Four Souls by Louise Erdrich

Author:Louise Erdrich [Louise Erdrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061744020
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT MORNING was the Feast Day of some purse-mouthed saint or other, and to the surprise of Margaret, I was nothing but pleasant as she readied herself for Mass. Even when she put on her great black coal-hod bonnet, the one she believed gave her an irresistible allure, I only complimented her.

“It casts a mysterious shadow upon your face,” I said. “It makes a man wonder just what you might do next.”

“This, probably,” she said, and whacked my shin with the stick she used for walking. But I could tell she was unnerved by my sudden too-affable acceptance of her flirtation. Maybe she was even disappointed. For sure, as she left the cabin, she was just a little anxious, since she may have sensed the cold truth of what my plan called for. Having taken advantage of the situation, having decided to turn things my way, I decided to use Margaret as bait.

I would ruin him before he harmed her. I would wreck him with my power. Already, he was probably sick and reeling from the dreams he’d suffered. He hadn’t a hope once I started on him in earnest with my medicine. Now, before Margaret put on her old gray wool blanket coat, I took from my sack of powders and teas a packet that held the gall of a mink. A pinch of that mixed with ground mica, so his eye would be dazzled. The ashes of two dogs killed in copulation. I dusted the back of Margaret’s coat, as she walked out, with the deadly attractant. I hoped that when he made a false move, and she lambasted him, she’d not only leave a mark but he would leave something with her. I needed a swatch of hair, a button, a few threads of his clothing, something he wore close to his body, in order to best him.

Now I have hardly ever had to fiddle with dark medicine, and I didn’t feel that good about using Margaret. But an old man who has survived this long does so at some risk to his principles. I couldn’t afford to stack myself above the problem when the stakes were the woman I loved.

I sat on my bench just outside the cabin door where I could see the crossroads and while she was gone I anxiously watched the world pass by. There went George Bizhiew with his blood palomino. There went Short Little Sweetheart. There went Mrs. Cardinal. I waited. I tried to let my mind travel after Margaret, but I think she knew it. She blocked my vision. Hung a curtain down across my sight. For I was left in a dark frustration until at last I saw the black curve of her bonnet as she returned through the scrub oak and alder that grew across the road.

She wasn’t steaming forward in a heat of indignation. She wasn’t in a cold and offended dudgeon. She wasn’t in a fury of motion and she didn’t poke at me with her stick or make a single sharp comment as she passed by me and into the house.

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