The Orenda Joseph Boyden

by Joseph Boyden

  “You come to us,” Bird says in his tongue, lifting his head high and speaking directly to Champlain. “You come to us and so we come to you. We come to you with gifts and we come to you with furs from our animals, and all of this is in our desire to become a great family with you.” He pauses for a moment and watches as Father Lalemant leans to Champlain and translates what the governor doesn’t fully understand. “I come to you,” Bird continues, opening his arms wide, “we come to you with a message from our elders. Our elders wish you to become family, to aid us in our troubles with the Haudenosaunee, to accept our furs in exchange for your weapons.” He pauses, looking at the men around him. “We want you to be our brothers, we want you to join us and become one great village with us, a village that is strong enough to sustain the coming attacks from our common enemy. This day, I beg of you to acknowledge, this day approaches faster than you might believe.”

  Again, Bird pauses, allowing Lalemant to translate his words for us. A good heat washes over me when I realize I understand even more than the crux.

  Now Champlain stands, adjusting his long fur robe, his forehead beaded with sweat. Bird sits to listen. “I hear you, my brother,” he says, lifting his arms to Bird and his party. “We are brothers, yes?” He waits for Lalemant to translate to the warriors. They agree with a loud “Ah-ho!”

  “We have friends in common,” Champlain continues, “and we have common troubles. The Dutch to the south care nothing for you, and the English would be happy to see you wiped from this world.” Champlain pauses for the translation. I listen carefully to Lalemant’s words and am impressed at how good he is. One day, I will be so sure of mouth, too. “But we French have proved ourselves strongest. The evidence is that we are still here, despite the British doing everything they could to dislodge us from this place and you people that we love.” Again he pauses so that the father may capture and translate all his words. He sits so that Bird may speak.

  “The English and the Dutch give our common enemy their weapons, and their weapons put a great fear into our bodies,” Bird says. “If our nation of the Wendat is one body, then the weapons the Haudenosaunee have been given by their friends from over the sea put fear into the centre of our great body, into our heart.” Bird pauses for what we all suddenly know comes next. “You are our brothers, and so we ask you to gift us those.” He points to a musket being held by a soldier behind Champlain. “The only way to battle our common enemy and win is to be allowed to fight that enemy on common ground.”

  Lalemant leans to Champlain to translate but Champlain brushes him away with his hand. It’s Champlain’s turn to stand, and as he does, he takes the musket from the soldier. The soldier looks shocked. Then, holding the gun in both hands, Champlain walks to Bird. “You are a great warrior,” he says, handing the musket over. “I can see that you have suffered in battle.” He points to Bird’s missing finger. “And great warriors need great weapons. So I give you this as a sign of my friendship and as your brother. Tomorrow I will have my greatest warrior show you how to use it.” Champlain returns to his chair and sits. Bird remains standing, the long gun in his hands. He stares down at it, then looks up, then down again. The other Huron whisper amongst themselves, and I overhear the one I’ve named David asking Fox when they’ll receive theirs as well.

  “Now let us eat!” Champlain announces, clapping his hands. Servants arrive carrying platters of lamb and beef and whole roasted chickens, goose and duck and a large kettle of fish stew. Steaming loaves of bread arrive, alongside heaps of fresh vegetables. Champlain has planned this well, and he spends greatly from his storehouse. He understands the importance of this alliance, the importance of reju-venating it with a feast, of sowing seeds that will certainly blossom, this food something the sauvages in their simplicity understand fully. The servants, I can see, are frightened to the point their hands shake as they dole out mounds of food to the hungry warriors.

  A younger Huron grabs a leg of duck and begins to eat it before he’s admonished by an older one beside him. The young one places the leg back on his plate, his mouth grease smeared so that he looks like a child caught doing wrong. All of the warriors’ eyes watch Champlain, waiting to see what he will do. He picks up his napkin and tucks it into his collar under his chin. The others try to mimic, some who wear their breastplates finding a purchase for the serviette. But most are shirtless and try to rest the white cloth across their chests, willing it to stay perched there. Champlain then picks up his fork with his left hand and his knife with his right. All the warriors do the same. Pinning a large piece of beef with the fork, Champlain daintily saws into the meat, cutting a small chunk. A clatter and scrape of forks and knives on porcelain ensues as the sauvages attempt the small feat. Champlain raises the chunk of meat on his fork to his mouth and chews slowly, the look on his face announcing how he relishes it. The others do the same, some struggling to keep the meat on their forks, others with so large a piece that they can’t fit it into their mouths.

  This mimicry goes on for minutes, the warriors struggling, dropping food and napkins, growing frustrated in their louder murmurings. But none of them dare eat in their normal fashion, quickly, and with their hands.

  After a time, Champlain looks up and smiles. “We are all brothers, yes?” he asks. “Well, then, let us eat properly like brothers!” He places his fork and knife down, takes a large goose leg in his hands, and bites into it with abandon. I can almost hear the warriors gasp with relief and the room erupts with the feed, men devouring flesh and waving for more, the servants sweating to keep up with the doling. I look about me, unable to feel anymore what it was like out there in the wilderness, so far away, and yet just feet away on the other side of the palisades. Will I be able to return there, Lord? I don’t think I can.

  I note that only Bird doesn’t feast. He sits, holding the gun’s barrel with the hand that now misses its little finger, the gun’s stock on the floor in front of him. He stares at it, mesmerized. Father Lalemant has noticed, too. He leans to Champlain. “With all due respect, I think you misunderstood what their chief was asking of you,” he says.

  Champlain waves to a servant and tells him to bring the wine. “You underestimate me, I think.” Champlain places his meat down and looks to Lalemant. “This one named Bird would certainly like more than one musket, I am sure.” The servant returns and fills Champlain’s goblet. The servant then fills Lalemant’s. He is about to fill mine but I place a hand over my glass. As the servant walks away, Champlain calls him back gruffly. “What of the rest of our guests?” he asks.

  Lalemant raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asks. “These sauvages, they respond poorly to the grape.”

  “No more poorly than the peasants who have built Habitation with their own callused hands,” Champlain says. He waves to the servant, who goes about filling the glasses of the warriors. “As for handing out weapons,” he continues, “I’ve handed out just one. Maybe one or two more next year. The British are fools for being so easy with their gifts of destruction. Mark my words. Their allies, the Iroquois, when they are in the position of power to do so, will turn against their friends.” He spits out this last word and looks at Lalemant. Then he looks at me, which catches me by surprise. I’ve felt invisible all night. The focus in Champlain’s eyes forces me to look to my hands on my lap. “For the French to crack this great continent and all of its wealth—and I include the wealth of souls, Fathers—we must crack the Huron Confederacy. They are the ones, clearly, who control the trade in this savage land. And so we must control them.” His eyes burn into me. “That’s where you come in, dear Fathers. It is your job to bring them to Christ. We will then leave it to Christ to bring them to us.” Champlain claps his hands and stands. “Listen carefully, Lalemant, and be prepared to translate it all.”

  Champlain lifts his crystal glass of wine and raises it in the air. “This drink,” he says, “is the colour of blood. It is the blood of our God. And these ones here,” he says, lifti
ng his glass to Father Lalemant and then to me, “are our Fathers. And they are the sons of our God. We love our Fathers more than our children or ourselves. Our Fathers are held in great esteem in France. It is neither hunger nor want that brings them to this country. They do not want your land or your furs. If you love the French people, as you say you do, then love these Fathers. Honour them, and they will teach you the way to Heaven.”

  Champlain then drinks deeply. I watch as the others follow suit, wincing at what must be a very bitter taste for them. Some keep gulping, until their glass is emptied. Father Lalemant carefully translates Champlain’s words. When he is finished, the sauvages, in one great voice, call out “Ah-ho! Ah-ho!” Champlain smiles.

  “Very soon, one of our great canoes will arrive,” Champlain says. “If you are willing to wait for it, you will find that when it arrives, it will be filled with gifts for you to take back home to your wives and your brothers and your uncles and aunts and children.” He pauses so that Lalemant can translate. The sauvages smile and nod. I can see that already the wine affects some of them.

  “But the greatest gift that our great canoe brings to you is more of our Fathers.” Again, Champlain pauses. “Our Fathers leave their loved ones and a good life back home to bring you important messages. And so I ask you to bring these fathers back with you so that they may teach you, and especially your children, a knowledge so great and so necessary.” Once Lalemant translates, the servant makes another round, filling glasses. I look around the room at these men who are becoming drunk for the first time. Some are glassy eyed, others talk excitedly amongst themselves, no longer caring about etiquette, and a few, including Bird, sit silently, a stony look on their faces, impossible to read.

  An hour later, I am ashamed and embarrassed for my sauvages, and more so for my countrymen, who have given them this poison. The Huron pass a long pipe around the table, smoking and making speeches, slurring their words as Bird watches with that same stony look on his face, his hand still on the barrel of the musket. The pipe comes to Champlain, and he puffs it contemplatively before passing it to the one beside him. Another sauvage stands and, waving his arms, speaks so unclearly I can’t understand much.

  An hour later Champlain slips away, no one but Bird seeming to notice. Outside, a large bonfire is set, and like moths, the sauvages are drawn to it, one by one, until the room is empty, the table and floor scattered with bones.

  I let the candles burn out as I stand at the window and stare down below me to them dancing and singing around the fire, most of them stumbling drunk, others passed out on the periphery. The singing and shouting and shrill cries of anguish, the souls below me cast in the bright light of the flame, their painted faces twisted and ghastly, remind me of something I have seen before, back home. A painting, maybe? A woodcut from my youth in Brittany?

  Behind me, the scrape of a chair. I turn and peer into the darkness. As my eyes adjust, I make out a form in the corner, shoulders rounded in a slump, the posture of an old man. His voice comes out of the darkness, just above the singing and screaming of those around the fire below.

  “The world tonight has changed,” he says. “The world tonight, it has changed forever.”

  I recognize his voice now. It is the voice of Bird.

  SHINING WOOD

  Bird no longer cares for me. I’m allowed to wander at will but my hand aches so miserably that I don’t go far from the camp and the river. I’ve taken to holding my fist in the cool water to help ease the pain a little. I crouch by it on a flat stone and when the fist unclenches, I wiggle my fingers below the clear surface. It sometimes looks like I still have five of them on that hand. The warriors tend to stay away from me. There’s talk that I’m a witch. Let them think what they want. I plan to be left here with these hairy men from another world and in this way I’ll find my way back to my family. Today, when I flex my hand, a ribbon of blood weaves up and reddens the water. It’s stubborn in healing.

  Since none of them will come near me, I dress my wound each day myself, finding moss to pack around the nub of finger that’s left and then wrapping it tight with a long thin strip of deer hide. The Crow often comes looking for me but I’m good at hiding from him. Today, though, the pain is great enough that I decide I’ll look for him and ask if he might be able to help. I noticed this morning when I cleaned it that it weeps yellow, and this makes me scared.

  Yesterday, I tried moaning out loud when I knew Bird was near, but something has come over him. He walks around with what one of the warriors calls the thunder stick, muttering to himself. He looks like he carries a great weight. I think he might be possessed by something, an oki we passed over canoeing the river, or maybe one from the forest.

  Walking the perimeter of this strange village, I look for an opening, a break in the palisades big enough to squeeze through. It’s well made, and their warriors walk along up top, their faces frightening beneath their shining headdresses. I have no other choice than to go to the main gate and see if they’ll let me in. A huge man with so much hair on his face that he looks like a bear stands there with a long spear in his hand. His eyes are bright in the blackness of his face and I don’t like the way he stares at me. His lips are pink beneath his beard. He won’t stop staring at me. I point inside and then cradle my wounded hand. I look up at him again. He licks his thick pink lips. He waves me in.

  I scurry past and walk along the fence. I’ll find the Crow this way, by staying in the shadows and watching. Fifty or a hundred steps from the gate and I come to some kind of structure made of wood that reminds me of a giant box trap for snaring lynx. With my ear pressed right up to it, I hear nothing. Peering inside, I see that it’s a dark room, a place maybe for the warriors on watch to rest out of the sun. As my eyes adjust, I see a table at the far end, what might be food on it. My stomach grumbles. I place a foot inside. Grasshoppers buzz close by. The whir echoes in my ears. I take another step. Slow. Another. I peer over my shoulder and the sun is bright enough to shut my eyes. Something scratches in the corner. I freeze, then look toward the sound. A mouse darts through the shadow. The round shapes of crabapples sit on the table. I picture myself picking one up and biting into it, the cold of its inside making me shiver. I’ll rush now and be gone with one or two of them and no one will know.

  I run to the table, take an apple in each hand. As I turn to run out, the light from the door darkens and I smell something sour. What stands in front of me, blocking my way out, is backlit by sun. I see the legs first, and then the thick body, and finally the hairy face of the bear man.

  I wonder if I can squeeze past him, maybe pretend to go to one side and jump to the other. He says something I don’t understand. I stare up at him. I’m frozen. He says it again, and this time waves his hand for me to come to him. I don’t know what else to do, and so I take steps forward and raise the apples in my hands to him. His head looks the size of a boulder. He stands with his legs apart. I can hear him lick his lips again. When I’m close I can see that he’ll hurt me. His eyes tell me all of this now that I’m close enough that his stink chokes me.

  “I am sorry for taking these,” I tell him, knowing he won’t understand my words. “It’s just that I’m hungry.” I lift one of the apples higher, the one in my good hand, and with all my might I throw it at him and jump forward to leap out. He growls and swings at the apple just as I dive onto my stomach and slip between his legs. Sun and dust burn my eyes as I stand and begin to run but I’m pulled back by the hair. He drags me into the darkness of the room and I begin to shout because I know that this will be the end of me. I scream and scream until his heavy hand slaps over my mouth.

  I taste blood and the huge man throws me on the table, his hand not leaving my mouth. The apples under me crush as they dig into my ribs and back. I want to breathe but the hand won’t let me. His other hand feels for my robe and begins to tug it off and he runs his hand up and down my chest, so rough that I think he tries to burn me with it. I reach out with my good hand and hit h
im hard across the ear but this only causes him to remove his hand from my mouth and slap me. He presses his face into mine just as I try to gasp for air but all I suck in is the stinking breath and spit of him and this makes me begin to cough. His hand now pulls at my legs and he puts his hand lower and tries to wiggle a finger into me, and as he does this he lifts his mouth from mine and moans and that’s when I scream again, so loud in this room that I think it will split the ceiling so the light can get in and free me.

  He stands and pulls down his leggings, then spits in his hand and reaches back to me and so I begin kicking at him, wiggling so that he can’t touch me there. I scream again but this time it goes the other way and makes me choke so that I begin to retch. He places his hand over my mouth and nose again and begins to push forward, the heat of him burning me between the legs. I can’t breathe. I want to breathe. I can’t. The little bit of light in the room fades before it explodes white, so bright that I must close my eyes, and just as I do I see he closes his eyes to the light, too, and suddenly looks frightened.

  When I can open my eyes again, the crushing weight of him is off me. I gulp air and try to sit up to run but I can’t. I crane my neck and see the door of this trap has been flung wide open and the Crow, tall and skinny and shaking, stands there. His mouth’s open. He’s shouting so hard that his whole body shakes but all I can hear is the ringing in my ears. The one who attacked me stands with his head down and his hands covering that part of him as the Crow approaches, swinging his hands in open slaps across the bear’s face. Each time the Crow screams at the bear, I swear I can see the Crow puff bigger. Then the bear falls to his knees and the Crow stands over him, his voice now beginning to sound in my ears, hollow at first, but louder and louder as he slaps at the bear’s head over and over and the bear cowers lower.