by Ruth Chew
They left the pond and started back across the open plain. The rain was coming down harder, and the sky was almost black.
Terry saw a flash of lightning in a cloud. A moment later they all heard the rumble of thunder.
They passed the blackberry patches and the blueberry bushes. The rain was coming down in torrents now.
Up ahead towered a lonely tree.
“Just what we need!” Like-a-Possum ran over to take shelter under the spreading branches.
Terry threw down her sack. She raced over to drag him back into the pouring rain.
“What’s the matter with you?” Like-a-Possum struggled to get away from her.
Suddenly there was a blinding light and a deafening boom. A fork of lightning had split the trunk of the tree in half!
Nobody said anything for a while. Then Terry picked up her sack. “Didn’t anybody ever warn you guys not to stand under a tree in the rain?”
Snow-Flower led the way through the pouring rain. Max noticed that there were places where the narrow path became two paths. It would be easy to lose their way. He was glad they had Snow-Flower for a guide.
The thunder rumbled away into the distant clouds. The sky became lighter. Before they reached the forest, the rain stopped, and the sun came out.
“I’m glad,” Like-a-Possum said. “I wasn’t going to walk under all those trees while it was still raining.”
Water dripped from the trees at first. Farther along, the woods were dry. When they came to the oak tree, they saw more acorns. A gray squirrel was busy burying some of them.
Like-a-Possum grabbed Max’s arm and silently pointed first to the slingshot and then to the squirrel.
Max shook his head.
The squirrel saw him, flicked his tail, and scampered up the tree.
Like-a-Possum was disappointed. “You could have shot him easily, Max. Why didn’t you?”
Max used to feed peanuts to squirrels. He couldn’t hurt one.
“The slingshot is magic,” Terry said. “It only does what it wants to.”
Nobody argued about this. And nobody wanted to pick up more acorns. They left them for the squirrel and walked quickly along the path.
Terry began to feel empty inside. “Those berries were good,” she said, “but they didn’t fill me up.”
Max took out the little bag Blackbird-on-the-Wing had given him. “I’m hungry, too. How about you guys?”
Snow-Flower and Like-a-Possum each took a handful of dry cornmeal out of the bag and began to chew it.
Terry grabbed a handful and popped it into her mouth. It was so dry she thought she would choke, but she kept chewing until the cornmeal became moist. Then it began to taste good. Soon it was soft enough to eat. Terry’s stomach felt much better. She looked at Max. He was still chewing. And he looked surprised.
It was a long walk through the woods. The sky was turning pink by the time they reached the stockade fence around the village.
Singing-Moon and her grandfather were waiting at the gate. Her baby was on Singing-Moon’s back.
“Run home!” Wise-Defender told Snow-Flower and Like-a-Possum. “Your mother is waiting for you.”
They raced off to their own house.
Singing-Moon was surprised that the children were so wet. It had not rained here.
Wise-Defender led the way to Singing-Moon’s house. He went to sit near her cooking fire. “Come over here and dry those damp clothes,” he told Terry and Max.
Singing-Moon took the acorns Max and Terry had in their sacks. She put them into a clay pot that had a pointed bottom. Then she filled the pot with water and ashes. She dropped stones into the fire and used them to prop up the pot.
She brought out a fur robe for each of the children to wear while their shorts and T-shirts were drying by the fire.
Her grandfather was sitting next to Terry and Max. “Now tell us what happened to you today.”
First Terry told Singing-Moon and Wise-Defender about the copperhead snake hiding in the acorns and how Max killed the snake with his slingshot.
“You should change your name to Quick-and-Brave,” Singing-Moon said.
Max shook his head. “I was scared stiff. Terry thinks the slingshot is magic.”
“Let me see it.” Wise-Defender reached for the slingshot.
Max fitted a stone into the wide rubber band and handed him the slingshot.
Wise-Defender took aim at the lowest branch of the maple tree and let fly. Pow! The stone crashed into the branch.
“Thief! Thief!” A startled bluejay flew out of the tree.
Wise-Defender handed back the slingshot. “I don’t know if it’s magic, but it’s better than a bow and arrow for killing snakes.”
Max told how Terry had dragged Like-a-Possum away from the tree in the thunderstorm.
“Terry!” Singing-Moon stared at her. “How did you know the lightning would split the tree? Is this more magic?”
“I didn’t know,” Terry said. “I was taught that lightning strikes the tallest things around. That was the only tree there.”
When Singing-Moon learned that they’d eaten nothing but berries and cornmeal, she heated stones and warmed a stew.
Wise-Defender stayed to eat with them. Blackbird-on-the-Wing came home in time to join them. He had spent the day building a deadfall trap for a bear. Max wanted to know what a deadfall was, but Blackbird-on-the-Wing laughed. “It’s different each time. I have to trick the bear into making very heavy logs fall on him. Would you like to come with me tomorrow when I go hunting? I can show you the trap then.”
Max was excited. “I’d like very much to go,” he said.
Terry was happy that she had not been invited.
Early next morning, Max left to go hunting with Blackbird-on-the-Wing.
Terry looked into the wooden bowl where the acorns had been soaking in water and wood ashes. She saw that the shells had fallen off the kernels. They were like little nuts now.
She helped Singing-Moon rinse the kernels in clear water and spread them on a flat stone to dry in the sun.
Later in the day Singing-Moon and Terry took turns using a stone pounder in the hollow of a small log to grind the kernels into acorn flour. Singing-Moon mixed the flour with water to make little flat loaves of acorn bread. She wrapped the loaves in vine leaves and baked them in the hot ashes of her cooking fire.
Some of the corn in the planting field was ripe. Terry went with Singing-Moon to help pick it. They hung the baby in his pouch from the lowest branch of a persimmon tree next to the field. He laughed when he swung back and forth as the breeze swayed the branch.
Singing-Moon showed Terry which ears of corn were ripe. She put them into the sack she’d used for the acorns the day before.
When they were ready to take the corn to the house, the baby was fast asleep. Singing-Moon put him on her back again.
They picked a few of the biggest ears to roast in their husks.
Singing-Moon showed Terry how to braid together the husks of the corn to be dried. They strung these from the pole above the little fire in the house.
After Singing-Moon fed her baby, she hung his pouch on the maple tree and brought out some patties made of cornmeal and maple syrup.
Terry was so hungry that the sticky patty tasted wonderful.
Singing-Moon nibbled hers happily. “I never want to eat anything after this.” When she’d eaten the last crumb, she licked her fingers. “You must be thirsty. I know I am. Let’s get a drink.” Singing-Moon ran over to the flat rock by the stream.
Terry followed her. They kneeled down and cupped their hands to drink the cool clear water.
“I should have brought the water carrier,” Singing-Moon said. “We will need fresh water for cooking.”
“I’ll get it,” Terry told her.
The water container was stored under one of the benches inside the house. It was carved of wood and was heavy. There was a leather carrying strap. Terry slipped it over her shoulder. She had to ma
ke several trips to the stream before she had enough water to fill Singing-Moon’s clay pots and her big wooden bowl.
Singing-Moon started heating stones in the fire in front of her house. The water in the bowl was boiling by the time Max and Blackbird-on-the-Wing returned from the hunt.
Max was excited. “Look what we caught!”
Terry saw that he was carrying a string of fish. “I thought you were going bear hunting.”
“The bear was smarter than I was,” Blackbird-on-the-Wing told her. “He must have knocked over the heavy logs with his paw. Then he ate the bait and went away.”
“I’m glad he didn’t wait for you,” Singing-Moon said.
“So am I!” Her husband hugged her.
“When we went upstream, we saw fish jumping right out of the water,” Max said. “Blackbird-on-the-Wing tried shooting them with his bow and arrow, but the fish were too quick. I dug some worms, and Blackbird-on-the-Wing had a couple of bone fishhooks and some twine in that leather bag tied to his belt.”
“It would have been more fun to get the fish with my bow and arrow,” Blackbird-on-the-Wing told them.
Singing-Moon cleaned and cut up the fish. She dropped them into the water in the wooden bowl. Terry added more hot rocks to keep the water boiling.
Terry saw Singing-Moon lift one of the slabs of bark on the ground near the house. Under it was a round hole lined with mats of woven reeds. Singing-Moon took out roots, cornmeal, dried herbs, and berries, and put them into the bowl with the fish. Terry helped by putting the slab back on the hole.
Max and Terry enjoyed the stew more than the one they’d had the night before. Max thought it was because he was getting used to this sort of food. Terry knew it was because she’d helped prepare it.
Before they finished eating, Terry heard a boom-boom-boom. “What’s that?”
“Our drum,” Blackbird-on-the-Wing said. “Do you like to dance?”
“I do, but Max doesn’t,” Terry told him.
Like-a-Possum came running over to where they were sitting near the fire. His eyes were shining. “Come on. They’re getting ready to start!”
Boom, boom, boom! The booming continued.
“I keep chewing to the beat of that drum,” Max told Terry.
It was a haunting sound. Terry felt as if it were calling her. She stood up and helped Singing-Moon wipe the clamshells and put them away.
“Hurry!” Like-a-Possum begged. “They’re already starting.”
“That shouldn’t bother you,” Blackbird-on-the-Wing told him. “You may join the dance whenever you want to.”
“It’s just that I hate to miss any of it,” Like-a-Possum said. “It’s been ages since we had a dance.”
Blackbird-on-the-Wing laughed. “Run along then and start dancing. We’ll see you later.”
Singing-Moon strapped her baby on her back. She walked with Blackbird-on-the-Wing toward the open space in the middle of the village. Terry and Max came after them. On the way they met Wise-Defender and Snow-Flower going to the dance.
“The sound of the drum makes me want to dance,” Snow-Flower said.
“It makes me feel young again,” her great-grandfather told them.
A bonfire was blazing in the clearing where the dance was going on. Everybody in the village seemed to be there. Like-a-Possum was already dancing.
Ten men were gathered around a big leather drum at the edge of the clearing.Each man had one drumstick. They all beat the drum in the same rhythm. And they all chanted a song with words that seemed to belong to no language but echoed through the woods with a meaning of its own.
The dancers began or stopped dancing as they chose. The line of dancers moved clockwise around the clearing. Each dancer made up his own dance steps, but all the steps beat in rhythm with the drum. Max and Terry didn’t have any trouble keeping up.
For some dances the drum beat more slowly. It speeded up for others. Snow-Flower wiggled and squirmed all the way through the snake dance. When the turkey dance was played, almost everybody flapped their arms.
During some dances the drum was silent. The singers chanted in a rhythm for the dancers to follow.
Singing-Moon’s baby bounced up and down and chirped with joy. At last he fell asleep.
Blackbird-on-the-Wing stepped out of the line of dancers and signed to his wife that the baby was asleep. Singing-Moon moved away from the dance. Max and Terry followed her.
“You can go on dancing if you want to,” Singing-Moon told them. “We’re going to bed.”
Terry looked at Max. “What about it?”
“I never thought I’d like dancing, but this is fun,” he said. “I’d like to dance a while longer.”
Terry grinned. “Me too.”
“We’ll see you in the morning—if you’re awake.” Blackbird-on-the-Wing and Singing-Moon took their baby home.
Max and Terry stepped back into the moving line of dancers. For another hour they followed the rhythm of the drum and of the strange chant.
Even after they were asleep in the little house, Terry still heard the haunting music in her dreams.
Next morning, Like-a-Possum came over to tell everybody the news of the day. “They’re heating stones for the sweat lodge! I’m going to take a steam bath.”
“I’d better take one,” Blackbird-on-the-Wing said. He turned to Max and Terry. “What about you two? Steam baths are good for your health.”
“What’s a sweat lodge?” Terry asked.
Singing-Moon was busy with her baby. “Go with Blackbird-on-the-Wing,” she said. “He will show you.”
Like-a-Possum dashed on ahead.
Terry and Max followed Blackbird-on-the-Wing around the inside of the stockade fence. When they came to an open gate, they saw that the stream was close to the other side of the fence.
On the ground near the gate was a small dome made like the roofs of the houses. Blackbird-on-the-Wing lifted it off the ground. Under the dome they saw a big hole lined with clay and stones. “This is the sweat lodge.”
Two men were heating bundles of stones in a fire close to the lodge. A woman kept coming through the gate from the stream with armloads of wet leaves.
When the stones were hot, the men dropped them into the hole and covered them with the leaves. They closed the hole with the dome and waited until clouds of steam seeped out.
The men used long sticks to take out the stones.
Blackbird-on-the-Wing held the dome while the woman and the two men climbed into the hole. He watched Like-a-Possum scramble down. Then he slipped inside and lowered the dome over his head.
Terry was frightened. “Max! He’ll be smothered!”
Max was worried, too, but he didn’t want Terry to know it. “Blackbird-on-the-Wing knows what he’s doing. He’ll be okay.”
They stood and watched the steam drifting out of the cracks in the dome. It seemed forever before someone shoved the dome off the hole.
One of the two men who had heated the stones climbed out. He was dripping with sweat, but he turned around to lift Like-a-Possum out of the hole.
The woman who collected the wet leaves was next. Then came the other heater of stones. At last Blackbird-on-the-Wing burst into view. He was so covered with sweat that he gleamed in the bright sunlight.
Without a word, he leaped out of the hole, dashed to the gate, and jumped into the cool stream.
First Like-a-Possum, and then the woman and the two men who had shared the sweat lodge with him, followed Blackbird-on-the-Wing into the water.
Max stared at them. “It must be good for their health. They all look better than they did before.”
Terry laughed. “That’s because they’re clean now.”
Most of the people in the village took turns using the sweat lodge. They kept heating stones and covering them with wet leaves.
“Maybe we should try it,” Max said.
“Some other day,” Terry told him. “Let’s go see if Singing-Moon thinks it’s time to eat.”
The beans and squash and pumpkins as well as the corn were ripening in the planting fields. For days Terry worked with all the women and girls in the village to gather and store the food. Much of it was hung to dry in the smoke over the fires in the houses.
Every day Max went with Blackbird-on-the-Wing to hunt rabbits, squirrels, beavers, partridges, ducks, and geese. One day he watched a heavy wild turkey fly across an open field. When it fell down, tired from flying, Max caught the turkey in his hands.
Another day he went along on a deer hunt with all the men and boys from the village. The boys each had a flat bone and a stick to beat it with. They stood a hundred paces apart in the forest and beat the bones.
The boys drew closer and closer to each other, banging all the while. They drove the frightened deer in the woods toward the river. When the deer dashed into the water, the men were there in dugout canoes. They threw lassos around the necks of the deer.
After that, the women and girls were busy for a long time smoking the venison and tanning the hides. Terry helped Singing-Moon stretch and work the leather with her hands to make it soft.
The leaves on the maple tree turned to scarlet and gold. Then they blew away in the wind. The children gathered hickory nuts and persimmons.
The weather was much colder now. Singing-Moon made deerskin clothes for Terry and Max. They felt strange at first, especially the leather stockings and the jackets. The sleeves were not sewn on. They were separate pieces, tied onto the shoulder with laces. But the clothes were warm and soft. Before long the children were used to them.