The Spirit Keeper (35 page)

The locals introduced us, then added wood to the fire. With a quick intake of breath, Hector leapt to his feet and began his pantomime of the long Journey eastward. The story proceeded ’til I, too, jumped up, but this time, when we confronted each other with our imaginary weapons, the terror was gone, simply gone. As we stood staring at one another, breathing hard, eyes shining, lips parted, our passion was undeniable. The onlookers exchanged glances, surprised by the plot twist.

It quickly became clear that our relationship transformed the story of Syawa’s Vision from a Holy Quest to a much more complex human drama—a romance. When I included details I had previously omitted, such as Syawa’s declaration that I was meant for Hector as well as the belated message, the audience easily saw what I had failed to see—our marriage was inevitable, an important part of the Seer’s Vision.

This revelation nagged at me e’en as we performed the rest of our adventures. I wondered—what would have happened if I had told the whole story all along? Would I have accepted my fate sooner, or would the thought of marrying a savage brute have sent me screaming back east? As I puzzled o’er this, I began to understand what Syawa tried to tell me about the river on the last night of his life—struggle tho’ we may against the current, sooner or later we all let go and drift to the exact place the swirling forces always meant for us to be.

Hector and I acted out our capture by Three Bulls, the fight, and the escape in our canoe, then ended our story by simply turning to face one another. I smiled as I gestured he was now my husband, and he smiled as he gestured I was now his wife. The audience whooped in triumph.

As always, Hector closed our performance by singing the traveler’s song, but this time, shortly after he started, I joined in, adding a harmony to his strong baritone notes. He turned to look at me in surprise, his voice faltering. When I smiled and arched one eyebrow, he recovered and sang with feeling as I added my harmony.

And so the story of Syawa’s Vision was made e’er more powerful.

After the general singing and dancing, and after receiving the usual accolades from well-wishers, Hector and I had the opportunity to do something truly special, something we’d ne’er had a chance to do as husband and wife. We slept together. Ah, with what eagerness we raced to the lodge where we were staying! Onlookers surely assumed we were hastening to copulate, but the truth was we could do that whene’er we desired—to sleep together was a rare and precious thing! Giggling, we rolled ourselves into an intertwined bundle inside our sleeping furs and shared hour after delicious hour unconscious in each other’s arms.

 • • •

The evening after we left that village, Hector said he had a confession to make. Considering his last confession almost ruined our lives, I regarded him warily as I asked what it was.

Before we went to that village, he said, he had worried very much about something he’d ne’er told me—he was afraid how he would react to having people boldly looking at his wife. It was hard enough before, he said, when I was just a woman, but now . . . well, he feared he might lose control and hurt someone. Shocked, I asked why.

“You know why,” he said, somewhat impatiently. “Because I am petty and jealous. I want no one looking at my wife but me!”

“That seems a little extreme,” I observed, sure he was joking.

“I told you I was unsuited to be married to a Spirit Keeper,” he replied glumly. He went on to explain that back home he had been in love with an upper-class girl who promised she would find a way to bend the rules so she could marry him, but then she continued to flirt with other men. When she saw how much her teasing bothered him, she did it all the more. “I hated it when she looked at other men the same way she looked at me!” he grumbled, the anger still raw. “I hated the way they looked at her and then at me, openly, boldly, because they knew there was nothing I could do!”

Apparently Hector got himself into more than one fight because of this girl, and his uncontrollable rage was the main reason his father was willing to send him off with Syawa.

“Well, everything turned out for the best,” I soothed, sipping broth from the horn we used as a cup. “This girl sounds like a female dog to me.”

Hector laughed. His people did not curse or call each other bad names, and the ease with which I was able to come up with verbal insults struck him as terribly clever. Finally he went on. “Loving her was hard because she showed me something about myself I did not like to see, something that made me afraid to love again. From the day I met you, this has bothered me. I’ve always hated it when men look at you, but because you are a storyteller, I must accept it.”

“Wait—are you saying that if I wasn’t telling a story, men would not look at me?”

“Not if they are decent, respectful men. But because you are telling a story—”

“Wait. So is that why you’ve always wanted me to tell you stories?”

Hector squirmed. I was snuggled up beside him under the canoe, sharing his warmth as we sat before our fire, and I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me. I bumped his shoulder with my own, ’til he grinned sheepishly. I said, “So you ne’er cared a bit about the Trojan War, did you?”

He grinned more broadly. “I cared that you cared.”

I laughed, but as I slowly sipt my broth I started thinking about the implications of his revelation and I lost my sense of humor. “Is this going to be a problem for you? I mean, if you didn’t like men looking at me before, when I was ‘just a woman,’ you must really hate it now.”

Hector looked up at the starry sky, contemplating. “This is what I am telling you. I worried about that. I feared I would lash out again, the way I did before. But it’s different with you. You don’t seem to notice the men watching you.”

I leaned on him, playful again. “Are men watching me?” I looked ’round as if searching for an audience. “I don’t like men,” I said in mock confidence. “In fact, I don’t like people. People are vexing.”

“You like
me
, don’t you?” He grinned, bumping my shoulder.

“Who told you that? Are you some sort of seer?”

“No,” he said, trying not to laugh. “I just remember what we were doing earlier. You seemed to like me then.”

“Was that you? Oh, yes, I remember now. I
do
like you.” I bumped his shoulder coyly, then finished my drink and turned to put the horn away. “Or at least I
did
like you ’til I found out you don’t care a bit about my stories—that all along you just wanted an excuse to look at me!”

“I love your stories,” he protested, still grinning broadly, “but I also love to look at you.”

“Hmmm. I notice you haven’t asked for a single story since we married.”

“Will you tell me a story now?”

“Ha!” I scoffed as I wrapt a fur ’round my shoulders. “I’ll tell you a story about the husband who got himself into trouble and tried to get out of it by asking his wife for a story . . .”

And so we passed our time in silly repartees like this that went on and on.

The way I put words together or expresst ideas oft amused Hector, and many of my ideas themselves seemed bizarre enough to make him smile. One of my favorite jests was to sit beside him and say hello in the formal way we greeted strangers when we first arrived in a village. This was a mistake I’d made soon after we married, and he thought it hilarious, because it was totally inappropriate within the context of our intimate relationship. Thereafter I frequently made such verbal errors on purpose, just to hear him laugh. Thus we had a great deal of fun as we sat, night after night, shoulder to shoulder, under the canoe before a warm fire.

 • • •

From the village where we first slept together, the river turned due north again, and each day seemed markedly shorter than the day before. I won’t say Hector was panicking, but he was more determined than e’er to cover as much ground as possible each day. We pushed ourselves but still managed to enjoy almost every moment.

The terrain was unlike anything I’d e’er seen. Long, rolling vistas turned into dark bulges in the distance, and I stared at the foreboding landscape uneasily. To distract me as we trudged o’er long portages, Hector oft stopt to point out a flower, to watch some birds, or to spy on a colorful spider weaving an intricate web. He saw things I ne’er noticed, and I loved it when he brought them to my attention.

Unfortunately, the increasing chill was a growing problem for me. Some days I shivered constantly and Hector, who continued to wear naught but his breechclout, was troubled by my complaints. He once again bade me rub my skin with the grease he rubbed on his, but just as it did not protect me from the sun, it did not protect me from the cold. Tho’ he assured me I would soon grow accustomed to the air, I assured him I would not. Like my skin that burnt and my hair that ne’er dried, this, I said, was a way in which we were different. During my turn at night-watch, I sewed myself a long-sleeved shift to wear o’er my laced bodice and a thicker, longer pair of breeches to wear o’er the ones I already wore.

One afternoon snowflakes began to fall, and tho’ they melted as soon as they hit the water, we knew they were harbingers of things to come. That evening I strode back and forth on the riverbank, waving my arms to warm up. Hector suggested I dance, whereupon I immediately launched into a high-jumping Irish jig, the kind my father did when he was drunk enough to be silly but not so drunk as to be mean. Hector found some sticks and banged on a log to make a beat, chanting as I danced.

We laughed and laughed. Soon I grabbed his hand to make him dance with me, but he pulled back, saying men and women do not dance together. I gave him a reproachful look, saying men and women do not swim together either, but that ne’er stopt him from pulling me into the water.

“You know men and women do not swim together?” he asked, clearly surprised.

“It took a while to figure out, but at some point I asked a woman, and she told me.”

Hector was embarrassed. “I should have told you. But you had to learn to swim, and there was no other way. I’m sorry I did not tell you sooner. You were right to stop swimming with me.”

“That’s not why I stopt swimming with you! I stopt swimming with you because I was freezing! You should know by now I don’t mind breaking rules. So break a rule with me now, my love, and let us dance together!”

He was hesitant but willing, and in a moment we were jumping and spinning and flailing about as if we were attending one of our performances. Because I had watched Hector dance many times, I was able to copy his steps exactly, which tickled him to no end. Then I taught him some of my Irish dances, and that also made him laugh.

So this was another way we passed many an evening—wildly dancing together under the stars as we laughed and laughed.

 • • •

When gray skies brought more snow, Hector decided e’en
he
needed clothes, so he stopt one afternoon to pursue more of those enormous deer-like creatures. I asked if I could go with him and he said yes, as long as I was much quieter than I had been in the eastern woods. I promised to try.

I wasn’t really interested in hunting; in truth, I just didn’t want to be left alone. I remembered how crazed my thoughts had become the last time Hector went off hunting, and I dreaded going through that again.

At first I was glad I went, for it was a revelation to see Hector as predator. The way he trotted along the big deer’s trail, intensely focused, was just the way I’d seen dogs back home trot along a rabbit trail. I was hard-presst to keep him in sight without making any noise. Finally he stopt, and I stopt as well, watching as he sank into a crouch. Up ahead I saw the deer—six of them—climbing a slope on the other side of a gully. I remained utterly motionless whilst Hector nocked his arrow and I watched without breathing as he crept slowly, slowly forward. Finally his arrow flew, swift and sure, slicing through a young buck’s neck as easily as a hot knife slices through butter.

I was startled by the frantic motion which ensued. I assumed a deer fatally shot by an arrow would simply fall down and wait to be retrieved, but apparently that was rarely the case. Not only did all the deer bounce away in panic, but Hector bounced through the brush behind them to reach the wounded deer as quickly as possible. By the time I caught up with him, he had wrestled the deer down, slit its throat to end its suffering, and was offering thanks to the Spirit of the Deer.

He left me to eviscerate the animal, remove the hide, and cut up the meat whilst he went off after a second one. I saw no need for all this killing, but he said we needed the hides, and I could not dissuade him. So I got to work and off he went.

I’m sure an Indian woman would’ve had no problem with the task Hector left me, but I am not the sort of person who should e’er be left alone. As soon as he was gone, I began imagining all sorts of predators circling in the brush. I heard things, saw things, conjured things. I clutched my knife as I eyed the wavering shadows. I knew Hector was not far off and would soon be back, but . . .

The blood on my hands began to bother me; the pool of blood I stood in bothered me e’en more. As I looked down at it, the pool of blood seemed to deepen and spread, expand and grow, ’til suddenly I saw it was pouring, not from the deer, but from the sliced-open belly of my would-be murderer on our cabin floor. I backed away, but the pool of blood quickly followed me, merging with the pool of blood flowing from my father’s scalpless head where he lay in our garden. It was all the same pool of blood, rising and rising like an irresistible red tide, and I backed away from it but it caught up with me and gurgled ’round me ’til I fell backwards and scrambled away from it on hands and knees.

I staggered to my feet, determined to get control o’er my sudden fit of insanity. “I’ve got to get this off me!” I said aloud in English, then turned to run to the river. Within seconds I was hopelessly lost, and the harder I tried to find my own trail again, the more turned ’round I became. How could I not find the river? It was just right there! I had no choice but to sit down and wait for Hector to find me.