‘In the beginning a saint dwelt in the land of Morbihan, and when she saw how men had to brave the sea, or starve, she took pity on them, and made it her task to watch over them. This she has done ever since. Neither forest nor ocean can divide her from her children, however far they travel. In my grandparents’ language her name was Ker Anna. When my people came across the sea to Québec, they brought her with them. But when they came here, they must speak French, and so they called her Sainte Anne. She is here; she watches over the canoes and all the other ships that cross the lakes. She watches over us this winter, and I am happy because of that.
‘Martin Kerners remembered his grandfather well, and listened to his stories so that one day he would be able to tell his son. When Martin Kerners went into the land of the Ottawa to trade, he came at last to the lodge of the man who had no people – this is what he is called – because all his people had died of the smallpox. Only his daughter still lived with him. All her family were gone – her mother, her brothers – everyone she had known. She came back from the borders of death, and found only her father still in the world of the living. She bore the marks of her sickness ever after. Some men said that she was ugly, and made the sign against evil when she passed. But she was not ugly, nor evil. She had no magic of that kind – this I know well, for she was my mother – and since only two years ago she is dead. And that is the story of my father, Martin Kerners, whom you know.’
I saw no reason why Loic should say more about himself, but Alan pressed him to do so, and as the weeks passed, he did tell us things now and then. He'd spent most of his early years at the cabin on Bois Blanc; only once did he talk directly about growing up among his mother's people.
‘After my twelfth winter they sent me away,’ he told us. ‘On Bois Blanc my mother taught me all she could, but how can a woman teach a boy to become a man? I mean a man among her people, vous comprenez, for I had always my father with me, and so I became a Frenchman, but that is another matter. No man begins to be himself until he has been given his dream. His dream is what he lives for; it is why he is alive. Only among my mother's people could this come to me. Just as Gitchi Manitou had his vision and made it into the world we know, so we must make our own lives in the same way.
‘So I went away with my far cousins to a place by Lake Superior where there are very many islands. It came to Manoominike-giizis – the moon of the rice harvest. Our rice lake was two days’ journey from Lake Superior. It was a long lake, and from it a river flowed yet further into the land. At the rice camp I refused to eat, and though everyone tempted me with food I would not take it. I marked my face with charcoal, and I would not eat. Then my cousins came to me – for they were to me the father and the uncles I did not have – and they took me to an old beaver lake far up the river. On a little island among the reeds they built me a wigwam of withies, and there they left me, and after that I was alone.
‘For five days I fasted, while the moon waned in the sky. Never in my life had I lain in a lodge alone. There were no paths – the island was very small – only shallow winding creeks all round, and the river flowing through the heart of the swamp. I made myself a raft of withies and bound it with rushes. I took my knife and cut myself a sort of paddle from an alder stump. In the daytime I explored the lake right down as far as the beaver dams, creeping among the reeds in my little craft. I followed the ways of the ducks and the heron, and sometimes I would disturb a moose standing in the cool water, and it would scramble away with great splashings. But I was not loud like a moose in my comings and goings. No, I was as silent as a moorhen, and even the otters didn't hear that I was there.
‘I tried to make a better raft. I paddled to the edge of the forest and cut birch saplings and bound them together, more in the shape of a canoe than my withy raft had been. It was a bad place to be without a real canoe. I felt like a bird with its wing feathers cut off, not to have a canoe. I thought, when I go back, the first thing I shall do is make my own canoe.
‘Thinking this, I fell asleep. And now I will tell you a story:
‘A long time ago a young man came to Nanubushu's wigwam on Mackinac Island. He found the Manitou smoking his pipe outside in the cool of the evening. The young man laid his gift of tobacco at the feet of Nanubushu, and said to him, “Manitou Nanubushu, I have come far to find you. Will you give me one thing?” Nanubushu looked the young man in the eyes, took the tobacco, and began to fill his pipe.
‘So the young man said to Nanubushu, “Only one thing do I ask. I want a canoe of my own, as good as any canoe ever built. Give me a canoe, and the strength to paddle it, so I can go wherever I want in the wide world. This is all I ask.”
‘Nanubushu took his pipe from his mouth and said, “Fast for three more days, young man, and then go back to your village. Take a gift of tobacco and spread it upon the wide waters. Gather cedarwood and birchbark, spruce root and resin, and for each gift that you take from the forest lay down your gift in return. Take nothing more than you need. And tell your people that you are E-ntaa-jiimid” (which is to say, vous comprenez, a good paddler). “And now go away, before you ask me for too much!"’
Loic's stories were so unlike anything I'd ever heard that I used to fall asleep with strange images in my mind, and dream wild dreams. But our real troubles hadn't gone away. Not only our food, but also our powder and lead were very low, and for three weeks we'd been unable to hunt. Loic told me about the French priests of old, who boiled up the leather binding of their bibles and ate that, and Alan remarked that whole tribes had survived the winter on naught but skins and bones. They appeared to take the matter lightly, but I was feeling the pinch of hunger for the first time in my life. I have a good appetite – always have had – but even in the bad years of the late ‘90s we never actually ran short of food at Highside. One evening I watched Alan – for about that time he took over the cooking, saying at least he was fit for that – measure out a little rice into a stock of boiled hide from the buck, and it dawned on me that I was the only one to whom this ache of hunger was anything new. I thought of my boyish appetite in my growing years, and remembered my father rebuking me, saying, ‘I think a fourth helping of mutton is more than any man needs,’ and feeling ashamed and humiliated. Alan and Loic were both slighter men than I; I found myself wondering where Alan had been when he was thirteen, and what kind of life he had known then.
The day came when we boiled up the last of the lead – it barely filled the ladle – and pressed it into the moulds. There were four balls in each mould. We still had shot, but Second Month was not yet over. There were two months to go, at least, before the lake was open. In two days we'd be out of meat entirely.
‘So, we don't use ball for anything but deer now,’ said Loic. ‘In fact, for anything but a big buck. You will forget the turkeys now, Mark, will you not?’
The next morning was bright and sunny, but my heart was low and I was hungry. I sat on a log in the sun, lashing a split in one of my snowshoes with a length of sinew. The snowshoes weren't as good as the ones I'd made at Yonge Street, for I'd had naught but my pocket knife for whittling, and the boiling pot to steam the wood. I heard nothing, but I caught a sudden movement at the tail of my eye, and looked up.
If thee looks into the eyes of one thee knows will kill thee, thee won't forget. I knew him at once, and the two men with him. I'd last seen him on the dunes of South Manitou island, after he'd shot Alan, whom I regarded as my brother.
I put down my snowshoe, and stood up.
’Nigigwetagad.‘
They had a fresh-killed buck with them, hung from a length of sapling between two men. I couldn't help it: my eyes were drawn that way, and my desire must have shown in my face.
’Gibakade na?‘
‘Ay,’ I said.
’Nigigwetagad!‘ He laughed, and said something I could not follow. I shook my head.
’Nigigwetagad!‘ Then he beckoned to his companions, and they turned away, the dead buck swinging on its pole between them, and
disappeared among the trees.
Alan had heard nothing. When I went inside and told him about it he whistled, and said, ‘We could have guessed they hadn't gone far. This must be their hunting ground. I don't think their lodge can be close by; we'd have seen them before.’
‘The other folk – the ones we traded with – didn't say anything.’
‘Why should they? I wonder who he is.’
Alan didn't know the word Nigigwetagad. When Loic came back off the ice with the first fresh fish we'd had for weeks, I asked him.
‘It means “grey”,’ said Loic. ‘Just the colour: “grey”.’
Alan grinned, ‘Not much grey about you now, Mark. What'll they say in Meeting when you turn up next winter dressed in skins and rabbit furs?’
‘Those warriors will have heard about you,’ said Loic, pursuing his own thought. ‘"The man in grey who will not kill.” If they had not heard the story I think you would be dead.’
‘So it was worth spending your summer arguing with me in public,’ said Alan.
‘It would make sense for them,’ said Loic. ‘The Indians also have men who are not warriors. There is no disrespect.’
‘That was a fine buck they had,’ I said wistfully.
‘Be glad it wasn't you, brother Mark.’
The next day dawned icy and bright. I loaded the musket and primed it, put my other three balls in my gun bag, and headed for our lake. I crossed the snow-covered ice, where walking was easy, till I reached a thickly wooded area on the east bank. I hadn't been this way since before midwinter, when we'd collected mast from under the big oaks. The trees were very old, and huge dead branches reached out horizontally over my head. Loic said it was a bad place for deadfalls, but there was no wind. There was a layer of hard frost on the snow. Usually my feet didn't sink in, but in sheltered places the crust broke and I found myself floundering in a couple of feet of soft snow. The deer had mostly run easily over the top, but there was a big fellow who'd broken through the ice here and there just as I was doing.
The trail led me through thickets of saplings growing through deep brush. The deer had made a narrow path, which I followed from tree to tree, ducking under thin branches as I went. I came to a steep bank held together with tree trunks, where the ground had washed away. I was about to grab hold of a branch and swing myself up, but then I thought the herd might be very close, on the far side of the bank maybe. I stopped to check the priming on my gun.
I heard a curious huffing sound, and looked up. Less then fifteen feet away, halfway up the bank, there was a great black bear. I saw its brown eyes fixed on me. It reared on its hind legs like a man, and swatted the air with a huge paw. I saw five long claws like knives. As I raised my gun it dropped on four legs, head lowered. I fell to my knees – I had to get below the head – as it charged. I fired. It didn't stop – it was on me – I rolled down the slope and felt a blow on my back like a falling rock, and a sudden sting like ice. I thought to die. Suddenly I was free. I scrambled to my feet, unsheathing my knife, and ran desperately for the nearest tree. I made it. From the shelter of its trunk I looked behind me. The bear was not two yards away. I dodged back. There could be but one end to this game. I clutched the tree trunk, trying to look both ways at once. I heard that same huffing sound again, and dodged the other way. I peered round the tree. There it was, watching me. Before I'd ducked out of sight it rose on its hind legs again, as tall as I was. For a moment we were both quite still. Then it cried out – a long human moan – a sound of so much sorrow that it pierced right through me, as if my blood were frozen in my veins. The great beast keeled over, and lay still.
I gazed at it for what seemed a great space of time, but it never moved. Very cautiously I left my tree trunk and stood over the body. The mouth was stretched open; I never saw such teeth. Below the head the snow was pink with spreading blood. I looked at the chest below the throat; there was blood in the thick fur. Warily I bent down, and saw the hole where my shot had gone home.
When I was quite sure the beast was dead I fell to my knees in the snow beside its body. My limbs were shaking, and my heart was throbbing in my chest. I fought to get my breath, and then I laid my hand on the thick fur. I was still nervous, for all I knew I'd made my kill. The fur was not entirely black: there were different shades of brown in it as well. It smelt pretty strong. The bear was very big – as big as me – but more compact – heavier. Why had it left its den? It ought not to be here. My back stung. No man could ever have dealt me such a clout. I felt over my shoulder. The deerskin was ripped right open. I looked at my shaking hand and saw blood on it.
I did as Loic had taught me – not the manner of it, but the matter – and gave my Saviour more heartfelt thanks than I had ever done before that it was not I who lay dead on the forest floor. I thanked him that my shot had gone home, and that we had meat now to bring us to the end of winter, and we would not die. And in my prayer I had a consciousness of him whom I addressed which was entirely new to me. Had he not created all things, and given each of his creatures its own nature? For the beasts of the field there is neither right nor wrong; we are what we are. He was not a God of gentleness to me then, but fierce and uncompromising, for all that he had shown me mercy. It was as if he said to me, ‘This is the way I made the world, a life for a life, and to each according to his own nature.’ I cannot explain it – I seemed to have come to the heart of what I sought. Rachel was not found – I had failed in that – but something quite different had been vouchsafed to me. Extraordinarily, when my prayer was done, I felt at ease.
That was not all that I did. When I told Loic I could not take part in his rituals, he was more upset than I'd ever seen him. He said there were certain things I must do, or revenge would be taken on us all. I thought it over, and it seemed better to let him have his way. If there were nothing in it, what harm could it do? So we boiled the bear's skull clean, and Loic made patterns on it with my ink.2 He said we should have had colours, but there were none. We hung the skull in the wigwam where its empty eyes looked down on us in the firelight, and in the flicker of the flames it sometimes seemed to move. We cut the claws out of their far cases and polished them. Loic strung them on a rawhide cord and hung them below the skull. He burned the last of his tobacco and some sage in a bowl, which he left smoking before the skull as an offering to the spirit of him who had given his life that we might live. I could not think that such practices were in any way consonant with the Principles of my Religious Society, but neither could I explain to myself exactly why they were wrong, and so I let him do it.
1 These are somewhat like our own pine martens.
2 He nearly finished the bottle, which is why I had to cease writing my journal early in Third Month, and was not able to resume the narrative until we got back to Mackinac.
CHAPTER 22
IT TOOK US SEVERAL DAYS TO DEAL WITH OUR BEAR. We boiled the meat for a long time, for it was much infested with bloodworms and other parasites. Then we cut the flesh into strips, and spread it on wooden racks to dry. We hung the racks from branches out of reach of animals. The air was so cold again that the meat froze as it dried, without benefit of smoke or salt. Thawed out, it tasted almost as sweet as fresh meat. We made stock from the bones, and ate the marrow. The hide I cured and stretched on a frame, as we did with the small game. Loic had taught me how to use brains for tanning, rubbing them in and scraping the skin clean, so I treated my bearskin the same way. We rendered down the fat for grease, and made more tallow dips. It made life easier to have light again, however little. We needed grease for ourselves too, for with enough fat to eat we quickly regained our strength to withstand the cold.
Loic anointed my back with a lotion of tamarack and sarsaparilla. He said I had five deep wounds, as if I'd been slashed with a razor, from my right shoulder to my waist. It must have been a very glancing blow, he said, or the skin would have been ripped right off. As it was, it was sore for a while, but soon healed pretty well. The scars will be with me till I die.
1
Third Month came in with a blizzard that kept me broad awake all night, while the wind howled like a whirling banshee. When I touched the frame of our wigwam I could feel it vibrating under my hand, taut as a bowstring. Next morning, when I took the barricade of stakes and deerskins from off the doorway, I was confronted by a solid white wall. Loic and I took turns to dig in that awkward space, and when we got clear the snow was shoulder-high all round us. We dug a path to the meat rack and wood pile, and I made steps up to the surface so we could go abroad in our snowshoes. For two weeks our wigwam was half buried, but that was all to the good, for it hugged us like a blanket, and while we had wood and fat meat we were as snug as hedgehogs in a haystack. I had time to write in my notebook again until I finished the ink. The last passage brings that winter back to me as if it were yesterday.2
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