The Mountain Cage (4 page)

He accepted the pipe, drew in some smoke, then choked and gasped for air before composing himself. Outside, I heard a man, a sailor perhaps, and drunk from the sound of him, call out to another man in Frankish. What purpose could a man find here, waiting for yet another ship to arrive with news from the Khanate and baubles to trade with the natives for the pelts, birds, animals, and plants the Khan’s court craved? I was not the only man who thought of deserting Yeke Geren.

“I look forward to our journey,” Yesuntai said, “and to seeing what lies beyond this encampment.” He smiled as he passed the pipe to me.

That spring, with forty of Yesuntai’s soldiers and twenty more men I had chosen, we sailed upriver.

2

The Ganeagaono of Skanechtade welcomed us with food. They crowded around us as we went from house to house, never leaving us alone even when we went to relieve ourselves. Several men of my Deer Clan came to meet me, urging more of the game and dried fish their women had prepared upon me and my comrades. By the time we finished our feast, more people had arrived from the outlying houses of the village to listen to our words.

Yesuntai left it to me to urge the war we wanted. After I was empty of eloquence, we waited in the long house set aside for our men. If the men of Skanechtade chose the warpath, they would gather war parties and send runners to the other villages of the Ganeagaono to persuade more warriors to join us.

I had spoken the truth to the people of Skanechtade. Deceit was not possible with the Ganeagaono, and especially not for me. I was still their brother, even after all the years I thought of as my exile. The Ganeagaono would know I could not lie to them; this war would serve them as well as us. Whoever was not at peace with them was their enemy. In that, they were much like us. A people who might threaten their domain as well as ours would be banished from the shores of this land.

Yet my doubts had grown, not about our mission, but about what might come afterward. More of our people would cross the ocean, and the Bahadurs who followed us to Yeke Geren might dream of subduing the nations we now called our friends. There could be no peace with those who did not submit to us in the end, and I did not believe the Ganeagaono and the other nations of the Long House would ever swear an oath to our Khan.

I had dwelled on such thoughts as we sailed north, following the great river that led to Skanechtade. By the time we rowed away from the ship in our longboats, I had made my decision. I would do what I could to aid Yesuntai, but whatever the outcome of our mission, I would not return to Yeke Geren. My place was with the Ganeagaono who had granted me my life.

“Jirandai,” Yesuntai Noyan said sofdy. He sat in the back of the long house, his back against the wall, his face hidden in shadows; I had thought he was asleep. “What do you think they will do?”

“A few of the young chiefs want to join us. That I saw when I finished my speech.” Some of our men glanced toward me; most were sleeping on the benches that lined the walls. “We will have a few bands, at least.”

“A few bands are useless to me,” Yesuntai muttered. “A raid would only provoke our enemies. I must have enough men to destroy them.”

“I have done what I can,” I replied. “We can only hope my words have moved them.”

Among the Ganeagaono, those who wanted war had to convince others to follow them. The sachems who ruled their councils had no power to lead in war; I had explained that to Yesuntai. It was up to the chiefs and other warriors seeking glory to assemble war parties, but a sign that a sachem favored our enterprise might persuade many to join us. I had watched the sachems during my speech; my son was among them. His dark eyes had not betrayed any of his thoughts.

“I saw how you spoke, Jirandai,” Yesuntai said, “and felt the power in your words, even if I did not understand them. I do not believe we will fail.”

“May it be so, Noyan.” I thought then of the time I had traveled west with my adoptive father along the great trail that runs to the lands of the Nundawaono. There, among the Western Gatekeepers of the Long House nations, I had first heard the tale of the great serpent brought down by the thunderbolts of Heno, spirit of storms and rain. In his death throes, the serpent had torn the land asunder and created the mighty falls into which the rapids of the Neahga River flowed. My foster father had doubts about the story’s ending, although he did not say so to our hosts. He had stood on a cliff near the falls and seen a rainbow arching above the tumultuous waters; he had heard the steady sound of the torrent and felt the force of the wind that never died. He believed that the serpent was not dead, but only sleeping, and might rise to ravage the land again.

Something in Yesuntai made me think of that serpent. When he was still, his eyes darted restlessly, and when he slept, his body was tense, ready to rouse itself at the slightest disturbance. Something was coiled inside him, sleeping but ready to wake.

Voices murmured beyond the doorway to my right. Some of the Ganeagaono were still outside. A young man in a deerskin kilt and beaded belt entered, then gestured at me.

“You,” he said, “he who is called Senadondo.” I lifted my head at the sound of the name his people had given to me. “I ask you to come with me,” he continued in his own tongue.

I got to my feet and turned to Yesuntai. “It seems someone wishes to speak to me.”

He waved a hand. “Then you must go.”

“Perhaps some of the men want to hear more of our plans.”

“Or perhaps a family you left behind wishes to welcome you home.”

I narrowed my eyes as I left. The Noyan had heard nothing from me about my wife and son, but he knew I had returned to Yeke Geren as a man. He might have guessed I had left a woman here.

The man who had come for me led me past clusters of houses. Although it was nearly midnight, with only a sliver of moon to light our way, people were still awake; I heard them murmuring beyond the open doors. A band of children trailed us. Whenever I slowed, they crowded around me to touch my long coat or to pull at my silk tunic.

We halted in front of a long house large enough for three families. The sign of the Wolf Clan was painted on the door. The man motioned to me to go inside, then led the children away.

At first, I thought the house was empty, then heard a whisper near the back. Three banked fires glowed in the central space between the house’s bark partitions. I called out a greeting; as I passed the last partition, I turned to my right and saw who was waiting for me.

My son wore his headdress, a woven cap from which a single large eagle feather jutted from a cluster of smaller feathers. Braided bands with beads adorned his bare arms; rattles hung from his belt. My wife wore a deerskin cloak over a dress decorated with beads. Even in the shadows beyond the fire, I saw the strands of silver in her dark hair.

“Dasiyu,” I whispered, then turned to my son. “Teyendanaga.”

He shook his head slightly. “You forget—I am the sachem Sohaewahah now.” He gestured at one of the blankets that covered the floor; I sat down.

“I hoped you would come back,” Dasiyu said. “I wished for it, yet prayed that you would not.”

“Mother,” our son murmured. She pushed a bowl of hommony toward me, then sat back on her heels.

“I wanted to come to you right away,” I said. “I did not know if you were here. When the men of my own clan greeted me, I feared what they might say if I asked about you, so kept silent. I searched the crowd for you when I was speaking.”

“I was there,” Dasiyu said, “sitting behind the sachems among the women. Your eyes are failing you.”

I suspected that she had concealed herself behind others. “I thought you might have another husband by now.”

“I have never divorced you.” Her face was much the same, only lightly marked with lines. I thought of how I must look to her, leather-faced and broader in the belly, softened by the years in Yeke Geren. “I have never placed the few belongings you left with me outside my door. You are still my husband, Senadondo, but it is Sohaewahah who asked you to come to this house, not I.”

My son held up his hand. “I knew you would return to us, my father. I saw it in my vision. It is of that vision that I wish to speak now.”

That a vision might have come to him, I did not doubt. Many spirits lived in these lands, and the Ganeagaono, as do all wise men, trust their dreams. But evil spirits can deceive men, and even the wise can fail to understand what the spirits tell them.

“I would hear of your vision,” I said.

“Two summers past, not long after I became Sohaewahah, I fell ill with a fever. My body fought it, but even after it passed, I could not rise from my bed. It was then, after the fever was gone, that I had my vision and knew it to be truth.” He gazed directly at me, his eyes steady. “Beyond my doorway, I saw a great light, and then three men entered my dwelling. One carried a branch, another a red tomahawk, and the third bore the shorter bow and the firestick that are your people’s weapons. The man holding the branch spoke, and I knew that Hawenneyu was speaking to me through him. He told me of a storm gathering in the east, over the Ojikhadagega, the great ocean your people crossed, and said that it threatened all the nations of the Long House. He told me that some of those who might offer us peace would bring only the peace of death. Yet his words did not frighten me, for he went on to say that my father would return to me, and bring a brother to my side.”

He glanced at his mother, then looked back at me. “My father and the brother he brought to me,” he continued, “would help us stand against the coming storm—this was the Great Spirit’s promise. When my vision passed, I was able to rise. I left my house and went through the village, telling everyone of what I had been shown. Now you are here, and the people remember what my vision foretold, and yet I see no brother.”

“You have a brother,” I said, thinking of Ajiragha. “I left him in Yeke Geren.”

“But he is not here at my side, as my vision promised.”

“He is only an infant, and the Inglistanis are the storm that threatens you. More of them will cross the Great Salt Water.”

“A war against them would cost us many men. We might trade with them, as we do with you. Peace is what we have always desired—war is only our way to prove our courage and to bring that peace about. You should know that, having been one of us.”

“The Inglistanis will make false promises, and when more of them come, even the Long House may fall before their soldiers. You have no treaties with the Inglistanis, so you are in a state of war with them now. Two of the spirits who came to you bore weapons—the Great Spirit means for you to make war.”

“But against whom?” Dasiyu asked. She leaned forward and shook her fist. “Perhaps those who are on your island of Ganono are the storm that will come upon us, after we are weakened by battle with the pale-faced people you hate.”

“Foolish woman,” I muttered, “I am one of you. Would I come here to betray you?” Despite my words, she reminded me of my own doubts.

“You should not have come back,” she said. “Whenever I dreamed of your return, I saw you alone, not with others seeking to use us for their own purposes. Look at you—there is nothing of the Ganeagaono left in you. You speak our words, but your garments and your companions show where your true loyalty lies.”

“You are wrong.” I stared at her; she did not look away. “I have never forgotten my brothers here.”

“You come to spy on us. When you have fought with our warriors in this battle, you will see our weaknesses more clearly, the ways in which we might be defeated, and we will not be able to use your pale-faced enemies against you.”

“Is this what you have been saying to the other women? Have you gone before the men to speak against this war?”

Dasiyu drew in her breath; our son clutched her wrist. “You have said enough, Mother,” he whispered. “I believe what he says. My vision told me he would come, and the spirits held the weapons of war. Perhaps my brother is meant to join me later.” He got to his feet. “I go now to add my voice to the councils. It may be that I can persuade those who waver. If we are to follow the warpath now, I will set aside my office to fight with you.”

He left us before I could speak. “You will have your war,” Dasiyu said. “The other sachems will listen to my son, and ask him to speak for them to the people. The wise old women will heed his words, because they chose him for his position.”

“This war will serve you.”

She scowled, then pushed the bowl of hommony toward me. “You insult me by leaving my food untouched.”

I ate some of the dried corn, then set the bowl down. “Dasiyu, I did not come here only to speak of war. I swore an oath to myself that, when this campaign ends, I will live among you again.”

“And am I to rejoice over that?”

“Cursed woman, anything I do would stoke your rage. I went back to speak for the Long House in our councils. I asked you to come with me, and you refused.”

“I would have had to abandon my clan. My son would never have been chosen as a sachem then. You would not be promising to stay with us unless you believed you have failed as our voice.”

Even after the years apart, she saw what lay inside me. “Whatever comes,” I said, “my place is here.”

She said nothing for a long time. The warmth inside the long house was growing oppressive. I opened my coat, then took off my headband to mop my brow.