The Marsh King's Daughter(27)
We heard their gunshots every year, day after day, sunup till sundown during those two frenetic weeks in November, just as we occasionally heard the distant whine of a chain saw that was not my father’s. My father explained that this was the white man’s “hunting season” and that white men were only allowed to shoot deer during these two weeks. I felt sorry for the white men. I wondered who would make such a rule and if the people who made it would punish those who broke it by shutting them inside a well like my father did to me when I disobeyed him. I worried about what would happen to us if the white men found out we shot deer whenever we wanted. My father said that because he was Native American, the white men’s hunting rules didn’t apply to him, and that made me feel better.
My father shot two deer every winter, one in the middle of December after the deer settled down from all the commotion and another in the early spring. We could have lived perfectly well on fish and vegetables, but my father believed it was better to eat a variety. Aside from the black bear who came calling and ended up as our living room rug, the only game animals we shot were deer. We had only one rifle, and we had to be careful with ammunition. Rabbits we snared. We also ate the hindquarters and backstraps of the muskrats and beavers my father trapped. Squirrels and chipmunks I killed with my throwing knife. The first time I pinned a chipmunk, I cooked it over a fire in the yard and ate it because not being wasteful is the Indian way. But there was so little meat on those tiny bones, after that, I didn’t bother.
My father promised that as soon as I could pick off ten cans from the line he set up on our split-rail fence without missing a shot, he would take me deer hunting. That my father would use some of our precious ammunition to teach me to shoot showed how important it was. I think he was surprised at how quickly I learned, but I wasn’t. The first time I picked up my father’s rifle it felt natural, like an extension of my eyes and arms. At eight pounds, the Remington 770 was on the heavy side for a six-year-old, but I was big for my age, and thanks to carrying water buckets I was very strong.
Weeks passed after I met my father’s requirement, and nothing happened. We fished, we trapped, we snared, while my father’s Remington remained securely locked in the storage room. My father carried the key on a ring that jangled constantly from his belt. I don’t know what the others were for. Certainly we never locked the cabin. I think he just liked the sound and the weight and the feel. As though carrying a lot of keys meant you were important.
The first time I saw the storage room, I thought we had enough food for an army. But my father explained that every can we used could never be replaced, so we needed to make our supply last. My mother was allowed to open one can a day. Sometimes she let me pick. Creamed corn one day, green beans another, Campbell’s Cream of Tomato soup the next, though I didn’t learn until later that the “cream” part of the name comes from using milk to thin the soup, not water. Sometimes when I was bored I’d count how many cans were left. I used to think that when all of the cans were gone, we would leave.
Each time I asked my father when we were going deer hunting, he told me a good hunter needed to be patient. He also said that every time I asked would push the day back by one week. I was only six, so it took me a while to grasp the concept. When I did, I stopped asking.
When my father unlocked the storage room early one morning the following spring and came out with his rifle over his shoulder and his pockets jingling with ammunition, I knew this was the day at last. I put on my winter gear without being told and followed him outside. My breath made white clouds as we hiked over the frozen marsh. My mother hated going outside when it was cold out, but I loved exploring the marsh in winter. It was as if the land had magically expanded and I could walk wherever I wanted. Here and there, frozen cattail heads poked out of the snow to remind me I was walking on water. I thought about the frogs and fish sleeping below. I closed my mouth and blew two streams from my nose like a Spanish bull. When my nose got drippy, I leaned over and blew the snot into the snow.
The snow squeaked as we walked. Snow makes different sounds at different temperatures, and the squeak from our footsteps meant that it was very cold. A good day for hunting, because the deer would be huddled together for warmth and wouldn’t be foraging and moving around. A bad day because our noisy footsteps would make it harder for us to get close.
A crow cawed. My father gave the crow’s Indian name, aandeg, and pointed to a distant tree. My eyesight was sharp, but the crow’s black body melted so cleverly into the branches that if aandeg hadn’t given away his location by cawing, I’m not sure I would have seen him. My heart warmed with admiration for my father. My father knew everything about the Anishinaabe, the Original People, and about the marsh: how to find the best places to cut ice-fishing holes, what time of day the fish would bite, how to test the thickness of the ice so we didn’t fall through. He could have been a medicine man or a shaman.
When we came to the snow-covered mound I recognized as the beaver lodge where my father set his traps, my father crouched behind it so the sound of his voice wouldn’t carry. “We’ll take our shot from here,” he said quietly. “Use the lodge for cover.”
Slowly I raised my head. I could see the cedar trees surrounding the ridge, but no deer beneath them. Disappointment stung my eyes. I started to stand, but my father pulled me back down. He put his finger to his lips and pointed. I squinted and looked harder. At last I saw the faint puffs of white smoke from the deer’s breath. Snow-covered deer lying on snowy ground under snow-covered cedar branches weren’t easy to spot, but I found them. My father handed me his rifle, and when I sighted through the scope, I could see the deer clearly. I panned the herd. One animal lying apart from the others was bigger than the rest. The buck.