Arturo Serrano - To Climates Unknown - An Alternate History of a World Without America

Samuel offered an apologetic smile. “You probably know what I’m burning to ask you.” Then, after a moment of thought, “And you’re probably tired of hearing it.”

Odahingum took a sip of ale. “A question is not bad in itself. It’s the intent behind it that matters.”

“My intent, actually, is to hire your services.”

“What do you need?”

“My…” He interrupted himself and lowered his voice. “My… cousin and I want to leave this city. The farther from the coast, the better.”

“Ah. You’re looking for a guide.”

“That. A guide, yes.”

“And what about me gave you the idea that I had any skill in that occupation?” Odahingum’s French was elegant, almost too elaborate for Samuel to follow.

“Well, you’re… um…”

“Not from here. You seem to think that’s enough.”

Samuel raised helpless hands. “Not here is exactly where we need to be. If you know someplace else to go, we’ll go there.”

Odahingum regarded Samuel with preoccupation. “As it happens, I’ve just returned from serving as someone’s guide.”

“Where to?”

“Munkhaven.”

Samuel’s eyes opened wide. The fabled port on Hudson Bay where Munk the Dane had spent that horrible winter before finding the Arctic route was an impossible distance north of New Amsterdam. “You’ve been there?”

“Last year a French priest wanted to try his luck preaching at the Danish colonists.”

Samuel chuckled. Even here, at the other end of an ocean that ought to render all disagreements forgotten, the followers of Jesus kept finding ways to chase after one another. “Did he convert anyone?”

“He never got the chance. We almost made it to the town, but we crossed paths with a huge white bear and the priest started praying for it to leave us.”

“Did the bear leave?”

“Of course not. It ate him.” Odahingum seemed to savor the shock in Samuel’s face. “Poor Father Martin. In return, the bear gave me its skin.”

He looked at the imposing head of the beast adorning the Native’s crown. “So you’re not only a guide, but a hunter, too.”

“Is being more than one thing a difficult concept for you?”

“I’m sorry. I forgot my manners again.” He knew it was wrong to stare, but he felt increasingly captivated by the face in front of him. “You look young, for someone who kills bears.”

Odahingum leaned in and replied, in a low voice, “And you look a bit too old to need that beard.” Samuel stayed very still on his chair, realizing he hadn’t prepared a way out in case he was discovered.

“This beard… was supposed to ward off questions.”

“That’s exactly the type of answer that creates more questions.”

“If I sate your curiosity, will you do the same for mine?”

“It’s only fair.”

“Very well. Will you tell me?”

Odahingum laughed. “It always goes back to that question, doesn’t it?”

“You have the advantage,” said Samuel. “At its heart, a question is a confession of ignorance.”

“You’re right. Where I live, no one needs to ask.”

“So…?”

“So, you’re starting to sound like the French.”

Samuel was confused by that. “We are speaking French.”

“I mean like the priests. Have you seen them?”

“Let’s say the Church and I don’t make good company.”

“They’re funny. Dotting the land with their cute churches, trying to fit this whole continent into neat categories.”

“It sounds like you’ve had this same discussion with them.”

“So many times. I was made to attend one of their schools.”

Samuel raised his glass. “To time lost.”

They both drank. “Oh, you have no idea. I lost all contact with my clan for years. My father didn’t want my own people to teach me.”

“Your father?”

“He was French. He was what they call a runner of the woods.”

Samuel had heard that term; it was a dangerous occupation some Frenchmen took in the lakes to secure better furs by adopting the Natives’ customs. “I hope you can see why that creates more questions.”

Odahingum laughed again. “Haven’t you ever wondered how New Amsterdam gets furs in the first place?”

Samuel had another look at the bearskin. “I don’t suppose you have much use in the lakes for golden florins.”

“True, we don’t use your coins, but we do live by reciprocity. Frenchmen come to the lakes and take our women as wives. It’s a good exchange for both families.”

Samuel was incredulous. “Your parents got married as a transaction?”

“Not unlike every king of France.”

They shared a sincere laugh and the private wish for it to happen again.

“Naturally, there was lust involved as well,” added Odahingum. “Just like everywhere else.”

“The priests must not be happy with your way of doing business.”

“Oh, they’re never happy with anything.”

Samuel drank again. “Was Jesuit school a total waste, though?”

Odahingum took a moment to consider the question. “Learning has to be mutual. I was happy to listen to French conjugations all day, but I had no patience for people who wouldn’t listen back. They say they come to teach us the way, the truth and the life, but I fail to find anything joyful in what they bring. Do you really follow that faith in Europe?”

“Half of us do. At the very least, we claim to.”

“How do you keep a civilization in a permanent state of terror for the future?”

Samuel opened his hands. “Now do you see why I want to leave this place?”

Another shared laugh. “No, you haven’t told me why yet. The true reason, I mean.”

Samuel sensed this stranger was taking a serious liking for him. “You ask your question, and I’ll ask mine.”

“I know your question.”

“Of course.” He was enjoying the tension.

“Do you care either way?”

Samuel sighed. “I can assure you that the truth about you will be nowhere near as troubling as the truth about me.”

Odahingum thought about it for a long while, then said, “I’ve had to deal with Europeans all my life. You always want to know, but you’re never fully aware of what it is that you want to know. One moment, you look at us the way one looks at the soaring flight of an eagle, and the next, you give us the look one gives a tortoise choking on an insect. And after enough iterations, it starts to get exhausting to be expected to constantly explain ourselves to you. Your problem is not that you haven’t decided what we are, but that you believe you get to decide.”

An idea connected to another in Samuel’s head, and he said, “It’s funny that a moment ago you mentioned the kings of France. In every generation, the fate of Europe hinged on what came from the loins of a queen: a boy or a girl?”

“I know about that. French father, remember?”

“Forgive me. I shouldn’t have assumed—”

“I hear they still have a law that forbids a princess from sitting on the throne.”

Samuel nodded. “They wouldn’t have known what to make of a child like you.”

“Why? I’m nothing unique. At some point, a queen of France may very well have had a child like me.”

“But what do you think would have happened to that child?”

“A life with very little freedom.”

Samuel gave this some thought, and asked the bartender for more ale. “I don’t think I remember having ever been able to converse in this manner.”

“In what manner?”

He mulled that question until he knew the right words. “Without fear of being hated.”

Odahingum found that answer touching. “Who has hated you?”

Before he could stop himself, Samuel said, “I have, sometimes.” And the plain honesty of those words felt new to him, and he smiled at the relief of knowing, somehow, that Odahingum would not resent his honesty.