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

The moose, Margaret found, for she had followed with her meat hatchet, had lost a distressing amount of fat and its meat was now stringy from the long flight and sour with a combination of fear and spent sex, so that in butchering it she winced and moaned, traveled far in her raging thoughts, imagined sore revenges she would exact upon her husband.

In the meantime, Father Damien, who had followed his friend as best he could in the parish touring car, was able to assist those who emerged from the bush. He drove Nanapush, raving, to Sister Hildegarde who was adept at extracting fishhooks. At the school infirmary, Sister Hildegarde was not upset to see the bare buttocks of Nanapush sticking straight up in the air. She swabbed the area with iodine and tested the strength of her pliers. With great relief for his friend and a certain amount of pity, Father Damien tried to make him smile. “Don’t be ashamed of your display. Even the Virgin Mary had two asses, one to sit upon and the other ass that bore her to Egypt.”

Nanapush only nodded gloomily and gritted his teeth as Sister Hildegarde pushed the hook with the pliers until the barbed tip broke through his tough skin, then clipped the barb off and pulled out the rest of the hook.

“Is there any chance,” he weakly croaked once the operation was accomplished, “that this will affect my manhood?”

“Unfortunately not,” said Hildegarde.

The lovemaking skills of Nanapush, whole or damaged, were to remain untested until after his death. For Margaret took a long time punishing her husband. She ignored him, she browbeat him, but worst of all, she cooked for him.

It was the winter of instructional beans, for every time Margaret boiled up a pot of rock-hard pellets drawn from the fifty-pound sack of beans that were their only sustenance beside the sour strings of meat, she reminded Nanapush of each brainless turning point last fall at which he should have killed the moose but did not.

“And my,” she sneered then, “wasn’t its meat both tender and sweet before you ran it to rags?”

She never boiled the beans quite soft enough, either, for she could will her own body to process the toughest sinew with no trouble. Nanapush, however, suffered digestive torments of a nature that soon became destructive to his health and ruined their nightly rest entirely, for that was when the great explosive winds would gather in his body. His boogidiwinan, which had always been manly, but yet meek enough to remain under his control, overwhelmed the power of his ojiid, and there was nothing he could do but surrender to their whims and force. At least it was a form of revenge on Margaret, he thought, exhausted, near dawn. But at the same time, he worried that she would leave him. Already, she made him sleep on a pile of skins near the door so as not to pollute her flowered mattress.

“My precious one,” he sometimes begged, “can you not spare me? Boil the beans a while longer, and the moose, as well. Have pity!”

She only raised her brow and her glare was a slice of knifelike light. Maybe she was angriest because she’d softened toward him during that moose ride across the lake, and now she was determined to punish him for her uncharacteristic lapse into tenderness. At any rate, one night she boiled the beans only long enough to soften their skins and threw in a chunk of moose that was coated with a green mold she claimed was medicinal, but which tied poor Nanapush’s guts in knots.

“Eat up, old man.” She banged the plate down before him. He saw she was implacable, and then he thought back to the way he had got around the impasse of the maple syrup before, and resolved to do exactly the opposite of what he felt. And so, resigned to sacrifice this night to pain, desperate, he proceeded to loudly enjoy the beans.

“They are excellent, niwiiw, crunchy and fine! Minopogwud!” He wolfed them down, eager as a boy, and tore at the moldy moose as though presented with the finest morsels. “Howah! I’ve never eaten such a fine dish!” He rubbed his belly and smiled in false satisfaction. “Nindebisinii, my pretty fawn, oh, how well I’ll sleep.” He rolled up in his blankets by the door, then, and waited for the gas pains to tear him apart.

They did come. That night was phenomenal. Margaret was sure that the cans of grease rattled on the windowsill, and she saw a glowing stench rise around her husband but chose to plug her ears with wax and turn to the wall, poking an airhole for herself in the mud between the logs, and so she fell asleep not knowing that the symphony of sounds that disarranged papers and blew out the door by morning were her husband’s last utterances.

Yes, he was dead. She found when she went to shake him awake the next morning that he was utterly lifeless. She gave a shriek then, of abysmal loss, and began to weep with sudden horror at the depth of her unforgiving nature. She kissed his face all over, patted his hands and hair. He did not look as though death had taken him, no, he looked oddly well. Although it would seem that a death of this sort would shrivel him like a spent sack and leave him wrinkled and limp, he was shut tight and swollen, his mouth a firm line and his eyes squeezed shut as though holding something in. And he was stiff as a horn where she used to love him. There was some mistake! Perhaps, thought Margaret, wild in her grief, he was only deeply asleep and she could love him back awake.

She climbed aboard and commenced to ride him until she herself collapsed, exhausted and weeping, on his still breast. It was no use. His manliness still stood straight up and although she could swear the grim smile had deepened on his face, there were no other signs of life — no breath, not the faintest heartbeat could be detected. Margaret fell beside him, senseless, and was found there disheveled and out cold, so that at first Father Damien thought the two had committed a double suicide, as some old people did those hard winters. But Margaret was soon roused. The cabin was aired out. Father Damien, ravaged with the loss, held his old friend Nanapush’s hand all day and allowed his own tears to flow, soaking his black gown.

And so it was. The wake and the funeral were conducted in the old way. Margaret prepared his body. She cleaned him, wrapped him in her best quilt. As there was no disguising his bone-tough shkendeban, she let it stand there proudly and she decided not to be ashamed of her old man’s prowess. She laid him on the bed that was her pride, and bitterly regretted how she’d forced him to sleep on the floor in the cold wind by the door.

Everyone showed up that night, bringing food and even a bit of wine, but Margaret wanted nothing of their comfort. Sorrow bit deep into her lungs and the pain radiated out like the shooting rays of a star. She lost her breath. A dizzy veil fell over her. She wanted most of all to express to her husband the terrible depth of the love she felt but had been too stubborn, too stingy, or, she now saw, afraid to show him while he lived. She had deprived him of such pleasure: that great horn in his pants, she knew guiltily, was there because she had denied him physical satisfaction ever since the boat ride behind the moose.

“Nimanendam. If only he’d come back to me, I’d make him a happy man.” She blew her nose on a big white dishcloth and bowed her head. Whom would she scold? Whom would she punish? Whom deny? Who would suffer for Margaret Kashpaw now? What was she to do? She dropped her face into her hands and wept with uncharacteristic abandon. The whole crowd of Nanapush’s friends and loved ones, packed into the house, lifted a toast to the old man and made a salute. At last, Father Damien spoke, and his speech was so eloquent and funny that in moments the whole room was bathed in tears and sobs.

It was at that moment, in the depth of their sorrow, just at the hour when they felt the loss of Nanapush most keenly, that a great explosion occurred, a rip of sound. A vicious cloud of stink sent mourners gasping for air. As soon as the fresh winter cold rolled into the house, however, everyone returned. Nanapush sat straight up, still wrapped in Margaret’s best quilt.