Skin of the Wolf

by Sam Cabot

  “According to her mother, that’s where her interest in Native art started. And here’s the thing: two of the other exes are Indians, too. Enrolled tribal members. A third, he’s not enrolled, but I Facebooked him. He’s got long hair and that round face, like Nanook of the North.”

  “Hey!” Framingham complained. “How come he can say shit like that and you’re not breaking his balls?”

  “He’s Chinese,” Charlotte said. “Steve, you’re telling me she had powwow fever?”

  “That’s what you call it? With us we say she liked rice.”

  Charlotte swung her legs off her desk. “That’s what we call it. You know what it means?”

  “I do! I do!” Framingham raised his hand. “It means we get to take another run at one of the last people, who also happens to be an Indian, to see her alive. Michael Bonnard. I should ping again?”

  “You bet.”

  A few minutes and the rest of the coffee dregs later, Framingham looked up to announce, “We are pingless. His phone must be off.”

  “How about that? Who turns their phone off?”

  Ostrander and Sun said together, “Bad guys.”

  “Okay. Come on, Matt.”

  “Where?” To her glare Framingham said, “Though of course I’d follow you anywhere so I don’t need to know, do I, I’ll just trail along puppy-dog like and worship at your—”

  “Oh, shut the hell up. This is right up your upper-class Brit alley. We’re going to see his Brit pal, Spencer George.”

  50

  I was not expecting so many.”

  Livia, Spencer, and Thomas stood in Spencer’s parlor, facing the glowering man who’d stopped short in the arched entryway. Thomas found himself fighting not to flinch as the dark eyes swept over them.

  At Spencer’s suggestion it was Michael who’d gone to greet Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis at the door. “If the good father’s identities as priest and Noantri are secondary to his love for Michael’s people, it might put his mind at ease to be met by—listen to this, Michael, I’m learning to say it—an Indian.”

  Michael had smiled and they’d all settled in to wait.

  Thomas himself had a hard time staying still. The man on his way to them had passed through Thomas’s research on Kateri Tekakwitha, though like Père Ravenelle he was what Father Maxwell referred to as “far afield.” In the other direction, though. At the dawn of the sixteenth century Antonio de Carbonariis had been involved in the establishment of a Christian settlement in Newfoundland, the first in North America. After a few years the settlement had foundered and the monks, it was reported, had returned to Europe. Thomas had searched for more information but hit a puzzling wall: the Scottish scholar whose life’s work had been that expedition and Carbonariis had ordered all her research destroyed when she died. At the time he’d wondered why anyone would do that, spend a painstaking lifetime adding a piece to the puzzle that was human knowledge and then remove it and throw it away.

  If her research had led her to Carbonariis’s true nature, though, he understood.

  Even Livia and Spencer, it seemed to Thomas, engaged in an uncharacteristic level of banter and bustling: making coffee, straightening pillows. Only Michael didn’t speak, barely moved. He drank the coffee Spencer brought him, and after that leaned back in his chair. Thomas wondered if he’d fallen asleep; yet he sat up, alert, and stood to walk to the door a few seconds before the bell sounded. Spencer and Livia also lifted their heads; it was only Thomas who needed the doorbell to know their guest had arrived.

  Michael and Carbonariis had exchanged words at the door, words Thomas heard but couldn’t understand. A Native language, most likely. Now Carbonariis stood in the parlor entrance, a tall, thin figure in the loose black wool habit and shoulder cape of an Augustinian friar. His gray hair was cut in a tonsure, a style long abandoned among most orders—including, Thomas was sure, the Augustinians. Around his neck hung a silver crucifix and a small leather bag.

  Carbonariis spoke to Michael, again words Thomas didn’t understand. At Michael’s response Carbonariis snorted, said something more, and in waves of cloth strode into the room. The upholstered furniture earned a scowl of disdain; he chose a wooden side chair. He turned to Livia and said, “You are Professor Pietro?” His English carried a slight accent, an odd guttural roll. Not of the native Italian speaker, for of course Carbonariis wasn’t that. The tongue of his youth, Thomas realized, would have been Aramaic.

  “Yes, I’m Livia Pietro.”

  “I’ve been ordered to speak with you. Who are they?”

  “Dr. Michael Bonnard—” Livia began.

  “Gata. We have just met. These two.”

  “I am Spencer George. This is my home. I—”

  “Your home is grand. I wish you great joy of it. And you, Jesuit?”

  Taken aback, Thomas answered, “Thomas Kelly,” in a voice less forceful than he might have liked. “I’m very glad to meet you, Father.”

  The Augustinian’s response was a sardonic gaze. “Gata tells me you are all to be trusted. Fine. Let us proceed. Why have I been called?”

  “Will you have coffee?” Spencer asked. “Or a brandy, perhaps?”

  “I prefer to keep this encounter as brief as possible.” Carbonariis had not taken his gaze from Thomas, who was doing his best to meet the glinting eyes.

  “As you wish,” said Spencer. He looked from one priest to the other. “Father Kelly is a friend,” he said, and added, “of the Noantri.”

  Now Carbonariis glanced at Spencer. “Is he? This is new. And disquieting. We are Unveiling to priests, now? And,” he added, looking at Michael, “to the Haudenosaunee?”

  “No. Father Kelly’s position is unique. As is Michael’s. As is yours, Father Carbonariis.”

  “Unique, because I am both priest and Noantri? You delude yourself. There are many.”

  “No, Blackrobe,” said Michael. “Because of your memory of my people. And though my language is Mohawk and my home is at Akwesasne, the Haudenosaunee are my father’s people. I’m Abenaki. Wolf Clan.”

  Carbonariis nodded to acknowledge the correction. In the silence that followed, Thomas realized he alone was still standing. He took to the armchair again, but perched on the edge, eyes on Carbonariis. There are many.

  The friar turned to Livia. “All these men have spoken, yet you are the one to whom I was sent. Why?”

  “Why have they spoken?” Livia smiled. “It’s their nature. Why are you here? About the mask.”

  “The Ohtahyohnee.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Little surprises me.”

  “But some things impress you. You traveled a long way to see the mask.”

  Carbonariis made no answer.

  “And have you, Father? Have you seen it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because it’s a fake.”

  A pause. “You’ve brought me here to tell me that? Nothing like this Ohtahyohnee has been seen for centuries. I’ll make my own judgment. I doubt you would know.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Michael said. “I know.”

  Carbonariis regarded Michael for a long, silent time. He said slowly, “You were able to tell?”

  “Unmistakably.” Michael switched to Mohawk. Thomas watched the exchange, saw the Augustinian’s eyes widen as Michael spoke. Carbonariis asked sharp questions. Michael responded calmly. Finally Carbonariis settled back and gave a cold smile.

  “New, indeed,” he said. “The Noantri Unveil to a Jesuit, and a Shifter reveals his identity—and to white people. The world is changing.”

  Thomas saw Livia and Spencer glance at one another. “You know?” Livia asked. “About the Shifters?”

  Carbonariis didn’t answer.

  �
�You know?” she repeated. “You knew the Noantri weren’t alone?”

  “You pronounce that as an accusation.”

  “No, no. Just—that knowledge, it means so much. If we’d known . . . The Noantri—”

  “Are Europeans!” Thomas recoiled as Carbonariis’s roar struck the room with physical force. Lowering his tone, the friar went on, “Not all, of course. Even when I came to this land there must have been Noantri in Asia and in Africa. But the Concordat was signed by Europeans. The Noantri are governed”—he smiled thinly—“like the Holy Mother Church, from Rome. But there were no Noantri here. None that I met. None that were rumored. None, among the native people.”

  “I told you that,” Michael said to the others, his eyes still on Carbonariis. “There are no blood-drinkers in our stories.”

  “Each of us,” Carbonariis said, “when he becomes Noantri, remains the man he was. What reason did I have to expect that my eternal brethren would love the people of this land any more than my mortal brothers did? As for the Church, her love for the native peoples was such that she held learned debates to determine whether they even had souls. I had been here forty years before Sublimus Dei, and I saw that papal bull and its radical idea that the natives were human given lip service and immediately ignored. For centuries I watched priests and Noantri land on these shores and, side by side with the unchurched and the Unchanged, wantonly destroy all that was beautiful and sacred. In the hands of such people, knowledge is a weapon. Why would I give them such a powerful one?”

  “A weapon,” Livia said, “but also a tool. Knowing this could have changed our people.”

  “Our people? The twin hierarchies in Rome, you mean? No. Those who welcomed me half a millennium ago to lands they inhabit but do not conquer, forests they use but do not destroy, seas they fish but do not poison—they are my people.” He stood. “If I’ve been sent here by the Conclave to be berated—”

  “No,” said Michael, standing also. “You’ve been sent to help your people. Please, Blackrobe. Sit with us.”

  The air sparked with tension. Thomas searched for pacifying words. Before he could find them, Livia said, “I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “No. You meant to criticize and expected me not to be offended.” Abruptly, Carbonariis sat again. “Shifter,” he said to Michael, “why are you here?”

  “To help my people.”

  “By living in the white world? Your Power was given to you for a purpose.”

  “Everything I am, and have, was given to me for that same purpose,” Michael said. “I’m a scientist. I study the Power.”

  “Study?” Carbonariis’s words dripped with acid. “White science teaches nothing but how to destroy.”

  “Science teaches nothing at all. As Livia said, knowledge is a tool. Its use is what you make of it.”

  “And what use do you, Shifter, make of your studies?”

  “The Power is genetic,” Michael said evenly. “If I can trace the gene I might be able to identify the Shifters.”

  “That’s not for a Shifter to do. It’s the work of a medicine man.”

  “It’s not being done.”

  “Perhaps there are reasons.” Carbonariis narrowed his eyes. “How will you do it?”

  “I study smallpox. The virus killed Shifters out of proportion to their numbers among the people. If I can find—” He stopped; Carbonariis was shaking his head.

  “Smallpox did not kill Shifters.”

  “The Shifters fade from the stories in the same pattern as the disease swept through the nations. My work—”

  “Is white man’s work!” The friar gave a sneer of triumph. “Smallpox was a potent weapon. It helped destroy the nations. But not Shifters. Not the way you think. Shifters survived the disease. Almost always. But the Power was gone.”

  “I . . .” Michael trailed off. He began again, “The historical record . . . I can see the virus—”

  “You look through white eyes! You can see the virus? Can you see the people dying, warriors, women, children? Can you see the helpless medicine men as they weep? Can you see Shifters, desperate to summon the Power—as though the Power would turn the battle against white man’s filth!—but trying because their oaths demanded it, and achieving nothing more than a pitiful, partial Shift, an interrupted Shift they could not reverse? You say you can see Shifters vanishing as smallpox spread. Yes, they vanished. The medicine elders stopped performing the Ceremony! It was too dangerous. Infected children could not complete their Shifts and the elders had no way of telling whose blood was poisoned. And Shifters also vanished because many walked into the forests and killed themselves, rather than let their identities be revealed by their failures to return to man-self or woman-self. In that last act they honored their oaths, as they could not in any other way. As you, Gata, do not.” He glared around the room. “If I have knowledge that will be of use to what is left of the people I love, let me employ it. If not, I will be grateful to be gone.”

  51

  Livia waited for Michael. These were his people, his brother, his story to tell. His face remained stone, but when he finally found words, his voice was bleak. “My work,” he said. “My people.”

  “Your work will not help your people.”

  In silence, Michael’s gaze met the friar’s. Livia saw desolation in one, bitter triumph in the other. Spencer leaned over and pressed Michael’s hand.

  Carbonariis gathered his habit around him, stood, and strode to the door.

  “Father,” Livia called out.

  The Augustinian spun to glare at her.

  “The partial Shift. The destruction of the nations. These are the things we’ve asked you here to prevent.”

  “The nations are already destroyed.”

  Slowly, Michael turned to face him. “The people still live.”

  Carbonariis pursed his lips and nodded. “For which I say a grateful prayer every day.”

  Livia heard more acid than gratitude in that, but said nothing.

  Michael answered, “I do, also.”

  Carbonariis took another step toward the door. He stopped; with a hissed breath he turned. He looked angrily to Livia. “Speak.”

  “The mask,” she said. “The Ohtahyohnee. It’s a forgery. We think, though, that the real Ohtahyohnee still exists. Someone had this one made to replace it.”

  “It was not I.”

  “Of course not. But the real one—others are searching for it.”

  “For reasons of white man’s greed?”

  Before Livia could answer, Michael spoke. “No. To use in the Awakening Ceremony. To Awaken not children, but adults.”

  Carbonariis stared, then shook his head. “No medicine man would do that.”

  “This is a white man. With him, a Shifter. My brother.”

  Michael’s voice gained strength as he told the story: Edward (“Tahkwehso,” Michael said), van Vliet (whose Abenaki name Michael didn’t use), the gathering at Eervollehuis. The Ceremony being performed over and over for people unprepared for the Power and unable to control it. Livia watched color drain from Carbonariis’s face as the enormity of the peril dawned.

  “The Shifters who Awaken—most will die or go mad,” Michael said. “All of my people—your people—will be in danger. Even those without the Power, even those who don’t believe it exists—”

  “No.” Carbonariis held up a hand. “Don’t speak it. I saw it once. I don’t doubt it will happen again.” He crossed himself and walked to the window, where he stood, silent, for a long time. No one moved. The very air in the room was still, waiting for the friar.

  Finally, he turned back to them. A slow, mordant smile stretched his thin lips. “They will all die. Death is the fate of all things living. The people will vanish as the nations have. You, and you”—nodding at Michael, at Thomas—“will be gone in the blink o
f an eye. We three will be here when the civilizations that destroyed the nations dissolve into dust, we will live for aeons under the wheeling stars, but the end of days relentlessly approaches, and when it comes it will be our time, also. Our Savior will greet us—the nations, the people, even we—in the afterlife.

  “Only a fool, then, would allow his heart to ache at the story you tell, Shifter. Only a fool would try to prevent what you say is coming.” He strode back through the room to the wooden chair and sat. “And so, I am a fool. Tell me: How can these men be stopped?”

  Michael stared; then, as he had earlier, he surprised Livia by laughing. Spencer smiled with him. Thomas looked confused. Michael’s face grew serious again as he said, “We can stop them if we find them.”

  “And a hermit monk from the forests of Newfoundland can help you to do that?”

  “They’re searching for the Ohtahyohnee. If we find it we may find them. The trail of the mask leads back to the middle of the eighteenth century, to a French Jesuit named Etienne Ravenelle. Ravenelle left papers but they’re locked up at Il Gesù in Rome, and even Father Kelly can’t get at them.”

  The friar threw a scornful glance at Thomas. “The Jesuits protect their precious knowledge. So this is why the Conclave sent me to you—on Ravenelle’s account. I remember him. What of him?”

  “Did you—did you really know him? I’m sorry, Blackrobe. I don’t doubt what you say. It’s just, it’s not twenty-four hours since I learned such a thing was possible.”

  Carbonariis gave the thin smile again. “And hundreds of years since I was called by that name. Ravenelle was a missionary to the Iroquois. Not a fool. A man with more questions than answers. Unusual among Jesuits. But if Ravenelle possessed one of the twelve masks, I never knew it. If that was what you were hoping for from me, I can’t help you.”

  In the silence that followed, Livia heard children laugh on the street outside. Their joy only underscored the despair around her.

  “Father,” Thomas spoke suddenly, “maybe you can.” All eyes turned to him but he kept his on Carbonariis. “Forgive me. I’m thinking aloud.”