Distant Fires

by D. A. Woodward

  An amazed and welcome smile lit his face, but he quickly composed himself, and with a simple nod, went about gathering a few essentials in preparation.

  ……….

  By midday, as promised, with the sun blazing overhead, they cast their canoe into the water and set off upstream. Away from the village clearing, the land took on a different appearance; rockier along the edge, with deeper columns of mixed forest dappled in shadow and light.

  Late in the afternoon the river began to narrow and with the current coursing more rapidly, waves clipped the bow, bumping the craft as the strenuous work of paddling began.

  Not since she was a youngster had she handled a canoe. Her people used dugouts; much heavier, less manoeuvrable craft, and though the light weight was infinitely preferable, her strokes were ill adept. Coupled with the intensity of the sun bearing down upon her like a searing flame, she was soon reduced to feverish and tired.

  Masking her distress, she turned to Salgan and found herself further daunted by the sight of her companion, seemingly unaffected by the heat and effort; the glow of his strong arms deftly carving the water with clean, expert strokes.

  Arriving in an area unknown to her, the river branched into a smaller stream, and he signalled his intention to proceed. Here, the currents began to slow and veer off, gradually widening into the tranquil basin of a little pond.

  A loon flew over the water, its distinctive call echoing an alert to the other denizens of the region, while a moose, feeding amidst the reeds on the opposite side, remained calmly unaffected by the presence of these strangers.

  Unwilling to reveal the extent of her fatigue and discomfort, she was much relieved when she spied a grassy spot along the embankment and he gestured to stop.

  Coming up along the bank enabled them to disembark, but once the bow had been lifted up out of the water, Salgan spontaneously jumped back in, swimming and floating like a carefree otter. She, too, felt the need to refresh herself, but the pleasure of his company notwithstanding, she was so overcome with exertion that she chose to sit, head resting on her arms, until she felt the strain release from her body.

  She momentarily dozed but was jerked awake in the absence of his splashing. He was nowhere in sight.

  Thinking he had gone off to look for food, she remained as she was, but soon began to question his whereabouts. Surely he would have told her before he left the site, and there were no surface bubbles to suggest his presence in the water. Where could he have gone?

  Leaning forward on her knees, she peered over the bank, quaking at the image that might present itself, and at that second felt a push from behind, sending her headfirst into the water. The shock of both the action and the cooler temperatures was exasperating, but her annoyance was quickly replaced with relief, as she resurfaced in a burst of spray to the mischievous grin of her companion; unharmed and every bit as playful after so arduous a journey.

  “I thought you were in trouble, you fox!” She scolded, sending back a volley of splashes.

  “See what happens when you let your guard down and fall asleep?” he teased back. Leaping up onto the mossy bank, with her in close pursuit, he lost his footing, causing him to fall and her to topple over him, in a heap of weariness and mirth.

  Laughing uproariously, barely able to catch their breath, they lay side by side recovering. The sun disappeared behind a cloud. Soon nothing could be heard but the buzz of an insect, a tweeting of finches, the tinkling of the poplar leaves on the rise of a breeze, and the gentle churn of water lapping against the bank. Ehta lay upon the moist warm earth, exhausted but happy, while Salgan turned onto his stomach, bracing himself on his elbows.

  A small chipmunk, its cheeks bulging from a recent meal, scampered out of the wood with an end to the ruckus, poising itself a safe distance on a nearby rock.

  “Ehta,” asked Salgan earnestly, with a turn of thought, “have you ever wondered why the chipmunk has a stripe on its back?”

  Shaking her head, she turned to face him, smiling in the realisation of his intent.

  Leaning forward, he stared into her with heart stopping intensity. A previously unfelt sense of excitement welled within her, caught by the spell of those eyes, whose mystery and colour matched the forest depths.

  “Well, I will tell you then...” He began, unaware of this arousal and its effect upon the listener.

  “Long ago when the earth was young, the porcupine was chosen to be leader of all of the animals. On the first day that he met with them, he posed this question, ‘Shall we have eternal night and remain in darkness, or forever day and the light of the sun?’

  “As was expected, there was much talk among the animals over this very important question, but before long, anger rose up between them, dividing them into two groups. While they argued, the air became shrill with the song of a chipmunk. ‘The light will come; we must have light,’ it sang over and over again, until the forest resounded.

  “Not to be outdone, the leader of the second group, the bear, began to sing, ‘Everyone knows that night is best; we must have darkness.’

  “As it happened, the chipmunk was singing when daylight suddenly dawned. The bear saw this as a sign that he was losing and became enraged. In his fury, he chased the chipmunk and reached out to grab him, but the creature but so fast that he only managed to graze its back with his huge paw, leaving a stripe along its back, as it escaped to a hole in a hollow tree.”

  Salgan paused, grinning like a clever owl as he stretched his arms behind his head.

  “So what does the lesson teach us? Since that time, he has worn the stripe. The bear thought that he had won, but who was truly the victor? We have both daylight and darkness. The chipmunk was forced to bear the mark of his aggressor but his song did not go unheeded, and the bear discovered that for every victory, there is a loss.”

  He closed his eyes at the return of the sun and remained quietly beside her. It was a learning story, like the many others she had heard, but on this occasion she found herself drawn from the tale to the teller, watching him with an indefinable, mystical sense of longing.

  During the early weeks of their marriage, she had felt so wonderfully alive and content just being in his presence, but somehow even in that, something was missing.

  Again, she found herself looking at him more, studying, as she now did, the line of his nose, his square jaw, full lips, lean, strong arms... This time, for reasons against her will, her eyes roamed further, and with greater curiosity, to the firm, smooth skin of his upper body, the rippling muscle across his stomach, sweeping down to the deerskin mound, rising up below that...

  Strangely, an impulsive and compelling need took hold within her, enflaming her mind and body. She had a need to touch and be touched, in a manner at once unfamiliar, yet inherently known.

  Trembling in hesitancy, she suspended her hand above his cheek. The shadow crossed his lid and his eyes opened, locking upon hers in an astonishment that readily warmed to one of realisation. She froze, but before she could draw back, he caught her hand and, smiling tenderly, brought her slender fingertips to his lips.

  Wordlessly, with mature deliberation, he touched her skin, smoothing his hands the length of her, whilst divesting her of the wet skin clothing. It happened so quickly, like she was in a dream...

  The excitement was so new to her, as his eyes roamed her soft, womanly contours... firm breasts...narrow hips. The heat of his gaze washed over her, lingering, admiringly...

  All at once, she felt the trembling in his hands as they began to explore, with compelling need and intense wonder.

  His breath tightened as his mouth hesitantly sought hers, setting off a thrill of incomparable pleasure which rose within her, igniting a blistering heat as his kisses became deeper, more urgent, boring his undeclared love into the depth of her, and she was alive with the hunger of her body giving way to the intensity of his need.

  No longer a stranger to her pleasure, her fingers moved with a will of their own, covering his skin,
pressing her eager body against his, until her movement and the pleasure of her look, smell and touch were beyond resistance. The strain of his desires, no longer capable of being withheld, he gently but firmly pressed into her. She felt a twinge of pain, followed by a flood of intense pleasure, as each succeeding thrust moved deeper and deeper, exciting unknown secrets of her body with the wetness it generated. With an explosive quake, they found release, and the exhilaration of their union was crystallized in a moment of rapture, one that would embody their future happiness.

  …………

  From that beginning, their marriage was to take a different course, charted by a passion and commitment neither could have foreseen; one that seemed destined to intensify with the passing of time.

  With the birth of Shanata, four winters before his passing, she experienced a number of stillbirths, which troubled him immensely. In consequence, and whenever possible, he took to helping with some of her domestic chores, otherwise firmly relegated “woman’s work”. Her mother, Ochre, chided her daughter for allowing this embarrassment, but as it pleased Salgan, Ehta would do nothing to dissuade it. In her view, he more than fulfilled her expectations of a mate, and what time they had spent together accounted for a lifetime worth of touching recollection. Now, painful as it was, this was all that remained, apart from the small appendage that pressed behind her ribs, recombining past and present in a single movement.

  Sadly, he was never to know she was with child, for it was during the time of the last harvest festival that a large party from their neighbouring clan arrived with the news that was to change their world.

  Chapter 2

  In the years since the treaty, in which the French had forged a peace with the Iroquois following more than a century of Indian wars, there had been many skirmishes on either side to indicate mutual enmity, stopping short of all-out war.

  During the time of the harvest the previous year, there were rumblings of an escalation of conflict; signs that their tenuous peace had been breaking down.

  In order to prevent a possible show of force into their southern preserves, the Sarcens called a council meeting of the five-nation confederate, to thwart the possible onslaught of the French and their Huron allies. It was another episode in the long struggle between the two, begun nearly two centuries before…

  Following the path lay by the early French explorers and Governors of New France—Cartier and Champlain—were the Christian brothers from France, the Jesuits, to spread Christianity amongst the natives, succeeding in their influence, particularly among the Huron. Though less in number, these hereditary enemies of the Iroquois formed an alliance with the French that was economically beneficial to the burgeoning colony through the fur trade. Unlike the Huron, the Iroquois were unwilling to cede their cultural and religious beliefs to European doctrine, splintering relations between the Iroquois and the French still further.

  In consequence, when the fashion in Europe led to increased supply and demand for furs, the Iroquois sided with the British, who, vying for trade monopoly, sought them for their abilities as able hunters and guides, cohesiveness as a tribe, and their strategically-placed position along major water routes. Using them as their southern contact from their seat of operations, the Hudson’s Bay Company in the north, the Iroquois also provided a commercial link of barter for the English colony to the south.

  To the Iroquois, this disassociation from the French was based less on material gain than a vindictive, moral estrangement, related to the arrival of their kind two hundred years before.

  Soon after their arrival, the Iroquois placed their benign faith and goodwill on the “mysterious strangers”, and had, in turn, felt cheated of their land, made to suffer the loss of their members on a fool’s mission to France, and been pressured on issues of cultural and religious dogma.

  Possibly, the earliest incident of discord involved a group of soldiers, sent to establish relations with the natives. Having made the discovery of one such clan, their chief, bearing sign of peace and welcome, was mistakenly viewed as antagonistic, and promptly shot with a musket ball through the chest.

  It was one of a series of acts never to be forgiven. This, coupled with the French alliance with the Huron—long an enemy of the Iroquois—produced a lasting mistrust and hatred, which failed to ease through time.

  The Iroquois were satisfied with their British alliance and would not allow the French any attempt at subversion.

  .……….

  Standing before him in the shadow of their longhouse, Ehta expressed an ominous concern over the safety of her husband. He had been involved in brief counter raids before, managing to escape serious injury, but something in this parting filled her with a dread, such as she had never known.

  “It has been decided,” he murmured gently, as he held her in his arms. “The day will come when our nation will have fought the last enemy, but until then…”

  He searched her tear-filled eyes with a smile, which belied his hidden feelings. Smoothing a hand across his bronzed chest, she felt a rapid tremor beneath her touch. Her emotions deepened with the knowledge of his covert doubts.

  “Trust me once more, little fawn,” he whispered, “for I will return to you…”

  A small face peeked out the side of a bark storage cask, distracting him, momentarily.

  “Shanata...” He released his embrace, as the little girl tore from her hiding place and into his lowered arms. “Why are you not with the other children?” He scolded, in mock anger. She studied him very seriously, then laughed and clasped her tiny arms about his neck.

  The smile, which so resembled her husband and the warmth they each exhibited, struck Ehta. Salgan had a special way with children, and it had been her fervent wish to have more. Now, these dreams might never come to pass. The tears began to flow unchecked.

  Shanata darkened as she looked to her mother. “Mama is weeping…why does mama weep?” Her bright eyes clouded in apprehension.

  Salgan, very much aware of the scene threatening to erupt, seized a distraction.

  “Look to me, child.” He said with gentle force, lifting her chin to meet his eyes, his heart almost breaking at the sight of his disconsolate wife. “I am going on a journey with the family, and while I am gone, it is you who must walk in my Spirit beside mama, so that she is never alone. Do you understand?”

  She paused for a moment, weighing this new responsibility. At last, raising her delicate face, she slowly nodded, but was instantly moved by another thought.

  “When you go,” she questioned, with renewed worry, clutching him ever more tightly, “who will tell Shanata stories?”

  He smiled gently, moved by her childlike concerns, and slowly set her to the dirt floor. Reaching for a two small items on the shelf above their pallet, he placed one in her small hand.

  To Ehta’s surprise, they were two beautifully crafted deer miniatures: quite different from other necklaces of their clan, in that each containing a miniscule blue bead in the eye.

  She watched him fetch a tool, and skilfully bore a hole through the tips of each, inserting a twist of hemp and deerskin lace. Tying it one around her neck, and then his daughter’s, he squatted to the child’s level, cupping her chin in his hand.

  “This is my gift to you, child…” He said proudly, a slight waver in his low voice. “It is the deer of your clan. When you look at it, think of me, and I will be with you again.”

  As his name was called by the raiding party, he turned once more to his wife. “Dry your eyes, my love, we will have many more nights together...you will see.”

  And with that, he left. Gone, with the last burning glimpse of him, forever.

  In her grief, she had discreetly sought the guidance of a Rhu-n-ta-ya or medicine man. He had boiled a secret batch of roots and herbs, covering her head with a blanket as she held it over the small kettle in hopes of catching the image of her beloved’s enemy. A nebulous shape, the colour of the trees in the time of harvest presented itself, and for an instan
t, a face defined, then dissipated. It was that face that haunted her dreams, nearly as often as Salgan, and she prayed for retribution through sorcery or in the life hereafter.

  .…………

  Ehta fingered her necklace, wiped a tear and broke from her thoughts and memories at the appearance of a smooth, clay vessel, passed to her for refreshment. She noticed, for the first time, the unrelenting chatter of her sister, heedless or unaware of a diminishing audience.

  “Is mother here?” Ehta asked, hastening for a change of subject and curious that she was indeed absent. It was the custom of adults and older children to sleep in the field, where work would begin again the following day.

  Tahne, dwelling at some length on the hunting skills of her eldest son, Sumac, was annoyed at the interjection and the object of concern. “Ehta,” she replied, testily, “as I told you earlier, she is to meet with Nattaga, a Mohawk Headwoman, at first light. While Tocana is away, she will be planning his new marriage. Also, I believe the aching in her legs is giving her much trouble lately. Her labours have been very great...” She paused. “I have been watching her...it may not be very long before she rejoins our people in the Spirit world,” she added offhandedly.

  Though ill-chosen, the comment was not intended to shock or imply disrespect. Given that disease, poor hygiene and childbirth were common contributors to female mortality, the tenuous nature of one’s earthly life was an accepted fact, and her mother’s age of sixty-odd winters seemed great indeed.

  Unlike the emotional distancing of her sister, Ehta’s thought of losing yet another loved one was not as lightly taken. Her sole emotional support since widowhood, she had received much solace and devotion from her mother, who acknowledged the power of Ehta’s love for Salgan, without having experienced the notion of such passion in her own life.

  Under normal circumstances—particularly with the birth of a child—her mother would have swiftly arranged a new marriage for her daughter, but she knew that in the case of Ehta, it was not as simple. She wanted to see her smile again, but it could only happen with the right man. Unknown to Ehta, her mission tomorrow was to secure not only a new mate for her son, but possibly a suitable choice for her daughter, before joining the other Headwomen at the council meeting.