Caught in the Crossfire

by Juliann Rich

  “There are easier classes you could have taken than sculpture.” Simon held a lump of clay, which he placed on a marble block, then picked up a carving knife.

  “Sculpture is not like any other art form. There is no hiding the flaws.” He held the knife poised in the air and studied the clay. Minutes passed. Emotions played over Simon’s face. His knife descended and sliced away a third of the clay. Working quickly, he cut, stabbed, then dropped the tools altogether and attacked the clay with his hands, twisting and wrenching away all that needed to be removed. His hands slowed and his expression softened as he began to caress the clay.

  Thirty minutes later Simon put his mud-soaked hands on his wheels and pushed himself away from the table, revealing an abstract replica of the willow tree that grew along the lakeshore. It was beautiful. Graceful, somehow. I swore the long branches swayed in the breeze, reminding me of all the times I had sat under the real willow tree where I always felt invisible and protected. My throat tightened as the memory played in my mind…

  It was four summers ago, my third year at Spirit Lake Bible Camp. I was twelve. It was the summer my dad had bought a boat and insisted we spend every weekend fishing until he was called up for his second deployment to Iraq. It was the summer I saw the fish suffocate in the five-loaves-and-two-fish competition. It was the summer I wore my dad’s glasses.

  On opening day, I stood there, listening to my mother explaining to Paul, “Jonathan’s father shipped out last week. It’s his second tour, you know. Anyway, they’re an old pair of his dad’s glasses. He refuses to take them off. Pastor Jim says we shouldn’t try to make him. They’re just low-level readers, so it’s fine that he wears them.”

  “I’m so sorry for both of you.” Paul’s hand had strayed to my head, riffling my hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep him so busy he won’t have time to be sad.”

  They stared at me, as if the problem were the oversized glasses that slid down my face and nose like tears. They didn’t see me at all. Maybe they needed glasses.

  “Come on, Jonathan, you can ride in the boat with me.” Everyone had gathered at the lake for the competition. Paul was trying to keep his promise to my mother, but I was having a bad day.

  “I’m not going fishing. I hate fishing,” I shouted.

  “I don’t understand, Jonathan. Your mom told me you and your father fish every weekend.” Paul shook his head.

  “Forget it. I’m not going.” I crossed my arms and refused to look at Paul.

  “It’s all right, Paul. He can stay with me.” Simon pushed his wheelchair over to us. “Jonathan and I will hold down the fort while the rest of you empty the lake. Sound good, Jonathan?”

  “Whatever.” I wanted to yell some more. It felt good, but Simon had fixed things so I didn’t have an excuse anymore.

  Hours later the boats came back to shore.

  Paul lifted the heavy fish buckets out of the boat and dropped one, spilling the prize catch and lake water over the ground. Tail flopping. Eyes protruding and staring.

  All the kids laughed. Not at me or my glasses, but at the dying fish. Someone picked it up and tossed it to me, but my hands froze. The fish smacked me in the face, leaving a streak of slime to drip down my cheek and into my mouth. My stomach heaved.

  I doubled over, hands on my knees, and blinked back the tears.

  “Jonathan, what’s wrong?” Paul looked at me with concern. I tried to focus on him, but he swayed. The lake turned upside down and became the sky, and I collapsed, face down in the heat, inches away from the twitching, gulping fish. With 20/20 vision I witnessed as it shuddered, lay still, and died.

  Simon found me hours later, hiding beneath the canopy of the willow tree.

  “May I join you?” he’d asked as he parted the willow’s long branches with one hand and pushed his wheelchair forward with the other.

  “Sure.”

  “You know, Jonathan, I can spot an artistic kid a mile away, and you, my friend, are an artistic kid. Here.” He held out a camera. A bit beaten up and old, but cool. “It’s yours.”

  “Mine? Really?” I held the camera up to my face. It banged against my glasses. I took them off and awkwardly held them in one hand and the camera in the other.

  “Really. I’ll keep those safe for you.” I put my father’s glasses in Simon’s outstretched hand. He slid them into his shirt pocket. “Now, let me show you how to zoom in and out.”

  Everything looked blurry. Exactly how I felt. Simon put his hand over mine and twisted the lens. The overwhelming world beyond the willow branches, where death could come at any moment and steal away a fish…or even a father, disappeared. A simpler, safer world came into focus.

  It had been magic. Simon’s magic.

  “The secret to sculpture is to learn how to listen,” Simon said, interrupting my memories. “Listen well and you will hear the whisper telling you what lies trapped inside the clay. You will hear the cry for freedom. Give yourself over to it, and you will learn how to free the captive within.”

  I looked at the willow tree sculpture.

  “Open yourself to the clay, and I promise, you will come to know God more closely than ever before. To sculpt is to experience a bit of what He must have felt as He spoke all this into being.” Simon waved his hand across the whole vista of Spirit Lake, the sky, and the earth.

  A tear slid down my face.

  I brushed it away and saw Ian staring right at me.

  *

  “Thanks for helping with the cleanup.” Simon wiped the clay from his sculpting tools.

  “Sure, no problem. Where does this go?” I held the remaining block of clay.

  “Up there.” He pointed to the highest shelf. I reached up and put the clay where it belonged and made a mental note to show up early for sculpture to help him get set up. “Thanks. So, tell me. How is your photography coming along?”

  “I just started to work in black and white. Here, take a look.” Simon’s beater camera had finally died. I handed him my new Nikon. He clicked through the camera’s memory card, stopping to zoom in on the picture I’d taken of my mother. Her eyes were closed. Wind blew through her hair. The long branches from the willow tree filled the background. “What do you think?”

  “Beautiful! You have an excellent eye. You chose just the right angle to heighten your mother’s emotion. Did you take it on opening day?”

  “Yeah. She had been looking at the lake. She was just so peaceful. She doesn’t look like that often lately.”

  “I can feel her thinking. Maybe praying. But I see something else. Do you?”

  “No, I just know there’s something not quite right. What is it?”

  “Don’t just look for light. See the light. It makes all the difference.”

  “Okay, I’ll try.”

  “I’m glad you’re taking this class, Jonathan.”

  “Me too.” I smiled. “Thanks, Simon.”

  “Anytime. See you tomorrow then.”

  “Yeah, see you tomorrow. ’Bye.” I headed toward the beach. There was someone I needed to talk to.

  *

  “Need a Kleenex?” Ian asked. He didn’t look up from his notebook as I parted the branches and sat beside him under the willow tree. “I’m fresh out. Maybe Bethany has one.” Shadows from the branches played across his face, a moving picture on a blank canvas.

  “Not this again.” I sighed dramatically. “Yeah, I kissed Bethany, but it didn’t mean anything and you know that. Look me in the eyes. See if I’m not telling the truth.” I half expected him to get up and walk out on me. Instead, he stared at me with his deep green eyes.

  Wind, whistling through the branches, carried the light scent of fish and seaweed. He studied me for a moment, then turned his head away and stared across the lake. “Okay, I’m sorry. I was being a jerk.”

  “Finally, we agree on something.”

  “I was right about one thing though. You’re better off staying away from me.”

  My chest tightened and hurt. To
be around Ian was to be on fire. Everything burned.

  We sat there, not talking, leaning against the trunk of the willow tree. My fingers traced the dark green branch-shaped shadows on the grass that reached out to us, rooting us to this place together. We sat close enough to touch, though we didn’t.

  “So, that sculpture guy, the one in the wheelchair, he’s pretty cool. He actually lets the kids paint on his building?”

  “Yeah, he does. He even encourages it. Says that if all graffiti contained such messages, the world might be a better place.”

  “He’s right,” Ian said. “How does that work? Being in a wheelchair and a counselor?”

  “Funny, but I don’t even think about Simon being in a wheelchair,” I said.

  “You know what? You are going to make one helluva junior counselor.”

  “What about—”

  “No exceptions. These doofai would be lucky to have you.”

  “Doofai?” I asked him.

  “Plural of doofus.”

  I laughed and stood up. “Hey, I’m going to say hi to Dawn. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Depends. Who’s Dawn?” Ian looked skeptical.

  “Definitely not one of your doofai.”

  “You sure?” He stood up and ducked under the willow’s branches with me.

  “Trust me. You’ll like her.”

  “Trust you.” He grinned as we walked toward the little cabin that sat nestled at the edge of the forest. “That may be the dumbest thing I do all summer.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Dawn lives here,” I said as we reached the rustic cabin with solar panels on the roof.

  “Hello! Anybody home?” I held the door open for Ian and we walked into the main room. The fireplace in the corner gave off the scent of stale ash. A thin layer of dust covered the furniture, and clumps of white fur clung to the chair and were gathered in its corners.

  Ian’s eyes wandered from the feathered dream catcher in the window, to the snowshoes propped up in the corner, to the top-of-the-line Mac computer on Dawn’s desk.

  “I thought there was no Internet here.”

  “Technically, there isn’t. Dawn works for the DNR and lives here year-round. She monitors the loon population in northern Minnesota.”

  Ian looked at the huge map of Spirit Lake and the surrounding forest that covered a whole wall of Dawn’s living room. “So, she’s not a counselor?”

  “Not like the other counselors who actually live in the cabins with us, but she does teach all the nature classes.”

  “Huh. She must like living in the boondocks.” Ian inhaled. “What’s that smell? I can’t place it.”

  “Cedar, I think. Could be sweetgrass or sage.”

  “Why would she burn that?”

  “Dawn’s originally from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe reservation.”

  Ian looked again at the dream catcher in the window and the smudging shell containing ash with the eagle feather on the coffee table. “So is Dawn a—?”

  “Native American?” I finished his question. “Yeah, she is.”

  “I was going to ask if she’s a Christian.”

  “Oh yeah, she’s that too.”

  Ian walked around the room, taking in the details of Dawn’s life. He let his fingers brush over her Bible that lay open on her kitchen table. His hand rested on the elk canvas of her spirit drum. He picked up the smudging shell and sniffed the ash. “Interesting. I can’t wait to meet her.”

  “Boozhoo.” Dawn stood in the doorway. Next to her was a giant white dog that weighed at least a hundred pounds. He could have pulled off intimidating if it wasn’t for his wagging tail and lopsided smile. Dawn threw her heavy backpack into a corner and walked toward Ian with her hand outstretched. “I am pleased to meet you too. And you are?”

  “Ian McGuire. Sorry we just walked into your home.” He shook her hand and quickly put the smudging shell back on the table.

  “Any friend of Needjee’s is a friend of mine. You are welcome here.”

  The giant of a dog spotted me and ran forward, taking up half of Dawn’s small living room. With one leap he stood and planted his two front paws on my shoulders, nearly knocking me over with his weight and his breath. “Hey, boy, who are you?” The dog dropped to the floor. I knelt and gave him the butt scratching of a lifetime.

  “Needjee, meet Makwa. The current man in my life.” Dawn reached down and stroked the dog. “Isn’t he a beautiful puppy?”

  “Did you say puppy?”

  “I certainly did. Makwa is six months old. He’s not even fully grown.”

  I sized up the dog and let out a low whistle. The dog leaped on Ian who probably looked like a miniature chew toy to him.

  “Oh hey, hiya!” Ian laughed. They stood eye to eye, much to the dog’s delight. His tongue lashed out at Ian who tried to push him down but only managed to fall on the floor. The dog climbed on top of him and resumed licking. “Um, somebody want to help me here?” Ian flailed his arms and legs. Dog saliva dripped on his face.

  “Makwa! Sit! Down!” He didn’t listen to Dawn at all. “Oh, fine then. Makwa, namadabin!” Dawn commanded.

  The dog obediently sat on the floor next to Ian, who gasped for breath. I reached down and offered my hands. His small hands slid into mine and I yanked. Hard. Too hard. He flew into my arms. I held him until he was steady and I was not. He pulled away and looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  “He understands Ojibwe?” I deliberately turned toward Dawn.

  “Oh, he understands English. He certainly knows what I’m talking about when I say walk or treat. But he only behaves when I speak in Ojibwe. Don’t ask me.” She shrugged. “I don’t get it either, but I’m quite certain my mother is laughing somewhere. She never liked it when I spoke English.” I knew Dawn came from a traditional Ojibwe family. Beyond that, nothing. Dawn rarely talked about her family.

  “So, what made you decide to get the world’s biggest dog for a pet?” Ian asked, wiping the dog drool from his face.

  “That is a story worth hearing.” We sat down at Dawn’s kitchen table. “Last winter, I woke up to the screech of a great horned owl. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got up and decided to go for a walk. I had only gone a little way when I heard a sound. The forest is full of noise, even in the dead of winter, but this sound did not belong there. Like a faint whimpering that seemed to grow weaker each time I heard it.” Dawn stroked the dog’s soft white fur. He drooled an adoring response. “I found him, tied up in a canvas bag with two other puppies. They had already died, but Makwa had fought and waited until the Great Spirit brought me to him.”

  “Do you mean someone just threw the puppies away? To freeze to death?” Ian’s face flushed.

  “That’s exactly what happened.”

  I looked at Makwa: all legs and fur, ears pointing in different directions, tongue as wide as my palm, and drool that never ended.

  “How could someone do that?” Ian asked.

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “What does Makwa mean?” I asked.

  “It means little bear.”

  “I like that. Hello, Bear.” The dog’s head cocked at the sound of the name.

  Dawn laughed. “Apparently he does too. Feel free to call him Bear. Maybe he’ll start obeying me when I speak English, though I doubt it.”

  Ian leaned down to stroke Bear’s head. “What those people did to you sucks. You didn’t deserve that.” Bear leaned forward and covered Ian’s entire face with one quick lick. “Okay, well, I really need a shower now.” Ian stood and walked toward the door.

  “Come again, both of you. Anytime. I’m planning on taking anyone who wants to go on a nature hike. I hope you and Jonathan can make it.”

  “When is it?” I asked as I joined Ian by the door.

  “When the day is right for such a hike. I’ll let you know.”

  “Looking forward to it.” I suddenly remembered what I’d wanted to ask her. “By the way, did Edward and Bella come back?”


  “Sure did. They’re nesting now.” Dawn looked out her window toward the lake.

  “Um, Edward and Bella? Anyone care to explain?” Ian looked from Dawn to me.

  “Loons,” Dawn explained. “A pair that comes back to Spirit Lake every summer to raise their family.”

  The corner of his lips twitched. “Edward and Bella.” He laughed. “Classic.”

  “Now, Ian, don’t look at me like that. I’m team Jacob. My predecessor named them. I would have given them much better names.” Dawn picked up her binoculars from the table. “In fact, I’m going to check on them now. Care to join me?”

  “We’d love to, but Ian wasn’t kidding when he said he needed to take a shower. Whew.” I waved my hand in front of my nose. “Plus we have a Curtain Call practice after lunch. Maybe another time?” I scratched between Bear’s ears. He thumped his thick tail, sending the contents of the coffee table crashing to the ground.

  “Makwa! Stop!” Dawn shouted, but of course he didn’t. “I mean, béka! How many times have I told you to look before you wag?” Dawn bent to pick up the shell, the eagle feather, and the broken pieces of a mug.

  “Good luck with the obedience training, Dawn.”

  She shot me a look of sheer hopelessness.

  *

  “Dawn called you Needjee. Why did she do that?” Ian drilled me with questions as we walked away from Dawn’s cabin.

  “Sometimes she gives people Ojibwe names. Not everyone though. Just some people.”

  “Why you? Why Needjee?”

  “Needjee means my friend. She says she knew we’d be great friends the minute she met me.”

  Ian looked thoughtful again. “Wait, she gives people Ojibwe names and her name is Dawn?”

  “Her real name is Waubun-anung, which means Morning Star. Everyone butchered it her first summer here, so she said we could just call her Dawn.”

  “You were right. She is cool. I still can’t believe someone could throw puppies away to die like that though.” Ian scowled.

  “At least Bear’s safe. I can’t imagine a better place for him than with Dawn.”