The Cunning Man Read online

  So I was blessedly free of Eddu, and wandered at my own sweet will. Sometimes I went into the forest, which was right at the edge of the village, and loved it and responded to it, but not in the literary fashion that would have pleased my mother. She coursed me through Hiawatha, explaining that he had been an Ojibwa, and that the shores of Gitche Gumee really meant Lake Superior, which was a considerable distance south of us, but near enough to be an exciting literary association. Hiawatha did not take with me; I did not “catch” Longfellow as I had “caught” scarlet fever. I tried loyally to think of the North West Wind as Keewaydin and Gitche Manitou as God in an Indian war-bonnet, but as there were Indians all around me and they did not carry on like that I could not delude myself with high-flown nonsense. I could swallow The Lay of the Last Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake without a blink, because there was nothing in my real world to contradict them. But not Hiawatha; the reality, or what was left of it, lay too near.

  To me, the forest was peace and loneliness and freedom to think and feel as I pleased. It was tangible nobility and it struck into my being without literary interference. Later in my life, when I was far from the forest, I found the same thing in music.

  (8)

  My illness, and my importance as a delicate child, coloured all my thinking, and I was anxious to know everything about it that I could find out. I haunted Mrs. Smoke.

  I choose the word with care. I would manifest myself in her cabin and sit quietly on the floor without speaking a word, although I knew that she was aware of me. I would watch her at her endless messings, as she boiled or soaked plants, scraped and rubbed up bits of bone, chose or rejected scraps of dirty fur, and seemed never to be finished or pleased with what she was doing.

  I found out, as time went on, what she was doing. Diuretics for unfortunates with stone, or gravel, concocted from bearberry and dandelion. Alum root, boiled in milk, for suspected cancers. Burdock for the woefully constipated, a numerous group on the reserve; blackberry boiled in milk for the occasional sufferer, from diarrhoea. These were comparatively harmless remedies that never killed and now and then might cure. But Mrs. Smoke dealt in other nostrums not so innocent. Bittersweet for “female complaints”—yes, perhaps. Spasm root for help in childbirth—yes, that worked most of the time; but there were abortifacients, sought by the overdriven mothers often of eleven hungry children, and sometimes these brought death, but never brought a Mountie to Mrs. Smoke’s door; the Indian and Métis community was too secretive for that.

  She prepared decoctions of foxglove for weary old hearts, and doubtless these sometimes hastened a death that was already on its way, because digitalis has to be handled with more discretion than Mrs. Smoke knew. Her brews of deadly nightshade for palsy and epilepsy, and for a well-established cancer, I cannot now bear to think of. But the decoction of willow bark she gave for fevers and agues I now recognize as being a carrier of salicylic acid—a primitive form of Aspirin, no less, and much what I prescribe daily.

  Mrs. Smoke’s patients were exclusively Métis and Ojibwa, with one notable exception, which was supposed to be a secret, but in communities like Sioux Lookout there are no secrets. The exception was Père Lartigue, the missionary priest, who suffered dreadfully from piles. But he could not appeal to Doc Ogg because Doc Ogg would have demanded that he hike up his soutane, and let down his pants, and show the afflicted part; Père Lartigue’s Jansenist modesty could not endure such an exposure. So every Saturday night old Annie, his housekeeper and the source of all rectory gossip, called on Mrs. Smoke for a jar of fresh butter in which boiled yarrow had been generously mixed, for the priestly anointing.

  All this I knew from keen observation and eavesdropping in Mrs. Smoke’s grimy one-room hovel. Her cabin was squalid, and stank—an old, inveterate stench of decay but not of death. She had skin bags, and cloth bags, and bags that had begun to grow moss on the outside because of whatever was on the inside. There were no corners in her cabin; wherever a corner might have been expected was a heap of rags and pelts and odds and ends that did not look like anything anybody had ever used or made. There was no chimney, but a hole in the roof—a small hole—through which most, but not all, of the smoke from her fire disappeared. The fire was partly contained in a stone structure that was part grate, part stove, part kitchen table, and on it something smelly was always on the boil. The floor was of pounded earth and after long rains or the spring thaw it was soft and moist to the foot. The ceiling was low and black. The one object that was not wholly utilitarian was a doll, the foundation of which was a rough crucifix that hung on the wall, covered with beads and feathers. Above it hung a smoke-blackened mask of a face divided down the middle into a red and a black half; the nose and mouth were twisted to one side in an expression that might have been derision, or madness. I once asked what it was, but Mrs. Smoke gave no answer.

  She rarely gave answers. The Indians and the Métis, merry enough among themselves, were morose and taciturn with me. But Mrs. Smoke was the most uncommunicative of them all. I could tell from the look of her back, and the sound of her breathing, when she might be inclined for conversation. But despite these difficulties I had many a fine talk with Mrs. Smoke. It would be tedious to recount them, and impossible to render her part in comprehensible English, because when she wanted to push me away, so to speak, she drifted more and more into the Red River patois of which I did not understand one word in ten. So let me give you the drift of all those talks in a single dialogue, in which I put Mrs. Smoke’s words in ordinary English, as a few of the Indians spoke it; that leaves out a great deal of the flavour of what was said, but what else can I do?

  MYSELF: I’ve decided what I am going to be, Mrs. Smoke. When I grow up, that’s to say.

  MRS. SMOKE: (No words, but an almost imperceptible grunt, which I take for encouragement.)

  MYSELF: I’m going to be a doctor and cure people. Like you, Mrs. Smoke.

  MRS. SMOKE: (Says nothing, but from the heaving of her shoulders I know she is laughing.)

  MYSELF: Do you think that’s too ambitious? I’m a worker, you know. Both my parents say so. I learn quickly. I’m going away to school when I’m stronger.

  MRS. SMOKE: You go to a doctor-school?

  MYSELF: Oh no, not yet. I have to learn a lot of other stuff first. A doctor has to know just about everything there is.

  MRS. SMOKE: Like Doc Ogg, eh?

  MYSELF: No, not like Doc Ogg. And you know why.

  MRS. SMOKE: (Does not rise to this bait, and after a time I go on.)

  MYSELF: Who cured me when Doc Ogg said I would die? You know, Mrs. Smoke. It was you, wasn’t it?

  MRS. SMOKE: No, not me.

  MYSELF: Who, then?

  MRS. SMOKE: Never you mind.

  MYSELF: But I do mind. You had your tent right outside my window, and there were noises and drumming, and the tent shook till it looked as if it would fly away. And I began to get better from that night. Not that I’m completely better yet. I’m still delicate, you know.

  MRS. SMOKE: Shit.

  MYSELF: What?

  MRS. SMOKE: Strong as a bear. You don’t fool me. You live to be an old man.

  MYSELF: Oh, I know. But I’ll always be delicate. I’ll always have to be very careful.

  MRS. SMOKE: You fool everybody else. But you don’t fool your own self.

  MYSELF: I really am delicate, you know. Even Eddu says so.

  MRS. SMOKE: You’ll see Eddu under the ground.

  MYSELF: The sooner the better, so far as I’m concerned.

  MRS. SMOKE: What’s wrong with Eddu?

  MYSELF: He’s bad. He talks about bad things.

  MRS. SMOKE: What bad things?

  MYSELF: Girls. You know.

  MRS. SMOKE: (She has an unusual fit of giggles.)

  MYSELF: You should respect women. Even girls. My mother says so.

  MRS. SMOKE: (She is not to be drawn.)

  MYSELF: What’s more, he hath lain with a beast to defile himself. Père Lartigue’s d
og! The priest’s dog! How’s that for defilement?

  MRS. SMOKE: You get sore prick doin’ that. Bitch very salty.

  MYSELF: What if the bitch has something? Something half-dog and half-Eddu? What’ll people say then?

  MRS. SMOKE: Sell it for a show. Make Eddu rich.

  MYSELF: Mrs. Smoke, I don’t like to say this, but sometimes I think you aren’t serious.

  MRS. SMOKE: (Says nothing but is seen to shake.)

  MYSELF: Mrs. Smoke, will you take me for a pupil? Teach me all you know about medicines and cures? Teach me about the shaking tent? I’ll work hard. I’ll be your slave.—Will you, Mrs. Smoke?

  MRS. SMOKE: No.

  MYSELF: But why? You’ll never get a better pupil. Who’ll carry on after you?

  MRS. SMOKE: Can’t do it. All wrong.

  MYSELF: What’s all wrong? Here I am, crazy to be a great doctor and help people, and you won’t teach me.

  MRS. SMOKE: I said: all wrong.

  MYSELF: But why?

  MRS. SMOKE: Wrong colour. Wrong eyes. Wrong brains. It would kill you.

  MYSELF: What would kill me?

  MRS. SMOKE: What you have to go through.

  MYSELF: Worse than university, you mean? I’m not afraid of that.

  MRS. SMOKE: You God-damn better be afraid if you want to learn. You God-damn better. You have to go crazy, starve, sweat nearly to death. Then maybe you ready to learn. But you wrong colour. Wrong colour outside, wrong colour inside. Wrong eyes. Can’t see except what white person see. Wrong brains. You gab, gab, gab all the time; never watch; never listen. Never hear nothin’. Wrong brains.

  MYSELF: Then help me to get the right brains. I’ll shut up. I’ll be like a mouse. Teach me to see the way you see. Teach me to hear. Please, Mrs. Smoke.

  MRS. SMOKE: No.

  MYSELF: I thought you were my friend. But you don’t take me seriously.

  MRS. SMOKE: (A long pause, then—) What’s your animal?

  MYSELF: My animal? I haven’t got an animal. Not even a dog.

  MRS. SMOKE: Your animal that goes with you and helps you.

  MYSELF: Oh, I get it. You mean like in Hiawatha? My totem. I haven’t got one. I guess I could choose one.

  MRS. SMOKE: You don’t choose him. He chooses you.

  MYSELF: Haven’t I got any say?

  MRS. SMOKE: No.

  MYSELF: Then how would I know?

  MRS. SMOKE: You’d know all right. (A long pause, during which I try to understand what Mrs. Smoke is saying; respectful as I am toward her, I have a certain feeling of superiority, as one who can read—which she cannot—and has been to Toronto, which seems to me to be an Athens. At last—) You want to try?

  MYSELF: About the totem, you mean?

  MRS. SMOKE: Look in the basket beside you.

  The basket is one of several, but this one has a cover. Consumed with curiosity I lift the cover quickly, and start back with a gasp, for I have heard the warning. In the basket, on some leaves, are two of our ground rattlesnakes, the Massassaugas, about which I have been repeatedly warned; roused from their torpor they give their warning rattle, which is not loud but to my ear has terrible menace. My father has warned me against these creatures: my mother has a great horror of snakes and cannot bear to hear them mentioned, and she has infected me with her fear. Have I turned white? Probably, for Mrs. Smoke laughs her silent, shaking laugh. She dips her hand into the basket and pulls out a snake, which writhes around her arm. She grasps it behind its ugly head. She pushes it toward me, urging me to touch its black-blotched head. I shrink back and whimper, for I fear the dreadful fangs. Long afterward I learn that the bite of these creatures is rarely fatal. Rarely—what sort of reassurance is that to a boy, already convinced of his delicacy, confronted by an old woman who he suddenly sees as quite other than himself, not simply in race and age, but in the deepest truth of her being, who is giggling and pushing the dreadful snake—(it is really only about twenty-four inches long but to me it has the menace of a dragon)—toward his face? At last Mrs. Smoke drops the creature back into its basket and replaces the lid.

  MRS. SMOKE: Don’t like your totem, eh?

  MYSELF: It’s not mine. It can’t be mine. It’s awful.

  MRS. SMOKE: Totem can be awful. You knew it when you saw it. What did you think? A pet?

  I have sat down on the dirt floor, as far from the horrible basket as possible. I must have looked unwell, for Mrs. Smoke, unwontedly, hands me a mug of tea. Her tea is a fearful concoction, and not all tea, I think. But I manage to gag down a few sips of it, and feel better. My determination to leave the cabin, and never speak to Mrs. Smoke again, gradually gives way to my curiosity.

  MYSELF: I’m sorry, if I was yellow.

  MRS. SMOKE: (Makes no answer.)

  MYSELF: Would I ever get used to it, do you think?’

  MRS. SMOKE: Yes.

  MYSELF: Mrs. Smoke, what’s your totem?

  MRS. SMOKE: Ask no questions you’ll hear no lies.

  MYSELF: Does it help you to cure people? Did it help you to cure me?

  MRS. SMOKE: I didn’t cure you.

  MYSELF: Who did then, if it wasn’t you?

  MRS. SMOKE: (After a very long pause) Them.

  MYSELF: Who’s them?

  MRS. SMOKE: The ones who came.

  MYSELF: To the shaking tent, you mean?

  MRS. SMOKE: (Says nothing.)

  MYSELF: Your helpers, you mean?

  MRS. SMOKE: You ask too many questions. Go on home, now.

  (9)

  As I look back toward those days, I think I must have been a hateful child. I understand that the judgement of an old man, and such an old man as I have become, on his childhood self cannot be truly objective, and certainly there were people who liked me, and I know my parents loved me—my mother with a maternal intensity as her darling snatched from the jaws of death; my father, I suppose, looked on me as his posterity—as someone who would continue his respectable, professionally competent, unaspiring life. But the child I see as I look back is a rotten little fixer, cocksure in his judgement of his elders and convinced without ever putting it into words that he was the cleverest thing in the world of Sioux Lookout.

  One of the people who liked me was Dr. Ogg. He had decided that I was the most spectacular case that had ever turned up in his dismal practice, and my survival was entirely owing to his patience and sagacity. Physicians are not permitted to advertise, but Doc Ogg took care that I was a daily reminder to the whole community of his skill.

  After my dark encounter with Mrs. Smoke, when she insisted that the hateful, poisonous serpent was in some deep and primitive way united with my fate and my observation of life, I began to pay more attention to Doc Ogg. Vainglorious little wretch that I was, I thought I would match his medicine against Mrs. Smoke’s, which I had begun to think had failed me. Not the mystery of the shaking tent, but the horror of the black-spotted snake. The village doctor was not promising as an approach to the white man’s medicine, but he was all I had to study.

  Doc Ogg was a lonely man, for good reasons. He had a depressing personality and he was a bore. To Indian eyes the horns of the cuckold were plain upon his bald brow. He drank too much, because the drink was always handy in his pharmacy and he hadn’t much else to do. Day after day, when he had picked up yesterday’s issue of the Winnipeg Free Press or, the Toronto Colonial Advocate, according to the way the train was going, and read it to the bone, the rest of his day stretched before him without incident. A week might pass without his receiving a visit from a patient; an accident in the woods was a godsend to him, provided the patient did not prefer the attentions of Elsie Smoke. His meagre income rested on his activities as an unacknowledged, but clearly recognized, bootlegger.

  Consequently a visit from me was always welcome. He thought I came to admire him, to marvel at his learning and skill.

  “Science, Jon; science rules the world. Take Père Lartigue, for instance. Not a bad fella, for a Frog, but what’s he got to give th
e people here? Magic. That’s what he does in his church. He lets on to turn water and wine mixed, and a piece of bread that old Annie his housekeeper bakes herself, into the blood and flesh of a magician that he tells us lived long ago in the so-called Holy Land. Imagine! And he expects the Indians to swallow that! The Indians aren’t fools. Don’t you think it. They laugh at him behind his back.”

  I thought of Eddu and Père Lartigue’s dog, and of the many sly insults that were offered to the dull, discouraged, haemorrhoidal missionary priest. But I didn’t swallow all of what Doc Ogg had to say about Jesus.

  “You don’t believe in Jesus, Doc?”

  Doc Ogg thought it wise to cover his tracks. If it got around among the better element—six English-speaking families that were somehow associated with my father’s mine, and a few women among the Métis—that Doc Ogg thought poorly of Jesus, it would not add to his slight reputation.

  “I believe in a modern, scientific way, Jon. It’s just this magic I won’t put up with. Mind you, I suppose ignorant people have to be told what they can understand, or think they understand. They can understand miracles a lot better than they can understand science, because science takes brains, and that’s where we’ve got it all over them. Science rules the world, Jon. Hitch your wagon to science.”

  I did that, so far as my circumstances allowed. That is to say, I became by degrees Doc Ogg’s pharmacist. It was not demanding work. Once I had mastered the apothecary’s scale of weights, with its 480-grain ounce and its 12-ounce pound, I was ready for work; as I already knew the troy weight system from my father, who used it for the odd scraps of precious metal he found here and there in the district, the apothecary’s system was easy. So there I was, in Doc Ogg’s kitchen which also served as his dispensing-room, mixing up the totally ineffective tonics, rolling the few pills that were called for, and occasionally pounding up a salve with mortar and pestle (for Doc Ogg had only the simplest elements of an apothecary’s laboratory), and gaining an insight into the medical life of Sioux Lookout which gave me a sense of being a privileged insider.