“Such degenerate conduct! Imagine neglecting your own children in such a manner. This is the very reason we take you from your families: to spare you this pain of rejection; to feed you, clothe you and give you the opportunity to better yourselves.”
Tears welled in Red Wolf’s eyes.
“It hurts me to see you so disappointed. It’s George, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Believe me, George, you are better off without them. I know you feel hurt, but suffering is part of growing up. Suffering will mold you into a better person. Wait and see.” Father Thomas rocked back on his heels and looked upward. “We learn from our pain, George. We cannot taste joy until we have drunk from the cup of sorrow.”
The priest was pleased with this analogy. Then he had another thought, and he beamed. “Just think, George, if you had not shivered through the cold, dark days of winter, you would not truly appreciate the warmth and light of summer.”
He patted the boy’s head and continued down the corridor, mentally composing his next sermon, which, he realized sadly, would not be until September.
Just before dark, the nurse came down the corridor and saw one lonely figure, his face pressed close to the pane of glass. “Oh, you poor dear,” she said. “Are you still waiting for your family?”
“They don’t want me,” Red Wolf replied, his downcast face hiding the tears that stung his eyes.
The nurse knelt and looked into the boy’s tear-stained face. “Oh, surely not!”
“They’ve forgotten me.”
“Heavens, that’s not true. How could anyone forget a boy like you?” She took a clean handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped Red Wolf’s tears.
“So why haven’t they come for me?”
“Sometimes they can’t get permission to leave the reserve,” she explained sadly, “so they can’t come for you, even if they really, really want to.”
“What happens to me if no one comes?” the boy asked very quietly, as if scared to voice his concern.
“The big boys go into town. They work for white families in exchange for their keep. But the younger ones, like you, stay on here. They have to work for —” looking over both shoulders she whispered “— evil Mother Hall.” She pounced on Red Wolf in a spree of tickling and the boy giggled.
Red Wolf looked down the driveway one more time and saw his father shrouded in the dusk. “He’s here! He’s here!” the boy shrieked, bolting for the staircase and running outside. He threw himself into his father’s open arms, nearly knocking over HeWhoWhistles. And even though he was happier than he had been for ten long months, he wept. The nurse watched from the window and cried, too.
Red Wolf wanted to walk all night, to get as far away from the school as he could, but HeWhoWhistles had already walked all day and needed to sleep. They stopped where a brook ran through a field. Red Wolf didn’t want to sleep in case he woke up and found himself back at school, but within minutes of nestling into his father’s chest, feeling his warm skin and listening to his heartbeat, he was sleeping dreamlessly.
He awoke at dawn to the melody of a songbird.
“Aaniish ezhi baked?” HeWhoWhistles asked.
Red Wolf looked blankly at his father.
“Nwii-mwaa giigoonh.”
The boy still did not respond.
“Why do you not understand me?” HeWhoWhistles asked. “What have they done to you?”
Red Wolf did not recall the words to tell his father that it didn’t matter if they couldn’t understand each other, it was enough just to be together.
HeWhoWhistles waded into the brook with a sharpened stick. “Giigoohn,” he said, “Wiisnin giigoohn.”
“Yes!” Red Wolf said excitedly. “Wiisnin giigoohn.”
HeWhoWhistles smiled.
The brook trout was the most satisfying meal that Red Wolf had eaten in ten months. When they reached the edge of the forest, his spirits lifted even more. The trees surrounded him in soft green light. He felt safe. Not even the mosquitoes that buzzed in his ears and bit at his skin could spoil his mood. Summer stretched ahead of him. It would last forever.
A wet nose slid under his hand. He turned to run, but then he saw Crooked Ear. The wolf was no longer a gangling pup. He stood as tall as the boy’s shoulder, but his left ear was still crooked. The expression in his eyes was still the same, and Red Wolf recognized him instantly.
Crooked Ear trembled, wanting to roll on the ground with the child as he would with another wolf, but something warned him that the Upright pup needed to be treated gently. So he raced in circles until he was calm enough to sit on his haunches and allow the child to throw his arms around him. He licked behind the boy’s ear, Red Wolf’s giggles making the animal’s tail swish back and forth.
Then they chased each other along the trail. On the steep hills the boy held on to Crooked Ear’s ruff and allowed the wolf to pull him up the incline. Then they both raced down the other side, the wolf taking the lead and the boy, with arms held wide, pretending to fly like a bird.
But as night fell and HeWhoWhistles made camp, the wolf faded into the night and Red Wolf snuggled into the warmth of his father.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Red Wolf’s heart had ached for ten months to return to his family. Now that he was home he was disappointed. Everything was strange. It was as if they had sent him back to the wrong home, the wrong family.
In his memory, home was a fur-lined, birch-bark wiigwam. The reality was a shack made of pine boards topped with a rusting metal roof. It reminded him of the potting shed at school where dead children, it was said, waited for spring when they would be planted in the ground. Red Wolf’s baby sister had made a stunning transformation from a helpless infant to a boisterous, inquisitive little girl. She could walk and even talk, although he could not understand her words — but at first he couldn’t understand anyone’s words, not even his mother’s. And when he spoke in English, they looked at him with blank stares.
He still didn’t understand why he had been sent away to school. His father had said they had no choice, that it was the white man’s law. But Red Wolf believed that his father could defy Father Thomas, and the Halls, and the Indian agent, and all the laws that the white man had set in place, if he wanted to.
Father Thomas had given the children a summer assignment, to turn their parents away from the sinful, savage ways that led to Hell, and guide them instead on the path to Jesus. Red Wolf had not completely understood the lesson, and Father Thomas’s words did not easily translate into Anishnaabemowin, which was beginning to return to him. However, the boy had learned quite thoroughly that he was a filthy Indian and a savage. The knowledge had left him feeling sullied and ashamed. If he told his parents that they too were filthy Indians and savages, they would be dishonoured and ashamed also.
An unnatural silence settled over the family. When they spoke to him, he answered in monosyllables, or not at all. But Red Wolf was comfortable with silence. He had learned over the past year that silence usually meant safety. For his parents, however, the silence in the small cabin was deafening.
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