“I’m the farm manager,” the man said in English. “They call me Mister Boss. Here we teach you how to grow food so you won’t go hungry again.” Ironically, Red Wolf’s stomach grumbled its half-empty complaint. “The wandering lifestyle you all have, picking berries and hunting, isn’t civilized. When the hunting is poor, especially in the winter, you go hungry, or even starve! Here you’ll learn how to grow crops and how to raise animals for food.”
He pointed to a red cow contained in a pen. The animal knelt and stretched her neck under the split rail fence, her nose pushing aside the purple asters until her long pink tongue could wrap around a clump of orchard grass. Then she staggered to her feet with her prize. Red Wolf heard the grass fibres tear and watched the cow’s jaws grind slowly back and forth. For a few seconds he felt at peace.
The strike to his leg was light. It barely hurt at all, but it surprised him enough to make him yelp.
“Pay attention when I speak,” the man ordered, shaking his cane at Red Wolf, “and come with me.”
He guided Red Wolf to an area of weedy pasture.
“Here’s the new worker,” he said to a brown-skinned youth who was shouting commands at younger children. “Looks like you need him. I want all this dug by the end of the week. Think you can do that?”
“Yes, sir, Mister Boss,” said the youth, handing Red Wolf a shovel.
“I’ll leave you in charge then,” the man said as he walked away.
Once the boss was out of earshot, the youth spoke, but in yet another language that Red Wolf did not understand! Red Wolf remained silent, and the youth tried again.
“Anishnaabe?”
Red Wolf nodded. The youth smiled and continued in a mix of English and signs that the child understood “Me no speak Anishnaabemowen. Me Mohawk. Me name Sparrow Hawk. They call me Frank, Top Boy Frank.”
He spread his arms to indicate all the boys working in the field. “We many people; Cree, Anishnaabe, Huron, Métis, Mohawk. We speak many tongues. No understand each other. All must speak English.”
“English,” Red Wolf said, pronouncing the word perfectly.
Top Boy Frank smiled. “Good!” He placed his foot on the top edge of the shovel blade and pushed down with his body weight. “Dig,” he said, “like this.” His shovel cut through the turf and he deftly flipped it so the weeds and grass disappeared under the fresh brown earth. Red Wolf tried but lacked the strength and technique to cut through the thatch of vegetation. “You’ll soon get it,” Top Boy Frank encouraged. “Keep trying.”
Red Wolf tried and tried. It was hard work and soon he flopped to the ground, exhausted.
“Get up!” Frank urged, pulling him up with one hand. “If Mister Boss sees you idling, I’ll be in trouble as well as you.” He pushed Red Wolf’s shovel securely into the soil and propped the child against it. “Lean on your shovel, like this … and look like you’re working.”
In this position, Red Wolf watched a robin. The bird landed on the freshly turned soil and within a second of cocking its head sideways pounced on the exposed tail of a worm. The robin planted its feet firmly and tugged with all its might. The worm stretched, becoming narrower and paler, until it suddenly broke into two. The piece in the earth quickly wriggled back under the soil, but the piece in the robin’s beak was promptly dispatched down the bird’s gullet. The day before, when Red Wolf was still a child, he would have giggled, but today there was no laughter in him.
On the neighbouring farm an old man walked behind a plough. The workhorse knew the routine and plodded faithfully along the edge of the furrow, throwing her weight into the collar. The farmer’s arthritic hands gripped the plough handles to stop the share from bucking. It was hard work for a man his age, but when he finished the field and was finally able to take his eyes away from the soil, he shook his head and sighed. In the distance small boys were ploughing a field with shovels.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Henry stormed across the field to join the diggers. Red Wolf wasn’t the only one who watched him approach. Several other Grade One boys monitored his progress, and Top Boy Frank watched, too.
“Did Master Evans keep you back after class again?” Frank asked quietly.
Henry didn’t reply. Instead he shoved Red Wolf on both shoulders. “It was your fault,” he yelled.
Red Wolf felt tears welling up, but he gulped down the sob that tried to burst from his chest.
Henry drew close, carefully forming his words and spitting them into Red Wolf’s ear. “Next time, don’t make a sound, you hear! And don’t tell anyone, or else....” He leered and drew his index finger across Red Wolf’s neck. The child didn’t need to know the language to understand the threat. His knees buckled.
“That’s enough, Henry,” Frank said, sheltering Red Wolf with his body. “Leave him alone. Don’t make me report you again. Get to work.”
Henry snatched up a shovel and started attacking the soil. Red Wolf was shocked to see that Frank watched Henry with compassion! Red Wolf didn’t understand why. He hated Henry!
A warning whistle, not unlike a jay’s strident call, pierced the air and all the boys in the old pasture began digging with renewed vigour. Someone was coming: a man and a dog. Red Wolf looked up and his heart leapt into his throat. It was the man called Indian agent.
It all seemed so long ago now when the white man had ridden into the summer camp of The People. That was the day it had all started, he thought, the day the man had invaded his childhood and had called him Horse Thief. He was no longer the carefree boy who had walked with the chestnut gelding that sunny afternoon, just a few moons ago. Since then he had lost everything.
He threw his weight behind the shovel and averted his head, hoping the white man would not recognize him, but the hound ambled straight toward him, tail wagging gently, a happy greeting on his face.
“Get over here, dog!” the Indian agent yelled. The animal lowered his head, rounded his back, and with tail between his legs approached his master. He was rewarded for his obedience with a raised hand and a harsh voice. “Don’t you be getting friendly with the Indians.”
The dog sighed and flopped to the ground.
“I hear that my special friend is here at last,” the man called out to no one in particular. Red Wolf froze like a frightened rabbit. “Ah, there he is!”
The Indian agent loosely wrapped a meaty arm around Red Wolf’s neck and rubbed his head in an amicable manner. Fear paralyzed the child. The man’s powerful bicep tightened against his throat.
“Horse Thief!” he whispered, his breath rank against Red Wolf’s cheek. “I said we would meet again, did I not?”
Red Wolf could barely breathe, and the Algonquian words stabbed at his heart like a hunting knife.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. The man released him, turned on his heels, and walked away. “Dog!” he yelled.
Red Wolf gasped and realized that he was trembling.
The dog dragged himself up and slunk after his owner.
As the sun changed its angle in the sky, Red Wolf’s hands started to blister and then the blisters broke and oozed.
“You’d