The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
“Keep the door open!” an old woman commands. “We’re being haunted by sorcerers!” Rather than these words calming them, people become more animated.
“It’s the Black Gowns!” somebody shouts. “The charcoal are terrorizing us!” Faces turn to the three of us.
I shake my head and raise my arms. “We are not sorcerers! The Great Voice frowns upon magicians! This evil is not of our doing!” I scan the panicked faces for Gosling but can’t find her. “If you wish to place blame for this sick magic,” I shout, “point your finger at the sorcerer Gosling!”
More faces turn to me, some questioning, others confused, a few angered by my words.
“Where is she?” I shout. “Why does she disappear at the most opportune moment? This is not the doing of the Black Gowns. We come only to help you.”
“Shall we close the door again?” someone shouts.
“Where’s Gosling?” Gabriel cries.
“I am here,” she whispers into my ear, her breath hot.
Gosling stands arched up to me, her face close enough that I can see the crinkles around her eyes. “I am here.” She smiles wider. “Don’t you forget,” she says, “whose country you are in.”
I can feel her hand stroke the small of my back, and I find myself fighting an erection so immediate I must place my hands in front of me.
“Don’t ever forget where power comes from,” she says, stroking my belly with her other hand. I grow even harder. “It isn’t just from here,” she says as people’s eyes dart around the room and they wait for the next flash of lightning, debating whether it’s safer to leave this haunted place or to stay.
She reaches the hand on my belly lower, and I try to stop her but moan instead. “Don’t ever again think that our energy only comes from here,” she whispers, slipping her tongue into my ear as she strokes her hand down the length of me and I start shuddering in spasms, my knees buckling. Lightning flashes and people all around me cry out and I cry out, too, falling to the ground.
When my convulsions stop, I see young and old Huron staring down at me. Gosling’s nowhere in sight. The night has gone quiet enough that we can once again hear the crickets. One by one, the faces pull away, the crowd walking out of my house, some quiet, others muttering.
“He’s a sorcerer, a witch.”
“We’ve always known that about them, haven’t we?”
“I’m afraid of them.”
I listen to them all as if I have the hearing of an owl or a deer, the mumblings of these people I’ve travelled so far to save who are now frightened of me.
Gabriel’s and Isaac’s faces appear above and they pick me off the ground. I stand there, shaking, wiping my brow with my right hand, Your hand. I look into their eyes. “I’m sorry,” I tell them. I am truly sorry, my dear Lord.
BE STRONG FOR YOUR OWN
Now that we’re near home, I’ve sent Fox and a couple of others ahead to carry the news of our arrival. My own canoe is too heavy with the summer’s bounty. After so long, my love, I’ve stumbled upon a chance to avenge your death and the deaths of our daughters in a way I never imagined possible.
I pulled out my three prisoners’ fingernails myself, then cut slits in their necks and shoulders so they can’t struggle against the leather thongs that bind them. As our pack of canoes wends along the high, rocky banks of the Sweet Water Sea, the wind in our favour, the sun hot on our chests, I daydream not of the next few days caressing our enemies with fire, my love, but of the fishing and the hunting that I will finally do when the leaves fall, the fishing and hunting that I will finally do without the torture of knowing your life might have passed without being truly avenged.
My prisoners have been taking turns singing their heart songs. Two of them I find very good, full of images of their lives, songs of their families and their women and their accomplishments and their hopes for where they’re now heading. These two men are older, one nearly my age, and their voices are strong despite what they know comes, and they sing up into the sky with cries that are as pretty as any bird’s. We’ve found our drumbeat, our prisoners and us, and any canoes within earshot paddle to the rhythm of their voices.
It’s no surprise that the one whose song is weak is also the youngest. The other two have been urging him to show resolve. He’s not much older than a boy, though, and so doesn’t have the experience yet to sing from his heart. He doesn’t have the experience that creates his song. For a moment the other day, I caught myself trying to imagine what he now feels, so young, without the living necessary to navigate in his head what his body will soon go through. I had to stop myself from doing this, as there is no place for emotion of this kind in the next days.
Tomorrow will be our last day, and this evening we decide to stop earlier than usual. The sun hangs on the horizon of the big water, and its light, combined with the breeze, causes the poplar leaves along the shore to shimmer and dance. There’s no rush to empty the canoes and set up camp. We’re almost there. We pack and light our pipes and do the same for our prisoners, eight in all, for they deserve this much. All of us squat on our haunches on the shore and puff, no one talking as we watch the sun sink lower.
I will allow the younger warriors to do tonight’s work as they rise one by one to their duties. This is my favourite spot, my sacred place where I came to do my fast and my quest for a name when I was not much younger than the boy prisoner. Do you remember that, my love? Even then we knew we were destined for each other. I remember paddling here alone, that when I left our old village I could feel your eyes on my back. I hugged the shoreline of the Sweet Water Sea, where sandy beaches gave way to rock walls. I didn’t know my destination, only that I was told I’d recognize it once I saw it. Close to here is where I found those ancient drawings on the cliffs that rose up, drawings made with paints I couldn’t grasp for their resilience. The old ones in the village had told me to watch for them, explained they’d been made by an ancient people who lived on this land long before us and knew far more than we did. Some argued they were the Anishnaabe, Gosling’s people, others that they were related to us Wendat. Maybe tomorrow I’ll slow my canoe for a time and find them again, point them out to my prisoners. I can still picture the outlines the colour of blood of a sea creature hovering below men paddling big canoes, a horned beast frightening me to my core. Yes, tomorrow I’ll stop and show something important to the ones who will soon head to the place of dreams.
So close to home, the men are restless tonight. They build great bonfires and begin to dance around them, urging the prisoners, arms bound tightly behind their backs, to stand and dance, too. There’s no meanness in this gesture. Our prisoners know as well as we do that if the situation were in their favour, they’d ask us to do the same. We celebrate the closing in on home, and allow them to celebrate their passage into the next world.
After the dancing, my three prisoners sit by my side. The oldest one leans to me. “We’re not so different,” he says. “And our nations aren’t so different. We are all peoples of the longhouse, yes?”
I don’t respond.
“All that the five nations of the Haudenosaunee wish is for peace,” he says. “We don’t hate you. It’s the charcoal you’ve allowed into your homes that we despise.” He then tells me that if we were to rid ourselves of them, the world might become a better place for all of us.
“And if we were to ask for peace with your five nations,” I say, “what would the conditions entail?”
“We would take your women and children as our own,” he answers. “We’ve suffered as wickedly as you and have lost too many to the sicknesses.”
“And what of the Wendat men?”
“Well,” he says, “those who can become Haudenosaunee will. And those who can’t?” He shrugs. “I think you know.”
“And so the Wendat will cease to exist?” I ask him.
He nods.
“This,” I say, “is a peace we can’t afford.”
With a clear night and no threat of rain, we
As I sink into sleep, I awake to the moaning of the youngest one. I open my eyes and sit up, look down at him cast in the light of the fire. He’s of a good build, thin but strong through the shoulders and chest and tall for his age. If he hadn’t been caught, he might have made something of himself. I was particularly careful when removing his fingernails and slitting his shoulders. He’s still so young as to be particularly adept at snaking himself out of his bondage. I’m worried I might have been too focused in my cutting. He cries out in pain once more.
Others around us begin to stir awake. I can tell my two older prisoners haven’t closed their eyes all night.
“It’s your fingers that hurt the most, yes?” I ask the young man.
He looks up to me, his eyes pleading. “Yes,” he says.
“Be strong, you!” his relation hisses.
“Yes,” the boy says.
“Do you know it’s your very own clan who murdered my wife and daughters?” I ask the young one. He doesn’t reply. “Do you know your two relations who lie here beside you have already admitted to taking part in that killing?” Again he won’t respond. “The pain you feel now,” I say, “is nothing compared to what you will begin to feel tomorrow when our people greet you at our palisades.”
“I had nothing to do with killing your family,” the boy says.
“Be strong for your own!” his relation spits.
“But I have nothing to do with that history,” the boy whines.
“Be strong for your own,” I, too, whisper. “Tomorrow, when you arrive at my home, you’ll be greeted by a line of people who wish to meet you. It will just begin then. You won’t sleep tonight,” I say, “but you should rest and breathe in this fine air while you can.”
The boy grits his teeth. “If you freed me from these binds,” he whispers, “I would kill you now.”
“You would try,” I say. That’s the spirit, young one! The heat of anger, I hope you soon learn, diminishes all the other hurts. At least, young one, for a short while, long enough, hopefully, to dampen the ferocity of what approaches.
AN ABOMINATION IN GOD’S EYES
I note the quiet departure of the women from the fields as they lift all at once, a flock of sparrows, from their duties. Gabriel and Isaac, bent to their weeding, haven’t even noticed the exodus. At this very moment, my Lord, I realize I’ve begun thinking like one of them, like one of my sauvages, noticing immediately that the birds have stopped singing on this bright and sunny day, that the sounds of the grasshoppers have halted, that the women have left without so much as a whisper.
Fighting the urge to speak, I motion for my brothers’ attention, the corn so high and dense all around me I suddenly feel smothered. The enemy who’d threatened to swoop in for the last months has finally arrived, ready for slaughter. I sense them through the green stalks, watching.
“Something’s awry,” I whisper to Gabriel and Isaac. “I fear an Iroquois war party is nearby. We must get out of the fields.”
Gathering our few tools, we wind through the corn single file, my body tensed to run into a scowling warrior any moment, his thorn club raised to strike me down. Finally we emerge out of the fields, and it takes everything in my power not to run the last stretch of open ground to the gates of the palisades. It’s on a day like this that I’m thankful the Huron are such master craftsmen, having protected the entire community with three walls of tall, sharpened stakes, a rampart built high from which sentries see everything around them.
Inside, rather than a sense of panic, though, people chatter and smile. A large group gathers near the central longhouse. My brothers and I deposit our tools by our door and go to find out what’s happened. We see a face we haven’t in a long time, surrounded by men and women alike, his hands raised in the air, gesticulating. Fox has returned at last from the summer trade mission, and I move closer to hear what news he brings.
He’s come back a day ahead of the others, he says, and the mission was extremely successful. Someone mentions Iroquois captives, and I realize the Huron are bringing back prisoners and will soon partake of their brutal ceremony, one I’ve heard stories of.
That evening, after prayers and a simple meal of bread and thin soup, Gabriel asks me what he should expect. We sit out of range of poor Isaac, who doesn’t need to hear this.
“These people are extremely imaginative in their torturing,” I tell Gabriel. “As imaginative as any inquisitor ever was. Maybe more so.”
Gabriel listens intently, his eyes urging me to go on.
“There’s nothing random in their practice. Everything is intentional. This is one of their highest ceremonies.”
“But why?” Gabriel asks. “Why do they wish to cause such pain to another human?”
“Why does the Spanish Inquisition do what it does?” I ask. “Why does our own Church burn witches at the stake? Why did our own crusaders punish the Moors so exquisitely?”
Gabriel thinks about this. He knows I don’t beg answers for these questions.
“Of course it’s easy to say that we mete out punishment to those who are an abomination in God’s eyes,” I say. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? I think we don’t just allow torturers but condone them as a way to excise the fear we all have of death. To torture someone is to take control of death, to be the master of it, even for a short time.”
I think Gabriel wants to debate this further, but Isaac approaches, asking what we so intently discuss.
“Nothing of importance,” I say. “I was simply expelling hot air.” I pause for a moment before speaking my next words. “Dear Isaac,” I say, “the Huron will apparently be bringing Iroquois captives home in the next days, and you know what they’ll do with them. I understand if you don’t wish to bear witness and try to save the souls of those poor wretches before they die. Gabriel and I, though, will need to be there for this very reason. Please do not feel obligated.”
Isaac looks paler than usual in the dim light of the hearth. “I,” he says, his voice shaking, “I prefer not to be present.”
—
THAT NIGHT I SLEEP poorly, tossing on my reed mat with visions of Huron dancing around the fire and peeling the skin from their enemies. The tortured Iroquois beg me to help them, but when they open their mouths no sound comes out, their long hair, their faces becoming those of young European women, the fires growing brighter as they envelop the women’s feet. I want to stand up and release them from their ropes but my body refuses to obey and soon I can feel the heat of the fires begin to make me sweat. In my tossing I can smell flesh burning, hear the screams for mercy as inquisitors gnaw the fingers from the charred hands of the women, as soldiers in chainmail slice new victims’ breasts off with their knives and roast them over the same pyre they’ll soon use to immolate them. This is when I grow angry with these soldiers, ordering them to be tied and burned at the stake in their armour so their bodies cook in the ovens of their own chainmail. I become the one who makes the decisions now. In these troubled half dreams I imagine the sweat that pours from me is blood when I realize I’m no longer a spectator but an accomplice, helping to hold down a young English soldier no older than a boy as he’s burned with red-hot axe heads heated in the fire. And then it’s my turn. I’m tied to a post and a woman with long black hair gapes me open below my chest bone. Reaching her hand in, she removes my heart, and, horrified, I watch her take a bite out of the still-beating organ. I jerk awake.
Someone has stoked the fire and I sweat through my nightshirt. I go outside and let the cool air calm me down. I know now that I must attempt to talk Bird out of what he plan
SERPENT WITH A LYNX’S HEAD
We are up long before the sun, and I’m quite sure that no one’s really slept at all. We’re ready for the final push. With the canoes loaded with axe heads and kettles, glass beads, sewing awls, fishing hooks and strong rope, a few muskets and lots of powder and shot, our smartest dogs, and all the other bounty of a good trading summer, we put the prisoners in last, making sure their weight is distributed properly so that the canoes remain stable.
I also make sure they’re tightly bound. I don’t put it beyond my three to try and flip the canoe once we’re out in the open water, as I would certainly do the same. Drowning is far preferable to the alternative. But they’re calm, docile even as first one and then the others take turns singing their songs.
The sun will soon make its appearance over the trees on the eastern shore, but until it does we stay close to it, just far enough away to avoid the swells that wash onto the rocky beaches. The old ones tell stories of foolish young men overloading their canoes and paddling out in the hopes of crossing this big water, never to be seen again. The Anishnaabe tell us this water opens in turn to even bigger waters and then to a great inland sea. The world amazes me with all that it holds. I keep looking for the rock wall and drawings, hoping we won’t miss them in the darkness that soon will break.
As if it’s been destined, just as the sun hits the water and the sky lightens, the cliffs come into view. I turn my canoe to them, the other men adjusting their strokes to mine. There’s no need to speak out loud. As the nose of the canoe heads for shore, they understand what it is I want to do.
We have to come in through the sharp rocks carefully as it only takes a nick to puncture the bark keeping us afloat. I have a young warrior hold the canoe steady and off the rocks while I take my other men and the prisoners up to see the drawings. The rest of our party’s kept going, but for now I don’t worry about catching up with them.