The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Read online

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  LITTLE NO HORSE

  1996

  A gentle morning. Lucid, calm, the sky a sweet wash of virgin’s cloak blue and a sparkling freshness of temperature. A visitor knocked loud and hard on Father Damien’s door, but there was no answer because wild floods raged in Father Damien’s sleeping head. Trees cracked over in his dreams. Walls crumbled into the river. Stones. The visitor, a priest, grew discouraged and left, but returned in the early afternoon to find Damien sitting just outside the door on his tiny patio, snoring mildly in the unusually warm slant rays of sun. Although the visiting priest drew a chair up noisily and sat, creaking and shifting his weight, although he coughed and even muttered aloud, Father Damien did not stir. The visitor was forced either to disturb the ancient one or to wait with uncharacteristic patience for the old priest to awaken naturally.

  The man’s vibrant red-gray hair was plastered down in stubborn tufts. Though polite, he looked from his sharp eye to have a temper and a fluent tongue. He was Jude Miller, a thickly built, shrewd and impatient priest. An athletic concentration in his stance suggested a man anticipating a tennis serve . . . that never came. At last, he folded his arms, the forearms lightly downed in coppery hair, and put one hand to his squared-off jaw. His fingers were blunt and he looked to have a powerful grip. He wore a clerical collar, a casual short-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and soft-soled court shoes. After sitting in obvious frustration, he came to a decision to use his time, somehow, if only to observe. He leaned forward in scrutiny of the old priest, who still slept in warm sunlight next to the remains of a late breakfast.

  In his age, Father Damien had developed the odd and almost alien appearance of a wrinkled but innocent child. His head still grew bits of fluff and it was large in proportion to the rest of him. His body was hunched and leathery, his lean arms and legs bent wood. Because of his tender feet, he wore soft moccasins at all times. On his off days, he shuffled to keep his balance and used two canes, one in each hand, like ski poles to anchor and guide him. Other days, he was fervently young and walked in surprisingly limber strides. When asked, he said the source of his longevity was not God but the devil, who constantly tempted him with healthy idleness. He took long walks around and around the yard, the grounds of the church, the cemetery where he greeted and sometimes reminisced with the dead—for Father Damien was more connected with them than with the living, and even sensed their changing moods.

  Father Jude Miller took in the venerable, elfin appearance of the man who slept, head thrown back in the chair, sensitive mouth slightly gaping in a frown. Other than his mouth, the old priest rested neatly, feet close together, hands clasped, head cradled by the fold of the battered easy chair.

  A great leaf-shaped pattern of clouds passed over the sun, and a breeze lifted, but the day was still unseasonably warm. Now, as though summoned from within, the still sleeping Damien leaned forward and propped his hands on his knees. His eyes drifted calmly open. They were vast and staring, and had returned to the murky blue of newborn’s eyes, so his look had a fixed, blind, amphibious clarity. He gazed straight at Father Jude. “Are you there, my Lord?” said Father Damien. “Where is the soup?” Father Jude Miller had heard of the old man’s waking confusion. Instead of pursuing any possible answer he sat in polite suspense until Father Damien’s thoughts focused. It took some time. At first, Father Damien called the younger priest closer and whispered in some anxiety that there were no stamps. He needed stamps. Foreign postage. Airmail.

  “Commemoratives, please,” said Father Damien, looking significantly at the visitor. He fumbled two letter-folded pages from his gown and thrust them at Father Miller, who read in some bewilderment.

  Most Estimable Pontiff,

  Having revealed to you the specifics of my story, it is my profound hope that you will take into consideration my motives in assuming the identity of your drowned and wretched servant Modeste. I can only think how heavily my unusual act must weigh upon your sense of the right and proper order of your servants’ vocations. However, should you be indisposed to mercy, may I request that you take into consideration the seven principal goods I have accomplished on this most lonely of God’s outposts?

  Number one: I have vanquished the devil, who has come to me in the form of a black dog.

  I have also contained, discharged, influenced, and negated the dangerous pieties of a nun of questionable allegiance (this requires a separate letter).

  Two: I have caused there to be cleanly disposal of wastes that threatened the health of our parish. I have made improvements in the style, location, and comfort of the venerable institution known as the outhouse.

  Three: I have introduced the wholesome peanut to the diet of the indigenes.

  Four: I have willingly exchanged my prospects for eternal joy in return for the salvation of the soul of one of the more troublesome of my charges (who loves me but who doesn’t in the least appreciate my sacrifice).

  Five: In resolving a specific injustice levied by the ignorance of government officials, I have assisted in attempting to add twelve townships to the tribal land base.

  Six: Although my mind is a tissue of holes, I have learned something of the formidable language of my people, and translated catechism as well as specific teachings. I have also rendered into English certain points of their own philosophy that illuminate the precious being of the Holy Ghost.

  Seven: I have discovered an unlikely truth that may interest Your Holiness. The ordinary as well as esoteric forms of worship engaged in by the Ojibwe are sound, even compatible with the teachings of Christ.

  Lastly, this. May I ask if you would be so specifically kind as to answer this letter!

  I remain, a hopeful penitent,

  Yours in the Lamb.

  Father Damien Modeste

  As though suddenly realizing he had broken some taboo, the old priest snatched the letter from Jude Miller’s hands.

  “Who are you?”

  Trying to regain his balance, Father Jude introduced himself.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, with self-deprecating amusement, “I am sent here by the Vatican.”

  There was an eerie sweep of wind through the trees. Then silence. The old priest took this news like an electric blow and went rigid in his chair. The current of the statement so held him that Father Jude became concerned, at last, that the old priest’s heart had seized. Just as he was reaching forward to take his pulse, Father Damien sagged forward onto his knees. Arms outstretched, he tried to speak but could not, although an odd sound caught in his throat, eft, eft. His head nodded back and forth, slowly, unbelievingly. An expression of wordless wonder gradually fixed itself onto his features and then joy welled in Father Damien’s eyes, spilled over, sank down his cheeks.

  A good long while passed before Father Jude Miller dared address the old priest again, for the palpitations of the old man’s frail heart caused a dizzy sweat and then his lungs, brittle with age, shuddered in his chest like rawhide sacks and refused to inflate properly. But, although when he tried to speak, Father Damien’s skin mottled and his lips went cyotic blue, he managed to welcome the visitor he believed had come straight from the Pope. He even managed to address him in Italian phrases he had memorized for the occasion. All of this alarmed Jude, but just as he was about to rush for the phone to summon an ambulance from the reservation hospital, Father Damien emitted a huge dragging cough. Loud as a death rattle, it had the effect of clearing his chest and restoring his oxygen so that he suddenly snapped back to consciousness.

  “Ah, bene, bene,” he declared, gazing happily at Father Jude. “And when does the inquiry into the life of Leopolda begin?”

  Father Jude, whose mission it was to impart the news of the inquiry, a most highly secret undertaking entrusted to him by eminent Catholic authorities, was taken aback. The route to sainthood was exhaustive and the proceedings highly confidential. Not only was he having trouble adjusting to Father Damien’s instant recovery, but the old priest behaved as thoug
h he knew in advance his visitor’s commission. In a way, this was irritating. Never before had Father Jude’s assistance been required by Church authority at such exalted levels, never before had he imagined, even, the type of trust that was abruptly bestowed on him by reason of his lifelong proximity to the people and places now in question. What was for him an awesome and unexpected undertaking, however, seemed for Father Damien entirely expected.

  “A lay Catholic, a professor of sorts, has introduced the subject. She has written a great deal on Sister Leopolda but from, you understand, an academic standpoint. We are looking now for firsthand and thoroughly witnessed fact.”

  Father Damien took this information to himself with prideful glee. Father Jude was nonplussed at such enthusiasm.

  “And who will form the council, do you think?” Father Damien now inquired in the bright tones of a younger man. As though he was still involved in the machinery of the Church, he began to speculate aloud. Some of those whom the old priest named were dead or married. Still, he was not so entirely out of touch as his feeble appearance would excuse. The old one named several eminent scholars, Jesuits who were known as investigators, and he inquired shrewdly after the opinions of Bishops Retzlaff and Kelly, Archbishop Day, and the status of any petitions or people’s acclamations. In addition, he asked whether proofs had yet been furnished of Leopolda’s intercessions and gave his opinion that the most delicate points would rest upon the singular question of her mode of existence.

  “By which you mean . . .” Father Jude gazed into the fairy-pale face, the white hair spread in a flossy halo, the great uncanny eyes.

  “Her daily example.” Father Damien raised one finger in the air. “Did she lead an exemplary existence? Was she fair, was she honest? Did she give up her foodstuffs, her blankets, her comforts to the poor? Did she have any bad habits, tipple unblessed communion wine? Smoke?” Here Father Damien gave a dry cruel laugh that surprised Jude. “Had Sister Leopolda indulged herself in some area she might have sinned less forcefully in others . . . ? Yes, yes! If only she had smoked!”

  Father Damien held up two fingers in a V.

  “I don’t smoke,” said Father Jude.

  “Well then, look, neshke . . . I only have one on special occasions.”

  Early on, Ojibwe words and phrases had crept into Damien’s waking speech and now sometimes he lapsed into the tongue, especially in his frequent confusion over whom he was addressing.

  “Neshke! Daga naazh opwaagaansz!” He gestured again at a small tin box set on the tilting plastic lawn table. Father Jude opened the box, removed a cigarette from a package, lighted it for the old priest, and then sat down patiently to wait as Father Damien breathed in the rank, dry heat. As he intermittently drew quiet puffs and gazed into the fractured halos of moving branches, he spoke.

  “Now tell me”—Father Damien’s lips pursed in a calculating bud—“what would be the most, let us say, effective time to reveal what I know of this departed nun’s character?”

  Father Jude attempted a reply, but the side-to-side jolts of Father Damien’s mental processes were wearing. Father Damien disregarded the other priest, smoothed his cassock thoughtfully around his knees, adjusted his eyeglass lenses along his nose, and continued in tones of firm analysis.

  “I would like to establish myself as the crucial witness in the archive. I want to tread the quicksand of the bureaucratic process. I want to walk on hidden trails of solid ground! I have lived, I believe”—here Father Damien raised a finger to his lips, inhaled absently from the now dead cigarette—“a quiet life. I have sought no following, engaged in no behaviors, holy or otherwise, that would bring me notoriety. I have done only as I was directed by Jesus, with whom I have a personal understanding. In no way have I attempted to invoke or incite spiritual response from others based solely on features of my own personality. I have tried, in other words, to serve God invisibly.”

  Father Jude Miller held his peace with an air of vacant gravity. He believed he knew where the old priest was heading, and he did agree: the nun in question’s life had been a contrast. No retiring servant was she, Leopolda, but a fiercely masterful woman whose resounding bitterness of spirit had nonetheless resulted in acts of troubling goodness, inspirations, even miraculous involvements. Which raised the question: Were saints only saints by virtue of their influence, their following, their reputation for the marvelous, or was there room for personal failure—especially when, as evidenced by the miracles and eighteen letters so far, the results of that difficult life were so dramatically good?

  “I have here,” said Father Jude, “a copy of a crudely written letter that I will read to you in order to inform you more thoroughly on the important uncertainties we face in regard to Leopolda.”

  “By all means.”

  “ ‘Dear Bishop,’ ” read Father Jude, “ ‘I run my farming operation just west of town nearby which the place is where the nun Leopolda was hit by lightning and her ashes blown into the convent beehives produced in one $2.99 jar (large) of honey I bought from there concern the following cure of livelong piles. . . .’ ”

  Father Damien remained impassive as Jude finished out the missive.

  “And this one,” Father Jude went on, choosing from a file folder he had with him. “ ‘I am a strict atheist engaged in the practice of medicine. My specialty is cardiac surgery. My private practice, based in Fargo, North Dakota, encompasses unusual cases from the surrounding region. In February of this year I saw a young girl who suffered a severe case of an unusual virus that destroyed the membrane surrounding the heart and had begun to attack the muscle itself . . .’ ”

  “That last,” said Father Damien, lips pressed in a worried line, “fully documented?”

  “Complete.”

  “Ah then . . .” Father Damien shook his head. Consternation soured his features. “What to make of it. Medical cures!”

  “Well, the one, the first . . .” Father Jude shook his head, raised his brows.

  “I would never make light of piles,” said Father Damien, “but is there incontrovertible proof that this man suffered from hemorrhoids through the course of his life and then was cured by the honey sold by the bee-keeping nuns? The proof is marginal, at best.

  “And this ash and bee connection, what of that?” Father Damien went on. “Can you shed some light on that?”

  “What light I can.” Father Jude took a long sip of water. “According to the most lucid witness—the person who saw Leopolda in the hour before her death—Leopolda was left in the garden to pray, and of course, as we regret, struck by a bolt of lightning. Next morning, we remarked on the mysterious cross made of ash that was found in the place she’d been left—of course no one knew she was missing yet. The ash blew into the flowers. The flowers, visited by bees, were the source of the wonder-working honey, and then of course . . . the witness—”

  “Who was this witness?”

  “Sister Adelphine. She cared for most of Leopolda’s earthly needs. The night she died, Adelphine left her sitting piously in her ground-floor cell, which opened into the garden. The old nun often ventured outside, to contemplate the image of Christ as she saw it in the growing plants.”

  Jude stopped, eyeing a wan cinnamon bun left on Father Damien’s plate. He couldn’t help it. His appetite was constant, vexing.

  “Have it,” said Father Damien, wishing it were an adequate bribe.

  Father Jude reached over and delicately, with his soft, blunt fingers pinched up the bun and ate it in two bites.

  “The question, or task before us right now,” he said, chewing, “is establishing your knowledge of Sister Leopolda, your history, your”— here he sought the word—“claim. No, I don’t mean that exactly. Your authority. Your expertise. Frankly”—and here Father Jude smiled—“I don’t anticipate a problem. Everybody else . . . her contemporaries are dead.”

  “Oh really,” said Father Damien, and though he cast down his eyes in seeming respect there was a gloating satisfaction in his
frail voice that made Father Jude glance sharply at the profile of the older priest. As soon as he felt his composure slip, Father Damien recovered and assumed a righteous, blank, carefully focused clerical air. Still, Father Jude’s pale eyes remained upon him, and the gaze he maintained revealed a sharp speculative intelligence.

  “Just for the hell of it,” he said, smiling a tight smile, “or the heaven of it. I’m going to ask, I mean, in general. Was she?”

  “Was she what? What are you saying?” said Father Damien, although he knew full well.

  “Was she a saint?” asked Father Jude simply.

  There was silence after his question, in which a hush of wind trembled in the leaves. Suddenly, through that corridor of extreme quiet, there sounded a harsh cacophony. Crows with human thrill had mobbed a great owl. The bird floated eerily, like a gray thrust of wind, in and out of Father Jude’s eyeshot, chased by a wheeling tumble of black feathers. Dark laughter. Their shrieks seemed to Jude’s ears both hilarious and foul. Father Damien’s voice barely cut through the din.

  “There is your answer,” he said.

  Creamed corn and ground-beef casserole, macaroni, a dish of hot, vinegary string beans, squares of rhubarb crumble. Lunch came wrapped in foil with twin place settings. At a small table of chipped enamel, set outside beneath the wild grapevine arbor, the two sat and made appreciative sounds as a brooding and massively built woman removed the aluminum sheets, folded them for future reuse, and loomed silently over Damien.