Under a Blackberry Moon

by Serena Miller

  “To find bowl.”

  “A bowl? Where do you think you’re going to find a bowl?”

  “You like tea?”

  He threw another branch on the fire. “Of course, I like tea, but there are no bowls here.”

  She smiled knowingly. “You see.”

  What she came back with was nothing more than a rectangular piece of birch bark.

  “That’s your bowl?”

  “You see soon,” Moon Song said.

  He didn’t say anything. Instead, he simply kept watch, even though what she was doing made no sense to him.

  She warmed a corner of the bark, which seemed to soften it, and then she creased and folded it along all the corners. With a small, sharp twig, she punched holes in each of the corners and used tiny young grapevine stems to tie the holes together—creating a sort of rectangular bowl. The only thing he could see that the bowl would be good for was perhaps picking berries, had there been any berries this time of year.

  As something to make tea in, it was useless. If it had been anyone else he knew, he would have made a joke, but with Moon Song, he decided it would be best to keep his mouth shut. Who knew what she might have up her sleeve?

  She then took the container down to the lake and came back with about a quart of water in it. It surprised him that it did not appear to be leaking. She raked the main flames of the fire over a few inches, creating a small bed of coals covered with ash, and then she did something he would never have believed had he not seen it with his own eyes—she set the birch bark bowl flat upon the ash-covered coals.

  “Won’t it catch fire?” he asked.

  “Wait,” she said. “Watch.”

  And so he watched. The side of the bowl closest to the body of the fire got darker from the heat but did not catch fire. Within about ten minutes, curls of steam rose from it. Within twenty minutes, steam was rising in earnest. At that point, Moon Song took a handful of something from her pocket, chopped it up, and then sprinkled it over the hot water.

  “And what is that?”

  “We call it ‘little sturgeon-fish plant.’ White people call it ‘mountain mint.’”

  “Is it some sort of healing plant?”

  “No.” She glanced at him, concerned. “You sick?”

  “Not yet.”

  She shrugged. “Taste good.”

  While the herbs steeped in the steaming liquid, Moon Song’s hands were not still. She worked with three other pieces of birch bark, which she cut, warmed, and shaped into small cups.

  He could soon smell a minty aroma arising from the thin wooden basket.

  She took one of the smaller birch cups then dipped it into the steaming water. She handed it to Skypilot, who cradled it in his palm. This time he did not say “ladies first,” but he did wait politely to drink. Isabella took the woodland cup and examined it carefully. “This is beautiful, Moon Song, and I’ve always been partial to mint tea.”

  Moon Song smiled and held up an invisible pretend container. “Sugar?”

  Isabella played along. “Well, I don’t mind if I do. Three lumps, please. I’ve always preferred my tea extremely sweet.”

  Moon Song, like a small child at a doll’s tea party, pretended to drop three lumps of sugar into the cup of tea. Then she looked at him questioningly.

  “Two lumps, please.” He held out his cup for his imaginary lumps of sugar.

  Moon Song giggled as she pretended to drop them into the water. To amuse her, he made exaggerated splashing sounds.

  He was finding himself absolutely entranced with this daughter of the lake country with her combination of competency, courage, and innocence. No doubt Katie had served Moon Song tea in a real china cup with sugar and . . .

  “Cream?” Moon Song tipped her head to one side and held up an imaginary pitcher.

  “I would love some!” Isabella said, enjoying the game.

  “Me too,” Skypilot agreed.

  After pouring the imaginary cream, Moon Song, smiling, took Ayasha onto her lap, cuddling him as she sipped the minty hot water.

  He was astonished at how heartening the civilized action of drinking hot tea could be, even if the sugar and cream were imaginary. With a fire, dry clothes, cooked fish in his stomach, and now a hot liquid to sip, life seemed manageable, even if they were far from civilization and rescue.

  The two rabbit snares she’d set early that morning had taken much skill and time to perfect, but the time spent had been worth it. They would be having two juicy rabbits for supper tonight. She gave thanks for the blessing these little rabbits would be for them. She was also grateful that her grandmother taught her how to make an effective trap that did not rely on string or wire. She made them out of small, threadlike roots she knew how to find.

  The braves of her tribe were experts in bringing down deer, bear, and moose. After a productive hunt, the men spent time sitting around, reliving the kill while the women butchered the animal and carried the meat into camp.

  The women of the tribe were the experts in snaring small game, something with which the men seldom bothered. The squirrels and rabbits her grandmother had caught had filled in around the edges of their hunger between her grandfather’s bigger kills. The rabbit skins had many uses as well.

  Unfortunately, many of their people had come to rely on white man’s string and wire and his metal cooking pots and guns for such a long time that the old ways of survival were being forgotten. Not every Chippewa woman had these skills anymore. Many no longer wanted them.

  Instead, they waited for the yearly annuities that the government had promised them for their land. And they waited, and they waited. Too often the payments were late. Too often the people spent their money on the cheap, brightly colored goods set up by hawkers outside the government offices. More often than not, an entire year’s worth of annuity was wasted on the liquor that some of the more unscrupulous salespeople brought.

  Her grandmother had quietly despised the whites for what they had done to her people, but she equally despised those of her own tribe who had allowed themselves to become more and more dependent on the government. It was not war that had wrested the land from the Menominee and Chippewa nations, but the desire for more European trade goods. Grandmother had taught her that too many animal skins had been traded for items their people thought they could not do without but had lived without since time began.

  Fallen Arrow had fought back by keeping as much of their traditions and skills alive in her granddaughter as possible. Now those very skills were helping keep Moon Song’s baby and two white people alive.

  All this she pondered as evening fell and as she watched over her basket of rabbit stew steaming on the soft coals. It was a larger basket than the one in which she had made tea, and not something in which to cook quickly, but if one had the time, it was possible to create a wonderful stew.

  She had fashioned a cover for it to make it come to a boil sooner. Once the rabbit cooked for a while, she began cutting chunks of something that looked like a parsnip on top.

  “What is that?” Isabella asked.

  “Burdock root. My people eat much.”

  She sprinkled on a chopped herb, and within the hour, the stew she had fashioned had begun to bubble and steam.

  “That’s smelling really good,” Skypilot said.

  “Where I see woods,” Isabella said, “Moon Song sees a larder.”

  In the Chippewa culture, everything was sacred, and everything had a circle. Skypilot and the others had saved her and Ayasha’s life. Now she saved his. The rabbit would nourish all of them as it was meant to do.

  Eventually, she took the makeshift lid off the birch bark pot and stirred the stew with a stick. The meat fell off the bones, and she knew it was done. She dragged the basket off the fire and was gratified to see there was still some gravy juice from the rabbit in it.

  “It is ready,” she said after it had cooled enough to eat.

  They ate from the same container, dredging up the meat and burdock
with their fingers and drinking the liquid. When it was gone, they gnawed at the soft ends of the bones and sucked out the marrow.

  With the good shelter, a clear view of the lake in case a ship might pass, and plenty of fish to catch and eat, they continued to allow their bodies to recover from their ordeal. They rested and took turns looking out over the lake, ready to start yelling and waving Isabella’s voluminous white petticoat if any sort of boat was sighted.

  In the distance, they heard the howl of wolves.

  “What is that!” Isabella asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Skypilot said. “There were always wolves howling around the lumber camps, but none of us were afraid of them.”

  “Of course not,” Isabella said. “With sturdy log cabins to sleep in at night and axes ready at hand during the day, I’m certain you felt very safe.”

  “You have a good point, but I don’t think they’ll bother us. They sound very far away, and we have a good fire.”

  As she sipped more tea, Moon Song gazed out at the moon shining off the lake as she listened to the music of the wolves.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “Thinking we walk tomorrow.” She pointed west, along the lakeshore. “We walk close to lake. If ship come, we see. If not, we walk and walk.”

  “Can I be part of this conversation?” Isabella asked.

  “Of course,” Skypilot said.

  “It seems to me that we should stay here until we’re rescued. We have fish. We have water. We have fire and shelter. It feels foolhardy to do anything else.”

  “You like mosquitoes?” Moon Song asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “You like blackflies?”

  Isabella shuddered. “Of course not.”

  “Weather get warm. Much bite.”

  “Oh.” Isabella absorbed this thought. “Then I guess we’ll start walking tomorrow.”

  “We might be closer than we realize.” He handed Isabella her newly heelless shoes.

  Isabella put the shoes on, stood up, and rocked back and forth on them. “Not bad. Not wonderful, but not bad. And just in time. I need to . . . go.”

  Neither he nor Moon Song paid much attention to Isabella’s absence until several minutes later when they heard a shriek and Isabella ran into their rock shelter.

  “Eyes!” She was panting. “So many eyes!”

  She grasped one of the logs he’d brought inside before it got dark and dragged it onto the fire. “Make the fire bigger. Hurry!”

  12

  Moon Song, who seldom showed fear over anything, sprang up, whipped her knife out of her boot, grabbed Ayasha against her, and shoved her back against the back of the rock shelter, holding her baby with her left hand, her knife in her right.

  He had no idea what was going on. “What’s wrong?”

  “You hear?” Moon Song’s eyes were wide with fear.

  “Hear what?” he said. “It’s quiet out. The wolves finally stopped that incessant howling. There’s nothing to hear now except the lake.”

  Then he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, and even without turning around, he knew that something was standing directly behind him.

  As Moon Song said, the wolves had quit howling.

  This would not have meant a thing to him except for the fact that two women were cowering against the back of the shelter and something deadly was staring a hole through his back. He could almost feel the thing slavering as it anticipated the snap of its jaws around his neck. He’d heard many stories about wolves in the bunkhouses of lumber camps late at night and had discounted most of them. The veteran shanty boys enjoyed making up bloodcurdling tales to frighten greenhorns.

  When he first came into the northwoods, he had made it his business to find out from a couple trappers he trusted just how dangerous these wolves were. He was told that they were relatively shy, incredibly intelligent animals and under normal circumstances did not attack humans.

  Unless they were hungry . . . like right after they had gotten through a long winter.

  Or unless the prey was a woman.

  Or a small child.

  The only weapon he had was fire. Slowly, he reached for one of the larger tree limbs they’d stuck into the fire earlier. With no axe to cut wood into smaller sections, they had been feeding the larger tree limbs into the fire a little at a time. Now he slowly grasped it in both hands and lifted it, dripping a trail of sparks and embers behind it while turning to face the thing standing behind him.

  The wolf was gray, and up close, it looked like a rangy dog, except this animal was bigger than any dog he had ever laid eyes on. He had never seen a wolf close-up before, not close enough to measure against himself. The top of this wolf’s head came nearly to the middle of his chest, and when he looked into those yellow eyes, it was as though he were looking into an intelligent, malevolent force.

  There was going to be a battle tonight, and it was a battle he wasn’t sure he could win. Except he had no choice. He had to win it. There were three lives behind him that he had to protect. His only weapons were this half-burned tree limb, the muscle and sinew in his arms, and his bare hands.

  The large wolf was standing stiff-legged now, its ears forward, its hackles raised, and yet it did not attack. Instead, it looked almost as though it were smiling.

  Then he heard a scream.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was not Isabella screaming this time. It was Moon Song, backed up against the rock wall, as far away as she could get from the outer perimeter of the shelter, and he saw why—several gray shadows were skulking toward her as she held Ayasha in her arms.

  The large, leader wolf had chosen him as the biggest threat and was deliberately keeping him distracted while his wolf minions stalked the two women and the baby. These wolves were not shy, and they were not afraid of humans. They wanted food and saw an easy supply.

  Her grandmother had worked hard to teach her to be courageous. Fallen Arrow said that women needed twice the courage of men. Unfortunately, she had one fear that she could not rid herself of—her terror of wolves. Where that fear had come from, she did not know, but it was very real, and right now, it was serious.

  Her knees felt weak as she backed away from the silently moving shapes skulking about. They wanted her and they wanted her baby, and the more fearful and cringing she appeared, the more a target she became in their eyes.

  She knew this—and yet she could not make the hand with which she held her knife stop shaking.

  “Let me hold Ayasha,” Isabella whispered hoarsely. “Then you will be free to fight if they come.”

  Moon Song gladly handed Ayasha over to Isabella. As young as he was, he seemed to sense the terror in the air, but instead of crying like many babies would, he kept silent and watched all that was going on with eyes too wise for his age. A faint part of Moon Song’s brain saw that even at eight months, her son had more courage than most. He would make a great brave someday. Perhaps he would even lead their people. Her life at that moment became unimportant compared to protecting his.

  Watching those animals milling about, stalking her, staring at her with the light of the campfire reflected in their yellow eyes, brought a great terror. Her heart pounded so furiously she wondered if it might explode, but it was no longer fear for herself. Her life had ceased to matter to her. The terror was for her son. The wild protectiveness that came with loving a child gave her the strength to face the wolves with steadiness and calm. She held her knife, ready to fight to the death.

  Then she saw the leader wolf leap straight at Skypilot.

  She had seen Skypilot swing an axe before. She’d admired the way he used those massive arms and shoulders to fell trees that would have taken lesser men days to chew through even with the sharpest of axes. There was power in those arms, and skill. There were those at camp who had boasted that Skypilot could split a toothpick with his axe.

  She wished he had an axe now. The wolves would have stood no chance agains
t Skypilot with an axe in his hands, but all he had was that tree limb. He swung just as the wolf leaped, and struck it square in the shoulder, making it spin out into the night.

  The leader wolf was not used to being thwarted in its plans. With a vicious growl, it leaped again, as fast as lightning. Once again, Skypilot struck it a full blow.

  The lesser wolves saw the attack and edged closer to Skypilot.

  It was a scene she would remember for the rest of her life—the vision of that big man, his legs planted firmly in place, fighting off the wolves with nothing except a sturdy tree limb and his bare hands. He swung over and over. She saw wolves’ bodies flying through the air, but there was always another to take their place.

  Then tragedy struck. The limb broke in half, and the stub was not enough for him to use for protection. There was nothing left in the shelter that was an appropriate length, and they were hours away from daylight.

  The leader wolf saw the situation and began to creep closer and closer. One of Skypilot’s blows had made one leg go lame, and it limped as it went toward him while Skypilot looked around frantically for something to use as a weapon.

  “Here!” She tossed him her knife. It left her defenseless, but all she could think about was getting a weapon into Skypilot’s hands. If he did not survive, there was no chance for the rest of them.

  He caught the knife just as the wolf once again launched itself straight at him. Its great front paws hit his chest, knocking him over, and Skypilot was down.

  Just as its great jaws were closing over Skypilot’s throat, she found herself standing over it with a large rock in both of her hands, ready to bring it crashing down on the wolf’s head.

  Then she saw it fall over sideways, and Skypilot crawled out from under it.

  “Thanks for the loan of the knife.” He stood up. “Looks like the rest of the pack decided to reconsider.”

  Hardly able to believe her eyes, she glanced out at the darkness and saw no sign of wolves. As silently as they’d come, they’d melted back into the forest.

  “Are you all right?” He tipped her chin back and looked deep into her eyes.