Keeper'n Me (17 page)

He nailed the top right corner with a shot I just barely saw. I picked the puck up outta the net and passed it back while I retrieved mine from the corner. He nailed the top left with another sizzler and then just stood there smiling at me.

“That's how it's done, son. That's how it's done.”

We started firing away at the net and pretty soon we were both retrieving pucks and passing them around. We started skating around more and making passes between us. It got faster'n faster the more we warmed up and pretty soon we were flying around that ice making two-way passing plays that ended up with a wrist shot or a big slapper from the blueline.

“Oooooo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” we'd yell. “Nice shot!”

“Great little pass,” he'd say. “Right on the tape! Didn't even think you saw me.”

“Good speed,” I'd say. “More good for a big guy.”

“Fastest bagga antlers I ever saw,” he said and whipped in to steal the puck off my stick, giving me a little elbow at the same time. “But not fast enough!”

Around here we call an elbow in the chaps like that a nudge, and I skated up to swipe the puck back an' gave him a little nudge myself before skating away. He shook
it off and turned to chase me up the ice. It had become a one-puck game pretty quick and we chased each other around and around, getting faster'n faster, neither one of us wanting to slow up or show the other we couldn't take it. It went on like that for what seemed like hours, both of us trying to outdo the other.

Finally, just as I was making my famous loop-de-loop at the blueline, he reached out and bear-hugged me to the ice. The force made us slide into the corner with our arms wrapped around each other, sticks sprawled at the blueline and the puck forgotten. We were laughing real hard and almost choking from lack of breathing. We lay on the ice for a long time like that, laughing and getting our wind back slowly. Pretty soon we started to notice that we were still bear-hugging each other and there got be a kinda embarrassed feeling but we never let go.

“I missed you, man,” Jackie said, laying his forehead on my shoulder. “All them years? I missed you.

“I remember when you were small. Little guy just learnin' to run around. Had my gumboots on one day, runnin' around in them. No clothes on an' them gumboots were way too big for you, kept runnin' right outta them. But you kept on puttin' 'em back on an' runnin' around some more, just laughing and laughing. I remember. That's where I started calling you little bagga antlers on accounta you were such a bony little kid.

“You used to come over in the middle of the night an' crawl in with me. I remember how you used to fall asleep holdin' on real tight to my hair. Wouldn't go to
sleep unless I let you do that. Slept with me lots back them. 'Member?”

“No,” I said, feeling kinda trembly inside all of a sudden, “I don't remember any of that, man.”

“Well I do, man, I do. “Tears were coming down his face. “I wanted to shoot these motherfuckers when they took you away! Wanted to shoot all of 'em. Wasn't a year went by for a long time I didn't think about you, man, where you were, what you were doin', what you looked like. Not one year. Then I guess I gave up. Just gave up and tried to forget you. Was easier that way. Pretended I never had no baby brother. Pretended I didn't have a lotta things.”

“You got a brother, man. I ain't no baby no more but I'm your brother. I just can't understand why you act like you don't want me around, why you don't talk to me.” I could feel the melting ice seeping through my jeans, but I didn't want to let go either.

“Don't know how, I guess. I spent all my life hatin' them motherfuckers. Hatin' them for takin' you away, hatin' them for killin' my father, hatin' them for makin' our people suffer, for lyin' to us, makin' promises they never fill, for keepin' us down, for all the kids that die ev'ry year on accounta they can't get what they need to live, ev'ry one of our people that drink themselves to death, ev'ry beaten-up wife, ev'ry welfare cheque, and hatin' every damn social worker, cop, shrink, politician, judge, doctor making money off our people's suffering. Hated them for all of it, man, all of it. After a while I just hated anything havin' to do with white.

“Then you show up here, all white, black, anything but Indyun, and I found myself hatin' you. Hatin' you, man! Knowin' that it ain't your fault on accounta they kidnapped you and you didn't have no choice. Kidnapped you and turned you into that thing that crawled outta that cab that day. Knowing all of that but hatin' you anyway on accounta you're walking around here tryin' to be some kinda instant Indyun. Knowin' you're just trying to get back but hatin' you because of the whiteness I can see all over you. My own brother! My baby brother I used to sleep with an' hold onto when he was a little guy! Hatin' you for the white that ain't your fault. An' I'm afraid, man! Afraid that if I talk to you or spend a lotta time with you then that hate'll spill over onto to you and you'll go away again an' I'll never see you. And I'm afraid that if I don't you'll go away anyway. That's why, man, that's why.”

We were both sobbing away now lying there on that ice. Two grown men, water seeping through their jeans, breath coming out in clouds and still not wanting to move away. It didn't matter right then if anyone walked by and seen us there. Didn't matter that it was cold and we were gonna catch a real good fever before too long. All that mattered was that big, warm bear hug that neither of us wanted to break and the tears. Took me a while before I noticed I was holding his long ponytail with one hand.

“Keeper's teachin' you good, isn't he?” Jackie asked after a long while as we untangled ourselves from each other. “Learnin' lots, eh?”

“Hey-yuh,” I said. “Learnin' to see things lot different than when I got here, that's for sure, man.”

“Musta been hard, comin' back here. Hard to believe after all them years, eh?”

“Yeah. I never figgered on bein' no Indian, man. I was kinda happy being black. But not as happy as right now.”

He smiled at me and I could see different light in there. “You listen to what he tells you. He knows good things. Got 'em from our grampa, you know. You'll be drummin' an' singin' right after a while. Sorry about that shit back then, man. I was screwed up.”

“It's okay, it's okay. I understand.” I told him how all these years I hated the motherfuckers too a lot of the time only I was always too scared to do anything about it. “Most of the time I didn't even know I was angry. Too lost, really. And I know I got lots to learn, but I don't feel so lost anymore. I feel I really
am
home. For the first time ever. But I need your help too, brother, on accounta you're a big part of who I am.”

He looked up at the sky. “Guess I need your help too, man. Maybe helpin' to wash that white offa you gonna help me understand
them
a little more. Never really tried that.

“Hey.” He slapped me on the back. “Let's go to Ma's and get warm and dry. She'll like that.”

“Won't get an argument from me, man.”

“Last one there's gotta chop wood for the other for a week!” He scrambled for the boards to get out of his skates.

“Sure as hell ain't gonna be me, pal!” I said and started to scramble too.

We got out of our gear in record time that day and ran through that ankle-deep snow all the way down that dirt road through the townsite with people grinning out their windows and waving to us as we laughed and ran and tackled each other to the ground. Stanley'n Jane were standing out on his porch when we roiled by and we could see them smiling away and nodding their heads slowly up and down. By the time we got to Ma's we were covered in snow.

We were kicking the snow off our boots and getting ready to go inside, when Jackie looked at me for a long moment.

“You know, I had them walls up pretty good. Took a lot of guts to get out there to play shinny.”

“It's a bear thing really,” I said with a little grin. “It's a bear thing.”

The Raven family really came together after that. Ma's became the gathering place and pretty much every night of the week there was a big fire going out back right through that first winter. The White Dog Flyers became the best native hockey team in the area and we won our fair share of tournaments with the big line of Garnet, Jackie and Gilbert Raven the scourge of the league. Had Stanley'n my uncle Joe on the blueline with us, and in a way, playing hockey as a unit really helped us men come together as family too. Jackie gave me a
White Dog Flyers jersey with the name Bagga Antlers on the back instead of Raven and I've been wearing that thing every year since then. Keeper kinda became a combination assistant coach and mascot and Jane became our main cheerleader. We played a lotta games, and by the time spring started to break through we'd melted away a lot of those lost years.

Those nights are just like the nights we share now, the six of us sitting around my ma's living room with a good fire blazing in that pot-bellied stove, each with our cup of tea. Keeper'n me got our feet propped up on the pipe coming out the back, Stanley's reading something or other, Jackie's cleaning a rifle while Ma'n Jane are playing checkers or working up moccasins or something. Sometime around nine or so there'll be a knock on the door and a whole flock of Ravens will fly in. More tea'll be made and we'll all head out to stand around the fire. Uncle Joe'll start sawing on his fiddle and Ma'll have me up there trying to get through the “Red River Jig” while the rest are grabbing their bellies in laughter. Nights haven't changed much since that first winter, really. Those nights were real family nights and they huddle up in my memory the same way, not much difference between any of them.

What sticks with me most and what still gets me through the rough times these days is Keeper'n me one morning in February, standing in knee-deep snow watching that first light breaking over the horizon. It was a deep, deep February cold and the air was hardly moving
at all. We could hear the trees snapping like they do when it gets real cold and every little motion of our clothing seemed amplified in that still morning air. There's real magic at that time of day. When the light starts creeping in and the world gets all purple around you and the air's as still as it was that day, it's like everything's vibrating with energy. Like it all has to work real hard just to hold itself together instead of erupting in a big celebration. It's a strong sense of magic. And when the colors start to break, all the pinks and blues and gold and orange and all them other colors they have no name for in English, well, it's like you can hear them sizzle deep inside you and you start to feel a part of yourself start to sizzle too. Something deep, deep inside that takes mornings like that and opening yourself up to them to get to and feel.

“Feel that?” Keeper asked real soft that morning as we stood in that snow and watched that day break open.

“Yeah,” I said, real quiet too. “Yeah, what is that?”

“S'Beedahbun,” he said. “S'Beedahbun.”

“First light?”

“Life,” he said, very soft now and respectful. “Life. That's what you feel. Beedahbun's life. When that light breaks on that horizon, you stand here, be part of it, you feel life comin' back. All around you, life comin' back. Rides in on that light. Whole universe shruggin' its shoulders, wakin' up together. That's what you feel. The wakin' up inside.

“You come here. Become part of it. Walk around the rest of the day bein' part of it too. Never get lost. No
one ever got lost bein' part of somethin'. Only when they're not. Beedahbun connects you to life. Them colors become a part of you, them trees a part of you, rocks a part of you, water a part of you, animals a part of you, everything. And you … you … you're a part of all of it too. It's Beedahbun. That first light comes through your eyes, moves through you, all of you, fillin' you with light. The lighta life, all around you and part of you forever. Beedahbun.”

The drum's the heartbeat of Mother Earth. Mornin's when the boy'n me sing those old songs, we use the drum to join us up to that heartbeat. It's always there, but us humans we get too busy sometimes to listen. Wanna jump outta bed, dress like the firemen an' run out into our life. The only heartbeat we hear when we do that's the one that's goin' like crazy in our chest all day. So us, we start our days out joining up to the universal heartbeat. Makin' ourselves parta it. The reason's easy to understand. See, when we're little babies rollin' around inside our mothers all we can hear is her heartbeat. Boom-boom boom-boom all around us when we're in there. Nothin' like a noisy womb-mate, I always say. Heh, heh, heh. Sorry. Was there, had to use it, you know?

Anyways, when I was meanin' to say was that we hear that heartbeat goin' on all around us in the darkness. Boom-boom. Boom-boom. It's all we can hear. We're floatin' around an' we feel all warm an' safe an' that heartbeat drumming away in the background makes us feel even more safe an' protected. Reason we cry when we get sent out into the world's on accounta that sound gets cut off and we get scared. All we hear's the world then, all noisy'n loud. Scary soundin' when you're used to the dark an' that boom-boom all the time. The more we hang around in the world the more we forget the sound of that heartbeat an' how we felt when we could hear it all around us. Get kinda used to the sound of things out here. Sometimes we hear the birds or water or somethin' nice around us an' it makes us feel good. Peaceful. Quiet inside, on accounta we all move through our lives with the echo of that heartbeat inside us an' them nice things remind us of it. Come close sometimes but not really. Our ears forget what that heartbeat sounds like, but our insides never forget. Them nice things ring awful close to it on accounta it's the heartbeat of Mother Earth we feel around us
.