by S. Rose
“They will. They’ll come, you betcha,” she said reassuringly. “They’ve just got to,” she added softly.
Once the finances were in order, time was of the essence; winters in the Northwoods come early and hit hard. Rough weather lasts at least until April, and spring snows are often the worst and the wettest. The foundation for the chalet had to be poured before the ground froze. Exterior walls and roofs had to be done before the snow fell; the interior work could be finished later.
The place was suddenly abuzz with men at work: surveyors, building contractors, and general laborers. Trucks came and went delivering lumber and pipes. A dump truck dropped off a mountain of gravel to make a proper driveway out to the road, since the dirt driveway was full of potholes and tended to turn to mud every spring. Another dump truck deposited a load of fill dirt over the old cellar pit, burying all evidence of the tragic fire at last.
I had goose bumps as I hung over Dad’s shoulder and studied the architect’s drawing of the chalet. It would have an open-beamed ceiling, twenty-foot high at the peak, and a massive stone hearth. The place was big enough to seat two hundred and still have plenty of room for people to dance; the hardwood dance floor would be made of oak. In back, there was a full kitchen with a refrigerator, stainless steel counters and a large gas range where caterers would prepare food for parties. One whole side of the chalet would be filled with tall, double-pane, insulated custom glass windows overlooking the river.
That was the top story. Beneath the main floor were large, twin redwood saunas, as well as separate shower and toilet facilities for men and women. A flagstone path led from the saunas down to the pure cold river; if the water was high enough and the current not too rough, and if it suited your fancy, you could run straight from the hot steam and plunge right in.
When my mother saw the blueprint her eyes went wide. She sucked her breath through her teeth with a barely audible hiss, like a tiny snake, then curled back her lips to smile and nod agreeably. My father didn’t seem to notice her reservations. He bubbled over with enthusiasm like Guinness stout on tap.
When the tree crew started felling pines, my parents ordered me to stay in the house for my own safety. Next, a bulldozer and excavator were brought in on a huge, flatbed truck. I watched from the kitchen window as the dozer obliterated all the outbuildings, including the infamous chicken shed where the rusty old tools had been stored. The shack where Mr. O’Hara once lived was leveled without a trace—he’d already up and left in the night after his outhouse was destroyed. Nobody knew where he went or if he had any place to go. Grandpa Parsons didn’t much care, but groused that Mr. O’Hara still owed him fifteen dollars rent and forty-five cents for a can of kerosene.
After the dozer graded the lot, driveway, and parking area, the excavator broke ground for the chalet’s foundation. Dad zipped nimbly in and around the heavy machinery, adding his two cents worth and scaring my mother to death; he flitted about on air, so happily busy that there seemed to be two of him.
As the days wore on, my mother grew increasingly anxious. The constant din of construction must’ve eroded her nerves, and my moping around underfoot with nothing to do didn’t help matters. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore; she ordered me to circumnavigate the building site and go play in the woods.
“All alone?” I whined.
“Bring your dolls . . . or some coloring books. Bring your stationary and write to your friends,” Mom insisted. “It’s a beautiful day . . . you need fresh air and sunshine.” She packed a brown bag with peanut butter sandwiches, some cookies and an apple, along with a canteen of water. “And here’s a pack of Kleenex,” she added, escorting me to a path by the riverside, well past the danger zone. “Just in case you have to . . . you know.”
“Aw!”
“It’s too dangerous; this way, you won’t need to come home until the men quit work.”
Shooed off the premises and left on my own until suppertime, I had no idea where to go or what to do with myself when I got there. I wandered into the woods like a disembodied soul, keeping parallel to the river so as not to lose my way, until I could no longer hear the noise of buzz saws and diesel engines. My mother had warned me not to go too far, but my limits weren’t clearly defined.
I was miserable. Being on my own made me realize that I’d grown up spoiled rotten, the sole beneficiary of a doting aunt who seemed to think of little else but me from the time she combed out my curls at the breakfast table to when she tied up my hair for bed. I’d always got plenty of attention from Mom, too, and Dad, when he was in a good mood. Naturally, I’d unquestioningly accepted it as my birthright.
I’d been accustomed to a neighborhood teaming with children of all ages. My head had been filled with a daily dose of merry chatter and laughter, squabbles and tears; the dead silence of the woods was eerie. I was pretty sure I’d make friends when school started up but that was still over a month away. I’d never wanted to go back to school so bad, and July wasn’t even over.
I missed Kitty terribly. Our last week together was still fresh in my mind—the image of her tear-stained face as she clutched the Kissy doll under the light of the front porch stood out like flash photography. But as I sat down to write to her for the first time, I realized I had nothing to say. I certainly couldn’t tell her about the drive to Blackstone. She’d be confused and frightened if I told her about the incident at Two Toots—I struggled to understand it myself. I’d never been without friends before, and there were no words to describe my sense of isolation. I was too proud to tell the truth about nasty old Grandpa, or the condition of his smelly house before my mother attacked the dirt with the ferocity of a Viking hoard.
For the first time, I concocted an elaborate social lie. “We had a nice drive through the country and saw lots of wild animals on the way. Grandpa’s house in the woods is nice too, and I have my own room with a private backdoor.” I finished up by explaining that Kissy was having a lovely vacation with Chatty Cathy but was looking forward to going home to her mommy and signed it with hugs and kisses. I planned to return the doll when we drove home to visit the next Christmas, and I was pretty sure I’d throw Chatty into the bargain, especially now that she had more than one thing to chat about.
Sometimes when I was alone, I conjured an image of Tante’s face or closed my eyes and imagined her voice. It left me with a hopeless, hollow feeling that I just couldn’t put in a letter. I told her simply that I missed her and didn’t let on about much else, except that I hadn’t had a chance to do an art project since I’d arrived. There wasn’t any place to spread out without being in the way, and I didn’t want to make a mess in Grandpa’s house. Besides, out of all the stuff I’d brought along, somehow my poster paints and brushes never turned up.
Time passed slowly. Gradually, I stopped my sulking long enough to pick up my head and see the new world around me. I found a fallen tree that stretched across the river, with a fork in its trunk that formed a seat and a wide branch for a footrest. From my perch above the flowing water I watched the fish swim, saw how their bodies undulated and their fins flowed with the current. I was amazed to find that they often looked right back up at me, at times warily and at times with unmistakable curiosity.
I learned that the forest was not a tomb of silence. It might be quiet, but it was never silent. The air was filled with sounds of life, a delicate symphony of bugs and birds to the accompaniment of the flowing river, here and there punctuated by the note of a raptor or the scurrying feet of a squirrel. I followed the birds with my eyes as they foraged through the pine needles or swiftly dodged the trees in pursuit of insects. I melted into my surroundings until I not only heard, but felt the piercing cry of the hawk and the deep resonant hoot of the owl. I closed my eyes, the better to hear the water trickling over rocks. I took off my shoes and waded to feel the cold polished river stones beneath my feet, the round flat black stones that gave the town its name. Once I sat so still for so long that a large barn owl suddenly swooped low
on noiseless wings and deftly snatched a brown snake from where he lay blissfully sunning, not six feet from me. I watched in wonder and awe and pity as the helpless creature was carried off, writhing and twisting in the sharp talons of the huntress so that she might live and feed her young.
I’d never realized how much clutter was in my mind, like a tangled field of weeds, until it was cleared away. At last I could hear myself think and began to find within even more than I had lost. I learned the difference between isolation and solitude.
The end of July marked a graduation of sorts. Independence had been thrust upon me. Loneliness and gloom had given me a good fight, but I won, and learned how to stand on nothin’ but my own two feet. It was the magical summer that I cracked the hull of childhood to send my first tentative roots into the fertile soil of youth.
14
“YOU MIGHT NOT wanna go draggin’ your ass through that poison sumac.”
My solitary pursuit was rudely interrupted by a voice directly behind me. Long days far from a toilet had led to the necessity of taking care of business like a bear in the woods; unlike the bear, I always carried a pocket full of Kleenex. I’d left the riverbank and walked in amongst the trees to ensure privacy, but someone managed to sneak up on me anyway—and I hadn’t heard so much as a twig snap!
“Eek.” I let out a girly screech as I grabbed for the elastic waistband of my camp shorts and jumped up fast, trying to pull them on at the same time. In my haste, my panties got left in a twist at the ankles; I toppled onto my hands and knees with my sorry heinie hanging in the breeze.
“’Course, ain’t none o’ my business if ya do.”
I felt my face flush with mortification as I scrambled to my feet and hauled up my britches before turning to look at my commentator. From the pitch, I knew it was a child’s voice but couldn’t determine the gender. What a relief to see it was a girl, although she wore boy’s overalls. She didn’t seem in the least embarrassed as she pointed with authority to the leafy green vines growing at the base of the tree where only moments ago, I’d squatted. Yup. It was poison sumac.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I was about to ask you the same question. This is Ojibwe land, and you’re trespassing.”
I studied her a moment before answering. Her feet were bare and from the looks of them, she hadn’t worn shoes all summer. I’d never seen such callouses; the layers of dirt were permanently embedded in the flesh. She was tall and lean with two fat brown braids hanging behind her back. From the high cheek bones and russet brown skin, I was pretty sure I’d met my first Indian.
“Oh . . . I didn’t see any signs,” I said a bit skeptically, not quite sure if she was telling the truth or pulling my leg. “I’m Cassandra Parsons. My father—”
“I know who your father is. So you’re the kid who’s stayin’ at Old Man Parsons’ place.”
“Ya, he’s my grandfather, and now we live there too. What’s your name?” I asked boldly.
She held her head high and assumed the proud, aloof expression of an Indian, the noble savage that we all knew so well from movies about the Wild West. “I am Sparrow,” she said, holding both hands out with her left palm up and her right facing down over it, “Flies-in-the-Wind.” She made the most marvelous gesture, lifting her right hand up sharply like a little bird taking off into the wind, even fluttering her fingers just a bit and pivoting her hand to show that the sparrow fought to gain altitude, but persevered and took flight. “My father is Chief John Soaring-Eagle Wind. Boozhoo.”
“What’s boozhoo?”
“It means hello in Ojibwe.”
“And your dad is a real Indian chief?”
“Uh huh.” She nodded, barely restraining a smile.
“Do you live on the reservation?”
“I don’t live on the Stony River Rez.” Before I could ask why, she added flatly with a slight shrug, “My mother is white. I live with her and my grandpa—her father, and my half-brother. ’Bout a mile and a half that way.” She pointed into the woods, away from the river. “Stony River’s that way.” She pointed across the river. “I was just going to see my pa.”
“But . . . if the reservation is over there, how is this Ojibwe land?”
Sparrow assumed a grave expression and spoke in a solemn voice. “All this, all around us,” she swept her arm gracefully, “is Ojibwe land; the white man stole it from us. The white man killed our people and drove us off.” Her black eyes shone like nuggets of coal. I wondered how she reconciled such vitriol toward the white man with being half white, but had the tact and good sense to keep my mouth shut. I was still pondering the question when she pronounced: “Your Grandpappy Parsons’ daddy kilt my great grandpappy—shot ’im over a land dispute.” The coal nuggets looked as if they might go into spontaneous combustion.
“Oh. Well, uh . . . I’m real sorry to hear that. I guess I’ll be going home now,” I said, backing away slowly.
“Go on, if you want to,” she jerked her head in the direction of Grandpa Parsons’ place, “but you don’t have to. I don’t really hold with all that bad blood stuff. What happened ain’t your fault, any more than it’s mine. You can come wi’ me and meet my pa . . . if you’re up to the hike.” She shrugged again.
After being alone for weeks, the thought of such an adventure thrilled me. I actually imagined a tribe of half-clad redskins, bedecked with feathers and beads, in a village dotted with wigwams. “You think it’d be okay?” I asked eagerly.
“Ya sure,” she replied flatly.
Then I remembered my father’s admonition not to roam too far from the lodge. “How far is it?”
“Only ’nother few miles or so. I know a shortcut.”
“I wonder what time it is. I don’t want to be caught in the woods after dark.”
“We got plenty of daylight left,” she glanced up at the sun, “if we don’t stand here talkin’ all afternoon. So you comin’, or what?” she asked with a casual air, like it didn’t matter much either way.
“Okay,” I resolved. So long as I was home for supper, Mom probably wouldn’t even ask where I’d been. She was just too exhausted.
Sparrow Flies-in-the-Wind had already turned and flown, striding quickly through the woods. She didn’t look back as I trotted to catch up. From behind, I noticed that her overalls were rolled up over her calves, displaying sleek, well-defined muscles. She was clearly accustomed to going long distances on foot.
When we came to the river, she stepped in with hardly a pause. “Wait a sec,” I said, as I dug my toe into the heel of my sneaker and pried it off, then stood on one foot and peeled off a sock.
Sparrow paused and smirked a bit. “Damn, look at those clean, soft feet. You sure are a city kid.” Then she made her way deftly over the wet rocks like a deer. I followed carefully, testing the slipperiness of each stone before I moved on. I wasn’t even halfway across before she was standing on the opposite bank. I tried to catch up and lost my footing, dropped one sneaker and almost fell, then did a balancing act by holding out my hands like a tightrope walker while clutching my other sneaker. The lost one landed on its rubber sole and floated in the shallow water like a little boat, with the white sock I’d stuffed in for a sail. I stood there feeling rather pathetic as the sneaker traveled down river about ten yards and washed up against a rock.
“Ha.” Sparrow laughed out loud and grinned at me. “Don’t move,” she said and ran down the other side of the bank to retrieve my footwear from the water. She set it down and strode back in to get me. “Here.” She reached out to help me. I took her hand. It was hard and strong, and her arm didn’t waver as I hung on and made my way clumsily across.
As soon as I reached dry land, I grabbed the other sneaker and hopped around on one foot, struggling to pull on a sock because it stuck to my wet skin. “I’m not allowed to go barefoot,” I said apologetically. I tried to save time by jamming my feet into the sneakers without untying them, but they wouldn’t go on. I had to sit on the ground and untie t
hem first. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.
“You’re somethin’ else,” she replied, shaking her head incredulously. I was still tying the shoelaces when Sparrow resumed her quick march.
“You’re tall,” I said, after I caught up again. “How old are you?”
“I was eleven last spring. You?”
“I’m going on eleven.”
“You’re big for only ten. When’s your birthday?”
“September twenty-ninth.”
I hadn’t given my birthday a thought all summer, but the mention of it reminded me of everything I’d left behind. Tante Gudy always took me out shopping for a new dress and baked her special fudge cake with buttercream frosting. And Kitty Gunderson had come to all my birthday parties ever since I was four. Bittersweet memories of parties with lots of kids and games sprang up like storm clouds at a picnic. For a moment, I forgot where I was and where I was going as everything around me blurred to gray . . . the clear blue sky, the scent of pine, and the long, tight braids of my companion swinging rhythmically along her back.
My introspection must have slowed my steps, because Sparrow had pulled about three yards ahead. Gosh, she was a fast walker. I quickened my pace to close the gap between us. “What grade are you in?” I resumed the conversation.
“Going into sixth. You?”
“Me too. I’m usually one of the oldest kids in class,” I added. “I could have started kindergarten a year earlier ’cause my birthday was so close . . . but my mom kept me home another year.”
“Umph. I shoulda been in seventh grade, but my ma didn’t send me to school ’til first grade. I didn’t know nothin’ ’cause I missed kindergarten, so I got kept back.” She turned her head briefly and tossed the words over her shoulder without breaking her stride. I only caught a glimpse of one eye as she searched my face for a moment to gauge my response. A lot was riding on my reaction to her confidence.
Getting kept back a grade was a big deal, something all but the most academically secure students feared mightily. It marked one forever as dumb, and other kids could be merciless with their taunts. Children often lost all but their truest friends as their classmates moved on and didn’t want to associate with the one left behind.