Makoons by Louise Erdrich

Author:Louise Erdrich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

“Here we are practicing how to destroy his relatives,” said Makoons.

“Don’t tell him,” said Chickadee, scratching the buffalo calf’s head. “He might hate us.”

“But a man must live,” said Makoons.

“You sound like Gichi Noodin.” Chickadee laughed. “A man must do what he must do! A man must keep his pants clean! A man must toss his hair! A man must show his chest!”

“A man must ride his horse backwards holding the tail!”

They collapsed with laughter, which made them hungry. Hungry, they imagined how they might slip back home without alerting their mother, who would force them to help tan hides. How they loathed that laborious and stinky process. And it would be impossible to argue their way out. With no pity in her voice their mother would say she’d loathed the job all of her life, too, but had to do it anyway. They had never yet succeeded in complaining their way out of it.

“We have to slip back in, steal the food.”

“We will pretend they are the enemy.”

“We are raiding the enemy camp!”

“We must stake our horses near to get away swiftly.”

“And slink in under cover of the buffalo calf.”

This seemed an excellent idea. First, they painted their faces with stripes of white and black clay. This would make them terrifying if they had to confront an enemy. But they believed their plan would work. They would be mystically invisible. The women were used to the buffalo calf roaming here and there around the cabin, sometimes butting heads with the lamb, sometimes trying to get through Nokomis’s fence. Several times she had smacked her cane over the calf’s head. Diamond willow is one of the hardest woods that exists, so it must have hurt. The point was, if the buffalo calf wandered into camp the women wouldn’t even notice, and if it had eight legs instead of four, they might not notice either. The boys would crouch low next to their calf, steering him with a rope harness until they came near enough food to snatch it with their hands.

Next, they scouted the camp. They tethered their horses and crept close, the buffalo calf on a rope behind them.

“Ah, the enemy is doing just as we predicted,” said Chickadee, speaking in a tense whisper.

“They are pretending to prepare hides, while their warriors lay in wait to ambush us.”

“Yes, that is their plan. They will pretend everything is normal and take us by surprise.”

“We will take them by surprise,” hissed Makoons. “We will raid their food supply. Our spirit buffalo will help us become invisible.”

Closer and closer they crept, while the buffalo innocently munched what it could snatch from the grasses that hid them. The boys agreed to be very careful passing near the garden.

“A very dangerous old warrior watches there,” said Chickadee, thinking of Nokomis’s cane.

“One with sharp eyes who will warn the others,” said Makoons.

They would try to avoid another dangerous warrior, their mother. Sometimes they disobeyed grandmother Yellow Kettle because they were used to her scolding. But

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