It had been more than a year. With the coming of the snow her husband, Dassonag, Many Canoes, had departed on his journey to the Spirit World. Now the time of snow had passed and the crows had come again. Si-Si-Gwad sat silently before his grave house remembering. She placed an offering of manomin, dried meat and berries, a fresh cone of sugar inside his grave house. She sang again the song that came to her dreams after he died, “How strong, my beloved! Your spirit is strong in my heart. You cannot stay. I cannot follow. You are strong in my heart.” It comforted her in the long days after his death. It comforted her now that her days of mourning were over, when she would wash her face and body again, put aside her ragged clothes, then braid her hair once more.
There had been other deaths since Dassonag. Fever had taken many, among them her dearest friend, Lissette. Lissette and her husband Jean Luc were foreign, from faraway Montreal. Jean Luc was renegade voyageur, leaving the trading company to live among the People. Lissette had been an indentured servant, bound to serve the woman from Fort William. Lissette served her mistress for seven years, then was free to join Jean Luc. He built her a cabin apart from the white fort in the woodlands. Jean Luc and Dassonag trapped together, hunted together like brothers. After her husband died, Jean Luc continued to give her meat, although her in laws were responsible to support her. From where she sat on the hillside, she could see the smoke from where Jean Luc was burying his wife and her friend.
Si-Si-Gwad missed Lissette as keenly as she missed her husband. The child of Jean-Luc and Lissette, White Flower, was born one moon after her own daughter, Bear Rose. Lissette became her friend as they nursed their daughters together. Si-Si-Gwad taught Lissette the ways of the People. So quick to learn was she! So many questions, how and why! Si-Si-Gwad learned from Lissette as well. Things like knitting and embroidery. Miracles to Si-Si-Gwad, seeing the yarn unraveled from blankets take new shape in toques and mittens, socks and shawls. Shawls were new wonders too, so useful for carrying firewood, gathering food from the garden, drying a child wet from falling into the stream, carrying a sleeping child outgrown from it’s cradle board. Lissette had made her a black shawl with red fringe, colored by the dyes Si-Si-Gwad had taught her to use. Si-Si-Gwad fingered the fringes as she remembered her friend.
In the winters they visited between Si-Si-Gwad’s bark wigiwam and Lissette’s log house. Lissette was as eager to hear the winter stories of the People. In return Lissette told stories of the Christian God, of the God-Son Jesus, which fascinated Si-Si-Gwad. “No greater love has one than this, that he lay down his life for a friend, ” murmured Si-Si-Gwad. Lissette laid down her life for the People. Jean Luc and Lissette had nursed the sick and dying of the People. Lissette had succumbed to the illness and had been the last to die. She lived the life of the God-Son she taled about. She was a real person.
Si-Si-Gwad cared for White Flower while Jean-Luc had nursed Lissette. Lissette was her heart sister as White Flower was now heart sister to her little Bear Rose. As babies in cradle boards they would look at each other and chatter. As toddling children they sat together, passing a willow doll back and forth between them, feeding each other, patting each others faces. As little girls, they shared work together, played in their wigiwam in the bushes, learned from Si-Si-Gwad and Lissette the skills of women. They slept curled like puppies in the same litter, while their parents nursed the ill and buried the dead.
Little white Flower was at home in the wigiwam of Si-Si-Gwad and Bear Rose. She was beloved by Si-Si-Gwad’s mother, her unmarried sister, two boys orphaned by the fever, and Old One Eye, the man her grandmother had married so many years ago.
Si-Si-Gwad had never understood why her grandmother had accepted him as husband. Nor why Dassonag had chosen Old One Eye to be namesake for their child. Old One Eye was cursed. He followed a bear from the time it left its den in spring until it took to its den in winter. He called the bear his son, protecting it from hunters, trappers. Old One Eye was a Mide of great power, he made beautiful carvings, created charms that never failed. Nanabojo gave him those gifts to compensate for his loss of eye and son. People from others bands came to trade for his skills. He was Elder and Mide, so Si-Si-Gwad respected him and obeyed him, but she feared and resented him just the same.
Yet he doted on Bear Rose and Little White Flower, which softened Si-Si-Gwad somewhat. Bear Rose was his only namesake, as others shared her apprehension of choosing as namesake a man so cursed. Bear Rose adored him. He had carved a bear charm from bear bone, the only bit of a bear anyone had ever seen him touch, carving a rose on each side. He, himself, had sewn and beaded the little bag that kept it around her neck. He spread rose petals on both girls’ sleeping mats in summer, and collected rose hips to make a special tea just for them every autumn. To One Eye, Bear Rose and Little White Flower told their night visions upon waking each morning. A child’s dreams were not meaningful, but Old One Eye listened attentively.
Si-Si-Gwad watched Jean Luc, leading Little White Flower by the hand, come toward her. He carried an iron pot, which he silently laid at her feet. She reached for it, and found a bundle inside. The cloth was plain muslin, ready to be dyed. There were also three pieces of trade silver. If she accepted these gifts, she accepted Jean Luc as husband. Si-Si-Gwad knew Jean Luc would come to her thus. Little White Flower needed a mother, she needed a provider. Though there were many men among the People who would gladly fill Dassonag’s place, she preferred Jean Luc. She loved little White Flower. The wife of a voyageur offered many advantages to a woman, living in a log house was pleasant. This would be a good thing for Bear Rose as well. Mostly, filling Lissette’s place brought both Lissette and Dassonag closer, they did not seem as faraway. Life had been good between the four of them, becoming wife of convenience for Jean Luc would be as close as she, or he, could come to keeping that golden time a while longer. To marry any other would change everything forever.
Si-Si-Gwad looked at him gravely and nodded. She held the cooking vessel to her chest and rose gracefully to her feet. Together they walked to the wigiwam. Si-Si-Gwad collected her and Bear Rose’s belongings. Bear Rose and Little White Flower ran to each other, happy to be together once more. They solemnly accepted packs and parcels to carry, and followed their parents home.
