“Mvskoke opunakv opunayetske mekvlesv’Ike? He hoped he’d just asked them if they spoke English, but his Creek language skills weren’t that great yet. Harjo’s wife had been helping him learn simple words, but their two boys still laughed at his pronunciations.
The girl’s lips twitched. The young boy standing next to her threw his head back and let out a howl of laughter. The girl hissed something and grabbed at his shoulder, but he dodged her with a quick side step and ran away, still laughing at Josiah’s expense. The boy’s unaffected laughter struck something deep inside and before he knew it, Josiah also laughed while the girl stared at both of them, a disgusted frown on her face.
“The lad knows a terrible accent when he hears it, so you might as well laugh at me, too. I’m even laughing at myself. My Creek is horrible, and my Choctaw isn’t much better.”
“Then why do you try to speak them if you know you can’t?” the girl asked, answering Josiah’s unspoken question. She understood the English language very well—much better than he did Creek.
“Because I want to learn who my mother’s people are, and that means learning their language. If you understand the language a person speaks, you understand how they think. Until then, you don’t really understand who they are.”
The girl tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing in thought, but her gaze never left his. “I never thought about it like that.”
Josiah shrugged. “Most people don’t.” He held her gaze a moment longer then glanced over to where the boy now stood beside the porch, staring at what he held in his hands. He dropped his gaze and began whittling again, shaping the back of the bison, deepening the separation between the head and the top of the hump then carving the tail by using the tip of the blade to chip out pieces of wood. Next, he cut out the eyes, nose, and mouth, again using the tip of the blade to create the strands of long hair that hung from the beast’s face.
“What is that?”
Josiah glanced at the boy, who now stood beside him, his eyes wide and filled with curiosity. He held up the wooden creature and turned it this way and that, inspecting his work with pride. He’d always enjoyed carving. It had been something his grandfather and he had done together. Something they had enjoyed.
“This is a bison. Ayvnvsvin Creek. Before the white man came, there were more bison than blades of grass on the prairie.”
“That’s a lot of bison,” the boy said. “Were they small, like yours?”
Josiah bit back a smile, knowing the boy probably wouldn’t appreciate it. “No, this is what the bison look like. They are many, many times bigger. Two times bigger than the biggest horse.” The boy’s eyes widened at the comparison. Josiah held out the carved wood. “Would you like this?”
“Why would you give it to me?”
Josiah smiled. “Because I want to. I can make another for myself.”
The child hesitated a second longer then slowly reached out and wrapped his filthy fingers around the bison and pulled it to his chest, holding it like a treasure.
“What do you say, Billy?”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I know one name now. I’ll go first. My name is Josiah West.” He glanced over at Billy, whose gaze was locked on the bison.
“Billy Durant.”
Josiah turned his smile to the girl. “And you are?”
She hesitated, her lips pursing then she sighed and moved to stand by Billy. “Summer Durant. Billy’s my cousin.”
“Where are your parents?”
“They’re dead.”
“Do you live near here?”
“We don’t have a home,” Billy chimed in, which got him a quick kick from Summer. “What? It’s true. We don’t. Not since stupid Johnny took up with them no-good whites and got us kicked out of the mercantile—first here, then in Muskogee. So, now where are we supposed to go?”
“Aren’t you going to read your letter?” Summer asked.
Josiah knew she was trying to change the subject, but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t equipped to take on a pair of children and had no idea where to send them. Maybe when Harjo returned, he could ask him. He pulled the folded letter from his front vest pocket. “I’d almost forgotten I had this. Thanks for reminding me.” With a quick flip of his knife, he sliced through the top of the envelope and pulled out the letter. Unfolding it, he scanned the same neat handwriting, his stomach churning as he got to the end of the missive.
“Bad news?”
“Huh?” He glanced at Summer. “What did you say?’
“I asked if it was bad news? You’re scowling at it—like there are terrible words written on the page.”