The Warriors

by Joseph Bruchac

  by Joseph Bruchac

  Carolrhoda Books • Minneapolis

  For my Iroquois friends,

  especially Rick Hill, Oren Lyons, and Peter Jemison,

  whose hearts are always in the game.

  Text copyright © 2003 by Joseph Bruchac

  Cover art copyright © 2003 by Darby Creek Publishing

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Carolrhoda Books

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

  Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bruchac, Joseph, 1942–

  The Warriors / by Joseph Bruchac.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Jake has left the reservation for Weltimore Academy and entered a different world. Everyone there loves lacrosse, but no one understands it the way Jake does, as an Iroquois. And no one understands Jake either.

  ISBN-10: 1–58196–002–0 Library binding

  ISBN-13: 978–1–58196–002–0

  ISBN-10: 1–58196–022–2 Softcover

  ISBN-13: 978–1–58196–022–8

  1. Lacrosse—Juvenile fiction. 2. Iroquois Indians—Juvenile fiction. 3. Boarding school students—Juvenile fiction. [1. Lacrosse—Fiction. 2. Iroquois Indians—Fiction.

  3. Boarding school students—Fiction.]

  PZ7.B82816Wa 2003 [Fic] dc22

  OCLC: 52607278

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  8 — BP — 6/15/10

  eISBN: 978-0-7613-8277-5 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-6792-7 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3212-3 (mobi)

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE - In the Box

  CHAPTER TWO - The Creator's Game

  CHAPTER THREE - The Drumbeat

  CHAPTER FOUR - Deer Run

  CHAPTER FIVE - Weltimore

  CHAPTER SIX - The Cabinet

  CHAPTER SEVEN - Her Decision

  CHAPTER EIGHT - Drills

  CHAPTER NINE - Another Day

  CHAPTER TEN - Coach Scott's Story

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - Game Day

  CHAPTER TWELVE - Running Home

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Shot

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Secure

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - All Play

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - A Warrior's Home

  C H A P T E R O N E

  IN THE BOX

  “JAKE LOOKED UP at the sun in the afternoon sky. It shone right in his face this final quarter of the game, but he didn’t mind.

  “Elder Brother,” he said in a soft voice, using the old Iroquois name for the sun, He Who Loves to Watch the People Play, “I thank you for looking at me.”

  The sun was not the only one looking at Jake and the other teenage lacrosse players. Hundreds of Iroquois people had gathered around the wooden walls of the reservation’s new box lacrosse field. It wasn’t just the population of the rez. Lined up beyond the field were the cars, vans, and pick-ups that had brought the Tuscarora team and its crowd of fans. Whether it was an adult or junior league game, like the one Jake was playing, boxla drew everyone in like noisy bees around a hive.

  Today the buzz was especially intense. Both teams facing off had gone unbeaten until this final game of their summer season. Today’s game would settle who was the best team: the Tuskies or Jake’s team, the Junior Warriors.

  Almost all of Jake’s close relatives were in the crowd. He lifted his head to look over at them. His aunt and uncle, his younger cousins. They were there. But she wasn’t. Grampa Sky was, though. Like always, his grandfather knew when Jake was looking at him. Grampa Sky lifted his hand and put it against his chest, making the gesture Jake knew was just for him.

  Jake thought for a minute about the stories Grampa Sky told him about how it was before Europeans came. Back then, lacrosse was played without walls or boundaries on the fields. Back then, just about everyone, young or old, would have had a lacrosse stick in his hands, playing one village against the other. Now, though, this favorite Iroquois game was played on a field closed in by wooden walls like those of the Canadian indoor rinks, where box lacrosse had first been played in the 1920s during the hockey off-season.

  Jake shook his head. It was good to remember the stories, but right now he had to keep his mind on the game. He looked quickly around the field, checking the positions of the other six men on his team, especially Frank Tarbell and Rick Jamieson. It was easy to pick Frank out, off to his left, even without seeing the number on his jersey. In August, Frank had dyed his normally jet-black hair bright red. From under his helmet, Frank’s ponytail hung down his back like a crimson flag. Rick was just as easy to spot. His long, lean arms and legs made him stand out like a heron in a pond.

  First Frank, then Rick, raised a hand to wave in Jake’s direction. Jake raised a hand back to them. He knew they would try to get the ball to him for one last shot.

  Jake pulled in his chin and pushed out his lower lip. Anyone who knew him knew what that meant. His father had called it “Jake’s buffalo look.” Nothing was going to push him back. Two minutes to go. The Junior Warriors were behind by one score. Seven to six. Crunch time.

  Thirty yards downfield the player opposite Frank scooped up the ball without breaking stride. Driving hard, he planted his left foot and then rolled his right leg back, using his body as a shield. It was the kind of change-of-direction dodge a lax kid did twenty times every day in drills. Frank should have had no trouble with it. But his foot caught on a loose piece of turf. He stumbled and lost the ball. It bounced once and then the Tuscarora boy with the number ten on his jersey caught it in the mesh pocket of his lacrosse stick.

  Now Rick was the defenseman in front of Ten. He swung his long stick across one-handed. The wrap check failed as Ten lowered his own stick, ducked under, and whipped a perfect sidearm pass. The lacrosse ball flew as fast as a diving hawk across the field.

  It was such a good pass that the Tuscarora midfielder, number seven, smiled as he got ready to catch it. Jake and his teammates had nicknamed this player Sunscreen. That was the way it went in an Iroquois lacrosse game, always teasing the other players, talking good-natured trash at them. Tuscaroras tended to be lighter-skinned than other Iroquois people, so their game names reflected it. Ten was Freckles. Eleven was Beachboy.

  Jake saw Sunscreen’s smile. It was the same smile that Jake had noticed on the midfielder’s face when he’d scored the goal that put the Warriors down by one point. Jake knew what Sunscreen was thinking: that there was no way Jake could get to that pass before he did. In his own mind, Sunscreen was already twenty yards up the field, dodging defenders, set for the overhand shot that would ice the Tuskies’ victory.

  Jake lowered his stick and let his shoulders slump as if he were giving up, knowing that Sunscreen would see him. It was one of the tricks Uncle Irwin had taught him. “You win with your mind as much as you win with your body, Jake. Never let the other side know what you are really thinking.”

  The ball thumped into the pocket of Sunscreen’s stick. He lowered it into the box, then pivoted to go around Jake. But Jake wasn’t there. Just as the ball had reached the Tuscarora player, Jake had raced behind him. With a perfect poke check, Jake thrust his stick against Sunscreen’s gloved lower hand. The ball popped out of the webbing, and Jake snagged it in midair.

  Jake whipped past one midfielder, then bull-dodged between
two defenders. The goalie was waiting in a crouch, his webbed stick looking as wide as a fish net. He was set to block the overhand shot most midfielders would have tried.

  Jake was not most midfielders. He was Eddie Forrest’s son. As he reached the edge of the crease and he saw the goalie start to follow him across, Jake suddenly planted his left foot, whipped the stick up, and shot the ball backhanded over his left shoulder. It bounced past the goalie’s feet and into the net, just a heartbeat before the sound of the referee’s whistle ending the game. Seven–seven. A tie.

  A shout went up from the crowd on both sides of the field, the same way it almost always did at the end of a game between Indians. It didn’t matter much which side scored the most points; it was the beauty of the game that mattered, the way it brought people’s minds and hearts together. Both sides had played well. Ending in a tie only made it better.

  “Hey, Buffalo Burger!” someone shouted.

  Jake turned around, knowing that shout was for him. That was the nickname the Tusky kids had given him. One of them had recognized him from the Green Corn Festival last summer when Jake had helped his Uncle Irwin run the snack bar tent. They sold traditional Indian Pow Wow foods. Buffalo Burger. It could have been worse. They might have called him Corn Soup.

  It was Tusky Seven. Sunscreen. A big grin appeared on his wide face. He had his right hand held up in front of him as he approached.

  “Buff-a-lo Bur-ger Boy!” he said, as he slapped Jake’s palm.

  Jake grinned back. “Sun-screen Kid,” he said.

  They switched their hand slap into an Indian power handshake. Between the two of them, they had scored more than half of all the goals that afternoon.

  “Pete Hall,” Sunscreen said, tapping his chest with his left hand as he held onto Jake’s wrist with his right. “My dad is that Indian artist, you know the one. You even got one of his pieces here in your school, you know, eh?”

  Jake nodded. “Jake Forrest. My dad—” He paused, not sure what he was about to say or why he had started to say it. His dad was dead, had been dead since Jake was seven. Killed when some scaffolding came down on him while he was working iron in Montreal.

  Jake nodded. “See ya, Sun Kid. Oneh.”

  “Oneh.”

  The other members of Jake’s team came up to congratulate him, just as the coaches were calling for the sides to line up. The two teams shook hands, laughing about the tie.

  It’s over, Jake thought, the thrill of the game leaving him. It’s all over.

  Usually a social and a feast would have been shared by both sides, but the buses had had some kind of problem, so they had to have them back before dark. The Tuscarora Junior Eagles and their coaches couldn’t stick around, but every kid, coach, and helper was given a paper bag filled with fry bread and a cup of corn soup prepared by the mothers of the Junior Warriors to enjoy on their ride home. Portable hospitality was better than none at all. A social would still take place for those who had driven their cars all the way from the Tuscarora Reservation near Niagara Falls to be at the game. Family and lacrosse and sharing—they were the heart of being Iroquois.

  Jake sat down on the side of the field, his helmet and gloves on his right side, his beloved wooden stick on his left. The crowd had moved up to the longhouse for the social. No one else was around.

  Why is this happening? Why do I have to go off to Maryland? Why do I have to leave the reservation, leave all my friends and family? This is my land. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived.

  The reservation was a place where just about everyone else was Indian and Jake could just be himself. The condo where he’d be living with his mom was far from home. In so many ways.

  “What am I going to do?” he softly said aloud to himself. “Nobody is going to know me there. Nobody.”

  C H A P T E R T W O

  THE CREATOR'S GAME

  “JAKE,” A DEEP VOICE RUMBLED. It was a voice that Jake loved more than any other voice in the world. He remembered how, when he was little, that voice had sung him lullabies in his people’s language. Those were times when his mom was off at school and his dad was working iron somewhere far away. It was the voice of Uncle Irwin, his mom’s brother. Uncle Irwin and his wife Aunt Alice had babysat for Jake so much, it was like Jake was just another one of their kids.

  “Jake?” the voice repeated.

  Jake didn’t look up. “Hi, Uncle Irwin,” he said.

  Irwin Printup folded himself down into a sitting position in one easy motion. Even though he was as big as a bear now, he still could move almost as gracefully as when he’d been the best attacker on the Syracuse lax squad—the one that won the Nationals two years running.

  They both looked out over the field. Seven generations of players from their reservation had battled on that ground. Sons, father, grandfathers . . . the same names and numbers repeated from one generation to the next, lacrosse warriors whose sweat and tears and blood had made the soil of their reservation even more sacred.

  The sun was about to vanish behind the pines on the high hill to the west. Neither of them said anything, but both Jake and his uncle looked toward the sunset, their minds connecting as one: Let us be thankful that we were given this day.

  “I think we pleased the Creator with this game,” Uncle Irwin rumbled.

  Jake nodded. Lacrosse was the Creator’s Game. It was a gift that the Holder Up of the Heavens had given the Iroquois people, a way to make them strong, a way to join together in a great game that was also a prayer. That was why they still sometimes played the medicine game form of lacrosse here and in other Iroquois communities, dedicating the game to someone who was ill in the hopes that the spirit of the game would help the sick person recover.

  Irwin Printup put one hand on his nephew’s shoulder, the powerful muscle tense and strong. Even though Jake was only twelve, he was almost as strong as a man. Jake’s uncle moved his other hand over and began to massage Jake’s neck and shoulders, loosening the tightness.

  “Uncle Irwin,” Jake said. Then he stopped.

  “I know,” Uncle Irwin said. “You don’t want to go.”

  Jake twisted around to look up at his uncle. Then he turned his eyes back to the ground.

  “Why can’t I stay here with you and Aunt Alice?” Jake asked.

  Irwin Printup shook his head. “Your mom loves you,” he said. “That’s why. She figures you and she have spent too much time apart, what with her being off at school so much, getting her law degree. Now that she can afford a place big enough for you both, as well as having enough to pay your tuition, she just wants you with her.”

  Jake couldn’t stop himself. Even though he knew the words were selfish, they jumped out of his mouth. “What about what I want?”

  Uncle Irwin took his hands off Jake’s shoulders. “You know,” he said, “when your great-grandfather got sent off to Carlisle Indian School, all the way down to Pennsylvania, his mother cried. That was back in 1912. She didn’t know if she was ever going to see him again. But he found his way back here, Jake. And that is the way it has always been. Our people find a way to get back.”

  Jake squared his shoulders. Uncle Irwin was always like that, able to find the right words to say. That was one of the reasons the Clan Mothers of their reservation had chosen Irwin Printup to be a Faith Keeper, one whose job it was to keep their old ways alive, to protect the heart of their culture.

  Jake picked up his lacrosse stick and placed it in his uncle’s hands. “I want you to hold on to this for me,” Jake said.

  Irwin Printup cradled the stick. He knew that it belonged in his nephew’s hands, but he understood what Jake was doing. A stick became part of a man, an extension of his eyes and hands and heart. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Now here comes your aunt. Bet she’s wondering why we aren’t up there getting our share of fry bread.”

  Jake and Uncle Irwin stood and walked up the hill toward Aunt Alice. As always, a big smile lit up her face. Aunt Alice was one of those people whos
e happy face held a smile the way the sky holds the morning sun. But now her smile seemed even brighter than usual.

  “Jake,” she said, “someone’s waiting for you up at the longhouse. Your mom is here.”

  “Did she see me play?’ Jake asked. “I never noticed her in the—”

  Aunt Alice’s smile dimmed. “No, honey. She thought she had it planned just right to get here in time. But you know how it is with flights out of Washington. She had a two-hour delay, so she just got here.”

  Jake’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve got to put my stuff away first,” he said. He dragged his feet as he headed for the back door of the school.

  C H A P T E R T H R E E

  THE DRUMBEAT

  JAKE SLOWLY PUT AWAY HIS GEAR in the school locker room. He was in no hurry to get to the social where his mom was waiting. Usually he’d be running as fast as he could to get to her, to feel her strong arms wrap around him, to hear her whisper “Jakey” into his hair. It didn’t matter that he was taller than she was now. Whenever Mom showed up, he turned back into the little kid who just couldn’t be hugged long enough.

  Today was different. Even though it had been two weeks since he’d seen her, Jake wasn’t eager this time to have her pull him close. He knew this time she was going to say it was time for him to go.

  Jake shook his head. He realized he was feeling sorry for himself. Nothing good ever came of that. He had learned that a man had to keep a good mind if he hoped to accomplish anything. Otherwise a person could become angry and confused, and his path would be just as twisted as his thoughts. That was what Grampa Sky had told him more than once. Grampa Sky always seemed to have a story to tell or a wise word that helped Jake understand the best way to go.

  Grampa Sky had made Jake’s favorite lacrosse stick, the one he had just placed in Uncle Irwin’s care. According to how white people reckoned things, Grampa Sky wasn’t really his grandfather, but something more along the lines of a great-uncle, two times removed. But he was still Grampa Sky to Jake and to most of the other kids. On this reservation, the web of connections among families went back hundreds of years, and everyone knew exactly how he or she was related to everyone else. Grampa Sky was also a member of the Wolf Clan, just as Jake and his mother were. That gave them an even more special relationship.