Night of the Full Moon

by Gloria Whelan

  It felt as though we had been running for hours when Menisikwe called something to Sanatuwa and he stopped. “We will rest here,” he said. “I forget Libby is not used to our traveling.” While we rested Menisikwe nursed Megisi. Watching them, I thought of my own brother or sister nestled in my mama’s arms, and tears slid down my cheeks.

  At first I was too afraid to fall asleep, but my eyes soon closed. I was awakened by the sound of a woodpecker hammering on a nearby tree. It was such a friendly sound I thought I was at home in our cabin. I waited to hear Mama’s soft voice coaxing me out of bed. Instead I heard Sanatuwa say, “Come, we must find a better place before the sun is up. This morning when they discover we are gone they will send soldiers to look for us. If we get away, they know others will surely try.”

  We left the path and made our way to the banks of a small stream. Gratefully we drank the cold water. It sparkled like jewels in the sun as it fell from our hands. Menisikwe mixed the water with cornmeal she had brought with her. We could not risk a fire to boil the porridge. I was so hungry I didn’t care that it tasted like grainy paste. With the gentle sound of the water and the grassy banks of the stream fragrant with mint, I was sorry to leave. It seemed such a safe place.

  I thought we would try to cover as much ground as possible. Instead Sanatuwa led us away from the stream and into a sparse wood that was a tangle of tall grass and briers. With a stab of remorse I saw that the briers were wild blackberry. I thought of all the trouble I had caused by my stubborn willfulness and my lie about picking blackberries. “Fawn,” I said, “if it weren’t for me, your papa and mama wouldn’t have run away from the soldiers. They wouldn’t be in all this danger.”

  Sanatuwa overheard me. “You are right to say that I led us away from the soldiers because it was my duty to return you to your father. It is true that otherwise I might have remained in the camp. But there is no need to hang your head for being the means of our freedom.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I thought what Sanatuwa said was that he was glad they had run away. That made me feel better. Menisikwe, who had gone on ahead, had disappeared. Now she called to us. We couldn’t see her, but her voice sounded close by. Suddenly she stood up. She was only a few feet from us. She had hunched down in a place where the tall grass had been flattened into a wide circle. “Deer bed,” she said.

  “We will stay here,” said Sanatuwa. “If we travel through the woods, the soldiers will overtake us with their horses. But they will spend no more than one day looking for us. If they don’t find us today, they will give up.”

  As we hunched down into the nest of grass, we could look up at the tops of the trees swaying in the wind. A white-throated sparrow was singing. Yellow swallowtail butterflies hung from the clusters of goldenrod. Fawn asked if she and I could go over to the wild blackberry bushes to pick some berries. Sanatuwa said we might and Menisikwe gave us a basket.

  We filled the basket and stuffed ourselves as well. We knew we had to be quiet, but it was hard not to laugh at how our mouths and hands were stained red from the juicy berries. The berries were delicious. The sun felt warm on our backs. We nearly forgot why we were there until the sound of horses sent us running. We dived into the circle. Two soldiers galloped by so close we could smell the sweat from their horses. Megisi began to whimper. Hastily Menisikwe put her hand over his mouth. In a moment the soldiers were gone. I was too frightened to say a word, but Sanatuwa said, “They have finished looking here. They will not come this way again.” He smiled with satisfaction.

  As soon as it was dark we started off again. At first we traveled through the woods, keeping away from the trail. After a while Sanatuwa led us back to the trail, and the way became easier. We never rested for more than a moment or two. Early the next morning we slept for a few hours hidden among tall ferns in a little copse of trees. By afternoon I told Fawn that I was sure I could not go another step.

  “Do you not know where we are?” Fawn asked. She was smiling. I looked around. We were in the pine forest, on the path that led to our cabin. A moment before, my feet had been too heavy to lift. Now I ran faster than I had ever run in my life.

  7

  “WHERE HAVE you been? Oh, Libby, where have you been?” Mama cried. She threw her arms around me. “Your papa is out with a posse of men looking for you. We searched everywhere. Were you lost in the woods? How did you find your way back? Why in heaven’s name are you dressed like an Indian?”

  Mama was squeezing me so tightly I could hardly get out the words “Sanatuwa and Menisikwe and Fawn brought me back.”

  For the first time Mama noticed them standing silently at the door. Leaving me for a moment, she drew them into the cabin. “Thank goodness you are safe! We had heard that all the Potawatomi had been taken west by the soldiers.” Mama looked more puzzled than ever. “But how did you find Libby?” Her arms were back around me, and I could feel her tears against my cheek. “I thought we would never see you again.”

  We told Mama the story. When Papa came back, we told it all over again. Then Mama and Papa wanted to hear it another time. All the while Mama was getting food for us. She coaxed Menisikwe and Sanatuwa and Fawn and me to eat more and exclaimed over Megisi. “We can’t ever thank you enough,” Mama said to Sanatuwa. “You risked your lives to bring Libby back to us.”

  “What will you do now?” Papa asked. “The soldiers may come back. You and your family must stay with us. They won’t think of looking for you here.”

  “We will stay for a day and a night,” said Sanatuwa. Fawn and I smiled at each other. We would be together for another whole night and a day. “Then we will go to the north, to our winter hunting grounds at L’arbre Croche. Some of the People live there all year around with the Ojibwa. We will be welcome and we will see no soldiers that far north.” Hearing that her family might leave forever, Fawn and I were no longer smiling.

  Just then we heard loud crying. Menisikwe hurried across the room. “Ahhh,” she said. She was looking into the cradle she had woven. In all the excitement I had forgotten about the baby.

  “Like Fawn, you have a little brother, Libby,” Papa said. “Better get acquainted with William.”

  I ran to look at the new baby. He was so small. I reached down to take my brother’s hand. His tiny fingers curled around my finger.

  Sanatuwa stood beside me. “That is a fine boy,” he said.

  Mama said, “Menisikwe, you had better teach me to carry William on my back as you do Megisi. We too may be traveling north. No sooner do we have a comfortable cabin and neighbors close by than my husband talks of moving.” Mama didn’t sound very happy.

  “So far it is only a dream,” Papa said. “But things are changing here. I have been hired to survey land for a canal from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. Think of the people that would bring! In our village of Saginaw plans have been drawn up for a town with four hundred blocks. That is not a town; it is a city! We are sorry to see you and your family leave us, Sanatuwa, but we may be neighbors again one day.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave our cabin for a place in the north woods. But I wasn’t sure, either, if I wanted to say good-bye forever to Fawn.

  Fawn and I whispered far into the night. “Will you promise always to be my friend? No matter how far away you go?” I asked Fawn.

  “Always,” she promised. “It will be as if you are one of our clan.” She took the small silver eagle on a string of rawhide from around her neck and gave it to me. I gave her my bracelet with the tiny gold heart that had belonged to my grandmother.

  In the morning Papa had a plan. “Sanatuwa, it is the law that if an Indian buys his land he is not subject to treaties. He cannot be sent away.”

  “But I own no land,” Sanatuwa said. “And I have no money to buy land.”

  “I have land,” Papa said. “More than I need. I will give you some. It is a small return for risking your lives to bring Libby back to us. That way you would not have to leave.”

  Sanatuwa was quiet. Fawn and I
held our breath. At last he said to Papa, “You are a good man, but I cannot take your land. I would own the land, but the land would also own me. I would be like a dog chained to a post.”

  Papa sadly shook his head. “I will not try to persuade you against your will, Sanatuwa, for I feel too much as you do.”

  Mama filled a basket with food. Papa gave Sanatuwa a rifle so he could hunt on the way north. Then we watched our friends walk down our path, past the pond, and into the woods.

  Author’s Note

  Although Night of the Full Moon is fiction, the story is based, in part, on various accounts of the removal of the Potawatomi Indians from Indiana and southern Michigan in 1840. Throughout the summer of that year, soldiers of the U.S. Army, under Brigadier General Hugh Brady, rounded up the Potawatomi from their homes and villages. On August 17, over 500 Potawatomis embarked on a forced migration to Kansas, leaving their homelands behind forever.

  About the Author

  GLORIA WHELAN says, “Some years ago, like Fawn’s family, we moved to the woods of Northern Michigan. Many of the towns and lakes near our cabin have Indian names. We canoed down the same streams the Indians canoed; the roads we travel each day were once Indian trails. It’s not surprising, then, that the stories of the Indians should find their way into my imagination and my books.”

  Gloria Whelan has written many popular books for children, including Next Spring an Oriole, Silver, The Secret Keeper, Hannah, and Goodbye, Vietnam. She lives with her husband in Northern Michigan.