Salt Page 3
Waapanswa, I say, and he repeats, Waapanswa, smiling because
he’s learned another word. But then, not far down the trail,
he points to raccoon droppings and says, Waapanswa.
Now, that’s funny. I put my hands on my head
to look like rabbit ears, and say again:
Waapanswa. James grins. Oh,
you mean “rabbit”!
He hops
down the trail to show he knows
what waapanswa means. We start laughing.
Then we look up and there’s a man I’ve never seen before,
standing in the shadow of a tree,
watching us.
JAMES
Who is this man? If he was from Kekionga, Anikwa would know him, and
I would’ve seen him in the trading post. When he sees us looking at him,
he turns and walks away. I stand here with Anikwa and Toontwa—not
laughing anymore. We follow the trail to where it curves around the pond.
I pick up a flat stone and toss it. One, two, three … four skips! I say, holding
up four fingers. Anikwa finds a stone and throws it, holding up one finger
for each skip. His stone sinks after three skips, but he holds up four fingers.
I shake my head: No, three! I say, holding up three fingers. He doesn’t
argue back; he picks up another stone and skips it five times—good ones, too,
you can see the ripples from each bounce. I try again, but I can’t get past four.
We head down the river trail. I set my last snare. Then Toontwa and Anikwa
walk toward Kekionga, and I head home, thinking about that man we saw.
Is this what Ma means by “unusual”? Naw. I have to come back tomorrow
to check my snares. What’s so unusual about someone standing by a tree?
ANIKWA
The person we saw
behind the tree has come to Kekionga. He’s
an Ottawa man, named Wedaase. We’ve eaten together,
and now we’re sitting by the fire playing music.
Father on his fiddle, Wedaase on a flute,
Kwaahkwa with the drummers.
Rain Bird and her friends
start dancing, and later, when the music
ends, Kwaahkwa’s father starts a conversation:
This war that’s coming could make those other wars look easy.
The Americans are marching from the east, the British from the north—
from what I hear, they’re in Detroit right now. The two armies could be here soon,
fighting each other—for our land. Father looks serious. Wedaase goes on,
The British will give guns and ammunition to anyone who helps
fight the Americans. A lot of warriors, from many places,
plan to join the British because after we defeat
the Americans, the British will leave this
part of the country for all the tribes
to share. Would there be
room here—for everyone? If the British win,
won’t they want to live here, too? No matter who wins,
the soldiers will be hungry when they’re fighting. They’ll take our food.
Grandma must be thinking the same thing. We should hide
our dried meat and corn, she says.
JAMES
Isaac’s ma comes to our house with Mrs. Graves and Mrs. Carlson.
Ma invites them in but gives them the same look she’s been giving Pa,
meaning, Don’t talk about it in front of the children. They lower their voices.
I go to the washbasin and act like I don’t even know they’re here,
scrubbing a spot of pine pitch off the back of my hand. Isaac’s ma says,
For heaven’s sake, Lydia, move into the fort until this is over. The stockade
might protect you from wild animals, but you need soldiers to protect you
from— Ma interrupts: We will stay in our own home. I have never been
afraid of any of our neighbors. I glance at the provisions we’ve stored up
for the winter. If there is a siege like Isaac said, how long will they last?
Mrs. Briggs spits out her next words: You’re brave now, but how brave
will you be when your house is burning? What if they capture James or Molly?
Ma picks Molly up and squeezes her, like she does when she gets mad
at me or Pa. But this time, it’s her lady friends she pushes out the door.
DEER COME TO THE SALT
Heart-shaped
tracks in soft mud
point to salty places
where deer come to lick
the earth. Something here
they need, something
they like. Heads down,
they lick and lick this
place that tastes
so good to them.
ANIKWA
Last winter
an ice storm coated each branch
of the trees by the river trail. Rain started
one evening and froze in the night,
bending tall trees to the ground.
Some branches broke—
they hang high
in the trees—and now the wind
is rising. I’m walking with Kwaahkwa,
not far from home. We hear a branch crash down.
Dangerous-sounding. Where is it? Then a sharp cry:
Watch out! A boy’s voice—is it James? Who’s with him?
He might be hunting deer with his father, or maybe
checking his snares. We walk toward the sound,
staying hidden, watching what lies ahead.
Over there—yes, it is James—Isaac
is with him, crying, his leg
pinned under a branch.
That boy is mean.
We don’t like him. But we can’t
leave them out here alone. I call out, Aya, niihka.
James answers, Aya, Anikwa! Isaac looks scared. Of us?
Don’t worry, James says to him, “Aya, niihka”
means “Hello, friend.”
JAMES
I’ve never been so glad to see Anikwa. Isaac is crying. I can’t lift the branch.
I don’t have a saw to cut it. Maybe Anikwa and Kwaahkwa can help us.
But what does Isaac do? He stops crying, pulls his knife out of its sheath,
holds it up, and starts yelling, Stay away! I’m warning you! I grab the knife
out of his hand. What are you doing? I ask him. Kwaahkwa and Anikwa
stop, step back, and watch. I can’t make Isaac stop talking. He whispers,
too loud, My ma and pa warned me not to talk to Indians. What if they try to
capture us? He struggles to lift the branch, gives up, and cries out in pain.
His pants are ripped, there’s a bruise on his leg, a bloody scratch on his face.
Isaac, I say, it will take too long to go to the fort for help. We’re closer to Kekionga.
These friends could help us lift the branch. From the look on his face, you’d think
I told him to crawl right into a bear’s den. Listen to me, I beg, don’t act like this.
I can’t lift the branch by myself. And I can’t leave you here all alone. He sniffles.
All right, he finally agrees. But when I look up, Anikwa and Kwaahkwa are gone.
ANIKWA
What would
he do if we got close enough
to help him? What will happen if we
leave them alone out here?
All the way back
to Kekionga
we talk
about what to do.
Leave him there, Kwaahkwa argues.
He deserves whatever happens. I’m not going back—
let him protect himself with his puny maalhseenhsi. I can’t help
laughing about how Isaac waved that knife around like he thought
&
nbsp; we were dangerous. Let’s sneak up behind him and growl,
I say. Kwaahkwa laughs. I growl at him,
and he pretends to be scared.
We’re almost home—
who’s behind us?
James calls out,
Aya, niihka.
I look at Kwaahkwa. We stop
and wait for James to catch up. He points
and motions for us to follow him back to Isaac, but Kwaahkwa
points to Kekionga. Moohci, he says. No.
You follow us.
JAMES
Kekionga smells good: smoke rising up from the houses, deer meat
roasting … and something else, maybe hot corn? Makes me hungry!
Old Raccoon comes out to meet us, and Kwaahkwa starts talking,
pointing—must be telling him what happened. Old Raccoon looks at me
long and hard. I’ll take you home, he says. (But … Isaac? We can’t leave
him stuck under that branch!) Old Raccoon says something that makes
Kwaahkwa mad. Then he switches to English and tells me, They’ll stay
with your friend. We’ll go get help. Wiinicia gives us each a handful
of corn, still warm, and a piece of hot deer meat. Anikwa and Kwaahkwa
start down the trail while Old Raccoon gets his horse. He boosts me up on it
and gets on behind me. We ride fast, but he takes the long trail that doesn’t
go past the fort—maybe he doesn’t want any soldiers to see us. He stops
outside the trading post. I get Pa, and explain everything as fast as I can.
Thank y— Pa starts to say, but Old Raccoon has already turned to go home.
ANIKWA
We have our
bows and arrows. If we see
a wolf or bobcat come close to Isaac, we know
what to do. Otherwise, we won’t
go near him. Does he even
know we’re here?
We stand
in the shadows watching.
Doesn’t he know he shouldn’t cry
like that when he’s out in the forest, hurt?
We have to stay here and make sure nothing happens
until James brings someone to help. I wish Isaac would keep
quiet—if the animals hear him, they’ll know he’s
injured. What’s that in the trees, moving
toward him? Coming closer—bobcat!
Big one. Kwaahkwa aims
and his arrow flies
straight past
Isaac,
hitting the bobcat
right above the eyes. It takes
a few steps back, then drops to the ground.
Isaac whips his head around—
what just happened?
JAMES
I tell Ma exactly where Isaac is. Then Pa grabs his saw, and we ride out
to Isaac, while Ma takes Molly and runs to the fort for his parents.
We bring a blanket, a clean white cloth for a bandage, a bottle of water.
When we reach him, Isaac’s face is streaked with dirt and tears, and he’s
gasping: They tried to shoot me! I saw them! He’s pointing at Kwaahkwa
and Anikwa, as they walk slowly into the woods. Watch out, Isaac yells,
they have bows and arrows! Bows at their sides, arrows on their backs.
Isaac—be quiet, I say. While Pa tries to calm him, I walk to meet Anikwa
and Kwaahkwa. They circle away from Isaac, into the forest behind him,
and Kwaahkwa pulls an arrow out of a dead bobcat’s head. I piece together
the story, and go back to tell Isaac. No, he insists, that big boy shot at me
and he missed! Pa shakes his head. Never mind, he says. Help me saw through
this branch. Easy now. Isaac’s parents arrive. What happened? they ask.
Isaac has a whole different story from mine—and they only listen to his.
THIS GAZE, THESE DEEP BROWN EYES
People follow deer
through the forest,
watching where they lick the ground.
The people scrape salt
into their hands, their baskets. They taste
the salt, bring it home.
Again and again, does and bucks and fawns,
porcupines and people,
meet at the salt place.
ANIKWA
Wedaase has been
to his home and back. He’s talked
to Shawnee, Potawatomi, Wyandot, and Ojibwe people,
and come to sit with us beside our fire again.
Father has said many times, We’ll do all
we can to keep this war away
from our home.
But Wedaase speaks six languages.
He has come a long distance, and everyone
listens with respect. Brothers and sisters, he says, it’s time
for us to choose sides. The Americans won’t stop until we stop them.
They’re determined to have all the land. Yours, ours—everyone’s. That much
is clear to anyone with eyes. If we join the British, and they help us win,
all our nations could live together on the land we still have.
Father is quiet for a long time. He looks around
the fire at everyone, sweeps his gaze
across the sky, over the trees,
to three cardinals,
bright red
against the sycamore’s white bark.
A chipmunk pokes its head up from a hole beside
a maple tree. Father rests his eyes on me. We want our children’s
children’s children, he says quietly, to grow old
in their own home.
JAMES
Is that cranes I hear? It makes no sense—it’s the middle of the morning,
and it sounds like five or six of them. They usually fly in at sunset.
I watch the sky for a long time and I don’t see any cranes come in,
but there it is again, same sound. Maybe Anikwa, mimicking again?
I climb a tree near the stockade gate and look around. Yes, there he is,
hands to his mouth, making crane calls. I play a blackbird song on my
whistle, and he looks up, like he’s trying to see if there are blackbirds
in this tree. When he sees me up here, I wave to him, jump down
and head for the gate to go say, Aya. But then Pa calls: James, I need your
help in the trading post. Strange thing, though—when I go to help him,
he can’t think of anything for me to do. No one’s here to trade. The floor
is clean. No spiderwebs to sweep away. Pa sees the question on my face
and says, I might get busy a little later on. Stay around in case I need you.
He wants me to stay inside the stockade, but he doesn’t want to say so.
ANIKWA
Toontwa
heard it, too—not
blackbirds, exactly, but someone
trying to sound like them.
I told him it was James,
and then we saw
James
wave his hand—he
was coming down to see us.
But he just disappeared—we didn’t
hear him whistling like blackbirds anymore;
he didn’t come out through the stockade gate, or
through the place we know, where a board
is loose, and he can push it back
and squeeze through. Some
people are saying we
should stay away
from here.
Mink
heard someone say
they might close the trading post.
She thinks we should get everything we need
while we still can. Come on, Toontwa,
let’s go home, I say.
JAMES
Ma’s face is like the sky on a day the weather changes. Smiling like the sun
came out, because she received a parcel from her family in Philadelphia.
Crying when she reads that her sister’s baby, Lucy, only lived for seven days.
Aunt Amanda made a quilt for Lucy, and she’s giving it to Ma for Molly.
Ma says it’s the color of the ocean she remembers from before she came here,
when she was seventeen. I hear the seagulls crying when I look at it, she says.
I hold up the quilt for Ma to step back and admire. She lays it down, sets Molly
on it—we smile when Molly tries to pick one of the stitched-on flowers.
Pa comes in and eats his lunch without saying anything to Ma or me.
Something’s wrong. Finally, he puts down his mug, looks up at Ma,
and tells her, The soldiers are worried. They’ve asked me to stop selling essential
provisions to anyone outside the fort. A hundred questions fly across Ma’s face,
but she doesn’t ask them. Just in case, Pa adds. Ma looks out the window, silent.
Just in case—what? In case Isaac’s right, and there’s a siege. Starting when?
ANIKWA
Mink
lays a pack of beaver pelts across
Rain Bird’s arms and gives the berry basket to Toontwa.
Grandma says, Remember, we need wiihkapaakani.
Do you know what they call it?
Father scowls.
“Salt,”
he says. They take it
from our land, then sell it back to us.
He needs a beaver trap, ammunition for his rifle.
When we start off down the river trail, the sky is streaked
bright orange-red above the water. We’ll have rain sometime today.
I tell Father where I saw a pair of coyotes, but he barely listens.
His steps are long, and I run to keep up. (He’s been angry
ever since Grandma mentioned salt.) A hard
rain starts to fall just as we arrive
at the trading post. We walk in
and lay our furs out
on the counter.
Aya, Father says. James smiles.
Mr. Gray says, Hello. But he’s looking at the floor.
He isn’t smiling, and he doesn’t touch the furs. James looks