Chickadee (8 page)

“But I rode last,” said Babiche. “So that means … I rode last.”

“Which means you should go first,” said Batiste.

“No, it means I am still tired out,” said Babiche.

“Let's send the servant,” said Batiste.

“You are funny, my brother,” Babiche laughed. “He would get lost in no time. Our ignorant servant doesn't know where to go!”

“He doesn't know how to make a fire, either,” said Batiste in a sudden rage. “He is useless! I will hit him over the head and be done with it!”

“Wait,” said Babiche. “Look.”

Chickadee had moistened a small chip of the buffalo dung with kerosene from the bottom of the brothers' lamp. He'd seen a lamp like this before in a trading store, and knew the oil worked like fat. He began with the small chip and blew the ember carefully to life, then added bit after bit. The dung smoked, but burned quite well when the fire got hot.

“Maybe he is of some use yet,” said Batiste. “Let's get our tasty meat and flour, my brother. Let's have our servant make us some bouyah!”

Suddenly, Batiste broke out in song.

Bouyah, bouyah,

It makes a Michif strong!

Straight to the brain,

He never has to strain!

Fills up his belly,

Makes him sweet as jelly!

Makes his hair grow thick!

Makes his mind so quick!

Bouyah!

Babiche laughed so hard his face swelled red.

“Oh, you are
too
funny, my brother!” he choked.

Doubled over, he could barely point out the flour tin and the chunks of old dried-out questionable meat that Chickadee would use in making the trapper's stew. Although he'd never heard the word
bouyah
, Chickadee knew from looking at the bottom of the kettle on the stove just what the brothers expected of him. The old stuff was stuck to the bottom, and covered with mouse droppings. Even the mice had failed to eat it. Batiste told him to add the new stuff on top of the old stuff and boil it all together with melted snow.

Chickadee tried to scrape out the mice droppings, but Batiste grinned and said, “Leave 'em in there, servant. We don't have pepper to season it with!”

So Chickadee filled the kettle with snow. When the snow melted, he boiled some of the old moose and squirrel meat, and he wrapped up what other meat the brothers had managed to save from the mice. He stirred in the flour and boiled it all some more. At the end, Batiste dropped in a whole dead mouse he'd found. Chickadee just kept the bouyah kettle boiling. At last, Batiste took a spoonful and declared the stew was finished.

There were two bowls and two spoons. The brothers divided up the bouyah into the bowls, used the spoons, and left Chickadee to scrape the leavings from the pot with a stick. As he sat on the icy dirt floor of the miserable cabin, eating the awful stuff that kept life in the sons of Zhigaag, several thoughts came to Chickadee.

Bezhig (one), the mice tails weren't so bad, but the feet were hard to chew.

Niizh (two), he would do exactly as the brothers said.

Niswi (three), he would pretend that he enjoyed being their servant. That way, they would let down their guard so he could escape.

Niiwin (four), he would figure out where to escape to. Outside, everything looked the same. Miles and miles of empty, snowy, plains. There were no landmarks. Nothing but the same horizon all around. Snow would quickly fill in the tracks they had left. He would have to be clever.

Naanan (five), he would take care to avoid their fists and feet. And he would not think of Makoons, of Zozie, of his mother or father, until all was dark and the bouyah-stuffed brothers could not see his tears.

Night came soon enough. Although the brothers argued about whether a servant was allowed to sleep near the masters or out with the horses, they ended up giving him one blanket and allowing him to curl up beside the stove so that he could be all the quicker to make their breakfast.

“You will rise at dawn,” said Batiste, “while we are still enjoying our sleeps. You will make our breakfast bouyah.”

“How shall I make that?” asked Chickadee.

Babiche raised his fist.

“Same as the dinner bouyah?” asked Chickadee quickly.

“Of course, you scrap of stinking hide,” said Babiche.

Batiste began to sing again.

Bouyah, bouyah!

The way to start the day!

If your stew is full of hair,

Just spit it out and swear!

If your stew smells like your feet,

There's more of it to eat!

The worse it gives you gas,

The better you run fast!

White people say it's muck,

But it brings the Michifs luck!

Bouyah!

“You are funny, my brother,” Babiche said, weeping with pleasure.

In the dark, curled in his blanket, Chickadee mouthed the words that he realized would be repeated at least twenty times each day. If he ever got back to Makoons, he would never, ever say those words,
You are funny, my brother.
Thinking about Makoons led to nothing but tears and Chickadee could feel them breaking from inside of him even as the huge brothers, falling into their sleep, began a soft snoring that deepened and then widened into an avalanche of noise.

A
s Omakayas trudged along, following the trail that Deydey, Animikiins, and then Two Strike had made, she realized that if they kept going west they would be leaving the shelter and safety of the woods and hills. They would travel out of the trees and rolling prairie into the broad, flat plains. Animikiins had been there on buffalo hunts, but she never had. It frightened her to think that Chickadee was out there, somewhere, in such unfamiliar territory. Fishtail scouted for the little party. Angeline, Yellow Kettle, and Zozie made sure that the dogs pulled along their packs, and gave Nokomis a ride when her legs tired. Omakayas kept Makoons near her at all times. She could hardly bear to let him out of her sight.

On and on the family walked. Nokomis made her way along slowly with her walking stick, holding Zozie's shoulder. The dogs were fitted with harnesses, and they carried the kettles and extra clothing and rolls of bark for shelter. They also carried the big packs of furs that the family would sell in Pembina. Father Genin had decided to go to Pembina, where he was supposed to meet up with another priest who was starting a school. Father Genin had promised to find Omakayas's brother, the twins' Uncle Quill. He would put out the word that the Zhigaag brothers had stolen Chickadee.

Someone in that big town was sure to know where those brothers lived.

As they walked along, the air got warmer, the sky darker, the clouds lower, and bits of snow began to swirl dizzily around them.

“There is a spring snowstorm coming,” said Nokomis. “I can feel it all through my bones.”

“Let's make camp,” said Omakayas. Although a spring blizzard would melt away quickly, it would be dangerous while it lasted. Sometimes, on the Plains, these fast-moving snowstorms even occurred in the beginning of summer. Omakayas had heard about their force, and now she was to experience it.

The trees had grown scarce, and the hills were only mild bumps. They picked the best shelter they could find and set up the birchbark house. Zozie and Omakayas worked quickly and made the bark secure with straps of twine. They heaped snow against the sides for insulation. Nokomis went inside to start the fire.

The snow stopped for a moment, and then the storm hit with a huge blast of wind. The cruel gust took the entire house into the air. Off it went, sailing into the snowy nothingness, tumbling over the icy ground, bouncing off the hard drifts with nothing to stop it.

This was the last time the family would ever make a house of birchbark. Their house blew away, and they never saw it again. Such houses were for the woods. They were now people of the Great Plains. But they hadn't learned yet how to live there.

And there was Nokomis, striker in her hand, nursing a tiny circle of flame that immediately went out.

“Get into the fur packs!” shouted Omakayas.

Each pack of furs was bundled tightly with sinew, but by pulling out the middle furs each one of them could wiggle in. Nokomis and Makoons got in first. The snow began to drive against them, but Omakayas and Zozie tied the packs together before they got in themselves. The dogs curled near, hiding their noses in the warm curls of their tails. All together, in a heap, the family waited out the storm.

Ahead of them, on the banks of the Red River where the snow was deep, Two Strike and Animikiins had caught up with Mikwam. Together, the three made a snow cave and curled up in their blankets to sleep there.

T
he snow had lightly dusted the cabin of Babiche and Batiste before gathering force and moving eastward to bury Chickadee's family. Exhausted from his second day as a servant, his stomach aching from another day of bouyah, Chickadee fell asleep. He slept so hard that he didn't hear the mail carrier arrive from St. Paul.

The man, Orph Carter, had ridden through the storm, knowing that to stop was death. His horse had gone this route before and was now munching from a pile of dried slough grass in the shanty with the two brown horses. Orph crawled into the cabin with the mail sacks and unrolled his blanket. Soon his snores joined forces with the roaring rapids of snores from the brothers. All that sleep noise became a mighty cataract. Chickadee slept right through it.