The Game of Silence

by Louise Erdrich

  “Watch your step!” Nokomis’s voice was even louder and boomed in Omakayas’s ears. She knew that her grandmother saw that she was getting clumsy. It was the cold. She couldn’t feel the ends of her toes, then her whole toes. Her feet burned and then she couldn’t feel them, either.

  “Keep walking!” Nokomis shook her, and Omakayas knew that it was a shake of desperation, meant to save her. She couldn’t speak though. Her mouth was sealed by the drowsiness, her tongue was cold. The ice drops hung heavy on her eyelids. Plus it was so much trouble to talk. Omakayas longed to lie down in the snow and sleep. One part of her mind knew that was certain death. She could not consider it. The other part of her mind could not help dwelling on how pleasant it would be.

  “Omakayas!”

  She had fallen. Nokomis pulled her up and shook her harder now. Omakayas came awake and smiled at her grandmother. “I’m coming,” she said obediently. On numb legs she stepped and stepped. One foot moved, and then the other. She kept track of them. They amused her, down on the ends of her body. Her feet moved in and out of her line of vision. She almost laughed, but the laugh froze inside of her. Sleeping was the only possibility. “I’ll just sleep for a minute,” she heard herself telling Nokomis.

  The next thing she knew, she was being jounced along on her grandmother’s back. The old woman staggered beneath Omakayas, and had trouble moving at all, for their combined weight drove her snowshoes down below the crust of ice. When the crust broke, Nokomis wallowed in the snow. Several times, she had to put Omakayas down and hoist her up again, onto her back. At last, just as she wondered if she could do it again, Nokomis saw Deydey picking his way toward them. He’d gotten worried about them and followed their tracks into the woods. Once he got to them, he grabbed Omakayas and then he and Nokomis tramped as quickly as they could back to the cabin.

  Her body wouldn’t let go of the cold. Omakayas couldn’t stop shaking. She shivered so hard that when she tried to focus her eyes, everything kept bouncing. Yellow Kettle’s worried face blurred. Pinch’s face, too, his mouth open in interested awe. She confused the face of Nokomis bending over her, so gentle and tough all at once, with Angeline’s. Both wore masklike shadows. Even Bizheens, a round bundle in Mama’s arms, seemed to tremble in the air. Deydey warmed the skins, wrapped them around her. He heated up rocks in the fire and set them, covered in furs, all around her body. How her toes and fingers itched and stung when the blood began to circulate back into them! Nokomis rubbed them with bear fat. Tears stung Omakayas’s eyes, but she knew that she suffered frostbite, not freezing, and she would be all right. Still, the cold had sunk right to her very center and took a long time, all night in fact, before the tender care of her family could transform it to warmth.

  When she woke, Omakayas felt completely recovered. Her feet and fingers were swollen and tender, but they all had feeling. She saw Nokomis sitting above her with a makak in her hands, and a spoon carved from a piece of horn. The spoon dipped. A thin and delicious soup poured between her lips. The warmth going down drove the last bit of cold from her center, where it was lodged tight.

  “The cold surprised us all,” Nokomis told her.

  “Is everybody home now?”

  Omakayas was deeply impressed by the power of the cold. It had reached into her with phenomenal swiftness, and taken hold of her warm life with no warning. The embrace of cold was painful at first, then beautiful and comforting. The cold told her that all she had to do was lie down and sleep. The cold had beckoned her to a death of deceptive ease.

  Nokomis busied herself at the fire, stirring the soup. Again, Omakayas asked, this time with fear.

  “Is everybody home?”

  “No,” said Nokomis. “Your Deydey is out looking for Old Tallow. She did not return from hunting. One of her dogs came back last night and threw itself at our door, barking and whining. Deydey followed the red dog immediately.”

  Omakayas’s heart lurched. Had the cold found and taken Old Tallow? The answer was not long in coming.

  The pale sun had just reached over the low pines, into the oiled paper of the window, when Nokomis, Yellow Kettle, Angeline, and even Pinch ran out the door. Makataywazi had barked at the approach of Old Tallow’s dogs, and soon Deydey lurched into the clearing, dragging a hastily constructed sled. Old Tallow was tied onto it. Omakayas crawled to the door. As the great old woman was lifted off and brought into the house, it was impossible to tell whether she was alive or dead.

  They laid her on blankets and furs, as close to the fire as they could put her without scorching her. Nokomis pulled the pile of patched coat away from Old Tallow’s chest, and put her ear to the old woman’s heart. “She’s alive!” Hearing that, Omakayas crept back into the covers. If anyone could survive the grip of cold, Old Tallow could, and if anyone could help her, Nokomis and Mama would do the job. They worked quickly. Mama took the water that was heating on the fire and added snow so that it would not be too hot. Nokomis bathed Old Tallow’s face, hands, and feet in the warm water. Taking off the shawl that bound her hat onto her head, they found one side bloody. Apparently, she’d been knocked unconscious. They boiled cedar into a tea and dribbled it slowly between her lips. And they spoke to her, over and over, in voices they would use for a child.

  Abruptly, Old Tallow sat up, knocking the makuk of tea from Mama’s hands.

  “Ishtay!” Nokomis was overjoyed.

  “Wegonen! What!” Old Tallow glared around her with all the gratitude of a trapped wolf. “What are you doing to me?” Then she frowned at her left hand and shook it like a great paw. “Can’t feel it,” she said abruptly, then fell back in a sudden fainting swoon.

  “She’s out cold again,” said Yellow Kettle, but her voice was pleased.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” said Nokomis, her voice relieved also. “It’s the only way she’ll let us fix her!”

  For sure, Old Tallow would live. Not only that, she was still herself—cranky, bold, irascible, tough. It was not until the next day, however, that she recovered enough to tell everyone just what had happened to her out in the woods. Deydey had to tell part of it as well, for he had found her. Between the two of them, they put the story together.

  THE GREAT LEAP INTO NOTHING

  “I was tracking that big doe,” said Old Tallow. “I’d seen her tracks for about a month, and now I was sure I had her. Little did I know, ahau! After that nice warm morning it began to get cold, then colder.”

  At this, Omakayas nodded, remembering well.

  “My dogs and I got down to the remote edge across from the island of the bears, and we finally saw her. Geget sa! I could not believe it. She was no ordinary animal, but a white doe. Fat and beautiful. And it seemed to me, my friends, that she looked over her shoulder as though to say to me that I, Old Tallow, was chosen to hunt her. To take her. And then I really wanted to catch that deer.”

  Nokomis gasped. “A white doe? A spirit animal!”

  “Geget sa. That’s right,” said Old Tallow. “Right there, I should have put down my tobacco. I should have given her an offering for showing herself to me. Then I should have left her alone. But you know Old Tallow! I’m a hunter! I could not let her go!”

  “So you started after her,” Omakayas breathed.

  “I did, my child, and let this warn you. There was no way that I was going to get that doe. My heart was full of greed. I kept thinking how I’d walk back to camp carrying the white doe on my shoulders. We’d have a special feast. Its hide would be a marvel! Greed. That’s what filled my thoughts.”

  “It got very cold,” Nokomis said, “how far did you track her?”

  “Too far!” said Old Tallow. “Not that I got lost. Old Tallow never gets lost! But far enough so I began to feel a little tired. And then, the cold began to steal my brain. I saw the doe in front of me, so close. With the cold closing down on us, I started to chase her. I could not let up. That warmth made a mist once the cold hit. Soon, my dog and I got so close that we could see the doe just before
us, moving through the fog and snow. Blending into its whiteness. We began to run. That’s when she tricked us! My friends, I saw something no Anishinabeg will ever see. I saw the white doe walk into nothingness. Yes, she stepped into misty air like it was solid. For her, it was. As for us, we tumbled off a steep cliff and down onto the rocks!”

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  “That’s where Old Tallow must have hit her head,” said Deydey, “for that is where I found her, nearly covered with the snow. And hear this. The tracks of that doe did lead to the edge of the cliff and then…nothing. Except a big mess of dog and human tracks where Old Tallow blundered and slid!”

  Old Tallow laughed. “I sure made a mess going down all right. I fell a ways, then pitched ears over butt all the way to the bottom!”

  Even Omakayas, who could see it all too clearly, had to laugh at the picture of Old Tallow in her big tattered coat rolling and bouncing down the steep pitch of earth.

  “And hear this,” said Deydey, “her dogs saved her life. They must have talked it over, those dogs, for they sent only one dog back to fetch me. When I finally tracked them out there, here is what I saw. The other dogs were curled around Old Tallow for warmth. The whole pack saved her. If they hadn’t lain against Old Tallow, she wouldn’t have survived. Only that one hand,” Deydey nicked his chin toward Old Tallow’s hand, which was resting in a wooden bowl of warm water, “that one hand was out on her chest, with no mitten. I guess the dogs could not figure out how to cover it.”

  “I’m worried about that hand,” said Nokomis. “That’s why we’re greasing it up. Can you get some feeling in it yet?”

  Omakayas winced, remembering exactly how painfully the blood moved back into her fingers and toes. Old Tallow’s face was neutral. She showed no hint of pain. “It’s coming back, the feeling,” she said, “just a few fingers are still numb.”

  Slowly, Nokomis nodded. She heated up more bear grease and gently painted it on the poor frozen skin. It was not good to rub the skin too hard, or heat it up too quickly. Everything must be done with the greatest delicacy, so as not to destroy more feeling. Slowly, with great care, she bound the hands of Old Tallow into great fur clubs and ordered her to sleep some more.

  “Sleep is the best medicine sometimes,” she said. “We’ll feed your dogs. Don’t worry about anything, just sleep.”

  But Old Tallow had already gone into the land of dreams.

  Old Tallow’s hand was slow in getting better. Every day, once the fierce lady moved back to her own house, Nokomis took Omakayas along and went to visit. She changed the dressing, and examined the hand closely. As she did this, she taught Omakayas just how to do the same. All of this was part of her education as a healer. When patches of skin fell off, Nokomis showed her how to bathe the new skin in balsam water. Old Tallow now hobbled mightily since her toes were still painfully healing. She didn’t rest. Her dogs needed her, she said.

  Most of her hand healed back, the skin new and red. Only one finger on Old Tallow’s left hand still gave her trouble—it was the hand that was exposed all night. The last finger was not getting well. The winter moon turned from new to almost half. Slowly, worse and worse each time Nokomis and Omakayas visited, that finger was turning first a gray-blue and then black.

  One day, Nokomis decided.

  “You know what we have to do,” she told Old Tallow. The woman slowly nodded, then shrugged as though to say, I’m lucky anyway. Omakayas looked at her grandmother with incomprehension. Then Nokomis took out her small hatchet. Sitting on the pile of skins in Old Tallow’s cluttered little house, Nokomis began to file the hatchet on her sharpening stone.

  “No!” said Omakayas.

  Nokomis only shook her head, and gave her granddaughter a special look that meant, Hold on to your feelings, it’s not you who has to lose a finger ! She kept sharpening the hatchet to a fine keenness, grinding it against the stone with a rhythm that would have been soothing had it not carried such an awful threat. The sound of the sharpening grated on Omakayas’s nerves. She wanted to shout, to hold her grandmother back. Yet she knew that this was the only way to save the rest of Old Tallow’s hand, and maybe even her life. For if the infection that killed her finger was allowed to spread into the rest of her body, the result would be deadly.

  Nokomis built the fire up and put a stone in it to heat red-hot. She also heated the razor-sharp edge of her hatchet as hot as she could. “You will have to do these things,” she said to Omkayas. “I want you to help.” Omakayas watched and helped her with the heating of the metal. Old Tallow sat numbly in her chair, her face set in a snarl of unconcern.

  “Now,” said Nokomis, “you will help hold Old Tallow’s arm still. She’s so brave she wouldn’t move it on purpose. Sometimes the hand will just react.”

  There was a cut log stump in Old Tallow’s house that served as a chair. Nokomis poured boiling water on it and then put Old Tallow’s hand down and spread apart the fingers. The fire blazed brightly, for light. Beads of sweat popped out on Nokomis’s forehead, but they were not from the heat.

  “Now put your hand on Old Tallow’s wrist,” commanded Nokomis. Omakayas did.

  “Grip my wrist firmly,” said Old Tallow to Omakayas, and then with her other hand she pointed to her eyes. “Look here. Keep your eyes on my face.”

  So Omakayas was looking straight into the strong old woman’s eyes when her grandmother’s keen hatchet fell. It was one swift, true blow. The metal lodged in the wood. Old Tallow’s expression changed only in one slight degree—her mouth tightened on one side as though a stitch was suddenly pulled tight. As Nokomis pressed the wound to the heated, cleansing stone, Old Tallow’s gaze became blazingly fierce and Omakayas saw one—just one—tear spring from the corner of the woman’s eye.

  Later, Omakayas had an odd thought. She wished she’d caught that tear. It was rare. Probably, it was the only tear Old Tallow had ever shed.

  THE HEALING GIFT

  “I want to use a piece of that moose hide we tanned,”

  Omakayas told her mother.

  “You mean Two Strike’s special moose hide?” teased Yellow Kettle.

  Omakayas didn’t like to call it that. She wanted to make something very important, a gift, and that moose hide was one of the best she’d ever finished. She had thought long about her grandmother’s teachings, the care she took in showing everything about her medicines to Omakayas. She understood that everything that Nokomis taught her how to do was involved, in some way or other, with healing and caring for others. Now, she wanted to help to complete the healing of Old Tallow, and she had an idea. She would make the old woman a pair of mitts that would cover the hand missing the last finger, and help to keep those hands warm. Omakayas could see the mittens in her mind’s eye—big and bold, trimmed with otter fur, more beautiful than the ones that Old Tallow had lost. These mitts would remind her of the love that her family had for the old woman, who had helped them out and rescued them many times in the past.

  That day, she and Nokomis cut the mittens out of the moose hide, and she began sewing them together with long pieces of sinew. She worked slowly, carefully, making each stitch count. She wanted Old Tallow to look at the mitts and understand that they would never come apart, or wear out, and that they would protect her hands forever. After the operation on the strong old woman’s finger, Omakayas had been afraid that Old Tallow would not be the same. But the hand healed in remarkable time. Although Old Tallow was not up to her usual course of hunting, not yet, she did accompany Nokomis to check the snares. She also helped Deydey and Pinch fish the holes in the ice, and pulled up large geegoonyag with her good hand, though she couldn’t yet scale them or prepare them to eat.

  The mittens would help. Omakayas smiled to herself as she worked on them through the day, into the night. She bent over them and sewed by the light of a bear grease lamp, squinting at the stitches, feeling her way along the soft, smoked hide.

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  ELEVEN

  DEYDEY AND THE SOUL STEALER
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  When the snow was deep and there was enough fish caught to feed them all for at least half a turn of the moon, Deydey broke the winter’s monotony by visiting with the stealer of souls. That was Old Tallow’s name for Father Baraga. Omakayas always begged to come too, and he often let her accompany him to visit the priest. Deydey and Omakayas enjoyed Father Baraga’s talk, for he did not adhere strictly to the insistent speech he used when he lectured in the praying house. Sometimes Father Baraga talked of the country where he was born, far off.

  There, in a place called Europe, kings and queens ruled and great wars raged with terrible killing and many horses to carry the ogitchidaag. The black robe spoke of a country dotted with tiny fenced-off pieces of land where poor people kept gookooshag in their houses and slept in their gardens. He spoke of gichi-oodenan where huge numbers of people were concentrated, cities where the houses were made of stone and nobody moved from place to place, but stayed in one house all their lives.

  Deydey had many questions about these places, and smoked his pipe on the ways of this world. He believed it when Father Baraga said that there were more chimookomanag than the tongue could ever count. Some others did not believe such things, but Deydey said that he thought the priest spoke straight. The only thing that annoyed him about the priest was his behavior when they set up the medicine lodges. Baraga refused to go inside. Sometimes, speaking together, Deydey tried to persuade the priest that his own praying house or sweat lodge was just as good. The priest would not believe it.