The Orenda Joseph Boyden (37 page)

He holds a large hide bag out to me. “I brought you a gift before I leave,” he says, and only then do I realize both he and Hot Cinder will be going with the crows.

“I don’t want anything from you,” I tell him.

“I think you’ll like it,” he says. “I promise.”

Hesitant, I take the bag from him. It squirms and I almost drop it.

“Open it,” he says. “Don’t be afraid.”

With one hand I loosen the tie and slowly pull it open. My raccoon pops his head out and chatters to me, climbing out of the bag and onto my shoulder.

“How?” is all I can ask, for fear of crying.

“I was put in charge of killing and skinning the animals for the feast,” Aaron says. “Spirit of Thoughts hoped this task would encourage me to stay with my family instead of leaving with the charcoal. I recognized your raccoon and hid him away for you.”

I want to hug him. “You’ve made me very happy,” I say.

He moves closer, as if to touch me, but instead says, “I should go now.” He walks away.

“I’ll come to visit you in your new village,” I call after him.

—

OUT IN THE DARKNESS
of the forest, I sit with my raccoon as we say our goodbyes. “Be strong out there,” I tell him. “Protect yourself and find a good woman. Have a family.”

We sit together for a long time and I think he understands what’s happening. “I can’t keep you in the village anymore or people will know and you’ll be eaten. This is what’s right for you.” The raccoon pulls my hair, then reaches a paw to my face. “It’s time for me to go now,” I say. “Father will be worried, and soon the sun will come up. You need to find a good place to hide for the day.”

Standing, I hug him one last time, smelling the wild in his fur, stroking him. I bend down and set him on the ground, and then, as an owl hoots not far away, I leave him and head back for home.

CAPTAIN OF THE DAY

I put down my quill and rest my hand. Looking around me at this room, a fire burning in the hearth and sitting in a proper chair at a table built by the hands of a carpenter, I can almost imagine I’m back in the French countryside at a peasant’s home.

Despite the snow blowing outside, I feel the need for air. Another blizzard seems to be coming. The snow’s already drifted as high as the palisades, but at least this offers a windbreak. The sun at this time of year lies low on the horizon, and the light filtered through cloud makes me melancholy. My feet crunch on the icy surface that is my new home, and I bend my head to the bitter wind that comes off the Sweet Water Sea.

We’re close to the water here, and just a day’s walk from Bird’s village, which is even less by canoe. I trudge along the path that will soon disappear in the whiteness and try to imagine in my mind’s eye what this place will become. Already we have built permanent stone-and-wood structures. A chapel, a carpenter’s shop, a refectory for the donnés and laymen that serves both as a kitchen and communal eating place, and even a granary for the farmers. We’ve allowed our sauvages their own separate residences on the other side of the community, and here they’ve built longhouses and a few smaller round residences for visitors. We’ve attracted not only Huron but also Algonquin and Anishnaabe as well. We’ve made the rule that there be a Christian
longhouse and a non-Christian longhouse separated by a fence, and intentionally the Christian longhouse is larger and sturdier. Many families have come to us this last year, and our converts now number two dozen. But just as many non-Christians have come to our door asking for handouts. We cannot turn them away and daily appeal to them to accept our faith.

When the weather allows, I’ll head out into the wilderness to collect more souls. I’ve debated this with Isaac and Gabriel, who are content to stay here in the safety of our new home and wait for the sauvages to come to us. I argue that we must continually make forays into Huron country in order to show them we aren’t afraid of the physical or demonic dangers of their world.

I walk to the refectory to see who might be about. After stamping my feet at the door, I’m greeted by a large fire in the hearth and men sitting around the table. The laymen are a bit of a rough group, and they don’t like to mix with the sauvages.

“Good day, Father,” one says. Others nod and greet me as well.

“Have you seen Isaac or Gabriel?” I ask.

They shake their heads and look away. While on the surface they are respectful, I often sense some bitterness, possibly anger toward me. I’m not sure where this stems from, as I’ve only treated them well. I must assume this unhappiness is born from suffering a long winter cooped up like livestock in a barn. That, and the hard reality of having landed in such a desolate place with only a slim chance of ever seeing home again. So be it. You have a plan for all of us, Lord, and we’re here to fulfill it.

As I walk outside, the young Iroquois once called Hot Cinder and whom we’ve baptized Joseph frightens me by jumping out from behind the wall of the refectory, grinning foolishly. I think he lost something that horrible night he witnessed his relatives tortured so cruelly.

“What will we have for supper, Father?” he asks.

“We will eat sparingly, Joseph,” I say, “for there is still much winter to survive before we can grow crops again.”

“Aaron has been treating me poorly,” the boy says. He pronounces Aaron’s name with the guttural inflection of his people. “He says my mind is weak and I need to leave him alone.”

“Where is he?” I ask. Aaron has become my first true victory.

Joseph looks away, his sign to me he doesn’t know or won’t tell.

“Well, then, do you know where Delilah is?”

“She was in the longhouse sewing when I last saw her,” Joseph says. He puts a few fingers in his mouth, a habit, I assume, from when Bird pulled out his fingernails. It clearly gives him comfort. Despite the bitter cold, he wears only a hide tunic and leggings. I’ve asked him before how he can stand such cold in so little and all he says is that he can feel the fire that burned his relatives.

“I must go to see Delilah,” I say, walking toward the longhouse.

“I will come with you,” Joseph says.

“I’d prefer if you stay here.” Though it’s not his fault, with this boy my patience reaches the breaking point after only a few short minutes. I must strengthen it, dear Lord, and promise to start prac-tising tomorrow. “Why don’t you go to the eating place and visit with Captain of the Day?” I say.

His eyes light up, but then he frowns. “The hairy men will send me away. And if I don’t listen, they’ll hit me.”

“Tell them you’re there on my instruction,” I say. I head to Delilah’s longhouse.

To our communal surprise, she journeyed with us to this new place based on her promise so long ago to convert if that might save her family. But Delilah is unreliable at best and misses her family so much that she’s sunk into a relentless sadness. Even my promise to bring her along on our next expedition to her home does little to lift her spirits.

Again, today, once I’ve entered her longhouse, she cries as she speaks. “I will die and never see them again,” she says.

“You will,” I explain, “if we can win them over to our side.” This tactic hasn’t worked yet, though. I look around at the other Huron
huddling by their fires. They look frightened and hungry. A few children cry.

“There’s been much stomach illness,” Delilah says. “The children soil themselves numerous times a day, and I fear it’s spreading to the adults as well.”

“We’ll make sure you have the medicine we have,” I say. “But the most important thing I can give you is to tell you that you must continue to put your belief in the Great Voice. He knows all. And He will not let you suffer if you put your trust in Him.”

Delilah stares at me. She wants to tell me something but won’t.

“Tell me,” I say.

“I want to go home,” she says. “But now I can’t. Even if I could I would only bring back the sickness we’ve begun to suffer and kill those I love.” She holds in a sob.

I want to scold her for the silliness of her thinking but instead allow her to go on.

“And now because I made a promise to you, I feel like I’m being caressed with hot coals. I’ve made a great promise to you and I won’t break it. I worry, though, that my promise to you has not only doomed me but also doomed the ones I wish to be with forever.”

I open my mouth to speak, but she stands up from the fire.

“I don’t request a discussion,” she says. “I only wish to do what you ask of me.” She’s about to walk away but hesitates. “Something very bad is coming,” she says. “I fear it’s already here. What comes will be the end of us, and of you. But my dreams tell me this is what you hope for.”

I’m stunned by her words. I stand up, feeling light-headed in the smoky longhouse. My stomach suddenly feels sick. Before I throw up, I claw my way through the haze and burst out the door.

—

“THE SAUVAGES,”
Gabriel says at the dinner table, “have no understanding of manners, but I’m convinced my experiment with them will work.”

Isaac and I, along with several laymen and donnés, listen intently. It’s indeed true that no matter how often we tell them they can’t just barge, as is their custom, into our residence at any time of the day or night, they ignore us. The donnés are growing short-tempered.

“Have you noticed their fascination with that clock?” Gabriel asks.

A gift from a sponsor so far away to remind us that our time in this world is short, it’s a simple enough piece with an unadorned face, sitting squat on the mantel, ticking out its rhythm. I’m amazed it made the near-impossible journey at all, never mind in working order.

“They think it’s magical,” Gabriel says. “Their simple minds believe it’s possessed of a spirit. They say it has a soul, a magic like none they’ve ever seen before.”

The men laugh at this.

“They have more faith in that clock than they do in God. And so I’ve been using it as an experiment.”

“Tell us, please,” one of the donnés says.

“I’ve been experimenting with Joseph. He’s probably the worst of the lot, coming in at all hours to disturb us with his chattering.”

Several men nod.

“But he’s especially fascinated by the clock. I’ve told him its name is Captain of the Day and he must obey it. When the clock’s about to strike the hour, I pretend to command it by shouting, ‘Speak to me, Captain of the Day!’ and when it does, Joseph nearly falls over in fear and amazement. And depending on the hour, right before the clock sounds out its last note, I command it to stop.” Gabriel smiles. “And then I tell Joseph that the clock says it’s time for him to leave.”

“And does he?” another donné asks.

“With great speed,” Gabriel says to a burst of laughter.

“But this must serve as more than simple trickery for our amusement,” I speak up. “Why not use it to teach them about God?”

When one of the donnés groans loudly, I give him a stern look.

“We will use the clock,” I say, “to bring them to Mass in the morning and the evening, and also to call them to supper. But if they don’t obey when it’s time to go to Mass, then the Captain of the Day will tell them that they don’t get any supper.”

The men seem to like this idea.

“And when it’s time for them to leave and give us some peace,” Gabriel adds, “we’ll tell them the Captain of the Day is commanding them to go home.”

“We shall put this experiment into effect immediately,” I say.

—

THE WINTER CRAWLS
, its brutal cold growing through the month of February. The illness that so many of our sauvages suffer shows its ugly face to us as well. I worry it’s influenza with its high fever and vomiting and diarrhea. Whereas the donnés suffer it for a week or two and then tend to get better quite quickly, a number of the Huron end up dying. I’m losing my flock just when it was showing signs of growing. Isaac and Gabriel and I perform eight last rites over a two-week period, all of us suffering the fever now as well. The earth is frozen too hard for us to bury the corpses, so we store them in one of the temporary shelters built for visitors.

Despite this setback, those who remain well enough to walk continue to visit the Captain of the Day, their only amusement in an otherwise bleak winter.