The Orenda Joseph Boyden (17 page)

Champlain then drinks deeply. I watch as the others follow suit, wincing at what must be a very bitter taste for them. Some keep gulping, until their glass is emptied. Father Lalemant carefully
translates Champlain’s words. When he is finished, the sauvages, in one great voice, call out “Ah-ho! Ah-ho!” Champlain smiles.

“Very soon, one of our great canoes will arrive,” Champlain says. “If you are willing to wait for it, you will find that when it arrives, it will be filled with gifts for you to take back home to your wives and your brothers and your uncles and aunts and children.” He pauses so that Lalemant can translate. The sauvages smile and nod. I can see that already the wine affects some of them.

“But the greatest gift that our great canoe brings to you is more of our Fathers.” Again, Champlain pauses. “Our Fathers leave their loved ones and a good life back home to bring you important messages. And so I ask you to bring these fathers back with you so that they may teach you, and especially your children, a knowledge so great and so necessary.” Once Lalemant translates, the servant makes another round, filling glasses. I look around the room at these men who are becoming drunk for the first time. Some are glassy eyed, others talk excitedly amongst themselves, no longer caring about etiquette, and a few, including Bird, sit silently, a stony look on their faces, impossible to read.

An hour later, I am ashamed and embarrassed for my sauvages, and more so for my countrymen, who have given them this poison. The Huron pass a long pipe around the table, smoking and making speeches, slurring their words as Bird watches with that same stony look on his face, his hand still on the barrel of the musket. The pipe comes to Champlain, and he puffs it contemplatively before passing it to the one beside him. Another sauvage stands and, waving his arms, speaks so unclearly I can’t understand much.

An hour later Champlain slips away, no one but Bird seeming to notice. Outside, a large bonfire is set, and like moths, the sauvages are drawn to it, one by one, until the room is empty, the table and floor scattered with bones.

I let the candles burn out as I stand at the window and stare down below me to them dancing and singing around the fire, most of them stumbling drunk, others passed out on the periphery. The singing
and shouting and shrill cries of anguish, the souls below me cast in the bright light of the flame, their painted faces twisted and ghastly, remind me of something I have seen before, back home. A painting, maybe? A woodcut from my youth in Brittany?

Behind me, the scrape of a chair. I turn and peer into the darkness. As my eyes adjust, I make out a form in the corner, shoulders rounded in a slump, the posture of an old man. His voice comes out of the darkness, just above the singing and screaming of those around the fire below.

“The world tonight has changed,” he says. “The world tonight, it has changed forever.”

I recognize his voice now. It is the voice of Bird.

SHINING WOOD

Bird no longer cares for me. I’m allowed to wander at will but my hand aches so miserably that I don’t go far from the camp and the river. I’ve taken to holding my fist in the cool water to help ease the pain a little. I crouch by it on a flat stone and when the fist unclenches, I wiggle my fingers below the clear surface. It sometimes looks like I still have five of them on that hand. The warriors tend to stay away from me. There’s talk that I’m a witch. Let them think what they want. I plan to be left here with these hairy men from another world and in this way I’ll find my way back to my family. Today, when I flex my hand, a ribbon of blood weaves up and reddens the water. It’s stubborn in healing.

Since none of them will come near me, I dress my wound each day myself, finding moss to pack around the nub of finger that’s left and then wrapping it tight with a long thin strip of deer hide. The Crow often comes looking for me but I’m good at hiding from him. Today, though, the pain is great enough that I decide I’ll look for him and ask if he might be able to help. I noticed this morning when I cleaned it that it weeps yellow, and this makes me scared.

Yesterday, I tried moaning out loud when I knew Bird was near, but something has come over him. He walks around with what one of the warriors calls the thunder stick, muttering to himself. He looks like he carries a great weight. I think he might be possessed by something, an oki we passed over canoeing the river, or maybe one from the forest.

Walking the perimeter of this strange village, I look for an opening, a break in the palisades big enough to squeeze through. It’s well made, and their warriors walk along up top, their faces frightening beneath their shining headdresses. I have no other choice than to go to the main gate and see if they’ll let me in. A huge man with so much hair on his face that he looks like a bear stands there with a long spear in his hand. His eyes are bright in the blackness of his face and I don’t like the way he stares at me. His lips are pink beneath his beard. He won’t stop staring at me. I point inside and then cradle my wounded hand. I look up at him again. He licks his thick pink lips. He waves me in.

I scurry past and walk along the fence. I’ll find the Crow this way, by staying in the shadows and watching. Fifty or a hundred steps from the gate and I come to some kind of structure made of wood that reminds me of a giant box trap for snaring lynx. With my ear pressed right up to it, I hear nothing. Peering inside, I see that it’s a dark room, a place maybe for the warriors on watch to rest out of the sun. As my eyes adjust, I see a table at the far end, what might be food on it. My stomach grumbles. I place a foot inside. Grasshoppers buzz close by. The whir echoes in my ears. I take another step. Slow. Another. I peer over my shoulder and the sun is bright enough to shut my eyes. Something scratches in the corner. I freeze, then look toward the sound. A mouse darts through the shadow. The round shapes of crabapples sit on the table. I picture myself picking one up and biting into it, the cold of its inside making me shiver. I’ll rush now and be gone with one or two of them and no one will know.

I run to the table, take an apple in each hand. As I turn to run out, the light from the door darkens and I smell something sour. What stands in front of me, blocking my way out, is backlit by sun. I see the legs first, and then the thick body, and finally the hairy face of the bear man.

I wonder if I can squeeze past him, maybe pretend to go to one side and jump to the other. He says something I don’t understand. I stare up at him. I’m frozen. He says it again, and this time waves his hand for
me to come to him. I don’t know what else to do, and so I take steps forward and raise the apples in my hands to him. His head looks the size of a boulder. He stands with his legs apart. I can hear him lick his lips again. When I’m close I can see that he’ll hurt me. His eyes tell me all of this now that I’m close enough that his stink chokes me.

“I am sorry for taking these,” I tell him, knowing he won’t understand my words. “It’s just that I’m hungry.” I lift one of the apples higher, the one in my good hand, and with all my might I throw it at him and jump forward to leap out. He growls and swings at the apple just as I dive onto my stomach and slip between his legs. Sun and dust burn my eyes as I stand and begin to run but I’m pulled back by the hair. He drags me into the darkness of the room and I begin to shout because I know that this will be the end of me. I scream and scream until his heavy hand slaps over my mouth.

I taste blood and the huge man throws me on the table, his hand not leaving my mouth. The apples under me crush as they dig into my ribs and back. I want to breathe but the hand won’t let me. His other hand feels for my robe and begins to tug it off and he runs his hand up and down my chest, so rough that I think he tries to burn me with it. I reach out with my good hand and hit him hard across the ear but this only causes him to remove his hand from my mouth and slap me. He presses his face into mine just as I try to gasp for air but all I suck in is the stinking breath and spit of him and this makes me begin to cough. His hand now pulls at my legs and he puts his hand lower and tries to wiggle a finger into me, and as he does this he lifts his mouth from mine and moans and that’s when I scream again, so loud in this room that I think it will split the ceiling so the light can get in and free me.

He stands and pulls down his leggings, then spits in his hand and reaches back to me and so I begin kicking at him, wiggling so that he can’t touch me there. I scream again but this time it goes the other way and makes me choke so that I begin to retch. He places his hand over my mouth and nose again and begins to push forward, the heat of him burning me between the legs. I can’t breathe. I want to breathe. I can’t.
The little bit of light in the room fades before it explodes white, so bright that I must close my eyes, and just as I do I see he closes his eyes to the light, too, and suddenly looks frightened.

When I can open my eyes again, the crushing weight of him is off me. I gulp air and try to sit up to run but I can’t. I crane my neck and see the door of this trap has been flung wide open and the Crow, tall and skinny and shaking, stands there. His mouth’s open. He’s shouting so hard that his whole body shakes but all I can hear is the ringing in my ears. The one who attacked me stands with his head down and his hands covering that part of him as the Crow approaches, swinging his hands in open slaps across the bear’s face. Each time the Crow screams at the bear, I swear I can see the Crow puff bigger. Then the bear falls to his knees and the Crow stands over him, his voice now beginning to sound in my ears, hollow at first, but louder and louder as he slaps at the bear’s head over and over and the bear cowers lower.

Other men pour into the room now, some glancing at me, others stopping at the door, trying to make sense of what the Crow calls out. A couple of the men take the bear by the arms, yank him up so that he’s on his feet, and lead him out into the sun. He doesn’t look at me.

The Crow comes to me, his hands outstretched. He reaches for my robe and covers me. I lie there, flat and still as I did last winter, wanting all of these men to think I am frozen or I am dead and just leave me alone forever. I burn down there and reach under my robe to feel. Lifting my hand, I see that it’s dry. He’s not taken that from me. The Crow offers his hand to help me, and as he does so, I jump up, fast as a hare, and run out of the room and back to my people and the river.

—

WHEN BIRD HEARS
of what’s happened, I hide. I feel like it’s my fault and I don’t know why. For the rest of the afternoon I lie in the forest on a bed of moss, hidden under ferns, drifting to sleep and then waking to the light step of warriors searching for me or to mosquitoes in my ears.
I’m too frightened to stay when the dark begins creeping closer, and so I slip down to a large fire on the shore. There, in the shadows outside the ring of flame, I listen to Bird ask the others what compensation is deserved for an affront of this severity. Some of the angrier warriors call for his death.

“And so what shall we do?” Fox asks. “Do we demand that their chief hand the perpetrator over to us?”

A dozen warriors hoot their desire.

Bird raises his hand. “If he’s serious about being our friend, our brother”—he almost spits out the last word—“then we should give him the opportunity to prove this.”

Warriors call out in disapproval. I can hear the blood in their voices.

“Hear me,” Bird says, lifting his hand higher. “This is their great leader’s opportunity to show that he understands us, that he is indeed in line with our notions. Let us wait now and see what he decides. Let us wait to see what compensation he offers.” He pauses and looks down before looking up at the men massed around him. “Then we shall decide if he’s truly our brother.”

Many of the warriors nod. But many of them are clearly not happy.

“And if we as one agree that the compensation is fair, we have avoided conflict.” Again Bird pauses. “But if we as one agree that it is not, I will demand something more.” The men quiet at this, and I can hear what they now hear. Bird has left them little room for disagreement. He’s made sure his men in their anger don’t decide to act on their own in order to seek revenge tonight. This man who killed you, my father, is so much like you.

—

THE BEAR MAN IS STRAPPED
, shirtless and on his chest, to a large piece of wood. His arms are stretched so hard I can tell it must hurt. Men pound on drums with sticks in a quick rhythm, and the one who’s their chief speaks in words I can’t understand. The chief sweats in his fur
collar and he looks very ill, like he won’t make it to next spring if the winter is a tough one. A man then walks up carrying a length of leather that splits into many pieces at its end, each tipped with sharp, glinting metal. All of us who’ve travelled here by canoe stand in a group to watch, asked by Bird to witness. He wouldn’t want me here, so close to that man, so close I can see the thick coat of fur on his back. But the idea of being by myself down on the river is too much. I crouch between the legs of the warriors and watch as the man with the leather lifts it high into the air and makes it crack.

The bear roars out each time the sharp pieces glint in the sun. His fur darkens and his shoulders begin to pour blood. The one who swings the leather at him sweats and groans with each stroke, and each stroke the bear’s roars become closer to screams. I look over to the others who are like him. Some watch with open mouths, and others must turn their heads with each swing. Finally, the one with the leather stops. The bear man slumps, and I can hear him begin to sob. The warriors around me mumble and kick dirt, embarrassed by him, by his weakness. The bear cries out something that makes the men who understand his words turn to one another and whisper. The man with the leather, once their chief looks at him and raises his hand, begins to swing again. Again, the bear roars and the Wendat around me shake their heads and point to his weakness and the bear’s back turns to ribbons of flesh and blood.

Again and again the man swings and the bear cries out before it all stops. And then their chief begins it all over again with the raising of his hand until the bear no longer moves, even when the glinting leather cuts into the fresh skin of his legs. A warrior near me comments to his friend that it seems unfair they don’t revive the bear, now clearly in another world. “What is the point of this torture,” the warrior asks, “if he isn’t present to understand its point?”