River City (12 page)

“Domagaya, never ask this question.”

The Indian thought of the women who had recently departed his room, of the marble halls and the golden ceilings of Fontainebleau, of the gardens where the waters danced in peculiar ways and the plants grew in strange designs, and he thought of the animals who lived to die on the white man’s plate and others who lived to pull the white man’s possessions, including his children and his wife, and he considered the many wonders he had seen. “Domagaya make knife, great magic, to give his friend Jacques,” he said. “I will not talk of this.”

Cartier leaned in closer, to whisper. “I have enemies. They must not know that I hold a magic dagger. With this knife I will protect the Iroquois of your world in strong friendship with the Great White King. But I have enemies. Every man of daring does. So you must never speak of this, not even to the young women who share your pillow at night. I know you love your pillow.”

“Domagaya love a pillow.”

“We must remember to take it with you, to Stadacona. Imagine how the women there will want to sleep in the bed of a man with such a pillow.”

The two men smiled. Then a worry crept across Domagaya’s visage.

“What is it?”

“Why,” the Indian began, then paused a moment, “does my brother have wings? Is he to become a bird in the white man’s world?”

“Taignoagny has wings?”

“The man they call Italian man makes the soul of Taignoagny on wall. Soft wall. It moves when he carry it in his hands.”

“A painting. A canvas.”

“On this wall that moves, my brother has wings.”

Cartier smiled again. “You speak of Michelangelo. It is an honour to be drawn by the great artist. Don’t worry, Domagaya. Your brother has wings because Michelangelo can see with his great vision that Taignoagny is loved by God. Someday, when he dies, he will fly to the heaven of our God.”

“Domagaya like wings, too.”

Cartier understood. “I’ll see what I can do. But no word of our treaty. Do a good job on the knife and Michelangelo will draw wings on your back, too.”

A final chore. Now he’d have to haggle with a pesky artist.
C’est la vie.
At times, there seemed to be no end to his negotiations, and once again he looked forward to being at sea.

Jacques Cartier stood upon his aft deck to survey the final preparations. The provisioning had gone well, although delays were inevitable, and the cause of the latest fiasco had been exasperating. Monsieur Claude Gastineau, the king’s man, had insisted on toting along half his boudoir, as if he expected to be attending an autumnal ball among the Iroquois. He had cases and crates and boxes and attendants—who were not coming. Cartier had exercised his authority on them, much to the relief of the servants. The man was even transporting sheaves of paper and charcoal, for drawing, which could prove a useful contribution on such an enterprise, were it not that he freely admitted to being inept at the craft. Rather, he was bringing the materials to occupy his time. “What else will I do,” he inquired, “in a land that has nothing but trees and heathens?” A pair of the crates wedged into place belowdecks displaced two equivalent cases of raw vegetables, which Cartier had then seen lashed to
the deck. One good storm and they’d be gone, if not consumed first by the night watch.

He signalled Petit Gilles to his side. Not yet fourteen, the lad had already crossed the Atlantic. A gangly youth, on even the stormiest nights he was sure to take a turn in the rigging, an able-bodied seaman despite his sparse years.

“Yes, sir?”

“Gastineau is settled below?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has he spoken, as yet, of certain matters to you?”

“Spoken? He told me where to put his belongings, sir.”

“He will address other issues shortly.”

“Sir?”

Cartier brought the lad nearer to him and spoke into the breeze, that their voices might go unheard.

“You are close to me, Petit Gilles. For this reason, he will want you as his spy.”

“Sir! I would never do that, sir!”

“And betray your king? How could you not spy on me?”

“Sir!”

They were standing side by side, and Cartier pulled him nearer still. “Spy on me, Petit Gilles. I have nothing to hide. If I do, it will encourage his confidence should some indiscreet matter be conveyed to him. Do so with my blessing. The day may come, lad, when I shall involve you in a separate action.”

“An action, sir?”

“I know not what. When that day is upon us, I shall indicate to you that the king’s man does not merit your private counsel. This will afford you the opportunity, Petit Gilles, to demonstrate your loyalty to your captain. In all other matters, trust in yourself, be loyal to your king and forthcoming with his emissary. Do you understand me, good lad?”

“Yes, sir.” He was perplexed as well.

“Fail to comply and you shall fail to see St. Malo again.”

“Out of loyalty to you, Captain, not through any threat!”

“You speak well. I count on you, Petit Gilles. You may now shout the order.”

“The order, sir?” He was bright-eyed, too astonished to hope that he might be granted such an honour. Below them, the town awaited their departure, loved ones still waving to the men upon the ship, knowing they might never return. The boy’s own mother, tears on her cheeks, stood upon the dock. Bobbing on the quiet waters, longboats manned by hefty men awaited the moment they’d pull three ships free of their docking spaces and haul them through the harbour to open water, to raise sail. Up and down the dock, men in the elegance of fine clothing, women brightly adorned in shawls against the chill, and their exuberant children sallied about, fear and excitement commingling, a tangible sense of adventure stirred by a distinct measure of dread.

Cartier smiled. He had no doubt that Petit Gilles would make a fine ship’s captain one day. “Give the order, lad, to cast us off upon the sea.”

Upon stones covered by a thick fall of coloured leaves, Cartier stepped ashore. Set back from the river’s edge amid the trees, Iroquois were observing him, and the crew in the longboats watched also as he tucked his plumed hat under one arm and knelt and kissed the soil. He lifted his head, a smudge of dirt upon his lips. The island had dwelled in his imagination as the door to a magic kingdom. Now that that portal had been attained, his gratitude to God and his appreciation of good fortune had pulled his emotions to the ground. With the aid of his cabin boy he stood again, then waited while his crew hauled the other boats—and themselves—ashore.

First to come down to greet him were Donnacona and his two sons, sent on ahead two hours earlier to alert the people of Hochelaga to the new arrivals, to assure them of the white man’s peaceful intent. They had also to prepare the Iroquois for what might soon transpire. Men who dwelled over the ocean beyond the clouds, with black beards and skins the colour of beluga whales, had returned, and this time they were arriving down the river. The world they knew, Donnacona explained, was no longer the world they knew. In giving counsel to his friend, the chief of the Hochelaga people, he advised Kamanes-awayga that the cloud-skins were strange creatures who had great powers. He
told him also that, for the white-skins, the Iroquois were equally strange and also had great powers.

“Since my sons come back from the land of the pale-skins,” Donnacona explained, “they tell many lies, but they know also the white-skins’ magic. My son speaks to their animals, and they obey him.”

The old chief nodded. “My son,” he said, “calls to the ducks.”

“Your son calls to the ducks,” Donnacona explained, “by quacking like a duck. My son speaks to the white man’s animals by speaking like a pale-skinned man, and the animals of the pale-skinned man obey him.”

“This troubles me,” Kamanesawayga informed him.

“My son will bring to you a French animal,” Donnacona said. “Prepare yourself and your people, for you will be afraid.”

Taignoagny returned down the trail to the place where he had left an animal fastened to a tree. The white man’s beast had been quietly sleeping after another day of hard travel in a longboat, thankful to be on dry land again. It jumped up at the sound of its master and wagged its tail, and the animal and the Indian youth returned to the Iroquois village. As they arrived at the clearing, Indians gasped, the women hid, and a few young men reached for their spears and bows and arrows.

“A wolf!” Kamanesawayga cried out, leaping to his feet.

“Not a wolf,” Donnacona scoffed. “A wolf can eat this beast in the morning and still be hungry. It is a white man’s wolf, and that’s not much of a wolf.”

Taignoagny came towards the circle of men, and the wolf-like animal at his feet scarcely noticed the others, wholly intent on looking up at his master’s eyes. “Watch this!” Donnacona announced, forgetting entirely that when he had first witnessed the demonstration he had been terrified to the bone and had believed that he no longer understood his own name or the difference between the sky and the sweet earth. “My son will talk the talk of the pale faces. The animal will listen.”

The Iroquois looked on, amazed, as the youth removed a string made of stone—
a stone string!
—from the collar around the animal’s neck, and the lowly wolf, freed, scampered around the feet of the youth. Taignoagny spoke to the beast in a strange tongue, and the beast lay down on its side and went
to sleep. The Iroquois murmured amongst themselves, and a few believed that this would be a good time to slay the wolf-like beast. Taignoagny spoke again, and the animal woke up. The young man spoke and the animal rolled over and over and over, and when it was done it stood up like a man on its two hind legs and placed its front paws on the young man’s chest. The foolish young man rubbed his face on the animal’s face and on its neck. The animal had big teeth, but it did not bite him. Then Taignoagny bent down and put his hand on Kamanesawayga’s moccasin.

“Now you will see what you have not seen before,” Donnacona announced.

“Today I see what I have never seen before. A wolf who is not a wolf, who listens to the words of a man and goes to sleep when he is told. Today I have seen a man kiss a wolf and the wolf lick his face. Do they fornicate together?”

“Now you shall see something you will not believe.”

“This troubles me,” Kamanesawayga confessed. “Your son has his hand upon my foot.”

“He wants your moccasin.”

“He has his own!”

“Let him have it, Kamanesawayga, if you are a brave chief.”

Challenged, the chief allowed Taignoagny to remove his moccasin. The shoe had been decorated with multicoloured beading and caribou hair, a moccasin worthy of a chief’s foot. The young man presented the moccasin to the nose of the animal to sniff, then flung it as far as he could into the woods. He spoke sternly in that strange tongue to the animal.

“My moccasin!” Kamanesawayga called out. “How will I walk?”

Donnacona laughed. “Do you want your moccasin back?” he asked.

“Tell your boy to find my moccasin or I will cut off his feet!”

Donnacona kept on laughing. “The beast will find it for you,” he said.

The animal had not moved, but stared into the woods where the moccasin had been thrown. Taignoagny held out a finger above him. When he spoke again, the animal ran into the woods as fast as a jackrabbit—as fast as a real wolf—and men and women scattered from his route.

The poor excuse for a wolf rummaged around in the woods, and they could hear the fallen leaves flying about and the branches of bushes snapping
when suddenly the animal raced out of the woods again with the moccasin between its teeth, and a great excitement rose up among the Iroquois who had witnessed this magic. The animal ran straight up to Taignoagny.

The young man pointed to the chief of the Hochelaga tribe, and spoke in a quiet voice to the animal in the language called French, saying also the name of Kamanesawayga. The white man’s animal turned then and walked towards the chief. Although standing, the chief pulled his shoulders back and turned his head away, afraid to look into the face of the four-legged beast. The animal looked back at Taignoagny, who encouraged him with the white man’s words. The lowly wolf put the moccasin down at the feet of Kamanesawayga, then sat on its haunches, staring up at him, panting.

The old chief looked down at his moccasin. Then he stared into the eyes of the panting wolf-like beast and knew that everything he had ever perceived about the land of the living had changed today, even before the white man had appeared. He put his foot into the shoe. The slobber of the poor-wolf was on the moccasin as he stuck his foot into it, but the animal with the big teeth did not bite him.

“Rub his fur … his head … his neck—he likes that!” Donnacona called out, which caused his two sons to chortle. They knew that their father had himself refused to do so, out of fright.

Kamanesawayga was less reticent than the chief of the Stadacona Iroquois, and slowly, he lowered a hand. Looking into the eyes of the lesser wolf, he touched its head. The fur was long and soft and warm. The eyes of the lowly wolf were moist and friendly, like the eyes of a contented woman. He stared for a long time as the lowly wolf panted, its big tongue lolling out. Then the chief straightened. “This troubles me,” he said.

“In the land of the pale skins,” Domagaya stated, “animals live in the village. They wait for someone to be hungry, to come and kill them. They wait to die.”

Kamanesawayga grunted in a strange way. These stories were difficult.

Donnacona, passing on the knowledge brought to him by his sons, repeated what he knew to be great lies. “In the white man’s land, big animals carry the white man on their backs, and go wherever the white man wants to go.”

Kamanesawayga glared at him, his eyes full of fear and fury, then looked at Donnacona’s sons. “Why do the big animals do this?”

“To make the men with the pale skins happy,” Taignoagny said.

“So the white man will not be tired when he goes a long way,” added his brother.

“If my sons tell lies, I will drown them in the river!” Donnacona vowed. He did not believe his sons, but he also did not believe that Kamanesawayga would ever to go the land of the pale skins to learn whether they had lied or not.