Chickadee (7 page)

“Where are your sons?”

He also was suspicious, especially since he'd failed to convert Babiche and Batiste. In spite of his forgiving nature, he suspected that they were unredeemable fellows and were even capable of wickedness. He made Zhigaag sit still and listen while he said a few quick prayers.

Nokomis hobbled quickly over to Omakayas, who was examining the sets of footprints outside the wigwam. The footprints led straight to where the two brown horses had been tethered. Omakayas fell down on her knees, grasping Deydey's hand.

“Oh, Deydey, they have stolen Chickadee!”

Deydey's face was suffused with fury.

“My daughter,” he said, “we will pursue them. We will find our boy.”

The twins were favorites of his, favorites of everyone. Everyone knew how, in the stories, twins helped to create the Ojibwe world. Twins were considered blessed. To know twins, to be in the family of twins or even the presence of twins, was good fortune. Chickadee and Makoons were much loved. To divide twins was an evil.

“I will track down Babiche and Batiste,” said Mikwam. “Fishtail and Animikiins will follow the path as well. When Two Strike hears of this, she'll take it hard! We'll catch up with them. Don't worry, daughter.”

In a gesture rare for him, Mikwam put his arm around Omakayas's shoulder and tried to comfort her weeping. She in turn held Makoons. Poor Makoons had never been separated from his brother, and he was crying with all of his heart. Nothing would be right for anyone until Chickadee returned.

C
hickadee's dream was frightening in the first place. It was a nightmare. A huge black flying turtle had chased him through trees and over rocks. Chickadee had been just about to wake when a smothering hand was clapped over his mouth and he was suddenly somewhere else. The last thing he saw was the tiny flare of light inside his family wigwam. Then nothing. All was darkness. He made sounds as he was hauled up, swung around, thumped down. But those sounds were no more than panicked whines. He was sure nobody heard him.

In all that was to come, he would fix on that little moment he'd seen the flare of light. He would wish, and wish, that he'd bitten the hand of Babiche, or shoved a stick in the eye of Babiche. He wished he had awakened sooner, or managed to grab the feet of his brother, who would have shouted the alarm.

But everything happened swiftly, brutally. Now, tied in a sack, Chickadee was slung across a thick blanket on the back of a horse. He thought it was one of the brown horses that Babiche and Batiste had arrived on. They were galloping away before Chickadee could really make sense of things. It was all too fast, all too strange, all like part of the dream. It was as if the dream had come true and he was snatched into the air by the flying black turtle!

Chickadee was terrified, but as he was held tight against the woolly vest of Babiche, sitting on a comfortable blanket, and enveloped in a dark sack, he also began to get sleepy again.

I might as well sleep
, thought Chickadee.
No sense worrying about things now. If I wiggle hard, I'll just fall off. I am certainly taken captive. If I sleep now, I'll be better able to handle what happens when this horse finally stops.

As soon as Animikiins and Two Strike found out what had happened, they decided to start out. The family would band together to find Chickadee. Fishtail would help the women on the trail. Animikiins took some fresh maple sugar, dried fish, his rifle, ammunition, and a blanket roll. Omakayas and Animikiins tried to be brave for each other, but when they said good-bye their eyes swelled with tears.

“I will not rest until I find him,” said Animikiins. “I will bring our boy home.”

“I will not rest until he is with us again,” said Omakayas. She struggled for breath. It felt like a stick was breaking inside her chest.

Chickadee's parents clung to each other fiercely, then Animikiins turned, hiding his face, and strode quickly away.

Two Strike stood before Omakayas. The mighty woman was ready for anything. She had a small sack of flour, her rifle, ammunition, her bow, a quiver of arrows, her skinning knife, her carving knife, her tobacco knife, her whittling knife, and two extra emergency knives she kept hidden in her leggings.

Although as children they had disliked each other, Omakayas and Two Strike had become as close as sisters as they grew older. Two Strike was grateful to Omakayas and Angeline for bringing up Zozie, whom she loved but didn't know how to care for. Omakayas appreciated the fierce energy of Two Strike and believed that she had inherited the magnificent spirit of Old Tallow, the much beloved old woman who had hunted bears with a spear and worn the yellow feather of a flicker in her hat. Two Strike dressed in an unusual fashion too, but that was not the main resemblance. The resemblance was attitude.

Both Two Strike and Old Tallow had no time for fools or for civilization. They preferred to live alone in the woods and had gotten rid of their husbands as quickly as possible. They had no time for work that women usually did, but preferred to hunt. They were hard and bitter on the outside, but when it came to children, their hearts were soft.

“I will hunt down those two men who stole your Chickadee, you can be sure. I will destroy them,” said Two Strike. She made a fist. When Two Strike smiled, there was something wild and frightening in her eyes.

Makoons, who stood behind his mother, was glad that Two Strike loved them. He was happy that their family was under her protection. He would have hated to be either Babiche or Batiste and face the wrath of his father, his grandfather, and Two Strike.

“Miigwech, my sister,” said Omakayas.

She reached out and put her arms around Two Strike's shoulders. Although Two Strike stood stiff as a tree in her sister's embrace, it was clear that she was touched. She sniffled loudly, then lifted her voice in a ringing war cry that tingled down Makoons's spine. Besides Omakayas, only Zozie dared embrace Two Strike. And once that was done, this woman of tremendous strength loped along, sworn to find Chickadee.

In a state of sorrow and anxiety, the rest of the family packed up their camp and prepared to follow. If they lost the trail, the priest had persuaded them all to meet in the biggest settlement for hundreds of miles, the place where Omakayas's brother, Quill, lived, a place called Pembina.

O
n and on the horses galloped. Sometimes Chickadee woke and heard the horses picking their way along or plodding through what seemed like mushy ground. Sometimes the horses stopped and he could hear them chewing. It was warm and dark in the sack, so he always fell asleep again. The horses were good runners and had the will and spirit of the best of their kind. Babiche and Batiste were hard men, but they were tender where their horses were concerned. So what Chickadee sensed from inside his mail sack was that although the horses galloped hard, they were also rested from time to time and were allowed to graze when they came across melted areas of rich winter grass.

They came through the Pembina Hills and even managed to cross the Red River. It was in that perilous time just before the ice broke. But Chickadee slept through that crossing. He was asleep when the horses stopped. Then, suddenly, he was in the air again, thrown off the saddle. He was still in the sack. Chickadee woke as he was falling and had no way to brace himself. He rolled over and over before hitting the earth. Luckily the snow where he landed was still soft, and Batiste quickly untied the sack and let him out. The light was blinding at first, after the darkness in the sack. Chickadee rubbed his eyes and looked around.

Where were the trees? Where were the hills? And again, where were the trees?

There was nothing to see as far as his eyes could reach. This was the Plains. It was Bwaan-akiing, the place where the Dakota people live. It was the Red River Valley. It was Pembina country. Chickadee had heard about the Plains. Others in his family had been to the Plains. But nothing had prepared Chickadee for the sight of such emptiness.

He whirled around, panicked by the vast sky.

Batiste was ducking into a small log cabin. Babiche was taking the two brown horses toward a shanty built of pole logs and mud. There was a great hay pile next to it, nibbled all the way around the bottom by rabbits. As they passed the pile, the horses reached out their long necks and swiped a matted clump of hay to chew.

Batiste came out of the cabin.

“The mice have eaten everything again!” he angrily cried.

“Get over here,” yelled Babiche to Chickadee. “Now you'll learn to make yourself useful. If you don't,” he leered, his big yellow teeth dripping with spit, “we will chop you up and feed you to our horses. They love the meat of little boys.”

The two mild brown horses looked over their shoulders, their eyes reproachful. They didn't look like they ate little boys, thought Chickadee, but he hurried over to the makeshift barn anyway.

“What do you want me to do?”

Babiche swung his big fist lazily at Chickadee, and Chickadee ducked.

“Next time you ask that, my fist will connect with your head. You do what a servant does!”

Chickadee saw a long branch with sticks whittled out and pegged to the ends. He went over and grabbed it. He looked at Babiche, who made digging and pitching motions with his arms.

Chickadee began to dig up the horse manure on the dirt floor. It was half frozen, but he managed to move a small pile out the door into a heap behind the barn. While he worked at this, the two brothers bumbled about their cabin yelling about the mice.

“Get in here,” Batiste called out at last.

Chickadee ran to the cabin. It was dark inside. There were only three small openings for light, each covered with a piece of oiled paper. It was almost like being in the sack again.

When Chickadee's eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw that there were heaps of furs and blankets on the floor. There was a small round tin barrel set on legs with a pipe running out of it. Next to it there were piles of dried brown circles of frozen stuff. It was the first time Chickadee had ever seen buffalo dung, or buffalo chips.

“Start a fire!” growled Batiste.

The brothers stomped out, arguing about which of them would take the first shift to deliver the mail. The mail rider would arrive from St. Paul, said Batiste, and he had ridden first last time.