I’m drifting, same as the dead leaves on the river passin’ along the white hull of the New Ila. The leaves turn in the foam of her stern wheel, trapped before they’re spit out to drift down the river, not knowing where they’re headed. My dreams churn as well. I see Ma and Da. They’re tilling the garden, and Ma, she’s looking up and smilin’ at me. Then she turns away, and it’s the baby she hears. She’s left him in the house, no doubt. Then, she’s gone back to working as if she didn’t hear the wee one at all. I walk then, and it’s the Indian camp all around me. I hear the cries, and I’m wondering if it’s my babe, the tiny girl torn from my body and taken from me in this cursed place. There’s not a soul will tell what’s been done with her. I find only emptiness in lodge after lodge. And then I spy a babe inside one, hanging in her cradleboard, all wrapped up safe and warm. I want to take her down and loose the rawhide ties to see if there’s a strawberry mark on her leg.
