The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
Frustrated, I walk to Gosling’s home. I’ve been spending more time with her lately, and each of us seems to be falling into that place of contentment with the other. I don’t think you’d mind. I know you wanted my happiness as I would want yours.
I whistle low to let her know I’m here, and wait for a response. Nothing. And then I hear a low hum of voices inside and realize she must be deep in conversation with someone, a man, by his pitch. The snake of jealousy crawls into my guts and wraps itself around them, squeezing. I clench my fists. This is what happens when you get too comfortable with someone too quickly. I shouldn’t have let my guard down so fast. Of course Gosling has other lovers. She’s very special. But if I’m one of many, it’s not a position I like. The snake, though, only tightens its coil when I imagine how I’ll not visit her for a long time, how I’ll ignore her, even when she beckons me with her mind.
When I turn away, her whistle, high and quavering, comes in response. I almost keep walking, but the desire to see who she’s invited into her home overcomes me. Inside, I can smell her before I see her, the smell I wanted to believe she’d created just for me that makes me hard before I lie down.
And then I smell him, the sour, unwashed smell of him, and I don’t want to believe that he’s in her lodge. My eyes adjust to the low light, her fire just coals, the afternoon sun filtering in from the hole above, lighting the wisps of smoke that rise up and out.
“What’s he doing here?” I ask.
“Sit,” Gosling says, motioning to a place beside her and across from the Crow. “This charcoal, he’s very entertaining.”
I do as she says, and realize this is always the case. When I look through the smoke to the Crow, there’s something like lovesickness on his face. Sweat dots his forehead, and he frowns, not happy that I’ve disturbed his reverie.
“What spell did you put on him?” I ask Gosling. I speak quickly, so the Crow won’t be able to understand very much.
“He claims that he and the other charcoal don’t have relations with women,” Gosling says. “I want to see if this is true. If you hadn’t come by just now, I’m pretty sure I’d be proving him a liar.” She looks over to me and smiles, takes my hand and squeezes it. I’m not sure if this is to suggest she jokes. “Look at him,” she says, laughing. “He hasn’t felt like this for a long, long time.” He must understand some of what she says, for he drops his eyes from hers and rests his hands uncomfortably in his lap.
“Me talk,” the Crow mutters, “me talk to it.” He points at Gosling. “You come here, in here. Me talk to you now.” I stare at him, almost allowing myself to feel pity for this one, for how hard he struggles to communicate with us. But then I remember what he tries to say, and why he needs to say it, his wanting to change us, and I bristle in anger. “Great Voice, he loves you,” he continues, pointing at me. “Great Voice is son child deer Christ. Christ kill for you to become him. Christ kill me. Die. Death for you. Christ.” He wipes his forehead and looks, imploring, to Gosling.
“Your Christ sounds fascinating,” she says in a quick, clipped tone. “Do tell me more, and explain everything that you can about him and about the place you come from.” She smiles, licks her finger and touches it to her ear, then takes her thick braid and begins to stroke it. “Tell me everything you know.”
The Crow, clearly not understanding her, looks confused. He dabs at his forehead with a cloth, then drops his hands back into his lap, seeming almost frightened. “Wood,” he says. “Long wood. Two woods.” I laugh, wondering if Gosling has damaged him. The Crow makes a chopping motion. “His hands are attached. His feet are attached,” he says. “Hurt. He dies you.” He points to me. “You die.”
I feel rage flush my face. “If he says once more that I will die,” I tell Gosling, “I’ll kill him.”
“Shhh,” she says, and squeezes my hand again. “He struggles with the language. I’ve simply baffled him. He’s told me how this Christ”—she pauses, as if the strange word is distasteful—“this Christ is the son of their most powerful oki. Supposedly, he was murdered by people this crow thinks were much like us.” She stops and smiles at the Crow again, licking her upper lip. “He pleads with me,” she continues, amusement in her words, “he pleads with me to pray to his okis, for it seems I will go to a bad place if I do not.”
The Crow nods enthusiastically, and I wonder how much of what Gosling’s said he understands.
“What do you think of all this?” she asks me.
“I think that I will kill him very soon,” I say.
She pulls her hand from mine. “It seems we find ourselves at a place where the river splits,” she says. “Important decisions to be made, Bird.” I can’t remember her ever saying my name out loud. “Decisions to be made.” The Crow tries to speak again, but she waves her hand and he stops, looks back down at his hands folded in his lap. “He doesn’t have the desired power over me,” Gosling says. “I fear, though, that he will begin to have some over others once he learns the language better.”
I scoff at this. “He’s a sad joke for a man,” I say. “He knows nothing of the land, nothing of us.”
“He isn’t stupid,” she says after a pause. “Don’t confuse his inability to speak well with his plans for us. You yourself challenged others to try to speak his language before laughing at him for trying to speak ours.”
“Baah,” I say. “That was before I understood his intentions. I caught him touching my child, trying to work something on her. I should’ve killed him then.”
“You know you can’t,” Gosling says. “The elders won’t condone it.” She looks at the Crow and again strokes her braid slowly. He fidgets, and a small moan escapes his mouth.
“He’s not a man,” I say.
Gosling dabs a finger into her mouth. “I rather like his build,” she says softly. “The colouring of his eyes intrigues me.”
I get up to leave. “Have him, then.”
As I walk for her door, she speaks. “I tease you. Do you really think I could be attracted to such a stinking and awkward creature? I chose you for a reason. I just want to test this one’s strengths.” She looks at the Crow and he looks away. “Make no mistake,” she says. “His strength’s building, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, he will begin to win some of the weaker ones over.” She turns her head up to the dying light pouring into the hole of her lodge and the sunlight strikes her face in the gloom.
Her eyes are closed, and her palms rest on her lap. “He’ll gain power because someone you don’t want to believe would ever help will assist him in spite of you.”
I stand and watch her glowing face. I will her to tell me more.
“Your solution to all of this is simple. On your summer trading voyage, he’ll want to go with you. Bring him. Bring the girl, too. Take the route along the Snake River.”
I want to tell her this river is Haudenosaunee territory. I open my mouth, but she holds her hand up.
“Bring your strongest with you,” she says. “Allow the Haudenosaunee to attack and let them kill the Crow for you.” She pauses, opens her eyes and smiles at him. He stares at her, his mouth half-open. “Or better yet, allow them to take him prisoner so that he can be caressed by their coals before they take his life. Surely, then, news will get back to this village of his demise. Your problems will be solved.”
I smile for the first time in a long while. I move, then, to leave, but think better of it. “I will be deeply upset if you prove him a liar,” I say, but she’s already turned her face up to the last of the day’s light. If she hears me, she doesn’t let me know.
—
HOW IS IT THAT I lose one family, a family that I love so much, only to be ensnared by these two demanding and difficult children, these two beings who drive me mad? I guess this is the way of our world. First it’s the Crow, wandering around the village, talking like a damaged boy to anyone who’ll listen, mostly those who need a good laugh. And now it’s the girl, slipping out of the longhouse at odd times an
I haven’t visited Gosling in a week so that she’ll know I don’t like her games. She can have her Crow. I’m thankful, though, that she’s shown me a good path for what needs to be done. Something must be done. The others here, the elders included, are blinded by the promise of riches, and this makes me sad. This Crow doesn’t bring that, although some claim he promises them everything they could ever want if only they just kneel down and reach their arms up to him. I won’t be one of them.
—
THE WATCHMEN have told me that she sneaks out at a break in the palisades. They keep an eye on her for as long as they can but when she wanders into the forest by the river that leads to the big lake, they shrug their shoulders and say there’s not much they can do about it.
Today, I decide to follow her. Leaving before she does, I get comfortable in a thick stand of cedar by the river’s edge near where weirs have been set for the spring fishing. The clouds have finally given in to the sun this afternoon. To keep myself from boredom, I make a list of those I’d like to bring along on the summer paddle to the pale and hairy ones. Only special ones. Fox will certainly come. I’ve not asked him yet but I know. There are many eager young men in the village, and before making my decision I’ll watch how hard they work at the clearing of fields and other duties that young men shy away from. So much is learned by seeing how well or how poorly someone accomplishes a job he dislikes.
When I think that she won’t be escaping the village today, I hear footsteps and a low thrum of speech. I’d been examining the scratchings of turkeys in the dirt near me, vowing to come back here soon to hunt. Now I see who it is, walking slowly and mumbling to himself, wearing a strange wide-brimmed charcoal hat that shades him from the sun, his charcoal robes brushing the ground, his hands held behind his back, as if he’s a prisoner of his own doing. Light glints off the Crow’s necklace, and as he talks to himself I wonder what he’s saying, if he’s mad or really in conversation with someone I can’t see. In this tall, gaunt creature I can see a power I don’t want to acknowledge. He’s absolutely unafraid of his surroundings, and yes, this is stupidity, but it also suggests what Gosling would say is his understanding that what will become of him will become of him, regardless of the little he can do to try and prevent it. He strides, I see, as if his path is already laid out for him. This one does have a power we don’t yet understand. It’s in his walk and in his mumbles.
The childish urge to jump screaming from the cedar and make him collapse in terror comes over me. But I won’t do that. He walks by close enough that I can reach out and touch his foot from where I sit on the ground, cross-legged. He has no idea I’m even here. I know he’s not long for our world, and Gosling’s suggestion for his demise on the Snake River won’t be difficult to make happen. Some little tug of sympathy for him is snuffed out by the knowledge that what I must do to him I do for my people.
I’m about to head home when I’m surprised to see Snow Falls walk up behind the Crow and call out to him with her strange voice. She must have somehow damaged it in all the turmoil she’s endured before ending up in this place. It sounds scratchy with age or as if she’d once been strangled and the voice never healed. I don’t like seeing her beckon him, something she’s never once done to me. He stops his reverie and turns to her. I can see the white flash of smile in the shadow his wide hat throws.
She turns her face up to him and I see how she’s pocked with old scars from some foreign sickness that came to our shores with the French and the Dutch and the English. It makes me wonder about her past, about what I erased forever that day in the snow. How different could her family have been from my own? We all share many traits, surely, including the desire for retribution, and for the return of those loved ones lost.
I watch these two stare at each other for a long time, and it takes everything in my power not to jump up and stop this. Did I not warn the Crow never to go near her again? Did I not warn him what will happen to him if he does? The girl holds her hand up and hesitatingly touches a finger to the necklace. The Crow tenses, not sure if he should let her, or maybe fearful that she’ll yank it from his neck. She finally opens her mouth, asks him something in a quiet enough tone that I can’t hear what she says. He takes a few moments to gather the words, to respond, his face working hard to find them.
When he does speak, I can make out some words. Fawn. Dead. Fish. Live. Eat. Dove. He seems stuck on many of these words, and I’d question his intelligence if I didn’t know better. At least he’s learning some new ones. He then turns to walk away. Smart Crow. Had he carried on any further, those in my longhouse having heard what I’d told him that day, I wouldn’t have to plan the ruse of his demise. The elders know this girl is my daughter, and my longhouse would come to my aid if I were threatened with banishment for killing him. And so why don’t I? Kill him for his behaviour with my daughter? I hear Gosling telling me to be patient, that to leave my fate up to anyone but myself is never wise. I am the hunter, not the prey. The Snake River idea is a good one, though I still don’t know how I’ll explain why I chose such a dangerous route. Gosling must see something in the future. She’s told me it will work itself out.
It’s time to talk to Fox about the summer’s travel, so I’ll sneak away. The girl is still staring at the Crow as he wanders back toward the palisades, his head bent and mouth mumbling once more. I can see in her posture that she’s confused, and I’m surprised she doesn’t realize it’s because he dare not disobey me. When he should be treated like a prisoner, the elders have said he should be treated as a guest. So be it. And clearly he’s a guest who understands his limits. The girl will just have to come to terms with this. Sometimes, it’s not getting what we want that offers us the most important lessons.
As I smile to myself for being so wise, the girl calls out to the Crow again. It’s not a word at all, but the plaintive call of a dove. He slows down but keeps walking. She calls in that tone once more and he stops. She runs the short distance to him. They stand face to face, each taking a turn speaking. She then extends her hand, palm open, to him. He hesitates before taking it. I clench dirt in my fists. He kneels down to her level and lifts his hand. She closes her eyes. With his thumb, he traces some sign on her forehead. When he’s done, she opens them. They stare at each other for what feels like a long time. He stands then, her hand still in his, and they walk a few steps.
That’s when the girl turns her gaze to where I’m crouching and grins. My face flushes. She knows I’ve been here all along. She knows I watch.
IS ANYTHING IN THE WORLD THAT SIMPLE?
Fox raises his eyebrows when I tell him how many I want to come with us on our summer journey. We sit by his fire near the door of our long-house, dipping strips of smoked fish into our ottet. It’s early spring, after all, and the fish, we pray as we consume them, will continue to be plentiful.
“That’s a war party, friend, not a trading party,” he says. “Do you realize how much that will cost you? You’ll owe others and they won’t owe you this summer.”
I’ve never held anything back from him, but for the first time, I decide that I need to. I’m not quite sure I want to
“Given how life has been between us and the Haudenosaunee lately,” I say, “there’s no difference between a war party and a trading party anymore.”
“Which route to take, then?” he asks. “Especially if we’re really to travel with a hundred men?”
For the second time in moments, for only the second time in my life, I lie to my friend. “We’ll see,” I say. “When the time’s right, we shall see.”
We eat in silence then, and I once more convince myself that putting Fox in danger, never mind the young men who will come with us, is small payment for ridding our community of the scourge that has arrived and that won’t stop coming. And to think I’m the one who brought him here. The elders asked me to do it when they heard last autumn that the French wanted us to accept him, but still. I should’ve tried harder to let our pursuers capture him on that day we were chased last winter. He somehow escaped them, I don’t know how, even as he carried the girl.
“There’s one more thing,” I finally say. “A favour I need to ask of your wife.”
Fox lifts his chin slightly, urging me to go on.
“Our summer paddles are never safe and”—I pause, searching for the right words—“given how dangerous it can be on our travels to the French, I don’t think it wise to bring my new daughter.” I tell him I know the girl is difficult and more trouble than most would think she’s worth, and what I ask is an immense favour for a woman already burdened by the worry for her husband away on such a long and risky trip. “But will you ask your woman,” I continue, “if the girl can stay back with her this summer? There’s so much she can teach the child.”