Living with the hawk (21 page)

Finally, the girl directly behind me, Andrea, the yearbook editor, tapped me on the shoulder. “Considering the situation and all,” she said, “it's good of you to go.”

I suppose I could have grunted some noncommittal reply, but I had to get it out. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” she said, “when your brother's one of the guys who did it.”

I swung around in my seat, glared at her until she drew back into the corner of the car.

“My brother,” I said, “had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing.” That might be the truth — I hoped it was. “He's the one who tried to get the others to confess. You'll see. There'll be a trial, and then everybody's going to know what really happened.”

I never should have phoned that Crime Stoppers line, I was such an idiot, now they all had it wrong about my brother, and I couldn't do a thing but let them wait for the trial — and who knew how long it would be before they'd learn the truth? What he said was the truth, wasn't it? It just had to be.

There wasn't much conversation after that, Ivan's radio droning on, the songs an empty murmur above the moan of tires on pavement.

I sat hunched against the door, staring out the window. The road carved its way up and around bare hills that looked dead and brown, no variation except for an occasional patch of dirty snow, the odd stagnant slough. Hardly any trees. A grey barn collapsing beside a weathered stack of hay, an old combine abandoned on a hilltop. From another, higher, hill, I could see far in the west a huge spread of water, its surface like slate, as drab as the sky. It had to be Old Wives Lake, and I couldn't help but think of a story from the distant past, more killing, the old native women circling their carts, making camp for the night, knowing the enemy would attack at dawn. They lit many campfires, made enough commotion for a whole tribe, gave all the young a chance to steal away in the dark. When the Blackfoot struck the next morning, they found only old wives, grandmothers, they killed them all.

The wives were Cree though, Anna was Sioux. I'd read her obituary in the paper, had cut it out, slipped it inside the pocket of my good jacket. Her father was dead — “predeceased by her father” was what the paper said. She had an older sister, a mother and a grandmother on the reserve near Wood Mountain, a grandmother and grandfather in Palliser, the ones she lived with while she went to school. Ivan told me that her grandpa worked at the potash plant east of Palliser. The obituary said that Anna loved her family more than anything, but that she liked sports and school, wanted to go to university.

The sky seemed lower now and darker, clouds moving slowly overhead, though there was no wind, the tall grass around the fence posts motionless. All we needed now was freezing rain; it'd be a perfect day for a funeral.

When we got to Assiniboia, the church was nearly full, the pews at the back jammed with kids from school. Ivan and I squeezed into the last row. I could see a lot of people I didn't know in the forward rows, many of them natives, a few with their hair tied in braids. Except for that and their darker skin, they looked pretty much like the rest of us. Right behind them, all crowded into the same row, were the girls from Anna's volleyball team and Mrs. Kennedy, their coach. Mr. Teale, the principal, was in the next row, and Mr. Hilton too, the guidance counsellor. The first few rows were empty, and right in front of them was Anna's coffin.

I tried not to look at it, but then I saw her picture on the coffin, and a bunch of flowers. It was okay, the coffin was closed. Her school picture — the Josten's photographer took everybody's picture in the fall, so it was her graduation photograph, and she was never going to graduate.

I looked down. The pew in front of me, whorled figures at rest in the grain of the wood.

When the minister asked us all to stand, I tried not to stare toward the aisle. Two men in black suits walked slowly to the front of the church and turned around, one of them motioning to the reserved seats. They were followed by three women, also in black, two of whom were guiding an older woman who walked between them with short, precise steps. Anna's sister and her mother, I thought, helping her grandma. Right behind them must have been her other grandparents, both of them with black, black hair, their faces looking strained and tired. Otherwise, they seemed no older than my parents. A dozen more in the procession, and then everyone was seated and the service underway.

It was a lot like you'd expect. We sang “Amazing Grace” and “Rock of Ages,” listened to some scripture and the homily. When the minister mentioned Anna's name though, his tone was so impersonal you had to guess he'd probably never met her. Then he asked Yvonne Big Sky to speak about her sister. Yvonne walked quickly to the lectern, pulled a paper from her pocket — she was wearing a black blazer over a white blouse, the paper in the inside pocket of the blazer — she spread the paper in front of her. She looked a bit like Anna, high cheekbones and handsome eyes, but she wasn't as tall. The microphone attached to the lectern was above her head, and she took it in one hand and lowered it towards her mouth. I could see then that she was biting her lower lip.

There was a long pause before she spoke.

“My sister was a remarkable person. Even when she was a little girl, Anna had big ambitions. She said some day she was going to be a teacher. She wanted to help her people.”

The woman's lip was quivering, and I wondered, how can she get through this when it's for her own sister?

“Everybody knew Anna could be serious, but she was lots of fun too. She always liked to sing. She used to make up her own songs.” Yvonne Big Sky paused, took a deep breath. Another breath. “Not her own songs. Her own words for other people's songs. Funny words. Once, when Mom overcooked the roast, she sang Kris Kristofferson. ‘Help me make it through the meat.' She liked to . . . tease. She . . . she . . .” Anna's sister closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were full of tears. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I can't do this.” She hurried back to the seat beside her grandma. I could hear weeping from the front of the church now where Anna's relatives were seated, and farther back some of the girls on the school volleyball team began to cry.

The next thing I knew, the minister was reading scripture.

“O God, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we beseech thee, deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of human life . . .”

I'm not sure what came after that. I could hardly make out the grain in the pew in front of me.

On the drive back to Palliser, I kept thinking that's the way it ought to be. People crying, letting their grief show, not like when my uncle died, the whole family gritting their teeth, keeping quiet as if it was some kind of shame to cry. When I get home, I thought, I'm going down to that jail and tell Blake exactly what it was like at Anna's funeral.

Yeah, and there was so much more we had to talk about. I wanted to see him. Needed desperately to talk to him.

But, as I learned when I got home, I would never have the chance.

E
LEVEN

M
y brother's funeral was held on Friday at St. David's Church in Palliser, my father's church, but the Reverend Wallace Garner from St. Timothy's on the east side of town volunteered to take the service. A lot of it was just a blur, I was still in such a shock, and I couldn't seem to cry for my brother. Which was crazy. I felt like crying, wanted to cry. My father was on the other side of my mother, I remember that, each of us holding one of her hands as we sat in the first pew, my cousins, aunts and uncles in the rows behind us, but when the service began she removed her hands from ours, picked up the
Book
of Common Prayer
— it was the one she'd chosen, wanting the more stately language of the past — and turned to the funeral liturgy.

When we'd come down the aisle a few minutes earlier, the three of us walking together, supporting my mother, or so I thought — I didn't yet know how strong she was — and leading the procession of relatives, I had glanced up from where my mother held my arm and been surprised to see that the church was full. Many of the parish congregation were there, as one might expect, and Evan Morgan, I knew I could count on him, but I also saw quite a few other kids from my grade nine classes, many more that I knew were seniors, and then, filling the better part of three rows, Coach Conley and the football team.

Except, of course, for the three who'd been remanded to the youth facility in Regina. Everything had changed with my brother's death.

Vaughn Foster began to talk as soon as he learned that Blake was dead. He said he was out there with Anna Big Sky, the other car had hemmed him in, he had no idea who it was, didn't want any part of what they might do. When he saw it was Jordan Phelps and Todd Branton, he knew it was going to be bad.

After that, Todd Branton couldn't wait to lay the blame on Jordan. He said it was his car, but Jordan had been driving, they'd followed the Foster car all right, but he thought they were just going to have some fun with Anna, put a scare into her, sure he'd helped Vaughn Foster hold her, but only after Jordan had grabbed her and she'd slugged him one. Then Jordan had started hitting her, hammering her in the face, and he had let her go. So had Vaughn a minute later, but Jordan kept hitting her, striking her even as she fell. They had both seized him then, but he kicked her twice while she lay on the ground. When she didn't move, Jordan had said they were in this together, they were all guilty, they had to keep it quiet or the three of them were finished, there was a way they could show they were going to stick together, something they could do together. Todd said he didn't want to do it, of course, but what choice did he have? Once Vaughn agreed to do it, he had to do it too.

They were guilty, yes, but they were still alive.

Vaughn Foster told a somewhat different story. He didn't know what made him hold her, but she'd slugged Jordan when he reached for her. Then she'd called Jordan an asshole and he'd started hitting her. Vaughn claimed that he'd been the first to let her go, that he was the one who didn't want to piss on the girl. It wasn't their fault, they both agreed on that; Jordan Phelps was the one responsible and, besides, everybody was drunk.

I still hadn't cried for my brother. It was his funeral, sure, but I kept thinking of Anna Big Sky.

Regaining consciousness under that chill October sky, she
wonders where she is — the clothes she wears, the snow beneath
her, everything soaked with urine. Somehow she climbs to her
feet, her legs barely holding her weight, her eyes so swollen from
the beating that she can hardly see. Pale grasses like ghosts
moving slowly over the snow. Brush and deadfall, the dark
shadows of broken maples like warnings scrawled upon the
drifts, but somewhere out there, far beyond the trees, she sees
a light. Shivering now, her whole body beginning to shake, she
knows that distant light is the only hope she has. Her clothes
already begin to stiffen with the cold.

The bastards, the dirty bastards. Jordan Phelps wanting his revenge because Anna had the nerve to take him on and show him up for what he was. Branton along for the ride, not just to put a scare into her, but because he'd do whatever Jordan wanted, yeah, that was true, he'd follow Jordan anywhere. And Vaughn Foster, I wasn't sure about him. He might have gone along with it, but Anna liked him, and I think he liked her too. Maybe he was just another victim. I guess I'd never know.

She sets off toward the light, her feet slipping on stones and
fallen branches. She stumbles, sinks to her knees, forces herself
to rise again. Pushes on, through the brush and fallen trees.
Branches lash across her face, cut her battered cheeks. She raises
a hand before her eyes, blunders on, breath sharp in her throat.
She bounces off a tree, almost goes down again, but she keeps her
feet moving, keeps them under her, pushes a branch away from
her face, breaks through the line of trees, and the whole prairie
lies before her, snow like a frayed and dirty sheet dropped upon
the stubble field. She wavers above her aching legs. The light is
straight ahead, warmth and safety waiting there, but she can't
stop the shaking.

She begins to walk again, the crust of snow clawing at her
feet, trying to pull her down, but she keeps dragging one foot
around, putting it in front of the other. She trips on something
in the snow. Falls. Lies there a moment, the snow so soft beneath
her. But there's a light ahead somewhere; she knows she has to
reach it. She gets her legs beneath her, crouches until her legs
have the strength to lift her. Yes, the light is there.

She starts off again, leaning to her right — she can't seem to
help it — the light is side-stepping away from her. She pauses,
shakes her head, goes straight toward it, but it's slipping off
again. She knows she's staggering. Stops, her body shuddering,
her hands quaking at her sides. She sinks into the snow.

“ — the kind of kid who always tried to do his best.” Coach Conley was delivering my brother's eulogy. My parents, I suddenly noticed, were gazing at him as if every breath they took came straight from him. “Blake did not believe in giving up. I remember when he was in grade ten the Lightning football team was not the power it's been the last two years. One Saturday afternoon, we were down by three touchdowns at halftime. The boys are all lying on the sidelines, chewing on oranges, wondering just how bad the score is going to be by the final whistle, wishing they could get it over with and go home right now, and this grade ten kid stands up, tells everybody he doesn't know if they can win this game, but one thing he does know is that none of them are quitters, if they put their hearts back into it and all pull together, sure as shooting they can win the second half. It's obvious the kid believes this himself, and pretty soon the other guys are starting to believe right along with him. They do outscore the other team the rest of the way, darn near pull out the victory. Because Blake Russell believed in them and in himself.”