“Way out, in the midst of this vast sea, there was a raft and there was an old Man on the raft—well, a Spirit, really, a powerful Spirit. The Spirit’s name was Napi, and he spent his days picking up various animals that had been left to fend for themselves across the great floods.
“One day Napi saw that he had collected many animals and that the raft was crowded. He thought that he must find a place where they could all live, so he told the Beaver to swim down to the bottom and bring him some mud. Napi thought that he could use the mud to make some land. So, the Beaver dove into the swirling waters.
“The Beaver was down a long time but then burst to the surface, gasping for breath. ‘No matter how deep…no matter how hard I swam…I could not reach the bottom,’ he panted.
“The old Man then sent the Loon, then the otter, but the water was still too deep. Napi asked all of the animals, ‘Do any of you think that you can reach the bottom?’ All the animals were silent, all except for a small Muskrat.”
Lionel looked over at Corn Poe with heavy-lidded eyes.
“‘I will dive to the bottom and bring back the mud to you,’ the Muskrat announced.
“‘You?’ asked the Beaver. The Muskrat answered by diving off the raft and into the deep water.
“The Muskrat was also gone for a long time. The old Man figured he must’a drowned, but just when the old Man had given up all hope, the Muskrat appeared, floating, just about dead, on the horizon. The old Man pulled the tiny Muskrat onto the raft and saw that there was mud between his claws. The Muskrat had made it to the bottom.
“Napi dried the mud from the Muskrat’s paw and spread it across the surface of the water, and there, land was formed. So, old Man and the animals said goodbye to the raft and traveled across the land, the old Man creating things as he saw fit. He told the rivers where to run and the trees, bushes, and flowers where they should grow. He carried with him a pocketful of boulders and stones so that he could build the mountains. He told the grass to grow on the plains, and the berries and roots to grow by the rivers.”
Lionel felt his eyes closing. His grandfather’s voice sounded more distant.
“When the old Man was done, he gathered the animals and told them, ‘Go live on this land. Drink from these rivers and eat this grass, these berries and roots.’
“The animals thanked the old Man and did as he asked them to do. Some of the animals went to the rolling prairie and some to the mountains…”
Lionel fell asleep dreaming that he stood on the edge of the plains, a great woods at his back. The prairie now churned in a sea of swirling grass before him. He looked from the woods to a small raft as it crested a distant wave out on the rolling hills. Corn Poe, Beatrice, and his grandfather were on the raft, drifting farther and farther away from Lionel; drifting and soon disappearing to somewhere on the far side of the horizon.
Chapter Ten
EARLY MORNING • BEATRICE’S FEATHER • SUPPLIES • CORN POE’S DEPARTURE • LISTEN
LIONEL WOKE to the sound of Corn Poe’s voice. “Hell, I may have to grow my hair out,” Corn Poe said. “Then you could wrap mine just like that.”
Lionel lifted the heavy buffalo robe and sat up. His body was stiff, but he felt rested and somehow, once again hungry. He turned to see Beatrice sitting on the corner of the fireplace and Grandpa still in his rocker by her side.
Beatrice looked different. She looked more like Grandpa than she had when Lionel had fallen asleep. Strips of red and blue flannel were woven into her long, thick braids, and one of their grandfather’s hunting knives hung from a beaded belt that was cinched at her waist. Lionel wondered if perhaps his dream were true and that Beatrice had changed on the far side of the horizon, and then returned.
“I’ll lend you this until you and young Lionel there find your own way,” Grandpa was saying as he tied a long feather from a red-tailed hawk’s wing into Beatrice’s braid.
Beatrice smiled, and Lionel thought that it was the first time he had seen her smile since before they had left the boarding school. Lionel ran his hand across his closely cropped hair.
“Don’t you worry. You’re next. It just might take a while before we can get to it, eh, boy?” Grandpa stood to stoke the coals from the previous night. “I think we best get moving.”
Lionel saw through the cabin’s small frosted windows that it was still dark. He slipped back into his clothes and crossed to the door.
“Get some water on your way back,” Grandpa called after Lionel. “It’s good to see you up on your feet. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake.”
Lionel smiled, opened the cabin’s door, and stepped out onto the fresh-fallen snow. He stood for a moment looking up at the faded stars and full moon that still hung in the far corners of the clear, early-morning sky. The air was cold and dry, and Lionel could feel it filling his lungs as he walked past the small stable to the outhouse.
Ulysses stood in a stall next to Grandpa’s mule. He snorted to the air as Lionel passed.
“I’ll get to you, don’t worry about that,” Lionel said, his voice cracking with his first words of the day.
Lionel continued to the outhouse, looking to the river, confused by what his grandfather had told him about Napi the old Man creating the land. The Brothers and priest at the school had told Lionel that the world, the entire world, was created by someone else, not Napi the old Man, and that it had taken six days. He wondered how two different people could create the same world on which they walked and rode across every day. He still wondered what had happened to the Frozen Man.
When Lionel retuned to the warmth of the cabin, he heard the snap, popping sound of bacon. Corn Poe sat by the fire with a long fork in his hand.
“Hey, there. That’s for all of us,” Grandpa shouted across the room as Corn Poe tried to blow on a piece of sizzling bacon that was already in his mouth.
Grandpa stood over a wooden table with Beatrice at his side, looking at a large map. “The river will lead you up into the Mountain, but remember there are many twists and turns. once you get to the base of the Mountain, a stream will join the river. You must follow this stream north. The stream will take you to the valley and then the meadow.”
Lionel glanced around the room. Small bundles made of heavy canvas lay about in preparation for travel. There was grain for Ulysses, a collection of small pots and pans, preserved vegetables in glass jars, canned fruit, salt pork, jerked venison, and various items of heavy wool clothes. The buffalo robe that Lionel slept in was also tied into a tight bundle and sitting next to the supplies.
“Where are we going?” Lionel asked.
“Into the Mountain,” Grandpa replied, and went about his work.
They ate a large breakfast of eggs, slab bacon, and canned pears; then Grandpa told Lionel to go out and tend to Ulysses because they had a long ride ahead of them.
Lionel stepped back out into the morning thinking about what his grandfather said. Into the Mountain? where was that?
Lionel could see the first hints of light in the eastern sky. He fed Ulysses, then led him to the river where the great horse drank. Lionel scanned the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the three hawks and the eagle that circled his memory of their grandfather’s cabin, but the sky was empty except for the low snow clouds that hung in the distance.
Lionel turned back to the cabin and wondered if, wherever they were headed, he would ever see Grandpa’s place again. He hoped that if he did return, he could come live with Grandpa instead of at the boarding school. Lionel liked school but thought that living with his grandfather would be better and something that, at the very least, he should try. He thought about what his sister had said and felt that he too would like to learn about the ways of the old People.
Lionel’s thoughts were interrupted by Grandpa, Beatrice, and Corn Poe, who gathered with the bundles around Ulysses. Grandpa instructed Beatrice how to tie the supplies to the back of the horse. Then he handed her a long rifle wrapped in buckskin and a wooden bo
x filled with ammunition.
“I want you to be careful with this. Kill only what you’ll eat.”
Corn Poe stood back, inspecting the horse and its newly configured load. The small boy was quiet this morning, and Lionel thought that the cold must be taking its toll on him.
“I don’t see how we’re all gonna fit with all this here junk you got tied all over,” Corn Poe said, more to Grandpa than anyone else.
“You’re right about that. I think you’ll be coming with me,” Grandpa said as he double-checked the lashings. “We’ll wander for a while to throw off them government boys, and then I’ll get you back to your home.”
“But…I thought…” Corn Poe stammered.
“Well, you thought wrong. It’s too cold to be wanderin’ about unless you have to. Until we straighten this all out, these two don’t have a choice. You do, and I’m making it for you,” Grandpa said with a wink. “Besides, we’re on a mission of our own.”
Grandpa spun Ulysses around and lifted Lionel onto his back. Lionel’s legs were stiff, as if he’d just gotten off the horse moments before.
“Now, me and the Corn Poe’s wanderin’ won’t throw them for long, but it should help. You’re going to need every little bit of a lead we can give. Hell, to be honest with ya, if you can make it to the Mountain, I doubt you’ll see any of them soldiers until well into the thaw. Maybe not even till summer.”
Beatrice slipped up behind Lionel, and Grandpa threw the buffalo robe around them.
“Now, Beatrice, it might be cold out there in the open, but I want you to walk in the shallows of the river when you can for the first half of the day. It’ll be harder for them to track you from the river, and this big fellow looks like he can handle it.”
Grandpa slipped a rawhide harness over Ulysses’s head.
“From the looks of things, you should get some more snow this afternoon. That’ll help. You hide out until you hear from me. I’ll bring this one back by the Boss Ribs’ place and see what I can find out, and then, once some of the excitement has worn off, I’ll come and find ya with more supplies and some sorta plan.”
Beatrice took the reins in her hands and turned Ulysses toward the river.
“Now, I want you two to pay attention. Be aware of what’s around you and watch. That school and them government men tried to kill that in ya. You’ve got to find and listen to it. Listen to the animals, the wind, the mountains. we may not speak the same language no more, but they’re talkin’ to ya. It’s up to you if you choose to listen.”
Grandpa took a long braid of twisted sweet grass from his jacket and lit the end. He raised it high above his head and began to sing. The smoke swirled above him and lay flat on the cold morning air. Corn Poe stood at his side watching Grandpa’s every move as Beatrice urged Ulysses past them and into the shallow icy water of the river.
Chapter Eleven
AN ICY RIVER • OLD MAN MAKES PEOPLE • LEAVING THE RESERVATION • LIONEL’S SECOND DREAM
ULYSSES STRUGGLED as they navigated their way along the river’s icy banks. The riverbed consisted of large loose rocks that caused the horse to slip and stumble, and Beatrice and Lionel had to stop twice to retie the load.
As they rode, Beatrice recounted what their grandfather had told her during the night after Lionel had fallen asleep. She told Lionel that a long time ago, their grandfather had been made to join the government’s army, and that he had been taken by a large boat across a great body of water where they fought other men who spoke different languages. Many men died, including two of Grandpa’s older brothers.
They gave Grandpa a medal like the ones the captain wore, but Grandpa didn’t want it. He thought that it was given to him because he had somehow survived while so many others were killed. Grandpa buried the medal for his brothers on the banks of the river.
As they rode, the mountains got closer and closer, and Lionel thought that they might reach them that very afternoon, but he was wrong.
Midday, as Grandpa had said, a stream joined the river. Beatrice led Ulysses up onto a sandy snow-covered bank of the tributary, where they stopped to rest and eat. They ate cold elk meat and some of the hardtack biscuits that their grandfather had packed for them, and then were back on their way.
As they rode through the afternoon, Beatrice told Lionel more about Napi the old Man, as their grandfather had explained it to her.
“Grandpa said that after the old Man created the world, he realized that he was lonely and that he needed someone to talk to. So one day the old Man decided that it was time to create people—us, I reckon. The old Man made two figures of clay, one of a woman and one of her son. The old Man buried ’em in the ground by the river and left ’em.”
“Why would he leave them?”
Beatrice stared at him blankly, then continued, “The old Man returned on the second day and noticed that the clay figures had changed but still didn’t look like people. on the third day, he came back and once again, although they were different, they still weren’t people. on the fourth day, Grandpa said that the old Man returned and unburied ’em. He told the clay people to get up and walk; and they did…”
“They did?” Lionel asked, turning to look at Beatrice.
“Yup. ’Cause now they were people.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” Beatrice answered. “Grandpa didn’t say.”
Lionel surveyed the vast landscape and the approaching foothills of the mountains. The land slowly changed as Beatrice spoke. The rolling plains gave way to foothills. The foothills grew bigger and seemed to sprout clumps of trees, mostly pine, aspen, and birch.
“Grandpa said that the old Man led the clay people to the water at the edge of the river where he told them, ‘I am Napi. Napi the old Man.’ But the old Man knew that like him, the people would be lonely, so he took more clay and blew onto it. The clay became more men and women, but now the old Man figured that his people were hungry, and they didn’t have no clothes. So he took more clay and made the buffalo. He told the clay people that the buffalo and the other animals were their food, and told them to hunt ’em.”
Lionel thought about Napi the old Man building the mountains and telling the plants where to grow. Then he thought about the clay people and the buffalo.
Sometime late that afternoon the children reached the dilapidated remnants of a barbed wire fence that Beatrice, although unsure, figured to be the boundary of their reservation. Neither Lionel nor Beatrice had ever left the reservation. Lionel was not sure if the same could be said about Ulysses.
They paused before the fence and marveled as it snaked north and south as far as their eyes could see. Lionel looked across the fence and thought that besides the proximity of the looming mountains, the rough terrain looked remarkably similar to the land that they had traveled for the majority of the afternoon.
Beatrice seemed nervous and turned Ulysses in a circle, surveying the snow-covered desolation that surrounded them.
“You think you’re ready?” Beatrice asked, breaking the uneasy feeling that the immense border brought.
“I guess” was all Lionel could think to say.
“We may never be coming back, you know. we may never be allowed back,” Beatrice added, and then dug in her heels, asking Ulysses to proceed.
The horse stepped forward, and with that step, completely alone and without permission or legal permit, the children rode through a gaping hole in the fence, leaving the reservation and all that they had ever known.
It grew dark, and Beatrice led Ulysses toward a small rock outcrop that jutted up from the bank. That night they slept off the reservation for the first time in their lives, wrapped in the buffalo robe in the shallow of a small cave at the foot of the mountains. They roasted the elk on sticks and ate; then Beatrice lay down and did not move until morning. Lionel wondered how much she had slept the night before.
Lionel fell asleep listening to the crackling embers of the small fire they had built. He dreamed th
at he stood on the side of a great river. There, he saw the bighorn sheep, the antelope, and then the buffalo rise from the earth and run across the river and out onto the open rolling plains. Lionel heard a low rumble from the earth, and Beatrice and their grandfather rose from the banks. They also crossed the river and followed the buffalo and the other animals. In his dream, Lionel tried to follow, but could not make it across the great river. The river’s opposite bank was moving farther away, moving to well beyond the distant horizon.
Chapter Twelve
BEATRICE GROWS WEARY • COLD AND MORE SNOW • INTO THE MOUNTAINS
WHEN LIONEL woke, Beatrice was still asleep. He lay curled in the buffalo robe next to his sister and thought about the clay people and if they grew to become the Blackfeet. He wondered if the people Napi the old Man created were the same as the first two people the Brothers and priests at the boarding school had told him were the first created. Their first man had also been created from the earth: the woman from a rib. Lionel concluded that they must have been the first two white people, and that the clay people Grandpa had told Beatrice about were the first of the Blackfeet.
Lionel got up, stoked the fire for Beatrice, and led Ulysses down to the stream to drink. A distant sun stretched across the dull morning sky. Lionel turned with the first light and looked toward the great mountains and the black menacing clouds that clung to their tops. He returned to their camp and found Beatrice rolling up the buffalo robe. She seemed detached and tired, so Lionel lifted the bundles and tied them to Ulysses the way his grandfather had showed him, without speaking.
They ate cold elk and were soon on their way, riding well into the afternoon. They continued to follow the stream, pushing Ulysses up the increasingly rough and rocky terrain and under the long stretches of trees that seemed to touch the sky. They came to several forks in the stream but always kept to the right, fighting the deep banks of snow that lay on either side.
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