Take Us to Your Chief (11 page)

I could hear the drone circling the cabin. I also heard a floorboard creak beneath my foot. Joshua suddenly became my favourite family friend for the second time. For “emergencies,” as he called them, the man often kept a rifle hidden under the floorboards. Just a .22 but enough to scare off hungry but skittish bears and coyotes. He had shown it to me once, when we were celebrating his twenty-fifth birthday. Moving quickly, I pulled it and a box of shells out from their hiding spot under the floor. I loaded it clumsily—twice I dropped the shells—and charged through the door, turning around as I cleared the roof. Instantly I could see it, turning to face me. I lifted the gun, aimed, pulled the trigger and stepped backwards, reacting to the recoil. I ha
d missed.

Putting another shell in, I took my time. The drone began to rise, as if sensing the danger. Taking a deep breath, I squeezed the trigger, this time anticipating the recoil. As if God were answering a prayer for the first time in my life, I saw the back left horizontal blades fly apart. It dipped to the right, trying to compensate, but with little luck. In front of it was a rather large cedar tree that proved to be substantially more obstinate than the drone. No mor
e drone.

Strangely, I did not feel elated. I knew I had only bought myself a few minutes, maybe ten at best. It had seen me. But again, I had to ask myself, how had it found me? And how had it known someone was in the cabin? Then the answer came to me—thermal imaging. Environment Canada often used the same thing to check out deer populations in densely forested regions. I was the warmest thing on the island. And the largest. That thing, even in its dozen pieces, looked like it had every possible surveillance toy on it. It was enough to make my little nephew Evan, who loved all those realistic war video games, wet his pants. But how do you fight therma
l imaging?

Camouflage! If my body heat stood out so noticeably on this deserted island, then give it something else to look at… or hide behind something hotter. Dropping the rifle, I began to put my plan into effect as quickly as a handful of dry crackers and one cup of black instant coffee would allow me. I'd lost track of whether this was Plan
C
or
D
, but so far I was alive, so I decided not to break the chain of theoretical backup plans. I grabbed some of my cousin's kerosene lamps and a quarter jug of gas he had stored under the awning beside the door, and doused the cabin and nearby trees. I hated what I was doing. Joshua would also hate what I was doing. This went against everything I believed in. I had spent many happy days swimming and playing here as a kid, but what else could I do? Taking most of the gas from the spare tank in the boat, I soaked some of the trees close to it. Already I could hear more drones approaching, their buzz slightly louder tha
n bees.

Taking a deep breath, I ignited a barbecue lighter I'd found in the cabin. Handy little things—darn clever, those white people. I saw a drone coming toward me over the sumac bushes as I lit the trail of gas. For the longest moment in the world, I was sure something was wrong, because there was no corresponding whoosh of several gallons of gasoline bursting into flames. Maybe the ground and trees were too wet from morning dew. Maybe I didn't know as much about setting an island on fire as I'
d thought.

Then suddenly, the path and the bushes alongside it erupted in flames. Running like a dog after a cat, the fire raced up the path and then attacked the cabin and surrounding forest. Almost instantly, the island was on fire. And I was still standing on it. Quickly I got into my boat as the new drone moved closer, hovering almost directly over a group of dry bushes I'd drenched just a few moments earlier. Behind it I saw the fire racing down from the cabin along the other side of the path until it was directly under the drone. A sudden whoosh of flames and the drone, blind and damaged, crashed into the water not more than three feet from my boat. By the time I was a kilometre offshore, the whole island wa
s ablaze.

I was sure I could see two other drones circling the island, dodging back and forth. At first I was afraid they'd spot me out on the still water of the lake, but by then, with all the early morning fishermen plying their trade, people fleeing nearby islands and billowing smoke creating an amazingly effective smokescreen, I was effectively lost in the confusion. It looked like I would live to fight anothe
r day.

By the time I pulled up onshore at Otter Lake, I knew what I needed to do—sort of. First of all, I needed help. So far, God, the Creator, Lady Fortune or random chance had taken a shine to me, but I knew that without other forms of help, I would not continue to be so lucky. Leaving the boat, I made my way through the village, waving casually to people emerging from their houses to see the burning island across the bay. Passing two friends, Mike and Charlie who worked at the gas bar, I noticed them looking at me curiously. It was then I became acutely aware that I was still dressed in my soggy pyjamas, slip-on shoes and a raincoat, smelling like gasoline and three days on an isolated island. By this point, I didn't give
a shit.

My nephew Todd from the snack shack drove by. He waved to me. I saw his car had a dream catcher hanging from its rear-view mirror, as did the three cars that followed his. I passed my Aunt Julia's house. I saw a large dream catcher in the window. The elementary school had a big one painted on its side. The conspiracy, right under my nose, was enormous. More cars passed with more dream catchers clearl
y visible.

The dampness of the morning, the trip across the lake and perhaps a certain level of shock were making me shiver on Sally's doorstep. It took a moment for her to answer th
e door.

“Pamela, where the hell have you been?! Do you know what's been going on around here? We've all been… Ho-ly! What happened to you?” Dressed for work, she looked good, unlike me. “Is somethin
g wrong?”

“Can I come in? I nee
d help.”

She stepped aside and held the door open for me. Once I was in her house, I felt a certain amount of relief. I flinched, hearing a buzzing, before realizing it was her ol
d refrigerator.

Sally pulled out a chair for me and I gratefully sa
t down.

Her hospitality gene kicking in, she poured me a cup of coffee. “Did you see the fire across the bay? Isn't that Joshua's island? Is h
e okay?”

The cup she gave me had the Iroquois two-row wampum sign o
n it.

“Yeah, he'
s fi—”

Her cup had a dream catcher design on its side. Dangling over the kitchen sink was ye
t another.

“Shit,”
I muttered.

It felt like I was surrounded. With one hand, I grabbed her coffee mug; with the other, I tore the dream catcher from its mounting and threw them both out th
e door.

“What the hell? My mother gave m
e that!”

“Listen to me, Sally. Remember that thumb drive I got on Thursday? My God, was that just a few day
s ago?”

“That was my favourite mug, too.”

“Pay attention. Dream catchers are evil. Part of a government plot to control Nativ
e people.”

For a few seconds, the only sound in the kitchen was the ticking of the clock above the doorway to the livin
g room.

“Huh?”

“Okay, stay with me. I've just spent the last couple of days plowing through all the information on that thing. I know this is going to sound weird, but it all makes sense. Okay, now follow me. Dream catchers are almost always made with a metal hoop, right? With intricate interlaced threading or wiring extending inwards. And on those threads are usually beads o
r crystals—”

“I know what a dream catcher look
s like.”

I could see I was losin
g her.

“Do you? Do you really? Think about it. What does that sound like? A metal hoop. Wiring. Crystals?”

A frustrated shrug told me I had los
t her.

“An antenna! Or even a satellite dish. A lot of the stuff I read in those files was way over my head, but some secret branch of Indigenous Affairs has spent the last twenty-five years developing the technology and dispersing it among Canada's Nativ
e population.”

More ticking from the clock, and I heard her refrigerator come o
n again.

“Have you been out on some sort of binge? I mean, you show up here in your pyjamas and raincoat, smelling of gas, looking like you haven't slept for a while, talking about a dream catcher conspiracy to control Canada's Indigenous people. That's a littl
e unusual.”

“Under normal circumstances, maybe.”

Digging deep in my raincoat pocket, I removed the thumb drive and thrust it tightly into her hand. She looked at it for a second, growing oddly calm. The thin summer scarf she'd been wearing slipped down to reveal a necklace I'd never seen before. Nestled between her collarbones was a delicate gold dream catcher. Sally tucked some of her long black hair behind her right ear. She had matchin
g earrings.

“Those are new,” I managed t
o say.

Speaking in a monotone, she answered, “They came yesterday. Courier. From my mother in Tyendinaga. Very pretty, don't yo
u think?”

“I think they're beautiful. Don't you, Pamela?”

Now I heard the voice that had forced its way into my life just a few evenings ago, this time coming from her table. Her iPad was on and pointed at me. Once again, Skype was activated but there was no retur
n picture.

“Here we were, trying to figure out how to find you and you just show up. It's always hard to anticipate the benefits of luck. We were just planting a suggestion in Sally here, just in case you decided to contac
t her.”

I didn't say anything. I could feel my options quickly slipping away. And the voice just kept talking, so calm an
d confident.

“You're quite clever, young lady. I will give you that. We've found the gentleman who sent you the thumb drive. Evidently, he was infatuated with both you and your writing. I believe you met him at a political conference some months ago, but the less said about him the better. The here and now is always more interesting than the then and there, don't yo
u agree?”

“Speaking from an Aboriginal perspective, not always.” I had finally found m
y voice.

“Touché, Ms. Wanishin. I stan
d corrected.”

“Was
I right?”

The blank screen looked back at me. “About the dream catchers? It's a lot more complicated than that, but I believe you got th
e gist.”

“But why? I assume a lot of time and money went into this… this…” I couldn't find the righ
t word.

“Ah yes, it was inevitable you would ask that. Suppression of Indigenous unrest, young lady. Both urban and rural. Our best scientists designed today's dream catchers as a sort of pacification protocol. We initiated it to help keep the Aboriginal population less… volatile. Simply put, dream catchers, whether they are on walls, windows, rear-view mirrors or jewellery, act as receivers for—let's call them radio waves for the moment, to help eliminate, or at least moderate, the more radical and detrimental social outbursts that on occasion have plagued our country. Truly, we just want our Native people to be happy. And protesting First Nations are not happy people, which in turn aggravates other segments of the population. You see, it's for your ow
n good.”

I found myself leaning against the kitchen sink, struggling to talk. “When? How?”

“You look a little perturbed, Ms. Wanishin. Perhaps you should si
t down.”

I sat down on a kitchen chair with
a thump.

“I don't… This is… You can't…”

I looked at Sally, but she hadn't moved. She was still looking down, her gaze unnaturally fixed on the thumb drive in he
r hand.

“Yes, I realize this is all rather overwhelming. When I first took over this portfolio, I was amazed. You might be surprised to know this was originally put into development right after the rejection of the infamous White Paper. My predecessors could read the writing on the wall, even back then. What with the growing power of the civil rights movement in America, it would only be a matter of time before the same unrest moved north to our little hamlet of freedom. Except, we correctly surmised, it would come from the Native community. We decided to be a little more proactive and discreet than our southern neighbours. Americans can be so over the top, don't yo
u think?”

I thought about the first Trudeau era and the government's attempt to renegotiate the special status of Native people and reserves, basically aiming to politically eliminate us out of any meaningful Canadia
n existence.

“The White Paper… That was over forty-five year
s ago!”

“Oh good, you remember your history. Yes, but it was the Oka Crisis that began Project Nightlight. The gradual infiltration of the First Nations community via specially designed dream catchers. That's the beauty of the whole situation. Dream catchers were already becoming all the rage. All we had to do was replace them with our own specially designed ones. You see, we currently have 143 Native women across the country unknowingly pumping out all different variations, sizes, makes and designs of our special dream catchers. We supply them with the proper material and those women alone, specially conditioned by us, supply the vast majority of powwow traders, arts and crafts stores and conference vendors, making saturation of the market total and complete. Of course, there are a few made here and there by random entrepreneurs, children or therapy groups, but they are just a small percentage. The whole operation is remarkabl
y effective.”