It smells like Old Trailer in here. Benny’s not fast anymore and there is something wrong with his eyes. It’s like he has to look at something twice now to see it. He is holding his side and wincing. He still has his fat wallet in his front pocket so you can’t rip him off, but he’s grey now, all of him. Crow had me rip a bedsheet apart into strips and is putting boiled yarrow and bear grease onto white gauze.
This will suck the poison out.
Benny got stabbed his last day in. What they laced his blade with is travelling inside of him, like porcupine quills hunting for his heart. Crow used the same medicine on my dad when his time was coming. The tattoos on Benny’s hands look dusty. He has scars all over his old, shaved head.
“How much, boss?” Torchy asked.
“Eight,” Benny says softly.
I draw two circles of fire touching behind my eyes so I don’t forget this and realize both brothers have grown their hair long. Torchy has a scratch and poke tattoo that says “Dogrib” along one wrist to his elbow and “Forever” on the other. Both are beautiful and I bet Sfen did them.
“C or K?” Sfen asked.
Benny motioned with his lips for Crow to take the boiling pot off the burner. “K.”
Crow puts a lid on the pot and we take turns marvelling at her face tattoos. She has chin stripes and the back of her hands are blurred and marked as those of a death comforter. She’s marked the old way—with sinew sewn through her skin laced with suet the colour of blue—and they say her name was earned through fire.
“We work alone, Benny,” Torchy said.
Benny looked at him and whispered, “Not anymore. Come back when you’re done,” he says.
He motions to Crow and she starts to set the table.
“Why does Radar have to come with us?” Torchy asks, watching me. He’s called me that for years.
“My boy’s here to make sure you two don’t fuck up.” He curls his lips. “So don’t fuck this up.”
The brothers listen and look at each other as they pull on their jackets. Crow puts water on for Benny’s tea.
Ever since I was a kid, Benny’s looked out for me. He’s been gone for four years. Mom’s been sick for one.
“Start my truck.” He points with his lips to where his keys hang. “Flinch…”
Sfen takes them and they leave but not before I see that famous buffalo jaw hilt in the small of his back. Under his belt. Sfen: the one who loves men.
Benny runs his hand over my hand. “Jesus, look at the size of you. You got bigger. Why didn’t you stay at my house?”
I’m getting fat again. This always happens before I grow even taller. I’m like a Christmas tree, Benny told me once. I zig. Then I zag. I lean down. “There was police tape.”
He nods. “I’m sorry. Your heat rash is back.”
He pushes my jacket back and it’s true: my skin is ruddy all over me.
Crow looks up at me and I turn away. Do not meet her gaze.
I have this flash of Crow watching me from the trees. Not below and under. But hanging upside down from the top. Her feet broken, snapped around the branches. Her eyes open in darkness.
He nods again. “You sleep here tonight, okay? Your old room. Crow will fix something for you.”
“Mahsi.” That would be nice. I’m at Mom’s. Alone. “Why are you sending those two?” I ask.
“If Lester starts anything, let them finish it.” He wheezes. “Remember what happened last time.”
I make myself not. Creator, you know I’m trying to live my life like a prayer. I nod. “Sfen has a knife.”
“It’s for show.” He squeezes my arm. “I thought about you every day.”
I’m shy to look at him. We have to learn each other all over again.
“You stay with me now. Be my hands and eyes.”
I nod.
“Crow,” he motions. She hands me a stick of rat root. I take it, careful to not touch her hands. “Don’t trust Lester. No matter what. I met a man on the inside who said Lester’s got a young woman with him. A lot of your Aboriginal sisters go missing every year in Canada. They say there’s a network. My buddy on the inside said men are using black medicine to snare them. Over two thousand now.”
Crow stills at these words.
His eyes search her, then me. “Get that money. Speak to the girl. Check her out. Let me know what you think.”
I nod and put the rat root in my jacket pocket. It’s still warm from the old woman.
“You are the gentle way for me now,” he says. “Crow saved my life once. She’ll do it again. She’s looking for an apprentice.” Crow pauses as she puts the bowls out, looks down, and sighs. I don’t think they’re talking about me.
“I’ll get your money,” I say. I’m not sure what to say about the girl.
He nods and holds his side.
“Flinch,” he says. “Lester has some gloves that belonged to Snowbird. Remember what he said?”
Crow stops to listen. I nod. The old man said I have ten thousand angels soaring above me, and above each one ten thousand more. All waiting, but for what?
“Bring them to us.” He holds his hand to his side and closes his eyes for a long time, as if he’s swallowing pain from deep within his body. “Don’t let those two see or touch them, okay?”
I look to Benny. “Okay.”
He points to my shovel. This is my in. “When you come back, we’ll eat. I want to hear what you’ve been up to,” he says and holds my reaching hand, giving it a careful squeeze. His grip is so weak I can almost hear the wind passing through what’s left of him. He holds his side, winces. “I’m serious: I’m home now. And I’m never going back.”
“Good,” I say.
He winces and nods. “My boy… I’m sorry I left you.”
I look to Crow and she turns from me. To this day, I can’t remember if she’s ever said a single word to me.
Her dogs are waiting outside. Four of them. They’re huge. Built to hunt bears. I walk out and they, ears back and low, let out a growl to keep walking. Maybe those gloves could help Mom. Torchy and Sfen smoke, waiting for me. I flick my hand for them to start the truck. They do. I’m too big to sit in the cab so I hop in the back of the truck.
We ride. People are run-walking with their gloves over their faces. I don’t feel it. Creator, I have never questioned why you gave me my size and the ability to not feel cold. Maybe it was so I could walk through fire for you. I asked Benny what it’s like at forty below without a scarf. “It’s like a dog bite to the face,” he said.
Fort Simmer. Benny once said that in this town you never have to use your blinkers because everyone knows where you’re going anyway. He also said the only people who ever knock here are the cops or Social Services, and that is true.
Torchy and Sfen. They used to have this battle plan when they were kids. When things were tough in their home—when their mom was being used as a human punching bag—they’d run into an old car they had in their back yard and they’d lock the doors. Sfen had a stash of Cheezies, a six pack of Coke and a blanket. That was in case they had to camp overnight.
We were friends for a summer but they were too crazy, so I let them go. I’m actually surprised sometimes that they’re still alive.
I think of my mom. “Have you given her permission?” the nurse asked me yesterday. “No,” I said. But then I thought about it. Yes. She just wants to be with my dad now.
Snowbird was a holy man. A chanter. Benny told me the day Snowbird was born seven wolves ran around his family’s camp. His father, out of fear, shot the lead wolf. Snowbird was born a mute. When he was four he decided to speak to his dad. He told him, “Dad, if you wouldn’t have shot that wolf, that leader. If they would have been able to come to me and speak to me and touch me, I would be able to bring the people back from the dead.”
Snowbird’
s gloves had to be holy. The doctors had given up on helping my mom. I could tell. Last month it was quality of care. Now it’s just comfort. I still wasn’t sure what to do about the girl. Lester was a kind customer—a junior elder—when it came to me shovelling or hauling wood for him. He always gave me tips, sometimes gave me tea to-go with cups from the gas station. He had a stash.
Crow was different now. Their family has bone medicine. When Benny was younger, he brought her many offerings, more than anyone. My dad said it was the most curious thing: Benny brought Crow hornets’ nests that had been abandoned, and Crow would nod and put them in her tent. Powerful medicine, my dad said, if you know what to do. And she did.
Benny, I guess, wanted so badly to win the snowshoe contest that my dad had always won for as long as anyone could remember. The prize was one thousand dollars and most men in town trained for months for the glory of this win. With Crow’s help, Benny won. My mother asked on behalf of my father before he passed how they did it. She learned from Crow that she’d fed Benny caribou lungs and water from snow every day for four months. Maybe that was when their alliance began, for now her hair was laced with a spidery grey. When Crow came to walk her hands over the limbs of my dad and see how much time he had left, she told him a story. I was sad enough to listen but too young to remember all of it the way I learned to remember things with pictures now. She told him a story of when the world was new and how it used to be the caribou who had tusks and it was the walrus who had antlers. There was a trade and they welcomed each other into themselves.
I have always wondered since how the story went. Why and how did they trade, Creator? And were you there as a fox?
That was the summer Crow told my parents that I was born backwards. I felt myself fly out of my body when she said that because it was true, and I have been a ghost to myself ever since.
Maybe Snowbird’s gloves will bring Benny and my mom back.
Sfen kills the lights before we turn into Lester’s driveway and we stop halfway down. He’s now blocked where Lester’s truck should be, but it’s gone. We can see the TV flickering off the walls. Someone’s home. Torchy and Sfen open their doors slowly and quietly.
They motion for me to lead.
“Walk in front of me,” I grab Benny’s shovel and they do. Torchy gives his brother a look.
“What is a C?” I ask.
Sfen looks up to me. “What?”
“I don’t know what C or K means.”
Torchy lights a smoke and scoffs. He’s pretending not to be afraid of me. I am twenty-two and still growing. “A C is 100. A K is a thousand.”
Two circles of fire touching. Those gloves. We could save Benny. Does Mom still want to be here?
Do not start anything. Creator, please give me the signs to not start anything. I know they call me The Finisher, but I am here to help. I am here to free the girl.
I unscrew the light bulb outside Lester’s house and Torchy nods to me to call for him. That’s when I see he has a baseball bat.
“No weapons,” I told him. “Don’t think I didn’t see your knife.” I say to Sfen. His mouth opens in surprise and I can tell he doesn’t want to be here.
“Never you mind, Radar,” Torchy grinned. “You got your reasons for being here, and I got mine. We’re getting that nine so do what you’re told.”
“Nine?” I said. “It’s eight.”
“Hell no,” Sfen said. “Benny said nine.”
The circles of fire touch even closer until they lock and I know they’re lying, trying to confuse me. They look at each other and I feel something pass between them. It raises my skin. Darkness. A whispered plan.
The porch lights turn on and the brothers step back into the darkness, vanish.
“Hello?” a voice calls. “Flinch?”
I look and there Lester is, peeking out his door.
“Hi,” I said. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” he said. “Everything okay?”
I hold up my shovel and nod.
I leave the shovel outside. He lets me in and I close the door behind me.
“You’re out late,” he smiled. “Aren’t you cold?”
I nod. “I’m okay.”
I stand there and look around. There are pictures all over the wall of Lester and his late wife. She was a big woman with curly hair. In each photo, Lester beams. He has his arms around her like he is holding on for dear life.
“Thanks for shovelling last week. How much do I owe you?”
“Sorry,” I said.
He looks up. “Why are you sorry?”
“I’m not here for me,” I said.
“Oh?” he says.
“Benny’s back,” I said.
His face changes. I watch it. Lester goes from being a kind old man to someone younger, someone cunning. “He’s back?”
I nod.
“And you’ve come to collect.”
I stand to my full height. Why does it feel like there’s someone else in this house—standing near me?
“So you are the gentle way,” he says.
I nod again.
“How much did he say I owe?”
“Eight grand.”
He thinks about this. “I heard he got stabbed on his last day in.”
I wait.
“He’s hired the witch from across the river?”
I watch him as he makes his way to his freezer. I watch his hands. I watch his eyes.
“They used to be partners in fornication,” he says. “Are you sure you want to be a servant with that crowd? You could work for me.”
I’m quiet about this.
“How’s your mom?”
I won’t take the bait.
“I’m sorry,” he says and he watches me. “So what happens if I don’t pay up?”
“The brothers, Torchy and Sfen, are outside. Torchy has a bat. Sfen… a knife.”
Lester gets a flush under his throat that warms his cheeks. “You’re telling me those boys are outside?”
“They are,” I say. “And Torchy wants nine grand.”
“Just like that, huh?” he asks. “Benny’s back and it’s just like that?”
I nod. He knew this was coming. Where is the girl? I need to see her eyes.
“Okay,” he says and shows me his hands. “I’m going to reach into the freezer. There’s eight grand. I’m going to move slow. Do not hurt me. When I give you the money, I want you to give Benny a message.”
I watch his hands as I open my own. “Okay.”
“Tell Benny,” he says as he reaches into the freezer, “that I want to play him again and tell him that we’ll play double or nothing.”
He knows something, I think. Lester knows something about the world now that no one else does. I can see it in him. Creator, what is it? What have you given him or what has he stolen from you? Let me be your hands here.
“I’ll do that,” I say.
And that’s when the door opens behind me.
“Hello?”
It is a woman’s voice. I turn and see the face of a girl my age. She stands in a fur coat. Wolf. And red high heels. Her hair is up in a bun and she has dark skin. Her lips are painted red and her eyes jet black. She is not a pretty girl. Her nose has been broken once. She is round, heavy, sad.
Where have I seen her before?
And that’s when I feel something bad. Like my skin is being cut by cold and slicing ice. Like something’s scraping the insides of me and pulling my guts out with sinew snapping from crooked hooks across the room and behind me. I lean quick on the counter and Lester catches that before he looks at the girl with scolding eyes.
“I filled the truck,” she says. “But there’s a truck blocking the driveway. I don’t know what to do.”
I study her and realize that she doesn’t even see me. Ther
e’s something wrong with her. Is she blind? Deaf? She looks deaf—blind halfway through her eyes maybe. That’s the only way any of this makes sense.
Lester’s brow furrows. “Where did you park?”
She looks through me and immediately at the floor. “Sorry. On the road. I did not know what to do so I parked it down the road. I’m sorry.”
I blush at how gentle this young woman’s voice is, how shy. I look at her again and realize that she is much like a younger version of the picture of Lester’s wife on the fridge. Is this their daughter?
“This is Flinch,” Lester says.
“Pleased to meet you,” she says and holds out her hand. She doesn’t look all the way up, like everyone else. “Happy full moon. I’m Crystal.”
But it isn’t. I take her hand. Is she stoned? Her fingers are so freshly painted that I can smell the nail polish. I’m not sure if I am supposed to kiss it like on TV or shake it, so I shake it once.
“Well, Flinch,” Lester says and hands me a stack of cash, shrink-wrapped. “You pass along my message to Benny about double or nothin’, and you tell that old squaw of his that I said hello.” He looks right at me and then gives me a dirty look. “Sorry about your mom.” He moves in the way of Crystal and helps her with her coat. I am being dismissed.
I leave and walk outside, puzzled. Drugs? What is wrong with her? Is she just shy? Is this medicine?
The brothers are waiting for me and I stop. “Drive. I’ll meet you there.”
“Did you get it?” Torchy asks.
I nod and feel so suddenly weak. “Go.”
“I told Torchy it was eight,” Sfen says. “I want you to know—”
“Go,” I repeat.
And they leave.
Benny will be mad that I didn’t get the gloves. The moment passes. Creator, you know I did all I could here. We’ll break in another time.
I walk to Benny’s and take my time. It isn’t a full moon. That’s the strangest thing of all. Was that code, Creator? I do not know if it was medicine. All I know is it was time to leave. Could I have done more for Snowbird’s gloves? I think about this halfway there, scanning the shadows and trees for the brothers and their ninja ways. No. I stop and think about this. No. There was nothing I could do. There was something in the house. Or someone else. Even before she got there. Those gloves must be in there. They must. Benny was gone for four years. That’s four years of hunger. Four years to dream and plan.
Night Moves Page 11