“You said something to him,” Jubal accused.
“No, honest I didn’t. But if you told him, he’d keep your secret, I know he would. And he’d teach you to hunt like he does, I swear.”
In the end, Jubal agreed, and when he’d told Sam the truth of his past, Winter Moon said, “The white man took almost everything from us and gave us in return mostly disease and alcohol. But there’s one thing he can’t take from us unless we let him, and that’s our dignity, Jubal. There’s a great heritage in being Indian. I’ll teach you to hunt in the old way, but in return, I want you to begin to think of yourself in a different way. Accept that the blood of your Blackfeet father flows in you, and be proud of that, even if you don’t say a word about it to anyone. Deal?”
Jubal thought it over and nodded seriously. And that, as it turned out, led to the first time Cork had seen murder in Jubal Little’s eyes.
In the fall a few weeks before Cork turned sixteen, he went hunting in the old way with Jubal Little and Sam Winter Moon. They drove in Sam’s old pickup to an area on the eastern edge of the rez, where the backsides of the Sawtooth Mountains were visible in the distance. It was an area well known to the Ojibwe, an area in which big bucks were often taken.
The day was overcast and wet and cool. They followed a rutted dirt road over bogland where the tamaracks were gold and stood out like lit torches. They wove through birch stands barren of leaves, with bone white trunks and branches. Sam Winter Moon suddenly braked to a complete stop, then backed up. He swung his pickup onto the grass at the side of the road and, without a word, got out. Cork and Jubal got out, too, and followed. Sam walked down a little spur of road, almost invisible beneath the tall overgrowth of weeds. Cork saw what his own eyes had missed initially but Sam’s had not, an outline where the passage of tires had crushed down the weeds. They came to a black pickup, a newer model, parked behind a thicket of wild blackberry that made it invisible from the road.
Sam said quietly, “Know any skins on the rez who can afford a new pickup?” He walked carefully around the vehicle, studying the ground. “This way,” he said and began to follow the trail left by those who’d come in the truck.
Cork realized that Jubal was carrying his bow and quiver of arrows, which he must have pulled from the bed of Sam’s pickup when they got out. Since it wasn’t deer they were hunting at the moment, Cork wasn’t sure why Jubal had done this, but he quickly forgot about it as he became intent on reading the signs of the trail. Wherever the ground was soft and bare of cover, three distinct sets of tracks were visible. Two sets were large-men. One was much smaller-a child. They followed nearly a mile, up a ridge, and as they approached the crest, they heard voices ahead. Cork and Jubal looked toward Sam, who nodded for them to keep moving toward the noise. In a couple of minutes, they came to a meadow full of wild grass and sumac, with three figures at the center, dressed in camouflage and standing over a killed white-tail buck. Cork recognized them immediately: Donner Bigby; his little brother, Lester; and their father, an enormous and brutal-looking man whose name was Clarence but whom everyone called Buzz because of his logging work with chain saws. Bigs and his father held compound bows. Lester, who was maybe eight or nine at the time, held a hunting knife. The blade looked huge in his small hand. He was crying.
“I don’t want to cut him, Daddy,” Lester said.
“Your brother and me did all the work of bringing him down,” his father said. “The least you can do is help us dress him.”
“Make a man out of you,” Bigs said with a laugh.
“I don’t want to,” Lester cried. He looked down at the deer.
“I don’t want him to be dead.”
“He’s not Bambi, for Christ’s sake,” Bigs said.
“Cut him open like I told you,” their father said.
But Lester just stood there, crying. Buzz Bigby grabbed the knife from his son’s hand and slapped the boy across the face. Lester tumbled to the ground.
“Hey, Pop, leave him alone,” Donner said.
“You want some of this?” Bigby held up the open palm with which he’d sent Lester sprawling.
Donner lowered his eyes and didn’t reply.
Bigby looked down at his younger son and spit. “Shut up and be a man, or the next thing I give you will be the toe of my boot.”
Lester retreated in a crawl but finally brought himself under control, and the sobs subsided.
“Stand up.”
He did as he was told. His father handed him the knife. The boy took it and knelt beside the deer.
Cork and Jubal and Sam had hidden themselves among the birch at the edge of the meadow. Sam whispered, “Stay here.”
He left the tree cover and walked toward the Bigbys. “Anin,” he cried out in Ojibwe greeting.
Buzz Bigby swung around to face him, and Cork saw that he brought his bow to the ready. Bigs, seeing his father’s response, did the same, and went a step further. He drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it on his bowstring.
“What do you want?” the elder Bigby said.
“Thing is this. You’re on Indian land, but you don’t look very Indian to me.” Sam had halted a dozen steps away from the Bigbys. “It’s against the law for you to hunt on our land.”
“Hell, you got more deer’n you’ll ever need to feed yourselves,” Bigby said.
“That’s not the point.”
“Well, here’s my point,” Bigby said. “Me and my boys are gonna take this buck back to my truck, and we’re gonna haul it home, and we’re gonna mount them antlers on my wall, and there ain’t a thing in the world you’re gonna be able to do to stop us. What do you say to that?”
Jubal drew an arrow from his quiver and laid the shaft over the arrow rest and fit the nock into the bowstring. Cork wanted to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. Would he really shoot Bigs or Mr. Bigby or Lester?
Sam said, “If you do that, I’ll report you to the sheriff.”
“He’s white. Think he’ll care about what goes on out here?”
“I haven’t finished. I’ll also report you to Rusty Benay. He’s the game warden in these parts, and he’s half Indian. He’ll see to it that you never get another deer license, or any kind of license for that matter.”
“He can’t do that,” Bigby said, but not with certainty.
“Is this deer worth that chance?” Sam replied.
Bigby weighed his response, and while he did, Donner slowly edged away from the others, as if to clear himself a space in order to send an arrow into Sam Winter Moon if necessary. In that same time, Jubal raised his own bow, drew back the string, and sighted.
“Jesus, Jubal,” Cork whispered. “Put it down.”
If he heard, Jubal gave no indication. He held the bow steady, as if it were only an inanimate target he was aiming at, not Donner Bigby’s heart.
Cork became abnormally aware of everything around him. The smell of wet tree bark, the kiss of the autumn air against his face, the look of the clouds running like gray wolves across the sky, the feel of the very ground through the soles of his boots, the easy breathing of Jubal Little, the metal taste in his own mouth. He would experience this hypersensitivity several times over the years to come, usually in a situation when a human life was at stake.
He thought of tackling Jubal but was afraid that a move like that might cause the arrow to be fired accidentally.
In the blink of an eye, Cork made his decision. He stepped from the trees and called out, “Hey, Sam, we were wondering where you went. Me and the guys.” He walked to the center of the clearing, where all the eyes had turned his way. “Hey, Bigs,” he said easily. “Hello, Mr. Bigby. Hey, Lester.” He looked down at the deer, as if only just becoming aware of it. “You know, you can’t keep that buck. We’re on reservation land here. But the elders, they’ll be grateful for all the jerky and deer sausage we’ll be able to make from it. Thanks a lot. Or as the Ojibwe say, migwech. I’ll go get the other guys, and we can take it from here.”
