Mask of Flies (12 page)

“And you want me to
visit before you go.”

“You are talented,”
Roger said. “I would like that very much, but I understand your
family obligation. I simply came today to say goodbye . . . fear not,
I will be taking a more active role inside the Lily Dale community in
the spring. Perhaps then will be a better time for you to visit?”

“What kind of role?”
I asked him.

“As a different kind
of teacher, different than the teaching I do at the University.”

I gave him a puzzled
look.

“To help talented
minds, like yours, reach their full potential—do you fully
understood your gift?” Roger simply knew. I never went into detail
about my ability, about the imagery, about the lens of nature.

I told him that I
didn’t understand it fully and how I once got stuck inside of the
stray dog. I asked if he knew why.

“Angeni, you are a
rare case, your mind is a great mystery that we could unravel
together.”

Dec 27, 1904

The cold was upon us
for a month now. And my swollen belly started to show—with child.
We had to tell our family. Aart hoped for a baby boy, but Father
thought it was a girl. Both the families were excited by the news,
but the space was cramped in the farmhouse. The burden of winter
compounded the discomfort.

I cannot begin to
imagine when the Seneca clamored into longhouses with five
generations under one roof, especially during the winter.

The pantry had been packed with the
preserves from the harvest. Father took our old shed and stacked
blocks of ice on the inside. This room was built to store slaughtered
livestock and venison procured from the forest. Father and Aart had
been competing against one and other to see who kill the largest
buck. And up until a week ago Father had been supremely outmatched,
but last Thursday Father surprised us with a 10 point buck that
produced over 200 pounds of meat. Through their combined effort they
brought back more venison than I can ever remember.

Aart took a job in
Buffalo. He came home earlier this month with the news. He burst in
the door with a broad smile, like a child at festival.

Father rose from
finishing his lunch. “That is good news. Tell us about the job.”

“I will be on a crew
constructing an electrically powered grain elevator. The build will
be over ten stories in height, and the contract will keep me working
for over a year and a half.

I kissed him on the
cheek and congratulated him. “The train fare must be expensive.
Does the company compensate you for that?”

He took a step back
from me and I saw that flash of anger in his eyes. “During the
week, I’ll stay in a bungalow provided by the company. They will
cover my commute back to the reservation on the weekends.”

“I see.” I didn’t like him
being without his family for the entire week. Opportunity for his
nascent darkness to propagate inside.

When he made it back
on the following weekend, I sat there waiting on the train, nervous
like a stupid little girl, dependant on his favor. He came off the
train drunk.

“Are you alright?”
I asked him. It was 7 pm, the station lit with electric light.

He staggered towards
me, his aura saturated in whiskey, with his sack of laundry. “I’m
fine . . . Don’t you worry about me. Jus’ go home. I can find my
way from here.”

So I left the station
by myself, went home and waited. Waited until 3 a.m. and then fell
asleep. In the morning, I found him asleep, snoring on the floor. I
went about my daily business: making breakfast and washing his soiled
laundry. He emerged from the bedroom in the late afternoon.

“A bit much to drink
last night?” I poured him a cup of black tea.

He deposited himself at
the kitchen table like a pile of lumber. The table wobbled, spilling
a portion of his tea. “You could say that.” His hand shook when
he picked up his cup. “I’m sorry about being rude last night.
Some of the men I work with took me out to a bar before I got on the
train. It’s a ritual to get the new workers drunk.”

I tried to let it go.
He hadn’t returned in such a state since, but I still feared he was
drinking the nights away. I tried to reach out to him when he was
gone, through the lens, but the distance was too far. My mind
restrained inside the reservation and the undisturbed land to the
south along the Allegheny River.

I only saw him when I
fell asleep, through a smoke screen, glimpses inside a crowded
saloon. He drank with his friends there. The past nights I had seen
him talking to a woman. I couldn’t make out there words; it was
muffled, like they’re underwater. The vision faded out and came
back into focus with Aart and the woman touching, kissing. They lay
in bed, and then I woke up.

These dreams are
unfounded. I have no way of discerning the truth from fantasy. And I
will not confront Aart with this, so I am left alone with this
lingering disgusted feeling. I want us to be together, I want this to
work.

Today I tested him, to
see where his heart stood. “When you’re away it’s difficult for
me. What’s the purpose of this job, the extra income, if it ruins
us?”

“Know I love you
Angeni. I need you to be strong for a while. This is only a
short-term solution for . . . it’s supposed to be a surprise.”

I already knew about
it, but I had to hear it from his mouth. “Well, you have to tell me
now.”

Aart paused. “I’m
using the extra income for building materials, for our house. Did you
know your family’s ancestral longhouse still stands?”

“Yes, but I haven’t
been out there since I was little.”

“It’s salvageable.
Your family still holds the deed to the land—I plan to build our
house next to it, was your father’s idea.”

I kissed him on the
lips. “I will stay strong for you love, if you stay strong for me.”

May 5, 1905

Last week, I gave
birth to our son, Joseph, and felt like the ground has been torn out
from underneath of me. Everyone was very excited from the arrival of
our baby boy, but I was crestfallen during what should’ve been the
happiest moment of my life. There was no explanation for this
feeling; it just pushed me further to the ground, like a boulder on
my chest, crushing and relentless. I tried to feign happiness as the
rest of the family celebrates, but my attempts were paper thin.

Aart leaned over to me
at dinner. “What’s the problem? You haven’t touched your
plate.”

Our families prepared a
large feast for the occasion. To make room for everyone, Father and
Aart moved most of the extraneous furniture into the shed and brought
in a long table in our sitting room. The aroma of sweet corn bread
and roasting wild turkey wafted through the interior of my family’s
home throughout the day. So much effort put in, but I could only
bring myself to move the food around on my plate. “I’m fine. My
stomach’s a little upset is all.”

“It isn’t a rare
thing my girl. But little Joseph needs nourishment from your milk, so
eat up.” Mother said from across the table. Next to her Grandmother
nodded in agreement, while her lips compressed in search for phantom
teeth.

“There will be plenty
of food left for tomorrow,” Wynona—Aart’s eldest sister—said.
She had done her part by taking the women out to the river to pick
cranberries and blueberries. They incorporated them into the
cornbread and mashed the leftovers into a sauce to compliment the
turkey.

I did nothing for the preparation;
all I could do was pick at the bounty of their combined efforts. I
felt their eyes from both sides, the perception of my ingratitude.
This only perpetuated my dark mood.

After diner, Aart
pulled to the front of the house in a two seated shay towed by a
squat black donkey. He patted the seat next to him. “Come, I want
you to see the house, see where I vanish each weekend.”

We arrived after a hard
hour. Aart tethered the donkey to a tree, and it began to nay and
stamp around nervously. “Must be something in the woods.” He lit
a small lantern. The cantering shadows created an atmosphere of
otherness.

The skeletal framework
stood in solitude amongst the darkness and barren trees. The
discarded longhouse stood behind the new construction. It signified a
time of hardship, of great change and death. I forced a smile for
Aart, knowing he brought me to lighten my spirits, but I found no joy
in the bleak land. There was something out on the charcoal horizon,
beyond the lamplight. It dwarfed everything else with enormity.

Aart caressed the
donkey’s mane. “It should be finished in about four months. What
is it out there? Do you see something?”

I pointed at miniature
prisms of light, on the northwest horizon. It could have been a
cluster of lanterns, a cloud of fire flies, but I didn’t think so.
“Ga’hai Hill.”

* * *

Ga’hai Hill
overlooks the northwestern bank of the Allegheny River and said to be
the site of a violent prehistoric battle between two warring tribes
for the territory. Thousands of warriors supposedly died on the
hillside. Some speculate that the concentrated amount of suffering
and death scarred this land, eroding the barrier between the physical
and spirit world.

On the carriage ride back to
Salamanca, I recalled a much darker detail of the Battle of Ga’hai
Hill. When I was a girl, I remember Wandering Star—a Seneca elder
who specialized folklore—gathered children around the fire pit
behind the Heritage House to tell us terrifying stories, the
foundation of many of my childhood nightmares. His eyes wandered off
to some unknown place to conjure up the imagery in his narrative.

The Battle of Ga’hai
Hill escalated from disputes over which tribe had rightful claim to
the fertile river lands. It began during the frozen depths of winter.
Both tribes endured many hardships from the cold alone. The East
River Tribe, the Seneca’s ancient ancestors, cut off the pathways
to their adversaries supply caches. Strategically outmatched, the
western tribe’s forces starved on a frozen hill. Until one night,
on a hunt, a western scout found a mud hut at the crest of this hill.
Inside he found a demented old woman, a shrunken head wrapped in
furs. She claimed to have the solution to the famine.

“Young warrior from
the west, of the Crow, step into the threshold. For I only wish to
aid your dwindling forces,” The ancient woman said to the scout.

The aroma of charred
meat from the hut made the scout’s mouth slaver. He looked down and
saw a large haunch of meat roasting on a makeshift spit. “Where did
you get this?” the scout asked.

“There is enough on this hill to
feed your army’s belly.” Her smile was splintered and brown.
“Bring your sachem to me here tomorrow, when the sun wanes.”

The western tribe’s
war sachem agreed to meet the woman. He traveled up the hill with ten
of his best men; they followed the elevating path towards the smoke
billowing from the hilltop. The party found the old woman sitting
outside, next to a bonfire. Haunches of meat roasted on poles angled
into the flame, fat sweated and sizzled down into the glowing embers.
The men took seats around the fire and saw that there were exactly 11
portions, one for each man.

The hag still looked
cold, even bedecked in furs. “You all must be suspicious as to how
an old decrepit woman gathers enough meat to feed you men, when you
fail to feed yourselves.” She saw one of the war sachem’s men go
pick up the skewer. “Hear me out before you eat, for I do not want
to mislead you . . . Correct me if I am wrong, but you have perhaps a
thousand men starving on the hill. How would they feel if they knew
you were up here feasting with me?”

“The men lose vigor
on a daily basis in this waste. Knowing that their leaders feast
while they starve would destroy morale.” An onyx choker rode the
sachem’s throat as he talked.

The large warrior who
picked up the meat stood, his face a smear of black war paint, with
eyes daubed crimson. “Black Night, this witch of the hill takes our
hunger in jest.”

“Sit Nyakwai’, we
hear her out. “The war sachem voice thundered, and Nyakwai’ sat.
“I do know that it must require a certain strength to survive in
these hills. My war-hardened men have hunted these hills to no
benefit—do tell us your secret.”

The woman showed her
broken smile and opened her fur cloak. Four human skulls lay at her
feet.

Nyakwai’ stood with
his axe in hand.

Black Night went to him
and forced back to sit. “What is the meaning of this woman?”

The old woman let out a
bitter snigger and threw a handful of turquoise objects out of her
cloak.

The scout picked one
off the trinkets off the ground. “It’s the sigil of the east
river tribes—our enemy.”

“There is plenty of
meat on this hill, but your eyes refuse to see it,” the old woman
said. “You burn dead enemies and allies to ash upon twilight, while
your men starve. The only choice is to dampen the funeral pyres into
cook fires and feed on the flesh of the fallen—”

“This is against the
will of the Great Spirit!” Nyakwai’ fought to his feet, but the
others subdued him.

“The Great Spirit
does not reside over this hill. It is the river that governs. It has
been revealed to me that once fed and rested, your army will smash
the enemy force below. There is great power in the flesh of man . . .
” The woman stood. “Great sachem, Black Night, let your men
decide now: Life or Death.”

The scout took the first bite of the
haunch, and the other warriors followed. Black Night took his after
Nyakwai’. The only sound around the fire was men chewing and
sucking the meat off hot bones.

By sundown, Black
Night gave the orders to clean and cook the dead. Most of the men
eagerly obliged in their starved state, and the few that were
initially against it changed their mind once they smelled the cook
fires.