The years rolled on and yet his dreams of her never lessened. Often, Nika despaired that Ashagi had pitched her wigwam in the space between his eyes for more than seven winters, unleashing a bee hive in his brain. The witch had driven him insane with her spell. Every day from the moment he rose to the release of a troubled sleep he’d find her creeping into his thoughts.
When his staff rose before dawn, he’d pleasure a vision of her in his dreaming wakefulness, and at night, he’d stroke himself again as he lay squirming on his bed robe. In the fever of his imagination, he would take her slim hips from behind and cup her breasts while he rocked into her. He would take her sideways, ride her on top; he would lift her buttocks and ram her against a tree. Oh, and she would enjoy it so, call him her lover and ask for more. In a dream that he recalled again and again, she sat alone on the deep furs of a half-dark lodge and spread her legs for him, a sweet, sly smile on her lips, with her vagina twinkling wet, as if it too glistened with a smile of invitation.
Yet even more than lying with her, Nika’s thoughts lingered on her face and the depths of her cherry-dark eyes. A face so serene and symmetrical, yet given to the flicker of lightning and storm clouds on her brow at the slightest provocation. He longed to take her head in his hands, run his fingers through her hair and breathe in the fragrance of her breasts. Gradually, he began to hate himself for becoming such a fool. The woman dangled him like a sorcerer’s straw doll, yet did not even know of his pain.
He had been Misko’s secret rival from the start, enraged when he learned that Ashagi was not with child as had been their claim. It had all been a lie to keep him at arm’s length, and in his delusion, Nika imagined that he had been grievously manipulated so that Misko could win time to woo a woman who by rights should belong to him.
“I have given my brother, my own son to Misko’s father,” he muttered over his fire on many evenings, far from the village. “I am owed a life. I am owed a life!”
He was also puzzled by the magical spell Misko seemed to hold over Ashagi. The man ignored her much of the time, caught up in his schemes of becoming head man, and she seemed to love him all the more for it. It defied all sense.
On many of those nights as he gazed into the fire, Nika prayed to Kitchi Manito for Misko’s death. Eya, he even prayed to the evil spirit, Maji Manito, a demon that few men dared to summon. But Misko only lived on in good health and prosperity, despite all the curses and prayers Nika threw his way.
At first, Nika had been full of himself. He was well aware that he was a handsome man. Women threw themselves at him, hinting often at what treasures of the flesh were his if only he’d play the courting flute when sundown fell. He was often willing to oblige, but went through his paramours as if he were a dead man, judging all against Ashagi’s beauty, an impossible height to which all failed to climb.
But Ashagi had eyes only for the thin warrior who had freed her, and that made her all the more desirable. And wasn’t it so with every man? he reflected. The woman who was out of reach always towered over all others. The pain of desiring Ashagi grew so intense that the world grew dark around him. His only release was to run to exhaustion through the forest or along the shore with thoughts of her streaming behind him like a dirty wind. Once, he stripped himself of his furs and ran naked under the sun through the snow, wailing in the hope of driving her from his head.
At times, he would stalk her in the forest as she foraged for firewood or berries in the hope of coming upon her alone and charming her, as if he had met her by chance. He daydreamed about carrying Ashagi off by force, taking her far to the north to the land of their cousins, the Nipissings, where she would quickly grow to love him and bear him children.
But, as is the case with all women, especially those of a certain age, Ashagi never foraged in the forest except in the company of her sister-cousins. She was careful never to get beyond sight or shouting distance of her sisters, for hadn’t she herself been carried away from the enemy by her own man? No woman of the clan was more fearful of raiders than Ashagi. She was as watchful as a doe. Thus, Nika spied on her from a distance, careful to blend into the trees, for although many men spied on women they desired, it was not something one wished to get caught at.
Ashagi was well aware Nika was sick in love with her. At times he appeared bedraggled before her, and it was clear he could not sleep. She knew the reason why. He demeaned himself before her and in the next breath, flirted outrageously, suggesting fantasies that only a hero the likes of the god-like Manabozho could fulfill. But mostly she noticed that Nika was a grumbler whose complaints strangled the better part of him. Since their first meeting by the lakeshore, Nika had bad-mouthed Misko’s father at every turn, claiming that Ogaa had blundered the raid and was responsible for his brother’s death. Nika’s brother had grown to the proportions of a giant since his death, yet still with the tenderness of a lost son.
“He plays the sad flute for his brother so often that he must think of little else,” Ashagi said to Misko one day as they spoke of Nika’s complaints.
“Yes, I have heard his music more than I care to listen,” Misko snorted. “Eya, he speaks more of his brother than I do of my lost clan.” She wistfully drew at her pipe.
Misko glared into the fire. “I know why he speaks,” he said. “He uses his brother as a cornhusk doll to dig at me.”
“Do you not think that he loved his brother as his son?”
“No, he cries the tears of a snake,” Misko said bitterly. “It is himself he loves and he would have you if he could. Sad flute! He plays it for you.”
Ashagi rolled her eyes. “He is a fool,” she muttered. “Be careful not to feed him.”
At times, Nika also grumbled that Misko was to blame for the ambush of Ogaa’s raiders. “When he took his wife from the enemy, he raised the alarm among them,” he said to all who would listen. This, Ashagi felt, was not true, for she had seen the men of Snail Eye’s band scrambling for their weapons the morning that she had gone to the berry patch before any had known of her escape. Yet it was a scandalous charge and could do much harm if Nika gabbled too much of it. There were members of the band still grieving over their lost brothers, sons and fathers.
Thus, Ashagi was careful not to treat Nika too cooly, fearing what he might do to Misko if she were to pinch his heart past the point of agony. He was like a baby eagle, fragile and helpless, yet with talons that could wound. She was gentle to him, even blessing him with a half smile now and then while ignoring his appeals.
If only she had known how those half smiles grew in Nika’s imagination. Ashagi’s smile confirmed all of the fantasies roiling in Nika’s feverish thoughts. Merely talking to him drove him to a belief beyond reason that she was secretly pining for him.
Still, seven years rolled on and even Nika could not deny that Ashagi and Misko were firmly wed. And if no child existed, then at least he knew they were trying for one. For on some nights, when his obsession grew beyond resistance, he would creep to the walls of their wigwam and hear the rustling and groans of ecstasy from within.
Once, he wandered upon their private coupling place in the forest. Nika’s heart grew cold as he watched Misko taking her from behind, cupping her breasts in his hands and crying out when he came as if he were a cougar.
In time, Nika’s obsession became the talk of the bands up and down the lakeshore, for the Anishinaabek loved gossip as much as any, and there are few things people love to talk about as much as a tattooed dandy who makes a fool of himself over a woman. In the band’s eyes, Nika’s reputation wavered from that of a dangerous man-killer to that of a hopelessly besotted puppet. “He is more like a woman now,” became a common refrain, though no one would dare breathe such an insult to Nika’s face.
As the years rolled on, Nika took to hunting further and further from the band, pulling his canoe far down the coast. The exertion of paddling and tracking game lessened his pain, but at day’s end a phantasm of the unattainable woman would be waiting by his lonely fi
re. Yet just as often, he hurried back to what was now Misko’s band, imagining that Ashagi was missing him, and anxious to show her the bounty of his hunt.
Seven years and how many more would she disturb him? he wondered. He imagined himself ten years on when Misko might step off a cliff, be taken by disease, or slain by the enemy. Once, while dressing a deer, he pulled the still-warm heart from its body and longed to feel Misko’s own heart between his fingers. Many times he imagined killing Misko, prizing his scalp above all others. Then, at last, he would have Ashagi. Then he would show her the man she had been missing.
The last blow to Nika’s hopes came when Misko routed a raiding party of the Haudenosaunee. While checking his snares one morning before dawn, he heard voices along the shore and had peered from the bushes atop of low bluff to find fourteen men gathered on the shore, making silent preparations. Some were tag-alongs of only ten years old, charged with tending the raiders’ fires and making camp, yet painted and tattooed as warriors. Misko had raced in a frenzy back to the village, gathering twelve men who scrambled back down the trail whooping and yelling loud enough to scare the Haudenosaunee from the shore, for who would fight when surprise was lost? An Ojibwe arrow found the stern of one of their canoes as they paddled away, hooting over the water.
Then came the day when Bird Man, Naabese, took his leave of the Amik clan on the spirit trail to the west and was buried with ceremony. Scarcely had Naabese been committed to Grandmother Earth when the Anishinaabek began discussing the need for a new leader. Miskomakwa was now in his twenty-sixth summer and had assisted Naabese when the old chief was too ill to rise to his duties. Indeed, he had served as Naabese’s hands all along. By then, he burned for the post.
Yet, Misko had detractors. While relieving himself one morning on the beach, he was dismayed to overhear a shred of gossip from behind a pile of driftwood. “He is a meddler and a schemer who is too eager to lead. The Anishinaabek have no use for smooth talkers and schemers.”
Misko recognized the voice of his old thorn, Nika, and thought to confront him, but then simply crept away, knowing that above all a head man must be humble and willing to listen, even to the worst complainers. But there was little discussion and no dissent when the band gathered to select a new leader.
“It is Miskomakwa, the hero of his father’s raid, who will be head man of the Amik clan,” said one of the last of the elders as the pipe of agreement was passed around. “He has only one failing as a man, yet this he is sure to achieve.”
Ashagi blanched at the words, looking sideways at Misko. What the elder said was bittersweet; Misko would be head man, but had not yet produced children of his own.
The shaman Animi-ma’lingan proposed a singing festival to honor Misko as head man. Bundles of sticks were sent to all the villages along the coast to serve as invites and several chiefs from neighboring bands were invited to attend; to decline would be a grave insult.
On the day of the feast, attended by hundreds, the chiefs sang on either side of the line of dancers, roaring a line of song and shaking their turtle shell rattles. The responding line of the song came roaring back from the dancing guests. The women danced with their arms held straight out, one fist above the other, while the men brandished imaginary weapons. All stamped in time with the song and its drums and after every four steps, the dancers turned to nod at their neighbors before dancing on again through the afternoon and into the night.
As was custom, all of the guests wore their finest clothes and spent much time in preparing their hair and painting their faces. Old treasures of quilled shirts and tunics were unrolled from their bark containers and men nagged their women to roach their hair high above their heads with a mix of grease and cedar dust. The bodies of the Anishinaabek gleamed with oil and every eye was bright with the excitement of the ceremony. Then, there came a huge feast of elk, fish, bear, deer, and dog meat and so many good wishes laden upon Miskomakwa that tears of embarrassment squeaked from the corners of his eyes.
As head man, Misko would be more a spokesman than a law-giver, for no man of the Anishinaabek could tell another how to live. He knew that the gravest decisions would be made in a council of the wisest in the clan. Yet he also had the charisma of a strong man now, which added to his authority. His deaf ear gave him a cold, imperious manner which served him well.
As for Ashagi, she tried her best to appear humble before her sisters in the village, but there were times when she could not help strutting like a duck.
“And now you are the big chief’s wife,” Minose teased her. “Do not let his fine feathers blind your eyes with pride, sister.”
Ashagi laughed. “He is still Little Red, the boy warrior to me,” she said. “But, sister, you must also remember that you are now the friend of the big chief’s wife.”
“Ah, your head is as fat as a moose already!”
But not everyone wished Misko good fortune. From the outskirts of the feast, Nika sat brooding alone over his pipe. When a cheer went up to celebrate Misko as the clan’s new leader, Nika scowled and made the evil eye, wishing only that his rival was dead and lying with the worms.
18
THE EMPTY WOMB
Ashagi had her own cause for agony that was as intense as Nika’s longing. For seven years now she had lain with Misko, and yet there had been no child. No baby to carry in a cradleboard, swaddled in moss, and protected by dangling charms. No baby to present to the band as a new hunter or as a helpmate to carry them into old age. No lullabies to sing by the fire at night over little eyes peering up at her own. No joy in her husband’s eyes at what she had brought forth, her greatest gift to him. No honor heaped upon her in the eyes of all the band with the word, Omaamaayan. Mother! How she longed to hear it.
The women of the village had long ago begun talking. It was rude, of course, to bring her empty womb up to her directly, but there were times when she saw them clucking and looking in her direction. Ashagi knew that they gossiped about her and her sorry state. A woman of twenty-five summers without a child was an irresistible target.
The Amik men were even bigger gossips than the women. What else did they have to do as they lolled about all through the day while the women foraged for food or collected firewood? They sat at their pipes, joking and gambling and inevitably their words crossed Misko’s path, for he was the head man now and a leader always receives more scrutiny than others.
Behind his back, Nika dug at Misko as if with the eating stick used to dig the marrow from bones. “How can he be a leader without a son?” Nika said to all who would listen. “He must be weak in the knees if he cannot push into that woman.” This, even as he tortured himself with thoughts of their coupling.
Yet most felt that it was always the woman to blame for not bearing fruit.
Thus, grief was her recurring companion each month when her legs ran red as mulberries and she took to the women’s lodge of seclusion. The days of seclusion could be merry enough; freed of chores, Ashagi spent the time conversing with the younger women of the band. But they were long days and inevitably, the talk would drift to the longing for babies and freedom from the red moon. Although Ashagi had always had a proud heart, over time it was weighed down by sadness.
Sometimes at night when she lay on her bed of deer hides, she thought of the babe she had brought forth from Kesamna’ista and how she had left it in the marsh when it was not yet human. She had barely glanced at its puckered face, but remembered its eyes had been closed except for the slightest glimmer, like the barest edge of a crescent moon. Yet now she saw the glimmer of those eyes in her mind’s eye and wondered if the babe’s manito had come back to punish her. Perhaps it stole Misko’s children from her womb in retribution for its abandonment. Perhaps somewhere Kesamna’ista’s babe was telling the spirits that Ashagi had her chance to be its omaamaayan, yet she had thrown it away.
In the spring of her seventh year with Misko, after loving the best they could in the scant privacy of their lodge over the winter without result
, Ashagi began seeking the aid of a medicine woman, mashkikikewkway.
The Old Man had given her a small bag filled with charms to wear around her neck, but these had proven worthless. He had also made a potion with the blood of a snake, also futile. Throwing up his hands, he had recommended a mashkikikewkway who lived east along the coast of the mainland who was renowned for her skill with herbs.
“Perhaps she can help you, but often this is a problem that only the passage of many moons can cure,” he said.
“Yes, but time is more of an enemy than a friend with each passing season,” Ashagi replied.
Misko had paddled her to the village of the healing woman before pushing on to hunt along the coast. Ashagi stepped from their canoe dressed in her finest outfit, a doeskin tunic that she had bleached white with a scouring of chalky clay.
“Welcome child, I am your grandmother now,” Mashkikikewkway said as the met on the beach. She lived in a tidy lodge at the base of the painted cliffs, attended by youths from a nearby village.
“I am your daughter now, Grandmother,” Ashagi said, repeating the words the Old Man had given her.
“Come, I have made you tea,” the old woman said, “and I have a gift for you.”
They sank into plush furs in Mashkikikewkway’s lodge, the walls of which were heavy with dreamcatchers, charms, weavings and the skulls of animals. When they had settled in, Mashkikikewkway gave Ashagi a long, searching look and then a smile. “I have your fate in my hand,” she said quietly, placing her left hand on Ashagi’s knee and opening the clenched fist of her right hand to her eyes.
Ashagi gazed back with the look of a wide-eyed doe as the old woman uncurled her palm to reveal a small white pebble gathered from the beach.
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