"Mike didn't want to arrest him," I said.
"Me, I am crazy. I thought everyone against him."
"You're crazy now to say such talk." And Sarah lifted her to her feet. "Mrs. Mike must rest."
But Oh-Be-Joyful still clung to my hand. "Oh, my sister," she said to me in Cree, "oh my more-than-sister, forgive me."
I smiled at her. She seemed very far away. The northern lights made a robe for her. A curtain of colors shone between us—shone between me and the world.
The bright pain, the dazzling, screaming pain of many colors entered me, was tearing me. A new life. I was exultant, I was despairing.
A wailing filled the air and a moaning. I heard Oh-Be-Joyful's voice from the other side of the door, angry, pleading. But the sounds of wild grief, of lamentation, continued.
Suddenly a woman flung herself on the bed beside me. Mike's hand slipped from mine. He's taken her out, I thought, and then I wondered who she was.
A mosquito whined in the air and kept settling on me. I turned and twisted and writhed. Mike came back and killed it. I wanted to ask him who the woman had been, but I began to breathe the pungent odor of the woods, and I heard my good witch say, "Make nice baby come fast."
It did. For the next time the sky-curtains closed over me, throbbing with gold and purple pain, with agonizing violet and red— the boy was born. I lay with my eyes closed and let Sarah's hands work over me. They kneaded me into shape, they soothed and cleansed.
When I opened my eyes next, my son lay in the shelter of my arm. Mike was standing over us. He put a big finger down to the tiny bundle, and the baby grabbed hold. With the movement he grabbed hold of my heart too.
Sarah smiled broadly. "The northern lights danced for him at his birth," she said.
Mike laughed. "It is a good sign. He'll wear a red coat too, this little one."
Suddenly there came a high, piteous wail, followed by the moaning I had heard before. I wasn't out of my mind now, surely I wasn't. I clutched Mike.
"No, Kathy," he said, "it is nothing. Poor Mrs. Marlin is out
there wanting to see your baby. We sent her away once, but she must have come back. Oh-Be-Joyful is stationed just outside the door. She won't let her in."
"Did she come in the room before? Did she lie down on my bed?"
"Yes," Mike said, "before anyone could stop her, but she didn't mean any harm. She just wanted to see the baby."
"She shall see him," I said. "Sarah, let her come in."
Sarah shook her head. "Too much excitement no good. You rest."
"Please, Sarah. I want to show him off."
Sarah grunted an Indian grunt of disapproval and opened the door. Mrs. Marlin stood on the threshold, her voice uplifted on a keening note, her body rocking in sorrow. The opening of the door confused her. She broke off her wailing and peered uncertainly at us.
"Mrs. Mike say you come see baby."
"Oh, can I see too?" Oh-Be-Joyful asked.
"No, too much."
I smiled at Sarah, who stood like a watchdog over me.
"Let her, Sarah."
At my word, Oh-Be-Joyful bounded into the room. She looked with wonder at the blanketful of baby tucked in my arms.
"Oh," she said. "The little brave, the little warrior."
"You can hold him," I said because I saw she did not dare to ask.
She darted a quick look at me to see if I meant it and then, with her breath held, lifted him.
I sighed a little. I felt sleepy and contented. I watched with half-closed eyes as Mrs. Marlin timidly approached Oh-Be-Joyful. Something about her caught my attention. She moved slowly as one in a trance. Only her eyes were awake and alive. They were bright and large and swollen from crying. But it was the look in them, the avid, hungry way they fastened on my baby, that frightened me. I tried to tell Mike, but I wasn't quick enough. The suddenness of the woman's movement paralyzed me. With a darting gesture of the hand she took the baby from Oh-Be-Joyful.
Mrs. Marlin backed toward the door, the baby in her arms. But Sarah reached it first and blocked it with her body. Mrs. Marlin edged to the far wall, keeping us all in front of her.
"What the hell!" Mike jumped up and strode toward the woman. In her fear she clutched the baby tighter. I half raised myself against the pillows. "Mike, don't!"
My words stopped him. "Yes," he said, "you're right."
Oh-Be-Joyful looked questioningly at me. I nodded to her, for I saw that Sarah could not leave the door and that the woman was afraid of Mike. I watched the girl approach. Mrs. Marlin watched her too. She crouched against the wall, ready to spring, to rush them all.
Oh-Be-Joyful stopped within five feet of her. She smiled and held out her arms. "Give me the baby."
Mrs. Marlin didn't answer.
O God, I thought. She doesn't even understand. Oh-Be-Joyful still smiled. "The baby is not yours," she said gently.
This seemed to rouse the woman. She strained the child to her.
"Mine," she said.
"No, the baby is not yours." Oh-Be-Joyful said it slowly and patiently as though she were teaching the words to her.
Mrs. Marlin began to cry and rock her body. "Mine," she moaned. "Mine."
But in another moment she was smiling and telling Oh-Be-Joyful that she was going to have a baby.
"In July," she said. "Isn't this July?"
No one answered her.
"Yes," she said slowly, "it is time." She turned dark eyes on Sarah. "Where is my baby?"
I remembered the black liquid she had carried away from Sarah's shed last January.
"Where is my baby?" She was no longer asking it. It was a song to her now.
She cradled my son close in her arms. She crooned to him. "My baby dead. You are my baby. My baby went out from me when black medicine went in. My baby's spirit go into you not yet born. You are my baby."
Mike edged a little closer to her. Oh-Be-Joyful held out her arms again. The woman laughed at them and jiggled the baby up and down. The movement slowed to a rocking motion, and she began to moan again. Her tears spilled onto the baby's white blanket. Her voice was a broken murmur.
"Dead, all dead, everything dead. Baby dead, father dead. Everything I touch dead. Dead, dead, dead." She sang it to the tune of an old French nursery rhyme.
"I'm not klooch," she said, turning on us, "not Indian. I got married in a church to American husband. American man. But he died of coughing sickness. Everyone die. I'm not klooch, not Indian for every dirty 'breed put hands on. I tell him go away, leave alone. I'm widow of American. But when him drunk, come roaring into my house, throw me on bed, sometime on floor. Then he don't come no more. Maybe go trap line. I got baby in me, his baby. I'm not klooch. What should I do? I go to Sarah, get black medicine for kill baby. But when I'm home I think little baby, pretty baby, want live. I think I want baby, soft little baby to hold. I put bottle away. I think, when he come back I tell him I no klooch, him marry me in church maybe. Then pretty soon he come back. Sergeant Mike bring him, put him in cage. I go see him. I say, 'I'm not klooch, not Indian.' I tell him how his baby make me big. He sit down close to bars, he say, 'You all right. Government she pay five bucks a year for kids born on reserve. You stick by me, I make you rich woman!' He throw back his head and laugh. Laugh at me, but I no klooch. My knife she lie in my belt. I take, I stick, like I stick my pig last summer in the throat. Red bubbles come out his mouth. The mouth she still laugh. I go home and drink black medicine. I get much sick. My little baby gets dead. Dead, dead, dead." She sang the words as a lullaby to my baby.
"Cardinal," Mike said.
"Cardinal," she repeated and spat.
Oh-Be-Joyful looked at Mike with shining eyes.
"Wait," he said. "She may have imagined it. Where did you get the knife?" he asked her.
"Knife?" She no longer remembered what she had told.
Mike said, "You're not a klooch. He laughed at you. You stabbed him wit
h the knife. Where did you get the knife? Think. Where did you get it?"
"My knife," she said, "mine."
"Jonathan Forquet stacked wood for you this winter."
"It's not his." She began to cry. "He gave it to me. He said I could have it."
"Yes," said Mike, "you can have it. If you give me the baby, you can have it."
"To keep?" she asked.
"To keep."
She handed him the baby.
Twenty-one
IT WAS the time of the first fruits of the corn. The Indians were preparing a great feast, and I had undertaken to be on the food committee. During the last week every Indian for three villages around had come to me and asked me to write down his name on the list. After his name would come the food that he pledged: half a deer, a whole deer, two beavers, or maybe seven rabbits. But, as all these animals had yet to be trapped and killed, it was really difficult to determine what our exact menu would be.
The children had been gathering firewood for days, and this was now neatly stacked under the great iron pots that hung from poles in the clearing.
The food began arriving. Black Feather was entered for one brown bear. He brought me two ducks and a string of fish. Strong Bow, who was down for half a moose, came in with a long story and a baby porcupine. But I didn't care as long as the food piled up. The women arrived before noon, and the carcasses were divided and apportioned among them for skinning.
That evening I laid out the lynx-paw robe lined with red velvet that Mike had given me when Ralph was born. I didn't have any relatives called Ralph, and neither did Mike. We just called him that because it was the prettiest name we could think of. I also got out the suit of white caracul Chief Mustagan had given me when we left Hudson's Hope, and called in Oh-Be-Joyful.
"Would you like to wear it tomorrow?"
She smiled and shook her head.
"But look," I said. "It will just fit you."
She ran a caressing finger over the white fur.
"Try it on," I suggested.
She shook her head. "I don't think I go."
"Of course you're going," I said. "Everyone is going."
"I thought I stay with the babies," she said.
"Well, you can't stay with them because they're going too. Besides, you don't want to miss the games and the feasting and the dances. It's going to be fun."
She didn't say anything. I pretended not to notice.
"Try it on," I urged again.
She did, listlessly and indifferently. But when she saw herself in the mirror my mother sent me, a little color came into her cheeks. She did look beautiful with the white fur framing her face and throat. With a sigh, Oh-Be-Joyful turned away from her reflection.
I wondered, as I'd wondered the month Jonathan had been out, what was wrong between them. When he had been in jail she had been with him every hour she could spare, but since he had been released, she had not seen him. Once he had come to the house, bringing a wild pheasant, and she had stayed in her room. Once he had stopped by and talked to me of a small herd of bison he had seen in the vicinity. He had spoken with his eyes on her door, but it had not opened.
Oh-Be-Joyful slipped out of the caracul suit and folded it carefully on the bed.
"Take it into your room," I said.
"Thank you," she said. "It is so pretty."
I turned back the bed and laid out Mike's slippers. "I suppose Jonathan is in the games," I said, fluffing up a pillow.
"I don't know," she said, and fluffed up the other one.
"What's happened?" I asked.
She sat wearily on the bed. "In summer the deer stand in river many hours. The bear roll in mud until it coat its body. Why?"
"Why?" I asked, a little impatient at this Indian indirectness.
"So deer fly, bull fly, and mosquito do not make them mad. Why then you think Jonathan sit in cage through the hot days, his body bitten, his feet taking two steps, then back, then two step? He whose feet go in all the paths of the forest?"
This was not a new question. I had asked it of myself many times.
"Well, it's hard to know Jonathan," I said. "Hard to understand his reasons. He lives by some inner law of his own. Of course he didn't tell Mike he had given Mrs. Marlin the knife because he didn't want her punished. He didn't understand that she wouldn't be killed or imprisoned. And you couldn't make him understand because he's never seen a hospital. He didn't know that she'd just be taken care of."
Oh-Be-Joyful shook her head impatiently. "Yes, about the knife. You understand about the knife. But Sergeant Mike he say to Jonathan, 'Tell me you do not do it, and you go free.' "
"He's stubborn, that's all. Mike wanted an accounting of his actions, and rather than give it to him, he went to jail. It doesn't sound reasonable," I admitted, "but it sounds like Jonathan."
Oh-Be-Joyful seemed to speak to herself: "I thought he kill Cardinal. Jonathan, he know what I think. And that is why he say nothing, why he went to sit in jail."
"I don't understand it yet."
"He would not say, 'I don't sneak up on man in cage, I don't bring him to the bars with my talk, I don't kill man with knife, who has no knife'—these things he would not say. He wanted that I should know him. But I did not know. I know only Cardinal is his enemy. I know the knife in Cardinal's throat is his, and most I know the never-forgotten anger in Jonathan."
I began to see into Jonathan's mind, to follow the circuitous courses of his thought. His conception of love seemed strange and mystic. He wanted his woman to understand him, not with her intellect, not with her emotions, but directly, soul to soul. The things he had done, the things he would do, she must know as well as she knew his face. She must know he would kill Cardinal, but not murder him. Jonathan would not help her to this knowledge. Instead he let Mike put him in the cage, where he sat, proud and haughty, under the stinging swarms of insects. He remained motionless for hours at a time, staring into the cool distant green of the forest, but when Oh-Be-Joyful came, bringing fruit and milk, he said nothing to her. He waited for the day when she could speak, when she would say to him of her own accord, "You did not kill Cardinal."
Much of this Oh-Be-Joyful understood now. And she was ashamed before this man of stern pride whom she loved. Indirectly his days of stubborn suffering had accomplished what she had desired: Oh-Be-Joyful "knew him," as she put it. But between them were still the days of torment and suspicion, and the insult of her long-unresolved hesitation.
I tried to comfort Oh-Be-Joyful. "He wanted you to know him all at once," I said. "But it takes years of living together to really know a person."
"If I loved him enough, I would have known then. How can I look at him? If he sees me, he must think of those weeks, and I must think too."
"You mean a great deal to him, Oh-Be-Joyful. It was for you he did it. It will be all right again."
She raised dark eyes to mine. "How can I know him when his spirit dance on the mountaintops?"
I laughed at her. "He's no spirit," I said. "He's a willful, stubborn boy who follows his own paths."
"But you like him?" Oh-Be-Joyful asked anxiously.
"Yes, I do."
She smiled and gathered up the white furs.
I WOKE IN the morning to the throbbing beats of a drum.
"Happy first fruits of the corn," I said and reached over to kiss Mike awake. But he answered me from across the room. I opened my eyes at that and saw that he was already half-shaved.
"How come?" I asked, sitting up and yawning.
"I've got to be on the spot when the Indians and the 'breeds start drifting in from the other territories."
"If I hurry like everything, won't you wait for me?"
He kissed me on the head.
"The games won't start till about nine-thirty. You could wait for me if you wanted to."
"Kitten," he said, "did you ever hear of the massacre of 1897? Well, it was the feast of the dog. A feast very simil
ar to the feast of the first fruits of the corn. Only instead of opening with foot races, it opened with the medicine man tearing a live dog to pieces. Then followed feasting and ceremonial dances. You see, it's much the same program laid out for today. Only there was liquor snuck in, and by evening there were sixty-eight scalps taken."
"I don't believe it," I said, "but I'm not the one to stand between a man and his work. You'd better get down there and keep an eye on things."
Oh-Be-Joyful and I hurried the children through breakfast, but even so the foot races had begun by the time we reached the village. There were a dozen young men competing. Oh-Be-Joyful looked quickly from one to the other, then her interest in the game was over.
But the excitement of the shouting crowd got intp me, and I found myself yelling, "Kenipe, Kenipe!" to a young man who didn't kenipe fast enough, and came in fourth.
After the races there was some shooting. It was done with rifles, the marksman shooting down a pine cone or breaking a stick tossed into the air. One boy missed repeatedly with his gun. Grabbing up his bow and arrow, he waited for another chip of wood to be thrown and pierced it before it reached the ground.
Somewhere a solemn chant started. It was taken up by the men, who formed themselves into a long line.
"What are they singing?" I asked Oh-Be-Joyful.
"It is the gambling song. They are going to play the wheel-and-arrow game."
The men began divesting themselves of bows, bracelets, headdresses, belts, and placing them in piles in front of them.
"They are betting those things."
I watched as a large wheel was rolled along the line of men who attempted to toss an arrow through a spoke as it passed them. If they failed, the little pile of trinkets at their feet was taken away. If they succeeded, they received fur for fur and bead for bead what they had bet.
A drum broke up the gambling and summoned the people to a gigantic lodge erected for the occasion. It had been built of willow boughs.
Mike was outside holding on to a bottle and arguing with Baldy Red. "Now, you know better than this, Baldy."
"Sergeant, you haven't a legal leg to stand on."
Mrs. Mike Page 24