Woodrow didn’t spend money on food. Food came from the forest, and if you could not get food, you did without. Sometimes, especially in the deep winter, Henry learned that to fast was a useful discipline. Woodrow traded for most of what he needed that he could not shoot, trap, gather, or manufacture. He traded furs or wild rice or syrup for an ax or knife or gun oil. That first year, he traded for many cartridges and patiently taught Henry how to shoot the rifle. Woodrow possessed little-a conscious choice-and his rifle he prized above all else. By summer, Henry could put a kill shot in a moving buck at nearly a quarter mile.
One morning in early May, Woodrow said, “You will go with me to see Aini Luukkonen.”
Occasionally Henry had accompanied his uncle to Allouette. Although there were Shinnobs on the rez who wouldn’t hesitate to report his presence to the white authorities, his uncle didn’t worry.
“White men are too lazy to come all the way to Crow Point for a runaway Indian,” he said.
As nearly as Henry had been able to tell, Woodrow was right. He’d seen no white people anywhere near his uncle’s wiigiwam. But he knew that Luukkonen’s place was not far from Aurora, a town full of whites, and Henry had no desire to be snatched by a cop and sent back to the Flandreau boarding school.
“You have grown,” Woodrow told him. “Your hair is long now. You are not the boy you were. Do not look at the whites or speak to them. They will not even see you.”
They took Woodrow’s canoe, a twelve-foot canvas Old Town, one of the few possessions Henry’s uncle had paid cash for, cash he’d earned as a guide. They paddled steadily the five miles to Luukkonen’s. Wraiths of white mist crept over the surface of the dark water. As the sun topped the pine and spruce trees, the mist turned to fire and burned away. Among the trees along the shore, Henry could see that cabins were appearing in greater number. The whites were spreading farther and farther north. He feared for the woods and the animals in it. And he feared for his people. The whites went wherever they wanted and took what they fancied, and the laws that the grandfathers of the Anishinaabeg had agreed to were ignored.
They drew the canoe onto the shore near the dock behind Luukkonen’s and tipped it onto the grass. The old Finn operated out of a big log structure built thirty yards off the lake. A Ford pickup stood parked in the yard. Attached was a trailer with a rack that cradled half a dozen canoes. On the wall of a shed to the left, someone had stretched a black bearskin. As they approached the porch, Henry spotted snowshoes hung near the front door. When they stepped inside, a bell over the threshold jingled. The place smelled of coffee and frying bacon.
“Yah,” called a voice from someone out of sight. “Be dere in a minute. Hold your horses.”
The outpost was full of goods a man might need in the woods. Axes and hatchets, knives in a display behind the counter, wool blankets, rope coils, fishing gear, lanterns, small stoves, hats, gloves. Henry hadn’t been in a store in a good long while, and he stood silent, feeling weighted by the wealth of goods around him.
A man came through a door near the rear. He was stout, bald, but with a big walrus mustache that nearly hid his mouth. The mustache was salted with gray and, at the moment, stained with crusted egg yolk.
“Woodrow,” he said in hearty greeting. “Been expecting you.” He came close and eyed Henry in a friendly way. “Dis da boy, den?”
They’d talked about him, Henry understood. That made him nervous.
Luukkonen put out a hand, which was missing the index finger. Reluctantly, Henry took it. He didn’t like shaking hands. It was a thing white people did.
“Does he know?” Luukkonen asked Henry’s uncle.
Woodrow shook his head.
Know what? Henry wondered.
“Well, let’s do it, den.”
The Finn disappeared through the rear door. Henry and Woodrow waited in silence. When Luukkonen returned, he carried a rifle in his hands.
“Came in yesterday, just like I told you,” he said to Woodrow. “Been dealing with dese folks a long time now.”
He handed the rifle to Henry’s uncle, who inspected it and nodded his approval. Woodrow held it out toward Henry.
“Yours,” he said.
For a moment, Henry couldn’t move. The gift stunned him. It was what he’d dreamed of but never expected. A rifle of his own.
“Well, go on dere. Take da blasted ting.” Luukkonen smiled big under his walrus mustache.
The moment his fingers touched it, Henry felt the magic. It fit in his hands like something he’d been holding since he was born. It felt alive, intimate. It felt like a brother.
“A good piece dat. Your uncle, he knows.” Luukkonen winked.
Henry lifted his eyes briefly. “Migwech.”
Woodrow nodded, accepting the thanks.
“Say, I got a job for you, you want it.”
“What job?” Woodrow asked.
“Two men itching to go up near the Quetico. Need a guide. Say they’ll pay premium for someone good. I mentioned your name.”
“Hunters?”
“No. Ain’t fishermen neither. Prospectors, I’d guess.”
“Gold,” Woodrow said.
“Gold?” The first white word Henry had spoken that morning.
Luukkonen tugged at the corner of his mustache and said to Henry, “We get ’em sometimes. People been talking a long time about da possibility. Dey say da geology’s right, but nobody’s found gold yet. Tank God. Imagine what’d happen if dey ever found anyting. Be de end of dis beautiful place, you betcha. So, Woodrow, what you tink?”
“Henry comes, too.”
“I don’t know if dey’d pay for two guides.”
“He will not be paid.”
“A free hand? Hell, what dey got to lose? Be here sunup day after tomorrow. Enjoy da rifle, Henry. She’s a beauty, dat one. You’ll need cartridges. Here.” He handed over two boxes of shells. “On da house.”
They were quiet paddling back to Crow Point. Henry thought about the rifle his uncle had given him. He’d never been given a gift so extravagant, and it confused him. He’d grown up on the rez with so little. Everyone on the rez had little. Having more than others, having too much, this was not Ojibwe.
As if divining his nephew’s thoughts, Woodrow said from the stern, “The rifle you will need. Use it to eat, and what you don’t eat give to The People.”
Which made the gift different. It wasn’t just for Henry. It served a greater purpose. With it he could provide for the elders and widows and others who could not hunt and did not work.
“These men,” Henry said, speaking of the other concern that had settled on him that day. “What will they be like?”
“Some are good, some are not. The good ones will respect your skill and respect the land you take them into. The others will not. The worst are the ones with much money. Often they believe that the money makes them better than you. They might try to hide this, but it’s what they believe. Many do not bother to hide it at all.”
“Do you get angry?”
“Why would I be angry? Because they believe a thing does not make it so. There is no dignity in anger. But I am also not a kicked dog.”
“If they treat you that way, what do you do?”
“I leave them.”
“Alone? Up north?”
“It is a good lesson.”
“How do they get back?”
“Who says they do?”
Henry twisted around, expecting to see a grin on his uncle’s face. Woodrow didn’t smile. He dipped his paddle and pushed hard toward Crow Point.