Starfish (9 page)

L
IONEL'S
N
IGHTMARE
• B
EAR
C
LAWS
• G
RANDPA'S
C
ANDOR
• G
RIZZLY

EARLY THE NEXT
morning, when it was still dark, Lionel woke up covered in sweat with Grandpa standing over him.

“You're having a dream, Lionel. Take a deep breath. It will be all right.”

Lionel sat up and looked around. He was in the little lodge in the meadow by the stream. Beatrice slept soundly next to him; Grandpa crouched beside them, eerily lit by the low firelight.

“You all right?” Grandpa whispered.

Lionel nodded. Grandpa stood up, and in two long, silent strides, was at the door. Lionel wasn't sure if you could inherit the ability to move the way that Grandpa and Beatrice did, but he thought that they both, when they wanted to, moved in similar fashion.

Lionel got up and threw on his clothes to follow, and soon the two were halfway across the moonlit meadow heading toward the stream.

“Don't want to wake up Beatrice. I figure we might get some morning air.”

Lionel looked up at the sky. It was still dark, the stars dancing overhead. They walked in silence. Lionel thought about his dream. He had been back on the shore of the river, but the river had grown into a sea of rolling grass. Grandpa and Beatrice, even Corn Poe, were gone. Lionel was left alone, or so he thought. Lionel turned from the water and saw the Frozen Man. Although he still appeared to be frozen, the man was walking. walking toward Lionel.

Lionel did not know what to do, so he held his ground. Although he was scared, he told himself that he had nothing to fear. He had never harmed the Frozen Man in any way, unless the man was upset that he'd taken the bear claws. Lionel took a step back, but then he noticed that the man held out his arm, and that in his hand was the bear claw necklace, as though he was offering it to Lionel.

Lionel felt bad for the man and thought about giving him his jacket, or that he should make a fire to help warm him, but his gestures were interrupted by the thunderous approach of a horse's hooves. Lionel turned to find Sergeant Jenkins riding wildly toward them.

Sergeant Jenkins rode fast on a horse as black as midnight. Lionel did not know why, but in his dream he stepped in front of the Frozen Man to try to protect him. what was he, a little boy, going to do?

That was when Lionel woke up, and now he was walking with Grandpa across the meadow wet with early-morning dew. The image of Jenkins's scar-snarled face and the lonely icy pale look of the Frozen Man sent a chill up Lionel's spine.

“You cold?” Grandpa asked.

“No, just thinking about my dream.”

“They're powerful, ya know. Dreams. You should pay attention to them like ya pay attention to all that's around you. The trees, the mountain, the birds, this stream, like I said, it's all talking to you.”

They walked up to the water's edge, and Grandpa sat on a boulder. Lionel looked upstream. The water came down heavy with snowmelt from above them. It crashed, cascading in a spiral of waterfalls over giant boulders of granite.

Lionel sat on a small rock next to Grandpa and started to cry. He didn't know why he was crying but could no longer control it. Grandpa didn't say anything. He just put his arm around the boy, and they sat surrounded by darkness until the first hint of morning crept into the eastern sky.

“Grandpa?” Lionel asked. “I think I have something I want to show you. I didn't show it to no one, not even Beatrice.”

“That's up to you, Lionel.”

Lionel took the bear claws from the pocket of his coat and held them out, as the Frozen Man seemed to have held them out to Lionel.

“This belonged to the Frozen Man back at the school that Beatrice told you about.”

Lionel's grandfather took the heavy necklace and ran the thick bear claws through his fingers. He turned each claw over, studying the meticulous beading. He twisted the smooth buffalo leather that connected them and felt the shiny claw tips, as if he were testing their readiness.

“Ulysses took me to him back at the school. When I found him he was holding these out…that's how it looked to me. I took them right before the soldiers got there. They took everything else.”

“This is special, Lionel, and I think it is better that you have it instead of them government men.” As Grandpa handed back the necklace, he looked over to the stable where Ulysses stood with his mule. “Maybe the man tried to give it to the horse, and the horse wanted you to have it or to hold it for him?”

Lionel thought about it. That was possible. He and Ulysses had been friends since the first day they'd met. Lionel's mind was racing again.

“But, Grandpa, I still don't understand—where did the Frozen Man go?”

“To be honest with you, Lionel, I don't know. And despite what they all say, no one knows.”

“They don't?”

“No, they sure don't. How could they?” Grandpa said as he pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch.

He stood and pulled some of the stringy leaves and raised them toward the rising sun, then let the tobacco drift from his fingers, carried away by the slight breeze that rose from the stream. He turned and offered his tobacco to the south, west, and north, like Beatrice had back at the school. He then sat down on the rock, loaded his pipe, and smoked.

“I'm sorry you had to see this side of our people and of the government. I'm confused as to how we let it get like this. I think that we should sit here and think about what has happened.”

And so they sat on the bank of the stream, watching the sun break through the early-morning clouds that hung over them and the mountains. Lionel did as he was told and thought about all that had happened since they had left the boarding school, and before. He thought about the captain and the priest, Barney Little Plume giving the candy to Delores Ground, and the sheep shears sticking out of Sergeant Jenkins's hand.

Lionel could still see Big Bull Boss Ribs and then the look on Corn Poe's face when they first saw Grandpa and thought that he was a ghost or a spirit. He thought about Beatrice and how she silently did what she thought or knew she had to do, and how she had kept him warm despite the freezing cold that they encountered on their long ride into the mountains. He pictured his grandfather and how much wilder he looked when he rejoined them in the Great wood.

Then Lionel thought about the broken string of bear claws and the Frozen Man.

“Lionel,” his grandfather said in a low whisper, “do you smell that?”

“Smell what?” Lionel asked.

Lionel's grandfather responded by taking a deep breath. Lionel did the same. At first, he took in what he had become accustomed to—the smell of the smoke from their fire, wet grass, the high pine, and the familiar smell of Ulysses and Grandpa's mule—but then, he sensed something different. It reminded Lionel of the steam that had risen from Ulysses's back as Beatrice pushed the horse up the frozen river before they entered the mountains. But this smell was wilder.

Grandpa raised a single finger to his lips and slowly turned upstream. Lionel's eyes followed, and there, not two hundred paces away, was a grizzly bear.

The bear was situated in one of a series of pools, his giant paws clawing at the water that tumbled around him. Lionel looked to his grandfather, who sat calmly on his boulder smoking his pipe as if they were watching the Fourth of July horse races down at the soldiers' fort.

Lionel looked at the grizzly and thought about the necklace that hung in his grandfather's hand. what if the bear saw the claws and became angry? what if the claws were from a friend or family member? or, Lionel thought, the claws could also be from one of the bear's enemies, and perhaps they could be friends because the Frozen Man had killed the bear's enemy for him. Lionel hoped that this was true, and that the bear would consider them to be his friends.

The grizzly continued to swat at the swell, occasionally submerging his entire head beneath the pool's surface until one giant swoop from his great paw sent a silver flash up and onto the riverbank. The grizzly turned, looked directly at Lionel and his grandfather, and then rumbled slowly upstream with a giant fish held securely in its mouth.

Lionel couldn't believe what he'd seen. His body tingled with excitement, and his first thought was to run back to the lodge to tell Beatrice. But that wasn't necessary. Beatrice was standing behind him.

“I hope you two took note of your new neighbor,” Grandpa told them.

Beatrice smiled and headed back to the lodge. Lionel sat on his rock. He still could not believe that they had seen the bear.

“I think we can take that to mean that you have their blessings,” Grandpa said as he took the string of bear claws and tied them around Lionel's neck. He stood and followed Beatrice back to the lodge.

Lionel sat, feeling the heavy weight of the bear claws, and thinking about all that his grandfather had said.

T
HE
S
TRAW
M
AN IN
S
ILK
• C
HORES
• B
EAR
C
AVE
• R
OOTS
• T
HE
O
LD
M
AN AND THE
B
ERRIES

WHEN LIONEL
crossed the meadow, he noticed that the straw man perched over the garden had changed. He no longer wore the old pants and shirt that Grandpa had originally dressed him in. He now stood watch in the torn ivory silk dress that Beatrice had abandoned.

Lionel returned to the lodge to find a breakfast of smoked venison and canned peaches waiting for him. They ate, and then Grandpa put the children back to work. They gathered firewood, watered the garden, and repaired various neglected items found around the lodge.

Later that day they returned to the stream and followed the bear's tracks to a small cave about two and a half miles from their meadow. Grandpa felt that it was wise to let the bear be, but wanted the children to know where he was in relation to their new home. Grandpa was confident that as long as Lionel and Beatrice were aware and respectful, they would get along just fine with their neighbor.

They made their way back to the meadow, their grandfather stopping along the way to show them the various roots and berries that were edible and the plants that were not. when they arrived at the stream, their grandfather stopped at a large huckleberry bush with long branches that hung over the bank.

“Did I tell you about the old Man and the berries?” he asked, removing his coat.

“No, you didn't,” Beatrice answered as Grandpa spread his coat beneath the largest of the berry bushes.

“Lionel, hand me the stick over there.”

Lionel picked up a large stick and handed it to their grandfather.

“One day old Man was out doin' his travelin' and he came to a stream, well, kinda like this one. old Man was thirsty, so he lay down on the bank to drink, but, to his surprise, noticed that there were berries all over the rocky bottom.”

Lionel looked into the swilling waters that rushed past them. Unlike in the clear pool where the bear had been fishing, you could not see the bottom; so Lionel did not see any berries.

“The old Man was hungry so he dove into the water to collect the berries. He swam around, diving to the bottom repeatedly, but couldn't find them. As you might imagine, the old Man got tired and pulled himself back onto the bank and collapsed under the shade of the bushes that grew alongside the stream. He slept in the shade for most of that afternoon, but when he woke, he was looking up into the bush above him. There the old Man saw the berries and realized that their reflection in the water had tricked him.”

“He thought that the berries grew under the water?” Lionel said with a giggle.

“He sure did and felt mighty stupid for doin' so. He got so mad that he picked up a stick, like this one I got right here,” Grandpa said, raising the small club over his head, “and beat the bushes, I mean he really gave 'em a thrashing.”

Grandpa brought the stick down hard, whacking the shrub mercilessly.

“Well, what do you think happened?” Grandpa continued as he raised the stick again and again. “All of them berries fell to the ground, giving the old Man another lesson to teach his people.”

Lionel watched the berries fall to Grandpa's coat.

“So, who wants to eat some berries?” Grandfather concluded, throwing a handful into his mouth, then adding, “Close, but not quite ripe.”

That night the children once again gathered around the fire. Lionel didn't feel well, because once he started to eat the berries, ripe or not, he couldn't stop and soon ate himself into a stomachache. After several trips to the outhouse, his belly felt better, but he still lay flat on his back in front of the fire, occasionally sitting up to drink some cool water from the stream out of his tin cup.

Grandpa and Beatrice worked the hide from another deer that Grandpa had shot. He had instructed her to chew on it and to work it in her hands to make it soft and easier to cut into the leggings and shirt that he planned to make for them.

Grandpa also cut strips of leather and set them aside, letting Lionel know that these were for him when his hair had grown long enough to warrant them.

Lionel thought that this was the happiest time that he could ever remember. He figured that Beatrice must have agreed, because although she still kept to herself and did not speak much, she was always happy, a smile stretched across her face. Lionel hated to think of having to go back to the school and its dreary, worn-down classrooms. The thought of the school's gray, tasteless stew compared with what he had eaten since they had arrived at the lodge was enough in itself. He hoped that they never had to leave.