At Tonawanda the forests were not large. White men had cut down all the trees around their reservation. The forest around Grand River seemed to have no end. They started off on a trail but soon turned off it. They pushed through brush, ducked under tree branches, crawled over fallen trees. They climbed up and down hills, crossed swampy places, and jumped over little streams.
Ely’s shoes felt heavy on his feet and his wool socks were wet. He tripped often and stepped on dead branches that cracked under his weight. Dry leaves rustled under his feet, and he caught his sleeves on branches. A blackberry cane scratched his cheek.
He was used to walking, but this walk through the forest was tiring him out. His uncle, though, passed easily through the brush and berry bushes. The hemlock and spruce branches seemed to move aside to make way for him. He passed through the woods like a fish through water.
They only paused once. That was when they came to a swamp. Many cattail plants grew in that swamp. Some had dried stalks with bundles of fluff on top. Hummingbird looked at the cattail plants and then at Ely. Ely understood. He gathered several handfuls of the dry, cottony fluff and placed them in the pouch that hung on his belt. He would use it later when he started a campfire.
Hummingbird started walking again. His uncle was a swift walker. Ely’s legs were much shorter than his uncle’s. But Ely was determined. On he walked. On and on.
Ely looked up at the clear sky as they began to climb a hill. The sun was three hands high. By a white man’s watch, it would be about ten o’clock. Ely shook his head. A watch was no use here in the woods. He was not in school where lives were ruled by a clock. White man’s time did not live here.
His uncle stopped in a clear space near the top of the hill. A big rock ledge leaned out from the hillside. Ely was breathing hard as he caught up to his uncle. His uncle did not look tired at all. Ely’s heart was pounding and he was sweating. But he had kept up.
The two of them stood there for a while. All Ely could see was forest. It seemed to go on forever.
“The trees here are so big,” Ely said. “It is good.”
Hummingbird nodded. “Here some of us can still live in something like the old way.” He looked toward the east. “But over that way are cities of white men. Hamilton. Toronto. Even here in Canada they make their towns bigger, clear land for farms, build more roads.” He turned back and looked out again over the valley. “However, this is still here. We hope it will always be here.”
Hummingbird plucked a blackberry leaf from Ely’s hair.
“You walked well through the forest, nephew,” he said.
Ely shook his head. “I made more noise than a blind bear with three legs.”
Hummingbird let out a loud laugh. It echoed back from the hills on the other side of the valley below. He shook his head.
“I did not say you were quiet, nephew. I said you walked well. You kept up and did not stop. You have a strong will. That is not something I can teach you. However, I can teach you to walk more quietly.”
He looked at Ely’s feet. “But not in those heavy shoes. Take those off.”
Ely sat down and removed his shoes and socks.
Hummingbird pulled the pack from his shoulders and took out a pair of moccasins. He put Ely’s shoes and socks into his pack.
Ely slid the moccasins on. They fit his bare feet perfectly. Even without socks, they felt warmer than his shoes.
“Here,” his uncle said.
Ely looked up. Hummingbird was holding something out. It was a shard of flint and a small, curved piece of steel.
“You know how to use these?”
Ely took the flint in one hand and the steel in the other. He struck the two together and made a spark fly.
“Good,” Hummingbird said. “Make a fire to stay warm through the night. There is much dead wood here that you can gather.” He looked down the hill. “There is a spring down there.” He took a sheathed knife from his pack. “Use this to cut hemlock boughs for a lean-to.”
He looked toward the rock face. “Make your shelter there. The rock will block the north wind.”
Ely nodded. He felt nervous but made his face stay calm.
“Stay here,” his uncle said. “I will be back.”
Hummingbird began to walk away.
“Uncle,” Ely said.
Hummingbird looked back over his shoulder.
“When will you be back?” Ely asked.
Hummingbird’s face split into that wide grin of his. “When you see me again.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mosquitoes
Ely listened. He had always been a good listener. He liked listening to his father and mother tell stories of long ago. He liked listening to the long conversations that visitors had around the fire in the Parker house.
But this was a different kind of listening. At his home in Tonawanda, there were people talking. There were the noises from their farm animals out back. Even at night one might hear the sounds of wagons passing on the road.
He was now far away from people, any noisy chickens and pigs, and roads. All he could hear was the sound of wind moving through the trees. Each tree turned the wind into a different sound. The soft needles of the pines whispered. The hard leaves of the beech trees rattled. Ely had heard such sounds from the trees before, but never for this long. It was like music.
Then he heard something else. Feet moving loudly through the leaves. Coming his way. Making as much noise as a big clumsy person would make. A white man might think it was a moose or a bear.
Ely was sure he knew what was making that sound.
Closer and closer it came. Then, only a few feet away, the one that made all that noise appeared. A chipmunk! Ely smiled. Sometimes the smallest ones made the most noise. Ely had never seen a bear or a moose. But his father had told him that such big animals make less noise in the forest than the squirrels and chipmunks.
Ely did not move. The chipmunk ran up, touched Ely’s leg with its nose, and darted back into the leaves.
After that, the sounds from the forest increased. A wood thrush sang. A red squirrel chirred from a treetop. A red-headed woodpecker pounded a hollow beech tree.
The sun moved farther across the sky. Ely heard a faint noise off to his right. He turned his eyes that way. A big tom turkey stuck its head out from behind a tree. Its long beard hung down below its chin. It bobbed its head back and forth. Six smaller turkeys followed it. They looked like bent old people wrapped in feather blankets. They pecked at the ground as they took slow, careful steps, paying no attention to Ely. They strutted past him back into the forest.
Something growled. Was that a bear? Then Ely realized it was his stomach.
He cleared away the leaves and twigs from the ground in front of him. He gathered stones and placed them in a circle. He found one flat rock the size of a plate and leaned it against his fire circle.
He walked downhill and found the spring Hummingbird told him about flowing out of the hillside. There was a small pool of water beneath it. Ely knelt and let the sweet water fill his mouth. Drinking water made his stomach stop growling. However, he was still hungry.
He looked around. There was a birch tree with loose bark.
“My friend,” he said. “I am going to take part of your blanket. Thank you for giving it to me.”
Ely took his knife and carefully peeled off a foot-wide piece of birch bark. He removed his knife from the sheath and trimmed the edges of the quarter-inch-thick piece of bark. He cut a long, green twig from a maple and chopped the twig into four pieces, each one the size of a four-inch nail. He folded in the corners of the birch bark and pierced each of the corners with a piece of twig to hold the corners in place.
Ely held up what he had made. It was not as good as the bark baskets his mother made. But it was good enough. It would hold as much as a metal pail. He felt pleased with himself. This first night alone in the forest would be easy.
But as he held up his birch bucket he heard a new sound. Something buz
zed around his head. A mosquito had found him.
He had forgotten about mosquitoes. That mosquito would be the first of many. He had heard that there were more mosquitoes here than at Tonawanda.
The sun was only two hands above the trees. Clouds of mosquitoes would come when it got dark. He remembered the story Wolf Woman told about the giant mosquito that lived long ago. It was so big it would drain people of all their blood. A brave hunter managed to kill that giant mosquito. But then people made the mistake of trying to get rid of its huge body by burning it. Thick smoke rose from its body and turned into mosquitoes. To this day, those children of the giant mosquito still drain the blood from our bodies.
Ely knew he would have to work quickly.
He reached down into the pool of water and scraped a handful of sandy mud from the bottom. Ely wiped that mud on his arms and ankles, around his neck, and on his face. It would be much better if the mud had clay in it. Clay sticks to the skin better than sand. It would be even better if he had bear grease. Bear grease protects your skin from insect bites. But this sandy mud would have to do.
He filled his bucket with water and walked back up the hill with it. He placed it next to the circle of stones.
What now? Make a lean-to? Make his fire? He looked up at the sky. No clouds. The air felt dry. There was no longer any wind. It was not going to rain anytime soon. Making shelter could wait.
The stack of dry wood he’d gathered should be enough to last the night. Ely made a pile of dry twigs from the pines, small strips of birch bark, and an old bird’s nest that he found on the ground. The pile looked like a little conical wigwam. In the center of that conical wigwam he put a handful of the cattail fluff he saved earlier in the day.
More mosquitoes were beginning to fly around his head. It was getting darker. Those mosquitoes were not biting him yet. The dry mud was protecting him. But he knew it would not be enough.
Ely took out the flint and steel. He struck the flint with the steel. A spark leaped out and fell just short of the tinder. He struck again. The second spark landed on the edge of the bird’s nest. It glowed and then went out. As he struck a third spark, a mosquito bit him on the eyelid. It made his hand jump and he missed again. Ely took a deep breath.
Do not hurry. When you hurry, things go wrong.
The fourth spark fell into the middle of the cattail fluff.
Ely placed his hands on the ground and put his head close to the pile of twigs and bark. A mosquito was biting him on his ear. He ignored it. He blew a slow and steady breath. As he blew, the spark grew stronger. The cattail fluff smoked and glowed red near that spark. Ely blew again. Thick white smoke rose up. He blew a third time and a fourth, turning his head away between breaths. On his fourth breath, flames shot up. They crackled as the fire caught the birch bark and pine twigs.
Ely carefully added larger sticks. Soon his fire was burning strong.
He adjusted the flat stone within the fire circle. The flames reflected off the surface of the flat stone. He poured cornmeal into his hand and dripped water into it. He mixed it into a ball. It made a hissing sound as he flattened it onto the hot stone. With his knife, he turned the cake until it was brown on both sides. He lifted it with the knife blade and his fingertips, and moved it back and forth between his palms to cool it. Then he took a bite. His aunt had added sugar to the corn meal. It tasted sweet and wonderful.
It was dark all around. But he had fire and food. The mosquitoes were no longer biting. Ely leaned back against the stone ledge with a smile on his face.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Visitor
Ely opened his eyes. It was still dark all around. He’d woken twice before to put wood on the fire. This time was different. He felt he was being watched. He looked around. At first all he saw was the fire. Then he saw them. Two eyes in the darkness reflecting back the firelight.
The eyes moved closer. Now Ely could see the shape of a head, then a body. A big dog? No, a black wolf!
The black wolf walked forward until it almost reached the fire, then it sat down. It kept looking at him.
“This must be a dream,” Ely thought.
“I greet you in peace, clan brother,” Ely said in a soft voice. “I am a wolf, too.”
The black wolf just sat there.
“What a good dream this is,” Ely thought. He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again it was morning. His fire had burned to ashes. The mosquitoes had come back when the fire went out. His face was covered with bumps from their bites.
His uncle, Hummingbird, was sitting next to him.
Hummingbird handed him a small bottle. Ely pulled out the cork to smell it. Salve. His mother made the same salve from medicine plants. He rubbed the salve on the insect bites and they stopped itching.
Hummingbird held out a piece of flat, dry fungus. Ely had seen it growing on the birch trees.
“Next time,” Hummingbird said, “put this on the coals. The smoke keeps away the mosquitoes.”
Ely began to make sure the fire was out when he remembered the wolf.
“I had a dream,” he said.
“A dream?” Hummingbird said. “About a wolf?”
“Yes,” Ely replied. “How did you know?”
Hummingbird pointed with his chin to the other side of the fire.
There in the soft earth were the paw prints of a huge wolf. Ely took a deep breath and a smile came to his face.
Hummingbird waited while Ely ran his hands through the ashes to make sure the fire was out, took apart the fire circle, and put the stones back where they had been. When Ely was done, Hummingbird nodded his head.
“My brother taught you well,” he said.
“Thank you, uncle,” he said. “But I have more to learn.”
“That is very true,” Hummingbird agreed. That made them both smile.
As they walked back through the forest, neither of them spoke. Finally, when they reached the edge of the woods, Ely said, “Uncle, a wolf came and visited me. It was not a dream.”
“Yes,” Hummingbird said.
“What does it mean?’
“It means that a wolf came and visited you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Family Embrace
The days went by quickly. Ely thought about the black wolf. He did not see it again, but at times he felt as if it was watching over him. He felt as if it had brought him a message from his mother.
His mother’s name was Wolf Woman. Her clan was the Wolf Clan. Since a clan was inherited from a person’s mother, that made Ely part of the Wolf Clan too. Wolf Clan people were often like the wolf. They were swift-moving scouts who would venture far out on their own.
Ely followed his uncle into the forest each day. He learned how to make a birch bark canoe and fish at night while holding a torch. He learned how to choose the right deer to hunt. Not a doe with fawns or a big buck leading the herd. The right deer to hunt was one that was fat and did not have fawns.
Sometimes Hummingbird went to the trading post. He brought in the skins of the animals he and Ely trapped. He exchanged them for such things as flour, sugar, and ammunition. Ely went along on those trips to the trading post. He helped carry the skins and made sure the trader added everything up right.
There were young people of Ely’s age at Grand River. He made friends with some of them. When they played games of lacrosse, Ely took part. He was a swift runner. Everyone wanted him on their team. He also was a strong wrestler. No one could throw him to the ground. He even beat boys who were much taller and heavier.
Some of his new friends attended school. The church school at Grand River was much bigger than the Baptist school on his reservation. But Ely did not go to that white man’s school at Grand River. He was not interested in that kind of learning.
Spring returned to the woods. New leaves grew on the trees. A year had passed. Ely was two fingers taller than when he first came to Grand River.
At the end of that year, Ely traveled back home
. His mother was sitting on the porch of their cabin. Somehow she knew he was coming. It was always that way with his mother.
She stepped down from the porch and wrapped her arms around him.
“You are so big,” Wolf Woman said. “They fed you well.”
“Their food is not as good as yours, my mother,” Ely said.
Wolf Woman hugged him again. “I missed you,” she whispered in his ear. There were tears in her eyes.
Ely nodded. There were tears in his eyes as he looked around. Where was everyone else? As always, his mother knew what he was thinking.
“Your father has gone to town. Your two little brothers are with him. Nic and Caroline are at school. They began to study there this year.” She looked into Ely’s eyes.
“Are you home now to stay?” his mother asked.
Ely shook his head. He thought of the black wolf. “I must learn more of our old ways,” he said. “I need to understand what it was to be a Seneca before everything changed.”
His mother nodded. “I see,” she said.
They heard the sound of a wagon approaching.
“Go,” Wolf Woman said. “Greet your father and your little brothers.”
There was a big smile on Newt’s face when he saw Ely. He raised his hand in greeting.
Ely did not have time to wave back. Little Solomon had leaped from the wagon bed and was running toward Ely as fast as he could.
“Hasanoanda, my brother!” Solomon shouted. “You are back. You are back.”
He leaped up into Ely’s arms, almost knocking him down. A pair of arms wrapped around Ely as Newt reached them. Then Dragonfly’s huge arms embraced all three of them.
“My son,” Dragonfly said. “We missed you.”
Later that day, Ely walked with his father around the farm.
“My son,” Dragonfly said, “have you learned enough from my brother?”
Ely shook his head. “There is more that I want to learn.”
Dragonfly leaned back against a rail fence. “Knowing our old ways will make you stronger. They will help you to always remember who you are.”
Walking Two Worlds Page 3