I sit on the bank and allow my hands to stop shaking from the rush of the fight. It’s cold here, but a good fire isn’t too far away. As lightning flashes again, I look to where I saw the Crow last struggle, but he isn’t there anymore. He must have slipped under.
Curiosity gets the better of me and I stand, telling myself I’m simply moving to get warm. I walk down the bank and search for where the Crow might be. In another flash, I see his dark robe billowing in the water. I walk into the creek, the water chest high here, and turn him over. He appears dead. I lift him from behind and drag him to the bank, laying him out on his back. I consider cutting the leather straps from his bound wrists. I’m not sure why. Instead, I reach down and place my hand under his neck, lifting so that his mouth opens. Both hands on his chest, I kneel above him and push down. Nothing. I push again. Still nothing. I tell myself I do this to make sure this demon is dead. And then I push down on his chest again. With each push, I begin to tell myself that if he comes back to life, he will prove me right, that he is a sorcerer and I will then slit his throat. With each push, I begin to tell myself that if I am to bring him back to life, maybe I can control his power, that it might become mine.
When I’m about to stop my attempts to revive him, he sputters and water erupts from his throat. I knew it was too good to be true. He takes great gasps and spits up more water. His body quakes. He sucks in air and some heat begins to return to him. The rain has stopped and a partial moon throws faint light that makes him appear blue. He really is a demon.
Something in me, though, as he breathes deeper and stops gagging, feels relieved. What have I done now? What have I done to my people and to myself?
I SAW YOU, LORD
I saw You, Lord, when I drowned that night. I saw You come down to me and felt Your hand take mine. It was then I realized it for certain. I no longer need to be afraid in this land of savagery. You guided me here, after all, and the lightning I saw flashing in the sky was Your light. I am a changed man. And I’m no longer fearful in this troubled world.
We’ve paddled for many days since the battle on the lake, and the men around me are even more watchful now that we’ve entered the Iroquois country. Surely, vengeance will be on the minds of the vanquished. I ministered to at least a dozen enemy warriors and offered them last rites before they died. Since there are four fewer men in our canoes, I’ve taken to paddling, remembering the words of the one I call David that I must be fully dedicated if I am to accept this work. Certainly, the hard work keeps my mind focused and I sleep the last nights without dreams, even the muttering of the wounded men in our party not waking me.
—
THIS IS THE COUNTRY that haunts me still. I’m sure of it. Back when I first came to this land, when the Algonquin tribe promised me safe passage to the Huron and then left me alone on the shore and paddled away like cowards, this is where I huddled and prayed and feared for my life for almost a week. I even think I recognize the island I hid upon as we now canoe past it, the same island where I contemplated my approaching death. I begged You there, Lord, to do with me as You saw fit, and when I ran out of my meagre supplies and could no longer see with clear vision, I smelled the smoke of a fire one evening. It was the Iroquois war party that had scared off my Algonquin companions. I was sure of it.
And that is when I made my decision. Rather than starve to death even as the mosquitoes feasted on me, I decided that martyrdom was the better option. Taking my chalice in my left hand and my crucifix in the other, I marched straight into the midst of their small camp, saying the Lord’s Prayer in Latin with as steady a voice as I could muster. The men shouted and scurried back when they saw me.
It was then I realized they wore their hair long and braided in the Kichesipirini fashion. I knew that these were allies of the Huron, and I collapsed in relief, my body near spent from starvation and fear. Given my condition, those Kichesipirini must have thought I was a madman, or possibly a magician of some sort. They debated all evening as to what to do with me, I am sure, for their language is nothing like the Huron’s. They talked and pointed and talked some more.
The next morning they made a place for me in one of their canoes and took me to their autumn hunting camp, where I bided my time until they eventually, that winter, brought me by snowshoe to Bird and his small hunting party. Despite this not even happening a year ago, it feels, Lord, as if a lifetime has passed.
—
TODAY, THE CANOES serving as advance scouts come racing back toward us at full speed. My stomach drops as I wait to see the pursuing Iroquois, gleaming heads and painted faces, the muscles of their bodies straining in chase. Instead, a great cry rises from the men around me as they take their paddles and drum them on the sides of their vessels. The two scouting canoes then turn and disappear once more around the crook in the wide river. The men in our boats dig paddles into the water and turn ferocious with their strokes. It’s only when we make the bend do I understand. First I see the smoke before I smell what I haven’t in a long time. A scent I can only describe as Christian man, the scent of civilization, comes on the wind. A tannery, the butcher’s shed, the wool and cotton and leather of the tailor, the manure of the stable, all of it comes at once on the breeze and I breathe deeply, my eyes welling with tears now that I’ve returned to a place I thought I might never see again, this island of humanity in the wilderness.
Habitation. New France. My salvation rises up sharply from the banks of this wide river. Champlain chose the place wisely. A clear view of the water and land on all sides, a cliff steep enough to prevent frontal attacks, the palisades thick and well maintained, with stone buildings like anchors behind them. This sprawling bit of the old world in the new is our foothold, the womb that will birth the next great civilization. I scramble from the canoe, nearly tipping it over in my rush to the gates.
Guards in their helmets and shining breastplates stare down at me from the palisades, pikes in their hands glistening in the afternoon sun. One turns his head to call to others. I hear the clatter as more make their way up the steps and heads begin to appear all along the length of the fort. My legs feel weak as I stare up at the men. They stare back down at me, looking confused, some of them even a little frightened.
“Will you let me in, then?” I finally ask, and my voice, gravelly with the journey and unaccustomed to my own language, breaks the spell.
A young soldier, no more than a boy, startles and mutters, “Of course, Father,” before his dirty blond head disappears. I listen to the shout of orders and the feet of men in the dirt as logs are lifted and the gates are opened to me. My Huron have stayed on the river by their canoes, and I realize now that of course the sight of me, a lone and dishevelled Jesuit appearing out of the wilderness, would fascinate these ragtag soldiers.
I’m taken to the priests’ residence, my knees shaking in anticipation. So much to tell! So much to share! I fear I’ll cry when I open my mouth. The young blond soldier covers his face with a filthy rag before knocking on the thick door, then he slips away, muttering something under his breath. I look to see where he’s gone but already he’s disappeared down the dirt path that leads back to the palisades.
Nothing stirs. No one comes. I lift my hand and knock on the door myself, my fist light on the wood, then heavier when still I hear nothing behind it. Then comes coughing and the slow scuffle of feet. I want to shout that it’s Christophe, and I’ve returned from the wilderness with stories to tell and God’s word in my heart. When the door finally opens, I don’t at first recognize the old man who stands there, a handkerchief in his hand, his skin so papery it’s near translucent in the light. He squints, and as he raises up a hand to ask me in, his body convulses in hacking coughs. It’s only when he looks at me, the handkerchief bloody with his sickness, that I recognize him, a priest not much older, healthy as a donkey when I left this place, now crooked and dying.
“I thought you were one of them,” he says.
I wait for him to say more, but he turns and w
alks back into the shadows. I follow.
“Others are to arrive any day now to take my place,” he says. “This is God’s will.”
We sit and talk in the pantry by a fire, Xavier shivering in a blanket beside it despite the summer day’s heat.
“Many sick now,” he says.
“You should be outside in the fresh air and sun,” I admonish.
“Too painful on the eyes,” he says, lifting his hand to cover them, as if even the idea of the sun is too much. I know from this it’s the epidemic.
I want to cover my mouth, my face. I want to leave this place now. But where would I go? God, you are telling me to be strong. I will be strong for You.
“How are the others?” I ask. I think of François, of young Joseph, of the others I left behind.
He shakes his head. “The sickness has been bad,” he says. “This last winter especially. A boat with the ones who were to join you arrived just before the freeze.” He wipes his nose with the bloody rag. “They must have brought it with them. No greens all winter on top of it, and half of us are sick now. Or dead.”
I keep my head bowed and listen. “Word is of another ship coming soon?” I finally ask.
He nods. “If it doesn’t arrive before this year’s freeze, then we’re all doomed.”
I want to tell him that we are only into the height of summer now, that months stretch out luxuriously before us. But then I remember how fast the cold comes in this land, that one afternoon I might sweat with just the idea of movement, and the next I shiver and freeze. “Today is a good day,” I say instead. “Today is a blessed day.”
He wants to nod, I think, but instead coughs blood into his handkerchief.
—
SIEUR DE CHAMPLAIN has sent a courier with the news that he’d like me to join him for dinner tonight. He’s asked that some of my Huron companions join me, especially the one called Bird. He wants to meet the warrior chief whose reputation certainly seems to precede him. I leave the safety of the palisades, the same blue-eyed waif allowing me departure through the heavy gates. I can feel his eyes on my back as I walk down toward the river and the encampment of the Huron, wondering why he’s so fascinated with me. I ask the warrior David where Bird might be. He shrugs and goes back to whittling down a straight branch that I imagine will become an arrow.
I walk through the camp, searching, asking different warriors if they know where Bird is, and I receive the same cold reception from all of them. Finally, I see Fox. He sits on his haunches, staring out at the wide river in front of us. Despite his diminutive size, he is incredibly strong. I saw with my own eyes the speed and agility of his murderous ways, and my revulsion, my terror of this little man, causes my hands to shake. But all I need to do to calm down is remember the light, the warmth that I know awaits me when I’m called by You.
“Why do your men treat me so coldly?” I ask. These Huron don’t like pointed questions like this, I’ve learned, the questions that force them to give me either the desired answer or none at all. They never, I’ve learned, ask one another questions such as this. They consider it the height of rudeness. I know etiquette dictates that I ask more gently, something along the lines of “Have I done something to hurt or offend you, my cousin?” But asking Fox in so pointed a way helps to conquer my fear of him. These people talk around the issues, but now I refuse.
When he doesn’t answer, I try a different approach. “My Great Chief gives a feast tonight,” I say. “Bird comes. You come.” I can sense the slight change in his countenance with my words. After all, his pride, all of these people’s pride, is everything to them.
“Where is this feast?” he asks.
I point up the hill. “At Great Chief’s longhouse,” I say.
“I will tell Bird,” Fox answers. “We will come.”
His words stop the conversation. I search for more phrases, wanting to tell him what time is appropriate, what he should expect, what he should bring, and how he should act, but the language escapes me. I’ve learned much these last months, but I still have so far to go.
—
AT THE RESIDENCE, I find a new robe that nearly fits and heat water for a bath. I’m shocked to see my reflection in the mirror for the first time in almost a year. My face is so drawn it gives the appearance that I am a skull, and when I remove all my clothes and pour water over my body, I resemble a cadaver. In the short time I have here in New France, I must replenish my physical body as well as my soul. Due to the lack of proper nutrition, I imagine, my hairline has receded almost entirely, and the ring of hair that I do have left is long and matted. I look freakish, I now see, and understand why the soldiers stared at me so. If I were vain, I’d be ashamed, but I’ve learned there is no room for physical vanity in this wilderness. I leave that to the sauvages. Finding a pair of scissors, I cut the hair from my head and as close to the scalp as I can. I then trim my scraggly beard into a sharp V on my chin. I stare at myself hard in the mirror, and my eyes, Lord, they burn with Your intensity still. With a fresh cotton shirt beneath my cassock, I already feel human, a Christian man once again.
Xavier’s impressed that I am to have dinner with Champlain. “He’s warming to us Jesuits,” he says. The two of us sit in the chapel, having just finished taking the other’s confession. “He understands that our role in this country is vital to his own interests.”
“But aren’t our interests the same?” I ask.
Xavier tries to speak but falls into a coughing fit. I place my hand on his thin back and feel the strain of his heated body. When he can catch his breath, he says, “Don’t be so naïve. Champlain’s sole interest is the conquest of this land, damn the Dutch and the English.”
Xavier is wrong. The illness has affected his brain. “And ours,” I say, “is the conquest of souls. Sometimes the brutality of man needs to show itself so that we may understand the stakes.”
“Spoken like a true believer,” Xavier says.
I want to tell him that what I’ve seen in this last year has taught me life is simply a preparation for the afterlife. I look over at him and understand he isn’t long for this world and stop myself from speaking.
“Go on your way now,” Xavier says. “Don’t keep a man like Champlain waiting.”
—
I’VE NEVER SEEN such a table of guests. Champlain sits at the head, his hair long and carefully coiffed, his shoulders, despite the heat, covered in his finest robe, his golden medallions of conquest around his neck. He looks like a king. Despite his regal appearance and despite my not wanting to admit it, he’s pale, frail looking, and puffy. It isn’t the sickness of consumption that afflicts the others, I can see. It’s another one, the one that comes when a man doesn’t want to admit he’ll soon die yet knows this is what pursues him, baying like a hound. Champlain will pass on to you, Lord, before the year is out. And then what will happen to this desperate mission in the wilderness without its noble head?
Still, though, he puts on a good face, greeting those who come to sit around him in a big voice. His confessor, Father Lalemant, sits on his left, and behind them stand a coterie of guards in leather breast-plates, most holding pikes, but two with muskets at their sides, no doubt to awe and restrain the Huron guests from behaving rashly. But having seen these sauvages fight, I know the guards would have no chance to even cock their guns before their throats were slit or their heads bashed in.
The worn wooden table, long enough to sit a dozen guests, is full, most of them Bird’s party. A second table, shorter though, had to be added to ours. It sits four others. Our governor knows these people and their habits, after all, and he knows the greatest offence is to invite them to a feast and then turn away part of their party. For the Huron, he is as close to a chief as a European can be. For short stretches he lived with them as a younger man, and he’s fought and killed Iroquois alongside them. He champions the Huron, for he knows they are adept businessmen. He’s even learned some of their language.
I sit to his left, four seats
down, a place of minor importance but still within range of his direct questions. Bird sits to his immediate right. Bird, like the others, has come in full regalia. His face, like the rest, is painted in strips of sharp colour. Some of the men have chosen yellow and some red or black. Some have chosen more than one colour, and others have added ochre to their lips or beneath their eyes, the effect at once frightening and beautiful. The black hair of these warriors, cut and styled so intricately, shines in the early-evening sun that pours through the windows. Champlain, when I glance at him, seems happy and at home.
He raises his crystal glass, and the light glitters on it, around it, through it like a lit jewel. He must have chosen the seating, the angle of the sun. I watch how Bird is literally struck by the green and yellow and red bands of colour that project through the crystal. The brightness makes Bird squint. His face lights up with the hues, the refraction of it dancing across his features. A few of his warriors gasp. When Champlain smiles and twists his chalice, I see that it’s empty.
After a time, Champlain stands, asking Father Lalemant to pray for our souls. I stand with them, and in the long, awkward silence that follows, the sauvages look to one another before the scraping of chairs and jostle of cutlery and porcelain settles to silence. As Father Lalemant murmurs in Latin, I glance up to see the Indians watching him. When I look at Bird, I see he watches me. I drop my head and close my eyes.
When Father finishes, we bless ourselves. Only a few of the younger warriors attempt to mimic. As I’m about to sit, Bird lifts his arms to Champlain and calls out like a falcon, high and haunting. It’s loud enough that the soldiers begin to lift their weapons, shocked. Champlain smiles broadly, happy for the attention.
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