Tracks

Nanapush begins narrating the story of his people with the consumption epidemic in the winter of 1912. Talking to his adopted granddaughter, Lulu, Nanapush relates the doings of the Chippewa people and specifically of Lulu’s mother, Fleur Pillager.

In the winter of 1912, Nanapush rescues 17-year-old Fleur Pillager from her family home, which contained the corpses of her entire family, and took her into his home. There was no one else who would have taken her in, and his own family, including his fourth wife and his two small children, had already died during the epidemic.

In the entire village of Argus, there is no one brave enough among the remaining families to take in a Pillager. The family is known for their wild ways and their abilities to manipulate nature to hurt others. Rumors fly about the community that the woods are haunted around the Pillager cabin.

Edgar Pukwan, an officer the tribal police have charged with burning the houses and bodies of the dead to stop the spread of the disease, so fears the sick girl that he runs away from Nanapush rather than help him get Fleur into his house. Edgar Pukwan dies, and his son, also a tribal police officer, reluctantly returns to Matchimanito to help Nanapush bury the Pillagers.

Back home, Fleur and Nanapush fall into a silent sickness, finding that they cannot leave their beds to cook, clean, or care for themselves. Only a visit by the new, young village priest, Father Darien, saves them, for they must get up to take care of a guest.

Once awakened from his depression, Nanapush cannot stop talking. Also healed after her illness, Fleur returns to her family’s cabin in Matchimanito and lives there on her own. The gossip that always surrounds the doings of the Pillagers continues to follow Fleur, as no young girl has ever before gone out to live in the woods alone. 

Another Pillager is found alive: Moses, Fleur’s cousin. However, Moses has lost his mind, and he lives on an island in the middle of the lake that borders the Pillager’s land. Many white government men, including surveyors, attempt to collect allotment money from Fleur Pillager, but they fall prey to accidents and madness, and are never able to collect any money from her. Rumors spread about Fleur’s ability to use medicine against the white men. For example, the government Agent demanding that Fleur pay for the four Pillager allotments goes mad and never returns from the woods.

Despite these events, logging continues: Nanapush states that enough loggers come back with loads of green oak lumber that he feels his own strength taken away with each tree that falls.