The Shadow of the Wolf (3 page)

“Can I keep it?” I asked. I was afraid that, like the doll, he might be snatched from me.

“Yes, Libby,” Papa said, “as long as you take good care of the creature.”

“Can he stay in my room at night?”

“He can,” Papa laughed, “but you may be sorry.” He wouldn’t tell me why.

When it was time for bed, I closed the door so the squirrel couldn’t get away. I placed him carefully on my dresser in a little nest made from my hankies. In the blink of an eye, he glided from the dresser to the
rafter. From the rafter he dropped down to the bedstead. From the bedstead he swooped to the chair. He wouldn’t stay still. All night long I heard him gliding about the room, so that I hardly slept. In the morning I found him curled up asleep in my shoe.

Papa explained that flying squirrels only go about at night. “They rest during the day. I think if you want any sleep at night, I had better build a cage for the squirrel. What will you call him?”

“Icarus,” I said. Mama had taught me the story of the boy who tried to escape from the Greek island of Crete by fashioning wings of feathers and wax. He could fly at night, but when daylight came, he flew too close to the sun. His wings melted and he fell into the sea.

Early the next morning Fawn walked through the front door without a sound. Papa says if she had a mind to, Fawn could walk up to a deer without scaring it away. Over a year had passed since Fawn and I had seen each other. Her hair was braided now, like a young woman’s. She was no taller than I, but somehow she seemed older.

We were quiet at first, but then words came tumbling out. We both talked at once, hurrying to tell one another all that had happened in the last year. Soon it felt as if no time had passed at all.

“I must return to the village now,” said Fawn at last. “This morning we take up our fish nets. Would you like to come and help
us? It is women’s work and you would be welcome.”

Papa said, I’m going to the Indian village this morning to meet the chief. I can take the two of you with me in the wagon.”

At the Indian village Fawn’s mother, Menisikwe, welcomed me. Fawn’s little brother, Megisi, who is just William’s age, was strapped to Menisikwe’s back in a cradleboard. Megisi wore no clothes. Instead, he was surrounded with lichen, which the Indians first softened and then used like a diaper. When it was soiled, you had only to throw it away. When she was washing William’s diapers, Mama often said that the Indians had a better idea.

The women tucked up their skirts and waded into the lake. Nets fashioned of bass-wood twine had been put out the night before and fastened to poles stuck in the lake bottom. As the nets were pulled up, I could see hundreds of wriggling fish caught in the mesh. The women dragged the nets onto the shore with much laughing and shouting. They freed the fish and placed them in large birch-bark baskets. Most of the fish were what our French Canadian neighbors in Saginaw had called
poisson blanc
, or whitefish.

I tried to help, although Fawn freed five fish to my one. Sometimes one of the women who had pulled loose a large fish would throw it at a friend, giggling as the woman
tried to catch the slippery fish. The fish, laid out across racks to dry in the sun, would be food for the winter.

At noon I shared a bowl of corn soup with Fawn. In the afternoon we dug up potatoes and beets. At last Menisikwe said that Fawn might leave her work for a little, and the two of us walked along the shore of the lake.

The shore was covered with gifts. There were stiff white gull feathers, clamshells whose insides were like pearl, and stones in every shade of pink and green. What we liked best of all were the pieces of driftwood worn by water and wind into strange shapes. We took turns guessing what each piece of driftwood looked like—a bear, a turtle, a boat?

By the time we returned to the village, Papa was ready to leave. There was a serious look on his face. We heard him talking in a low voice to Sanatua. “Those men will stop at nothing to get the land the Ottawa wish to buy. But I do not mean to let them have it.”

I was glad Papa was standing up for the Indians, but I could not help feeling worried, for I remembered how angry Mr. Blanker had been with Papa. As I said good-bye to Fawn, I could see that Papa’s words had troubled her as well. “You won’t have to go away again, will you?” I whispered. She only shook her head.

Each morning Mama would set lessons for me. As soon as my work was finished; I would climb into the wagon and drive with Papa to the Indian village. There I would help Fawn with her tasks. We would go into the woods to find firewood. We sat cross-legged for long hours while Menisikwe showed us how to weave mats to cover the wigwams. We hunched over buckskin shirts; embroidering them with beads. We wove rawhide into a frame of ash to make snowshoes.

The snowshoes were shaped like a bear’s paw. They were painted in bright colors and
decorated with tassels.

Menisikwe made Fawn do over anything that was not perfectly done the first time. When I made a mistake, Menisikwe was more patient. I think she expected less of me because I was not an Indian.

Sometimes Fawn’s face clouded over when her mother scolded. She looked as if she would like to answer back. Yet she never did. Once when we were alone, I asked, “Why is your mother so strict?”

Fawn sighed. “If a snowshoe breaks miles from our village, someone may freeze to death. If a heavy snow comes and we have not gathered enough wood, the tribe may die of the cold. We cannot be careless in anything we do.”

Papa spent many days meeting with Chief Ke che oh caw. They were making plans to buy a piece of woodland near the Indians’ village. The land had the maple trees needed to make syrup. It was also good hunting land for grouse and pigeon. There was a small lake
that would provide fish and ducks and a meadow where corn could be grown. It was the same land that Mr. Blanker wanted to buy.

Papa said Fawn and I might go with him on the day he was to begin surveying the woodland. He left us at the small lake and went off to mark the boundaries of the property. I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he told us. “Stay by the lake and don’t go wandering off.”

Mama had given us bread and smoked ham, and Menisikwe had sent along a basket of dried blueberries. That morning there had been a frost. The grass had stood stiff and white. Now a warm sun was making the frost disappear. We settled under a maple tree. Its leaves were so red that in the sun it looked as if it was on fire. One by one the leaves fell slowly into our laps. We were choosing the showiest ones when we heard a strange noise overhead. It was a high-pitched
whooo, whooo
. The next minute there was a noisy flutter,
and a dozen great white birds alighted on the lake. They were swans.

Fawn and I held our breath as the swans moved over the water, making soft whistling sounds. All at once they took off in a great commotion. Something had startled them. A minute later we heard voices. At first I thought it might be Papa coming back sooner than he had planned. Fawn shook her head. In a moment she was scrambling up into the branches of the maple tree. She motioned me to follow. The branches were low and close to one another, like steps. In no time we were high up off the ground.

A wagon made its way around the shore of the lake. Two men climbed down from the wagon. One of the men was Mr. Blanker. His companion was a big man with broad shoulders and arms like tree trunks. “You can be sure this is a grove of bird’s-eye maple,” Mr. Blanker said. “I cut down just such a tree here last summer. That man, Mitchell, will be surveying here for the Indians any day now. If
we want these trees; we’ll have to hurry.”

The other man shook his head. “There’s a risk. This land don’t belong to you. I’ll be needing a little extra money to calm my nerves.”

“You do your job and you’ll get your money.”

The two men dragged a great crosscut saw from their wagon. They walked toward our tree. We heard the rasp of the saw as it was drawn across the tree. Fawn grabbed my arm. “Do what I do,” she whispered. She let out a bloodcurdling howl. I did the same.

“Indians!” the men shouted. “The trees are full of them!” They dropped their saw and ran toward their wagon. In seconds they were gone.

We had to wait up in the tree for nearly an hour before Papa came back. All the while we were afraid that the men would return for their saw. When we told him what had happened; Papa looked worried. “I should never have left you girls here alone.”

The worry changed to a smile as we described how our howls had frightened the two men into running off and leaving their saw behind. “Well, Libby,” he said. “You and Fawn were very brave. And Sanatua was saying only yesterday it would be a great help to the Indians if they had a crosscut saw! It would make it easier to get firewood. We can tell him that you and Fawn arranged for Mr. Blanker to lend him one.”

I would have sat up in the tree for another hour to hear such praise from Papa.

That same week Fawn and I had our first argument. We were in the woods gathering acorns. I wanted them for Icarus. Fawn was gathering them for her mother, who would pound them into flour. Fawn and I tried to catch tumbling oak leaves. They were the very last leaves to fall from the trees. We would reach for a leaf, sure that this time we would catch it. We never did. Moving a hand through the air made the light leaf change direction. The leaf floated out of reach. We might as well have tried to catch a falling star.