Diamond Willow Read Free

one of our Indian words. Or, as we say,
    Dinak’i. I know some, from bilingual class,
    but not as much as Grandpa and Grandma, not
    even as much as Mom. Sometimes , when we’re
    dropping off to sleep out here, I hear them talking
    Dinak’i, chuckling together, and I feel a little bit
    left out. Not that I would like to go back to
    the old times I hear the two of them talk
    about—back when people didn’t have
    TV, computers, telephones, or
    snowmachines and airplanes.
    I’d miss all those things.
    But I like to listen
    to their stories.
    I know if I try,
    I can learn to
    understand
    them.
    Â 
    Grandpa
    gets up first
    and makes a hot
    birch fire in the stove.
    When the house is warm
    Grandma makes a pot of coffee
    and cooks pancakes. Grandma, I ask,
    can I move out here and live with you?
    I give her all my reasons. Well, most of them.
    She looks down at her sewing. I do know what
    you mean, Willow. We’d like to have you here.
    I’m surprised! I was expecting some argument
    about my family, or all the friends she thinks
    I have at school. Then she goes on: Could
    you and your dad take care of all
    those dogs if you’re here and
    he’s there? Maybe you
    shouldn’t split up
    a dog team like
    that, Willow.
    Those dogs
    get used
    to each
    other.
    Â 
    Early
    evening,
    snow starts
    falling, burying my
    tracks from the trail up to
    the dog yard and into the house.
    Snow covers all the yellow circles
    the dogs have made around their houses,
    and half buries the firewood stacked outside.
    Grandma stands beside me; we’re looking out
    the window, and she tilts her head the way she does
    when she’s thinking of a riddle: Look , I see something …
    She squints her eyes a little. Someone outside is wearing
    a sheepskin coat. I look around and figure out what
    Grandma means: Over there—I see snow piled
    on top of an old stump. Inside her warm
    kitchen, Grandma nods. She
    smiles a little. That’s
    right, Willow,
    that’s
    it.
    Â 
    Sunday
    morning, the
    snow is deep, but
    not so much that I can’t
    make it home. Grandpa and Dad
    go out on snowmachines, meeting halfway
    to pack the trail. It’s time to leave. If I start now, I’ll
    have plenty of time to get home before dark. I feed the dogs
    a little extra, and Grandma says, Here—put this in your pack.
    Smoked salmon! Looks like she’s feeding me a little extra, too.
    Then she gives me the mittens she just finished, beaded
    flowers on her home-tanned moose skin, beaver fur
    around the cuffs. She could sell them for a lot
    of money, and she’s giving them to me
    when it’s not even my birthday.
    I put them on, put my
    hands on her face.
    We both
    smile.
    Â 
    It’s
    warm
    today,
    almost
    up to zero. I
    see something:
    White clouds blow
    across the sky. Too bad
    I’m out here alone, with
    no one but that spruce hen
    to tell my riddle to. (It’s the dogs’
    breath I see, white puffs going out behind
    them as they run.) Here comes the halfway point,
    where Grandpa met Dad this morning. They warned me
    about this part of the trail; this will be the stretch to watch,
    this bumpy part coming up. Take it easy there, Grandpa said.
    Okay, slow down, Roxy. Good, we’re past that rough spot,
    now we can go as fast as we want. And I love to go fast!
    So does Roxy. She looks back at me and I swear
    I see her grin. Let’s go! we tell each other.
    Cora and Magoo perk up their ears
    as if to say, Okay with us!
    I knew I could do this.
    Hike, Roxy!
    Haw!
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 

    Jean, Willow’s great-great-great grandmother (Spruce Hen)
    Oh, my land! Look at this child flying down the trail!
    She comes from people who like to keep moving—my family moved across an ocean when I was about Willow’s age; her grandfather hitchhiked across Canada the summer he turned twenty; her father came north on the Alcan Highway—on a motorcycle. Now look—when Willow and Roxy get