Night of the Full Moon (5 page)

I ran to look at the new baby. He was so small. I reached down to take my brother’s hand. His tiny fingers curled around my finger.

Sanatuwa stood beside me. “That is a fine boy,” he said.

Mama said, “Menisikwe, you had better teach me to carry William on my back as you do Megisi. We too may be traveling north. No sooner do we have a comfortable cabin and neighbors close by than my husband talks of moving.” Mama didn’t sound very happy.

“So far it is only a dream,” Papa said. “But
things are changing here. I have been hired to survey land for a canal from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. Think of the people that would bring! In our village of Saginaw plans have been drawn up for a town with four hundred blocks. That is not a town; it is a city! We are sorry to see you and your family leave us, Sanatuwa, but we may be neighbors again one day.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave our cabin for a place in the north woods. But I wasn’t sure, either, if I wanted to say good-bye forever to Fawn.

Fawn and I whispered far into the night. “Will you promise always to be my friend? No matter how far away you go?” I asked Fawn.

“Always,” she promised. “It will be as if you are one of our clan.” She took the small silver eagle on a string of rawhide from around her neck and gave it to me. I gave her my bracelet with the tiny gold heart that had belonged to my grandmother.

In the morning Papa had a plan.
“Sanatuwa, it is the law that if an Indian buys his land he is not subject to treaties. He cannot be sent away.”

“But I own no land,” Sanatuwa said. “And I have no money to buy land.”

“I have land,” Papa said. “More than I need. I will give you some. It is a small return for risking your lives to bring Libby back to us. That way you would not have to leave.”

Sanatuwa was quiet. Fawn and I held our breath. At last he said to Papa, “You are a good man, but I cannot take your land. I would own the land, but the land would also own me. I would be like a dog chained to a post.”

Papa sadly shook his head. “I will not try to persuade you against your will, Sanatuwa, for I feel too much as you do.”

Mama filled a basket with food. Papa gave Sanatuwa a rifle so he could hunt on the way north. Then we watched our friends walk down our path, past the pond, and into the woods.

Although
Night of the Full Moon
is fiction, the story is based, in part, on various accounts of the removal of the Potawatomi Indians from Indiana and southern Michigan in 1840. Throughout the summer of that year, soldiers of the U.S. Army, under Brigadier General Hugh Brady, rounded up the Potawatomi from their homes and villages. On August 17, over 500 Potawatomis embarked on a forced migration to Kansas, leaving their homelands behind forever.

About the Author

G
LORIA
W
HELAN
says, “Some years ago, like Fawn’s family, we moved to the woods of Northern Michigan. Many of the towns and lakes near our cabin have Indian names. We canoed down the same streams the Indians canoed; the roads we travel each day were once Indian trails. It’s not surprising, then, that the stories of the Indians should find their way into my imagination and my books.”

Gloria Whelan has written many popular books for children, including
Next Spring an Oriole, Silver, The Secret Keeper, Hannah,
and
Goodbye, Vietnam.
She lives with her husband in Northern Michigan.