CAN West 04 - When Hope Springs New (16 page)
BOOK: CAN West 04 - When Hope Springs New
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The son listened in rapt attention. I gathered as the chief talked that he had relayed my total message. He slowed down near the end and I could follow the conversation again.
“When all done,” he concluded, “ask Golden-Haired One if she need more.”
I took a deep breath and stepped back a pace. I hadn’t expected to be so successful. Even now the eldest son was awakening other men and giving them assignments. Some seemed groggy and displeased with the assignment, but no one questioned him.
The chief then called to his oldest wife and gave her the job of organizing the women for their tasks.
He called the youngest wife and put her to work rounding up the children for the duties of carrying wood for the fires.
In a few minutes the whole scene had changed. From a people sleeping all over the lakeshore in the sun, everyone was now busy with some assigned task. It was unbelievable.
The chief turned back to me. “More?” he asked. “No.” I stammered. “No—no more now. Chief brings me joy, and I ... I ...” How did one say “thank you for your cooperation” in the Indian tongue? I searched my mind quickly but came up with no word. “People will eat and be happy,” I finished lamely...
I lowered my gaze for my dismissal and stepped away from his family campfire.
When I returned to my own fire, Silver Star looked at me with wonder. She said nothing but busied herself adding fuel to the fire.
LaMeche, who had returned from his hunt, was eating some vegetable stew, and his eyes looked at me with amusement.
“What you say to get great chief to dance to your drum?” he asked me, smiling.
I ignored his teasing. “I tell him we need hands of everyone if we are to eat,” I answered simply.
He grinned.
“You have magic powers,” he stated.
I spun around and looked at him, my eyes snapping. But I tried to hold my voice steady.
“I have no magic,” I informed him quietly. “Magic not needed when work is done.” I repeated, “Not magic—
work”
with great emphasis.
work”
with great emphasis.
He threw back his head and laughed.
I gave him one cold look that only made him laugh harder.
“I think Chief wise. Better not to get you angry. You are worse than injured bear.” And he laughed again.
I could not be angry for long. His laughter was what I needed to forget the heavy burdens of the last few days.
“You laugh,” I told him. “You not laugh when you hear what I give you to do.”
LaMeche and Silver Star exchanged glances and he groaned.
“No, no!” he exclaimed. “I have done my duty, is that not so, Silver Star?”
Silver Star avoided meeting his eyes again, but she smiled ever so slightly.
“What have you done?” I asked LaMeche.
“I brought meat for your pot to cook.”
“You did?” I was excited now. The teasing could wait. “What did you get?”
“One fat porcupine, two rabbits—and one moose.”
“You did not—you tease now.”
“No, no. I do not tease. Ask Silver Star. She already has meat in pot.”
I bent over it to sniff. He was right.
I smiled at him. “Then you do work. We can eat tonight. And I feed dogs. Sled team asks for food all day.”
“Do they ask now?” inquired LaMeche.
I listened. I could not hear the dogs.
LaMeche smiled again. “I feed them,” he said. “Who can stand noise of hungry dogs?”
I nodded my thanks to LaMeche, fearful that my voice might catch if I tried to speak.
The sun was just hanging low in the western sky when Chief Crow Calls Loud’s middle wife came to see me.
“My husband say he want talk with you.”
I was apprehensive. What did this mean? Only men were asked to the chief’s council. Reluctantly I followed her to the chief’s campfire. He did not stand to welcome me but motioned me toward a seat beside him on furs spread on the ground.
I sat down and waited for him to speak.
“It is done. All you say,” he informed me. “Hunters find meat. Two deer, one bear. Women carry pine branches, make warm shelters. Tomorrow nets will be finished to catch fish. Fires burn. People warm and full.”
He waited and I knew he wanted me to respond.
“It is good,” I said.
He solemnly nodded his head.
Then I went on, “Tomorrow men must hunt again. Women must finish nets and young men must fish. We need more baskets. More mats.”
He nodded and without further talk I was dismissed. I was returning to my own campfire when I heard a commotion off to the side. Someone was entering the camp from the west-side trail, hurrying toward us.
And then across the distance I recognized Wynn! With a joyous cry I raced toward him.
“Elizabeth!” he exclaimed as he threw his arms around me. “Oh, thank God you’re safe,” he cried, pulling me close while I held him and wept on his scarlet tunic.
He brushed back the hair that curled around my face. In the absence of a comb I had run my fingers through it and braided it like the Indian people, but the little curls insisted on coming loose.
“I was so frightened when I came back to the village,” he whispered in my hair. “I didn’t know what had become of you.”
I stifled my sobs and tried to speak. “I’m fine. Now that you’re here, I’m fine.”
“Oh, my darling,” he said and pulled me close again.
We did not talk for many minutes and then Wynn pulled back and studied me carefully.
“Has it been hard for you—being here with all these people who—who mistrust you?”
For a moment I was stunned. In the days since the fire I had not stopped to think about the way my situation had changed. Only a short time ago the village people would not even speak to me. As Wynn said, they considered me an outsider, an impostor—but now? Now the chief called me to council. Now all the village did my bidding. Now they wanted to attribute to me magical powers.
I began to laugh. Wynn must have thought the strain of it all was more than I could bear. He looked at me intently, his eyes anxious.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Fine, and so glad you are back. I missed you so much. There was no one to take charge.”
Wynn looked around at the family firepits, the shelters, the meat hung in the trees, the fishnet that was taking shape, the newly formed baskets. “It looks very well organized to me,” he commented.
“I’ll tell you all about it later,” I promised. “Right now I just want to hear that you’ll never leave me again.”
I knew Wynn couldn’t promise me that, and he knew that I knew it—still, I was glad he held me close for a moment before we turned to the fire and the cookpot to get his supper. He looked at the size of the stew that was simmering. Then he looked back at me.
“It looks like you are cooking for an army,” he said.
“Not an army. Just our ‘family.’ It’s grown a bit since you left, and they will soon all be coming for their supper, so you’d better hurry and eat. We’ll need to wash that dish you are using about four times before we get them all fed.”
Then I laughed and kissed Wynn on his stubbled cheek.
“You were gone so long, I was worried,” I told him. “Thank God you are finally back.”
TWENTY-ONE
Reunion
After the evening meal was served to all our little group and the dishes washed and set out to dry, Wynn and I sat around the fire with LaMeche and visited while Silver Star put her children to bed. I had not been watching her, so I did not notice she went to a pine-bough shelter instead of the make-shift shelter between the wagons.
I knew our crowded quarters would not house Wynn now too, but he and LaMeche were talking so I wasn’t able to make plans.
Wynn wanted to know all the circumstances of the fire, and LaMeche explained it all in great detail, using all his Indian vocabulary plus his French heritage of gestures. He made such a heroine out of me that I blushed with embarrassment.
LaMeche told Wynn how I had organized the women and children to care for themselves and one another after the fire, and then when the chief and the men came back, I again had gotten things going.
Wynn’s eyes were big with wonder. It was so uncharacteristic of me and such a reversal of my previous contact with the Indians that he could scarcely believe it. Now that I thought about it, I found it hard to believe myself.
“They think she has great ‘magic’ powers,” went on LaMeche.
“Magic?” said Wynn. “Why magic?”
“Because her garden grows in forbidden place—the fire stops when it comes to the spot of her garden and turns and runs. She gets all people out of village, and she keeps them in camp. Even Chief thinks she has magic!”
Wynn looked at me as if to ask me whether that was true. I could only shrug my shoulders, feeling uncomfortable.
“I did nothing to make them think that,” I protested quietly in English to him. “I only—oh, Wynn! It’s so mixed up and ridiculous. What are we going to do now?”
Wynn smiled. “From outcast to goddess, all in a few days. That’s quite a switch, Elizabeth,” he responded, also in English.
“I don’t think it’s funny,” I protested. “I wish you wouldn’t tease. Don’t you see the awkward situation? I don’t want to be tied in with their superstitious worship.”
Wynn reached for my hand. He could see it troubled me deeply.
“We’ll explain,” he said confidently. “I’ll talk to the chief tomorrow.” And then he couldn’t resist adding, “—if you’ll be so kind as to get me an audience.”
I swatted at him, but he managed to avoid my playful blow.
The talk turned serious then. Wynn turned to LaMeche. “How much did you lose?” he asked him in his language.
The eyes of the trader darkened. He shrugged his shoulders and answered carelessly, “Only everything.”
“You saved nothing?”
“Only what will be eaten by the people before many days are gone.
“None of your furs?”
“Just a few furs and blankets that people use,” LaMeche answered.
I had not stopped to think about the unselfishness of the trader. He had held nothing back from the people. Everything he had left in the world he had placed at their disposal.
“I will see if anything can be done for you,” Wynn promised.
“And you?” asked LaMeche.
“Me?” said Wynn.
“You lost much, too.”
Wynn shook his head. He reached for my hand. “I lost very little,” he said, “now that I know that Elizabeth is safe.”
I squeezed his hand tightly.
“I am sorry,” Wynn went on, “about all my medicine. I hope we won’t need it before a new supply can get here.”
“And how you plan to get more?” asked the trader.
“I will see the chief tomorrow and ask his help in sending a runner out to Athabasca. From there I will send word to Head-quarters, and they will do what is necessary.”
LaMeche nodded. “How long?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. It depends on weather and availability of material and men.”
It was such a relief for me to hear Wynn making the plans and arrangements. I settled back, relaxed, and let his words wash over me. The fire flickered and its warmth spilled over me, making me drowsier and drowsier as I listened to the hum of voices. My head dropped to my knees and I pulled my blanket more closely around me.
“What will you do?” Wynn asked the trader.
“I will build again. It will be hard to make start. I have no money. I might have to return to traplines for a few years, but I will work, and I will build.” I could hear the smile in his voice as he continued, “Not magic,” he said, “but work.”
I was sure Wynn would not understand all the significance of his statement.
“What do the people have left?” Wynn was asking.
“Enough,” said LaMeche. “They have survived on less.”
Then there was only silence until LaMeche said softly, “You must take her to bed. She has had little sleep for many nights. Last night when she might have slept, the braves danced and drummed all night. She will be sick.”
I felt Wynn’s hands upon my arms. “Beth,” he whispered. “Beth, it’s bedtime. Come on, let’s get you some sleep.”
“We can’t go to bed,” I mumbled. “No room.”
“Plenty room,” responded LaMeche. “I move all the Indians out of your shelter today. They have own place now.”
I hadn’t known that.
Wynn bade LaMeche good night and helped me to my feet. I was hardly aware of being led as we zigzagged our way through the camp and over to the wagon shelter.
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