The House

By Dawn Natelle

I have been told that some people who do not visit the site daily are missing chapters, since when a new one goes up, then the old ones are dropped from the font page. So if you didn’t read Chapter 17 on Monday of Chapter 18 on Tuesday, you might want to go back and read it now: Dawn.

Chapter 19 – More people

It took about six meals with the family for George to get over his shyness. Daisy and Lois loved having a man about who was their age, and soon the three were teasing each other, and reminiscing about the old days. Not that George spent much time at the house, other than meals. He was in the smithy almost all the time.

They had picked up the rest of his tools in a few trips by truck. George didn’t want to risk the horses on the highway until their hooves had been trimmed back and they were reshod. Once his tools were in place, he taught Sun how to trim hooves, which were several months overdue. The horses were all now unshod for a few weeks until George and Sun could get the forge operational, and for Sun to learn how to make horseshoes. The horses didn’t mind being ‘barefoot’ for a few days, and would gingerly walk across the lane to graze on the lawn while their keepers worked in the forge.

Sun’s first attempts at shoes were rather bad, and had to go into a scrap pile. Eventually she made a pair of horseshoes that were almost perfect: these would provide a popular summer game for the house. Then she started making real shoes for the horses, eventually getting the knack under George’s expert tutelage. A week or so later all four horses had new shoes, and they turned to fixing a saddle for Pierre.

The saddle from the dairy farm had to be dissected, and Grey was involved in this, as he wanted to learn saddlery. They removed the metal components, and Sun bent them into a new shape that George said would suit the big horse. Then Grey sewed up the old leather. Putting the saddle on the horse was not easy: the animal weighed just over a ton. But with Sun holding him firm, Grey was able to put the saddle on, and then cinch it.

At first Pierre balked, but then he realized that the saddle didn’t hurt anymore. Grey got on out on the grass, where being bucked off was not liable to cause serious injury. Again Pierre balked, but then with no pain he took Grey for a little run. The past week had left him needing a run.

Finally they saddled Madame in her tack, which had always fit, and Grey mounted her. Pierre looked a bit put out that the boy wasn’t riding him, but then Sun hoisted herself on the Black. It didn’t take the two much effort to get the horses into a gallop, and soon they were racing to the Grove and back. Later they took the other two horses out: Red was just big enough to carry Sun and Grey rode the youngster, Stone.

Eventually they built a racecourse of four miles around the property, and races were common, both as entertainment for the people in the house, and to exercise the horses when Grey didn’t need them to haul logs. As well as Sun and Grey; Dan, Cindy and Willow all rode the animals. Dary rode in one race, riding double with Grey on Red. They immediately fell behind, because Grey had to use one arm to hold Dary safe on the animal, and half way along, they slowed to a trot, far behind the others. Dary was terrified on the ride, and begged Grey to stop. Finally a trot was slow enough for the boy, and the rest of the ride allowed him to dry his tears before coming up to the others at the finish line. He never raced again, although he wasn’t afraid of the animals: as long as he wasn’t on top of one.

It was mid June when a BMW pulled into the house. A man in an expensive-looking suit got out and went up to the porch. Grey and Sun were just coming out after lunch. “Is this an Inn?” the man asked. “My wife and I would like a room.”

Sun had continued down to the car, and Red Oak alerted her to the woman’s condition. «She is near her time. Soon she will pass into our world,» the old medicine man said.

As Grey was telling the man of the nearest inns, Sun interrupted him, opening the car door and scooping the woman into her arms. She weighed less than Dary. “To the Great Hall,” she called to Grey, carrying the woman past her confused husband. “Red Oak says she is part Seneca.”

Soon Grey was sitting in front of the woman who had been laid out on the table, starting his song. Sun explained to the man that Grey was a healer, and might be able to help. That was the last thing he heard as he transported inside.

Black, black, black. The woman seemed to be covered in black. Grey had his stave, and pointed it out to the black covering her heart. He aimed, and a blue light shot out, searing the black away from the heart, which was only beating feebly. He eliminated a strip of black, and then saw the thin red strip remaining slowly get smaller and smaller as the black crept back in.

He had to make continual strokes with the stave, burning away the black. Slowly the red section widened as he worked his way around the heart. It was not until he was near the original starting point that it started beating stronger. Even so, there was still more black that had seeped over the starting point, and he had to continue until the heart was completely red, and the heart beat stronger.

Then it was the lungs. The black was even thicker here, and Grey had to make two or three strokes to break through. Slowly he cleared up the right lung. After that he moved to the left lung. He finally had to stop.

Back in the real world Sun held him a pitcher of ice water, and he drank deeply, taking in nearly a quart.

“You need to rest now,” Sun said. “She is doing better.”

“Better than the last four months,” the man in the suit said. “Thank you for saving Nora. She has been diagnosed with cancer. When they told her it is terminal, she wanted to come out into the wild and see nature before she died. Her doctors didn’t want her to go, but she is stubborn. Thank you for saving her. Is the cancer gone?”

“No. No it is not.” Grey said, drinking another long slake of water. “I have to go back in. The cancer will keep growing unless I get rid of it all. You hold her hand,” he told the man.” Then Sun: “you hold my hand. I need all the support I can get.”

With that he started singing the healing song, and soon was back inside. Black was attacking the lungs from the top, and the heart from the aorta. He burned it back in both areas, and then proceeded through her body, gradually clearing out the blackness. Grey felt the support from Sun, and to a smaller extent the man was helping too.

He finally looked around and saw no more black. ‘Is that all?’ he asked himself, and immediately he saw little spots of blue glowing here and there throughout the body, including her breasts and ovaries. He knew these indicated little buds of cancer just waiting to attack. It would be years before they gathered the strength to attack again, but now Grey shot at each one with his stave. Eventually there were none, and Grey stopped his song.

He took the water that Sun offered, no longer cold, but still refreshing him. Then Sun caught him as he fell off his chair.

Several times Grey came out of his dazed state, usually to find Sun feeding him Daisy’s chicken soup. Then one day he woke completely. His body was exhausted, but he staggered to the nearest washroom. After using the toilet, he barely had the energy to shower. It was Dary who came in to bring him a clean set of skins to put on.

In the Great Hall he met the man in the suit, who now was in more casual clothes, and his patient, who looked fitter than Grey did.

“Thank you for saving me,” Nora said. “Usually it is the doctor who tells the patient to get bed rest, but this time I will tell it to you. I am a doctor, a pediatrician, but I can still tell that you are exhausted.”

“I need food,” Grey said. “I haven’t had solid food for what, two days?”

“Make that eight days,” John, the suit-man said as Daisy came out and put a plate of food in front of Grey. “We were worried about you, but Sun said that some … spirits … said you would be okay. I am John Jenson, and your patient is my wife Nora. I am … was … a lawyer. I left my practice a half-year ago to be with Nora. The partners were not pleased with me wanting a reduced workload, so I quit.”

“We love it out here,” Nora said as Grey wolfed down the meal. “Daisy said that we can stay as long as we like, and we are taking her up on that. We were working in the city: chasing the almighty dollar. Out here we find we are actually living, in a way we couldn’t in the city. We have walked out to your Grove almost every day, or rode out on one of your beautiful horses. It is such a mystical place. I feel energized just standing there among the mighty trees. They make you feel small and insignificant, and then they make you feel important. I wish we could stay here forever.”

“You can dear, we love having you,” Daisy said as she took the clean plate away from Grey and put another full one in its place.

Later Dan came in and told Grey that he had missed the final campout for the Ojibwe Junior Warriors during his recovery. He did have some information on bullying at the public school in Tweed. “Apparently, after we had talked to the kids in the campout at the grove the kids went to school on Tuesday, and Jace was bullied again. But this time seven boys from the Warriors went over to the three boys doing the bullying. They made them give Jace back the twoonie they had extorted from him, and then insisted that they go back to every other child they had taken money from and return it.”

“They refused, and attacked the boy who was spokesman, hoping that would scare the others off. Instead all six of the others, plus little Jace, jumped in and soon the bullies were all on the ground, pleading for a chance to return the money.”

“Where were the schoolyard monitors at the time?” Grey asked.

“Nowhere to be seen. The principal called all 11 boys to the office at the start of classes, and announced that fighting was not allowed, and suspended them all for three days. The bullies had a hard time catching up, but the Junior Warriors caught up because the girls, and the other smaller guys, took notes and explained the material covered to them in tutorial sessions. There was a history test that Friday, and the eight Warriors who were off did well thanks to the tutoring, and all three bullies failed badly,” Dan said.

“When do they meet again?” Grey asked. “I want to tell them all how proud I am of them.”

“They don’t meet until September now, with summer vacations on,” Dan said.

“I will come to your first sessions,” Grey said.

With that he stood up and found that his strength was starting to return. Sun was napping: she had stayed up with him a lot during the past week, and was exhausted too. Grey went to the stables, where George was tiding up the workspace, and lining up jobs for Sun to work on when she got back to work. Grey was astonished at how much bigger Dary’s chicks were. They were more than twice the size and were starting to look more like chickens.

The boy, on the other hand, was nearly the same. When he saw Grey he ran and leaped on him in a hug. “You are okay,” the boy said. “I prayed to Manidoo that you would be. I came to see you several times, but you were always asleep. One time Sun was feeding you, but your eyes stayed closed.”

“Do I remember getting a little kiss?” Grey said, touching his cheek.

“Yes, you remember? I kissed you just there every time I visited.”

“I do remember, and those kisses helped me recover. The love from you and Sun was important to me coming back.”

Grey went to the mill next, and was surprised to see that several logs he had planned to cut were neatly stacked as 1x6 boards. “I showed John how to use the rip saw,” George explained. “He was out here for a couple of days and cut up all the wood. He wanted something to do. Wanted to take the horses out to the Grove and cut down some more trees, but I said he would have to wait for you on that. You are the keeper of the trees, after all. I remember old Lone Goose and how upset he got when someone messed with his trees.”

“Yes, we can go out and cut some more trees. There is an old oak that needs to come down. But I want to be there when it happens.”

“The lad has ridden the horses, with his missus after she said she was better. I taught them both how to drive the wagon: just around the property. You wouldn’t think two city slickers like that would adapt to the house so well.”

“How about you, George?” Grey asked. “Are you adapting to the house too?”

The old man got the biggest grin. “I love it here, Grey. It is so much better than my old place on the farm. I’m a part of the family here. The ladies are so nice to me, though they do like to tease. And Darryl here is a fine companion during the day. I look after the horses, and when Sun is back I will continue teaching her smithing. I feel important: there is a meaning to my life and I’m not just waiting to die. Every morning I get up and thank God for all of you.”

“You are important,” Grey said. “We need you here. You are a link to our past. You are not Ojibwe, but I consider you an elder.”

----- -----

Pierre was antsy in his stall. He hadn’t been out for a ride in over a week. Not that he wasn’t used to that: at the other farm he often went several weeks without being out. And over there occasionally he went more than a day without food. When the horses were forgotten, the old man came in after midnight and put hay in the feed bins, and sometimes some oats as well.

At this farm the old man still fed them, but every day. He cleaned the water twice a week, and gave them oats to munch just as often. And there was always hay in the bins. He even cleaned the stalls daily, raking out the old straw and dropping new. But the one thing he didn’t do was ride them. And Pierre really wanted to run.

Then he perked up. There was the sound of woman voices giggling as they approached. Finally, they might be riding today. The big woman set a saddle on Pierre. It was the one that didn’t hurt. She then went to saddle two of the other horses. The man who had first ridden him was there too, and he saddled Madame, and checked that the saddles were tight on the other horses. The big woman pulled the cinch tight around Pierre’s middle, and put on the reins. The big horse was dancing in his stall in anticipation.

“Pierre seems eager,” Sun said to Grey, Willow and Nora as they all mounted up. “If he goes for a run, you can come along, or just trot out to the grove.”

Pierre got on the road, and his favorite rider left the reins loose. He started to gallop, and she didn’t pull him in. Soon he was running full tilt towards the trees at the rear of the farm. It wasn’t until he was in the Grove that Pierre slowed down, trotting towards the camp. He drank deeply from the spring there, and then his rider turned him around and they walked out to the edge of the Grove.

He could see the other three horses trotting towards him when his rider stopped him. The other horses sped up a little as they neared the Grove. All of the horses loved the water from the spring, and they were almost running when they got there. Pierre let them drink, and then had another long drink himself. The water was that good.

Then the four horses trotted out past the camp. They got to the end of the track that they raced on sometimes, but kept going into new territory. There was no clear path, but big horses like Pierre and Madam are like tanks, and mowed through the smaller saplings without a problem. For others, this was not true.

“Agh” Willow said, pushing a branch away from her face. “There needs to be a trail here.”

“I’m not having any problems,” Sun said from the front.

“Yeah, but you are more than a foot higher than us,” Nora said. “We are getting all the low branches.”

“One of the few benefits of being tall,” Sun said cheerfully. “I really want to go around the perimeter of the property. You could ride in the front if you want.”

“No, with Pierre first, and Madame second, I think they are getting the least amount of branch whip,” Grey said. He looked much better after his recovery. “But if you girls like this route, I’ll bring Dan and John out here tomorrow and we’ll clear a wide path for you. This looks like the corner.” They had come to a small lane there that wasn’t on Daisy’s property.

“Yes, let’s turn back to the highway,” Sun said.

“We could walk on that old road,” Willow suggested.

“Actually, the brush is thinner here,” Grey said, and it was, so they stayed on the land and paralleled the lane.

When they were almost at the highway the brush disappeared and only low bushes remained. Sun pulled up, causing the riders behind to do the same. “Look, is that what I think it is?” she asked.

“Blueberries,” Grey pronounced. “But not ripe yet. I think it will be another three or four weeks. But there are a lot of them.”

“The ground is soft here, and it is July,” Sun said. “I bet in the spring this is a regular bog. Berries like a wet environment. I want to come pick some when they are ready. Make that trail, Grey. I’ll be out once a week to check on them.”

“No picking for me,” Nora said. “I picked strawberries one summer when I was in middle school, and that was enough picking for me for the rest of my life.”

“And I have enough to do between baking and waitressing,” Willow said. “You can have the entire patch to yourself.”

They continued back to the stable, where the horses were unsaddled and rubbed down. Pierre was quite pleased with the day: a good long run, and then a longer walk. The only thing that would be better would have been to pull something and really make his muscles work.

In the house Sun asked Daisy about the berries.

“Oh yes, dear,” the old woman said. “The natives used to pick them back in the day. For the last 25 years or so a bunch from the Mohawk reservation on Quinte come up for a couple weeks. They camp out and clean the bushes. They sell most of them to Frank and Miriam who can them for their famous blueberry pies. You can pick a basket or two if you like, or buy one from them.”