Brindle's Odyssey

by Nicholas Antinozzi

I remember very little of the next day, or the day after that. My grandfather seemed to be out of medicine and my healing was slow and painful. He had managed to construct a crude traverse and he pulled it behind one of the horses with me inside, lying flat on my back. Red rode silently by my feet, facing away from me. I could see his small body quiver as he was rocked by wave after wave of pure grief. I couldn’t bear to watch and I slept as much as possible. We had won, but we had paid a terrible price for the victory. As much as I tried to keep them out of my thoughts, Otis and Goober would force their way back inside them. They would be followed by a thousand grieving squirrels and a dozen ghostly wolves.

  The third day I felt a little better and I was able to sit up. I had no idea where we were going, but I had no doubt that we were headed somewhere. We followed the sunsets and there were no words between any of us. This was how we arrived at the Indian village.

  The first one to greet me was my wife, Man Killer.

  She wrapped her slender arms around me and wept into my neck. I cried right along with her, for more reasons than she could possibly guess. I was carried into our wigwam and placed on my buffalo robes. Two days passed and I could slowly feel the strength returning to my body, as Man Killer lovingly tended to my wounds. I had been run straight through by the soldier’s sword and I was pretty sure that I had a collapsed lung because of it. Still, I was alive and on the mend, unlike so many of my fallen friends.

  The days became humid and unbearably hot. The air was still and impossibly thick, which only made it more difficult for me to breathe. I had recovered enough to sit outside our wigwam and watch the village swarm with activity. While it was true that I knew little of their ways, it didn’t take an expert to figure out that our village was preparing for a great battle. I could see old women with knives, whittling long arrows out of thin branches. I watched as older men instructed young boys in the art of shooting a bow. Some of these boys wore paint on their solemn faces. The tension hung in the air along with the humidity.

  Man Killer asked me a lot of questions after the sun had set and we had taken to our separate beds. She asked about the battle, about my earrings, and about Soliah and his men. While I was away, there was another fight with the Sioux and it had cost them dearly. The Sioux had been driven from their homes and had nowhere to go. They had been told by the white Major that if they could defeat the Chippewa, the territory around Leech Lake would belong to them. Something called the Dawes Act had been passed and huge tracts of land had been claimed by the government. There had been a meeting between the elders and the Indian Agents, when the elders returned from town their faces were dark with anger. Man Killer explained that they had little food and that winter was approaching. There was an agreement that if something wasn’t done soon, that many of their number would certainly starve.

  On my last night spent inside the wigwam, Man Killer informed me that the soldiers were heading our way. “How could you possibly know that?” I asked, feeling that I wasn’t up to fighting a small child, much less a fully grown soldier.

  “Odd Whitefeather saw it in a dream,” she said from the darkness on her side of the wigwam. “He says that they will arrive in the morning, just after the sun hits the top of the trees.”

  If anyone else had made such a bold prediction, I would have been skeptical, but my grandfather had proven to me that he had some serious precognitive powers. I was sure that the soldiers would arrive on schedule. Man Killer quickly ended the conversation, saying that we both needed our rest. I laid awake for hours, listening to the crickets and the sounds of the night birds, wondering how many of us would be around tomorrow night to hear them again.

  I woke to the touch of Man Killer’s hand on my cheek. “Odd Whitefeather wishes to see you. I am going to help the others fix our meal. I will be back soon.”

  There was very little light, but enough for me to know that morning had arrived. I nodded to Man Killer and we exchanged a kiss, before she gave me a quick wave and walked out of our wigwam. My grandfather entered a moment later. He looked very old at that moment.

  “The medicine is gone, I don’t know what happened to it,” he said, starting in the middle of the conversation, as he so often did. There were no exchanged pleasantries, as he got straight to the point. “Red has left us and I have not seen him for many days. I tried to talk to an eagle, but he would not give me the time of day. This is very bad. You will fight next to me. I have chosen you a fine rifle.”

  “I don’t think I am strong enough to lift a rifle, much less fight soldiers. I’m sorry, grandfather,” I said.

  “You will fight next to me. I was not asking how you felt. Did Otis and Goober die for nothing? What about the brave squirrels? Do you plan to sleep while the rest of us fight?”

  I looked away from his cold eyes and nodded. “I’ll fight,” I said.

  And when I turned my head he was gone. I didn’t know if he had heard me, but I had no doubt that he wouldn’t have left until he was sure that I’d join him. For the first time I had heard fear in his voice. The sound echoed inside my head for the rest of the morning.

  We ate a cold breakfast of boiled corn and jerked venison. I felt a little stronger after eating and found myself tracking the sun as it rose behind the trees. There were perhaps one hundred men among us, and many more children who were also hideously painted and armed with weapons. My grandfather took me aside and silently painted my face. He smeared the paint around my eyes and mouth and after a few dabs, he pronounced me ready to fight the soldiers.

  Everything was happening too fast and I wanted to somehow slow the sun in the sky. The men began to melt into the woods, taking many of the boys with them. Man Killer carried three guns, a large rifle and two revolvers she wore on her hips, over her buckskin dress. Her face was dark and her eyes stayed cold, even when I was able to meet them.

  With the sun nearing the top of the trees, my grandfather led me to the spot that he had chosen for us. The large boulders would provide excellent cover and from there we had a commanding view of the lake. I concentrated on the far side of the lake and I could just make out two stacks belching steam on the horizon. “Don’t worry, I know how this turns out,” I said. “None of us are killed, or even wounded.”

  “This is an alternate destiny, Huckleberry. Do not be fooled into thinking that the soldiers will arrive so ill-prepared.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better about our situation. I stared back out to the blue waters of the lake and my heart froze. Where there had been two stacks a moment before, there were now more than twenty. “Oh shit,” I said.

  “Oh shit is right,” agreed my grandfather. “They aren’t taking any chances. See if you can raise a wave on the water. I have tried many times and can not. We need a great wave to hit their ships. Give it a try, maybe you have some medicine left.”

  I hadn’t felt the least bit of medicine since we had arrived in the village. Still, I concentrated and gave it my best shot. If I had even raised a ripple across the water, I certainly didn’t see it.

  “Thank you for trying, I thought it was worth a shot.”

  I felt my strength draining and I took one last look at the rapidly approaching armada. I counted twenty-four ships in all, with many of them towing flat-bottom barges. The barges appeared to be full of men and the tools of war. We would be swarmed.

  The song was sung just loud enough for me to hear, and each sad note hung in my ears like a teardrop. I think the voice belonged to a young woman, but I wasn’t able to identify it. The song continued until it was droned out by the terrible racket of the steam engines. My grandfather handed me a rifle, a Winchester, and a small pouch of ammunition. I counted eighteen lonely cartridges and I wondered if everyone was similarly armed.

  The steamships headed straight for shore, and they landed at the beach in a solid wave of painted wood and clouds of white. I watched my grandfather sight his rifle on a group of men and I did the same. The soldiers had brought teams of lumberjacks, strong-looki
ng men dressed in flannel, holding axes and carrying clubs. I watched in horror as over a thousand men poured from out of the barges and the steamships. They unloaded enough artillery to defeat fifty times our number. I was happy that Man Killer was back with the old women and small children. I hoped that she would be able to guide them to safety. I knew that my minutes had become numbered.

  “We will wait for them to start the shooting. Do not forget that,” I heard my grandfather hiss from the other end of our boulder. We were lying on our bellies where the sand met the rocky soil, perhaps fifty yards from where the steamers had landed. I could hear weapons being checked and orders being given. The sounds suddenly stopped and I turned my head to see what had caught their attention. Three of the village elders, men I recognized, but whose names escaped me, were slowly walking down from the village to confront the attackers. They carried no weapons that I could see and their great age was evident upon their wrinkled faces.

  “Ready!” shouted a man’s voice from down by the water. I gasped. “Aim…”

  The explosion that followed was unlike anything that I had ever heard. I screamed when I saw the terrible devastation that the volley of shots had ravaged upon the old men. There was no doubt that they had all died instantly. I heard other shots ring out and realized that they were coming from my grandfather’s rifle.

  The anger made me forget all about my wound. I stuck my head around the corner and began to fire wildly down toward the beach. The soldiers and lumberjacks were scattering, but they were splitting into three groups. One group stayed down at the beach, staying low in the sand. The others split off to the left and to the right, hundreds of men intent upon surrounding us. I was quickly down to my last cartridge and I swore under my breath. I had yet to hit anything I had been aiming at.

  That was when I saw Major Soliah. He stood proudly on the deck of one of the ships, a sword held high in the air. I could tell that he was ready to send his men off to charge us. I settled the sights on his forehead and slowly squeezed the trigger of the Winchester.

  And I nearly squealed with joy when I saw that I had hit him. His arm jerked down as he dropped the sword, before he reached up to cover the bloody hole in his shoulder. The dropping of the sword was all the men had been waiting for. They seemed to come at us from everywhere and the Gatling guns chattered away from the beach. I was out of ammunition and so weak that I could barely keep my eyes open. I screamed when I saw my grandfather knocked over by a large caliber bullet and I rushed to his side. The bullet had caught him high on the chest and I tore off my shirt to staunch the flow of blood. Just as I did this I heard a loud thud and everything went black. By the time I had regained consciousness, the battle had ended and I was being hauled to my feet.

  “Huckleberry Brindle,” exclaimed the silky voice of Major Soliah. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  I could see Man Killer and my grandfather as they were lashed to a bullet-riddled pine. Piles of dry branches were being stacked at their feet. She was crying inconsolably and pleading to be killed. The soldiers and lumberjacks merely laughed.

  “My, what a pretty pair of earrings you have there. I tell you what, how about I trade you their lives for those earrings,” he said, motioning to my wife and grandfather. “Does that sound like a fair trade?”

  “No!” screamed Man Killer. “Don’t you dare give them to him!”

  “Women,” scoffed Soliah. “You can’t live with them and you can’t shoot them, legally.”

  The idiots around him had a great laugh over that.

  For the first time I was able to survey the complete destruction of our village. I found that I had to look away after a few seconds. What wasn’t covered in blood had been set on fire. Tears flooded my eyes.

  “The earrings,” demanded Soliah, holding his hand out to me. “Give them to me or you’ll watch them both die. Have you ever watched someone as they were burned alive? I can assure you that it won’t be pleasant.”

  I reached up and gently touched one of the earrings, and quickly said a silent prayer. My head felt as if a river was raging between my ears. Soliah was staring at me with amusement, as if he were trying to get inside of my head to see what I was thinking.

  “Huckleberry, you’re forcing my hand here. There has been enough death for one day, don’t you agree?”

  “Light the fire!” ordered a voice from behind me, one that I recognized immediately. The voice belonged to Morgan Millhouse, the lumber baron who had boarded the steamer with Soliah. “We’ve got timber to cut!”

  I turned my head and gave him a look of such fury that I made him step back. “Don’t you dare,” I said, taking an earring in both hands. “I’ll give you what you want.”

  “Don’t do it!” cried Man Killer.

  “That’s a good boy,” said Soliah. “Mr. Millhouse, please instruct your men to back away from the savages. Huckleberry has seen the light. Haven’t you, boy?”

  “Red skinned bastards!” shouted Millhouse. “Do you think I planned on letting any of them live? Do you have any idea how much money they cost me in Washington? No, Major Soliah, I don’t believe you do. Having legislation passed is an expensive business, and most of it is written in blood. I’m not taking any chances, this time we kill them all. Men, don’t you dare disobey me. Light them up!”

  I screamed as I saw two torches tossed into the pile of brush. Man Killer closed her eyes and lifted her head to the sky. My grandfather looked at me calmly, as if he were waiting for me to do something. I pulled at the earrings until my lobes burned, but they wouldn’t slip from my ears.

  “Give them to me and I’ll stop this,” Soliah whispered into my ear. “Trust me, Huckleberry.”

  The face of Abe Steinman appeared inside my head and he asked me what I was waiting for. I could see Theresa and the girls, Goober and his friends, Otis, the brave whitetail, and all of the fallen squirrels who had fought for our cause. I gripped the earrings and begged to unleash their power, whatever it was.

  “Huckleberry…”

  The earrings grew hot to the touch and I gripped them tighter.

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Millhouse is the one who ordered your family to be killed!” I blurted out. “If it’s anyone that you should hate, it’s Millhouse.”

  My words seemed to instantly freeze Soliah as the news hit him with a sudden punch. Millhouse looked confused for a moment, like he was trying to put on an act. He soon gave this up as Soliah brought his gaze down upon him.

  “What can I say?” Millhouse said with half a chortle. “You were preventing my men from cutting the Indian timber. It was the only way.”

  There it was, the terrible truth was out in the open and I watched Soliah process this information. He stepped away from me and he walked slowly toward his old friend. “You were responsible for that?” he asked in a voice that seemed to catch in his chest. “You murdered my children?”

  “Barnabus that was a long time ago. They would have been dead for many years now.”

  Soliah continued, his voice building into a scream. “You robbed me of my children and my grandchildren for timber? You ate at my table and all the while you were plotting against me? Did you ever think of the terrible price that you will now pay for your treachery? You bastard, of course you never have. I am going to send you to the very depths of hell. You will spend all eternity paying for your deeds.”

  “Wait a minute; I have more money than you can dream of. We can strike a deal; we can always strike a deal… Barnabus?”

  Those were the last words that Morgan Millhouse would ever speak in this world. Soliah slipped his sword from its scabbard and he swung it directly at Millhouse’s exposed neck. There was a sickening sound and Millhouse’s head fell to the ground. There was a gasp from his men as they watched Millhouse’s eyes blink and his mouth gasping for air. This seemed to last for a full minute and everyone was riveted by the spectacle.

  What happened next happened so fast that it’s hard to put it all into contex
t. A great, ear-splitting roar bellowed from just inside the woods. Soliah leapt back and ran to one of the steamers. Tall trees began to fall inside the woods and the ground began to shake. The men began to scatter as Soliah ordered them to shoulder their weapons. The brush caught flame and I saw a blur of movement as something scurried across the beach and leapt into the pile. I could see that it was Red, and he immediately began to gnaw on the ropes that bound Man Killer and my grandfather.

  What I saw then nearly stopped my heart. A massive bear the size of a small house knocked over one of the old pines. The bear charged from the woods and took a mighty swipe at a cluster of lumberjacks; sweeping them off their feet and tearing them to ribbons. Men began to scream in terror. The beast had glowing red eyes and it reared its head with another blood-curdling roar. It bounded on its great legs to the beach where it began to destroy the steamers as if they were made out of kindling.

  But one of the steamships was already backing away in the deep water of Leech Lake. The bear tried to swat at it, but it was just out of reach of the huge paw and the sharp claws. I could see Soliah cowering at the front of the ship, holding his hands over his face. He had cheated death by a few scant seconds. The bear returned his attention to the soldiers and the lumbermen on the shore. A few of the soldiers were firing their weapons and one was unleashing the chattering fire of one of the Gatling guns. The bear roared again as blood flowed down its snout.

  I ran to join the others who had been freed just before being burned at the stake. Red stood there on his hind legs, practically daring any of the scattering soldiers to challenge him. My grandfather was sitting on the sand, a big smile etched upon his weathered face. Man Killer rushed into my arms and she wept into my shoulder.

  The bear pounced upon the soldier who manned the Gatling gun and he devoured the man in a single bite. All that remained were a pair of black boots. The sound of men screaming filled my ears. He then turned his attention to a group of men that were huddled under a fallen pine. The bear bounded up to them and leapt on top of the pine, squishing many of them before tearing the survivors to pieces with bloody claws.

  “It is good to see you, Barney,” said my grandfather.

  “Looks like I’m a little late,” said the beast named Barney. “I am so sorry, Oddfather. I did not know.”

  We buried our dead with Barney’s help, leaving the lumberjacks and soldiers where they had fallen. Barney promised to attend to them later. We had a small, but emotional ceremony, where I began to get very worried about Man Killer. I knew she was probably still in shock and I didn’t know much about it. Would she snap out of it? And if so, how long would it take? Would there be permanent scarring? I did feel that the sooner we left the ruined village, the better off she’d be. My grandfather and Red both agreed.

  Man Killer had not uttered a word since Barney’s appearance and she shied away from him. It didn’t seem to matter to her that he had saved us. She wore a blank expression and walked stiffly. The tears still flowed from her eyes during the little service, we all cried. We cried for every soul that we had lost; for Otis, for Goober and the lost pack, for Red’s dead comrades, for every man, woman, and child in the village. There had been too much death and Soliah still lived. All of this was on him and I was more determined than ever to end his miserable life. I knew he was heading to Walker and I wanted to see if I could find him before he left town. Red thought this was a great plan, while my grandfather soured at the idea. He explained that he was still as powerless as any ninety-eight year old man. He needed his Medicine. “What about you, Huckleberry?” he asked. “Do you have any magic up your sleeve?”

  “I’ve got these,” I said, touching one of the earrings. “I was able to call Barney, wasn’t I?”

  “No, that would have been me,” said Red in his shrill voice. “Maybe we should listen to the Oddfather, you know, wait until you guys are strong enough to bring the fight to him. I’m ready to go after Soliah when you are.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” I said.

  Red looked around, then his eyes fell upon Man Killer as she sat on her knees at the side of the graves. He quickly nodded his head. “Right, that would be a bad plan.”

  “Death,” said my grandfather. “I have seen too much of it. Here is what we will do, we will head back to Walker and if nothing has changed before we reach town, we wait until we find our Medicine. This happens sometimes, no one seems to know why, like when the cable goes out.”

  “What about him,” Red said in a whisper, motioning to Barney.

  “Very hard to sneak around with him,” my grandfather whispered back to Red. He then looked at Barney who sat by the beach, two hundred feet away. “I have tried it before and it never seems to work. He can’t help it.”

  “I can hear every word you’re saying!” roared the bear.

  “I am sorry,” replied my grandfather. “You cannot deny the truth.”

  “Who said that I was? Do you have to tell the whole world about it?”

  “Quit acting like such a baby. I said I was sorry. Now, I would like to thank you for saving our lives. We need to go to Walker, I am sure you understand.”

  “Right, I heard the whole conversation. What, do you think I’m deaf?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “So, go already. I’ll be fine out here all alone, just like I always am. Nobody ever worries about Barney, do they? I don’t have many friends. Do you know what that is like, Oddfather?”

  “Oh boy,” mumbled my grandfather. “Here we go again.”

  But Barney said no more about it and after we thanked him again, the four of us were on our way. “You know,” said Red, after we were well out of earshot of the smoldering village. “I freed you from the fire, Barney didn’t. I think I deserve a thank you.”

  “Thank you,” my grandfather and I replied in unison.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two