The Game of Silence

by Louise Erdrich

  When they were all covered with the stinking mud, throwing sloppy handfuls, roiling up the sticky shore, it occurred to them that Auntie Muskrat, not to mention Yellow Kettle, would not exactly be pleased to see them when they returned home. So the mud people made their way down a path to the waters of the huge, clean lake. There, they ducked and swam until the mud was thoroughly cleaned out of their clothing. Then they chose flat sunny rocks and lay down to dry themselves. As they did so the boy, whose anger was doused with the ridiculous mud, sat quietly next to Omakayas. He sat there so long that she finally began to talk to him.

  “Do you like it over there at Auntie Muskrat’s?” asked Omakayas.

  The boy shrugged and looked very hard at the rock, and she didn’t press him for an answer. He gave one anyway, though it took a long time.

  “It’s good. I guess I…,” he gulped. “I miss my old home. Too many got sick back there,” he said. “My mother got sick. Then the Bwaanag…” his voice trailed off in sorrow. “But I do like it here. I want to stay in this place. I don’t want to go anywhere, ever again!”

  Omakayas nodded in understanding now and surprised herself by grabbing a rock and bashing it at the waves. She was mad at the ogimaa who sent Fishtail off to the west. She was furious at how her family was told to leave their island. The Angry One looked at her in surprise, then took a rock too, slammed it hard at the water.

  “My father says we never had these kinds of problems,” he said, “until the long knives, the chimookomanag, came among us.”

  “Geget sa.”

  Omakayas knew that very well. Chimookomanag. They were the source of some nice things like kettles and warm blankets and ribbons, and the source of terrible things, too. Chimookomanag brought sickness. Her grandmother’s medicines were useless when chimookomanag diseases struck. Chimookomanag illness needed chimookoman medicine. From her own sudden furious reaction, too, she suddenly understood the fury of the Angry One. The pain of losing her tiny brother to the spotted illness would always be in her heart. Anger was a way not to give in to a great sadness. Omakayas wanted to show the Angry One that she understood, but didn’t know how, so she just gave him another rock to smash at nothing.

  “Let’s go back,” said the boy after a while, “maybe your Auntie has some more of that soup.” He was hungry, always hungry. He still could never get enough. He’d starved so badly on the long and desperate journey to this island that he would never be completely full.

  THE BREAK-APART GIRL

  Among the good things that the chimookamanag had brought, there was a chimookoman girl. Omakayas and Twilight had made friends with her. They called her the Break-Apart Girl. The next day they decided to visit her. She lived near town. They walked to the cabin of cut boards where she lived, and as they approached they heard the music she made on the great toothed box that she called a piano. The tinkling notes were sweet and light. They seemed to shimmer on the breeze. Omakayas and Twilight stood close to the house looking at the windows and doors. Soon the girl herself appeared in a window and waved. Then she came out of the house and walked toward them, smiling, holding her skirt like a basket. As always, they saw that her dress nearly cut her in half. Her waist was so tiny that it always looked as though she was ready to snap. That was why they had named her the Break-Apart Girl.

  Not only did the girl’s dress look painful, but her hard shiny shoes, buttoned up the sides, made arrows of her feet and were useless for running. Omakayas pitied her. The chimookoman girl couldn’t run and could hardly breathe. Today, though, her face was eager. In her skirt, they saw, she carried great red fruits. Carefully, the Break-Apart Girl gave some of the fruits to Omakayas, and others to Twilight. The last few, she kept to herself. Nodding at the girls, she opened her mouth. Her teeth were rather small and weak-looking, still, she took a great snapping bite from the apple. The cousins did the same, and then the three walked along to the shore of the lake. There, they sat on rocks, eating the fragrant apples very slowly, catching up the apple juice that dribbled down their chins.

  Omakayas was the first to remove her makazinan. She took her shoes off and ran her feet through the warm sand. Twilight was next. With a look of excited intrigue, the Break-Apart Girl decided to take her shoes off too. It took a long time to undo all of the buttons, but at last her feet were bare. The sight of the Break-Apart Girl’s bare feet startled Omakayas, for the girl’s feet were strangely shaped, the toes gnarled together and pointed, and all of them a dead white unhealthy-looking color. Her feet were, Omakayas was ashamed to think it, ugly. Now she knew why the mission women and the Break-Apart Girl always wore their feet covered, so carefully buttoned up in strong leather. Their feet looked terrible. Omakayas felt pity once more and looked away, over the dark blue waves. Soon the Break-Apart Girl was doing as Omakayas was, running her feet in and out of the sun-warmed sand. The girls decided, pointing and laughing, to test the water.

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  Omakayas and Twilight hoisted their dresses, and so did the Break-Apart Girl. Then, Omakayas envied her a little. Underneath the drab color of her dress, she wore a big ruffed skirt of shiny fabric, striped red and white just like sticks of trader’s candy. It was very beautiful, and Omakayas kept trying not to stare. The girls ran into the water. Then they pranced back up the beach and buried their feet, once again, in the warm sand.

  After they all put their shoes back on, Omakayas pointed at herself.

  “Omakayas,” she said.

  “Omayukya,” said the Break-Apart Girl.

  They all laughed. They had tried this before, and knew that they couldn’t say one another’s names.

  “Clarissa,” the girl said, touching her chest.

  “Gisina,” said Omakayas, and Twilight laughed because it was the word people said when they walked outdoors in winter and the icy wind blasted them. Gisina! It’s sure cold! When the light hit the Break-Apart Girl’s blue eyes, Omakayas shivered a little, for she could not get used to their ghostly color.

  Omakayas pointed back toward the house full of what the Ojibweg called slave animals, the awakaanag, that lived out back of the Break-Apart Girl’s house. They went to visit these odd creatures. The cows were slow, sweetly foolish. One of the strange things about the chimookomanag was that they took the cow’s milk and drank it—this seemed, at first, disgusting to Omakayas. She hadn’t believed such a thing when first she heard about it. However, the Break-Apart Girl seemed to enjoy the milk very much and even, once, sat down to nurse the cow with her hands and squirted the milk right into her own mouth! There was a pig, a gookoosh, who sighed and slept in the mud or snuffled at Omakayas. She was fascinated by his sensitive, wet, frantically rooting pink snout. There were two thick-furred sheep, and chickens. Omakayas very much wanted to have a chicken some day. Nokomis said that keeping these fat silly birds around to steal their eggs was one of the best chimookoman inventions that she knew of yet! For her part, the chimookoman girl was fascinated with Andeg, who had followed them and swooped down when he saw them eating. The girl fed the clever bird bits of apple and seemed to admire everything he did.

  At last, Omakayas and Twilight turned to walk toward home. Before they left, the Break-Apart Girl held each of their hands. She spoke very quickly to them, insistently, in zhaganashimowin, the language of her people, and Omakayas and Twilight nodded politely and smiled back at her, as they always did, until she was satisfied. She seemed so lonely, so desperate for them to do something. What this something was, they hadn’t figured out. No matter. She was always happy to see them, and they her, although Omakayas, looking down at the girl’s feet, felt very sorry for them in those knifelike hard makazinan.

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  FOUR

  THE RED DOG’S PUPPIES

  The red dog was half wild and suspicious. She had hidden her puppies cleverly from all humans, except Old Tallow. Perhaps as a test to find whether they were worthy of the puppies, Old Tallow asked Omakayas and Twilight to find the red dog’s den. Omakayas knew that Old Tallo
w would tame the puppies and raise them as she had raised her other dogs—to eat only from their own dish, to fight off all intruders, to help her hunt, to obey her utterly, to give their lives for her if they must.

  Even now, Omakayas was sure that her cousin would be walking toward Old Tallow’s. Sure enough, she soon met Twilight on the path to the fierce old woman’s cabin.

  They were each a little nervous as they neared the house—Old Tallow was always gruff and her moods were unpredictable. She had told them to be there when she fed her dogs so that they could follow the red one to her hiding place. Sure enough, as they entered the little clearing around her cabin, Old Tallow was sitting in her usual place, on her split log bench, smoking her stone pipe. She grunted her approval of the girls and carefully emptied her pipe, cleaned it, and replaced it in its own little leather bag. They breathed out easily, in relief. She was in a good mood, and even before Old Tallow parceled out the chunks of meat and guts that she fed her dogs, she gave each girl one of the hard lumps of maple sugar she was famous for sticking to the inside pockets of her ancient ragged dress.

  “Howah! You have come! That is very good!”

  The dangerous-looking wolf dogs sat calmly at attention exactly two steps away, where Old Tallow had taught them to sit. They watched every move she made. Six pairs of eyes followed each tiny gesture of her hands. Old Tallow divided the food for the dogs, with great precision and care, into each bowl. She fussily moved one lump here, another there, so that none of them would have more than another. The dogs narrowed their eyes as if they, too, were measuring. When she was satisfied, Old Tallow placed the bowls on the ground in a certain order known only to herself and her dogs. She stood back and told the girls to do the same. There was a momentous pause.

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  “Wesineeg,” she said to the dogs.

  With a great simultaneous leap they were at the food, bolting it with huge gulps. The food was gone in two blinks. The dogs sat back, their pink tongues hanging out. They gave Old Tallow and the girls satisfied dog grins, and trotted away to their own business.

  “Now, follow her!” Old Tallow pointed, and the two girls leaped after the red dog into the bushes.

  At first, the red dog walked with a nonchalant gait, pretending that she didn’t notice them at all. She stopped a few times, as though politely to let the girls pass, and when they didn’t she grumpily dragged herself forward a few paces and sat down again. They waited. Now the red dog eyed them with impatience. She wanted to get to her pups! Why were these humans behaving in such an odd fashion! She became suspicious of the girls. Suddenly, with no warning, she dashed off.

  Omakayas jumped after her, running, scrambling through brush, and squeezing between the tight growth of alder. But Twilight, perhaps on some instinct that only her sensitive nature could discern, stayed back. And she was right to do so, for after an awful chase through one bog and thickets of close-woven bushes, the red dog disappeared. Omakayas did her best to follow, but finally, sweating and bitten by flies, she decided to return to the clearing where she’d last seen Twilight. When she burst back through the brush, there stood Twilight, holding one of the puppies in her arms!

  The red dog had decided to try to lead the girls away from her pups, to lose them in the dense brush, but Twilight’s instinct had been to stay where she was and sure enough, as soon as their surroundings were quiet, the puppies appeared. Out of a hole hidden underneath some rocks, one and then another fat, hilarious puppy tumbled, almost directly at Twilight’s feet.

  Now the puppies looked at the girls comically, hoping that these big new animals were ready to play. There were three of them, and they were the best things the girls had ever seen—each of them was round-bellied, puppy-friendly, and as excited about the girls as they were about them. The red dog began to bark and growl wildly in alarm, and Old Tallow hurried toward them. Pleased, she scratched the red dog’s head and told her that the girls were harmless. Suspicious, the red dog grumpily crouched at attention and watched every little move they made with motherly alarm.

  “You have done good work,” Old Tallow told the dog. “But now it is time for you to rest. Let others take care of your children. They will take good care of them.” Old Tallow fixed the girls with a ferocious, squinting glare and they hurried to agree with her.

  “Now,” Old Tallow said to the girls, holding the red dog close to her, stroking her head, “you girls must choose. Use great care. This dog will depend on you for its life, and some day you may depend upon your dog for yours. So watch your puppy very closely. Look into its eyes to determine its character.”

  The girls pretended to give their choices a great deal of thought, but in truth they had already made up their minds. Twilight picked the one who had nearly jumped into her arms. He was a bold, affectionate gray. As for Omakayas, she stayed with the other two for a long time, but in truth, her puppy had already chosen her. Some black wolf with yellow eyes had been its grandfather, she was sure, and this puppy had the same quiet and alert nature as a wild animal. The little black male watched Omakayas for a long while before finally he came over and sat next to her. Even after that, he really did not consent to play until sure that Omakayas was someone to be trusted.

  Makataywazi, she named her dog, meaning the black one, black like her crow, Andeg. She held her dog, soft-furred, salty-smelling, puppy-sweet, very close as she carried him home. All the way there, her puppy was very quiet, but then as though he sensed that he was entering a new life he whimpered a little when they neared the house. As they came in sight, Andeg lifted off the top pole of the birchbark house and swooped down, curious. He wheeled high, his voice grating in alarm. Crak! Crak! What was his human carrying? The puppy strained from Omakayas’s arms, taut with eagerness to play with the intriguing bird. When Omakayas let him down, he watched Andeg. The crow circled low, then pounced on the puppy’s back and pecked the top of his head. Makataywazi yelped and then, as he was only a little puppy, he stumbled over his own feet and sprawled right on his face in front of Yellow Kettle, the very one who didn’t like dogs! Omakayas had planned to introduce her new puppy slowly, displaying his charms to her mother carefully. But Andeg had decided otherwise. Yellow Kettle, who sat on the ground with Nokomis mending the fishing net, gave the puppy a resigned look and kept on working. Bizheens was sleeping right near them. Quietly Makataywazi sat between the two women and waited. It was the right thing to do.

  “Why, he’s not such a bad little thing!” Mama noticed, and she even put out her hand to pet Makataywazi; at least she stroked him with one finger. That was all Mama said and all she needed to say. Obviously, she and Old Tallow had talked over the idea beforehand, because there was a little bowl of fish trimmings ready for the puppy. Omakayas scooped the dog up and brought him to the edge of the camp to feed, relieved to see that there was no Pinch anywhere in sight. She dreaded the sight of her brother, for he would immediately try to take over her puppy, she knew, and teach it to hunt and kill frogs for him. He didn’t know the teachings of Old Tallow, who had trained her pack of dogs so well.

  “Food is the only key, and you must use it wisely,” Old Tallow had instructed her. “Never give food unless your dog does something to earn it, no matter how small. They need to have a job, just like us humans. That’s why they have their own dishes, too. They are different, they are dog people, but they are after all a kind of people. And of all the many animals, they are the only ones who can stand to be around us.”

  THE BEAUTIFUL SLEEPWALKER

  Angeline was so beautiful, even with the pits of smallpox that scarred her cheeks, that Omakayas sometimes gazed upon her as on a striking sunset, or a particularly lovely bird in the woods, or an amazing piece of beadwork. It was very nice to look at her, and nobody’s eyes ever got tired. Since her illness, Angeline had changed from a somewhat remote and haughty older sister to a person of deeper understanding. Although she was sometimes her old self, and hurt Omakayas’s feelings, most of the time now she had patience with
Omakayas. They talked like friends.

  Since Fishtail had left, Omakayas could tell that something was wrong with Angeline. She wasn’t ever hungry and merely picked at her dish of food until Pinch, eyeing whatever she had, begged her to let him finish it. She sighed as if a lump were in her chest. She swallowed hard as though the lump had moved to her throat. In her sleep, she moaned. Sometimes Omakayas found her sister staring hard at the bark of a tree, not really seeing it, or she caught her sister in arrested motion with a needle in her hands, frowning into the air.

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  Omakayas knew that her sister’s distraction had something to do with Fishtail’s absence, but exactly what never occurred to her until Nokomis said, kindly, as the three worked together on a deer hide that would be sold to the trader, “Someone is thinking of someone far away.”

  Someone is thinking of someone. Angeline didn’t even hear her grandmother, for she was staring just past the edge of the deer hide with a half smile on her face. Her arms worked, her hands scraped a sharp clamshell against the hide and removed the deer hair, but Angeline behaved as though she were a sleepwalker living in a dream. Nokomis smiled, and went on with her own work, but Omakayas put down her scraping tool and stared at her sister.

  Someone is thinking of someone. One someone was Angeline, for sure. The other someone was not here, but far away. The only people far away were Deydey, who was just off hunting and who wouldn’t make Angeline look so dreamy, and Pinch, but he was only at the other end of the island and he certainly wouldn’t make her smile. And then there was Fishtail. For Angeline to look that way over Fishtail was certainly odd, but the answer of course was obvious once Omakayas put the two in one thought.