Kathy Little Bird

by Benedict Freedman

  Praise for

  Mrs. Mike

  “This is a book the reader will be unable to put down until the last page is read.”

  —Library Journal

  “Mrs. Mike…is the story of the start of young love, its growth to maturity, and its acceptance of a dangerous, hard, but enthralling life. Its level of sheer entertainment is extremely high.”

  —Los Angeles Herald Express

  “It is the personality of Sergeant Mike blowing through this account like a clear breeze that gives it a refreshing quality. Everyone’s dream of a cop, he was also a romantic and understanding husband, the fondest of fathers; a man of honor and humor.”

  —The New York Times

  “Mrs. Mike is an unforgettable story, not only because it portrays the deep abiding affection between a man and a woman, but because it pictures the austere beauty of a country where life is at once simple and free, yet complicated by danger and hardship.”

  —Boston Herald

  “The portraiture is true to life. Sergeant Mike’s masculine way of talk, his ability to get on with human nature, his unending but never dramatic helpfulness, his matching the big moments with bigness, but always simply, are commonplace of men in the Force, but rare in books. The Indians are equally well portrayed. Mrs. Mike’s maid, Oh-Be-Joyful, and her laconic suitor are masterly characterizations and deeply touching.”

  —The Christian Science Monitor

  Titles by Benedict and Nancy Freedman

  MRS. MIKE

  THIS AND NO MORE

  THE SPARK AND THE EXODUS

  LOOTVILLE

  TRESA

  THE APPRENTICE BASTARD

  CYCLONE OF SILENCE

  THE SEARCH FOR JOYFUL

  KATHY LITTLE BIRD

  Titles by Nancy Freedman

  JOSHUA SON OF NONE

  THE IMMORTALS

  PRIMA DONNA

  THE SEVENTH STONE

  SAPPHO THE TENTH MUSE

  Kathy Little Bird

  Benedict and Nancy Freedman

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2004 by Benedict and Nancy Freedman.

  Cover art: Portrait of woman © by Roger Mesquita/Nonstock; Island in Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada © by Anthony S. Lojacono/Mira.com; Maple Leaf © by C Squared Studios/Photodisc; Mist on wetlands in Canada © Don Johnston/Age Fotostock.

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

  Text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley hardcover edition / December 2004

  Berkley trade paperback edition / December 2005

  Berkley ISBN: 978-1-101-65108-7

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the Berkley hardcover edition as follows:

  Freedman, Benedict.

  Kathy Little Bird / Benedict and Nancy Freedman.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Cree Indians—Fiction 2. Indian women—Fiction. 3. Women singers—Fiction. 4. Canada, Western—Fiction. I. Freedman, Nancy Mars. II. Title.

  PS3511.R416K37 2004

  813’.54—dc22 2004048997

  To Johanna—who knew this book had to be written

  To Deborah—who brought it the soul of music

  To Michael—who writes in a language that encompasses all others

  To Pat—a sister to us both

  And our thanks to our editor, Susan Allison, whose perception became part of the book.

  And kudos for Claire, who brought it all together.

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  I KICKED at the door. Every time Jason yelled I kicked. Every time Jellet’s strap descended he yelled again, and I kicked again. I had worked myself up and began kicking in between times. Mum, from across the room, rushed over, took me by the arm and dragged me, still kicking, away from the door. She set me down on the kitchen stool, one restraining hand on my shoulder. “Stop that, Kathy. Your daddy will certainly hear you.”

  “I hate him.” It came out in a flood of tears.

  “Don’t say that, Kathy. It isn’t true.”

  “It is, it is. I hate him.” I didn’t see how this little room we were in could hold my hate, it wasn’t big enough. The house wasn’t big enough, or the world. Filled with my hate there wouldn’t be room for anything else, not for people or cows or farms.

  Mum was talking to me in that special voice she used to calm me down. “Jason has to be disciplined, Kathy. You know your daddy is a fair man.”

  “He isn’t my daddy. And I’m glad he isn’t.”

  “Shhh.” Mum cast an anxious glance at the closed door from which the bellowing had somewhat subsided. She went on in a lowered tone. “All the more reason to be respectful. He took us in. Not many would do that. Every stitch we wear and every crumb we eat is his. You need to be grateful. And you need to get that temper of yours under control.”

  I looked at her defiantly a moment. But I was tired of the argument, and in an everyday, conversational voice said, “Okay. But I hate him.”

  The bathroom door opened and Jason came out, patterns of tears on his cheeks. He didn’t catch anyone’s eye, but slunk off to finish his breakfast in the kitchen. Daddy Jellet came out too. There was an air of satisfaction about him, a job-well-done kind of thing. Mum, who had argued against the beating, didn’t seem angry with him, just resign
ed. I was the one who was angry, angry, angry.

  I marshaled my other angers and lumped them in with this.

  Why couldn’t we play with other children and go to their houses? It had always been like that, but now that I was eight I asked why. At first Mum would only say we were different. We were Catholics but never went to church like other Catholics. We didn’t speak to the Metis, although Mum was mixed blood, or the Anglicans, who considered themselves above us. And we certainly weren’t like the Mennonites with their unpainted houses and benches pulled against the walls. They had nice flower boxes, always blooming, but I didn’t like the way they dressed, the women in gray or black, with kerchiefs at their necks. The men were stiff and their whiskers were stiff. Even Mum referred to them as the “frozen chosen.” They were big on shaking hands. They shook hands outside church and inside church, and they shook hands with whoever sat beside them in the pew. The thing they didn’t do was smile, and they didn’t laugh. They were formal and polite, and full of churchy customs. There were other families, outsiders like us, scattered around, but Jellet made no exceptions. “It isn’t fair,” I said in a loud voice, not looking at either grown-up.

  “What’s that?” Jellet’s bushy eyebrows drew together and almost met.

  “Run play,” Mum said, and slid me off her lap. Even outside I could hear them. “I told you she’d be upset.” That was Mum, and Daddy Jellet in an unpleasant hoarse rumble began blaming her for saddling him with so many kids that ate up every cent he brought home. I knew I was at the top of the list—Jellet was going on about my Austrian father, why hadn’t she ever tapped him for child support? Mum didn’t answer. She never answered this.

  She’d told me the story though, many times. My father was interned as a prisoner of war. He was an officer on a German U-boat we’d sunk. He was fished out of the water, badly wounded. Mum was a nurse, and he was her patient. She nursed him back to health. They fell in love and married. But, the way Mum tells it, they came from different worlds, and at war’s end he went back to Europe. He never knew about me, never knew I was born….

  Why couldn’t I have a real father in a real way? Why was I stuck with a word I hated—“adopted”? Mum told me over and over that “adopted” meant chosen. But I knew it meant I didn’t belong.

  “Daddy Jellet chose us, because he loved us.”

  I’d heard that all my life, but I didn’t believe it. And I don’t think she believed it either. That’s why I’d get angry. Mum would take me on her lap then and whisper that she understood. She too was adopted.

  Her face would soften in a gentle smile, and I’d hear once more the story of Mrs. Mike, Katherine Mary Flannigan, the person I, like my mum, was named for.

  I walked along the road, kicking up dust. It had been sprayed with oil, but not recently, probably because it was the road to the res.

  The First Nation Reserve was strictly off limits to me. They weren’t “our kind” either, but a very particular friend of mine lived there. Elk Woman’s government-built house was at the extreme edge of the compound. Outside it looked like all the others; inside there were herb bundles and bones hanging on the walls, and a large moose skull with dried tendons dangling from it. Elk Woman never closed the door and I could see the dark interior and Elk Woman herself, dimly. She had torn off a strand of tendon, which she used as thread. Her needle was a tin key saved from a can of beef and hammered out.

  I stayed outside the door and announced myself by singing. Elk Woman liked it when I sang. She particularly liked the Mennonite song that was my favorite too. I threw back my head and sang into the room.

  I am washed in the blood,

  I am saved, saved, saved.

  “Is it you, Skayo Little Bird?” She gave me a scrutinizing look as I entered, made her assessment and scowled. “Are you fighting with yourself again?”

  “I guess so.”

  She pushed a ginger root toward me; there was a small pile of them on the table. She chewed on them for a while herself before spitting them out. I watched her work up a new supply of saliva and moisten the moose tendon again in preparation for rethreading. “What are you making?”

  “I had this old horse blanket wasn’t doing nobody any good, so I’m making a jacket out of it.”

  I nodded. Everyone made things out of other things. My dresses were stitched from pillowcases with holes in them, and an occasional flour sack in the same condition. “Waste not, want not” had been dinned into me since I was born.

  Elk Woman yawned and put her sewing in a basket with an apron destined to become a dishtowel. She stretched, took out her cob pipe, and lit up. I watched as she puffed.

  “Can I try?”

  Without a word she handed the pipe across to me. It had a well-chewed stem. I went out on the porch to spit the last of the ginger root before placing the pipe between my teeth.

  Elk Woman joined me, sitting on the step beside me, and nodded approval as I inhaled. For a while we passed the pipe back and forth in a companionable manner. “Now you tell me why you come, Little Bird. That stepfather of yours making problems again?”

  “I hate him.”

  Elk Woman considered this, rocking back and forth communing with herself. Then she said, “Don’t step on his shadow and he won’t step on yours.”

  “I hate his shadow too.”

  “That’s because you’re at war with yourself. Don’t be at war with yourself, Little Bird.”

  “I can’t help it.” I got up. How could I explain to her that I didn’t want to be cured of hating him? I wanted to hate him, so I just said, “I got to be going.” Then I remembered and sat down. Elk Woman looked at me, her question on her face.

  “I was going to visit Abram, but I can’t. I’m mad at him.”

  “Him too?”

  “Yep.”

  “You need to make a study of shadows, Little Bird.”

  “Why? Are they magic?”

  “Everything that is older than time is magic.”

  “What kinds of magic do the Cree have?”

  “Let’s see.” She blew a smoke ring into space. We sat and watched, and then she blew another. “Well, there is singing. Singing is older even than speaking. Before there were people, wind sang, thunder sang, grass whistled, owls called, wolves howled, and birds warbled just like you. Come to our ceremonies sometime, and you’ll hear how we listen to the singing world, and sing back.”

  “Can anything be sung?”

  “Anything.”

  “Anyone?”

  “Anyone.”

  “Even a person?”

  “Especially a person.”

  “Even me? Can you sing me?”

  “I can sing you head to toe, and it will be a true singing. But because it’s true you won’t like it.”

  “I don’t care. Sing it anyway.”

  I was so excited that I got up and sat on her lap so I could feel the breath of the song as it came out of her.

  Elk Woman closed her eyes. She drummed with her fingers on the arms of the chair, at first softly and steadily, then in sudden bursts of hard raps. Her song lay far back in her throat, with lots of sobbing and a rolling, pounding beat. Spurts of angry notes got in the way of a pretty little tune, blocked it off at every turn.

  “No, no,” I cried. “That’s not me.” I took a giant breath and began to sing the tune the way it should go. I sang at the top of my voice so as to drown out the cries and shouts that were wrecking it. I took a giant breath.

  Elk Woman’s eyes brightened and she sang her version stubbornly back at me. I jumped off her lap and faced her, so I could outsing her.

  And I did. I sang her into the ground. Elk Woman became quiet, and my song rang out, pure and beautiful. It filled the room. That was me, that was the way I should be sung.

  When I stopped, Elk Woman examined her pipe and relit it. “You’re right, Little Bird, that’s how you could be, how you were meant to be. But you’re not there yet. Not by a long shot.”

  I LEFT for cho
ir practice. Officially it was choir practice for the Mennonites. But I had my own place outside the window by the soprano section. We practiced every Wednesday afternoon and Sunday mornings before the service and after Sunday school. That’s how I met Abram. He was the P.K., preacher’s kid. He liked to duck out and miss as many Bible lessons as he could.

  By the time I got there, Pentateuch class was over and Early Prophets just begun, because there was Abram throwing his buck knife so the blade hit and shivered in the dirt. Nimety-peg, I was good at it too. “Can I have a turn?” I asked, coming up to him.

  He squinted at me, blond hair in his eyes. “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “That was yesterday.”

  “Praise the Lord.” He said that so many times he didn’t know he was saying it.

  “Elk Woman sang me today.”

  “She what?”

  “You know, sang me. Sang how I am. I’ve got too many yells and ugly notes. But I can cure it with shadows.”

  “Shadows? That’s crazy. You shouldn’t put any faith in that stuff. My father says Indian beliefs are nothing but errant superstition.”

  “Not when they’re Elk Woman’s beliefs.”

  He scoffed at that. “You can’t put an Indian up against an anointed preacher.”

  “You can if it’s Elk Woman, she talks to the wind.” I pulled the knife out of the dirt and threw it left-handed. It didn’t stick, but fell over. I tried again, same deal. At home I got my knuckles slapped whenever I used my left hand. They were changing me into a right-handed person. I wondered who this person who didn’t have a temper and who did everything with her right hand would be. I wondered if I’d like her. “Are those your books?” I asked. There were two of them lying on the ground. “Hymnbooks?” I picked them up and saw right away they weren’t.

  “They’re Bibles. One is the regular Bible and the other is the version they hand out to us kids.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “One’s got all the juicy stuff deleted out of it. So I’m looking up those parts they left out.”