Makoons

by Louise Erdrich

  Closer, closer, the hunters walked their horses. The buffalo still hadn’t noticed them. Great, shaggy, magnificent, dark, the beasts thrust the panting engines of their faces forward and devoured the steaming grass. They were the lords of the Great Plains, the keepers of its generous spirit, and their abundance made other life possible. They moved slowly away from something that they dimly sensed behind them, but they were not alarmed. It was a lazy day, an easy day, and the buffalo had no intention of doing anything but filling their bellies. The bulls hadn’t started to fight over the cows yet. The orange-brown calves were just old enough to run beside their mothers. The new grass was thick and tender. Each animal had one or two brown birds that sat companionably upon the massive hump of its shoulders, or at that sensitive place right at the tail. The buffalo birds never went hungry, for the buffalo were endless sources of ticks and flies. If the birds could have built their nests between the buffalo’s horns or in their curly hump hides, they would have, but there was just no way to predict when a buffalo might want to take a nap or just roll over—for the joy of it.

  The hunters sped up a little, but still the buffalo did not scare. Maybe the fine weather and gentle wind lulled them. Suddenly, the hunters were so close that they could clearly see every detail of the animals—the matted ends of their switching tails, their densely furred humps, their dark liquid eyes rolling in surprise.

  “Now!”

  Animikiins and Little Shell gave the signal. But Gichi Noodin had already started shooting. He had directly disobeyed the order. The consequences would come later. The herd stampeded, but the hunters were very close.

  When a herd of buffalo breaks into a full-out run, the sound is deafening, a steady rolling thunder. Not only the sound, but the motion of such powerful massive bodies hurtling through the air is terrifying. The big bulls with their heavy heads and necks ran hard. So did the reddish calves, sticking to their mothers tight in fear, charging along with the herd fast as they could on new legs. The hunters did not kill the tough old bulls, nor did they hunt the pregnant mothers or those with nursing calves.

  Two Strike spotted the buffalo she wanted and her eager brown horse fearlessly cut it from the herd. Expertly, she rode beside. Just as she shot, the pony veered away, taking Two Strike out of danger. The buffalo took one big jump and died before it hit the ground. Animikiins killed two more. Fishtail missed his first but killed several others. Quill brought down four buffalo with his new rifle. Two Strike killed another. Then the herd outran them and vanished into the horizon where they had come from. Little Shell and his men, including Gichi Noodin, returned to the animals they’d killed and claimed.

  When all of the hunters were together, they dismounted. Little Shell prayed and put tobacco on the ground. Then there was an uncomfortable silence.

  “Gichi Noodin,” said Animikiins. “You showed disrespect.”

  “Huh?” Gichi Noodin feigning shock. “Me?”

  “You did not wait for the signal,” said Little Shell. “Our families are lucky you did not cost us this hunt.”

  “I thought you gave the signal,” said Gichi Noodin. His face was insolent, but his words were solemn. He shrugged. He pretended to be surprised and sorry, but it was obvious he was just trying to humor Little Shell.

  “Watch it,” said Two Strike.

  “Oh, I’m watching,” said Gichi Noodin, puffing out his chest and batting his long eyelashes at her. “My eyes are on you.”

  Two Strike’s hands flashed to her knives, but Quill stopped her.

  “Let’s not have trouble,” he said. “We had a good hunt here. Nashke! Look!”

  Quill darted a hard look at Gichi Noodin, opened his arms and gestured around them.

  Nearly thirty buffalo had been killed. There was food for everyone, a feast. There were hides to tan and robes to sell. They had bounty—horns for carrying gunpowder. Horns to carve into spoons. Bone to make the handles of knives, shoulder blades for hoes, sinew for sewing—on and on the list went. Most important, there was food. They would feast. The leftover meat would be pemmican. Good traveling food. The hunters started skinning the animals and soon the carts and horses from the camp began to arrive.

  FIVE

  THE GENEROUS ONES

  The families scattered and began to work, fast. They had to slice the hides off the buffalo. That would cool off the carcasses so that the meat would not spoil. This had to be quick work—there would be no stopping until it was completed. They were lucky to have killed the buffalo not far from a stream that wound lazily between sloughs. It would dry up by midsummer, but the water was very useful now. It meant they would be able to boil the best parts of the meat and render fat off the bones.

  The hunters identified the buffalo that they had killed.

  “Of course, I killed the most,” boasted Gichi Noodin. But it turned out he claimed two buffalo that the other hunters had seen Little Shell kill. Gichi Noodin pouted. Taking a dignified and hurt posture, he set to work. He was very slow because he was careful not to get blood on his pants or shirt. Also, he kept stepping back to admire his work and to see if anyone else was admiring him. Angeline and Opichi worked with Fishtail on the buffalo he had killed. Omakayas, Zozie, and Yellow Kettle began on the buffalo that Animikiins had brought down. Uncle Quill worked alongside Two Strike. She called the twins over and gave them each one of her razor-sharp knives so that they could learn how she took off the hide.

  If the buffalo had been killed in winter, Two Strike would have started cutting at the belly in order to remove the hide whole and either sell it or use it as a warm robe for herself. But as it was early summer and the bison coats were thin and scroungy, Two Strike started her cut at the back to get at the tenderest meat. She would save the hide, but in pieces that she hoped Omakayas and Zozie would tan for her. Maybe they’d make her help tan those hides, she thought with a shudder, but she would try to get out of it! Perhaps she could bribe them or work on their sympathies. Two Strike hated tanning hides even more than they did, but at least she could press her twin nephews into work.

  The twins helped Two Strike remove the hide down to the legs. Using short, quick strokes, they cut swiftly at the blue-white connecting membrane that lay under the hide. They cut away the hide just over the golden fat and still-warm meat. As they took off the hide, the meat swiftly cooled. There was a stiff wind, which kept the flies from settling. Still, during lulls in the breeze the flies buzzed madly around the entire scene, which was, no getting around it, a bloody sight of rampant butchery.

  Here a leg, there a head, an entire hide, or the inner organs were being carried out of steaming collapsed carcasses. The smaller children were set to work collecting old, dried-out circles of buffalo dung, which littered the grass. The dung was used as fuel for fires. Once the meat was cut into thin strips, it would be draped across those drying racks that the dogs had carried to the kill. The buffalo provided the fuel for fires that smoked their own meat. They gave their brains, fat, and liver to be used in tanning their own hides. They provided tools with their bones that could be sharpened and used to flesh their carcasses. All winter, they had kept their killers warm and snug under curly robes. Indeed, as Little Shell had said in his prayer, the buffalo were a most generous animal.

  The day went on and on, with a break here and there to replenish energy. Omakayas made certain that Makoons and Chickadee were given the nourishing marrow from bones that she cracked open with her pounding rock. The boys drank water, ate fresh buffalo bone marrow, and returned to their work. The sunlight shifted to shadow and the air cooled. Darkness crept from the grass and the women built the fires higher. Around the edges of the kill, just out of bow or gunshot range, the white wolves of the great plains glided. Watching. Waiting. Closer into the circle, the wolvish gray tame dogs waited also, and watched. They ate the gristle, they fought over the guts, they snapped up the bits of fat or meat that slipped unnoticed into the grass. All the people were tired, but there was no stopping until each carcass had
been cut up and hauled to camp in pieces to be guarded. Little Shell commanded that the great heads of the killed buffalo be placed on a small hill that looked west, where the rest of the herd had disappeared. As the night deepened, Two Strike gave the twins a break.

  “Don’t wander off,” she said. “I might need you.”

  The boys staggered a short way off, exhausted, and fell into some grass near the stream, where a copse of willow trembled in the cool breezes. They drank some water, but they weren’t hungry. The buffalo marrow had filled them up. As they lay stretched out in the grass, nearly napping, they heard something odd. Something breathing.

  “Do you hear that?” said Makoons.

  “Where’s it coming from?” Chickadee wondered.

  The two boys turned over and crept through the grass toward the small, even, wheezing sound. Suddenly, it stopped. Makoons had the distinct feeling that if he parted the grass he would see it. Whatever it was. A wolf? Wolves were wary. A bear? Bears were wary. An enemy? Makoons was suddenly very afraid.

  “Could be an enemy scouting us,” he whispered to Chickadee.

  Both of the boys went dead silent for a long time and did not move. The wheezing sound was not human, though, they decided. It was a scared little sound and stopped if they tried to move. Whatever was behind the grass, whatever it was, was afraid of them. So carefully they parted the grass.

  Behind the strands, in the moonlight with its head stuffed as deeply in the base of the grass as it could go, there was a fuzzy red buffalo calf.

  Its eyes were squeezed shut.

  “It is hiding!”

  “It thinks if he can’t see us . . .”

  “. . . then we don’t see him!”

  Makoons and Chickadee were struck with pity.

  Slowly, gently, they put their hands on the calf and began to stroke its baby fur. As they petted the calf, it lifted a mournful, bewildered face and blinked at them.

  “We’ll take care of you,” said Makoons.

  “Don’t worry, you can belong to us,” said Chickadee.

  They put out their hands and the calf immediately, desperately, began to suck on their fingers. Makoons slipped off the rope that held up his pants, putting it around the calf’s neck. With one hand holding up his pants and the other on the calf, he walked the little creature back to the camp. Chickadee held on too. They were sure that the calf would try to run away when he beheld the terrible sights of his buffalo people dead and destroyed. But the calf just stayed with them and did not seem to recognize his people all cut up so strangely into pieces. He didn’t seem to feel any sadness or danger. Omakayas saw her sons with the calf and nudged Zozie. They stood up and couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. As the boys walked the calf along, it seemed happy to be with them, like a big red dog. Opichi ran to the calf and stroked it with her short, chubby, blood-bathed hands. The calf didn’t mind.

  “We’d better make Makoons a new belt out of a piece of hide,” said Omakayas. She began to cut away at the side of a skin.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Zozie asked Omakayas.

  “We’re bringing him to Fly,” said Makoons.

  “Poor Fly,” said Yellow Kettle. She had retained her grumpy attitude through a day of exhausting work. “Poor horse. You’ll wear her out. And on a buffalo calf! We should kill it and skin it. I could use that soft hide for a tobacco pouch.”

  Makoons looked at her in horror, and Chickadee yelped a little to coax the calf away from his bloodthirsty grandmother.

  Staked in the grass, Fly was grazing, closely followed by Two Strike’s lamb. The hungry calf trotted up to Fly and knew exactly what to do. Fly snorted, threw her head around, and stared in shocked disgust at her new baby. First that curly thing! Now this square-headed thing! My, she seemed to think, my babies are ugly! The calf was just old enough to chew grass, but needed to be with a mother. Right there, it adopted Fly by affectionately banging its head against her. What is happening now? her eyes seemed to say. Then she shrugged and settled back into eating, as if to say, Well, I love them anyway. From now on, it would be a battle for Fly’s attention between the buffalo calf and the lamb. They weren’t very good at taking turns.

  From time to time the families dropped in the grass to rest, then rose again to continue working. The cool air revived them. The buffalo tongues, a delicacy, were cooked in Omakayas’s kettle and given first to the elders and those honored for their hunting. Next the hump meat was cooked into a soup all could share. Two Strike lighted fire after fire to ring the camp with light. The wolves edged closer, howling with hunger and anticipation. The dogs barked at them. Fishtail fired his gun and they moved off to wait with steady patience.

  As others worked, Quill dug a large deep hole. At the bottom of the hole he placed rocks. On top of the rocks he put down plenty of wood hauled from the side of the stream. He started the wood on fire, then let the fire in the pit burn to coals, heating the rocks underneath to a glowing red. While that was happening, he wove stream-willow wands into a great loose basket that held his favorite cuts of buffalo. He put the buffalo meat in the hole, covered it with a scraped hide, and then shoveled down dirt until the hide, the meat, the willow, the coals and the red hot rocks were buried. Overnight the buffalo cooked to a savory deliciousness. Just before dawn, he started digging up the buffalo meat, and as it was uncovered a scrumptious steam escaped, waking the entire camp.

  Some people were sleeping, some still working. They had continued in shifts all through the night. The wolves had silently finished off the carcasses farthest from the camp and the vultures had descended to the little hill where the buffalo heads looked west. By next year, those skulls would lie there bleaching in the sun.

  Makoons and Chickadee had slept hard, curled together on a soft robe from a previous hunt. They came to, groggily, awakened by the scent of cooked meat wafting from Quill’s earth oven.

  They ran first to their calf. He was curled up with the lamb. As soon as they were disturbed, the calf and the lamb jumped up and started butting heads. Fly dozed on her feet above them. So the boys ran back to help Quill.

  Using antlers tied to the end of long sticks as their pitchforks, Quill and Two Strike lifted the basket of meat out onto flat rocks. Before returning to the rest of the work, everyone in the camp feasted. The meat was sweet, tender, and seasoned by the willow and by precious salt that Quill bought in St. Paul or traded for along the way.

  Little Shell smacked his lips and asked for more. Animikiins and Fishtail couldn’t get enough. Omakayas said that she was jealous of her brother’s cooking talents. Makoons and Chickadee ate fast, filling their bellies until they couldn’t eat another bite.

  “My son has surprising skills,” declared Yellow Kettle in an unusual fit of contentment. Animikiins was too busy eating to do more than nod his agreement.

  “Yes, he would make someone a good wife,” said Gichi Noodin.

  Quill froze. So did the other men. The twins even stopped eating, hoping that Quill would spring up and fight. Gichi Noodin shook his hair over his shoulder and raised one eyebrow, looking around as usual to see who was admiring him. But everyone was looking at Quill. Gichi Noodin met Quill’s deadly gaze and waved a bone at him as if to say he didn’t mean it. Suddenly, Quill laughed. He laughed so hard he began to sputter. He couldn’t stop laughing.

  Daintily, Gichi Noodin wiped his fingers and puffed out the sleeves of his shirt. He was wearing beautiful beaded garters to keep his sleeves rolled up. Concerned about his hair, he kept flipping it so that it flowed down his back.

  “What is so funny?” Gichi Noodin finally asked, seeing that Quill’s infectious laugh made others smile.

  “Gichi Noodin! You would make a good wife too,” said Quill, amiably. “You tend your looks enough for two people. Watch out so girls marry you for love, not just to get your pretty clothes.”

  Gichi Noodin smiled, because everyone was laughing, but it was clear he didn’t quite get the joke.

  Quill’s h
air, coarse and springy, tended to stick out all over his head in the morning. He pretended to smooth his hair down and toss it like Gichi Noodin, but he was the absurd opposite, and this made everyone laugh. Quill’s greatest weapon in life was to get people laughing—it was how he solved problems, how he made alliances, and how he got even. Grumpily, confused, Gichi Noodin tried to reach for more food, but his hair swung in the grease and everyone laughed even harder when he panicked and wrung out his raven locks—in fact, there would be no end now to the jokes about his vanity and about how women might want him so that they could wear his ornate shirts and jackets.

  SIX

  TRAIL FOOD

  Now that the main part of the work was finished—the buffalo were skinned and taken apart—it was time for the longer lasting work to begin: cutting meat into strips, boiling off the fat, watching the meat dry and guarding it against dogs, pounding it to meat dust, finding berries or, in this season, herbs and rose hips to pound into the meat, making it into pemmican. All of this tedious work, which women did constantly and men avoided, the boys naturally dreaded. As soon as they could escape, they ran off to play with their calf and practice shooting. Every child knew how to make a play bow and arrows from nearly any material at hand—of course some wood was better than other wood, and the arrows had to be straight and carefully feathered. Real bows for grown-ups were made with greater care and to a certain style. Makoons and Chickadee had decided that they were ready for grown-up bows, so they decided to gather the materials. For helping her, Two Strike had given each of the boys a good strong knife.