Scattered Bones (29 page)

The last guest to arrive was
hahasho
, the raven, the trickster.

“Vamoose, you phantoms. What are you doing here when times are so dire? Fly away, fly away,” he shrieked. Suddenly there was a whoosh, followed by a great flapping noise from the hole at the top. A mighty rattling, the tent shook violently, then dead silence.

Shaman Benaouni emerged from the tent, looking so sad, so dejected, I felt an unease crawling up my spine. “You’ve heard them. Prepare as best you can,” he told the crowd.

It was all magic tricks, I was sure of that. But I could see from the expression on their faces that the others felt otherwise. They had no doubts the terrible situation described by the spirits would play out that winter. They were so panic-stricken they could hardly utter a word. For the first time in my life, I tasted real fear.

~•~

At the end
of December, the north wind blew itself into a fury, the snow blanketed down – it whipped our tents for four full days. Charlie was fascinated by the thermometer that I had brought along, and one morning he shouted out, “Minus fifty-two degrees. Cold as a
witigo’s
tits.”

The fire was kept burning but only barely, as wood was now scarce. Although it had been carefully stacked in a pile and then covered with oil skin, it was now buried under six feet of snow. We all huddled in our wigwams, covering ourselves with anything that was available – coats, blankets, moose hide robes, the few flour sacks the women had kept.

By now the fact that Marguerite and I were keen on each other was accepted by the elders – I suspected my grandparents had hoped that would happen – and they turned a blind eye when we snuggled together.

“I love you, Marguerite,” I whispered in English one evening.

“Love! L-O-V-E. Is that how I spell it?” she asked as she wrote the word down.

“I want to marry you, Marguerite.”

“Marry. M-A-R-R-Y. Is this how it looks?”

The men had been able to dig out the cache of food buried under the snow, but the meat and fish stored there were almost used up. There was still a little pemmican, oatmeal, dried peas, dried cranberry and some flour and lard. These
were carefully rationed. The men’ portions were larger than the women’s and children’s, for everyone agreed that the hunters needed the food to sustain their energy. And, since it was hard slogging for the dogs pulling the sleds through the deep snow, they too had to be fed – at least a little whitefish.

By mid-January we were living on one small meal a day. I was surprised that my stomach no longer grumbled; it had got used to being empty. Uncle Raymond found the carcass of an old bull moose that had obviously frozen to death in the extreme cold. The meat was as tough as dog harnesses, but I thought it tasted as good as the beef Bourguignon my mother made for Father Bonnald.

By the third week in February no other prey had been spotted, not even a rabbit, and there was talk that the sled dogs might have to be slaughtered for food. Everyone knew how stupid that would be. Snowshoeing was slow going, and if you did manage to kill something, how would you haul the remains back to camp?

To add to our grief, Charlie was driving us all crazy with horror stories. “Those
witigos
, they come in all sizes and shapes. Some of them look ordinary, like you and me. They’re the most dangerous because they sneak up on you, and they get you before you know what happens. Other
witigos
– they’re monsters, tall as the tallest jack pine, so heavy the earth shakes when they walk. They never wash, so they stink, their teeth are all rotten, and their nails are long like ragged claws. Their skin is most often a black colour. They have huge heads and, of course, no lips since they’ve bitten them off. And starving! They’re always starving and the only meat they’ll eat is human flesh.”

Of all the fantastic stories I had heard in the last year and a half, this was the most ridiculous. I couldn’t help mocking him.

“And where do these charming creatures come from?”

Grandfather looked at me as if I was an imbecile, but Charlie answered with patience.

“All these
witigos
, they were humans who went crazy whilst they were starving and ate human flesh. Once that happens, there’s nothing can be done but you gotta kill them dead. When
witigo
comes around, you start calling on your
pawachi-kans
. The one with the strongest
pawachi-kan
, he does the killing because he’ll have the most power. That one wrestles with
witigo
; sometimes they fight so fiercely they fly right to the top of the trees. And if
witigo
shouts louder than the human, then he wins, and everyone is a dead duck.

“Even if
witigos
lose, they’re hard to kill. Their hearts are made of ice, you see. You try and burn them, but the water that melted keeps putting the fire out. And you do have to burn them or they’ll come back and eat you.”

I understood that the story contained an important message – cannibalism was taboo. But Charlie’s retelling was irritating when we were all so hungry. There was nothing left to eat now but a little flour and a bit of lard to cook it in. If some game wasn’t found soon, we would starve to death. I noticed Marguerite’s round face was gaunt, but she was not so lethargic as to stop copying out vocabulary – hungry, starving, famished, ravenous.

Finally, one morning in mid-February, a delegation consisting of my aunts Charlotte and Louisa, and my cousins Lucy and Rita, cornered Grandfather in his wigwam. “Chief,” Lucy said, “we admire you and love you, but sometimes you are stubborn as Raven. We are all starving. Our children cry all the time, their bellies are so empty. We must go to Pelican Narrows. There will be food there for sure.”

Grandfather wouldn’t even consider it. “To beg the white man on our knees? Not as long as I’m alive. If we perish, at least we will go as proud Indians.”

The women were obviously disgusted. They turned their back and walked away. I hoped that they would persuade their husbands to rebel against the edicts of my ridiculous, and cruel, grandfather.

The next day Cornelius said he’d go looking – maybe some big rabbit would come bounding along his path. Once outside he let out a shout. There against the setting sun were silhouetted two dog sleds. Each was pulling a line of toboggans piled high with freight. As the caravan approached closer, the shapes of the two mushers and one passenger came into focus, but the travellers were so bundled up against the cold, none of us could make out who they were. When the convoy finally came to a stop, a figure slowly emerged from a pile of robes. I found myself in the arms of Father Bonnald.

The mushers, Joseph Canada and Leon Highway, quickly unloaded the freight. There was plenty of pemmican, but, although everyone was starving, there was no rush to make a meal of it. Everyone remained calm. Prayers were said, thanks given. A few questions politely asked. How had the priest managed to find them at this time of their need?

“I said a prayer and I’m here,” was all he would say. I found out later that the scarcity of game had forced many Woodland Cree to seek help in Pelican Narrows. Only Grandfather had been too proud to do so. Father Bonnald had learned our approximate location from the others.

I was looking forward to a long chat with Father – maybe I’d tell him about Marguerite – but he was exhausted from the brutal trip and fell asleep right after dinner.

The next morning the Blackfish and Charboyers were waiting to meet with him the minute he finished his breakfast. They gathered around, but Grandfather stood a way off, refusing to join the group. He had to accept Father Bonnald’s charity or he’d have had a full-blown revolt on his hands, but he wasn’t happy about it. I wondered if he had abandoned his plan to blow up Pelican Narrows. By the sour expression that played on his face, I suspected that he somehow blamed the weather and vanishing game on the white man too.

There were now enough supplies to last until spring when food would surely be more plentiful. But my relatives insisted that I return to Pelican Narrows with the priest. Not only was I one more mouth to feed, but, at such dangerous times, they’d no longer accept the responsibility for my wellbeing.

“I’m not going,” I blurted out, “not unless Marguerite comes with me.”

Father Bonnald didn’t raise an eyebrow, didn’t show surprise. He had been afraid something like this would happen.

“And who is Marguerite?” he asked.

I sang her praises until I was sure I had convinced him of how much I loved her.

“You realize, Joe, that this will end any chance of studying at the Collège de Montréal.”

By the pleading look in his eyes, I knew that I was about to break my beloved teacher’s heart. I said nothing. Finally he sighed, “Maybe some things are just not meant to be.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Joe puts his arm around
Izzy’s shoulder.
It’s such a relief to be able to tell his story to someone. They move towards each other, about to kiss, when they hear something. They both groan as Gilbert Bear comes stumbling out of the bush.

“Joe, you have to come. The boss is calling you. Mr. Lewis the writer got so pissed, he wandered off and ended up on the beach. Said he wanted to go for a swim, but while he was taking his pants off, he fell on his ass. Now his feet’s in the water and he won’t get up. They think you can talk sense to him.”

“You can tell Mr. Arthur Jan that I’m off duty. I’m about to suffer a week of babysitting that drunk and that’s more than enough for me.”

“Mr. Jan’s going to be awfully mad.”

“You know what? I don’t give a damn. Leave us alone.”

After Gilbert goes away, Izzy asks, “What’s the matter? I thought you were looking forward to this trip.”

“There’s something wrong with the whole business, something really shady is going on. Remember I told you that my
pawachi-kan
visited me? Well, it happened only once. Two night ago Thunderbird came into my dreams and screamed at me, ‘You’re an idiot if you get mixed up in this business. Evil, all evil.’ Then she flapped away.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go then. Maybe these warnings mean something.”

“I’ve given my word and I won’t go back on it. But this will be the last time I work for Arthur Jan. He’s so greedy, he makes me puke. Exactly the kind of white man Grandfather Blackfish loathed.”

He nestles his head against Izzy’s shoulder. “Now I’m going to tell you not only my secret but also how my heart was broken.”

~•~

St. Gertrude’s Church,
all dressed up in spring flowers, was packed. All the Cree families showed up. Father Bonnald officiated and Florence and Russell Smith were there too, representing the white folk. The Blackfish and Charboyer clan had made the trip, all except, of course, for Grandfather – he wouldn’t be caught dead in the village he hated so much. My bride was so young, so radiant, so beautiful, dressed in a deer skin dress she had beaded herself. As Father Bonnald read us our vows, there was regret in his voice and tears welled in his eyes, I was surprised at this because by that time, everyone, including him, had fallen in love with Marguerite Settee.

My mother admired her artistic talent, oohing and ahing over the birch bark box Marguerite had made for her. It was beaded in an intricate design of blue, red and yellow. “It’s done so beautifully, I don’t know how you managed it,” Mother exclaimed.

Once Father Bonnald discovered Marguerite’s obsession with reading and writing, he too had warmed to her. He drew up a schedule of study – French, mathematics and history this summer; Latin, science and literature the following year.

“Don’t you think she should have time just to relax and learn our way of doing things,” I had protested. But Marguerite interrupted, insisting, “I will begin my studies at once.”

The world came to Pelican Narrows that summer. First, two veterans of the Great War, Angus McCallum, and Jamie Bird, both of them fantastic sharp-shooters, arrived home. Intact, thank goodness. The stories of their harrowing adventures in France thrilled everyone.

With fur prices soaring, white trappers showed up by the dozen. We didn’t like them, we thought they were irresponsible and unscrupulous. Still, there was something foreign, something exotic about them. Louise Bird ended up marrying Don Pomeroy, an American from Montana.

When word leaked out of rich zinc, copper and gold deposits, prospectors flooded in like a swarm of mosquitoes. And when Dominion Land Surveyors were assigned to the north country, Pelican Narrows became one of their staging points. Tents popped up everywhere. The place was actually bustling.

During the summer, I was hired on for many different jobs, and earned some good money. By now I had decided that full-time hunting and trapping were not for me. I would combine my newly learned savvy in the bush with the education I’d received from Father Bonnald. I began drawing up plans for a winter transport business. Mother, though, never stopped reminding me of my obligation – I had promised to spend one more winter with my Cree relatives and I must do so.

Mother had volunteered to move into the rectory, so we newlyweds had the little cabin to ourselves for the summer. It didn’t take Marguerite long to sweep and clean the place, and she was an efficient if not brilliant cook, so she spent most of her time either working on Father Bonnald’s assignments, or beading deerskin “as soft as lard” which she planned to make into a vest for me.