Free The Porcupine Year by Louise Erdrich

at himbefore he darted away. The porcupine tumbled off his head, and Nokomis took the opportunity to grab Quill in a hug, so there was nothing he could do but hug her back. Omakayas stood aside and tried not to feel anything but the happiness of seeing her father and brother, but part of her was bereft. She missed Animikiins and Miskobines. She wondered if she’d ever see the boy who seemed to understand her, or the old man with his great sense of thoughtful dignity.
    â€œThey will return,” said Deydey, as if he knew what she was thinking. “The Bwaan chief promised that they would be back by next spring.”
    Omakayas turned her head shyly, in confusion that her feelings were noticed, and when she did she stareddirectly into the eyes of the chimookoman boy. Zahn stood motionless with his little sister, watching the reunion. There was no doubt that he, too, was happy to see Deydey and Quill. But in his face there was also an intense longing—for his own parents, surely. Omakayas instantly felt a pang of grief for him. She walked over, put her arms around his shoulders, and said that he was a brave boy. He didn’t yet understand enough of the Ojibwe language to reply, but he seemed to know that she cared for him. His hand tightened on her wrist.

NINE
PUSHING ON
    D eydey and Quill lifted the canoe that belonged to Miskobines and Animikiins up into a tree, where it wouldn’t rot, and where Miskobines and his son would find it when they returned from the Bwaanag. As the family traveled, they suffered from the loss of two hunters. Old Miskobines had the wily patience of age, and Animikiins had great strength and endurance. The family moved north. The area they passed through was well hunted, and as the birds and geese were now moving south it was increasingly hard to find meat. But it was a good rice year, and great stands of manoomin fed them along the way. They reached the south shore ofMiskwaagamiiwi, or Red Lake, and with great relief traveled along its edge, making a good distance every day, and stuffing themselves with fish. The days were long and perfectly warm, but at night there was a chill. In the morning, there was a fresh vigor to the air.
    Soon, too soon, the leaves would fall. Already, Omakayas could see the first signs of dagwaaging, autumn, in the initial flags of red, orange, and yellow in the maples and birch.
    Old Tallow had her dogs, Nokomis, and the white children in her small canoe. Deydey and Mama traveled with Omakayas and Bizheens. Fishtail, Angeline, and Quill paddled a new canoe, which they had just made as best they could. They were all wedged in surrounded by packs of furs and bark packs of manoomin, bags of weyass, dried meat, or pemmican, pots, tanned skins, and bundles of their blankets. All summer, they had added to their store of goods, which they planned to trade for new traps, heavy blankets, ammunition. They had never been loaded with such wealth, and were very careful not to wet the packs of furs and hides. There would be so much to carry once they reached the northern tip of Red Lake that they worried about how they would make it across the great stretch of waabashkiki, or swampland, that still lay between the little family and the great lake where Muskrat lived.
    â€œWe have come at the right time,” said Deydey, “before the rains begin. But we must hurry, or we will have to waituntil freeze-up to cross the sloughs and bogs.”
    Every day they paddled the loaded canoes for as long as they could. When they camped onshore at night, they sometimes put up lean-tos of leafy branches. Other nights, they dug comfortable beds in the sand and slept curled in their blankets. Most of the mosquitoes and flies were gone now, and the peaceful waves curled all night at their feet.
    The little porcupine had grown into a fat waddling creature and often wandered away at night. But every morning, when Quill awakened, his medicine animal would be crouched beside his