Thomas knelt to look Red Wolf in the eye. He reached out as if to take hold of the boy’s hands, but Red Wolf was too quick for him and hid them behind his back. The man rested his soft white hands on the boy’s shoulders instead and spoke gently. “We are strict, not because we are mean, and not because we want to hurt you, but because you need to learn our language, our civilized ways, our Christian religion. Believe me, it’s for your own good. You’ll thank me one day. You see, you’ll never get to Heaven unless I save your heathen soul.”
Red Wolf had absolutely no idea what the priest said.
Red Wolf followed Mother Hall along the corridor, up two flights of wood stairs, along another corridor, and into a long room filled with two rows of rectangular boxes. There was a flurry of activity as boys scampered to them, jumped on top, and pulled grey blankets to their chins. They lay still and silent, their dark eyes staring at Red Wolf as he walked toward the vacant bed.
Mother Hall twisted Red Wolf’s arm so that the inked numbers on his hand were the same way up as the painted sign on the wall above the bed.
“Three-six-six,” she said. “That’s you!”
She quickly unfolded a clean bed sheet and sent it billowing into the air, allowing it to float down onto the horse-hair mattress.
“Watch how I’m doing this,” she said. “Next time, you’ll do it yourself. I’m not playing housemaid to you.” She tucked the corners and sides and smoothed it down, following it with a grey blanket. She slid the stained pillow into a clean pillowcase and then gave him a nightgown. “Here, take off your clothes and put this on.”
Red Wolf still had no comprehension of the words, but he understood what was expected of him. Mother Hall helped him with the shirt buttons and showed him how the day clothes were to be folded. She held the trousers upside down, making them crease down the front. Red Wolf’s heart leapt. The pendant will fall out. She’ll see it. She’ll hit me. She’ll burn it. But miraculously the pendant defied gravity. Relief washed over him. The trousers were folded and along with his other clothes were stashed in the box under the bed.
“Prayers, boys,” Mother Hall ordered.
The boys jumped from their beds and knelt. In unison they slowly recited: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”
“Bed!” Mother Hall ordered.
Red Wolf, who was accustomed to sleeping on a mat or fur laid on the earth, found it strange that he was expected to sleep on this platform in the air, but during the last few hours he had learned not to question things and to move fast when instructed to do something, so taking his lead from the other boys, he quickly climbed onto the bed and pulled the blanket up to his chin.
Mother Hall turned down the wicks of the oil lamps, plunging the room into darkness.
Red Wolf was exhausted and longed to close his eyes and sleep forever. But his mind wouldn’t let him go to that place of hiding. Around him boys tossed and turned, molding their bodies into the lumpy mattresses. They snuffled and whimpered and snored, but Red Wolf stared through the vertical bars of the window to the black sky. Before long a half moon rose and in his mind’s eye he saw his father. It had been the last night of their trek to the school. Just the previous night! It seemed so very long ago. “When you look up and see the moon and the stars, know that we are looking at the same moon and the same stars … and we are loving you.”
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes and he yearned with an intensity he had never felt to be back with his father and mother, snuggled under their shared blanket close to the fire. He fought to be the brave boy he knew his father wanted him to be.
HeWhoWhistles’ voice spoke again. “Every night before we go to sleep, we will ask Creator to watch over you. Never forget, my son, that Ma’een’gun is your brother and your guide. He will help you. And remember the story of your birth.”
In this unfamiliar sleeping place, raised above the floor, and without furs or family to keep him warm, Red Wolf tried to hear HeWhoWhistles tell the story of his birth. It was a story that had been told and retold on winter nights when the wind had whistled around the wiigwam and snow had blown down the chimney and sizzled in the fire; nights when The People had snuggled under bear skins, singing songs and telling the history of their tribe, going back to the very beginning. But he couldn’t concentrate on his father’s voice.
A horrifying thought struck him. Had his mother sent him away because he ate too much food? He was always asking for more. He saw StarWoman in his mind’s eye, smoothing the long strands of black hair that had fallen loosely around her face, gathering them at the nape and fastening them with sinew so they flowed down her back like a horse’s tail. He remembered the worried look on her face when the baskets of rice and smoked meat were empty, when his belly ached and he whined for food. He heard the shortness of her reply, “No,” then the softer reassurance that tomorrow HeWhoWhistles would check the traps again and would bring home a rabbit. But tomorrow would come and often there would be no rabbit, and he would complain again. Was that the reason she didn’t want him anymore?
He slipped out of bed and in the darkness felt through his clothes until he found the wolf pendant. Cupping it in his hand, he climbed back into bed and drew his knees to his chest, wrapping his whole body around his only possession. “Brother Wolf,” he murmured, “help me find my way home.”
Finally he slept and dreamed.
“Tell me a story, Mishomis,” he asked, nuzzling his face into Grandfather’s chest. “The one about Nanabozho … in the beginning …”
“In the beginning,” Grandfather started, “Creator made a world of —”
Red Wolf joined in, “Water… wind … Rock … and fire.”
“That’s right! And to the sun he gave the power to heat and light the earth.
To the earth he gave the power of growth and healing.
To the water he gave purity and renewal.
To the wind he gave music, and the breath of life itself.
After these things, Creator made animals and us, The People, Anishnaabek.
But The People had much to learn about how to live on this earth, about how to —”
“Hunt,” Red Wolf chimed in loudly.
“And how to —” Grandfather looked expectantly at the boy.
“Heal?” the child said hesitantly.
“Yes! The Great Spirit needed to teach us about kindness, honesty, and generosity. So He sent a teacher whose name was —”
“Nanabozho!”
“Looking at Nanabozho, you wouldn’t know that he was any different from you,” the old man continued, “but he was. He was half spirit and half human. His mother was Woman, and his father was the West Wind! And what could Nanabozho do?”
“He could do wondrous things,” Red Wolf answered proudly.
