Through Black Spruce (8 page)

“Except for his family,” I said. His brothers were bad as him. Christ, even his old witch of a mother frightened me.

“How would they ever know it was us?” Gregor asked. “He must have lots of enemies in his business.”

I thought it was all just drunk talk. You can’t just kill a man, can you? But that night the idea took root. “You know what? We’ll kill Marius,” I said. “Wouldn’t be hard.”

“You dilapidate the monster,” Joe said, rubbing his belly, “and another head grows from the body.”

“Decapitate, to slice head from body,” Gregor corrected. “Dilapidated, the state of Will’s house.”

The two rattled on, but me, my head swam. How easy would it be to follow Marius, to follow his tracks, just like you would a moose? Follow him to his favourite watering holes and feeding places. He had to be alone sometimes. I hadn’t seen his two friends lately, and even if they were around, three quick shots and I’d finish them, then drag them into the bush. But I’d need help. Would Joe and Gregor really be up for it?

“Let’s do it, boys,” I remember telling them. Even drunk, my friends backed off. I think they saw something in my eyes that scared them.

They came up with less serious plans, all of them silly. “Plan A,” Gregor said, “we go undercover for the OPP and buy drugs from him. They’ll wire us up. Put cameras, tiny ones, in our meeting places. You know they make cameras the size of a quarter? I’d love to get a hold of a couple of those for school.”

“And then the Netmakers know it was us,” I countered, “and we’re dead in a month.”

“Police can put us in protective custody,” Joe said. “Give us a new identity. Move us out of Moosonee. Maybe to Kapuskasing or something. I wouldn’t mind a vacation from this place, me.”

I knew my friends didn’t have the heart for it. If I was going to do this, it had to be alone.

I expected it, lying in bed, the ceiling spinning above me. Tortured images of you, my nieces, swimming through my head. You were both in trouble somewhere down south, and I was up here fat, drunk, and useless. Marius Netmaker, he was directly involved in our troubles. He was the root of them, I knew it. Even if at this point I couldn’t follow the thorny branches straight down to him. But my gut knew that as sure as I knew I’d wake up in the morning with a hangover. I was beginning to accept what I had to do. There was a dark warmth in that. A black fire when I shivered with cold.

I was drunk enough that night by the time my friends left me that I sat with my father’s rifle, holding it in my lap, the scarred stock rough and warm as an old man’s hand.
Son of Xavier
, I swear it said to me.
This is the story I will share with you tonight. I could hear you tonight, talking with your friends. Be careful, son of Xavier. This town is a place of talkers. No one can know. Not even your friends. They are not strong enough for this. But you are. You are the son of a warrior
.

I knew I was entering a dangerous place, nieces. What man who is well speaks to his dead father’s rifle? And more, what man who is well hears his dead father’s rifle speaking to him?

But sometimes when you are all alone in the bush, deep in winter, and the northern lights come, you can actually hear them. A crackling. Like a radio on real low, moaning and sighing. This is what it seemed I was hearing, and I listened close to what the voice was trying to tell me.

10
BLUE TARP TEEPEE

Eva’s weight leans over me. I’m on my back on a bed, and I smell the pissy warmth of this motel room. The tingling in my head doesn’t go away. I touch it, dizzy, and explore my scalp with my fingers. I can’t feel the tips of them against my head. The room begins to glow white.

I rub my thumbs over the chipped polish of my nails. My arms are covered in goose pimples. Sweat burns my eyes. Eva stuffs an old fast-food bag in my mouth, her weight on me now so that I can’t breathe.

“Eva …” I mumble, my mouth dry and numb. The first pain comes, like an ice bullet has been fired into my forehead. I try to cry out, but my throat constricts and my jaw tightens on the bag. Eva holds a camera in her hands and begins photographing. I see bright light through my eyelids but know that my eyes are still open.

Beautiful. Perfect
, Eva says, leaning back and laughing. I shake as if I am freezing to death. My head will burst. I can’t open my mouth, so I stare into her gaping mouth, looking at her fillings. I hear the groan of the ocean surf.

Wind roars like when I stick my head out the window on the highway. I need to scream to release the pain in my skull. It will pop soon. Black. Hands on my shoulders. Weight pushing me into the mattress so that it swallows me whole.

Eva becomes the Indian-looking photographer, the one with the lisp who shot my portfolio. The photographer Violet and Soleil introduced me to. His lens pushes too close to my face. What is he doing? That will be an ugly, ugly shot. Bright light of his flash, so bright I close my eyes against it, but still, it penetrates my lids. Suzanne and me laughing and swinging sticks at each other on the shore of the bay. Adults close by. Protective.

My grandfather’s wooden leg washes up on shore. Suzanne runs and bends to pick it up. A wave swoops up and takes her, pulling her out. I throw my stick to her so she’ll be able to float. As it arcs through the air, it grows larger, thicker. Her hand reaches from the water and grabs it. She pulls herself up onto it, the size of a log now. Her wet hair is plastered on her forehead, white teeth of a smile as she straddles the log, rides it like a horse and waves to me as the tide pulls her out and away so that she gets smaller and smaller, her arm raised triumphant in the air, her tiny hand waving. The photographer catches it all.

The water recedes, revealing a highway. I’m riding the back of a growling motorcycle at night. The red taillights of other motorcycles in front of us. Black night. Suzanne on a motorcycle somewhere ahead. I can see her long hair flicking in the wind. Bare limbs of trees above blurring.

A room full of beautiful women. They stare at me, at Suzanne. Especially at Suzanne. They approach us and reach out to touch her with their long fingernails. They begin to jostle each other, trying to get closer to her. Their fingernails dig into Suzanne. She struggles to get away. They pull her down onto the floor. I fight my way through them, but they are too many in their gowns and stilettos. I pull one after the other from my sister, throwing the witches into the air. I turn back and dig through this flesh for my sister, all the while the photographer snapping, calling out,
Perfect. Perfect. Beautiful …

Christ! My neck feels like I’ve fractured it. I sit up in the chair, the respirator purring beside me. I’d been sleeping with my head back, my mouth wide open. My own choking snores woke me. Not very model-like. I’m glad Eva didn’t walk in and see me.

Why don’t people in a coma snore? Or do they? Uncle Will, I’ve never heard a peep out of him. The grogginess doesn’t go away, and so I stand up and head to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. I forgot my watch at the cabin. I have no idea what time it is. It’s got to be late. Or really early. I wander out into the brighter hallway. Not a soul in sight. Only two nurses on this floor at night, I’ve discovered, one of them Eva.

I walk to the nursing station, but it’s empty. I’m about to return to Uncle’s room when I get the urge to walk a little further down the hall. I’ll be in deep shit if Eva or Sylvina, the other nurse on tonight, catches me. They face some loud bitching if I’m discovered snooping around well past visiting hours. Sylvina, like Eva, is a good woman. She used to be a tough one when we were younger, the first girl I ever knew to get a tattoo, a greenish-blue homemade one of the name of the boyfriend who pricked it onto her arm. There’s something the men love about her. I was always jealous of the way she was like a drug to them. Even with four children now, she’s still got it going on.

I peek into a room that has its door ajar, a soft light pouring from it. Two old people, a man and a woman, lie in beds beside one another. Both of them have hair as white as their sheets, a thin blanket pulled over each. I look both ways down the hall, then slip into the room. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s that they look peaceful.

Someone, Eva maybe, has moved the beds close together so that they almost touch. Both of these old ones lie leaning to the other. They must be man and wife. The man is thin, thinner than Gordon. The
kookum
is round, and she moans lightly in her sleep. I can imagine both of them shuffling slowly down the road to the Northern Store, the man a few paces in front of his wife. Her face is brown as a dried apple. His is thin and so etched with deep lines it looks like a carving.

“Neikamo,”
the woman cries out. I jump. Does she know I’m here? Her eyes remain closed.
“Neikamo,”
she cries out again. Sing. It’s as if she commands me to do it. Someone’s going to hear her. I peer out into the hall, then quickly leave the room.

A dim light shines out from the room beside Uncle Will’s. Again I peek in. I can hear the struggle of breathing. At first I think it’s Eva doing something strenuous, but I only see the thin form of somebody on the bed. Still no one around. I walk in.

A young boy, no older than twelve, lies on his back. I recognize him, the youngest brother of a friend in Moosonee. Eva told me about this one. He was found outside his home, nearly frozen to death, a plastic bag spilling gasoline beside him. He’d siphoned some from a snowmobile. A chronic huffer. Eva doesn’t think he’s going to regain consciousness anytime soon.

He’s still got the innocent face of a child. His breathing has eased, and the machine beside him beeps more regularly. I lay my hand on his forehead. He stirs just a little. I’ve got to get back to Uncle’s room before I’m caught.

I begin with one of Uncle’s arms, picking it up in my hands and gently rubbing it from shoulder to wrist, careful to avoid the IV drip. The needle has bruised his arm to a yellowy green. I take his hand in mine and massage the fingers. I’m getting used to touching him. I take my time. The night outside remains a deep black.

“I didn’t go down to Toronto with the plan of looking for Suzanne,” I say, “but you of all people would say it was more than coincidence that the first
Nish
I run into knew something about her.” I can hear what he’d say if he could.
So be it
.

What I’m amazed by is that the Indian community in this monster city is as tight as our own up north. They all know of each other, and where to meet: a stone friendship centre on Spadina, or else on the corner of Queen and Bathurst. I’m sure there are other places as well, but I haven’t found them yet.

Not yet a week into our visit, I wake up one morning after staying out late with Eva and feel the tingling in my head, the subtle change of light in the room. A seizure comes, not nearly as bad as others, but still painful, still leaving me feeling wiped out. I’m thankful Eva is there to watch over me, to place a twisted Burger King bag in my mouth, to bring me water and juice after. Eva blames it on my not eating much and my drinking more than usual. I think it was caused by the realization that I don’t want to be in this depressing city anymore, but don’t want to be home right now, either. It’s been close to a year since my last seizure. I’d almost convinced myself this pain is a thing of the past.

Eva’s surprised when I tell her I’m going to stay a couple extra days. I tell her that the Indians we met might know something about Suzanne, and it would be wrong of me to head home just when I’m offered a lead on her whereabouts. “Ever nutty idea, Annie,” Eva says and reminds me, as if she has to, that the cops don’t know where Suzanne is, and that her agent hasn’t heard from her in months. Why have I suddenly become a detective?

I’ve talked Eva into grudgingly lending me five hundred bucks, and that, combined with the few hundred I still have, will be enough to last me. “I’ll head home when my money runs out, Sis,” I tell her. “Don’t worry. I can put it to bed with a clean conscience then. At least I can say I tried.”

I walk with Eva to Union Station and hug her before she begins the long train journey home. When we were about to leave the shitty motel in Cabbagetown, she went to the office and paid for another week for me. She’s a good woman, Eva. I won’t forget this. But I didn’t tell her that. I think she knows.

All alone now, I make my way along the streets filled with people on their way to work, kids who should be in school, bums. Lots of bums. Where do all these homeless people come from? Homes, once, I guess. Only a week, and far less than a grand, keeps me from joining them.

I suddenly think I made the wrong choice not going back home. Maybe it was the seizure that made me make such a crazy decision. I thought it was a good idea at the time. Now that I think of it, maybe my seizures are warnings that bad things are just over the horizon.

The sun’s warm enough that I peel off my jacket and tie it around my waist. I don’t want to head back to the crappy motel. It’s the first truly nice day since I arrived and I notice the difference in the way those around me accept it. They walk slower, soaking in the warmth, daydreaming of not having to go where they’re going, I guess. And they’re friendlier. Complete strangers, some of them even smile at me before pushing ahead through the sea of people.

Near the place called Queen’s Park, I see a group of Indians sitting on the grass, paper cups in hand, shaking them at passersby for change. I think one of them is Painted Tongue, but when I get close enough, I see that he is much older and missing teeth. I keep walking. Once when I was thirteen or fourteen, I got separated from you while we were moose hunting near Otter Rapids. I remember the fear of it. Lost. I thought I’d be wandering in the cold woods forever and never see you or my mother or sister again. I thought then that I would die. This is what I feel like now. I’m lost.

By the bank, the old man and his cronies sit on their stoop, their faces to the sun. I feel like I take the first real breath since Eva climbed onto her train. But I see Painted Tongue’s not with them. I stop in at a café half a block away and buy a small coffee, then head toward them and sit on the step a few feet away. They don’t look toward me, but I know they know I’m here. A slight turn of the head with averted eyes, the old man’s nose sniffing at me, picking up my scent.

“Good morning, Granddaughter,” he says finally. I sip on my coffee, then light a smoke.

“Are you not going to offer your elder a little tobacco?” I pull another smoke from my pack and lean toward him. He smells bad.

“You know, Grandfather, I have a motel room with a shower if you need it.”

“If only I were a few years younger, I’d think you were making me an offer.” The old women beside him cackle. His voice is like I remember my own grandfather’s, the English words bending and drawn out.

“I’d be surprised that someone your age still thinks that way, Grandfather.”

“Oh, we do. That is why the white man invented Viagra, you know.” He raises his arm and clenches his fist. “Who doesn’t want to be a young warrior once more?” The old women cackle again behind their hands, looking at me in challenge. I laugh. What else can I do?

I drink some more of my coffee, and when my smoke is finished, I ask the question I’ve come here to ask. “Where is the one called Painted Tongue?”

“That pretty one was your sister?” Old Man’s directness catches me off guard. That he says
was
makes my stomach feel sick.

“What do you know of her?”

He waits a long while before answering. The three of them have turned serious now. “Painted Tongue is a wanderer,” he finally says. “He is a good man, but he is scared of the world. He doesn’t talk at all, but me, I think he can. He just needs the right person to help him.”

“I want to find my sister,” I say. “This isn’t about Painted Tongue.”

“Your sister had a boyfriend. He’s not a bad man, either, I don’t think. But he was involved with bad people. Find him. Maybe he’ll have some answers.” The old man speaks of Gus. He must. “Your sister is famous, eh? She showed us pictures of herself in shiny magazines once in a while. Whenever she passed, she always gave us something.”

“Where is she?” I ask again.

“Me, I don’t know. I think about her sometimes.”

This is useless. I stand. “Where can I find the dumb one?” I ask, angry now.

“I don’t know where he is, Granddaughter. He’s a wanderer.” I walk away. The old man calls out to me. I turn. “Do you know the underpass beyond Front Street?”