The Drums of Change by Janette Oke Page B

come?” he continued.
    For a moment Running Fawn felt that she would choke with emotion. She shook her head again.
    There was heavy silence with only the distant call of a meadowlark to break the stillness.
    “I am sorry,” came the quiet response, and Running Fawn felt that the words were truly spoken.
    She wished that she could get up and move away—but there really was no place to go. Besides, she ached so badly from all the jostling that she wished she would never need to move again.
    “I wanted to,” said Silver Fox in little more than a whisper.
    Running Fawn favored him with a dark scowl. That was the whole problem. His desire to learn and learn.
    “I want to study so that I can help my people,” he continued.
    Running Fawn made no reply.
    “Someday I may be chief,” he continued matter-of-factly, no bravado in his tone.
    Running Fawn gave him another dark look. Of course he would be chief. His father was old. Chief Calls Through The Night would not be chief of their band for long.
    “I want to be a wise chief,” said Silver Fox, his eyes on some faraway object unknown to Running Fawn.
    She twisted sharply to stare at him. “Your father is a wise chief,” she responded hotly.
    She did not need to say that his father had never been to the white man’s school.
    But Silver Fox did not seem perturbed by her outburst, only nodded.
    For many moments they sat in silence and then he spoke again. Slowly. Softly.
    “These are different times. It will never be the same again. If our people are to survive, to prosper, we must learn to live in the new world. With new ways.”
    “Would you forsake the old?” she demanded.
    “No. No,” he quickly answered. “We must build upon them. But we must move on. We must. I—”
    But she had heard enough. In spite of her reluctance to leave the cool spot in the shade she sprang to her feet.
    “The old ways are good,” she spat at him. “There is no reason to leave them. I will not—will—take the ways of the white man. I will not.”
    With her angry cry ringing in the air, she left him and ran along the riverbank until she rounded the bend and no longer was in sight. Exhausted by the heat and her emotions, she sunk into a little heap on the rich river grasses and let the sobs shake her entire body.

    Running Fawn had never seen so many wooden buildings intermingled with strange-looking tent dwellings in one area. They traveled through narrow passages lined with the structures, where people, mostly white people, hurried back and forth, always seeming determined to get to some other place.
    Dust from the wheels of their buggy joined that of many other conveyances to fill the air and every available crevice.
    She wanted to turn to Silver Fox and ask him if this was Fort Calgary, but she still was angry with him and would not speak.
    At last the driver of the team pulled back on the leather straps and said a loud “whoa.” The buggy rolled to a stop in front of a large white building.
    “Here we are,” announced the second man, looking back at them and giving them a big grin.
    Running Fawn sat and stared. For some reason it was not at all what she had expected—though she could not have described what it was she had expected. It simply was all so strange. Where were the tepees? Where were the campfires? How did one ever—?
    The man on her side of the buggy stretched long legs down toward the ground and eased himself slowly from the seat. He reached up a hand toward Running Fawn.
    “Down with you,” he said good-naturedly. “We are at journey’s end.”
    Running Fawn knew he expected her to be happy with the news, but she could feel no joy.
    She could feel Silver Fox stirring beside her. For one brief moment she wished to reach out and wrap her fingers in his buckskin shirt just as she used to do with her mother’s skirts. But she turned from him instead and let the tall man help her over the wheel of the wagon.
    And then she was being led down a rock-hard path