The Old American (27 page)

“Leave him alone, Haggis. He wants to see his king,” says Caucus-Meteor. “I owe him some money. Is that not so, Omer?”

Omer bows. “Yes, for the canoe.”

“I see,” Haggis nods. “Apparently, Omer is now completely corrupted by money.” Haggis turns, and walks off.

Caucus-Meteor starts down the beach. Omer follows, but says nothing. They walk in silence. When they're out of sight of the rest of the men, Caucus-Meteor says, “We have privacy now. What is the folly, Omer?”

“I didn't want to tell you in front of the men. I want you to know I am not afraid for myself, but for Hungry Heart and my business, which to me is like a second wife and to my wife like a second husband. If the word spreads that I helped you, it will be the end of everything that Hungry Heart and I have built.”

“Your alarm concerns the intendant,” says Caucus-Meteor.

“How could you know? Is it sorcery?”

“It might be. I've been incubating over a moment like this all summer.”

“I don't know what you are talking about, my king, but I do know this. You are wanted for questioning at the palace. The intendant has issued a paper warrant. If you return to the village, his man will come for you.”

“It's exactly as I feared. Sometimes I think I'm like a god myself in cognition. Too bad I am so unlike a god in other respects, this frail body, morbid heart. But this is not the time for a speech. Give me your purse.”

Omer hesitates, then reaches for the cloth satchel which he carries in a waist band.

Caucus-Meteor transfers money from his own moose skin bag to Omer's.

“Take this money and bring it to Black Dirt. Tell her to say nothing, and to await my instructions. And, Omer, remove an amount equal to twice your fee for the canoe you loaned us and keep it with my profound and kingly gratitude.”

Omer trembles. Caucus-Meteor wishes he knew what he was feeling, probably some concoction of glee, guilt, fear, and a will to go on with his dream of a river empire no matter what, all the things that make him the man he is.

“I cannot go back to the village now to present Black Dirt with your earnings,” Omer says. “I must take my fares north. It will be weeks before I can return.”

“All the better. No one will suspect you then of conspiring with me. You have my blessing,” says Caucus-Meteor, passing his hand across Omer's leathery head and resting it on his shoulder. Caucus-Meteor is thinking that something profound and new is about to begin. Then he bends, picks up some stones, and fills his empty money bag with the stones.

Omer no longer bothers to pretend he wants to socialize. He announces to his passengers that it's time to dig the water, and minutes later his canoe disappears into the hazy light on the river. Maybe he'll steal my money, and never come back, thinks Caucus-Meteor. We would all have nothing; we would have to depend on the hunter, Haggis. Maybe that's the way it should be. Before, when he thought he might be elected king again, when he imagined himself giving away his winnings, Caucus-Meteor had felt tense, a sickness of the spirit; his despair could only be alleviated with thoughts of the pleasures of largess. Now that he knows there will be no largess, that he is a fugitive, his life at risk, his powers next to nothing—now he is free, open, exuberant. “Let us celebrate our return to loved ones,” he says. “Let us sleep here for the night, so that we can time our arrival with the high sun tomorrow.”

Haggis appears suspicious again, much to the amusement of Caucus-Meteor. Later that night the men drink the brandy that Omer left them, and tell stories by a big fire. Caucus-Meteor sits by a small private fire, and waits in silence. He knows that Haggis will be the last to doze off.

The next morning as the dawn is breaking over the St. Lawrence, Caucus-Meteor is alone in a canoe for the first time in years. He stops paddling for a moment, lets the current take hold, stares into the rising sun, and shuts his eyes so that he can feel more than see the brightness through closed eyelids. He's thinking that just about at this moment Haggis opens his eyes when the birds wake him at dawn. Haggis will sense that something doesn't feel right. He will rise, walk over to Caucus-Meteor's camp. Nathan Provider-of-Services will be sleeping like stone, but the old king will be nowhere to be seen, and his fire will be cold. Haggis never panics during such moments. He'll concentrate his mental faculties, as now Caucus-Meteor concentrates his, conjuring him. I'm close, he thinks—I'm close to the conjuring trick; or perhaps what I am thinking is only speculation. It doesn't matter, since the thought is not very important. Haggis will follow disturbed twigs and bent grass. If the old king went into the woods, Haggis estimates he'll track him within the hour. But the tracks will lead to the pebbly beach. A canoe will be missing.

Out on the water, the conjuring fades and Caucus-Meteor is thinking that he doesn't like paddling, especially now when he has to do it all by himself. You can't cheat at paddling when there is only one paddler: old Algonkian saying. Well, it isn't an old saying, but it should be. In some future life and time, perhaps he will be one who creates sayings, for a people with good sayings are a good people and a people with poor sayings are poorer for their sayings. He's spent, a conniving old man; it's unlikely he can ever again give his people anything of value but the unwanted and untrustworthy commodity of advice. With his death, perhaps the intendant will leave his people alone. The idea of death comforts him for about twenty minutes, and then he thinks, but this is all so sudden. Who will take my place? It's not that a dying man should answer this question, it's that it should occur to him now that sets him to thinking, for he's always believed that when the correct moment arrives for reuniting, he will not worry about temporal matters. So, then, he thinks, I am not ready to die. With that conclusion, Caucus-Meteor is back to that comforting habit of scheming, which inevitably will lead to that terrible gnawing loneliness that has haunted him since Keeps-the-Flame died.

He estimates he's about a day away from the birches by the black rocks. Bleached Bones might not be the ideal wife, thinks Caucus-Meteor, but he'll have to do; I have no other place to go.

As Caucus-Meteor continues with the dreary work of canoe paddling, he ruminates on his destiny. He must continue to develop his conjuring gift. He's always been good at visualizing and scheming, though not at praying. He's too insincere to be good at praying. Conjuring includes all three of these tricks of mentality—visualizing, scheming, praying, plus concentration. I will try it again. I will visualize my men in their canoes. This time the conjuring trick works. Finally, he is sick enough in heart, mind, and body to visit the gods.

Led by Haggis, the Conissadawaga traders will search up and down stream for likely places that an elderly canoe man might linger. They will query Frenchmen and natives alike, but no one will admit to seeing an old savage wearing a turban. The reunion with loved ones in the village will be exciting but confusing. The men will be happy to see their families, and in great detail and with great exaggeration will tell of their adventures. The women will complain about the drought, that the crops this year are sufficient, but only because of water from the lake. Caucus-Meteor's disappearance will be a worrisome thing. The villagers will talk of spirits. They're an in-between people living in a valley between times, and they will sense that the liquid of change is about to flood their plain.

Haggis will see Nathan Provider-of-Services as a future rival. Nathan Provider-of-Services has changed a great deal over the summer. He will strut about, telling stories of his glories on the racing circuit. He will tease; he will mock. The former slave will move into the wigwam of Wytopitlock and Parmachnenee. Haggis will fear Nathan's virtues more than his vices. Nathan will impress the tribe with his nimble fingers, good at nettlesome tasks such as derhning dogsled harnesses and carving smoking pipes. There doesn't seem to be a tool he doesn't take to. The men will not only listen to him; they will respect him. The older women of the tribe obviously will want him to marry one or both of his concubines. If Nathan marries he'll become a real threat to Haggis. The people may even want to make him a chief.

For the present moment, Haggis will not be too worried about Nathan Provider-of-Services. Haggis will be convinced that without the old king around, he will be the leader of the village. For the time being the tribal chiefs are himself, Passaconway, and Black Dirt. Passaconway wasn't a chief in his prime, and he's hardly a leader in his old age. The only real threat to Haggis is Black Dirt. Eventually, Haggis figures, she'll agree to marry him, and then he will be the supreme leader of the tribe.

Black Dirt will find the uncertainty surrounding her father harder to bear than a grief. His disappearance will throw her back in time to when she was a child, and she only wanted to hide. During this summer she had thought through her plans to make Conissadawaga into strictly a farming village. The hard part would be persuading the villagers, especially her father. Without his support, the entire idea will crumble. Now he is missing. Black Dirt will deal with her anguish in the only way she knows. She will work harder; she will seclude herself.

The black rocks are easy enough to find, big as wigwams, sitting in a valley at the steep slope of a whaleback mountain, visible from the river. Where do such rocks come from, wonders Caucus-Meteor. Surely they were deposited here by gods who passed through Canada long ago, but for what purpose? Perhaps they are alive, and will one day roll on. Few things grow among the rocks, and the animals—even the birds—avoid the area; people come here only for religious reasons. Caucus-Meteor calls out Bleached Bones's name, but he hears only the mocking echo of his own voice. Bleached Bones said his wigwam was in the birches by the rocks, but Caucus-Meteor sees no birches.

Caucus-Meteor has had nothing to eat for two days. A gust of mild panic sweeps through him. He starts walking the perimeter of the rocks, resting frequently, growing weaker. After another hour of walking, Caucus-Meteor is beginning to think that Bleached Bones had been lying to him. But he knows when Bleached Bones lies. He was not lying. Maybe he was delayed, or changed his mind. Even so he should be able to find the old gambler's camp. After another hour of wandering, Caucus-Meteor is beginning to feel silly and wonderful as a bridegroom, a feeling that signals him that soon he will be delirious.

Moments later he sees the birches. They're just beyond a swamp he's been trudging through, which has taken him back toward the rocks. He'd avoided this place because of the swamp and because, looking at it from afar, there did not seem to be any birches here. But, in a ring of land above the swamp and just before where the mountain steepens, the birches appear, though every last one is fallen, split, damaged in some way, as though a giant had had a tantrum. He thinks that the original native god of this realm, Gooslup, has left his marker. Where did Gooslup go when Jesus chased him out? Maybe Gooslup moved west, to that place that Nathan talks about. Close investigation reveals the true culprit, not Gooslup but an ice storm two or three winters ago. These are not the magnificent white birches with bark for boats, or the black birches of more southerly climes that produce excellent firewood and minty aroma in the sap wood, or the yellow birches that take over a forest land through their sheer age. These are the gray birches—a short-lived tree, with weak wood, and unremarkable bark. It's the kind of forest that Bleached Bones would be attracted to, for despite his rather serious character flaws, he is a humble man.

Caucus-Meteor shouts, “Bleached Bones, give me something to eat.” But there is no response to his plea. He's probably lying in wait for me, thinks Caucus-Meteor. At some moment of his choosing he'll shoot me.

Caucus-Meteor stumbles onto the camp only minutes later. First, he sees a food cache hanging from one of the disreputable birches. The cache bag dangles from a hook on a rope. It's an easy matter to pick up a stick and lift the cache off the hook. If only the animals could think as we think, we would not exist, thinks Caucus-Meteor. He eats some dried salmon and nuts. The food makes him strong and arrogant. If Bleached Bones hasn't jumped me yet, he's probably drunk and passed out, and I will jump him.

Bleached Bones's camp pleases Caucus-Meteor. It consists of a small wigwam built on a table rock, black as the intendant's heart. In front of the wigwam is a flat stone placed like a low altar on smaller stones, the site of the old gambler's campfire. Beside it is a blanket on a rotted hemlock log. Somewhere along the line Bleached Bones started sitting like a white man, preferring a rotted log for a seat because it was soft. Bleached Bones, I am disappointed in you. What makes the camp unique are the carvings, hanging from trees, whittled birch sticks of faces bearing different human emotions, all of which resemble their creator. The feeling Bleached Bones has created reminds Caucus-Meteor of the feeling in the old cathedrals in Europe—fear and awe and something else, that a man's life on this earth may have little worth in itself, but that it is part of a plan by a greater being.

Inside the wigwam is a bad smell—drink. Bottles of different kinds of brandy are neatly arranged along the perimeter of the wigwam, along with jugs of English rum. Here too are Bleached Bones's few worldly possessions. Apparently, he told the truth about throwing his winnings in the St. Lawrence, because Caucus-Meteor finds only a small amount of money in his bag. He comes across some thunderbolts, those lightning-fused chunks of earth that gamblers value as good-luck pieces; several pairs of moccasins; some snares for catching rabbits; another kind of snare for capturing migrating ducks; a set of knives for wood carving, with sharpening stone and some whale oil; and several muskets, but no powder or lead. Bleached Bones, you old bluffer, you always went about heavily armed, but with unloaded weapons. The most remarkable objects in the wigwam are costumes of sticks carefully woven together with European fibers and animal gut. What Bleached Bones did with this unique wardrobe is impossible to say, but surely, thinks Caucus-Meteor, it must have had something to do with sadness and sex.