A BELLY FULL • RECOUNTING THE ESCAPE • BUFFALO ROBE • NAPI THE OLD MAN • LIONEL’S DREAM
THE FIRE in Grandpa’s cabin on the Milk River danced around the cast-iron cauldron that hung in the stone fireplace.
“There’s more stew in there, boy,” Grandpa reminded Lionel as he threw a small piece of birch wood onto the fire.
A strong north wind whipped at the tiny cabin, a last-ditch effort to extend winter just one storm longer. Lionel was tired, and his stomach had never been this full.
Corn Poe slept next to Lionel, and from the sound of his snoring, slept soundly. The small boy hadn’t moved since he had finished his third helping of stew and collapsed in front of the fire, rubbing his thin, pale legs. Now Lionel lay wrapped in a thick buffalo robe, listening to Corn Poe’s heavy, labored breathing and Beatrice’s retelling of their escape from the boarding school and the soldiers’ outpost. It had all happened so fast.
As Beatrice told of the Frozen Man and how the soldiers had laughed and stolen from him, Grandpa’s face looked first sad and then angry. But he didn’t say anything. Not a word.
Beatrice went on about the priest, and that all she wanted to do was to pray like her mother used to. Beatrice told Grandpa that she wanted to learn these prayers, not the prayers that the government made for them. Then Beatrice told Grandpa about Sergeant Haskell Jenkins and Private Samuel Lumpkin and how they held her under the freezing water and tried to cut her hair with the sheep shears.
Lionel stared at the fire, but all he could see was Jenkins’s snarling smirk and the darker-than-midnight black leather of his coarse eye patch.
Beatrice told Grandpa how she drove the sheep shears through Jenkins’s hand and that she was worried because she did not feel bad about it…not in the least. She told him that Jenkins deserved it and she would do it again, or worse, if given the opportunity. Then Beatrice told Grandpa about Lionel, and Ulysses the great horse.
Grandpa leaned over and smoothed Lionel’s hair with his big hand. Lionel felt happy wrapped in the buffalo robe, lying before the fire with a belly full of food, listening to his sister. But Lionel also had a feeling that everything had suddenly changed.
Grandpa sat back in his rocking chair by the fire to pack and light his pipe.
“Well, the government can’t be too happy. I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that you’d come and try to find me,” Grandpa said after a while. “The snow helps, but they’re coming.”
Grandpa took a long draw on his pipe. He released a swirl of smoke that hung in the rafters. “They are definitely coming.”
“I’m sorry, but let ’em come,” Beatrice said almost without emotion. “They can’t catch me. I’m never going back.”
Grandpa took another draw; Lionel and Beatrice listened to the low crackling burn of its embers. Rings of smoke followed and drifted about the room amid the fire’s dancing light.
Lionel shifted and felt the bear claws dig into his side. He was ashamed to show them to anyone, but wondered if his grandfather could tell him if the Frozen Man might need the claws wherever it was he had gone.
Lionel broke the silence. “Grandpa?”
“Yes, Lionel?”
“Where did the Frozen Man go?”
“Where did he go?” their grandfather asked, leaning farther back in his rocker.
“Yes, I don’t understand. At the school they said that—”
“Ah well, at school,” Grandpa interrupted, “people say a lot of things; and me, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“At the beginning,” Lionel answered.
“Listen to him, will you?” Their grandfather laughed, exhaling a large cloud from his pipe. “It’s a long story, but maybe you’re right. To get to the end, it just might be better to start at the beginning.”
Lionel lost his grandfather’s face for a moment in the smoke.
“But this was a long time ago. Back in the days of Napi, Napi the old Man.”
“Napi?” Beatrice asked, pushing the hair out of her eyes.
Their grandfather hesitated. “It’s late. You two should sleep and let me think about what has happened.”
Beatrice watched their grandfather with a solemn expression on her face. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Okay, okay, but just for a bit, now. You two need to join your friend there and get some sleep.”
The children lay back in front of the fire.
“From the start. way back, eh? Let’s see,” their grandfather began, “when I was a boy, the old ones used to say that there was a time when everything, this whole world, was covered with water. This was before the time of this land.”
Lionel stared into the dancing firelight, trying to imagine what it would be like to ride a horse under that much water.
“Waves rose and fell, crashed and churned, but nothing…only water.” Their grandfather sat forward with a creak of his rocker. “Well, almost nothing.
“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.