by Aaron Galvin
Fear swells within me, says I am unworthy to strike the pole as the men and even Ciquenackqua did.
The voice of Numees whispers I am an odd squaw, reminds me what my place should be.
Buried in the wood, Father’s tomahawk calls to me.
Strike the pole. The drums command. Strike… Strike…
My spirit lifts. I dance toward the striking pole and reach for the weapon.
A memory rises within me from the life before—Sarah leaping into the night sky. She falls and crushes Hecate, her legs and joints snapping. Anger washes over me at her disapproval of my claim that I, too, would make such a sacrifice to save my family.
My song becomes a savage scream.
I pluck Father’s weapon free of its wooden sheath then bury it over and again, striking in vain attempts to silence the fear and doubt crippling my mind.
“Rebecca!”
Father’s voice pulls me from the trance.
The drums play no longer. The flickering flames behind me the sole voice I hear.
I look round the circle and find familiar faces unable to meet my gaze.
Even Numees looks on me as a stranger.
Father studies my face as one concerned, though he says nothing.
“She is a fearsome squaw.” Two Ravens breaks the quiet. “And near chopped the striking pole in two.”
Creek Jumper approaches me warily. “What caused you to rise in such a stupor?” he asks.
“The drums…they bid me rise,” I say in earnest.
“Did they bid you scream also?”
“No. I-I saw…”
“Tell me, young one,” says Creek Jumper. “What did you see?”
I think of Sarah and feel my eyes sting with tears. “I-I saw death…great sacrifice…” My chest heaves as Creek Jumper lays his hands gently upon my shoulders. “F-forgive me. I did not mean to—”
“Peace, child,” he says. “One does not strike the pole in such a way if the ancestors did not grant them a powerful vision.”
“But it were a memory I saw,” I say. “No vision.”
Our shaman seems to weigh my words before turning toward the people. “It is known women have no place in war, but when the ancestors speak, the people must listen.”
Those in our tribe nod in acknowledgement of his claim. Then Creek Jumper squints at me. His look sends cold shivers through me as if he peered into my soul and found it lacking.
“I see one before me who has suffered great loss. A darkness long kept, awaiting release,” he says. “I say the ancestors speak through Black Pilgrim’s daughter this night, and now leave the decision to us.”
“What decision?” Whistling Hare asks.
Creek Jumper stares into my eyes. “They mean her to guide us in this battle. Where her fate leads, so too does the people’s.”
“But she is barely a woman,” says Ciquenackqua. “And white also.”
I bristle at his words, but keep my silence.
“This world is filled with many colors,” says Creek Jumper. “Do you doubt the Creator’s design?”
Ciquenackqua hangs his head.
“I do not,” says Creek Jumper. “But I am one voice and the people have many. They will decide.”
I know not how to react upon seeing those familiar to me nodding.
Deep River’s smile swells confidence in me, and I am not a little surprised to see Ciquenackqua’s face darken as his father claps me on the shoulder and squeezes.
“I would gladly go to war with such a warrior as she.” Whistling Hare looks to Father. “Would you, brother?”
Father says nothing for what feels an eternity. Then, slowly, he nods.
I fight to keep myself rooted to the ground as the whoops and war cries sound anew.
Another hand touches upon my shoulder, bids me look on his white-painted face and red tears.
“She cannot go without knowing the face of her manitous,” says Creek Jumper.
“But it has not yet revealed itself,” I say.
Creek Jumper’s eyes shine. “Your vision has already begun, else you could not have pulled the weapon from the striking pole. Your manitous lent you strength in that moment. Now, we will ask that it reveal its form to you.”
-6-
Creek Jumper leads me away from the bonfire.
My steps stutter, and I lean upon his arm for guidance as hunger threatens to whisk me into the dream fast.
He directs me to the sweat lodge and pulls back the buckskin flap that I might enter first. A wave of heat slaps me the moment I step inside, waking me to my new surroundings.
Though fairly bare of ornament, I find the lodge comforting. The fire’s orange hues and crackling wood emote the sense I am in my own home. Skins of water and various ingredients line the wall—tobacco, cedar, and a strange bowl filled with purplish-black powder—all of which Creek Jumper will offer to the flames as my firekeeper.
The stones pulse warmth into the air as my muscles fail, begging me to sleep. Their heat forces me to sit upon a bison hide. I lean to lie down.
“No, child.” Creek Jumper halts me. “Patience.”
He remains with me until I am steady. Only then does he leave my side and cross to the wall. He takes up a skin of water and mutters ancient prayers as he pours the contents atop the heating stones.
The stones sizzle and hiss, their angry steam filling the lodge.
Creek Jumper shows me that I must drink deep of their heat, call the steam into my body with sweeping waves of my arms.
I follow his example, and feel my body warmed from the inside.
He kneels and takes up the strange bowl. Sprinkles its blackish powder into the fire.
A new scent seeps into my nostrils, smelling of both sweet grass and honey.
My muscles relax as Creek Jumper takes a seat upon his bison hide. He holds a small drum, crafted from the hollowed shell of a painted turtle. Gently, he shakes the handle.
“Listen, child.” Creek Jumper says to me. “Heed the call.”
I close my eyes, and listen to the stones and bones rebounding inside the drum.
Creek Jumper begins to sing, his words soothing, lulling me into blissful sleep.
Then I feel something new, liken to insects crawling up my arms and legs.
I reach to brush them aside.
It serves only to hasten their speed.
I shout for Creek Jumper to aid me.
His song deepens, drowning out my cries. His drum beats louder, faster.
My skin feels aflame. I scratch at it. My nails dig deep, yet they cannot reach the pain. My eyes open wide to Creek Jumper’s painted face and tears.
“Listen, child,” he again commands. “Heed the call.”
The heat suffocates me. Begs me to leave this hellish place and dip myself in cool waters.
Instead, I close my eyes and fight the urge, homing on Creek Jumper’s song and the beat of his drum. My body sways with ecstatic fever then I pitch forward into darkness.
***
I sprint through the underbrush, hurdling over rocks and fallen limbs, chasing my quarry by the light of the moon.
My prey titters above me and leaps from branch to branch. It leads me further into the woods. The trickster of the forest does not fear me like his woodland cousins. He knows patience and believes his taunts and high position are like to frustrate me into forfeiting my chase.
But I am not so easily thwarted. I pursue with little sense of passing time, or where my prey leads. Only when my legs threaten to give out does the animal stop and mock me again with its chatter.
I gaze high into the darkened treetops. My target eludes my sight, for now, though I know he yet abides over me.
Hiding. Waiting.
I nock my arrow and stare upward, awaiting any movement, or the reflective glint of the animal’s eyes.
The brush beside me moves. A shadow steps forward.
“Father…”
The chill in the air grants life to his breath. He shif
ts his gaze upward, squints.
The old ones in our tribe oft mention their belief Father possesses the night sight, a gift given him by the owl feathers he wears in his hair.
Father whistles like a dove of the morning might, then slowly raises his hand. Again, he would prove the old ones correct this night, spotting the creature before I do.
I follow his point.
A pair of glittering eyes stares back at me from behind its natural black mask. The raccoon steps further into the light and perches on the slightest of branches, daring me take my shot.
I pull the bowstring taut near my ear. Breathing in the October cold, I wait for the animal to give me some little signal its spirit has readied to leave this world.
It gives me no such sign.
My eyes squint in wonder at its fearlessness, and I wonder what manner of creature so willfully stares down its hunter.
The muscles in my forearm twitch. My legs and back ache, begging me release my stance.
My arrow does not fly.
Wind breezes past, kisses my cheeks with chilling caress. It hails from the northeast.
Faintly, the wind whispers.
Something comes…
Father places a hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention.
I find his appearance altered. Gone are his long locks and owl feathers, his head now shorn. A living demon crafted in twilight, save for the whites of his eyes.
Like the blood trail of a wounded animal, traces of sappy darkness remain on my shoulder as Father withdraws his hand. I gather the blackness coating his body comes not from ash or paint even before I touch it. Indeed, the residue feels warm, liken to tree sap, and stains my skin.
I glance up and see Father’s cheeks draw tight.
He seems hardly to breathe at all as we wait, listening for any sign the forest might give of that to come, any ill spirit that shares our hunting grounds this eve.
Then, more than whispers.
Slow and rhythmic, their beat falls steady as the spring rains on the home I share with Father and Sarah.
Drums. Their sound hails from the direction of our village. I grimace, knowing the time for rain dances have come and gone…
“Father,” I whisper. “What gives the grandfathers cause to bang the drums?”
He does not appear to have heard me at all. His vision shifts to the treetops and my prey as the gay sound of pipes emerge from deeper in the forest.
A shadow falls from the sky, shrieking, its mouth agape, eyes wild.
I whip my bow up. My string twangs, and a whoosh of air breezes near my cheek.
My arrow flies wide of the target.
The snarling beast lands atop my head, collapses me with its weight. Biting and clawing, its shrill voice fills my ears.
I swat at the moving mass of muscle and fur. My fingers clutch around its tail. I yank it free and its nails rend my scalp in reward.
Growling, the raccoon seeks a new handhold.
Its claws call fresh blood from my forearms. I fight the urge to scream, and give the beast little chance to find deeper purchase. Swinging it free, I release the animal into the night.
Limbs crack as it lands in the distance.
Pain flows from thin scratches the raccoon left me with, all of them oozing blood. Wetness dampens my brow.
I brush the stickiness away with my hands. Both come away spackled crimson-black. My limbs falter, and I kneel for balance as the unseen drums and flutes play on.
I blink away the blood dripping in my eyes, and notice Father watching me.
A shadow of Sarah’s voice reminds me his name is Priest.
But I find no benevolence in giving the man before me such a name. Indeed, witnessing Father in the cruel torchlight, I think it easier to understand how the natives named him Black Pilgrim. A worthy name to honor a formidable adversary, or so Bishop told me in the stories of my youth. I recall, even then, wishing I, too, could earn such a formidable name.
Now, I am uncertain.
Father stares down at me, much the same as the ringed-tail had from its lofty perch. Yet where the animal glared at me in malicious wonder, far worse lives in Father’s gaze.
Disappointment.
“Father,” I say. “Why did you not come to my aid?”
His silence angers me more than my open wounds.
I rise and feel another dizzy spell force me to earth again.
“Father…” I mutter.
Still, he makes no effort to visit me. Indeed, he turns to leave.
Fire rages in my spirit. Grunting, I fight to stand, closing my eyes to keep from falling once more.
“Father!” I call.
I reopen my eyes and find him halted.
I stumble closer to join him.
The world threatens to spin beneath me if I continue.
“Father…why did you not—”
I stop short upon seeing he holds a blade in his left hand—the same dagger I have often gazed upon many a time. The same weapon Sarah used to slay Hecate, the Devil’s daughter, and save our family in the life before.
With a flick of his wrist, Father throws the blade at my feet. Even in darkness, I know the name etched upon its blade—Captain John Alden, Jr. A family weapon passed down from father to bastard son, now embedded in the dirt between my legs.
I pluck it free and hold its tip aloft as Father vanishes into the thicket.
The dizziness cripples me.
“Father, don’t!” I cry. “Don’t leave me.”
The wind howls, burying my plea, yet even it cannot silence the flutes and drums. Only after the wind dissipates does something stir from inside the wood.
My hand quivering, I reach for a nearby elm to steady myself.
“Father…” I say. When he does not reappear, I call out with the name my sister gives him. “Priest…come back…”
My wounds throb in warning the noisemaker is not he, even as I call for him.
Small in stature, ferocious in nature, the noisemaker reveals itself to me.
The raccoon pauses in a ray of moonlight. Its head cocks to the side, studying me. Then it growls.
Your father is gone. I gather the animal’s meaning. As is the man Priest. Only the Black Pilgrim remains…and you are no daughter to him. He has no family.
I point the shaking dagger tip in the raccoon’s direction.
The animal opens its mouth, hisses.
“C-come for me, s-spirit,” I say, my body suddenly weak as the dizziness returns to claim me. “I-I would learn what gift you would lend me.”
My knees buckle. I fall to earth, my face plastered in mud.
Ravens caw overhead.
I glance up.
A pair of the dark messengers descends from their perches. They settle near the raccoon, flanking the ringed-tail on either side.
I wonder what strange lesson the grandfathers mean for me to learn as the ravens jabber at one another.
The raccoon hisses them silent, its beady gaze upon me. It leaves the birds and scuttles toward me.
My limbs refuse to move, bound to the cold mud by an unseen force. I force myself to stare at the raccoon, and await its claws to finish the job it began on my face.
The animal halts a few inches from me. Sitting on its haunches, it strokes its whiskers with tiny paws and looks on me curiously, then opens its mouth.
“Waken…” The raccoon’s voice sounds gravelly and raw, as if the earth itself opened to speak with me.
My eyes widen.
The raccoon ambles before me, holds me with its gaze. “Waken, child.”
***
Strong hands grip my shoulders and break the enchantment cast over my limbs. They pull me to a seated position.
My eyes flutter open.
The raccoon has vanished. So too have the ravens and the woods.
I look to my forearms and observe no scratches. No blood or black stains of the residue that coated Father’s body. Even the feeling of insects and inflammation has vanished.
Now my skin feels damp and clammy, sweat-ridden.
A guiding hand forces me to take hold of the leather water skin thrust into my open palms.
“Drink,” Creek Jumper commands, though not unkindly.
I guzzle the tepid water, draining the skin. Slowly, my strength returns.
Creek Jumper shuffles behind me. Wood slaps against leather and coolness saps the heat and haze from the sweat lodge.
The firelight wanes. Its tips flicker, threatening to flee if the breeze continues.
The flap door closes, and the fire blooms anew.
Creek Jumper moves slow and sure round the fire. The clinking of beads and bone from the leather pouch around his neck comforts that no evil spirit may take me in his presence.
The firelight dances between us. It casts our long shadows against the far wall as Creek Jumper again takes his seat upon the bison hide.
“What vision did the ancestors grant you, child?” he asks.
His face remains a stone as I recount my vision. Indeed, he shows me little sign he is to have heard my tale at all. Only when I finish does he give me the smallest of nods.
“Even the wisest cannot know all that the manitous reveals in the dream fast,” said Creek Jumper. “For some, the visions come to bear soon. Others…” He shakes his head.
“Aye,” I say. “But what do you believe of mine? What message would they have me understand? Learn what lesson?”
Creek Jumper palms a handful of softened corn from his bowl. Eats the kernels slowly, all while staring into the fire.
“Fear is the message.” His eyes narrow at me. “Slaying it the lesson.”
“I do not understand,” I say.
“Your manitous is a curious one.” Creek Jumper palms another handful of corn.
“Aye,” I say, my thought dwelling on the raccoon. “How can it be the grandfathers would have me follow such a dishonest spirit?”
Creek Jumper sighs. “Trickery…deception…two of many masks the ringed-tail wears. Do not mistake them for an evil nature. Honor instead this creature’s cunning and resourceful ways. Learn to wear all the masks it would teach you.”
