Louise Erdrich - The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

In the past few weeks, in the extremities of hunger, Father Damien was surprised to find how many things he’d eaten that he’d formerly considered inedible. Even covered with quills, the porcupine was making his mouth water. So he gladly helped Nanapush split wood and build up a fire, stoking it so furiously that the flimsy tin stove turned red hot. Fleur brought in the animal and quickly removed its best quills, dipping her hands in a shovelful of wood ash from time to time in order to increase their grip. When she had the quills she wanted off, she spitted the porcupine and roasted it slowly, singeing the remaining quills into the flesh. That, said Nanapush, gave the gaag a better taste.

Nanapush talked quickly and happily, now, waiting for their meal. He spoke of oddities and miscellany until the meat was roasted. Then they ate. They ate every little scrap. They ate the toes, they ate the brains. Sucked every bone completely clean. Only the teeth and nails were left when, in a genial well-fed mood, Father Damien asked Nanapush if he knew the man named Kashpaw who had given him a ride to the reservation.

Nanapush did not answer the simple question at once. He stared at the priest in what seemed a sudden fit of idiocy. His mouth dropped. His eyes dulled. That was a smoke screen. He was thinking. For to his great delight, there it was, it all spread from that one question. Nanapush had at last found a way through the thicket of words to the end he sought. And it was easy, so easy, it all lay ripe before him now.

Changing his expression suddenly to a look of intelligent interest, Nanapush said that of course, Kashpaw was as close as a brother. He told Father Damien that he and Kashpaw had been through much together in their youth, had hunted near and far, through the northern plains, and even lived for a short time in the same lodge. He went on to say that Kashpaw and he were half brothers and that a more distant relative of Nanapush’s was married to him.

“Of course,” said Nanapush casually, “he has so many wives that this one relative, a niece of my uncle, her name is Fishbone, is hardly noticed in that woman-wealthy lodge.”

“Wives?” said Father Damien.

“Oh yes,” said Nanapush.

“How many?”

“Let me see…” Nanapush proceeded ostentatiously to try to remember exactly, to count on his fingers.

“Four left now. That’s all.”

Father Damien was still not shocked, but he was at least intrigued, and as he was clearly stumped for what to say, Nanapush was satisfied. Besides, he was just beginning the slow work of influencing the priest, and he didn’t want to frighten him off. Therefore, he chose other subjects for a short time until the priest himself returned to the question of the wives.

“My… colleague”—Father Damien coughed; he was referring to the actual Father Damien, now long buried in the shadow of a tree—“was concerned about the problem of irregular unions. This must be what he meant. How are such things dealt with here? Who has the authority?”

Nanapush, though thrilled to be asked the very question he had sought, still did not reel in the priest, but let him drag the line. Again, pretending not to have heard, he spoke of his empty trapline and the lack of good weather until Father Damien grew impatient and tried once more.

“The authority on such matters,” he reminded.

“Ah!” Nanapush pretended to collect himself. “Pardon an old man. Here is the truth. Father Hugo was forced to break many an illegal liaison, and his zeal was well-known. But since he died, well, my friend Kashpaw moved down here and got bold. Even some of us old traditionals,” he said, in a fit of outrageous betrayal, “think that he should get rid of some of his wives!”

“Eyah! So you can have one!”

Fleur was outraged by the old man’s cunning attempt at sanctimony, and in spite of her hatred of black robes she tried to warn the priest. If Father Damien had only listened, she gave away the transparent strategy right there. “Don’t you see, he just wants a wife all for himself? He’s willing to break up his friend’s life just to do it.”

But Father Damien was dazed with the unaccustomed feeling of a full stomach. Nanapush pulled a long face, though, and answered he only wished that he could handle a wife, but that was impossible in his present weakness.

It wasn’t that Nanapush ever wanted to hurt his friend, or that family, or to lay blame for all that would happen on Father Damien. Nanapush was incapable of imagining such things as would occur. He knew very well that Kashpaw’s situation had to give, somehow or another. Though the arrangement was based on complicated practicalities and all were seemingly content in Kashpaw’s lodge, a change was coming. Drawing near. No, it wasn’t that Nanapush wanted to destroy his friend’s family and peace of mind, or even that he had to have one of those wives (although if given his choice, Nanapush knew which one he’d pick). It was only that he saw what he saw, and the time was coming. It was like when they were boys and they dammed up a stream to collect the fish. Below the dam, they set out a net, ready for when they let the water go. That was all Nanapush wanted to do. When the dam burst, he wanted to be there, downstream, to catch the fish that swam into his hands.

Now came Father Damien’s first lesson in Ojibwe social planning. When he rose to take his leave, Nanapush gathered his blanket and snowshoes, ready to leave with him. Fleur had crawled into her small, domed sweat lodge, removing herself in disgust. It was a surprise to Father Damien that by listening to Nanapush’s description of Kashpaw’s whereabouts and nodding politely, he had in actuality agreed to visit, but as they walked Nanapush persuaded him that, though it was growing dark, Kashpaw’s place was not far off, right on the way back to the church, in fact, and even better, there was a good possibility that Kashpaw’s family might have food in the kettle, for not only Kashpaw but a couple of his wives and sons were good hunters. Even though his stomach had felt bursting tight an hour before, Father Damien’s starving body had magically emptied it. Food sounded good. So it was that Father Damien was introduced to the endless Ojibwe visit, in which a get-together produces a perfectly convincing reason to seek another, and then that visit another, and so on. Father Damien tramped earnestly along and looked forward to meeting the household of Kashpaws.

1912

Their arrival at Kashpaw’s camp was greeted with a loud blast from Mashkiigikwe’s powerful rifle. She stood in the clearing, round and strong as an autumn bear, the barrel held upright in one hand. With a fascinated contempt, she observed the priest’s clumsy approach. Obviously, the black robe was still not adept at walking through the bush. Thorns grabbed his cassock. Vines bound his ankles. His steps gave way in pockets of watery snow. Exhaustion gripped him. His weak knees trembled as he slogged behind Nanapush, from whom the wife of Kashpaw had already turned with a groan of disgust.

Kashpaw lived with his wives in two houses, one a cabin very similar to Nanapush’s, the other an old-style lodge constructed of limber saplings bent over, sunk in the earth, tied, and covered with slabs of bark. There was also a rough pole shed, which housed the horses that Kashpaw loved and bartered. Several milled in a corral; others were picketed by the edge of the woods, where they could paw up old grass through the snow.

Mashkiigikwe returned, bloody to the elbows. In her hand, she held a dripping piece of the deer she’d just shot. When Kashpaw appeared, she tossed the meat to him and delicately, wielding his razor-sharp hunting knife, he sliced it into strips and offered each of the men a portion in greeting.