The Spirit Keeper (15 page)

Syawa breathed deeply and exhaled very slowly. “Are you saying your people believe their own actions caused all the miseries in this world?” he asked, clearly troubled. “How can they e’er be happy, believing this?”

I shrugged, confused. “Maybe they can’t.” I tried to remember the good times in my seventeen years—the weddings, the successful births, the times when someone made money—and I realized how rare those moments were. Syawa was shrewd to recognize the self-loathing that fueled every aspect of a world he’d only glimpsed.

He went on to ask if this perfect place I described, this Garden, still existed. I said I didn’t know, but if it did, it didn’t matter—we would not be allowed back inside. Syawa glanced at me, quickly turning his eyes back to the fire. “And yet you still speak of it,” he said with both words and hands. “You still yearn for it. You still seek it, tho’ you believe it is forbidden to you. You torment yourself with this hopeless longing.”

“Maybe we
need
believe in Garden.” I shrugged as I gestured. “Life is hard, bad, much pain. With no Garden, how we go on?” I smiled feebly, hoping to tease Syawa back into a lighter mood. “Maybe you take me to Garden now, yes?”

Still staring into the fire, he quickly said and gestured, “No. Life is not perfect anywhere. People are not perfect. But my people do not seek perfection. We strive for balance. We enjoy life as we find it, the good and the bad. We are grateful for all.”

When Syawa said no more, I said good night and curled up in my bearskin, pondering what he’d said. I was almost asleep when I felt his hand on my shoulder. I snapt to attention, my heart racing, sure something must be wrong. He leant over to whisper so as not to disturb Hector. “Kay-oot-li,” he murmured, “you must not blame yourself when bad things happen. You are not the cause.”

I thought for a second, flustered by his closeness, his warm breath on my ear. “You talk of story? Of Eve in Garden?”

“No. I talk of you, of living with my people.”

I tried to sit up but Syawa held me down with his hand on my shoulder. I felt a surge of fear as I realized how vulnerable I was, but he was not threatening me in any way—he was just staring at me, staring and staring, as if trying to memorize every pore in my face. “But I
cause
my life,” I said, hard-presst to add gestures from my prone position. “You say I must choose come with you, and I choose. I choose and cause my life, yes? We all are blame for chooses we make!”

Syawa smiled but seemed sad as he brusht a wisp of hair from my face. He leant so close his lips touched my ear as he whispered, “You never truly had a choice. I just said that so you would feel good about coming. What else could you do? You had to come.”

I frowned, pulling back so I could see his face. “What you say? Yes, I have choice! I have choice right now. I have choice tomorrow. Tomorrow—is this what worries you? You think I choose not go with you?”

“You will go. And you will live a good life with my people. But bad things will happen. They always do. And when they do, you must not blame yourself. You must enjoy life in spite of bad things.”

Then Syawa launched into one of his lectures, only a fragment of which I understood. He went on and on about rivers and currents and how they can appear one way but be another or be one way and appear another and he used words I did not understand, whispering along at such a breakneck speed I could not possibly question him or tell him I was lost. As was so oft the case, he seemed determined to throw at me everything he knew on a subject and be satisfied if I managed to pick up a few bits and pieces as I followed along.

Toward the end of this discourse, Syawa’s babbling veered off into an unexpected direction. All this time he had been talking about blame and rivers and things in the way when suddenly he said there was something he wanted me to tell Hector. At this point I was only half-listening, but I remember Syawa’s sudden request caught me by surprise, and I frowned at him, puzzled.

His face was only a few inches from mine, our breaths commingling. “Why you want
me
tell him?” I asked. “Why not you tell him?” I glanced at the lump on the other side of the fire that was Hector.

Syawa’s smile seemed sad. “He is sleeping now. We will be busy tomorrow and I may forget. I want you to remember for me. Is that so much to ask?”

His dark eyes were right in front of mine and I was as powerless before him now as I was the moment we met in my family’s loft. O’erwhelmed, I murmured, “No.” His eyes warmed tho’ his smile stayed sad.

“Good. Then I want you to learn the words I am going to say and remember them exactly. Can you do that?”

I nodded, thinking that memorizing a few words was nothing compared to getting into that canoe tomorrow. Syawa slowly said the words he wanted me to remember, then asked me to repeat them. When I did, he corrected my pronunciation and asked me to say them again. The only part of the message I fully understood was the end, which was an admonition to enjoy the canoe ride. He made me say the entire message several more times before inhaling slowly and deeply, apparently satisfied.

“Do not forget to tell him,” he said, and before I could respond, he gently stroked my face with his hand, got up, and walked off into the darkness, leaving me to stare into the glowing embers of the fire.

~14~

I
AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING
screaming again.

This time I rolled o’er and vomited in the weeds before I was e’en fully awake. When I finisht, I looked ’round miserably and found Syawa sitting nearby, watching me. “What did you see?” he asked.

“Spinning,” I said as soon as I remembered the word. “Spinning and spinning . . .” I stopt for a moment and thought, then looked at Syawa in surprise. “This dream I see snake.”

Syawa looked up into the brightening sky, his face haggard, as if he had not slept at all. “What did the snake do?”

I glanced o’er at Hector, who was packing things up, pretending not to listen, but I knew he was. I was embarrassed to go on. “He . . . he spinning me. And he say, ‘Ye’ll ne’er get away from me, Katie.’” I didn’t mention the snake spoke English with an Irish brogue, like my mother.

Syawa was staring at the ground, a strange, humorless smile on his face, but he said nothing.

“I think story last night . . . frighten me,” I said, working hard to pronounce the foreign words. I got on my knees to begin rolling up the bearskin. “I worry about river, and I am . . .” I didn’t know the word for “nervous,” so I just said “frighten” again.

Syawa took a deep breath and said dreams like mine can dispel fear by giving us a chance to prepare. Such Visions, he said, cannot change the course of events—only prepare us to accept them. “Acceptance is what allows us to enjoy life,” he said.

I thought it more likely my dream was telling me Christian Scripture had no place in the savage wilderness, but I said no more. Instead, I finished packing up camp and forced down my share of food left from the night before so I could steel myself to meet the challenges to come.

“Can she do this?” I heard Hector ask Syawa. I glanced at Hector, who was looking my way skeptically. I resented him talking about me as if I still couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I suppose I had given him plenty of reasons to be skeptical.

“She will be fine,” Syawa said.

Hector thought for a moment, then ventured a question he seemed reluctant to ask. “Did
you
dream anything?”

Syawa smiled, but his eyes were sad. “My dreams these days are all of home.” As they talked briefly about their home, I felt a surge of guilt, knowing I was the reason they were not there. Then I remembered what Syawa said about not blaming myself, and I wondered if this was what the snake in my dream was talking about. ’Tis all well and good to say I’m not to blame for things; ’tis something else altogether for me to stop feeling guilty.

 • • •

The two of them began to carry the canoe to a stream which fed into the Great River, where they would teach me the basics of handling a canoe. I was not eager for this lesson, but I understood the need for it. Hector also understood the need for it, tho’ the delay clearly vexed him. Moreover, the trek to the creek was insufferable, through a long stretch of swamp and bracken. Mosquitoes swarmed us, and after a short time I began to think the plan was to make me so miserable on land that I would eagerly jump into their boat just to get away from the voracious insects. I was relieved when we reached the creek.

Normally this tributary stream was shallow, but the floodwaters had filled its banks, creating a fierce current. I was as tense as a bowstring when Syawa helped me into the front of the canoe, but knowing I had no choice, I gritted my teeth and complied.

I should say this canoe was wholly unlike other Indian canoes I’d been in. Those were made from bark, and I despised the sensation of water roiling under that flimsy membrane. This canoe, however, was made of a section of a tree trunk that had been hollowed out in a most ingenious manner. Solid and sturdy, the wood was also amazingly light, so that e’en when heavily loaded the canoe rode high on the water.

I settled into the front, clutching the sides as the craft rocked. Syawa climbed in behind me and Hector pushed the canoe out into the current before jumping in at the back. They paddled rapidly upstream. At first, I held on to my panic as tightly as I held the canoe, but in spite of my pounding heart, I knew Syawa would let no harm come to me. Before long I did with my fear what he had advised me to do with my dizziness—I let it go and it passed. Soon all that was left was excitement and energy, because it truly was sensational to be skimming along above all that water.

When I stopt staring down into the churning brown ooze and began looking up into the pretty blue sky, Syawa asked me to turn ’round so he could show me how to paddle. I soon became absorbed by the lesson. For the past two and a half months he had been teaching me one new skill after another, and I responded now to his slow, steady instructions the way a well-trained dog responds to its beloved master. When Syawa said it was my turn and gave me the paddle, I wasn’t e’en worried. I wanted only to make my teacher proud.

’Til I grew confident with the paddle, Syawa leant o’er me, guiding my hands and pulling with me. As I think back to that moment, it occurs to me I should have been distracted by the nearly naked man presst up against me, but all I remember is the comfort I derived from being encircled by Syawa’s strong arms. It was, in fact, this physical closeness that prevented me from reverting to my old fear. Because I knew Syawa would protect me, I was able to relax and enjoy myself. I e’en laughed when he leant back and said now he finally had what he always wanted—two servants doing all the work whilst he enjoyed the scenery.

Of course, our progress slowed considerably when I took the paddle, but the farther up the creek we went, the less furious was the current. At first I had to pull with all my strength just to keep the craft from going sideways, but Hector, pulling in the back, was able to correct most of my mis-strokes. I quickly realized my main task was simply to complement his expert paddling.

In no time at all I understood why my friends had such huge arms and well-developed shoulders. Paddling was hard work, and long before I was proficient I was exhausted, hoping Syawa would say we could stop. We kept going, however, ’til my weariness caused me to make mistakes which made the canoe wobble. When I over-corrected and the canoe turned sideways, Syawa leant forward to talk me through my panic, explaining what Hector was doing to turn us right again, guiding me ’til we were once more gliding smoothly. After this sort of thing happened several times, I no longer panicked whene’er the canoe wobbled.

Finally Syawa said we should turn the canoe ’round. My stomach tightened, but I followed his instructions through the nerve-wracking turn. Before I could congratulate myself on my success, however, the canoe caught the current and our speed rose precipitously.

Syawa had warned me this would happen, but as our speed picked up, so did my heart rate. We were moving so very quickly that I couldn’t respond to the rocks and trees and o’erhanging limbs which were so easy to avoid during our slow trip upstream. E’en as Syawa told me what to do to avoid an upcoming rock, we slammed against it, turning sideways. The current pulled us backwards and I panicked, but Syawa told me to relax and let Hector turn us ’round, which he did. In his calm, steady voice, Syawa assured me we’d be fine e’en if we turned over. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he soothed. “We will get a little wet, that’s all.”

No sooner had he said it than it happened. I steered us almost directly into a dangling branch that scooped the canoe over like a giant hand. I splashed and spluttered and gasped and choked in the waist-high water, terrified beyond measure, but as I collected myself, I saw Syawa and Hector were both just standing in the water laughing. Whilst I had been trying not to drown, they had collected the canoe and paddles and were waiting patiently for me to stop floundering.

I stood there dripping and shivering, feeling like a drowned rat—and a useless one at that. Syawa smiled and said, “You see? We are only wet!”

I wanted to scream that I knew this would happen, that it was all my fault, that I was stupid and useless and a danger to the both of them . . . ’til I realized ’twas my mother’s voice shrieking in my head. She was the one who always told me I couldn’t do nothing right, that everything bad was all my fault, and that I would, inevitably, be the death of her. I looked at the men standing in the creek, joking and laughing, and I took a long, slow, deep breath. What was I so afraid of, really? Hector squatted down to dunk his head in the water, then stood up to comb loose wisps of his long, black hair off his face with his fingers. He was smiling broadly, the water dripping from his face down to his chest. I stared, transfixed by the droplets dribbling down, down, down, and suddenly my fear of water evaporated. I raised my eyes to Hector’s face. For an infinite moment our eyes locked, and I forgot all about the water, forgot my fears, forgot my mother’s voice, forgot e’en how to breathe . . .