by Ruth Chew
The Indian boy smiled. “Hold this while I work. Roll it up as I cut it away from the tree.” He handed her the end of the piece of bark. “Be careful not to tear it.” He went back to pulling the bark from the log.
When Fox-of-the-Water had a long piece of bark, he cut it off. Amanda rolled it up.
Will helped Amanda roll the bark back and forth to make it stronger. The Indian boy cut the bark into three narrow strings and used them to bind the unsplit end of each piece of wood to hold it together.
After that Fox-of-the-Water stuck bits of wood between the strips to spread them apart like the fingers of a hand. He started to sharpen the points.
“Mandy,” Will whispered, “what do you think he’s going to do with those things?”
Fox-of-the-Water dropped one of the spiky wooden things he had made into his basket and handed the other two to Amanda and Will.
“Thank you.” Amanda stared at the five sharp points. “What do you use it for?”
“Don’t you know a berry picker when you see one?” The Indian boy put the basket on his back and began trotting down the beach again.
Will and Amanda raced after him. They went around a curve of the shore and came to a little stream that trickled out of a tangle of broken bushes and flowed across the sand into the bay.
Fox-of-the-Water stepped into the shallow stream and started wading into the center of the clump of bushes.
Amanda and Will pulled off their sneakers and socks, hung them around their necks, and followed the young Indian.
He stepped out of the stream at a place where the bushes were loaded with the same kind of big orange raspberries that Will and Amanda had seen earlier.
“I wonder why these bushes have so many berries on them,” Will said. “I didn’t see any a minute ago.”
“Aunt Snow Rainbow and my cousins were picking here yesterday,” Fox-of-the-Water told him. “They left these bushes for me.” He took a mat of woven bark out of the basket and unrolled it on the ground. Then he began to rip branches off the bushes and pile them onto the mat.
“I thought you were going to pick the berries,” Amanda said.
“First I have to lay all the branches with berries on this mat,” the Indian boy told her. “If you’re hungry, eat a few now. Then you can help me.”
Will and Amanda each tasted a berry.
“Yum,” Amanda said. She started pulling off branches and putting them on the mat.
Will was stacking branches now, too. Now and then he pulled off a berry to eat it. “Not bad. I was afraid they’d taste like fish. They must be called salmon berries because of the color.”
Amanda was afraid it would get dark before they finished. She set to work to strip the bushes clean of branches.
When every branch with berries was on the mat, Fox-of-the-Water showed Will and Amanda how to whip the branches one at a time with their berry pickers. This knocked the berries onto the mat.
When the mat was covered, the three children picked it up and poured the berries into the basket.
“Now I have to go home,” the Indian boy told them. “Where are you going?”
Amanda thought for a moment. Then she said, “Fox-of-the-Water, we don’t know where we’re going.”
“We don’t even know where we are,” Will told him.
Fox-of-the-Water looked hard at the two children. “Did someone bring you here against your will?”
“We didn’t ask to come here, if that’s what you mean,” Amanda told him.
“What’s more,” Will put in, “we don’t know how we got here.”
“Oh!” the Indian boy said in a low voice. “You’re lost!” He looked as if he thought this was even worse than either Will or Amanda thought it was.
Fox-of-the-Water bit his lip as if to keep from crying.
Amanda put her arm around his shoulders to comfort him. “We’ll be all right, Fox-of-the-Water.”
“I can tell that you and your brother don’t know how to take care of yourselves in my country,” the Indian boy told her. “You don’t even know how to pick berries.
“I could take you to my uncle’s house,” he said. “I live there with my mother and father. It’s a big house. There’s plenty of room.”
Still, Fox-of-the-Water looked worried. “I never asked you what clan you belong to,” he said.
“Clan? What’s that?” Will asked.
The Indian stared at him. “Don’t your people set up poles?”
“Flagpoles,” Will told him. “Dad put one in front of our porch. Next to the school there’s a big tall one.”
“Well,” Fox-of-the-Water said, “what creature is carved on top of the poles?”
“Creature?” Will looked puzzled.
Amanda interrupted. “The only creature you ever see on a flagpole where we live is an eagle.”
“An eagle?” Fox-of-the-Water said, as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
“Yes,” Will agreed. “Never anything but an eagle!”
The young Indian smiled. “Then everything is all right. My family are Eagles.” He put the basket on his back. “Come along.”
Fox-of-the-Water stepped into the little stream and started wading through the broken berry bushes. Will and Amanda followed him. When they came to the beach, they put on their socks and sneakers.
The Indian didn’t walk so fast now.
“We’d better take turns carrying the basket,” Amanda said.
Will helped her lift it off the Indian boy’s back and slip her arms through the straps. Amanda carried the basket to the fallen cedar log. Then Will took his turn.
Soon they could see the row of houses along the shore. The first one they came to was very small. Someone was standing in the doorway.
Fox-of-the-Water whispered, “Don’t stare at the saya-gay. He might put a spell on you!”
A small man with a long gray beard and long gray hair worn in a big knot on top of his head stepped out of the little house. “You are late coming home, Fox-of-the-Water. You should not worry Sunset Moon this way.”
Fox-of-the-Water looked at the ground. “I’m sorry, Bright Star,” he said. “I didn’t mean to worry my mother.”
Will put the heavy basket on the ground.
The old man bent over it. “Salmon berries! My favorite!” He went into his hut and came out with a wooden bowl.
Fox-of-the-Water quickly filled the bowl with berries. “I want you to meet my clansfolk, Mandy and Will.”
Bright Star looked at the T-shirts and blue jeans and sneakers that the two children were wearing. He was dressed in a soft leather shirt and pants.
Will and Amanda tried hard not to stare at him, but the old man had the longest fingernails they had ever seen. He wore a necklace of bone-and-copper beads and what Will thought must have been bear teeth. The strangest thing of all was the long, thin bone through his nose.
Bright Star looked first into Amanda’s eyes and then into Will’s. He passed his hand across his eyes. “You two have seen things I do not understand, but you are good at heart.”
He turned to the Indian boy. “You are right to make friends with these young people. You have more sense than I thought, Fox-of-the-Water. Now, go home. Sunset Moon is afraid you have had the bad luck to meet some land-otter people!”
“Thank you, Bright Star.” Fox-of-the-Water picked up the basket and walked as fast as he could. Will and Amanda marched alongside.
“Who was that, Fox-of-the-Water?” Amanda asked.
“The saya-gay of our village. He heals the sick and tells us how to stay friends with the salmon people and the bear people and others. The saya-gay is very wise, but you must be careful not to annoy him. He has powerful charms that he could use against you.”
“Sounds like a witch doctor,” Will whispered in his sister’s ear.
“Sh-sh!” Amanda changed the subject. “Who are the land-otter people?” she asked the Indian boy.
“They’re the spirits of the land otters when they want to look
like people,” Fox-of-she-Water told her. “We have to stay clear of them. They’re very tricky. They hate us and are always ready to harm us.”
“Have you ever seen them?” Will wanted to know.
“No, but my mother has a friend whose grandmother met one in the woods early one morning. After that she couldn’t speak.” Fox-of-the-Water looked around.
The sky was getting darker. A chill wind blew from the bay. The young Indian began to walk faster.
The stars were out by the time the three children came to a large house built of wide cedar boards. A red-and-black totem pole stood in front of it, facing the sea. “This place belongs to Crooked Toe Eagle,” Fox-of-the-Water said.
The next house was even bigger. Amanda saw that there was an eagle carved on the top of the painted totem pole at the front of the house. “This must be where you live, Fox-of-the-Water.”
The Indian smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Come inside. It is the house of my uncle, Mountain Echo.”
Will started to walk to a door in the side of the house. Fox-of-the-Water grabbed his arm. “Don’t go in there!” he ordered. “That’s only for slaves. Follow me.” The Indian boy walked around to the front of the totem pole.
Did you hear that, Mandy? Will whispered.
Amanda nodded. “I don’t like it,” she said in a low voice.
Fox-of-the-Water turned to look back at them. “What’s keeping you two? I want you to meet my family. Come along!” He carried the basket of berries through an archway cut into the pole.
Will looked at Amanda. She kept her chin high and stood as tall and straight as she could. Then she walked through the round doorway into the house. Will came after her.
They stepped down into a big room. There were three cooking fires, each with a group of people sitting on the ground near it. Another fire burned in the corner of the room where the roof was highest. There was a smoke hole over this fire.
A woman in a shirt and skirt of woven bark ran across the room. “Fox-of-the-Water, where have you been? You’re supposed to be home before dark!”
Fox-of-the-Water took the basket off his back and held it out. He grinned. “Remember, Sunset Moon, you told me I had to pick all the berries Aunt Snow Rainbow left.”
His mother looked into the basket. “I didn’t think you could do it. I was angry with you for going fishing instead of helping your cousins pick berries this morning.” Sunset Moon looked up and saw Amanda and Will. For a moment she just stared at them.
Amanda thought she looked scared.
“It’s all right.” Fox-of-the-Water put the basket down. “These are my friends, Mandy and Will. They’re Eagles, and they helped me pick the berries.”
Sunset Moon laughed. “Now I know how you did it!” She smiled at Will and Amanda. “Thank you and welcome.”
A tall man with a red-and-black tattoo on his chest walked over. “This is my father, Brave Warrior,” Fox-of-the-Water told them.
“We are glad to have you with us,” Brave Warrior said. “You must be hungry. Come and have some supper.”
Amanda and Will followed him to a cooking fire on the other side of the big room.
Supper was the strangest meal either Amanda or Will had ever eaten, but they were so hungry that it tasted wonderful.
Sunset Moon handed each of them a wooden bowl and bone spoon. She used a dipper made of shell to fill the bowls with chunks of stewed fish from one square wooden box and stewed roots from another.
A woman was picking hot stones from the fire with two long, flat sticks. She dropped the stones into the boxes to keep the stew warm.
The three children sat on the ground to eat. Fox-of-the-Water showed Will and Amanda how to dip the fish and the roots into a bowl of sweet oil.
Sunset Moon had put the big basket of salmon berries down beside them. Fox-of-the-Water dipped the berries into the oil, too. Amanda tried this and decided to eat her berries plain. Will said he liked his dipped in oil, but Amanda thought he was only pretending to dunk.
Both Will and Amanda saw that the people here did not wear much clothing.
Nobody spoke to the woman who was putting the hot stones into the boxes.
There were other people in the room who were busy working. They were spoken to only when something needed to be done.
“Fox-of-the-Water,” Amanda whispered, “what’s the name of the lady over there by the fire?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s only a slave.”
Will heard this. “She has to use the side door! Is she being punished for something, Fox-of-the-Water?”
The young Indian thought for a minute. “She made the mistake of letting herself be captured.”
“I don’t understand,” Amanda told him.
“When we need help with our work,” Fox-of-the-Water said, “the men make a raid on another village to capture slaves. Sometimes our men are hurt or killed. When things go well, they bring back slaves. Of course, if a captive is a member of one of the clans in our village, we have to pay for any damage and return the captive.”
Now Will and Amanda knew why Fox-of-the-Water was so happy to think that they belonged to the Eagle clan. He didn’t want them to be made slaves!
Fox-of-the-Water pointed to the other cooking fires. “Those belong to the families of my aunts and cousins. The one under the smoke hole is the household fire. We never let that go out. In winter it’s much bigger.”
Will showed Amanda rows of fish hanging from racks high over the fires.
“I guess that’s how they smoke the fish,” she said.
Suddenly Fox-of-the-Water jumped to his feet. “Stand up!” he whispered. “My uncle, Mountain Echo, is coming.”
Amanda saw an Indian wearing copper rings on his arms and legs coming toward them. There were tattoos on the backs of his hands and on his chest.
Sunset Moon and Brave Warrior left their places near the cooking fire and went to greet the owner of the house. They walked with him to where the three children were standing.
“Good evening, Fox-of-the-Water,” his uncle said.
“Good evening, Mountain Echo,” the Indian boy answered. “I want you to meet my friends, Mandy and Will. They are Eagles from a strange country.”
“Thank you for letting us come to your house,” Amanda said.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” Will told him.
Mountain Echo smiled. He had a strong but gentle face. “I believe you.” He touched Will’s T-shirt. “And I have never seen clothes like yours.” He looked at Will and then at Amanda. “You are welcome to stay with us.” He turned to Sunset Moon. “Sister, our guests will need sleeping mats and blankets. If you do not have enough, there are some stored under my sleeping platform.”
Mountain Echo stroked the top of Fox-of-the-Water’s head. He smiled again and walked back to the rear of the house.
The people in the room had finished eating. They all took their bowls and spoons outside and scrubbed them with sand from the beach. Fox-of-the-Water showed Amanda and Will where his family’s dishes were stored under a raised platform that ran along the inside wall of the house.
The walls were hung with mats made of rushes stitched together with cattail fiber. Finer mats of soft inner cedar bark divided the big room into sections for each family.
Sunset Moon gave Amanda and Will each a sleeping mat and a blanket of some sort of wool.
Will spread his sleeping mat on the wooden platform next to where Fox-of-the-Water was already asleep. Amanda put her mat beside his.
Will lay down and rolled himself up in his blanket. “Mandy,” he whispered, “this isn’t bad at all.”
The mats were made of two layers of rushes crowded together so tightly that they were bouncy.
Amanda took off her sneakers and curled up under the blanket. Everybody else in the big room seemed to be asleep now, even her brother. The fires were still burning. They were very low, but they cast strange flickering shadows everywhere in the big room.
; Amanda wondered if this were all a dream and she would wake up tomorrow in her own bed in Brooklyn. She was much too tired to think about it, and in half a minute she was fast asleep.
Amanda woke to the sound of singing. She opened her eyes. At first she didn’t know where she was. It seemed to be a large, dimly lit room.
Then Amanda remembered what had happened yesterday. She sat up. The fires still burned with a dull red glow, but now a little daylight was shining through the smoke hole in the roof.
Amanda looked around for her brother. She couldn’t see him anywhere. Her heart started to pound, but she took a deep breath and tried to pretend she wasn’t scared.
She put on her sneakers and rolled up her blanket in her sleeping mat. All the other mats were stored out of sight under the platform. Amanda put her bedding there, too.
The singing seemed to be coming from outdoors. Amanda crossed the room to the big arched doorway. She had to step up to go out into the morning sunshine.
The bay was crowded with boats. They were different sizes, but they were all hollowed out of cedar logs. The people in the boats were singing. And all the other people of the village were standing barefoot on the beach and singing, too. The sky was blue, and the sea was sparkling. Most of the children had no clothes on now. They were dripping wet and must have been swimming.
Will was next to Fox-of-the-Water, listening to the words of the song. It was about a time long ago when animals and people and spirits could change places. Almost everybody seemed to know the words and was singing loudly. They all looked as if they were having a wonderful time.
When the song ended, Amanda went to join the two boys. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Fox-of-the-Water was in a rush to join in the singing,” Will said. “And I wanted to see what was going on.”