Ted looked into the tree line as if his vision could soar through it and take his spirit on a romp down the Niagara, into the sparse clouds, and out over the Ontario. Then he turned back and looked at me. “You know, it’s an interesting thing about witches. Some of them get pulled in by money, and they get started on the wrong road. Then they can’t give up. They get too far in and can’t do it any other way. It’s just like other people can’t get out of the Mafia.”
“Fifty years ago most whites thought medicine people were all bad,” I said. “Now they think they’re all good. I would have thought the medicine people would have been all about the preservation of traditional society and values. Keeping the culture and the teaching. But they come in on both sides of some disputes. Gas. Gambling. Tobacco.”
He smirked. “Some of the chiefs thought a casino would be good because the Oneida were doing well with it and everybody had money. Some of the chiefs said, ‘No, that won’t make a better world for the unborn children.’”
He shifted to face me. “You know, I do some medicine,” he said, like it was quite an understatement. “Part of where the trouble comes in . . . people on both sides of a matter come to me and ask me if I can do some work for them. It disappoints them when I tell them I can’t. I make my mind up based on what will be the best for the unborn children. It’s just a different opinion of what that will be. What will be best for the unborn children.”
He gave a little cough of a laugh. “Course it’s not something hidden for me to tell you that. That’s pretty much the job description of a chief.”
He looked at me intently. “You know, it’s not like there’s evil people on either side of these disputes. You might think of it like the enneagram. You heard of that?”
“Little rusty.”
“It’s that nine-sided problem you can look at so many ways. There ought to be many insights into the truth. It’s not always easy to tell what will be best for the unborn children.”
Bluedog
When he was a boy, Ted Williams’s family took in a pup to which he was much attached. Sunlight brought azure flecks out of its vinyl-black coat, and while people were figuring out a name they called it Bluedog, which stuck. Every day for weeks, Ted ran home from school to play with it. He was fascinated by its animal manners, its open nature toward all life, and the simple love it felt for him. One day, though, he came home to find its body still and cold on the front step. He ran in crying. His father, the healer Eleazar Williams, was waiting.
“Ted, my son,” he said. “You know that all beings have free will. We can choose what might be right for us and others, or we can choose what might be wrong. Just the way we tell you what’s good for you, we told that little dog again and again not to go down the driveway and play in the road. But he didn’t listen to us, and he ran out with the cars. Now he’s learned a lesson that’s sad for all of us. But it’s the Creator’s way. We have free will.”
“Daddy, can’t you do something for Bluedog?” Ted cried.
“Now, Ted,” the father said. “There might be something I can do for him. But this isn’t an easy decision. We shouldn’t turn back the pattern of the Creator just because we want to. We can only do what’s allowed. And some of what’s allowed isn’t the best thing.”
“Daddy, bring Bluedog back to us,” said Ted. “Daddy, I know you can.”
“I want to be sure you have thought about this,” his father said. “It’s a lesson for you, too. In the balance of things, there’s a cost for everything we do. Someday you may want to change something else the Creator has allowed, and He may already have spoken for you. I just ask you to think about it.”
“I won’t ask for anything again,” said Ted. “Just do it now.”
“If you’ve decided, I’ll give it a try,” said the father. “You have free will, too. The Creator won’t let us do anything that would tip the balance of things. Come watch with me and let’s see if that little dog has a job to do that we don’t understand right now.”
By then the whole family had gathered. Eleazar Williams went to the body of the pup, opened its jaws, tucked something small between them, and closed them gently again. He chanted over the dog’s body in Tuscarora. Now and then he looked up through the trees as if asking the sky for guidance. He stroked the soft fur under the dog’s chin and called to it as if to wake it gently. He may have done all this for half an hour.
“Now, Ted, let’s put him down real easy into that warm grass over there right where the sunlight falls. You just sit here on this step and make sure nothing bothers him while the Creator’s deciding.”
The tears had dried on Ted’s cheeks by the time the grass started to shake, and he heard a tiny cough. The green parted, and Bluedog stood, shivering. A couple of times he stopped and hacked up bits of organ and bone. Once he’d stopped coughing for good, he trembled and looked around as if he didn’t know where he was, as if he were about to run into the woods. Then he saw Ted and wagged his tail.
Though he always walked with a shimmy, Bluedog went on to a long and happy life. He had a bit of that quality the Europeans call fey, that was all. Maybe because of his short stay in the other world, Bluedog was always seeing spirits in this one. It was
