Man Killer said nothing for the rest of the day as we traveled back down the path. We found a small clearing as twilight began to fade and we stretched out under the stars. I tried to lay next to my wife, but the look in her eyes told me that would be a huge mistake. I tried to make sense of things as I waited for sleep to come. My grandfather was right. We didn’t stand a chance against Soliah without our Medicine. We would have to wait it out and hope for the best. We still had another day’s walk to pray for it to return. I fell asleep with that on my mind and I didn’t stir until the sun was halfway up the trees. No one did.
While we walked I began to question my grandfather about things. I asked where Dog Breath and Crooked Walker were, and he replied that they were at the Happy Hunting Ground. When I asked him to be more specific, he simply shook his head. He didn’t look good, his blue jeans were coated with mud and matted grass, while his light blue denim shirt was dark with blood stains. His long white hair was tangled and it hung over his eyes.
I continued to question him with Red listening, but keeping to himself. Man Killer walked alone and her eyes became more haunted by the hour. I asked my grandfather why everything was up to me. Why should I be entirely responsible for killing Soliah? My grandfather explained that I was the only one powerful enough to do it. I laughed at this. I was the least powerful in our group. I was more of a liability than an asset. My grandfather pointed to his ears and that was when I asked him about Abe Steinman.
“Abe Steinman?” my grandfather asked, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “So, that is what he is calling himself these days.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Who is he?”
“That is difficult to answer. Think of him as a referee, but he is also your friend. He will help you when he is able, but he can only go so far. There is no Abe Steinman. That is how he chose to reveal himself to you and that is all I can say about it.”
I asked him some more, completely ignoring his wishes. This seemed to irritate him and he said no more. I moved on to Red, hoping he’d provide some answers. I found that I may have been better off not asking too many questions, and we walked in silence for a long time. If anyone got hungry along the way, nobody mentioned it. The day was warm and the sky above us was a brilliant blue. The pines chattered with birds and a few squirrels. Red completely ignored them. We walked along in something that resembled a drunken stagger, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
The path was different than the one we had arrived on. We passed by tall waterfalls and across rocky ledges that were strange to me. The forest grew dense in spots, nearly blocking out any light and we walked in a hazy gloom. There wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. Massive spider webs hung limp from the limbs of the pines. I did my best to avoid them.
With the sun already making the turn towards the western horizon, my grandfather announced that we had come close enough. He said that our destination was less than a mile away and that it was time to sit and pray for our Medicine to return. We sat on some rocks that jutted up out of the mossy soil. The pines here were scattered, but still soared some two hundred feet in the air. I sat in the sun while my grandfather chose the shade. I watched as he carefully sat down and closed his eyes, putting his tired hands on his lap. He looked like the old man that he was, fragile and out of place in this wilderness.
“I miss my satellite television,” he said after a few quiet minutes. “I have nearly three hundred channels, not that there is ever anything very good on to watch. Still, there is a lot to be said for going back into the past, without having to get up from the sofa.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” I said. Man Killer was kneeling down in front of some wildflowers, which I took to be a good sign. Red was off in the forest, keeping an eye out for any sign of trouble. This was the first chance my grandfather and I had for private conversation, and I certainly didn’t want to waste it talking about what was on television. “How long does this usually take?” I asked, feeling weak and very impatient. I wanted to get into town before Soliah had the chance to leave, if he hadn’t left already.
“Sometimes it can take a long time. I once spent an entire winter without my Medicine, but that was a long time ago.”
“Why do we lose it at all? What purpose does it serve? Soliah could be getting away right now. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“You need to lose something every now and then. It helps you to remember what is important. Like the remote control for my television, I lose that darn thing at least once a week.”
“Would you quit talking about your television? I’m trying to be serious here.”
My grandfather looked at me with a pained expression. “Maybe that doesn’t seem very serious to you, but I am an old man and my television is very important to me. Sometimes a month can go by and that is all I have for company. You will be old someday, and then you will understand. My television is also my friend. I wish I had it now, it helps to pass the time.”
“Why, so you could watch Andy Griffith?” I asked. I was being sarcastic and I found that I didn’t care. We had bigger fish to fry and I had never cared much for television.
“You could learn a lot from Andy Taylor,” my grandfather replied. “He was a good man, a role model. I like to think he was Ojibwe.”
I shook my head and returned my attention to Man Killer. She was sitting now, staring straight ahead into the woods. She looked so sad that I wanted to rush over to her and throw my arms around her. I didn’t know what to do. She seemed to be slipping further away from me. My grandfather was still talking, but I was only catching bits and pieces of what he said.
“Like Sitting Bull,” he said, raising his weary eyes to look at me.
“I nodded. “Right, like Sitting Bull,” I repeated, having no idea of what he was talking about.
“Sitting Bull Day, it has a nice sound to it. We should have a day to commemorate one of the Original People. There are plenty of other holidays, yet there is not a single one for Native Americans to celebrate. That is wrong.”
I could see that this was something that he had been thinking about for a long time. There was pain in his eyes and I could feel the gravity in his words. “Maybe when this is all over, you and I could go to Washington? What could it hurt?”
He stared at me for a long time as if he were trying to see if I was pacifying him. He nodded once and took off his straw hat and examined the brim. “I would go to Washington if I thought it would do any good. There is a book written many years ago by a man named Dee Brown. Have you ever read it?”
I lowered my eyes and shook my head. “I’ve heard of it,” I said.
“When this is all over you have to promise me that you will read it. It is a very powerful book that chronicles the history of our people from the time Columbus arrived until the massacre at Wounded Knee. Children should be reading it in schools. If that were to happen, maybe we would have a holiday to call our own.”
“I promise to read it.”
He nodded and placed his hat back on his head. “People talk as if one hundred years is a long time. I am nearly that old and I can tell you that it is not so. What happened at Wounded Knee a hundred years ago was a terrible thing, and it should be remembered. Five hundred soldiers surrounded a camp of starving people and hunted them down like animals. Women and children, it did not matter to them. They were shot as they tried to flee. Do you know what people said after this tragedy? The man who wrote The Wizard of Oz wrote in his newspaper that all of the Original People should be exterminated. He called us untamable creatures that should be wiped from the face of the earth. He wrote this less than a week after the massacre.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You are not alone. I tell you this because hatred such as this does not merely go away with the passing of years. The government has done nothing to educate people as to the way things really were. If people only understood the true history of the Original People, this world would be a better place.”
&nbs
p; At that moment a robin landed on my grandfather’s shoulder and it nuzzled up to the wrinkled skin of his neck. My grandfather smiled.
“Do you know that bird?” I asked, watching as it rubbed its little head under my grandfather’s chin.
“I do, let me introduce you to Aunt Bea. Aunt Bea, this is my grandson, Huckleberry.”
“I am pleased to meet you,” I said, wondering if the plump robin could speak.
“And I am pleased to meet you,” Aunt Bea answered in a shrill voice. “Oddfather,” she said, hopping up and down on his shoulder. “Why do you look so sad? It’s a beautiful day.”
We both smiled at that. She was right, no matter what had happened, where we had been and how far we still had to go, there was no denying the fact. It was a beautiful day. My grandfather chuckled softly and lowered his chin for Aunt Bea to nuzzle.
“I heard that you were preparing for a fight,” Aunt Bea said, pulling her head back and ruffling her feathers. “We will help you.”
“Thank you,” said my grandfather. “We can use all the help we can get.”
Aunt Bea suddenly flew away and landed on the limb of a tall pine. She began to chirp in a great voice that was impossibly loud. The sound echoed inside the glen and rang in my ears. I watched as Man Killer got to her feet and walked over to investigate the cause of the sound. I stood up and walked over to join her, but my grandfather stopped me from doing so. He held my arm in a tight grip and shook his head.
I watched as a sparrow landed on Man Killer’s shoulder, followed by another. She stared at them in amazement and I saw her smile for the first time in days. A tear fell from my eye. A bright red cardinal landed on her outstretched arm and she began to laugh. The sky was suddenly full of flapping wings and the chatter of a thousand beaks. I had never seen so many birds in one place, they flew in circles around us, but they all seemed to be focused on Man Killer. They hopped around by her feet like small puppies, begging to be picked up. Her expression was one of wonder and true happiness. She looked at me and beamed. I tried to wipe the tears from my eyes, but they continued to fall. I knew that everything was going to be okay, at least for now. Sometimes, that is good enough.
Aunt Bea flew from her perch and landed on my shoulder. “I’ll bet you weren’t aware of the healing powers of birds, were you?”
I shook my head and smiled.
“Men, what do you know?”
I nearly took offense to that last statement, but then it dawned on me that I suddenly felt different. I looked at my grandfather and he smiled at me. He then raised his hand in front of him and it was blazing with a blue flame. “I think our Medicine has been returned,” he said.
I concentrated on a moss-spotted rock the size of large tombstone. The rock shook and suddenly crumbled into so much dust. I wanted to cheer. Not only had my Medicine returned, but it seemed infinitely more powerful. The birds continued to arrive. The sky was full of circling hawks and eagles. Flocks of geese and ducks began to land in the glen. Sparrows and finches filled the trees. Man Killer walked over to me and rested her head on my shoulder and we exchanged a tender kiss.
I knew we were ready. It was time to find Soliah.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Brindle's Odyssey Page 34