Norseman Chief (22 page)

“Ugly she-wolves,” Etleloo mumbled.  I said nothing for I thought they looked an awful lot like the people of Kesegowaase.  But Etleloo was likely correct.  He had lived among these and his own people for his entire life and would be able to distinguish the slightest differences that made one tribe beautiful and the next homely.  For me, I was uncertain I could tell what was attractive and what was not when it came to women.  I fell in love with women with a fair complexion or with a dark complexion, with red hair or with black hair, with sumptuous breasts or with ribs protruding.  I fell in love with women.

Shortly after those women moved from sight, a band of chattering girls, most perhaps six years of age, came walking by heading in the opposite direction.  They, too, kept their distance.  Each carried a small deer-hide pouch, folded like a sheet of parchment.  I knew that between those folds the girls carried their bone needles and multiple types of thread for creating or mending clothing.  Perhaps their mothers had sent them to a mamateek to work on a batch of clothing together, I thought.

A dozen or more steps behind these girls followed a poor, dirty soul.  She was about the same age as the others, but teetered under the weight of a pile of hides that someone had set upon her head and shoulders.  I say that someone placed them there because the mass would have been too large for her to hoist from the ground on her own.  Her path was winding as she continuously reoriented her way to prevent the tipping pile from falling into the mud at her feet – feet that were bare, unlike all the other girls, and filthy.  The girl’s lower legs were splattered with fresh wet mud.  Her upper legs caked with dried, cracking mud.  Her simple dress was newly made – I could tell by the seams – yet proved to be equally as dirty as her feet.  Her face was obscured by the load she bore until a rapid succession of steps to bring the mound back into balance brought her straight toward us.  It was the daughter of our chief.  It was Kimi, Kesegowaase’s daughter!

Again I wanted to run my sword through the young guards.  I wanted to snatch up the girl, chop down her captors and run to where they kept my own little Alsoomse.  The Fish tribe must have sold these girls to our enemy, I thought.  I breathed out heavily, thinking that our sly plan of coming to our enemies and asking permission to cross their lands to retrieve our daughters was beginning to look foolish indeed.  I had only wanted to eliminate one more risk – Pohomoosh at our backs – from our journey.

I spit onto the ground between my legs.  “Shit,” I muttered.  This time they all ignored my mutterings.

But it was too late to worry about what would happen.  Our plan was already in motion.  The fearsome one was striding toward us with a mighty scowl pasted onto his face, a few of his best men at his heels.  The girl staggered away after her giggling captors.

At the same time a group of four young men came into the village from the same direction Etleloo and I had come.  It was the trappers we saw some days earlier returned with several fresh pelts to lay at the feet of their chief.  They arrived at our spot on the path before the fearsome one and halted, confused by what they saw in us and their men.

The ferocious warrior veered his path for several steps and snapped off a thin branch from a nearby tree with his axe.  He directed his followers to do the same.  After doing so, each of them re-doubled their efforts to stride to us.

The young trappers opened their mouths to inquire of their leader, but before they could utter even a single word their leaders fell upon them with those green sticks.  Small leaves were budding at the ends.  Some of them snapped off, others left small welts on the crouching youths.  The fresh, clean pelts fell into the muck and when the young men tried to scatter, our guards helped by kicking them back to the ground.  Neither Etleloo nor I moved during the beating.

They were whipped and whipped and whipped until their forearms, ears, cheeks, backs, buttocks, everything was lined with streaks of blood.  They looked like a careful scribe had found a new red ink and took up his quill on each man in turn.  One of them wept and questioned the reason for the beating.  This made the others turn more of their attention to him.  He would be sorry he ever opened his mouth.  They began kicking him like he was an air-filled bladder and they played some athletic game.  Time and again they brought their heels onto his head or into his chest and belly.

Then as quickly as it began, the whipping stopped.  The ferocious one threw his stick, which was now considerably shorter with a frayed end, onto the heap of men like he discarded something distasteful.  As he stood there catching his breath, I thought about our predicament.

If we survived our meeting with the village elders – I was confident we would be granted a meeting – Etleloo and I could change our plans.  But we might not survive.  Perhaps the Fish already had the ear of this chief and would see a fine, tortuous death brought to two old men yet this very day.  Or perhaps the Fish had moved on to their lands, the Kespe’keweq, but the thought of us barging into this village to retrieve our poor girls would bring dishonor to us.  The local Mi’kmaq chief may just order our deaths out of disdain.

None-too-pleased, the fearsome man panted, “You will come with me.”  His forehead was damp with sweat.

Back to the plan.  I slapped Etleloo’s knee as I rose, “See there, mighty Etleloo?  I told you there would be no reason for us to kill these fine people.  Even they can be reasoned with.”

Several steps in front of us the leader retorted, “Huh!  What could you two feeble old women kill but a still-born skunk?”  The fearsome one and his friends laughed at his joke.

“I suppose while these two old women are gathering nuts for our tribe’s supper, we could harvest the tiny chestnuts from your groins and hammer them into your throat,” answered Etleloo.  “But I suppose you’re right, that will not kill you since the tiny little shriveled things would just slide down your throats.  You are used to eating such things, correct?”

I laughed mightily at that response.  It was a good one.  But the fearsome one had his blood up from the beatings he had just administered so his sense of humor was diminished.  The swift warrior was like a cat.  By the time he spun to face us, his axe was out and swinging down at Etleloo.  I did not fear for my friend’s life, because his opponent was already winded and used his anger to guide him.  With little effort and not much drama, Etleloo had his knife buried between the man’s ribs.  I heard the stone blade grinding against the bone as my friend twisted at the handle.  One of the ribs cracked, allowing Etleloo to ream out the man’s lungs, blood poured out the widening hole.

The fierce leader’s surprised face paled as his failed blow went wide, his forearm glancing harmlessly off Etleloo’s shoulder.  His companions looked on in horror, neither moving.  I didn’t move a muscle.  Etleloo caught the falling man’s weight in his arms like he hugged him and then uncharacteristically set him down with an almost misplaced gentleness.  Before rising back to his full height, he withdrew the knife, wiped it on the dead man’s coat, and slipped it into its sheath.

It was a miracle of the One God that the other guards reacted with their heads rather than their hearts.  With eyes wide, they looked us over to ascertain our intent, shook their heads at the fallen man down in the mud, and then said, “Come, before you are killed by a crowd.”

After stepping over the dead man, it was a short and fast walk to the chief’s mamateek.  We all moved inside in a single file line with the first Pohomoosh Mi’kmaq ducking and hastening over to whisper in the chief’s ear.  He perked up as if from a slumber, then quickly regained his control and showed us little in the way of emotion.

We stood awaiting instructions near the entrance, with a small bed of coals between us and the chief.  It was the same man who was chief during the last war.  He was old, perhaps my age.  His eyebrows were bushy things, which jutted in every possible direction like dry brittle grass at the end of summer.  These made up for the thin hair atop his head.  It was mostly white as you would expect, but the manner in which he pulled what was left back tightly against his head, accentuated its thin nature, making him appear even older.

“Sit,” he said at last.  A series of loud wailing calls from outside said that some women had found their dead brave.  The chief dispatched two of his young men to see to the situation.

“Etleloo and Enkoodabooaoo thank you for paying my village such a visit.  I have been informed you brought me a gift of one of my own deer.  Thank you for saving us the labor of the hunt.”  He said this without sincerity, but such are the ways of men, saying words that the other thinks they’d like to hear rather than what you have to say.

“We thank you for all the hospitality your people have given to us since our arrival.  The gift, we thought, was fitting to a chief named Luntook,” I said.

“Enkoodabooaoo, I should like to meet more of your people one day, I think.  Perhaps some may decide to fight for the Mi’kmaq of Pohomoosh, the winners of the last war.”  Etleloo’s nostrils flared and his blood ran high reminding me why I usually did the talking in place of my fiery brother.

“It may be that someday more of my people come to these shores and the merki beyond, but that will be some time off.  My native people would very much like to meet with your people as well.”

Having covered nothing in the conversation to this point, we sat looking at one another for a time.  The bed of coals was still warm, burning off the slight chill that was left in the shadows that day.  I extended my hands to feel it, to let it soak into my old bones.

“Why do you invade my lands, skulk past my sentries, and plunge into the heart of my village?  Do you wish, again, to lose at war?”  To the heart of the matter, now.

I sighed and looked into Etleloo’s face.  He firmed his jaw and nodded.  “We seek many things from you, Chief Luntook, though war is not one of them, with nothing to offer in return.”  Even saying it was difficult.  It is universally known among men of all stripes that to be in another man’s debt is to be owned by him.  It is as if we were coming and offering ourselves as thralls to this man, the leader of our enemy.

“My ears await,” he said, tossing his hands in the air.

“The Fish, your Mi’kmaq cousins from the Kespe’keweq, have passed through your lands at least twice in recent weeks – one trip out and one trip back.  They have taken that which belongs to us and we seek to retrieve it.”

Luntook chuckled, not because he thought what I said was necessarily humorous, but because of what he assumed I asked.  “And you think that somehow you will win an ally in your fight against them?  You are known to be wise, Enkoodabooaoo.  I see that some reputations are wrongly bestowed.  Have you not learned that you also fought against several men from the Fish in the last war?  They were our allies when it suited us.”

I did know that even though I had plunged my saex into many of them.  “Alliance is not what we ask of you chief.  We simply ask for an honoring of the truce.  We seek safe, unfettered passage through your lands as we move away from our own.  We will replace any provisions we take.  We ask for safe passage as we pass back to our lands as well.  We do not even ask for a return of the girl given to you by the Fish, she is one of little consequence.”  I added the latter, hoping that he would not find out she was the daughter of our chief, a fact, if known, would cause much trouble for her as a bartering tool.

The man considered my words, betraying no surprise that I knew he possessed one of the hostages.  I hoped his next words would tell me where the other two girls now tread.  “And this mission to retrieve your property, your Chief Kesegowaase sends you two old men rather than his young band of braves?”

I shook my head, “He does not.  We travel without his blessing.”

The Mi’kmaq chief of the Pohomoosh considered this for a time, likely surprised by my honesty.  “So the party of Kesegowaase’s people that flooded into my land last night is not part of your mission?”  He now saw my surprise and added, “Enkoodabooaoo and Etleloo are not the only hunters with eyes in the forest.  Kesegowaase’s warriors come for you?”

I turned this information in my mind.  I did not think it likely that our chief changed his mind and sent men to aid our effort to retrieve a few girls.  At last, Etleloo and I nodded that we agreed with his guess.

A wicked smile curled on the man’s lips.  He even gave a wicked laughed, deep and rolling.  “By helping you, I will send an arrow into your chief’s heart, reminding him that the Pohomoosh, the most powerful Mi’kmaq clan can control his people more than he can.”

It pained me to admit that he was correct, but I held my chin as high as I could despite the fact that I felt traitorous.  “Your silence Enkoodabooaoo and your silence Etleloo tells me I am correct.  You’ll have safe passage.  Our cousins the Fish left us the girl as a tribute for crossing our land.  In addition to whatever “property” you seek, they had two more girls with them.  They were bound at the wrists with leather straps and dragged like dogs.”

I wanted to take one of my silver armrings and beat his face until it was swollen beyond recognition the way he spoke of my daughter being tied so.  But I did not for I had a mission.