Scattered Bones (27 page)

That night the spirit appeared again, but in an entirely different shape. It had the body of a snake dressed in a shiny blue suit with a green bow tie, but this time its head was human. Although it seemed to be male, its pinched, thin face reminded me of Mrs. Wentworth, and its long grey hair braided on top of its head was like Mrs. Smith’s. It hissed the same words in the same voice as the previous night’s visitor had. “Who am I? Have you seen me before? Can you guess?”

Again I said I had no idea, and it slithered away.

By the third day, I was so hungry that I was tempted to eat pieces of my grass blanket, but Grandfather had warned that would only make me more thirsty, and thirst was worse than hunger – you could become unconscious or even go crazy.

“Only a day to go. You have to hang on,” I lectured myself.

I tried to recite my prayers, say a few Hail Marys. Blank, all blank. My mind, perhaps it was my soul, floated upward again. More memories of my childhood came, but these were darker than before. Children’s faces screwed up in mockery, taunting me over and over, “Poop eyes! Shit eyes!” My mother flinging a pot on the floor, raging, “That priest is never satisfied, always complaining, always whining!” Father Bonnald screaming at me in a fury when one day I barged into his bedroom and asked who the person was so tightly wrapped in blankets beside him. It was almost a relief when the vision arrived.

A white, scrawny seagull this time. It said nothing, but tipped its wing, indicating that I was to follow. I had no choice but to obey. High above the trees we flew until we arrived at a green and flowered mountain, on top of which sat a huge white nest. Inside, coloured feathers, jewels and glossy fur glinted in the sun.

The seagull pointed his wing at a stump. I was to wait there. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard a loud whoosh of wings, and from the nest flew a magnificent, albeit weird, bird. It had a large, bright-red bill which overhung a downward curving mouth outlined in black. Sky-blue circles accented its beady eyes, so ferocious, that I thought they would spark lightning. A curled topnotch of red, blue, black sat straight up on its enormous head. Its wide wings were out-stretched.

“Now do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?” it exclaimed.

“Yes, I know. You’re Thunderbird.”

“Of course I am. Who else would I be? I’m a powerful
pawachi-kan
, the most powerful, so count yourself lucky that I’ve decided that you’re worthy of my guardianship. Now let’s get down to business. Here’s how to contact me.”

Thunderbird then chirped a few complicated notes; I whistled along trying to follow the tune. “When you sing this song, I’ll fly to you, but it had better be serious. If you summon me for something frivolous, you’ll pay for it.”

She then recited a long list of what was expected of me – an annual ceremony with singing and dancing, regular gifts of tobacco and food. “I’m particularly fond of the liver and intestines of caribou and would want to be served these as often as possible. And remember, I’m as thin-skinned and jealous as any human lover. Don’t neglect me, don’t thwart me. Now we’ll begin our instructions in the use of medicinal plants...”

Suddenly the creature let loose with a terrified squawk. Her wings turned into propellers she flapped so hard to get away. I woke to a bolt of lightning so bright I thought a meteorite had fallen from heaven. There followed a terrible crash of thunder that shook the platform. The rain came pummelling down in a hellish torrent. Then I remembered Cornelius. Surely he’d be drowned!

I shimmied down from my perch and, stumbling through the bushes in the downpour, I made my way to Beaver Portage. I looked everywhere, frantically trying to find Cornelius’s raft, but it was pouring so hard, I could hardly see a thing. Finally, I heard a faint noise, a moaning sound, and there was the boy, pinned under a tree branch that had fallen in the storm. He was unconscious, blood leaking from his mouth, his left arm twisted in a frightful angle, but – and I thanked God for this – he was alive.

I tried to lift the branch, at least enough to pull Cornelius free, but i
t was far too heavy. I realized that I had to seek help. I ran back to my canoe –
Uncle Raymond had insisted it be left in in case of emergencies – and picked up a sheet of oilcloth, stored for stormy weather. With this I covered the injured boy and, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, I whispered, “Hang in there,
niwecewakanis
, little chum. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The rain thinned and then stopped, and, since it was the time of the year when sunset almost meets sunrise, I was able to paddle fairly quickly. Naked, shivering, exhausted, I fell into the arms of Grandmother Blackfish.

She didn’t want me to go, but I insisted. I pulled on a dry shirt and trousers, and joined the rescue crew. It took the four of us men to lift the log, but we finally pried Cornelius free. We carefully laid him in the canoe, and hurried back to camp. He was badly injured but, thank the Maker, whether Christian or Cree, he would recover.

I must have risen several notches in Grandfather’s esteem, for the next day he told me we were to have an important discussion. “You must have heard of the tragedy that befell our people,” he began and then described in gory detail the bloody massacre that had been inflicted by the Sioux on Pelican Narrows Cree two hundred years before. And Charlie was right. Grandfather blamed it all on the intrigues carried out by the French and English. The Sioux were not bad people, not at all. They had simply been led astray. And now, it was time for revenge.

I was afraid to ask how, but he calmly continued. “We have made a plan. And you’re part of it. That’s the reason we agreed that you could join us.”

Not because I’m his grandson and he loves me dearly, I sneered – but only to myself.

“You’ve probably heard that the white trappers are using strychnine to poison the fur-bearing animals. Because the bastards are too lazy to trap them. I have managed to get my hands on this stuff. Enough to kill each and every white son-of-a-bitch living in Pelican Narrows.”

He said this without raising his voice, as though he was discussing next year’s moose hunt. I was so shocked that I could feel the blood draining from my face. He either didn’t notice or chose to ignore my growing panic for he pressed on as calmly and resolutely as before. “Now, this is what we want you to do this summer after you’ve returned to Pelican. You must make a drawing of each place where a white person lives. Show where they store their food, where they make it, where they eat it. Write down at what hour they eat – morning, noon and night. Who they eat with – we don’t want to poison any of our own people.”

Particularly his daughter, my mother, I thought.

“Now that you have found her, be guided by your
pawachi-kan
. You’re a real Indian now so act like one.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

The fiddlers have taken
a break,
and everyone is lolling about outside, catching their breath. Laughter echoes through the trees. Joe stands up, stretches. “I’m yakking too much, you must be bored out of your bean,” he says.

“Are you crazy? It’s mesmerizing!” replies Izzy. “So what happened?”

“Actually, that summer, not much. Let me go on with my story. I have to get this off my chest now because I know for sure that I’ll never talk about it again.”

~•~

On the way
to their summer camping grounds at Cumberland House, the Blackfishes and Charboyers stopped at Pelican Narrows for a day. They were delivering me home, but Grandmother also wanted Florence Smith to look at Cornelius’s injury; he had broken his arm. She was shocked when she examined the boy. “Look at how crooked it is,” she scolded. “He’s never going to have the full use of it. You women should be ashamed of yourself.”

This criticism made Grandfather angry. A white woman was insulting the sacred knowledge of the ancestors! “You see what I mean?” he demanded, after cornering me. “These people show no respect. To them we are nothing but pissing babes.”

I didn’t know what to think. I too was annoyed at the superior way Mrs. Smith had talked to my female relatives. I also knew she was right. Cornelius’s arm had not been set properly.

I would spend the entire summer anxious, confused – and torn. I now felt a strong connection, a passion really, for the Indian part of me. Yet I knew deep down that, given my up-bringing, I could never entirely be part of that world. And what Grandfather had asked me to do – scrutinize my neighbours in order to murder them – that, I knew, was ridiculous. I tried not to think about it too much.

I was kept busy that summer, weeding the gardens, catching and storing whitefish for the sled dogs, chopping and piling firewood. Too bad if I was tired at the end of the day – Father Bonnald insisted I study during the evenings. “The fortitude you will develop during your three years in the bush will serve you well when you finally attend Collège de Montréal,” he said. “But you must continue to hone your intellect.”

The lives of the great western philosophers was the assignment, but it was hard slogging. I got through Plato and Aristotle but with St. Thomas Aquinas, I could taste dust in my mouth. One evening we were dissecting one of his many weighty pronouncements: “All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in the spirit” when it occurred to me that this might be the right moment to raise a question that had been nagging at me. The spiritual beliefs of my Indian relatives, have they any value? Is there any truth in them? I had been sure that Father Bonnald would insist that it was nothing but ridiculous superstition, so I was amazed by his response.

“Do the Cree have a supreme being?” he asked.

“Sure. He’s called
Kis
ē
manitow
, the Great Spirit. As far as I can make out, he’s the boss of all that’s good in the world. May I recite a little prayer, or maybe it’s more like a lecture that I heard many times in camp?”

Father nodded his head, yes, and I began in a loud, gruff voice imitating Grandfather Blackfish: “You people, destroy nothing. Take good care of everything, and do not waste anything, because it is
Kis
ē
manitow
who is the master. Do not insult the wind,
Kis
ē
manitow
has made it. Do not foul the water,
Kis
ē
manitow
created it. Accept rain or snow without complaining,
Kis
ē
manitow
sends them to us. Do not abuse the trees, the plants, the fish, or the animals because
Kis
ē
manitow
has provided these things for our use.”

I noticed that Father Bonnald was smiling. “Do these people practise a form of prayer?”

I thought for a bit. “Yes, if you consider sitting on a rock contemplating the sunset praying.”

“Who do they call upon when they’re in difficulty? Anyone or anything that’s equivalent to our saints?”

“That`s easy. Their
pawachi-kan
, their guardian spirits. Just like angels, they can fly. They help you if you call them.” I was tempted to tell Father Bonnald about my Thunderbird visitation, but I wasn’t sure the priest would understand. He might start asking questions. And, to be honest, I didn’t want him prying into what I thought of as the Indian part of my soul.

“And what about the devil? Is there such a concept?” Father Bonnald continued.

“Why the
Witigo
, of course. The eater of human flesh. Nothing could be as frightening as he, or sometimes she.”

“Is there anyone in the Cree religion who is similar to our Saviour?”

I pondered this for a good few minutes. “No, not a son of a god who gives up his life for the good of mankind. But there is the idea of sacrifice – the animal offers itself up to the hunter so his people won’t go hungry. It’s a strange belief which I have trouble understanding. The deer you encounter in the forest is a kind of spirit or shadow of what is the essence of deer. Rather like Socrates’ ideas, I guess, the shadow against the wall. So, you’re not really killing an individual creature but a representative of that thing which has offered itself to you. If you honour this prey, it will do so time and again. And if you don’t pay the proper respects, the spirits will be really pissed off.”

Father Bonnald grinned. “Maybe all those years of study have been worthwhile, eh, Joe? What would you say was the Cree’s primary
philosophy when dealing with each other?”

I was amazed at what popped into my mind. “Why, the Golden Rule, of course. ‘Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.’”

“So now I’ll ask
you
the really important question. In comparing Christianity and Cree religion, is there perhaps more of a sameness than a difference?”

~•~

The fiddlers are back
at it; everyone has returned to the dance floor.

“I’m sorry to be talking your ear off,” whispers Joe as he nuzzles his nose into Izzy’s neck.

“My goodness, Joe, it’s so interesting. How extraordinary that a Catholic priest could have so much respect for what is usually considered primitive superstition. If only my father could see things his way.”