The Old American (26 page)

Caucus-Meteor can see that Nathan is ready to expend his last reserve of energy, and then he thinks he sees a moment of doubt on his runner's face. Perhaps not, perhaps the doubt is in me, thinks Caucus-Meteor. Now, he notices Haggis standing beside him. The great hunter's hand is on his knife. Suddenly, Caucus-Meteor understands: if Nathan comes out of the smoke in first place, Haggis will plunge his knife into my heart. Oh, please, dear god in Christian heaven, oh, please, great gods of disreputed America, prays the old man, allow me this quick and glorious death, so I do not have to inaugurate the reuniting ceremony myself. He relaxes his muscles so the knife will slide through easier. And then a coil of smoke wraps around the runners and engulfs them. Mercuray emerges from the smoke three steps ahead of Nathan. The crowd shows its ecstasy at Mercuray's victory.

Haggis withdraws, his face full of shame.

Spectators and runners alike hurry to the river to watch the fire pass them by. Mercuray is happy to collect his fee and add to his legend as he goes back into retirement, undefeated. Haggis is, well, not exactly happy, but relieved that a man he adopted into the tribe was proven to be, after all, only a man and not a demon. Caucus-Meteor has collected enough winnings over the summer to pay the intendant for a couple of years, and still have money left over, so he should be happy, but he's not sure how he feels. Bleached Bones and Nathan are not happy. Nathan will not go down in the annals of this land. Bleached Bones achieved his revenge and walked away with a great deal of Caucus-Meteor's money. I know what you are thinking, old comrade, thinks Caucus-Meteor: the trouble with winning is that it removes all hope.

Haggis shakes Nathan's hand, congratulates him on his effort. “It's no disgrace to lose to the best American runner,” he says.

“It was good for my character, taught me humility,” Nathan grins insincerely.

“You don't look too humble to me. You look like a man who has discovered what the Englishman and the Frenchman have no conception of.”

“And what is that, my friend—personal adornment? I admit to grooming myself like an American man.”

“The Englishman and Frenchman are as vain as the American, their wigs and hats prove the point, but I do not speak of grooming. I doubt there is a word in your native English for what I'm thinking, but in my language it's an open sky above a herd of caribou; it's feasting after a long fast; it's forgetfulness in songs chanted over a small fire.”

Nathan withdraws by turning his head away. He's in no mood for debate; he wants only to brood over his defeat.

That night Nathan and Caucus-Meteor camp on the shore of the river. The fire has moved on, leaving smoke and distant glows. Nathan tells Caucus-Meteor that something strange happened to him in the smoke when the runners were obscured. “By all accounts of mind, I left Chicoutimi, and found myself in some unknown land. I was an old man, as you today are an old man, and I was saying, ‘I know it's a petty vanity, but ever since that day in Canada, I've been nettled—nettled. Did that Cree fellow beat me fair and square? I can't believe he was the better man.'”

“You were conjuring the future,” says the old American king. “All men do it by accident from time to time. I am attempting to bring craft to conjuring, which is a gift from some god or other, but so far I have been unsuccessful. I envy you, and in that future time when you have this thought of your disappointment today, think of me; pray for my soul, and our shared human frailty.”

Nathan recovers from the gloom of his defeat by leaving the camp and carousing. Alone, Caucus-Meteor broods. The racing season is over and they will now return to Conissadawaga. As soon as he dispenses all the money he's made, his villagers are almost certain to reelect him as king. But from that position he will be more vulnerable than in his present situation, where he is a leader except in name. As king, he'll be open to criticism from Haggis. For hours Caucus-Meteor schemes. Perhaps he should execute Haggis. But then he'll also have to execute his family. Who would do such work? Not anyone in his village. He'd have to recruit his killers from another réfugié tribe. It suddenly occurs to Caucus-Meteor that he is thinking like a European. The sickness of his ambition leaves him unhappy with his own company.

Nathan returns drunk and singing. After he falls into a dead sleep, Caucus-Meteor slips away into the darkness, following a smell, a feeling, an old intuition long buried, and a tiny light, a star on the hem of the earth. Finally, he comes to some scraggly gray birches. He hears the cocking of a weapon.

“It's only me,” Caucus-Meteor says in the darkness, and walks into the light of the campfire. Bleached Bones is pointing his hand musket at him.

“Caucus-Meteor, did you come here to revenge yourself?” Bleached Bones says.

“No, I just came for a visit.”

The two old interpreters sit around the tiny fire that Bleached Bones has made.

“You're an awful troublemaker, but the only man I know outside of myself who can make a proper fire,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“I'd hoped that Haggis killed you today,” says Bleached Bones.

“Do the work yourself. Pull your weapon and shoot me, please,” says Caucus-Meteor.

Bleached Bones reaches not for his weapon, but for his belly; he hangs his head, moans.

“You are in pain,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“Not enough,” says Bleached Bones, rubbing where the liver bulges out. “When the pain is serious, I feel cheerful. But at the moment, the pain is merely a dull ache, like the loss of a loved one. Not that I would know anything about such matters, never having had any loved ones.”

“I do not understand how you feel, Bleached Bones, since I have been cursed by many loved ones. I can only envy your solitude. I am curious. What kind of plot did you contrive against me?”

Bleached Bones laughs just a little. “First I hired Mercuray to come out of retirement with the idea of beating your man. Then when I saw Haggis and his bunch, I got an idea. I knew that Haggis was your rival in your village. I also knew that because of his old-fashion pagan ways he'd be a superstitious fool. So I convinced him and his men that Nathan was a sorcerer. How else could a white man defeat the best savages in footraces? By the time I was done, I half-believed it myself.”

“So if Nathan won the race, Haggis would have killed me as the devil's agent.”

“Yes, that was the plan. Either way, I was going to win. If Nathan won, I would have your life; if Mercuray won, I would have your money. No wonder I am so gloomy. My cleverness always leaves me sick.”

“I knew something was wrong, so I bet against Nathan with the other bettors. I broke even on this race.”

“What's more your life is your own again.”

“Yes, and that is why I am as depressed as you, old criminal.”

“Now that the racing season is over, what will you do?”

“I have to return to my village and take control. Control always makes me despondent, and yet I cannot stop myself from controlling.”

“Do you know the birches by the black rocks a day north of Quebec by river?”

“Of course.”

“Tomorrow I will hire a canoe man to take me and a cargo of brandy south. Somewhere out on the St. Lawrence river I will take the money I won from you and from the rest of the fools on the trade circuit this summer, and I will scatter it to the waters. I do it because the burden of it is too much, and because I will enjoy appalling the canoe man. I love the expression on their faces when I throw money away. The canoe man will drop me by the black rocks, and I will walk to the birches. I will sit by a fire and drink brandy until I see the devil. Only then will I be happy, and only for a few moments. But it's worth it, I tell you.”

“You are more a king in your belly than I.”

“I keep betraying people, hoping they'll kill me, but it never happens. I am too clever, and my enemies are too stupid. I need someone my equal to share my anguish with. Come live with me, Caucus-Meteor.”

“I'm tempted.”

“I will be a wife to you, Caucus-Meteor. Remember that I was a wife to you long ago.”

“It was only one time. I thought of it as a test.”

“Perhaps for you. For me it was love.”

“I think you only wanted to get my turban, for even then you and I were bald, but I had the turban.”

“Yes, I did want the turban. Your powers were in it. You told me a wild story that a king from Old India gave it to you along with your name.”

“The truth is my wife made the turban, and I named myself.

When I was in Old France as a boy, my teacher studied the stars in the heavens. He used to call me Meteore, from the Old French, as one high in the air, a star that cannot stay still. And ‘caucus' is the ancient Algonkian word for gathering of those who use words instead of weapons.”

“Last night, I dreamed for the thousandth time that I was wearing Caucus-Meteor's turban. It's a dream that makes me feel kingly. Come, join me in my realm. We'll get on each other's nerves, and maybe one fine day we'll slaughter one another.”

“I am sorry, Bleached Bones. I have too many responsibilities to fall in love. Besides I can't bear the smell of brandy.”

The two old interpreters embrace, and Caucus-Meteor returns to his camp.

In the morning, as the Conissadawaga party is readying to leave, other canoe men are just arriving from the south. They must have paddled all night by the moon. From their ornamentation it's obvious that the group are Kahnawake Mohawks. One face is paler than the rest. It's young Sam Allen, who went through the gauntlet the same day as Nathan. Sam has gained weight, though he's still smaller than the rest of the Mohawks. Nathan and Sam lock eyes for a long moment. Nathan nods, Sam nods; they shake hands politely. But they have a difficult time communicating. Nathan's conversant language is Algonkian, Sam's is Iroquois. They struggle in each other's languages, give French a fling (Sam's a little better at “parlez vous” than Nathan, but not much), and finally decide to exchange pleasantries only, then with relief go their separate ways. It's not until hours later on the river in the canoe that Nathan says to his godfather, “Neither I nor Sam thought to speak English.”

“So now you believe in omens, especially bad ones,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“I think so, yes.”

Later, Caucus-Meteor drops even the pretense of paddling, and he rests on the thwarts, shuts his eyes, and suddenly for the first time since his illness he's conjuring on the third captive who ran the gauntlet with Nathan and Sam, Captain Warren, the man whose ear he burned. He will return to his people a cripple for life. Impotent, immobile, in pain, and ugly as a clean-out stick for an English outhouse, Captain Warren will bear his suffering by displaying it, for his town will treat him as a returning hero in the wars against the French and Americans. His extravagance as the local bully will be forgiven. People will buy him drinks at the tavern. But war heroes, especially marginal ones, wear thin on the public mind until they are shunned with the coming of peace and then pushed out all together by the heroes of subsequent conflicts. Warren will pick the wrong side in the next war. He will come to be regarded as just another antique veteran. His few relatives will die off or move west. He will become a ward of the local government, an item on the town meeting agenda under Overseers of the Poor. Food will be left at the door of his crude hut. At night he will be heard screaming in pain and hatred.

“What is it? What did you say?” The voice is Nathan's, who has heard the old American mumbling to himself.

“I was conjuring over Captain Warren. He's the part of me that hides in the woods, injured, howling, alone.”

C
aucus-Meteor and Nathan and the Conissadawaga traders are only half a day from their home village when they meet a canoe man from the south. He hails them, and paddles in their direction. It's Omer Laurent, his craft weighed down with two red-capped French trappers and their gear.

Stopped, the canoes looking like birch logs now, the men exchange greetings, then Omer shouts, “Let's visit for an hour—I have some brandy. I and my French fares have sore behinds, and need a rest.”

This is strange behavior coming from Omer, thinks Caucus-Meteor.

The Conissadawaga men are full of good humor because they're almost home, so they cheer their fellow villager. The canoes pull off on a narrow beach of dark gray pebbles.

Like Caucus-Meteor, Haggis is suspicious of Omer's rare outburst of sociability, and he approaches Omer the moment they step from the canoes. “What's going on, Omer? It's not like you to slow down on the river, especially with passengers.”

“Maybe Omer is happy to see his trading brothers,” Caucus-Meteor says with the kind of little insincere smile that he knows infuriates Haggis.

“Omer does not lie so easily. He blushes with shame,” Haggis says.