Silly Crow and Bud
During the journey west, the wagon train had attracted many stray animals looking for easy food. Among the stray cats and dogs that followed them and fed at the dumps the wagon train left behind after every encampment, the party also had a company of crows. One night, early in the summer, a fight among the crows at a nearby dump left one of them badly injured. Fannie Fazenbaker heard the ruckus and went to investigate. Shooing away the other animals, she found the injured bird unconscious and nearly dead. She scooped its bleeding and torn body into her apron and returned to her wagon. For days, much of her attention was on saving the crow's life. After a week, she had finally nursed it back. A broken wing was doctored and bandaged and out of some kind of appreciation, the big black bird took to perching itself on Fannie's shoulders whenever she left her wagon. She named the crow Bud and she shared her meals with him while her sister Ineta looked on with amusement and laughed at them.
"Silly Crow and Bud," Ineta chuckled one night while they roasted dried corn over a fire. The popping of the kernels had attracted Billy and he had entered their camp and was popping his own cob of corn that had been pierced by the end of a long, sharp stick. Ineta brushed the last of the day's butter onto another cob of corn and held it over the fire. The buttered corn sizzled and snapped in the heat next to Billy's popping cob. Billy liked this meal very much and had told the sisters so. Then Ineta had treated him to one of her favorite meals, popped corn and milk in a bowl. "A bit of honey makes it just right," she said. Billy agreed and found it made a delicious meal for in the mornings.
"Silly Crow and Bud," Ineta said again and laughed.
"You hush," Fannie scolded and fed Bud a piece of popped corn.
Puzzled, Billy looked over at Ineta. "Who's Silly Crow?" he asked.
Ineta wound down from her chortling. "Silly Crow is my sister," she said. "The Great Spirit gives us our names. He comes to our parents and tells them our birth names. Then he comes again and tells them our earth names. When we get older, he comes to us and gives us our spirit names. I have many spirit names. Walkin' Deer is my animal name and Silly Crow is Fannie's."
Billy watched Fannie feed Bud; then he pulled his corn from the fire before too many of the white fluffy corn kernels burned. He blew on them before picking one and putting it into his mouth. "So good," he said and smiled at Ineta. Then he asked, as was his nature whenever a question formed in his mind, "Is the Great Spirit another name for God?"
"I s'pose it is," Ineta answered, not quite sure about the white man's religion.
"So what does God look like?" Billy asked.
"The Great Spirit came to me in the form of one of my uncles. I was twelve and I prayed to the Great Spirit to give me my animal name. He sent me on a dream quest, where I lived in the woods for five days without eatin' or sleepin' or--"
"Didn't you starve?"
"No. I drank water and that was all."
"How could you dream without sleepin'? Were they daydreams?"
"Perhaps 'dream' was the wrong word. Perhaps 'vision' would have been better. Anyway, after my fourth day in the woods, when night had come and the woods were alive with all of Great Spirits' animals, and when the sun was risin' and turnin' night to day, I had my vision."
"Were you scared?"
"Certainly. But not of the Great Spirit. I feared his evil brother and had surrounded myself in a circle with many good objects for protection from him. And he did approach me."
Billy almost choked on his popped corn. "Was he the devil? What did he look like?"
"He looked like my father. Father had told us many tales of sadness told to him by his father ... wicked tales from Germany. So, the evil one came to me in the form of my father tellin' me his father's terrible stories of witches and men who turned into wolves at night. But I prayed to the Great Spirit and knew my circle would protect me. Then, when the sun colored the sky above me the most beautiful blue ever, the Great Spirit came."
"How did you know your uncle was the Great Spirit?" Billy asked.
Ineta smiled. "I knew in my heart. I left my circle and went to him. He had taken council in the woods not far from me and was surrounded by many elders. There was a line of people waitin' to see him, so I took my place in line. When it was my turn, I went to him. He said, 'Why do you seek my council?' and I said I desired my animal name. He nodded at me and said, 'Go home Walkin' Deer and be with your family.' So I went home with my new name."
"Wow." Billy turned to Fannie sitting to the left of him. She was petting Bud's head and looking up at the stars. Billy was almost afraid to interrupt her; she looked so peaceful. "Did the same thing happen to you?"
Fannie stayed fixed on the stars and said, "Yes. But the Great Spirit came to me as a different uncle." She sighed and looked at the boy; her large brown eyes reflected the flickering firelight. "When he gave me my name, I cried; I was so disappointed. I thought, 'What sort of name is Silly Crow? Certainly not somethin' to be proud of.' So I refused to tell the others my name until one day my mother came to me, handed me a large, black tail feather and said, 'There's nothin' to be ashamed of.' The feather was a crow's feather, so I put it in my hair and my mother and I laughed until we hurt. Then I cried and it was over--no more feelin' sorry for myself."
Billy shook his head. "Nothin' like that has ever happened to me." He sat still for a moment, gazing at the fire and nibbling at his corn. Fannie looked at Ineta who looked at Fannie and the sisters nodded. Then Ineta said, "Everyone has names. Even you."
"I'm just William Jacob Riley."
"That's your birth name. But your earth name is He That Runs Swift As A Fox."
Billy looked up and said eagerly, "Is it really? I have another name?"
Fannie stroked Bud's head to calm him from Billy's sudden stir. The sisters laughed at the boy's excitement and Ineta said, "Yes, the Great Spirit has told us your earth name."
"Wow, this is great. I'm gonna go tell Emma and Daniel."
And with that, the boy bounded off into the velvet night while Fannie put Bud to bed inside their wagon and Ineta listened to the prairie sounds--some good, some bad--that surrounded the emigrants in the vast midnight region of ridges, peaks and mesas.
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