He was meant to do better, meant to be more; Circumstance was not to have dictated this one, the boy too smart to walk in the circles of his ancestors. He took up the drum at three and was dancing in ceremonial powwows by five. His heart too full of beauty and kindness to make room for anything less. The hard times of the land were years before his birth and the tribe had since revived themselves with new skills and a new appreciation. Turtle Mountain's Ojibwe community had felt every movement of the land, every tick of time and somehow everything before Dyami's life was stored in his mother's belly and resonated in his body from birth. His father often shook his head at him, laughing at his old eyes,
"How is it boy, how is it that a look in your eyes makes your old man feel like a fawn taking his first step?" A rare smile would cross the boys face and without understanding his father's wonder or words he would turn silently back to the rocks he was skipping across the cold, dark lake. Late at night Dyami and his father would gather the driest wood they could find after the wind had blown out the family's heat and the men of the house could no longer withstand his mother's exaggerated teeth chattering and lips sputtering a deep, "burrrrrrr". Dyami loved the time with his father and rarely was the burn of the wind slapping his cheeks louder then the voice of his wise father. On a mild night the two might stay out for an hour or more while Dyami heard over and over again the story of his naming ceremony eleven years earlier.
"A child is not yet born until the meditations of an elder have resolved and a fist of tobacco has smelt the four directions of the earth." The story had not changed a beat and Dyami listened intensely to his father’s careful words.
"When your mother, your mishomis, and I heard your name spoken up to the creator we gasped. Your eyes foretold your story of greatness at birth Dyami but when the Shaman announced your name to God we understood there was no mistaking your destiny."
"Eagle." His father paused, the boy wondered at his father's pride. He had heard his boy's name for eleven years now and was still somehow hearing it for the first time.
"Head of the clan Dyami, did you hear me? The highest of minds as an eagle soars to the highest of elevations in the sky." Lost in his heart Noshi was not waiting for any sort of response, eleven years of silence had stolen any hope he had of hearing his boy's words.
"I love you boy."
Dyami smiled in return.
His mother remembers well the long birth, always joking with Dyami, "Nothing easy about you my son, though it could be said nothing worth while comes to us at rest." Unlike her husband, Tahki would not give up hope that her son's voice would find him and he would come to her one day singing the songs she knew he carried in his heart. Hoping to coax the voice from his belly she would often sing him to sleep,
"Our dreams will live on forever and our nation will be reborn,
our bones and beads and feathers all will be proudly worn,
if you listen close you will hear the drums and songs upon the winds
and in the distance you will see the buffalo roam again."
In the months that followed the snow begun to melt off the branches, the birds could once again be heard in the sky and berries were ripe and plentiful. Dyami loved to lick his purple palms covered in the juice of berries picked by the hands of a child who was unaware of both his strength and the weakness of a fruit's skin. Summer was his favorite. Rarely was the tribe inspired to hold their colorful powwows in the unforgiving winds of a prairie's winter and the strong sunlight meant food was in abundance and the waters from the lake would no longer be holding dark secrets in it's cold depth. His swimming had improved from the summer before and this inspired many long days floating along the slow current slapping his cupped palms along the glass surface, imagining himself to be a beaver warning his other flat tailed friends of an enemy’s arrival in their territory. Dipping his head below the surface, bottom up in the air to soon be followed by his legs, joined in imagination as a long tail, he would plunge deep into the green waters. Famished, he would return to his "boy state" and run home for an afternoon snack of bannock and jam.
The nights were hot and sweat attracted the mosquitoes, it was the only part of summer Dyami couldn't handle. It was too hot to cover his bare skin to ward off the incessant buzzing and biting that left his brown body covers in itchy red bumps but unbearable to sleep without some sort of shield. Late one night while Dyami was wrestling his way into sleep he over heard his father's voice outside talking to another man. The boy crept quietly to the door and squinted in his father's direction not believing his own eyes. Waabishki manidoo. Dyami had never seen anyone like this man before, why was his father talking to the enemy? Had his father not listened to the stories Mishomis told over and over while they sat fire side eating deer meat and smoking kinnikinnick? Mishomis spoke often of the maji that filled the hearts of these men and it terrified the boy. Though Dyami had never moved through the land it was something his mishomis knew too well. His swollen knees and thick twisted toes reminded him each sunrise of his birth place thousands of miles North East of the home he now kept in the Dakotas. The white faces and foreign tongue of these men took over quickly with technology beyond anything the Algonquian had seen before. Soon the land was harvesting nothing more than greed and both the language and ways of the Algonquian people had been harvested into extinction with their crop. Leaving behind all that he knew, his mishomis had left his home and traveled until his feet refused to carry him. His face wary and sullen, his heart still at war long after the Ojibwe people had won the land of the Sioux and pushed them south. Did Dyami's father not appreciate the hardened soles of his own father's feet? Could he not feel the war drum beating in his chest? For the first time in his life Dyami questioned his father.
"I can't make you any promises Noshi but I will certainly give you my best efforts, it is the very least we can do, I can do." The white of the man's hand was blinding against his father's dark red fingers which seemed to engulf the boney hand of the waabishki-maji manidoo. As the two men parted ways Dyami scattered back into his cot and lay silently.
Thunder crashed violently into the night as lightening chased it through the clouds, the air grew dark outside and Noshi ran back to the house and pulled the covers around the boy's neck. Dyami pretended to be awoken by the storm and looked into his father's eyes, they were still warm and loving but the storm had somehow been caught in them from his time outside tonight. No one slept.
Late the next morning the birds were back and singing as though last night had never happened, Dyami rolled from his cot and shuffled to his mom's belly where he buried his face.
"Rough night, but you weren't scared were you son?" He shook his head hard and pushed off her hips, she smiled.
"Breakfast is there for you and afterward dad and you are taking the canoe out for fishing, we have a guest coming for supper tonight Dyami." She broke their eye contact and went about sweeping the rough floor of broken birch trees. After breakfast Dyami walked hard on his heels slowly making his way down to the lake's edge where Noshi was packing the canoe,
"About time, the fish will all be in bed by the time you get anywhere Dyami, lets go." Once out in the center of the lake Noshi repeated his wife's words,
"We have a guest coming for supper boy and I need you to respect him like you do all your elders, you hear me right?" Dyami let a quick nod shake the dust from his hair but he knew who the guest would be and didn't want to make any emphatic promises to his father.
"He is coming to help you out Dyami, he thinks he can help you find your voice, I want you to listen to him, he has ways beyond us and although your mother and I have a deep respect for the Midewinini and all the other healers who have come to you...maybe-" Noshi broke off at his boy's disinterest, they fished in silence until the sun begun to move.
Dyami took the odor of the frying fish deeply into his nose, closed his eyes and smiled, this was a rare treat from the bannock and berries that typically filled the boy. With near precise timing the waabishki manidoo showed up to the house as the fish was taken off the fire. Dyami ran in behind his mother and peeked from her skirt, to his surprise the man let a deep laugh leap from his gut,
"You have a shy boy Noshi, he didn't inherit his father's bold presence I see," the man joked with Noshi. Noshi's large smile reflected the fire he had begun to put out after the cooking was done,
"No, Dyami is the strong silent type like his grandfather," he winked at his boy, he knew how Dyami looked up to his Mishomis, Dyami lit up as the fire finally burnt out.
At dinner his parents carried on with this man like old friends, speaking of times past and laughing freely. Dyami learnt of their meeting and this most curious friendship. The man had been a teacher in a neighboring town where Noshi had been taken to residential school. After running away, the school sent this man, John Fulton, to find Noshi. He found the scared boy, thirteen years old, hiding behind a birch tree very near the school and tells the story of looking into the scared boys eyes and making the decision to lead him back to his family. John said he had never forgotten those eyes and soon retired from his position at the school. Upon returning to check on Noshi a year later he learned of his mother's passing and how Noshi had not made it home in time to meet her eyes again. Dyami had heard this story years earlier, mishomis had told the boy his ge'sus died of heartbreak,
"She was never herself again after your father was taken from us Dyami, those waabishki-maji manidoo robbed her of her spirit and she died in my arms days later." His mind returning to the room Dyami continued to listen to the stories that led up to this moment, how this man had spent his life regaining his own spirit and helping many native people get back to their proper homes and lives. Cautiously the boy began relax his body and slowed to taste the fish on his tongue. This man's head was wanted among a lot of his own people and this didn't appear to bring fear to his eyes, his laugh was full and content and his hand steady; Dyami forgot his own fear and loyalty to his grandfather's stories and became engulfed in this new man's words.
Dyami was to leave with John Fulton after supper was finished that night and although the boy did not wish to leave behind his parents he no longer feared the waabishki manidoo. His parents kissed his head, his mother fought her tears and they boy left with John. They walked in silence through the thick woods and then laid their heads in a small opening when Dyami could no longer carry himself, he slept hard. Dyami was awoken suddenly in the early hours of the morning to several men, as pale as his new friend, screaming and tossing John Fulton through the branches of a small tree, the boy scrambled to his feet just as one of the men pulled him off the ground by his long black hair. Panicking and somehow out of air the boy went limp in the man's grip and could do nothing but watch as they beat at John's nearly lifeless body on the ground. The man clenching Dyami's hair twisted his wrist around so the boy’s eyes met his own. Dyami saw the magi his mishomis spoke of, he saw the stolen spirit of his ge'sus, the storm in his father's eyes and the reflection of the man who spent his life giving life back to Dyami's people. For the first time in the boy's life he felt the eagle in his blood and saw the contrast of his identity, strong and silent were not a couple but two halves struggling in separate directions. The boy let out a guttural scream and clawed at the man's eyes until he dropped the boy. Dyami ran to his friend's aide and threw his entire body into the man that was still tormenting John for the laughs of the others. He threw the waabishki-maji manidoo to the ground and growled at the others, his eyes offering them to test his new strength. The smiles were slapped from their faces and replaced with quivering lips. They had been taught of the savages and feared the ones they hadn't tamed. Dyami knew their fear well, it was the same ignorance that kept him afraid of pale skin for so long. The boy's eyes softened, he looked down at John, lying bloodied in the dirt, it hit him, this was his advantage, he had outgrown the times of his land and old stories from ancestors became just that, spoken history. The men took advantage of the boy's hesitation in thought and ran as fast as they could back to what they knew well, back to a safety Dyami would never know or need again.
Dyami slowly made his way home supporting John Fulton with his newly broadened shoulders, stopping only for water. Finally, outside his mother's door, the boy fell to his knees, his nose smelt death, he knew his mother's spirit was leaving her the way his ge'sus' spirit left with her son, he placed his hand on the birch wood between his tired body and her lifeless one,
"Our dreams will live on forever and our nation will be reborn,
our bones and beads and feathers all will be proudly worn,
if you listen close you will hear the drums and songs upon the winds and in the distance you will see the buffalo roam again."
The boy cried the words loudly to his mother and waited to see if his voice was strong enough to carry her spirit back to her. He jumped back onto his palms as the door was thrown off the house, his father and mishomis fought each other out of the small gap where the door had been and ran to the boy pulling him to his feet and squeezing him tightly.
"My boy, my boy you returned to us so quickly and with your voice, John's ways taught you well!" The boy shook his head,
"It wasn't the ways of John that taught me but the movement of the land, a land moving forward and my mind reaching higher elevations like the eagle in the sky." Not entirely sure what his son spoke of but happy to hear his voice, he rushed him into his mother's side while mishomis attended to John.
"Boy, did I hear right?" asked his mother weakly.
"It has not been an easy journey to my voice, but a wise woman once told me nothing worth while comes to us at rest," Dyami' said with a large smile that reflected the fire mishomis had begun to build for the evening's dinner.
