The Silence

by Karen Lee White

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  ME AND NO ONE IN THE RAIN

  Feeling young and small

  beneath the city towers

  Water running down my back

  and making me shiver

  Feel lost although

  I know just where I’m going

  It’s okay to be lonely when you’re alone

  But to feel it with the one you love

  That’s really alone

  Me and no one in the rain

  Me and no one in the rain

  This isn’t how it was supposed to be

  It wasn’t how I planned it

  It wasn’t how it was supposed to be

  Wasn’t how I planned it

  Isn’t how I planned it

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Leah put down the old diary. What was wrong with her? Her head hurt. She did not understand why she could not recall owning this or having written the words in the fat, moose-hide covered book stained with what looked like raindrops. Running a finger over the beadwork, she smiled, knowing this was Gramma Maisey’s design. Wild roses. She imagined Gramma’s tiny hands beading the piece, by candlelight or hissing lantern. It warmed her. She took a breath and thumbed through.

  Her journal. Haywire had insisted. She trusted him. They had lived through too much together for her not to. It was undeniably her little sketches, her tiny script. She must have liked colour; there was every shade of ink.

  At twenty-one, she had felt the need to create a life independent of her family. She moved thousands of miles north to Faro, a new mining town. It had been both exciting and terrifying. She remembered clearly the first time she’d driven in to Faro. The daunting hairpin turn took her breath with its sheer cliffs on either side just before the town site. A terrible wildfire had devastated the newly built town in the bush. Left a wasteland of burned-out wilderness, no trees. Low bush and purple fireweed showing through blackened, branchless trunks and stumps. Cypress Anvil Mine had stubbornly rebuilt a modern grouping of buildings to house miners in this blighted scape.

  Leah sighed hard, bit her lower lip, and began to read. No doubt the words were hers, yet something deep in her was afraid to know what was between the pages. Heart pounding, she felt light-headed as she read.

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  July 10, 1993

  Dammit to hell. Lost my journal on the flight North. I know I will never see it again. All those memories, secrets I hoarded away. If I ask myself now which entry I valued the most, I don’t know what the answer would be.

  Good thing I always record my songs someplace else. Maybe that’s why I memorize them. No matter what, they’re in my head and I can’t lose them! Sometimes I wish I could write and read the language of music. Now I know why people always ask me “Are you still playing music?” because right now I can’t play. It’s like something is stuck in my throat.

  I got this new diary from this guy I met. Haywire. I know; what a name. But he says never judge an Indian by his nickname. He has kind eyes, and a smile like a little boy. He said he got this journal in a potlatch gifting. He doesn’t like to read or write. Mission school, he says. His Gramma beaded it especially for him.

  Beadwork is unique up here. I love it. Especially like the wild roses – I LOVE wild roses and can’t stop looking at the front of this thing!

  I met Haywire after I got here. He works for the mine. I came up because I wanted to try a summer here. Vancouver didn’t feel like home anymore. Next thing I know there’s all these guys chasing me here. How did I know that there was two or three guys to every girl in a mining town? I was walking home from the post office, and guys kept slowing in their trucks and staring like I was rare wildlife. This guy walks up beside me, doesn’t say anything, and just starts walking with me. I figure he’s a deaf mute or something. He doesn’t feel scary or anything, so I am good with it.

  It turns out he knows where I live, which surprises me. He takes me right to the door of the trailer. Then walks off without saying anything. I asked my landlady about him. She says he don’t talk much, but if he does, listen. Says he’s interesting.

  So, he keeps doing this walking beside me thing. Every day, after he gets off the mine shuttle. It makes the guys in the trucks quit slowing. The fourth time I say, “Hey – who says you can walk me home?” He just smiles. He says, “Well, those looks of yours and the few women in this town might just get you into some trouble!” He had a point. He just keeps walking me home, and then we become friends. He takes me in the bush around this place, shows me all kinds of things I haven’t seen. The landlady was right. When he talks, I can learn a LOT. So, I just listen. That’s a switch hahahaha. I haven’t been called Motor Mouth and Magpie for nothing!

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  Leah stopped reading. Her heart pounding, tears pushing at the backs of her eyes. She remembered these moments. But why did she not remember this journal? It is my writing and I know that, but how could I not recall receiving it, owning it, or writing in it? She turned the page.

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  July 14,1993

  Haywire asked me to go to the dance at the Hall of the Rec Centre on Friday. I can’t tell if it’s as friends, or if he likes me. He’s different from any other guy I’ve been around. I just want to be around him more. Can’t get enough of the bush walks. The other night we just sat there listening to the Moody Blues beside a lake. It was pretty weird to be out at midnight with the sun still out. I don’t get tired with the midnight sun.

  Haywire didn’t make a move on me, but I caught him looking at me like he was trying to really perceive who I am. It kind of spooks me, because I don’t feel him looking at me, and yet I kind of like it that he is. I guess I should decide if I want this thing to go further, because I have the feeling he wants to take it there.

  July 20, 1993

  Jesus, I did something really stupid. God, when I drink I do the stupidest things! Haywire and I were having beer at the dance. All kinds of guys wanted me to dance with them, and I said yes to be polite. Haywire watched me dancing, never asked anyone, but the women were asking him! I didn’t see him dance once.

  One guy, Mark, said, “I think your friend is jealous.” I said, “I don’t think so.” He says, “Why else does he give me the look of death every time he catches my eye and you aren’t looking?” I just laughed, but I wondered. About 10:00, Haywire said, “Let’s get out of here.” We ended up out at the lake. Nobody was around. I kissed him. Oh my God, what was I thinking? I effin’ KISSED the guy! I should know by now never drink and never kiss. Because the next thing you know we were right into it. But he stopped right away when I asked him to. He wasn’t mad, but I felt stupid. I just said, “I’m not really like this,” and he nodded. I think I really like him. Any other guy wouldn’t stop, would have been mad. We just stayed there and listened to the Moody Blues again for a couple hours. And then he drove me home. I hugged him, and he smiled that little boy smile that melts me. I want to see him already, and it’s only five hours later!

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  Leah let the book fall into her lap. She recalled the fire between herself and Haywire. She’d felt it once again only days ago. She blushed. Why had she left him, and why in God’s name had he let her go? Clearly there was something between them still. And why was it that could she not remember their breakup?

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  July 21, 1993

  I am with Haywire now. I love him. He doesn’t say the “L” word, but I know he loves me too. I see it in his eyes, feel it when he touches me. I’m not gonna go fast though. I want to know we are good together before it goes further. Marriage does that. Makes you scared to try again. He doesn’t push me about intimacy. He’s respectful when I say, “No, I’m not ready yet.” I told him I have to know we can get along well. He is okay with that, I guess, didn’t say any different.

  He says he wants to take me out to the bush for a couple of weeks. I’m really wanting to go, but I just got a job painting houses. It’s like painting the same house over and over in a mining town.

 
l

  She remembered so well the deep feelings she’d had for Haywire, the passion, the conflict. It was alive within her now once more, as she relived each moment through her words. She had loved him so very much. She still did. God. Now, what the actual hell was she supposed to do?

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  July 30, 1993

  We’ve been out up the North Canol Road now for a week. I didn’t write in here because we were busy getting ready and setting up camp. We got here via Ross River, this tiny little village. We got supplies there and took a little ferry across the Pelly River. The road itself was built by the U.S. Army during the Second World War. They came up to build a gas pipeline right to Norman Wells to secure a fuel supply.

  One of Haywire’s relatives was the one who went ahead of the Cats at Macmillan Pass. Grinding with their blades everything in their path to create what would be the road. I can’t imagine the heavy equipment going through that country in the winter, tearing up the land.

  I can’t believe we’re here! This is like when I was a kid and used to camp for whole summers. No, it’s more than that. It’s absolutely quiet here. The wild frightens me a little. I can feel the power of it. The mountains, the land. The road is one vehicle wide. We have seen nobody. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. This is the first truly wild place I’ve ever been.

  The Macmillan Pass, at the top of the road, is just before the Northwest Territories border. It is a huge valley, with enormous mountains on either side that. rise out of the moose pastures at the side of the road. The moose pastures are huge sort of pristine swamps. The moose stand knee-deep and eat whatever plants grow there. The little hills are covered in moss berries. They look like blueberries, but are almost black, and are much tinier. They grow on fern-like plants flat against the ground and are the easiest things to pick ever. They are delicious. We found an outcropping of shale, and Haywire bashed a piece this way and that, and handed it to me after twenty or so minutes. He said, “Here, a tool to tan animal hides.”

  The wide expanse of this terrain has me feeling as free and connected to all things I’ve ever felt. I am part of all of this. Here, the past does not haunt me. The future does not tease. I am living completely in real time. Only here, there’s the silence. For the first time in my life, I am deeply present. Still within.

  He asked me to go home with him this winter and trap at Little Annie Lake. I couldn’t say no. We’re going to have a trapline! This has been my dream, to live rough! To live traditionally. I’m so excited! I need to prove to myself that I can do it. I never felt that Native, but out here it’s like something has come alive in me. I hear, see, feel totally differently. I smell the wind like an animal. Listen deeply, I sense things.

  This place is spectacular, wild and untouched except for the narrow gravel road, which is littered with old army trucks. Apparently, during construction of the road, if anything broke down it was simply buried or left and a new one was brought in. There are rusting, rotting forty-five-gallon drums here and there.

  Yesterday we drove up to Macmillan Pass, and we saw a grizzly – my first! He was huge! Haywire just slowly turned the car and said, “We are just gonna leave you alone now Cousin, sorry to bother you!” He says bears can understand us. It sure seemed like it. That bear stopped and looked at us, stood up on hind legs like a man. It was like he was checking to see if we were really going to go!

  Haywire was quiet for a while. Then he told me that when you meet a bear, you have to talk to it, because they are our cousins. You have to tell them why you’re there, you’re sorry you bothered them, and you’re going to go. I was surprised he wouldn’t just shoot first. I’ve watched too many movies.

  I saw pictures in the “Whitehorse Star” of a car that was charged by a griz. It was peeled like a can of sardines. There’s a mauling every year. I’m not scared up here, I know Haywire’s a good shot. I saw it when he got grouse.

  I love this place; the Pass is like being in a “National Geographic” magazine. The air is pure, you can drink from any creek, lake or river, and it’s magnificent.

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  Leah closed her eyes for a moment and conjured the raw beauty of the North Canol Road and the Macmillan Pass, the fragrance of waking on spruce boughs, in what was known as a traditional “brush tent.” She and Haywire had made it together. She recalled chopping up the earth and inserting the branches at an angle into mossy soil. Nothing could replace standing still in the vast valley,with no sound but the breeze whispering in your ears.

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  Macmillan Pass itself, surrounded by the Mackenzie Mountains, is astonishingly beautiful. As I said before, the pass is an enormous valley a couple of miles wide, with mountains rising on either side of it. The road cuts right through the middle. It’s barely wide enough for two cars. Bridges are only wide enough for one, which has made for some hairy encounters when someone refuses to wait on the other side. There’s a ridiculous amount of wildlife out here. We’ve encountered a few hunters, but for the most part people leave you alone.

  I’ve been dreaming a lot out here, maybe because my mind is quiet.

  We stopped in at the little camp we saw up in the Pass. It was two Indian women our age from Ross River! I couldn’t believe how they could comfortably camp so close to a grizzly. They had a couple of kids, one about four, a baby, and one just able to walk. I asked Haywire how the heck they keep them so quiet. The only way I knew someone was in that camp before we walked in was because there was smoke coming out of the wall-tent stovepipe. Haywire says they teach newborns how to be quiet and the kids just learn. They don’t say a word when they see you walk in, just stare at you. The women were really quiet too, but they offered us food and tea.

  I love the campfire tea. They pick what they call “bush tea” and brew it up with fresh spring water. It’s good medicine. It’s all we’ve been drinking after our store-bought ran out. I love the stuff.

  The wall tent is thrown over a tent frame. Frames are all over the place out on the land. When people make them, they leave them behind for others. It’s the way of the people here.

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  Bush tea. The little bag Haywire had gifted her with at the end of the potlatch. The waxy leaves were redolent of wild places and mountains. Leah brewed a big pot, anticipating the lightly smoky taste. She settled back on the white couch, blowing on a steaming cup of amber liquid, releasing the fragrance of the land she loved. She closed her eyes. Memories were kindled and fanned.

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  Haywire says how they keep babies quiet is to give them a chunk of moose fat to suck on to keep them from getting hungry. (Note: they tied the chunk to string attached to the baby’s foot. When and if the baby choked, it would kick and pull out the fat). That and they have moss bags, so when they mess themselves, they don’t feel uncomfortable. I asked about bugs in the moss (I was wondering if I could use it for my time). I asked one of the ladies and she told me the secret. To use smoke from a fire to release any insects. So, I can use it if I need to. I’m running out of stuff for my time – geez, I better learn how to plan better, I thought we’d go into Ross to pick up what we need by now. Maybe it’s time to ask Haywire. I’ve been thinking how much I want a baby with him.

  Haywire is different. He’s happy and peaceful out here. This is how he loves to live.

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  DANCE AWAY, Verse 5

  You spoke of spring-blossomed tree

  and one gust of wind

  causing it to sacrifice

  petals of palest pink

  Are you asking me

  to be like this tree?

  Oh please, please

  do not ask this of me

  Better that I dance away.

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  In the cold light of morning, Leah thinks perhaps she should begin a new journal. It could help to remember what she has lost of herself. Another thought comes, and it chills her: What if she has a form of dementia and starts forgetting the new journal? This brings up a sick feeling. The old diary pu
lls at her. She does not want to read the words, yet they lure her.

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  POETRY IN THE CASTING

  I have a longing this morning

  to hear your laugh, your voice, or see your smile

  so I am writing a few lines; casting out a line.

  Doesn’t matter if I catch anything,

  there is poetry in the casting

  and I’m learning a lot about that of late.

  I am still deep in the throes of learning

  exploring my caves

  with no light

  and no way of knowing

  what I might find there

  And there is art everywhere

  I’m learning to fill my soul, fill my soul

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  August 20, 1993

  Went to town and we ran into a bunch of Haywire’s cousins. They made a big deal out of Haywire having a girlfriend. They’re all very handsome, and all different. Johnnie is a flirt, with high cheekbones, a grin that doesn’t go away, and his laugh reminds me of a little kid. He likes to joke a lot. Joe, his brother, couldn’t be more different. Shy, serious, and quiet. Sammy is from another family and has beautiful white teeth. He is always smiling too but is like a big kid. Nolan, Sammy’s brother, is more quiet like Joe. They all look like they would be a little wild if they started partying, though.

  Most of them play music. We sat around and swapped songs. They drop beats, which is strange, but must be the way they hear the music. It was fun to meet them. None of them talk about girlfriends. They teased me like a sister, and I fell in love with every last one of them.

  Haywire and I have been at Little Annie at his Mom’s for a week now. He gets a week off for every four weeks on. I gave up trying to get work in town.

  His mom cried when she first saw him. I think they must have fought last time they saw each other, because she said, “Sonny, sonny, I didn’t think you’d come back,” and hung onto him for a long time. It was likely about me. She hasn’t liked me from the word “go.” He’s getting pissed off about it. Last night, she wouldn’t sit with us at the table for dinner. He asked her why she wasn’t sitting with us, and she made some excuse about being too hot. That didn’t wash – she was sitting closer to the barrel heater. She moved to the table but didn’t look happy. She ignores me for the most part. The only thing she says is, “Can you make fire? Are you gonna be able to run fish nets with bare hands in the winter?” When I always say yes, she just looks at me like there is no way I can do either. I will prove her wrong if it kills me.