68

Calum walked behind the two great muddy beasts into the house. Wesley pointed the boy to a seat by the kitchen as the two men went their separate ways to get clean. They both returned to the room to find the boy dozing.

Mr Armitage walked through to the kitchen to find Wesley nursing a bottle of whiskey he’d been partway through already when they had their wrestle on the threshold. He nudged the other glass towards his old friend and tipped the bottle over and filled the glass half full.

“Who’s the boy?” Asked Wesley.

“It’s a long story.”

“Aren’t you here to tell long stories?”

“I come here to hear stories, Wes.”

“Hm,” he grunted.

They were not quiet men. Roused, Calum made his way over to the counter where they were sitting. He had been brought for a reason and was determined not to be left out of the conversation. Mr Armitage was quietly pleased, having no confidence in his own ability to get Wesley to speak, and had been considering a loud cough to wake the boy. The boy did as they often do and touched something without thinking. Laid across Wesley’s lap was a traditional wampum belt. The texture of the beads drew his hand to it before he realised what he was doing and before he’d realised he was tracing the outline of the white squares marked across it, laid above the deep blue background. The wampum belts are designed to help remember the old stories. The one that Calum touched now told the oldest and most important stories of the Haudenosaunee. Mr Armitage quietly thanked the Peace Maker for Kayanerenk’wa - the Great Law of Peace.

Mr Armitage seized the opportunity as it arose - “Tell him your story, lad.” The boy did.

Wesley sat, gazing intently at the boy as he shared the recent days with him. He stuttered and circled tales and half-tales. Beginnings and endings, some of which were connected. Wesley listened to it all. Calum had spent much of the time quite far from the core of his story. Mainly because the great sea-snake was still there, and he hated very much to visit it. When he did mention his own man without eyelids, and how his sister had removed the scalp of their father, his recitation drew to its end. There was great silence in the house then.

The boy and the new largest presence in the house sat beside one another, palming the wampum belt. The belt this was modelled after is stored in some gallery, University or library in New York. But Wesley had made his own to recall the Great Law that his people had made years ago. It commemorated the agreement that brought together warring tribes and six nations, of which the Onondaga were the eldest brothers, the fire-keepers. He brought to mind the strength of the leaders who had managed to bind together those disparate nations, able to maim and kill and scalp their fellow brothers. He thought mainly of the war priest Thadodaho, the monstrous force that had for ages held back the peace until Hiawatha, the orator-student of the Peace Maker, persuaded him. He felt his dark hand reaching out to choke the roots of the tree of peace. Saw the world pulled once more and further into brutal, bloody hand-to-hand combat. He laid his hand upon Calum’s head, felt his orenda - his life-force, and leant in close.

“I am sorry for all you have been through. I am glad you are here now. Shall we find you somewhere to sleep, dear boy?”