The Old American (16 page)

“I think you are a people ruled by whim.”

“So I am to be the king of whim. Thank you for unburdening me.”

Norman Feathers brings word to Quebec and in a few days returns with two priests and soldiers from the office of the governor-general. The village is buzzing. It's the first time in years priests have come to Conissadawaga. Caucus-Meteor greets the clerics—Father Esubee Goulet, smooth-shaven face, bald head, pink skin, and Father Sanibel “Spike” Morrissette, youthful, bearded.

“Let us welcome the visitors,” Caucus-Meteor says. “We will talk to the soldiers about selling them our slave, and the priests will talk to us about Jesus. But first let us have something to eat.”

The villagers always react the same way when visitors come. They bring out the drums and rattles, stoke their pipes with tobacco and bark, load the cooking pots, and pass around jugs of brandy.

Father Spike, as he is known, mingles with the villagers, talking with them in French, asking them to teach him words in their Algonkian dialects. He blesses them with the tiniest hands Caucus-Meteor has ever seen on a man. Only Black Dirt and Nathan Blake remain in the fields, Black Dirt because she thinks it unseemly to carouse during one's mourning period, Nathan because he is a slave. Meanwhile, Caucus-Meteor meets with Father Goulet in his wigwam. They talk in French.

“It has been a while since we have broken bread together,” says Father Goulet.

“If I remember correctly it was ten years ago. You baptized the Iroquois orphan my wife and I adopted.”

“Yes, and I named her—Caterina Aratta, after my Italian grandmother. I thought in those days yours would be a mission village. But later you banished us.”

“You brought smallpox to the village.”

“You cannot blame Jesus for the mischief of the devil.”

“No doubt what you say in this instance is true, if everything else you say is also true. Truth aside, I see now you were right all along,” says Caucus-Meteor with just a trace of sarcasm in his smile.

“So?”

“So, let us say that I am repentant.”

“Now that you are close to death, you are having a change of heart? A little fear, perhaps?” Though Father Goulet talks with a lisp, he doesn't come across as weak or without courage.

“You are very wise, a good priest, I imagine. I am wondering about the power of your church.”

“It is very powerful because it is sanctified by Christ.”

“I would like to test this power.”

Caucus-Meteor then launches into a long, rambling speech about French law, the governor-general, the intendant, and finally tribute. “My villagers bring in more French scrip per person than any of the mission villages, and yet we remain poor. We live the nomadic life because it pleases us. I would like my village to have parchment title to this land; I would like to stop paying the intendant tribute.”

“If this village becomes a true mission, that is possible.”

“By a true mission, you mean everyone in the village has to be baptized.”

“I mean that everyone has to be instructed. Children may be baptized, but adults must be instructed. They must elect to receive Jesus before they can be baptized.”

Caucus-Meteor pauses for a moment to think. He's going against his experience and feelings by inviting the church men into his village. He wants to say that Jesus is too demanding a god, but of course one cannot argue religion with a cleric, for there is no possibility of an exchange of beliefs. If the priests take over the village, they'll retain him as head man, since he invited them. So he withholds his true feelings. If he sends them away, it's likely that he will lose his position as king to Haggis in the coming months. Finally, Caucus-Meteor says, “Let us test it. Also, you can do me a personal favor.”

“If it is within my powers, good king.”

“Hear the confession of my youngest daughter, Caterina. She is weighted down by guilt. Perhaps, as you clerics say, Jesus can bear some of the weight of her cross.”

“We will test it both ways, with the intendant when we return to Quebec and here with your daughter.”

Elsewhere, the villagers and soldiers haggle over the worth of the slave. Eventually, the villagers agree to accept the soldiers' offer for the slave. The soldiers will wait until the priests finish their work. For three days, the priests circulate among the villagers. They preach the word of Jesus. Norman Feathers, the only practicing Catholic among the group, acts as the interpreter with the few Americans who don't speak French. Most of the villagers are cautious. They're waiting to see what their king, Caucus-Meteor, will do. If he submits to instruction and baptism, most of the villagers will go along. The exceptions are Haggis, his wives, and their followers, who make up nearly one third of the villagers. They stay away from the priests.

The Conissadawaga villagers talk mainly in various dialects of Algonkian, but a few speak Iroquois, and once in a while there are outbursts of French and even a few words in English or Dutch. It amuses Caucus-Meteor to imagine that even the village dogs bark in dialects. All these languages come out in verbal melee with the priests, whose presence has caused the villagers to examine themselves. Haggis and his wives are upset, because the priests tell them their union is not sanctioned by Jesus. Mica, Haggis's second wife, claims that angels (beasts half woman, half eagle) will swoop down and take her away from her children and clan. Haggis suspects the priests want to incarcerate him in a church. Wolf Eyes has no interests in the priests, but he has been hanging around the soldiers, showing them the musket that Caucus-Meteor gave him. Most of the villagers are charmed by the priests and their mysterious Latin incantations. The mood at the moment is to vote to become a mission village. Haggis and his band will have to go along or strike out on their own. Caucus-Meteor believes he has seized control of the village. Is it the feeling of control and achievement that makes one side of his face numb?

That night the Americans bring their private discussions into the public arena by the outdoor fire. The soldiers and priests watch and listen. “The evening gathering has turned into a town meeting,” says Nathan to Caucus-Meteor. In place of a moderator, there is the imaginary circle by the fire. When a citizen has something to say, he or she steps into the circle and makes a speech, often a very long speech. When the citizen is finished, he or she steps out of the circle and somebody else steps in. The villagers of

Conissadawaga, like the villagers of Upper Ashuelot in New Hampshire, enjoy hearing themselves talk. They agree on a price for the captive, but take no action on the conversion question.

Caucus-Meteor knows that this is the time to make a speech. If he converts to Catholicism, his villagers will allow the priests to build a mission. He'll have some leverage he can use against the intendant; the powers of his rival Haggis will be greatly reduced. But the old American had a dizzy spell earlier in the day, and yesterday for an hour, the side of his face felt numb. Maybe Keeps-the-Flame, who was violently opposed to French missionaries and their religion, was chastising him from the beyond. He thinks it best to hold his tongue, and wait for an omen.

Father Goulet has the last word in this night of oratory. “We will leave in the morning with the soldiers for Quebec. We will be back in a week with payment for the English captive and with soldiers to transport him to Quebec for prisoner exchange. We will say mass, and listen to the will of the people.”

Caucus-Meteor understands that Father Goulet is giving him a week to accept a mission.

Later, the old king watches his daughter go off with Father Goulet, who has agreed to hear her confession. When they return, his daughter appears radiant, blessed, while the priest has a smug expression on his face. Caucus-Meteor feels the pangs of jealousy.

Next morning the village turns out to say goodbye to the departing visitors. All are at the landing by the waterfall when Caterina springs a surprise. She makes a long speech ending with the words, “I wish to marry no man; I will be the bride of Christ.” Caterina is leaving with the priests to enter a convent.

Black Dirt's face flares with anger. She says harsh words to her sister, who remains passive but determined. Caucus-Meteor is more than surprised by this development; he's traumatized. He's thinking: this is the same feeling I had when they took my mother away, and when my wife died. Jesus is punishing me for my insincerity.

All day the village is somber. Every loss of a villager is like a death. If Caterina had married and brought children to the village, she might have enjoyed great prestige. Instead, she goes off with the priests. Villagers whisper among themselves that the priests are sorcerers whose goal is to reduce the village to nothing. Only Haggis is secretly glad, thinks Caucus-Meteor. He senses changes in the air, which can only be to his benefit.

Caucus-Meteor keeps his vigil, eating his fire. One would expect that the king would be fraught with worry or anxiety, some strong emotion in reaction to his daughter's leaving. But the disturbances in his mind are nothing like that. The old man is shutting down in the universal way: his face twists, body slumps forward, unseeing eyes stare at the fire only a few feet away.

It's not until the next morning that he registers events that can be filed in memory. He awakens, and thinks, now isn't this grand. I have awakened, which means I must have slept. I must be rested. He reaches down to see if he has a morning erection, which will tell whether indeed he is rested. But before the hand can complete the journey another of his senses has a message for him. His fire is cold and silent, and smells old. He hears a voice now. “What's wrong, master?”

It's his slave, but the voice has brought him round to the state of things. He says, “Go fetch Black Dirt,” his words slurred as if he had been drinking too much.

When Nathan returns with Black Dirt, Caucus-Meteor utters two words. “I'm blind.”

Her response comes in a voice mushy as spring ice. He can smell and hear and his sense of touch is uncanny, so that he feels odd sensations in his nipples and along his spine, but no pain. This is good news, he thinks. I am experiencing events in a different way. Perhaps I am closer to death, or to truth, or to time—whatever out there is of import. Finally, I've reached the station in life where I can begin truly to conjure. But he soon realizes that he's not conjuring. He is merely falling asleep. Well, all right. He hasn't slept in ten years; perhaps it's time for a long night.

All that day the old man is confused. Mainly, he is silent, but during odd moments, he makes speeches that don't quite make sense, and circle back on themselves. He thinks, my but these speeches are better than the ones I make when I am calculating them. He says: “I am a child lost in the woods. I have entered that terrible hollow tree of the one true self. I'm you. But do not be frightened. That place where thoughts, feelings, and behavior are one has its rewards when one is in the hollow …” He can tell from the activity around him that his villagers are unsure what to do or say. He feels no sense of responsibility, no ambition, no call to control situations around him. He thinks: this must be what it's like to be content. I think I will nap.

By the second day the king of Conissadawaga has gotten his wits about him, though he still can't see.

He confesses weakness to his people. “It's bad enough that Father Goulet steals my daughter for Jesus, but this—” Caucus-Meteor points to his sightless eyes, his paralyzed facial muscles—“shows a sense of humor more profound than I ever imagined could come from a priest. I think it is time for me to digest the fires I've been eating all these years, and perhaps instead of the usual stuff some wisdom will come out the other end.”

The villagers suspend labors to discuss the crisis. They talk long into the night. Afterward, Black Dirt meets privately with Caucus-Meteor; when she leaves, the old king delivers the news in English to Nathan.

“I am no longer king of the Conissadawaga Americans,” he says. “The people have replaced me with Haggis, Passaconway, and Black Dirt, who will serve as chiefs with equal powers until I am healed or dead.”

“Women as rulers?” Nathan grimaces.

“Do not the English have queens who rule?”

“By blood, but not by election, and not in New England.” Nathan pauses.

Caucus-Meteor knows that like a good slave Nathan is waiting for his master to speak, but he decides to remain silent to see how Nathan behaves.

An hour goes by, until Nathan blurts out the question that has been on his mind. “What of me? Am I to be delivered to the French? Will I leave with the priests when they come next week?”

“The priests will be turned away. Conissadawaga has voted to remain a pagan nation. The people have decided that you, Nathan Blake, are to replace my daughter, Caterina, who was stolen from me by Jesus and the priests.”

“I do not understand, Caucus-Meteor.”

“Blind I cannot care for myself. You will care for me. What I'm trying to tell you, Nathan Blake, is that my villagers have loaned you to me; you are once again my slave.”

Nathan does not respond. Caucus-Meteor cannot even hear him breathe, though he can smell the stink of his disappointment. Finally, Nathan says, “This means I am not going home.”

“This means your fate is entwined with mine.”

Nathan's anger suddenly flares. “I had a chance to kill you once, but…” Good, thinks Caucus-Meteor, he's going to tell me now why he spared my life; perhaps then I can understand with greater clarity how the gods fashion the instrument of death. But Nathan seems to gag on the words he's about to utter, and in the end he says nothing.

“You can kill me, Nathan Blake,” says Caucus-Meteor, “or, if Jesus is not done punishing me, you can watch while I die of this curse or that. Either way, know this, my people have determined that if I die, you die. My fate is your fate.”