The Old American (15 page)

“It's very late, and there is no moon,” says her father.

“I must pray alone.”

“Do not return with the god,” Caucus-Meteor says.

“I will do what the god demands,” she says.

Caucus-Meteor doesn't mind a god in the wigwam if the god minds his own business. It's a god's courtship of his daughter that troubles him. She has adored many gods over the last two years, and every one has led her into difficulties of one kind or another.

Nathan retires to his bed of sticks and mats, but the old king remains by his fire. He's quiet for a few minutes, then begins chanting, partly a traditional chant he learned from his mother and partly some Latin. He doesn't have the faith and he doesn't understand the priests' secret language, but he's always enjoyed the Latin choirs, so he puts a few words he's heard together and calls it a song—Espiritus sanctus in dayo, da-hey-ohhh, specularum, odorum, hic, hike, hok, da-hey-ohhh. He's in the center of the wigwam by his tiny fire, a position he assumes twenty hours a day. He sings in a voice low but audible. He stops abruptly—jolted by a surprise feeling of conjuring; perhaps the god has come to him. “What do you want from me?” he asks. The answer to his question: Go to your loved one. He rises up, leaves the wigwam, and goes in search of Caterina. But it's very dark. Not only is there no moon, the stars are blotted out by clouds. He thinks he hears Caterina moan in the woods, but maybe it's an animal. Eventually, he gives up his search and returns to the village.

He sees light through the cracks of Black Dirt's wigwam. “Are you asleep?” he says at the mat door. He knows the answer, but he's giving her a chance to feign sleep in case she doesn't want to talk to him.

“Come in, father,” Black Dirt says.

“It's almost like day in there,” he says.

“I like candle light—the shadows it makes are sisters to my sorrows,” she says.

Black Dirt has turned her home into a storage shed of moccasins. Perhaps supple moose and deer skin made soft by smoking bring her a small comfort. She'd rather be with the products of her people than with the people. Grief is drawing her away from the very notion of touch.

“When I was in New England marching off to war, I remembered you singing a lament,” he says, and he repeats it for her in song:

He sings the lament two more times, each rendition sadder and slower than the one before.

Father and daughter embrace. “The gods are cruel,” Black Dirt says. “They say to me: Those times are gone by.”

“Time is like a milkweed pod, bursting open, flying in the wind, starting anew in neighboring soil.” Caucus-Meteor is repeating an old Algonkian saying; he's not sure if he believes it or even exactly what it means, but it seems like the right thing to say.

“Don't let your grief keep you away from the people,” he says. “They need you, Black Dirt. Without ambition or conscious effort you've replaced your mother as head woman in this village.” She shakes her head in denial. “You took charge of the moccasin enterprise, and now you're making all the important decisions regarding planting the fields.”

“I would rather count moccasins, stack them, even smell them than oversee the performance of my sisters. Let Katahdin do that.”

“Where's the profit in the smelling, the counting, and the stacking of moccasins? The smell of moose? I do not understand, daughter.”

“It's not the smell of moose I'm thinking of, it's the smell of money. Why do I think this? What does money mean? I ask myself these questions.”

“In the old days,” says her father, “wampum was the medium of exchange between tribes. The polished shells had to be worked and shaped into belts before being brought into circulation as currency. Wampum held powers of ceremony, beauty, and even speech, for the design of a wampum belt conveyed a message. But for all its power, money is only money. Money even more than war and liquor and white settlement is wearing away the American way of life that Keeps-the-Flame and I taught you to value above all.”

“I feel no threat—I feel a pull… toward the money… in violation of your teachings, father.” She looks up. “Dear mother, forgive me.” She looks now at her father. “This too is my lament. Father, do you understand now—do you?”

Caucus-Meteor begins to tremble. Grief is changing not only his daughter's heart; it's changing her head. Or perhaps (and this thought pierces him) she was already changed before the distemper epidemic, and death and grief are making her see that change. He remembers a transforming moment in her life. She was a child, sick with fever, and he and her mother had thought she would die. His wife woke him at dawn. Their child was gone. They found her among the corn. She was eating, not the corn, but the dirt. Keeps-the-Flame had said, “Dirt is her medicine—it will restore her.” And it did. Later, Black Dirt bore her children “in this dirt,” as she said. For a long time, Caucus-Meteor had wondered why she had said, “this” dirt. Now the solution to the mystery comes to him. His daughter is not, has never been, in her heart a nomad. As the father eats fire, the daughter eats dirt, this dirt, on this land, in this place. He thinks: despite her love for me, she will betray me. He wants to shout to the gods: Why couldn't you let Nathan Blake stone me dead!

But in a calm voice, he says, “Come, my daughter, be a child again for a few minutes.”

Black Dirt puts her head on her father's lap, as she did as a little girl. He strokes her hair and chants in his pretend Latin until she grows sleepy and lies down on her mat. He covers her with a blanket, kisses her on the forehead, and returns to his wigwam.

Back eating his fire, Caucus-Meteor is passing the night when his other daughter, Caterina, appears from out of the darkness, gives him a bare nod, and starts for her bed.

“It's late, and no one is up to give me company,” Caucus-Meteor says.

Caterina hesitates, then sits on her heels across the fire from her father. They sit for a long time, saying nothing. Finally, Caucus-Meteor speaks.

“Did you see a god in the woods?”

“I did not see a god because I am unworthy,” she says.

“You were in the woods a long time.”

“I did penance.”

He doesn't understand what she means, but he feels a profound disturbance from the tone of her voice. He attempts the conjuring trick—fails. “Tell me what you desire, dear daughter,” he says.

“When the priest comes to village, I wish to make a confession.”

“I am not a priest; I am your father, though not your natural father, so perhaps you may use me as a priest and confess your sins.”

“I was the first in our village with the smallpox. I was scarred but I did not die.”

“The priests you wish to confess to brought smallpox to our village. It's the reason I drove them away.”

“I also survived the throat distemper that killed so many of our family last winter. I think there is a devil within me, father.”

“It's not a sin to be sick, Caterina.”

“I believe I have sinned, so surely I have sinned. Give me forgiveness.”

“I cannot forgive what is not a sin. Caterina, you must believe me when I tell you that you have not sinned, and that you are worthy of the company of any god or man. Come now, I will give you my blessing, which is something that all the gods sanction for fathers and kings.”

Caterina rises up on her knees, and Caucus-Meteor whispers some pretend Latin into the air, tells her he loves her, and, as he did his other daughter, sends her off to bed.

The next day he notices that Caterina has changed her blouse. He inspects the soiled garment and finds drops of dried blood on the back. She'd told him that she had done penance, but had not confessed. Now he understands what she meant. Caterina went into the woods to flog herself. He looks at the burn scars on his arms. Most strangers think he's survived tortures from enemies. Caterina knows that when he's upset he burns himself.

The next day, in the early afternoon, Haggis and other village men fetch Nathan from the fields again. Nathan Blake is to be tested in a race. Caucus-Meteor's mood lightens. It will be good for the king to get away from family problems and mingle with his subjects.

The Conissadawaga Americans are known for the quality of the moccasins they make, so foot racing is important to them and everyone turns out for the contest. The women leave their work in the fields, and the children stage races of their own. Everyone knows the fastest runners in the village—Haggis and Wolf Eyes—so the suspense is in how the English slave will do. The racers will run through the village, down to the lake, and back again, a distance of perhaps half a mile. Caucus-Meteor feels the old urge to bet, but he has nothing to bet with, and anyway it's not a good idea for a king to gamble with commoners.

Then again, we are all common enough, he thinks. He wonders: If I were betting, would I bet on Nathan Blake? The man looks like a runner, and by his demeanor now it's plain that he's competed in races before and that he has confidence. But something about Nathan, a shadow of the stupidity and arrogance that he saw in Captain Warren, suggests to Caucus-Meteor that Nathan is a poor bet.

Passaconway, who is even older than Caucus-Meteor and who was a great runner in his day, starts the race by dropping a feather. When the feather hits the ground, the runners burst forward. Nathan, not used to this starting method, is the last to move his feet, but within fifty yards he's caught up with the leaders. He looks relaxed and strong, thinks the old American. As sure as I am a king, he will win this race. Nathan accelerates; the power of his body surges into the soles of his feet. A second later the worn leather laces on his right boot burst. Suddenly, he's running in a sloppy shoe. Nathan finishes the race last.

He holds up his shoe as an excuse. The village men taunt Nathan Blake. Their words mean nothing to him, thinks Caucus-Meteor, but surely he can read their faces: no complaints, no excuses, eat your defeat, Englishman; surely he can see the women laughing. If Nathan Blake could answer in our language, he'd taunt us right back, challenge us to another race with new shoes, thinks Caucus-Meteor. But he's trapped in his own language, defeated by pride and bad luck, as when he left the safety of the stockade to let his animals out of the barn for reasons mysterious even to himself. Perhaps this young man with imperfections compatible with his own was sent to serve him in ways as yet unforeseen. Caucus-Meteor squeezes his eyes shut, and presses on his eyeballs in an attempt to see into the future, but only the blindness he experiences strikes him with any vigor.

The village men gather in a circle to discuss today's events. They look to their king for leadership. “I gave Nathan Blake to the village, so let the village determine his fate based on his performance. I will give no speeches on this matter.”

“No doubt Nathan Blake can run,” says Haggis. “But that is not important. What is important is the omen of the burst shoe.”

“I think before he brings his bad luck to this village, we should kill him,” says Kineo.

“If we do that, we will have insulted our king, who gave him to us as a gift; thus, we will have insulted ourselves,” says Passaconway.

“I will not take insult from someone so small in status as Kineo, or any of you for that matter. Do what you wish with your slave.” Caucus-Meteor knows that the magnanimous gesture more than the threat is a weapon of control.

“What has this slave done to deserve death?” says Seboomook.

“It's not what he has done, it's what he will do,” says Kokadjo.

“Omens are not to be taken lightly,” says Kineo, and makes the throat-cut sign.

“Sometimes when one does not know where the quarry is, it's best to stand and wait until it comes around again, for all creatures move in great circles,” says Passaconway, mouthing an old Algonkian saying.

“Wait and do nothing, I think not,” says Seekonk.

Argument rages until Haggis speaks, and all listen. Caucus-Meteor admires Haggis's strategy. He's learned through experience that it's best to let others talk out the mad ideas, and reveal one's own position only when the group is fraught with uncertainty. Everyone knows now that though there will continue to be discussion, debate, argument, bluff, humor—for the men love opportunity for oratory—in the end Haggis's opinion will prevail.

Haggis concludes his speech by saying, “Let the slave return to the fields where he can work like a woman.”

That night in the wigwam, Caucus-Meteor says to Nathan, “You took your defeat hard.”

“I was more disappointed at losing that race than at watching my cabin go up in flames,” Nathan says. “I have never lost a footrace in my life. Why don't you people just kill me and get it over with?”

“You are very comical,” Caucus-Meteor says softly.

Nathan gives the old man a savage look, and Caucus-Meteor bursts into laughter. Then Nathan laughs.

“Why am I laughing? What is happening to me?” Nathan says.

“Joy in the face of disaster—what else can a man brag about to the gods? Nathan Blake, it's probably to your benefit that you lost your race. The village men have decided that you would not make a good American man. Haggis has suggested that the village sell you to the French. It appears you'll be in a Quebec prison before the men leave for the trade season.”

Nathan takes a moment to let this news sink in, but he can't seem to get excited.

“I think you do not like to lose,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“I think I do not trust anything that is said by a savage,” he says.

“You talk boldly for a slave.”

“Forgive me, master.”

“I'm no good at forgiveness, because I cannot see sin where the sinner sees sin. You think we are not honorable men?” Caucus-Meteor feigns outrage.