“Pass me your mug,” I tell the one closest to me. He does, but dares to take a deep drink before doing it. I put my nose to it and inhale. The scent of strong, cheap brandy burns my nostrils. “That’s not cider!” I shout, throwing the mug across the room. “Who’s responsible for brewing this devil’s piss?”
I glare at them, all with their heads now lowered. Finally, a donné limply raises his hand. “It was I, Father,” he says meekly. “I just wanted to bring a little pleasure into our lives during such a desperate and dangerous summer.”
“There will be no spirits in this mission,” I say, my voice shaking. “Nothing poisons camaraderie and obedience faster than your cheap brandy. We’re on the brink of being overrun by a great Iroquois war party that roams all around us, and you choose to throw a party?”
The men mutter. Some dare to pick up their mugs and drink again. Gabriel, upon seeing this, stands up as well. “There will be no mutiny within these walls,” he tells them. “Need we remind you of the punishment you will face, not only in this world but certainly in the next?”
“And if that’s not enough to help you make your decision,” I add, “the soldiers of this mission are under my direct command. Mark my words, I am not afraid to call upon them.” Finally, I see the change in the eyes of the donnés. They bend their heads in subservience. The one who’d gone to refill the jug returns from the kitchen, sloshing a little brandy as he looks around the room, startled.
“You fool,” I snap at him. “Pour out that poison right where you stand.”
He’s about to object but the man closest to him reaches out and takes the jug, pours it onto the floor. A few of the men groan.
“I command all of you to empty your cups,” I say. The men look at one another and then at me. I stare back, Gabriel by my side. They look away and empty their cups.
I notice Aaron watches all of this with some amusement. He hasn’t understood the specific words, but certainly he grasps the tone. When he sees me looking at him, he lifts his cup to his mouth and drains it. He wipes his lips with his damaged hand and tells me he’d like to speak now. He slurs his words.
“That’s not a good idea, Aaron,” I say. “The time for talking is over tonight.”
“It’s only right to let me talk,” he says. He stands and raises his arms to the men around him. “My name is He Finds Villages, and I am a Wendat man.” The donnés around him smirk or look away. “The one you call Father, this crow here”—he points at me—“he spoke to the Great Voice and the Great Voice told him to name me Aaron.” The donnés mumble uncomfortably. “Because I have accepted the Great Voice and turned away from Aataentsic, the Sky Woman, and her son, Iouskeha, Father has told me that I will not see my loved ones when I die, that I will go to a good place but it will be without my people.”
He looks around at the men who no longer watch. Some begin to talk and laugh amongst themselves.
“I was willing to do this because I love a young woman named Snow Falls. It was my understanding that when I walked away from Aataentsic and Iouskeha, she had accepted the Great Voice. And so I understood she and I could be together in the good place after death.”
His voice begins to quaver now as more and more men turn away, talking to one another as if he isn’t there. A few get up and stumble out the door. “But I’m not so sure of this anymore. I don’t think she’s accepted the Great Voice after all, and now I have been left alone.”
The men still there ignore him. Aaron raises his arms higher. “Cousins,” he says, “I ask you for your knowledge. I ask you for advice.” More and more men stand and leave, muttering or laughing.
I want to help Aaron sit. I make a move toward him, but he waves me away.
“The crows tell me,” he says to the few men left, “that I shouldn’t listen to my dreams, that I should only listen to the crows and to the Great Voice. But I can no longer ignore my dreams. I dreamed the loss of these fingers.” He holds up his mangled hand. “And I dream constantly that this is only the beginning, that there are still many unfinished battles. My dreams tell me that it won’t be long,” he says, “before fires consume this country.”
The last of the donnés walk out. Aaron looks at us three Jesuits. “My dreams tell me the end of this world I know is near.”
He sits down heavily in his chair and holds his head in his damaged hands.
—
THE LAST COUPLE of weeks, the donnés, by all appearances, have been behaving themselves, now realizing the grave danger we face as a few stragglers from the Arendahronnon village or its small outlying hamlets straggle in, bringing with them more news of the massacre in Huron country. I’m shocked by the brutal efficiency of the Iroquois, who knew to strike when the people were weakest and when they least expected a raid, never mind a full-scale invasion. Hundreds killed, and hundreds taken prisoner. The once proud Arendahronnon, the People of the Rock, are now just a handful of wide-eyed and starving waifs huddling in an outer longhouse of our mission.
We’ve taken the idea of building stone bastions at each corner of the palisades. For long days men lug stones from the surrounding fields while our soldiers keep vigil with weapons readied. I watch the slow progress of workers stirring a paste of sand and mud and lime into mortar, while others puzzle out fitting the stones together, and each day a little more of first one small corner fortress, then another, is built.
Will they be enough, though? Gabriel and Isaac want to believe the Iroquois won’t attack, that for this season, their blood lust has been sated, that to attack the Jesuits would start a much bigger war against France itself, a war the Iroquois can never hope to win. But I’m not so naïve. Something started here long before we arrived, something that’s now coming to beastly life. I truly believe, my Lord, that this won’t end until one destroys the other.
Many of the sauvages have lost interest in the Captain of the Day, and it’s become difficult to keep them focused on Christ’s message when they’re under this constant threat. It takes all my powers of persuasion to get them into the fields to tend to the crops, and I must constantly point out that soldiers with muskets, what they call shining wood, are always close and keeping an eye. This calms some, but the ones who’ve recently escaped death at the hands of the Iroquois refuse to leave the palisades. Who can blame them?
Isaac and Gabriel and I have taken to daily novenas, praying hard for You, our Lord, to deliver the soldiers and laymen and supplies promised to us. I’ve taken stock of the stores, and as I already suspected, even in what should be the high season, we are using far more than we produce. We cannot survive the winter at this rate, and if the disease comes back to haunt us, we will truly be in Your hands. But as always, my Lord, I place myself gladly and completely in those hands.
—
I’M IN THE CHRISTIAN longhouse, trying to explain the act of confession and its importance, when I hear soldiers shouting and clattering in their light armour. Delilah and Aaron look up at me, their eyes asking if the moment has finally arrived. The dozen or so others sitting with them in the shadows and smoke begin to murmur. After telling them all to stay here, I rush outside.
Rain has promised all day, and now in late afternoon it begins to fall. Despite the grey skies, I wince at the brightness compared to the inside of the longhouse and run toward where a few soldiers shout down from the ramparts to somebody on the other side while two others on the ground prepare their muskets to fire.
“What do you see?” I shout up to the soldiers above.
“A party of warriors,” one answers. “I count five. Shall I fire to scare them off?”
“Don’t,” I tell him, “until I can see them.”
“They’re making threatening gestures,” the soldier responds. “And one of them carries a musket.”
I lift my cassock with one hand and scale the ladder as fast as I can, skinning my knee on the top rung. Once on the ramparts, I hurry over to the soldiers and peer through the logs of the palisades.
“Don’
t fire,” I say. “They’re our allies.” A hundred yards across the field, Bird, his weapon in hand, stands with Fox and three younger warriors. He calls out in Huron, asking permission to come inside the gates.
WE HAVE VERY FEW OF OUR OWN
Fox and I are most impressed by the taller structures, one completed, the other three not, that stick out from the palisades at each corner of the village, all built of stone and impermeable to fire and arrows and even the shining wood. From the protected roof, a man can get as good a view as he would from the ramparts, but his perch is far more secure and it looks too difficult to climb. No doorway is visible, though I suspect there’s one inside the village walls.
Fox slaps the side of the wall. “Certainly it’s strong,” he says, “but you could always climb up.”
“Try it,” I taunt him. I know how skilled he is, and it will be interesting to see if he can do it.
He puts his bow on the ground and walks around the structure, studying his options to the top as the men above peer down at him. I see that the crows have come outside the palisades to see what’s happening.
Having made his decision, Fox places his hands on a stone above and pulls himself up, his feet searching out a purchase. Finding it, he again reaches above, and gains a few more feet. When he’s halfway up, I shout, “If this were a battle, they’d be shooting down onto you or dumping boiling water or throwing rocks. That might make it a bit more interesting, yes?”
Fox ignores me and keeps slowly climbing. He’s now high enough that if he slips, he’ll seriously injure himself. Me, I hate heights. I’m a man of the earth and of the water.
Reaching his hand over the top, he flips his leg onto it and is suddenly standing among the amazed soldiers. “See, it’s not so hard,” he shouts down. He thinks about it for a moment. “But if I were to attack this structure, I’d break into the bottom and start a big fire to cook the enemy out.”
“What about building some of these back at the village?” I ask.
“The way I see it,” he says, “the palisades are still vulnerable to fire. Eventually, a driven enemy would simply make his way in and then walk through the door, no?”
He’s got a point. But these stone towers might serve to slow the enemy down and tire him out. At the very least, they’d make the Haudenosaunee much more cautious about attacking.
Once Fox comes down, the Crow invites us to sit with him. He knows we haven’t travelled this far for a social visit. I send Snow Falls off to go find any Wendat who are here and to listen to what news they might have. Carries an Axe, who seems devoted to her, had wanted to come along, but I told him he was needed to protect our homes. I myself had asked Gosling to join me on the journey, as her opinions and advice are important. But this village is too dismal for her. “My head aches just to think of that place,” she said just before I left.
The building the Crow invites us into is made partly of stone and partly of carefully chopped wood. This, too, is impressive in its apparent sturdiness. Inside in the cool darkness, it smells of must. These people don’t keep many fires burning, and the dampness would soon cause any Wendat lung troubles. Rather than on the ground, he has us sit on benches, our arms resting on the table.
I light a pipe, puff on it, and then pass it around. The Crow refuses, as is his strange custom. I’m so used to his rudeness that it doesn’t much bother me anymore. He doesn’t waste any time in speaking, though.
“What brings you to the mission?” he asks.
“We came to find out any news,” I say, “and to share some.”
I tell him that a small group of Haudenosaunee arrived at our village to ask us if we’d surrender and hand over the crows. When we refused, a skirmish broke out. “We chased them off and even killed a couple, but they made it clear,” I say, “that if we remain your allies, we remain their enemy. They promised to return.”
He appears pleased with my words. “They’ve left this country, then?”
I nod. “There are a few small parties still wandering around to harass us, but the rest, according to our scouts, have gone back home.”
He looks relieved but wants to know when they will come back. I tell him it’s hard to say but most likely not until the next summer. After all, they have their own crops and families to attend to. “But now is the time,” I say, “to tell your people that we are in grave danger. All of us,” I say, opening my arms to our surroundings. “If your war-bearers were to use their weapons and put pressure on the Haudenosaunee by attacking them at home, this would give us time to regroup and build up our strength. And it would force them,” I add, “to think twice about leaving their home next year in such great numbers.”
The Crow shakes his head. “Military issues are far out of my influence,” he says. “In the years that have passed since the great chief Champlain died, it’s difficult to get those who are in charge to give us what we need. They promise, and we wait and hope. My duty, as you know, is a very different one from war.”
“But your duty will cease to exist by this time next year,” I tell him, “if your people don’t act soon.”
“I can send a message of request,” the Crow says. “But I have little faith it will accomplish anything.”
I ask that he send it anyway and offer a few of our strongest travellers to carry it.
“There was the promise,” he says, “of more of my people coming this summer or autumn. More war-bearers, more shining wood, more supplies.”
This is welcome news. “We also come to trade with you for more of your weapons and ammunition,” I explain. The Haudenosaunee respect and fear the shining wood, and Fox and I are convinced that even ten or twenty can help defeat a much bigger force.
“We have very few of our own,” the Crow says without hesitation. “We can’t possibly trade any away.” He thinks for a moment. “But I might be able to spare a little gunpowder and shot.”
Fox looks at me. “I told you this would be his answer,” he says. “Are you telling me,” he says, looking at the Crow now, “that you can’t trade any? Surely there must be a few extra that you don’t need. We can trade food, furs, whatever your people want.”
The Crow shakes his head again. “I’m sorry,” he says. “We hardly have enough to protect ourselves.”
“We’ve suffered hard from the sicknesses this last winter,” I say. I don’t wish to say out loud that more than half of us are dead. I do tell him, though, that we have very few warriors left with any experience and our only hope of making it through what surely comes is to gather together. I feel I’m on the verge of begging now, and this makes me angry. We kept the crows and taught them how to survive in our world, saved their lives more than once, and now we’re being treated like this? Still, I bite my tongue. “If and when your others make it here, can you tell me that you’ll trade with us for some of your weapons then?”
The Crow thinks for a long time, pulling at the pointed hair on his chin. “If they arrive safely, and with ample supplies, then yes, I think we could trade with you.”
I will take him at his word, and tell him as much. Fox and I stand to leave. We’ll visit with any of our cousins who are here tonight and then leave at first light. Nothing else is left to accomplish. My stomach doesn’t feel right, though, leaving it to the Crow to not only insist that his people put military pressure on the Haudenosaunee but also to honour his promise that we might obtain even a few of their weapons. Maybe I’ll send Fox to take his message to their head chief, because it must get there. But just the thought of Fox not making what now is an incredibly difficult journey allows me to realize he’s too important to put in such danger. I’d go myself if it were at all possible, though I have to admit I no longer have the stamina that the younger ones do. Maybe it is time for Carries an Axe to prove himself. Not that he isn’t beginning to. He, I think, might even be worthy of my daughter.
As we turn from the table, the Crow clears his throat. “What if?” he says, standing too. “What of this idea you speak about,
this coming together?” He looks at Fox and then at me. “Wouldn’t it make sense for our two villages to become one, at least until the threat passes?”
“You’d so easily give up,” I ask, “what you’ve started here?”
“Actually,” he says, “I thought it would make sense for your people to come here.”
I look at Fox, and he’s scowling yet again. “I’d rather die naked and freezing than come here begging for protection,” he says.
With that, we walk out and into the sunlight.
—
THEY’VE BUILT A waterway into the village from the river, and as the light glitters across it something deep inside me makes me stop and gaze upon it.
“Look at that,” Fox says. “What are they up to?”
I’m not even able to answer. It’s as if I’ve seen this. “I think I’ve dreamed it before,” I tell him.
We walk the length of the stream to the palisades and back again. “It’s a good idea for drinking water,” Fox says.
I’m still wondering about its purpose when a couple of the hairy ones call down from the ramparts to others standing by the fence, who then lift a heavy piece of wood from the gate and swing it open, and I watch, amazed, as two canoes come paddling into the village. The men then swing the gate closed and wedge the wood back in place.
“Well,” I say. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Again, Fox won’t admit being impressed. “I bet the mosquitoes are especially bad,” he says, “with all that stagnant water just sitting there.”
I laugh, but even as we walk away I can’t help but glance back at this little river.
We wander the village, taking in the strange sights. A number of houses keep the men who’ve come all this way, and the crows have built a large place for communing with their great voice, a shining cross inside on a platform, and many benches to sit upon. Another building stores corn in one room and small game in the other. If this is all of their supplies, the crows will be in grave trouble this winter. But most fascinating is that within the palisades and behind a fence are a few poorly built longhouses and Anishnaabe wigwams.
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