Warbird
Page 4
The man’s nut-brown eyes glittered in his hardened face as he turned their way. His flat nose seemed to reach right to his lower lip. Etienne knew it was a face he would never forget.
Tsiko ran to the warrior and chattered in his own language. The warrior stood with his arms crossed, gazing straight ahead.
Etienne remembered the doctor’s advice about the basket. “Can you take me to meet your grandmother?” he asked when Tsiko returned.
“You want to go now?” Tsiko asked in surprise.
“Why not?” asked Etienne. He would be able to retrieve the small silver embossed tin on the way.
“Grandmother’s not in yannonchia,” Tsiko told him with a quick short smile. “She lives in Teanaustaye, the village where Satouta lives. But it’s far from here.”
“Oh,” Etienne said. “Why does she live there?”
“She’ll never give up her heathen ways,” Tsiko said. “The mission longhouse is only for Christian Hurons.”
That night under the smoky rafters, the Council of Black Robes took place. Twelve Jesuits sat round the long rough wooden table as Etienne and Nicholas served bowls of stew.
Before eating, Father Rageuneau, who held the place of honour, stood up. “We will begin with prayer for the soul of Father Isaac Jogues,” he said bowing his head.
“Who was Father Jogues?” Etienne asked when the boys went back to the kitchen.
“A priest that was put to death by the Iroquois,” Nicholas replied in a hushed voice. “They said his prayers ruined their crops.”
At the end of the prayer, Father Rageuneau spoke again. “We thank God everyone arrived without mishap: no one fell into a stream or river.”
There was quiet laughter.
“Father Daniel often falls out of his canoe,” Nicholas explained to Etienne as they watched and listened through the crack in the door.
Each mission gave a report. Father Rageuneau recorded everything with his quill pen.
“These hordes are never long at rest,” one of the Jesuits complained. “We must follow them by lake, forest and stream. At night, my bed is the rugged earth or a bare rock.”
Father Rageuneau nodded sympathetically.
“We have no means of controlling our converts,” another said. “They backslide into their heathen ways.”
“They should get twenty-five blows for each lapse,” Father Mesquin said in a loud voice.
Etienne and Nicholas exchanged looks as the council dissolved into discussion.
“I have visited over twenty villages,” Father Brébeuf began quietly.
But Father Mesquin would not let him continue. “They need to be beaten.” He looked around at them all and said, “The way they beat their drums when calling up the devil is sinful.”
Father Rageuneau looked up in surprise. “I believe you are being too severe.” He put down his pen. “One must be careful, condemning the Huron customs.”
“There has been an edict from Rome,” Mesquin said. “Are we to ignore it?”
Father Rageuneau drew his hand down his beard. “We should not forbid things that are done in innocence,” he said. He looked at his Jesuit brothers with troubled eyes.
“Their drums are tools of the devil,” Mesquin said, rising from his seat.
“The drums should be forbidden,” another Jesuit murmured in agreement.
Others nodded.
“The drums should meet the very fires of hell that they call upon,” Father Mesquin thundered as he pounded the table with his fist.
“Just wait until the Huron hear about this,” Nicholas said as he latched the door. Then he stopped and scratched his curly head. “How are they going to dance without their drums?”
EIGHT
Teanaustaye
Like the Jesuits, Etienne rose before sunrise and dressed in the dark. After mass, he went about his duties. The days at the mission soon became like those on the farm. He hauled water to the troughs for the pigs and ragged goat that grazed behind the stable. He fed the chickens, watered the gardens and ran errands for the fathers.
Tsiko watched Etienne work, never offering to help. “Hunting and fishing is men’s work,” Tsiko told him firmly. “Carrying water and gardening is work for women.” He also told Etienne his chickens were not real birds because they had nothing to say. When Tsiko listened to the birds of the forest, he understood what they said.
When Etienne entered the apothecary, Master Gendron held up a hairy, yellowish root. “This,” he said to Etienne, “lurks somewhere in the cool earth of the forest floor.”
“What is it?” Etienne asked.
“Golden root,” he said. “You make tea with this root, a cure for many ailments.” He rattled what remained of his supply in the basket. “I need to visit the Huron village, Teanaustaye, for some more,” he announced.
Etienne grinned. “May I come along?”
“It will be a good long journey,” the doctor said. “Teanaustaye is at least five leagues away.”
To the tin of horn buttons, Etienne added an iron needle, the two metal pins and the thimble. He hoped it would be enough for a trade.
Tsiko, Etienne and the doctor left their canoe on the grassy river bank beside the drying fish nets. They followed a narrow path along a small stream. The trail led them through a thicket of pine and sumac. The sun filtered through the branches, making the light dance in front of them. The squirrels chattered and scolded as they passed.
Soon the trees closed in, cutting off the sky. Hearing the sound of a breaking branch, Etienne looked up. Within this cool green tunnel, a squirrel leaped from tree to tree.
Tsiko removed an arrow from his quiver. Following the animal with his bow, he waited for its next leap. With one shot he brought it down.
“Good for cloak,” he said, picking it up by its tail and tying it to his waist.
The three climbed upward across lichen-encrusted granite. Small trees and tufts of grass sprang from rocky pockets. Etienne paused at the edge of a mossy outcrop surrounded by leagues of wilderness. Beyond ancient pines that stood like feathers, a small lake sparkled in the sunlight. Other than the scream of a jay, silence surrounded them. It was a peaceful silence, not the disapproving, unhappy silence of his father.
The clean, green smell filled Etienne’s nostrils and the sight filled his heart with pleasure. This must be how Champlain felt when he saw it for the first time. If only he could share it with his mother.
They walked on to the village that sat above a fork in the stream on the highest part of the ridge. Fields peppered with rocks and tree stumps surrounded it. Several women hoed around tasselled stocks of corn, entwined with vines. Green-turning-to-gold pumpkins grew at their base.
As they drew closer, shouts of children and the yelping of dogs filled their ears. Etienne recognized the dull, thumping beat of women pounding their corn.
He was surprised to find there was no main entrance, as at the mission. The walls of this palisade folded over each other, creating a long passageway. Etienne followed Tsiko and the doctor along it into the village.
A group of girls chatted as they wove baskets of reeds. Little brown faces peered from cradleboards propped up in the shade. Naked infants crawled in the dust nearby. One woman shaped balls of clay while another punched holes into them with her fist. A third scraped the inside with a wooden paddle. The doctor stopped beside a woman scratching out a design.
“Yanoo,” she said, holding it up for him to see.
He took it in his hand and examined it. “A fine pot,” he said and handed it back.
Etienne watched four young boys play “follow the leader” as they dipped and dove under the racks of drying fish. Their bare feet pattered towards the new group then stopped. All of them stared.
“They never see white boy before,” Tsiko explained, “only the priest and doctor.”
A man was molding a sheet of stitched birch bark over a shaping trough. Once again the doctor spoke their strange language. The man answered, and the
doctor laughed.
“The Iroquois don’t understand birch,” the doctor said. “He says they use elm for their canoes, which makes them heavy and slow.”
The man spoke to Tsiko, who lifted a torch from the fire close by as the man picked up a wooden bowl. Etienne watched the man pour the sticky substance from the bowl on to the bark and melt it with the torch. “You go,” Tsiko said with a wave. “I’ll stay to help.”
Etienne followed the doctor to the largest longhouse. Animal skins stretched across circular frames resting against its walls. Fish hung head down from poles in the shade of the building. The man who was working at digging out a log nearby didn’t seem to notice the powerful raw smell that made Etienne cover his nose.
From the shade, an elderly woman, her long single braid tinged with grey, watched them approach. She signalled the woman at her side to help her rise.
“This is Tsiko’s grandmother,” the doctor told Etienne. He gave her a small nod. “She is head of the Deer Clan.”
The old woman smelled like freshly cut grass. When she spoke, her voice murmured like a stream running across pebbles. Despite her frailty, Etienne sensed her importance.
“It was a good day to come,” the doctor translated as she spoke. “Today the villagers celebrate the first cobs of corn. We have been invited to attend the feast.”
The doctor spoke with the woman again then turned to Etienne. “I must deliver letters to Father Daniel before visiting the medicine man. Wait here.”
Etienne drew his tin from his pocket and held it flat on the palm of his hand towards her.
The woman took the tin into her gnarled fingers and pried it open. Her eyes sparkled with interest as she poked about its contents. She gestured for Etienne to enter her dwelling.
Furs, blankets and articles of clothing scattered the platforms that ran along the inside walls of the long house. There was an odd smell in the bark house, not unpleasant, but different. Soon Etienne’s nose deciphered the smells of grass, tobacco and dog.
Two children peered from one of the platforms above his head. They pointed and giggled.
Etienne looked up, smiled and waved. Weapons, clothing and skins dangled beneath the soot-coated ceiling. The vaulted roof reminded him of the chicken-roosts.
Tsiko’s grandmother beckoned Etienne to a spot below one of the sleeping platforms. She kneeled and swept aside feathers and bits of fur on the cool earth floor. Her fingers hooked around the corners of a large flat lid of what appeared to be a chest, sunk into the ground. From it she removed a flat buckskin parcel. She put it to one side then lowered the small tin into the chest and closed the lid. She picked up the object, unfolded the skin and held it out.
Etienne gasped. It was a small drum with a fur-tipped stick.
The woman gestured for him to take it.
Etienne took the stick. He tapped the tight skin surface, making a light sound.
Tsiko’s grandmother gestured again.
Etienne took the drum. It was as light as the bright yellow feathers hanging from it. He banged it. This time it made a deep, hollow sound.
The old woman smiled.
A young woman brushed past them and drew apart the smouldering logs of the fires down the middle of the lodge. She raked their ashes until they were smooth. Etienne’s eyes smarted from the smoke.
More women entered, carrying wood. They built a large fire in the centre of the lodge.
Etienne turned when an elderly man, his mouth framed in deep seams, shouted from the doorway. His words brought all sorts of people inside. Old men and women carrying babies thronged to the lower platforms. Tsiko joined those that climbed the scaffolding.
The doctor arrived in the doorway carrying a large leather sack. He waved Etienne over to a seat on a log. Etienne re-wrapped the drum. He gestured to a lidded basket on the floor. The woman nodded. He placed the drum inside and fastened the lid.
A woman offered Etienne and the doctor bits of smoked fish on a leaf. Other women moved about the lodge carrying strings of gourd cups and buckets. They ladled a dark-coloured drink into the cups and passed it about.
“What is it?” Etienne asked, watching the doctor drink it down.
“Every clan has its own recipe,” Master Gendron responded with a smile. “You must drink it,” he said, “or you will insult our hosts.”
Etienne gulped it down. Neither bitter nor sweet, this strange tea seemed to taste of flowers, sun and rain all at once.
The people in the lodge grunted when a man with flowing grey locks stepped in front of the fire. His nose was as sharp as the scythe Etienne’s father wielded in the meadow. The wrinkles on his face criss-crossed and jumped about his face as he spoke. His gestures seemed to be telling a story of planting.
Each time the man paused, the people grunted in approval. When his story ended, the man sat on the ground in front of the fire. He pulled a drum to his lap and beat it three times.
The men around him joined in, beating their drums and chanting. Two sang at the top of their voices, keeping time with tortoise-shell rattles. Some of the men shuffled into a line and began to move. In the glow of the fire, their faces looked blank, almost expressionless.
The pounding got louder, reverberating from the walls. The sound of the drums and the flicker of the firelight entranced Etienne.
His feet found the beat. He wanted to pound out the rhythm on his new drum along with the others. Etienne’s hand went to the handle of the basket. But remembering what he heard at the council from Father Mesquin, he withdrew it. No one from the mission could know his own basket held a forbidden drum. He closed his eyes as his heart surged like the mighty St. Lawrence.
NINE
The Dream
Etienne’s blue-eyed gaze travelled across the marsh. He rolled his breeches to his knees and stepped in. But as he made his way across the lake’s slimy bottom, he slipped. His long barbed spear splashed into the water. He retrieved it with one hand. With the other he scratched the back of his neck.
Tsiko stood less than a stone’s throw away. He stabbed a fish with one quick dart.
Etienne pushed his hair away from his face in exasperation. There were so many fish, he could almost walk on them. All he had to do was concentrate, but he couldn’t. His hand kept wandering to the back of his neck.
“You are not doing well today,” Tsiko said. “Atsihendo, the white fish, not even move. It is easy.”
“It’s not my fault,” Etienne complained. “You are too close to me.”
“A good hunter does not blame someone else for a missed shot,” Tsiko retorted.
Etienne didn’t reply. Where he scratched his arm, streaks of red appeared.
That night, before the others entered the loft, Etienne examined his body. The large patches of red were now tender to the touch. Small red dots appeared across his stomach. His lips felt puffy and his cheeks were burning. He hardly slept for the itching.
In the morning, he discovered blisters oozing yellow fluid on his forearms. While feeding the chickens, he had difficulty breathing. By the time the sun was up, the itching licked his body like flames of a fire. He staggered past the cookhouse, plunged into the canal and floated, grateful for the coolness.
Ambroise Broulet, the cook, pulled him out. Through puffy eyelids, Etienne lay on the grass watching the crowd gather.
He felt the doctor’s strong arms about him. He tried to move his swollen lips, but he couldn’t speak. Master Gendron laid him on one of the wooden hospital cots. When Etienne raised his hand to the itch, the doctor grabbed his wrist. “Scratching only makes it worse,” he said. As he removed Etienne’s wet clothes, Etienne raised his hand again to scratch. This time the doctor tied his wrists to the sides of the bed.
The doctor’s gentle hands washed him from head to toe with warm water. Etienne sighed at the slather of pungent paste over his body. Damp strips of cloth went over his blisters, soothing the tingle. When the salve touched his lips, Etienne finally felt relief and slept.
The Huron offered the Jesuit their beaded necklaces, belts, collars and bracelets. Mesquin shook his head and rang the bell again and again. Then he raised his arms toward heaven.
Several Hurons tossed their drums into the flames.
“Not the drums,” Etienne called out in his sleep, “not the drums.”
One of the drums rose from the fire. Suspended in mid-air, its drumsticks pounded the skin surface. The Huron people turned and fled. The drum burst into flames which consumed Sainte-Marie.
With a shout, Etienne woke up. His drum lay hidden in the sack beneath his bed. Father Mesquin must not find it. He flung his legs from one side of the cot to the other, making his head swim.
Tsiko appeared at his side, untied his wrists and pushed his chest down. “Stay,” he said. He lifted a wooden bowl from the side table and brought it to Etienne’s lips. Etienne sipped at the clear, greasy fish broth, his lips no longer swollen. Then he sank back onto the bed.
“Why did you yell ‘Not the drums’?” Tsiko asked.
Etienne wiped his hand across his sweaty brow. “I was dreaming,” he said.
Tsiko put the bowl back on the table. “What did you see?”
“There was a great fire,” Etienne said. “Sainte-Marie was on fire.”
But the effort of trying to get up had made him too tired to explain any further. He shut his eyes.
The next time he woke, the doctor was at his side. “Leaves of three,” he said, “leave them be.”
Etienne frowned, waiting for an explanation.
“You had the worst case of poison ivy I have seen in a long time,” Master Gendron said. “Why didn’t you show me this sooner?”
“Who poisoned me?” Etienne asked, his mouth gaping.
“Not who,” the doctor corrected him. “Somewhere you met up with a large patch of poisonous leaves.”