people he’d loved, including his uncles, had simply turned against his mother, so Nanapush could not believe in them or in what they said or did anymore. On the side of the crack where Nanapush was, however, his younger brothers and sisters, who had cried for their mother, existed. And his mother, too. Also the spirit of the old female buffalo who had been his shelter.
That old buffalo woman gave Nanapush her views. She told him that he had survived by doing the opposite of all the others. Where they abandoned, he saved. Where they were cruel, he was kind. Where they betrayed, he was faithful. Nanapush then decided that in all things he would be unpredictable. As he had completely lost trust in authority, he decided to stay away from others and to think for himself, even to do the most ridiculous things that occurred to him.
You can go that way, said the old buffalo woman, but even though you become a fool, people will in time consider you a wise man. They will come to you.
Nanapush did not want anyone to come to him.
That will not be possible, said the buffalo woman. But I can give you something that will help you—look into your mind and see what I am thinking about.
Nanapush looked into his mind and saw a building. He even saw how to make the building. It was the round house. The old female buffalo kept talking.
Your people were brought together by us buffalo once. You knew how to hunt and use us. Your clans gave you laws. You had many rules by which you operated. Rules that respected us and forced you to work together. Now we are gone, but as you have once sheltered in my body, so now you understand. The round house will be my body, the poles my ribs, the fire my heart. It will be the body of your mother and it must be respected the same way. As the mother is intent on her baby’s life, so your people should think of their children.
That is how it came about, said Mooshum. I was a young man when the people built it—they followed Nanapush’s instructions.
I sat up to look at Mooshum, but he had turned over and begun his snore. I lay awake thinking of the place on the hill, the holy wind in the grass, and how the structure had cried out to me. I could see a part of something larger, an idea, a truth, but just a fragment. I could not see the whole, but just a shadow of that way of life.
I had been there three or four days when Clemence and Uncle Edward went over to Minot to purchase a new freezer. They started out early in the morning, before I was up. Mooshum had risen at six as usual. He’d drunk the coffee, eaten all the eggs, toast, and buttered hash brown potatoes that Clemence made, even my share. When I went down to the kitchen, I took a slice of cold meat loaf she’d left for lunch, slapped it between two pieces of soft white bread, with ketchup. I asked my Mooshum what he wanted to do that day and he looked vague.
You go off with your own. He waved his hand. I’m all set here.
Clemence said I have to stay with you.
Saaah, she treats me like a puking baby. You go! You go off and have a good time!
Then Mooshum tottered over to Evey’s old dresser and rummaged among the things in his top drawer until he came up with an old gray sock. Dangling the sock at me with a significant look, he plunged his hand in. He was wearing his dentures, which usually meant company. With a sly air of triumph he drew a soft ten-dollar bill from the toe of the sock and waved it at me.
Take this! Go on, live it up. Majaan!
I didn’t take the bill.
You’re up to something, Mooshum.
Up to something, he said as he sat down, up to something. Then he said in low outrage, How can a man be a man!
Maybe I can help you, I said.
Eh, so be it. Clemence keeps my bottle high in the kitchen cabinet. You could fetch me that!
It wasn’t even noon, but then I figured what could it hurt? He’d lived long enough to deserve a drink of whiskey when he wanted it. Clemence had given him but one pour on his birthday, then lots of swamp tea