[What Might Have Been 04] Alternate Americas

by Anthology

  “Tell me what we must do,” I asked her. But in my heart I did not want to do anything. I wanted White Cloud to come back. I wanted my life to go on as I had dreamed it would.

  “Something is changing. My time is over. Yours is coming.”

  Little Gull played with a family of ducklings that had wandered into the hut while the mother bird watched from the open side. “How will we know if these are First Captain’s enemies, Grandmother?” he asked.

  Before she could answer, a shout rose outside, and I went quickly to look out, shielding my eyes against the sunset.

  A small tribe of strangers was coming up the road along the stream toward Nova Albion. They were led by men in metal clothes that flashed in the sun, like the metal mirror in my uncle’s house that had come from First Captain’s canoe. Some of them rode on the backs of strange animals. They were warriors, for I saw their weapons—long knives that hung from their belts to their knees, and something else, like a metal pipe, that they handled lovingly as one touches a baby. They were followed by others on foot, some carrying banners, some dragging burdens on carts and sleds. Yet I saw also that Little Gull had spoken truly, for there were women and children and even tiny infants in their band.

  Then I saw one man in a long gray robe, the top of whose head was hairless and shiny with sweat. He was holding a long stick in front of him, to which a shorter stick had been joined as a crosspiece. First Captain taught us also to hold that symbol sacred in our ceremonies, but there was something different here, something wrong.

  “Grandmother,” I began. “I must go back at once—”

  But she cut my words off. “Tonight I will teach you many things, Red Deer. I will teach you to see, and to hear the truth.”

  Raising herself on one elbow, she told Little Gull to throw wood on the fire, and when the flames leaped up, she instructed me to take powder from her medicine pouch and pour it in a cup of water and give it to him. Then I wrapped him in a blanket and laid him on the sleeping mat at the back of the hut, and soon I could tell from his breathing he was asleep.

  The valley outside filled with flooding dark, and a crescent moon rose, drawing stars with it like salmon on a fisherman’s line. Somewhere in the distance I heard shouts, then laughter that suddenly ceased. Unease crawled over my skin as if I had sat by an anthill, and I wanted only to run to my uncle. But I, too, could not stand against my grandmother’s fierce eyes.

  She took out a small pipe, daubed with yellow and black paint on the bowl. She filled it with dried leaves of a plant I did not recognize and lit it from the embers. The smoke filled the hut with fragrance. I watched her face; it seemed small and gray, sharp as a bird’s face.

  After a while she opened her eyes and held the pipe out to me. I took it with both hands. She nodded at me, encouraging me to draw in a breath of smoke.

  I think I must have known all my life that this moment would come, that I would someday learn the secrets of women’s medicine. Only the women of our family had the sight. Now that the moment was here, I was afraid. It was a terrifying gift she would give me then. Once I received it, there would be no turning back. There might not even be room for my own life.

  “You don’t have a choice, Red Deer,” she said to me. “The power chose you a long time ago, as it chooses us all.”

  But why must she choose now, I thought, when so much was happening!

  I lifted the pipe to my lips and inhaled the sweet, dark smoke. My nose stung and my throat tightened, but nothing else happened for a moment, and I thought perhaps she was wrong about my being chosen.

  Then the hut lurched, and outside an owl screeched, and my vision went black.

  My inner eyes opened, and I saw the gray-robed man with the cross, but above him I now saw four frightening figures swooping down on the backs of eagles. I knew their names: Famine, Pestilence, War, and the pale rider who was Death. A voice said to me, “There is no time to lose!” I felt someone touch my hand, and I turned to see Elizabeth Lark Singing in a white deerskin robe trimmed with beads in the fashion of young brides. Her hair was braided, full and red, and her face was as young as mine. Then it seemed as if she were smoke drifting away, dissolving the shape of the young woman she had been. But before she was gone, she gave me my ceremonial name: Mary.

  Mary Red Deer. The name echoed in my head.

  I must have fallen down then in a faint, for when I woke again, it was early morning, and I was lying on the floor of my grandmother’s hut. Little Gull was weeping.

  “Don’t cry, Little Gull, I’m alive,” I said.

  “I’m not crying for you, Red Deer!” my brother said indignantly. “I’m crying because Bear-With-One-Ear told me to stay here with you, so I can’t go outside to see the strangers!”

  The air was filled with the voices of men shouting in a language I had never heard before. I stood up and glanced at my grandmother to ask what to do, but Lark Singing slept soundly.

  “If you’re awake now, Red Deer,” my little brother said hopefully. “Perhaps we could go out together?”

  “Grandmother,” I said, half afraid to disturb her, for she had been so sick.

  “She’s been asleep a long time,” my brother said.

  I looked again at Lark Singing, so still on the sleeping mat, and I knew she was dead. Her spirit had flown away over the water just as she had wished. Then I felt very lonely, for who would give us good counsel now? She had made me medicine woman in her place, but I knew how much I still had to learn.

  Little Gull clutched at my skirt. “Please hurry, Red Deer!”

  I made him help me gather sticks and kindling to make a funeral fire. When the hut and everything in it was burning well, smoke and sparks blowing over Lesser Sea, I took his hand and we stepped away. There was no time to mourn, nor would she have wanted us to. The ceremonies must come later. Now I must tell my uncle of Lark Singing’s passing, but I would also let him know he would not be without a medicine woman!

  In those days the town spread up from the banks of the little lake between Great Sea and Lesser Sea, to the top of the low hill where Lark Singing’s hut was. The other side of the lake was empty, a water meadow where ducks nested and bees browsed among the flowers in summer. I saw at once that the field was not empty now The strangers were setting up camp, and already bright banners fluttered over their heads, horns blew and bells rang. I saw women tending a cooking fire, and children racing about, their shrill voices coming toward me on the clear air. I heard their words, but I could not tell what they said.

  Surely, I thought, the smoke-dream could not be right. Men who traveled with their women and infants must come in peace.

  “Look! There’s our uncle!” Little Gull said.

  Bear-With-One-Ear had put on the tall hat of woven grass that Lark Singing made for him, its colors and patterns more beautiful than those she wove into seed or water baskets. He stood, head bowed and hands clasped before him, as Fog-On-Water asked Sky Father for a blessing, and the other captains stood with him. That done, he moved again toward the strangers, his brothers beside him, the men of the town following all in their finest deerskin and bear fur and lace collars. I thought how splendid they looked. If I had not grown up with the young men of our town, perhaps my heart would have been moved by them instead of by White Cloud.

  But I had arrived too late to give him my news. I must be patient a little longer. Little Gull and I crowded at the back with the women and children.

  “And there’s Hawk Wing.” Little Gull pointed. “How handsome he is!”

  My older brother was not tall, but broad-shouldered, strong of limb, with a quantity of gleaming, red-brown curls spilling over his wide forehead. His eyes were blue and merry. He was bold enough when needed, and quick to take action. It was said of him that he carried the spirit of First Captain as well as the ceremonial name. Yet I knew that his impulsive ways did not always please Bear-With-One-Ear.

  A family of ducks scurried hastily away as my uncles walked to this meeting, and
the strangers fell silent.

  I thought of the stories of the coming of the Big Canoes to the shore of Great Sea and the day my ancestors first saw First Captain. Everyone had put on their finest clothes and carried gifts, and First Captain, too, gave gifts, and there was feasting and speeches and singing. Even though the Big Canoes had come out of the sunset, we understood First Captain’s home was far away in the direction of sunrise. He told us he was on a journey longer than we could imagine and needed to rest and repair the Big Canoes. Many good things happened between First Captain and the Miwok before the Big Canoes rode out on Great Sea again. Even then some of his men stayed among us because they had taken wives. As the years went by, they taught us skills of planting and harvesting, building our town and governing it. This is why babies with light skin and eyes the color of sky or water are born so often among the Miwok, though red hair comes in our family alone.

  Filled with these thoughts, I wondered, might not these strangers bring good gifts as First Captain had done? Yet the darkness that had touched me with Lark Singing’s death and my first smoke-dream stole the joy from the scene, and I felt cold in the sunlight. We must be cautious, not giving our trust too quickly. I crept closer to my uncles so I could hear what was said and perhaps find a moment to whisper a warning.

  The man with the ring of black hair surrounding his sweat-glazed crown and the shining one who had ridden in front stood apart from their group as Bear-With-One-Ear approached. The children hushed. Not even the larks sang in the sky then, and the breeze fell still.

  My uncle raised his right hand to show he carried no weapon. “We greet you in peace, friends. I am called John Bear-With-One-Ear. Tell us now where you come from and what is your purpose in coming?”

  The strangers looked at each other at that, and one of them said something I did not understand in a tongue that seemed to my ears to hiss and huff and slide about unpleasantly. One small, very dark man put a hand to his side where I saw a long knife like the one over the hearth that had belonged to First Captain himself.

  Fog-On-Water, who was standing beside Bear-With-One-Ear, said quickly, “Don’t trust these men! Remember what was taught!”

  Bear-With-One-Ear turned a little toward him. “‘We are English, who are well disposed if there be no cause to the contrary,’” he said mildly.

  Though the language was that of First Captain and not of the Miwok, there was no child who had not learned the words by heart and what they meant. It was the rule by which we lived.

  “Finish the saying, Brother!” Fog-On-Water urged.

  I wanted to yell out to him that he must remember what came next! But Bear-With-One-Ear shook his head, his expression mild. “We are gentlemen, Brother, with a gentleman’s honor.”

  In the silence that followed I could hear Little Gull’s rasping breath, the lap of water on the shore, the soft beating of a butterfly’s wings over my head. The strangers conferred in low tones.

  Then there was a stir among them, and a young man about my own age stepped forward. My heart thundered in my breast and I thought I would faint again as I had after the smoke-dream. The young man wore a long robe like the stranger who carried the cross, so stained and dirty, I could not tell its right color, yet his skin was dark and he wore his hair in the fashion of the southerners. And when he spoke, he used the language of the Chumash tribe, which we understood with difficulty.

  It could not be!

  But it was White Cloud.

  “God be with you,” he said. “May the blood of Jesus Christ redeem you from your sins!”

  Fog-On-Water growled in his throat. “What did I tell you?”

  “I am called Angelito,” White Cloud said.

  “What kind of a name is that?” Hawk Wing muttered.

  “My masters here—” White Cloud hesitated at that, for he knew The People recognized no masters. He pronounced more strange names: “Lieutenant Moraga and Fra Palou come to bring God’s forgiveness to the heathen. We come in peace if you will accept the word of God. If not…”

  White Cloud glanced quickly at the tall man he had identified as Lieutenant Moraga.

  My thoughts whirled. I remembered walking with him along the hilltops. I remembered gray clouds blowing out on Great Sea, the harsh cry of gulls swooping through the sky, the faint spout of whales. I remembered the passion in his voice when he promised to return to me. I remembered how I had called upon Sky Father to give me my lover’s seed that I might bear his children. I was so glad to see him again! And yet—what was he doing here with these strangers the smoke-dream had warned about?

  “We know already of Sky Father,” Fog-On-Water said with dignity, but under his words I could feel his anger rising. “Do you think—”

  Bear-With-One-Ear put a hand on his brother’s arm, silencing him. “If not?”

  White Cloud said something. Lieutenant Moraga’s fingers played over the handle of his own long knife, and his eyes glittered under heavy lids. There came a rustling as of impatience from among the warriors lined up behind him. The other stranger, who wore the gray robe and was called Fra Palou, spoke in a low voice to White Cloud, who bent his head reverently toward the man.

  Then White Cloud turned to us again, translating. “We bring many gifts of beads and blankets and food. And the blessed salvation of God’s love to all who will accept it.”

  My heart became a cold lump of clay.

  “This makes my heart rejoice,” Bear-With-One-Ear, the peacemaker, said. “Welcome, friends who also know of Sky Father! We’ll light cooking fires and set fish to bake. We’ll feast together this night.”

  White Cloud translated this, and I saw the strangers’ faces soften into smiles, rigid muscles relaxed. Men wandered away from the gathering.

  “‘Beads and blankets?’” Gray Seal wondered.

  I touched my uncle’s sleeve.

  “What is it, Red Deer?” he asked kindly, his expression showing his satisfaction.

  “Lark Singing is dead, Uncle! But before she died, she made me—”

  “What?” He stared at me, shock warring with the relief that had been in his face a moment ago.

  “She died. I—I made the funeral pyre. I didn’t think you had time right now.”

  “By what authority did you make this decision, Red Deer?”

  His voice was calm, but I could hear anger in it, and I knew I must seize my own power at once or never have any in the tribe.

  “I’m not a child anymore, Uncle. I’m a medicine woman. And I have warnings to give!”

  All the uncles were staring at me, especially Fog-On-Water, who had never liked me. But Bear-With-One-Ear said, “I’m very glad to hear we won’t be without counsel, Red Deer!”

  Gray Seal laughed.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “We must mark Lark Singing’s passing properly. But we’ll talk about this later.”

  “That may be too late, Uncle! I’ve seen—”

  “Our guests are waiting for a feast.”

  He turned away, deep in conversation with Fog-On-Water.

  Little Gull tugged my arm. “That man who spoke for the strangers. He’s looking at you, Red Deer!”

  But I had failed my first task, and I could not bring myself to greet White Cloud.

  “I have taken that in hand that I know not in the world how to go through withal. It passeth my capacity. It hath even bereaved me of my wits to think on it.”

  “Fish,” White Cloud said to me later as we sat in shadow at the edge of the feast. “Priests save the miserable creature for Lent or Friday penance!”

  We had naturally come into each other’s company, neither of us being important enough to sit with the captains after the first exchanges of pleasantries were over and the services of a translator were no longer needed, since the words both sides spoke no longer contained much of importance. My heart was pounding against my ribs. Something was different, something had changed. I felt full of dread.

  “Tell me again, White Cloud,” I sa
id. “What’re you doing in the company of these men? Why didn’t you tell me of them before?”

  “First of all,” he said, “my name here is Angelito. Remember that. And there was nothing to tell before.”

  I thought about that. Among the adult Miwok, too, it was common to have a ceremonial name, just as my grandmother had given me mine, though we did not use it in everyday speech. So why did he turn his face away so I could not see his eyes?

  “And now?” I asked when he had not said anything for a while.

  “Don’t make a fuss over trifles,” he said. “Be happy we’re together again, as I promised.”

  Though my mind flooded with doubt, my heart was happy to have me sit with him and listen to him explain the strangers. There were not many young men I could talk to with such pleasure. When a woman has grown up with her suitors, seen them as little boys, their hands dirty, noses unwiped, children who cannot yet control their bladders, it is hard to feel excitement in their presence. White Cloud—Angelito—whatever he wanted to be called—moved me in ways I had not known before.

  “I’m still hungry,” he complained after a while.

  “Here’s bread,” Little Gull said. He had eaten his fill of clams and abalone and the silver fish that come up on the beach by moonlight and lay their eggs at this time of year. Now he was stuffing berry pies and honey cakes into his mouth, so that I was afraid he would soon be sick.

  The noise was growing steadily as the feast ended. The strangers sat on one side of the fire, and the Miwok sat on the other. There was much gesturing and pointing and making faces from both groups, and both laughed a great deal and shouted out when a meaning jumped the barrier of language from one to the other. Bear-With-One-Ear had given orders that there be no shortage of cider for the feast, even though we seemed very nearly in danger of exhausting last season’s apple harvest. When the eating was done, the tobacco pipes passed around.

  Then the one called Lieutenant Moraga yelled something, and a man brought out a small wooden barrel from which he poured a liquid the color of pollen, and this he shared out both sides of the fire. It seemed the oftener this liquid went around the circle, the louder grew their voices, and the loudest ones belonged to my uncles, Bear-With-One-Ear, Gray Seal, and Black Otter. They shouted and laughed and their faces were fiery red. Once, when the barrel came our way, Angelito offered me some. I tasted it—I remember still how it burned my tongue!—then I pushed it away. First Captain taught us to ferment the apples, and that was good, but this was liquid flame and dangerous.