The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
The Crow comes to me, his hands outstretched. He reaches for my robe and covers me. I lie there, flat and still as I did last winter, wanting all of these men to think I am frozen or I am dead and just leave me alone forever. I burn down there and reach under my robe to feel. Lifting my hand, I see that it’s dry. He’s not taken that from me. The Crow offers his hand to help me, and as he does so, I jump up, fast as a hare, and run out of the room and back to my people and the river.
—
WHEN BIRD HEARS of what’s happened, I hide. I feel like it’s my fault and I don’t know why. For the rest of the afternoon I lie in the forest on a bed of moss, hidden under ferns, drifting to sleep and then waking to the light step of warriors searching for me or to mosquitoes in my ears. I’m too frightened to stay when the dark begins creeping closer, and so I slip down to a large fire on the shore. There, in the shadows outside the ring of flame, I listen to Bird ask the others what compensation is deserved for an affront of this severity. Some of the angrier warriors call for his death.
“And so what shall we do?” Fox asks. “Do we demand that their chief hand the perpetrator over to us?”
A dozen warriors hoot their desire.
Bird raises his hand. “If he’s serious about being our friend, our brother”—he almost spits out the last word—“then we should give him the opportunity to prove this.”
Warriors call out in disapproval. I can hear the blood in their voices.
“Hear me,” Bird says, lifting his hand higher. “This is their great leader’s opportunity to show that he understands us, that he is indeed in line with our notions. Let us wait now and see what he decides. Let us wait to see what compensation he offers.” He pauses and looks down before looking up at the men massed around him. “Then we shall decide if he’s truly our brother.”
Many of the warriors nod. But many of them are clearly not happy.
“And if we as one agree that the compensation is fair, we have avoided conflict.” Again Bird pauses. “But if we as one agree that it is not, I will demand something more.” The men quiet at this, and I can hear what they now hear. Bird has left them little room for disagreement. He’s made sure his men in their anger don’t decide to act on their own in order to seek revenge tonight. This man who killed you, my father, is so much like you.
—
THE BEAR MAN IS STRAPPED, shirtless and on his chest, to a large piece of wood. His arms are stretched so hard I can tell it must hurt. Men pound on drums with sticks in a quick rhythm, and the one who’s their chief speaks in words I can’t understand. The chief sweats in his fur collar and he looks very ill, like he won’t make it to next spring if the winter is a tough one. A man then walks up carrying a length of leather that splits into many pieces at its end, each tipped with sharp, glinting metal. All of us who’ve travelled here by canoe stand in a group to watch, asked by Bird to witness. He wouldn’t want me here, so close to that man, so close I can see the thick coat of fur on his back. But the idea of being by myself down on the river is too much. I crouch between the legs of the warriors and watch as the man with the leather lifts it high into the air and makes it crack.
The bear roars out each time the sharp pieces glint in the sun. His fur darkens and his shoulders begin to pour blood. The one who swings the leather at him sweats and groans with each stroke, and each stroke the bear’s roars become closer to screams. I look over to the others who are like him. Some watch with open mouths, and others must turn their heads with each swing. Finally, the one with the leather stops. The bear man slumps, and I can hear him begin to sob. The warriors around me mumble and kick dirt, embarrassed by him, by his weakness. The bear cries out something that makes the men who understand his words turn to one another and whisper. The man with the leather, once their chief looks at him and raises his hand, begins to swing again. Again, the bear roars and the Wendat around me shake their heads and point to his weakness and the bear’s back turns to ribbons of flesh and blood.
Again and again the man swings and the bear cries out before it all stops. And then their chief begins it all over again with the raising of his hand until the bear no longer moves, even when the glinting leather cuts into the fresh skin of his legs. A warrior near me comments to his friend that it seems unfair they don’t revive the bear, now clearly in another world. “What is the point of this torture,” the warrior asks, “if he isn’t present to understand its point?”
When the sun has sunk low enough to cross the palisades and throw its shadow spears on us, I watch as the Crow pushes his way through the crowd and reaches for the man with the leather who no longer works with much desire. This causes the tired witnesses to reawaken and some even shout out what sounds like approval. Our warriors wake up too, lifting their heads high to see what will happen. The man with the leather looks confused and my Crow calls out to his chief and I want to know the words he says but can’t hear them over the restless crowd. Even the chief finally looks like he wakes from where he has gone.
The Crow lifts his arms and shouts out more words. I don’t know what they mean. I look to their chief and see he holds himself tall. The Crow keeps calling out and then points to Bird’s warriors. The French look at us and begin talking. When the Crow finally stops his shouting, their chief raises his hand and a group of war-bearers cut the straps from the bear’s hands and drop him onto the ground. He looks dead. I don’t feel sad.
Only then do I realize Bird stands beside me. “That was rather brutal, wasn’t it?” he says. He snorts and spits on the ground like he wants to rid himself of what he’s just seen. “Did you watch how the Crow tells them they behave worse than us?” Bird looks down to me, and I see something like kindness in his eyes, something like a look you’d give me when you hoped for me to understand, Father. I want Bird to take my hand and lead me away from here, from this place that frightens me. Instead, he walks away.
—
TODAY BIRD LOOKS SCARED, although he tries to hide it. He holds the shining wood in both hands and peers down its length, a French war-bearer beside him. The war-bearer tells Bird to squeeze. A boom like thunder despite the high blue sky of summer and gulls scream and take wing and Bird stumbles back, his face disappearing in smoke. The French laugh at Bird’s warriors who watch wide-eyed with hands over their ears. I watch as well from the tree line, holding my aching hand. The French warrior slaps Bird on the back, and Bird stares down at the carved wood in his hands, at the smoke pouring from its mouth. I saw it, how it breathes flame. I’ve now seen the shining branch from across the water where the others live. This is the weapon they say can kill two or even three men at a time with just its roar. Bird possesses it.
Again and again, the French war-bearer teaches Bird how to make the shining wood boom. And now he stands away from Bird, having shown him how to pour black sand and a shining rock down its throat. I wait and watch for Bird to make the thing bark. I watch how all the warriors wait, too, their hands close to their faces for the coming noise. Bird looks determined now as he hugs the wood to his cheek. I try to keep my eyes open so I may witness it.
Just as Bird is about to do it, the greatest thunder I’ve ever heard splits the sky so loud that the leaves in the trees around me shake and flutter to the trembling ground. The men, all the war-bearers from all the places they come, dive to the ground and cover their heads and I do the same for fear my ears won’t ever work again.
When I dare, I lift my head from the earth and look up at the wide river, to the sight of it. A monster floats before us, so big that the men on its back look tiny. They shout and wave and smoke pours from a hole in the side of the beast. Rather than running away, the French jump to their feet and begin hollering at it, waving their hands in joy. Our warriors are tensed to run but see how the French are so excited. Our people, they stand up straight and watch.
Up in their great village, men begin to shout, too, and it isn’t long before what must be all of them are running down and lining the bank of the big river, waving a
My eyes turn again to the monster on the river. No one will notice me. I sneak through the legs of men shouting and pointing and laughing. Some of them cry. This thing brings something important. I’ll find out what it is. All I can see now as I stand on the bank, close enough to Bird that I won’t be pushed down or grabbed by one of the French, are the few straight trees growing up from the back of the beast with great white robes flapping from them in the breeze that men wrestle to secure.
Bird calls to Fox, and seeing me beside him, smiles and lowers his wounded hand to mine. Without wanting to, I reach up and take it, and together we walk to Fox who holds the canoe steady as we climb in. I sit in the middle as we glide out fast into the river, cutting across the current, easily passing the big, clumsy canoes of the French. I stare as the monster grows larger and larger the closer we get to it, am amazed that the water of the wide river can support its weight and I wonder how this can be, wonder if the hairy ones really are sorcerers. As we pull up to it now, the men above us on its back go silent and stare down, their eyes wide. I suddenly recognize that they’re as scared of us as I am of them. They’re thin faced and hairy, some with yellow-tinged skin. I can smell them from here and want to hold my nose but force myself from doing it.
Then Bird stands up in the bow of the canoe and reaches his arms out wide. He tells these men above him that he’s honoured they’ve travelled such a great distance to visit, that he hopes their stay in this land will be a good one but not very long. Fox laughs. Their faces tell me that these men don’t understand any of the words. But Bird’s gesture of open arms tells them everything that needs to be said.
One lowers a rope so that Bird can take a hold and Fox may stop paddling. More and more French are staring down at us, and for the first time I see what we must look like to them. Broad-shouldered Bird with his hair carefully shaved on one side, his cheekbones taut, the muscles of his shoulders and arms and chest enough to make a man think twice about arguing with him, and Fox behind, small and powerful, his ropy arms laced with veins and his eyes sharp and black as a raven’s. We are the people birthed from this land. For the first time I can see something I’ve not fully understood before, not until now as these pale creatures from somewhere far away stare down at us in wonder, trying to make sense of what they see. We are this place. This place is us.
IT WILL NOT PREPARE YOU
For the first time in over a year, dear Lord, I am able to celebrate Mass with my peers and for Your greater good, speaking it in Latin with no fear that my words will be misunderstood. The new arrivals beseeched me to perform this Mass and I do it with a warmth in my heart I’ve not felt since leaving Brittany. I can tell the new arrivals near burst to hear of my adventures and of this new world. But I will be coy in my sharing. I can tell them of what this dark world of sauvages is like until the breath leaves my chest for good. The only true way for them to understand, though, is to experience it for themselves. I plan to request of Champlain that I stay behind here in New France for the next year in order to complete my relations and send them back home while the new entourage travels out to the land of the Huron to gain experience. I need the rest, Lord, as I need to regain my physical and especially my spiritual strength. The idea of heading back into that wilderness makes me want to weep. You understand, don’t You?
—
I’M QUITE TAKEN by the zeal of these new arrivals. Two brother Jesuits have come, as well as four laymen to help assist them in their travels, teaching, and eventual conversions. All of them are so young, though. Still, I’m impressed and a little envious, as I was never offered such support. Clearly, some word of the importance of this mission is getting through to those who hold the purse strings back in France. But I must admit that in these last days, I wake before dawn and wrestle with the grave worry that our work is being exploited by those who wish not for the souls of the sauvages but for the riches of the land, and that they are using us as the tip of the spear for their earthly gains. I have found some solace, though, in recognizing that we Jesuits are indeed the sharpened spear tip. We are Your soldiers, Lord. We are the soldiers of Christ. And the folly of those who wish to make profit not from souls but from the furs of animals will certainly meet with Your anger. I trust, Lord, that Your divine plan has long been engraved in something far denser than stone.
—
THIS MORNING AFTER MASS, I take the two new Jesuits, Gabriel and Isaac, up to the ramparts to look down upon them. Again this morning, even before first light, I awoke with a start. I realize it will be unfair to send these brave men out with no knowledge of those who will try to devour them.
We peer out to the shore of the wide river below us, to the encampment of Huron who laze by smoking fires that keep the hordes of insects at bay, even from this distance the bright smiles of the men flashing in the sun as they talk and laugh.
“It’s a rather idyllic scene, no?” Isaac says. “They’re not so different from the accounts I’ve read of them.” Isaac smiles his very white smile. He’s a handsome young man, but I already see that his blond hair is beginning to thin. Give him his year in hell and, like me, there won’t be much of it left.
“Are the heathens always so relaxed?” Gabriel asks. He appears a little older than Isaac, and unlike Isaac, he’s not ready with his smiles. The unruly black hair of his head and on his face only helps to magnify his intensity. His eyes flash with it whenever he looks at me.
“They are amazingly lazy,” I say, “for the most part. But when it comes time to canoe or to hunt or to plant corn, they work with an intensity I’ve never witnessed before. You’ll soon see this yourselves when you paddle out to their land with them.”
“I’m glad you’ll be there to share your knowledge with us along the journey,” Isaac says, smiling wide. Poor Isaac. It won’t be so long till he no longer smiles.
I shake my head. “No, my young one,” I tell him. “I’ve requested of Father Lalemant that I stay back here for a year to recuperate and to finish my reports.”
“No!” Isaac says, his eyes brimming with tears. Gabriel simply flashes his serious dark eyes at me.
“I’m afraid it is so,” I say.
“Well, then,” Gabriel says. “You mustn’t waste any time in telling us everything we need to know for our mission to be a success.”
I hold his gaze before looking down to the lazing sauvages on the beach. “First of all,” I say, stroking my beard to a point, “you should understand fully and completely that there will be no success for a long time. Maybe never.”
Isaac gasps. I can see Gabriel’s hands grip the rail of the rampart till his knuckles turn white. He shakes his head.
“You don’t want to believe me?” I ask. “I speak to you honestly, for I do not want you going into that dark place ruled by Satan with the same naïveté I did.” I pause again. The image of that sorceress, Gosling, flashes through my head, and despite myself I feel a stirring deep below my belly. “You must be prepared to go in as if for battle. Believe me. I can speak all day as to what I’ve witnessed, but it will not prepare you for what you will soon discover for yourselves.”
“Is there nothing else you can share that might enlighten us?” Isaac asks. He looks like he really might cry. Just as he says it, the girl appears on the riverbank, not far from Bird and Fox. She must have been squatting on the shore. She cradles her hand. You speak to me then, Lord, the light of the sky shifting and brightening, the sun coming out from behind a cloud. As if scales fall from my eyes, I can see so much more clearly now, can see that the hand the girl cradles is infected, that it’s tobacco Bird passes to Fox for the pipe that lies next to them, that a deer stands still on the far shore of the river, so still that not even the sauvages have noticed it.
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“As punishment for her crime?” Gabriel asks. “An eye for an eye?”
I smile sadly and shake my head. “No. As she cut off his finger, she slipped and severed hers as well.”
“She’s disturbed in the head?” Isaac asks.
“She’s …” I pause. “Different.” I gather myself. “But she’s also the first to show real interest in the faith. So much so that I know in my heart she will be my first true convert.”
The two young Jesuits nod their approval. They might as well scream for me to tell them more for the way they lean to me.
“Do you know what her punishment was,” I ask, “for disfiguring this man who has become her adoptive father?”
They shake their heads.
“Nothing,” I say. Again I pause to let this sink in. “Absolutely nothing,” I repeat. “Never mind corporal punishment, there was not even so much as a chastisement.” The young men shake their heads some more. “These Indian nations are all the same. They neither punish nor even scold their children.” I hold Gabriel’s stare. “And this is the great conundrum. Their children are the door to their conversion. But without our ability to use the rod, imagine how much trouble this will give us in our plans to bring these young ones to the Lord.”