The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (14 page)

“Boozhoo!”

At his word, one of the wives poked her head at the men. She wore a red knitted hat that flopped over her brow like a crest, her nose was sharp, and Father Damien could not help thinking of her as an angry woodpecker. Of the two, she was much older, and she seemed to have been disturbed in the midst of a satisfying tirade, for she jumped up and laughed harshly at her sister wife, who suddenly rushed from the hut, stifling a racking sob.

Nanapush and Father Damien settled themselves on a pile of skins and blankets, and Kashpaw made all of the gestures of a generous host while Father Damien appreciated all he saw and ate like an affable guest. Nanapush sat back. He made an effort to stop his tongue, to contain himself. It was important to proceed with delicacy. Not to give away his plan, but to let it unfold as if it were natural, in the course of things. He told himself that all he had to do was put the priest into the situation, and wait. Priests and extra wives were mutually opposed, he had seen it before. This priest was of course much younger, oddly feminine, and a good deal subtler than Father Hugo, but that his intentions were fundamentally those of a priest, Nanapush had no doubt.

While he sat at Kashpaw’s fire and waited, Nanapush appreciated the wife of his friend, the hunter who’d just shot the deer, the one whom he intended to take for his own when the dust settled. Mashkiigikwe’s legs were oak fence posts and her neck, solid, was packed with a power that surged up through her body and flashed from her eyes. He drifted in admiration as she tore wolfishly at a piece of deer liver with strong little teeth, and chewed each piece with a thoughtful frown, as though she was masticating some inner meaning from her food. Yet, when well fed, she could be very jolly, too. Her singing voice was of a surprising lilt and softness, and her songs were often children’s games. It charmed Nanapush to watch her and spurred him to help matters along.

Children popped out, hair sticking straight up. They were deliciously round, seemingly healthy, and completely naked. Two ran out just as they were into the frigid air and, chased by the oldest wife, dove back into the lodge, bearing in their fists some tiny tidbit from the carcass. And then two men showed up, young men, older sons of the sharp-tongued Margaret. A boy named Nector glanced inside, took in the configuration, nodded, and left. A quiet woman emerged, fully pregnant, from a pile of robes and arranged the children carefully before her. She was softer, plainer than the others, and moved with extreme grace, even pregnant and huge. She rubbed the faces of the children, patted their hands, and when she was given a piece of the venison she spitted morsels of it on green sticks, elegantly roasted the meat, and cooled each bit with her breath before offering it to each child. They obeyed her with huge gravity. As they chewed, she ate, too, and told them a teasing story in her language.

Her name was Fishbone, and Father Damien later baptized her Marie. Margaret, of course, already had a chimookoman name and was a good Catholic, except in respect to her married life. The woman she had caused to cry, Quill, was later christened Marie as well. As for Mashkiigikwe, Father Damien never got a chance to name her, for she cleft to her own religion, and would have knocked the dipper of blessed water from his hand.

The priest sat silently and simply watched the goings-on around him, while the other men talked over old times. It certainly was not Father Damien’s intention to walk into the family and make a declaration of any sort, but Nanapush kept giving him encouraging sideways glances, then somewhat sterner nods, even little gestures. Finally, Nanapush purposely let a lull develop in the conversation, which he’d artfully maneuvered toward his topic of interest by inquiring about the health of each wife, and in that small silence he motioned toward the priest.

“Let the priest speak,” he encouraged.

“If you’d ever shut up,” said Margaret, “the priest would have spoken before.”

“My friend Nanapush has such a kind heart,” said Kashpaw, “that he had to ask after each one of the women.” Kashpaw glanced shrewdly at Margaret, and she gave a sour little suspicious frown.

“Funny that he is so interested in our health.” She turned away. She was unripe gooseberry, pure vinegar. Margaret’s presence puckered up the room like a basket of chokecherries. Her glance dried laughter, her hard snakelike impenetrable glare shook men to the core but also, in Kashpaw’s case anyway, caused a certain shiver of interest. There was something both frightful and seductive about her cold temperament. As for Kashpaw, he allowed as it was odd that Nanapush was suddenly so very solicitous, but he sat back with amusement and said nothing else, for he knew very well the reason for his old friend’s attentive inquiries. They were nearly brothers, after all, and had sat with their foreheads touching, smoked their pipes in grief over many deaths. Kashpaw knew the lay of his friend’s mind and understood that he was lonely, that his bed was cold, his arms empty, his wiinag bored, his days given to sad memory. Kashpaw knew his own wives were now more than a source of envy, they were a possible selection pool for Nanapush himself if this priest, who sat with them now trying not to look bewildered, prevailed upon him to give them up. Oh yes, Kashpaw had no illusions. Yet he didn’t hold these things against Nanapush but accepted the scheming as an inevitable part of his friend’s nature. The fact was, Kashpaw enjoyed anticipating Nanapush and thwarting his plans, so when the priest failed to respond to the pointed hints he dropped, Kashpaw was happy to further distract the priest. He asked questions, as if he was considering conversion. Can Jesus kill a windigo? Why did their god kill Father Hugo? He enjoyed the slow attention that Father Damien gave the questions, and even more, the steaming frustration of his friend beside him. He would have a good laugh later on with Margaret over the way Nanapush prodded and tried to steer the priest toward his purpose.

Father Damien, for his part, finally tired of receiving obscure signals from Nanapush. He made motions, as though to leave, which panicked Nanapush into blurting a reproach.

“You are the one who is supposed to hold forth!” Losing all sense of reserve, and infuriated by Father Damien’s blank stare, he cried out the louder. “It’s your job to set this married man right! You are the priest!”

Father Damien’s expression did not change. He merely regarded Nanapush with bemused speculation, seeing the shape of the subterfuge at last—and he was the last one to see it, he was sure. How naïve of him, how willingly he’d been put to the use of this rascal. Visit, indeed! The priest had merely been the tool of this old man’s lust.

“Nanapush,” said Father Damien, sternly, at last. “I see why you have taken me to visit Kashpaw. It is your hope that I will forbid him to have his wives!”

“Ii’iih,” said Nanapush, trying to slow himself down now that his game was discovered, “isn’t it the rule of the church? One husband? One wife?”

“Well, yes,” said Damien unwillingly.

“See there!”

“You are putting words into my mouth,” said Father Damien, angry at the entire situation, exasperated with Nanapush. “Of course it is Church doctrine, but Kashpaw does not belong to the Church.”

Nanapush was suddenly crushed. He had not foreseen this.

“Do you mean to say it is a question of belonging to the church?” he shrieked. “Then if Kashpaw stays a pagan he can keep his wives?”

“I have no say in it.” Father Damien was now at the exploding point. He could feel Nanapush trying to herd him through a small gate and stubbornly decided to dump doctrine, sound principle, everything that he should rightly have defended as a priest, in order not to let this man’s woman-hunger steer him too.

“But he will go to hell!” Nanapush was desperate. “I only fear for my friend, as the hell of the chimookomanag sounds extremely painful.” He then proceeded to paint a picture of the flames and pincers that made Kashpaw and Margaret, and then the entire lodge, roll with laughter.

“To be quite specific about it, no,” said Father Damien when the hilarity was spent. Even he had been tempted to laugh at the old man’s transparent pretense at saving his friend. “Kashpaw will go to a place called Purgatory where there isn’t much to do, and where he won’t ever see God.”

“I’ve seen enough chimookomanag anyway,” said Kashpaw, “without having to meet the one responsible for creating the white race.”

“I’d like to see him,” said Mashkiigikwe. “I’d tell him what I thought of his work.” She spat. Father Damien ignored her, focused on the seething Nanapush, and couldn’t help an unpriestlike thought from coming to him. Earlier, the old man had told him something of his life, and now he decided to use his revelation against him.

“Nanapush,” said Father Damien, in a voice that got everyone’s attention, “you have told me that you, like Kashpaw, were at one time the husband of several wives. What was your reason?”

Nanapush reluctantly told his story.

PATAKIZOOG!

Nanapush

Father Damien, said Nanapush, struggling with resentment but soon, as always, caught up in the pleasure of talking, if you must know these things, only listen to my story, for it is the way things happened until only just these last few seasons. Here’s how it goes:

Our band of people in the north were struck at one time with the spirit of disease. The spirit killed so many of us that when the dead were counted it was found that we survivors numbered less than a quarter of our camp. At the time, I wasn’t born, yet I am told how the mourners sat grieving together, willing themselves to be struck down, too. But the destroying spirit had passed. It was then suggested that they kill themselves, all together for courage, and journey as a band to meet their beloved dead in the land of the aadizokaanag. But then one older, wiser woman, a large woman, strong and powerful, stood upright and spoke.

“Mii’e etaa i’iwe gay onji shabwii’ing,” she said, “gakina awiyaa ninaandawenimaa chi mazhiweyt. Neshke idash tahnee pahtahneynahwug gey ani bimautiziwaad.”

There were some who looked shocked, who protested, who were surprised that she would exhort the women to make babies in their sorrow, to order the men to stand up their wiinagag, to endeavor valiantly to procreate until they dropped! But, as she had always been a faithful and virtuous woman, they listened to her. She calmed them down and explained her idea. She pointed out how the Bwaanag, or Dakota, to the south had fought against the whites to try conquering them, but that hadn’t worked out as well as the Ojibwe method of making Michifs and wiisaakodewininiwag. She said what everyone knew, that the Creator gave his people the Ojibwe a special love skill that they could always use in times of crisis.

“Gakinago giigaa kitchi manitiminin. Ininiwag, dagasaa patakizoog! Ikweywug, pagetinamahgehg! Ahau, anishinabedok, patakizoog! Ahua! Manitadaa!”

With that, she left them to think. As the evening went on, they all came to see it her way. They saw that if they followed her advice there would be new Anishinaabeg by the turn of three seasons. She had even closed by saying that although her hair was gray, she intended to have more children.

In fact, that very night, she picked the strongest and handsomest young man left among the people. That young man, Mirage was his name, did a lot of work all that night, and the next and next—but the women kept him fed and warm and they all got pregnant. The old woman was my mother, and the young man, who still lives, was made chief for the great duties he continued to perform with his uncounted wives. He re-created our tribe. So you see, that which you Catholics abhor—our gift, which is to mazhiwe at any time of the day or night—is why we do remain strong and why we have not died out.

And as you see, Father Damien, your friend Nanapush has only followed his mother’s orders. I am an obedient son.

That is it! Mi’sago’i!

* * *

Kashpaw’s powerful shoulders hunched around his ears as he listened to Nanapush, and his tiny eyes, dark with shrewd hilarity, took in the configuration before him.

“My reasons are no better or worse than those of Nanapush,” he said. “I, too, am the son of that generous young stud who saved us all, and one of the woman who gladly slept with him. We survived. I am proud of it. Why should I change?”

Nanapush looked resentfully at Kashpaw, who simply shrugged, and let his eye wander appreciatively over the tight barrel of Mashkiigikwe’s rear.

“What would the white god want with you, anyway?” he said to Kashpaw. “You’re ugly and full of mischief!”

Kashpaw made a mocking face.

“Maybe Jesus wants to know my love medicine.”

“Howah! More likely you can sell your knowledge to Matchimanito, the bad spirit. Eyah.” Nanapush stroked his chin. “I always wondered how it was you got these women to live with you. Now my question is answered. You worked your love snares.”

“This is the only love snare I need.” Kashpaw gestured down at his sex. Father Damien kept his gaze steady, though his breathing faltered. Nanapush was not in the least embarrassed, but craned to look critically into Kashpaw’s lap. “Yes, it is shaped like a snare, all right, limp and skinny!”

“Saaa!” Mashkiigikwe walked up behind Nanapush and swiped at his head with her brush, an ingenious thing, not store-bought but created of clipped porcupine quills fastened into a strip of rawhide.

“I don’t hunt with snares, sweetheart,” Nanapush crooned to Mashkiigikwe. “I use a nice, long, heavy stick.”

Mashkiigikwe sneered down on him with amused contempt, stuck her little finger out, and wiggled it at him.

“All you’re good for is bait,” she declared.

“Let’s go fish together, then,” said Nanapush.

“I only fish with my old man.”

“What do you do,” Nanapush inquired, “those lonely nights when he satisfies your sisters?”

Mashkiigikwe’s mouth opened. She glared at him with false outrage.

“Me,” said Nanapush confidingly, “when I had six wives—”

“Six!” Mashkiigikwe interrupted, laughing sarcastically. “He was drunk and seeing double!”