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.“An act of courage.”“Isn’t killing a bear courageous enough?” Mahingan blurts.I have to agree.Just facing it took more courage than I ever thought I had.“You have each met fears in the world around you.” Grandfather Wawatie waves his hand at the woods before us, then raises one finger and points to his chest.“Have you the courage to face the ones in here?”He picks up two handfuls of snow and holds it in front of Mahingan.“Anger,” he says, adding it to Mahingan’s boulder.He turns to me and scoops another two handfuls.“Guilt.” He sticks it to the weight in my already aching arms.Then, without another word, he turns and leaves us alone with our burdens.CHAPTER 49We stand there as Grandfather Wawatie’s footsteps crunch into the silence.Are we supposed to wait here? Follow him? I don’t think I can carry this great snow ball around much longer.It weighs a ton.“Anger?” Mahingan scoffs and drops his boulder.It crumbles on impact.“I don’t have anger.”I almost have to laugh, but the look he gives me makes me think otherwise.“Well.if I am angry—and I’m not saying I am,” he picks up a piece of his broken boulder and adds it to mine, “it’s your doing.You stole my rabbit.”“Are you still on about that?”“Feeling guilty?” he taunts.I throw the boulder down, relieved to be free of it.“No,” I snort.“He got your anger spot on, but I’ve no idea why he says I’m burdened by guilt.”“Oh, I’m sure you’ve done some stupid things, shognosh.Think hard.”“What do you know?” I start walking in Grandfather Wawatie’s footsteps.I don’t need to stand around and let Mahingan take shots at me.He runs along beside me.“It wouldn’t surprise me if your dumb actions got people hurt.”Now ’tis my turn to glare at him.“.or even killed.”I stop dead in my tracks.“Shut your gob, Mahingan Wawatie.You don’t know anything about anything.”“You did, didn’t you?” A grin spreads across his face.I want to wipe it off with my knuckles.“I knew you were an ininigoban, but, still, killing someone?”I lunge for him and ram him into the oak before toppling him to the ground.Straddling him, I let my fists fly, hitting his face, his side, anything I can get at.“He wasn’t supposed to die!” I scream.“He wasn’t!”Mahingan squirms beneath me and bucks me off.The force of it crashes my face into the oak as I land on all fours, but Mahingan’s on me before my head clears.“It’s your fault—” he pummels my head with both fists and I raise my arms for protection.“You killed him, shognosh, you killed him!”“I didn’t mean to!” I cry.“I didn’t mean it.I’m sorry!”Something in me breaks, not from Mahingan’s fists but from my words.I lower my arms.He’s right.I did kill Mick.’Twas my fault.Why should I get to live when Mick doesn’t? When Da doesn’t?Mahingan’s fists are relentless, but a part of me revels in the pain.I deserve it, after all.“Why did you come here?” Mahingan yells.“Why couldn’t you Irish just stay where you were? Maybe then my father would still be alive.”His father?I’m seeing stars by the time the last of Mahingan’s punches hit, my eye is near swollen shut and wet with blood, sweat, and slush.But through it all, I see something I never thought I would.Mahingan’s crying.With a final shove to my chest, he crawls off.It takes me a few minutes for the sky to stop spinning; when it does, I sit up and put a handful of snow on my burning brow.My lid is fat and pinched shut.I spit red and wipe my mouth on my sleeve.Mahingan sits with his back to me, sniffling.“What are you looking at?” he says, his voice low.“I’m just checking to see if I got in even one punch.”Mahingan turns.His cheek is swollen, lip cut, and one eye has a purple ring beneath.“Not bad,” I say, wincing as my grin hits my cheek.We sit there in the snow until our breathing calms and the chill cools our tempers.Finally, I have to ask.“What was that you said about your father?”Mahingan’s eyes flash at me, but there’s no fight left in him.His voice is low.“He caught some sickness you Irish brought over last summer.”I know it well.Hadn’t I the fever myself? Hadn’t I lost my own mother to it? “Typhus?”Mahingan nods [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]