As the Willow Bends

The day had started out with peaceful skies and no wind causing concern. The woodcutters had worked to the time of the midday meal with no problems. Three big trees were taken before the sun was full in the sky overhead, and before the clouds had begun to turn dark. They had been working only a short time after the meal when the wind began to rise over the treetops.
Petranawa and Petranee stood and watched the bending of the tree canopy and looked out over the lake to see what lay on the horizon. Big black clouds were hanging low over the water, but still at a great distance away. The water had turned a steely gray, and a strange stillness had suddenly come over the thicket. Petranawa wanted one more tree to be felled before quitting for the day. Three days of rain in the early part of the week had slowed the number of trees cut for an order needed to satisfy his customers at the Cadillac Broom Company. Both Papana and Petranee felt confident that it could be done before the storm was upon them.
Petranawa had staked out the tree to be taken. The crew had taken turns in the notching, just as all experienced lumberjacks know how to do. The wind had risen significantly. The crosscut saw was placed in the secondary smaller notch. Spemica, hismself, had helped his father to cut in the smaller notch, on the windward side opposite from the primary notch. This allowed the tree to be pushed in the direction the wind was blowing, so as to have it fall away from the saws and men cutting the tree. Petranee took one side, Petranawa the other. Petranawa had directed Spemica and the other men to keep watch and stand back. They were to shout out if the wind shifted and come quickly to help with the needed push in the right direction.
It had all happened so fast. The cut was half way done. Petranawa and Petranee had stopped working the crosscut saw only a couple of times to take a rest, and then only for a few minutes. Suddenly the wind took an angry turn and the trees in the thicket started bending. There was a loud crack. Pertranee tried to release the saw from the tree, so as not to lose it from the force and pressure of the fall. Petranawa shouted for Petranee to leave the saw, but he continued to pull at the handle trying to twist it free of the tree. The men standing nearby starting shouting, as the lean of the tree increased. The push to Petranee came so forcefully he flew through the air and landed face down on the forest floor several yards from where he had been standing behind the tree. His head had struck one of the shoulder bags holding the remnants of a lunch just eaten. He heard the warning shout from Spemica and the cry of the tree as it gave up its life and took Petranawa’s in the going.
Petranee rose from the ground, dazed, and turned back to where he had last seen Petranawa. All he could see was the downed tree and the legs of Petranawa buried beneath it. There was no saving his beloved father-in-law, a father like his own. Petranee ran to the tree, and would not leave Petranawa’s side, despite Spemica’s desperate urgings. Spemica and Petranee were in a panic to try and save their beloved father. In a driving rain, all the men worked furiously to cut the tree away from their leader, father, and friend. On this day, there was no saving Petranawa. As Petranee and Spemica sang Petranawa’s death song with piercing agony, the crew carried Petranawa out of the forest. It was the last day they would ever be together with Petranawa in the pine or on the path of life.
Tehya would never forget the splashes of water soaking her legs, from the bucket she had been carrying back from the spring, on an errand for Nee-nee. Tehya started to run for the weegwahm at breakneck speed hearing the sound of her grandmother’s tormented screams. She dropped the bucket, several hundred feet from the shack, leaving her shift dripping wet. Tehya burst through the door to find a circle of faces covered in mud with water running from hair and eyes. Her father was there, and Uncle Spemica too, but no Papana. Their expressions of fear and grief said it all. Nee-nee’s wailing pierced Tehya’s heart as no other pain had ever done before. She ran from the weegwahm, blindly racing through the trees and brush, off the path of Otamund Road so no one would see her overwhelming grief. She raced frantically to her spot on the bluff, leaving the urgent calls of her uncle and father far behind her. She would shut the world out, like it was all a bad dream. She would wake up on the dune from this nightmare, and when she returned, Papana would be there in his place at the eating table, with a smile, holding his cup for another pour of Naukee’s Black Ash tea. All of her conjuring, crying, and trying to make it so was not to be. Papana was gone from them forever.