Nanapush roasted the rabbit, ate it. Three times he asked his mother to take some, but she refused. She hid her face in the blanket so he would not see her face.
Go now, she said. I heard the same song from the rabbit. The buffalo used to churn up the earth so the grass would grow better for the rabbits to eat. All the animals miss the buffalo, but they miss the real Anishinaabeg too. Take the gun and travel straight into the west. A buffalo has come back from over that horizon. The old woman waits for you. If you return and I am dead, do not cry. You have been a very good son to me.
So Nanapush went out.
Mooshum stopped talking. I heard his bed creak, and then the light, even rattle of his snoring. I was disappointed and thought of shaking him awake to find out the end of the story. But at last I fell asleep too. When I woke, I wondered again what had happened. Mooshum was in the kitchen, sipping at the soupy maple-syrup-flavored oatmeal he loved in the morning. I asked Mooshum who this Nanapush was, the boy he spoke of in the story. But he gave me another answer entirely.
Nanapush? Mooshum gave a dry, little creaky laugh.
An old man prone to madness! Like me, only worse. He should have been weeded out. In the face of danger, he was sure to act like an idiot. When self-discipline was called for, greed won out with Nanapush. He was aged early on by absurdities and lies. Old Nanapush, as they called him, or akiwenziish. Sometimes the old reprobate worked miracles through gross and disgusting behavior. People went to him, though secretly, for healings. As it happened, when I was a young man I myself brought him blankets, tobacco, and acquired from him secrets on how to please my first wife, whose eyes had begun to stray. Junesse was slightly older than me, and in bed she craved patience from a man that only comes with age. What should I do? I begged the old man. Tell me!
Baashkizigan! Baashkizigan! said Nanapush. Don’t be shy. Take your time with the next, and if another stand comes on think about paddling across the lake against a stiff wind and don’t stop until you’ve beached your canoe.
And so I kept my woman and came to respect the old man. He acted crazy to sort his friends from his enemies. But he spoke the truth.
What about his mother? I asked. What about the woman no man could kill? When she sent him for the buffalo. What happened?
What caca are you talking about, my boy?
Your story.
What story?
The one you told me last night.
Last night? I told no story. I slept the whole night through. I slept good.
Okay then, I thought. I’m going to have to wait for him to fall asleep good and hard again. Maybe this time I’ll hear the end.
So I waited the next night, trying to keep awake. But I was tired and kept dropping off. I slept for a good while. Then in my dreams I heard the sound of a light sticklike gnashing, and woke to find Mooshum sitting up again. He’d forgotten to take out his dentures and they were loose. He was clacking his teeth together, not speaking, as he sometimes did when he was very angry. But at last the teeth fell out of his mouth and he found words.
Ah, those first reservation years, when they squeezed us! Down to only a few square miles. We starved while the cows of settlers lived fat off the fenced grass of our old hunting grounds. In those first years our white father with the big belly ate ten ducks for dinner and didn’t even send us the feet. Those were bad years. Nanapush saw his people starve and die out, then his mother was attacked as wiindigoo but the men could not kill her. They were nowhere. Dying. But now in his starved condition the rabbit gave him some strength, so he resolved to go after that buffalo. He took up his mother’s hatchet and his father’s gun.
As he dragged himself along, mile after mile, Nanapush sang the buffalo song although it made him cry. It broke his heart. He remembered how when he was a small boy the buffalo had filled the world. Once, when he was little, the hunters came down to the river. Nanapush climbed a tree to look