Through Black Spruce (7 page)

Eva opens the side door, and I slip in, shivering. “You’re going to get me in trouble, you,” she says as I struggle out of my snow gear. “The hospital isn’t supposed to take visitors at night. You know it.”

“I’ll be quiet,” I say. “I promise.” We take the elevator up to the top floor. Eva’s talked with the other night nurses, and they’re okay with me coming in. As long as anyone on administration doesn’t find out, I’ll be fine. My winning argument with Eva is that she’s the one who told me talking to my uncle can be beneficial, and my mum has cornered the day market. Why not double up shifts and see what happens?

The low glow of the machines by him casts a strange light on his face. I turn on the bedside lamp and sit for a while.

“Two Cree girls in the city for the first time,” I say to Uncle Will. “Now that’s a story I bet you’d like to hear.” I can grab a few hours’ sleep early mornings and get to spend more time with Gordon, too. Who needs a full night’s sleep? I can sleep when I’m dead.

I’m not a savage. I’d taken the Polar Bear Express down to Cochrane before, 186 miles of bumpy tracks through the muskeg, Indians sleeping as their children run wobbly-legged along the aisles. Some say the Polar Bear is a dead-end train whose sole job is a government money pit, their pittance to the Cree. It’s our train that makes the run between the last town on the northern highway up to Moosonee, the asshole of the Arctic, as a way to keep the Cree from getting hostile. I don’t know, but the handful of times I’ve been on it, I like it. It’s the one thin connection between us and them. Me and the world out there.

I’ve even been further south once, to North Bay. Mum rented a car when Suzanne and I were young, a nightmare drive with Mum white-knuckling the steering wheel, embarrassing me and Suzanne for two hundred miles by going half the highway speed, transports barrelling by. She tried to make it up to us by taking us shopping and allowing us to be swallowed up by the biggest town in Northern Ontario. But this time, Eva was taking me far further south than I’d ever been. To a true city.

It’s just like on TV, Uncle, massive buildings and police sirens screaming and people everywhere. All the people. That’s what freaked me out. I wondered where they all could have possibly come from. The first time being drowned in a sea of humans on a busy downtown street, it made me want to take the quickest bus north. You see people on TV walking downtown like there’s some order to it, like they even know where they’re going. But the reality? People bump and shove and smell like perfume or body odour, and so many look like they don’t want to be there. The weirdest thing to me is how most of them never look you in the eye.

Eva’s a good woman. But she can be kind of cheap. She got us a motel for the week near a place called Cabbagetown. Right away you have to wonder what the name’s all about. It’s a close enough walk to Yonge Street and all the craziness there, the bars and strip clubs and dirty-looking men.

Our motel smells of piss. I quickly learn that the difference between a motel and a hotel is that a motel is where all the mangy people stay.

We try to have fun the first couple of days, walking as far as Eva’s shin splints will take her. We even go to a bar one night, and we order martinis. The idea of it, the simple speaking it out loud, thrills me like I’m fifteen again and stealing a couple of bottles of beer. But the taste makes me want to gag. The bar is a fancy one, and the waitresses are pretty and know it. I think of Suzanne. I wonder if she worked in a place like this before she was discovered. I even allow myself to believe I might run into her down here. We’ll pass each other on the street, and we’ll hug and maybe cry a few tears.

These first few days, Eva and I wander in cold spring rain and grey afternoons, past dreary buildings and budding trees with blackened bark. Even the squirrels are black, and I see my first city
Anishnabes
, the city Indians. They congregate by Queen and Bathurst, sitting or pacing slowly, begging change with blackened fingers. Once, Eva and I pass a group of them huddling under the awning of an old bank, and one surprises me by calling out to us in Cree. He’s an old man, a grandfather, proposing marriage to me, or Eva, or both. We laugh and keep going.

You get used to anything quick, and I find myself getting used to this city. Eva and I find our routine, each day going a little further out from the places we’ve already walked. I drag Eva from the motel each morning and force her to explore. I need the exercise, feel like I’m getting fat sitting around and eating. According to the fashion magazines we’ve been reading, sitting on our beds waiting for the weather to turn just enough to go out again, my height versus body structure and weight suggests I’m not model material. Screw them. I’m a healthy, good-looking woman. I can drag a moose haunch out of the bush if need be.

On our fourth day, we come up on the corner of Bathurst and Queen once more, and there is that group of Indians sitting again, the old man with a leather face, two women whose age is almost impossible to tell, and a tall, thin one with long hair who watches everything, alert as a warrior. He’d be good looking if he took care of himself.

“You
Anishnabe
women?” old leather-face calls out to us as we walk by. I nod and smile, know to respect my elders. He calls for us to sit with him and talk.

“Ewww! Ev
er
!” Eva says back to him, her voice going high at the end. So Moosonee.

I turn to Old Man, forcing Eva to stop, too. She won’t go anywhere without me. Too scared.

“I’d sit with you but the step is wet.” I point to it, see that the bank it leads up to looks permanently closed. Old Man stands all wobbly, and the two women stare at me territorially. Skinny guy looks away but glances quick at me every few seconds.

“Granddaughter, you’re a good-looking one, you,” Old Man says. “You could be a model.” The two women cluck noises that sound like disapproval.

“If you want some change, Grandfather,” I say, “compliments will get you everywhere.”

He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even seem to know I said anything.

“Annie, let’s go,” Eva whines. I lift my finger up to her to hold on a sec. I reach for my wallet, take out a ten-dollar bill, and hand it to him. He takes it quick as if it’s a loan owed him. Maybe it is.

“Spend it wise,” I say. “Booze is the white man’s poison, not ours.”

As I begin to walk away he calls out, “A girl, she looked a lot like you, but skinnier.” I stop quick. “Skinny as Painted Tongue there.” He points at the quiet, tall one. “She used to be generous like you. More generous, even.”

“What was her name?”

“Me, I don’t know,” Old Man says. The two women have turned their attention somewhere else.

“Suzanne?” I ask.

Old Man shrugs. But the one called Painted Tongue pulls his hands out of his pockets and wiggles them like a little boy who needs to pee.

“Annie, come on, let’s go,” Eva says quietly so that they won’t hear her. “Ever losers, them.” The women glance up. They tsk-tsk and laugh to one another.

Eva pulls at me then. I want to stay and ask them questions but realize that this is ridiculous. They just want to get more money from us. A free lunch.

“We’ll come back to visit soon,” I say over my shoulder. “We know where to find you.”

“Maybe, Granddaughter. We’re hunters and gatherers, though. Never in the same place for long.”

We move on down the busy street. It’s stupid to think they would know Suzanne. Why would they? How could they? As we jostle through the lunchtime crowds, I get the feeling we’re being followed. I turn around and catch a glimpse of a thin body, long black hair disappearing into a doorway. I want to go to this one, this Painted Tongue, but Eva tugs at my arm, pulls me into the crowd.

9
SPRING BEAR

This place where I wander seems to be in perpetual dusk, not quite dark, not quite light, and sometimes I feel very cold, other times too warm. Not much sound except for my breathing. Once in a while the whisper of something. Wind in trees. Voices carried from far away on the wind, maybe. I know I have to keep moving forward, but when I hear the wind whispering, I want to stop and rest and listen for a while. I miss you, family.

After Marius beat me and after my overreaction to seeing that bear, Joe and Lisette worried about me. Maybe they thought it was shell shock I was suffering. Maybe they were right. Lisette brought over a moose stew and macaroni and cheese one night not long after those events. Joe brought a twelve-pack of Canadian. It wasn’t too long after you’d left Moosonee, Annie, with your friend Eva.

I’ve always been the bush man in this town. I’ve been the hunter, the trapper, the feeder of mouths. A thing passed on from father to son, and I was the one in possession of it. But it was slipping from me.

After dinner that night, just like other nights following, your mother liked to read to us from a new book she’d found. Joe and I would give each other the look and retire to the back porch for a cigarette and a beer to listen to your mother’s new book.

I always wanted to lie to Lisette, to tell her I was too tired for it, but the soul leaves the body just a little bit at a time with each lie.

“This is a good one,” Lisette told us, settling into a chair. “An Oprah pick.” She looked at us, expecting a ribbing. “But it’s important to hear. You might like it, Will. Joe. It’s about healing.” She opened it, a paperback that looked used, and began. “‘We are all born innocent children. And we can maintain the innocence of children if that is what we choose.’” I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeper than usual. “‘We gain experience as we grow into this world, and experience is a two-edged sword. Experience is the most difficult of teachers because it gives the exam first, and the lessons second.’” Lisette paused, looked up at me above her reading glasses. I looked out to the river.

“‘As children, we see the world as a mystery, but a mystery that will reveal itself to us day by day. As children, we see the world as a place where nothing is impossible. We aren’t afraid to believe in our dreams. In fact, we often believe in them more than we believe in the real world. We can fly; we can swim across the ocean; we can climb the highest mountain. It is only through adulthood, the growing up and accepting reality, that we become jaded, that we learn to accept that we can’t be anyone or do anything. I am here to tell you differently.’” Lisette took a breath as if she’d just completed a long journey.

When your mother finally left that night, I dug my hunting rifle out, and Joe and me climbed into his truck and went looking for that bear.

I remember seeing my old friend Mary when we passed the healing lodge. She sat in a rocking chair on the porch and waved to us when we passed.

“What’s she in for?” Joe asked.

“Too much of a good thing,” I said. “Forty-ounce flu.”

“Must be sick and hungry,” Joe said. It took me a minute to realize he was talking about the bear. “Dangerous in town.”

We sat at the dump and watched the night creep in. We smoked cigarette after cigarette without saying anything to one another. It’s a game me and Joe have played for years. First one to talk shows weakness.

Finally it was Joe who broke the silence. “Must be sick and hungry,” he repeated. “Those bears are dangerous in town.” I nodded, staring out at the black, some part of me enjoying the stink. “I figured out what you need,” Joe said when I wouldn’t give him anything, his voice rough from cigarette smoke.

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“A woman.”

“No woman would have me.”

“Lots of women would have you.”

“Not the ones I would want to have.”

“You have to come to the understanding, Will Bird, that you are no longer the handsome young creature you once were.”

“Yes I am.”

“You’re not. You need a woman. Sex is important, but more importantly, you need someone to talk to once in a while. You don’t talk to anyone but me or Gregor. You’re getting strange. Weird. You need to move forward.” We sat there.

In the darkness at the edge of the dump I saw the form of a big animal walking slow along the edge. “Turn on your headlights when I say so.”

We waited. I watched it carefully, dipping in and out of shadow. “Now,” I said. Joe pulled the knob and the area directly in front of us filled with a cone of light. The bear stopped dead and lifted its head to us, nose sniffing. “That’s the one,” I said. I picked up the rifle resting between us and popped out the mag, placed three shells in, then pushed it back in. “I’ll be right back,” I said. The bear remained frozen, staring up with flared nostrils. I left the door open.

Once I cleared the truck, the headlights behind me, I raised the rifle, the bear not far, presenting me its profile. I studied the face quick, the scarred, greying muzzle, the eyes that didn’t seem able to focus. It panted like it was tired, missing one of its big fang teeth. Too old to make it through next winter. It needed killing. It had turned to the dump and dogs or cats older and slower than it was.

I clicked off the safety with my thumb and sighted in just behind the shoulder blade. One shot should do it. I followed it with my sights. It tripped over a garbage bag, got up, and tripped over another a few feet later. The dumb thing, I realized, was blind. The bear stopped, raised its head to me once more, sniffing the air. Maybe I thought of my wife, nieces. Of my two boys. I lifted the rifle higher and pulled the trigger. The bear jumped, then scurried quick as it could into the bush, stumbling.

“Did you get it?” Joe asked back in the truck.

“Yeah,” I lied. “Old stinker.” I stopped any possible move toward Joe wanting to go out and inspect it. “Even its hide isn’t worth it.”

There’s so much more I want to share with you, but I’m not even sure why. Maybe you will piece it together. Back thirty years ago, right before the residential school in Moose Factory closed for good, I had recurring dreams of going back to it, climbing up the side like Ahepik, our own Cree Spider-Man, and rescuing the children from their beds, the dreams so full of anxiety and even terror as if the building was on fire. I’d go back into that building over and over until all the children had been freed, lined up safely on the bank of the river in the tall grass where they couldn’t be seen. The ending of the dream was always the same. With the last child in my many arms, I walked down the bank to the cheers of the others, who all came running to me, grabbing and hugging my legs. A simple dream, but it was a good one. Now I remember those dreams again.

I was a bush pilot then, a good one. I was one of the first in this area to fly all the way up to Winisk and other southern parts of Hudson Bay. Good business for a crazy young man. I had more money than I often knew what to do with, and I had my wife and, eventually, my two little boys. Best years of my life. Productive years. The worst part of my job was that sometimes I’d be gone from home for a few days, a week once when I got grounded by a blizzard.

There were dangers to the job. Frozen gas lines, bad mechanical work, weather. Three crashes. After my third, that’s when I quit flying. When flying quit me. My life as I knew it ended then.

When everything was gone, my money, my home, my family, I went back to hunting and fishing for a living. The logical step was taking white guys out who wanted to come and live like an Indian for a little while. I built a camp thirty miles up the Moose River, accessible by freighter canoe or float plane, and when more hunters started coming, another camp a little further up. The pay wasn’t great. Hunting and fishing are seasonal, but it made me enough to get by. I let things slip those last years before you both left. Maybe I didn’t have the taste for killing I once had. Whatever it was, I decided not to take anyone out moose and caribou hunting last autumn, and no one out fishing last spring. Plenty of calls left unreturned on my answering machine, Americans from as far away as Michigan and Wisconsin wanting to come up and hunt and drink hard out of the sight of their wives. A couple of years ago, I even had Gregor make me a website and show me how to get around on a computer, but emails, they grew then drifted off like smoke from a cigarette.

The night of not shooting the bear, Joe mentioned women. That spring, the snow melted and the creeks rushed and the sap ran. I walked to Taska’s Store not long after that night and wandered around the tiny place. Northern Store down the road would have been more interesting for people watching, but I wasn’t ready to be around too many people yet.

I was doing my third lap around the aisles when in walked Dorothy Blueboy, my first crush during rez school days. “Hello,” she said, smiling. Boy. The rush of it with one word.

“Why, hello,” I answered, smiling back. “You still over in Moose Factory?”

“Oh yeah. I still call the rez home.”

“What you doing over this side of the river?”

“I just need to get away for a little while sometimes, even if it is only to Moosonee. Living on an island can drive you crazy.” I nodded, wanted to say something smart like, No woman’s an island.

She said she’d heard something about me getting hurt a while back. I told her I fell and hit my head. She looked confused, said, “I heard you were beat up by that Marius Netmaker and some of his biker friends.”

“That’s when I fell and hit my head,” I answered, backing up.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I think so, just ho—just headaches once in a while.” Dammit!

Dorothy smiled again. “For a second I thought you were going to say ‘just horny.’That would have been funny.”

“Really funny.”

Dorothy brought her basket to the cashier, and I glimpsed at her from over the magazine rack. Still a figure, her. Not much of a bum to speak of, but lovely hips. She glanced back my way, and I looked to the magazines quick as I could.
Car and Driver
.
SnowGoer
.
Hunting and Fishing
.
Playboy
above, wrapped in plastic. Hmm. When she left, I saw the store empty. Crow, a kid who burned his auntie’s house down years ago, stood behind the counter. Walkman on his ears, taller than I remembered he was, handsome despite the burn scars on his neck. Long black ponytail and ball cap. Old school. I grabbed the
Playboy
and made a beeline to him.

“That all, Will?” he asked. “Smokes? Vaseline?” He grinned.

“Just hurry up and get that in a bag.”

The door beside me jingled.

“I forgot to get smokes,” Dorothy said, smiling at me, then her eyes wandering to the magazine lying by my guilty hands. “I … I’ll get them at Northern Store. See yas.” And she was gone with the clinking of the bells on the door. I felt the burn of my face.

Crow handed me my change. “Got something to tell you, Will.” He looked all serious suddenly. “I’m going to tell you this because your nieces are my friends.”

“Get on with it.”

“I know it’s garbage, me. But Marius says you’re a snitch. You’re ratting him out to the OPP,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know that, Will. Your nieces are some of my best friends. They were always there for me when no one else was, even my own family.”

“I got nothing to do with that.” I’m no snitch. I thanked Crow, walked out of the store, and headed to the LCBO. This new bit of info called for a bottle.

I didn’t want to face another night of drinking alone again, so I called Gregor and Joe over. We sat on the porch for as long as we could stand the mosquitoes, then moved inside to my kitchen. I told them what Crow had said. I didn’t tell them about running into Dorothy.

“If you become a snitch,” Joe said, “you can probably get him taken away. Let’s do it.”

Gregor was in, too. Too many of his students, he said, were strung out because of Marius. We talked more. We drank more. The talk turned darker.

Joe, he started it. “Let’s kill him,” he said. “Cops are useless around here. We’ll shoot him and drag him into the bush and leave him for the bears and the crows. No one will miss him.”