
let’s get plenty of firewood,
so the fire will last
all night long.
This time,
he comes running,
glad to help, because he knows
the longer we keep the fire burning, the more
time we’ll have with our friends
and cousins.
JAMES
I have my snares in my pocket, and I know exactly where to set them.
I’m heading out the door, when Ma says, Wait a minute, James. What?
She’s always glad to see me snare some rabbits. She likes rabbit meat,
and she needs a few more skins to make a coat and hat for Molly.
She hesitates. Maybe you should stay inside the stockade today, she says.
But, Ma, I argue, there’s no rabbits inside the stockade! She frowns.
Well, something’s been eating my cabbages. See what you catch in my garden.
I tried that already. Everyone knows, rabbits like to stay on their trails.
Yesterday, one hopped down the river trail and looked right at me,
like a challenge. I won’t go far, I say. I promise! She’s thinking about it.
I’ll pick some blackberries, I add. All right, she finally says. But don’t go
farther than the berry patch. And … let me know if you see anything unusual.
I’m out the door, through the stockade gate, and halfway to the trail
before I stop to wonder what Ma means by “anything unusual.”
ANIKWA
Kwaahkwa is our
best lacrosse player, but he sure
likes to tease the little kids. Toontwa, he says,
you call that a stick? That little twig
with an acorn on the end?
Toontwa is proud
of his stick.
He worked hard
on it, and I helped him.
What do you expect? I say. He’s only
six years old. Toontwa stand
s beside me, trying
to make himself look bigger, and Kwaahkwa smiles.
Let me have a look, he says, reaching for the stick.
He tightens a few knots, and gives it back,
then tosses the ball to Toontwa, who
scoops it up and throws it back to
Kwaahkwa. Toontwa won’t
play in the men’s
game tonight,
but we’re all having fun
before the big game starts. Miililo! I call,
holding up my stick. I get the ball and throw it toward
Toontwa. He runs for it and looks up to catch
Kwaahkwa’s smile.
JAMES
Before I set my snares, I look for pawpaws. Should be almost ripe.
Yes—here’s the tree I found last year. Even more fruit this year.
I go check the bluebird nest. Good—all four babies, still alive in there.
Five or six more days, they’ll leave the nest—hope I get to see that.
I come to the oak tree that fell in the river, half in, half out of the water.
Ducks and geese swim past. A pair of herons lifts out of a treetop.
I sit on the dry end of the log, staying still so I don’t scare the turtles
when they climb out on the log’s other end: two … four … five … seven.
A family of raccoons was here this morning, Anikwa’s tracks mixed in
with theirs. His tracks are like mine because Mink makes the same
kind of moccasins for him as she makes to trade with Ma. I follow his
tracks—going toward that hole we saw. Don’t want to get too close,
so I climb a tree to look down into it. Empty. From up here, I can see
the berry bush. Anikwa’s there, with Toontwa—do they see me up here?
ANIKWA
Aya, James calls out
as he climbs down from the tree.
He saw me before I had a chance to trick him
into thinking I’m a crow, but I make
a crow call on my whistle
anyway, and then I
show him
how to do it.
Looks like he’s come out
to try to snare some rabbits. I point
to a pile of rabbit droppings in the middle of the trail.