The Old American (14 page)

Nathan bows, and Black Dirt hands him the hoe, points to the ground, and watches while he marches out with the women. The slave is subservient enough, though he keeps his head up, his shoulders squared; his eyes are observant, his mouth shut. I admire him very much, thinks the old American.

Soon Nathan Blake will learn that only women and slaves work in the fields. The sole crop men raise is tobacco. Presently, the men are busy socializing, making gun flints and casting bullets for their flintlocks, and patching and building canoes. Small ash logs are split, shaved, steamed, and bent to make the frame; the birch bark is sewn and sealed with spruce gum. The men are preparing to embark on trade missions, selling the village's prime product, moccasins, which are made by the women mainly in the winter. The men will divide up into trade groups, taking their wares to Quebec, Montreal, Tadousic, Odanak, Wendake, Beaucancour, Silery, Sault Ste. Marie; a few even venture to Albany in English territory. Caucus-Meteor eats his fire to gain the strength for the trade fair missions.

That night a cold rain falls. At the end of the day's work, in the dark of the wigwam by the tiny fire, Caucus-Meteor tells Nathan about trade.

“Some will trade well, and others will be disgraced,” he says. “Some will lose the coins and goods they trade to gambling and drink. One or two will come back as followers of Jesus, which is what happened to Norman Feathers. Two or three will not come back—the deserters and the dead. The successful ones will exchange our magnificent moccasins for French coins, iron stoves, stove piping, pots, pans, fabric, beads, needles, dyes, axes, knives, tobacco, liquor—far too much liquor—rope, weapons, farm tools, and even some wampum, which is still used for adornment, though no longer as currency or for diplomacy. The traders are also expected to bring back news regarding relatives, friends, enemies; the gossip of the trail enriches the lives of the men while the trail itself meets the demands of the women for household goods and news. You English call trade items goods because they are good for women, no?”

“We English believe you enslave your women with burdensome labors, such as field work,” Nathan says.

“Because they do the work that men choose to do in New England? That is not slavery, Nathan Blake. Excuse me now while I eat my fire.” The old American turns his head from Nathan and stares into his fire.

Caucus-Meteor left off his trade list matters he does not think Nathan Blake is ready to deal with—personal adornment items, such as combs, clam shells for pulling out facial and body hair, and various kinds of paint, earrings, medallions, bracelets. American men spend much time primping themselves. Every man owns a mirror, and he spends part of his day plucking out hairs, applying paint, arranging feathers. Most wear European fibers with some buckskins, the clothes garnished with medallions, bracelets, necklaces, ear and nose rings. Each individual wishes to put himself forward in a unique way. It's not an idea that an English frontier farmer will understand, except in the most general way, and he wouldn't have much sympathy for it, and it would only confuse him. Also Caucus-Meteor doesn't tell Nathan that he's worried he won't have the strength to go on a trade mission this year. If he has to remain behind, he will lose prestige in the village. His people will look elsewhere for a king.

A week goes by. Nathan is picking up a few words of Algonkian. Caucus-Meteor speaks less and less English to him. He still hasn't been “tested”; in fact, the men hardly pay him any mind, though he is the butt of a joke that he finally grasps—“The slave works very well as a woman.” Until this moment, he has showed little emotion, but now that he understands how the men regard him, his feelings rise to the surface and spill out; he blushes with shame and resentment. For him, farming is noble and manly, thinks Caucus-Meteor. “Nathan Blake, do you despise us for what you believe are our peculiar ideas, do you pity us, or do you question yourself?” Nathan is too wrought up with humiliation to do anything but mutter. Caucus-Meteor says, “I will answer for you. Perhaps it is better, Nathan Blake, if you withhold judgment. For the time being your task will be to observe, to pray, to await your god's will.”

“Yes, master,” Nathan bows.

Each morning the women meet to discuss the day's work. Nathan can't understand their words, but surely their demeanor tells him that they talk as farmers talk anywhere—of weather, crops, land; and no complaints, please.

At night around the fire, the old American attempts to give his slave some learning regarding his predicament.

“The leaders of the women are Katahdin and Black Dirt. Katahdin is imperious without being queenly. She argues with everybody except her husband, Haggis, whom she seems to adore, though who can say what really goes on between a man and a woman. Though Katahdin is quick to anger, she is also quick to forgive, to laugh, and to praise. Her strengths are energy and fearlessness. She bullies the other women into doing her bidding, and they are more or less grateful.”

“Such a woman might be made more humble by being dunked or fitted with a scold's bridle,” says Nathan.

The old American is amused. “The women look to Black Dirt for a different kind of leadership,” he says. “She never offers advice unless it's asked for and does little to influence the group, but she's the hardest working woman in the fields and she knows more about farming than anybody else. When there is a problem to be solved, the women, even Katahdin, come to her.”

“You have more women than men in your village.”

“Our men keep getting killed off in wars and accidents. Married women with children have great influence and authority in the village; women with children but no husbands have some influence; women without children almost no influence.” After a week, Nathan is able to pronounce the names of the head women. Besides Black Dirt and Katahdin are Leyanne, Ossipee, Azicochoa, and Contoocook.

“Here is a test for you, Nathan Blake,” says Caucus-Meteor in the whimsical tone he uses when he wants to abuse the slave with confounding ideas. “You have been here a while. Tell us now what is our most valued product?”

“Why, the three sisters—corn, beans, squash.”

“No.”

“Peas.”

“No.”

“The moccasins the women make.”

“No.”

“Trade.”

“Trade is not a product.”

“I do not know the answer, master,” says Nathan.

A week later, Nathan Blake says to Caucus-Meteor. “I know the answer to the valued product question. It is the same as in our nation—children.”

“But how can you value children, if you strike them?”

“The child, out of its nature, is unruly, and thus must be ruled through a good whipping now and then, and certainly a scolding once a day. The will of the child is the char from Adam and Eve's original sin, and thus must be burnished until it glows into exemplary behavior.”

“In our village the child might be pulled from danger, and certainly must suffer the common hardships of the community, but the child is never struck or chastised, for we believe that the will must be kept intact. It is the will—or, as you would call it, the sin—that is the valued product within the individual. Does whipping and scolding create behavior more exemplary among your own children than what you have witnessed among ours?”

“Nay, your children are as exemplary as ours, that I admit; though your adults seem dominated by a child's will.”

The conversation leads Caucus-Meteor into worries about his youngest child, Caterina. She is fifteen, and has had several suitors, but has rejected them all. Since his return from the wars, she's distant, sullen. She goes off in the morning and sometimes at night away from the village to be alone. He'd like to think that she is having an affair with a married man, but something tells him the matter is more serious than that.

Nathan remarks to Caucus-Meteor that the women ignore him, which surprises him; he'd heard that native women are licentious even with captives.

“Some are licentious, and some are not. Our women, like our men, do as they please—it's the American way of life,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“I suppose I am repellent to them because I am an Englishman and white and hairy.”

“You are repellent to them because you are a slave.”

In fact, thinks Caucus-Meteor, Nathan is beginning to think like a slave. He keeps his true feelings to himself. He snaps to when he's called. He reacts to every minor emergency with passivity, for authority outside his own self rules all. Perhaps he feels like a boy again growing up on the farm—frustrated, yearning for something not quite known, but also free from civic worries. I would envy his position, thinks Caucus-Meteor, if I hadn't been a slave myself.

One morning Haggis and half a dozen men approach Caucus-Meteor. “We feel it is time for the captive to be tested,” Haggis says.

“Good idea,” says the old king.

The men walk as a delegation into the fields where Nathan is working. The women ignore them, pretending to be uninterested in the proceedings.

“Are you ready to be tested, Nathan Blake?” asks Haggis.

Nathan looks to Caucus-Meteor for a translation, but the old American says nothing and shows nothing on his face. Haggis repeats his question. Nathan doesn't know exactly what's going on, but he drops the hoe.

Haggis puts his right hand over Nathan's chest to check the captive's heartbeat.

“Is he frightened?” asks Caucus-Meteor.

“Hard to tell. His heart is beating strongly, but not like a man in panic. I think he is excited.”

“A good sign,” says Passaconway.

Black Dirt approaches the men. Haggis appears pleased. An idea formulates in Caucus-Meteor's mind. Haggis is obviously attracted to Black Dirt. When she's finished her mourning period, she'll be expected to take another husband, and provide children for the village. Haggis might be more easily controlled if he married Black Dirt. Caucus-Meteor watches her carefully. She says nothing to the men. She does, however, reveal her purpose in coming forward, walking to the place where the captive was working, picking up his hoe, and striding off with the valued implement.

Haggis speaks to Wolf Eyes, plainly dressed in French clothing, wearing only a single streak of red paint from the tip of his forehead winding down across his nose, lips, chin, throat. “Will you allow us to use the musket that Caucus-Meteor gave you for the test?” Haggis asks.

Wolf Eyes stiffens. The old American guesses that the son is thinking of some new way to defy his father, and the father is thinking, I doubt he can do it: if he declines to offer the weapon, he will be reduced in the view of the men; if he agrees, he bends to my will. But as always Wolf Eyes finds a way to insult his father by responding, “Oui,” using the French language for agreement instead of Algonkian. Caucus-Meteor is pleased. He knew if he gave the musket to Wolf Eyes, he would cause some mischief.

A target is set up about fifty yards away, an old wasp nest on a rock.

The captive spreads out the powder, ball, a ramrod in front of him, and then loads the weapon. He proceeds with care and deliberation, but not with speed. Caucus-Meteor thinks if this is his way of performing a chore, then this is a careful man. But likely it's something else, fear or incompetence with weapons.

“This was your musket, was it not? You have experience in using it?” Haggis says, but the captive speaks very little Algonkian and Haggis does not know how to formulate words in English, so there is no answer to the questions. Nathan might not understand the particulars, but it's clear that he understands that he's being tested and that he's not to look to Caucus-Meteor for help.

Nathan brings the musket to his shoulder, aims, wobbles a little. With that wobble, Caucus-Meteor knows that Haggis has learned everything he needs to about the captive's skills as a hunter.

“He has one shot,” says Caucus-Meteor. “Perhaps he will waste it on one of us. Who shall it be?”

The other men laugh. Risk, suspense, danger, and uncertainty are part of the amusement of the test.

“If he wishes to kill his tormentor, he has not far to look,” says Haggis.

“The victim never kills his tormentor, but his benefactor. It is one of those rules the gods made long ago to confound us all,” says Caucus-Meteor.

Nathan fires off a shot in the general direction of the wasp nest. What was clear to Caucus-Meteor with the wobble is now clear to all: Nathan Blake is no marksman. Minutes later the captive will find himself back in the fields working with the women.

That night by the fire Caucus-Meteor explains to Nathan why he'd been called to demonstrate his abilities with the musket.

“Haggis believes that the problem with Americans nowadays is that guns have made them lazy,” Caucus-Meteor says. “The fine art of bow and arrow construction has been lost. Young boys no longer practice archery for hours on end. Americans think guns will do everything for them. Guns need maintenance, lead, powder, and, to be effective, marksmanship. With a war on—and there is always a war on—it's difficult to buy ammunition, so we haven't had much practice with our muskets. Result: Americans who can't shoot straight. Haggis and I are in agreement on this matter. The test was to determine whether you might be a second line shooter for the fall hunt.”

“I am no hunter.”

“Probably Haggis figured that out right away. I think he was really testing Wolf Eyes, to see how he reacted when you, a slave and an Englishman, fired the gun that I won from you in war and gave him in kingly largess.”

“Haggis is a cunning man.”

“That is true, but it is also true that the second most cunning man in a group lives in a state of constant frustration.”

“What is the next test?”

“That will be up to the whim of the village men, but I suspect it will be foot racing.”

A small, secretive smile plays on the captive's face. Before Caucus-Meteor can question it, Caterina breaks into the conversation. She spends so much time facing away from the men, so silent that often she seems not even to be breathing, that the sound of her voice is disturbing, something in the tone desperate. “I'm going to the woods to pray,” she says.