Through Black Spruce (18 page)

I ran through everything I’d brought and tried to think of anything I might have forgotten. This plane held its maximum weight, me plus nine hundred pounds of gear. If I’d forgotten something, I’d have to do without it, and if that wasn’t possible, I’d have to create something similar to it. I had lighters and matches for fire. I had two rifles, a shotgun, and plenty of rounds. I had two axes and a canoe. I had warm clothing and sewing supplies. I had canned food to eat for a number of weeks. If I couldn’t live out here alone with these things, I deserved to die.

It is not what I had forgotten that bothered me, I realized, but what I had left behind. My sister, Lisette, my missing nieces, my two friends, Joe and Gregor. Dorothy. That could have been something. I might never see any of them again, I thought, but then I told myself to stop being such a suck. I would see them again. I just hoped not from the other side of thick Plexiglas as I whispered my plans for a breakout. I’d watched too much TV these last few months. I’d be lonely in the bush, but I’d get strong again. I’d become the old me, and that was a very appealing thing.

The sun to my left was very low now as I spotted the Attawapiskat and turned out onto the bay. Light at this time of evening is dangerous. It plays tricks on you, especially over water, making it hard to judge distance and height. I checked the altimeter, the fuel gauge, the oil pressure and temperature. The sun hovered low enough for me to track its sink, and I stared hard for land. I knew I was close.

The wind picked up and jostled my plane, then dropped it on a current so that my stomach went to my throat. To make me more nervous, the engine was acting up, my plane vibrating normal, then coughing, then vibrating normal again. If the gas cut out completely I’d have to glide in and onto the bay. The wind blew hard enough that waves would be forming. I dropped the plane a little lower just in case.

Akimiski rose up out of the water ahead. A big island, a part of Nunavut even though it is well below Inuit country. I never figured that one out. I passed over the bank of the island and in a few minutes I saw the interior lake I remembered, good trout fishing and rivers running from it that would hold the life I needed. I set myself in the right place and squinted into the brightness of the last of the sun.

My left hand gripped the wheel hard as I grasped the throttle. The wind jostled me, as much from the south as from the west, but I’d chosen my landing path and was only feet from the water now, coming in but too fast. I knew I didn’t have much water ahead of me. I prayed there were no logs or rocks or sunken trees on this stretch. Impossible to know now.

I clenched my jaw tight as I touched water, then lifted, then touched again. I adjusted the flaps twenty degrees, thirty, and still too fast. Thirty-five then up to forty-five degrees. My plane shook hard against the wind’s drag.

Finally she slowed, slowed fast, thrumming on the water, slowing more until I knew I was going to be okay. I let out a big sigh, pulled the throttle completely out, and let myself drift to shore at a small sandy spot. I lit a cigarette, reached back, tore open the case of whisky, and grabbed a bottle.

The sun set as I sat there. All of the last hours’ tension was on top of me, and I took pulls on the bottle every minute or two and chain-smoked cigarettes, my hands shaking out of control as the sky turned dark blue and then black.

How long did I just sit in my seat and drink and smoke? I didn’t want to do anything else right then. I couldn’t. The weight of those last hours pinned me there. Smokes were a real commodity now, and I wouldn’t do this often. But that night I needed it. And I deserved a whole sixty of rye, too, if I wanted. I drank and smoked, drank and smoked. I listened to the night noises of the animals here. I listened to the ripple of water on my pontoons.

20
I CAN SEE YOU

I’ve forgiven Gordon, kind of, for shooting me down last week. I hate to admit it, but he was right. I’ve not said that out loud to him, though. I broke my own hard-learned rule: try to avoid jumping into bed with a guy when you’re not sober. I learned that lesson down south, and with others beyond Butterfoot. I might have
kind of
forgiven Gordon for saying no to me. I need some sense of control again, though, and so the cold shoulder will stay cold till I’m the one who decides to turn it to the fire.

I might make a bushman out of my dumb Indian yet. He’s been tending to the trapline the last two weeks, for the most part, while I’ve been visiting Uncle Will. Gordon’s learned how to open and set the traps, and he’s learning how to try different baits for the marten. He surprised me by using the heads and guts of large pike that Chief Joe brought over to us that he caught in his winter nets. Lo and behold, the marten around here seem to like pike more than goose.

Fifteen animals I’ve skinned and stretched the last days. The hides pulled taut on their pickets of plywood have been standing like furry soldiers lined up far enough away from the wood stove. According to Joe, they should bring at least fifteen hundred bucks in our pockets if we send them south to auction. I can get a lesser deal by selling them at the Northern Store. Yeah, I’ll teach that boy. I’m considering trying to trap some beaver out near Uncle Will’s house.

I’ve got the hood of my snow machine up, the cold freezing my fingers as I remove the belt. Gordon stands beside me, watching intently.

“Pass me that new belt,” I say, nodding my head to the seat of the ski-doo. Gordon hands it over, still wrapped in its cardboard. “Come on, man,” I say. “You could at least take the belt out.” I do it myself, and slip the belt over the wheels of the drive. I pull my gloves back on to get some feeling back before I tighten it on with my wrench.

We’re going to go see my mum today. I’m going to convince her not to let them send Uncle Will down south. I’m bringing Gordon with me as my secret weapon. My mum’s got a schoolgirl crush on him, is always asking when we’ll be back over for dinner, and then why we don’t just stay with her. It’s kind of cute, actually.

I tell Gordon he gets to drive into town. He looks scared. I make him pour gas into the tank, pull the cord on the machine, and work the choke till it idles decent. I’ll get a new battery next. Maybe I’ll even get a new machine soon. I stuff the marten hides, pulled gently off the plywood stakes, into a few Northern Store bags and climb on behind Gordon. He jerks the snowmobile as he pulls out onto the trail running beside the bay.

I squint out at the frozen sea as he drives slow like a girl. The contours of white under the blue sky stretch on forever. Wind drives gusts of snow in swirls. The cold bites my face. I pull the scarf higher over my cheeks and zip my parka hood full up. I’m going to look like an old woman by winter’s end.

A half-hour later, Gordon drives me up to the Northern Store parking lot, but not before almost getting us hit by a pickup. I don’t like this coming into town. Everyone stares at me. I know they talk about me as soon as I pass them.

At the back of the store, I find the manager.

He says to me, “You thought anything more about being in our catalogue?”

“I’m still waiting to hear from my agent,” I lie. “He’ll get in touch with you soon.”

I pull the hides out of their plastic bags and lay them on the counter. The gamy smell of them isn’t the prettiest in the world. Half of them are a very good size, three are medium, and two are small. I won’t take less than twelve hundred bucks. Joe’s already told me marten is as high as it’s ever been. He said something about a huge Asian market for them now.

The manager picks up one of them, the largest. “Mind if I turn it inside out?” he asks.

I shrug. He wants to see how well I dried them. He rolls it from the butt end. “Skin looks good,” he says. “Good job drying them.”

Don’t patronize me
.

“All of them this nice?”

“All about the same,” I say. “Look at the fur, though. A few have a really nice red sheen.”

He unrolls a couple of others, then he studies them for a while before tapping on a calculator. “I can give you seven hundred for them,” he finally says.

What? Was I born yesterday? “They’re worth twice that,” I say.

“Maybe if they were all as nice as these ones.” He points to the two thickest furs.

Screw this. I begin stuffing them back in their plastic bags. You think you can take advantage of me because I’m a woman? “I’m on my way to Moose Factory,” I say. “They’ll give me what they’re worth over there.”

“All right. All right,” the manager says. “I’ll give you a grand. That’s as much as you’re going to get anywhere.”

“You want to know what that manager at Northern Store tried to do to me today?” I tell my mum as she heats up a kettle. “He totally tried to rip me off. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m an Indian?”

My mum continues busying herself, pulling out mugs and sugar and milk. “Not much has changed since the old days, eh?” she says. “Imagine a hundred years ago when there was no such thing as competition, Annie. Your grandfather had many stories far worse than that.”

How does she do it? Her ability to make me feel both foolish and contrite for complaining, it’s a true skill. I go into the living room and see she’s been beading and sewing. She’s making someone some nice moosehide slippers. There’s even beaver fur for trim on the table. The scent of fresh-tanned moosehide, one of my favourite smells in the world. Tiny multicoloured beads pepper the glass top of her coffee table. Long, thin beading needles lay neatly in a pile beside thread. I look at the moccasin top she’s been beading. Pretty James Bay flowers. I pick up a piece of moosehide and bring it to my nose. Gordon sits on the sofa, watching.

“Where’d you get the home-tanned hide, Mum?” I ask.

She walks in with three mugs on a tray. Formal. Fancy. She’s trying to impress Gordon. “Mary Burke,” she answers.

“How is Mary?” I ask. She’s from up the coast, one of those elders who doesn’t speak English. “She must be getting old now,” I say. She might be the sweetest lady I know. And she’s one of the most talented bead workers and sewers on James Bay.

“She’s doing fine,” Mum says. “Still beading away like there’s no tomorrow. I don’t know how her eyesight holds out.” Mum hands Gordon a mug. “Did you know, Gordon,” she says, “that it wasn’t my mother who taught me how to sew, but my father?”

Gordon smiles. These two are too much. I take my mug and sit down.

Mum sits beside us. “And I have a special surprise for you, Gordon. I’m making you some nice slippers for out at that cabin. It must be so cold out there!”What? I could use a pair. “I’ll have them done in the next couple of days,” she says. “I’m guessing you’re a size eleven.”

Gordon smiles and nods.

In the kitchen, I help Mum knead out dough for bannock. I’m just going to say it. “Mum, Eva told me Dr. Lam is talking about sending Uncle Will down to Kingston.”

She focuses even harder on kneading. “They say it might be best for him.”

“Do you know I visit him almost every day?” I ask. “I, I talk to him. I really do, and I think it’s helping.”

“You’re a good daughter. A good niece,” Mum says. “But I think he needs other opinions.”

I decide to play my trump card right off the bat. “If he heads down to Kingston, that means Gordon and I will go down there, too,” I say. “And if we go down there, Gordon will probably head to Toronto, and I’m thinking about going back to make some cash modelling. Maybe go back to New York.”

Mum keeps working the dough. “I imagine I’ll head down with you,” she says. “I’d hate for Will to be down there alone.”

I want to explain to her that our family doesn’t do well down south, that when we leave our home, the world becomes an ugly, difficult place, that I know as sure as I’ve ever known anything that if Uncle Will is taken away from his home, he will shrivel and die. Mum won’t understand this, though. Nobody will. But I know this will happen.

Instead of speaking this, something else comes into my head. Another idea. An absolute lie. “Mum, I haven’t told Eva or Dr. Lam. I haven’t told anyone. Uncle Will has been responding when I talk to him.”

She stops kneading.

“Sometimes,” I continue, too late to stop, “sometimes he even squeezes my hand when I’m holding it and talking to him. Like he can hear me. Like he wants me to keep talking.”

“Annie!” Mum looks like she might faint. “Why didn’t you tell me this!”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” I say, staring at the dough. “He’s going to get better, Mum. Please! Let him stay here a little longer.”

“Oh, Annie. I wish you’d told me this sooner.”

“Don’t cry, Mum.” I reach out and hug her, something I can’t remember doing in years. She’s thin and warm.

“I’m crying because I’m happy, Daughter.”

I hold her and look out at Gordon, sitting on the sofa. He watches me.

Well, I’ve done it now. If you haven’t been listening to me, you’d better start. I said what I said to Mum for you. So hear me.

When Eva comes in tonight, I’m going to tell her that Mum agreed. She wants to keep you here, close to family. She knows it’s what’s best for you. Gordon and Mum are at home eating bannock and jam and playing cards. She asked him if he wanted to learn how to bead and sew, and he seemed very excited. What kind of people do I have on my hands? You better start hearing me because I’m not going to let them take you away.

You know I’m no saint. When I was in Montreal and Butterfoot told me he’d had a relationship with Suzanne, too, I considered myself a free woman. Men in Montreal are handsome, and I was choosy, but I was free.

Never on a first date, though, not after Butterfoot. Come to think of it, that first night I spent with him wasn’t even a date. I’d never thought I’d be the girl I became in Montreal, and later, in New York. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t a maniac, not like some of the other models I hung out with. Violet thought nothing of bringing a different cute boy home every other night. I was more selective. This became a time for me to explore, to test my powers, to live in someone else’s skin, it felt like, for a while. What surprised me, though, is that I couldn’t shake the idea of Butterfoot. I even thought I might be falling for him.

It was Butterfoot and Violet who talked me into shooting my portfolio, to try my hand at modelling. I laughed when the three of us were sitting in her loft one night, the loft in Old Montreal the agent rented out for his revolving door of models, the one Violet seemed to be living in permanently. I laughed when the two of them suggested I get “a book and head to some go-sees.”

“Ever!” I laughed. “I’ll leave that stuff to my sister.” But we drank more wine, and they talked about the life and the money.

“I can’t make any promises,” Violet said. “It’s a cutthroat world. But do you want to grow old wishing you’d done what you wanted, rather than doing it?”

“It’s better,” Butterfoot said, “to regret the things you have done than to regret the things you haven’t.”

They won me over, I guess. I asked them, “Why are you two being so nice to me?”They didn’t have an answer. Now I know it was their guilt. It took me a long while to realize this.

I told them I thought the agent was creepy, that I didn’t want to talk to him.

“Don’t worry about it, sister,” Violet said. “He’s just the money man and the go-see man. I’ll call him for you tomorrow.”

It was far easier than I could have ever imagined. The next week, I met with the skinny photographer at his studio. Now I know what a portfolio costs to shoot. The agent paid for it—after all, I am the sister of Suzanne Bird—and I’m still paying for it today.

I was worried what my new friends would think of Gordon, the silent Indian who hung out with me. They took him in stride, to my surprise, and accepted him as just one more accoutrement in their strange worlds. I was running out of money, though, staying with him at the expensive hotel, and so we moved to a cheap little place near the bus station. I’d decided to stretch the ride out as long as I could. I had enough for another couple of weeks, max.