by David Treuer
The fiddler began again. This time he plunged into a peppyjig, more regular, more military in tone than the reel he had played before, as though to call the customers, to send them marching and stomping into the room. It seemed to work: no sooner had he begun than lumberjacks, sawyers, skinners, and blacksmiths—all glistening with sweat and wearing their work (sawdust, charcoal, horseshit) on their clothes—trooped through the single door set to the side of the piano. They didn’t talk to one another, they probably couldn’t manage to speak even if they had wanted to. It had been months since they had been this close to any woman. They sat in every available seat scattered around the perimeter of the room. No one spoke. Occasionally one of them would tip the ashes from a cigar into his hat brim or spit tobacco down his shirtfront—no one dared to spill ash or spit on the floor. Eta started for the edge, looking for a place to sit, but all the seats were taken. She didn’t know what to do so she continued to stand in the middle of the room with her hands at her sides.
After a few moments when the men had made themselves comfortable (they were a vicious-looking lot), the blind fiddler changed his tune and began to play a moderately paced reel. The men couldn’t resist the song and some began to tap their hobnailed boots against the floor. They sucked on their plugs of tobacco and had to spit more often down their shirtfronts, into their hats. There were no spittoons. If they usually danced—with each other or with the women—they didn’t dance this evening, not right away. No one got up. They all stared at Eta and tapped and spit and stared some more. She was the most beautiful girl any of them had ever seen and all of them, to a man, wanted to possess her. They had seen women in lace and silk and loosely tied robes; they had seen women in bloomers who sat in any one of the limited number of debauched poses they knew. But they had never seen a girl like Eta.
She stood still, erect, her hands at her sides. Her firm, high breasts—young breasts—pushed out the front of her doeskin dress. Her stomach was flat and strong, or so the way her dress clung to her stomach suggested. And those who sat behind her could see something none of the others could: the way the strong muscles of her buttocks rose from the small of her back, swelled, and met the tops of her thighs, and they saw, barely, how her buttocks quivered and shook with the tension of standing still, with fear. It drove these men wild. As for Eta, she could not move. She was pinned down by their desire.
The more impatient of the men could endure this for only so long. And when they could take no more, they grabbed the women nearest them without even looking (because in their minds they were seeing Eta) and retreated behind the screens. No one made a move for Eta, however. They didn’t know how to approach her, how to take her. It would have to be decided somehow who would get her first. Moans and grunts came from behind the screens. Curses, all sorts of noise. The blind fiddler fiddled more loudly. The tempo of the reel increased. He continued drawing on the strings, harder, making the resin bite, but it was not enough to cover the secret sounds coming from behind the screens. The fiddler was exhausted, and just as he was about to finish the reel, an old man came tottering into the room from somewhere else and sat at the piano. He joined the fiddler, supported him, and together they built a more solid wall of sound, pushing the moans and grunts back. He was blind, too.
Faster, and fast it went. All the women except for Eta had been taken behind the screens, and more men must have arrived because all the vacant seats were taken. The sounds of pleasure, nasty and brutal, rose in pitch and volume. The song rose to match. The song and the dances ended together, and then the room went quiet. All eyes were on Eta.
Finally one man, a tall man in a black canvas suit shiny from wear, stood up. He did not immediately grab Eta’s arm as was the usual method of picking a girl. He needed to prove that he was the one who should take her first. If he did not, then the others would be upon him. The man took a few steps out into the room from his place in the corner. He stamped his large foot on the boards, once, then twice. He put his hands on his hips and then bowed his head; the wide-brimmed black hat he wore nodded and turned toward the floor. The man stamped his foot again. The musicians understood the signal and started their tune, a heavy, pulsing dance number. The bow ground against the strings, the felt hammers lifted and dropped. The man lifted his foot and brought it down again and the competition for Eta, for the prize of her virginity, began.
The tall man in black danced deliberately. His feet slammed down on the deck boards—first one and then the other. His hands stayed on his hips and gave his dance a military feel. He bent at the waist and swiveled and made a half turn and repeated his steps facing the other direction—showing all of them his power, his control. As the song progressed he added steps—a skip, a double stomp—but the heavy force of his feet remained stuck to the downbeats. He made the floor shudder. Every move he made communicated strength and purpose and pure force—the aspect of a timber cruiser walking a line through the woods.
Halfway through the song a sawyer seated on the other side of the room stood up. He was short and wore the pointed red toque favored by the French. His shoulders and arms were thick and heavily muscled from pushing and pulling his saw through the trunks of red and white pine. He danced with his upper body. He swooped and milled his arms and largely ignored the work his legs could do—they were merely a platform that supported him. He planted his feet wide apart, and in time to the music he simulated pushing and pulling and as he turned to face Eta he pretended that he was sawing her down and loading her on the skidder.
One by one the men in the room stood and joined the contest, each in his own fashion. The skinners suggested they were driving their teams. The longshoremen unloaded their boats, that in this instance, were filled with desire. Even the cooks present made a big show of stoking their ovens and greasing their griddles. The most impressive dancers were the log-rollers, who slipped and slid across the deck and danced in place, and it was easy to imagine the logs rolling under their feet. All of them danced beautifully and each according to his occupation, and though their moves were beautiful the contest was evil. Eta’s virginity was the prize. And they danced for one another, not for her.
No clear winner emerged and they danced harder, daring the others to match their moves or to continue. They sweated and whooped, punctuating their steps. The harder they danced the more their boots dug into the boards. The lanterns that hung from the ceiling shook and trembled on their hooks. The screens that hid the exchanges between the prostitutes and the men who had gone with them shook and shimmied and threatened to fall down. Bottles rattled across the tables, and some fell to the floor and were swept into the corners by the press of feet.
Eta had not moved from the center of the room.
The blind musicians played on with force and energy and a hellish insistency. They increased the tempo and volume. The dancers responded. They shouted and whirled and stomped the boards that had begun to lose their cotton caulking. Below decks the moose calves, alarmed by the frenzy occurring above them, moaned and bellowed and thrashed against the sides of their cage.
There was noise all around. And then, Bimaadiz’s dream began to come true. It would not be believed that the dancing itself was so strong that it alone caused the destruction of the boat. There were other forces at work. The boat was not sound to begin with. It was not a proper boat and could not be dry-docked and fixed properly so whatever repairs it needed it received ad hoc with whatever was at hand and by whomever happened to be able to fix it. The spaces between the boards were plugged with pitch and tar, sometimes with cotton caulk, and at other times with strips of flour sacking. The boat’s ribs had been cored by ants and wood-wasps and never sounded with picks. Dry rot had been painted over and ignored. With a little help from the man in the dream, and bit by bit, under the force of the dancing, the wood began to splinter. The nails, rusty as they were, began unclinching the boards from the ribs. The moose were so frightened they began to kick and butt the bars of their cag
e, and they bucked their way out. Spurred on by the noise and by their own fear, and by other unseen and higher forces, they began to kick the sides of the boat.
Leaks sprung here and there. Ribbons of water unraveled into the hull.
Water poured into the hold.
The dancers did not notice. They stomped and yelled. The music swelled.
The boat shipped so much water that the boilers were flooded. The boat could no longer move. It sank lower in the water and slack appeared in the anchor chain. Yet the dancing continued. They heard the splintering of wood and a great crash. The Ariel listed and began to sink.
The screens fell over and exposed the continued exertions of the impatient men and their consorts. The piano shifted, lurched, and slid across the cabin, bowling the men down as it charged the room. Bodies flew everywhere. The blind musicians stood and staggered away from their post and with outstretched hands, felt their way to a corner, and even though the piano player lost his instrument, the fiddler continued to play, lurching and staggering now, dancing to his own music, unable to stop. He was now narrating the ship’s demise.
The window frames were torqued and twisted, and the ship settled even deeper in the water and the glass broke and fell to the floor with a great crash, mixing with the shouts of the men. The men and the prostitutes scrambled in every direction. Some toppled out of the windows and into the lake. Some fought amongst themselves to see who could get out the door first. Others kept dancing, while others just looked bewildered as they slid and slipped across the tilting deck, searching for the equilibrium they had lost.
Water poured over the deck and lapped against the walls. Bottles, lanterns, candles, plates, pillows, and screens rolled and batted around the floor.
Eta, who had remained still most of this time, began to edge closer to the door. She tried to become invisible, afraid that the men would notice her and that in the melee one of them (or more) would try something. Then the deck splintered, buckled, and broke open. Men and flotsam poured down below. A great crashing and struggle sounded from down there, and screams, too, and then one moose calf came clambering out, followed by the other.
They looked around wildly and as soon as they saw the open door leading out into the darkness they charged it. With their shoulders hunched and their heads down they moved toward the door and even though they were only half grown, they were so strong none of the men could stand in their way.
Eta, that smart girl, acted in an instant. When the moose passed her on either side she reached out and grabbed their beards. She was jerked off her feet, but she managed to hold on. Once through the door the moose hurdled the railing and plunged into the lake. the railing had hit Eta across her arms and chest, but she held on tight and was carried with them.
The twin calves, with Eta hanging in between, cleared the sinking boat in a few seconds. The boat was sinking fast. The water was already over the decks. Over the house, and then gone. The last part of it to disappear was the red eye hanging in front. The water closed over it and all was dark. Eta heard the men shouting and screaming and she thought she heard one final note from the fiddle. Then she was swept away by the moose across the lake into that outer dark.
Moose are strong swimmers, and Eta knew they would find their way to shore. Her hands ached and the churning water hit her in the face. It was cold. The ice had only gone out two weeks earlier. But the good girl held on, determined to reach the shore with the moose, who didn’t seem to mind that she clung to their beards. She was a small inconvenience to animals as large and strong as they were.
It felt as though the moose had been swimming forever. Eta could see nothing and could not detect any change in their pace or direction. All she could hear was their even breathing and the lap of water against their chests as they surged forward. She tried to lift her head and look back to where the ship had been, but she could see nothing. Eta couldn’t know it, but none of the men had been able to untie the canoes before the ship sank, and the canoes had been dragged down to the bottom of the lake. The men, with their heavy boots and woolen clothes, had soon followed. All of them had drowned, and they were now food for the fishes, or, more accurately, food for the turtles because they enjoyed rotten flesh much more than did their cousins the tulibee, red horse, and sturgeon.
12. Bimaadiz was sleeping. The dream had ended and with it his worries. He woke, however, when he heard a great splashing and then the crackling of brush. He jumped up and then crouched, thinking of a sudden that perhaps the men were back and the crown of the tree offered good cover from which to shoot. He levered a shell in the chamber and peered out among the leaves, ready to free Eta, or if she was dead, to exact a price for her pain.
He expected to see men, but instead he saw two moose emerge from the water with Eta between them. Bimaadiz shouted and dropped the gun and ran out into the open, stumbling among the branches.
When the moose saw him they snorted and turned and ran for the deep woods. Eta could no longer hold on as the moose careened through the brush, and she was rubbed off like a tick against a deadfall as the moose disappeared.
Bimaadiz rushed to Eta’s side. She was alive! He held her and covered her with kisses. So great was his joy he did not think to check her for injuries, to see if she was all right. Only youth is so sure of its emotions that it would try to heal the beloved with kisses. She felt cold to the touch and even in the scant, starry light, he could see that she was pale, her lips blue.
“You’re alive! I can’t believe it! You’re alive. I thought I’d never see you again. Are you hurt? Do you hurt much?”
She could barely speak, and spoke only one word, proving once and for all that there is joy in repetition. “Bimaadiz, Bimaadiz, Bimaadiz, Bimaadiz.”
He knew he had to warm her up immediately and that his joy alone could not help her. So he picked her up and carried her away from the cold breezes coming off the lake. The basswood crown in which he had been sleeping, and in which Eta had been picking blossoms offered good protection from the cold air, and so he carried her there and set her down amid the branches. Bimaadiz then found twigs, birch bark, and a few dry sticks scattered nearby, and got a fire going. Eta moaned and trembled so much the green leaves of their nest quivered. The fire would not be enough, it could never touch her through her wet clothes. So Bimaadiz began to undress her. Piece by piece he removed her cold, wet, clothing.
First he carefully shucked her moccasins and then unlaced her leggings. He trembled and caught his breath. He thought he had never seen anything as beautiful as her legs, more beautiful now than ever, since he imagined he would never see them again. They were beyond compare, so smooth, so hard and well muscled, tapering to the delicate stems of her slim ankles. He would have liked to stop and stare, to touch them more but necessity urged him on. He commanded her, softly, gently, to lift her arms, which she did, though she was barely conscious. Again, Bimaadiz trembled in awe. Again, he thanked all the spirits he knew in one great rush for letting him see her as she was. He whispered to her and told her to lie down, it was warmer next to the ground. He gazed at her for a long moment. Her naked body was a mystery that only deepened the more he looked at it. How was such beauty possible? How was it possible that it could be made out of bone and blood? He admired the taught muscles of her hips, the band of muscle between her hip bone and her buttock, her delicate ribs arching and spreading below her breasts. Her breasts were small and round, and tipped with the quick brown nipples. She curled closer to herself, her arms tucked around her breasts, and when she moved he saw the long, lean triangle of muscle that began in her armpit spring tight and then relax. He had never seen anything like it. Each part of her he looked at surpassed what he had seen before. What sweet confusion! Where to look?
Steam rose off her skin. Bimaadiz could see a dark bruise developing just above her breasts, a purple line left there from the railing of the Ariel. And here and there she was marked with other brui
ses, abrasions, and scratches. She shivered in the naked air. And this prompted Bimaadiz to end his session. She needed more than the fire to warm her and so Bimaadiz stripped down, too. His clothes were dry and warm. Her temperature began to rise and spiked upward when in her half delirium she saw Bimaadiz naked. Perhaps it was just the cold, or the adventure of it all, but his arms looked bigger, his chest deeper, his shoulders broader, than when she had last seen him without his shirt on.
“Bimaadiz,” she said, and that was all. He began to dress her in his clothes, though his hands shook and his eyes teared. He felt sick and afraid and he didn’t know why. He felt as though he had been taken captive by marauders. In effect he had been: he was a captive of her beauty.
Once she was comfortable, encased in his clothes and sleeping soundly, Bimaadiz stood and put on Eta’s leggings and dress. He did not put on her moccasins because he didn’t want to stretch them out. The dress was loose enough so that he could fit it on, but just barely. He sat by the fire and let his body heat and the flames dry out her dress and leggings. He stared into the nest of coals and silently thanked the moose for bringing Eta back to him, and he thanked the man in his dream for helping contrive it all. And he even thanked the men of the Ariel because through their evildoing he had been given a glimpse of Eta that no one else in the world had ever had, and for this he was very grateful.
He sat there through the night, and when Eta woke, a bit before dawn, they modestly, fully conscious now, traded outfits. Until that moment, however, if there had been any onlookers (and there wasn’t anyone to look except for us) they would have thought that Bimaadiz was the prettiest boy and Eta the handsomest girl they had ever seen.
