Slow Smoke/Tamarack Blue
TAMARACK BLUE
Red Lake Reservation
Lac la Croix
Superior National Forest
Rainy River
Cross Lake,
Minnesota
TAMARACK BLUE
As any brush-wolf, driven from the hillsBy winter famine, waits upon the fringeOf a settlement for cover of the dusk,And enters it by furtive, devious route,Cowering among the shadows, freezing tautWith every sound,—so came the widow BlueIn winter-moons to parish Pointe aux Trembles,Doubled to earth beneath her pack of furs,To ply her trade, to barter at the Post.And if she ventured near the village inn,Baring their yellow tusks the roustaboutsWould toss a dry slow leer at her and stoneOld Tamarack numb with "Mag, the Indian hag,"With ribald epithet and jibe and gesture.And when they waxed melodious with rye,Pounding their ribs, and knew no way to freeThe head of steam that hammered in their breasts,Save in a raucous music, they would blare: "She wears for petticoat a gunny bag"—Adding, with many ponderous knowing winks,"Oh, Skinflint Blue, with a shin of flint, too."And thus to the end they thumped their beery songWith laughter raw, big-bellied. There were daysWhen the Christian gentlemen of Pointe aux TremblesWould welcome Tamarack with such fusilladeOf bilious humor that the harried squaw,Bruised by their epithets, with swimming eyesIntent upon the dust, seemed well-nigh gone,Stoned to the earth; there came a stumbling hourWhen I put an arm around her bag of ribs,And felt her bosom pounding with such fearThat had I dared to place my weight of thumbUpon her heart, I could have pressed the lifeFrom her as from a fluttering crippled wrenHeld in my hand.
Held in my hand.Nor was the widow's perfumeOf name and reputation without reason:Penurious, forgetful of her ownHungering flesh, she strangled every coin And hoarded it against some secret need;And slattern she was,—a juiceless crone, more drabTo contemplate than venison long-curedBy the slow smoke of burning maple logs—And quite as pungent with the wilderness.What with the fight to draw the sap of lifeFrom grudging soil, in sun and wind and snow,Twenty-one years of Indian widowhoodWill parch a soul and weather any hideTo the texture of a withered russet apple:A moon of hauling sap in the sugar-bush,Of boiling maple-syrup; a moon for nettingWhitefish and smoking them upon the racks;Two moons among the berries, plums, and cherries;A moon in the cranberry bog; another moonFor harvesting the wild-rice in the ponds;Odd days for trailing moose and jerking meat;And then the snow—and trap-lines to be strungAmong the hills for twenty swampy miles,For minks and martens, otters, beavers, wolves.So steadfast was the bronzed coureuse de boisOn her yearly round—like hands upon a clock—Given the week and weather, I could tell As surely as the needle of a compassFinds the magnetic pole, what grove of spruce,What jutting rock or lonely waste of swampSheltered the widow's bones at night from beatOf rain or snow.
Of rain or snow.And when the spring thaws came,And bread was low, and her pagan stomach layAs flat against her spine as any trout'sAfter a spawning-season, there were nightsWhen Tamarack's ears were sensitive to silver—Evenings when any lumberjack on drive,Gone rampant with the solitude of winterAnd hungry for affection, might persuadeThe otherwise forlorn and famished widowTo join him in a moment of romance.Oh, not without demurring did she yield—And not without reason: otter pelts are rare,Cranberries buy no silken petticoats,No singing lessons—for there was Susie Blue.
Whenever Tamarack touched the world in shameOr drudgery or barter, she had for endThe wringing of a comfort for her daughter—As when a cactus pushes down its roots Among the hostile sands for food and moisture,And sends the stream and sparkle of its lifeUp to a creaming blossom. None of usIn parish Pointe aux Trembles could fathom whyThe outcast crucified herself for Susie.Some said that Susie Blue was all the kinThe starveling had; and others, among the elders,Held that the half-breed daughter carried everyFeature of Antoine Blue, who fathered her,As clearly as a tranquil mountain-poolHolds on its breast the overhanging sky;And added that the pagan drab was proudThat she had crossed to the issue of her fleshThe pure white strain, the color of a Frenchman.Whatever the reason, when the voyageurLet out his quart of blood upon the floorAfter a drunken brawl at Jock McKay's,The widow set herself to live for Susie,Bustling from crimson dawn to purple dusk—And sometimes in the furtive black of night—Hither and yon, in every wind and weather,Scratching the mulch for morsels of the earth,And salvaging the tender bits—a grouseWith a solitary chick. Of luxuries Wrung from the widow's frame there was no end:Ribbons and scarves and laces—all for Susie;And four long years at Indian boarding-school;A year at Fort de Bois in business-collegeFor higher education; and, topping all,Three seasons spent in culture of the voice.Oh, such a dream as stirred the widow's heart!—A hope that put a savor in her world,A zest for life; a dream of cities thralledBy silver music fountaining from Susie,Cities that flashed upon the velvet nightIn scrawling fire the name of Susie Blue;A dream wherein the widow would declareIn glory, comfort, rest, her dividendsUpon the flesh put in for capital.
How clearly I recall the eventful springWhen Sue returned from her gilding at the Fort!Old Tamarack was away—at Lac la CroixNetting for fish—and could not come to townTo welcome her. But when the run of troutWas at an end, she cached her nets and floatsAnd paddled down in time for Corpus Christi.Some circumstance conspired to keep the twoApart until the eucharistic feast— Perhaps the village folk who always tookA Christian interest in Susie's morals.But Thursday found the wistful derelictStiff on a bench in Mission Sacré CœurMore taut for the high sweet moment of her lifeThan quivering catgut strung upon a fiddle—For Susie was to sing in Corpus Christi;The pagan was about to claim her own.
I'd never seen the squaw in her Sunday-best:Soft doeskin moccasins of corn-flower blue,Patterned with lemon beads and lemon quills;Checkered vermilion gown of calicoTo hide her flinty shins, her thin flat hips;An umber shawl, drawn tight about her headAnd anchored at her breast by leather hands—A dubious madonna of the pines.Somehow the crone had burst her dull cocoonUpon this day, was almost radiantWith loveliness, as if upon the new-bornWings of desire she were about to leaveThe earth and know the luxury of sunlight.The apologetic eyes, the mien of oneBludgeoned to earth by rancid drollery,Had vanished; on her face there was the look That glorifies a partridge once in life—When, after endless labor, pain, and troubleRearing her first-born brood, she contemplatesHer young ones pattering among the leavesOn steady legs, and, clucking pridefully,Outspreads her shining feathers to the wind.And when the widow shot a wisp of smileAt me from underneath her umber cowl—A smile so tremulous, so fragmentary,And yet so shyly confident that allThe dawning world this day was exquisite,A whisk of overture so diffidentAnd yet so palpitant for friendliness—Somehow the poignant silver of it slippedBetween my ribs and touched me at the quick,And I was moved to join her in her pew.
Oh, how her eyes, like embers in a breeze,Flared up to life when Father Bruno ledHer daughter from the choir and Susie setHerself to sing. Susie was beautiful,Sullenly beautiful with sagging color:Blue was the half-seen valley of her breast;Her blue hair held the dusk; beneath her lidsBlue were the cryptic shadows, stealthy blue, Skulking with wraiths that spoke of intimate,Too intimate, communion with the night,The languor of the moon. Beneath the glassOf hothouse culture she had come to fruit,A dusky grape grown redolent with wine,A grape whose velvet-silver bloom revealsThe finger-smudge of too many dawdling thumbs.
She braced herself and tossed a cataractOf treble notes among the mission rafters,While Sister Mercy followed on the organ.Something distressed me in the melody—A hint of metal, a subtle dissonance;Perhaps the trouble lay with Sister Mercy,Or else the organ needful of repair.To me there seemed a mellow spirit wanting,As if the chambers of the half-breed's soul—Like a fiddle-box, unseasoned by the longSlow sun and wind, and weathered too rapidlyBeside a comfortable hothouse flame—Lacked in the power to resonate the tone.But the widow sat beatified, enthralled;To her the cold flat notes were dulcet-clear,As golden in their tones as the slow bronze bell That swung among the girders overheadAnd echoed in the hills. And Susie sang,Serene, oblivious of all the world—Save in a dim far pew a florid white manWhose glance went up her bosom to her lipsAnd inventoried all of Susie's charms.Was it for him she chanted? lifted upThe tawny blue-veined marble of her armIn casual gesture to pat a random lock?For him she shook her perfume on the air?—Bold as a young deer rutting in October,Drenching its heavy musk upon the wind,And waiting—silhouetted on the moon—Waiting the beat of coming cloven hoofs.
When Sue dispatched her final vibrant noteIn a lingering amen and came to earth,She undulated down the aisle with swashOf silken petticoat to greet and joinHer glorified old mother—so it seemed.And when she came within the pagan's reach,The widow, bright with tears, and tremulous,Uttered a rivulet of ecstasyAs wistful as the wind in autumn boughs,And strove to touch the hand of Sue, half stood To welcome her. The daughter paused, uncertain,The passing of a breath. Haunted her face;The dear dim ghosts of wildwood yesterdaysLaid gentle hands upon the half-breed's heart,Struggled to bring her soul to life again.She wavered. Then conscious of the batteryOf parish eyes upon her, the village codeRich with taboos of blue and flinty flesh,And mindful of the gulf between the two,Sprung from her Christian culture at the Fort,She gathered up her new-born pride, and froze.With eyes as cold and stony as a pike'sShe looked at Tamarack—as on a vagrant wind;With but the tremor of a lip, a fleetingHail and farewell, she slipped her flaccid palmFrom out the pagan's gnarled and weathered handAnd rustled down the room and out the door,The stranger at her heels—a coyote warmAnd drooling on the trail of musky deer.
The widow held her posture, breathless, stunned;Swayed for a moment, blindly groped her way,And wilted to the bench—as when a mallard, High on a lift of buoyant homing wind,Before a blast of whistling lead, careers,Hovers bewildered, and, crumpling up its wings,Plummets to earth, to lie upon the dustA bleeding thing suffused with anguish, broken.At last she gathered the remnants of her strength;Huddling within her corner, stoic, cold,And burying her head within her cowl,She parried all the gimlet eyes that stroveTo penetrate the shadows to her mood.And when the curé lifted up his handsAnd blessed his flock, the derelict went shufflingAlong the aisle and vanished in the mistOf Lac la Croix.
Of Lac la Croix.Some untoward circumstanceStifled my breath—perhaps the atmosphere,The fetid body-odors in the room.I hurried from the hall to sun-washed air.Bridling my sorrel mare, I found the trailThat skirts the mossy banks of Stonybrook,And cantered homeward to all the kindred-folkThat ever wait my coming with high heart:My setter bitch asprawl beside the door, Drowsy, at peace with all the droning flies;The woodchucks, quizzical and palpitant,That venture from their den among the logsTo query me for crumbs; the crippled doe,Who, lodging with me, crops my meadow-grassAnd tramples havoc in my bed of beets,Gloriously confident that I shall neverMuster the will to serve her with a notice!—To all that blessed vagrom companyWith whom I band myself against the world.And all its high concerns and tribulations.
Somehow the valley was uncommonlySerene and lovely, following the rain,The mellow benediction of the sun.The beaver-ponds that held upon their glassThe clean clear blue of noon, the pebbly brookMeandering its twisted silver ropeThrough hemlock arches, loitering in poolsClear-hued as brimming morning-glories, placid,Save when a trout would put a slow round kissUpon the water—these were beautiful.The rustle of winds among the aspen-trees,The fragrance on the air when my sorrel mount,Loping upon the trail, flung down her hoofs Upon the wintergreen and left it bruisedAnd dripping—these were very clean and cool.And I was glad for the wild plums crimsoningAmong the leaves, and for the frail blue millersGlinting above them—chips of a splintered sky;Glad for the blossoming alfalfa fieldsRobust with wining sap, and the asters bobbingAnd chuckling at the whimsies of the breeze;Glad for the far jang-jangling cattle-bellsThat intimated a land of deep wet grassAnd lazy water, a world of no distress,No pain, no sorrow, a valley of contentment.
Until I came upon a mullein stalk,Withered and bended almost to the groundBeneath the weight of a raucous purple grackle,A weed so scrawny of twig, so gnarled, so old,That when I flung a pebble at the birdHeavy upon the bough, the mullein failedTo spring its ragged blades from earth again—The suppleness of life had gone from it;Something in this distressed me, haunted me.Something in mullein, stricken, drooping, doomed—When I can hear the rustle of a ghost Upon November wind, a ghost that whispersOf chill white nights and brittle stars to come,Of solitude with never a creature sounding,Save lowing moose, bewildered by the snow,Forlornly rumped against the howling wind—Something in palsied mullein troubles me.