Black Bird
The Great Lakes
Day by day, week by week, Black Bird wandered aimlessly through the lands of the Three Fires. Where would he go now? What would he do? Gone was the hope for the future, the fire in his heart snuffed out by the Five Nations’ unending conquest. Gone too was his status as the savior of his people. Wherever he went, he was met instead with distrust and suspicion. The Anishinaabeg were not immune to superstition, the kind that superseded an otherwise-sound judgment. Since the attack, they viewed its sole survivor not as the savior of their people, but as a harbinger of their doom. Black Bird became an ill omen, a man who attracted Snakes like moths to a flame. Everywhere he went, he was met with hushed whispers and wary looks, as if he had done anything to warrant them.
It did not help, of course, to learn that his supposed immunity had never been replicated. Black Bird was told that the midewiwin in the village that performed his variolation had rushed to do the same with every inhabitant, and did so without following the guidance and directions of Dr. Härkönen. The doctor had warned them to wait until he returned to perform it for the rest of the villagers. Then again, that was impossible now, and no one could blame the village for wanting to cure themselves as soon as possible. In their haste, however, they were overzealous in their approach—the doctor had warned against administering too much of the pox during the process. It was a delicate balance to strike—too little, and the solution wouldn’t take. Too much, and the body would be unable to fight off the infection, and become stricken with the illness itself. The village, it seemed, had erred on the later side, desperate to be rid of it. Instead, they only made the problem worse, cursing those few who hadn’t yet caught the plague with it. Now, their village was in shambles, and instead of acknowledging their part in it, they blamed the cure itself. Word spread through his people's lands like a wildfire, until there was not a man or woman among them who would volunteer themselves to try it.
The first week or two Black Bird spent pleading with the elders of nearby villagers. Each time, he tried desperately to convince them to try the cure again, the proper way. Only, he didn’t exactly know what that proper way was. The doctor hadn’t instructed him on it—he was too busy performing it on him. He had spoken to the other Midewiwin of the process, but only briefly, promising to return after its success and teach them in more detail. Now, he was dead. Black Bird, then, had been warped into a cruel, misshapen idol. He was the only survivor, the only living proof of some supposed cure, but he had no idea how it worked. And so while he begged day in and day out to over a dozen villages, no one would take his word for it. They could only trust the evidence of their eyes and ears. There was no direct evidence, after all, that Black Bird was wholly immune. How could one even hope to prove such a thing? The only thing people saw was two villages destroyed—one from the pox, and one from the Snakes. And the only thing the two had in common was Black Bird.
If the ambiguity of Black Bird’s proposed cure was not enough, there was a larger issue that occupied the minds of all the village elders. The Five Nations, up until this point, had never invaded so far inland in Anishinaabe territory. This attack on White Sky’s village changed that, and now, none of the other villages nearby could expect to remain safe any longer. In the months of winter, the villages to the north of White Sky’s left their usual grounds to migrate southwards where it was warmer, living in more temporary settlements until the spring came. Now, they were unsure if they would return to their homes at all. Many of them pondered a great migration, moving even further east and north. Many were tired of running. For decades they had been pushed westward from their homelands by the Five Nations’ wars. For most, this was a preferable fate to death or assimilation at the hands of their enemies. But this tactic would not work forever—many argued it never had. Give an inch, take a mile. Let the Five Nations take your lands, and they will come for the ones you claim next. The eldest among the villagers had been running all their lives, and the youngest were angry, and ready to fight. With the shadow of the Five Nations hanging over them, none were concerned with the pox. A cure could wait. The Snakes could attack again tomorrow.
Each village, then, rejected Black Bird’s pleas, preoccupied by the imminent threat, and many having lost interest in hope in his status as their savior. Worst of all, perhaps, was that throughout his journey, Black Bird never found any trace of White Sky. He was not among the dead in the aftermath, nor had he taken refuge in any of the nearby villages Black Bird visited. No one he spoke to had seen or heard of him, and with every new village he went to, his despair grew. He could only assume the worst—that the Snakes had captured him. That meant any number of fates could befall his best friend, none of which he could hope to prevent. Every night, Black Bird sat in silent prayer, wishing to any god that would listen. Please, he would beg. Please, protect him. Shelter him from evil. Lead him somewhere safe. I just want to see him again. I’ll do anything.
Whenever he meandered from one town to the next, or in the hours late at night in his bed, unable to sleep, Black Bird’s mind was battered by a deluge of horrible thoughts. The things he had heard, the things he’d seen the Snakes do himself… he feared the worst of all fates had befallen his brother. It killed him to think of the possibilities, and killed him even more to know he could do nothing to stop them. More than once, he had been of a mind to go out and look for him. And more than once, he had decided against it. It was a reckless impulse that he had to fight against, even as his heart pulled him towards it. After all, where would he look? The empire of the Five Nations spanned eighty million acres, ever-growing as their people conquered and destroyed. Even if they were not his enemy, even if they allowed him into their midsts freely, it would take him a decade or longer to search every village.
It was an impossible task, and the stakes were far too high. As tormented and sleepless his nights were, Black Bird could not go looking for his friend. He knew that if their roles were reversed, if White Sky had been made immune and he was captured, he would not want his best friend to risk himself just to find him. There were larger things at stake—the lives of all their people still rested atop his shoulders. He remembered Härkönen’s dying words. This is bigger than you. And it’s bigger than me. The doom of the Iroquois lies in my basement, and only you can see it realized now. And so, after weeks of trying and failing to convince his neighbors, he left. There was nothing more for him to do here, and all his prospects lay in faraway lands he had never been to. He wandered out of the last village he visited, a Faith-Keeper town his cousin Autumn had moved to. He wandered beyond the lands of his people, through snowy forests and across frozen rivers. And he wandered alone.
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In a way, it was strangely nostalgic. Not in a familiar, comforting way, but in a haunting one. It reminded him of the last time he wandered alone through these lands. So much had changed in these five years. So much hadn’t. Once again, he felt truly alone in this world. Once again, he was aimless, drifting between life and death. So many times he had promised himself back then that he would change things, that he would change himself. So many times had he sworn that things would be different one day. But it wasn’t up to him, not really. Fate had dealt him its hand again, and it was an accursed one, dooming him to this isolation. Perhaps that was all he was destined for.
In time, he returned to the trading post. It was deathly quiet now—no one had stayed for the winter. Market stalls lay empty and barren, the few brick-and-mortar buildings abandoned until the Spring came. Even now, the cacophony of noises that once came from the square still rang in his ears, the sights and smells still lingering in his memory. And though he tried to banish them from his mind, he could not help but reminisce back to simpler times, just a season ago. When this place was exciting and new, when he and White Sky would wander and muse about any number of insignificant things. Their worries back then seemed so small now. So did this place itself. It was like walking through a town of ghosts, all-too familiar to the treks they would take through the former lands of the Wendat.
Black Bird’s heart ached to think of them, his father’s people, and ached even more to fear that his mother’s might share the same fate before long. He was so close to changing things, to re-weaving the threads of fate, forming a new, brilliant tapestry for him and his people. What was once a far-fetched dream almost became a reality, only to come crashing down again. It took everything he had to not collapse there on the snow in defeat. His heart ached with every step he took, weak from suffering so many losses. But still, he moved forward, slow and sure, down the way towards Härkönen’s lab. He couldn’t give up. Not yet. Despite everything he had suffered, everything that had been taken from him, a sliver of hope still gleamed inside him.
Black Bird used a crowbar to bust open the door to the lab. It was just as they had left it—well, mostly. Some of the windows had been broken, and the more valuable-looking equipment had been looted. Still, whatever thieves that had raided this place were still constrained by logistics. They could not hope to move Härkönen’s heavier equipment by themselves, and certainly not far enough to sell somewhere in the desolate winter. Black Bird ignored it all, though. He pushed over flasks and vials, a dead man’s trinkets that would never be used again. He shoved a wooden crate to the side so he could lift up the large rug on the floor. Sure enough, there it was—a small wooden hatch with a lock. Black Bird took Härkönen’s key and unlocked it.
Wooden steps led to sheer darkness below. Black Bird lit a lantern, holding it aloft as he descended. Dusty bookshelves lined the room. Black Bird took his time, gleaning each of the titles. The Sceptical Chymist. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum. Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. He stopped at the end of one bookcase, grabbing a tome from it that had caught its eye. In faded crimson leather, he thumbed at the golden lettering: Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis. It was Latin. The doctor had started teaching him some, but not enough to know what it meant. Curious, he opened the book. To his surprise, however, it was empty—it had been hollowed out, its pages missing. In their place was a smaller, hand-bound journal, with a single name written on it: Doctor Felix Härkönen.
Black Bird’s heart began to race, and he opened it, eager to read its contents. As soon as he did, though, his hopes were dashed yet again. There was page after page of information, and yet none of it was legible. It was all written in the doctor’s mother tongue of Finnish, a language Black Bird didn’t know a word of. He cursed under his breath, flipping through the pages in the hope that one might contain a passage in English or French. No luck. He gripped the journal tightly, frustrated. At every turn, I am thwarted. After every victory, I am made to lose. Why would he send me here, dig up a journal I can’t even read? What further torments must I endure? And what the hell am I supposed to do now?
He sat there a while, trying to think of answers to all these questions. He opened many of the books, pored through the pages, as if they would help him. Most of them were in English, and he found it hard to even parse the words on the pages, let alone the numerous diagrams they came with. The material the doctor had started teaching them was only scratching the surface—centuries of scientific, philosophical, and historical progress lay dormant in these tomes. The sun was beginning to fall—he would have to sleep here tonight. He spent hours combing the other books for some sort of clue, until he collapsed from exhaustion, surrounded by the musings of titans and geniuses that came before him.
In the morning, he reached a decision. Perhaps he was inspired by the canon of work around him. Perhaps it was the only path left before him, the only thing he could think of to do. The only clue that stuck in his mind was the man the doctor mentioned: Robert Dalton, of Ipswich. He told me to seek him out—this man in particular, this stranger. Why? There must be a reason. If there’s an answer to all of this, to any of this—he must know it.
Black Bird weighed the choice in his mind, going back and forth with himself for hours. It was not an easy one to make. The journey to New England was a long one, especially in the winter, and though the Anishinaabeg were not technically enemies to the colonists, it would no doubt feel like walking into a den of wolves. The English were not his friends—that much he knew. Worse, they were formally allied with the Five Nations, his sworn enemy. But he could see no other way, not if he wanted an answer. More than that, he saw an opportunity.
New England was the home of Harvard University, the only place on the continent where he could continue his education. Reading the various texts in this basement only cemented his resolve on this. The one recurring thread in all his defeats, the one weakness that permeated through everything, was his ignorance. He was the sole carrier of the cure for his people, yet he didn’t know how it worked. He was the one the doctor entrusted with the doom of the Iroquois, yet he knew nothing about politics and war. In this world, knowledge was power, and he needed as much power as he could get.
It was no wonder, then, that he left that morning. He packed the journal and all the other books there into his canoe, then headed east to the lake nearby. He tried his best to stay optimistic, to think about the opportunity that lay before him, about what the future could possibly hold. Despite his efforts, though, it all rang hollow. All he could think about was the canoe he dragged behind him. It was so much heavier, he realized, to carry by himself.