The Old American (21 page)

“I wanted Nathan to have a taste of it. As for me, let me put it this way. In Nathan Blake's language, the expression he used for our hunt is ‘messier,' a word that sounds like the French title for men, messieurs. It is such slaughter—fine butchery work with languages—that nourishes me more than the meat.” He might have added that Nathan's nourishment came from his imaginings of what was west of the gorge.

In March Caucus-Meteor and Nathan accompany the women into the sugar bush to tap the maple trees for their sweet sap. Caucus-Meteor gashes the bark with a knife, fastens onto the wound with his mouth to taste the sap.

“Is a light sweetness a favored food for the old king?” Nathan asks.

“This light sweetness is what he does in place of love,” Caucus-Meteor says.

The old American names each tree in the sugar bush after some characteristic of women. He'll say to Nathan, “Go collect from Sister Silver,” and Nathan will know to collect sap from a particular tree with a streak of gray bark. Or he'll say, “Let's put another tap into Aunt Anger,” for a tree with wind-twist in its trunk. The women who do the real work in this enterprise tolerate the presence of their sometime king, but they wish he would go elsewhere with his advice.

Caucus-Meteor and Nathan remain on the lake through slush and rotted ice until one night in April when the wind shifts. Caucus-Meteor wakes Nathan. “South wind,” he says.

“Yes, I can smell it,” Nathan says, pulling on his shoes.

“Do you think we should wait until dawn?”

“I think we've waited too long.”

“Waiting until danger arrives is always the most interesting way.”

They'd hoped to dismantle the logs and drag them off the lake, but there's no time. They save the metal stove parts, the skins, their baskets of personal belongings, and that's all. They reach shore, and minutes later their winter cabin collapses in the frigid water.

With the end of winter, the tribe separates temporarily. The old men and most of the women move out of the winter village and rebuild the summer wigwams over the frames left from last year. Most of the men and the strongest of the women depart for the salmon river. Some will catch fish with crude nets and spears, while others smoke the fish on drying racks. For the first time, Freeway is allowed to go on the salmon run. He's fourteen, practically a man. In another year or two, he'll make decisions about his life. Right now he's not sure if he wants to be a great trader like his father, Seboomook, a great hunter like Haggis, or a soldier in the pay of the French like Wolf Eyes. The fishers return with a good catch about the time the wigwams are set up. “If there are two things we can count on in America,” says Caucus-Meteor, “it's passenger pigeons in summer flights and salmon in spring runs.”

No formal vote has been held regarding the leadership of the tribe; even so, Haggis, Passaconway, and Black Dirt know better than to refer to themselves as chiefs. In point of fact Caucus-Meteor is king again. He makes the rounds from family to family to collect tribute to pay the intendant. Last year was easy. He had money from his interpreter's fee, and from winnings over Bleached Bones. This year is difficult. He has to tease, cajole, and persuade to raise the funds. Reluctantly the tribal members give what they have left from last summer's trading season. He gathers just enough to make the payment; now it's not only Caucus-Meteor who has nothing, it's the entire tribe. All except the Laurents and Norman Feathers, who blurts out to his king one day that he has squirreled away savings from his employment in Quebec.

“Surely, you must have confessed this sin to your priest, so why tell me?” says Caucus-Meteor.

“He told me it was not a sin, but I think it was a sin, so I seek your forgiveness,” Norman Feathers says.

“I forgive you, Norman,” says Caucus-Meteor, and he waves a hand over his subject's head as he has seen the priests do with their penitents. “What else have you confessed to the priest?”

“That I'm a bachelor.”

“What did the priest say?”

“Not a sin.”

“What else?” asks Caucus-Meteor, pretending great seriousness.

“I confessed that I prefer the company of large animals, especially oxen, to people.” Norman Feathers is trembling with the thrill of shame.

“And the priest said?”

“Not a sin.”

“Sounds to me like getting into Catholic heaven is easy,” says Caucus-Meteor. “I forgive you, as your priest has forgiven you. Next time you pray to Jesus, put a good word in for your king.”

One matter troubles Caucus-Meteor. Omer and Hungry Heart are talking about breaking away from the tribe. Maybe after the canoe season they won't come back. Maybe they'll winter next year in Montreal. They're not sure of anything right now. Hungry Heart is still weak following her self-induced abortion. Omer's restless and morose. He tells Caucus-Meteor that the only thing that will make him happy will be more canoes and more French scrip. Caucus-Meteor knows that Omer won't cheer up until he's back on the river.

Norman Feathers brings Caucus-Meteor to the palace to pay tribute. Caucus-Meteor imagines that the intendant himself, like last year, will greet him personally. Caucus-Meteor will make a long, eloquent speech, and the intendant will be so moved he will burst into tears and return the payment to Caucus-Meteor, who will give it back to the villagers. But of course it doesn't happen that way. The intendant's man tells Caucus-Meteor that His Excellency is far too busy to meet with a village headman. He accepts the bribe without a word or a change in expression, then reminds Caucus-Meteor that a fall payment will be due this year. Caucus-Meteor leaves with the knowledge that his people won't tolerate another blow from French authorities without some kind of reaction. Unless Caucus-Meteor can raise some money on his own, come fall Haggis will use the intendant's demands as an excuse to bring the people north. It will be the end of Conissadawaga, as conceived by Caucus-Meteor and Keeps-the-Flame.

His slave has been a captive now for one year. He looks strong and robust, though he has lost some weight over the winter. Caucus-Meteor admires him for his devotion to his god. The old American has it in the back of his mind that his slave, if he keeps praying with the same earnestness that he did over the winter, might eventually reach his English Jesus, who then might take action either in destroying the Conissadawaga village or in empowering it, depending on divine whim. Caucus-Meteor wonders whether he has a better chance of keeping his village whole with Nathan's god than with the intendant. He'll brood over this matter.

Though Black Dirt's official mourning period has ended, she still wears the black mourning ribbon in her hair. Even so, Caucus-Meteor advises Haggis that now is as good a time as any to pay her a courting visit. The great hunter walks out into the fields to talk to the great grower.

Later, he visits Caucus-Meteor and tells him of the encounter with his daughter.

“She said to me, ‘This is the only time I can remember that Haggis stepped foot in the women's garden.' She excited me with her challenging manner, for I like a woman with fight in her. It's woman's spite that I cannot bear.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I thought this is the time for charm, so I said, ‘The Christians say mankind was lost by a woman's curiosity in a garden.' And I smiled at her.

“She said, ‘I believe the culprit was a snake, an animal that has a difficult time in our extreme climate.'

“I said, ‘You mean the extreme climate of Canada, or the extreme climate of Canada American woman?'

“She said, ‘You are here, Haggis. Are you the snake in my garden?'

“I must admit that I was excited now as the snake at the mouse's hole, for I had been bested by a woman, and the feeling is quite pleasant. I said, ‘You and I have different hopes and dreams for our people. Even so, I have always thought well of you, Black Dirt.'

“She said, ‘And I have thought well of you, Haggis.'

“I said, ‘Your mourning period has ended.'

“She said, ‘Yes, I will always grieve for the loss of my family, but by thinking of nothing else for a year, I find that now it is easier to think of other things.'

“I said, ‘I am glad to hear that.' I spoke very gravely and formally. I said, ‘You are still young enough to bear children for our tribe. If you and I were to marry, the strife in our hearts and the strife in the hearts of our people would melt away.'” Haggis pauses.

Caucus-Meteor's heart is pounding with anticipation. He compliments Haggis on his storytelling abilities.

“Thank you,” Haggis bows.

“And what did Black Dirt say?”

“She blushed, and said, ‘I am flattered, Haggis.'

“I thought: I'd better use good words, for this is a woman on an edge between an idea and a feeling. I said, ‘I know that you are very independent-minded and ambitious for a woman, which are further reasons I admire you, Black Dirt. All my wives are independent-minded. I never interfere with their desires. I have one wife who will sleep with me only for the purposes of procreation, and I love her no less than the others. Do not answer now. Think about it for a few days. If you refuse me, I will not hold it against you, but I warn you that I will do all in my power to persuade the tribe to follow me and not you.'”

Caucus-Meteor throws up his hands in disgust. “As usual, the butcher work is messier than the hunt, Monsieur.”

“What are you telling me, old king?” Haggis is annoyed now.

“That you can't propose to and threaten a good woman at the same time.”

“Well, I think I did well enough. I think she will marry me,” says Haggis. “She promised me an answer on the morrow.”

“I will speak to her tonight after supper,” says Caucus-Meteor. Haggis bows and leaves.

That night, Caucus-Meteor says to his daughter. “What do you think of Haggis?”

“I think he would make a good husband and a middling father,” she says.

“Which is all a woman can ask of a man.”

“That's true, father.”

“You are thinking perhaps that with marriage to Haggis your dream for a purely farming community will vanish.”

“That would make you happy, father. If you wish, I will marry Haggis and make you happy.”

“It doesn't matter what I wish, nor is my happiness of any consequence whatever to this village. I command you to follow your heart, daughter.”

The next day, Black Dirt respectfully declines Haggis's offer for marriage. Haggis's wives spread the word, and Black Dirt loses prestige in the village. Conissadawaga needs strong, healthy children. Black Dirt still has another decade or more of child-bearing. The consensus among the people of Conissadawaga is that by rejecting the best man in the village, she's turning her back on her people. Caucus-Meteor worries that, given her strong personality, Black Dirt will begin now to change deep within her heart with the possibility that eventually she will become a sorceress. The Algonkian word for such a woman has undergone some changes in the last hundred years, he thinks. It now includes nuances of the English meaning for
witch.
A sorceress is to be respected, feared, and perhaps killed to prevent her from extending her powers.

The men prepare to leave for the annual trade missions, yet another excuse for celebrating, and all the villagers are dancing and chanting in the late evening spring light of Canada when Nathan Blake steps into the circle and announces that he wishes to address the tribe, a breach of etiquette by a slave. But the Americans are curious, wondering what he'll say. Nathan has many names among the villagers. Most call him Ox-Man for his manner and attitude toward work. Others put a twist on the word for ox that translates as Not-Very-Intelligent. A few refer to him as Ox-Head-Deer-Foot, because though Nathan might think and behave like an ox, he moves with the nimble feet of a deer. He's also called a name that means Old-Man's-Dog-Team, a reference to his services to Caucus-Meteor. None of the Americans has a name for him that would describe him as an orator, so he catches them off guard with a prepared speech in their primary language.

Caucus-Meteor is as surprised as any that Nathan is speaking in the circle. Now that his health has returned, he's come to take his slave for granted. Now Caucus-Meteor wonders how Nathan will behave in the circle. He has taught Nathan that it's important not only to express wishes, but to phrase them in the best language one can put forward. By now Nathan's use of Algonkian is acceptable, and though his accent is still amusing to the ear of the native speakers, his pronunciation is clear, his words carefully chosen, and his manner sincere.

“I have been away from my church, my family, and my town for more than a year,” he says. “I have done all you've asked of me and more; I have never complained. I asked for food only when I was hungry—and you gave. I thank you. I asked for a coat and trousers to replace my worn and torn garb—and you gave. I thank you. You asked much of me, too. I've served Caucus-Meteor as well and faithfully as I am capable of. I've worked like a woman in your fields, but I tell you I am as much a man as any of your men. Unlike my people, you do not attempt to break the will of your children, but coddle them and encourage them in subtle ways to develop their own will. If God ever grants me more children, I will follow the American way in raising them. I will never break the will of a child or a man or a woman. I know that what an American values most is personal liberty. Accordingly, you will understand in your hearts that Nathan Blake can be a slave no more. You must release me, kill me, or change my status in the tribe. Thank you for listening.”

Nathan folds his arms in front of himself, and stares off into the distance. Caucus-Meteor can shut off debate with a word. Everyone in the village knows the king has grown fond of his slave and could adopt him into his family. The king's first impulse is to announce to his people that Nathan Blake is his son, but something tells him this is not a wise move. He's not sure why but he has an idea that Nathan Blake must be like a son, but not a son, for he did not see a son in his dream. Caucus-Meteor steps into the circle, and Nathan leaves it.