Shadowbrook (34 page)

From the moment when the Telling began, Ixtu had sat cross-legged on the ground, his voice doing all the moving, his body still. Now he staggered to his feet.
His old legs trembled with the pain of standing after such a long time in one position, but they held him. “At that time, Insigison the wise chief took a band of the Potawatomi away from the fighting and the sickness. They traveled in the sun-coming direction until they returned to the land they had left long before. So Insigison brought the fire and the People of the Place of the Fire to this place.”

“Haya, haya, jayek. Haya, haya, jayek.”

The drums beat faster. Cormac’s heart kept pace with them and he could feel the heartbeats of the others doing the same. “At that time, when Insigison and the braves and the squaws who had followed him arrived here, it was during the Long Night Moon. The ground was covered with snow and Insigison could not see if this was a place where the seeds would grow to make food that would prevent famine, or if the hunting would be good, or if there were fish swimming in streams or bushes with berries. None of them could see anything but snow and Insigison was not sure he was in the right place. At that time, the father of my father’s father’s father, Axtu, was the Teller. And he said, ‘This is the place we are meant to be. There is no doubt.’ And Insigison questioned the wisdom of old Axtu. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked. ‘I know it,’ Axtu said, ‘because I can hear the snow singing.’ So even though they were many, many sun’s journey from any others of the Fire Nation, Insigison and his people let the fire they had brought with them burn in this place. And it was our fifth fire, the fifth home-place of the journey that began when the three peoples were one. And in honor of Axtu they named the place Singing Snow.”

The hours passed and Ixtu continued the Telling, reciting the happy stories of many successful hunts that set out from this village, and many bountiful crops, and of times of weeping when many braves were killed on the hunt or in raids made by their enemies or raids they made, and when there was drought and the crops did not grow and the people, all but the strongest of them, starved, the youngest children, of course, dying first. Until finally when it seemed he must be too exhausted to speak another word and it was almost morning, he told the tale of Thunder Moon, the moon before this Great Heat Moon. “At that time the squaw Sohantes gave birth to three children, all at the same time and all sons.”

“Haya, haya, jayek.”
So, so, all of us together.
“Haya, haya, jayek.”

Sohantes sat across the circle from the Teller, her three infants strapped to her back in a carrier specially made for her because nothing like this had ever happened in the village before, and chanted with the rest.

All of us together, she thought, but this is my part of the story. Forever.

“And Sohantes was the wife of the chief Kekomoson,” Ixtu intoned. “And he had no other wife but her, and he had promised not to take her sister as another wife as long as Sohantes lived. When the other women told him what had happened in the birthing house, Kekomoson went out and found a fat buck standing
alone on the top of a hill, and Kekomoson killed it with one arrow so perfectly shot it went directly to the killing spot between the buck’s eyes. Then Kekomoson gave a great feast to celebrate this thing that no one remembered seeing before, three sons all born together.”

“Haya, haya, jayek. Haya, haya, jayek.”

Kekomoson sat beside the Teller, in the place of honor because he was the chief. He did not let his face show how pleased he was to have found a place in the Telling.

“Haya, haya, jayek.”

Ixtu was coming to the end. He looked once at the sky. Still gray, but lighter than before. Soon he would know if he had correctly performed the Teller’s most important duty. If he had failed he would walk away into the wilderness, taking nothing with him and eating nothing and drinking nothing, and when he could walk no more he would sit down and wait to die. Great Spirit, grant that I may die beside the fire with my brothers, not alone, parched and starving in a far place.

“And that is the story of the Real People of Singing Snow. Until the time of this Great Heat Moon.”

“Haya, haya, jayek.”
So, so, all of us together.

The humming ended and the drums stopped. The sky was streaked with pink now, and the sliver of new moon had disappeared behind the encircling hills. The people waited. Each New Moon Circle of Telling was held in a slightly different place and the sacred fire was set to burn where the Teller said it was to be. Only at the end of the night did the people know if the place had been chosen wisely, if the New Moon would bring them safety and prosperity, or if the Teller had failed them and they were cursed. At last, the red-orange sun peeked over the horizon. The people held their collective breath and waited.

The first low-angled rays of the sun reached the earth and touched the Sacred Fire of Shkotensi, the Fifth Fire of the Potawatomi of Singing Snow. Happiness rippled around the Circle of Telling.
Ayi! Ayi!
Ixtu thought. It is good. If I die before the next Telling it will be here, on soft skins, with water to drink and, if I want it, corn to eat. Or even meat. Ahaw, yes, the Great Spirit is good.

“Haya, haya, jayek.”
All was well.
“Haya, haya, jayek.”
So, so, all of us together.

Only one thing remained to be done. At every New Moon Telling, Ixtu added words to the story. They would become sacred words, never to be changed, always to be repeated. The people waited, humming softly, and after a time Ixtu spoke again. “And at that time, the Telling of the Great Heat Moon,” he turned his bent old body so he was facing Cormac, “the people were happy because the bridge person, who was called by the name of the mighty warrior of his father’s people and by no other name, to signify that he is different from all others, the bridge person, returned to Singing Snow after being long away. And the bridge person
was present at the Telling, and he listened with respect and his heart beat with the others. So the people knew he was truly their son and their brother.”

“Haya, haya, jayek.”

It was done.

“So nothing important happened this moon and you got a place in the Telling,” Bishkek, Cormac’s manhood father, told him later. “Don’t let your head grow to fit a warbonnet because of that. You have been too long away and I am shamed that you forget your home village and your old father.”

“I have never forgotten you, Father, and Singing Snow is always in my heart. But much has been happening in the white world. I could not get away as soon as I liked.”

“And what about my other white-face son, your brother? Why does he not come to see me? Does he, too, forget me?”

“I am sure he does not, Father. But his birth father is dying and he must stay with him until the spirit leaves the old man’s body.”

Bishkek nodded. “That is the correct thing to do. But when it’s over he must come at once and pay his respect to his manhood father. That too is correct. Does my other white son know this?”

“I believe he does, Father. He will come. When it is over.” Cormac paused. “If he can.”

“And why could he not?” Bishkek knew that Cormac spoke with purpose and he asked the questions he hoped would help the younger man say what he wanted to say. “Is my other white son suddenly stupid in his head so he cannot do his duty? Are his legs no longer able to carry him? Has he forgotten how to find his way through the woods and across the rivers and streams that separate us?”

“None of those things have happened, Father. But there is talk of war.”

“Not among us,” Bishkek said sadly. “The
Anishinabeg
are no longer strong enough to make war on each other. Not real war. They fight like they fart, without warning and with no plan, except maybe to make a little stink. Worse, they allow themselves to be hired killers for the whites. So who makes war? The English? War on Onontio?” Bishkek spat on the ground to take the taste away.

“Yes. At least I think they are going to. Very soon now the English and the French will fight. To the death, probably. And if such a war is to start, it is possible that Kwashko”—he used Quent’s manhood name of Jumps Over Fire—“will not be able to come to Canada, because he is English, but—”

Bishkek snorted. “That is nonsense. Kwashko is Uko Nyakwai, is he not? How can a red bear be unable to come here? Disgusting name,” he added under his breath. “How can my son permit they call him that?”

The Potawatomi hated bears. Once, according to the storytellers, a bear had killed the son of a Potawatomi chief and neither ate him nor left him where he fell
so he could be buried with dignity. Instead the bear pulled the body of the young brave apart and left the pieces scattered everywhere. Such an insult demanded vengeance and to this day the Potawatomi killed any bear they could capture, slowly, painfully, and with much taunting. That Kwashko, who was a true Potawatomi and truly Bishkek’s son, should be called a bear—and in the tongue of the snakes, to boot—was something the old man could never accept.

Cormac knew Bishkek’s thoughts on the subject; it was an argument for another day. “Father,
giyabwe.”
I had a dream.

Ayi!
At last they were getting somewhere. “And it is this dream that brought you home?” Bishkek picked up a stick and began idly drawing lines and swirls on the ground. There had been little rain all summer and the earth was covered with a thick layer of dust.

“Ahaw.”
Yes. Cormac was ashamed to admit any motive other than a desire to see his village and his manhood father, but he would not lie.

“Then it was a good dream,” Bishkek said mildly, for once not chiding him.

“Co.”
Cormac shook his head. “I do not think it was.”

“Ktakagikto.”
Tell me.

“Sheyoshke. Penshiyuk. Mskwe,
everywhere
mskwe,”
Cormac said. A bird flying fast, a hawk. And little birds. And blood. Everywhere blood. “In the end,” he added,
wapshkayakmko.”
A white bear.

Bishkek stopped what he was doing with the stick and looked directly at Cormac. “
Neni.
Your mother.”

Cormac shook his head.
“Co! Cozhena neneyum!”
I never dream of her.

Again Bishkek spat on the ground. “That is
Cmokmanuk
talk, the words of white men who know no better. A dream comes to you. You do not invite it. It is not for you to decide what it will be. Your mother was she of the white bearskins. Always. Tell me more of the dream.”

Cormac explained about the hawk and the birds and the river of blood. “Then the white bear came and the hawk flew away. The bear was somehow protecting the birds.”

Bishkek made a sound in his throat.
“Ahaw,”
he agreed. “Then perhaps it was not your mother.” In her whole life Pohantis had never protected anyone but herself. She was a whore, giving herself to anyone who wanted her, not because she admired them or cared for them, only to get what she wanted. Since she was a child she’d never been any different. Like the women of the snakes. Such behavior was unacceptable among the Potawatomi. The only reason Singing Snow had taken her back after she ran away with the white gun trader was because she brought them a bridge person, a son who was half white and half Potawatomi, and the elders thought that such a person would be useful.
Ahaw.
That was a good decision. Better still was the decision to give Pohantis to the other white man who
wanted her, and that way get white training into the head of my half-white manhood son. Now Cormac is truly a red man in a white skin. Surely the future must belong to such men as him. He listened very carefully as his son told him the last of the dream. A white wolf,
wabnum,
loped out of the forest and toward the bear.

“That part is easy. You are
wabnum.”

“Yes, I know. But I woke up before the wolf attacked.” Cormac lowered his gaze and did not ask the final question—who would win, the wolf or the bear? He felt Bishkek’s eyes studying him and he wondered if the old man had any more idea than he did of what the dream meant. It had seemed so important to come here and tell his story.
Ahaw,
but now that he was here, what had he accomplished? His manhood father offered no explanations, just stared at him. He seemed to be looking at the place where Cormac had hidden Memetosia’s gift, strapped to his thigh and hidden by his breechclout.

It was not for Cormac to break the silence and for a long time Bishkek didn’t speak. Around them people moved slowly in the growing heat of the morning. Because of the New Moon Telling no one had slept the previous night. Now it was too warm and airless to go into the wickiups, the dome-shaped houses built of bent sapling frames covered with bark. Most of the braves and squaws snored softly under whatever shade they could find. One woman nursed an infant and another sat watching a group of sleeping children and grinding corn in a huge bowl made of a single maple tree burl, using a rounded stone. It was a peaceful scene, but neither man had any difficulty imagining it engulfed in a river of blood. Both knew too much of the history of the
Anishinabeg.

“Is that all?” Bishkek asked finally. “There is nothing more to tell of this dream?”

“That’s all of the dream. But there was something else. Something that happened while I was not exactly awake, but not sleeping either.”

“Ktakagikto.”
Tell me.

Cormac repeated what the Miami chief Memetosia had told him, and told of the blind Midè priest Takito, and the sweat lodge, and all that had happened after he went inside. Bishkek listened in silence. When Cormac finished, Bishkek took up the stick again and drew lines and swirls in the dust. “There is something you are not telling me. And something hidden there beneath your breechclout. That is not the bulge of your manhood I am seeing.”

“Bishkek is wise as always.”

“And my bridge person son does not lie. So what is this unsaid thing between us?”

“A gift, Father. From Memetosia.” He lay his hand over his thigh. “It is a great mystery to me. I do not know what the gift means or what I am to do with it. A medicine bag containing the black wampum called Suckáuhock.”