Skin of the Wolf (15 page)

E
dward Bonnard walked with long strides through the fluorescent-lit expanse of Penn Station. The odors of burnt coffee, frying doughnuts, and disinfectant crowded the air, which itself had to be pummeled through metal ducts and fiberglass filters to force it down here. All around him, people looking miserable rushed to destinations he couldn’t imagine would make them any happier. What was wrong with white people that caused them to make places like this?

Some of the elders went back to the stories. When the Creator baked the earth to make the people, they said, he’d kept each one—black, red, yellow, and white—in the oven for different lengths of time. Black, red, and yellow men, though they’d come out looking different, had all cooked thoroughly and were complete. The white man, though, was unfinished. White people were like children, unable to look ahead, not seeing the consequences of their actions. Children weren’t by nature malicious, but their heedlessness could cause great damage, great pain to themselves and others. They needed to be guided, instructed, reined in.

Edward, though he didn’t contradict the elders, did not agree. Even children learned from their mistakes. They couldn’t see ahead,
but they looked behind. Try too far a leap, sprain your ankle, next time you’d find a rope to swing from. If white people were like children, they might have built this sort of building once, maybe three times or ten times, but eventually they’d realize how horrible it was and stop. Edward spent as little time as he could manage in the white world, but “little” didn’t mean “none.” From what he could see, white people must like this sort of space and the life it gave them because it was these spaces and that life with which they covered Mother Earth.

Even Abornazine, a white man who loved Edward’s people, wasn’t immune. His home, though beautifully made, was so huge that half the population of Akwesasne could live there and never bump into each other. No, of course that was an exaggeration. And Abornazine hadn’t built the house. His ancestors had, and he’d inherited it—a concept that only made sense if you believed that land could be owned like a pair of pants and that buildings were meant to last as long as the grass grew. Abornazine didn’t believe those things, but for now, he said, the house was necessary: for the number of people it could safeguard, for the land around it and the river you could see from its porch. The people were Edward’s people; the land was where they would Awaken, and the river was Cahohatatea, called the Hudson by whites as though before they’d sailed up it no one had seen these waters and they had no name. Cahohatatea, the river that would carry the people back down to the island that had once been theirs.

Edward searched the confusion of lights, signs, and advertising, looking for track numbers. He felt much better now than he had last night. Waking this morning to a strange dawn in an unfamiliar room had given him, not the disoriented jolt he might have expected, but a pause, a long blank moment that separated night from day. The
smooth skin of the woman beside him had been warm and comforting, talking to him of what was to come, not what had been. As he gazed on her she woke. She touched her finger to his lips and slipped her leg over him. He was as ready and hungry as she, though their lovemaking last night had been long, powerful, and so complete that once they were both, finally, satisfied, Edward had fallen into a deep sleep without dreams he could remember. This morning had been like that also, in tune but syncopated, each action and reaction both surprising and inevitable.

After, he lay in bed while Charlotte showered, then watched her emerge from the bathroom, a white towel tucked around her brown body, her hair a glistening dark tangle down her back. Wordless, she smiled and disappeared into the kitchen. He headed to the bathroom himself; when he came out she handed him coffee. By then she was dressed, already wearing the gun and holster that had thrown him last night when she took off her leather jacket. “I’m a cop,” she’d said, seeing his face, the words sounding half challenge and half invitation; and then she locked up the gun and her daily life with it. Edward had trouble understanding why an Indian would opt to live in the white world at all, and to choose, beyond that, to enforce that world’s laws, was beyond him. But Charlotte made it clear she didn’t want to talk about work, didn’t want his white name, didn’t want to speak much at all, and that suited him. Here in the frantic city he missed the quiet of the woods, of Indian companionship. White people seemed afraid of silence. They filled the air with talk, with music, with blare and buzz. Edward thought he knew why: in silence the ancestors’ voices could be heard. No matter how white people screamed and shouted, raced their cars and threw their towers up to the sky, their hearts must know how wrong the direction of their lives had become. They didn’t want to hear their
ancestors, the anger and the disappointment. But the voices were not gone, not even stilled. They were speaking, and they wouldn’t tolerate this heedlessness for much longer. Nor would they need to. White people were part of the Creator’s plan, and they would be included in the world as it started to change, very soon.

All this went through Edward’s mind when he was with Charlotte, but he said none of it, last night or this morning, asking only, as they walked to the subway, where her people lived.

“I was born here in the city,” she said. “I was brought up Indian, we go home for Midwinter, stuff like that, but I’ve never lived on a rez.”

“You said Lenape?”

“Right. My dad’s people, they’re Mohawk, Tuscarora, and there’s my exotic Italian great-granddaddy but we don’t talk about him. What about you? Abenaki, you said?”

“Yes. My father’s people are Mohawk. I live up there at Akwesasne.”

“Come down to New York much?”

“Not if I can help it. I’m leaving today.” For some reason he didn’t fully understand, he added, “I’ll be back soon, though.”

“Call me,” she said.

They’d parted with a nod and a smile, no kiss, no touch. She’d descended into the subway to go to work. He’d wanted to be out in the day, even as degraded as the day was in the city, and so had walked downtown to Penn Station, feeling energetic, feeling peaceful, feeling grateful to Charlotte.

Because until he met her, last night had been a calamity, a series of disasters.

He’d come to the city fully intending to return with the Ohtahyohnee mask, but they weren’t unrealistic, he and Abornazine.
They’d planned for the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to obtain it. They had next steps prepared. But it had never crossed their minds, either of them, that the mask might not be real.

Edward was sorry about the young woman he’d killed. She’d feared him, been repulsed, been outraged that he should have invaded a place she thought of as hers, but even in his rage and disappointment he wouldn’t have taken her life if there had been another way. There was not. If she’d lived she would have told what she’d seen. She might not have been believed; but the goal they were working toward was of such profound consequence that any risk was too great. Edward had killed her and offered prayers to the Creator, as hunters did when they shot a deer or farmers when they slaughtered chickens. He’d expressed his gratitude for the life she gave and his hope that this death would nourish the people equally with those.

Encountering Michael after that had seemed at first just a colossal stroke of bad luck. Edward had left his clothes hidden in the park, to be recovered after he’d completed his task and returned to human form. That Michael should have chosen that same hour to walk through the park with his friend—that could never have been predicted. But as he thought about it later, Edward was forced to admit that he’d stayed in the park, racing, bounding, slinking, stalking, much longer than he’d needed to. That his fury over the mask, combined with the metallic tang of the young woman’s blood—a heady, disorienting taste he’d never known before—had caused his heart to speed, his nerves to buzz; that in this city he hated so much he felt powerful, safe, in his Shifted state and he’d been unwilling to return to his man-self prison.

And he had to admit, also, that when, bounding through the icy
night, he’d picked up Michael’s scent, he could have avoided the encounter. Instead, he’d sought it out.

Michael, though, had done what he’d done many times since they were boys: kept Edward from an act he’d have regretted. He didn’t mean killing Michael’s friend. Unlike the young woman’s death, that one wouldn’t have been necessary, but Edward’s frustrated fury and the man’s obvious importance to Michael—and the man’s ridiculous bravado—goaded Edward on. For a man in his fifties he’d been staggeringly strong and the taste of his blood a searing, unpleasant sensation. It was something to smoke on, Edward thought, to consider, that in the space of a few hours he’d tasted his first human blood, and then tasted it again with such a different result. He wondered how much more of it he’d have to spill before their goal was reached.

But no, the death of Michael’s friend wasn’t the act he was glad Michael had thwarted. Not for the first time, it was his failure to kill Michael himself that Edward was grateful for.

Edward’s heart ached for Michael. It always had. The beat of Michael’s pulse was the sound he knew best, the first rhythm of his world. They were one-as-two, they completed each other: the dark and the light, the storm and the sun, the burn and the balm. But from the moment they’d come into the world Michael had drawn away. Edward saw their destiny clearly, even as a child, and embraced it though the path was difficult. Michael refused. Refused, Edward thought, the Creator’s will, though no one could be sure what the Creator intended and Edward thought those who spoke as though they knew sounded painfully like the priests of Christian churches. But in his heart he wondered, could it be otherwise? Twin Shifters, a birth as rare as that of the white buffalo—how could it not have a
meaning as sacred? They’d been born to a vital task, a duty for the people. Edward welcomed it, thankful to have been chosen.

Michael slipped away, away, into the white world.

Edward didn’t long for Michael’s death. Not truly. He longed for Michael to awaken to their joint destiny as they’d both Awakened to their natures in their early years. But at times the pain and sadness of knowing that wouldn’t happen were overpowering. Then Edward’s rage and hurt consumed him and he wanted Michael gone. If Michael wouldn’t walk with him, Edward wanted to destroy his brother and then grieve for him, and walk in the world alone.

That desire, though, like the ocean waters, ebbed and flowed. Last night he’d have killed Michael and exulted; this morning, he was relieved he hadn’t. It was possible, still, that once this task was complete, once the people were free, Michael would understand and take his true place.

Edward would go back up north now, not all the way home, but to Abornazine’s grand house on the cliff overlooking Cahohatatea. They’d burn tobacco, and pray, and plan. The worthlessness of the mask was a setback but not, in the end, a disaster. He was sure of it.

In the glare of the lights he found the gate to the train he was taking. He disliked travel by rail, but a train was preferable by far to the air-debasing, earth-destroying, soul-devouring automobile. He showed his ticket, went down the stairs, and took a seat on the river side, where he could watch the water and the cliffs as the train hurtled north.

No, what had happened last night wouldn’t force them off the path they were walking.

Tonight was the full moon, but they’d have to let it pass. Still, in a month there’d be another.

They would be ready.

T
homas! Come in, come in.” The history department chair gestured from behind his desk. “Is there something you need?”

“A few moments of your time, Father, if that’s possible.”

“Of course.” The chubby and balding Monsignor Gerald Maxwell, wearing a clerical collar and a tweed jacket—badges of his dual professions, Thomas reflected—closed the manila folder he’d been reading and gave Thomas his attention as the younger man sat. “Is everything all right, Father Kelly? Are you enjoying your work here? I met with Andy Burns the other day and he couldn’t stop singing your praises. He said you found the organizing principle for the entire first section of his thesis.”

“I didn’t have to look very hard. He’s a gifted scholar.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he dedicates the book to you. Or names his firstborn ‘Thomas.’ How’s your own work coming?”

“It’s completely fascinating. I suppose you knew it would be, but besides the facts themselves, to me it’s so entirely different—like a whole new cuisine, I suppose. Or a new language. Different emphases, different rhythms. I’m enjoying learning so much.”

“I’m delighted. So, tell me what I can do for you.”

“I’ve come across a man I’d like to know more about, and I’ve
been told you researched him once yourself. I thought perhaps you could point me in the right direction.”

“Who would that be?”

“Père Etienne Ravenelle.”

Maxwell twirled a heavy silver ring on his left hand, a habit when he was thinking. It bore a crest Thomas didn’t recognize, a cross on a full moon. Some society within their own order. More than once, Thomas had meditated on that curious inevitability of human endeavor, that nations break into states, cities into boroughs, faiths into orders and sects and societies. As though the totality of human experience were too much to encompass.

“Ravenelle?” said Maxwell. “He’s far afield for your work, isn’t he? He was here a full century after Kateri Tekakwitha. What brought you to him?”

“Just following my nose, I suppose. Kateri’s relationships with the Jesuits and with her own people were tangled, and Ravenelle seems to be the end of one of the threads.”
When did I learn to do that?
Thomas wondered.
Give an answer that tells nothing, even borders on actually lying?

“He is that,” Maxwell agreed. “The end of a thread, I mean. Ravenelle came to New France in 1742. He’d read the biography Claude Chauchetière had written of Tekakwitha—I imagine you got that far?”

“I’ve read it, yes.” Not exactly the answer, but apparently the Monsignor, knowing the answer he expected, assumed he’d gotten it and went on.

“Ravenelle arrived certain of what it had taken Chauchetière years to come to believe—that there was value in the Native way of life, and that saving Native souls involved nothing more than introducing them to—revealing to them, really—the mystery of the
Savior. They would, he thought, find their own way to Him.” Father Maxwell smiled. “A touch apostate, even now. You can imagine what his superiors thought two hundred and fifty years ago. But you understand, New France in the mid-eighteenth century was what we’d call today a difficult posting. Not every priest was willing to go.”

“Yes, I can see that. By then the thrill of first contact would have been long gone and both the Iroquois and the Huron had turned on the Jesuits.”

“Because of the behavior of Europeans—including some Jesuits—toward them, and because of the European diseases that were decimating them.” Father Maxwell focused a stern eye on Thomas, to make sure his point had been taken. Thomas nodded. The Monsignor continued, “In any case, Ravenelle was decades too late for the romantic missionary work he’d imagined himself doing. All the missions in Native territory had been abandoned and the priests withdrawn to Quebec, Montreal, or Ottawa. Ravenelle reportedly did venture out among the Iroquois against the orders of the Superior General. He seems to have gone more than once, with the tacit approval of his Father Provincial, so it’s likely he was well received. But there are no records of his meetings with the tribes.”

“I wonder why?”

“Why there are no records?”

“Well, yes, but also why he went, and why, at that point, he’d have been well received.”

“It’s a good question. I couldn’t say. In any case Ravenelle seems to have made the mistake of staying on after the British dissolved the Jesuit order in New France. He must not have kept his head down because he became a hunted man. He headed south, perhaps to find a ship to take him home to Europe. I never found any evidence that he’d made it back, though. He did get as far as New York.
I suspect he died here. As you know—or maybe not, since you’ve been concentrating on Italy until now, but as you’ll find, missionary records from that period are quite sketchy, the more so the farther south you go, into British-held territory. Especially Jesuits. Anyone still here was hiding, running, desperate to escape the British. They were hanging priests, you know.”

“Yes, sir, I do know.”

Maxwell took a brief moment of silence, perhaps to consider the dangers once inherent in being a Jesuit priest in the New World. Thomas offered a prayer for the souls of those who had not escaped.

“Well, Thomas,” said the Monsignor, “there you have all the news I could find of Father Ravenelle. He’s really a little outside my area, too, and quite outside yours. I understand the lure of new knowledge, those secrets that glow just beyond the horizon. But I’m not sure you have time to, as you say, follow your nose every place it tries to lead you. I’m told Pope Francis is very much looking forward to the results of your original charge. All’s coming along well with that work, is it?”

“Yes, thank you. And I’m sure you’re right. I should be narrowing my beam instead of widening it.”

“Exactly. Tell me, Thomas, how did you come to know I’d looked into Père Ravenelle in the first place?”

“My Italian historian friend, Dr. Pietro? She’s in town for the Indigenous Arts conference. We were talking about this Ohtahyohnee
mask that’s such a sensation, and someone said you’d once been interested in it and in Père Ravenelle.”

“Really? That was years ago. Who remembers that, I wonder?”

“A man called Bradford Lane. He’s a collector.”

“He was at the conference?”

“We spoke with him.”
All right,
Thomas thought,
that’s not an outright lie, but close enough that I should probably jump up and run to the nearest confessional. Or maybe Father Maxwell will hear my confession. Forgive me, Father, for I’ve shaded the truth, because if I didn’t you’d know two of my friends are vampires and the gay one has a shapeshifter boyfriend. . . .

“Thomas? Are you all right?”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Father. I just—remembered something I’d forgotten.”
Which is that I’m different from my brothers and sisters in the Church now, and I always will be from here on, since I’ve been granted access to some of those secrets glowing beyond the horizon—knowledge I never asked for, can’t share, and seem to continue to accumulate at an alarming rate.
“Did you ask me something?”

“I wondered how Mr. Lane is doing.”

“Sadly, he’s lost almost all of his sight.”

“Yes, that deterioration was under way by the time I saw him four years ago. I’m sorry to hear it. Is he otherwise well?”

“Creaky. But mentally he certainly seems sharp.”

“I’m glad of that, anyway. Well, I’m sorry I can’t be more help to you, Thomas. Ravenelle was—how did you put it?—the end of a thread for me, too. And the Ohtahyohnee, I never saw it.”

Thomas smiled. “You don’t have to keep that secret any longer, Father. Mr. Lane said you and he sat admiring it, and then he swore you to secrecy.”

The Monsignor paused. “He told you that?”

“He said you even photographed it.”

“Oh.” Father Maxwell shrugged. “I suppose now that he’s selling it he doesn’t mind people knowing about it. Yes, I saw it and I took photographs. I thought they might be useful if I ever found any
mention of it or Father Ravenelle in any other records. I never did, though.”

“Thank you, Father,” Thomas said. “I can’t say my curiosity’s been satisfied, but as you point out, my own work calls. Let me ask you one more thing, if I might. I understand you were looking at Ravenelle, but what did you think of the Ohtahyohnee? There’s been some talk at the conference that it’s not authentic.”

“Really? Well, art’s not my area, but I thought it was beautiful. Powerful. People think it’s a fake?”

“People are unsure.”

“Because it’s the only one anyone’s ever seen, maybe. Because no one was even certain they ever existed, much less still exist. Or”—he raised his eyebrows—“I suppose, because it’s a fake. Myself, I really don’t know.”

“It’s going on display this morning, for tomorrow’s auction. Will you go over to see it?”

“I think I will. Something like that, the last of its kind—yes, I think I’ll have to take one more look.”