by David Treuer
He had given Bimaadiz and Eta a lot to think about.
3. They stood up, confused, embarrassed. They stretched as though waking from a nap or having sat still for a long time, when in reality they had done neither. They walked slowly up the trail—confused and shy. It was the first time either of them had heard of He-Whose-Name-We-Don’t-Say, who is also known as Zaagichigewinini, and it was also the first time they had heard the phrase “zaagi’idiwin”—that sickness that seemed to have infected them both. Since they had been raised by people who were not their real parents and had never spent much time in a village—surrounded by cousins and siblings and play friends—listening to stories or even witnessing the physical results of zaagi’idiwin, they were terribly innocent and had no idea that the cure for such an illness was almost, but not quite, as divine as the sickness itself.
They thought about the old man’s advice as they walked side by side. When he told them of his own experiences, he might as well have been talking about theirs, about how they felt—hot, as though sitting under a strong sun, tingly as though stung by bees, dizzy as though they had each been holding their breath for too long. Occasionally, as they thought on these things, their hands would touch, just a brush really, as they swung their arms in time with their leisurely strides. Each time their skin came into contact they felt a surge of emotion, a pleasant tremor, and with each touch they thought of what the old man had said about lying down naked together. But that felt like a long way off, a distant place from where they were. Such a drastic action! Neither child could imagine saying anything about it—they were both raised to be modest and respectful, raised not to be too blunt or to push those around them too hard. To suggest such a thing, to say it out loud was impossible. But all the same, they were thrilled at the casual touch of their hands and wanted more, so each time their hands passed either Bimaadiz or Eta would keep it there, hoping their hands would stay in contact a little longer. It thrilled them, and their little game occupied them so completely they were unable to talk and they had to concentrate on the trail, to match their strides so their arms would swing in time and enable them to prolong the moment when their hands came in contact.
Lucky for them, whenever humans invent a sickness, nature provides a remedy if not a cure. Because, focused on her hand and on Bimaadiz’s hand, and attuned to the swinging of their arms and the pace they set with their feet, Eta neglected to look out for the trail and she stumbled on a tree root. As quick as lightning Bimaadiz grabbed her hand to keep her from falling. But once she regained her balance Bimaadiz did not let go. He loosened his grip but did not let go. Eta, without realizing what she was doing, without knowing what she should do, but able to do it anyway, laced her soft cool fingers in between his. They were now walking hand in hand.
It was magical for them both. Warmth flooded their bodies. They felt dizzy, off-center, but filled with happiness. An unfathomable joy—from whence did it come? what was its cause?—consumed them. A mystery to be sure, but no less a thrill for being unknown. They gazed at the canopy above them—they were still in the lowlands and among maples, ironwood, and birch that were budding out, ripe with life, and they offered silent thanks to the trees. Bimaadiz thought they had never looked so beautiful. Eta thought herself the luckiest girl on earth, so blessed was she to live among such venerable trees. They promised—each on their own, silently—to honor all the trees because it was a tree root that brought them together.
And so they walked along hand in hand with no idea where they were going—experiencing a quiet pleasure lost on adults, who, because they have experienced it all, because they have climbed the peak of life, look down on everything. They have forgotten how beautiful the view is from the valley floor.
But how soon we search for the higher trail! Because, if Bimaadiz and Eta had reached the end of their efforts we could end ours and stop the story here—with the two impossibly beautiful children, walking hand in hand down the wooded trail. But since their satisfaction did end, and much sooner than they expected, our story must continue.
And so, even though holding hands was a big step for the two, and even though it brought them pleasure that they themselves would have been hard-pressed to describe, it can’t be imagined that it brought them total happiness. They are humans after all, not characters in a story. They wanted more. They each thought about the rest of the old man’s advice—how he told them they must also kiss, and embrace, and ultimately lie down together naked. But neither of them knew how to make any of that happen, and they both prayed for some kind of accident, like the tree root, which would show them how to proceed. They were hungry, but they didn’t know what for. And they wanted more, but they didn’t know more of what. Holding hands wasn’t enough—it was a taste, not a meal, and trappers and hunters need meals to keep them strong.
They looked in the trees, hoping to spy a bird. They tested the wind for strange smells. They looked for flowers, the first blooms of spring—trillium or cowslip. They looked for anything that could distract them from their dilemma. But it was too early in the year for such things, and the birds were off in some other part of the forest, and no smells, none out of the ordinary, greeted them. But suddenly, to Bimaadiz’s great relief, he saw a morel mushroom poking its helmet above the duff on the forest floor.
4. “Look,” he said excitedly, and he pulled Eta by the hand off the trail and into the woods. She couldn’t see it at first.
“Look for the stalk, you’ll see.” He pointed.
“I don’t see anything,” she said impatiently. “I can’t see anything.”
So he led her up to it, and they knelt down in front of the tasty thing. She saw it and squealed and said, “Yes! Yes! It was right there! How could I miss it?”
They both marveled at its presence, exclaiming how perfect it was, how good it would taste, how hard it was to find them. (Though the truth of it was that the two of them had often hunted for mushrooms in the spring). If the temperature was right and if it had rained a lot and the sun cooperated, these treats were common enough.
But Bimaadiz and Eta were so nervous, so unsure of themselves that they could not address each other directly much less talk about what the old man had suggested, so they used the innocent, unsuspecting mushroom as a pretext to kneel down, to put their shoulders and their whole arms in contact. Bimaadiz put his arm around Eta, pretending she hadn’t seen the mushroom yet, and with his hand on her shoulder guided her closer to the thing. He felt the heat of her neck. She patted his thigh in order to draw his attention to other mushrooms, visible now that they knew what to look for, or perhaps newly emerged, released by Bimaadiz and Eta’s collected heat.
She pointed one direction at a cluster of mushrooms, he nodded and pointed to another bunch of them in a different direction, and with each turn of their heads they drew closer together. The closer their lips were, the harder their hearts beat, until, suddenly, without knowing how, their lips met. And once their soft lips—used only for eating, talking, and singing—met, they discovered a new purpose for their mouths. A truer, more satisfying occupation for that hungry organ.
They drew apart and looked into each other’s eyes. To Bimaadiz, Eta had never looked so beautiful. Her hair was windblown, and a few fronds were draped across her forehead. Her breath came fast. Bimaadiz gently pushed her hair back and was amazed at how smooth her skin was, how deep the color. Her neck and cheeks were tinged red, and the birthmark on her right cheek looked darker against its red background. Small beads of sweat clung to her upper lip.
Eta could not stop gazing into Bimaadiz’s eyes. They were much darker than she thought—the pupil and iris were almost the same color—and they were alive with life as they jumped first from one of her own eyes and then to the other and back. His eyelids were pulled down at the corner, and so when he blinked it was a lazy, hooded gesture (if we can call blinking a gesture, and most certainly we can when describing lovers and how they lo
ok at each other). His eyes looked sleepy and shy, in contrast to the energy of his gaze. They had never been so beautiful.
They kissed again. This time their lips touched for a much longer time. And though it was an inexperienced kind of kiss—clumsy, hesitant, and then with too much pressure—both of the youngsters felt dizzy. They kissed and pulled apart. Paused, and kissed again until their knees began to ache, kneeling there above the mushrooms, and so they sat down in the leaves cross-legged and facing each other. Eta kissed Bimaadiz’s closed eyes. He kissed the dark smudge on her cheek. With each kiss it was as though they were building a bridge over a river and thereby joining two previously separate cities, which could then, over time, become one.
They kissed through the day—pausing only to draw back and assess the other or to shift their legs and wiggle their toes, which had fallen asleep, or to brush back and smooth the other’s hair. As they leaned in to feast on each other’s lips their knees kissed as well. The shallow shells of their kneecaps brushed together through her skirt and through his pants in childish imitation of the meeting of their soft lips. So they kissed and kissed and with four knees and two sets of lips their greedy bodies were able to share in three kisses at once.
There was no one to watch except for the mushrooms that stood silent guard on the forest floor. But they were forgotten. Neither Bimaadiz nor Eta could see—as the sun shone down and the kisses continued—that the mushrooms grew, poking their heads out of the duff with their shafts hardening, as though watered and fed by the children’s touch. Thus the day passed, the sun sank low in the sky and the dusk brought with it a sharp chill. Finally, Bimaadiz and Eta stood, dazed by what they had discovered, and hurried home, their lips burning from all the rubbing.
5. Every day thereafter they woke up, each in their own bedroll, and rushed to meet in the deep woods, and spent the whole day kissing and embracing. They parted in the evening to dream of the other all night long. They both thought often of Kiiwenz’s advice, and the expedient of nakedness, and while after kissing they were prone to believe in everything the old man had said, neither was bold enough to take the initiative.
Step by step, as religious processions slowly make their way to the most sacred of sites, their hands began walking—fluttering—over each other, moving ever so slowly into more hallowed precincts. This way Bimaadiz took great delight in discovering the bold knob of Eta’s elbow, that high hill, covered in skin, from which the rest of her arm could be surveyed. And Eta found pleasure that made her breasts tingle in tracing the rippled delta of his veined hand.
And smells, too! Bimaadiz delighted in the difference between the musty scent of her scalp, the grit of her neck, and the vinegar of her armpits—while Eta marveled at how Bimaadiz’s hands smelled like whatever he had been handling—cedar, grass, her own hair. And as a result whenever she smelled these things when away from Bimaadiz they reminded her of him, they became the essence of him, if only for a moment. Since she could not consume him, she kissed his hands, and licked his palms, taking the scent into her mouth.
And things might have followed their own course. Bimaadiz and Eta might have taken off their clothes and lain down together and thus might have taken their lessons from nature instead of from an old man, had not something terrible happened that interrupted their studies.
6. It was still spring, a week or two after the fish had finished their run and retired to the lake bottoms, sand bars, and weedlines. The season’s work was underway. Furs were sold and shipped away to the cities to the south, the prairie grass had been burnt, and a carpet of emerald-colored new growth was sprouting through the black blanket of charred stalks. Seed was sorted and sown. Mares were foaling, and in the pens the sows lay heavily on their sides and were plagued by their unwelcome young as well as by the first flies hatched in the warm weather. The piles of sawdust in the lumberyards finally thawed, and the men who worked at the mills spread it out over the ground away from the buildings—attentive always to the dangers of fire.
But there was also activity of another sort. There were many boats on the big lake now that the ice was gone—birch-bark canoes, York boats with oars and a single mast, passenger ships, coracles, skiffs, and half-decked sailboats—but one boat on the lake was quite different and served a unique purpose. It did not launch out onto the broad lake to take of its riches—it fished the shores for a different kind of catch. It was a steamship and had originally served as a ferry and, oh years ago, it carried passengers the long way down the lake. As such it was fitted with berths, a dining room, and a galley. But as the passenger service had diminished, the boat—known affectionately as the “Floating Hell” to the clergy, and as the Ariel to its grateful customers—had developed new business.
There were many logging camps along the shore—far apart from one another and far from any large village or town. Far from sites of pleasure. The men at these lumber camps were also far from civilization, far from the company of women, and so were naturally quite lonely.
All winter they worked from well before first light until long after dark. They ate their meals either in the woods or by lantern light, and when they woke up in the morning they massaged their frozen boots—trying to make a pliable house for their feet. It was a dark existence—their cabins had dirt floors packed with grease and shined and polished by the tobacco juice and snot they spit there that froze quickly to the packed earth. They tapped their pipes into their trouser cuffs and jacket pockets. Porcupines, who never wash on account of their quills, and whose work among the trees was similar to that of the sawyers, were cleaner and smelled better than the men who labored below them.
These men, then, all possessed a natural desire that was compressed and exaggerated by their unnatural confinement, and also, perhaps, because of the repetitive nature of their work—sawing, chopping, sharpening, walking. By spring their lust had reached unbearable levels. But lucky for them, and unlucky for everyone else, they could count on seeing the Ariel chugging alongshore within a month of ice-out.
She made her way slowly from camp to camp. Her furnaces were stoked up and pressure rose in her boilers, but—despite the amount of fuel she was fed and the work done on her engines—it was impossible to get her to move very quickly. She crawled along the shore. The men in the camps waited eagerly each spring for signs of smoke over the water. And, as she slowly hove into view, the men could already taste the pleasure they would receive in her belly. But they had to wait.
They had to wait for the Ariel to drop anchor a quarter mile from shore. The sawyers could see, just barely, great activity on deck as garbage was thrown into the water and the cabins were aired out, and when all was ready, lanterns, shuttered in red glass, were lit and hung from the bow. Once the men received this signal—devilred—they jumped in whatever craft was nearby and raced toward the Ariel’s decks. Because it was a first-served first-come arrangement, those who lagged behind the rest had to wait, and it was torture to listen to the moans, to the jingling beds, even to the fiddle music meant to arouse the men and drown out the evidence of their pleasure.
The Ariel had a crew. A captain, a pilot, mechanics, deck hands, a blind piano player, a blind violinist, and the women, of course. These people, humans, were so perfectly integrated in the Ariel’s chief enterprise that they did not seem human, did not act as individuals. They were merely organs, essential concentrations of matter with specialized purposes, which collectively gave life to the Ariel. So the sawyers who clambered on her body, who descended into her belly, had no clear image or memory of the dark strangers who gave her life. The sawyers, for instance, could not tell you what the captain looked like, or which shadowy figure was the pilot, or if there even was a man called “the carpenter” onboard, so well did the crew blend in with the vessel and so rigidly did they hold their course and their schedule; they always anchored at dusk and were always gone by morning. To the men who received their pleasure there and to the women who were deprived of t
heir freedom there, the Ariel seemed like a living thing, a queen.
But even queens, especially those of the night, must eat, and that was what she was doing that day. She was moored a few miles up the shore from Agencytown, just far enough to prevent people from the town from paddling out and trying to run her off. All that day, or this day, she had labored against a terrible headwind. Her boilers were running at their maximum. The wood stacked on her decks had disappeared below and emerged, chastened and spent, as smoke from her smokestacks, and from her square, regal stern, as a frothy train of foam.
The Ariel was out of fuel and so, in the light of day, she moored not three miles from Agencytown, and the men onboard disembarked with saws and axes and set to work cutting wood to feed the Ariel’s pulsing red heart.
7. Eta was in the forest collecting basswood blossoms for tea and, here and there, testing the birch to see if their bark was ready for harvest, swollen and slick. It was a beautiful, warm, spring day, and Eta was happy to be doing such casual, relaxing work. With joy she climbed the basswood to reach the best blossoms near their crowns. All the while she thought of Bimaadiz and his sweet lips, his smooth shoulders, and the stratum of muscles under his skin. She was enjoying herself though she was anxious to gather as much as she could as quickly as she could because she was supposed to meet Bimaadiz at her lean-to so they could resume kissing next to the spring that gurgled and sang.
Eta was so absorbed in her gathering and in thoughts of Bimaadiz—she had her head in the clouds, literally—that she did not hear the Ariel’s men tramp down the trail and stop underneath her tree. They looked up and saw her, or what glimpses of her they could snatch through the canopy. They weren’t sure what she was—a human, a porcupine, a bear—and probably had no idea a beautiful Indian girl was cutting basswood blossoms thirty feet above the forest floor. All the same, whatever it was could be captured, eaten, or sold, and so they began chopping at the base of the tree.
