The Spirit Keeper (11 page)

Hours passed as I tried to work with the pains to turn the baby ’round. Of course the women who’d been there from the beginning had already tried what I was doing, but they urged me on, sure I would have more success. I don’t know how the poor woman endured all my pushing and prodding, but by late in the day I myself was beginning to flag as frustration welled in me. Remembering how I broke that ax, I struggled to remain calm, but I’m sure I would’ve brought the poor mother to the brink of hysteria had it not been for the cool example of Syawa, who sang sweetly through all my futile efforts, ne’er tiring, ne’er wavering, ne’er losing his encouraging smile.

Just before sunset one of the baby’s grandmothers took me outside to give me food. I sat there by myself, eating numbly as I thought about what more I could do. Something was strange about that baby. I could move it, but it just would not stay where I wanted it to be.

I held my head in my hands, defeated and increasingly scared. What did I know about childbirth? Of the dozens and dozens of babes I’d seen born, probably less than half had come through the process alive, and of those, maybe half again made it through their first month. This was a grim and grisly business, and things were appearing very bleak. What right had I to be here, pretending to know what I was doing? I was no midwife! I was no one special! Fear swelled as I chid myself for e’er thinking I could save three lives.

I looked up, startled. Syawa had said
three
lives. There was the mother, the baby, and . . . oh, you stupid, stupid,
stupid
girl!

Syawa had not stopt to eat, and as I re-entered the dark hut, the flickering firelight revealed him staring at the young mother as she stared at him. ’Twas as if her mind was his now, as if he was absorbing her pain. When I resumed my place at his side, he smiled without looking at me. “Are you ready?” he asked, a phrase I knew well, for it was the very thing he asked each morning before we set off on our hike.

I mumbled an affirmation. I wanted to tell him what I had figured out, but before I could, he urged me to proceed, adding that I need not worry—all would be well. Whilst he kept the young woman focused with his penetrating gaze, I felt her belly more carefully. There it was, hiding up behind the rib cage—the second baby.

I gestured to the other women about the second baby, explaining that every time we moved the first one, the second pushed it right back where it started. Our challenge was for the grandmothers to hold the second baby out of the way whilst I pushed the first one into place.

We all took a deep breath and got back to work. I’d seen women scream and writhe under a lot less provocation, but that young mother continued to stare blankly at Syawa’s dark eyes as if she felt no pain at all. Unfortunately, our efforts failed. There just wasn’t room to turn the first babe all the way ’round. At some point well past the middle of the night I had to admit my plan wasn’t going to work.

When I sat back on my heels, once again near tears, Syawa turned his head to look at me. I could see the firelight reflected in his eyes, the red-orange dancing in the black. His smile was warm, encouraging, filled with love and support. No one had e’er looked at me like that. Tears filled my eyes, and I looked away, ashamed of myself. If Syawa was so sure I could do this, who was I to think I couldn’t? I went back to work.

This time, instead of trying to turn the baby ’round head first, I pushed it the other way. Working through multiple contractions, I nudged the little legs ’til they were pointed straight down. When next the muscles tightened, we all saw the bulge in the mother’s belly slide into place. That baby might be coming into the world backwards, but at least it was going to come out.

Once the legs were in the birth canal, things proceeded rapidly. The contractions did their job, and before long tiny feet were visible. I worried to myself that the baby’s head might be too big, which happened once with a cow my father had. After the calf’s body dangled from the mother for some time, my father had no choice but to push it back so he could reach in and crush its skull to save the mother’s life. ’Twas a gruesome scene—not one I wanted to repeat.

I needn’t have worried. With the next contraction, the baby slithered out as easy as you please. It was a boy. One of the grandmothers was ready and waiting to take him, but he was blue and lifeless, which I knew was oft the case with breech births. I sucked what I could from his mouth and nose, then rubbed him to get the blood flowing. I turned him o’er to rub his back, but nothing much seemed to be happening.

He was so very small, lying lifeless on my hand and arm.

With my palm against his tiny belly, I used my other hand to gently press the baby’s back up and down like a bellows. He spluttered and choked and wiggled and kicked. Then he cried.

After tying off the cord, I gave him to his grandmother and turned my attention back to his mother. By the time the second baby was in position, the poor girl was too depleted to push, and it took much effort from all of us to get that baby out. We worked e’en harder to get the second afterbirth, for the contractions had stopt. By the time we succeeded, the young mother was bleeding so profusely it seemed, for a time, we might yet lose her.

The other women applied herb-filled pads to stanch the flow, as I piled hides beneath her legs and backside to keep her feet and legs well above her head. I also made cold compresses from river water to chill her belly. Through it all, Syawa’s gentle ministrations kept the woman so calm she actually drifted off to sleep whilst the rest of us scrambled to save her. By late in the afternoon, clots had formed, and mother and both babies were sleeping comfortably.

Having done all I could, I staggered to the river to wash, my knees trembling from the strain of holding me up for so long. I had worked hard for maybe thirty-five hours, and my vision was beginning to blur. A soft doeskin appeared in mid-air before me; I stared at it blearily. When I managed to focus my eyes, Syawa was drying my hands, his smile smug. I wanted to say something, but ’twas all I could do to stay upright as he pulled me to my feet and put his arm ’round my shoulders to lead me back to the hut where we were staying. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the bearskin, but on the way down some small part of my mind screamed:

Three lives, three days. Three lives, three days.

Syawa had said it, and it had come to pass.

~11~

I
FIRMLY BELIEVE I DID
nothing extraordinary by helping with the birth of those twins. On reflection, I’m sure the women already there would have succeeded without me. But I doubt they could have managed without the calming influence of Syawa. He was the one who truly saved three lives.

So the question rolling in my mind was this—why did he want people to
think
it was me? Was this his way of turning me into the mystical creature he claimed me to be? Because that’s exactly what happened. The villagers considered the miraculous birth to be both confirmation of the power of the Great Seer and proof of my Divinity. I would have laughed at the notion had it not frightened me so.

A gray, stormy sky prevented us from leaving the next day, but it also gave people from far and wide an opportunity to come pay us tribute. Thus began my instruction in the delicate art of Gifting.

It was so very complicated. We hauled out all the pelts we’d collected and gave these to people to whom we were obliged—those who’d given us food, lodging, or other considerations. But we also had a pile of gifts others had given us, and I asked Syawa how we could accept these things when we must travel so lightly. He smiled and said to refuse a gift insulted the giver, but once the gift was ours, we could do with it what we would. As we gave away most of the things we’d been given, he insisted the important thing was to maintain a balance between those giving gifts and those receiving them.

Oh, but there were treacherous subtleties! For example, I wanted to give the young mother a couple of soft rabbit furs, but Syawa said I’d already given her the greatest gift and to increase her obligation would only shame her. It was hard for him to explain such complex concepts through gestures, but he patiently assured me that if we gave the wrong sort of gift to someone, we might insult that person, and if we gave no gift at all, we might actually be acknowledging that person’s high status or wealth, which would be a compliment. The wealthiest person, Syawa insisted, was the one who ended up with nothing.

I was confused and must ask many questions. If a gift given to me was mine to do with as I pleased, why had Hector raised such a fuss about my giving away food back at that first village? Syawa smiled and said the sharing of food was not so much a gift as an indicator of a personal relationship, but, in any case, it wasn’t Hector who’d refused my family food—it was Syawa. He went on to tell me Hector had begged to be allowed to provide enough food for all in an effort to avoid a fight like the one which occurred, but Syawa, for whatever reason, flatly forbade him to do so.

I was shocked by this revelation. Why had Syawa denied my family food? Was he punishing them for the way they treated me? That seemed plausible, especially when I saw how pleased he was by the homage I was receiving. ’Twas almost as if my elevation in status was his gift to
me
. But how could I possibly enjoy such a powerful gift when, given the importance of balance in the Indian world, I knew I must, sooner or later, give Syawa an equivalent gift in return?

Thinking of balance also made me wonder about the relationship between the French traders and the natives. Every merchant I’d e’er known exchanged goods for only one reason—to make a profit. This motivation put the traders at a distinct advantage when bartering with people who exchanged goods primarily to maintain a balance of wealth and power. I wondered—how did the Frenchmen explain this contradiction to their Indian sons? And when they explained it to them, how could they look them in the eye?

The stormy spring weather continued the next day, making Hector increasingly restless. He arose in the morning from the furs of whichever girl had been lucky enough to catch his eye the night before, and he prowled the village like a cat, looking up at the gray, roiling clouds resentfully. He talked with Syawa about leaving in spite of the rain, but Syawa pointed out that our progress would be so slow and the process so unpleasant it would be just as well to wait.

Watching Hector pace, I wondered about the other news I’d learnt, that he had killed the brutish savage at the bottom of our stairs. I was not surprised to hear he was capable of murder, but I was shocked to hear he had killed one of his own comrades-in-arms. If the others in that war party had discovered the murder, they surely would have knockt out the brains of both Hector and Syawa. It seemed such a risky thing to do, so inexplicably motivated.

But then again, everything about my situation was inexplicable. How could Syawa have known I was up in that loft? Yes, he was an accomplisht storyteller, but was he truly more than that, as the Indians believed? I puzzled o’er the “Vision” about the birth of those twins. It could have been a Vision, as he claimed, or it could have been simple observation and reasoning—he might’ve seen the heavily pregnant woman, deduced she was having twins, assumed the birth would be difficult, and hoped that I might be of some assistance. Was Syawa truly a visionary, a prophet, or was he just an extremely shrewd man who knew how to manipulate impressionable minds?

Either way, he was special, and the more I knew of him, the happier I was I’d agreed to join him.

That afternoon, Syawa and I were checking on the young mother when the French priest arrived. He had come to bless the twins or some such thing, and when I shrank back, Syawa asked what was wrong. I gestured for him to follow me out into the drizzly day, but once there I hesitated, unable to explain in gestures how my father had harangued us all to be staunchly anti-Papist, anti-French, and anti-authority—and this priest was all those things.

I didn’t get beyond explaining that the priest was from a different country than mine before Syawa stopt me to ask how many countries of people there were. I said I didn’t know, but there were many, many—all with different languages, customs, and religions. Syawa frowned. He said in the two years he had been traveling, he had seen extreme differences amongst the people of this land, but now I was telling him those differences just went on and on. How, he wondered, could so many different peoples e’er achieve harmony and balance?

I stared at him, stunned speechless. For one thing, I couldn’t believe he thought the differences between savage tribes were significant, because, as far as I could see, these people were all pretty much the same. But the other, far more startling thing he’d said was that he had been traveling for two years.
Two years?

Before I could question him about this, the priest emerged from the hut and asked to speak with me. I shrugged. Syawa watched intently as I gestured a translation of everything that was said, but the conversation was difficult because the priest’s English was so halting and I was still unwilling to let him know I spoke French.

He began with standard pleasantries, inquiring after my health and congratulating me for assisting in the miraculous birth, the fame of which had spread to the trading post. Then he put his hands on mine as if bestowing a blessing as he asked again if I was being held against my will. I pulled my hands away to translate his question and my answer, assuring him I was not. Syawa’s eyes flashed from the priest to me and back again.

I’ll say this for the priest—he was brave. He glanced at Syawa as he offered me sanctuary, promising that if I but said the word, he and his fellows would see to it that I was ransomed, rescued, and returned to the bosom of my family.

Instead of getting angry as the priest must have expected, Syawa just smiled. He looked at me, tipping his head and raising one eyebrow. “Now everyone wants you,” he said. “What will you do?”