Gentle Wind
Penobscot Land (Modern-day Maine)
Wlelômsen returned to her village to find a feast waiting for her. She was not completely surprised—word traveled quicker sometimes than people did, and this was certainly a time for celebration. Gentle Wind had successfully lobbied for her village, for her whole tribe, and the grand unification of all the Dawnland folk was a victory for everyone—all bands, all villages, and certainly her own.
She joined in the feast whole-heartedly, though she made a conscious effort to not look too jovial. She was, after all, still a widow in mourning, and would be expected to act as such, even now. It was a delicate and uncomfortable balance to strike, and Gentle Wind couldn’t help but be troubled by it. Why should she not be merry on the eve of her triumph? She had not only helped unite the Dawnlands under one banner, but she had done so in a way that kept a balance of power. Madockawando’s ambitions were curbed like a great wave crashing upon a stony cliff—she was that cliff, standing tall and unperturbed against the force of his will. Yet she could not relish in this victory, as all around her did. Because she was a woman, because her hopeless husband had died, she must sit at a feast in her honor in some semi-somber reverence, all for a man she did not miss.
Though that apathy was her truth (and one well-earned after all these years), part of her was wracked with guilt at her own lack of feelings towards Great Runner’s passing. Three decades they lasted, that bond enduring all manner of trials and tests. His long trips away to indulge his infidelities, his erratic whims and passing fancies, his love of the bottle. Through it all, she stayed by his side—that’s what a good wife did. And what was the reward for her faith? More duties, more obligations, an aching grief for thirty years forever lost to time.
These thoughts wandered like drifting ghosts through her mind as she walked through the village square, handing absent-minded pleasantries to the men and women that came up to congratulate her. She felt as though she was a passenger in her own body, a canoe adrift on a river with no paddle. She could do nothing but surrender to that cold current of expectation—awash in its confusing tumult, it took all her willpower just to stay above water. Don’t be rude—smile. Not that much—you’ll seem heartless. Ah, there’s She Bakes Bread. Be pleasant—she’s not smart enough to know that you hate her. Hand upon hand, face upon face, an endless procession of social performance. The heat of the nearby bonfire brought unwelcome sweat to her brow and cheeks, adding to her anxiety. How do I look? Am I striking that impossible balance? Beautiful enough to endear to, disheveled enough to look distraught?
As the night dragged on, she sat by the grand fire in the town center, still chained to this revelry she could not share in. All she could do was miss him. Not her husband, but her true love, that Little Salmon of the Shining River. He had returned to his own village, of course, duty-bound to his own children. How long would it be before they could share them? Not just their villages, their communities—everything. She wanted it all—his passions, his worries and fears, his every passing thought. To love him was to be enmirthed in the golden glow of him, and every moment without him was agony. One year more, one grueling, miserable year of mourning, and she would have him. She longed for that day, though it seemed to grow more distant with each passing week. This year, no doubt, would be longer than the thirty prior, and her heart ached to know it.
As the fire died down, along with the party, Gentle Wind began to tread through the dirt, kicked up by dancing and merriment. She frolicked vicariously through their footprints, stepping through the motions she wished she could have indulged in. She swept the delicate piles of earth back to the way they were, returning the ground of the village to its former, calmer state. She picked up spilled food, scattered bowls and spoons. With a silent grace, she gathered all the refuse into the bowls, then ferried them out of the village to the midden downhill. She dumped the trash out into it, then took her armfuls of bowls to the river, where the other women had started to wash them. She squatted next to them, taking her place in the line, doing her part. Her hands felt gingerly inside each bowl, rinsing them thoroughly in the water.
Though these mundane chores brought her some peace of mind, the routine grounding to her wayward thoughts, this was something done deliberately and with great care. She made herself conspicuous as she did it all, ensuring that she was seen, perceived. It was not enough to be the champion of all these people, even in the aftermath of her great achievement. Her husband would have been content with just that victory, milking the goodwill earned from it for months until something else was demanded of him. She would not do the same. She would not be the same. If she was to be saunskwa, to lead this village, she would do so in all affairs, large and small. She would go to Kahnawake, speak for her people, and upon her return, she would clean up the feast grounds and wash the bowls like everyone else. A saunskwa needed to do everything a sachem did and then some—every decision, every act would come under scrutiny a man would never face, so she needed to be perfect. And though this was an unfair expectation, she would rise to the occasion regardless. That was just who she was, who she had always been, for forty-six years.
By the time she returned to her wigwam, she was exhausted. It was late in the night now, the light of the pale moon her only guide back to her home. Her arms ached from the work, and her head blurred with a dull fatigue. She collapsed into her bed, looking around the room as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was just as she left it—clean, orderly, quiet. Most of all, it was lonely.
Strangely, coming home did not provide her the comfort she expected. Little Salmon should’ve been here, too—for the feast, for the aftermath, and of course, here with her—in her home, in her bed. His absence was a torture that left imprints in the the shadows of her mind. She saw his silhouette in the doorway, smelled a hint of his scent that lingered by the fire pit. These ghosts of him tormented her, and she felt herself growing mad each day that passed without him. She chided herself for being so consumed by the thought of being with him—she was supposed to be a saunskwa, a woman with the temperament to rule. How could she indulge these girlish fantasies? She needed to be calm, level-headed, stoic, even, especially right now—and yet her heart and mind burned just to think of that man. Then again, these were impulses she was never allowed, feelings she never had for her own husband. Now that he was gone, thirty years of pent-up emotion came pouring out of her, and she was helpless to dam them any longer. As she drifted to sleep, all she could think about was her Little Salmon. And though she was used to sleeping alone after all these years, this was the first time her wigwam felt truly empty.
Dawn broke, earlier here than anywhere else on Turtle Island. It was no wonder why these lands were named for it—the sun reserved its rarest and most precious hues for them. The trees of these forests, sparse enough to allow them in, showered by a cascade of delicate purples. Each river and stream, dappled in brilliant arrays of glistening orange. Dawn was more than just the start of the day here—it was a reminder of the sanctity of this place, where the sun chose to begin its journey across the sky.
Wlelômsen rose with the morning sun. She did not have the luxury of sleeping in—too much to do, and never enough time. Still half-full from the feast of smoked salmon and wild rice the night before, she snacked on some nuts as a meager breakfast before leaving her wigwam.
There was a unique tranquility that a village exuded the morning after the feast. A feast itself was somewhat hedonistic, and thus, so was its aftermath. As Wlelômsen left her home and walked through the town, she did so alone—her neighbors were still asleep, their dreams indulgent and well-fed. She herself was drowsy, too, but she shook it off, trying her best to look alert, saunskwa-esque, though she did not quite know what that should look like, exactly. Her village had not had a woman chief for five generations, and she, therefore, had no frame of reference.
Gentle Wind glided like her namesake through the square, blowing towards the other end of the village. She reached her destination: a very particular wigwam, and rapped on the outside.
“Milapskicuwon,” She called from the outside. “Milapskicuwon? Are you awake?”
From the inside of the hut, she could hear shuffling. After a few moments, a young man emerged from the entrance to greet her. He was indeed Milapskicuwon, a rather long-winded name that meant “The Water Flows This Way and That Over the Rocks”. He was Gentle Wind’s nephew, of a sort—his mother was her best friend since childhood, enough to practically be a sister. She had always been close to the family, and ever since Milapskicuwon’s mother and father passed on two years ago, she had taken care of him. Not that Milapskicuwon needed taking care of—he was twenty-seven now, though he was still not married (an alarming issue for his aunt).
“Morning, Auntie,” Milapskicuwon yawned, rubbing his tired eyes. “It’s a little early to be barging into my home, isn’t it?”
“Well, we have a lot to discuss. I figured it would be best to start sooner rather than later.”
Milapskicuwon shrugged, and ambled back into his wigwam, inviting his aunt to follow.
The young man’s place was a mess—pots and baskets strewn about haphazardly, his bed un-made, discarded nutshells littering small piles on the floor.
“If I had known you were coming, I would have cleaned,” the young man said sheepishly.
“That’s more worrying,” Gentle Wind replied. “You shouldn’t be keeping your place decent for me. How are you ever going to attract a wife if this is how you’re living?”
Milapskicuwon shrugged again. It was a common gesture for him, especially nowadays. It broke Gentle Wind’s heart to see the state he was in now—he feigned a constant insouciance, but she knew that a tremendous amount of hurt lay behind the aloof mask he wore. It was a horrible thing to lose your parents at any age, and Milapskicuwon’s went within less than two months of each other, both of them victims of a measles epidemic. The loss of his mother hit him especially hard. When he was younger, he would always follow her around like an expectant duckling. She babied him, too. He had been a miracle for her, after four prior attempts that were unsuccessful—two miscarried, two died within their first year of life. He was her survivor, and she his protector. And now she was gone.
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Try as she did to help him, Gentle Wind found herself woefully unprepared in her new role as pseudo-guardian. Her own husband never granted her a child—he did not linger in her bed long enough to even try for one. She had no illusions about his proclivities—in the early years, she drove herself to madness from his lack of interest in her. She began to believe that she was some ugly, wretched thing that no man would ever love. As time passed, as she grew wiser, she came to learn that it was no fault of hers. Great Runner could not love any woman, no matter how beautiful, serene, witty, or anything else she was. There was that part of him that would forever remain a mystery to her, that she would wonder about for decades still to come. When did he start to love men as a woman did? Was there something she could have said, something she could have done? Some way she could have changed herself, that she might have changed him? She doubted it. Thirty years she had sought out some answer, and with each delve into those thoughts, she returned empty-handed.
Subconsciously, Gentle Wind began to pick up some of the trash littered on the ground of the wigwam.
“Please don’t,” Milapskicuwon blurted out.
“I don’t mind,” Gentle Wind returned. “Your mother would kill me if she knew I didn’t help you keep the place tidy.”
“Well, she isn’t here to complain, is she?”
Gentle Wind stopped for a moment, realizing her words.
“I’m sorry,” she began. “I didn’t mean anything—”
“I know, I know,” Milapskicuwon. “I just… I don’t want to do this. Not right now. You came to talk about the matters at hand, not try and fail to fill my mother’s shoes. You can’t, and I don’t want you to. You have more important things to worry about than me.”
Gentle Wind looked in her nephew’s eyes, the sorrow welling deep beyond his dark brown irises.
“You’re right,” she said. “Forgive me and my bad habits. But you are important—you’re important to me. Do you understand?”
“Fine,” Milapskicuwon said sheepishly. “Let’s just move past this.”
“Very well,” she said. “What have you learned?”
Milapskicuwon produced a sheet of dried deerskin, on which he had drawn some pictographic notes to help him remember his report. In addition to being half-nephew, half-son, yet neither of the two, Milapskicuwon also served as Gentle Wind’s eyes and ears, keeping up-to-date with all the gossip and news of the village and others nearby. The assignment started as something to get him out of the house, to preoccupy his mind and keep him busy. Thankfully, he took to the role with aplomb. He had a knack for dredging up information, and a voracious appetite for secrets. Gentle Wind was thankful that some part of his adoration for his mother had extended to her as well, as Milapskicuwon was more than happy to be her errand-boy. In another life, he could have easily been a competitor for sachem, she thought, but he carried no such ambition in him.
“Your reputation’s stellar right now,” he began, using his notes as a guide. “You’re the talk of the town, though this shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s a big achievement, to represent us at the Kahnawake council. However, this new attention on you has not been wholly positive—some of your detractors claim it’s a show of wild ambition, a grab for power before the election. They especially think it’s unbecoming of a widow.”
Gentle Wind nodded. She had expected as much.
“Still, I think it’s safe to say it’s been a win overall—the criticisms levied against you have mostly been swept away. Be careful in the future, though—any further attempts to position yourself for saunskwa might change things.”
“Noted,” she said. “And what about the election itself?”
Milapskicuwon shrugged.
“Hard to say,” he said. “Everything’s changing as a result of the Complete Unification*. I assume you know how the election will be different.”
“Of course. I helped determine the new rules, though I didn’t have as much say as I would’ve liked. Seeing as how we are all family now, representatives from the other tribes will be chosen and sent for to elect each new leader.”
“Could be a boon,” her nephew mused, chewing on his writing stick.
“Could be a disaster,” she said. “The new rituals are fair, but many of them will make it harder for me specifically. Want to guess who suggested the toughest ones?”
“Starts with an ‘M’? Rhymes with ‘Adockawando’?”
“Who else would it be? Not that I’m completely surprised—I moved against him during the Unification. If I had not spoken up, he might have been chosen to lead all the tribes.”
“Would that be so bad? He’s one of us, at least, and he’s far from our enemy.”
“Anyone who hungers for power should never be given too much of it.”
“The same goes for you too, I take it?”
Gentle Wind smiled.
“Yes, boy. That goes for me, too. I would never nominate myself to lord over all our peoples. It is too great a burden for one chief, man or woman, to bear.”
“Hm.” Milapscuwikon rapped his drawing stick against the wood of his bed to make a rhythmic sound—Tap Tap Tap Tap. “So you prevented Madockawando’s grab for power, and he, in turn, is trying to sabotage your election now. Makes sense. But the other sachems must have agreed to all of the rules in either case. Are there that many that unfairly stack against you?”
“There is one that alarms me the most: in the event that there are multiple candidates, they are to take turns competing for the title. The method decided upon was to draw a stick in the dirt, and have two of them grab each others’ arms and try to pull the other over the line.”
“Hah. Smart of him to make it a man’s game. So what will you do?”
“I’m not sure. I have a year to figure out a solution, I suppose, but it scares me regardless.”
“A year to train your arms, perhaps.”
Gentle Wind tried to chuckle, but her worry eclipsed it, and it came out half-uttered and pathetic.
“You’ll have to work on that,” Milapscuwikon mused. “The sachems that will elect you are bound to tell many jokes worse than that one.”
“Perhaps it’s a fool’s errand,” Gentle Wind sighed. “I feel like the whole world is against me.”
“Not the whole world.” Milapscuwikon placed his hand on her shoulder, and she smiled.
“You’re right,” she said. “Thank you for reminding me. Now, is there anything else of note?”
“There is, actually. We’ve received word that an Englishman is heading this way to parlay with you.”
“An Englishman?”
“That’s what the scouts said. Some say they remember a man of his description that used to visit before the war, but I wouldn’t count on it—white men tend to all look alike, especially after a few years of wandering in the memory.”
“Any idea what he wants?”
“Not yet, but apparently he’s looking for you specifically.”
Gentle Wind rested her chin on her hand, thinking.
“He probably wants an in-road with us,” she said. “A woman’s easier to sway, to seduce, in their eyes.”
“You think he’ll try to lay some charm on you?”
“I don’t know what he’ll try, and that worries me. Does he travel alone?”
“No, ma’am. Appears to be in the company of one of us—some neighboring band, I think. None of the scouts recognize him.”
“Probably just a translator.”
“There is one other thing.”
“Hm?”
“The scouts have picked up on another group—may be related, may not. Looks like a militia—two dozen men or so, all of them armed.”
That worried Gentle Wind far more than whatever this man had planned. Guns meant violence and death, regardless of who wielded them.
“Do we know where they’re headed?” She asked.
“Not now, no. They move erratically, and the scouts have had a hard time tracking them. They might be pioneers, looking to settle on the land outside our territory.”
“Or in our territory.”
Milapskicuwon swallowed. His grip tightened on the drawing stick, until it accidentally snapped. He was fifteen when the Great War broke out, and was just old enough to fight in it. Though he had luckily avoided the most gruesome battles, war was something a boy his age should never have endured, and this war was more horrible than any their people had faced. Those days left deep scars in all the men who fought, especially the youngest, and especially in him.
“Milapskicuwon,” Gentle Wind said softly. Her words shook him from his bitter trance, and he looked into her eyes.
“Yes?”
“Do you think you could be a messenger for me?”
“Of course. Anything you need.”
“Good. You leave today. Call upon the sachems of the towns nearby, then do the same for our neighbors by the Shining River. Might as well put this new union to use, don’t you think?”