The Porcupine Year

by Louise Erdrich

  THE LEAVE-TAKING

  Bizheens’s round face popped up under the heavy bearskin that covered them both. He smiled in innocent delight.

  “Mama! He has another tooth!”

  Omakayas put out her finger and felt another sharp white nubbin that had appeared, overnight, on her little brother’s bottom jaw. He was using his strong teeth on a piece of gristle. Omakayas laughed. It seemed that he was showing her what his teeth could do. His eyes were on her as he gnawed, and every so often he would stop, in delight, and let her praise him.

  When they were starving, he’d been so weak and still, not like himself. Now he was rolling around their wigwam, halfway in the fire sometimes, but smart enough to pull away at the last moment.

  “Dress him up and take him out, dagasana, please!” cried Mama.

  Omakayas and Nokomis had made him a cunning suit out of the hide of a lynx that Quill had managed to kill. Nobody knew quite how he did it—his arrows were increasingly sharp and swift. After the bear had given strength to Fishtail, he had used those last two bullets to kill well. One killed a caribou. The other a moose, just as he’d predicted. For weeks, the family had rested, mourned, regained strength. Deydey said that his tears over the death of his friend Tallow had restored his vision. He could see as well as ever. He could see so well that he’d managed to snare a deer. Now, with that meat frozen and cooked into pemmican with bear fat, the family were preparing to travel north.

  Omakayas shook out Bizheens’s little suit. It was turned inside out so that the fur remained next to his skin.

  Nokomis had cleverly tanned the head and sewed the ears and even reattached the tail. With his little skin boots laced to his feet, Bizheens was a bizheens, a baby lynx. He was warm as a little lynx, sharp-eyed and funny as a baby kitten, too.

  “Giizhawenimin, giizhawenimin.” Omakayas kissed him as she stuffed his waving arms and kicking legs into the suit. He sat still and let her tie his makizinan onto his chubby feet. She wound his feet first with warm strips of rabbit fur, then fit rabbit-fur mitts onto his wiggling fingers. There, he was all dressed. He exploded out the door. Omakayas wrapped her blanket around herself and followed.

  Outside, it was crisp and sunny. A perfect day for Bizheens to roll and toddle through the snow. Omakayas carried him into the woods, though, and let him play while she made an offering to Old Tallow’s tree.

  High up, on a bed of fir boughs laced together, they had put her to rest. They had wrapped her in deerskin and placed her dogs beside her so they could all journey into the next life together. Omakayas hated to leave the tree, hated to leave her grave, but there was nothing else to do. Every time she visited, she promised Old Tallow that she would live as the old woman had taught her. Fearlessly, with strength and humor.

  She promised other things, too, darker things. She swore to take revenge on LaPautre. She did not blame the bear for the death of Old Tallow, she blamed the human who had caused them all to starve.

  Today, she told the old woman who slept high in the branches that they were going to leave soon. They were going north, in search of Muskrat and the rest of their family. It had taken them one entire moon to gain their strength, to replace their possessions, to organize themselves.

  Now they were ready to travel.

  THIRTEEN

  CRY OF THE DOVE

  Omakayas helped her brother heap fresh bark and twigs around the log where his porcupine slept.

  “Gigawaabamin, neeji!” Quill whispered into the opening in the log. His porcupine was fast asleep and would awaken without his human friends. But his life as a wild porcupine had to begin. Quill waved Omakayas away. His voice was choked with tears and he didn’t want his sister to hear his last words to his helper.

  Omakayas went to her mother and stood still while Yellow Kettle smeared the area around her eyes with black soot to prevent the brilliant snow from blinding them. Quill soon appeared and quickly smeared his own eyes, too, hiding the marks of his tears.

  “We look like a bunch of raccoons,” said Quill, perking up as he blinked at everybody else.

  The family set out, walking north. They set off laughing, although their hearts longed for Old Tallow. Each member of the family had placed a hand on her tree, her sky-grave, and made prayers and said good-bye. They had spent the last weeks making snowshoes, and now each of them could walk over the drifts without floundering. Even Bizheens had tiny bear-paw snowshoes for his feet and tramped along with them until he grew tired.

  Deydey and Yellow Kettle broke the trail. Nokomis took turns with Omakayas and Angeline, carrying Bizheens when his short legs gave out. Quill walked observantly, eyes darting fiercely side to side, every bit the warrior. Fishtail brought up the rear, checking often to see that they were not followed. Never again would they trust the approach of strangers. Each of them expected, at some time, that LaPautre would return. They had furs again, which he could rob from them, and food. By now, his need for rum had probably made him desperate and poor.

  But the days went smoothly. The weather held, cold but not unbearably cold, and the sky stayed clear. They reached the edge of Lac du Bois with plenty of provisions. Each day they made their camp early, in a sheltered spot. In their pine-bough snow enclosure, with a crackling fire before them, they ate from their sack of dried meat and drank the concoction of strengthening swamp tea leaves that Nokomis had plucked from bushes as they walked. Even as they ate or slept, however, someone always kept watch. They no longer had Old Tallow’s dogs to alert them to danger.

  As they readied themselves to leave one morning, Quill suddenly ran to the edge of the woods. Omakayas had heard something too, the low call of omiimii, the mourning dove. There were, of course, no mourning doves around in the winter.

  “Animikiins!” she cried, and followed Quill into the brush.

  There he was, taller than she remembered, smiling as Quill shook him hard enough to rattle his bones. He wore a beautiful suit of clothing, quilled in sharp designs. And her beads. He still wore her beads. Miskobines was wrapped in a blanket held shut with a silver pin. Yellow Kettle had already grabbed him in an impetuous hug. Everyone gathered around, excited. They dragged the two men back to camp, amazed and eager to hear their story.

  THE CAPTIVITY

  “The Bwaanag became very close. We adopted each other. In time, they let us go,” said Miskobines. “They said they could no longer keep us. Ever since they let us go, we have been following your trail.”

  “You found Old Tallow’s tree, then,” said Nokomis.

  The two nodded, stared at the ground, but then Animikiins looked up and said, “See, here. We also found this!”

  Out of his pack he took Deydey’s medicine bag and put it into his hands.

  “My relative, we were frightened when we found your medicine bag by the edge of the lake,” said Miskobines to Deydey. “What does it mean? We heard rumors and thought perhaps you had fallen into some evil, and we were afraid for you. We have asked ourselves, over and over, why would you throw away your medicine?”

  Deydey could not conceal his emotion as he accepted the bag, which contained his fathers’ pipe, from the hands of Miskobines. For a long while, he could not speak. He began, but could not continue. He gestured to Nokomis. She was the one who told the others about the raid by LaPautre and his men. Most likely, LaPautre had been too afraid of the medicine to keep it and had thrown it from the packs. She told about their near starvation. She told how it was that Old Tallow had met her death.

  When the telling was completed, Miskobines and Deydey put together their sacred pipes and loaded them with fragrant kinnikinnick. Then they sat and smoked. The family sat together, thinking, and soon everyone began to talk again.

  “LaPautre and his men stole Zahn and Zozed away from us,” said Angeline. “Have you heard anything? We don’t know what became of them.”

  “I heard something,” said Miskobines.

  Omakayas caught her breath.

  “We met a family of people who
were friends with the priest who has traveled in this area to gain souls. They said that this priest, a black robe, had argued some drunken men into giving up two white children. He was traveling with them to St. Paul, where they could live with other children in a school.”

  “Were they all right? Were they hurt?” asked Yellow Kettle.

  “I don’t think so,” said Miskobines. “But I did not see them for myself.”

  Angeline was smiling a little now, hopeful but also bereaved. Fishtail touched her hand. There were questions, and more questions.

  THE LOON FLUTE

  “Will you walk a little way with me? Along the shore?” asked Animikiins.

  Omakayas’s heart bumped, shyly, and her face went hot. She looked at Nokomis, who nodded with a little smile, but told Omakayas that she was not to pass beyond her sight. The lake was freezing cold, but Omakayas bundled her blanket around herself and followed Animikiins. It was dusk, and the wind had fallen. Animikiins held something against his chest, under his robe, and when he took it out she saw that it was a wooden flute with one end shaped like a loon’s head with an open beak.

  “My brother in Bwaan-akiing taught me how to make this,” he said. “He taught me how to play it, too.”

  Animikiins lifted the flute to his lips. A clear, lovely, hollow note drifted over the ice. He warmed the flute and played a few more notes. Then he played a song as they walked along the shore together.

  Meanwhile, back in the camp, the grown-ups sitting around the fire heard the flute. They looked at one another. Deydey raised his eyebrows at Miskobines.

  “Howah!” said Quill, getting to his feet. “I’m going to find my brother, Animikiins, and discover how he makes those sounds!”

  “No, you’re not,” said Yellow Kettle. “Sit right back down. Nokomis is watching those two and she will bring them back to camp.”

  Nokomis was sitting on the shore, patiently watching Animikiins and Omakayas out of the corner of her eye. When she rose to go, they shyly followed her back. Nokomis held her granddaughter’s young hand, gently, in her old hand. That night, she made sure Omakayas slept beside her. Before Omakayas went to bed, Yellow Kettle came near, stroked her hair, and spoke softly.

  “Daughter,” she said, “we must talk soon.”

  “We must?” Omakayas was confused. Yellow Kettle was usually rough and it was unusual to see this tender look in her eyes.

  “Your Deydey played the flute for me, long ago, and won my heart,” she said. “My daughter, you must be very careful.”

  But Omakayas didn’t feel like being careful. The low sound of the flute haunted her sleepy thoughts as she cuddled close to her grandmother. Animikiins slept across the lodge, on the other side of Miskobines. For the first time, she wondered if he was asleep and if he dreamed. And then the strangest thought came to her. She wondered if he was dreaming of her.

  OUT IN THE ISLANDS

  As they walked onto the ice, Omakayas was amazed at the beauty of this lake, its many islands blazing peacefully in the sharp winter sun. In the distance, as the sun rose and light wavered on the glittering surface, dark blue islands rose and floated as if on air. Some of the islands they passed were so tiny it seemed there was only room, she thought, for one person. Omakayas hugged Old Tallow’s spirit bundle and wished that the old woman would have made it to this beautiful place.

  “I’ll put your bundle on the most sacred little island of them all,” she promised.

  There were so many, each so different, the trees weathered by the wind and water into shapes resembling people.

  As they began walking they saw in the distance the threads of several cooking fires. A small band of people had come to camp out there in the night, on an island of rocks and pine. They came closer, then stopped. Omakayas wanted to go see them immediately, for she imagined it might be Muskrat’s family. But Quill and Animikiins said they would run there first, quickly, and bring back the news of who the people were.

  “Don’t get adopted by the Bwaanag again,” said Yellow Kettle.

  “You must take one of the other men along, too,” Nokomis counseled. “What if it is LaPautre and his bunch?”

  “They may already have seen us,” said Deydey. “Miskobines and I will sneak around the other side of that island, while Quill and Animikiins walk toward those people, waving and shouting. That way if the two young ones are in danger, we old men can get them out of trouble.”

  “And what about me?” said Fishtail.

  “You should stay here and take care of us,” said Angeline.

  Fishtail didn’t look exactly happy about this, but he agreed that someone had to stay behind.

  After a while, Omakayas saw the tiny figures of her brother and Animikiins, far across the ice, approaching the camp. Her father and Miskobines had skirted the camp and walked along a far peninsula. But there was no need to take such care. Omakayas saw that the people from the camp came out to meet the two boys, and that they seemed friendly. For a long time, the group stood talking on the ice, eventually joined by the two older men. At last, Deydey came walking back, leaving the others behind. Yellow Kettle ran eagerly to meet him, hoping for news of Muskrat.

  “They have been seen!” she cried out to Nokomis, hurrying back. “They are living far out on an island! They are alive!”

  MUSKRAT’S CAMP

  Deydey made a bark sled for Bizheens, and everyone took turns pulling him across the ice. Bark sleds worked well for hauling packs, too. As the family trudged out onto the lake the next day, everyone walked along quickly, excited to be so close to their journey’s end. Everyone felt smaller and smaller as they traveled onto the vastness of the ice. Now that they knew where to go, they did not have to stick near shore, but set off across great stretches of the bays.

  As they walked all that day, and the next day, too, the ice boomed around them. Jagged cracks appeared where the wind had swept down to the bare, dark surface. The wind itself grew harsher, stung their faces. Omakayas had to move her toes and fingers constantly to keep them from going numb. Her mitts and makizinan were trimmed with fur from the bear that Old Tallow had killed, and made of the moose hide that the bear had given Fishtail the strength to slay. She squeezed her spirit bundle tightly and thanked Old Tallow over and over. Her eyes welled with tears. The tears froze and vanished before they rolled down her cheeks, leaving tracks of salt.

  A fog had rolled out of the trees and covered the islands, a warm wind, a cold fog, the contradictory breath of winter. Out of the heavy mist, the outline of a strong, stout woman appeared.

  “Muskrat!” cried Nokomis. “My daughter! We have found you!”

  FOURTEEN

  COUSINS

  “Couldn’t she have waited a few days before driving me crazy with her Two Strike ways?”

  It was a wonderful luxury for Omakayas to complain to her cousin Twilight, and for Twilight, in turn, to allow herself to confide in Omakayas.

  “Two Strike will always be Two Strike. But I’d like to give her three strikes,” said Twilight. The two girls started laughing, but went silent when Two Strike appeared suddenly. She always appeared suddenly, jumping into a clearing, running straight up to the fire, or bursting into the lodge.

  “I’m taking Animikiins out on my trapline,” she said in her hard voice. “I’ll show him how it’s done!”

  “Take Quill, too,” said Amoosens, or Little Bee.

  Amoosens had become a happy, round-faced, excited girl of nine winters, who was always obedient and contented. She and Twilight, who was Omakayas’s age, had to stick close to defend each other when their older cousin Two Strike tried to disturb their peace. Two Strike was just a year older, at thirteen, but she was much stronger than her cousins. And now Amoosens found that Quill enjoyed troubling her even more than when she was very little. He liked stealing her dolls, tickling the back of her neck when she was doing her beadwork, making his awful Quill faces at her. It was as if, around Amoosens, he had become again the old annoying Quill who hadn’t
been stolen by the Bwaanag, acquired his helper, the porcupine, or survived the terrible starvation of freeze-up time.

  At times this was reassuring to Omakayas. At other times she wished she had a porcupine to throw at him.

  “You ready?” Animikiins carried his father’s gun and wore the makizinan and leg wraps that Omakayas had helped Nokomis make for him. Since moving into the camp with Muskrat and her family, he had not asked Omakayas to walk with him. He had smiled at her, but remained distant. He had not played so much as one note on the flute. But every day he went out trapping and hunting with Two Strike. Now, as the two of them walked away together, talking of where the traps were set, laughing, Omakayas felt a sharp pain dart through her chest. Her throat burned. She turned away from the sight and shook her head to clear her thoughts.

  “What is wrong with me?” she said out loud.

  “Are you all right? Help me with this mat, will you?” asked Twilight. She was busy cleaning the lodge, hauling out the reed sleeping mats and scrubbing them with snow, airing the furs and blankets, scouring the pots with sand from the shore of the beautiful crescent-shaped bay along which their camp was set, with its well-built lodges.

  The birchbark houses were set in the great bank of trees that gave them shelter from the wind. A tall outcrop of stone gave them the ability to see across the ice to other islands, and to watch for enemies or friends.

  Muskrat and her daughters had riced every bay they could and buried cache upon cache of manoomin the previous fall. LaPautre had indeed abandoned them, but Muskrat proudly pointed out that they were still eating rice! Two Strike was as adept a hunter and trapper as any man, and better than most. She had provided well for them. But Twilight said she paid by absorbing the occasional blow that Two Strike landed on her and by listening to Two Strike’s arrogant and boastful stories all evening long.