Tracks

Once again, Nanapush takes up the story of his life and Fleur’s. This chapter overlaps in time with the end of Pauline’s narrative in the previous chapter. Nanapush begins with Fleur returning to the reservation in a dress that is too small for her; he knows, as everyone does, that something is wrong, but in the beginning, no one dares to think that she is hiding a pregnancy.

Nanapush uses his persuasive skills, as Fleur’s adopted uncle, to try to sweet-talk Fleur into revealing what is wrong, but she does not tell him. Later in the fall, she visits Nanapush, and he asks her if she is in trouble. The gossips in town asserts that Fleur has her cousin Moses shop for their supplies with money stolen from dead men, and her absence confirms their gossip that she is pregnant.

However, Eli Kashpaw ruins the gossips’ fun by stepping in and courting Fleur. He comes to Nanapush for advice after he meets Fleur when following a doe he has shot in the Matchimanito woods. Nanapush has had four wives, and he is willing to share his experience with women to help Eli once he sees that he cannot dissuade Eli from pursuing Fleur.