The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich Read Free Book Online Page A

Indian and how in lawless days this evil trapper and coward jumped his prey and was said to cut the liver from his living victim and devour that organ right before their eyes. He liked to run them down, too, over great distances.
    Father Cassidy gulped and laughed weakly. “That’s enough!” But Mooshum drank from the coffee cup and barged ahead.
    “Me, I was a young boy, not yet a man, alone on the prairie hunting for some scrap to eat. Turned out of my family, eh? Away across in the distances I see a someone running, a hairy and desperate man. But me, I have no fear of anything.”
    Shamengwa glanced at us, tapped his head, and winked.
    “I kept to my own pace, as I was searching for something to eat. A rabbit, maybe, a grouse, even a rattlesnake would have set me up good. I myself was very hungry.”
    “Boys get hungry,” said Shamengwa.
    “I glance around in hopes that maybe this stranger has some food to spare. He’s coming at me, still running. He’s covered with ragged skins and he has a scrawly beard and that beard, eh? I suddenly see, when he gets close enough, how that beard is all crusted with old blood. And I know it’s him.”
    “Liver Eater,” said Shamengwa.
    “I see that light in his eyes. He’s very hungry, too! And I begin to spring, I’ll tell you, I take off like a rabbit, quick. I’ve got speed, but I know Liver Eater’s got endurance. He’ll outrun me if we go all day, he’ll exhaust me. And sure enough, the minute I slow my pace, he’s on me. I speed up. It’s cat and mouse, lynx and rabbit. Then he puts a burst on and he jumps me!”
    Father Cassidy looked aghast, forgot to drink. Mooshum slowly touched what was left of his ear.
    “Yes, he got that. His teeth were sharp. But he must have lost his hunting knife, for he did not stab me. I struggled out of his grip.” Mooshum struggled out of his own arms, burst free of his own clutching hands. “I hopped out, running once again, just ahead of him, but as I charge along, blood from my ear flying in the wind, I get to thinking. Riel, if he’d won there would be some justice! This devil would not dare to chase an Indian. Hey, I think, I’m hungry too! Let’s give Liver Eater some of his own medicine, anyway. I’ve got sharp teeth. So I stop, quick.”
    Mooshum jolted in his chair.
    “The hairy white man flips over me, and as he does, I bite off one of his fingers.”
    “Which one?” said Shamengwa.
    “I just got the pinkie,” said Mooshum. “But now he’s foaming mad, so I let him come at me again. This time, I strike like a weasel. Snap, a thumb comes off!”
    “Did you eat it?” said Joseph.
    “I had to swallow it down whole, no chewing. It tasted foul,” said Mooshum. “I needed it for strength, my boy. We blasted out again. The next time I slowed he went for my liver—but only ripped a chunk out of my left cheek here.” Mooshum pointed at the baggy seat of hispants. “I tore a bite from his hindquarters, too, and wrestled him down and got a piece of thigh, next. I kept after him. I was young. We must of ran for twenty, thirty miles! And over those miles I whittled him down.”
    “Howah!” cried Shamengwa.
    “By the time he dropped from blood loss, he was down six fingers. I got one of his ears, the whole thing. I took a couple of his toes just to slow him down. Those, I spit right out. And I got his nose.”
    “Yuck,” I said.
    “It’s my lucky piece,” said Mooshum. “Want to see it, Father?”
    “No, I do not!”
    But Mooshum had already drawn his handkerchief from his pocket, and with an air of reverence he unwrapped it to show a blackened piece of leatherlike gunk.
    “A bit of Thamnophis radix ,” said Joseph, peering at it over Mooshum’s shoulder. “Why’d you keep it?”
    “It’s his love charm,” Shamengwa said.
    “That is…positively pagan!” Father Cassidy spluttered the words out and Mooshum’s eye lighted.
    “In what way, dear priest?” he asked with an air of curious