by John Smelcer
in the frosted meadow
outside my cabin door.
Yanlaey Kae
Yanlaey lunatatez’aan
ghaetl’ ‘eł baa
k’e tikaani
c’ukatezyaa dluuni
yii cen zogh
‘an hwnax hwdatnetaani
4
Ceyiige’ gha tene
Spirit of the Trail
As Deneena walked through the village on her way home from the cabin in the hills, her pack and rifle slung over a shoulder, which was not an unusual sight in a village, she saw a man approaching. A dog dashed out from its little yard and barked at the man, who kicked it hard. The dog yelped and scuttled home, favoring one leg, with its tail tucked between its legs. When the man was close, Denny recognized him as her father. It was the first time she had seen him in almost a year.
When they passed, her father looked away, as if something else caught his attention, and continued without stopping or without saying a word. Denny limped home feeling a lot like that wounded dog.
She had barely walked through the door of her house when Sampson got up from the small table and put on his hat and parka and gloves.
“Wanna go run the dogs with me?”
“I just walked seven miles,” replied Denny. “I’m tired and hungry.”
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
“How hard is it to stand on the back of a sled?”
Denny smiled.
“Can’t beat that kind of logic, Grandpa,” she said.
“Tell you what,” said Sampson, “you get yourself a little something to eat and a cup of hot coffee while I hook up the team. That should take a while.”
Denny agreed.
While the old man hooked the dogs to the sled, she made a sandwich and drank two cups of coffee, occasionally looking out the window to make sure her grandfather was okay. She worried about him exerting himself too much. Not long after that, both dog team and snowmobile were following the frozen river, the tiny village behind them. In a picket-fenced cemetery on a hill above the huddled village, ghosts watched from their little painted houses or from behind Russian Orthodox crosses.
Two hours later, the dogs were resting while Denny and her grandfather stood beside a campfire, the old coffee pot perched at the edge of the flames.
“Time to learn,” said Sampson, pointing at the aluminum pot. “What the word for coffee?”
“Guuxi,” answered Deneena, so effortlessly that she surprised herself.
“Correct,” replied the old man. “But do you know why we call it that?”
Denny thought for a moment, searching her memory.
“No,” she finally replied, a bit deflated for not knowing.
Sampson reached inside his parka and pulled out a biscuit wrapped in tinfoil.
“It not really a word in our language, you know. It really an English word,” he said, unwrapping the biscuit and taking a bite. “First white man come into this country long time ago and offers an Indian a cup of hot coffee. The Indian drinks it, says it good, and asks what it called. The white man he say coffee and gives him some grounds to take with him. That Indian goes home and makes some for his people who ask him what it called. That Indian, who didn’t speak English very well, he say goo-kee. And that what we still call it.”
Denny laughed.
“Is that true, Grandpa?”
“Cross my heart,” said Sampson, making the sign of a cross over his parka with his biscuit-clutching hand. “We have lots of words like that, like oatmeal, which we call utniil.”
Just then a camprobber flew down from a tree limb, snatched a crumb on the ground, and flew away. Actually a common gray jay, the bird had a penchant for stealing food from camps and cabins, which had earned it its nickname. In the interior, they are almost as ubiquitous as the raven.
“I ever tell you how stakalbaey got his face?” asked the old man, referring to the little thief.
“I don’t think so.”
Sampson took another bite of the biscuit and tossed what little remained toward the tree, a gift to the bird, who flew down and snatched it.
“Long time ago, Camprobber and Woodpecker were friends,” he began, but then stopped. “I ever tell you the word for woodpecker?”
“Isn’t it cen’łkatl’i?” she asked.
“You remembered. Good,” said Sampson. “Where was I? One day they got into an argument. Woodpecker got so mad he grabbed Camprobber by the neck and shoved his face into their campfire. That camprobber’s face all covered with ash. When Woodpecker try to fly away, Camprobber grabbed him by his long tail feathers and held on until all them long tail feathers were pulled out. That’s how come camprobbers have ashen spots on their face and why woodpeckers got no long tail feathers.”
Denny thought about the story while she fed the dogs. She had heard similar stories from her grandfather and grandmother and other elders—stories about the world around them, how it is ordered, how things and places came to be, and most importantly, how people should live in that world.
“Grandpa,” she said, tossing some small pieces of wood on the fire, “I saw my father today.”
She was quiet for a while before she spoke again.
“How come he doesn’t want anything to do with me?”
This was a subject that Denny never talked about, though the old man, by his manner, seemed to know how much it hurt her. All her life, he had watched Denny’s father ignore her whenever he returned to the village to visit his family or to attend a potlatch for someone who had died. Sometimes, he just came home to feel the safety of the familiar, even though he hated the village. As far back as he could remember, the man, who was almost always drunk, had never said a single word to his young daughter, never sent a birthday card or Christmas present.
“I mean, whenever he’s here, he acts like I’m invisible . . . like I’m a ghost or something.”
Sampson looked at faraway mountains, the sun already dipping below the crest.
“You daddy got his own problems,” he said. “You not one of them. He doesn’t know who he is. It always been that way for him because he half Indian and half White. That where you got your blue eyes. But because of that, he never fit in nowhere. People in the village say, ‘You not really Indian.’ Some of his own relatives say that, even though they know better. People in the city say, ‘You not really White.’ It a hard thing for a man to never fit in nowhere, to not belong. Your father always restless, always looking for something else . . . something more from his life. Maybe just acceptance. The village wasn’t big enough for him. After you was born, he left you momma and moved to the city to make his name. But the city swallowed him. Yessir, the city chewed him up and swallowed him whole.”
“What does that mean?” asked Denny.
“Everyone always saying how they want to leave the village, always saying how good it would be to go somewhere else . . .”
Denny thought about the other kids at school and how they were always saying things like that.
“ . . . But that other place don’t want them . . . nothing there but lots of steel and concrete and bright lights and loneliness. Sorrow stands in the shadows and greets them with open arms, holds them so tight they can’t breathe. Before you know it, all them dreams turn to dust, and all that’s left is bitterness and hatred—hatred for the self for not being able to find a place in the world. Sometimes the heart fills up with that hate, and the only thing that settles it is the bottle. That not always the case, but it was for you daddy.”
Sampson bent down and poured a cup of coffee.
“Want some?” he asked.
Denny shook her head.
“But why does he take it out on me?”
“It not you he hates. He hates himself. You represent another failure in his life—his failure to be a husband and a father. Just one m
ore thing on a long list of failures. His pain is deep. He is ashamed of himself, and shame is a terrible thing. Your father’s anger make him want to tear both worlds to pieces. You just caught in the middle.”
Denny was saddened on learning of the pain that must be inside the father she barely knew.
“But I’m a good person. He’d . . . he’d love me if he only knew me.”
“Of course he would,” replied the old man with a sympathetic smile.
“I . . . I feel like . . . like I need him to love me or else I’ll never know who I am.”
Sampson turned to Denny and took her by the shoulders, pulled her close, and looked her in the eyes.
“You can’t find yourself by finding somebody else,” he said.
Denny tried to wipe away the tears sliding down her face.
“I . . . I don’t know who I am!” she sobbed.
“But I know who you are. You my granddaughter, and I love you.”
Neither said a word for a while. Denny broke a few pieces of wood over her knee for the fire, while Sampson checked the sled and the rigging.
“I been thinking,” he said, looking up from his work, “there’s a dog race coming up next weekend. I think you should be in it.”
“But, Grandpa, do you really think I’m ready for a race? Do you think I have a chance of winning?”
“It not a long race. And it don’t matter if you win or lose. What matters is that you try. In our way a person doesn’t have to beat out others to be strong. The strength of one is a source of strength for the entire village. A great hunter is great because he brings home food not only for his family but for others too. He shares his success. That a big difference in the world today. Everyone always got to be better than everyone else, stand above them. Everyone always got to beat down the next person for everything. Everyone want to take what is yours for themselves. It every man for himself. But that no good way to live. Better to belong to a community. Better to help each other. That way others help you when you are down or weak or old like me.”
Denny recalled how her grandfather always gave some of his moose, or caribou, or salmon to other families in the village, especially to those who had many children or who were unable to hunt for themselves any longer.
Sampson knelt close to the fire, warming his hands above the flames.
“I tell you a story that my grandmother used to tell me. A long time ago, back in yanida’a, a young man from a village was walking in the woods when he saw a mouse carrying a large fish egg in his mouth. The mouse was struggling to climb over a log fallen across its path. The man bent down and picked up the mouse real gentle and placed it on the other side of the log. The mouse scurried into the brush and was gone.
“That winter was a hard one for the people of that man’s village. Halfway through the coldest and darkest time, the food supplies run out, and the people were starving. Surely, they would not survive.”
“But one day, while the young man out looking for food, he came on a tiny house with smoke coming from a tiny smoke-hole. Just then a small voice told the man to turn around three times with his eyes closed. The man did this and became so small he could fit through the tiny door. Inside the warm house stood a man in a brown fur coat.”
‘I have been expecting you, ciił’ said the strange man. ‘Come and sit down.’
“The young man sat down and listened.”
‘Your people have no food. It has been a very hard winter for them. But I will help you,’ said the man in the brown fur coat.”
“The strange man brought out a small pack, which he began to fill with dried berries and fish meat and other things to eat. He gave the pack to the young man from the village, who asked why he was helping him.”
‘Last summer you helped me. I was carrying home a large fish egg for my family, and you helped me across a fallen tree. Because you helped me then, I will help you now.’
“Suddenly, the young man remembered helping the little mouse, and he understood this was the same mouse. He went outside and became big again, but the pack of food remained small.”
‘I thank you for this gift, but it is not enough to feed my people.’
The mouse man replied, ‘When you return to your village, leave the pack outside for the night and sing this song, which I will now teach you.’
“The man did as he was instructed, and the next morning the little pack turned into a large one full of food. It was so heavy the man could barely lift it. The young man had saved his village from starvation, all because he had helped a smaller, weaker animal.”
“You see, Granddaughter, love and compassion for others is the only way to live. Kindness is repaid with kindness.”
Though Denny had never heard the story before, she recognized its universal message. She looked at the dogs curled up and resting after their supper. She looked at the sled and then down the trail, a slight wind blowing her long, black hair into her blue eyes.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for a race,” she said, feeling excited and anxious at the same time. “What if I come in last and make a fool of myself?”
“Listen to me,” her grandfather said in a way that always meant Pay attention to what I’m about to say. This is important! “Never run away from what you really want to do just because you unsure of how it will turn out. If you fail while daring to do something great, then you have not failed at all. When you risk nothing, you risk everything. When I first started mushing, I didn’t win no races for three years, but I kept tryin’ anyhow.”
“I don’t know,” Denny repeated with a look of apprehension.
“Well, let me know soon,” replied Sampson. “There’s only a few days left to sign up.”
On the way home, Denny thought about the mouse story, reciting it in her memory so she could write it down in her diary the way she wrote down every story he told her. She also thought about the race as the dogs pulled the sled along a well-marked trail on the wide and frozen river, passing the little cemetery perched on the hill above the village—the full moon rising above it looking like an ivory eye carved in the black face of the sky.
That evening, while her grandmother was doing beadwork at the small kitchen table and her mother was cooking the rabbit she had brought home earlier in the day, Denny sat cross-legged on her narrow bed, writing down the beautiful story her grandfather had told her. She was careful not to forget a single word. When she was done, she turned the pages to write a new entry in her diary.
Dear Nellie,
I had a long talk with grandpa about my dad. I never talk about him, not even to mother, but I think about him all the time. It’s like I have this giant hole inside me. I mean, if anyone in the world is meant to love you, it has to be your parents, right? How can a father not love his child? I’m half of him; he’s half of me. People always say how much I look like him. What does he think when he sees me? Does he feel anything? Does he even see me? I don’t understand at all. Sometimes I get really sad when I think about it. Sometimes I get mad. Grandpa thinks I’m ready to enter a race, but I’m not as certain as he is. I know all the other kids want to move away as soon as they can, but I love it here. I can understand why Grandpa loves it so much. I love it, too.
Yours,
Denny
Riversong
I never want to leave this land.
All of my ancestors are buried here,
listening to riversong
from picket-fenced graves,
their wind-borne spirits
linking past and present.
When I finally fall to pieces
this is where my pieces will fall.
After washing dishes and taking her nightly bath, Denny read the last pages of Anne Frank’s diary. She learned from the epilogue that Anne and her fellow occupants of the “secret annex” were eventually discovered and sent away to Nazi concentr
ation camps. In the last sentence of the last page, Denny read with dismay that Anne died seven months later at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where Jewish prisoners were murdered because they were Jewish.
She closed the book and sat for a long time with the book on her lap, looking at the cover through tear-filled eyes, caressing the spine and pages, trying to imagine Anne’s life . . . and death. She couldn’t fathom life in one of those terrible places. She and Anne were almost the same age and shared many of the same teenage concerns, like boys, and the struggle to figure out who you are supposed to be, and most importantly, how to deal with the uncertain relationships to mother and father. After a while, Denny got up, put the book in her school backpack, pulled out her own diary from its hiding place—its secret annex—and sat on her bed scribbling a postscript with a purple-colored pen.
P.S.: I HATE the end of this book! Our teacher didn’t tell us anything about how Anne dies at the end! She was almost the same age as I am. How could that happen? How could people do that to each other? Where’s the kindness that Grandfather talks about? What kind of god allows such terrible things to happen? Was all of Anne’s suffering and sacrifice for nothing? She never even got a chance to be a girl. She never got a chance to really live. Grandpa’s right; I should enter that race. If he could do it, then I can do it! Carpe diem!
5
Hnae ghu’ ‘aen
Words Have Teeth
During breakfast the next morning, Deneena told her grandfather that she would enter the race.
“Good for you!” said Sampson, slapping his knee. “A chip off the old block. I’ll call my friend and get you signed up.”
Denny’s mother stopped what she was doing.
“What’s that about a race?” she asked, with her arms across her chest.
“I’m going to be in a dogsled race this weekend,” replied Denny happily. “Grandpa says I’m ready.”