Makoons

by Louise Erdrich

  In the woods, from great fallen trees, they lifted sheets of bark for the roof. To the roof’s framework of poles, they tied the bark with sinew and strips of buffalo hide. Beneath the bark, on the inside, they fixed more rawhide, wetted it, and even stretched it to fit over a frame to make a door. The family agreed that the cabin was very snug. It even had a small stove, a small iron box with legs that Quill had bought with his last robes. He’d bought a stovepipe, too. Animikiins cut a hole in the wall for it. The cabin was complete. Two Strike pitched the plains tipi beside the cabin and said she’d sleep there, cuddled up with two dogs and her lamb, which was now full-grown. The family began work on a lean-to shelter for the horses. When that was done, they cut and gathered as much grass as possible. Zozie was the one who tied the grass up in a tree—it was emergency food for the horses. Within a week, the snows began, lightly, melting away once, then clinging to the hard frozen stems of grass.

  Inside the cabin, Omakayas and Yellow Kettle hung blankets on the wall, lined the sleeping areas with buffalo robes, skin side on the stomped dirt floor. Two Strike did the same in the tipi, which she preferred. She built a fire pit in the middle, and gathered great heaps of wood. Makoons and Chickadee were kept busy. They dragged dry branches from the woods. They cut them into pieces, taking turns with Two Strike’s hatchet. Omakayas kept a space clear around the stove, and from the rafters set straight across the roof she and Zozie hung rawhide sacks of pemmican, bags of dried squash and beans, braided ears of corn, sacks of berries, salt, dried meat, dried nettles, raspberry leaves, rose hips, and other teas that they could use for medicine.

  In one corner of the cabin, Deydey dug a deep hole and filled it with sand from the lake, which lay just through the woods. They buried all the potatoes from Nokomis’s garden, the squash, the wild roots, in this sand. The sand would keep the potatoes and all else just the right temperature through the winter. They covered this stash with bark. By the time this was done, Deydey was using Nokomis’s cane. He and Yellow Kettle were growing old, Omakayas realized. And in his kindness, which was so different from Yellow Kettle’s unexpected angers, she found solace.

  The boys in sleep always curled up near their grandfather. With Nokomis gone, they too relied on the sweetness and wisdom of his age.

  The wind howled around them for three days—but it did not bring a blizzard. Only a dusting of snow. They could hear branches cracking to earth, branches thrashing in the woods. They had a rope tied to the lean-to and went out from time to time to check the horses. These horses knew how to survive in any weather. Their coats were thick. They huddled together, but they also had made a path into the trees where they could eat some of the grasses that grew in clearings. The snow was not deep there because the dense trees blocked the raging wind.

  Inside the little cabin, they talked and slept. They missed Nokomis very much because of the stories she’d tell during winter times when they were stuck inside their long-ago birchbark house. At first everyone was simply sad, thinking of how she’d start her tales, Mewinzha, mewinzha, a long time ago.

  And then suddenly Omakayas said those words.

  Mewinzha, mewinzha, Omakayas began.

  A young man lived all alone. He didn’t know how he came to be without his family. He didn’t know who he was. He was just a young man. Every morning he went out to hunt. He was an excellent hunter, never missed a shot. The one animal he never hunted was the bear, however, because he admired bears and loved them for some reason.

  One day, he snared a fine rabbit. When he brought it home to eat, he noticed someone had been in his lodge. A fire was laid. Water boiled in the kettle. Everything was cozy and warm. At the foot of his bed he found a pair of beautiful moccasins. He put them on his feet, admired them, and said, “I hope it was a woman who came here. Tomorrow I’ll hunt earlier, and I will meet her.”

  The next morning, he hunted earlier. This time he killed a rabbit and several partridges. When he came home he again found a cheerful fire blazing, water boiling for soup, and at the foot of his bed another pair of nice moccasins. “I have missed the woman once more,” he said, “but I will hunt even earlier tomorrow. Surely I can catch her!”

  Now he wanted very much to find this woman, for he was lonely. He was tired of being alone and always talking to himself. He could tell that she was very capable. Everything was so cozy and nice it made his heart ache to find her. So he went out hunting earlier than ever, and this time he killed a large moose. He brought back the choicest parts only. When he came to his lodge and saw the smoke riding from the fire inside he started to run. There she was. He saw her coming from his house.

  “Wait, stop,” he called.

  The woman turned and smiled at him. She was friendly and sweet.

  “Do not leave,” he said. “I have killed a fine moose. We can make a good soup.”

  At this, her eyes lighted up.

  “A moose! That is very good. My father and his people are so hungry. Their hunting is going badly. Perhaps we can bring the meat.”

  “With pleasure,” said the young man.

  He went back with the woman. Together they packed out the moose meat on a toboggan. As they were nearing the man’s lodge, he saw another moose and killed it too. They butchered that moose and made a drag from the moose skin. They managed to get all of the meat back to the lodge.

  “We will have a tough time bringing this food, and all of my things, to your people,” said the man, looking at his possessions and at all of the bundles and pieces of heavy meat and hide.

  “Turn around, do not watch me,” said the woman.

  When the man turned away, she stepped on each bundle. Everything she stepped on disappeared into the ground. The man was greatly surprised when he finally turned back. He wondered what she had done, but decided to accept it. They shouldered the few belongings that remained and set off.

  That night, they reached a place to camp.

  “What now?” asked the man.

  The woman stamped her foot on the ground. The tent came out of the earth just like that and set itself up with blankets on the ground, nice and cozy. She stamped again. The kettle and enough meat for their dinner appeared.

  “Let us make ourselves comfortable,” the woman said.

  So they ate, and slept, and the next day she let the man watch her step on each pack before it disappeared. By the middle of the day, the two reached her father. He rushed from his lodge, poor and ragged. Her family rushed out with them.

  “Here he is! Our son-in-law!” they shouted.

  The woman stamped her foot over and over. Each time she stamped, meat appeared, and of course their tent and blankets. The entire family feasted together, and the man was wondrously happy. He had fallen in love with the woman and her mystic ways.

  “How did you know about me?” he later asked her.

  “We are all bears,” said the woman. “We watched you in our other shape. We noticed that you never hunted our kind. You surely could have killed a lot of us, for you are a great hunter. We are grateful you left us alone. Will you become a bear and live with us?”

  “Gladly,” said the man.

  And so he did, and they were happy, and lived a long time peacefully in their bear village.

  That is all, mi’iw minik.

  Makoons woke to the sound of his family stirring about. He realized he’d been listening to the wind in his dreams. The cabin had two windows—they were covered with finely scraped rawhide. During the great wind the light had flickered, but now the windows glowed and he could feel cold penetrating every tiny space and crack between the poles and the tamped-in mud. The air was finally still, and the sun was so bright.

  Stepping outdoors, Makoons blinked at the reflection off the shallow new snow. He and Chickadee wore strips of fur wrapped around and around their feet. Rabbit-fur boots with the fur turned inward. They wore two pairs of woolen pants, deerhide shirts, vests of rabbit fur with wool trim. They had fur hoods and coats made of trading blankets. They wore
fur mitts. Two Strike, Quill, and sometimes Animikiins walked around in the cold wearing a blanket or a warm jacket, nothing special—but Omakayas, Zozie, and Yellow Kettle, especially, were determined to keep their family warmly clothed. The women themselves wore two or three skirts, fur vests, heavy shawls, and rabbit-fur caps. They had made their moccasins with tough buffalo hide soles and the curly side of the buffalo robe beneath their feet. Everyone had dressed up because they had decided to take the horses to visit a small trading cabin they had passed. In a week or so, the snow might fall too deep. There would be a blizzard, closing them in. There was also a school in the Turtle Mountains. They hadn’t known about this. They wanted to see about it, and wished that Angeline and Fishtail had known. They might have come along.

  Two Strike, who had slept in the tipi with her maanishtaanish and plenty of wood to keep her fire going, used Nokomis’s buffalo-shoulder hoe to heap snow against the tipi for insulation. The horses had kept circling and trampled out a place for themselves—the wind passed over them. But they were hungry. Makoons and Chickadee went out to the woods to get some food for them. They cut thin willow wands and what dry grass had escaped the snow—there were plenty of places where swirling snow left the earth nearly bare. For the ox, they cut away the outer bark of willow and elm, and slashed off the juicy inner bark. They were careful not to cut all the way around the tree, for that would kill it.

  The trading store was a tiny cabin, hung deep with furs, but there wasn’t much to trade for because no supplies had come in. Still, several people had gathered to talk. They sat around on the floor and looked up when the family entered. Only Omakayas and Yellow Kettle had stayed home. Everyone else stopped and stared, in shock, at the person who stood up slowly to greet them.

  It was Gichi Noodin, but greatly changed. His once smooth cheeks were disfigured with deep scars. His once lustrous long hair was dull and ragged. His clothes were thin and torn. He wore no moccasins, only rags and strips of leather around his feet. He still wore his once beautiful red sash, now in tatters. But most different of all was his bright smile of delight when he saw the family, and the look in his eyes. It was hard to describe at first, Zozie told Omakayas later. It was as though his eyes looked outward for the first time. Before, he’d seen only his own reflection in his mind, or the eyes of other people. Now, he was truly looking at people. Not thinking only of himself. When he saw Two Strike, he beamed and held out the knife she had given him.

  “I am truly grateful to you, Two Strike,” said Gichi Noodin. “If it weren’t for the knife you gave me, I would never have survived.”

  “How’s that?” Two Strike was shocked at the change in Gichi Noodin. Maybe he’d gone crazy! With an unusually gentle gesture, she laid the knife back in his hand and told him that he must keep it.

  “Miigwech,” said Gichi Noodin. “This is my only weapon. My only tool. I’m glad to have it!”

  “What . . . happened to you?” asked Two Strike.

  For the first time ever, Gichi Noodin spoke humbly.

  “You know me, I bumbled about and lost my way. I wanted to get here, but wandered around! Then I was walking along a hilly ridge when I felt eyes on me. You know the feeling? There was an itching between my shoulder blades. I took the knife out. I turned around and around in a circle. Then I saw that I was being stalked by a cougar. As I circled, it circled. You must never turn your back on a cougar, of course. The cougar screamed at me. I screamed back. We circled each other for an endless time, then the cougar, who must have been terribly hungry, gathered herself and threw herself upon me. She was huge, and I was sure at first that I would die. But I got lucky, so lucky! With this knife I was able to kill her. Then I was able to skin this cougar, so I had something to keep me warm at night. I ate the cougar too—I usually don’t like cat meat, but this time it tasted marvelous to me. I wandered some more, starved some more. Had many interesting dreams! I didn’t have any visions, though! I guess those are for greater men. I kept the cougar’s claws and made these”—he removed two necklaces from a pouch. From painstakingly woven strands of cat sinew dangled the claws of a very large cougar. One, he gave to Two Strike. The other, he gave to Zozie.

  Then, of all things, he walked outside and away before they could even thank him, admire him, or give him something in return.

  Two Strike put the necklace on with a thoughtful smile. “I wouldn’t know him. It’s not even the scars—it’s the way he is now.”

  “I know,” said Zozie. “And his face was too perfect before, you know? It was sort of scary. Now, to my mind at least, Gichi Noodin is much better-looking.”

  Nobody spoke. Zozie suddenly blushed when she saw their faces.

  “Not that I care,” she said hastily, but too late.

  Soon after the family returned to their cabin, Two Strike also returned to her tipi.

  A cry of rage and sorrow split the air.

  Makoons and Chickadee ran to her. The two dogs she’d left to guard her sheep had instead killed it. Her fury was horrible to witness. Her teeth gnashed and the dogs groveled on the ground before her. She had no pity. Although these dogs hunted with her and slept near her for warmth, they had betrayed her. With a single quick swipe, she killed the first dog. Her knife flashed. The other was dead. Makoons and Chickadee were somber, and turned away to see that their mother had also seen what happened. There was a strange expression on their mother’s face, and as they walked back to the cabin she spoke.

  “That exact thing happened when I was a little girl. Only I was the one the dogs threatened. Tallow, the old woman I always loved, killed her mean yellow dog to protect me.”

  That day, the boys helped Two Strike as she mournfully skinned the hide off her poor pet. She began to clean and work on the hide, but told the boys to give the carcass to their mother.

  “I loved this animal. I can’t eat it. But it should not go to waste,” said Two Strike.

  It snowed once. Snowed a little again. Then one day a real blizzard started. Makoons and Chickadee were out setting snares for rabbits. They hurried back. At first the snow was swirly and light, but very quickly it came down in blasts. The wind blew wild. Suddenly the blizzard whitened the air, the snow so fine and thick you had to breathe it in. Makoons and Chickadee made certain of the horses and followed the rope trail to the cabin. They fell in the door. Already the snow had driven itself down their necks and covered their hair. They shook it off and curled in their blankets, near the stove.

  Omakayas was stirring up a fragrant stew. Animikiins had killed a deer and they had fresh venison. She added some of the potatoes, squash, and dried pembina berries. The boys ate gratefully, and nodded off. The snow stormed down all night, all the next day, and the next day after that. Animikiins had tied a rope all the way around the cabin to Two Strike’s tipi—she had been so sad when the blizzard began that she wouldn’t come into the cabin. She preferred to stay alone. Now they were worried about her.

  Animikiins was gone a short while, then he fell back in the door. Two Strike was fine, he said. She was sitting by a roaring fire. Out of her sheepskin, she’d made a soft pillow. The dogs? She’d eaten well, she said, and wasn’t hungry. In one corner, there was a neat pile of bones.

  The snow would remain deep, impassable, and the family had to snowshoe in and out of their camp. The horses, turned loose in the woods, found forage and returned each night. Manidoo-giizisoons, Little Spirit Moon, and Gichi-manidoo-giizis, the Big Spirit Moon, passed before they had a visitor.

  It was a clear cold day. The snow dazzling, the sky a deep blue. Omakayas’s dogs, who slept with the horses, ran out to bark a warning. From the doorway, she saw Gichi Noodin make his way through the woods, on snowshoes. On his back there was a bundle. From the bundle a familiar face peeped. Opichi.

  Omakayas cried out and ran from the house.

  Makoons hid his face. Somehow he had sensed this visitor had to do with the fear he’d had on leaving his aunt and uncle in Pembina. Somehow, back then, he’d known t
hey might never see one another again in this world. When he came to the doorway, trembling, he saw Opichi and knew her parents were gone for good.

  Later, in the cabin, with Opichi and her little doll family sleeping exhaustedly in a corner, Gichi Noodin told the story.

  When the trading supplies were brought from Pembina to the Turtle Mountains, he said, the driver of the cart told of an illness that had swept away many people early that winter. Just as the people moved indoors, the illness had taken hold. It was a sort of choking sickness. Nobody knew what to call it. The sickness took Angeline. Then it took Fishtail. It nearly took Opichi. The child needed her family.

  When Gichi Noodin heard this, he had walked from the Turtle Mountains all the way back to Pembina. Then he turned around and walked all the way back to the Turtle Mountains with Opichi, the Robin, on his back.

  “When I was tired, she would sing little songs, to pick up my spirits,” said Gichi Noodin. “Mariette made a nice fur sack for Opichi, so she wasn’t cold. We ate pemmican and jerky. We even had a few sticks of hard candy, eh? If we were thirsty, we melted the snow. Now Opichi knows how to survive, too. We traveled well.”

  Omakayas put her face in her hands. For a long while, she could not move. She mourned her sister, and Fishtail, who’d loved them all. She kept seeing her sister’s scarred beauty, grown deeper through the years. She kept remembering Fishtail’s courage and kindness. Their happiness when Opichi came to brighten their world.