Chickadee (20 page)

“My boy,” said Uncle Quill, “we are going to do the same.”

He had bought some canvas in St. Paul, and now he spotted strong new willow growing near. After drinking some tea at Antoinette's camp, he cut the poles and erected the same contraption on his oxcart.

“Now
this
is traveling,” he said happily to Chickadee as they started out. In spite of the rain, they now continued along a ridge of land that was perfectly solid. It was a pleasure to jounce along. The ox was well fed on new grass and pulled easily. The gentle rain blew about them in warm gusts, but they were dry beneath the canvas.

When they talked now, they mainly read each other's lips. With their ears plugged and the appalling creaking of the carts, they couldn't even hear each other yell. But they managed to communicate quite well even so.

“Uncle Quill,” said Chickadee as they traveled the good road, “can you tell me a story about when you were young?”

Quill laughed.

“In those days I was always getting into trouble!”

“That's what Mama says.”

“She's right. One time I stayed behind on purpose, at wild rice camp. Everybody left without me. I was alone in the woods.”

“I know what that's like,” said Chickadee.

“It wasn't so bad,” said Uncle Quill.

“Did you meet any spirits?”

“Several times, I did. They were memegwesiwag, little people spirits. Once, your mother and I got caught in the rapids. At night! There we were in our canoe, washed right downstream, pushed along quick as an arrow. In the dark! We could see nothing. It's amazing we came out of that alive. But we were protected by the memegwesiwag who lived along that stream. I saw one afterward, a hairy little round man. He was smiling at us. He looked proud that we'd lived.”

“I have never seen one of those spirits,” said Chickadee. “But when I was alone, starving, two hawks had pity on me because I helped them. Also, I have spoken to my own namesake, and the little bird gave advice to me.”

“Ah,” said Quill, “you are very fortunate! You must remember that advice forever. Did he give you anything else?”

“A song.”

Quill gave a low whistle.

“This is a very powerful thing, my boy. To have your namesake, your protector, and a song. You will be able to heal with that song.”

“That's what my we'eh told me.”

“Yes, when you are given a song, you must use it for good things. You will help people with that song. Will you sing it for me?”

Uncle Quill tipped his head very close and Chickadee sang the song into his ear. Quill was quiet for a good bit of the time as the oxcart rolled and bounced over the trail. He hummed the song thoughtfully. Finally, he said it was a good song.

“Nokomis would say that song will last through time.”

Chickadee let the pleasure of that thought, and the happiness at the thought of seeing his family, fill him.

“Uncle,” he said, “do you have a story for me? Perhaps something else that happened to you when you were a boy? Or perhaps about your naming. Your name Quill is a powerful name. I suppose it was given to you as a young warrior. I suppose that your shot was fine as a quill. Or your arrows were always that sharp. I suppose the enemy feared your sharpness.”

Uncle Quill was silent. After a while, he looked at Chickadee, shook his wild hair, and laughed.

“One time,” he said, “I thought I was a great hunter. I saw a porcupine up in a tree. I knocked it out of the tree and do you know? That baby porcupine, it fell on me! Quills stuck all over in me. There were quills in my arms. Quills on my head. Quills even on the end of my nose. That is how I got my name!”

“Oh,” said Chickadee. He tried not to sound disappointed, but he was surprised.

“I was always playing tricks on people, always teasing your mother. I wasn't a great hero, you know,” said Quill.

“Did you save
anybody
?” asked Chickadee. “Did you kill a bear as it charged you?”

“No,” said Quill.

“Did a thousand warriors surround you and you terrified them with your war cry?”

“No,” said Quill.

“Did you put out a raging fire?”

“Yes, I did that,” Quill remembered happily. “I put out a raging fire once! The fire was raging on the seat of my pants. I put it out by dunking my butt in a bucket of water.”

“You are so big and strong,” said Chickadee, almost desperate now, “you must have done something brave!”

“Not yet,” said Quill. “But I did take care of that little namesake, that porcupine. It lived with me for a year. I didn't eat him even when we nearly starved to death.”

“That's pretty good,” said Chickadee.

“If you want some good hunting stories, you should ask Two Strike.”

“I'd be scared to ask Two Strike,” said Chickadee.

“Did you ever hear about the time Two Strike rode a moose?”

“No,” said Chickadee.

“I'll tell you,” said Quill. “One day Two Strike was paddling her canoe on the lake and there she saw a moose, just swimming along in front of her. You know how she always has her knives or her gun for hunting?”

“Always,” said Chickadee, who couldn't imagine her otherwise.

“This time she'd forgotten everything. Imagine, she'd just gone out to enjoy the day. This, she never did. And here a moose swims right up to her. Of course, she wanted to hunt that moose.”

“Of course,” said Chickadee.

“She had only a rope,” said Quill. “So she tied that rope around the moose and then jumped out of the boat right onto the moose's back. So there she was, riding on the moose in the lake, just as easy as you please. She steered it by the antlers. Of course, pretty soon the moose wants to get out of the lake, and out he comes. Two Strike is now on top of the moose, riding it like a horse. Do you think the moose likes that?”

“No,” said Chickadee.

“Oh, you can bet it doesn't like this one bit! The moose can't see what is on its back, but knows it isn't good. That moose starts running furiously through the woods. It runs under low branches, trying to scrape that thing off its back. Two Strike holds on for dear life. If she falls off, that moose will stomp her with its knife-sharp hooves!”

“What happened?”

“After a long, very long while, the moose starts walking slower and slower. Finally, the moose fell asleep. She tired it out, that Two Strike. That moose was walking in its sleep. Two Strike hopped off, still holding that rope, and the moose kept walking in its sleep. She could lead it anywhere. She led that moose home. Back to camp.”

“Really?”

“I saw it! Into camp walks Two Strike with that moose walking right beside her, sleepy and gentle as a puppy. Of course, knowing me, you probably know what I did when I saw her bring that sleeping moose into camp.”

“What did you do?” asked Chickadee.

“I shouted,
‘Wake up!'
” said Quill. “And boy, did it ever startle awake. That moose looked around, turned its head this way and that as though thinking,
How'd I get here?
Then it rears up and tears through the camp, knocking over the kettles, kicking through the wigwams. It tossed a rack of dried fish into the air. Fish rained down everywhere! It caught a blanket on its antlers and the blanket hung down over its eyes. That moose was twirling around and around in the middle of the camp, blinded. That rope swung by Two Strike. She caught the end of the rope, but it fell off the moose. She was laughing too hard to kill that moose. It just ran off, the blanket flapping off its head. Later on, we found that blanket on the ground. It was all torn up. I guess the moose tried to fight it, just stomped it to pieces. Oh, we never forgot that.”

Chickadee laughed, imagining the torn blanket. The trail wound through beautiful woods of tamarack, and over corduroy roads that were made of skinned tamarack poles placed together one after the other. The roads were bone-rattling, but nobody got stuck. If one of the poles broke, the oxcart train stopped and cut a new pole to replace it. That was part of the way of the trail, Uncle Quill explained.

“If something on the trail goes wrong, a tree falls across, a pole breaks, then we fix it. We depend on those who went before us to do the same. Once, I explained this to Nokomis. Know what she said?”

“What?”

“She said that was how the world should work. We should fix what we break in this world for the ones who come next, our children.”