The men all around me cheer. My ears have begun to ring again.
“A more formal ceremony is promised before we move out,” says Breech. “Dismissed.”
The men relax and turn to Elijah and in the commotion and the press of bodies I feel crushed. I really must be invisible to them. And then I hear McCaan’s voice booming over the others’.
“Private Bird, report to me at once! Private Bird to the lieutenant’s quarters!”
My stomach fills with sour juice. The men look at me and then avert their eyes. A few mumble half-heartedly.
“No worries,” Elijah says to me in Cree. “I will come with you. Just speak in Cree and I will translate.”
I glance at him, then spit on the ground and look away. I move forward toward McCaan, who waits in the middle of the impromptu parade ground. We then move single file, McCaan first, me second, Elijah third.
The lieutenant’s tent is cool and dark. He stands when we enter and asks Elijah his business here.
“Private Bird’s English is very poor, sir,” he says. “You will need me to translate.”
I know that McCaan knows better, and wonder why he does not speak up at this.
“It is a desperate army indeed that allows non-English speakers into it,” Breech mutters. “Does the private understand that the penalty for desertion is immediate execution by firing squad?” He pauses as if to let this point sink in. “Ask the private his whereabouts last night and the day before.”
Elijah’s eyes capture mine, and in Cree he says, “I’ve got an idea. Just speak in our tongue and I will do the translating. Don’t fight me on this.”
“I do not give a shit any more,” I say in Cree. “Let the bastards shoot me. Fritz will anyway, sooner or later.”
Elijah turns to the lieutenant, and in his funny accent begins to speak. “The private says that he went out in search of fresh game for the men. He became lost in this foreign environment and was only able to make it back late last night. He’d planned on reporting to Sergeant McCaan directly, but had not been afforded the chance to before roll call this morning. By then, it was too late.”
Breech appears a little puzzled. It is not the answer he had expected. “Surely the private must understand that absence without permission is a dire offence? Ask him this.”
Elijah turns to me. “Pretty good lie, eh?” he says. “You went out in order to help the others. I knew it would catch him off guard.”
“Tell the lieutenant that I fucked his mother last night,” I respond. Elijah pretends a cough to cover up the grunt of a laugh. I look into his eyes and ask, “Why did you fool me about her? And why do they overlook me for all of the honours?”
Elijah turns back to Breech. “The private has not been himself since our offensive at Vimy. He took a tremendous blow to the head in the midst of some very brutal hand-to-hand fighting in Fritz’s trenches. Sergeant McCaan witnessed this.” Elijah’s eyes find the sergeant. McCaan nods his head in agreement. “He has been suffering bouts of forgetfulness and nausea since,” Elijah continues. “He only meant to add to our fresh meat supply when he disappeared. There isn’t a man in our company who would argue that Private Bird is not an excellent soldier and person.”
Breech is silent for a while, contemplating all of the information. “Has the private been examined by a physician since the battle?” he asks.
“I hope that you made that hussy sore for all of the trouble she has caused you,” Elijah says to me.
“I am sick of this army and want to go back to Mushkegowuk,” I say.
Elijah turns again to Breech. “Private Bird is somewhat fearful of the English form of medicine. He is used to a much more primitive practice of healing. I’ve asked him to see our medics, but he is disoriented, afraid.”
Again the lieutenant pauses, curling the tips of his moustache as he thinks. “I will not even dare ask what sorcery this heathen practises in the wild forests back home.” He shakes his head sadly at McCaan. “I order Private Bird to three days’ confinement under the watch of a medic. After that time it will be decided if he is fit to go back in the field. Tell the private this and ask if he has anything else to say.”
Elijah says to me, “You are a lucky bastard. You are lucky that I am such a good friend.”
“Tell Breech that his mother is a loose and lousy fuck with moose mittens for tits. Also tell him that I am going to escape tonight and make my way back home.”
“The private asks that I say thank you and says that he looks forward to care and rest.”
Elijah is allowed to walk with me and the military policeman to the place where I am to be held. “You were miserable back there, Xavier,” Elijah says.
I clench my fists.
“I knew that a woman would be good for you but that you would never visit a whore, and so I did this for you to help you, not to hurt you.”
“Bastard,” I say, and spit again.
“I paid a lot of money for her time with you. If I knew you were going to fall in love like a fool, I wouldn’t have done it. Now I wish I hadn’t.”
“Shut up now and go away,” I say, not looking at him.
He turns from me then and heads back toward the others.
The cabin in which they’ve put me is still and dusty and hot. They have taken my rifle and given me fresh clothes that are itchy and too warm. A guard has been posted outside of the door and every few hours the medic comes to peer into my eyes and ask questions slowly. I stare out the glassless window at the patch of sky and high white clouds. The only entertainment is a barn swallow that has made a nest in the corner of the cabin near the window and swoops in and out, busy feeding her noisy young. I watch her work and it is the comfort of the bush that wraps around me. The bird reminds me of home. I watch it all afternoon, fascinated.
In the early evening with the sun beginning to slant lower, I hear the guard outside say something, and then Breech comes in the door, followed by Elijah and the medic.
“How is the private doing?” he asks, surveying the room.
“I think that he suffers exhaustion and that rest will do him a world of good,” the medic says.
“Ask the private how he is doing,” Breech says to Elijah.
“I brought you a piece of goose that I got from a farm last night,” Elijah says in our tongue. “It is here, under my shirt.”
I don’t want to do it, but I nod to him.
“He is feeling much better, sir,” Elijah answers.
The swallow has come back in the room but is angry at the intrusion. It seems to have taken a dislike to Breech and perches on a rafter near its nest, calling out noisily at him. Breech looks up, annoyed.
“Have the private remove that bird and its nest at once,” he says. “This is no way to keep one’s quarters!”
Elijah reaches for a broom in the corner, hands it to me, points to the nest.
I refuse to take the broom, glare back.
“It is just a bird,” Elijah says. “It is not worth the trouble. Breech is testing you. He needs to feel that he controls you.”
“Fuck the lieutenant,” I say.
“Tell the private to stand up and sweep down that nest!” the lieutenant shouts, suddenly angry.
I don’t move.
“Do it,” Elijah says.
I stare up at the ceiling. The swallow chatters louder. Elijah takes the broom and sweeps the nest hard, knocking it to the floor. The baby swallows tumble out. Two are lifeless, killed instantly by the fall. The third raises his featherless head, bewildered, its eyes large and round above its small yellow beak. Its tiny wings beat frantically on the floor, then more slowly. The mother bird cries out. The baby swallow’s lids sink and it ceases to move. I turn my head away from all of them.
KA NIPIHAT WINDIGOWA
Windigo Killer
I MADE XAVIER SMILE with my story of smacking the nun with my paddle, and this gives me hope. Steering the canoe slow through the afternoon I watch him drift into sleep. It is a restless
time for him, and his face looks like a scared child’s when he cries out. To try and ease him a little, I start talking again. The story is not a happy one, but something in me has to tell it. There is truth in this story that Xavier needs to hear, and maybe it is best that he hears it in sleep so that the medicine in the tale can slip into him unnoticed.
I ask Nephew if he remembers the sunny day after a large snowfall when the branches of the trees were covered and glittering. He was still a small boy. It was the day an awawatuk from the turtle clan came visiting us. His unexpected arrival reminded me of another visit long ago.
You sat with me, Nephew, in our winter lodge. Do you remember? We brewed tea and I sewed while you played a stick game in the corner. We both went quiet at the sound of snowshoes. Fearful that wemistikoshiw approached, I motioned for you to sit and wait while I went to see who it was. Outside I recognized the face of an old hunter.
The old man spoke immediately. “One of us has gone windigo this winter,” he said, and the words brought all of the memories of my father back to me so that I was light-headed and feared I might fall. But I had to appear strong. I stood and waited and listened.
“A young man went out in the bush and did not come back for weeks. We assumed he was dead. But when he came back he carried a pack full of meat that was obviously human. He has gone mad and threatens to destroy all of us.”
“How many are you?” I asked.
“Twelve,” he answered. “Most of us are relations. The young man is my nephew.”
I had no choice. “Where is your camp?” I asked.
“Two days’ walk from here,” he answered. “At the place near Thunderhouse Rapids.”
“We will leave at once,” I told him, and turned to go inside and gather my things.
The travelling was difficult in the deep, wet snow. We walked hard for two days, you struggling to keep up. The walk stretched into a third. I would have preferred not to bring you to this place of sickness where we were heading, but it was too risky to leave you alone at my camp. Possibly, I wouldn’t return myself. I wasn’t sure what awaited me.
I knew that the old man we walked with wondered about the little boy accompanying me. He knew I was not a mother, but the old man kept his stare straight ahead, his wizened eyes not giving a hint as to what he was thinking. We built a shelter at night, kept warm with a fire. We’d stop a few times during the day to eat jerkied moose. The old man kept the pace quick. He was anxious to get back and be rid of the badness that had descended on his people.
I pieced the story together over those days of travelling. The tale was similar to what I had witnessed as a young girl, except this time the wife had died and her husband, the old man’s nephew, had eaten her. He’d come back into the small community of awawatuk half mad with sadness and anger, not trying to hide the fact that he’d gone windigo, attacking his old uncle, who with the help of the other men was barely able to hold him down and bind him tightly. When we were close to his village, the old man rolled up his sleeve and showed me where his nephew had bitten him. A purple welt tattooed his arm, teeth marks clearly visible. It looked infected. I would apply herbs to it when we got to his home.
I expected some kind of noise or movement when on the third morning we finally walked into the clearing with a few askihkans that was the old man’s winter home. But the place was as still as death. The fear that I’d been holding back surfaced. I questioned if I was ready to take on the role of my father. The immensity of what was expected of me made me doubt my ability. That the windigo had escaped his ropes and had killed everyone was a secondary fear, and in realizing this I was able to ground myself a little. I saw smoke coming from the fire holes of the askihkans then, and pushed away my doubt as best I could.
As soon as I saw the askihkan where the nephew lay, I pointed to it and said, “He’s there.”The old man nodded, his eyes telling me he wondered how I was so sure. But it was as if the askihkan glowed from within. An aura as bright to me as the North Lights pulsed from within it with a great sadness. I realized then that sadness was at the heart of the windigo, a sadness so pure that it shrivelled the human heart and let something else grow in its place. To know that you have desecrated the ones you love, that you have done something so damning out of a greed for life that you have been exiled from your people forever is a hard meal to swallow, much harder to swallow than that first bite of human flesh.
The old man tried immediately to take me to the place where his nephew lay bound and guarded, but I told him I needed a place in which I could prepare and pray for a while. He led me to his shelter and I was left there, you quietly waiting nearby. I sat in the darkness a long time, not praying, not thinking even, just rocking on my haunches and waiting for the ahcahk of my father to come to me.
My mind was blank as I left the old man’s askihkan, not full of light or strength or anything else. I told you to stay until I returned. The old man sat outside waiting for me, gazing off into the bush. I saw the faces of a couple of small children peering out at me from the entry-ways of their askihkans, but hands quickly pulled them inside. The sickness of the windigo could spread as surely as the invisible sicknesses of the wemistikoshiw. I was the surgeon summoned to carve the illness from this small group, the one assumed to have the skill that the others did not.
The old man led me to the lodge where the sick one lay, and in my numbness I couldn’t help but feel like a prisoner being led to confinement. The pain emanating from the askihkan pulsed stronger as I approached. I felt as if I was walking against a strong current, as if I might be swept away at any minute. The old man pulled aside the hide covering and I stepped into the darkness, my eyes slow to adjust. Two men sat by the doorway, keeping watch over the form covered by a blanket. I asked them to remove the blanket. When they did I was surprised by the smallness of the man left exposed, bound hand and foot, staring back at me with goose-black eyes. They didn’t appear human at all, those eyes, looking at me with the inquisitiveness of an animal. And I watched as those eyes changed when they realized who and what I was. They went cold and lightless as a stone, and he turned his head toward the wall.
I had arrived with no plan, hoping that what I needed to do would come to me. I told the two men to untie him and to hold his arms above his head, knowing that this would make it more difficult for him to fight. Their eyes searched my face for just a second, then they did as I asked. I told the old man to sit on the windigo’s feet, to have his knife ready in the event it overpowered us. There was no struggle as the men untied his arms from his sides and then lifted them above his head, holding them there so that he was stretched out on the blanket. I pulled a stick from the firepit and my rope from around my waist and knelt beside him. He smelled sour, like he’d pissed himself, but there was a deeper musk too, one that I’d not smelled before and hoped not to again. I straddled his chest so that my slight weight was on him. Finally he turned his head to me and looked deep into my eyes.
I could see that he understood. I reached under his neck and placed the rope around it, wrapping both ends around the stick. All I had to do now was twist the stick around and around until the rope tightened and cut his breath off. I started to whisper a prayer to Gitchi Manitou and began twisting the stick with each sentence of my prayer. The rope bit into his neck and he began to struggle. I twisted more and prayed louder. His eyes flooded with an animal’s panic, and he bucked me hard, trying to throw me from him. I squeezed my thighs tighter around him and kept twisting so that his eyes began to widen and bulge. The men holding his arms strained against his strength, cursing and breathing hard. From the way the windigo writhed and flopped, I knew that the old man too was holding on for his life.
The windigo began to pant and speak in a tongue I’d not heard before, the voice scratched. His eyes burned into mine and I realized that he was cursing me. I prayed louder to Gitchi Manitou, asking to deflect this curse, to carry it away on the smoke of the fire and out of the lodge into the sky. My hands stung from the wor
k of twisting. The windigo’s face had turned purple and I was afraid that his eyes would pop from his head. His words melted into a long groan and his thick tongue stuck out from his mouth.
With one last great shudder, he tried to throw me from him. My body and feet went into the air and, just before the point where I was about to flip off of him, my body’s weight came back down hard onto his chest. With a great gush of spittle and blood, the last stinking air in his body left him and splattered onto my rough cotton shirt. His eyes remained open, the whites turned a deep red from the strangulation. The two men who’d held his arms fell back in a heap. I turned around and saw the old man crouched, looking at me.
I stood after a time, my legs shaking. I felt the warm trickle of my blood running down the insides of my thighs. A sound in the corner caught my attention. I turned quickly. You sat in shadow inside the lodge, watching us. You’d sneaked in, and I could tell by your face that you’d seen everything.
The next day I gave the men directions on how to dispose of the body. I told them to construct a large fire of hardwood and build up the hot coals for a day. When the fire was at its height they would place the body upon it and would keep the fire burning until there was nothing left. They would then carefully sweep up the ash and burn it upon another fire. This was to be repeated a third time, and when the ash was carefully collected from the last fire they were to sprinkle it in the river and let the current carry it away.
The old man offered to walk me back the two or three days to my lodge, but I told him that I wanted to go alone with my nephew. We set out early the next morning, my head crowded with too many thoughts, like children vying for attention so that I was unable to deal with any of them. Had I rid these people of the windigo in the proper way? Maybe word of my deed would make its way to the wemistikoshiw, who would come after me and condemn me as they had my father? Just as I had witnessed it at your age, you had now seen something that you were too young to understand fully. I needed to explain to you that I was a healer, and that sometimes healing entailed cutting out the sickness. Once I had fought the role placed upon me, the struggle as difficult as trying to tame a wolf or fox for a pet. Back then I was young still and wanted to live free of it all. But I was older now and knew that such denying was not possible.