The Old American (33 page)

In Conissadawaga, the two bands divide up the food stores and other community possessions. A week later, Haggis and his clan prepare to begin their long trip to the north. Even though we have had our differences on how to live, we've been together a long time as réfugiés, and parting is difficult.

Haggis, the leader who started this movement, is the most distraught. He hugs everybody, cries like a lost child, and practically has to be hauled away by his wives. He's grieving because he knows he will never see his eldest son again. Long ago when Haggis was hardly more than a boy himself, he had another wife. He married her when she was fourteen and he fifteen. They had a baby they called Wolf Eyes because his eyes were light blue. The mother died of smallpox, and the child was raised by relatives, one of whom was Katahdin. Years later Haggis returned from wandering and married Katahdin mainly to be with his son. But Wolf Eyes never returned his father's love, and insisted that he be treated and referred to as an adopted son. Haggis will never see his son again: that is the source of his pain. For Haggis, love is not in the behavior, but the blood. I gave Wolf Eyes Nathan's gun, knowing it would increase the rift between him and his father; I brought Wolf Eyes together with the French soldiers. Without my influence, he never would have given himself over to the army. Daughter, we used to burn prisoners for religious reasons—now we do it to gather information. The king used to wield powers through oratory and largess; now it is done through killing-prowess and cunning. Oh, daughter, I have a need for Christian penance for my sins; thus I burn myself.

Haggis and his followers leave with three of the undecideds. The rest, including my old friends Passaconway and his wife, Ossipee, stay in Conissadawaga. Three others also leave that day: Omer and Hungry Heart Laurent go off to tend to their summer business in canoe transport. With them is a new apprentice, Freeway. There is no celebration on the night of departure. No drums, no conversation—a great silence. Next day our people remain grim and quiet, immersed in private thoughts. It's struck them all that the world that Keeps-the-Flame and I set into motion has begun its descent into the oblivion of time. The following day the mood is a little less somber. A passing stranger might hear a laugh, a bit of easy talk. After a week, the villagers have regained their good cheer. Haggis and his band have fallen deeper into memory.

All through the winter and into the spring, Norman has watched his king replace his facial paint with tattoos and piercings. All the native peoples have heard stories of the great stone face in the mountains to the south. Great Stone Face drew the profile with the ashes of his fire, memorized it, and described it to a tattooist in Quebec. With various colors—blue, red, and white—and by dislocating the nose and adding scarrings to the bare skull, the tattooist was able to transform the bald head and face of Caucus-Meteor into a good likeness of that profile in the mountains. Great Stone Face has become the great stone face, the Old Man in the Mountain. If his face represents stone, his stick body garb represents the palisade protection of an ancient American village. Did Bleached Bones have this idea in mind when he created strange clothing? Norman thinks that even he, who sees his king every week, cannot recognize him as Caucus-Meteor.

“Only your voice betrays you,” Norman says.

“The Great Stone Face of the mountains does not speak, except perhaps to command the weather of the notches in the language of gods to which we are not privy, so if I am to speak it must be with the voice of Caucus-Meteor. Now, Norman, tell me what's going on in the village.”

“It is as you predicted. I have become Nathan's apprentice.”

“He likes to have you around to hear himself speak, and because he knows you are agreeable. Tell me now about the housebuilding sorcery.”

“It is not sorcery at all; it is a matter of tools, tricks, and application.”

“So, then, it is like anything else that is hard and of value. Your king believes houses are unnecessary, also unwholesome.”

“Yes, I relayed that information, as instructed.”

“What did Nathan Provider-of-Services say?”

“He said, ‘Your king is dead.'”

“These English are short-sighted. Tell me some more of this work you are doing.”

“Though it will take all summer and into the fall to complete construction of the house, the frame is raised in one day by the entire village. That event is traditionally known as a ‘house-raising' and it is accompanied by a festival.”

“That is some rite from New England?” asks Great Stone Face.

“Correct. With rum, dance, and good fellowship. Black Dirt says she will roast a deer and pretend it's a pig.”

Great Stone Face does not change his facial expression, but a moan of anguish escapes from his throat. Norman is not listening, for he's occupied with what he's going to say next.

“The house building actually began with Nathan building an English wigwam, just poles covered with bark. ‘This is our tool shed,' Nathan said to me. ‘Our instruction begins here. Then he picked up an axe. ‘This is the axe you're familiar with, the European trade axe?' he asked, and I nodded. ‘Most Americans and French and many English still use a European trade axe to split firewood,' he said. ‘Note how it's made. An iron strap was heated white hot, the ends spread, the piece bent over a rod to make an eye. A small steel bar welded between the ends to make the blade. But this axe'—he held the axe straight out like a soldier presenting his arms, paused, repeated—‘this axe has poor balance compared with this axe.' He picked up another axe. ‘This is called an American axe. It has a weight over the eye, which balances the swing. It's a little harder to forge than the trade axe, but it cuts deeper and with less effort in the chopping of large trees. As in everything else, balance and weight make the difference.'

“I said to him, ‘Nathan Provider-of-Services, why would an Englishman call his axe ‘American'?”

“‘In the English colonies,' he said, ‘many people are using the word
American
to mean more than native peoples.'”

“Norman, if an Englishman is an American, then what does
American
mean?” asks Great Stone Face.

Norman does not know how to answer, and after a long pause says, “Your majesty, I am stupid, forgive me.”

“It's all right, Norman. You're not stupid—well, you are stupid. But your god will forgive you. As for me, I too am stupid, for even in my best conjuring I see only partially into the future. One day all the English may be French-American. Or, more likely, since they are a stronger people, all Americans will be English. Still, it's not necessarily the strong that prevail. When the wind blows hard, the strongest trees are often the first to topple. It's doubtful, though, that all English will be French or all French will be English. You see how it goes, Norman? The future, even for a conjuring man, is all informed guesswork. It's our partial understanding of matters that makes us stupid, laugh material for the gods who require us for entertainment.”

“It makes me happy, great king, that we are stupid together. In fact, Nathan Provider-of-Services said something like that to me; he said, ‘Norman, you remind me of your king kin, Caucus-Meteor, a thinker, a dreamer, who dwelled in the hollow of his notions. I'm more practical-minded—solid clean through—and what we are about on this day is for the practical nature.' And then Nathan hefted the axe.

“We spent all day chopping, sawing, hewing, planing. ‘You will learn joinery later,' Nathan said. ‘You will learn the ruse of sharpening rip saws, crosscut saws, and the blades of plane irons. You will learn the artful secrets of wood-working: sharp tools, good measurements, balance of body, repose of mind. You will make boards of differing sizes to fit over beams, to frame window shutters; you will make and hang a door.'”

Great Stone Face suddenly feels a decade older. From these days forward, his people will no longer look at a tree as their ancestors did, a living thing with a spirit; they will look at a tree and see boards. They will become competent carpenters and marvels at putting a file to a saw. But will they remain as Americans? “What other changes in the village have you noticed of late?” Great Stone Face asks.

“Now that Haggis is not around to set the standard for American manly behavior, the men are less appalled by the idea of doing women's work, such as house construction …”

Great Stone Face interrupts, alarmed, “Our men are not making moccasins, are they?”

“Not yet, but in addition to house building they are planting like women—even hoeing, and weeding in the fields.”

“It's as if they're treating all crops as tobacco.”

“I imagine so.”

This is the problem with living too long, thinks Great Stone Face. You live not only beyond your years, but beyond your convictions.

The day of the frame-raising, Nathan and his crew are busy and very excited. Nathan had explained to you that a house- or barn-raising back in New England is always an excuse to carouse with a barrel of rum, a pig roasting over a spit on hot coals, entertainment by fiddle players, and dancing all around. You tell him that we Americans can sympathize with this particular English ceremony. Substitute brandy for rum, venison for pork, drums for violins, and Canada and New England achieve congruence.

Two posts with a cross beam and top plate are pegged to form frames, called bents, to be raised by people power. It's tricky work, requiring an organizer to position a crew to raise the frame, a couple of men to hold the safety rope to keep the frame from falling over the other way once it's raised, as many bodies as possible to heave the beams upright, and pikemen to push against the top plate once the frame is above shoulder level. If Nathan has planned or measured wrong, the bents might not line up properly with the girts. It's almost as if Nathan were back on the foot-racing circuit—invigorated by thoughts of victory or defeat. After the bents are in place, the rafters are raised; collar ties and purlins are pinned in place. Following the tradition of Nathan Blake, Nathan Provider-of-Services nails a tiny fir tree to the peak. I am looking at your face. You are radiant. Is it love that has made it so? Is it this house? Something I cannot fathom? I think I do not know everything about you, dear daughter. This much I do know. All agree that it's a great day that a house frame has been raised in an American réfugié camp. The rest of the summer will be devoted to enclosing the frame. For me, however, the house building is more punishment for my many sins.

One Sunday Great Stone Face's reliable informant doesn't show up. The next Sunday, he arrives late, stays a short time, and leaves nervous. Something is wrong. Great Stone Face conjures over the matter. Perhaps his spy in the village has been turned against him through sorcery or bribery. He decides to spy on the spy. The next Sunday Great Stone Face waits in the shadow of a doorway across from the church that Norman attends regularly with the faithful. When Norman arrives at the church accompanied by a woman, Great Stone Face understands the source of his unusual behavior. Great Stone Face listens to the church singing for a while. It's less the music than the words—incomprehensible Latin—that he finds relaxing. Wailing Catholic singing brings him back to his slave days in Europe. He misses the old priests who taught him the various ways one can pronounce words in French, English, and Dutch, all the useful languages but the sacred Latin. When the music stops, Great Stone Face returns to his room in the palace. The weather is warm, but he makes a fire anyway.

Two hours later Norman Feathers comes for his weekly audience with his king. “Norman, where is she? What have you done with her?”

Norman's mouth yaws open, but no sound issues forth.

“Norman, you cannot speak because you cannot lie, so let the truth pour out.”

“She is in the stables waiting for me. She knows only that I have private business in the palace. How could you know about her?”

“Norman, I am a king, or have you forgotten?”

“I have not forgotten.”

“And a king always knows more than his subjects. Norman, I will not punish you—I am merely curious. How is it that you, a confirmed bachelor, are keeping company with a licentious woman like Wytopitlock?”

“Because she is an angel.” Norman drops to his knees, folds his hands, and bows his head all the way to the floor. Great Stone Face puts his hand on his subject's brow and whispers some nonsense Latin words mixed in with some archaic Algonkian. Through this invented incantation, Norman understands that he has been forgiven by his king, and, relaxed now, he relates a tale.

“I was walking with my oxen in the woods to fetch some logs when I could see a figure by the lake. Something about the way she moved troubled me, so I left Peter and Paul to forage and went down by the water. Wytopitlock had tied a stone about her neck. By the time I arrived she was about to drown herself; I went in after her and pulled her out. I made a fire, and gave her my blanket, for she was shaking. She told me she wanted to die; I told her that Jesus wanted her to live. I know that I compromised your safety, but I had to bring her to church. We attend mass every Sunday. All I think about during the week is Wytopitlock and myself in church. I do not dare broach this subject with my confessor. My king, am I in sin?”

“Norman, don't you understand anything? You are not in sin, you are in love.”

With the arrival of warm weather, Great Stone Face is prepared to leave the palace and move into the woods for the summer. He plans to establish a camp at Bleached Bones's place, spend the summer eating a fire; maybe his conjuring skills will improve sufficiently to allow him to save his village. He'll raise a few vegetables, and gain his meat by fishing and running a trap line, for Bleached Bones left some excellent snares. Great Stone Face has already given his wages to other servants in the employ of the intendant; this is not the kingly largess of old but it is enough to make him feel clean and expansive. But his plans undergo a change when he is summoned to the personal quarters of the intendant himself. Great Stone Face thinks maybe the intendant has found him out, and is going to execute him personally. This is possible good news! But of course he knows that ideal prospects true better in the thought than in the deed.