LONG DAYS, COOL NIGHTS • DRUMS IN THE DEEP WOODS • BUSHWHACKED
SPRING SOON turned to summer, and the children did as their grandfather had taught them. They swam in the cool pools of the stream and raided the hillsides for blackberries and raspberries, much like the grizzly. They dug for grubs and beetles under the rotted logs of the forest as they had observed the wolverine and the badger do. Like the hawk and eagle, they waited patiently for the precise moment before releasing the taut string of the bow while hunting the squirrels and rabbits; and they silently stalked the elk and deer just like the mountain lion.
Their feet grew tough; Lionel’s hair grew long; and Beatrice’s grew longer. In their buckskin leggings and shirts that Grandpa had made, it would have been hard for anyone from the boarding school to even recognize them.
They started each day by swimming in the stream. Then they saw to the garden or hunted or fished, depending on what the stores in the smokehouse dictated. At night they sat around the fire making arrows or lay in the cool grass of the meadow, staring up at the endless sea of stars.
The children cut the hides and skins of the elk and deer from their hunts and fashioned them into clothes to repair or replace the worn-out wool and heavy canvas garments that had been issued back on the reservation. They missed their grandfather but soon came to enjoy the solace of their new home and made friends with their neighbors the grizzly, raven, wolverine, and the other creatures that occupied the Great wood.
After a while, Lionel noticed that Beatrice was growing anxious that their grandfather still had not returned. She checked the food stores and then decided that they should venture deeper into the Great wood to hunt, and to see if the thaw had brought any signs of trouble from the government men or the school.
That night they cleaned the rifle and packed a bushel of berries and what remained of the smoked meat. They fastened quivers made of birchbark and filled them with the arrows that their grandfather had showed them how to make. Beatrice collected feathers from the edge of the Great wood and wove them into Ulysses’s long, flowing mane, and when they woke early the next morning they were prepared for their latest excursion.
The children rode out of the meadow high on Ulysses’s back, looking every bit the young wanted warrior outlaws that they now were. They rode through the Great wood and continued up into a strange tangle of trees that they had never seen before. Game was surprisingly scarce, and Lionel began to wonder who or what had scared it all away.
By midday the woods opened, and Lionel questioned how far they planned to travel from the lodge in the meadow. Sometime that afternoon they heard what they thought to be the distant sounds of drums. Beatrice proceeded toward the drums with caution, and soon the woods once again grew thick and the trees began to twist and turn their branches, tying themselves in knots overhead. Then the drumming stopped.
For some reason this scared Lionel more than the sound of them beating. Beatrice pulled Ulysses up and listened.
“What is it?” Lionel whispered.
“I’m not sure,” Beatrice answered. “Something ain’t right.”
The next thing Lionel knew, he was knocked from Ulysses’s back and had landed with a thud on the thick carpet of the forest floor. He rolled over as soon as he hit the ground and saw Beatrice lying next to him with a large, fat boy standing over her.
Beatrice tried to get to her feet, but the boy knocked Beatrice back to the ground and then stood over her, clucking and pawing at the dirt like an overstuffed prairie chicken. The boy had feathers in his hair, and he began to squawk and occasionally jumped sideways, striking Beatrice with the end of a short stick as he did.
Lionel looked around and saw that the boy was not alone. The trees seemed to come alive with children, ranging from Lionel’s age to well over Beatrice’s.
The other children—Lionel counted ten—circled them. one by one they stepped forward, trying to grab ahold of Ulysses’s rawhide reins. Beatrice sprang to her feet, driving the fat boy back and knocking a smaller kid away from Ulysses’s right flank.
Lionel grabbed the reins from Beatrice and backed himself and Ulysses against the trunk of a large tree. Beatrice turned to face the fat boy. He stomped at the ground and continued to shriek and jump from side to side. Beatrice circled him patiently, and the next time he lunged at her, she twisted him sideways and threw him over her leg. The boy hit the ground hard, and in a flash Beatrice had Grandpa’s knife nestled between the folds of his chubby throat.
She looked up at Lionel, who along with Ulysses held off the other boys. “That’s enough,” Beatrice announced.
The children stopped and turned to her. Her braids with their hawk feathers fell to the sides of her face, the knife catching the slightest hint of the late afternoon sun through the trees.
“He won’t do it,” cried the fat one, mistaking Beatrice for a boy. “Get the horse!”
The rest of the children, Lionel included, froze, unsure of what to do. Lionel looked around at the faces of their attackers. They were painted, some of them poorly, and they wore an odd combination of government-issued uniforms and makeshift versions of the traditional clothing of the Blackfeet.
Lionel recognized the school uniforms from the day of the football game. They were from the Heart Butte boarding school, and the fat boy was Barney Little Plume.
“Get off of me,” Barney screamed, wrestling Beatrice with little success. Beatrice held him firmly to the ground, the knife carefully hovering over his throat. “I was just counting coo. Get the hell off!”
Ulysses was doing a good job of keeping the rest of the children back, but Lionel was having trouble hanging on to the reins, the big horse pulling him from the tree and dragging him sideways with his sporadic leaping kicks. Lionel wrapped the leather strap around his hand and held the horse as best he could. Ulysses jumped again, and Lionel lost his footing but somehow managed to hold on.
“Come on now, easy, boy. Calm down, you’re gonna be all right.”
Lionel looked up and saw a boy slowly moving toward Ulysses, his voice just a notch above a whisper.
“Remember me? Sure ya do. You’re gonna be all right. There’s nothin’ for a big old horse like you to be scared of….”
It was Corn Poe, Corn Poe Boss Ribs. Lionel wasn’t sure who was more surprised to see the boy—Beatrice, Ulysses, or himself, but he noticed that Corn Poe’s soothing voice was having an effect on the horse.
Lionel tucked the bear claws into his shirt and got to his feet to help Corn Poe bring the big horse around. Corn Poe looked different. His skin was tan with summer, and his hair had indeed grown out. True to his promise, tattered feathers and tiny strips of flannel were knotted in his hair; his clothes were dirty and torn to shreds.
“Corn Poe?” Beatrice said, with her knife still at Barney’s throat.
“You know them?” Barney responded, having given up his struggle.
“Sure,” said Corn Poe. “That there’s Lionel and this is Beatrice.”
“Beatrice?” Barney stammered, looking at her clearly for the first time. “You’re a girl? But you’re the same sonuvagun that broke my leg.”