Chapter 13: Land of the Stinky Weeds
"They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities."
- Carl Sandburg, Chicago
Chicago 1916
The statuesque human-looking goddess stood in front of the recently reopened Weegham Field, she had watched yet another victory for the local baseball team called the Chicago Cubs for they had beaten the Pittsburg Pirates by six to three with the talented Mike Pendergrass and Jimmy Lavender pitching. It was the slugger Cy Williams who had carried the day for the Chicago team, having hit in three of the runs from the Pirates' Babe Adams. With a flip of her head, she tossed back an unbound lock of her black hair while she gave her companion a smile.
"Are you sure you want to have dinner at King Joy Lo's on West Randolph Street?" the handsome young man in the dapper-looking light gray worsted wool suit asked while she slipped her hand upon his arm and allowed him to escort her out of the gates toward the crowded street. He did not know that he was escorting a goddess that afternoon but a charming and, in his eyes, and exotic copper-skinned princess of a western native tribe. Like most mortals, he was easily seduced into doing what she wanted and it was a "talent" that she had used on males for centuries. "There are plenty of newer spiffy restaurants nearby."
"I love Mandarin style cuisine and you can always get a steak," she softly replied in an amused musical tone while she paused to adjust the sleeves on her white summertime voile embroidered dress with its charming little black ribbon around the gown's neck and upon her head was a simple black large-brimmed straw hat worn at a slight tilt. "Now if we can find a hansom cab to take me back to my hotel."
"A horse-drawn cab?" the young man cheerfully scoffed. "Why not one of the new automobile cabs instead?"
"Oh, those things have no soul, unlike a horse."
"Then a horse-drawn cab it is for my Indian princess!"
Indians? She hated that word, for she had been here when the lands were still wild and the earliest humans had entered the primal forests along the great lakes which had been formed by the retreating glaciers. Generations upon generations of humans had dwelt along the shoreline, but not all were peaceful. Tribes that have been forgotten by time and conquest had come and gone, for warfare was a distasteful legacy of mankind. Then there came the first wave of a great illness sweeping northward along the trade routes from the south, a curse brought on by strangers who came from the sea wearing their silver-colored armor and riding an animal which had once roamed these lands but had died out before the coming of men…the horse. Whole villages were wiped out by the red puss and she had no cure for the plague, which one day she learned was called Small Pox.
"Genetaska, are you sure that you want a horse-drawn cab?" her now flustered companion asked when he returned. "I don't see any around here today."
Genetaska was the name she was now using and it was the name she had once used when she chose to live like a mortal among those who are now called the Iroquois, it was but one of many names the goddess was known as by those who had lived here long ago. She became renowned for her wisdom in being fair and impartial in settling disagreements but one day she fell in love with a handsome young man who was the defendant in a dispute. The Iroquois had come to the land where the city around her was built, one of many tribes of humans who came and settled down on the shores of the great lake. "Checagou" it was called by the Illini and Kickapoo who had settled here, named after the stinky wild leeks which grew along the shoreline. Then a dark-skinned foreigner came, he called himself Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and he built a trading post along the river portage, and soon others came. They finally fortified the land, calling their wooden stockade Fort Deerborn. Like all forts, it fell during one of the many wars, and its inhabitants were massacred by the local tribes but the white ones came again and it was rebuilt. Finally, more humans came and it grew into the huge modern city around her.
"Genetaska?" the young man asked again, rousing her from her memories.
"Oh my dear, I was not ignoring you but I was just thinking."
"Thinking about what?"
"Which one of those infernal smelly cabs I am going to let you force me to ride in?"
"You should know that I would never force you to do anything!" he sincerely protested even while he fervently gripped her right hand with both of his.
Oh my dear, indeed! The goddess mused. I really hope that this young fool has not fallen in love with me? It may be past time for me to move on, maybe to Saint Louis or back to Oklahoma to see how those who once worshipped me are now being forced to live? "Please, just find us one of those automobile taxi cabs, for I need to have some rest before tonight's dinner." The young man quickly ran off toward the street.
Less than an hour later, she enjoyed a warm bubble bath within her hotel suite. The luxurious rooms where she was now temporarily dwelling had been built just six years earlier and when she had arrived in the city this time, she chose the Blackstone Hotel for her stay. Despite the initial protests from some of the other guests and the staff, her darker skin classified her as a "colored person" and she should not have been able to stay in the luxury hotel, but the goddess had used her unnatural charms to win them over and soon the mortals were tripping over themselves in eagerness to make sure that she was having a comfortable stay.
"They keep rebuilding this city," a voice grumbled from the next room and a small creature entered the bathroom. Her skin had a ghastly gray pallor to her long-nosed face and she had pulled back her long stringy black hair into a ponytail which draped down onto the black quills sticking from her back. "We tried to drive them out once by setting fire to everything, but they rebuilt. They even blamed a cow for causing the fire by kicking over an oil lamp. Maybe we should try again?"
"No, I told the chief of your tribe that I will not allow the Pukwadgi to ever do so again!" the goddess snapped. "Besides, these mortals are foolish enough to burn this place down again without your interference."
"We just want the old people back because they were so much kinder to nature! These new mortals are foolish enough to build upon the marshes, they should know that doing so only brings illness and disease."
"Their doctors seemed to have figured out what caused the water sickness and they built the Sanitary and Ship Canal, reversing the flow of the river! Now the city's sewage no longer flows into the lake but southward."
"Southward to poison those along the Des Plaines River!"
"Sokw, despite your wishes, time also flows like a river into the future and neither you nor I can halt it. Changes always come and the old ones have gone to new lands in the west."
"You know that Sokw is not my real name!" the small creature grumbled. "I know that it means sour in the language of those who once dwelt around here, the tribe of humans that are now called the Fox."
"Nope, Sokw is your name today!" the goddess laughed even while she splashed some of the water at her little companion.
"Are you going to spend the evening with that man-child again?" the Pukwadgi asked in a tone that sounded frustrated.
"Yes, he makes me laugh."
"It has been too long since you have had a male companion in your life and even with the fleeting years which such a mortal can offer, you should have someone to love."
"I have you!" Genetaska laughed.
"I only tolerate you!" the small troll-like creature teased with a grin. "Now let me find you something to wear tonight."
The goddess leaned back in the tub while her small friend disappeared into the bedroom. When the door opened once again, she was surprised to see that it was not the short dark creature that stood there but a tall stately goddess in bright yellow flowing robes. "Nisaba?"
The older goddess in the doorway looked first at her and then frowned while she looked around at all the luxury. "I have been sent by Athena, she is gathering the council together and you did not respond to the message she sent to you," Nisaba finally said. "Get dressed, we leave immediately!"
"I don't want to go!" Genetaska snapped even as she lounged in the sudsy warm bath waters. "Our days of influencing the ways of mankind are long past…
"The dark book of the damned has been found and stolen," Nisaba cut off the other god's complaints. "Now get out of that bathtub and put some clothes on!"
"No!"
"Get out now!"
"No!" Even as Genetaska objected, the water around her began to get warmer, and soon it was much too hot. With a curse, she quickly stumbled out of the bathtub and slipped on the wet tiles with a grunt. The taller goddess just looked down at her in amusement before she tossed a white fluffy terrycloth towel on top of her.
"You never were fun, how dare you use magic to boil me alive!" the younger goddess pouted. "Just how are we going to get…hey, where are we going?"
"Athena said to meet her on the Green Isle."
"Greenland? That is a long way to go. We will have to take a train to the coast and then a ship across the sea. Then, assuming we don't get blown out of the water by a German submarine…"
"Not Greenland but Ireland, and we will get there much faster because we are going to fly."
"Are we going to fly in an airplane? Genetaska almost squealed with excitement while she wrapped herself in the towel. "I always wanted to fly in an airplane! I once took the Metropolitan Elevated railroad to watch Max Lillie from Saint Louis fly her airplane from Cicero Field, she and Commodore Pugh ended up crashing over in Grant Park. I think one of the struts broke, probably because the Commodore is a rather rotund mortal, they got arrested…Wait, can an airplane fly all the way across the sea to Ireland?"
"No, that is why I flew here on Pegasus," Nisaba said with a shake of her head. "Now hurry and get dressed, we have to go."
The Hidden Village - 489
With wide eyes, the black-furred wolf glanced up at the smaller red fox standing above him. He knew that fox well, for he was called Waah-i-ald and was once the god of time. He was the god who had broken all of time and reality. "I…I…I didn't mean to be lying on top of your daughter…" He fumbled out the words in unaccustomed embarrassment. "She…I…Jude got drunk and I think she passed out just after we time jumped here.?"
"The goddess of time does not get drunk!" a coyote snapped even while he threatened the wolf god with a sharp stone that had been lashed to the end of a tree branch, it was a poor attempt at making a war spear.
"It seems that my daughter has managed to do just that," a vixen said as she joined the group. "Now if you would please get off of her, I think she would be more comfortable sleeping in our hut."
Fenrisúlfr carefully untangled himself from the smaller vixen and sat up. The coyote growled and poked at him with the spear. "What are we going to do about this wolf?" he snarled. "He can lead the others to our hidden village."
"He is our guest", Waah-i-ald, replied before he kneeled down and lifted his daughter from the ground.
"But he is a wolf!" the coyote cried out and poked the wolf with his makeshift spear yet again.
With a snarl of his own, Fenrisúlfr, grabbed the spear just above the sharpened stone and twisted it, yanking it from his tormentor's paws. "If you are going to use that toy, learn how to hold it!" The wolf had twirled the spear around and threw it aside.
"Stop!" Waah-i-ald snapped. He was cradling his sleeping daughter in his firm arms. "Fenrisúlfr, come with me and the rest of you go back to bed!"
The wolf was shown to a hut and a small pallet where he could curl up and try to sleep, but he could not rest and with a yawn, he walked out of the hut and looked around the village. It was the early morning darkness, the hour before the false dawn came and all was almost quiet in the village. There was a humming coming from nearby and it was a tune he had heard before when he was a young pup and he was surprised to hear it here, so far from Ásgarðr. Andhrímnir used to hum the same tune when he prepared the meals for the gods. With his head cocked in wonder, the wolf followed the voice only to find an elderly female coyote kneading some kind of dough near a smoldering fire. "So god of the wolves, why are you not sleeping like the rest of the village?" she softly asked while she gave him an amused glance.
"I haven't slept much, not since I was bound by the Æsir," Fenrisúlfr answered. "It is hard to rest when you have a sword shoved between your jaws."
"And yet you are no longer bound," the coyote said with a shrug. "But you still cannot sleep."
"The others, those who live here in this village, why do they fear me?"
"They fear the wolves, who are trying to find a way through the brambles and into the village."
"Why do they want to do that?"
"To take slaves and anything else they can get their paws on."
"Slaves, the wolves really take slaves here?"
"Of course, they will kill all the males and take the females and children to be their slaves. It is the way of the outside world."
Fenrisúlfr stared down at the red embers remembering that Jude had already told him the same thing, but he refused to believe her. "Can they get in?" he finally asked.
"Wolves have sharp noses and sooner or later they will find the trail," the coyote's answer was fatalistic sounding.
"Not if I can help it!" he softly said. His eyes almost looked as if they glowed red with menace in the firelight.
"So how would you do that?" the older female asked while she paused from her kneading.
"Perhaps it is time for these mortals to meet their god?" Fenrisúlfr snarled while he stared at the wall of briars on the hillside. "I just wish I could get my size back."
"Maybe you can? You are a god and being one, perhaps you are much more powerful than you think. The limitations you place upon yourself are like being bound not by stout chains, but a simple cord...a thread which is not so much physical but mental."
"Are you talking about Gleipnir?" The black-furred wolf asked but there came no answer to his question. When he looked back towards the fire, he was surprised to find himself alone, for the elderly coyote was gone and it was almost as if she had never been there at all! With newly found determination, the wolf god began to find a trail through the briers and soon found one. He was long gone when the villagers awoke from their slumbers.
Weegham Field opened in 1914 but after the financial failure of the Chicago Whales baseball team of the ill-fated Federal League, it became the home field for the National League's Chicago Cubs. After the Cubs were purchased by the chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr., they renamed the baseball field Wrigley Field in 1927.
Of course anyone from the "Windy City" will tell you that the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was started when Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern. The fire devastated the city with thousands of buildings going up in flames, over 300 people were killed, and there was an estimated $200 million in damages.
The Pukwudgie or the "little wild man of the woods that vanishes," were short with grey faces, long hair, and often trollish in their appearance. It is said that they also had black quills along their back. The local tribes believed that they inhabited the wilds of the Great Lakes region and southeastern Canada. Delaware and Wampanoag folklore have many stories of their misdeeds and they are mentioned in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha.
Whereas Genetaska is a personification of an ancient goddess who lived along the shores of Lake Michigan and was called many names by the tribes who once dwelt there, Nisaba is the ancient Sumerian goddess of writing, learning, and the harvest.
Pegasus is a winged stallion of Greek myth.