Under a Blackberry Moon

by Serena Miller

  “Why are you afraid?”

  “They have come to take us.”

  “Take who? Where?” Nothing he was saying made sense.

  His breathing had grown steady enough that he was able to speak without panting. “They say they have built schools that will help Indian children learn to live in the white man’s world.”

  “What kind of schools?”

  “I overheard two of them talking to each other as I hid behind our cabin,” Hanging Leaf said. “One said she could not wait to clean us up and cut off our braids.”

  Oh my! The reason behind his terror became clear to her. It was one thing to wear white man’s clothing. Many of the men and women had various articles of clothing they wore because a color appealed to them or because they were fascinated with brass buttons or simply needed covering for warmth.

  But it was another thing to have hair like a white man.

  An Indian boy or man who had short hair was considered a coward, and he would be ridiculed mercilessly by the others for it.

  No doubt the government workers thought they would just be tidying the boy up. They probably had no idea they would be destroying his reputation as a man. Perhaps a few words from someone who had lived in the white world and yet understood the Chippewa culture would help.

  But would they truly take the children away? She had not known the schools were ready yet. When she’d heard about them, she thought this time would only come several years from now.

  “Stay here. Rest and hide. I will go try to talk some sense into these people.”

  She was not expecting the chaos she saw as she drew near to the village.

  Children were crying and clinging to their mothers, who were looking as wild-eyed as Hanging Leaf. The braves had gone on a hunt, and the older boys like Hanging Leaf had all disappeared. Their chief, an elderly man with only a few words of English at his command, was trying to talk to three bored-looking white people. Two men and one woman.

  “You go. Talk.” Fallen Arrow grabbed little Standing Bear out of her arms and shoved her toward the chief and government people. “Get this stopped.”

  Moon Song did not need her grandmother’s urging. She could tell that something bad was happening and hoped that her fluency in English could serve her people.

  “Can I help you, Uncle?” she asked in Chippewa to their frustrated chief.

  “I think they have come for the children,” he said. “I cannot tell. They use words I cannot understand.”

  Moon Song turned to the white people. “Please forgive the confusion in my village. Our chief has few English words. He, and others, think that you have come to steal our children.”

  The man who seemed to be the leader snorted in contempt. “We aren’t coming to steal anything. We merely want to take some of the children away to help give them a better life. We have a beautiful new boarding school built at great expense to house a certain amount of Indian children. We have teachers who will not only teach them how to speak English but also teach them how to be productive citizens with manual skills that will help them make a living. They will be fed, clothed, and educated. We are not stealing children, we are helping them.”

  Moon Song’s heart plummeted. The rumors she had heard were true.

  “Where will the children sleep? With their parents?” She hoped she was misunderstanding what he was saying. She hoped this was simply yet another day school. Some churches had been known to set up a day school for Indian children, but they got to go home overnight.

  “No,” he said. “That’s the whole point. We want these children to learn English as their first language, not as their second. We want to teach them how to be self-sufficient and not have to rely on the government for handouts anymore. It is the government’s intention to turn them into productive citizens.”

  She saw him glance around at the village with disgust. One mother sat in front of her cabin, within hearing distance of the conversation, nervously pulling lice out of her three-year-old daughter’s long hair. The child’s face was dirty, as was the mother’s.

  What the government worker didn’t realize was that it was hard keeping little hands and faces perfectly clean all the time when one lived close to the earth and cooked over open fires.

  “Where is this school?” she asked.

  “Oh, it is over in Pennsylvania.” A woman in a dress that looked elaborate and expensive broke into the conversation. Moon Song figured she was one of those do-gooder women Delia had warned her about. Someone with too much time on their hands, Delia had called them. Always meddling in someone else’s life.

  “The children will get a lovely train ride there.” The do-gooder woman dabbed at her nose with a lacy handkerchief. “It will be quite educational.”

  “How often will they come home?”

  Do-gooder woman had the grace to look a little embarrassed, and dabbed at her nose again. “Well, the train ride will be rather expensive. Probably not until they graduate.” Her voice took on the enthusiasm of a true visionary. “But they will bring home wonderful skills that can help lift your people out of the poverty into which they’ve allowed themselves to sink.”

  Moon Song thought of the caches of food that she and her friends had made from the abundance of their limited forest. She had not felt particularly impoverished as she’d helped harvest and preserve the food that they’d grown.

  “Give us time to think, please?” she asked the woman.

  The woman’s face took on an imperious expression. “Oh no. I don’t think you understand. This is not an option. It is a government mandate. We are to extract one child from every family here to educate for the betterment of that family.”

  This went so far beyond cutting a boy’s braids that the audacity of it took her breath away. What they were proposing would destroy their families and their tribe. So far, only the do-gooder woman and one man had spoken. The other government man had remained silent. She took his measure now. He was more muscular than the man who had spoken with her, and she saw that he was carrying two guns on him. He was there to enforce this new law with weapons if necessary.

  If they tried to take the children right now, there would be bloodshed because the mothers would put up a fight. She was afraid that the life of a Chippewa mother would have little weight compared against filling a government-mandated quota.

  “What are they saying?” the old chief asked.

  “I will explain when they are gone, Uncle,” she replied. “Please trust me for now.”

  He nodded, folded his arms, and waited.

  “I have lived with whites,” she said. “They treated me well. I know children need learning. My child is still small. When he is older, I will make sure he learns much from white man’s books and ways.”

  She watched the three white people visibly relax. They thought she was on their side, which is exactly what she intended.

  “If you take the children away now, many mothers will not understand the great good the government is trying to do for them. They will fight you, and bad feelings will come. Give me time to convince them why this school is a good thing. Give us time to make food and clothing for children’s long journey.”

  “I’ll give you two days,” the man said.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’ll give you two days to get the mothers convinced and the children ready. We’ll be back on the morning of the third day. I expect one child from each family to be packed, dressed, and ready. If they are not, we will take the quota of children by force.”

  “It will take much talk to convince my people. I will need two weeks, not two days.”

  “Two days. Take it or leave it.”

  Moon Song’s hand itched to reach into her boot, remove the knife, and make this arrogant dog beg for his life. Instead, she meekly nodded and agreed to his request. He had no idea how quickly she would act once he left.

  The do-gooder woman, for whatever reason, felt it necessary to reach out and shake her hand. This was not a pleasant expe
rience. Not only was the do-gooder woman’s hand small and limp, it was also moist. Moon Song surreptitiously wiped her palm on the side of her skirt the minute the woman turned away.

  As they left, she overheard the do-gooder woman say to the man who had talked, “But what if they aren’t here when we come back?”

  “Where else would they go?” His laughter was seasoned with derision.

  If you only knew, Moon Song thought. If you only knew where we will go.

  The minute the white people left, everyone gathered around her. Many had caught a word here or there and understood the gist of what was happening, but they wanted details.

  After she had quickly explained what needed to happen, she sent the young women who were fleetest of foot to gather in the braves who were out hunting. Then she singled out Hanging Leaf, who had slunk back into the village with the other older boys.

  “Choose one other boy from the village,” she said. “Someone who is as fast as you. Run to the town of Rockland. Find the man there that our Chippewa cousins know as Big White Bear. His other name is Skypilot.”

  “And what do we tell him?” Hanging Leaf asked.

  “Tell him that we need him here.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to come?”

  “Tell him that our village is in trouble and that Moon Song is calling for him.” She felt a measure of pride in front of her village as she said, “You might have trouble keeping up with him on the journey back. That is how fast he will come to me.”

  “Boozhoo,” Skypilot said the minute he saw Moon Song. She was quickly rolling up rush mats and tying them with twine. “Aanii.”

  She glanced up, smiled, and said in English, “Greetings and hello to you too! Aniish na?”

  “I am fine, thank you for asking,” he said. “Gi zah gin.”

  He had just told her that he loved her in Chippewa. It was one phrase he’d practiced over and over. Now, he saw the words sparkling in her eyes as well, but they did not come out her mouth.

  “We have big work, Skypilot,” she said. “You love me? Help me make my people disappear before we lose our children. I’m moving my village to the Huron Mountains, to my father’s land. The government dogs will be surprised to find our village gone when they come back.”

  “The boys told me what has happened. I agree that these boarding schools are a bad idea, but are your people with you on this plan to move to your land? The Huron Mountains are many days’ journey away.”

  “It is our only hope. They will come with me.”

  “I fear for the children in my tribe as well,” he said.

  “Your tribe?” She glanced at him, surprised.

  It surprised him too, even as he spoke, that he had said the words “my tribe” as naturally as if he were truly a part of the people with whom he had been living.

  Moon Song smiled. “You care about them.”

  “I do. They were kind to me and taught me much.”

  “Those who want to come with us will be welcome, although they will have to prepare themselves quickly. I will send one of our fastest braves back to them. In the meantime, you can help me prepare for the journey.”

  “Just show me what to do.”

  It struck him how wise the Lord’s timing was sometimes when it least seemed like it. Being fired from his teaching job by Harvey Turney had infuriated him—but it had given him the freedom to leave the instant Moon Song needed him. Turney would not be as good of a teacher as Skypilot, but the white students needed his help less than the Chippewa children right now.

  The other men of the tribe did not seem particularly surprised to see him there. He found out later that day that practically every move he had made the past two months had been discussed throughout the various groups of Chippewa.

  Frankly, he did not think his life merited such interest.

  As soon as those relatives from the other tribe who wanted to accompany them arrived, the procession to the Hurons began. Moon Song’s plan was simple. They walked into the forest with only what they could pack on their backs. The older people took turns riding Moon Song’s mule when they tired. Sometimes the good mule held two or three small children, allowing their mothers a rest from the labor of carrying them.

  Moon Song was loaded down like a mule herself, as were all the young women. The young men, however, carried only their weapons. This behavior had gone on for centuries and made some sense to Skypilot now. The men were there to protect and hunt, not to be drudges who carried the heavy loads. A warrior would fight to defend his woman, but he would not lighten her load. That was the way it had always been.

  In this way, they made their way toward the Huron Mountains. Toward the land Moon Song’s father had given her.

  25

  It was an early, unexpected snowstorm that slowed them down. A blizzard. Two days into their walk east across Upper Michigan from the western shores of Superior to the Huron Mountains, the snow had come. It was too soon for winter, but strange things sometimes happened this far north. Blizzards came, unexpectedly and deadly, sometimes in the fall. He was shocked, but the others were not.

  The blizzard could not have come at a worse time. The tribe had several elderly and young ones to care for and at least another four days’ walk. They needed shelter. A sturdy longhouse that could house the whole tribe would have been ideal, but there was no time to stop and build one—not with government people possibly on their heels.

  There had been a time in his life when he would not have believed that Moon Song’s tribe would need to run from the government. Now, however, he’d heard enough from the old ones in the tribe to know that it truly was better to run and hide than try to fight an elected leadership that viewed Indians as children who did not know what was good for them.

  It bothered him that if the quota was not filled by Moon Song’s tribe, it would be filled with another, but he could not protect all the Chippewa—only this tribe and those who had come from the one outside the Minnesota Mine. Keeping those two tribes safe and alive would be a great enough challenge.

  They spent that first night in an old-growth pine forest that Skypilot scanned with a timberman’s eyes and knew someday would probably delight some owner of a lumber camp. In the meantime, the tribe sheltered the best it could in the cold and damp.

  It was during that night when they were all so cold and wet that Moon Song began to cough.

  The snow did not let up. It snowed all day and all night for three days. There was a great deal of discussion among members of the tribe over what to do. If they stayed there, it might be spring before they dug out again. On the other hand, no one had ever seen it snow this much in October. It was a freak thing. It would stop. They would go on.

  What if it didn’t, others argued. What if it had settled in early to stay? The giant pines could hold back, to some extent, one or two light snowfalls. But they could not withstand steadily falling snow like they were getting right now. It was not unusual to get twenty-five to thirty feet of snow per winter in this area, and here they were, with no tipis, no wigwams, no longhouses, and only the food they could carry on their backs. Some of the men were debating the wisdom of having left.

  Moon Song’s generous offer to share her land was starting to look like a foolish idea compared to what they had left behind on the reservation. At least on the reservation, they could continue to stay alive, even if a few of the children had to go to a government school.

  Moon Song could hear the mumbling, but it was as though from far away. She had developed a fever, and she found it hard to concentrate. Her cough was deepening. She ached all over. Visions of the white woman with her lacy handkerchief dabbing at her red-rimmed nose wove their way through her feverish thoughts, along with the feel of shaking the woman’s moist hand.

  She was terribly sick, and she knew it. Too sick to fight her tribe about which direction to go. They would have to decide if they wanted to go back to what they knew or forward several days’ journey to a land none of them had seen a
nd that existed solely on a paper that only Skypilot could read.

  She didn’t blame them, but she pitied the children and their mothers when finally more than half the tribe elected to go back and face the consequences rather than gamble on pushing on to the land she had wanted to share with them.

  The old chief of her own tribe was torn. He would not command them; that was not the way their people worked out decisions. But she knew he was saddened at the idea of abandoning their plan. He had once been a great warrior and still had a warrior’s heart, but sometimes it was hard to have a warrior’s heart in an old man’s body.

  “I will only slow you down,” he said. “I do not think I will see another winter. I will go back to my cabin in Ontonagon and there live or die. I have no children left to fight for. It is the young men’s battle.”

  Many of the people left with him, turning back to Ontonogan, back to what they knew.

  By the time the chief made that decision, Moon Song was very ill.

  “I can take you back, Moon Song,” Skypilot said. “The government won’t take little Standing Bear. Not yet. He’s too young.”

  “No.”

  “We’re much closer to the reservation than we are your father’s property.”

  “No.”

  Fallen Arrow was bathing her face with snow, trying to keep down her fever. Standing Bear had been wrapped back into the cradle board and was not happy about it. He had begun to whimper for his mother, but Moon Song could not rouse herself to care for him.

  Skypilot wondered if she had pneumonia, otherwise known as “the old man’s friend” because it was a relatively quick and painless way for the elderly to die. Unfortunately, even though Moon Song was far from elderly, he knew that like the rest of her people, she had a weakness to the white man’s diseases. A simple case of childhood measles could take her life.

  “I want to leave now,” Moon Song insisted.