Onwaachige the Dreamer Read online

  Readers love Pukawiss The Outcast

  by JAY JORDAN HAWKE

  “This is a lot of fun to read and felt very authentic and informative of Ojibwe culture. Joshua is a very likable character, and this book should please both adult and teen readers who like nonromantic coming of age stories.”

  —Hearts on Fire

  “I loved this novel from the start to the end…. I would highly recommend this novel. Not just for the characters but also the strong story that makes the reader want to know more.”

  —MM Good Book Reviews

  “There were no parts of the book that I didn’t like. It was interesting and engaging from the very beginning.”

  —Timmy’s Book Reviews

  Readers love A Scout Is Brave

  by JAY JORDAN HAWKE

  “…I can’t wait to see what happens next with the story. I’m sure it will be just as good as the first two books.”

  —Greedy Bug Reviews

  “It’s a frank look at growing up different, remaining true, and taking a stand for what’s fair, just and right.”

  —The Kimi-chan Experience

  By JAY JORDAN HAWKE

  THE TWO-SPIRIT CHRONICLES

  Pukawiss The Outcast

  A Scout is Brave

  Onwaachige the Dreamer

  Published by HARMONY INK PRESS

  www.harmonyinkpress.com

  Published by

  HARMONY INK PRESS

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  [email protected] • harmonyinkpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Onwaachige the Dreamer

  © 2015 Jay Jordan Hawke.

  Cover Art

  © 2015 Anne Cain.

  [email protected]

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-63476-275-5

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-63476-277-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015943646

  First Edition December 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

  This paper meets the requirements of

  ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

  THIS ONE is for outcasts of every kind. Congratulations, because you have been touched by the gods. It is also for my nonhuman companion, Pywacky.

  JOSHUA’S WEEK at summer camp ended in tragedy. Levi Powers, the ruthless bully who had terrorized his fellow scouts, lay dead on the rocky lakeshore below. Large waves of lake water, stirred up by the violent storm, took turns covering his body, as if frantically trying to hide the crime. But what crime had been committed? Joshua hadn’t pushed Levi off the cliff. It was Robby Locksner who did that. And it was fitting too. Robby had borne the brunt of Levi’s cruel bullying all week, as he was just about the perfect target. He was small, frail, and quiet. And when he did talk, he sure stood out with his characteristic stutter. Combine that with the fact that he had no friends, and he was sure to be singled out by someone as mean and vicious as Levi.

  But Levi had eventually found an even better target at camp. He encountered Joshua Ishkoday on the first day. Joshua wasn’t the typical target for a bully like Levi, who was used to easy victims. Joshua was the same age as Levi, and he was anything but weak. In fact, Joshua had even stood up for Robby earlier that week, when Levi was viciously taunting Robby in front of a large group of scouts at the lakefront. Why did Joshua have to intervene? It was the beginning of a tragedy that ended in the death of Levi. But how could it have come to this? Joshua constantly replayed the events in his mind as he gazed at the motionless body in the lake below.

  The rain had stopped, as if the violent storm was placated by the sacrifice. Joshua finally realized he could have done nothing differently. He had to intervene when Levi was bullying Robby. He was a witness to the cruel torments that had taken place, and no one else had done anything about it. So, despite being completely new to the troop, it was Joshua who had stepped forward and demanded Levi leave Robby alone. He remembered shoving Levi hard and watching him fly backward against the fence. That was Joshua’s first indication that this monster was merely a human being, as weak and fragile as any mortal. Joshua had been determined that Robby learn that lesson as well.

  He had taken Robby under his wing after that, and under his protection, Robby had flourished. Behind that weak and frail exterior lay a smart, courageous, and compassionate soul, one dying to get out and express itself. And in the end, it was Robby who came to Joshua’s defense and shoved the beast, the bully, off the cliff, slaying the demon of Camp Nishkendan.

  But certainly Robby was not to blame for the death of Levi either. If Robby had not intervened, it would be Joshua lying there dead on the lakeshore below. Robby was just defending his defender.

  Joshua recalled the events leading up to that horrible moment. He had been in the forest at the end of the week at camp, in that horrendous storm, when Levi and his gang had come out of nowhere. Levi even had a knife, and he was possessed by a hate-filled rage. Before Joshua could react, Levi’s friends had grabbed him and held him down, preparing him for whatever humiliating torment Levi had inside his twisted mind.

  But Joshua had broken free and run, until he hit the end of the trail and stopped just short of the cliff and deadly lakeshore below. And before he knew it, Levi had cornered him. But Joshua had defended himself, and the two had clashed in the forest, as the frightening storm stirred above them, seemingly energized by the epic battle below. Finally, Levi had gained the upper hand… but out of nowhere, Robby flew into Levi, knocking him off the cliff.

  Joshua had just lived it, but he still couldn’t believe it. The death of the monster had stunned him, and Joshua had just stood there, frozen, unable to look away. Robby had howled, a desperate, horrifying sound, as if shouting would revive the dead body and erase the crime he had just committed. But again, there had been no crime. Robby didn’t purposely push Levi off the cliff. He simply had been focused on saving Joshua. So who was to blame for everything that had transpired on that dark and disturbing night?

  There was a bright spot among the horror, though. Cody Johnson. How do you forget your first boyfriend? He had plenty of reasons, in fact, to want to forget Cody, though none of them apparent at first. They had met on his first day at camp. Joshua had never felt such a connection to someone before. Maybe it was because Cody was also gay.

  Joshua used to think he was alone in the world, having grown up in Eagle River, a small town in rural Wisconsin. Gay people simply didn’t exist there, or if they did, they weren’t out of the closet. It was unthinkable. But even with that conservative background aside, he had to contend with something much worse right in his own home: his antigay mother, who vie
wed gay people as an abomination before God. “Abomination”… it was a word Joshua was all too familiar with, despite his young age.

  But when Joshua met Cody at camp, and Cody had dared to trust him and tell him his deepest secret, there was an instant connection between the two. Besides being gay, they both had deeply bigoted parents to contend with. Joshua had his mother. And Cody, well, he had his father, Pastor Bob Johnson. Pastor Bob was also the scoutmaster for their troop. And now here was Joshua madly infatuated with his son. How had he gotten himself into such a situation? It was a match made in heaven by a god out for sport. Well, the sport proved too much for Cody, and Levi had discovered the two together, kissing. Levi had wanted payback for Joshua humiliating him in front of the rest of the troop by defending Robby.

  But then Cody had done the unthinkable. He deflected attention away from himself by betraying Joshua to Levi, outing Joshua to the entire troop in the process. Cody had managed to convince Levi that he was simply baiting Joshua, to get him to reveal his secret, that he was gay. The feelings of betrayal, still fresh, welled up inside Joshua, threatening to manifest in their own separate storm. But the betrayal wasn’t really Cody’s fault, tormented as he was by the thought of his own father finding out he was gay. And in the end, Cody did come through for Joshua. But still, Joshua had ended up in that forest, under that storm, a target of bullies who had a score to settle, and it was Robby who had saved him.

  Time had seemed to stop as Joshua gazed at the body on the lakeshore, and the events that followed played themselves out only in fragments, as though he were simply a passive observer to a terrifying dream. Cops were called in, and Joshua talked to them about what had happened. How long did that take exactly? Minutes? Hours? Joshua didn’t know. He didn’t even remember sleeping at all that night. The questioning by the cops must have gone on for hours. He remembered packing up his things for the bus ride home early the next morning.

  But the physical and emotional exhaustion finally caught up with him. No matter how traumatic the episode at camp, no matter how frantically he kept reviewing the events in his mind, his body gave in, and Joshua fell into a deep sleep on the bus ride home to Rockford, Illinois. His last thoughts were of Cody Johnson, and those thoughts fed a very powerful dream.

  JOSHUA’S MOTHER had ignored him since his return from summer camp the day before. She had to know by now what had happened to him there. Pastor Bob would have called and told her everything soon after he arrived home on the bus. Pastor Bob would have informed her that a boy, Levi Powers, had been killed at camp, and that the boy was fighting with Joshua at the time. Pastor Bob might even have told her the motive, that the boy believed Joshua was gay. Joshua could deduce all of this from his mother’s silent treatment. It revealed a profound disgust on her part. If it had been anything less, she would have been screaming uncontrollably at him by now. But she obviously didn’t know what to say in this case. Pastor Bob must have reassured Joshua’s mother that the allegations concerning his sexuality were not true, that it had all just been a misunderstanding. That’s what Cody had convinced his father of, after all. But for Joshua’s mother, the fact that anyone could even believe it about her son, even for a moment, was too much to bear. And so that’s what would have occupied her thoughts since he got back.

  Joshua had run straight home after the bus dropped his troop off. He had gone right to his room and spent most of his time there since, as if imprisoned by his own fears. His aunt’s apartment was still a strange place to him, having only lived there for a short amount of time before being shipped off to summer camp. It had become his temporary residence after his mother had torn him away from the Ojibwe reservation in northern Wisconsin.

  While Joshua had only lived on the reservation for two months, it had been a magical time for him there. That was not his mother’s intention, though. At the beginning of the summer, Joshua had come home one night in Eagle River only to discover that his father had run off on both him and his mother. He had left without saying a word to Joshua. His mother had then brought Joshua to the reservation about an hour away to live with his grandfather, Gentle Eagle, while she tried to establish a new life for herself living with her sister in Rockford. It was only supposed to be temporary, and his grandfather had to promise to keep Joshua away from Ojibwe spirituality while there. His mother was deeply Christian, after all, and she didn’t want Joshua to be “contaminated” by heathen beliefs, as she saw them. But once on the reservation, Joshua didn’t need his grandfather in order to encounter Ojibwe beliefs and customs. On the Rez he had been immersed in the strange and mystical culture that had been denied him his whole life. And there he learned who he truly was for the first time.

  He had even fallen hopelessly in love with Mokwa, an older Ojibwe teen who helped Joshua’s grandfather run a recreated Ojibwe village for tourists. Joshua missed Mokwa terribly. He had also become close friends with Little Deer, a suspicious recluse who was very distant and stoic at first. But as Little Deer had warmed up to Joshua, the two had really connected. And then there was Jenny. Joshua hadn’t liked her at first, because she was Mokwa’s girlfriend—competition, as he initially saw her—but Joshua had come to love her as a sister.

  None of this mattered to Joshua’s mother. When she learned that Joshua was being exposed to Ojibwe practices, she showed up unexpectedly in the middle of his naming ceremony, tore him from his new life, and brought him to live with her in Rockford. And after only two weeks in Rockford, she shipped him off to a week of summer camp to learn proper Christian values from his new scoutmaster, Pastor Bob. Joshua didn’t exactly learn the lessons his mother had intended, though.

  The terrifying events of the last week at summer camp had only intensified Joshua’s longing for his friends back on the reservation. He wanted to pretend nothing had happened and be with Mokwa again. And most of all, he wanted to be with Gentle Eagle, his loving and compassionate grandfather. But those days on the Rez were gone for good now. Joshua’s mother had forbidden him from ever seeing his friends and family again. He wanted to be furious with his mother, but instead he felt only fear. After all, Pastor Bob had to have mentioned the scandal involving him and Cody.

  Joshua lay on his inflatable mattress and stared up at the ceiling. His bedroom was darker now as he reflected on the traumatic events at camp. Suddenly, he saw a powerful flash of lightning from outside the window, followed a few seconds later by a loud clash of thunder. Storms had never bothered Joshua before, but he had come to fear them of late. They had haunted his dreams for several months now, starting off as dark clouds in the distance and finally emerging as a terrifying, almost sentient manifestation of something both awesome and sinister. Joshua didn’t know what the storms meant, but they always preceded dark times. Maybe Levi was the darkness his dreams had been warning him of, but with Levi dead now, maybe he’d stop having them. Only then did it occur to Joshua that he was dreaming now. If so, it was unlike any he had ever had before. It was the first time he was actually aware that he was dreaming, although he didn’t know how long he had been in it. His mind kept tricking him, implanting memories of things that never happened, as if trying to add context to his current awareness.

  Then suddenly, his recognition that this was all a dream drifted away, and once again he was a passive observer of someone else’s script. A loud and unexpected knock on his bedroom door jolted him from his thoughts. This was the moment he had been dreading. His mother was ready to talk to him about what had happened at camp. What would she say? Her vicious hatred of homosexuals—“the queers,” as she called them—forever cemented a wedge between the two. But Joshua’s mother had no way of knowing that. She didn’t know that Joshua was gay. But maybe, with Pastor Bob’s information about what had taken place at camp, she knew it now. If so, Joshua couldn’t ascertain how she might react. But it wouldn’t be pretty.

  The knock on his door came again, this time more like a pounding. Usually it was only her talking that was loud. What is going on exactl
y? The anticipation was killing him. He had to know.

  “Come in,” Joshua said cautiously.

  His mother opened the door and walked in. Her face bore an expression of deep concern. She wasn’t there to talk about his experiences at summer camp. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  “Joshua, honey, I have something I need to tell you.”

  Honey? Joshua’s mind raced to come up with an explanation for such gentleness, such concern on the part of his mother. It was not like her. Someone died! Joshua realized, as his dream fed him the thought; someone really close to him. It was the only possible explanation. His heart raced and sweat began to accumulate on his forehead, as his mind raced through potential victims. But he didn’t have to wait long to know who it was.

  “It’s your friend, Cody,” his mother said gently. “I’m afraid, he’s—well, there is just no way to say it. He killed himself.” Without waiting for a response, she added, “Joshua, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  Joshua listened in stunned silence, desperately grasping for some kind of explanation. A loud burst of thunder outside clashed with the awkward silence in his bedroom, and his dream suddenly created for him a very disturbing memory. Now it was the night he got back from camp, and Joshua had just arrived at Cody’s house, after having snuck away from the apartment. Deep inside, he knew it was all a dream, but it felt so real, like he was actually there. Of course he was there, he thought, giving in to the fabricated dream memory. How could he have forgotten that? Joshua carefully approached Cody’s house, knowing that Pastor Bob had prohibited the two from ever seeing each other again. But Joshua had to see Cody, if only to know that he was going to be okay. He looked up at Cody’s bedroom window and threw stones gently at it to get Cody’s attention. It seemed so cliché to him. But Cody was obviously waiting for just such a sign; he didn’t even bother to look out his window. Instead, he ran downstairs out into the yard, right into Joshua’s arms. As Joshua hugged Cody, all of his pain, all his memories of what had happened at camp, slipped away, suppressed by the comforting embrace of his loving friend. In that brief but seemingly eternal moment, it was easy to believe that everything would be fine. And then they kissed, for only the second time, yet feeling as intense, as powerful as the first.