Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
1917–1957
Anthologies share a secret held as close to the vest as a royal flush. In a treasured splay of stories and poems, the first part ofAnd Here gives us tantalizing glimpses of that ancient mystery.
"Now Great-Lynx" thrums so deeply in our chests we swear it's the hard beat of knucklebones cast in a game of chance. The Great-Lynx lives as something in dire need of killing, and, after the storyteller teaches us a few facts about that truth, we notice how the story ends. That is all. But, as soon as those three words are out of the storyteller's mouth, we're quite sure he winks at us. Did you notice? Before we can give his wink much thought, Sarett talks to us about graves. "Copper bones tossed in a hole." Death surely stands as the ultimate end.
Then that wily Hemingway thrusts us into the small town of Hortons Bay. And here, five houses live and breathe. Five-card draw. He leaves Jim asleep on the dock — story over — but as we learn in his poems that follow, Hemingway isn't always so good with a poker face. "They must have ended somewhere." Ha! Hear his doubt?
Walker's Fireweed brings us to 1934, and here she tells us about the end of things, especially the end of trees and of iron ore. Now that's a poker face. In Loon Feather, Fuller takes up the same theme, but she adds a sly contradiction. "For the wash of the waves on the pebbles is something that ... will always be." Then Niedecker, 1950, reminds us "we can always play."
And finally here, we understand a secret that trumps all others, whispered to us by the glorious amalgam we call the anthology. No story well told ever ends. That is all.
— Sue Harrison
1918
The Blue Duck: A Chippewa Medicine Dance (excerpt)
Lew R. Sarett
Faster and louder
Hi'! Hi! Hi'! Hi! Hi'! Hi! Hi'! Hi!
Hi-yee! Hi-yee! His heart is plenty good, plenty good!
Hi-yee! Hi-yee! Hi-yee! His heart is good!
My heart like his is good!
Ugh! My tongue is straight!
Ho!
Ho!
1919
Now GreatLynx
William Jones
Long ago people often used to see something in places, especially where the current was swift. The people feared it; and that was the reason of their practice of sometimes throwing offerings to it into the water, even tobacco. Now, once yonder, at what is called Shallow-Water, was where some women were once passing by in a canoe. Accordingly there happened to rise a mighty current of water, nearly were they capsized; exceedingly frightened were they. While they were paddling with all their might, they saw the tail of a Great-Lynx come up out of the water; all flung themselves up into the forward end of the canoe in their fright. Now, one of the women that was there saw that the canoe was going to sink; accordingly, when she had gone to the stern, she raised the paddle in order to strike the tail of Great-Lynx. And this she said: "While I was young, often did I fast. It was then that the Thunderers gave me their war-club." Thereupon, when she struck the tail of Great-Lynx, she then broke the tail of Great-Lynx in two. Thereupon up to the surface rose the canoe, after which they then started on their way paddling; and so they were saved.
Now, one of the women was seized by Great-Lynx. Therefore she it was who had told at home that Great-Lynx was continually harassing the people. And though the master of the Great-Lynxes would always speak to his son, saying, "Do not plague the people," yet he would never listen to his father.
Once, yonder at the Sault, together in a body were the people living. Once against a certain wigwam was leaned a child bound to a cradle-board; and then the child was missed from that place. They saw the sign of the cradleboard where it had been dragged along in the sand. Thereupon they heard the voice of the child crying beneath a rugged hill. Even though the people made offerings in the hope that Great-Lynx might set the child free, even though for a long while they besought him with prayers, yet he would not let it go. So at length the people said that therefore they might as well slay Great-Lynx. Accordingly they began digging straight for the place from whence the sound of the child could be heard. And after a while they had a hole dug to the den of Great-Lynx. They saw water coming in and out (like the tide). It was true that even then they spoke kindly to Great-Lynx, yet he would not let the child go. Still yet they could hear the voice (of the child) crying. Accordingly they said: "Therefore let us dig to where he is, that we may kill him."
Truly they dug after him, following him up. By and by out came the cradle-board floating on the water, together with the child that was bound to it. And when they caught hold of the cradle-board, they observed that the child had a hole crushed into its head; Great-Lynx must have slain it. Thereupon they followed him up, digging after him; and one man that was famed for his strength said that he would kill Great-Lynx. When drawing upon him, as they dug after him, round towards them turned Great-Lynx. Thereupon him struck he who said that he would kill (Great-Lynx). Sure enough, he slew him.
And when they pulled him out, they saw that his tail was cut off. That was the one that had been struck at Shallow-Water; by a woman with an oar had he been struck.
That was what happened. Only not long ago was seen the place where the people had once dug the hole; (it is) over toward the Big-Knife country, over by the Sault.
That is all.
1919
Beat Against Me No Longer
Lew R. Sarett/Lone Caribou
A Chippewa Love Song
Ai-yee! my Yellow-Bird-Woman,
Be as the young silver birch In the Moon-of-the-Green-Growing-Grasses —
1920
The Electric Giant
William Paris Potter
A mighty giant cleft the air O'er chasms broad and dark and deep;
1921
The Box of God (excerpt)
Lew R. Sarett/Lone Caribou
III: TALKING WATERS
Of eagle whose whistling wings have known the lift Of high mysterious hands, and the wild sweet music Of big winds among the ultimate stars,
1921
Up in Michigan
Ernest Hemingway
Jim Gilmore came to Hortons Bay from Canada. He bought the blacksmith shop from old man Horton. Jim was short and dark with big mustaches and big hands. He was a good horseshoer and did not look much like a blacksmith even with his leather apron on. He lived upstairs above the blacksmith shop and took his meals at A.J. Smith's.
Liz Coates worked for Smith's. Mrs. Smith, who was a very large clean woman, said Liz Coates was the neatest girl she'd ever seen. Liz had good legs and always wore clean gingham aprons and Jim noticed that her hair was always neat behind. He liked her face because it was so jolly but he never thought about her.
Liz liked Jim very much. She liked the way he walked over from the shop and often went to the kitchen door to watch for him to start down the road. She liked it about his mustache. She liked it about how white his teeth were when he smiled. She liked it very much that he didn't look like a blacksmith. She liked it how much A.J. Smith and Mrs. Smith liked Jim. One day she found that she liked it the way the hair was black on his arms and how white they were above the tanned line when he washed up in the washbasin outside the house. Liking that made her feel funny.
Hortons Bay, the town, was only five houses on the main road between Boyne City and Charlevoix. There was the general store and post office with a high false front and maybe a wagon hitched out in front, Smith's house, Stroud's house, Fox's house, Horton's house and Van Hoosen's house. The houses were in a big grove of elm trees and the road was very sandy. There was farming country and timber each way up the road. Up the road a ways was the Methodist church and down the road the other direction was the township school. The blacksmith shop was painted red and faced the school.
A steep sandy road ran down the hill to the bay through the timber. From Smith's back door you could look out across the woods that ran down to the lake and across the bay. It was very beautiful in the spring and summer, the sky blue and bright and usually whitecaps on the lake beyond the point from the breeze blowing in from Charlevoix and Lake Michigan. From Smith's back door Liz could see ore barges way out in the lake going toward Boyne City. When she looked at them they didn't seem to be moving at all but if she went in and dried some more dishes and then came out again they would be out of sight beyond the point.
All the time now Liz was thinking about Jim Gilmore. He didn't seem to notice her much. He talked about the shop to A.J. Smith and about the Republican Party and about James G. Blaine. In the evenings he read The Toledo Blade and the Grand Rapids paper by the lamp in the front room or went out spearing fish in the bay with a jacklight with A.J. Smith. In the fall he and Smith and Charley Wyman took a wagon and tent, grubs, axes, their rifles and two dogs and went on a trip to the pine plains beyond Vanderbilt deer hunting. Liz and Mrs. Smith were cooking for four days for them before they started. Liz wanted to make something special for Jim to take but she didn't finally because she was afraid to ask Mrs. Smith for the eggs and flour and afraid if she bought them Mrs. Smith would catch her cooking. It would have been all right with Mrs. Smith but Liz was afraid.
All the time Jim was gone on the deer hunting trip Liz thought about him. It was awful while he was gone. She couldn't sleep well from thinking about him but she discovered it was fun to think about him too. If she let herself go it was better. The night before they were to come back she didn't sleep at all, that is she didn't think she slept because it was all mixed up in a dream about not sleeping and really not sleeping. When she saw the wagon coming down the road she felt weak and sick sort of inside. She couldn't wait till she saw Jim and it seemed as though everything would be all right when he came. The wagon stopped outside under the big elm and Mrs. Smith and Liz went out. All the men had beards and there were three deer in the back of the wagon, their thin legs sticking stiff over the edge of the wagon box. Mrs. Smith kissed Alonzo and he hugged her. Jim said "Hello, Liz," and grinned. Liz hadn't known just what would happen when Jim got back but she was sure it would be something. Nothing had happened. The men were just home, that was all. Jim pulled the burlap sacks off the deer and Liz looked at them. One was a big buck. It was stiff and hard to lift out of the wagon.
"Did you shoot it, Jim?" Liz asked.
"Yeah. Ain't it a beauty?" Jim got it onto his back to carry it to the smokehouse.
That night Charley Wyman stayed to supper at Smith's. It was too late to get back to Charlevoix. The men washed up and waited in the front room for supper.
"Ain't there something left in that crock, Jimmy?" A.J. Smith asked, and Jim went out to the wagon in the barn and fetched in the jug of whiskey the men had taken hunting with them. It was a four-gallon jug and there was quite a little slopped back and forth in the bottom. Jim took a long pull on his way back to the house. It was hard to lift such a big jug up to drink out of it. Some of the whiskey ran down on his shirt front. The two men smiled when Jim came in with the jug. A.J. Smith sent for glasses and Liz brought them. A.J. poured out three big shots.
"Well, here's looking at you, A.J.," said Charley Wyman.
"That damn big buck Jimmy," said A.J.
"Here's all the ones we missed, A.J.," said Jim, and downed his liquor.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "And Here"
by .
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