The Orenda Joseph Boyden (46 page)

We wait the entire day for Aaron to reappear. Children begin wandering by the longhouse to get a glimpse of us. Apparently they’ve been told not to come too close, for whenever I call out to them, they run away. A few men sit on their haunches at a safe distance, watching.
They want to watch me, as well as the ones I’ve brought along. When I can’t stand to wait any longer, the night threatening, I walk out into the village to ask after Aaron. We must leave first thing in the morning. But everyone I encounter turns away without saying a word.

When I’ve given up and go back to the longhouse, something’s coming from it that I’ve not heard in many years. I stop and listen. It’s an old song, one from my childhood. The melody is simple and beautiful. It’s about a shepherd guarding his flock from the beasts in the darkness, and the light of morning soon approaches. One of the men sings it in a lovely voice. It is a song my mother once sang to me.

And then, as I conjure her face for what must be the first time in years, her dark hair framing it, a woman’s voice joins in the song, hushed at first but then becoming louder and more sure of itself. I’m stunned by it. Whoever’s singing has the voice of my own mother. It’s so eerily similar that hearing it almost brings me to my knees. Shocked, I start for the longhouse. It must be one of the young donnés who is able to sing so angelically.

Tears in my eyes, I enter as quietly as I can, wanting to witness this small miracle. I look at the fire and the men standing around it, the distiller singing as the other three sway and listen. That’s when I see her. Gosling stands beside the distiller, watching his mouth intently as she sings along with him. When the song comes to an end, all the men hoot and applaud.

“What an amazing mimic,” the redhead says.

“To think that she can’t even speak French, and yet I sing it to her just once,” the distiller says, “and she masters not just the words but the melody.”

Gosling looks to where I’m standing in the darkness. “Did it bring back memories for you?” she asks in Huron.

I can’t find the words to answer.

Gosling smiles and begins to sing it once more.

—

WE’RE FORCED TO SIT
and wait another day before Aaron eventually returns, bursting into the longhouse panicked, telling us we must leave this very instant.

“You can’t behave this way and expect me not to be upset,” I tell him.

The donnés grumble. Gosling left soon after she spoke to me the night before, and the men blame me. She’s cast a spell on them. They’ve been unceasing in begging me to go out and ask her to come back. Of course I refuse.

“We must go now,” Aaron says again.

“What’s the rush suddenly?” I ask. “You’ve kept us waiting for two days, and now you decide it’s time?”

Aaron simply picks up his bow and his club, waving us to follow. Outside, he sprints through the gates and into the fields, the five of us trying not to lose him. He keeps a desperate pace until I call out to him to slow down. He waits on the path, breathing heavily.

“What’s come over you?” I ask.

Aaron looks behind me, as if worried we’re being pursued. “Snow Falls is pregnant,” he whispers.

“What?” I say, taken aback. “What business is that of yours?” As soon as these words leave my mouth, it all begins to make sense. “Are you the father?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “But Bird will kill me if I am.” With that, he races down the trail.

—

NOW THAT AUTUMN’S
coming, moving to keep warm is actually pleasant. The donnés don’t know how lucky they are. Staying with Bird and his people would certainly have taught them much more about obedience and fear.

We reach the mission gates well after dark, Aaron steady in his direction, which impresses all of us, and the donnés praise his skills. They slap him on the back, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

Inside our residence, finally, I sit with Gabriel and Isaac, all of us bursting to share what’s transpired.

“I tried to give our four to Bird,” I say, “but he would have none of it.”

“Never mind that,” Isaac says. “We have important news, good news, I think.”

He’s smiling, but Gabriel is his usual frowning self.

“Well then,” I say to the both of them. “Please do share.”

“The soldiers and more donnés arrived two days ago,” Isaac blurts.

I look at both of them. “This is extraordinary news,” I say, clapping my hands. “We must go immediately so I can greet them and pray over them.”

“In due time,” Gabriel says.

“What’s the matter, Brother?” I ask.

“We were promised over a hundred souls, but only seventeen arrived.”

“Will the rest come soon?” I ask. “Were they held up by weather? Are they lost?”

“No,” Gabriel says. “There are no more.”

“What?”

“The governor decided he could spare only this many,” he explains. “And to make matters worse, our messengers were ambushed and killed. The Iroquois have made it clear they’re determined to get rid of us and our allies.”

GO NOW

I find out with the first frost that Snow Falls is expecting a child. It isn’t Snow Falls who tells me but Gosling. It appears my daughter is too afraid to let me know this herself.

“Am I to assume that Carries an Axe is the father?” I ask.

Gosling looks at me in a way that makes me suddenly even more upset. “That is for Snow Falls and you to speak of,” she says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You should never question your daughter’s goodness,” she says.

I ask where my daughter is, but Gosling claims not to know.

“Maybe she’s with Carries an Axe,” she says. “He’s a good one for her. Indeed, he was a foolish child not too long ago, but he’s become a man, and he’s grown well.”

“They’re barely adults,” I say.

“They were forced to grow up quickly,” she answers. “And they do what’s natural, especially in a time like this.”

I snort and walk out of my longhouse. I walk the whole village looking for Carries an Axe, and I can tell by the way people avoid me that trouble’s hovering in the crisp air. I see He Finds Villages and rush up to him. The strange young man with the missing fingers looks at me in horror and bolts away. I’m not sure what these charcoal are doing to make the ones who listen to them act so strangely, but it doesn’t befit a Wendat. My search for Carries an Axe continues. He’s lucky I can’t find him.

—

MOST OF THE FIELDS
have been harvested now, and we can see clear to the forest beyond where the leaves shine gold and red. Snow Falls won’t say anything, and so we just simply walk, looking for any ears of corn the women might have missed. Conveniently, Carries an Axe is off on a deer hunt with his father, Tall Trees, and I’ve still not confronted him. Snow Falls has been staying with his mother, Sleeps Long, who is herself pregnant, or with Gosling. Snow Falls says she needs to be around women and there are none left in our longhouse. I can feel myself losing my daughter in bits and pieces each day.

And now soon, when the women decide it, Snow Falls will move into Sleeps Long’s longhouse, as is our way. And soon it will be Fox and me, alone and bitter, two grumbling old men acting like a married couple in our bickering. I think I might ask Gosling to come and live with me as a wife. I’m tempted to speak of this with Fox, but then I realize I will only hurt him. There are few women alive now who aren’t already married or in a position to take him as a husband, despite his abilities and his reputation. In the spring, I’ll force him to travel with me to another Wendat community and make himself available.

“Did you want this?” I ask Snow Falls when the silence gets too much.

She won’t answer me.

“Am I to take your silence as no?”

Still nothing.

“Was it forced upon you?” I ask, stopping her now and taking her arm, turning her to face me.

Snow Falls erupts in tears. “I love Carries an Axe,” she says.

“Did he force himself on you?” I ask again, my hand, I realize, squeezing her arm too hard. I let her go. “Please, Snow Falls,” I say. “I’m not upset with you. You’re not in trouble.”

Her mouth quivers. She opens it to speak but cries even harder. “Not Carries an Axe,” she says in heaves. “Never. He’d never make me do what I don’t want.”

“Someone else did? Is this what you’re trying to say?”

She looks at me, pleading, and then looks away.

“Tell me who it was,” I say. “Was it a crow? One of their stinking people?”

“No,” she cries. “It … it was no one.” She sits down in the field, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “This is very difficult for me,” she says. The tears have finally stopped. Her voice is already calmer. “I love Carries an Axe, and I will have our child.”

“Well, there’s no other choice, is there?” I say.

“Gosling told me there are certain roots that will take care of the problem, if that’s what it is.” Her voice is flat now. The crying child in her has disappeared like morning frost in the sun. “But I’ve decided to have this child, and Carries an Axe has agreed as well.”

I nod. “This is your decision, after all,” I say. “For you will be the one to raise it.”

“I hope you’ll show the child love,” she says.

I laugh. I think I might learn to be excited about becoming a grandfather. “I will,” I say. “I promise you.”

—

AUTUMN PASSES UNEVENTFULLY
, the leaves turning, then more and more of them dropping with each windstorm off the Sweet Water Sea. The harvest wasn’t a big one, but as Fox bitterly pointed out last spring, there are far fewer mouths to feed. Still, I worry, my love. My life has become one long worry.

I’d wanted to trade corn for furs with the Anishnaabe and Montagnais and any others who might have wanted to in the hope of building up a stockpile and sending a smaller, quicker force next summer to the French while the more experienced warriors stay and protect the village. If the Haudenosaunee give us even a year’s reprieve from attack, I know we can gather our wits and our strength. It’ll be a gamble to send any men out to the French come summer, but it has
to be done, and I may have to go as the envoy. After all, they’ll listen to me. I’m sure of it. I’ll bring the Crow to translate and explain the importance of the Crow’s Iron People harassing the Haudenosaunee to keep them off balance. My daughter will be protected by Tall Trees and Carries an Axe. I’ll let Fox decide if he wants to come with me or not. If I know him at all, he’ll be more than eager.

—

NOW THAT THE SNOW
has come, Fox and I sit by the fire and plot new ways to trade with the fur peoples.

“We can promise them an overabundance of corn the next time if they agree to give us furs now,” Fox says. “I remember my father telling me he was forced to do it during a very bad season, and the traders were willing.”

“You know, though, they’ve come to rely on our food as a staple in winter,” I tell him. “Not too many will be happy to wait a full year on the promise of twice as much.”

“We could always invite them along on the summer’s voyage,” Fox says.

This is interesting. While he and I both know it’s dangerous to show our trade routes to our allies, never mind planting the idea in their heads that we might simply be middlemen and unnecessary in the next years, Fox and I have to do something to protect our people’s position.

“Now that’s an idea worth discussion,” I say. “Why not take it one step further?”

Fox waits for me to go on as he plies the fire with a stick.

“Do you think it a good idea,” I say, “to ask any who are willing to fight alongside us if it comes to that next summer?”

Fox smiles. He knows the Anishnaabe are great fighters, as are the Montagnais. Stories from our past when we once fought instead of traded with them are still often told around winter fires. “We need friends for what comes,” Fox says. “But what’s in it for them?”

“They want our crops to keep growing so their winters aren’t so difficult,” I say. “They want to feel secure against our common enemy. And they are never ones to back down from a good fight. What else could they desire?”

We laugh for the first time in days. This is all worth consideration. It might just be what saves us if the Haudenosaunee come in force again.

—

THE SNOWS FALL
steady for a whole moon’s cycle now, and the winter will be a heavy one. When we should all be sleeping deeply and dreaming of the spring, the nights, I know, will be restless as we wait to see if our enemy will live up to last summer’s word. Some nights, Fox and I are sure they will. Other nights, as we debate with one another the ability and sheer planning of one more venture that size, we calculate there’s no possible way for them to do this a second year in a row.

“Just think of what would be owed if so many warriors were to leave their homes so soon again,” Fox says. “So many villages having to agree on the same course, the fear of leaving their families unguarded, the loss of work time. This last must have been the one year it was possible. Two years in a row?” he argues, surprisingly. “That rage burns bright for only so long.” I’m impressed by this and want to say as much, but I fear that it will only rip open a barely stanched wound. “They’d have to be driven by something bigger than that to attempt such an undertaking twice,” Fox says.

He does have a good point. But he’s used to me counter-arguing. “Maybe it isn’t rage so much as hunger for wealth and control that drives them,” I say. “Can you imagine the prizes they paddled home with last summer? The prisoners, the three sisters, the furs and wampum?”

The two of us sleep little at night as we banter by the fire, swaying one way and then the other, never believing much of anything for long. I watch the creases of Fox’s face deepen as each passing day
grows shorter. I know how much my friend suffers, how the pain of his loss still feels so heavy he can’t breathe. I want to tell him it does grow lighter, if only a little bit, but I know he knows this pain will never go away. This pain, I’m beginning to realize, is what all of us must share.

—

TALL TREES AND
Sleeps Long have promised to come to my longhouse soon, now that the shortest days of the year are here. It’s about time. Snow Falls, my thin little daughter, has been showing what she and Carries an Axe have managed to create for the last while now.