The Key to the Indian (13 page)

“What happened to that lot?”

“They’re still around.”

Omri sat up straight, queasiness forgotten. “Now? I mean, in our time?”

“Yes. Tens of thousands of Mohawks, and other Iroquois tribes, have survived. A lot of them are still living in a few small reservations around the US-Canada border. They still have their pride and their identity. They even remember their language.”

“Dad!” Omri cried excitedly. “Then that’s it! That’s what you have to advise Little Bull to do!”

He looked into his father’s face for some reflection of his own feeling of intense relief. But there was none.

“I don’t think,” he said very soberly, “that it’s up to me to advise them at all. And if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to let them in for – the Canada option.”

“B
ut what did the clan mother think when she saw me?”

Omri and his father were sitting once again on Little Bull’s thighs, this time in the ‘room’. Twin Stars was weaving a basket out of thin, pliant strips of white wood; Tall Bear was having his afternoon nap among the furs.

“Eldest Clan Mother thinks you are little man.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of small people, living in earth, under bushes, in holes. They have life like us.”

Omri and his father exchanged puzzled looks. You could believe strange things more easily here; but what were these
‘little men’? The Indians’ leprechauns?

“Do you believe in them?”

“Why this question? They are.”

“Have you seen them?”

“Before two moons I see one teasing dog with stick.”

“How do they look?”

“Like us. But small.”

“How do they dress?”

“As me. As you.”

“Lucky I wasn’t wearing my sweater!” said Omri. He could see his dad was thinking what he was. Could Little Bull really have seen one?

“Clan Mother spoke of you,” Little Bull said presently.

“She said something about me?”

“Yes. She said she saw you in night.”

“No one saw us,” said Omri’s dad. “Except you.”

“She saw you in dream.”

“Oh, a
dream…
” said Omri. He thought dreams were a drag.

But his dad leant forward eagerly. “What was her dream, Little Bull?”

“Clan Mother ask me to guess her dream. I try to guess, so then she tell me. Little man came out of ground. Arm straight.” He pointed. “Shout without sound. Moving other arm. Like this.” Little Bull beckoned strongly. “In her dream, Clan Mother call to others. People come out of longhouse. Little man turn and run away. Still move arm and show way.”

“As if calling the people to come after him?”

Little Bull nodded slowly, frowning.

“Which way did he run, the little man?”

“To forest.”

“Which direction is that? Towards the sunset?”

“No. Towards home of most cold wind.”

“North,” said Omri’s dad quietly to Omri.

Late in the afternoon, Little Bull took them for a walk.

He didn’t cover them with his cloak this time, and the Indians they passed who saw them seemed curious but not surprised. Perhaps the clan mother had passed the word that ‘little men’ were visiting their chief.

They could now see that there was a palisade of sharpened stakes, perhaps six metres high, set in the ground tightly together all around the longhouse. There was no gate. The palisade’s two ends folded one behind the other, so people could get in or out in single file. Omri couldn’t see a back entrance, but he hoped there was one.

Beyond was a large cleared area, with the forest only coming close in one place, on a hill too steep for fields. You could see the stumps of many trees, and among them was a blackened field where, Little Bull explained, some settlers had sneaked up at night a month before, and burnt their crop. A few sweetcorn plants had survived – now rustling-dry and stripped of cobs. Up the still upright stalks of the corn plants Omri could see that beans had been growing, and round their bases, there had been – and still was, though the big leaves had been frost-shrivelled – another kind of
vegetable: marrows like enormous green sausages, and big sun-coloured pumpkins that lay among their dry tendrils, big enough to make Cinderella’s coach. There were women out picking the smaller squashes and putting them into big baskets.

“How come they didn’t burn everything?”

“We see fire in night. Run out, making big noise. Shoot with bow and gun. Kill three, drive others off. I jump on horse and follow.” Little Bull pointed to his pony, brought back from Omri’s time, grazing at a distance. “I kill two more with tomahawk.” He put Omri and his dad on the ground, sat cross-legged before them, and with an air of grim satisfaction, pulled two hanks of hair out of his belt.

Omri turned his head away instinctively, but then he made himself look. The hair looked fresh; he could see the dried blood on the scraps of skin at the bottom. He set his teeth against a grimace, and stared steadily at the scalps, crushing his squeamishness. It helped that he didn’t care that those men had been scalped. He felt totally on the Indians’ side.

“Now all our bullets are gone,” said Little Bull quietly. “Soon rebels will come again. We fight guns with bows, arrows, trade axes. And we are not enough. Many young warriors of tribe are gone from us. To scout, to keep watch for raids. And to raid in vengeance.”

“Raids against the settlers?”

Little Bull looked away. “Not only.”

“Who else?”

“Oneida. Cayuga.”

“Little Bull, not your own Confederacy tribes!”

“My word was no!” he shouted suddenly. “There was great quarrel with young warriors! But Little Bull is only pine-tree chief, and our Mohawks are very angry. Oneida, Cayuga help French in war, and now they join with the rebel English. These promise protection, tell them land is there
for them
. For us, land is mother, not for belonging. So some Iroquois tribes fight against us on side of rebels. Now Mohawk warriors punish them – burn their villages.”

There was a long, long silence. Omri was shocked and scared. He glanced at his dad. He was looking very serious, and heaved a deep sigh.

“Of course that won’t help,” he said.

“I know this. But young men cannot stay in longhouse and work land like women. Their blood is hot.”

“And you?”

“My blood is hot. But head is cold. Hot head is no good. Chiefs must think for all people in longhouse.” There was another silence, and at last Little Bull sighed heavily in his turn. “We must leave longhouse. I know this for many moons.”

“So why didn’t you leave before now?”

“After we leave,” Little Bull answered slowly, “the longhouse will fall down. Fall down for ever.”

“You mean, yours will.”

“No, not only. Iroquois will be no more
Haudenosauree
, People of the Longhouse.”

“Little Bull,” said Omri’s dad carefully. “I’m curious. My books say most Iroquois live in cabins now.”

“True. Our village is not like others.”

“Why?”

“A dream was my teacher,” said Little Bull in a solemn undertone. “After my journey to you, a dream came of the Peacemaker who planted the Tree of Peace, before many, many harvests. He sits before me and makes ring with his arms. Inside this ring are all my people. His hair blows over them. Then his arms become walls made of skin of tree, and his hair is roof. He changes.
He becomes the longhouse
. I hear his voice say, ‘When Mohawk no longer live together as one people, they are no longer People of the Longhouse. Onondaga, Keepers of the Fire, already break fire in two. People scatter one from one, like dry leaf in wind. They no longer talk together, in counsel. No more one people. Hear my words. Longhouse must stay for ever.’

“When we travel here from village Algonquin burn, my people say they want to live in cabins, one man, one woman, alone with their children. My word was no. Many times I speak it, and tell them, guess my dream. They will not guess. So I cannot tell them. They show me their backs and begin to make cabins. So Little Bull build longhouse alone, as he build once with you. Clan mothers keep closed mouths. No one helped me. Many days Little Bull worked alone, and village watched. First they laughed. Then they stopped, and watched without noise. And then Old Clan Mother speak. ‘Little Bull is right. Help him’.”

“And did they help then?” Omri asked.

“Yes. Then many worked with me, men and women, build
longhouse big enough for all. Wood of cabins we burned in longhouse fires. Put up wall of trees, as in time before. For this, they make me Pine-Tree Chief.”

“What’s a pine-tree chief?” Omri asked.

“True chief is one clan mothers choose. People and other chiefs choose Pine-Tree Chief. Little Bull is not a true chief.”

“Who is your true chief?”

He shook his head. “We have no elder chief here now. No one worthy – so many old ones die of sickness. They take wisdom with them. Pine-Tree Chief is proud honour. But I have not the old wisdom. My father was last condoled chief.”

“Did your father die of the white man’s sickness?”

“No. White savage shoot him.
One shot
take from this world all his wisdom, all he know and learn and dream and remember. Perhaps we will never again have elder chief. None live long enough.”

He sounded achingly sad, as if he saw some deathly end to it all, a chasm down which they were all destined to fall.

Omri’s dad went to him and, reaching up, touched his knee. “Little Bull, don’t lose hope. There is a future for your people. My books say so.”

Little Bull looked at him for a while. Then he said, “Future. This means time to come.”

“Yes.”

“Because you see future, I asked that you come here.”

“Yes, I know.”

“For the white man,” Little Bull said slowly, “time that is gone, time that is now, time to come, all make one line.” He
drew a long straight line with his finger in the air. “For Indian, all time is the same time. Those from time that is gone, are still here in us. The – future – is with us too, it happens as we happen. Now. When I travel to your time it is still my time.”

Omri’s father frowned. “You’re saying that time is a kind of spiral.” He drew a corkscrew shape in the air. “All happening at once. That’s why you weren’t surprised when Omri – when the magic – brought you to us.”

“Little Bull surprised by many things you have. Not the travel.”

“Your ideas are very interesting, Little Bull,” Omri’s father said humbly.

The Indian straightened suddenly. “But our talk walks away! Tell me my need. Which way must we take to our future?”

Omri’s dad looked to see where the sun was going down, and pointed ninety degrees to the right of it.

“The way of the cold wind,” he said. “North. Like in Old Clan Mother’s dream. Could you collect your people and persuade them to travel north?”

“What is there?”

“More of your people. Mohawk lands. Most land that the white men will give to the Indian will be poor land, but there the land is good. But it’s a long way, and there are dangers, till you come to the great river.”

“What river?”

“We call it the St Lawrence.”

“We know of this place. How long is the journey?”

“Many days, I should think, with women and children and old people.”

Little Bull sniffed the air. “Soon snow will come.”

“Yes. Winter’s coming. It’ll be hard going. The sooner you leave, the better.”

Little Bull tensed. “You read a good future for Mohawk by this great river?”

Omri’s dad drew a deep breath. “Not all the time. White people will still cheat you and steal your land. Your people will change. But there will still be a longhouse and Tall Bear’s children’s children’s children will know they’re Mohawks and will speak your language and hold to your beliefs – at least, some of them will.”

“That is as our field burnt by white men. When fire dies, two hands of corn plants stand alive and give us their seeds.” He held up ten fingers.

“Yes. But so long as a few survive… If they’re strong enough, they can rebuild the tribe and the longhouse. Little Bull, surely it’s better than nothing?”

Little Bull thought for only a short time. Then he rose smoothly to his feet and gazed away to the north, where the forested hills, blazing with leaf colour in the late sunshine, met the horizon. He stooped, picked them up, and, holding Omri’s father level with his face, said, “If they will listen, we will go.”

“And your warriors who are away?”

“We will leave word. Send messages. They will follow if
they wish. But I think they will stay and fight, and many will die.” His voice dropped low. “Little Bull has one strong wish, that we are of one mind – all the Iroquois. But your word is true. We must put water on our fires and go – north, into the mouth of cold wind.”

“You’ll build the longhouse again, Little Bull,” said Omri’s father softly.

But Little Bull was staring at the bright forest on the hill and didn’t hear him. Omri, held against the Indian’s chest by his big hand, could hear his heart beating hard and fast, like a drum, and felt him shiver, as if the deep cold of winter and of strange country had him already in its clutches. As if the protection and comforting familiarity of the longhouse he’d built had already been left far behind.

Omri heard his father whisper, “Oh God. I hope I’ve done right.”

His father was not a believer. But Omri thought that was the nearest to a prayer he had ever heard him utter.