Free The Porcupine Year by Louise Erdrich Page B

finished packing their canoe, left it barely touching the sand and walked over to Albert, also curious.
    Albert disregarded their questions. His eyes darted with great interest to the family’s packs of furs and hides and manoomin, but then he narrowed his eyes, pretending indifference. He looked away and put a pleasant, eager expression on his face. Omakayas could see that there was something wrong. He seemed jittery, his voice was pinched.
    â€œYou have been hard at work, I see. Are you on your way to the trader’s?” He gave a hollow, jolly laugh.
    Old Tallow and her dogs stepped closer, next to Deydey.
    â€œAre your ears shut? Let me ask you again,” she said in a menacing voice. “Where is your family?”“Oh, ah, they are all very well, doing very well, ah yes, up in Lac du Bois, up there in the islands. Good hunting, fishing. Yes, they are fine.”
    Sweat popped out on Albert LaPautre’s big shiny face and his eyes darted from side to side, shifty and strange. One of Old Tallow’s dogs growled at the bushes behind Albert, and Old Tallow raised her hatchet.
    â€œWho is with you?” said Deydey.
    â€œEh, nobody.” Albert opened his mouth in an oily grin and stepped closer. Omakayas noticed that he’d lost several teeth. All of a sudden, he lunged, caught Old Tallow around the middle, and knocked her to the ground. At once, the dogs were on top of him, growling and tearing at his arms and legs. Another dog darted into the bushes, a cry of pain was heard, and then a gun fired. Deydey was wearing his cloth turban, and it flew off as he fell backward.
    Omakayas threw herself on the ground and crawled to her father. Fishtail and Quill ran forward to meet two other men, scrawny and desperate, who leaped from the undergrowth. Nokomis unsheathed her knife and ran at one man, but Yellow Kettle got to him first. She grabbed a rice knocker and began to lambast him while Angeline used a paddle to beat him from behind. When yet another man reached from the bush and grabbed Omakayas’s foot, she slashed his hand with her knife and scrambled to her father’s side.
    LaPautre saw his chance and tried to escape. Running at him with a fierce war yell, Quill tripped on a root. As he fell, his pet porcupine lost its grip on his head and went flying, a prickly cannonball, straight into LaPautre’s face. Now LaPautre’s cry went up, a bizarre and shocked howl. Plucking madly at his cheeks and neck, he ran smack into a tree. He staggered away, lolling crazily from side to side, then gained his balance and dived into the brush. By the time Quill had picked himself up, all of the attackers were gone.
    â€œHowah,” Quill said to his porcupine, gently rubbing its nose, “you are a brave warrior.”
    Omakayas cradled her father’s head. His face was torn and bleeding, but he was talking and gesturing with hishands. Nokomis and Yellow Kettle bent over him and traced how the bullet from the gun had creased his scalp. There were black powder burns all around his eyes and he couldn’t open them.

    â€œHelp, help!” It was Zahn, yelling from the canoe as he tried to fight off the men, who had sneaked around along the shore. Omakayas turned to see them—four ragged Anishinabeg and mixed-bloods and one white man. They had leaped into the canoes and were trying to shove off. LaPautre, still popping with quills, was desperately trying to join his fellow thieves.
    There was a fierce yell from Fishtail.
    â€œGet them!”
    Old Tallow ran to the shore along with Omakayas and Quill. The attackers had taken advantage of the family’s fear over Deydey and managed to shove off with everything, including Zahn and Zozed, with their furs, their skins, their blankets, their kettles, except for the one Mama had grabbed to swing at the head of one of the attackers. Nokomis yelled, “Go!” Fishtail, Angeline, Yellow Kettle, Quill, and Omakayas flung