Keeper'n Me (15 page)

“Hmmpfh.” Ma looked over at Keeper out of the corner of her eye. “Lot you know about it. When's last time you ever paid a woman any mind? Old fart.”

“Be surprised what some old guys can do,” Keeper said, grinning back across the fire.

“Promises, promises, promises,” Ma said, and we all laughed.

Keeper started a slow, steady rhythm on the drum and we all got quiet and listened. It was the kinda rhythm we use in our round dances. Round dances are the big get-together dances lotsa Indians use. You join hands and move around in a big circle, moving your feet in rhythm with the drum and kinda moving in and out from the center every now and then, coming nose to
nose with each other then moving back out. It's a lot of fun, and the songs are lighter than other kindsa singing.

We all laughed again. Keeper kept on singing and drumming away so we all got up to shuffle around the fire while he went on and on.

We all laughed and sat back down for more tea and the fried bread Ma'd made for the occasion. Jackie was the only one who hadn't danced. He just sat there staring into the fire while the rest of us had carried on. Once we'd settled in Keeper handed Gilbert's drum over to me.

“S'a good drum, Gilbert, s'a good drum,” he said. “Give it a try there, boy!”

It was the first time I'd held one and it felt light but clumsy in my hands. The beater was just a foot-long piece of clothes hanger all wrapped up with hockey tape and a big knob at the one end. I didn't know what to do with it.

“Just copy what Keeper did,” Jane said. “It's okay. Try it.”

They were all watching me now, even Jackie. I tried to remember the rhythm I'd gotten used to at Keeper's in the mornings and then tried to tap it out on the drum. Lightly at first, then a little stronger and stronger. It sounded okay to me, but when I started to sing one of the songs I heard Keeper singing in the mornings I lost the rhythm. The beat got all scattered and the song fell apart on its own.

Jackie stood up and just kinda stared at me. “Real Indyuns got a feel for the drum. Got that rhythm right here!” he said, thumping his chest real hard. “Shouldn't be bangin' that city crap on no hand drum! All of you should quit encouraging him. Tryin' to dance, tryin' to speak the language, tryin' to drum an' sing. He ain't no Indyun. Got more white an' black in him than he does us. Gotta be able to see that. I sure do!” He stalked off into the darkness.

No one said a word, just stared at the empty space in the darkness he disappeared into. I handed the drum back to Gilbert. I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I stared into the fire. My ma put her arm around my shoulders and when I looked up I could see Keeper watching me from across that fire, his eyes glowing from the reflection and tears as he nodded his head slowly, slowly.

“I don't know, man,” Stanley was saying a few days later while we were walking through the bush. “Jackie's always been a little more intense than the resta us, even when
we were kids. Maybe things just hit him more than the resta us.”

Me'n Stanley spend a lot time wandering through the bush together. Even now. He just stops by Ma's and we head off without even saying anything to each other or Ma about where we're going or what we're gonna do. It's one of those unspoken brother things that kinda grew up on its own soon after I was home. Stanley takes a lotta pride in the fact that he got through social work school, got a degree and came right back home. He says lot more people gotta do that on accounta it's the only way our reserves and communities are really gonna benefit from the outside world. Him he calls it stealing horses.

“They always used to call us Indians horse thieves way back when, might as well be that now,” he'd always say in that social worker kinda educated voice he uses when he's thought about something lots. “Only now we gotta steal diff'rent kinda horses, brother. We gotta steal all the whiteman's horses to make our circles strong again.”

I've learned through the years to just nod my head and listen when he gets going like this on accounta Stanley can really get on a roll and it's pretty near impossible to squeeze even a grunt in between his words when he's rolling.

“Diff'rent kinda horses. Education, technology, business, politics, communication, employment an' health care. All of 'em, we gotta steal all of 'em if we're gonna be competitive an' stay alive as people.”

One of these days my big brother's gonna find his way into politics and I just know he's gonna be doing a good job for the people. He's sure got a way with words, and I learned a whole lotta stuff about our people from just walking through the bush with him and letting him ramble on. Better than any history course and lots funnier too.

Anyway, we're walking through the bush that day and Stanley's not saying a lot. Jackie's behavior at the fire that night had everyone wondering and worrying some too. I guess outbursts like that have been a mainstay of my brother's life for as long as anyone can remember.

“He was always kinda wild inside,” Stanley said finally. “Always kinda wild. Hung out with our grampa lots when we lived on the trapline an' was the only one of us that really ever went an' stayed with our father before he died. He was really connected to the men an' when they died he took it hard both times.

“Sometimes I think the wilderness he was born in kinda stuck to him, you know. Always had that untamed thing about him. He's always gonna be a strong Indian, that Jackie. Never let anybody roll over him, not even when we were kids.

“You know, that day they came and took us away, he punched that guy right in the face when he was droppin' us off at the foster home. Just reached up an' gave him a good one right in the teeth. He was only six. Hurt his hand but I kinda think he hurt the social worker more. Once he realized we were being kidnapped he got real
mean. Come to think of it, we had our problems too when he found out I was gonna go off an' study. Didn't really settle down about it until I told him I was comin' right back here. Can't stand social workers even to this day, that Jackie.”

Something in the big brooding silence I saw coming outta Jackie made all of this easy to believe. He was a big, strong man. I seen a lotta guys that looked like that in the pen and I knew that my brother was one of the those guys you really didn't wanna cross too hard. Kinda give them their territory and let them be was the best advice. I'm no slouch when it comes to a good go, but I know my limits and teeing off with my brother wasn't within them.

“I remember comin' out to the barn one day in that foster home,” Stanley was saying. “You were already gone about three weeks an' all of us were hurtin' pretty bad about it. I'm goin' out to the barn to start chores an' I see Jackie leanin' out the hay mow window, way up on the one side lookin' out towards the road. I watched him. Pretty soon I saw him lift a rifle to his shoulder. That farmer guy always let us bigger kids use the .22 to shoot woodchucks, an' Jackie had it with him in the barn. Anyway, pretty soon I heard a car comin' an' Jackie heard it too. Was the farmer. Mr. Wright, his name was. He turns into the long lane an' Jackie's pointin' that gun at him all the way up the lane. Followed him with that gun even after he got outta the truck an' walked into the house. He never put that gun down for about a minute
after Mr. Wright went inside. After that I watched him each day after school an' ev'ry day he was up in that hay mow trackin' Mr. Wright with that .22. Ev'ry day. Never ever let him know that I saw him. Figured it was his little secret. But it was sure spooky, boy. That's how wild he was, even then. Was only seven then. He really hated the place an' he hated them for lettin' you be taken away, an' sometimes these days, little brother, I think he kinda hated himself for not bein' able to stop it. I don't know. I don't know.”

We walked through the bush that day for a few more hours, me'n Stanley. Both kinda lost in our memories of childhood, thinking about our big brother and where he might be at inside himself. Until this conversation I figured I was the only one who ever really had a hard time because of my being taken away. But from what Stanley was saying and from what I could see, there was a different kind of pain seeping outta my brother Jackie. A throbbing kinda ache in the bones. The kind heroes must get when they realize all of a sudden that they can't save everybody. The losing overshadowing the saving.

Me'n Jane were thumbing through her photo album a few weeks later. I can't believe the memory that woman's got for even the smallest details. Like she soaks up everything around her all the time and all you gotta do is give her memory a little squeeze sometime and it all drips out, every detail. She loves talking about it all too and her eyes get that big shiny look you see in the eyes
of kids on Christmas or birthdays. I like seeing her like that and even now I'll ask about something just to see her light up again. A walking, talking Raven encyclopedia, that one.

We're going through the pages and she's introducing me to people I haven't met yet when we come to a bunch of pictures of her'n Jackie and big bunches of other people in different places. Everybody's got long hair and wearing red bandanas or red armbands in each picture.

“You guys had a club goin'?” I asked.

She smiled at me the way she still does sometimes when I ask about things that she figures I oughta have known about.

“Yeah. Yeah, bro'. It was a club, all right. A war club was what it was. Ever hearda aim?”

“Yeah. It's a toothpaste takes the danger outta getting close!”

She likes it when I'm being funny or jiving around to my music at Ma's. She says that's when she feels like she's around the little kid got taken away from her. Kinda like living the childhood we never had together. Funny lady, that Jane sometimes.

“No, this aim was no toothpaste. Stands for the American Indian Movement. Me'n Jackie got involved with 'em back in the early seventies.
AIM
was a really strong Indian organization. Tried to change the way government an' even our own people were dealin' with our problems. Lotsa young people got into it. Lotta angry young people. Me'n Jackie fit right in, 'specially him.

“Around here we got into this thing called the Ojibway Warriors Society, which was tied right up with what aim was tryin' to do. We didn't figure our leadership was doin' much in the way of stoppin' our land bein' taken away. Didn't figure they were doin' much about anythin' really. We figured us young people had more power an' more answers, so we got together an' started pushin'.

“Lotta us didn't take no shit from anybody. Real strong in our Indian beliefs. The Ojibway Warriors an' aim were our way of sayin' we wanted the best for our people. Wanted the treaties honored, promises kept, wanted a future. Jackie got to be a real leader. Ev'rybody listened when he spoke an' he spoke good. Real hardline. You know, you seen it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Seen it. But I still don't know why he's pissed at me.”

She took my hands in hers and looked at me in that soft sister way she has. “It's not you he's mad at, Garnet. You're just an innocent bystander really. Jackie's a lot like our dad.”

“How so?”

“Well, they did spend some time together before he died. Jackie'd go an' sleep over at Dad's cabin and they'd talk an' stuff. Not lots but a few times. He knew more about our pa than anybody and he's like him lots. Dad'd take him out on the trapline when he was just small on accounta Jackie learned things real fast and could do things that most kids can't do till they're maybe thirteen,
fourteen. Him'n the bush are pretty tied up together. Just like Pa.

“Our dad was real strong on the fam'ly. That's why what happened hurt him so much. Fam'ly an' keepin' it together was all that mattered. He'da fought anythin' that threatened it. Bear, wolverine, anythin'. But the system was somethin' he didn't understand an' when you can't understand somethin' you don't know how to fight it. Dad figured he lost. Figured he was weak. He died thinkin' that. Jackie inherited that fam'ly waya thinkin' from him an' he was always angry at what happened to us. Turned into a big broodin' angry wounded bear kinda guy just like our dad was in the end. Gotta lotta the bear in him, that Jackie. Gotta lotta the bear in him.”

“So what's this gotta do with me? Why won't he talk to me? And why the hell does he seem so pissed at me?”

“AIM
was Jackie's way of gettin' back. He didn't know how to fight the system either, an' when the Ojibway Warriors an'
AIM
came along he found his way of fightin' it. Not only fightin' it but gettin' back at it. Also found a way of gettin' all that anger out.

“Spent a lotta time with the traditional elders we got to lead our actions. Us young people back then really saw the strength in the old ways an' we didn't do nothin' without consultin' the elders, smokin' the pipe, doin' sweats an' prayin'. Used the slogan”In the spirit of Crazy Horse “on accounta that's exactly how Crazy Horse prepared himself for battle. Traditional way. Prayer. Pray
for the enemy as well as yourself. Pray for the people. Jackie was one of the most eager.

“In '74 the government was tryin' to take away a big chunka land belonged to one of the reserves outside Kenora. Turned it into a park an' called it Anishanabe Park like that was enough to keep us happy. Makin' money offa that park but never gave no money to the people. So we went in there an' took it over one summer. Took it over an' demanded that they honor the treaty that said it was Indian land. We had guns an' lotsa support from
AIM
after a while. Had the
OPP
, the army an' even had some
FBI
wanderin' around once it all got into full swing.