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For
Frances Foster
salt of the earth
beloved editor
and friend
“We told each other that we would in future be friends, doing all the good we could to each other, and raise our children in peace and quietness.”
MihŠihkinaahkwa, Miami Chief (Little Turtle) to William H. Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory September 4, 1811
INTRODUCTION
In the summer of 1812, at a place where three rivers meet, the sky is filled with birds of many kinds and colors. The rivers are home to fish, beavers, turtles, and otters. In the forest are deer, bears, wolves, porcupines, foxes, bobcats, squirrels, and rabbits. There is no electricity; there are no telephones. Transportation is by horseback, boat, or on foot over rough roads and trails.
In this time and place, two communities live side by side:
Kekionga is part of the Miami nation, a Native American community made up of villages along the rivers. People have lived in Kekionga for many generations, hunting, fishing, and farming as the seasons change.
Within walking distance of Kekionga, in a fort built with logs, lives a group of about eighty soldiers, sent by the United States government as part of an effort to claim the land and protect the people who are settling on it. Some of the soldiers’ wives and children also live in the fort, which is called Fort Wayne. A few other families live outside the fort, within an area enclosed by a wood stockade. Inside this enclosure are fields where the soldiers and their families raise farm animals and crops. Hunting and fishing in the rivers and forest outside the stockade are important to this community, too.
Just inside the stockade, near the gate, is a trading post, and beside the trading post is the home of the trader and his family.
Although there is sometimes distrust and fighting between the two communities, friendships and intermarriage are also common. For a few hundred years, there has been communication and trade between the Miami people and the French, British, and, more recently, Americans.
Please imagine that Anikwa and his family are speaking Miami, a Native American language (today the name of the language is spelled “Myaamia”; the name “Miami” has nothing to do with present-day Miami, Florida), and James and his family are speaking English. Each child knows a few words and phrases of the other’s language, and some of the adults can speak both languages.
A glossary at the back of the book gives definitions of Miami names and words, a guide to their pronunciation, and the address of a Web site where you can hear them spoken.
At the time of this story, the border between the United States and Canada has not been established; the British and American armies are engaged in what will later be called the War of 1812. Tribal leaders of surrounding areas are seeking to create a Confederation of Tribes that would keep land to the north and west of the Ohio River as their nation, separate from the newly formed United States.
The characters in Salt are fictional, but the historical events did happen to people who lived in Kekionga and Fort Wayne in late August and early September of 1812.
CHARACTERS
Names in Native American languages have been suggested by tribal members who speak the languages. As was common in 1812, I have kept some names in the original language, and used English translations for others.
Anikwa—Twelve-year-old boy, Miami
Old Raccoon—Anikwa calls him Father. He is Anikwa’s father’s younger brother, and in the way Miami people think of family, as a close male relative, he is considered to be Anikwa’s father
Mink—Old Raccoon’s wife
Wiinicia—Old Raccoon’s mother; Anikwa calls her Grandma
Rain Bird—Fourteen-year-old girl, daughter of Old Raccoon and Mink, considered an older sister to Anikwa
Toontwa—Six-year-old boy, son of Old Raccoon and Mink, considered a younger brother to Anikwa
Kwaahkwa—Sixteen-year-old boy who lives in Kekionga
Wedaase—Ottawa man who comes to Kekionga
Piyeeto—Shawnee man who has lived in Kekionga for some time
James Gray—Twelve-year-old boy, American, lives outside the fort, within the stockade, in a house near the trading post
Lydia Gray—James’s mother
Joseph Gray—James’s father, a trader
Molly Gray—James’s baby sister
Isaac Briggs—Eleven-year-old boy, lives in the fort
Mr. and Mrs. Briggs—Isaac’s father (a soldier) and mother
Becca Briggs—Isaac’s younger sister
SALT IN THE SEA, SALT ON THE EARTH
A shallow sea
moves over the earth,
salty, sun-warmed.
Water rises
as mist,
fog, clouds,
leaving a thin coat
of salt on the ground.
JAMES
Dang mosquito bit me right where I can’t reach it.
I rub my back against a hickory tree—up and down,
side to side. There—almost got it. Might look silly,
but nobody’s watching. Except a squirrel—I hear it
up there in the branches, and I get out my slingshot.
Ma will be happy when I bring home something
for the soup pot. Where is that old squirrel, anyhow?
Sounds like a whole family of ’em, laughing at me,
Anikwa, laughing as he jumps down from the tree
and lands beside me. How long has he been watching?
I swear he can sound like anything! Squirrel, bumblebee,
bluebird, or bullfrog. Once, I heard my baby sister crying,
but when I turned to look—it wasn’t Molly, it was him!
ANIKWA
James looks
up in the tree like he thinks
there’s a real squirrel hiding somewhere
in its branches. I suck in my cheeks
to make myself stop laughing—
he shakes his head,
puts away
his stone and slingshot,
gives me a smile that means I got him
this time, but next time he’ll be watching if I
try that trick again. Come on, he motions as he heads
to the berry bushes. I’ve seen him out here picking berries
every afternoon since they started to get ripe.
Makiinkweeminiiki, I say, pretending to
put berries in my mouth and
pointing down the trail
toward the bushes.
He nods his head.
Yes, he says,
blackberries. As we walk
to the berry patch, he tries my word—
makiinkweeminiiki, and I try his—blackberries.
I roll both words around like berries
in my mouth.
JAMES
Wonder if my mouth is purple-black, like Anikwa’s. I sta
rt to head back
up the trail toward home. But wait—what’s he saying? Kiihkoneehsa—
that means “fish”! He points to the river trail, meaning, Follow me, so I do.
When we get to the river, he pulls a string of seven fish out of the water
and gives me a nice-size trout. Wish I knew how he catches all these fish.
Thanks! I say, and then I repeat it in his language: Neewe. We walk along
together; I’m happy because he gave me this fish, so I start whistling.
He figures out the tune and whistles along with me. Yesterday, I found
a bee tree full of honey. Wonder if he’s seen it. C’mon, I motion, this way.
It’s off the trail a little, past the muddy place. We climb over the big log,
not far from where the trail splits, his trail going to Kekionga, and mine
going back to my house and the fort. Huh? What’s that deep hole?
Looks like a person dug it. We step up for a closer look and jump back—
a man we’ve never seen before is standing in the hole, watching us!
ANIKWA
When I get home,
Grandma’s cutting deer meat
into strips she’s hanging on the drying rack.
I show her the fish I caught. She smiles.
Some for now, and some to salt
and save for winter.
We’ll need more
salt before too long, she says.
Grandma, I say, I saw a man. She looks up.
Standing in a hole, I tell her, near where the trail divides.
He’s not from here. Do you know who he is? She thinks about it.
I saw an Ojibwe man walking on that trail yesterday, she says. Maybe
he wants to see what’s happening here. She doesn’t seem scared.
She needs more hickory wood—her fire’s almost out—
so I say, Toontwa, let’s get firewood for Grandma.
Toontwa likes to eat—a lot—but he doesn’t
like to carry firewood. I saw foxes
playing behind the big rock,
I tell him. We could
look for their den. That gets him
I pick up my wood-carrying basket and walk off.
He follows with his basket like I
hoped he would.
JAMES
Ma asks, What did you see today? I tell her about a dead turtle in the creek,
and a tree that fell across the trail, but I don’t mention the man, or the hole
he must’ve dug. Ma might get worried and say I can’t go out by myself.
She’s cutting up the fish when Pa comes in and sits down at the table.
Look what James brought home! she says. Nice-looking trout, says Pa. Where
did you catch it, Son? I could pretend I caught it. But I know better than to
lie to Pa. That’s one thing he won’t abide. Anikwa caught it, I admit.
Ma says, Next time his aunt and uncle come to trade, give them a little extra.
Ma calls Mink and Old Raccoon Anikwa’s aunt and uncle, but Anikwa
calls Old Raccoon his father. From what I can tell, Miami children
have a lot of parents. That’s good if your ma and pa die, like his did.
His mother died of smallpox when he was two years old, and then
a year later, his father got killed. In a skirmish, Pa said. That’s like a war,
but smaller. Makes me wonder: Who’d take care of me if Pa and Ma died?
ANIKWA
This lacrosse stick
is too big for me, but I like to use it
because it was my father’s. Grandma tells me,
He was the best lacrosse player I ever saw.
He was so good, he could
make it seem like his
younger brother
was as good as he was.
I wish I remembered him better.
They say his voice was like strong music.
Everyone loved to listen to him speak. When people
started arguing, he said what he thought, and then stayed quiet
while other people spoke. People listened to him, and thought
carefully about anything he said. His words, Father says,
rose to the top, when we had to make hard decisions
about war or treaties—what to do
when all the changes came
across our land.
At first,
new kinds of sickness, then
a different kind of people—starting with men,
who soon brought families. Then soldiers, and the fort.
Like the bees that flew in from the east
and settled on our flowers.
JAMES
I’m going out fishing, alone, when here comes Isaac: Where you going? Dang.
I was hoping to catch a lot of fish and give one to Anikwa. I never see him
when Isaac’s with me. Don’t want to be mean, so I tell Isaac where I’m headed.
He walks along beside me, talking, talking, talking. There’s gonna be a war here.
Not sure I’m supposed to tell you. Your pa and ma might not want you to know.
Like he’s old enough to know about it, and I’m not—I’m older than he is!
Course I heard about it, I say, even though I haven’t. I keep quiet, hoping
he’ll say more, and he does: My pa says the Indians are on the British side.
That can’t be true. You don’t know what you’re talking about, I blurt out.
They’ve been our friends since Ma was a girl. Her grandpa traded with them!
He shakes his head. I know what I’m talking about, but you don’t, he says.
I bet you don’t even know about the siege. I shrug, like I know but I don’t care.
The Indians might block the fort, he says, so we can’t get out until the British come.
Then they’ll all join up and attack us. Trying to act like he knows everything.
ANIKWA
Kwaahkwa
and I came to this quiet
place to fish. We listen to the river
whisper in that soft, low voice
it has sometimes. There’s
a pair of bluebirds
singing
on a low branch of the oak.
Two fish arc out of the water near
the eddy, showing us exactly where they are.
Then, over by that sycamore that fell last year, a big
bullfrog starts up talking like a drum. I answer, and he
answers back. And then we hear something else—
James’s quiet voice, Isaac’s scratchy loud one.
It sounds like they’re arguing. Everything
except the river and the frog stops
talking. The bluebirds fly
away, the ducks dive
underwater.
We move into the shadows,
crouch down behind a rock, and watch.
Not exactly hiding, just staying quiet, listening
and keeping our eyes
open.
JAMES
Isaac keeps trying to show off how much he knows. Don’t worry, James,
he says (he thinks I’m scared), the Americans might get here first. Pa told me
our army is bigger than the British army. But if the Indians join the British,
we’re done for. He slices his hand across his throat. I know how to scare him:
lead him past the hole I saw when I was with Anikwa. If that man’s still
standing in it, Isaac will jump out of his skin. Better not, though. He’d tell
his ma, and she’d tell mine, and they’d make us stay inside the stockade
where they could keep an eye on us. I’d hate that. We’re walking by the river,
near where Anikwa gave me the fish, when Isaac comes to a sudden stop.
Look! He points. Over ther
e by that tree! He picks up a rock and throws it
as hard as he can. I think I hit it! He runs over, leans down, and holds up
a dead bullfrog, so proud of himself. Isaac, I ask, what’d you do that for?
That frog didn’t hurt you. He stares at me. For fun, he says. How come you
never like to have fun? I look around—I sure hope Anikwa isn’t watching.
ANIKWA
Splash!
The frog stops talking.
Did it jump out of the way in time?
Did it sink down in the mud?
Or—did that rock hit it?
I lean back so I can
see: Isaac
lifts the bullfrog
from the water at the river’s edge.
The frog’s legs (strong enough to cross a creek
in two jumps) dangle from his hands. Isaac smiles like
he’s in a war against the frogs and he just won a battle. I grab
a rock to throw at him, but Kwaahkwa says, You know
frogs taste good. That boy gets hungry, just like us.
Then Isaac swings the bullfrog by its legs,
around and around, over his head.
He’s about to throw it
in the deep part
of the river.
No one will have that frog
for supper. I jump up and run to try
to stop him, or catch the frog, but it goes flying
through the air just before I
grab Isaac’s arm.
JAMES
Isaac and Anikwa slip in the mud and end up in the river. I didn’t see
which one pushed first, but they could both get pulled downriver.
Who should I help? I pick up a long branch and lie down on the bank
to hold it out. Isaac reaches it first—he grabs it and pulls himself up.
Anikwa is still in the water, sputtering from all the water in his nose
(and because he’s mad about that frog, I bet). I don’t see Kwaahkwa
coming until he reaches out to Anikwa, pulls him out of the water,