Lance listened and realized that both he and Shari were wiping the tears away from their eyes. Juanita continued and looked at them both. “I’m going to survive this. I know it. My dreams show me this and I believe them.”
“Amen,” Shari said softly. “Yes.”
“And I want to know which card you put back, Darling, and, Lancey, which cards you’ve just read,” Juanita said, and they all started laughing.
Where will I kiss you next? Lance thought. What’s a little desire between friends? “Wait,” he said. “What’s the time limit for any of these?”
“Here’s the magic,” Juanita said and leaned forward. “They’re up when one of you says they’re up.”
“You sexual goddess,” Shari said as she rose to hug Juanita. They embraced and were laugh-crying. “Thank you for telling us about your dream. It’s beautiful.”
“What’s beautiful,” she said, “is what I’m about to dare you to do.” She looked at Lance. “Lancey, do you have a dare for your wife?”
“Oh yes, Lancey,” Shari said. “You know I never back down.”
That was true: he had married a warrior woman who loved a challenge.
Lance realized that he had a goofy grin on his face. He beamed. The night was still young. They were hot from the beach, fed on a supper they’d prepared together. They were under Juanita’s star blanket and he wasn’t necessarily sure he wanted to this to end.
He realized that he still had all four cards in his hand. The letters DARE caught the candlelight.
“Lance,” Juanita looked at him coolly. “Do you want to play?”
“Diplomatic immunity,” Shari said and hugged Juanita gently.
“Oh, Sister,” Juanita started laughing. “After I’m done daring you what I’ve always wanted to, there won’t be any immunity for anyone.”
Lance shivered. He felt the eyes of the two women he loved most in the world watching him.
DARE.
He felt the hottest blood inside of him bloom under his skin.
He looked at all four of the cards in his hands.
And then he turned them over.
The Rock Beat
“Up yours, Mister Russell!”
He threw one of my cigarettes over his shoulder. “What?”
“You frickin’ told me that my kinda smokes would give me a hairy bum, and I trusted you, and I gave you my pack and now you’re smoking them, and I’m stuck with your Big Chief smokes and it’s all just frickin’ B.S!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You frickin’ lied to me. You’re smoking my smokes.”
“Clarence, it’s too late for me. Who cares if I have a hairy ass? I’m lookin’ out for you.”
“Wha! As if.”
“Look: what is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t blame this all on me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why are you so upset? What’s on your mind? Just spit it out. I can tell.”
I didn’t want to ugly-cry but it I couldn’t stop it. “Well, it’s frickin’ B.S. You know. You always say that if we know the rock beat that you’ll let us play for the whole frickin’ Band class, and I frickin’ practise. Like, my dad used to be a drummer and he showed me, and I frickin’ show him every night, and he’s like, ‘That’s the frickin’ rock beat.’ And I show it to you and you keep picking the triplets and all the hot girls, and I think you just like watching their jugs bounce when they frickin’ play.”
“Okay. Did you just say ‘Jugs!?’” He was trying not to laugh. “That’s—that’s it? That’s all you got? That’s the only thing that’s upsetting you?”
“Yeah, and another thing is, like, we can tell that you party all weekend. Like you got the frickin’ good guitars and frickin’ really deadly primo drum kit that no one’s allowed to touch, and all we frickin’ do is sing and we never get to frickin’ play. Like we frickin’ sing stuff from the ’80s, like “Come on, Eileen” and “Africa” by Toto and you type out the lyrics and you don’t even know that the lyrics say that it’s Serengeti.”
“What?”
“You put dash-dash-dash-question mark ’cause you don’t know what he’s saying. It’s frickin’ Serengeti. Even my mom knew that.”
“It’s Serengeti?”
“Yeah.”
“Take it easy. You know I’ve listen to that Toto song thirty years now and I thought it was Ferengeti.”
“Well, it’s Serengeti.”
“Hunh. Go figure. So that’s it? That’s all you got.”
I wiped my eyes. “Yeah.”
“Look, man. I been married twice. I’m payin’ alimony, and I saw you with your smokes that I’ve always wanted to try and, okay, maybe they don’t give you a hairy bum—but they could, you know. Do you really want a hairy ass your whole life?”
“No.”
“Well, there you go. So you’re telling me you got the rock beat?”
“Yeah. I had the rock beat for three years.”
“Well, then show me, baby. Let’s see what you got.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. If you can frickin’ nail it, I’ll give you an A plus, and you can do the rock beat on Monday.”
“Are you really being serious?”
“Yeah, let’s see what you got, baby!”
Boom Boom Tsh. Boom Boom Tsh. Boom Boom Tsh.
So I started doing it. I started doing the rock beat. I frickin’ nailed it, man. I frickin’ nailed it. I been practising in my jammies, my gonchies and my long johns. I did the rock beat until I became the rock beat. Next thing I knew Mr. Russell was doing the rock beat with me, and we were swaying and smiling and he was grinning and he’s, like, “Frick, man. Frick. You got it, Clarence. You got it!”
I’m like, “Yeah, I frickin’ got it. I had it for years.”
He goes, “Yeah, you said it. There you go.”
Wheetago War
We are the new Dene. I see this every day. I was born after the twinning of the sun and in the haunted way of the Dog People. I was born running. We are all born hunted now. I sometimes wake up a girl; I sometimes wake up a boy. I don’t question this anymore. I just am.
I always go to the water to help out. I am not yet adult but no longer a child. They call me Water Boy but this is a trick. I was blessed in the Water Way so I watch the shores with those of my order. When I’m older I will fight. For now I lead water runs from the waterfall. You don’t waste water when you have to haul your own. I am proud of this. Our camp is very respectful and the water returns her favour Her way.
This one time I found boys crucifying a bullfrog. The biggest I’ve ever seen. It had the legs and chest of a child. I beat those boys and told them I’d report them later to Yellow Hand.
I took that frog and bathed him. I begged him to think of his family, how they missed him, how they must have been wondering where he was.
“Think of your mom,” I said. “Your dad must be weeping for you.”
He was weak. He kept rolling sideways but I helped him. I sang the spider song to him.
“Nah nah na na nan nah nah
Nah nah nah nah nah
Na na nah nah nah
Weet
weet
weet.”
I went into the water and we found shade under the second sun, the one to the left.
We sat and I rocked him. I ran my hands over his belly. He was like a human that way: a baby. I prayed.
I said, “Mother, if you are still here—and there are people in camp who say no—but if you are here and you save him I will believe in you again. I promise.”
That is when the frog spoke to me. He whispered. I heard him. He said, “My girl, because you saved me, because you prayed with me and waited for my stre
ngth to return, I will give you my medicine.”
I grew quiet but not scared. I’ve learned to move through anything that grabs me with fear.
I said, “Oh… what can you do with your inkwo?”
The frog said I could travel in dreams. I could heal with my hands. I could do so many things.
But then I asked him the question Iris taught us all to ask when we are visited. I said, “But what is the cost?”
“Oh now,” he said, “well, if you have our medicine, you can’t do this. And when you are on your time, you mustn’t do that.” This list was too long to remember in one sitting.
I said, “It is like those with bear medicine. They can’t be around cats. They get sick fast when cats are near.”
He said, “Yes, it is like that.”
I said no. “I thank you but I want to have children one day. Those who have your medicine must never have children.”
He said there were three in the world who did.
It made me happy to know there were other camps left in the world where medicine was being passed, but I said no.
He looked at me for a while and said, “You have to let me save your life once. I can see what’s coming for you.”
I said “Okay. Just once. But I don’t want your medicine.”
He agreed and he asked me to stay with him for a while before his people came.
“Are you a boy or a girl?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I am both.”
He reached out to touch my face and I let him.
I wish I could say I remember what we spoke about. I think we sang. I think he told me that we could have stopped this, that the Wheetago have always counted on our greed—even from under the ice: our digging, the Rape of our Great Mother, to call them back.
Soon there was rustling in the weeds around us and then a song that rippled the water so gently from other frogs. It was their breath. Together. Around us.
He sang back and then he left.
“I won’t forget you,” he said.
“I won’t forget you,” I said.
Then, now, I left and did not tell anyone what happened. I did not tell Yellow Hand or Iris, but those boys always brought me blackberries after.
That was their way of saying sorry.
One almost-summer later, I felt a hood swoop over me as I was getting water and I was lifted by the Wheetago. I knew it was them because of their ankles clicking as they ran. They are like the caribou that way.
I thought this is it: my time is now. Take me fast, I said to the Great Wonder. Take me quick.
They knew to move through the willows in a way so they did not slap each other as they passed. I could hear birds above me. The feather of their wings. But I did not hear them. No breath. I named these ones the shadowless. The Wheetago bite and somehow decide who gets to turn like them and there are those they torture, decorate and eat. I did not want to be sewn into the trees like some of the children we’d found. Why was I being stolen away?
I prayed hard. I prayed quiet. I prayed to our Mother and to the memory of the Dog People to remember me when my time came. I don’t know how long the Wheetago had me but they stopped suddenly, stood me up and pulled my hood off.
I looked down but saw quick with my eyes.
These were not Hair Eaters, who always travel in threes. These were not their Shark Mouths whose jaws drag through the earth or the Almost Birthers who are born suffering worse than the others. These were not the hooked beaked or the ones who can soar off the earth now or hover or dive over water. These had webs and sticks pushed through their skin. These were not six. These were nine.
They had guards facing away from me, much like we do. All three sniffed the air and looked left to right. What was it they feared? I wondered. It was as if they were being chased, too.
I heard the great wet and chewing chambers in their throat and chests surge within them as the six around me argued. It must have been agony not to rip me apart. One grabbed my jaw and I looked at their clawed feet. They were giants. Bigger than men. The rotting rolled off of them like neck meat gone bad. They examined me and I shifted from boy to girl, girl to boy. The only constant was the dog constellation marking my face. I call it the focus. I’ve watched myself bloom back and forth and it’s the only part of me that stays.
The lead bull grabbed my chin hard and made me face him. I saw nothing but hate in its eyes. He had tusks. What was once human looked like it had found a sharp rock and slammed its face first over and over to break its teeth into shards and its mouth into a hole. One eye was open. The other was torn and leaking. One carried a bag sewn into its chest I had seen on a woman when I was a child. She used to nurse the orphans. And I smelled mint. She used it to call her milk. She nursed me when I was abandoned for what I was and how I shifted.
I started to cry.
The lead bull made me look at it, and it used sign language to speak to me. I saw light under its nails. The one to his left—a female—watched me. Another made clicks to the guards and one returned a low growl back. They were talking. We knew they prayed together, but this was the first time I ever heard talk between them.
The lead bull made me know that something spoke to all of them. It pointed to all their eyes. I saw that they had tusks: on their heads and under their chins like the shovels of caribou. This voice warned them. It pointed at me and then it pointed to the earth. It pointed to the sky. It pointed to where I’d come from. The others then stood behind in line and I realized more Wheetago were coming. The trees swayed as they made their way through the forest. They did this so I could not see their numbers. I felt how tall and cold they were behind me. I was nothing to them.
The third to his right then knelt and drew in the sand with its hooked claw how to go home. I’ll never forget this: each finger had two claws. One that retracted, the other like a talon.
The lead bull pushed me and I ran. I ran all the way home. The distance that took them minutes to steal took me two hours to run back.
I was going to tell Iris and Old Man but they were gone when I came back. That was their way. Always in ceremony. I say this now to all of you: I know it was that frog. He saved me. I pray he saves me always. This is an animal war, too.
We are a world at war with the Wheetago and Mary, their mother, he told me. She gives birth to all of them through her mouth, they say. But there are those who don’t listen to her now: new scouts, new raiding parties, the ones who sew inside-out bodies into the trees.
I know he told me this.
The new scouts carry trophies of their kills. Fetuses. Noses. The wet of us in pieces.
It’s as if they’re trying to remember something.
They are still hollowing out the earth. Reaching places men in their greed couldn’t. There are mountains in the sky now of bones and rock. Altars, maybe.
It’s as if they want the world to warm.
Our scouts say that they pray with the rotation of the moon and that the sun twinning was part of something older than the world. Something ancient and starving.
They were always here. Dreaming under ice.
They were the ones who lit the world on fire to bring the ash rain, the red lighting, the shedding of the sun. Even the oceans burned until the fish peeled from their skins because of them.
The Wheetago had years to plan this under the ice of the world. They scared the moon away. They are wishing for something that is not us. They have their gods, too, but we are in their way now.
So the animals and us, we have our medicine back now because the earth, she does not want this. She is wounded and scared and bleeding and we have to help Her. All of us.
This is the rape of her in a new way and she’s asking us for help.
She wants to live. They want to take her power. They want to turn the world and everyone here who is not them
. So I will fight.
I have to.
I want my children—if I can have them—to know that I chose the muktuk when I was at the Choosing. They say I pulled myself past the caribou meat.
This is why I guard the water. This is why I’ve marked myself in the way of the Dog Soldier. I will fight for what we have found as a people, and I will help our Mother. I have to.
I have sat with Old Man and his fox and helped him with the Choosing Ceremony. I have used my mother’s ulu to prepare the muktuk. This one time when we were done we looked west under the Twin Suns. We saw woman laughing, cooking together. We saw men hauling water and preparing dry fish, dry meat. Children were running, playing. Boys were off to check the nets. Women of all nations were tanning moose hides. “What a shame,” he said sadly, “that it took the Wheetago War to make what’s left of us finally work together as one people, the new Dene.”
He wiped the back of his hands over his eyes. He had been weeping. He took his cane and walked to where his wife would be waiting. He seemed so sad.
Fox followed them to where they lived. They call that fox his little brother, but I have heard him call his friend, “Grandpa.”
One time Old Man gave me three small feathers and asked me to bead them in a way so they would always be together. They were so beautiful. I had seen them before in a woman’s hair. I forget her name. It must be his symbol for hope, family, grace. They smelled of yarrow, sweet grass, the wick of buffalo sage. I sewed them together in her memory and in the memory of the family we’ve had to become. When I gave them back to him, he smiled. He rolled that bullet of his in his hand and I saw smoke rolling off his palm. Not smoke from fire, but smoke from ice. His hands were covered in burns: open and old. “Mahsi, my girl,” he said.
Fox looked at him with his torn and folded ear. He smiled, too. Still, I am curious. Those guards that surrounded us. The way they sniffed the air. They were being tracked. By what, I don’t know. The new breed of them changes all the time. Perhaps they are hunting each other. This would bring hope if it were true.
Night Moves Page 16