The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
Porcupine Quills begins to walk in. What am I doing? What if they see me? I swallow that fear and decide I will act when the moment presents itself.
“Where are you going?” the one with the spear asks.
“There’s nothing here,” the one with the club hisses. “Let’s go. I don’t want okis haunting me in my sleep.”
Porcupine Quills looks back at them and spits on the ground. “What kind of war-bearers are you two?”
He moves forward more boldly now, his eyes obviously adjusted. He taps his bow on the sleeping planks on either side of him, as if he’s counting them.
“Do you remember the one named Leaps Water?” he asks the boys behind him. They don’t answer. “You remember her, the one with the big tits.” He laughs, but the others stay as still as the walls around them. “She used to sleep here,” he says, tapping a platform. “She liked to kiss me here.” He turns to his friends and lifts his breechcloth.
“Don’t speak of the dead that way,” the one with the spear says. “I’m leaving before something bad comes to us.”
Porcupine Quills turns back toward me and takes a few steps forward. “What do we have here?” he says, and I know he’s seen me, despite my having squeezed up against the wall as tight as I can. I can see his moccasins now. They’re well made. But then he walks away and lifts something from the opposite platform.
“Don’t touch that,” the one with the club says. “Are you crazy?”
“What is it?” the one with the spear asks.
I watch Porcupine Quills’ feet turn toward them. His calves are strong. “Just a broken arrow,” he says. “I’d hoped it would replace the one I lost shooting at that raven.”
His feet turn around again and step straight toward me. I take as large a breath as I can and then, just as he’s about to tap the platform I’m hiding under, I release the loudest screech I’ve ever made, my throat tight. I’m amazed that it sounds like a giant, angry raven.
The boy falls on his ass and skitters backward, his hands and feet frantically kicking up dust. When I take another deep breath and make the same piercing cry, he jumps up and runs to the door as fast as he can. I peer out from under the platform and see him disappear through it, his friends already gone. The broken arrow lies in the dust beside me.
Outside, the sun bright in my eyes, I continue my search, laughing whenever I think of the frightened boys. I hope the okis of the house forgive me for what I did. I hope they understand my intentions.
A few people have come in from the fields to take a rest and drink some water. The men stand in circles in front of longhouses, smoking pipes and talking among themselves, their robes draped over their shoulders. I can hear women and small children inside their homes laughing and talking and playing. A few people nod to me as I walk by, but I keep my eyes straight ahead. While most of these people still seem put off by me, because I am Bird’s they offer a quiet greeting.
I sometimes feel, dear Father and Mother, as diseased as the three crows who hop around the village. I suppose I’m kept for the same reason they are. The desires of a few have outweighed the desires of the many. Even I know this. After all, I’m within earshot of Bird’s evening discussions with his followers. He’s become more powerful now that many elders have passed on to the other world from disease or age. He and his man Fox. It’s Fox who made the winning argument that if the village banishes the crows, another village will take them without hesitation, despite the dangers. And when this happens, the trade with the Iron People will leave us and flow to where the crows land. But their continued presence here, and their actually beginning to win over some Wendat to their ways, well, something will come of it. There was a balance here that seems upset, and so something must come of that. And when it does, I want to witness it.
Walking down the main path of the village toward Gosling’s lodge, I can see how the dust rises from the walkways, humans and dogs kicking it up into the air. We need rain again. The early spring was wet and promising but now the sky has dried up. And now that the illnesses have subsided, the threat of drought approaches. There’s much grumbling from all corners. We can’t afford a dry summer. The three sisters will wilt and die, and after them, so will we. A summer of drought promises to be the end of us. The special ones of the village have been working hard, urging all of us to do what’s necessary. We give one another our most important possessions, we hold dances that last for days, and some even, when it is dreamed, throw a feast and empty their pantries of everything. The sun above us, though, burns as hot as it ever has this late into spring and shows no signs of abating. We all pray for the storm clouds to rush over the great bay and to us.
Up ahead, I see dogs circling in front of a longhouse, barking and yipping, trying to get at something I can’t make out for their number. Fearing they’re trying to pull apart a smaller dog, I run up, picking a stick off the ground and swinging it at them, and the first ones I hit yelp and slink away with tails between their legs. When I’ve waded through them and sent most of them off to a safer distance, I come face to face with a bear cub, as big as the biggest dog here but much thicker, tethered to the longhouse. It froths at the mouth and bares its teeth at the closest dogs who still jump and strain at it. I hit the closest dog on the nose and it cries out, scattering the other dogs away.
I see the spit of dogs on the bear’s neck and back. It looks up to me with red-rimmed eyes and growls, but begins to calm when I sit down just out of its reach, showing it I mean no harm. The bear paces back and forth on its short leash, then sits on its hindquarters, looking past me to what I imagine must be its home. I’m tempted to untie the tether and let it free, but I’m too afraid to reach near the animal’s mouth. The people who live here are known for their ability to find orphaned animals. They’ve had baby skunks and fawns, rabbits and raccoons and foxes and even hawks all living with their families at different times. Eventually, we don’t see the different animals anymore, once they’ve grown enough to become too wild. I assume that they end up freed into the forest or into the families’ cook pots.
The bear looks past me again, growling frothy spit. I turn to see the three boys have sneaked up behind me, close enough for the one with the spear to reach out and tap my shoulder. I’m surprised they were able to do this. I take pride in my senses.
“Is this your bear?” Porcupine Quills asks.
“Does it look like my bear?” I respond.
He holds a long arrow over his shoulder, and when he pivots to whisper something to his companions, I see the big raven pierced upon it, its body glistening black in the sun, the beak half open and pointing to the ground. Its wings spread out in death, the animal’s span is near my own height.
“That will bring you bad luck,” I say, pursing my lips and nodding to the bird.
“How do you know?” he asks, looking down at me, his hips thrust toward my face.
“Because I’m a witch,” I say.
“You have the marks of a sorcerer on your face and shoulders,” the one with the club says. “You were sick with the illness, but clearly it didn’t take your life.”
“I’m too strong for the illness,” I say. “It ran from me screaming when I was still a young child.”
“You’d be pretty,” Porcupine Quills says, “if you weren’t scarred.”
I stand up now, angry.
One of his friends notices my hand. “Look,” he says. “She’s missing a finger.”
“Were you tortured by the Haudenosaunee?” Porcupine Quills asks.
“I was,” I say. I laugh to myself. “But I lived to tell about it.”
“You have a nice body,” Porcupine Quills says. “Look, you two,” he says to his friends. “She’s already starting to grow tits.”
I give him a push. “Do you want to play with me?” I ask.
His smile surprises me. I’d wanted anger. “Yes, I do,” he says. “But I’m willing to wait one more year until you’re the right age.”
The bear behind us
“Killing that raven is as bad a curse as entering the threshold of a dead family’s home without their permission,” I say.
The boys stop laughing. Porcupine Quills looks a touch paler suddenly.
“Did you—?” the one with the spear begins to ask, but his friend hushes him.
“This is for you,” Porcupine Quills says, lifting the arrow and the raven from his shoulder and holding it out to me.
“I don’t want it,” I tell him.
He holds it closer. “Maybe I won’t be cursed,” he says, “if I give it to you.”
“And pass the curse on to me?”
“You’ve already admitted you’re a sorcerer. You can’t be harmed by this.”
I look down at the raven. Its eyes have turned a milky white. This makes me sad. They were so black they bounced back the light not long ago. Its claws have begun to contract in death. Without wanting to, I take the animal. Despite its size, it isn’t as heavy as I imagined.
“The great war-bearer Bird is your father,” Porcupine Quills says.
I nod.
“Make sure to tell him that I’m good with my bow, that I can take care of myself. Let him know I’m a fine hunter.”
“Killing a defenceless raven makes you a fine hunter?” I mock. “I can tell you this. He will not be impressed.”
“He will,” the boy says. I’m about to say again that Bird won’t, but the boy cuts me off. “And tell him that I plan for you and me to get to know each other very soon.”
I want to tell him that this will never happen but he’s already walking away, his friends following like dogs. I want to shout at him. I want to scream. I do. Instead, I’m left holding this dead raven, a young bear huffing behind me, and my face flushed hot.
THE CREATOR’S GAME
Fox signals for me to look up from the tall grass in which we hide. Five of their warriors have snuck out of the edge of the forest across from where we lie in wait, at the very place Fox said they would. They’re big and strong, and it looks like the four who flank the one who holds his netted stick more carefully than the others has what we want. They’ve skirted around our much larger group without detection and left them in the forest behind. All that’s preventing them from crossing this field and claiming their victory is our own group of five.
The sounds of fighting erupt in the forest behind our enemy as they crouch and scan the field. They know we’re here, that we’d never leave this last stretch undefended. A noisy hive of people from our village who’ve travelled all this distance to watch shout and laugh behind us, jeering at the five, urging them to dash across and claim their prize. Our people know where we are but would never give our position away.
The first two warriors begin weaving through the field, trying to draw us out of cover. But we wait. When they’ve made it halfway across, the shouts of our crowd growing louder with the tension, the other three stand and begin to make their way across as well, the front two protecting the one with the hide-wrapped sacred stone. Fox and I know that once they meet up with the lead two, the five will make a desperate charge to the tall post placed in the ground. And once they touch it with the stone, they will have won.
The five now squat in the field, the one with the stone whispering directions. They sense we’re close but I don’t think they know how close. Just as they begin to stand, Fox and I jump up from the tall grass and run directly at them, our three younger, stronger warriors quickly gaining on and then passing us, swinging their sticks above their heads, the other five standing and tensing to meet the approach. Our front three clash with the five, the shouting and clacking of sticks as they swing for each other’s arms and legs and torsos, mixed with the roar of the spectators a few hundred paces behind us, filling my ears with the noise of a waterfall. Two of their five break away from the fight, Fox and I breaking with them. Fox pounces upon the one with the stone in his netted stick as I duck the swing of the warrior who leads him, swinging hard with my own stick to crack it across his shins, causing him to fall. In that second, the air filling my chest, the blood pounding in my skull, I feel young again, young like this one whose eyes widen below me as my mouth opens in a wail and I jab the butt of my stick into his belly so that the wind leaves him and he can’t get up.
Glancing to our three young warriors, I see they struggle with their opponents. I’m disheartened to see one of my men, the one named Tall Trees, apparently unconscious on the ground. He towers even over me. His size and build alone sow fear into our enemies. Clearly, our other two will soon fall to their three so I must act quickly. Fox’s much larger man kneels on top of him, hitting him in the face with his free hand. I swing hard enough to send him tumbling, the hide-covered stone rolling from his netted stick. I scoop it up, the power of the prize pulsating through my arms. Lightning striking water buzzes in my head. Fox stands unsurely, bleeding from his nose and eye, which has already begun puffing shut. I gesture with the stick toward the forest and he understands, sprinting for it.
I begin to trot backward, away from the forest and toward my own crowd who stand just behind the pole in the ground. Two enemies who are left standing advance on me, slowing as they wonder what I’m doing. Cradling the stone, gently rocking it back and forth in my netted stick, I taunt them to come get me. I glance back for a second to see the open mouths of my people screaming for me to run to where Fox is at the edge of the forest, waiting.
The two advancing warriors speed up, running toward me, and as they draw within ten paces, I lift my stick above my head, cock it back, and whip it forward with all my might, sending the hide-covered stone sailing high above their heads and toward Fox. Both of them stop, realizing their foolishness and growling at me just as Fox jumps up and catches the stone in the net of his stick. He raises the prize high to me before disappearing into the safety of the forest. My people roar behind me.
—
A GREAT THRONG overflows the big longhouse, my villagers on one side, our hosts on the other, a row of fires burning between us and warming kettles filled with different stews. Injured warriors are given places of honour on the ground near the fires. I can see Tall Trees stretched out, resting his head on his arm. He came to shortly after Fox disappeared with the sacred stone into the forest, and I sent him back to our host’s village despite his wanting to continue the Creator’s Game. He’s too valuable to me. I will need him in a few weeks when we travel back to the place of the Iron People. This will be the first big trading mission in many summers, my love. It’s vital for the commerce, but more importantly to show our enemies that we remain in control. The Haudenosaunee, from every report I’ve heard, remain weakened by the sicknesses. We must go this summer, despite my worries about leaving so few of the strongest men back home to protect the village. The sicknesses were especially cruel to the ones who appeared strongest, and they were the most painful to lose. Many boys wanting to become men will have to prove themselves this summer, for they’ll act as our home guard.
The elder who speaks for our hosts is good, but he’s gone on too long. The stews will soon be burnt in their kettles. This is the third time now that he’s circled back to thanking us for bringing the Crow so that he might be studied and understood. I worry that the old man has become soft in the head as I can almost repeat, word for word, what he says yet once again.
I glance over at the Crow, who watches intently as the elder speaks, acutely aware of his being the centre of attention. How did it happen, my love? It seems like I’d loosened my attention for only the briefest time, but when I focused back on the visitor again, he’d nearly mastered our tongue. But what’s most frightening is how many he won over to his strange views at the depth of the sicknesses. Those who didn’t think that the Crow himself had brought this sorrow to us suddenly began listening to his lies about how we’ll find ourselves in paradise when we pass from this place. I can see why this would appeal to the simple-minded, and maybe it’s best th
“We welcome the Attignawantan, the Bear People, to our home,” the elder says again as he paces between fires. “You are our big brothers, and we look up to your wisdom and physical prowess. On the battlefield you vanquish your enemies, and you make pathways to those from over the great waters so we may in turn live in comfort and with bounty. You bring this charcoal so that he may teach us how his people see the earth and the sky, and by allowing him among you, despite the grumbling of some that he is a dangerous oki in the disguise of an ugly, diseased, and hairy beast, you allow him to walk freely among you and enable us to exchange our animal furs for their goods. We thank you for this.”
The old man squats on the ground as if to examine the dirt, and I think that finally he is done. The crowd is revived by the promise of feasting. But then he stands up again.
“You Attignawantan have travelled a great distance to challenge us in the Creator’s Game. And Sky Woman smiled down on us today. Aataentsic has watched us suffer much these last years and I dreamed that she’s sad for us and is ready to take pity on us and so this is why I called you here to partake of her game. She told me in my dream that we’re to play in her honour for two more days and treat our brothers as fiercely as if we were true enemies so the blood pouring from our wounds will nurture the fields for the three sisters to grow strong this year. But Sky Woman wishes that when we end the game and when you Bear People depart, we’ll not be like cousins but like brothers. And the wounds that our young men suffer will serve as a sign of our fierce devotion to one another.”
“Ah-ho! Ah-ho!” the people respond as the old man’s talk crests up higher than it has all evening, as if he’s finally found his head. Even I, despite my hungry belly, begin to feel caught up in his words.
“I dreamed, too, that the Haudenosaunee, still feeble from the coughing plague, will not interfere in your trade this summer. I dreamed that in the coming years, though, they will grow even angrier with your refusal to stop crossing their country in order to trade with the hairy ones, that they seethe that you allow their charcoal into your village, and so we must all continue to act not just as cousins but as brothers, for we can’t defeat the enemy alone but only as a group. And so I encourage you, you young warriors before me, to play as hard as you can for the next two days, to try and wound one another for the next two days, for your wounds will bind well and make you stronger instead of fearful when you hear the screams of your enemy in battle. The Creator’s Game will teach you this and make our two communities as close as family. Only in this way will we be strong enough to resist our common enemy.”