Buffalo Dreamer

2
Our Annual Trip

Finally, we’re on the last leg of the three-­day trip to the reserve where Mom grew up. Since we come up every summer, Mom doesn’t need a map to get us from Arizona to Northern Alberta, where her rez is. All winter I look forward to this trip and to getting to see my mom’s side of the family. My dad is a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and most of the year we live close to his side of the family in Phoenix, plus my mom teaches at the nearby university. Dad is a producer and can work anywhere in the world; that’s how I want to work when I grow up, but more on the tech side.

Before we turn onto the highway, Mom nods to her phone. “Hey, sweetheart,” she says. “Text Dad and let him know we made it across.”

I start to text, but Dad calls before I can hit Send.

“Hi, Yaya! Where’s Mom?”

Only my dad and my mosom call me Yaya. It’s a nickname from way back when I was a baby—­my first word was supposedly yaya.

“She’s right here!” I say, turning on the speaker button.

“Hi, babe!” Mom yells. “We made it across the border. We should be at Kokom and Mosom’s house tonight just in time for dinner.”

“Oh, good! Text me when you get there. Travel safe, my loves!”

“Dad!” I say quickly, before he hangs up. “When are you coming?”

“I have this last project to finish up this week, and it’s an all-­nighter,” Dad says with a sigh. “Then I’ll fly up so we can all drive home together.”

“Cool! Well, don’t stay up all night, Dad! Take care of yourself.” I sort of feel like Mom, and I look over to see her smiling.

“I won’t,” Dad answers. “Help Mom if she needs you, and keep an eye out for deer! Is little man awake?”

I turn around and face the back seat of our SUV. Sage sits behind Mom with his tablet attached to the back of her seat like in an airplane. His movie is paused now and he’s staring out the window.

“Ya, he’s right here!” I say, pointing the phone in his direction.

“Hi, Dad! I’m helping Mom look out for deer too,” Sage yells into the phone.

“Good man!” Dad yells back. “Okay, drive safe, love you all, byeeee!”

The phone call ends, and I put the phone back into its dashboard holder.

I look at Sage again. His dark brown hair is in two braids, and he wears a red bandana wrapped around his head like the elders. His big brown eyes hold mine, and a goofy smile stretches across his face. “What? Why are you looking at me?”

“Because you’re so cute,” I tease him. “Doesn’t it feel great to be done with school for the year? I can’t wait to sleep late. You should try it!” I say, shaking his skinny leg.

“I like getting up early in the morning with Mom,” Sage says.

“Aww,” Mom coos, “and I love that too.”

Mom and Sage have been super close ever since he was a baby and she kept him wrapped up in his cradleboard on her back whenever she cooked or cleaned. Every time she took him out, he would cry and cry until she put him back in his cradleboard. It was his favorite place to be.

I turn around and settle in for the last leg of our trip. Everything gets slower once we’re in Canada. The speed limit slows to fifty miles per hour and the roads get narrower. And in about eight hours, when we arrive at the rez, I’ll be stuck with the world’s slowest internet. It is a coder’s worst nightmare, and I love to code—­I’m in the tech club at school, and we’re developing a few techniques to improve digital illustrations with a stylus.

Good thing there’s so much I look forward to: being with family, taking in some powwows, and riding Luna, the horse my uncle gifted me with last summer. Luna’s coat is a beautiful light brown, and she has a white crescent on her forehead that looks like a small moon, which is why I named her Luna. Her mane and tail are golden brown, and at the end of last year, she let me braid a pink ribbon in her tail.

“I still can’t believe she let you ride her!” my mom says when I tell her that I can’t wait to see Luna. “Remember how Uncle Lawrence had been working with her all spring? And claimed that she still wasn’t rideable?”

“Yep,” I say. “I guess I have the secret touch! I just walked right up to her, and she let me put her tack on and bit in her mouth.”

“Well, our mouths sure dropped to the floor when you came out of the horse shelter riding the ‘unrideable’ horse.” Mom starts laughing.

“Did I ever ride a wild horse before?” I ask.

“When you were little, you rode with Uncle and Mosom on the horses they worked on—­the ones they trusted. But never completely on your own until Luna.”

“When I ride her, it feels like we’ve known each other forever,” I say.

“Yes, it’s like that sometimes,” Mom says.

I sit back and daydream about riding Luna as I stare out at the wide blue sky. The gentle sway of the car feels so nice, I don’t even feel myself fall asleep.

3
A Dream of Freedom

The air was hot and stale in the alcove where I was hiding. My heavy wool dress was making my neck itch, and my outgrown leather shoes pinched my pinkie toe, numbing it to where it felt like small stabs of pins and needles.

I was trying hard to stay quiet but couldn’t stop my heart pounding.

And I couldn’t stop my mind racing either.

I’m never going to make it.

I shuddered at that thought, so I made myself think of home, the songs, the smells, the safety.

You are going to make it home, I reassured myself. You will sing with Delores again. You’ll see if Sunny had her winter colt. You’ll make it home.

My eyes started to tear up at the thought of all I’d missed.

Stop it! I told myself. You need to see, stay alert, get your head right.

Tap-­tap-­tap. The sound of clicking heels got louder and louder. Ducking down farther, I prayed.

I am a coyote’s shadow, I am the wind, you don’t see me.

I heard the soft jingle of keys. I hated those keys. Keys that locked away our food. Keys that locked doors to keep us in or keep us out. Keys reminding us of who holds the power.

Anger snapped my mind straight. I would escape! My legs were strong enough to carry me on this journey. I had the food that Ann and I squirreled away before she disappeared a week ago.

Ann was always so scrappy and bold. Almost weekly she would get thrown in the isolation bin for speaking our language or not keeping in line straight. But they had never kept her in isolation after nightfall, and when she was gone overnight, the nuns said she ran away. And now her mattress was folded in half, with new linens pressed and folded on top, waiting for another girl to take her place.

Every day I hoped to see Ann walk in, shrug, and smile that brave and defiant smile at me. But she didn’t come back, and our planned date to escape our boarding school before the winter snowstorms was quickly approaching.

“Ann ran away without you,” the older girls all said.

But I knew Ann wouldn’t do that. Plus, she left behind her heavy winter sweater and her beautiful wool blanket. She had stumbled upon her blanket while cleaning the stockroom. It had been stolen from her years earlier when she arrived at the school, and Ann was so happy to reclaim what was taken from her.

She stitched an A on a corner of it and hid it in the attic. At night we would sneak up and stroke its soft fabric and dream of what we would do when we made it home. The blanket was the first thing we had packed in our travel sack.

Oh, Ann, I’m so scared. I wish you were with me—­you’re the brave one.

When the tapping heels and jingling keys finally passed by, the school was quiet again.

Okay, it’s now or never, I told myself. I needed to leave now, before the teacher’s next round checking to make sure no kids were out of bed.

I reached for the key I snatched the day Ann went missing and cracked the front door open. I could only open it so far before it made that awful screech, and I slinked through the tight space.

My hands were so sweaty when I tried to lock the door that I dropped the key, making a loud TING.

I froze. Surely someone would hear!

Oh no! Into the isolation bin I’ll go for sure!

I waited a minute, then two, and when no one came, I took off.

It was beautiful outside with the moonlight turning everything into different shades of blue. The cold wind bit at my unprotected face and hands. I shivered but already felt so much more alive.

I traveled through the shadows across the field to find the burlap sack Ann and I had packed and the boots and hat I had taken from the nurse’s infirmary. The boots felt ice cold from being outside when I slipped my feet into them. Into the bag I packed the too-­small leather shoes I had been given three years ago, when I first arrived.

You’ll warm up when you start moving, I told myself. Now go! They’ll be coming for you soon!

The thought jolted me, and I raced to the hole in the fence Ann and I had discovered when we made this escape plan.

For you, Ann, I reminded myself, âsowahamakew Ann.