The Orenda

by Joseph Boyden

  “And does he?” another donné asks.

  “With great speed,” Gabriel says to a burst of laughter.

  “But this must serve as more than simple trickery for our amusement,” I speak up. “Why not use it to teach them about God?”

  When one of the donnés groans loudly, I give him a stern look.

  “We will use the clock,” I say, “to bring them to Mass in the morning and the evening, and also to call them to supper. But if they don’t obey when it’s time to go to Mass, then the Captain of the Day will tell them that they don’t get any supper.”

  The men seem to like this idea.

  “And when it’s time for them to leave and give us some peace,” Gabriel adds, “we’ll tell them the Captain of the Day is commanding them to go home.”

  “We shall put this experiment into effect immediately,” I say.

  —

  THE WINTER CRAWLS, its brutal cold growing through the month of February. The illness that so many of our sauvages suffer shows its ugly face to us as well. I worry it’s influenza with its high fever and vomiting and diarrhea. Whereas the donnés suffer it for a week or two and then tend to get better quite quickly, a number of the Huron end up dying. I’m losing my flock just when it was showing signs of growing. Isaac and Gabriel and I perform eight last rites over a two-week period, all of us suffering the fever now as well. The earth is frozen too hard for us to bury the corpses, so we store them in one of the temporary shelters built for visitors.

  Despite this setback, those who remain well enough to walk continue to visit the Captain of the Day, their only amusement in an otherwise bleak winter.

  These beleaguered people, especially the children, wait patiently, often for a full hour, to hear it chime out to their wonderment. Gabriel has devised a system in which the clock will speak when it’s time to go to Mass, or heat the kettle, or go home. For now, it works brilliantly.

  Today, I watch the flock await the chime that announces the evening prayers, many of them sweating and coughing. I’ve personally taken stock of our storehouse and must put my faith back in You, my Lord, to provide what we need. Spring seems as far away as sweet France, the wind howling and snow battering the shutters of the refectory.

  Aaron wonders aloud if he might have permission to ask the Captain of the Day a question when he next speaks. Gabriel looks at me and I shake my head. We’re not about to play soothsayer or create false idols. When I tell myself this, I can feel my face blanch. Lord, is this experiment corrupt? Steadying myself, I clear my throat. I mustn’t let exhaustion and fear begin to dictate the preordained course. This clock, designed by a man who in turn served You, could well be the key to bringing these wretches to the gates of salvation.

  “Listen to me carefully, my dear ones,” I tell them. “The Captain of the Day that you see in front of you is only just one tiny part of the magic that is the Great Voice. He is the simplest little stick in the very big longhouse in which the Great Voice lives.” They stare up at me as they huddle, shivering, on the floor. “The Captain of the Day tells you when he speaks that you must believe in what the Great Voice asks you to believe. He does not feel that he should enter a dialogue with you now. He tells me,” I say, pausing and pointing to the clock, watching their thin faces turn to it, “that he speaks for the Great Voice. And so when you hear the Captain of the Day call out, he is telling you that the Great Voice waits to speak with you when your body stops and you go into His world.”

  Joseph takes his finger from his mouth. “So we must die in order to hear the Great Voice?” he asks.

  I nod. “To fully hear Him, yes, you must.”

  “Well, I hope this voice is a really good one,” someone mutters, and a few others laugh and cough. Even in their sickness, they still feel the need for levity.

  “His is a very good voice indeed,” I say.

  Gabriel shouts, “Captain of the Day! Speak to us!”

  The clock chimes five times.

  “What did it tell you?” Joseph asks.

  “The Captain of the Day told me,” Gabriel says, placing his finger on his chin, “that now it’s time for you all to stand up and go home for the night.”

  THE BEAST THAT TRACKS US

  This winter of the new illness has pounded us into the ground, but the ground is too frozen to bury our dead who begin to pile up in lifeless longhouses. We are being consumed alive by an invisible animal, one that slips into our lungs and makes us splatter blood when we cough, one that turns our eyes the colour of burning coals and our throats so swollen we can no longer swallow. Each house shutters itself to the winter storms battering it. Each extended family uses this as an excuse for not opening our doors and letting our neighbours come inside. What we truly fear is the beast that tracks us. What we fear is that he hides in our friends’ clothing or even in their breath. I watch as these families shake with chills and then feel as hot as if a fire burns just under their skin. The medicine people take turns coming through the longhouses with their turtle-shell rattles and powders, but even they are unable to stop this animal from its task. And now the animal has slithered into my home.

  I’ve kept a close eye on Snow Falls for any signs of soreness or cough, but she appears to be fine. I urge her to drink tea made from the roots that Gosling gives me. I urge everyone to drink it, but there is only so much and Gosling can’t possibly find any more in deep winter. It’s my brother, Fox, who first begins coughing, suffering a fit late in the night when the sound of it jolts me awake as surely as the footsteps of a Haudenosaunee. I imagine everyone’s eyes snapping open when he coughs again in his sleeping place near to mine. His wife whispers to him and he mumbles something back but ends up coughing even more. I try to sleep when he settles but I can’t the rest of the night.

  When the weak light of morning finally sifts in through the smoke holes, I wake Snow Falls. She likes her sleep, and I’ll allow her as much of it as she needs to keep her strong, but today I have a task for her.

  “Daughter,” I say, “will you go see Gosling?”

  She looks up at me from her sleeping robe, her hair tangled. “What do you want from her?”

  “A favour,” I say. “The illness has come into the longhouse, and I need her medicine.”

  “Shouldn’t you ask her?” Snow Falls says.

  “You’re good with her,” I say. “And I’ve asked too much of her already. Sometimes it’s the woman’s place to ask another woman for what she needs.”

  “Do I need her medicine?” Snow Falls asks.

  “We all do.” I hesitate for a moment. “Snow Falls,” I say, “I want you to ask her if you can stay with her for a little while.”

  “Are you upset with me?”

  I laugh, shaking my head. “No, not at all,” I say. “I think only of your strength. Nobody has the power to protect everyone, but Gosling … I believe she isn’t like most.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” she says. “I want to be here.”

  I think about how life has changed so fully in the few years we’ve been together, how she was once a young wild animal who’s grown up, still wild, but with the patience now to at least let a stranger approach without her striking out. “You can learn much from Gosling if you were to stay with her,” I say. “She has much to pass on.”

  “No,” Snow Falls says. “Right now, I need to be here. I’ll learn what I need by staying.”

  “It won’t be easy to bear, what you’ll soon witness and feel,” I tell her. “We will lose some of those whom we love.”

  Her eyes darken. “I know,” she finally says.

  “Will you still ask Gosling if she has any more root medicine for Fox?”

  Snow Falls nods and climbs from her mat.

  —

  I BEND OVER FOX with Gosling’s tea. She’s already told me it might be too late. I must try, regardless. He’s delirious and doesn’t recognize me, his face thin and glistening with sweat. He calls out to his wife, who stands behind me, clutching her hands
. When I bring the cup to his lips, he pushes me away and some tea dribbles down his cheek.

  “You’ll have to hold him down,” I tell her. She kneels and secures his head with both hands while I pin his arms with my knees. Again, I bring the tea to his mouth and begin to force it in. He’s calmer now, and takes small swallows. When I’m nearly done, he coughs, spraying our faces with droplets of tea and spit. I let his chest settle, then feed the rest to him.

  There’s nothing else to do except keep his beaver robe on him and wait, hoping the sickness doesn’t spread to the rest of us. But it does. The next day, I hear his wife and three children coughing and crying as well. Slipping one small root into my pouch in the event that Snow Falls becomes ill, I boil the rest and take the tea to Fox’s family.

  I keep watch over them all day and into the night, praying to Aataentsic and her benevolent son, Isouheka, to allow them more time to walk upon the earth. I pray to you, dear wife, to bring this message to Sky Woman and hope that she will listen.

  By the time morning comes, two of Fox’s children lie still, their faces seized by death. One by one I carry them out of the longhouse wrapped in their beaver robes, and I leave them in the cold of the porch so their bodies don’t deteriorate before they can be buried.

  Fox and his wife remain unconscious, waking every so often to call out or moan. When they soil themselves, I do my best to clean them up. I try to force a little ottet into their mouths, but Fox is the only one who will take any. That evening when it would normally be time for supper, I see their oldest child has gone still. He was Fox’s pride and was becoming very skilled with a bow. I wrap him tight in his beaver robe and carry him to his siblings outside.

  Snow Falls approaches me as I sing quietly over Fox and his wife, who themselves are growing still. “Is there anything I can do?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “I only ask that you go to visit Gosling until the worst of this passes.”

  “Would that make any difference?” she asks.

  She’s probably right but I don’t tell her as much. “Please don’t argue with me at such a time,” I say.

  Snow Falls turns to go. It’s for her own good.

  I awake at dawn to the hushed hum of a mourning song. Opening my eyes, I realize I’d fallen asleep on Fox’s family’s sleeping mat. Fox lies beside me, his eyes wide open, singing as he cradles his wife in his arms. I can see from her stiffened arm sticking out of her robe that she passed to the next world in the night. I listen to him sing for his three children and his wife. I’m sweating, I see, even though the unattended fire has gone out. When I cough, my breath plumes out in front of me. With all the strength I have left, I pull myself up, a wave of coughs rattling my chest, and reach my hand out to touch my friend’s head before dragging myself to my own sleeping mat. Shivering now, I crawl under my robe and hope that someone will get the fire going once more.

  —

  I’M BURNING UP and can’t breathe. Someone has rekindled the fire and moved it under me so I roast. I can see the faces of my two enemies who I was sure were put to death. They kneel over me, smiling. They try to put something down my throat. Poison. My arms are as heavy as tree trunks, but I try to push them away. One pins my arms down and the other takes my head and pours hot liquid into my mouth. It burns and I spit it out. They pour more and hold my mouth closed so that I’m forced to swallow. They want to kill me. I begin to hum my death chant.

  Now I wake because I’m shivering so violently that my teeth might break. I can see that a fire still burns, but there’s no noise. It must be night. I’m sure I’m alone and everyone else has died. I’ll soon die, too, and try to sing my death chant, but I shiver too hard for it to come out of my throat. I wonder where my two enemies are, if they’re close and waiting. I hear the footfall of someone approaching. Lifting my head as high as I can, I see it is the young one, Carries an Axe, the son of Tall Trees. He wished last summer to come on our trade mission but I decided he was still too young. He puts more wood on my fire. He hopes that if I live I’ll recognize his kindness and his courage for taking care of me in my illness. I need another beaver robe. Mine is so thin with age. I want to call out to him but the shivering won’t allow it. Instead, I shut my eyes.

  I can feel my body lift up from my mat and float around the room and then out of the house and over the village. No fires burn. We are all of us dead. I allow myself to float away from the village and follow the Sweet Water Sea, frozen and white below me, to another village, and it, too, is dead. It’s deep at night as I float over the land, looking for some kind of light, some warmth, something to pull me down from the sky. Night sky only, and snow glittering in a half moon.

  I fly above the world all night, searching for any suggestion of life. Sometimes I see the animals who hunt in the dark, the wolves circling a pregnant deer, the owls swooping low for mice that venture out of their nests, the yellow-eyed lynx on padded feet silent behind the hare. I float over the white of the inland sea, and when I look down my eyes penetrate the ice so that I see the big fish who circle slow in the frigid water, their hunger dulled by the need to keep moving, the big fish circling in their schools so that the smaller fish are forced to swim through them, a reminder of what they will once again eat come spring.

  My teeth begin chattering with cold again so I rise toward the half moon, but it gives no heat. I fly across the frozen world, searching for something, some firelight, and I’m about to give up hope, my energy leaving me, the land below growing bigger as I speed above trees close enough that I understand if I get much closer I’ll crash into them and their sharp limbs will tear me apart. I’m falling now, and my teeth chatter and I need warmth but only see the dark outline of tree and rock coming up fast. I shut my eyes despite now knowing that they’ve been shut all along. But then behind my eyelids I see the light of flames and when I blink and open them, I see strange stone houses beneath me. I aim for a tall smoke hole shooting red embers into the sky and slide down it right into the fire and I’m finally warm again and from the warmth of this fire I see familiar faces. The Crow and his two helpers. They sit at a table full of food and laugh with one another. Other Iron People with their hairy faces come in and out of this strange house. An odd round object ticks with the rhythm of a drum, and Snow Falls and Carries an Axe sit near the crows, watching it. When one of the crows calls out to this round object, it answers with the strangest voice. The smile on Snow Falls’ face makes me smile, too. I’m warm here and the sight of food makes me feel full and none of these men or my girl are sick or even suffering a cough. I can close my eyes and rest in this warm hearth. In this place, despite my surprise, I feel safe.

  —

  I OPEN MY EYES. The longhouse is still. I don’t know from the thin light if it’s early morning or early evening. My fever’s broken. I can smell the sickness on my body and when I try to sit, my skin still screams. Someone in the shadows coughs and then a child cries. This is worse than the other illnesses that descended on us, the one that turned people’s skin into weeping blisters. I force myself to sit up. My throat burns and I need to drink water.

  Climbing from my mat, I see that someone has kept the fire tended and then I remember Carries an Axe. Fox’s family’s spot is empty, but I can make out a few huddled forms farther down the longhouse. I dip a small birch bucket into the larger one that holds the water. Someone must have filled it with snow not very long ago. As I sip the water, the cold of it soothes my throat. I’m so thirsty I want to gulp it down but know this will only cause me to throw it up. My stomach’s too tender for that. It feels like it’ll tear if I cough one more time. Taking another bucket of water, I pour it over my head, and this brings some life back into me. I strip off my breechcloth and leggings and wash myself by the fire’s light and warmth.

  Outside, I see night’s coming, not morning as I had hoped. Wandering about in the twilight, I feel as if I’m still in a bad dream. The snow has stopped falling, but it’s deep on the path. Fires burn in fewer than hal
f of the longhouses. The beast that is this illness has been very cruel, and it’s not yet finished its feast.

  Smoke drifts above Gosling’s home, and when I enter, she and Snow Falls are sitting by the fire talking to Carries an Axe. Each of them seems well and all three smile when they see me standing at the door.

  “Come sit by the fire and warm yourself,” Gosling says.

  “Your fever broke at last,” Snow Falls says. “We left you not long ago when we recognized this.”

  “You fought hard when we tried to make you drink the root medicine,” Carries an Axe says. “You called me your enemy. In your fever, I think you thought I was Haudenosaunee.”

  I sit by them. “How has your family managed?” I ask him.

  “My father and mother still live.” He stops and wipes an eye. “I lost my two sisters, though.”

  I fear he might cry, but he chooses to continue.

  “My father’s well enough to go out and hunt deer with Fox. Fox didn’t want to leave your side and so my father asked me to sit with you while they were gone. We need the fresh meat.”

  “How long did my fever last?” I ask.

  “Four days,” Gosling says. “For a while it didn’t look like you were going to make it. Here, you must eat.” She reaches for her kettle and pours some broth into a birch cup.

  We sit quietly for a while before I speak again. “This sickness isn’t done with us yet. I dreamed of a safe place for you to go, Snow Falls.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere,” she says.

  “In my dream,” I say, “Carries an Axe was travelling with you.”

  The two look at each other.

  Gosling notices, too. “And where did you dream they should go?” she asks me, sounding amused.