Salt (10 page)
Authors: Helen Frost
a shot. It fell in the water ⦠and they ⦠they left it there.
We stand with him in silence. I try to find words for my question:
Do the herons know the difference between them and us?
Grandma says,
Iihia
.
Yes. They do
.
Pa and Ma are arguing. The American army went west for a few days; now
they're here again, getting ready to head back east where they came from.
They'll be going through Piqua, and the women and children are ready
to come home. Pa doesn't know where Old Raccoon and Piyeeto are,
so he volunteered to go to Piqua and bring everyone back home. Ma says,
No! How would we get along without you if â¦
She doesn't finish, but I know.
It's dangerous. Pa could get capturedâor killed. After all that's happened,
won't everyone be mad?
I can speak the languages along the way,
Pa says,
at least enough to ask for help.
Ma says what I'm thinking:
What makes you so
sure anyone will help you?
Pa answers,
If you were at Piqua â¦
Ma interrupts:
I'm not at Piqua! I'm here with James and Molly! And I don't want to stay
in this fort any longer. When will you start cutting logs for our new house?
They go on like that, longer than I've ever heard them argue. I think Ma will
win, but I fall asleep before she does, and when I wake up, Pa's not here.
The sun
shines on a circle of white
hair, all the grandparents, talking to each other.
We have survived hard times before
.
They talk all morning, then
all afternoon, on
into evening.
This comforts me.
They'll know what to do,
where we should go, how we can
stay together. But their faces, when they rise
from the circle, hold no answers, only sorrow. They've found
no way for us to stay together. Some will go to live with
relatives in other places, west or north or south.
Kwaahkwa's family is going so far west, we
don't know if we'll see them again.
Rain Bird turns her face away.
What will our family do?
Grandma's sister
lives six days' journey to the west.
But Father says,
If none of us return to Kekionga,
they'll treat our home as if we have abandoned it. They'll say
we don't need it anymore.
He looks at Grandma.
We will go back,
they agree.
Tears come from earth and sky,
from words moving through us.
We taste them as they fall,
leaving salt streaks on our faces.
We bear witness as they splash
back to earth, and are absorbed.
I hate staying in the fort without Pa. Last night some of the soldiers
got in a big fight. Ma covered Molly's ears, but I heard the whole thing.
Those men miss their wives and children,
Ma explained.
It won't be so bad
when things get back to normal.
But will that ever happen? How can it?
So far, none of the Miami have come back to Kekionga. I heard a soldier
say,
If they leave for good, I have a real nice place picked out for my house,
where the river curves around that big rock. Good fishing. The trees will
grow again, and we'll have shade.
I know the place he means, not far
from where Anikwa's house used to beâbefore it got burned down.
Ma won't let me go look.
When your pa gets home, we'll all go,
she says.
A few streaks of orange splash the evening sky, and pretty soon
it's red and purple. What's that sound? Quiet at first, then louder.
Sandhill cranes are flying in, hundreds of them, thousands.
Calling back and forth as they land in the burned cornfields.
It's raining
as we begin our long walk home.
Soft rain, like the sky is crying, and it isn't going to stop.
The geese form into arrows pointing south, calling
down to us as they fly over. Cold, dark
days are coming. We won't
be ready for them.
I'm trying not to be so hungry,
not to think about the snow that will soon
cover the ground, how ice will slow the river to a stop.
The army's gone, but tracks are everywhereâgrass and flowers
trampled down. Where are the animals? Did they kill them, or scare
them into hiding? Toontwa walks beside me. He's hungry too,
and since I don't have food to share, I tell him stories.
In one, I imitate the sound of sandhill cranes
and right then, hundreds of them fly
up from a burned cornfieldâ
there must be
a little corn
still left on the ground.
At the edge of the field, I see a deer, running.
Look, Toontwaâmoohswa,
I say
. See her white tail flashing?
She stops and stands still for a minute
watching us.
Ma keeps talking about her sister:
I wonder if Amanda could convince
Ethan to leave Philadelphia. I hear it's getting crowded out eastâ
I'm sure there would be room for them here. Think of it, James!
She breaks into a big smileâthe first one I've seen since Pa left.
You'd have cousins to play with!
It's true, I'd like that. Uncle Ethan
could help us build our new house and then we'd help them build theirs.
I've never met my cousins, but I'd like to. Twin boys a little older than me,
a girl a year and a half younger. A boy about two years older than Molly.
With both families working together,
Ma says,
we'd make the trading post
bigger and better. We'll need new merchandise when we open it again,
and they have moneyâthey could help replace what we lost in the fire.
She spends all day writing a letter.
I'll mail it when I can,
she says.
Rupert hears her talking and reminds us:
This part of the territory isn't open
for settlement yet. They still have to work out some details in the treaties.
It's almost dark
when we walk into Kekionga.
Or where it used to be. Now it's ⦠ashes.
Kwaahkwa told us, but no one could
imagine how terrible it is:
every house
torn apart
and burned. The fish
we had to leave on drying racks
scattered everywhere, and trampled.
Corncobs and fish heads covered with fliesâ
the army must have eaten what they wanted, and then
destroyed whatever was left over. Didn't they knowâ
they must have knownâit's too late to grow more
corn, and we won't be able to catch many
fish before the river freezes.
Will the animals find
their way
back?
Will deer give us
hides for warmth and shelter, meat
for winter food? Father says,
It's worse than I thought.
Grandma says,
You helped them go to Piqua.
They should help us now.
I'm sitting on a rock near the burned-down trading post, trying out
a new tune on my whistle, when Old Raccoon walks up, holding
a white cloth on a stick to show he comes in peace.
Aya, James,
he says.
Hello,
I answer.
You looking for Pa? He went to Piqua.
Ma sees us talking
and walks over.
Aya,
she says.
I expect Mr. Gray to be home tomorrow
or the next day.
Old Raccoon says,
I'll come back. Please tell him I need
credit for tools and blankets.
Ma says she'll tell him. I ask,
Will you bring
Anikwa next time you come?
Old Raccoon doesn't answer yes or no.
He looks at the charred ruins of our house.
We didn't start the fire,
he says.
Ma replies,
We know that.
She sweeps her arm toward Kekionga and says,
I'm sorry.
There must be bigger words somewhere, but none of us
can find them. Old Raccoon turns away. As we watch him walking
down the trail, I remember how some people cheered when they saw
Kekionga burning.
What will they do now?
I ask. Ma has no answer.
Soldiers found
the food we buried in the forest
but, as we hoped, they didn't think of looking
under fire pits. We dig through ashes, lift
out the food we hid, and carry it
to where we're building
our new wiikiaami.
Eleven other families
are making houses close to ours.
Later, we'll all work together, building
a new longhouse. We won't have time, before snow
falls, to build new homes with logs, but cattail walls and elk hides
will keep out the coldest winds. Grandma says,
This
may be the hardest winter we have ever known.
But we will surviveâwe always have.
Here, where the river curves
around a rock that used
to stand in the shade
of seven maple
trees, my parents
and my grandparents are
buried. When summer comes again,
a cool breeze will blow across
their graves.
When's Pa going to get back? Maybe then Ma will quit scrubbing
tables, floors, and walls. Not just the room we stay inâshe's cleaning
the whole fort.
Take Molly outside?
she asks. Molly reaches out her hand
and smiles. I take her to the yard inside the fort, then out to where
the chickens used to be, and over to the garden to see if there's still
any food there. It's stripped clean except for a small patch of parsley.
I keep looking at the road from Piqua. Heyâis that them? Yes! Women,
children ⦠and Pa is right behind them! I run back in the fort to tell Ma.
She splashes water on her face, like she's washing off the worry lines.
We go meet themâPa swings down from his horse, hugs Ma and Molly,
roughs up my hair.
Looks like you took care of things around here, Son,
he says.
Isaac runs over.
Hey, James,
he hollers,
we won the war!
He looks at the burned
ground where the forest was:
Good job clearing out those bushes!
How come
seeing Isaac makes me feel more lonesome than I did when he was gone?
Mink and Toontwa
are twisting strips of linden bark,
making twine to sew new cattail mats. Father and I dig
holes to set the sapling posts, while Grandma
teaches Rain Bird how to sew
the mats together. If we
keep on
working hard like this,
we'll have shelter by tomorrow night.
I hear someone comingâspeaking English. James?
Yes. Mr. and Mrs. Gray, and Molly. They tie their horses to a tree.
Mr. Gray lifts down two big saddlebags, and looks around the clearing
till he sees us. We stop what we're doing. Mink glances at Grandma.
Rain Bird looks at me. What do they want? James looks around
with wide-open eyes. Hasn't he seen a family make a house
before? Grandma motions to them
: Come near the fire
.
James is holding something odd-shaped,
wrapped up in a blanket.
Father's fiddle.
He hands it to Father,
and Mr. Gray opens up a saddlebag,
takes out nine dried fish and a small bag of corn.
I saved what I could,
he says. A giftâthat was
ours to begin with.
Anikwa looks at me like he's forgotten who I am, his eyes so sad
and angry I don't know what to say. I made him a new whistle, but now
it seems like it belongs someplace we can't go back to. I keep it
in my pocket. We give them a ball of twine, a new blade for their saw.
Ma says,
This is not on credit. It's a gift.
Pa looks surprised to hear that,
but he doesn't disagree. A few leaves are turning yellow, falling
from the trees into the river. When I do offer the whistle to Anikwa,
he takes it, but he doesn't smile. He looks older. He looks hungry.
They all do. Mink spreads out her hands and speaks to us. Old Raccoon
repeats her words in English:
Please sit with us and eat
. He goes away and
comes back with a roasted rabbit. Mink holds out a small gourd bowl to Pa.
He turns red and looks down at the ground before he dips his fingers in. Salt.
Thank you,
he says softly. I whisper to Ma,
They hardly have any food. Why
are they feeding us?
She answers,
You should know by now. This is who they are.
If we
sit down to eat with James
