Norseman Chief (30 page)

Soon we would emerge, dry off, and apply ointment made from bear fat mixed with crushed herbs.  Other families used fish oil as a base for their balms because it was so readily available.  But I preferred the scent and the power that came from using the fat from bears.  My family would not rub themselves with the stinking grease from fish.  No, we were leaders and warriors!

Taregan, a young warrior of the people, himself son of Rowtag the Younger, bounded out of the thick brush then called to us, “Enkoodabooaoo!  I have been searching for you.”

“You’ve found me!”

“Yes.  The council would like to meet.  I have news from our recent war party against the Pohomoosh.”  Oh, the Pohomoosh bastards were again bringing me despair.

I looked to my wife, nodding.  “Tell the council they may arrive after the sun falls below the horizon.  We will talk then.”

“It will be as you say, Chief Enkoodabooaoo.”  The man’s gaze lingered on Alsoomse there in the river, but she replied with a confident, sturdy stare and so, visibly shaken by my daughter’s strength, Taregan returned the way he had come at a run.

And I left Alsoomse, gathered my wife’s small, solid hand in my own and took her back to my mamateek for her to release some of her anger with me.

. . .

The council meeting that followed my time with Hurit was meaningless.  As Solomon says in the book of the One God, it was as if we chased after the wind.  It was such nonsense that I will save most of my words for more important matters that occurred in the future.  Suffice it to say that we discussed the wickedness of the Pohomoosh in such repetitious circles that by the end I felt more like a buzzard gazing down at some long-dead carrion from its curling path on the wind than a jarl of a strong nation at war.

I have often had many questions in my life.  Each of them seems exceptionally well-thought-out, well-developed when they spring to my mind.  But even if they are deep in nature, they are a waste of time.  Anything, any question, that begins with the word “why” is such a bother, such a nuisance.  There is no “why.”  There is only “is.”  To speculate on these “why’s” is to act as if I can understand the will of Providence.  I cannot and so why should I do so?  Just one more “why” question.

So I stopped wondering why the chief god of my new people, Glooskap, has two messenger birds called the tale-bearers, and yet I as chief of the Algonkin or Beiuthook never receive any insight from those flying beasts or from Glooskap himself.  I have not seen any bark peeled away in the forest with a carving telling me what I must do.  I have heard no harkening.

I stopped wondering why Odin has two ravens called Hugin and Munin, which each day circle the earth to bring the news of events to that one-eyed god.  Why did he not share that news with a leader such as me?  How many times did I, in my youth, draw a bow and then before releasing the arrow toward my prey, pause for two full breaths to thank Odin or even Thor for their beneficence?  The answer is countless.  By the One God!  I needed to stop wondering such things.  I also stopped asking why these two old gods, separated by an ocean, each have two birds that carry to them the tales of the day.  Why such a coincidence?  Ah, rubbish – another “why!”

So even though I’d given up on “why” countless times, I sat there on the rock in the middle of a small creek that fed into the village river some days after the council meeting, asking, “Why?”  Why did the bastard Mi’kmaq have to keep acting like stubborn women?  They put their foot down, ready to defend a senseless position, even though such a defense brought more death.  I had killed what seemed like scores of the bastards and offered terms of truce – never peace, which was always and would forever be forbidden – countless times.  They would never relent.  My warriors killed and scalped.  We would never relent.  I admired the Mi’kmaq for such tenacity, but they were bastards and I had grown to hate them like my Algonkin brothers had generations ago.

It was also true that I sat there on that rock in a foul mood because I had gotten pine tar stuck in my beard two days earlier and had not had the opportunity to scrub it free since I travelled with our warriors.  The matted mess itched and caught every bit of debris within an arm’s reach of me so that I had small leaves and sticks crackling below my chin.  I choose to not tell the tale of the pine tar here as I am most embarrassed by it.  Just accept the fact that accidents happen to us as we age and we get clumsy like a small child or a man who has too much ale swirling in his belly.  They same will happen to you.

Father Torleik, as far as the two of us could reckon younger than I by just a few years – but God he looked old – rested his thin, frail bones on the bank.  There was no reason for him to come with us that day, but he said that if it was a time of war, then the men should go.  With complete sincerity he had said, “Halldorr, I know you to be a reader of the One God’s word.  Let us remember what befell King David and Bathsheba when the king stayed home when he should have gone to battle.”  Our new people were, of course, mystified by the comparison, but I laughed mightily.  To think that the old priest truly worried about being tempted by one of the young maidens in the village was not without precedence, given his actions since coming to the live among us; however to think that one of the lasses would accept an advance from the lanky, ancient priest filled me with great mirth.

He called from the bank then, “Have I ever told you that I performed the ceremony that saw Thorfinn and Gudrid married?”

He had, many times.  “I think so, priest.  Why don’t you tell me something else?”

“He’ll know,” he said, as he always said when asked a question of any type.  I suppose he was correct in that God would know all the answers to all the questions.  “When Erik came to me saying that he agreed to give his widowed daughter-in-law to Thorfinn as a bride, I was shocked.  Do you know why?”

I did, for he told me before.  “Is it because you long suspected that Gudrid pined for my return so that we could marry?”

“He’ll know, but not exactly.”  I rolled my eyes thinking that I was close enough to the answer he sought that we needn’t re-till the same ground again and again.  “Gudrid, my she is a fair one.  Gudrid actually came to me and said as much!  Can you believe the woman had the mind to do such a thing?  Of course, I had my suspicions in advance, but Gudrid, my, she is a fair one, Gudrid confirmed them.”

“So she did.”  Yes, I, too, had wanted to wed the woman.  But Providence brought me here and saw fit to give me a good woman.  Not as much flesh covered her hips as I had hoped, but Hurit, Nuttah, was a most excellent wife.  I did not want to hear anymore of his memories that just brought pain.  Typically, he would move on from Gudrid’s marriage to Erik’s death and then end with Leif’s passing.  “Father, would you go to the clearing we passed about fifty ells east and offer a silent prayer to the One God for our expedition?”

Torleik answered, “He’ll know!  That is a blessed idea.  Truly, the idea is God-inspired.  Did I ever tell you that Paul wrote a letter that says . . .”

But I cut his words off, “Go then, I must think on our plans.  I do not want your words to cloud my judgment and, therefore, get us all killed.”  The man, the last of my original countrymen yet living among the new people, nodded and after hiking up his robes, scampered back into the forest with surprising agility.

In truth, there was no reason for even me to be out in the forest with our war party.  A chief, a sachem, a jarl, or a king should have the sense to be away from the blood and action of battle so that he may more effectively lead the people.  I was far too old to be much good should a battle come to us or should we be successful in bringing battle to our enemies.  My peer with regard to age, Achak, had the sense to stay around the village, pretending to smoke his pipe while eyeing the women as they carried out the tasks of family life.

But I was still strong – for an old man – and carried both my saex and sword.  Some years earlier during the war with the Pohomoosh that followed the day I was named chief, my right shoulder had taken an arrow.  My battered mail slowed it, but the arrowhead buried itself to the depth of a finger, tearing away much of the muscle’s strength forever.  Since then the only cord I could draw was that of a child’s bow.  I hated this weakness to be known and so I gave up even carrying a bow.  Instead, I retrained the muscles of my left arm to carry the greatest burden should I need to fight with my sword.  I’ve never been able to become as proficient with my left, but here I sit in my decrepit years, and so I must have done well enough.

So I sat on the rock asking myself pointless questions while running a whetstone along the length of my blade.  Doing so created a racket in the forest, but I had set picquets in a wide perimeter so I knew that only the sharpest ears of the enemy would be able to hear me.

Since becoming chief fifteen years earlier, we had engaged in three distinct wars with the Mi’kmaq.  Each of the first two ended in a fragile truce where both sides again resumed our normal raiding and thievery.  The day I sat on the rock thinking bitter thoughts about our enemies and pine tar in my beard was in the midst of our third war.  It had commenced earlier that same year.  I had started it.

It was extraordinarily hot that summer.  Since the rains following the maple sap harvest gave way to unseasonably warm days until now, with winter approaching, we had received no rain.  When I sent out our warriors for the first raid deep into Pohomoosh lands, the sun had passed over head more than seventy times without a drop of water falling from the heavens.  At some point even the morning dew became non-existent, still not returning.  It was dry.

The wild thorns produced no berries that summer.  The ticks were the worst I have ever seen them.  Every mamateek in the village was infested with the fat black creatures so that even a nightly inspection would do little good, for by the time morning came they had climbed out of their dark hiding places during the night to gorge on us and our blood once again.  For the first time in many years I ordered that every person relocate to a new village.  We left the old mamateeks where they stood for the forest to reclaim and to hopefully starve the ticks in order to start fresh with new homes.  This gave us time to forget about our wont for rain and to set our minds to a new task.  The new location was in a deeper part of the forest and provided more shade than the last.  It would also give us fresh and closer sources of wood to burn in our cooking or heating fires.  The ticks were held at bay for a few more weeks, but within a short time they somehow found our new houses and once again fed on us.

Game of all sorts ran further and further inland to find food for themselves, eventually leaving my jarldom entirely.  I never thought I would utter the words, but in the midst of that drought, I told Hurit that I could not stand another day of the same shellfish without tasting fresh venison just to stem the monotony.

And so I was in that selfish mood when the proud young warrior, Taregan, who I thought would be a fine match for Alsoomse, walked up to me on the main village path.  He said, “Chief Enkoodabooaoo our woods are empty and I wish to strike deep into Mi’kmaq territory to claim our supply of meat and hides for the coming winter.  It will likely be harsh on our people and we cannot allow the weakest to starve.”

The young warrior’s father, Rowtag the Younger, had begun calling him Taregan because of his long, strong neck.  Now that name had stuck.  I do not recall the name given near his birth.  “Taregan,” I said without so much as consulting the council of elders, “assemble your party.  Take enough men to bring back provisions and to strike at the Mi’kmaq bastards if you find them.”  In hindsight I not only avoided the wisdom of the council that day, but I also completely ignored sound judgment from Solomon.  He says, “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.”  I have no logical defense for my actions.

“It will be as you say, Chief Enkoodabooaoo.”

That was weeks ago.  Taregan had been reasonably successful in bringing home food and hides.  Over just four days wandering the Pohomoosh territory they had killed three deer, a moose, and countless rabbits – all thin.  They had also killed three of our enemy’s hunters and taken two captives, bringing outright war.  One prisoner was a fine looking woman that Taregan took as a wife in place of Alsoomse.  The other captive was a child that we gave to a family who had lost a set of twins to a coughing sickness the previous winter.  The child was old enough to know his Mi’kmaq name, but his new family among our people called him Togquos.

I wanted to strike at the heart of the Pohomoosh and kill my old rival Luntook.  The nasty chief had proven to be resilient, living past his prime.  Huh!  He was like me in that regard.  I wanted the crafty man dead after failing so many times over the past fifteen years.  So I sat on that rock in the river, preparing to strike him and his wretched people.

Both Pajack and Rowtag the Younger had grown into proud warriors, leading the men of their families valiantly even though they rarely agreed with one another.  After a successful battle they would return bickering like two old nuns living in an isolated nunnery outside Dyflin with nothing else of more importance with which to concern themselves.  They sat at the river’s edge that day waiting for a batch of scouts to return to give them the enemy’s whereabouts.