asked.
“I don’t know. But they’re tearing everything apart. Best not get in their way.”
Now I could hear the barks of dogs, lots of them, and distant shouts.
Mr. Schofield stumbled from the tepee, trying to buckle his belt, his eyes a little unfocused as if still in a drunken haze. “What’s going on?”
“Police,” Mother Beal said. “Searching for someone.”
“Go, Buck,” Maybeth said. “Run.”
Everyone stared at me, surprise and suspicion on their faces. I heard the dogs coming toward us, but I just stood there, undecided.
“Go!” Maybeth gave me a shove. “I’ll find you.”
Without any idea of what it was all about, Mother Beal said, “Go on, son. And God be with you.”
I took off at a run along the bank of the Minnesota River. A hundred yards away, I dove behind a thick growth of sumac and lay where I could see what went on in Hopersville. Officers with dogs on leashes moved swiftly through the encampment, rousting men from the shanties, barking at them harshly, a sound little different from the dogs’. If a man objected, a billy club was the response he got. I felt terrible and guilty because I knew I was the cause of all that disruption in a place where lives were already brutally disrupted. I watched three cops with a dog approach the Schofields, and I hoped that because there were children present the family might be spared the worst. But when Captain Gray stepped between the officers and the family, he was shoved to the ground and a snarling dog went at him. Mrs. Schofield cried out and tried to help, but she went down under a blow from a billy club. Her husband, who still hadn’t succeeded in securing his belt, stepped toward the cop as if to defend his wife, but his pants fell down and he tripped himself and tumbled over Mrs. Schofield. Maybeth rushed to help her parents and was rewarded with a cop’s boot to her ribs. Mother Beal pulled the twins to her bosom and shielded them with her old body.
I couldn’t take it, couldn’t just stand by and not try to help those good people who’d opened their hearts to me and their home, such as it was. I was blind with a rage far greater than any fear, and I stood up to run to their aid. I had no idea what I would do, but I wasn’t going to let this travesty continue.
Before I could take a step, a powerful hand grabbed my shoulder from behind, and a low voice growled, “Got you.”
The hand spun me around. And I stared into the face of Hawk Flies at Night.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I TRIED TO pull away, but the Indian held me in a vicious grip.
“Let me go, you bastard.” I kicked at him.
“Easy, little man,” he said. “Keep your voice down. They’re waiting for you.”
“Who?” I tried another kick.
“Amdacha.”
“Who?”
“Broken to Pieces. You call him Mose. Him and your brother and the little girl.”
That made me go still. “Where?”
“Across the river. Quick, before those bullies spot us.”
“I can’t leave them.” I looked desperately toward the Schofields’ encampment, where the altercation was continuing, and Maybeth lay on the ground next to her mother and father, holding her side where she’d been kicked, and the twins were screaming bloody murder, and old Mother Beal was up and giving those boys in khaki a good what-for with her tongue.
“You can’t help them,” the Indian said. “If they’re smart enough to build a tepee, I’m guessing they’re smart enough to get through this. But if the law lays its hands on you, Buck, you’ll never see the light of day again.”
One of the cops had gone into the tepee, and he came out now and shouted something above the cacophony. The cop with the dog pulled the canine off Captain Gray, and the law moved on. In our direction. The Indian and I crept low behind the cover of the sumac, and together began to run. We didn’t stop until we reached a bridge that spanned the river.
We found them in a dense copse of poplars a quarter of a mile downriver from Hopersville. The canoe had been carried into the trees and laid on its side. From the river and from the far bank, it would have been nearly impossible to spot the camp—unless a fire attracted someone’s eye, but there was no sign of a fire having been lit. The blankets lay together in the soft undergrowth, and I could see