Chapter Twenty-One
It is the middle of the night and Unaleq the shaman is fast asleep in his modest deer-hide wickiup when Hekwaw arrives with the news that his son, Yaha, has been taken ill. It started two days ago, he says, and didn’t seem serious at first, but now he’s getting much worse.
“What do you mean, exactly?” the shaman asks, shrugging off the covers and sitting up with a groan. “Flux? Puking? Fever?”
“Yes,” he says, “all three of those, and he has no strength in his limbs either. He’s so weak he can hardly stand.”
Unaleq sighs and drinks a cup of water to wake himself up, then pulls on some britches and finds his belt and bag.
As they walk back toward Ox Lake together, he begins with the usual questions: Has anyone in the camp died recently or given birth?
Has the boy had his hair cut or changed his clothing or been given eggs taken from an unfamiliar nest?
What parts of the deer has he eaten lately?
What color is his urine and how bad does it smell?
The answers don’t shed much light, and then Hekwaw admits that five days ago the boy met an Indian near the fishing weir.
“The Indian didn’t touch him,” he says. “I’m sure of that, but when Yaha tried to run away, he said he couldn’t move.”
Unaleq stops walking and looks back at him in disbelief.
“Five days? Why didn’t you come to me sooner? Don’t you know the longer you leave it, the worse a spell like that becomes?”
“You think it’s the Indian who has caused the illness?”
“I can’t be sure of anything until I see your son in the flesh, but I do know that if any child of mine had been bewitched by Indians, I wouldn’t have waited around for five whole days before I decided to do something about it.”
Hekwaw looks suitably uncomfortable.
“He looked normal afterward,” he says. “I thought the danger had passed.”
It’s always the same story with the Ox Lake people, Unaleq thinks.
When they realize that they’re in trouble, they’ll come running, but the rest of the time they don’t visit from one month to the next.
I’ve warned them before. I’ve told them a dozen times or more that it’s not me they’re disrespecting, it’s the spirits. I’m only a humble go-between.
“Are you a shaman now?” he says to Hekwaw. “Have you been through the initiation ceremony recently and no one thought to tell me?”
“No,” Hekwaw mumbles. “I’m not a shaman.”
“No, you’re not a shaman, but I am, so when you have a problem with an Indian casting spells, you should come to me and ask for help right away rather than doing nothing at all and hoping for the best.”
Hekwaw shrugs and mutters an apology, then asks how easy it will be to lift the Indian curse.
“It’s never easy,” the shaman says. “The Indian curses are especially complicated, and when the protecting spirits are displeased or angry with you it’s even harder.”
“Why would they be angry with us?” Hekwaw asks.
“Probably because you’ve done something foolish or careless, forgotten an important ritual, or broken a taboo. Do you remember anything like that happening lately?”
In truth, Unaleq has no idea whether the protecting spirits are displeased with them or not, but a good shaman always prepares the ground well in advance, and since the Ox Lake band are a faithless and irreverent rabble at the best of times, he knows from experience that stirring up a little trepidation at this stage is often helpful.
Instead of answering the question, Hekwaw suddenly falls silent, and when Unaleq turns to look at him, he won’t look back.
“Spit it out,” he says. “Whatever it is, I need to know.”
“It’s nothing much.”
“Then tell me.”
“I was the one who led the white men to the yellow metal. I didn’t think it could do any harm.”
“You showed them the place and then they gave you some of their iron in return. Is that what you mean?”
Hekwaw nods. “But why would the spirits be angry about something small like that?”
“Because they don’t like being taken for granted, that’s why.
Think about it for a moment, Hekwaw. They give you everything you need to live well here, yet instead of being satisfied and thanking them, you start hankering after the white man’s iron.
I’ll do everything in my power to persuade them to help your son, of course I will, but what you’ve just told me makes my task a lot harder. ”
“If I give the iron back, will Yaha be cured?”
“I only wish it was so simple,” he says, “but it isn’t. The spirits are moody. You can’t predict what they’ll decide to do from one day to the next.”
“You’re a great shaman. You must be able to control them.”
“That’s flattering of you to say, but the truth is, I can’t control anything at all. I’m just a messenger, a humble go-between. I can speak to them and ask questions, yes, but I can’t issue commands or tell them what to do.”
By now Hekwaw appears to be thoroughly frightened and confused, and Unaleq, remembering that despite his many flaws the lad has a good, honest heart, decides that he’s probably scolded him enough.
He pats the younger man on the back, gives his shoulder a squeeze, and when their eyes meet smiles a little and offers a consoling look.
“I won’t tell the others about your mistake with the iron if you don’t want me to,” he says, “but from now on, you need to listen carefully to all my instructions and do exactly as I say without any quibbling. Is that agreed?”
It is dawn by the time Hekwaw and Unaleq reach the outskirts of the village.
There is a layer of mist lying flat on the lake, and hidden somewhere inside it the loons are softly sounding their laments.
The boy Yaha is lying in the family tent half covered by a weeviled deer hide.
His skin is pale and hot, but his eyes are open, and when Hekwaw says his name, he turns his head and looks.
Unaleq crouches down and asks him if he’s had any dreams since he got sick, and he says he’s had some, but he can’t remember what they were about.
Unaleq nods and smiles, then he takes the sacred staff from his bag, wraps his shaman’s belt around it, holds it over the boy, and speaks some verses.
Sometimes, with a sick child, he gets lucky and the answer comes to him right away as a fleeting image or a half-heard sound, but this time nothing happens.
He carries on reciting for a while to be sure, then puts the staff down and asks Hekwaw’s wife, T?glik, for water and something to eat.
“The next thing to try is head-lifting,” he says. “That might give us an answer.”
“Is it because of the Indian he met?” T?glik asks. “Has the Indian’s spell made him sick?”
“Probably,” he says, “but if that’s the case, I’ll have to ask my helping spirits to intervene on his behalf, which most likely means a song-feast. The whole village would need to come together, so it’s best to rule out any other causes first.”
Once he’s finished eating, Unaleq puts a broad leather strap underneath the boy’s head and ties the other end around his staff.
“There’s no need to be frightened,” he says to Yaha. “It won’t hurt you and you don’t need to do anything at all, just lie there.”
“He’s seen head-lifting done before,” Hekwaw says. “Haven’t you, son?”
The boy nods at his father and even smiles a little.
“Malaia had it done last year,” he says in a frail voice, “and she got better straightaway.”
“You’ll get better too,” Unaleq tells him. “Just as soon as we discover exactly why you’re sick.”
He closes his eyes and recites some holy words to give the spirits time to gather themselves.
Then he raises the staff a few times to test the weight of the boy’s head against the strap.
Each time he lifts, it’s a little heavier, and by the third or fourth time, he knows it’s the right moment to begin.
He takes a deep breath, then greets the spirits in the usual manner and asks them if the boy’s illness is due to eating the wrong food or touching something forbidden.
When he lifts the staff, Yaha’s head weighs almost nothing, which means the answer is no, and when he asks if Yaha has been standing too close to a woman who’s bleeding or who’s just given birth, it’s the same.
“Has the strange Indian he met by the fishing weir cast a spell on the boy?” he says. “Is that the true cause of his sickness?”
When he tries to raise the staff again, this time the weight is so great he can’t move it at all, which is about as clear an answer as anyone could hope for.
“You were right,” he says to T?glik. “It’s the Indian who’s made the problem.”
Even though she must have been expecting the news, T?glik still looks stunned.
“Try not to be upset,” he tells them. “What’s done is done. The important question now is how best to free him from the spell. I’ll see what the amulets can do first, and if they don’t work, I’ll try a song-feast.”
Unaleq gets the amulets out of his bag and looks through them one by one.
He knows that halfhearted measures aren’t likely to succeed in a case like this, so he chooses the best ones he has: the skin of a snipe, a dried piece of umbilical cord, and a small doll made of walrus ivory.
He ties them all together on a length of babiche, then puts the babiche around the boy’s neck.
“We’ll leave them on there for the rest of today,” he says. “See if it makes any difference.”
“Why not try the song-feast now?” T?glik asks. “I don’t understand. Why wait?”
“Better to move slowly,” he says. “One step at a time. I don’t like to summon the helping spirits unless I really have to.”
T?glik looks scared and unhappy, so Hekwaw puts his arm around her shoulders and whispers something into her ear.
“We have to trust the shaman,” he tells her in a louder voice. “He knows about these things.”
“That’s right,” Unaleq says. “We’re in a difficult position, and if we go too fast or take a wrong step it could be deadly, so care and patience are required.
For now, all you have to do is stay here inside the tent and watch the boy carefully.
I’ll be waiting outside, so call out right away if anything changes. ”
It’s still early morning and most of the band are fast asleep, so Unaleq wanders down to the lakeshore and sits on a flat rock, listening to the birdsong and trying to keep his mind clear and open to receive any helpful messages that the spirits might wish to send his way.
After a short while, Hekwaw comes out of the tent and stands beside him.
“Thank you for not mentioning the iron to T?glik,” he says quietly. “If she knew the whole truth, I’m not sure she’d ever forgive me.”
“You’ll need to perform some suitable penance later on. I’m not sure what, but I’ll tell you as soon as I know. And you’ll need to get rid of the iron. Where is it now?”
Hekwaw reaches into his bag and gives Unaleq the hammer that belonged to Abel Walker.
“I thought you might want to see it,” he says.
Unaleq takes it from him and places it solemnly on his lap for a moment without speaking.
“This is a symbol of your shame,” he says eventually. “I hope you realize that.”
“Why shame?”
“Because it tells me you’re not strong or wise enough to live in the normal way. The way we’ve always lived before.”
“I made a big mistake,” Hekwaw says. “I understand that now.”
“I’m pleased you do. Now take this down to the water’s edge and throw it out as far as you can.”
Hekwaw groans then takes the hammer and walks down the pale, pebbled slope until the water is nearly lapping at his feet. He stands there motionless staring out across the lake looking pained and miserable until Unaleq shouts at him to hurry up.
“Isn’t there another way?” Hekwaw asks. “Do I really have to do this?”
“Unless you want your son to die, then yes, you do. We need the spirits’ help to save him, and they’ll only help when that thing is gone for good. They’re teaching you an important lesson, Hekwaw. You should really be grateful.”
Hekwaw thinks about this for a moment, then shakes his head and with a great sad sigh, as if saying a forced farewell to a dear friend, swings his arm back as far as it will go, and hurls the hammer high up into the air and far out across the lake’s calm reflecting surface.
It sinks with a loud splash, two ducks rise up, the water’s perfect smoothness rucks, then flattens, and as the sounds die down and the moment passes, Unaleq feels, like a tremor in his heart, a happy sense of darkness briefly conquered and of the good old world made bright and new again.