My Name Is Not Easy (23 page)

Th

e trick is to always be two moves ahead of your opponent.

Th

at’s what Father Mullen says, punching at his shadow.

Th

at’s why when Sister Mary Kate said I had to show them how to cut a moose, I never said I don’t know how. Guess they think us boys up North are born with knives in our hands.

Guess it’s okay to let them think that.

Th

e trick is to always keep them guessing about what you
know and what you don’t know.

“But Luke,” Bunna says again, “we don’t know nothing about cleaning a moose.”

Th

e bathroom is still steamy from the showers, and the mirrors are all fogged up, so when you try to see yourself, it’s like looking through smoke.

“Sure we do,” I say, running my fi nger across the steamy mirror, watching Bunna’s eyes pop out. “We watched Uncle Joe before, lotta times.”

“Yeah, but that’s caribou.”

“So? Moose got four legs just like caribou. Cut them into pieces. Same way.”

“Yeah, but how you get the skin off ?”

“You pull, remember? Th

e skin always pulls right off , like

gloves.”

“Yeah, but . . . you ever done it before?”

I sign my name on the mirror, taking time to make it neat.

“No, but you know how Mom always says it, right? We’re Eskimo, and . . .”

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B U R N T O F F E R I N G S / L u k e

“. . . Eskimos know how to
survive,
” Bunna chants.

I nod my head. “And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”

L—u—k—e, I write. I make the tail of the “e” long and straight and draw a harpoon on the end, a hunter’s harpoon.

We’re gonna survive.

Father Flanagan drives us out to fi nd the dead moose. He drives the old Sacred Heart bus—military trash, Amiq calls it, because it was the bus the base was going to throw away but gave to us instead.

Th

e birch trees shiver their skinny black branches against the sky, a straggling of yellow leaves clinging to them. Chickie and Donna sit in front of me, Donna by the window, her face pressed against the glass. I tap my foot on the fl oor, part nervous and part excited. Bunna looks at my foot, and when he sees the way I’m tapping, he starts acting nervous, too.

I quit tapping and shove my foot under the seat.

Th

at’s when I feel it—something under the seat, some-

thing soft and lumpy like a dead body. I bend down to see what it is, and Bunna bends down, too. Bunna sees it before I do: Father Mullen’s mail bag. It looks smaller under there, like a little brown animal. Before I can stop him, Bunna slides it out and pulls it open. When we see what’s in there, there’s no stopping either one of us. Right on top is a letter that has my name on it: Luke Aaluk, handwritten in big, square letters.

And it’s already been opened, too. Somebody with a razor-sharp knife has slit that letter all the way open, right along the top edge, side to side.

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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

Suddenly the bus lurches, and everyone is standing up, trying to see out the window. Nobody sees me slide that letter into my pocket, easy as sliding a knife into its sheath. Nobody sees me kick that mail bag back under the seat. Everybody’s too busy looking at something else.

“Up there. Right there!”
somebody cries.

It’s the moose, lying alongside the road, looking more like a brown gunnysack full of meat than something that used to run around. It’s not as big as I thought, just long, spindly legs and a ribbed body.

“Why, it’s just a baby!” one of the teachers cries.

“Man, they sure smashed it up,” Bunna says.

But you can see it’s mostly just the head that’s smashed.

Th

e meat part looks okay. I take a deep breath as Father pulls off the road and wonder how I’m going to do this thing I never done before.

When we step down off the bus, the sun is shining cold, and the air smells cold, too, with little fl ecks of snow in it. Th e

last of the leaves on the trees are yellow and browning, fl oating down from the branches like fur shedding, which is what trees do in the winter, I guess.

I’m glad to feel that wind, all right. We’re higher up in the valley than the school, way up by the mountains. Up here you can feel the wind and see farther, too. You can even hear the sound of ravens, cawing way off in the distance, which makes me think of home.
Tulugaq,
that’s what we call ravens.

Bunna and I stand together on the side of the road, looking down at the moose. Everybody is watching. Waiting. I shift
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B U R N T O F F E R I N G S / L u k e

from one foot to another, staring down at the dusty moose, wishing it had instructions stamped on its skin.

“All right, Luke, you’re in charge,” Father says.

I look up, eyeing a little patch of tundra on the other side of the road.

“First we better drag it over there, where we can work on it,” I say, nodding at the spot of high tundra, just like Uncle Joe would. Cleaner than the dirt road.

Father takes one of the front legs and I take the other.

Sister Mary Kate steps forward with a determined little smile and grabs a back leg, looking over at the volunteer teachers, who stand off to the side of the road with pale faces. Some of them look like they might get sick.

“Come on, girls,” Sister calls. “Let’s not shun Providence.”

I’m not exactly sure what she means by that, but before any of the teachers can worry about shunning Providence, Donna steps up and grabs a leg, which really surprises me.

Donna doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who would want to get her hands dirty with a dead moose.

Together we pull that moose up onto the tundra. Th

en

everyone stands back, waiting. I swallow a little lump of fear, running my fi nger along the blade of the knife Father gave me. Th

en I lean down and slit that moose open right up the belly, end to end, easy as unzipping a jacket. I breathe deep and smile.

Th

e teachers all step backward with one movement. But the kids all step closer.

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