Writing sample

Sifting through old short stories, I found one of my favorites. It was written for a college assignment. The class was “The People of the Three Fires”, a study of three major tribes in the Great Lakes region. The story was meant to highlight what I had learned of their cultures. I wrote a historical fiction short story about a French girl in the late 17th century in Michigan, who had befriended a Potawatomi boy in her youth. After a ten year separation, they are reunited. Her family doesn’t approve.

Chepi Ehawee and Wis Ki Gete

by: Aubrey A. Human

God never listened to me; even in the most desperate of hours when all I had was the abundance of pain trickling through my soul. Christianity is a joke and only answers the ultimate questions of life when it is convenient for men of power, wealth and attempted prestige. The amount of discrimination handed freely and forcefully from the Papacy just shows the blatant hypocrisy of the religion. It seeks to govern our lives and liberty and will damn you to hell at the first lapse of loyalty.

All night long I had begged for rain to sate my gloom, and yet, there I stood: in the blinding sunlight and sweltering heat in the height of summer, staring with fury boiling my heart. The flower-smothered casket contained the remains of my eldest brother, Louis. The sun sneered sarcastically as I fumbled through black-robed figures stained the air with tumultuous Latin. I wanted to look upon his face one last time and didn’t care what these manipulating, controlling bastards thought.

Before anyone reacted, I swept my arm across the black box to rid the lid of the sweet, stinking flora that only served as the symbolic end of a life cherished. Then, I quickly flung open the cover as sneers and gasps contained the moment.

Unlacing the tan leather pouch I’d kept with me since childhood, I plucked out some dried tobacco leaves and placed the bunch in Louis’ left hand, closest to his heart. Then, I pulled out a small, wooden container filled with a mixture of vermilion and brown fungus and dipped my fingers in so that I might paint my brother’s face. He must be ready for the Long Walk.

When I was but a breath away, a strong, angry hand snatched my arm. The harrowing grunt that accompanied the arresting hand was not enough to fully express his extreme hatred for me. A stinging slap on my cheek followed.

Jacques, my other brother and four years my senior, stood between the pyre and me, pure abhorrence erasing mourning diplomacy. “How dare you! How dare you bring that heathen practice before the face of God. Louis would be disgusted and ashamed at you, Monique.”

Somehow, tears seemed inappropriate then, and I stared into his grey-blue eyes, trying to find some identifying characteristic to prove our consanguinity. Finding none, I further tread into defiance and hummed an Indian song. I had learned it long ago from the local Thunderbird tribe.

Had it really been ten years?

“Stop it! Shut up!” Jacques readied his hand for another blow but stopped, as a shadowy figure emerged from the woods.

A tall, brown-skinned man with midnight strands of silky hair flapping wickedly in the wind paused. Long, draping strands of buffalo hides swayed to the song of the wind, beginning at the elbow and falling to the grass. A single feather of gray and white reached for the sky, protruding from a circular headband of blue and yellow beads. His buffalo robe was a lighter color than Potawatomi everyday clothing of tanned animal hides.

These were ceremonial clothes for Louis’ funeral. Although the Potawatomi’s face was only vaguely familiar, I knew his name. I knew who he was.

Not another minute passed before Jacques turned around to see what could possibly have stopped my humming.

My feet would never be fast enough, not to mention the thick skirts and corset of darkness hindering travel and breath. I screamed for him, yearning to touch the only man that I could ever love. The person I never forgot after all these years.

Jacques grabbed the musket out of Louis’ coffin. My awful, living brother aimed it at the Potawatomi man hesitant to leave the wood’s edge. At first, he steadied, waiting to see Jacques’ full intentions. Once the musket’s long barrel pointed at him, he disappeared into the woods.

I ran towards the trees, but I did not get far. Jacques had dropped the musket to snatch my wrist, yanking me back. My screams and tears swelled from my womanly imprisonment.

“He and his killed our brother! You cannot run after him!”

“No! You of all people should know that that man is Potawatomi. It was an Iroquois war party coming through that took Louis’ life.”

Jacques shook his head and spat on the ground. “They’re all the same: barbarous savages that stab you in the back when you least expect it.”

“How can you say such lies?”

Just then, the priest cleared his throat, and our brother Victor, just one year older than Jacques, stood between us. When our parents died ten years ago, it had been Louis to run the family fur trading business. Now Victor, being the eldest surviving Montespan, inherited that position.

“Stop this madness. Have some respect. We are burying our brother. Worry about revenge later,” Victor said through his teeth with a commanding presence.

“Wis Ki Gete. Wis Ki Gete. His name is rising smoke.” I repeated this mantra to stall my tears, envisioning the dance that would be if Louis were Potawatomi.

To be continued…