Four Souls

ELEVEN. Dog Love Nanapush

MARGARET SLOWLY and methodically began to gather the materials that she would use in making the medicine dress. Just as she had said, nothing upon it could be made by a whiteman, which was not easy as chimookomaanag popped up everywhere — stole the land next door and put a farm on it, walked the agency town’s streets, even prayed in our missionizing church. Margaret couldn’t use glass beads to decorate her dress, but as in the old days she must use deer clackers, teeth, quills, and the bones of small birds. This required the painstaking hunting of those animals, which I did with a good will, as I thought my efforts might redeem me from the terrible mistake of the snare. Bine, or partridge, sat juicy in the comfort of the tree branches. I knew how to catch them with a wire hooked to the top of a long pole. Plucked and roasted, the birds were delicate meat, sweet and tender. I also let it be known that I was collecting these bird bones, and would be glad to clean up the remnants of various partridges cooked throughout the reservation.

These were good times. These were the sorts of jobs I liked— catching food, visiting about, eating roast partridges. Whenever I returned with a load of quills or bird bones, Margaret rewarded me in ways I can only dream of, now, looking back. Gizhe Manito had smiled on me then and smoothed my way. I had lived through great sorrows and, as though to reward me, I was given for that short time all I needed for happiness. But such times are brief. We should never think happiness will last. We shouldn’t chase it, for the faster we do the faster it recedes. I was happy all through the making of that dress, so I suppose that proves its power. But maybe, with Margaret, with the treasure of our love, I tried too hard to hold on to what is only fleeting, and fragile, and I destroyed it with my clumsy ways.

IF ONLY Nector hadn’t come home again, things would perhaps have gone on forever in a pleasant dream. I wanted to live in love until Margaret and I faded into the next world, worn smooth and transparent by the rubbing of skin on skin. I wanted nothing but the happiness of falling asleep in each other’s arms, craved only the calm discriminations of old age manaa. But there was Nector one afternoon, sitting on a rock beside the door eating bannock. Margaret beamed down on him like the moon. I was glad to see Nector as if he were my own son, for we understood things in a similar fashion. He was smart, and for sure, he’d grown up to arrange the features of his mother and father in the best possible combination. All the girls admired his looks. It was my task to keep him from falling prey to vanity — an uncle’s responsibility.

“All that manaa you’re having is making you thin,” I said, “the bones are poking through your skin. Most unattractive.”

“Just one bone counts,” he glanced down, “with women.”

“More like a rope,” I said, critical, “a short little piece.”

“Yours is,” laughed Nector, stuffing a huge grease-covered chunk of pikwezhigan into his mouth. “Bread and lard make you hard,” he mocked in a singsong voice.

“Neither one of you have much to brag of,” said Margaret, sitting down with us. “Women come to you out of pity.” But she smiled at me from the corner of her eyes to let me know that this was not the case. My heart swelled up. That moment was very dangerous. I experienced a collision of desires. First, I wanted to make the moment last with Margaret, in the hope it would lead to other things. She had been generous two nights ago. Would my luck hold out? Second, I wanted to keep on teasing Nector, for his own good. Third, what was it? I couldn’t remember. An old man’s thoughts fly in and out of his head. Oh yes. There was something I had to avoid, like a treacherous rock. It could rip the bottom of my boat. But it was hidden. I couldn’t recall in that moment exactly what I was attempting to avoid and so like someone trying to steer away I instead disremembered the place and was drawn right to it.

“You’re pretty good at snaring women,” I said to Nector, “but you can’t keep them, I hear.”

As soon as I said the word, I remembered with a jolt of panic, snare, snare, snare! Immediately, my brain spun. I tried to throw down a distracting piece of nonsense about the famous quality of Margaret’s bannock, praised it loud, out of desperation, but Nector had already seized on the word I feared.

“Snaring?” he began to laugh.

“I can’t hold myself back!” I cried, lunging over him, “I must have yet another piece of this bread. Old woman, you have a way with your cooking that—”

“Snares you every time,” said Nector, feeling hilarious. “That reminds me—”

“Gego!” I cried out, hoping he’d recall that I had requested his silence on the long-ago incident I knew he’d just remembered. “Aaargh!” I fell upon the ground, as though unconscious, and began to writhe and moan. They disregarded me except to find in my agony a source of humor.

“Look how the old man pretends he’s poisoned. Very funny. He does this all the time,” said Margaret fondly.

“He’s a sly one,” said Nector, approving of me, too. “Remember how he once snared Clarence Morrissey? He showed me how to set the wire and the two of us waited in the bush until we caught the dog. The Morrissey nearly choked to death, but found a toehold at the last moment. Of course, back then the old man told me to keep it a secret.”

Nector looked uncertainly at Margaret, whose mouth had dropped open and then slowly shut to a line. “I was just a boy,” he went on, nervously, “but now, what does it matter?” Nector noticed I had gone stiff on the ground. I was playing dead.

“Look, he’s playing dead,” he tried to change Margaret’s focus. “Convincing, isn’t he?”

“It won’t be play for long” was Margaret’s answer.

Then silence. I waited for her blows to fall upon me where I lay defenseless and stupid. But she did nothing, which made me even more afraid. I opened my eyes a crack, and my terror was confirmed. From the set of her mouth and the flash in her eyes, I knew she understood all and was reserving punishment. Mere browbeating, tongue lashing, ass kicking, and starvation of an old man would not be enough. She gave a chilly little grin, rose, and turned her back on the two of us.

“It is time for me to rest my old bones,” I said in despair. Then I crawled into the corner of the house and burrowed under a heap of blankets. I covered my face, bit my tongue, and turned to the wall. There, I prayed to the spirit of the turtle.

“Come help me,” I called on my dodem, the mekinak. “Not to stick out my head, my arms, my feet, my tail or niinag.” I thought that if I could only contain myself and stay beneath the covers, Margaret might progress to the end of her anger and find there a morsel of tenderness. The good priest tells us that miracles are part of ordinary life, but not for the lazy or the wicked, and I was both according to the Catholics. As it turned out, I was bound to suffer. To absorb a hard medicine. And Margaret knew exactly what to cook up for the poor old man and how to deliver it most drastically.

So I had snared her. She would snare me right back. We both knew that she was doing it and both of us knew why, but neither of us had the courage to dismantle the barrier of hard sticks, pointed words, and prickles of jealousy that soon tangled like deep bush between us. I knew she had divined the true prey of that snare I’d set, figured out the reason I tried to kill him, and decided to resurrect my jealousy and use Shesheeb as a weapon. Although I was aware of her ploy, I couldn’t help her scorn from cutting, or the thorns of her words from piercing deep.

One night, she hummed in an irritating manner, beneath her breath. “Ninimoshe,” she finally let me hear her singing, “sweet-heart, little duck, speak softly, for my old man will hear you creeping underneath my blanket.”

Of course, after that I tossed all night, at each little noise, imagining the absurd picture of the greasy old duck sneaking into our cabin. Now that she slept across the room from me, such a thing was remotely possible. I began to sleep by the door, but then I feared the window. The upshot was I got no sleep at all.

“People say they know the old man down the road,” she said to me slyly the next day, “but not as I do. His powers are significant. Why, he can turn himself into a fly, buzz about, listen in on people.”

I tried to bite my tongue, to keep my temper from flaring up. A fly! Saaah! That time, I succeeded. But other times I did not. She laughed, now, when I insisted on accompanying her to Holy Mass. For years, she had begged my presence, hoping to convert one more soul for Father Damien and lure me into a church marriage. Now she refused to let me walk beside her.

“Don’t follow!” She whacked the earth with her walking stick, and glared. “I’ll kick you sideways if you sneak after me!”

I soon grew to think it would be better for me to live in the woods with the bears than endure the insults she heaped on my head in the form of admiring remarks about Shesheeb. She boasted of the old man’s hunting skills, and how he always had fresh game — waawaashkeshi or mooz.

“Never gopher! Never things I’ve seen you eat!”

“What would you know? You never cook for me anymore.” I tried to make myself meek and pitiful. “You’ll come home from Holy Mass one day and find me dried up in the corner, starved to death.”

“Go snare something then,” she said, heartless.

She walked out laughing at me, came back with bird bones for her dress. I didn’t ask where she got them, only if I could help her dye them red with the bark of speckled alder I’d gathered in atonement.

“You?” She looked at me and sniffed, as though I were covered with moowan. “You might interfere with the dress’s healing properties.”

In other words, she didn’t trust that I wouldn’t contaminate her medicine dress. This cut me deeper than anything she’d done so far and I let myself be naked in my speech.

“I’ve got nothing in my heart but love for you.”

“Nothing in your pants either.”

And with a cruel laugh, she sat against the shady side of the cabin to work on her dress, which after all this time was just about finished. I must admit, she was very patient and did a good job on it. The dress was made of a moosehide she’d pounded and stretched and rubbed to a velvet softness. She’d used raspberry leaf and root dyes to color the bird bones, and unlike the harsh, bright glare of the trader’s beads, these soft pinks and purples put roses in that woman’s cheeks. I said so.

“Don’t touch” was all she answered. “My roses have pickers so long they could pierce your heart and kill you.”

I watched the colors reflect into her face as she sewed that afternoon. She used a fish bone for a needle, sinew for thread. I crept close to her, thinking that maybe the medicine dress would do its healing work and bring us together, but the opposite happened.

“My, my,” she clucked her tongue, her eyes sparking with malicious fire, “I’m dizzy. That old man down the road gave me a sip of wine!”

There comes a time when you reach the last bitter drop that your gullet can hold. That was it. Her words filled me with such hot rage that I had to ice my feelings instantly, or I’d explode. I imagined packing heavy snow around my heart, and made my choice. That was it. I’d had enough. I started walking down the road. She wanted wine? I’d bring wine. I could get it for her. I knew where. Sister Hildegarde Anne made the parish communion wine and kept it in the convent cellar, which opened from a side door with a flimsy bolt that had been placed there years ago, right after I’d taken a few bottles and had a ripping good time. That bolt could easily be jiggled out of place. This time, I’d steal the whole cask, I decided. I’d bring it back to our cabin and have a party with my sweetheart. She wanted wine? I’d get wine. Our love would be just like old times, way back when. We’d have a bush dance for just the two of us! My stride quickened and in spite of myself my heart thawed. My thoughts pumped with hope and a young man’s zeal. Once I made town, I visited around, chewed snuff, collected a few more tiny bones for my woman’s dress. I killed time until it was dark, then crept close to the convent. Crouched beneath an open window, I heard the nuns say their nightly prayers.

“God comfort you, my daughters,” I whispered as they doused their lamps and each made her way to a lonely cell. “May you each get laid.”

After I pronounced my blessing, I waited until they slept and then I slipped up to the cellar door and quietly fiddled with the catch. I used a splinter of partridge bone jammed in the crack between the door and frame to ease the bolt from its casing. It didn’t take long. The cool winey air, earth scented and moldy, rushed at my face as I slipped inside. I lighted a match and by its flare saw that the casks were there for the taking. I hefted the first little wooden keg onto my shoulder, eased out of the cellar quietly, and set out for home. It had been a very long time since I’d tasted wine. In my youth, it made me foolish, stole my brain, and left a bannock between my ears. Drink caused me to sing and gamble, to fight, to chase women who belonged to other men, and even for a short time to forsake the pipe that my father gave me. Liquor did not get the best of my life, but I knew well its powers. I had taken no wine or liquor for many years because I had experienced its evils. And yet, at that moment, all I could think of was its delights — the sour and delicious odor of the fumes that the keg exuded made my mouth water. The air was heavy and growing heavier. I set the cask down and took a rest beside the road. If I should have a drink, I thought, my load would be one drink lighter. So sitting there, in the dark, I took my first drink in many years.

The wine went down easy. The keg went back up slow. An old and familiar warmth burned in my gut and then swirled up around my heart. Again, I started off for home. The moon was up and just bright enough for me to make out the road. As I walked on, the warm thrill of wine reached my tongue and untied it. I found myself singing an old love song. You are paddling away, my sweetheart. But I will come after you. Marry me tonight. Into my thoughts came pictures of the happiness that Margaret and I would feel once we’d put aside all of our foolish attempts to best each other at the jealous game of revenge. Do you hear me correctly? Do you understand what I am telling you? What began as a scheme between Margaret and me to get the best of each other ended up getting the best of us both. Revenge ran away with us, and then it turned around and ran over us. Flattened us good. It is also the case, and I know you’ve remarked it, that my struggle with love and wine paralleled in some ways the journey of Fleur on this earth. We both were tempted, and succumbed. This happens even to strong persons, and perhaps it is most dangerous of all for us to stumble. For we are subject to the worst shame, those of us who are too proud. It is hard for us to admit that we can be tricked by the same ordinary firewater that tricks the common idiot. But the booze makes no distinction, and the smarter we are, the more elaborate our reasons for guzzling.

THE KEG grew heavy again, n’dawnis. I stopped on the road. I took a drink to lighten it, and then another, and then perhaps one too many, for I stumbled as I set off once more. At one point, near dawn, I woke to find myself curled up around my friend, the keg, right in the middle of the road. I’d slept peacefully and was grateful not to have been run over by a wagon. I took another drink. By then the cask was so light I had no trouble reaching the cabin. Margaret greeted me at the doorway. Her look was foul.

“I was up all night, worried! I thought a bear got you!”

“Ah,” I put the wine cask down and covered my heart with the palms of my hands, overcome. “My love! You worried about me?”

She regarded the wine keg suspiciously. “What did you bring, akiwenzii?”

“That is a peace offering,” I said. “It is wine. You told me the black duck tried a sip of wine to win your womanly favors. I thought I’d do him one better and offer you a cask… or most of it.”

Margaret looked down at the keg, frowning, then kicked. It rolled, nearly empty. “Most of it?” she said. For a moment I also feared she recognized it as belonging to the nuns’ cellar. But she only shook her head and hid — perhaps, but I could not be sure of it — a little smile. It had been a very long time since she’d drunk any wine herself, and maybe she was thinking, just as I had thought, what would be the harm of it when we were each so near the end of our days? I poured a tin cup full and offered it to her. For a moment, she looked tempted, but then she knocked the cup out of my hands. “Your damn keg’s nearly empty! You drank it all!” I retrieved the cup midair — a drunk is capable of such tricks — and downed it in one defiant gulp without a drop spilled.

“I’m a medicine dancer, according to my dream,” said Margaret, standing proud and straight as her old bones would allow, “I won’t take the ishkode wabo, old man.” She paused, then bent close to me. “Just let me smell it.” She took a whiff. “Those were the days,” she said, a bit mournfully. Much of her anger toward me seemed to have dissolved at the sight of the lengths I was willing to go to win her favor. She knew how many times and for how many years I refused a drink, up until she drove me to the edge. And as well, perhaps the dress helped. She had been working on it when I arrived, and now she held it up against her — a soft, dun-colored, plum-beaded old-time dress. Finished.

“Put the dress on,” I urged, hoping to coax her into the spirit of authentic forgiveness. “Let me see you in it!”

I leaned back against a tree, poured the tin cup full again, and watched as she shook off her old cotton majigoode, stood a moment in only her shift. Carefully, she lowered the new medicine dress onto herself and then quickly stalked inside, fetched her eagle fan from its strap on the wall. While she was in there, she braided her hair and painted two black dots at the corners of her eyes. Then she emerged from the cabin and stood regal and queenly before me with a farseeing look of wisdom on her face. I had to stagger around and lower myself to sit against the tree, otherwise I would have fallen over from the simple beauty of the shock. Margaret. Rushes Bear. Great-granddaughter of old Medicine Dress. My love. She looked like a woman out of a dream, a spirit lady from the sky, an old-time ogichidaa-ikwe, a proud grandmother for the ages. Tears stung my eyes, and then I overflowed and wept out loud.

“My precious sweetheart, are you a vision?”

“Of sorts,” said Margaret, carried away just a little herself.

She turned around and around, wishing she could catch more of a reflection of herself than the picture in the tiny scrap of mirror we owned. I tried my best to reflect her, using words. How proudly your bosom thrusts out, I said. And your waist is slim as a girl’s. Your braids are coming along nicely, too, I observed. That was not exactly true. Hers had never grown back properly. They were stubby and gray. Mine were longer. It didn’t hurt to say a good word, however, and she appreciated it. If we had stopped right there, if she had taken off the dress, we would have ended up happily together for the day and on into the night, I am convinced. But my guardian spirits weren’t with me. My love luck failed. For once I fetched the drum and sang for her, and once she started to dance, Margaret ruined the effect. Though the dress was magnificent, my lady love was barely competent. Maybe less. Clumsy, I’d have to call her, out of step, out of balance.

“I guess I never saw you dance before,” I mumbled, shocked and dizzied by her bobbing missteps.

“Sure you have,” said Margaret, “many times. As you remember, I was head female dancer years ago.”

“Mii nange,” I mumbled, not sure of anything. “You’re tipping!”

“You’re tipping, old shkwebii,” she was irritated. “You can’t see straight.”

But she was wrong. There were two of her hopping in as miserable a crow step as a white woman. It hurt to watch.

“Dagasana, please,” I shielded my eyes and I asked her very gently, as careful with my words as could be, “let me put on the dress and show you how to do it!’

She stopped dancing with a jerk, drove her hands to her hips, and glared. She puffed out her cheeks and looked as though she might explode in a cloud of bird-bone beads and tattered bashkwegin. Then she flipped her fan and suddenly laughed, harsh and mean, “I’d love to see you in a dress, old crazy. The medicine is strong in this one. Maybe it will sober you up!”

“I don’t care about that, lady love,” I said to her in my most sincere voice. “I just want to make sure you don’t make a fool of yourself.”

At that, she stood still and almost ripped the dress off her body.

“Here”—she thrust it at me—“you be the fool!”

The wine was treating me well at that point. I felt my own dignity rise up in me. “Give me the fan, too, old lady, and get ready for some old-time traditional woman dancing. You take the drum! My feet move light as a doe’s!”

“Oh yai!” She was outraged, I knew it, but I thought to win her over with my patient instruction. I tried my best not to anger her, and started easily, keeping to the beat with what I thought was wondrous perfection. My steps were subtle. I moved like water. I could feel how well I floated around on the grass of the yard, and lost myself in the beat although the drum had stopped. I could feel her eyes upon me, full of unwilling admiration, at least I thought so. But when I chanced to look around, at last, expecting to collect praise and take in the pride on her face, I was surprised to find that I was quite alone. She was gone. I was miserably wounded, but only for a second, and in the next instant my suspicions grabbed me. Off to Shesheeb’s, no doubt! I put her eagle fan back in the house and started through the bush, intending to have it out with him at last.

The leaves grew thick. Roots tripped me. Raspberry pickers scratched my arms and grabbed my ankles, but I held to my path. I skirted the scene of recent disaster, the sprung snare, and eventually found the clearing around the little house that once had belonged to Iron Sky and now sheltered sly Shesheeb. It was a scene of calm. He hadn’t kept the place up though, at all. The roof was already sagging. The yard was a mess of garbage. A thread of smoke twisted in the still air. My heart squeezed — was he inside the house with Margaret? I was just about to rush the cabin when the door opened and the old man emerged, hunched over, groping his way into the sun. He turned his face up to the light, squinting. It relieved me to see that he was alone.

So this was Shesheeb. Well, he was not much! Where was his power? His medicine? I made a small movement and he turned his head. His hearing, at least, was very keen.

As long as I was discovered, I stepped forward and presented myself before him. I didn’t expect to react so strong and quick, but my blood rose, hot, and my heart beat murderously. I could hardly contain my hate. There were no words I needed to say. There was no message. I stood entirely still in the sun and allowed him to examine me with what eyesight he had, to recognize me and in so doing recognize his crime. I waited. He blinked his white eyes, opaque and cloudy with cataract. His face had collapsed around his nose. His nostrils quivered, his chin strained toward me, he tried to sense all he could, to hear the beating of my heart. His rag of white hair hung to his waist and he wore a strange purple vest made of some heavy flowered material. His pants were filthy and held up by rope. He was nothing to look at and didn’t even have shoes on so I could see that his feet were filthy clawed things, splayed and frightening. I could not imagine what Margaret saw in him — in fact, it was now clear that all along she’d just been trying to pique my jealousy. I edged backward. I now wished I’d never come to make any sort of challenge. Best to leave a sleeping duck lie in its dirty nest.

“Who are you?” Shesheeb asked, at last. “You beauty, have you come to tempt me?”

I stepped back, startled, as you can imagine. I had entirely forgotten, in my examination of the old man, that I was dressed as a quite attractive woman. I said nothing, though sudden laughter welled inside of me and I was hard put to contain it. That’s when I got an idea. I’d get the old fake to fall in love with me. I’d torture his heart! I’d make him beg for my attentions, then abandon him and have a good laugh with Margaret. Perhaps I’d kill him and eat him just like he devoured my sister. I didn’t dare use my voice.

“Ahhh,” I sighed. Just a little sigh, like some wind caught in the branches. He stepped closer. His nose twitched back and forth.

“Piindegen! Come into my cabin and have a cup of tea with me,” he cried. “There’s a chill in the air today.”

“Mmmm,” I crooned. I had to agree with him. The tea sounded just the thing. So I entered his evil nest.

Inside, the place was chaos. Piles of junk everywhere. Bones in one corner, rags in another. No place to sit and barely room to stand up. Shesheeb hobbled to the stove and poked some embers, added a new bit of wood. There was a mashed old iron pot on top of the stove with some oily tea in it. This, he tried to heat up. Next to the pot was set a can with scum in the bottom — soup maybe. His supper, no doubt. I couldn’t help but gloat and in my gloating wonder at my luck in holding on to a woman who kept things comfortable for me, cooked my food, and never let my tea grow cold and unpleasant-tasting like the tea that Shesheeb gave me now. I took a drink. Though it was only half warmed up, still the tea seemed to fill my bones with a slow, hot, blooming sensation. I finished the stuff and then, in spite of myself, I wanted more. Which was when it hit me. He’d hit me. Shesheeb had medicined me and I’d fallen for it! He was smiling now, just a little smile, private and knowing. Here, I’d felt sorry for him. I had let him lure me into his cabin where he could play on his strengths, where he knew his way around. I was suddenly sure that he knew exactly who I was and had planned this moment. Perhaps he’d even drawn me to him through the woods!

Though blind and decrepit, he had power. I must watch myself.

“Ooooh,” I trailed the sound as I put down my snakish brew. Shesheeb actually shuddered a little, as if he found me irresistible. He reached around behind himself and picked up a hand drum and drumstick with knowing authority.

“May I play a little song for you?” he said, his voice a slippery whine. Without waiting for my answer, he struck the drum. “Niimin,” he ordered. Without wanting to at all, I stood. Completely against my will, I began to dance just as he directed. Quietly, with even movements, in exact time with the drum and the strange song he sang whose words I still cannot remember, I bobbed in the shadowy mess of Shesheeb’s cabin. I tried to stop myself, to still my legs, to make my feet heavy and quit. But I could not and the movement of my body soon filled me with horror as nothing else had ever done. I was quickly becoming exhausted, too, reeling from the wine I’d drunk and the long stumble back from town. Still my feet rose and stamped down. My legs trod. I jigged. If I danced much longer, I knew that my old heart would burst, but as long as Shesheeb sang his song and struck his drum I was caught, shuffling one foot to the next. I felt myself going, bright spots shifting across my vision, pains shooting through my lungs. I would have died right there, I know it, if my love medicine had not unexpectedly showed up and worked itself.

Shesheeb’s dog, most surely not allowed in the cabin, bounded suddenly in and greeted its master. With a cry, almost of fear, Shesheeb tried to shoo it out. It had been a good while since I’d treated that dog, by accident, but even though sweat dripped into my eyes and stung me I could see that dog clearly enough to recognize the poor runt, the sad little outcast fellow who’d been quick enough to lap up my love powder. Now, to my surprise, Shesheeb became flustered by its presence. Could it be that the dog, whom in fact I’d heard rumored was the slyest stud yet seen on the reservation, was somehow in the habit of intimidating Shesheeb? The old duck beat the drum a little faster. The dog groveled and licked his knee. He tried to kick the dog away and keep on singing at the same time, but suddenly it was obvious that my love powder was too strong. The dog fell into a sudden passion, hunkered over, and began to make love to Shesheeb’s old shin with a vicious ardor that cared not for sharp words or strikes of the drumsticks or wild blows. That dog humped away like the devil and broke Shesheeb’s rhythm with its thrusts. Released, I pushed past the dangerous old medicine man and staggered into the sunlight and freedom of the yard and then the woods, for I did not even pause, but plunged forward in a stupor of relief until I reached the main road.

There, I stopped. Which way to turn, home or town? Either way, I had nothing to lose. What was there for me now but more shame and misery? Why not go down, to the bottom of my life, all the way? It occurred to me that in the nuns’ cellar other casks of wine were stored — cool, dark, and safe. My steps went sideways, as though drawn in that direction by a call. Surely, I thought, finding myself back on the road to town, the chance to divert wine from the lips of the priest and parish to the gullet of Nana-push was far, far too good to pass up. So I continued down the long, dusty road.

I slept the afternoon away in the cemetery, and woke at dusk raging with a deep and unbearable thirst. I’d been thirsty before, but never like this. My thirst was a gripping force that both made my head swim and keenly focused my brain. It was a powerful longing that alerted my whole body to one intention.

I agonized for an hour at least in my mystic dryness before I thought it safe once again to approach the nuns’ residence. Again, as before, I listened to the nuns’ prayers beneath their window, and dispensed my fervent wish for their well-being through manaa. Again, I crept to the cellar’s entrance and opened it with great care, attempting not to let the boards creak. I slid into the gloom and felt my way with enormous care to the shelf that held the kegs of wine. And then, just as I embraced the round barrel, and just as I hoisted it in a strength born of momentary joy, a crash resounded behind me. The cellar door slammed shut. I froze. A woman’s voice rang out. Sister Hildegarde Anne!

“Wine thief!” she cried in triumph. “I’ve trapped you! There is no way out. When morning comes, we’ll see who you are! As if we don’t know,” she said sarcastically, “you old degenerate.”

I heard a heavy board slide into place outside, barring the door. Crowing, jangling her keys, telling me to rest well because the reservation drunk tank would surely be a noisier place than the cellar, she left. I was alone once more, but far less disturbed by my capture than you might think. The main question that immediately entered my mind was this: How much of the parish wine could I drink before morning? How many kegs could I enjoy?

I CAN ’T TELL YOU the number, to this day. I don’t remember that night after the first hour or so that I spent chugging my fill. I suppose I was happy, but I must content myself with other people’s memory. Father Damien says that he woke in the middle of the night convinced a powwow was taking place in the convent. I sang and danced, I know that. I was a one-man powwow, I think. The next morning, I was laid out cold when the Pukwans came and got me. When I woke in the stinking jailhouse, I was confused by my surroundings. Gradually, I was able to place myself. Our drunk tank at the time was no more than one side of a log cabin barricaded off from the other half, which the Pukwans proudly called their headquarters. Both sides were exactly the same except that theirs had a three-legged table, the legless side supported by a crate, and on the wall a rack of antlers that held an ancient shotgun. The floors of both sides were dirt and the walls were plain log, the bark scraped off in strips. My side smelled worse of piss, as well as the rank heaves of earlier drunks. The only light came through slots near the roof and the front door, which was habitually left open so that the flies could travel freely in and out. I was shocked by a dipper of cold water splashed hard in my face, and I clenched my eyes shut. Another dipper of water stung me.

“Enough!” I put my hand up and struggled to sit. I was hampered, it seemed, by a sheet wound around my legs.

“Come look at the mindimooyenh,” yelled one Pukwan to the other.

I staggered to my feet, tried to walk, tripped and rolled out the door into dazzling light.

“How did this woman’s dress get on me, my brothers?” I asked the Pukwans, sincerely puzzled.

“You pulled it over your fat head,” said Edgar. Then, with relish, he added, “Do you know what today is?”

“Today,” I said, thinking as quickly as my throbbing old brain would allow, “is the day we dress as women.”

Both Pukwans burst into howls and sneers of derision.

“His brain has for sure flipped over in his skull,” they agreed. “He has forgotten this is the day of the council meeting.”

They were right, I had forgotten. This was the morning I was to present the plan I had worked so hard on to everyone who cared to attend the big meeting. As the tribal chairman, I was supposed to preside, and then call a vote on whether to accept the large settlement of money that was offered should we only leave our scrap of land.

“Lend me clothes,” I begged the Pukwans, instantly doubling the volume of their hilarity. When they refused, I drew myself up straight and tried to reclaim my dignity.

“Well, if you won’t give me clothes,” I said, brushing at the skirt of the dress, “at least let me fix myself up. Give me a comb, a mirror, and a basin of water. A little rouge wouldn’t do me any harm, either.”

“Holy Jesus!” Their mirth increased and became almost unbearable. They found the items I’d requested. As they watched me braid my hair in perfect plaits, pull out my straggling beard hairs, smooth my eyebrows, and put some color into my cheeks, they were so wretchedly overcome with the humor of it all that they didn’t bother to charge me with disorderly conduct, but merely waved me out the door while they convulsed like children in each other’s arms.

If only I had not been so thorough in my demonstration for Margaret’s benefit! If only I had worn my other clothing underneath! Unfortunately, I investigated and found I’d brazenly stripped right down to my skin. Although I was horrified at my situation, I had to admit that I felt pretty good in Margaret’s dress — it was soft, and the air was cool, flowing up against me from underneath. Also, from what I saw in the mirror, it was becoming to me. I didn’t look half bad. Still, I had no idea what I could possibly do to maintain my position of respect once I appeared before everyone assembled at the meeting. I thought of two people on the way, whose clothes I might beg, but they weren’t home. Doubtless, they were waiting for me with the others at the powwow arbor, ready to decide the entire future of our tribe.

The day was splendid, a day of blue sky and puffy little clouds, the kind of day which on any other occasion I would spend catching fish, picking berries, setting snares, or just poking around in the bush. It was so beautiful, in fact, that in spite of my dismal prospects, I just had to stop and say a special prayer of thanks to the creator of us all, who had taken such pains in providing just the right amount of breeze, and tinted the sunlight an inspiring transparent golden color. Lost in praise, I hardly noticed that I was near the trading store, where at that hour people sat outside gossiping about whomever might happen by. A family of tourists who had come to the reservation to find some photo-worthy Indians spotted me, standing stock-still in the road.

“There’s one!” I turned to see a man dragging his wife and children from their automobile. I started walking away at a quick, yet dignified pace, but they hurried after me. I tried to run, but the dress bound my legs and the family quickly surrounded me, asking to take a photograph.

“You’re the first one we’ve met wearing a colorful costume!” cried the woman. “Would you mind standing still?” I had no choice, as two large children suddenly gripped me by the shoulder and arms, pinning me upright. I felt the young boy startle as he saw me close up.

“She’s an ugly old woman though, isn’t she, Mama!”

“Hush,” the mother said.

“Ugly?” I am embarrassed to say this, but the boy’s remark hurt my vanity.

“Get your hands off me,” I cried, but the children’s hands pinched harder. They were strong as little cows, and although I attempted to struggle, they held me fast with big grins pasted to their faces. I changed my tactics.

“Truly, I must be going now,” I humbly begged the parents. “I must take my leave. So let us all stand together for our picture.” I gestured to Zozed Bizhieu, who stood amazed with speculation on the steps of the trader’s store.

“Ombe omaa, Zozed,” I called, “take a photo of us together! Tell me exactly when you’re going to push the button!”

Zozed put down her bundle, and I arranged myself in the middle of the family.

“On the count of three,” Zozed called out, “bezhig, niizh, niswi…”

With an agile move, just as she clutched the camera, I turned around, bent over, and lifted the dress over my buttocks. While the parents were still in shock, I righted myself swiftly and did a rousing and educational French cancan dance, an anatomy lesson that enlightened the amazed children until the mother recovered her wits, put her hands across the children’s eyes, and screamed. Before the father could gather himself and punish me, I fled. Cross-country through the bush, uphill, toward the arbor, I sprinted, not chancing the road. All the way there I prayed and I sang for those children, hoping I had not confused them too thoroughly by revealing a man’s equipment underneath a woman’s skirts.

THERE WAS nothing for it, I counseled myself, but to go forward boldly and rely on inspiration. When I reached the arbor, I strode to the center of the dance ground, and instead of skulking and cringing in shame, I threw open my arms. I turned in a circle and let people gawk and chatter and react with owlish surprise while my brain worked in a fever. When their speculation died away and they fell silent in anticipation, I opened my mouth. I didn’t know what I’d say. I was surprised to hear my words flow into the air, but even more, I was surprised to see that people slowly lost their expressions of amusement and mirth, and regarded me with an increasingly serious composure. As close as I can remember, here are the words that emerged.

“Friends, relatives, nindinawemaganidok, I am Nanapush, witness of disasters, friend of folly, a man of the turtle clan, a son of old Mirage whose great deeds brought our people back to life. I am one hundred percent pure Anishinaabeg and I speak my language and the English both. But today, that English language tastes foul, tastes rancid in my mouth, for it is the language in which we are, as always, deceived. Lies are manufactured in that English language. All the treaties are written in English, are they not? In its wording our land is stolen. All the labels on the whiskey bottles are in English, do you agree? When we drink from the English bottles we piss away our minds. How can we speak English when the truth lies heavy on our Ojibwe tongues?

“You have made free with your laughter. You have subjected this dress, which my wife has made, to derision and to ridicule. You have satisfied yourselves at the expense of this piece of clothing I am wearing. Now let us speak of where it came from — the spirits. Let us speak of the decision before us — which also involves the spirits. Let us speak of my wife, Margaret, who is also called Rushes Bear. For the spirits, again, have called on her. Let us speak of her vision.

“This vision occurred to Margaret in the bush where the trees grow thick, near our cabin. That is when she saw the making of this dress, which some of you know was made with nothing ever touched by the chimookomaanag. This dress is sacred. This dress was made with healing in mind. So how, you wonder, did old Nanapush come to wear it?

“That is a very good question.

“Some of you are my friends, and some of you are my enemies. I make no distinction, but tell the truth no matter who you are. Whether you love me or hate me does not affect my story. Although I have faith in the old ways, I finally was persuaded to try the Eucharist last night. Father Damien and my dear wife have been after me for years to receive the benefit of the whiteman’s God, and at last, I did give in to their wishes. In one night, I made up for all of the years of the blood of Christ that I had missed. I drank a whole keg. Inspired by the sacramental wine, and perhaps a little mad, I persuaded my wife to let me wear her holy dress. In her compassion for me, she gave it up, saying that it contained a powerful medicine that might work with the wine to give me insight and wisdom into the grave problem now before us.

“I am not afraid, as others may be, that my manhood will be compromised by such a little thing as wearing a skirt. My manhood is made of stiffer stuff. No, I was not concerned for that. Rather, I worried that I, like so many other men who boast of their superiority and revel in their brute strength, cleverness, or power, was unworthy to wear the dress of a woman.”

Here I paused. I took a close look at my crowd. My initial impression — that it was composed of two women to every one man — was confirmed. I went on.

“We call the earth Grandmother. We ask her help when times are difficult. When we are lonely, or harrowed by death, we throw ourselves upon her and weep onto her breast. All that we are and all that we survive upon comes from the Grandmother. There is nothing she does not provide. But there is a limit to everything, even your grandma’s patience. How many of you have had a spoon thrown at your head? When I donned my wife’s dress, I admit that I was at first defiant and, as I have confessed to you, quite drunk. But the dress itself is sacred as you know, and even though I am a clever fool it stopped my thoughts and humbled me and made me listen.

“It wasn’t that the dress spoke to me. It was that my ears were opened to hear all I missed when I was arrayed like a man.

“Listen, old fool, I heard the earth tell me. You are walking on my beautiful body. And I allow it — not because you are a human and not because you are a man — but because you were born of a woman. I, the earth, respect a woman’s pain as it is freely given to the service of life. The only time you men suffer is when your bellies are stretched too full from the food your wives cook for you. Hear me out, you poor, split creature! Poor man, decorated with a knob and a couple of balls! You’re only here on my patience and on the patience of women. What would you do, the earth asked me laughingly, if all women of the world closed their legs to men? Die out, that’s what. So with my generous nature. I have given you all that you have. You owe your life to me.

“Now I ask you, what have you given to me in return?”

I turned to my relatives, my people, and opened my arms wide.

“What have we given her?” To my question, there was no answer. I’d said enough. I walked off and left the assembly to ponder my words. When they voted, they rejected the land settlement. So the dress worked. The medicine was the sacred shame that it provoked in me. I was humbled, and in that mood I decided to return to Margaret. As I neared the cabin, I began an anxious series of requests, all based on my love of Margaret. I hoped she would greet me, no matter how angry. I would endure her whipping tongue, bear the bite of her disdain, if only she would be there, I thought, waiting for me whether to kiss or kill. But when I got to our little home the door was shut, the cabin empty, the stove cold, and her blanket gone. I stood in the center of the quiet, sick and wondering.

What gives us such cause to harm each other? Where do we come by the substance of our anger and pride? I had no doubt even then that Margaret loved me and I loved her. Yet as a couple our main activity, it seemed, was making each other miserable.

“Please come home,” I cried out the open door, into the bush, “and let me love you the way you deserve!”

But from the massed green leaves and the thick growing trees, there was no answer, nor from the weedy flowers or the berries or the silence of the birds. At that moment, I understood that the manidoog were tired of me, too, that I’d gone one step too far. I sank to the earth, put my head in my hands. With all my heart I wished to be forgiven. Going back through the nights and days I began to count up all I’d done to the people around me and chance passersby too. I tried to name each name, I tried to beg their mercy and humbly address each problem I’d created starting with the day I tried to snare Shesheeb. I began with good intentions, but I quickly fell asleep. The list was too long. The day too warm. The breeze so calm and golden.