Finders Keepers (2 page)

“What's your name?” panted Danny as they lay on their backs and figured out what to do next.

“Joshua Brokenhorn,” replied the boy. “What's yours?”

“Danny Budzynski. My dad runs the general store in Fort Macleod, and we live in the white farmhouse on the highway just west of town.”

Joshua nodded. “Walked past it today.” He punched Danny on the arm. “Your dog barked at me.”

“Aw. He barks at everyone, but he wags his tail at the same time. He's a dumb mutt,” added Danny quickly so that Joshua wouldn't think he was nuts over his dog.

Joshua lay back and chewed on a grass stalk. Danny looked curiously at him. He'd never really talked to a kid from the reserve before, and he'd never visited the reserve. He'd heard stories. Some of the grownups in town didn't seem to like Indians, but Danny thought they were neat; in fact he admired them and sometimes he wished he was one. Not a modern Indian, but a warrior of the plains who never went to school, but hunted buffalo and lived in a teepee. Sometimes Danny would pay his quarter to go inside the museum in Fort Macleod. He'd wander around looking at
the Indian beadwork, the collection of arrowheads and the old photos, (especially the ones showing the Sun Dance, with the warrior pulling against the sinews threaded through his chest) and he'd imagine what life would be like as an Indian.

“What's it like on the reserve?” he asked hesitantly.

Joshua looked solemn. “Oh, we scalp white folk and sit around drumming and waiting for the buffalo to come.”

Danny's eyes widened. “You joking?”

Joshua laughed. “'Course I am. What do you think it's like?”

Danny shook his head. “Dunno. You're the first reserve kid I've talked to.”

“Well, Danny Bud-whatever-it-is, you're the first Ukrainian kid I've talked to. What's it like at your place?” “Aw, we just sit around and eat perogies,” Danny offered with a grin.

“Hey, you're OK.” Joshua stretched and got to his feet. “Want to come and see the eagles?”

Danny cautiously climbed to the top of the bank and looked over. Everything was still quiet. “What the heck. I'm in big trouble anyway.” And he slid back down.

The two boys headed along the ditch swiping last year's grasses with their hands as they passed, seeing who could send the dead seed heads flying farthest.

“Where do the Eagles play? They've never played the Macleod Cougars.”

“Not a hockey team… Eagles… Real birds.”

“Oh, birds.” Danny's tone echoed his disappointment. His vision of a stolen afternoon watching a hockey game was rudely shattered. “What do we want to go and see birds for?”

Joshua turned and patiently explained. “No, not just birds. Bald Eagles. Lots of them.” His voice rose excitedly. “They fly along this side of the Rockies on their spring migration. They're going to the lakes up north.”

Danny was unconvinced. “I've seen eagles,” he said. “They circle above our farm sometimes.”

“Those are Golden Eagles,” Joshua explained. “But these are the Bald Eagles. You see them in southern Alberta only at this time of the year. They're special. My grandfather told me they'd be here for the next few days. I promised to meet him on his lookout hill. Come on.”

Joshua scrambled up the side of the ditch and headed west across the farmlands. Danny followed, not sure that eagles were really interesting, but Joshua seemed OK. Besides, it would fill in the time until school finished and he could go home.

The boys jogged across endless fields and tracks and slithered under a barbed wire fence with a faded NO TRESPASSING sign. Danny stopped. “Hey, is this reserve land? Am I trespassing?” he asked uncomfortably.

Joshua barely lessened his long easy stride. “You're with me, aren't you?” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Guess so.” Danny ran to catch up and they continued together for another half kilometre.

“How much longer?” panted Danny. “Where is this lookout place anyway?”

Joshua stopped and pointed. The land rose and fell ahead of them in ever increasing waves. In the far distance the sun gleamed on the Rocky Mountains, a jagged white capped wall edging Danny's world. The mountains were constant reminders of another world, one beyond the prairies. They beckoned.

“The mountains!” Danny sputtered. “They're miles away.”

Joshua shook his head. “Nah! The next rise.” He pointed again. “See, there's Naaahsa, my grandfather.”

Danny squinted for a better look. The top of the next rise was still far away, but he could see it clearly. He
couldn't see anyone on it though. Joshua continued to point so Danny scanned it again carefully. He shook his head. “The only thing up there is that old tree stump.”

Joshua grinned and started up the rise. “Better not let grandfather hear you call him that,” he tossed over his shoulder. “He might think it's disrespectful.”

Puzzled, Danny stared at Joshua's back, then his eyes raked the hilltop again. The tree stump could be a person. A person sitting on the ground. But why would Joshua's Grandfather be sitting on the ground in the middle of a field? He headed up to find out.

At the crest of the hill Danny stopped, feeling uncomfortable. An old man was sitting cross-legged on a blanket, another folded neatly across his lap. His iron-grey hair was parted in the middle and woven into two long braids that hung down over his chest and ended in bright red elastics. He sat there still and silent, his hands in his lap, gazing across the field. His face reminded Danny of the museum photos of long dead chiefs. Stern, strong and unreadable, and definitely different. Danny was the odd person out here. He felt awkward, a little frightened and unsure of what he had got himself into.

Joshua settled cross-legged, slightly behind the old man. Danny scuffed his feet nervously. “Er, hi,” he ventured, darting a look at the old man's face.

The old man's eyes briefly met Danny's. He gave a tiny nod then returned to gazing at the field. His lips moved silently as though he was talking to himself.

Joshua laid his fingers on his lips, patted a space on the blanket, and motioned Danny to join him. Danny tiptoed over and sat down. “What's he doing?” he mouthed to Joshua.

“Praying,” Joshua mouthed back.

Danny felt even more uncomfortable and wished he'd not asked. Wasn't praying something people did privately? Or at mass? It wasn't something you did in the middle of a field, especially when other people were around. He shifted his legs uneasily and looked at the sky, the landscape,
the ground. Anywhere except at the old man.

They sat for a long time.

Gradually a change came over Danny. Instead of feeling uncomfortable and looking around desperately for something to grab his attention, he began to really look. To see and absorb the tiny details of the landscape.

It was an ordinary scene. The sort he saw every day, had seen a hundred times before but never really looked at. He was sitting in the middle of a field, the ploughed ridges sharp beneath his buttocks. Ice crystals sparkled in the hollows despite the strength of the sun. Before him, the swirled chocolate ground rolled away into a wide shallow valley. It stopped abruptly as a road slashed through a string of shallow sloughs, their edges hazing with the spring greening. Beyond, the rangeland swelled upwards in a ripple of bleached gold grass, towards the hovering mountains. Behind and on either side of him the ground fell away, dissolving into a view of patchwork prairie that expanded endlessly onward, dominated only by the massive spread of blue sky.

Danny shrank deep into his jacket, feeling tiny and insignificant. He closed his eyes. That was when he noticed the wind.

The wind curled around him, lifting the hair off his forehead. It whispered insistently in his ears and wafted under his nose. Suddenly Danny felt in contact with his world again. He grinned as he recognized the pungent whiff of pigs and cattle from Mr. MacVey's farm on the next quarter section. He identified the distant throb of a tractor, and the tiny peep of a young gopher. He took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the clean fragrance of wild sage and the full-bodied smell of living, breathing earth. With eyes still closed Danny stretched his arm out and felt for the edge of the blanket. He stretched a little further and dug his fingers into the surface of the soil. The ground was too hard for him to be able to do more than pick up a piece of the crusted surface. His hand closed around it and crumbled it to dust. The heat of his palm released more of its
rich earthy aroma. Danny opened his eyes and lifted his fist into the air. He spread his fingers and watched the wind lift the soil grains and swirl them across the field.

About 30 metres away, a small patch of white stirred.

A tingle ran down Danny's spine. He froze, hardly daring to breathe. He was looking right into the fierce eyes of an adult Bald Eagle.

The bird was hunched on the ground, resting. Its black feathers blended into the dark ridges of earth. Even the bold white head melted into the background. It could have been a patch of ice, or a piece of garbage caught in the furrow. If the bird hadn't turned sharply to see if Danny's movement was a threat, Danny would never have spotted it.

Bird and boy gazed unblinkingly at each other.

“You have the gift to see.” The old man's voice was a whisper, soft, almost part of the landscape. “When you become at one with the earth, then you are able to see clearly.”

Danny wasn't sure whether he really heard the words being spoken, or if they'd somehow 'appeared' in his head. All he knew was that he was seeing in a way he had never seen before.

He concentrated his whole being on the eagle.

Danny accepted the fierceness of the bird's gaze and silently told it he meant no harm. How could a boy ever threaten such a bird, after seeing the sharpness of its hooked yellow beak, the strength and speed of the folded wings, the grasp of its hooked talons, and its incredible single-mindedness to survive?

The eagle acknowledged its dominance by drawing itself up and unhunching its shoulders. Six feet of wings slowly unfurled and leisurely stretched. Then, instead of the bird soaring upward, it was as though it paused in the air, relaxed its talons and let the ground drop away beneath it.

Three sets of eyes wonderingly followed the spiralling upward flight. Then a cry from behind made them jump. A second Bald Eagle swooped over them and gave chase.
Spiralling rapidly, it climbed higher and higher until level with the first bird. For a long moment the two eagles were tiny black specks circling each other. Then they leaped towards each other with talons outstretched, and became one.

Danny's mouth opened in a silent gasp.

Locked together as if in mortal combat, the eagles tumbled earthward in ever increasing momentum. There was a powerful rush of displaced air and the two bodies flashed past Danny, separating only an inch or two from the ground before gliding off in opposite directions.

A single tail feather floating gently earthwards was all that remained of the tempestuous display. Danny eagerly reached out to grab it, but it wafted beyond his fingers to land at the feet of the old man.

The old man leaned forward and gently ran his fingers over the feather's length. Then he picked it up and looked from it to Danny. “Young men have to earn eagle feathers,” he said gently. “Your time will come,” and he carefully stowed it inside his jacket.

Suddenly Danny felt angry. It wasn't fair! The eagle feather was his. He was the one the eagle looked at. Frustrated, he scrambled to his feet. His sudden movement caused a ripple of disturbance across the field. He paused uncertainly, and looked around. Several patches of white stirred, then five, ten, no… at least twenty Bald Eagles spread their wings and one by one soared upwards. He had been sitting in a field among twenty Bald Eagles, and never noticed.

No wonder the old Indian had watched for so long. No wonder Joshua was so quiet. They must both think he was real mean scaring the birds like that. “I'm sorry,” stammered Danny. “I, I didn't realize. I only saw the one eagle. I didn't see the others.”

“When you are at one with the earth, then you will see clearly,” the old man said.

“Well, er yes. I've gotta go. See ya some time, Joshua,” and Danny took to his heels in embarrassment and ran.

When he reached the far pasture he looked back. Joshua
and his grandfather were silhouetted against the sky, carefully folding up the blankets. Danny scanned the blue above them with a heavy heart. There was not an eagle to be seen. Then he saw Joshua pause before disappearing over the ridge, and look in Danny's direction. Danny looked hopefully back. Joshua raised his hand in farewell.

Heartened, Danny raised his in reply, turned towards home and slipped and fell flat on his back

He sat up and examined his runners. His right foot had skidded on a fresh cow pie. “Gross,” he muttered crossly as he looked around for something to scrape off the muck. He spotted a stick half buried in the ground and scraped around it until he could pull it out. The end was stuck so he gave it a sharp tug. A shower of dirt and stones came with it. One stone caught his eye. Danny picked it up, and gently turned it over and over in his fingers. It wasn't a stone, it was a delicately shaped stone point. He whipped his head around.