The Spirit Keeper (14 page)

I held Syawa’s hand close to the fire to see the splinter, but he kept teasing me by flinching and shouting as if I were stabbing him with a knife. I started giggling, which made it harder to work, and we kept up this little charade for quite a time, with Hector repeatedly asking his friend if he needed protection from my formidable blade. I threatened to stab them both, and as I parried, they leant this way and that to avoid me. Finally I rolled Syawa onto his stomach and placed my knee on his upper arm so I could hold him still whilst digging out the splinter. He howled in mock agony, expressing terrific surprise when I was finisht, saying it hadn’t hurt at all.

He sat up to look at his hand, which was bleeding slightly, now that the offending splinter was gone. He dabbed his finger in his blood and used it to paint something on the side of my face. I would’ve shrunk away, but he had grown quite serious. Frowning, he said he’d copied the tattoo from his own face and I was now marked as he was. He leant forward to touch my forehead with his as he whispered something I didn’t understand.

He abruptly got up to wash his hands in the creek. As he was coming back, he told Hector how lucky they were to have such a great healer traveling with them. First I saved the twins, then I removed that dreadful tree trunk from his hand.

They were teasing me again, and I laughed and we played thus like children on into the night. By the time I crawled into my bearskin, I was once again exhausted from laughing. It seemed to me I had laughed more and felt more joy in the last few days than I had experienced in the whole of my first seventeen years. I slept that night as soundly as a child in its mother’s arms, blissfully unaware how rare and fleeting joy truly is.

~13~

I
AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING SCREAMING.

’Twas the strangest sensation. I had gone to sleep happy and secure, yet there I was, suddenly sitting upright, gasping for air, sweating and trembling, my stomach churning. Syawa sat near me, as if he had been sitting there for some time, simply watching me. I stared at him, wild-eyed, scarce comprehending where I was or how I got there.

“What did you see?” he asked quietly in his language.

“I . . . I don’t know,” I mumbled in English. Then I remembered myself and repeated the phrase in Syawa’s language.

He nodded thoughtfully. “Be patient. It will come.”

I tried to slow my breathing, but I was o’erwhelmingly nauseous. I closed my eyes and fought the urge to vomit, but closing my eyes only made things worse because I was dizzy, so very, very dizzy.

That was it! I opened my eyes. In the dream I was spinning and spinning, in a darkness so thick, so deep, I felt I could actually reach out and grab it. Spinning, spinning—as if the swirling storm had snatched me up and was spiraling me away, only there was no wind, no rain, no light, no hope. Only terror, absolute and all-encompassing, a deep, dark terror that is everything and nothing and now and forever. I lay back and put my arm o’er my eyes.

“Do not fight it,” Syawa said. “Let it go and it will pass.”

I nodded, swallowed hard, and stopt struggling. The spinning sensation subsided and the urge to vomit slowly ebbed.

When I finally sat up again, I was embarrassed by my childish nightmare. Syawa brought me our water pouch; I drank from it gratefully, avoiding eye contact. I saw Hector stealing glances my way as he packed up our campsite, and I started to get to my feet because I knew that was my job.

“Stay,” Syawa said. “Sit. Tell me of your dream.”

I thought about it. “Spinning,” I said in English because I did not know the word in his tongue. I gestured and acted out the motion for him. He supplied the word. I nodded. He asked if that was all. I nodded again.

Syawa looked at me critically. Then, having reached some conclusion, he breathed deeply, slapt his thighs, and said, “If your dream was a message, the meaning is not yet clear. When you need to know more, the answer will come.” He urged me to eat what they had left for me and gather my things so we could go.

The strange start to the day left us all in a somber and pensive mood. Whilst I kept hearkening back to the flood of emotions connected with that dream, Hector seemed preoccupied by something, and Syawa, well . . . something was clearly troubling him. Usually he smiled every time I caught his eye, but during our hike that morning, every time I looked his way I found him staring vacantly into the distance with a wistful expression.

As the day wore on and I moved farther from the dream, I was increasingly embarrassed by it. Obviously I had been more bothered by the cyclone than I let on, and my nerves were working through the fear I experienced whilst hiding in that tree trunk. I knew Syawa was worried about me, but I also knew he was reading more into my dream than was there. After all, I had once told him I was a dreamer as he was, so why wouldn’t he now interpret my jittery nightmare as evidence of some sort of supernatural message? I blushed at the thought of misleading him, however unintentionally.

By mid-day the land we crossed was unpleasantly swampy and our forward progress slowed to almost naught. Hector stopt frequently to look ’round. At first I thought he was looking for a better path through the muck, but then I realized he was searching for something—some landmark, perhaps. Eventually he stopt to confer with Syawa before going on by himself. Syawa, looking grave, urged me to sit and rest whilst awaiting Hector’s return.

“I must tell you something,” he said and gestured, looking at me steadily.

I sat on a large rock and waited, tension tightening my throat and rolling my belly. I immediately thought of that strange dream I’d had. Spinning . . .

“I know how you dislike water,” Syawa continued, still staring at me, “but we are approaching the largest river you will ever see. I do not mean to frighten you. I am telling you this merely so you will not be surprised. I want you to”—he gestured emphatically to make his meaning clear—“be prepared. If you are prepared, you will not be frightened.”

I was strangely relieved. I don’t know why, but I had thought for a moment Syawa was going to say he could not take me any farther and was going to leave me here in the forest, all alone. Compared to that, a river seemed a silly thing to fear.

I nodded and assured him I understood. I signaled that I would cross whatever river we encountered. After all, had I not conquered my fear and crossed countless streams and rivers? Did I not now bathe regularly? “I prepare myself,” I said dutifully, and Syawa put his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

 • • •

Ah, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when we arrived at the banks of the Great River. How could I be prepared for such an awful sight? It was not a river but, for all intents and purposes, a huge, fast-flowing lake whose distant shore was almost undetectable from where I stood. I stared at the vast expanse of water with a gaping mouth.

To make matters worse, e’en Syawa and Hector were surprised. From their conversation, I gathered they’d crossed this river in early winter when it was perhaps half the size it was now. At half its present size, the monstrous beast would have horrified me; at its current level, there was simply no way I would go anywhere near it. “How we go ’round this?” I broke into their conversation to gesture.

They both stared at me. Syawa took a deep breath. His eyes bored into mine as he said, “We must cross it.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, my lips presst tight. “No. No, no, no, no, no. I not cross that river. I cannot. We find other way. We find a . . .” I did not know the word in their language, so I just said “bridge” in English and tried to depict a bridge with my hands.

Syawa and Hector exchanged a weary glance. “There is no other way,” Syawa said in words and gestures. “Kay-oot-li, you must accept this. We are not just going to cross this river. We are going to travel on it for many days. We have a canoe.”

I kept shaking my head, saying, “No, no, no . . .” as Syawa went on to explain they had buried their canoe somewhere nearby, but Hector was having trouble locating it because the floodwaters had altered the terrain.

“Well, it’s gone then, and we’ll just have to find a different way!” I said in English whilst gesturing. My voice was tight with rising hysteria. “We can walk upstream. If we go far enough, there will surely be less water!”

Hector gave me a withering look and mumbled to Syawa that we had no more time to waste. In order to reach a certain village before winter, we must proceed up this river now.

I just kept shaking my head, saying “no,” ’til Hector stormed off to look for the canoe. In the meantime, Syawa stood still, looking at me sadly. He waited whilst I paced and ranted and raved and raged. I reminded myself of my mother when she was in one of her red-faced screaming fits. In his language I said it was a stupid plan to cross this stupid river and I was not so stupid I would do it. There had to be another way. There had to be another way.

When I finally worked myself into tears, Syawa took my arms in his hands and stopt my pacing. “Enough,” he said firmly. “You have said your words. Now you must prepare yourself. There is nothing to fear in water. It is the source of all life.”

I looked into Syawa’s gentle but strong eyes and struggled to match his cool demeanor. But every time I so much as glanced at that massive basin of water, I panicked all over again. I saw an entire tree bobbing along as if it weighed nothing, and everywhere were huge logs swirling like little twigs. The wind formed foamy caps upon the waves, and giant birds circled o’er the waters the way gulls circled o’er the ocean in Boston.

“I cannot do this,” I gestured simply. “I’m sorry, Syawa, but I cannot do this.”

Syawa’s face showed no emotion as he kept looking at me. “You are smart. You will learn. I will teach you. Like talking and washing and cooking and gift-giving.”

He was right. I had learnt many new things in the past two and a half months, and if anyone could teach me to embrace water, it would be Syawa. Besides—what was the alternative? If I did not calm down and do what Syawa said, he and Hector might very well go on without me, and then where would I be? Syawa was right. I was smart. I could learn.

He took me to the water’s edge, telling a story about the river his village was on and how the river gave his people food and riches and life. He assured me that I, too, would learn to understand the river the way I talked about my people understanding books, and when I did, I would have access to a whole new world. Then Hector came o’er the ridge, shouting that he had found the canoe, and Syawa and I hurried to join him.

As we walked, Syawa explained they had planned to paddle the canoe all the way to my family’s farm, but by the time they reached this point in their journey, the days were short and the river was freezing o’er. He said he could not wait through another winter, and so they set off on foot, determined to reach me by spring. Besides, he said, he thought the walk to the Great River would give me time to get accustomed to my new life.

I was stunned by this news. I had ne’er really believed Syawa was looking for
me
—I assumed he was looking for
someone
, and when he met me he decided I would do. But to hear him talk, he knew precisely where he was going and he was driven to get there as quickly as possible. And somehow he convinced Hector to abandon their canoe and walk hundreds of miles through strange land, just to arrive at my family’s farm on that particular spring day. It was an insane story. Yet he told it in such an off-hand, matter-of-fact way that I could not doubt that he, at least, believed it to be absolutely true. And I had no way to dispute it. To the contrary, the circumstantial evidence suggested the facts were without question. But how could it be true? And why?

By the time we caught up with Hector, he had the canoe half-uncovered, and with all three of us working, it was soon unearthed. The men checked o’er their buried supplies whilst I worked on setting up our camp. Before I e’en managed to get a fire going on the soggy landscape, my companions had dragged their canoe to the water, washed it off inside and out, and jumped inside.

The sun was setting golden on the other side of the river, with all the yellows and reds and oranges and purples stretching out, shimmering, on the rippling water. I watched my friends glide into the middle of that pulsating palette and felt a thrill of horror, knowing how absolutely alone I was. I sat holding my knees to my chest, thinking of all the wild creatures and malevolent Frenchmen who might be eyeing me from the underbrush.

From the rise on which our camp was located, I could see Syawa and Hector e’en when they were far, far away. They controlled their canoe as easily as I control my own feet, and the longer I watched them, the more my dread began to dissipate. It didn’t look so bad. It looked easy. It looked almost fun. Maybe I could do this. Of course I could. Why couldn’t I do this?

I saw them confer for a moment before maneuvering their craft ’round. Riding with the current, they soared, and suddenly Syawa stood up in the front of the canoe to thrust a stick into the river. This was a stick they had stored under their buried canoe, and when Syawa pulled the rope attacht to the stick, a huge, writhing fish emerged from the water. I smiled. By this time I knew very well how to cook a fish.

 • • •

After we ate, Syawa asked me to tell another story, like the one I told about the creation of the world. I knew he was trying to keep me from fretting about what I must do in the morning, so I obliged him by telling the story of Adam and Eve, which was, of course, the continuation of my previous tale. Tho’ I hoped to restore the light mood my other story created, I failed completely. I don’t know if I didn’t translate well or if my listeners were too distracted or if I was just too on edge, but, whate’er the case, when I was done, I was met with an awkward silence that went on and on.

Finally Hector asked if all my people can talk with snakes. Sure he was mocking me with basically the same question I’d asked Syawa about his turtle story, I stared into the fire, tight-lipped. But his question made me think.
Did
Christians believe the snake really talked? Odd, I’d ne’er wondered about that before. When I said nothing, Hector frowned and rolled himself in his sleeping fur as if
I’d
offended
him
.