Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (7 page)

She had felt scared. "I can't. I don't have access to the
dispensary."

"I don't see any bars keeping you out."

"Only the pharmacists ever go behind that counter."

"Come on, Heather. Don't tell me you can't." A deep sigh.
"This is the first thing I've ever asked you to do."

Don had pushed her for a couple of weeks before giving
up. A cloud settled over their relationship. She had let him
down.

A few weeks later, Mr. Stonefield, the drugstore owner,
caught her sneaking a bottle of aftershave into her handbag.
Peering at her through his trifocals, he said she was lucky he
didn't press charges. This was true. But now she had no job,
no income, and no chance to pick up little extras for Don.
Again, she had let him down.

While Don napped-all he ever did was smoke and sleepHeather grabbed her chance to rummage in the junk room.
There she found a man's rubber boot mixed up with rusted
buckets, fishing poles, kerosene cans, and coils of rope. Embossed in the boot's red sole was the number 13. Further
searching produced the boot's mate. When she turned the
second boot upside down, mouse dirt and popcorn kernels
rained onto the floor.

Gingerly she pulled on the boots and took a few steps.
It was like trying to walk with her feet in a pair of cardboard
cartons.

Don opened his eyes as she stomped into the main room.
"You look like a circus clown," he said.

She didn't care what she looked like, as long as he didn't take away the rubber boots. For the rest of the day she tramped
around the cottage, bumping into furniture and tripping over
her own feet-sometimes on purpose, to demonstrate that
she couldn't run fast enough to escape with them on her feet.
He let her keep the boots.

An airplane droned in the distance, louder and louder, coming from the south. Heather, wrapped in her sleeping bag on
the love seat, looked up. Through the tall windows she saw
the plane's black shape against the gray sky.

"Cessna," Don said. "Single engine."

"Is it coming here?"

"How would I know?"

"It is coming here!" As it descended, she saw that the
plane was yellow, not black, and that it had skis instead of
wheels. Heather's heart pounded. She wanted to run out onto
the snow-covered lake, wave her arms, and shout: This way!
Save me!

But before reaching Osprey Lake, the plane dipped behind the trees and disappeared.

Don walked over to the window. "Not coming here. It's
landing on Mud Fish. Could be the air ambulance." He lit a
cigarette, smoked it to the butt, and then lit another from it.
The engine's drone continued.

"He's not sticking around or he'd have killed the engine,"
Don said. "He's picking up somebody or letting somebody off."

The air rumbled as the plane took off. It reappeared above
the trees, circled, and headed south. An ache of loneliness
came over her. She felt abandoned, like a castaway on a desert
island who watches a ship draw near and then sail away. She
squeezed her eyes shut to stop her tears as she listened to the
receding drone.

Don flopped into a chair. "How about something to eat?"

"There's nothing left but sugar and flour."

"Can't you make something out of them?"

"Such as?"

"Bread, maybe?"

"Christ! And you think I'm dumb!"

Heather pulled on the rubber boots, clomped into the
kitchen, and lit the Coleman. A skin of ice had formed on the
water that she had melted from snow two hours earlier. She
broke the ice, poured water into a saucepan, and stirred in
half a cup of flour and a spoonful of sugar.

While she was bringing it to a boil, she heard Don go out
the back door. It sounded like he was straightening the woodpile, which was pointless since he wouldn't let them have a
fire anyway. By the time he returned, the liquid in the pan had
thickened enough to coat a spoon. She sipped a few drops,
added a dash of sugar, then sipped again. Slightly better. After filling a couple of mugs, she carried them into the main
room.

Don stood by the windows, staring south at a pillar of
black smoke that funneled into the sky. Something was burning, back there along the track.

She handed him a mug. Don cradled it in his hands.

"Looks like a big fire," she said.

"Yeah. Somebody's torched the car." He raised the mug
to his lips, grimaced as he swallowed. "What do you call this
stuff?"

"Gruel, I guess."

"It's disgusting." He put his mug on the table. "We have
to clear out."

"When?"

"First thing in the morning."

It was pitch dark outside when she heard the creak of the
mattress. She knew that sound-how the mattress squeaked
when you sat up, squeaked again when you rose from bed.
Why was Don getting up?

The floor now creaked. He had left the bedroom. He had
reached the back door. Maybe he just needed to pee. She turned
her head, looked out the window, and there was Don, the gym
bag in his hand. For an instant she could not believe it. Don was
taking off with the money, and he was leaving her here alone.

She pulled herself out of the sleeping bag and, draping it
over her shoulders, stumbled into the front room. She could
see him from the window, heading toward the road.

"You greedy bastard," she said, right out loud. What kind
of boyfriend would leave his girl to starve or freeze? Should
she go after him? For the past six months she had been trotting after him like a love-sick puppy.

The thought filled her with sudden disgust. Let him go.
He was welcome to the money in the gym bag. Providing she
got out of here alive, she would be happy to never see him
again.

I can walk to that village, she told herself. Find the blue
house. Ask Rosemary Bear Paw to help me. She might know
when the bus goes through Huntsville. Or maybe there's
a closer stop, a depot in some country store along the way.
Heather glanced at her wristwatch. Nearly 7 o'clock. It would
soon be light.

Between the cottage and the hill there was shelter from
the wind. But the moment she turned the corner, the wind
slammed into her face. It howled across the lake, lashing her
cheeks with icy grains that stung like tiny needles. The osprey
nest at the top of the dead pine rocked in the wind.

Heather plodded on, her head bent to the wind. When
she got back to Toronto, she'd find a job. Any kind of job.
She didn't need much-a small apartment with a bathroom.
Tub and shower. Lots of fluffy, warm towels. She wanted a
kitchenette too, with a microwave and cupboards to store the
delicious food she would buy. Kraft dinners. Chocolate chip
cookies. Tim Hortons coffee. Would she tell the police about
the hold-up? Definitely not. She never wanted to see Don
again. Not in court. Not in prison. Not anywhere. If love was
a sickness, she was cured. How could she ever have cared for
such a loser?

Nearing the village, she saw that each snow-topped shanty
had a snowmobile parked near its door. Except for one, the
houses looked as if no paintbrush had ever touched them.
That one house was blue.

Heather stumbled onto the shore and reached into her
pocket for a tissue to wipe her dripping nose. She hadn't a clue
what to say to Rosemary Bear Paw, beyond asking for a lift.

There was no sign of life in any of the houses. Outside the
blue house, a scruffy brown dog lifted its leg against a yellow
and black snowmobile. When the dog finished, it trotted to
the house, acknowledging her with a glance over its shoulder. At the door it gave a sharp bark. The door opened just
enough to admit the dog, then closed.

At her knock, the door opened again with a blast of warm
air that smelled of tobacco and smoked fish. In front of Heather
stood an enormous woman wearing a lumberjack shirt. She
had a neck like a bull, and her shoulders sloped. Her face was
coppery brown with wide cheekbones. Not an ancient face,
but a face out of an ancient time. Beady eyes embedded in fat
pouches regarded Heather with more suspicion than surprise.
At her feet, the dog growled.

"Where'd you come from?" The woman had a tiny Cupid's
bow mouth that scarcely opened when she spoke.

"Across the lake. I ... uh ... need a ride to the bus."

The woman eyed Heather from head to foot. She saw it
all: the bomber jacket, the tight jeans, the rubber boots.

"I'll take you over for fifty bucks."

"Fine."

She opened the door wider. "Come inside before all the
warm air gets out."

Heather stepped into a small room that was almost filled
by the woman's bulk. In one corner stood a cast iron stove.
On top of it a copper kettle steamed. A bed covered by a red
blanket pressed against one wall. Near the opposite wall stood
a wooden table and three chairs that did not match.

"Are you Rosemary Bear Paw?"

"You know my name? You come from Lawfords' place, I
think." She took a green mug and a bottle of rye whiskey from
a shelf, poured a shot, and handed it to Heather. "This will
warm you up. You drink, then we go."

Heather did not want it. She had tried whiskey beforenasty stuff that tasted like nail polish remover. But as the
warmth slid down her throat, she changed her mind.

Rosemary Bear Paw's dark eyes studied Heather's face.
"I knew somebody was staying at the Lawford place. It don't
take much to show me that. I don't ask questions. Been plenty
trouble there already."

She lowered her bulk onto the bed and pulled on her boots,
huffing as she leaned forward to lace them. "That hillside-in
the old days, we buried our people there. Sacred land. My
father told old man Lawford not to build there, but he don't
listen. There's a curse on that place." With a grunt, she stood
up and pulled her parka from a hook. "That Lawford boy and his friends used to come up here to get drunk. They said they
come to fish, but I don't see nobody put their line in the water.
Then the little kid drowned. That killed the old man." She
wrestled her arms into the parka's sleeves. "For eight years, I
don't see no family there." She finished with a pucker of her
lips and a popping sound, like a kiss. "Huh! I tell you, the ancestors never leave this land."

I'm glad I'm leaving, Heather thought. The ancestors can
keep it. I never want to see Osprey Lake again.

The woman held out her hand, which was dimpled and remarkably small, considering the size of her body. "Fifty dollars."

Heather handed over two twenties and a ten. The money
went straight into a coffee tin on the table. Rosemary Bear
Paw pulled on a pair of leather gauntlets decorated with bright
beadwork-red, green, black, and white.

"We go before anybody else wake up."

Heather looked around but saw no sign of another person
in the house.

"I mean neighbors. They're still sleeping. Nobody needs
to know you been here." The dog followed them to the door.
"Not this time," the woman added. The dog trotted over to
the stove, turned around three times, and flopped onto the
floor.

The snowmobile looked like a monster insect. No, not exactly an insect. More like that contraption the Space Centre
sent up to Mars. It was a new machine, and probably worth
more than all the houses of the village put together.

"You like it, eh? Ski-Doo Skandic SUV. Electric starter.
Never stalls in the cold."

"Very nice."

"Hop on," the woman grunted. "We don't have all day."

For a moment, as she climbed onto the seat, Heather thought of asking if she could first use the bathroom. But the
thought of another hole in a board over a stinking pit was too
gross.

"Is it far to the bus station?" she asked, conjuring in her
mind a modern facility. Shiny ceramic tiles. Flush toilets. Sinks
with hot and cold running water.

"Not far." Rosemary Bear Paw started the engine.

The hills that rose up on either side seemed to channel the
Ski-doo from lake to lake. The wind screamed in Heather's ears.
This won't take long, she thought. But one lake led into another, and then another. No sign of a highway, a road, or a town.
Where was this woman taking her? Heather saw nothing but
rocks, trees, and the occasional boarded-up summer cottage.

If she had known it would take this long, she definitely
would have asked to use the washroom. Her bladder pressed
sorely. The vibration of the machine made it worse. She panicked. What if she wet herself? She would rather die than go
into a bus depot with pee leaked all over her pants.

By the time she let go of the right-hand grip to thump
Rosemary Bear Paw on the back, it was nearly too late.

The snowmobile stopped, its motor still turning over. The
woman shouted over her shoulder, "What's your problem?"

"I need to pee."

"Help yourself." Her tiny mouth spat out the words.

Heather dismounted and waded off through the snow.
When she was a few yards behind the snowmobile, she unzipped her jeans. Rosemary Bear Paw swiveled on her seat to
watch. Did she expect Heather to pee while being stared at?
Why was she looking at her like that, taunting with those
beady eyes? Heather felt like screaming: Turn your goddamn
back! Not until Heather's panties and jeans were around her
ankles did the woman avert her eyes.