The Orenda Joseph Boyden Read online

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  TONIGHT WE STOP EARLY to begin preparing for our meeting with them. We are within a short paddle of the designated place where the Snake River is born from the big lake. No doubt the Haudenosaunee warriors have already arrived and do the same. Mine sit in groups of two or three, scraping one another’s heads clean with shells, oiling their hair, applying ochre to faces and chests and arms. I watch how the young ones are nervous beneath their paint and bravado. Fox notes this as well as he shaves the one side of my head. “Their first taste of it soon if things go bad,” he says. “That’ll calm them down.”

  “No talk of it going poorly,” I say. “I’m eager for the Crow to be gone.” I hold up my wounded hand, suddenly light-headed with the thought that I’ve lost something I might never have needed. “And especially the girl.”

  He laughs. “I hope you won’t wear such a ridiculous bandage on your hand tomorrow,” he says. “And speaking of the Crow, how exactly are you going to get rid of him?”

  “Simple,” I say. “When they demand reparation for the ones we killed last winter, I’ll give them the Crow. They’ve wanted one badly for a long time now.” I pause to consider this. “You and I will tell the others that they wouldn’t leave without the Crow and so I was forced to surrender him at the risk of bringing war upon us for not giving in.”

  “We can tell the elders there are other crows to be had,” Fox says. “Maybe this will work. Maybe not. We’ll see.” He looks at me and I look back.

  “Say it,” I say.

  “I’ve only known you to tell the truth.” He stands then, and walks away.

  When the time comes, we enter our canoes in the weakening light of the waning moon and paddle up the last stretch of river before the lake. Morning birds have begun to call as we beach where the current is too strong to go farther, and we hide in the bush onshore. I’ve sent Fox ahead to scout with a few of his chosen ones. The birds go quiet now, sensing our presence. We crouch and listen, more than fifty of us spread out on both banks, and I’m proud at how silent these men of mine are, these untested youth who I selected from only a gut feeling.

  I have no idea if the girl’s relations will act according to their word. I took lives without the knowledge they were so special, and this changes everything, dear one. You know this. They did the same to me.

  Squatting and half-asleep on my haunches, my ears attuned to the early-morning world, I hear Fox approaching. He smiles at me, nods in the direction of the lake, and shows with his fingers how many of them and their location along it where it flows to river. A main body of them is indeed where they said they’d be, with smaller parties spread on either side. Unless they’re very good at hiding, this party is only half the size of ours. I know they’ll be perched in trees or lying in the thicker grass up the banks, ready for the eruption of violence if it’s to come. They’re not so different from us.

  For now we wait, Fox beside me, his keen eyes and brain never relaxing, searching the mist on the river and lake for something the rest of us don’t see. I try to go into that place in my head as I crouch, my knees beginning to sing with the pain that keeps me sharp. I remember leaving my home that morning a couple of weeks ago, the Crow behind me in the canoe, trying to decide if he would pick up a paddle or not, when one old woman whose mind has become soft and who’d come to see us all off sang out to us, “Goodbye! Please take this drought with you! Bye-bye, and leave the Crow but bring back rain.” I thought about her words all day. The crooked ones are so often right. I’d wanted to see Gosling before I left, to do more with her than let her groom me, but she’s been quite distant with me since we moved the village.

  The sun now at its place that gives no advantage to either party, I whisper last words to Fox to make sure he remains hidden but close enough to watch my back. I stand slow, stretching up to another bright day, a beautiful day, another day where no rain will fall in my village to nourish the three sisters. My knees pop. Not too many more seasons of what I’m doing. This is a young man’s game, after all, and I’m surrounded by those who want, one day, what I already have.

  I tread to the shore with the Crow and seven men, all carefully selected by age for that combination of wisdom and strength. The girl will wait here until I call for her. As the enemy demanded, wampum and the girl will be exchanged for my life being spared. I can’t wait to see the reaction of the enemy when they see the Crow. As for the wampum, I’ll have to admit the tragedy of its loss. There’s no doubt that my enemy will demand seven of my people to replace the seven whose lives we took that day last winter, and this will be a heated debate that I’m not willing to bow to. I’ll simply then explain that the death of you, dear wife, and of our daughters has never been recognized, and my voice will tremor with the anger that makes them realize how many unseen debts are unpaid. They’ll understand, or they’ll not. I can only hope now that I’ve hidden my warriors on the banks and in the trees well enough to outwit them. We will soon see.

  We spot each other at the same time. He’s my equal, a leader, a man of a certain age and importance, and we have the same height and build. But he wears his hair down the middle and my first impression is I can’t wait to cut it from his head. It strikes me then why I feel so strongly against him. He must be a relation of the girl.

  We walk to them, taking our time as the last wisps of morning mist burn away in the sun.

  “I told you only seven men,” he calls out.

  I stop, look around me as if surprised, and call back, “But we are seven.”

  “What of the charcoal with you, then?” he asks.

  “Oh, him,” I say. “I’ve never considered counting him as a man.” My warriors laugh behind me. I clutch my club in my good hand and smile at him.

  “No games,” he barks.

  I raise my club and sweep it across my view. “You’re on my land,” I say. “No, there will be no games.”

  We both stare at one another. Yes, he looks fierce, his hair shining in the light, his arms ropy with the muscle of paddling so far, his shoulders and chest full. He’s younger than me. The ochre on his face can’t conceal that he hasn’t yet seen or done what I have. I picture launching myself at him, club raised high, stone and sharp wood thudding into his skull.

  “You should remove the animal from our presence, then,” he says.

  I look at the Crow. “I’d thought to give him to you as a gift.” The Crow’s eyes widen. Clearly, his language has improved.

  “I don’t see my relation,” he says. “And if you’ve allowed that”—he points with his chin to the Crow—“to have come even within breathing distance of her, the death sentence will be yours.”

  “He’s harmless,” I say. “Let’s talk about what’s really important.” I pause so that the next words come out right. “There will be no wampum for you.” I lower my club. “It was lost on our paddle here, and for this, I deeply regret.”

  I can see by his face that he doesn’t know how to answer. The wampum we were to present him took our most talented artisans weeks of intense work, the weaving of our stories and of our hopes and wishes and especially of our promises, each single, hand-polished bead cut and shaped from foreign shells, drilled for the thread to pass through, each bead glittering and weighing almost nothing but immeasurable in price when it’s chosen and sewn next to the other so that our hopes and our history emerge into something that can be held, that can be weighed in the hands, to be passed around and explained. This, I realize, this wampum, our story meant for these people who are our enemy, has been lost. And I’m the one responsible for losing it. It’s my fault, I see, staring at this man. I have lost my people’s story, my gift to the ones who are our enemy, in the hope of changing that course. I now know that the course we are on, this other leader and me, is a course of warfare. And that now that I’ve told him I lost the wampum, only one of us will see tomorrow.

  “That’s not what we agreed upon,” he says.

  I want to tell him that if he were to grow older
, more and more it would seem that much he’s agreed upon, much he’s accepted as fair and good and right, will suddenly no longer appear as such. Instead, I say, “Shame.” As soon as that simple word leaves my mouth, I know where this will go, and go quickly. I can sense from how his shoulders tense that he does, too. The others around us, listening close, also see what cannot be avoided, and I know they size one another up.

  “Bring me my brother’s child,” the Haudenosaunee says. “Now.”

  “In due time,” I say.

  “You’ve got this all wrong,” he says. “It’s you who owe us.”

  “No,” I say, stepping toward him. “That isn’t true.”

  He stares at me, clearly convinced that I’m doomed if I continue moving forward. He knows my people don’t want to go to war and will take it out directly on me if I cause it.

  I turn to my most physically imposing warrior, Tall Trees. “Alert Fox and the others,” I say. “It is on.” And as I turn back to the younger warrior in front of me, his eyes open wide with the realization that I will not play by the rules. Low and from the hip, my club arcs across me and catches him below the jaw, snapping his head up. He falls back as others move forward, and, indeed, it is on. Men become dogs, growling and barking and biting with their knives and clubs. I hear Fox call to our men that it’s time to fight as I stand over their leader, on the ground and twitching in pain. His equal to my Fox screams and darts toward me but Fox leaps high and drives his knife into the warrior’s chest and the two fall onto the sand and rock. I watch as Fox straddles his man, pulling out the knife with both hands before running it across the dying man’s neck.

  The leader remains on his back, eyes rolled into his sockets. I lift my club and swing, crushing his forehead. His body convulses, and I move on.

  As our men rush along both banks to engage the enemy, Fox shouts that their archers are taking aim. Arrows whistle by as those of us in the open run for cover in the trees. I see the Crow, bent toward one of their dying, talking to him, the man lifting his arms as if to ward him off. The Crow lowers his hand and runs his thumb along the man’s forehead.

  Gathering with the larger party of our own just inside the forest, Fox and I speak our wishes. We assume the enemy’s number is smaller than ours given their reaction to my initial violence. I killed their leader, after all, and the response was much lighter than expected. My men killed or wounded all of the leader’s party of warriors, and only two of my men suffered and by the looks of it should survive. Fox and I divide our men into groups of four and five and send them to seek out the enemy, and he sends others to the far side of the river to let them know of our plans. Today, with our superior numbers, we shall hunt them. I’m almost saddened this will be the case. It seems they underestimated our strength, and especially our resolve.

  For the next while we fight pitched battles, my archers taking some from a distance, the majority of us moving slow through the trees and trying to outsmart the other. The cries of two or three men meeting one another echo out from the forest every little while, and all of us tense for the outcome. Fox and I stay close. The girl is safe with two young braves. I’ve told them to kill her if they are overrun but only if they’re absolutely sure they will lose her to the enemy. She and I, our connection is too strong, I now realize as I run my good fingers over the severed one. Our connection is too weighted in blood now for me to allow her to be taken away. As for the Crow, last I heard and last I saw, he walks among the dead and wounded like the bird that he is, pecking at those poor men’s foreheads, trying to gain something for himself from their dying bodies.

  By afternoon, the forest is quiet. Fox comes for me where a creek runs into the lake, a good walk from where I began this violence earlier. “We’ve found their canoes,” he says into my ear.

  “How many,” I ask. “And what size?”

  He holds up five fingers, then explains with his hands that one is large, one is medium, and three are small and quick. Fox himself slit the throat of the sentry left to protect them. The ones we scuffle with aren’t foolish, have at least as many canoes at another location. The five canoes we have found carry maybe twenty men. From the fight they’ve put up today, this must be half their fleet.

  “Collect as many as you can without making undue noise, and we’ll gather in wait,” I whisper. Fox smiles, then sneaks away. From my estimates, we’ve been presented the opportunity to finish the rest. It will be a statement that can’t be ignored by them, that if they come to the border of our territory again, they’ll suffer the same consequences. And wiping out this warrior party of such esteem will certainly erase any concerns of my elders about whether or not I’m a leader in good standing. Any of my decisions regarding the Crow, and especially the girl, will hopefully be respected. Still, I feel a flutter in my belly at the thought of doing the opposite of what was expected of me. I can picture the looks upon their faces when I return home with the girl rather than the Crow.

  With a handful of my men acting as dogs, chasing any of their stragglers away from our own canoes, I lie with Fox and twelve others he’s managed to gather. More slip in every little while. I can’t hear them but I can sense it. As far as I can tell, we’ve not given up our surprise. Birds sing in the late-afternoon forest as we lie above the creek where their canoes sit high on the bank, hidden in the tall grass. Soon, as dusk settles, probably, they’ll begin to congregate and try to make their night escape from us. And so we wait.

  I wonder about the girl, how she will respond now that I’m on the verge of changing her future forever. I want to laugh out loud with the realization that by killing her uncle, I’ve tied her to me with a rope that can’t be cut. This girl who has disfigured me, today, with my actions, I have made my own. I acted without thinking about what I was doing for the long term. And that action, that changing the course of events without thought, is as powerful as dreams. All this must be listened to.

  Or am I lying to myself? Can I convince myself I haven’t wanted exactly what has happened from the time we set out on this journey? Hopefully, at least, the Crow is dead by now.

  My eyes grow heavy as clouds swallow the last of the sun. Rain comes soon. As a younger man, I’d be near mad with the tension of the battle looming. But I’m older now, my love, and realize acutely that each day is one day closer to you.

  Fox wakes me from my reverie by resting a hand on my back. He hears something. I open my eyes and focus. There it is, the swish of tall grass against thigh, the crunch of pebbles and sand underfoot, the low moan of a wounded man before his mouth is covered. We will not use bows tonight. Tonight we will go in with knives, clubs, and spears. In this way we’ll finish them.

  Waiting, the night close enough now that the enemy is just shadows, I can feel the air cool and the rain that approaches. The storm will be heavy and should pass quickly. We’ll have to act fast when we are sure that they’ve all gathered so as not to let any of them escape in the rain.

  I watch in the dusk as the enemy, in ones and twos, slips out of the forest and down to their canoes, picking them up and carrying them to the creek. We have our warriors on both sides of this small river, and when I stand and make the initial move the rest will follow. The beginning cold drops of rain hit my naked back and cause me to shiver. The first of their canoes is in the water and the few men in it start to paddle. The others, nervous now, come out of the forest for fear of waiting too long. This must be all of them. It’s time.

  Just as I stand, the sky opens and the rain begins in earnest. Through sheets of it I see a sight that makes me feel something like envy. The last couple of their warriors have my Crow, bound and gagged, and they drag him down to the creek and shove him like a bundle of furs into their canoe and then climb in themselves.

  Five canoes on the creek, the first one, the large one, already reaching the lake, the last just ahead of me as I bolt down the bank with a knife in one hand. The rain sings on the water of the creek and I’m crashing into it and launching myself upon the man
in the stern before he even knows I’m there. Jumping up from the shallows and wrapping my arms around his chest and neck, I pull him from his vessel and into the water with me. The canoe tips over, dumping the bound Crow into the creek as Fox grabs the warrior paddling in front.

  I can’t hear my warriors descend on the other canoes, but in the steady drum of rain in the growing dark, I know my men are evis-cerating the enemy. I take a large breath and pull my paddler under the surface and he struggles against me fiercely. I reach for his neck with my right hand and shove my knife into it, and this causes him to struggle harder. I can feel ribbons of his warm blood in the cold water and as I stay under with him, each of his kicks, each of his swings pump more blood from his neck until, in the dark, I imagine the creek is red all around us. His fight slows to spasms, and when I’m sure he’s dead, I burst up and take a deep breath. Fox has already smashed in the head of his enemy, and in a flash of lightning I see that he stands ready to help me if I need it.

  Their canoe floats capsized a short distance downstream and we make our way to it. The rain continues to pound and lightning punctuates the gloom of the night. I don’t worry about the others. Our numbers are overwhelming and my young men hungry for the glory, the bragging rights of battle. I’m glad not to be our enemy tonight.

  As we reach the canoe and turn it back over, lifting it from the shallow creek to rid it of the water, Fox points to the Crow still farther down, lit briefly by lightning, fighting to keep his head above water, his mouth, for those brief seconds we can see him, frozen in a scream.

  “Your problems are solved,” Fox shouts over the hissing water. The Crow will drown, and I won’t be blamed for his loss in the heat of battle.

  This canoe we’ve taken is a fine one. I can see that it was either stolen or bartered from an Anishnaabe. I run my hand along the birch-bark, note how carefully each long strip has been sewn and rosined against leaking. It’s very light and will be very quick. Haudenosaunee don’t have access to birch like this where they come from and travel in much lesser elm-bark canoes that rarely last a whole summer. “This one is yours,” I shout to Fox. “It’s perfect for your size and strength.” He grins. “I’ll stay here on the bank. Check on the others and let me know what you find out.” Fox nods and disappears into the rain.