25 

It was an early, unexpected snowstorm that slowed them down. A blizzard. Two days into their walk east across Upper Michigan from the western shores of Superior to the Huron Mountains, the snow had come. It was too soon for winter, but strange things sometimes happened this far north. Blizzards came, unexpectedly and deadly, sometimes in the fall. He was shocked, but the others were not.

The blizzard could not have come at a worse time. The tribe had several elderly and young ones to care for and at least another four days’ walk. They needed shelter. A sturdy longhouse that could house the whole tribe would have been ideal, but there was no time to stop and build one—not with government people possibly on their heels.

There had been a time in his life when he would not have believed that Moon Song’s tribe would need to run from the government. Now, however, he’d heard enough from the old ones in the tribe to know that it truly was better to run and hide than try to fight an elected leadership that viewed Indians as children who did not know what was good for them.

It bothered him that if the quota was not filled by Moon Song’s tribe, it would be filled with another, but he could not protect all the Chippewa—only this tribe and those who had come from the one outside the Minnesota Mine. Keeping those two tribes safe and alive would be a great enough challenge.

They spent that first night in an old-growth pine forest that Skypilot scanned with a timberman’s eyes and knew someday would probably delight some owner of a lumber camp. In the meantime, the tribe sheltered the best it could in the cold and damp.

It was during that night when they were all so cold and wet that Moon Song began to cough.

The snow did not let up. It snowed all day and all night for three days. There was a great deal of discussion among members of the tribe over what to do. If they stayed there, it might be spring before they dug out again. On the other hand, no one had ever seen it snow this much in October. It was a freak thing. It would stop. They would go on.

What if it didn’t, others argued. What if it had settled in early to stay? The giant pines could hold back, to some extent, one or two light snowfalls. But they could not withstand steadily falling snow like they were getting right now. It was not unusual to get twenty-five to thirty feet of snow per winter in this area, and here they were, with no tipis, no wigwams, no longhouses, and only the food they could carry on their backs. Some of the men were debating the wisdom of having left.

Moon Song’s generous offer to share her land was starting to look like a foolish idea compared to what they had left behind on the reservation. At least on the reservation, they could continue to stay alive, even if a few of the children had to go to a government school.

Moon Song could hear the mumbling, but it was as though from far away. She had developed a fever, and she found it hard to concentrate. Her cough was deepening. She ached all over. Visions of the white woman with her lacy handkerchief dabbing at her red-rimmed nose wove their way through her feverish thoughts, along with the feel of shaking the woman’s moist hand.

She was terribly sick, and she knew it. Too sick to fight her tribe about which direction to go. They would have to decide if they wanted to go back to what they knew or forward several days’ journey to a land none of them had seen and that existed solely on a paper that only Skypilot could read.

She didn’t blame them, but she pitied the children and their mothers when finally more than half the tribe elected to go back and face the consequences rather than gamble on pushing on to the land she had wanted to share with them.

The old chief of her own tribe was torn. He would not command them; that was not the way their people worked out decisions. But she knew he was saddened at the idea of abandoning their plan. He had once been a great warrior and still had a warrior’s heart, but sometimes it was hard to have a warrior’s heart in an old man’s body.

“I will only slow you down,” he said. “I do not think I will see another winter. I will go back to my cabin in Ontonagon and there live or die. I have no children left to fight for. It is the young men’s battle.”

Many of the people left with him, turning back to Ontonogan, back to what they knew.

By the time the chief made that decision, Moon Song was very ill.

“I can take you back, Moon Song,” Skypilot said. “The government won’t take little Standing Bear. Not yet. He’s too young.”

“No.”

“We’re much closer to the reservation than we are your father’s property.”

“No.”

Fallen Arrow was bathing her face with snow, trying to keep down her fever. Standing Bear had been wrapped back into the cradle board and was not happy about it. He had begun to whimper for his mother, but Moon Song could not rouse herself to care for him.

Skypilot wondered if she had pneumonia, otherwise known as “the old man’s friend” because it was a relatively quick and painless way for the elderly to die. Unfortunately, even though Moon Song was far from elderly, he knew that like the rest of her people, she had a weakness to the white man’s diseases. A simple case of childhood measles could take her life.

“I want to leave now,” Moon Song insisted.

“No, sweetheart.” He’d rigged a canopy of pine boughs over her to keep the snow out of her face. “Rest. Get well.”

“I want to go now,” she said. “I want to see my father’s gift before I die. I want to know my people are safe.”

“We need to turn back, Moon Song. Like some of the others have done. You’re too sick to continue.”

“I want to go on.”

“Moon Song, please,” Skypilot said. “Don’t do this. Don’t sacrifice yourself just to keep a handful of children from going to government schools. They’ll be all right. We’ll fight back in some other way. After you are well again.”

“No. Children should not be taken from parents.”

“Moon Song . . .”

“No!” Her feverish eyes blazed up at him. “If I perish, I perish!”

It was then that he knew he had permanently lost his argument. If Moon Song was quoting the book of Esther at him, a book he had read to her and Isabella after their steamboat exploded, there was no use trying to reason with her. Perhaps it was her own experience of being raised without a father or having been taken from her mother that steeled her resolve. Whatever it was, the woman was determined not to turn back, and he did not have the right or the heart to make her.

If Skypilot had thought that his trek with Moon Song and Isabella had been harsh, it was nothing compared to the next few desperate days. Moon Song was no longer able to carry Standing Bear. That became his job. Strangely enough, with Moon Song too sick to walk, Fallen Arrow grew stronger and stronger. He began to see why Moon Song had held her grandmother in such reverence. The old woman became as one made of granite as they pushed forward. Her love for her granddaughter was too great to allow her to show weakness now.

Fighting Sparrow’s grandson and granddaughter were both of school age, and she chose to push forward with them. Hanging Leaf’s family came along too. Snowbird’s only child was young enough to be carried on her back, and that young woman trudged forward as well, her husband at her side.

And it continued to snow.

Others with school-age children followed them, believing in Moon Song’s promise that there would be a land that no one could take away from them.

From time to time, they stopped long enough to eat pemmican and rest. Little Standing Bear was old enough to eat the pemmican now. Skypilot and the other men scratched around in the snow long enough to find grass and weeds upon which the mule could forage. He did not have words big enough to express his gratitude to the Lord for having given him the desire to purchase this strong animal.

Moon Song continued to live, in spite of what sounded to him like her lungs filling up. Sometimes she coughed until she retched, and still she hung on. He began to wonder if she was conscious at all.

Finally, Fallen Arrow began to fade. The old woman who had been so valiantly trying to walk without faltering fell and lay without moving. She had given all she had and could walk no more. Moon Song did what few other women would have had the will to do. As ill as she was, she pulled herself off of the mule and made her grandmother climb on. Then for mile after mile, she walked beside the mule, one arm around its neck, the other around Skypilot’s waist, nothing but sheer grit fueling her as she put one foot in front of the other.

He was certain that when she could no longer walk, she would crawl, so great was her desire to get her people to the land her father had promised her.

Finally, the time came when even her great heart could not make her legs hold her any longer, and she collapsed. He was a strong man, but with one-year-old Standing Bear strapped to his back, it was a great struggle to carry her—and yet, carry her he did, and they trudged on.

He was surprised when Snowbird’s husband made him stop long enough to lift Standing Bear’s cradle board from his shoulders and put it on his own. This was highly unusual behavior for a Chippewa brave. Not once had Skypilot seen an Indian man carrying a cradle board, but he was grateful. Another brave then helped secure an unconscious Moon Song onto his back. With her weight distributed more evenly, he trudged on many more miles, steadying Fallen Arrow upon the mule, thankful to the men of her tribe for helping him.

He was grateful that she lay so close against his back. He could feel her breathing, and knew that at least for now she was still alive. He could not imagine surviving her death, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that if she died, at least he had done everything within his ability and strength to take her to the land her father had saved for her.

“Hold on, sweetheart,” he repeated over and over. “Hold on. We’ll be there soon.”

As he walked, he prayed harder than he had ever prayed before in his life. He prayed that she would survive, and that when they arrived, there would be some sort of shelter where he could care for her. To come into the promised land of the Huron Mountains with his girl deathly ill and find only more wilderness was too awful to consider.

And then, as far as he could calculate, they were there. He knew a small bit of surveying, and he knew how to read a deed and could judge distances. They crested a hill and he could see Lake Superior spread out before them.

“Look, sweetheart,” he said, pointing at the giant expanse of water. “It’s your lake. We’re here. I think we’re on your father’s land.”

Moon Song roused from her stupor. He could feel her lifting her head, looking out over the lake, and in a voice so soft it was barely a whisper, she said, “Oh, it is so beautiful!”

He untied the ropes that secured her to him, squatted, and allowed her to slip to the ground. He was so drained, he could think of little else except letting go and simply falling to the ground beside her. He was so exhausted that the idea of cradling her in his arms until they died together seemed the only thing left to do. Living without her was unimaginable.

It was then that he heard a gunshot, and a piece of bark flew off a tree near his head.