Free Trickster's Point by William Kent Krueger Page A

him that Sam had to make the offer. It was not a skill he shared lightly. And it was one he shared only with those in whom the blood of The People ran. When Sam gave Cork that beautiful, handmade recurve bow, Cork understood it was the invitation he’d been waiting for.
    All that spring and through the summer, Sam Winter Moon taught him the way of the bow. Sam had a cabin on the Iron Lake Reservation, and whenever he could get away from his burger joint, he and Cork would head out to the cabin, where Sam had a workbench and tools—nocking pliers, a broadhead wrench, a fletching stripper and fletching jig, taper tools, an arrow saw. Sam taught Cork the proper way to make and true an arrow, splice feathers for fletching, and although he used manufactured broadhead tips for his hunting, how to make an arrowhead from a chunk of flint. First he taught Cork to shoot at stationary targets, usually a hay bale on which Sam painted circles and a bull’s-eye. Once Cork was able to group the arrows tightly, Sam set up a moving target, a stuffed rabbit he’d affixed to the center of a short two-by-four board mounted on tricycle wheels, which he pulled in rapid jerks across the yard while Cork attempted to send an arrow into its heart. He tossed small burlap pillows stuffed with dried grass into the air to simulate thesudden flight of a game bird. He taught Cork how to move carefully, soundlessly through the forest, and the signs to watch for as he stalked. Finally, in the fall, they began to hunt small game. Cork was clumsy at first, but Sam was patient, and eventually Cork’s arrows began to find their marks. In that first year, they didn’t hunt large game, but Cork continued to bring down anything edible, and to offer to the elders of the Iron Lake Ojibwe more rabbit, grouse, wild turkey, and duck than they’d probably had since before the white man came.
    The next fall, he and Sam hunted white-tail deer. It was challenging in a way that rifle hunting with his father had never been. To kill a deer required that he be almost close enough to hear it breathing. It was a shockingly intimate experience, and after he’d brought down his first buck, he understood why it was necessary for his own spirit that he sing to the spirit of the animal he’d killed, that he explain the violence and promise the beautiful creature that his body would feed The People, and they would be grateful.
    In the spring of his freshman year, Cork ran track for Aurora High School. He was tall and had long legs, and his specialty was hurdles. Jubal was on the track team, too, and whatever Jubal did—and he could do just about anything—he did well. The one thing he refused to do was run hurdles. Cork understood that it was, in a way, a gift Jubal was offering him.
    Cork wanted to offer something in return, something important, and he asked Sam Winter Moon if he’d be willing to teach Jubal how to hunt in the old way. He knew that it was a skill Jubal wanted desperately to learn, but Cork had so far refused to ask Sam to teach him. He’d refused for two reasons, both purely selfish. First, if Sam agreed to teach Jubal Little, Jubal would undoubtedly become better at it than Cork. And second—and more important—it meant that Cork would have to share with Jubal the man who now, in many ways, filled the gap left when Cork’s father died. In his own mind, however, Cork had begun to think of Jubal as a brother, and so he finally decided to offer this gift. But Sam said no.
    “It’s something I share with Shinnobs,” he told Cork.
    “What if Jubal was Indian but not Shinnob?” Cork asked.
    Sam shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. That boy’s white.” Then Cork saw a little glint in Sam’s dark eyes. “But if he was Indian, I suppose I might.”
    Cork talked to Jubal, who was reluctant to share the secret of his blood, even with Sam Winter Moon. Cork told him that he suspected Sam already knew, and Jubal seemed taken aback.
    “You said something to