Sorceress (21 page)

We came out when the leaves were no longer green, and the people hailed us, they hailed us both.

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40

Medicine Lodge

All my patients had gone. The house that had been made for them was empty. I set about cleansing it, raking out and burning the bedding, then burning juniper and tobacco to purify. There were no flowers now, so I gathered spruce and pine for their fresh, sharp smell. As I worked, the idea came to me clear as a striking bell. I would not join the others in the Wolf Clan long house inside the palisade. I would stay here. The sick would come to me. I would care for them, just as my grandmother told me the sisters did long ago, before King Henry’s men turned them out and left their priory, infirmary and all, to fall into ruin.

I explained to Satehhoronies that this was what I intended to do. He thought for a while, then he said:

‘The people respect me, but they fear me, too.’ He stroked the mask propped next to him. ‘They fear this.’ Then his hand went to his ruined face. ‘And they fear this.’ He shook his turtle rattle. ‘They fear this,
ohtonkwa
, the spirit, but you fear nothing. I will stay with you.’

g

I did not want for company. Wahiakwas, Picking Berries, often came to visit me, bringing other women, and we would sit and work together. They showed me how they worked birch bark and hide with dyed moose hair. I showed them the way I had been taught to embroider, using steel needles traded from the Dutch, and we worked together, making ordinary objects fine.

The first thing I made was a box for my special things, the second was a knife sheath for Ephraim to wear at his naming ceremony. Ephraim came to visit me often. He liked to talk to Satehhoronies, for the medicine man had travelled far in his life and the boy loved to hear about the places he had visited.

Satehhoronies chose Ephraim’s new name. He was to be called Kaheranoron, Rare Corn Stalks. The name had belonged to one who had departed to the spirit world and the naming ceremony was held at the festival of ripe corn. It was an important occasion, marking not just Ephraim’s acceptance into tribe and clan, but his passage to young manhood. It was time for him to leave his mother’s side. I would have worried for him, for he had no father now Sparks Fire was gone, but Black Fox would be there. He would help him.

Black Fox also had a new name. He was now Tekaionhake, Two Rivers. A name he had been given from another who had come from beyond Kaniatarakaronte, the Door to the Country, the Mohawk name for Lake Champlain. He was accepted and admired for his strength, bravery and prowess with weaponry. Ephraim could ask for no one better to guide him in the world of men.

Ephraim grew taller by the day, just like the corn stalks of his new name, and he grew strong, skilled in hunting and the ways of the warrior. I watched him with the pride any mother feels and I felt a mother’s grief, although I did not show it. I knew he would not take the war trail and for that I gave thanks, but I also knew that he would not stay here. The rhythms of village life were too slow for him. He craved excitement and as he got older, his restlessness grew.

In the spring groups of warriors went to Kahnawake, the Mohawk village outside Mount Royale. They went to collect beaver from the people living there, to sell in Albany because Dutch prices were higher. A party went every year; it was one such that had found us half drowned on the shores of the lake. Ephraim was eager to go with them. He came back, safe and sound, but I knew that the year would come round when the warriors would return and he would not be with them. He had never forgotten the stories he had heard at Missisquoi told round the smoky fires by the
coureurs des bois.
I knew it only wanted time before he would go and join them. The distance was already there in his eyes, the longing for wide horizons and faraway skies.

‘I’m going north again, Mary,’ he came to tell me just before the party was leaving. He still used my English name when we were alone.

‘And this time you won’t be coming back?’ I asked, guessing what his answer would be.

He didn’t reply immediately.

‘Remember when I gave you this?’ He caught the string of bear claws that I still wore round my neck. ‘I was so proud. I so badly wanted to be a son to you, to do anything that Black Fox could do ... ’

‘You have been a son to me. And I’m proud of you.’

I reached up to touch his face. He was tall now and his cheek was sanded with fine fair stubble. His body had a man’s hard finish to it, but he had a boy’s wide smile and his eyes were full of hope and expectation.

‘And I’ll make you prouder yet, Mary. I’m minded to join them French boys. I hear they’re travelling far to the west.’ His eyes took still more light at the thought of this adventure. ‘Following the lakes, one going into another, until the last is as big as the sea. I’ve been talking to Satehhoronies too, and he says that there are great mountains beyond that where no white man has ever been, and plains and forests and rivers that no white man has ever seen. Maybe they’ll name a river after me, or a lake, or a great mountain peak. Or maybe I’ll name one after you.’ He smiled down at me again, but his blue eyes were blurring with visions of the future and thoughts of farewell. ‘Anyway, that’s where I want to go, Mary.
Voyageurs
, that’s what they call them, and that’s what I want to be.’

‘Then you must follow your destiny. Before you go, I have something for you.’

Knowing this day was coming, I had fashioned a bandolier for him to go with his knife sheath. He held it up, studying the patterns I had worked into it, showing our life together: wolf, lynx, fox, in forest, lake and mountain; all set around with a border of rippling water, and flowers and tall corn stalks. He put it over his head and arranged it across his chest.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mary. I will wear this always, that way I’ll keep you with me.’

Ephraim left me then, and he did not return from Kahnawake with the rest of the men. He joined a French expedition heading west. He became a
voyageur
. He came to visit when the trail led him back this way. He’d arrive with a pack full of gifts and a fund of wondrous tales to tell. He’d stay a month, maybe more, but then he’d become restless to resume his wandering ways. He never lived a truly settled life again.8

I had one son remaining, Black Fox, now Tekaionhake. He would always call Ephraim brother, but he did not intend to go from the village. Already his eyes were turning towards a young woman, Kanehratitake, Carrying Leaves. It was clear that soon there was to be a wedding. I set about preparing, trading red cloth from the Dutchmen, curing skins to the softest whiteness and tanning hide to velvet blackness. Then I began fashioning and embroidering garments for him. I did all the work myself, determined that my son would be the handsomest of grooms. She was daughter to the sachem and theirs was the finest of weddings. Tekaionhake joined his bride in her mother’s long house. His life was with the tribe now.

Tekaionhake’s young bride did not have an easy life. She feared for him as I had done and did still, for he loved the war trail. He was proving a fearsome warrior, renowned for his stealth, he was brave to foolhardiness and so ruthless that he won admiration among a people famed for their warlike qualities. He was valued, and his value would grow. War was coming between France and England. These two nations would pit the native people against each other, but the Kahniakehaka have ever loved a fight and there was no keeping them out of it. Tekaionhake fought with the rest of his tribe on the side of the English, the people who had killed his father. Such is the strangeness of life.

War kept us busy, but Satehhoronies and I treated all alike: sick, wounded, warrior or prisoner, it made no difference. Our lodge became famous. Not just among the Haudenosaunee, the People of the Long House, but among other nations. Many came and from all the four directions: young, old, men, women, Indian, African and European. They came to learn, from us and from each other. We taught them all we knew of the healer’s skill. All we asked of them was that they came in peace and laid all hatred and difference aside, leaving it like their weapons outside the door.

That is the way I lived my life.

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41

Looking Glass Lake

Agnes felt released. The sensation was almost physical. She rose as the sun was sinking over the water and set out for the cabin, her step quicker and lighter than it had been for some time.

Sim’s truck had gone, but Alison’s car was still there. Light spilled on to the porch from the half open door. She could see Aunt M sitting at the table. Opposite her sat Alison. They were deep in conversation. The oil lamp cast soft light on to a chaos of papers and maps spread out between them. Agnes faltered, then she halted, looking in from the outside. Up until now it had been just her and Aunt M, no-one else involved.

Aunt M solved her dilemma. She pulled herself up from her chair and came to the door.

‘Come on in here, Agnes. It’s getting cold and I want to shut the door.’

Agnes sat down at the table to begin the last part of Mary’s story. Alison listened with rapt attention right through to the end, only stopping Agnes now and then to change the tape in the little recorder she had brought with her.

‘They founded a secret medicine society open to men and women alike, and to every tribe, even whites.’ Agnes finished. ‘And that’s it. That’s how she lived her life.’

Alison’s finger hovered over the ‘off’ button. She looked up at Aunt M, ready to ask if this secret medicine society was still in operation today. Something in the older woman’s eyes told her that might be one enquiry too far.

‘Alison should tell you about what she found out in Montreal.’ Aunt M could feel the question coming on and was anxious to deflect it. Secret medicine lodges were not to be discussed.

‘Oh, well ... ’ Alison laughed. ‘I guess I thought it was quite a big deal, but it rather pales compared to what you guys have discovered.’ She looked at Agnes. ‘Will you write it down for me?’

‘Sure, of course.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ Alison smiled. ‘I want to put it all in “as told to Agnes Herne”. Just before you came in, your aunt was going to show me the box.’

‘Oh, yes. The box.’

Aunt M got up and pulled a trunk from under the bed. She opened it up and reached in for something, bringing it back to them cradled in her cupped hands as if she was carrying a nest full of bird eggs.

She put it in the centre of the table. A birch-bark box decorated with moose hair embroidery. Agnes recognised it immediately.

‘Could it be the same one?’ Alison asked, her voice hushed, her eyes wide as if it was something alive.

Aunt M shook her head. ‘Most likely not.’ She smiled when Alison looked a little disappointed. ‘I don’t see that it matters.’ She turned the box around in her hands. ‘The patterns are what’s important, not the fabric. They would remain, worked in by each woman who made it again. That way they stay fresh.’

‘Let me see.’ Agnes leaned across the table.

The toggle fixing the lid was a little black head of a fox. She hadn’t noticed that the first time, it had just been a toggle back then. It was still stiff to work. She twisted it out of the loop of plaited grass and lifted the top, tilting the box so Alison could see in as well.

‘Oh, my gosh!’ Alison suddenly found it quite hard to breathe.

Agnes had not seen these things since childhood. She had not asked for them when she first came to visit. There had been matters more pressing. She had not wanted to see them then. Now she did. She leaned over, looking closer. They seemed smaller, more human scale and battered, in the way of things remembered or imagined, or long anticipated but never seen. They were no less special for that.

‘Pick ’em up,’ Aunt M said. ‘We ain’t in a museum.’

Agnes shook her head. No. She did not want to touch them. To look was enough just now.

Alison didn’t want to touch them, either. She didn’t feel it was her place to do so, not before Agnes, but she was having a hard time keeping her hands on the table.

‘They could definitely be hers,’ she said, her voice rising in excitement. ‘That slip of paper would be all the proof needed. And the half silver shilling in the centre of the gorget?’ She craned her head closer. ‘It has to be a match. I’d have to take them back to test –’ She turned to Aunt M, suddenly anxious, mindful of what Agnes had told her, not wanting to seem to take anything for granted. ‘That’s if, that’s if, well, if you don’t mind. If you’ll give your permission.’

‘Ain’t mine to give.’ Aunt M shrugged.

‘I’m sorry?’ Alison looked utterly mystified now.

‘Ain’t mine to give. I ain’t the owner.’ She nodded to Agnes. ‘Better ask her.’

‘Oh, no, Aunt M.’ Agnes put up her hands.

‘I’m not taking no.’ She pushed the box towards her niece. ‘You have them. You’ve earned them. They are yours now.’

‘No, they’re not.’ Agnes smiled, carefully fitted the lid and pushed the box across the table. ‘Not for a while, at least. I want Alison to have them for now, so they can be verified. Then I want them to go to her exhibition.’

Alison reached out and their hands met in giving and receiving. Alison had been all but overwhelmed when she first saw the box opened. Now to think that it was being given into her keeping – it made her feel quite faint. These things were being lent to her, and it was a very great honour. She’d been talking all day; talking and asking questions. Now she could think of nothing to say. All she could do was look at Agnes and smile back her wonder and thanks.

‘You got that little tape machine running, Alison?’ Aunt M turned to the younger woman. ‘Story ain’t finished yet, y’know. Now,’ she settled in her seat, folding her hands on the table. ‘Tekaionhake, her son, the one they called Black Fox, had a daughter. She was called Ojijiagauh, Little Flower, because she was like her grandmother. She had her looks, her ways, her laugh. She grew into a beautiful young woman and followed the medicine way.

‘When Katsitsaionneh, Bringing Flowers, was finally laid to rest, her granddaughter released a white bird above her grave, as was the custom in those days, to bear her spirit aloft and speed it on to the plains of heaven. As she let the bird go, a jay darted out of the forest. They flew away together, up and up, until they were just specks in the great blue of the sky, until they could be seen no more. That was the story told to me. That is the story of the grandmothers.’

Agnes listened to her aunt tell it and it was as if she was meeting herself coming back. The story she’d seen unfold and the one that had just been told, they were one now. That should have brought some kind of closure; instead it made her feel lonely. With Mary gone from her, she felt bereft and even more lost than she had before. She frowned and looked up at her aunt, her grey eyes pleading for help.

‘Sometimes it’s hard,’ Aunt M stood up. ‘It’s hard for us to find our place, to know where we fit in the world. The way I see it is like this.’

Aunt M opened another box and took out a wampum belt. It was about two feet long and four or five inches broad, made up of many small white and purple beads worked into a repeating pattern.

‘Ever seen one of these?’ she asked Alison.

‘Only in a museum, but I know how important they are.’

She knew the belts were very special, sacred. Laws, treaties, were talked into them. They held the history of the people.

‘Glad you do.’ Aunt M looked stern.

She did not like the way wampum,
gehsweda
, had been dishonoured, devalued and disrespected over the years. First by the Europeans who had mistaken value for money, then by collectors, and now by ignorant people who used it as a slang term.

‘Wampum was never used by native peoples as money. These belts carry the word, the code, the law. They are sacred and a living part of us. They are still used now and always will be. Each bead is treated with great reverence, but each bead is very small.’ She put forefinger and thumb a quarter of an inch apart.

‘On their own they fall and scatter.’ She opened her palm and turned her hand. ‘Put them together though, and you’ve got something else. Together they make up something big. Together they preserve the words.’ She looked over at Agnes. ‘This is how I figure it: you, me, Mary, the people in her life, the folk Alison has found out about, Alison herself, we’re like the beads on this belt. Look at us apart and you can’t tell a lot. But put us together and then you can read the whole story.’