by Rudy Wiebe
“One day, She Who Delights notices that the caribou are coming back from the north of their summer calving. These beautiful lice of the tundra flow south, the cows with their calves who have outrun the wolves and the yearlings and the growing males and the females about to be bred and the great bulls, travelling, travelling. And the great fur about their necks already hangs white as winter. It is then, when she looks across the lake where she has gone to fetch water, two enemy women always watchful beside her, that she will see some distant reeds shiver, there across the water, and know it is you. You and the friends you have found were always as certain to come for her as any stranger.
“Listen to me, all of you. Closely guarded as she is day and night, how will Blackfire take her back from White Horizon? Those enemies will hide her, or kill her if they must, the moment they know he’s there, and certainly kill him too if they possibly can, because they know they’ll never be free of revenge if either of them lives. How will it happen?
“Ah-h-h-h-h, beauty and wisdom are so desirable. But dangerous. She Who Delights has power, and is wise, and has decided to be beautiful. Every man knows that, knows that if he has her and lives right with her, he may become almost as powerful and wise as she — that is why she’ll be stolen for as long as she lives.
“Now, knowing what she’s seen across the lake, this is what She Who Delights will do: she’ll throw the water from her pail, as if cleaning it, in the direction where the shortest path for Blackfire leads along the shore; she’ll wear meat hidden under her clothes, to leave for him and his coming warriors when she goes to gather firewood; when they have crept close enough to watch from behind rocks on the hill above White Horizon’s camp, she’ll walk directly, again and again, in and out of the lodge where she lives between the two men.
“And she’ll know that, when the owl calls from the sunset behind the rocks, she must place a sharp flint between her legs and turn to one of those men — which one will she choose? how can hatred decide? — turn and pull that one on top of her and hold him tighter and tighter in her strong arms until past his beating body she sees Blackfire above her and then instantly half-roll aside as his club crashes down on the head of the one she hasn’t chosen but who lies waiting his turn to use her, roll aside holding the one she is bleeding with the flint she placed inside herself so powerfully that his eyes won’t open even at the sound of a skull smashed beside them, will still be locked tight in the hollow of her neck when Blackfire’s lance drives up into him with a scream and his body rips open to his last shriek beyond all agony or hearing.
“She will lie still, knowing that Blackfire’s club was unnecessary for the ravager she holds in her arms — while that club smashes down again and again so close beside her that she’s splattered, sprayed over with blood and bones. Motionless, naked, dressed and filled for once with male blood, not making a sound because there is so much screaming all around her as somewhere White Horizon dies too, and she screamed enough long ago. Motionless because she is trying to recognize this dark man working over her as the black-faced warrior and avenger and name he has suffered and lived to become, to see him exactly so that she will remember his huge, scarred, half-naked body massive in fury, his face contorted as if about to burst with hatred, lust, jealousy, desire for her.
“Lie motionless thinking: will he spear me too? Or love me? Or beat me to death?
“Knowing then she will be stolen again, and again; knowing she can never have a name other than that most dangerous one: She Who Delights.”
Greenstockings circles the coals of the fire together with a long willow. She searches, searches among them, but finds no trace of guidance, only glimmering redness and a brief glower of flame that dies as it awakens. Her father is no longer speaking; a silence of People breathing this endless story that is ready to begin again. She knows Keskarrah is contemplating her sadly through a quick flame, and she feels herself surrounded; hounded home into the certain knowledge that something is stalking her.
And she has a sudden apprehension of why — growing from the depths of her mother’s illness and dreaming and her own bottomless lake — why of the many stories he might have told them, this one has uttered itself just as light returns the dawn of morning. Winter living and quiet cannot hold; there are too many men here, too near Dogrib Rock, far too many strangers from far and farther away. And the caribou — they scattered, left, but then strangely returned and have been very numerous. If there were less to eat, the men would have no room in their heads for hunting women, and Keskarrah might have told the story of the Snow Man returning north to his place over the treeless tundra, trailing the ice behind him. But she knows: Hood has been changed by her mother’s dream, she has not been sleeping in Snow Man’s arms — where she has found delight.
Something else will now happen. And again before next winter — when the caribou return from the north of their calving and the long fur about their neck hangs white for the coming snow.
Her mother has retreated into her furs as if, despite People listening, she could still hide her dreams and ravaged face where no one knows of them. But the People in the crowded lodge have not helped her live through the darkness, beside the cracked mud and log burrows of These Whitemuds; they have lived away from here along the interlaced paths of the caribou worn down through snow onto Roundrock and Snare and Dissension and Hunter lakes. Some days ago one of them may have looked between green spruce becoming discernible in the rising brightness, and seen three columns of smoke stand up beyond the line of light upon the southern hills; strangely, a signal that no one anticipated, or dared to interpret.
Perhaps that is why so many have come to the esker within a few days; have appeared this evening without saying anything to Keskarrah other than what they blandly offer over black tea, to sit smoking, drinking, talking less and less until all are listening. Or perhaps someone heard a bird on a snow-sifted tree call in a voice not the oldest of them could remember, and that apprehensive message spoke itself from lodge to lodge and they came here, some from two days’ journey southwest on Snare Lake or three from Hunter, even those hunting east past the frozen falls and rapids beyond Lastfire Lake where the female caribou will soon pass in their immense gathering again, on their long travail north to their calving.
Greenstockings does not know, and the quiet faces around their fire remain closed. Even the women bend away from her, as if she, like her mother’s face, were already missing in darkness. Perhaps that is why Keskarrah told the story of She Who Delights, as if nothing existed besides revenge and suffering and needles and a woman’s snowshoe and lance shavings, without a single voice from beyond, or a dreaming.
But … where then is the delight? It must be there, even if hidden. Within bodies holding each other, in tenderness, in joy and ecstasy, forebearance, care, somewhere if she is truly that — because how can she delight if he does not delight her as well? Delight together. Told as Keskarrah told it, the story seems to say that all one needs to follow her is a trace of red on rock, a fingernail mark on a willow, and one or two brutal men will do whatever they want to do to one woman for ever.
Is that what she heard? Facts like accumulating snow, just falling, lying there until they are thick enough to walk upon. Is that all she will discover? The grotesque facts of desire and revenge that all of them, alive or dead, will have to hold in their empty hands? Woman … woman, will you be restolen that way?
Her name remains She Who Delights. There must be a spirit guiding, a world explicating itself out of its bits of knowledge and faith and consciousness. This story shaped to the sharp point of a lance — a story of guidance, under what loosened rock on this otherwise invisible trail has her father placed the telltale shavings, so that when she steps on it, bends and lifts it, she will find them and be truly guided? Which was the rock? Where is it? Her foot has already touched it, it is loose, it moves, but it seems she cannot lift it. Perhaps because she does not want to? But she does, yes she does, and if it is there she must do th
at; quickly out of this continuing darkness.
For she has determined this: her name is She Who Delights.
Her People rest about her in silence; even the small, unsleeping children do not move. Only the smallest look at her, lift their shining heads and great, round eyes. But she knows everyone is listening: for the approaching rush of snowshoes outside, the knife-points stabbed through the lodgeskins beside their heads, ripping down, their home bursting open, the scream of attack crushing them aside. Scream the warning! It is already too late, yes, but scream!
There are no screams. Greenstockings explodes out of depths into the darkness of air and her crushed agonizing mouth, knees like stone kneeling on her legs, of hoarse, heavy breathing above her, which she cannot see, though her eyes are staring open, it is the blackness itself that heaves her up out of her furs, away from Hood’s curl and hand, not Broadface returned nor Bigfoot daring at last to take her, it is an enemy of unbelievable force like a great rock falling, smash! and arms and legs from everywhere drag her up as if she were already wrapped in ropes in her thoughtless sleep and the story had exploded against this silent, panting violence — where are the shrieks she needs, where are the knives and muscles and clubs and bursting warrior rage?
For a second she gains her balance and instantly drives her knee into the brute’s crotch — enough arms do not exist to control all her limbs! — when the low shadow of the fire shifts aside from his bulk and she sees her father. Who until now has always protected her. He is not moving, not opening his mouth. Lying there, wide awake, watching.
She would shriek if she could — HELP ME! — but everything explodes at once: the brute’s stagger as she crushes his balls, his fist that hammers her so hard the darkness shatters in her head, the words Keskarrah has repeated over and over about Hood spraying like stars through her pain: “Why doesn’t he take you to his place, isn’t he a man, doesn’t he know what to do for a woman?”
Greywing screams, the sound slicing her head and body open as this enormous unrecognizable force with forty arms and fists and chests batters her and she tries to curl in tight, get inside tight against him and fumbling at him — his knife, his knife, isn’t he wearing a — and Hood jerks erect at her feet, pale as upthrust bone, and crashes over instantly, his head kicked away.…
Cold beyond cold awakens Greenstockings, with the driven intensity of needles. And a shoulder jolting her stomach, she knows she is hung bent double over it, is being run across snow, her head against a powerful rump, not covered with leather, cloth, towards the log houses of the Whitemuds, cold flaying her naked body, except her stockings, except where the heat of enormous hands is clawed into her like hooks, the bars of arms — not the officers’ house, not one of them — if he has no knife she can hold herself limp, as if unconscious when he rapes her, so she can rip his neck out with her teeth, or find a knife, she will find a knife, there are always knives, lurking in sheaths, on strings down leggings, copper and steel and broken stone — it is the Halfmud house, he is jerking the door open, the shoulder and hands are those of the black Mohawk from far away. Michel has stolen her.
Will the Halfmuds help him keep her when Broadface returns? Michel will certainly slit Hood’s throat before the sun rises. If she cannot kill him herself, she must accept whatever he does and wait for Broadface. Or whoever else dares confront him. Or Keskarrah’s knowledge — if it’s strong enough for someone from many rivers away — if he wants to use it. For the first time in her brief life she is uncertain of her father, always powerful enough for what he wants but — she is surrounded by the warm stench sleeping in the log house, snoring everywhere in the stinking Halfmud darkness of all of those enormous paddle-slaves asleep.
And her rage explodes her into a mistake. Michel heaves her off, down into an angle of logs, and she feels herself turning over, falling, thrown down like a pack at the end of a portage or folded slab of meat to be hacked at by whoever wants to chew bits of it, here, grab a handful and stuff your mouth, here, anybody! and she forgets the possible lethal trap of her teeth and screams at anyone alive in this house, breaks her voice, hammers it against the logs as she grabs for his leg, it is there, yes! and drives her fist up into his crotch again, screaming and screaming.
But in the darkness she does not hit him exactly where it hurts most, he grunts like some bull rutting and rams one arm between her naked thighs and still clutching her neck and hair smashes her body length against the wall, not letting go of her hair, and as her bare buttocks scrape down, hit the ground, he slams her head again and then again against the logs until her screams snap, seep out between the frozen cracks, as the crash of her head pounding bursts louder, louder … the frozen mud … dead trees … mud is not berries.…
Her father’s voice cradles her. Into ferocious pain, as if two rocks were grinding her head away between them, his steady smell and sound and arms hold her, she is rubbed over warm, not naked. She is being held tenderly, in agony and warmth. His querulous, mocking tone in which he conceals his deepest rage from those who do not know him:
“…I have lived long enough to know human beings.…” She feels his muscles clench hard, to control himself, her erupting head squeezed so good against his stomach seeping soft, smoky hide, sweat, days and nights of sleep around the centre fire and spruce breathing warmth, gentleness. “…My daughter has always cared for me, I do not need to act like a stupid young man.”
Twospeaker chirps English — she cannot open her eyes, something cold lies across them and in a wave her body vanishes, there are thick — a man’s — fingers, but gentle in her hair, then short spurts of fire, oh-h-h-h-h! Her father continues without waiting politely for anyone,
“Your young man comes with papers every day, and sometimes he finds a line on them and he keeps that, and he plays with my daughter and sleeps, and then goes away again. Do you think that because you cannot say a word, no one has eyes? When you take a woman, does no one know?
“If you want to know only what you already know, why do you come here?”
It is Richard Sun, his fingers along her broken head, the sharp touches of pain. He murmurs, almost singing under his breath as salve — cold, it smells different, how many salves does he keep in his yellow bag — touches her. Twospeaker speaks, but not enough to say everything her father has said.
“When you come to our land,” Keskarrah’s words refuse to stop, “you cannot continue to be what you’ve always been. We have lived here for a very long time, much too long for that.”
Greenstockings gets an eye open. Through red mist, past her father’s eagle nose, a circle of heads. Hood? Hood? … where is she? Thick English, his mouth moving, his lumpy moon face. Beside Hep Burn. And a shadow of — voyageurs? — shifting behind them. She cannot see.
Lieutenant Franklin gestures for St. Germain not to translate, then asks as if seeking only basic information, as if he knows nothing, “What is this about Hood?”
Hepburn responds, very quickly, “It’s our voyageur Michel, sir, the Mohawk stole the girl right from beside her pa, but I guess she wouldn’t come quiet, he smashed her one an’ I woke at her screaming, he brings her —”
“Hepburn,” Lieutenant Franklin has heard enough and breaks in with his steady commander voice, “I am not asking for native behaviour, either Yellowknife or Mohawk. Doctor Richardson, I ask you about Midshipman Hood.”
The doctor glances up; this is official, since servants are listening. His hand pauses over Greenstockings’ head, gestures in the small candlelight, salve and blood glistening on his fingers.
“Sir,” he says, as formally. “Midshipman Hood has given me assurances that he has every intention to marry this girl.”
“Marry!”
“Yes, sir.”
Greenstockings recognizes Thick English go suddenly silent; whatever it is that Richard Sun has said about her lies between them. It may be he has been told something he never wanted to know. There is a long pause before Thick English speaks again, and she closes
her eyes against pain.
“How does he consider he … might marry her?”
Richardson hesitates. “I believe he was … about to speak to you about that, sir.”
“In the meantime, he was living, as the traders say, ‘in the fashion of the country’.”
“To an extent … yes.”
“To the obvious ‘extent’. And you knew of it.”
“Sir, I thought you also knew —”
“You understand, Doctor Richardson, that the pleasure of female companionship has no necessary connection to marriage.”
“Sir … it continued … some time.…”
“Several weeks?”
“Yes.”
Lieutenant Franklin sighs briefly. “Thankfully, Mr. Back’s journey has spared us other complications here.”
Hepburn blurts out, “Sir, it wasn’t for want of trying, he —”
“Thank you, Hepburn, I’m sure Doctor Richardson has already told me all that’s necessary. If you know anything further, you may inform me later, and I will decide whether they are matters you need to report to me.”
“Sir, I thought —” Richardson begins, but stops at his commander’s frown.
“Doctor Richardson,” the Lieutenant says, still formally imperial, “I will expect your clarification in that regard as well, but later. You know as well as I no English midshipman ‘marries’, never while on duty; nor could I ever explain such an extraordinary … connection … in these northern wilds to the Reverend Doctor Hood, his father, regarding a young man whose national and moral duties I pledged to promote and guide as I would those of my own son.”
“That is understood, sir. Of course.”
“Good. At the moment, I am considering this,” the commander gestures at Greenstockings and Keskarrah — who wonders for whose benefit these two speak to each other in such wooden tones, for St. Germain who alone understands them? — “this ‘attempted theft’, as one might call it, of a person, a native woman by one of our hired voyageurs, and its very serious possible effect on our Expedition. You know the services of both the voyageurs as well as the natives are essential to our proper progress; both must be treated with firm kindness and controlled. They cannot be allowed to disrupt our intentions.”