“So hire a detective. He can work ten hours a day, every day of the week, chasing down leads. And a detective can be pushy where you or your mom may not be able to.”
“Not sure Mom will go for that.”
“Don’t tell her. Do you tell your mother everything? I don’t. Well, I can’t. She’s dead. Has your mother got any better ideas? I think you need a good detective. There’s a lot of legwork. Why do you think police forces put ten or twenty guys on a case if it’s a vicious murder?”
“Never thought of it.”
“They know how many people they’re going to have to talk to before somebody gives them a tidbit. If they’ve got only one guy at it, doing it after his day job — like you and your mom — it ain’t going to happen very fast. And clues dry up.” Wanda opened and closed several cupboards, finally pulling out a bag of pasta.
“How do you know all this?”
“Perry Mason. And my uncle was a cop in NYC. He loved the work. He loved talking about his work. He’d come over, drink coffee, and talk and talk. My father hated when Uncle Saul came, but I loved it.”
Her uncle, Wanda said, talked about following a lead, talking to a whole bunch of different people, chasing after it, then nothing. He’d get another hint, go after that person. Nothing. One day, out of the blue, somebody would walk into the precinct. He’d been away on vacation, left the day after the murder. He’d say he saw this guy running across the park at two in the morning.
“My uncle says he gets this dizziness when they’re getting closer to the guy. He knows they’re close because he gets that. He can’t sit still or sleep; he only eats hot dogs and oatmeal. Sometimes it goes on for days. And then they pounce.”
“Too bad your uncle doesn’t live here.”
“I’ll bet your mother knows somebody. She’s a lawyer.”
14
Little whitecaps scurried over the surface of the lake like gophers on a grassy knoll. There had been frost last night, a fine white dusting that covered the planks of Elinor’s porch, the grey stones of the driveway, and the ruddy brown twigs of her garden chair. The first few winters on the reserve, when they had little wood for fires, she and her cousins and sister would stay under the bison hides until the sun was higher in the sky. They’d hover over a candle, trying to warm their hands. One time, Elinor’s hair caught fire. So many died from disease and hunger. It was their custom to place the dead, wrapped in hides, on platforms above the ground or in the trees. That winter the trees blossomed with dead bodies. Hundreds of blossoms.
“Damn!” Elinor dropped the phone into its cradle and shuffled to her rocking chair. She hated telephones. Speaking in person was better. She used to despise television, said she’d never have one in her house. Until Alice brought her one. She was embarrassed that she was intrigued by the machine’s ability to take her from the streets of Regina to Washington, D.C., Victoria, Halifax, or Vietnam with the turn of a knob. She changed the channel when they reported on that war in Vietnam. It disturbed her. Images of parents with a naked child draped over their arms like a carpet. Villages, beautiful fields of rice, bombed and burning. What good did it do anyone to know of those things? She liked very much programs that showed pictures of mountains, rivers, beavers or eagles, wild horses in Alberta. Some of the shows made her laugh. Cooking shows in which a white woman with perfect hair and lovely clothes demonstrated how to slice onions and carrots, how to melt butter in a pan. Where were their aunties and mothers? The shows for the children angered her. Children should be running, chasing, fighting with each other, not watching others do such things.
She jumped at the banging of the door, then the sound of tapping on glass. She pushed herself from her chair and squinted at the kitchen window; she couldn’t tell whose face, hands cupped around it, was pressed against the glass.
“Come in,” she said. “The door’s open.”
A tall, lanky youth, sixteen or seventeen, balancing letters and a large, flat package on long arms, shoved open the door.
“Jeremy, it’s you,” Elinor said. She stood wavering by the kitchen table. “Put it there on the table. It’s my new brushes and canvas. Help yourself to some Coke. You know where the glasses are.”
She dragged one of the letters toward her. Recognizing the rough, awkward printing, mostly in capital letters, she groaned. “Now what?” She fumbled to tear the end off the envelope.
“Something the matter?” Jeremy gasped after a long guzzle of Coke.
“Oh, probably,” she said, struggling to get her fingers inside the end of the envelope. “Can you get the damned thing out?”
Jeremy pulled out a single sheet of notepaper and handed it to her. She didn’t want to read it. The very thought tired her. She pushed the letter to the side and asked Jeremy about school.
“It’s cool,” he said.
“Your mother must be happy.”
“Pretty much.” He nodded then asked what she was painting.
“Not quite sure yet,” she said. Actually, she did know, but didn’t want to speak about it. Talking about the work, before or in the middle, tended to interfere with the necessary and mysterious unfolding of the picture she had chosen to make, the story she wanted to tell. She likened the process to the opening of a rose. You never knew how, or why, or when, the first petals separated themselves from the bud, or the pace at which the others would join them. Sure, there were theories about warmth and moisture and hours of sun, but who really knew. Only Manitow, the Creator, knew.
Jeremy asked her to show him some of her paintings. Most times she enjoyed Jeremy’s visits. Often, they’d have long talks about what he was learning in math, social studies, his plans after graduating from high school. And if she really needed to get somewhere Jeremy would drive her. But now she wanted to see what the letter required of her. She said she was tired and suggested he come back the following day.
“Sure. Or next week, if that’s better,” he said. He asked about her supply of cigarettes, then left.
Elinor opened the letter, a sheet of stationery from St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon. There were only a few words; they sprawled across the centre of the page.
I’M IN HOSPITAL HIT BY CAR
LE ROY
She dropped the letter on the table and looked to the window above the sink. Clouds, their undersides the grey and black of pencil lead, had started to form. Snow clouds. She’d sensed from the recent gatherings of geese and crows that winter would come early this year. No doubt he had been drunk. Probably he hit the car, instead of the car hitting him. His body was so saturated with alcohol his liver probably crunched like a pickle. She didn’t blame Louise for banning him from her life. His spectacular rendition of “Jingle Bells,” in between coughing jags and crawling through the snow in her front yard, was not what Louise had wanted for her Christmas morning. He was lucky she hadn’t called the police and pretended she didn’t know him.
Elinor wanted to believe that if Le Roy was in hospital, he wouldn’t be able to drink. There wasn’t much that he hadn’t tried. He wasn’t beyond searching out the rubbing alcohol or convincing one of the cleaning staff to smuggle in a mickey or two. She wondered if she should call him. Last time, he’d cried and cried on the phone, promised he’d get off the booze and go for treatment. Three months later the phone rang at four in the morning. It was Le Roy, wanting to sing “Happy Birthday” to her. It wasn’t her birthday. Probably he didn’t notice that she’d hung up the phone after the first line of the song. She didn’t answer when he called back.
She opened the package Jeremy had brought and took out the brushes. She drew the thick, soft bristles over the top of her hand. Bringing the tubes of acrylic within inches of her eyes, she read the names of the colours aloud: “Burnt Sienna. Violet Oxide. Raw Umber.” It was like tasting a soup or a sauce, assessing the flavour when she said the names. She’d been extravagant and ordered three larger canvases. Maybe it was foolish; she could be dead the next day. She saw no point in waiting for Death’s
arrival; that kind of attitude was an invitation. Death was going to have to catch her. That way of thinking probably gave her a little extra time. She believed Death was lazy and would seek out the easy ones first.
Now it was time to paint the buck. If it was a harsh winter, as she predicted, he’d come more often for the carrots, grain, and apples she intended to leave in the garden. She would need to be disciplined, checking frequently at the window for his arrival. It wasn’t likely that he would knock first. Only his hoofprints, droppings, and the disappearance of the food would tell her he had been. He would come, of that she was sure. Some would say, make it easy on yourself — take a few photographs and paint from them. While photographs captured an image, they were without breath and movement and odour. She needed all of that to paint. This project, and Big Brown, would occupy her while Alice found her first child.
She held up one of the canvases and envisioned the great creature upon it. He would fill up the entire space with his erect ears, chestnut eyes, ebony nose, muscled shoulders and thighs. She’d never known a fat deer. She saw the grand animal moving across black fields of summer fallow, then into the air — as if he’d sprouted wings — and over the farmer’s fence, intended to keep the cattle in and the deer out.
Shuffling to her bedroom, she wished that even for a day she might have the buck’s energy and strength to take her to Bright Eyes. It was hard to admit, and she’d not say so to Alice, but she had had thoughts that the child had been killed, smothered within hours of being snatched from her. She had to banish those thoughts. She had to believe that someone had taken care of her daughter, loved the child as if she had come from her own body. Manitow would have seen to that.
15
Alice glanced at her gran, hunched forward, hands clasped in her lap, seemingly oblivious to the rattling and bouncing as they passed over a rough patch of road. When they got to the restaurant it would be easier to talk. In the truck, her gran would only get every fifth word. She slowed almost to a stop and swerved around two deep potholes. “Guess the grader hasn’t been through in a while,” Alice said.
“Nope,” her gran said. “They come in the spring, level it out nicely, spread a load of gravel, then forget about us until the next year.”
Elinor popped out her lower denture, ran her finger over the toothless gum, then held the finger out to Alice. “What’s this?”
“Looks like a raspberry seed,” Alice said.
“They don’t fit as good as they used to. Stuff keeps getting under them.”
They bumped over the railway tracks, passing a grain elevator, a single boxcar huddled next to the maroon-and-grey prairie sentinel. Alice wished she had something hopeful to tell her gran. Her mother was waffling about putting an ad in the newspaper, something about all the nuts they’d have to deal with. She was trying to get access to government and church records. Alice had visited Lillian a few weeks earlier, but had left with nothing firm to grasp onto, no useful leads.
She glanced at her gran.
Elinor stared straight ahead.
They drove another mile or two. On either side of the road, farmers’ fields as far as the eye could see. In the middle of the field on her left a grey square building, abandoned, door ajar, a strong lean to the right. She’d spent last night at Wanda’s, caressing, being touched in parts of her body she’d never been touched before. She savoured it all, even as she wanted to stop. She longed to be free of her fear, her shame, the idea that what she did with Wanda was wrong.
If anyone ever found out.
Elinor cleared her throat and Alice started.
“It was the government’s plan to have us disappear,” Elinor said. “Big Bear, Poundmaker, Piapot. They all knew it right from the start.” She tapped her middle finger on the dash. “They knew it all.” She jabbed her finger toward the windshield. “All this was our land. Now look at it, chopped up into farms and ranches.”
They drove past the white chip wagon and the sign for Anderson’s Butcher Shop.
“After you have known the kicking of a tiny foot,” Elinor said, “the turning of a small body within your own, then the pain of the child passing through your body to enter this world, an indelible memory is created. You can’t get rid of it. Not with other children, painting, or prayers. It’s like the stain of strawberry juice on a white shirt. No amount of scrubbing, soap, and sunlight takes it away. The colour fades, but it never leaves entirely.”
They crossed under the sweeping white arches of the town’s only bridge. Now the bridge spanned a stream bed that held only a mere trickle of water contained within a cement spillway. Two or three years ago the river had risen up in the springtime and swollen over its banks.
“It’s an ugly thing they’ve made of it,” her gran said, turning to the defeated river. “Why can’t humans leave things alone? As if a river needs to be told how to flow.”
The Midway Restaurant was small, and the only one in town. The seating was all booths, red leather, each with its own jukebox. The place was half-full. They took a seat and ordered what they usually got: won ton soup, chicken chow mein, steamed rice, and sweet-and-sour spareribs.
Elinor swung her head toward the jukebox. “Your grandfather liked those things. Used to be a Chinese restaurant we went to in north Regina. He’d take a pile of quarters. We’d order tea and fried rice. Those days you got three plays for a quarter. He didn’t know most of the songs; he’d start at A and keep going until the quarters were gone. He never got past G, as I recall. When there was a fast song he’d get silly, ask me if I wanted to dance.”
Every time they came to the restaurant, her gran told the same story. With one variation: the alphabet letter changed. Sometimes her grandfather got to B, other times it was H or T. Alice had been keen to tell her gran about the meeting she’d gone to. Fifteen or twenty Indians gathered to talk about how they could stop an amusement park being built. The idea of roller coasters, Ferris wheels, and bumper cars running over an Indian burial ground was not amusing to her people.
Her gran grunted.
“Elders, babies, little kids, they were all there,” Alice said. “I’d never been in that kind of group. I don’t think Mom had any Indian friends. Well, Mary, but our family never got together with her. I envied those kids at that meeting, running around, laughing, eating cookies, every person there smiling at them.”
Elinor licked her lips, rubbed her hands down her skirt. “Your mother has been so stubborn about keeping away from her roots, from her people. And keeping you, Andrew, and Catherine from me and her aunties and cousins. I’ve never understood why she had to do that.” Elinor stared at the table across from them as the waitress delivered platters of hamburgers, french fries, and coleslaw. “Your mother came last week. We talked a little. She has not had an easy time of it. I know she has done and said things she regrets, but she’s not figured out how to reclaim her steps.” Elinor drew her thumb over her bottom lip. “Do you know what I think?”
“No idea.”
“Your mother has her own secret.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just a sense. Hard to explain. She’s always so stiff, on guard. Why does she keep visiting that Mary woman? Have you ever talked to her?”
Alice shook her head. “Nope.”
“She knows something.” Elinor sighed. “Something else I must attend to before I die.”
The waitress slid two bowls of steaming soup onto the table. Elinor dropped her spoon on the floor. Alice gave Elinor hers and got up to ask for another. Elinor dipped the spoon into the soup, blew on the spoon, then slurped. She patted at her eyes with her napkin and complained that the soup was too hot. Alice reminded her that she liked it that way.
Elinor loved Chinese food. She sucked at the tiny bones of the spareribs, scooped the thick, dark sauce over her rice, and licked her lips frequently. A spoonful of rice bumped against her upper lip and the sticky white food fell like clumps of wet snow.
“I thought I could forget,” El
inor said, “pretend the child didn’t happen. For years I told myself I had been blessed with other children, and grandchildren. But one morning I woke up, my head was pounding, the wind was furious, and the word betrayal came. To not seek her out was to continue the betrayal.” She shoved a won ton into her mouth and wrestled it into submission. “Even if she’s dead, it’s still important to know what became of her. Her spirit should know we are looking for her, so it can rest, so we can bury her in our way.”
Elinor cracked open a fortune cookie and handed the two pieces to Alice. Alice extracted the narrow rectangle of paper and handed it to her gran.
“You read it. They make the writing so small.”
Alice laughed. “It says you will have a long life.”
“Take another. I already know that.”
Elinor dipped a corner of a sugar cube into her tea. Green liquid seeped into the whiteness almost to her fingers before she put it into her mouth.
Alice snapped open another cookie. She laughed. “Don’t kiss an elephant on the lips today.”
“Chinese logic,” her grandmother said. “Did I tell you about the time your grandfather and I went to the Rockies? It was just before he died; he’d always wanted to see the mountains. We went on the train, got a berth and did it up right. Your grandfather loved having his tea from the silver tea service. Just the way the queen would have done it, he said. You could see your face in it, that’s how much someone had scrubbed the thing. It was the same for all the heavy cutlery with the CPR letters on the handles. Canadian Poopy Railway.”
“Granny.”
“Yes. Canadian Poopy Railway. That’s how they brought out the troops. Might have been a different ending for Riel and his followers if they didn’t have the railway. They shipped all those police from the east. Police from the east.” She giggled. “Besides being the place where the sun rises, that’s why the door of your tipi should face east. Police come from the east.”
Tears in the Grass Page 9