Free I Am Regina by Sally M. Keehn

“Soon you will walk like an Indian.”
    Strangely, her words do not bother me. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind being at least part-Indian, if I could walk like her.
    â€œTskinnak,” she says as we near the sweat lodge. “Tell me white man’s word for the sly one with the long nose and fur like...” She pauses, then points toward the orange-colored sun.
    â€œFox,” I say, surprised by her question. No one here has ever asked me about a white man’s word. Woelfin beats me if I say one.
    â€œFox,” she repeats. Nonschetto smiles at me, as if I’d given her a gift. “Tskinnak. Sometime you teach me white man’s words?”
    â€œYes,” I say. “But why?”
    â€œI use them when we trade furs with white man. If I know words, he cannot trick me. Clear Sky will be pleased. But say nothing to him. This will be our secret.” She squeezes my arm and I feel pleased, so pleased I want to teach her all the words I know. Like rabbit, bear, beaver, wolf ...
    Shrieks of happy laughter greet us as we now skirt the garden patch where yesterday I clubbed three mice. A gaggle of little children scream past, catching snowflakes in their outstretched hands.
    I do not recognize Sarah at first, for she is wearing an old bearskin robe— Woelfin’s robe. It drags along the ground behind her. I cannot imagine Woelfin lending it to Sarah. And yet ... I can. Sarah has changed since she first spoke. Now she speaks eagerly in the Indian tongue. Hearing her speak the foreign words saddens me, but pleases Woelfin. She rewards Sarah with scraps of food each time she speaks. Sarah has a sweet and winning way. Sometimes the funny things she says make Woelfin laugh.
    Sarah runs up to us, her sweet face flushed with pleasure. “Quetit,” she says proudly, pointing to her chest.
    â€œYes, you’re Quetit,” I reply, not bothering to correct her. I must never call her Sarah again, until we escape or an army comes.
    â€œNonschetto,” she says, pointing to my friend.
    Nonschetto pats Quetit’s light blonde head. “You speak well.”
    â€œSnow!” Quetit squeals, lifting her hands into the air to catch the lacy flakes. “Woelfin!” she points to our hut. Then she pauses, scrunching up her nose, as if she smells something bad. “Tiger Claw,” she whispers.
    â€œTiger Claw is back?” I ask.
    With solemn eyes, Quetit nods her head. Then, seeing the other children streaming past our hut, she races off to join them. She is so much stronger now that she has shelter, a bed to call her own.
    â€œPerhaps Tiger Claw has brought you deer,” Nonschetto says, squeezing my arm gently.
    I hope he has. Then it will not matter that I’ve caught no mice. But I smell no deer meat roasting over fire when I duck through our door flap. Only rum.
    Tiger Claw slumps across his bed. Woelfin stands over him, talking angrily. Tiger Claw turns his eyes away from her. His bleary eyes meet mine.
    â€œTskinnak,” Tiger Claw mumbles, patting his deerskin blanket, wanting me to sit beside him, as if I were an old friend ... or a wife.
    I know it is the rum that speaks and I wish he wouldn’t drink it. I back away from his strange gesture and pile Nonschetto’s wood in a comer of the hut.
    â€œMy son brings us no deer,” Woelfin says, her voice pitched low and angry. “Only white man’s corn.”
    â€œWhite man’s corn?” I ask, thinking I have not heard her right. No one has mentioned white men living near this village.
    â€œThis corn is no good!” She shoves her earthen bowl into my hands. Her moss-green bowl is filled with hard, wrinkled kernels and crescent-shaped white worms.
    â€œThe white man builds his cabin on my hunting grounds,” Tiger Claw mumbles from his bed. “The white man frightens the deer away. I take his corn and shoot him.”
    Woelfin glances over at the pole that holds my