The Old American (25 page)

“You told me once in great confusion about a far place in your mind. I think you know better now its locale, for your captivity has allowed you to picture it.”

“It's a river that flows west into a warm sea, a place called India where Indians reside, a numerous and fair people. West is where I build my wife's house, but you see what troubles me about this vision—she is not there, nor are my children, or any of my loved ones from New England.”

“You are right to be troubled. You must count yourself lucky to suffer so. It will earn you a place in Christian heaven,” says Caucus-Meteor.

The old American notes that at the same time that Nathan Blake the Englishman is losing an old self, Nathan Provider-of-Services the American is exploring a new self. Every time he wins a race, people tell him how splendid he is. For a man who's passed the last year as a slave, praise and recognition create quite a heady feeling. He develops friendships with some of the other Pure Men runners and gamblers, who are now wagering not whether he will win but by how much. Local chiefs offer lodging, food, and entertainment. Nathan enjoys the envy of the menfolk, the admiration of the children. Best of all, women throw themselves at him, not just desperate spinsters and widows, but young beauties. It's all too much for Nathan Provider-of-Services. His behavior mocks his “pure man” title. Though Nathan retains enough sense to eat and drink in moderation, he gives himself over entirely to carnal lust.

He becomes very conscious of his personal appearance. He trades for a metal tool for pulling hairs. Every morning he plucks his beard and body hairs like any American man—except the job takes him longer. He even plucks his eyebrows to keep the line-curve elegant. He gazes at himself in his mirror. After a race, he washes thoroughly. He combs his hair, makes sure his headband is on straight, perfumes his body with oils from Old France. Caucus-Meteor is amused by this particular Nathan, and laughs at him. “We have a saying for fellows like you,” he says: “If a man could kiss his own ass, vanity would be unnecessary.”

Caucus-Meteor observes yet another Nathan, Nathan the Man of God. Days go by when he doesn't pray, and god appears to be far from his mind. A great runner doesn't need a god. A great runner is a god. Then, in the middle of a night, Nathan will pop awake full of dread. He will break down, almost weeping. He will drop to his knees and pray. Caucus-Meteor wonders what he prays for. Forgiveness? Guidance? Divine grace? Caucus-Meteor doesn't think Nathan himself is even sure what it is he's praying for. The old American has witnessed these breakdowns in captives before. It's a stage they go through. When they think about returning to their past lives, they are taken by fear. They don't know why, but Caucus-Meteor knows. Part of the captive has become the savage he has been taught to despise. Usually during Nathan's bad moments, Caucus-Meteor respects his runner's privacy and leaves him alone, but one night his curiosity gets the better of him.

“I was wondering,” Caucus-Meteor says, “what you are praying for.”

“Light—I was asking for light,” Nathan says softly.

“I have often imagined a world where one could command light, the way your god commands his heavens.”

“This world cannot be commanded as long as the stain of Adam's sin is with us,” says Nathan.

“I didn't say a world of easily acquired light would be heaven. I think it would be tiring.”

When Nathan wakes, he's cheerful again, looking forward to the next race, the next festival, the next woman.

The last major race of the season is Chicoutimi, sixty miles up the mighty Saguenay river from the Tadousic trading center. The runners and their sponsors call it the “snow run” because on occasion it snows even in the summer. Not this year, when it might be called the wildfire run. The farther north you go, the worse the drought is. As Caucus-Meteor and Nathan canoe their way up the Saguenay they can smell smoke from forest fires many miles away. At one point they actually see half a mountain in flames.

“If it were not for your god's mercy,” Caucus-Meteor teases, “the world itself would eventually be engulfed in such fires, for man, clever as he may be, is no match for a wildfire; only wind can turn a wildfire, and only rain can stop a wildfire; and only the Christian god can make wind and rain. Is that not so?”

“And surely only the savage can divine omens in such a spectacle,” says Nathan, returning the gentle insult.

“Perhaps god is upset over the moral decline of his chosen people,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“You joke, old American, but perhaps the joke is on all of us.”

“As a practical matter, this drought has been to our benefit. We have a saying: bad weather for farmers is excellent weather for gamblers.”

Nathan points out that the hardwoods and pine forests have disappeared except for a few scraggly birches. Spruce and fir trees prevail.

The old American is thinking now about the ancient gods, that he was wrong to argue with them, wrong also to reject Jesus and the priests, even if they did steal his daughter, for a man cannot consider himself entirely whole without gods. Instead of rejection, a better course might be to embrace all the gods. Let them be jealous of one another. While he's meditating over these thoughts, Nathan draws his attention. “Look, ahead.”

Caucus-Meteor recognizes his village's canoe markings. He and Nathan have bumped into Haggis and his trading partners the day before the race in Chicoutimi. Surely, thinks Caucus-Meteor, this coincidence was arranged by the gods to punish or reward me for my peculiar thinking. I wonder how it will go.

Haggis brags that his crew has been all the way to Hudson Bay, where they've picked up some terrific furs in a deal for their moccasins. They'll trade the furs in Quebec for the goods demanded by their women.

“Hudson Bay region is majestic country,” says Haggis. “Plenty of fish and game, no Frenchmen, no Englishmen, no Dutchmen, no damn Scots, not even many natives. And no wars. People are too busy fighting the climate to fight each other.”

Haggis is very good at concealing his emotions, but Caucus-Meteor notes a certain strain in his jocularity. Something is not right with Haggis. He's full of undefined sadness and anger. Only Caucus-Meteor can smell the disturbance in the great hunter's soul. Haggis's friends and fellow traders are fooled by his outward behavior and their own good spirits, brought on by the thought of heading home after a successful trading season. Now this! They're going to be treated to a footrace in which a contestant is a member of their village, the servant Nathan Provider-of-Services.

Nathan likes to celebrate and chase women after a race, but never on the eve; Caucus-Meteor and Nathan stay the night in the cabin of a local chief. They're outside by the fire eating supper when the chief informs them that one of the entries in the race will be the great Mercuray, who has come out of retirement solely to race Nathan. Nathan expresses excitement that Mercuray, the best of the best, has challenged him. The two Conissadawaga men are about to settle in when a figure emerges from the darkness into the flickering light of the campfire. It's Caucus-Meteor's old friend and Black Dirt's former lover, the voyageur Robert de Repentigny.

The old American and the Frenchman converse excitedly in French, which leaves Nathan out of the conversation.

“There aren't many left like you, Row-bear, a Frenchman who dresses like an American,” teases Caucus-Meteor. “These days you have Americans dressing and behaving like Frenchmen, instead of the other way around.”

“Not out west, where the Americans are proper savages,” says de Repentigny.

“Any news?” asks Caucus-Meteor. “Have they killed St. Blein yet?”

“So you know about his crazy ideas.”

“Know about them? He somehow talked me into being an informant. It was that phrase, Canada for Canadians, that impressed me.” By now Caucus-Meteor has forgotten that he was the one who first voiced the rebel motto.

“He's very charming, because he's sincere, all heart, belief, and courage. And, face it, he's telling the truth,” says de Repentigny. “Men in pretty rooms in Old France, not to mention some of our own merchants and noblemen, are looting this country. In the end, all that's left for the people is strife and poverty.”

“I have this fear,” says Caucus-Meteor, “that when they finally find him out, they'll put him on that torture contraption in Montreal—”

“The rack.”

“Correct, and he'll implicate my village, all because of my vanity and stupidity.”

“They may come after you, but you can rest assured that St. Blein will squirm free. He's a rich man's son with noble blood. They'll forgive his wild talk, because they know it won't lead to anything. If he doesn't get himself killed by an Englishman's musket ball, he'll marry royalty, and they'll give him a mile on the St. Lawrence complete with rent-paying peasants to work the land. He'll set aside his fine ideas and replace them with splendor and comfort.”

“I hope you're right.”

“Listen, Caucus-Meteor, I noticed some of your villagers camped in the woods.”

“Yes, we visited them earlier. They're traders, and they'll be here for the races tomorrow.”

“If they're traders, why did I see them with Bleached Bones, the gambler? Why did I hear them singing war songs or maybe death songs, I couldn't be sure? It sounded all wrong and dangerous to me.”

“They seemed fine this afternoon,” says Caucus-Meteor, but he's thinking about the uneasy feeling he had seeing Haggis. And now that Bleached Bones is in the picture, he knows something is seriously amiss.

“I don't know what it means,” says de Repentigny. “I just thought you ought to know.”

Caucus-Meteor says nothing to Nathan about this conversation, but he's fraught with worry all night. The next morning Caucus-Meteor and Nathan leave the cabin and mingle with the traders from their village; they're sitting around a campfire, eating a breakfast of freshly caught fish. The men are talkative and jovial, but none of them touches Nathan nor looks directly at either Nathan or Caucus-Meteor. Even men who rarely smile, such as Kineo, are laughing and joking. Something is wrong. Later Bleached Bones comes on the scene. He wants to lay a huge bet on Mercuray. Caucus-Meteor feels honor bound to cover the bet. For the third time, he's gone against his fine judgment in dealing with Bleached Bones.

Haggis and the other Conissadawaga men pace in studied insouciance. They act like men looking for signs of demons, thinks Caucus-Meteor. The gods will provide plenty of such signs—from the crows in the trees, to the eyebrows on Nathan's face, cut sharply. An hour before the race, which will be run at noon, Caucus-Meteor sees the great sign that surely the traders have taken note of. The morning chill and dampness have burned off. The wildfires, which were smoldering all during the night, now flare up with the wind. Thick smoke pours down through the river valley. There's some talk of postponing the race, but it's quickly squelched. The race is too important to the bettors to halt because of a mere act of nature. The valley here is cleared, it's pasture and farmland, so no one feels in danger of losing his life. Still, the wind brings thick acrid smoke that stings the eyes and shrouds the spirit.

Nathan notices none of the intrigue swirling around him. Even the forest fire sweeping in from the west is in the far recesses of mind.

“You look ready, Nathan Provider-of-Services,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“If I can beat this Cree runner, I will become a legend, the man who beat a legend. If I lose, I'll just be another good runner who lost to the great Mercuray.”

In the hour before the race, Nathan paces nervously in the field with the other runners. The spectators know enough to leave them alone during this period of preparation. Nathan doesn't notice Caucus-Meteor working frantically among the gamblers, betting with more people than usual. Shortly before the race, his godfather approaches him.

“How are you feeling?” Caucus-Meteor asks, which is what he always says before a race.

“I'm fit,” says Nathan, which is what he always says. In this case it's clear from his behavior that he's prepared mind and body for this race.

“Nathan,” Caucus-Meteor says in the soft voice Nathan has come to understand means he's serious and not full of cow patties.

“What does my godfather want of me now?” Nathan says with just an edge of sarcasm. Since he's become an important runner, insolence, even to a king, comes naturally.

“I think it best you lose this race today.”

“What do you mean—lose?” Nathan's confused.

“I mean just that. Don't beat this Cree—lose.”

“On purpose? Why?”

“I'm not sure why. Call it an old man's peculiarity. The Frenchman you met yesterday, de Repentigny? I trust him. He had the same feeling. And I don't like the smell of this fire. It's too big, hostile, and malevolent.”

“All right, Caucus-Meteor. I will follow your instructions,” Nathan says.

Caucus-Meteor has heard that tone before, as the slave in Nathan Provider-of-Services speaks. What's in those other selves, wonders Caucus-Meteor. He supposes he'll soon find out.

Just before the race starts, the wind blows strong, bringing with it the fire. The main blaze is still miles away, but fist-sized windblown embers start small advance fires. One of these springs up in the dry grass of the field where the race is being held. The starting musket goes off, and Nathan, preoccupied by his own doubts, doesn't burst into the lead the way he usually does.

Mercuray is also slow in releasing his pent-up energy. Nathan and the Cree fight their way through flying elbows and speedy, sleek-bodied men. The course is flat, and some of it on ledge so the footing is good, but it's nasty ground to take a fall on. The course helps the fastest runners, and by the turn-around (a boulder big as a wigwam), Nathan and Mercuray have gone by the pack and are side by side. At about the same moment, the wind is carrying the grass fire to the racers. The spectators are backing away from the finish as the runners, just ahead of the fire, are coming toward the end.