Motorcycles & Sweetgrass

by Drew Hayden Taylor

  Virgil had indeed heard his uncle, but he was still trying to understand the implications. “Nanabush… the one and only Nanabush… the one grandma would tell me about. That Nanabush?”

  “That’s the only Nanabush I know. Well, I guess he could also be called Nanabouzoo, and generically, the Trickster. He’s known by a lot of different names by different people.”

  “Jesus, Uncle Wayne! You’re crazier than he is. Nanabush doesn’t exist. He’s a made-up guy, from Native stories. Like Merlin the magician or Tarzan of the Apes or Santa Claus. Actually, I would believe you more if you said he was Santa Claus. I mean, besides the fact that Nanabush is make-believe, John is White. I know it’s dark out here but at least you should have noticed that. I assume Nanabush would at least look a little Indian.”

  “Tricksters have the ability to change their shape, Virgil. Or didn’t you listen to your grandmother’s stories? It’s all right there. He can talk to the animals. You saw him. He’s riding a motorcycle, one that’s named after us. Tricksters love irony!”

  “So, the Ministry of Transportation gives out vehicle and driver’s licences to tricksters? That’s just one of those… coincidence things.”

  “Coincidences don’t exist. That’s exactly the kind of thing he would do. I think it’s called irony. And… he keeps changing his last name. Tanner, Matus, Richardson… Depending on where you are in Canada, he also goes by different names. Weesageechak, Coyote, Napi, Glooscap, Raven…”

  “You’re… I don’t believe this! I said he was strange but there’s strange and there’s strange. You are crazy, Uncle Wayne!”

  “Yeah, it’s a definite possibility, according to local opinion. But if I’m right, your mother is in more danger than you thought. So are a lot of other people. He’s very, very dangerous.”

  “Wait a minute, dangerous? I thought Nanabush was this goofy guy that always got himself into trouble, did stupid and silly things like tripping on shit and stuff. That doesn’t sound so dangerous.”

  “Those are the children’s stories Grandma told you. She told me others. Darker ones. Ones with monsters. Yes, Nanabush teaches us the silliness of human nature, but don’t forget he has special powers. And people with powers tend to act differently from you and me. And I’m not talking in a Superman or Spider-Man way. They have their own set of rules. According to some who really studied those stories, he is a creature of appetites, of emotions, of desires. That is not a good thing to be. That’s what usually got him into trouble. He would often do whatever he wanted to get what he wanted, whenever he wanted it. And if what you say is right, he wants…”

  Virgil took a deep breath. “My mother!” They both sat quietly in the darkness for several moments. “So, you’re saying Grandma knew Nanabush? That can’t be true.” Then he remembered. “When I looked in her window that day he showed up, I saw them kissing. I mean, really kissing. Him and Grandma. What do you think that meant?”

  Reaching behind his head, Wayne undid the leather thong tied around his ponytail. In all their bush-hopping and peeping, his hair had come loose. “That explains a lot, actually. Mom… Your grandma always told those stories in such a way that you believed she had been there. There was so much love in the way she told them. In my travels I’ve listened to other storytellers, and her way of telling tales was always different. Special. Maybe now we know why.”

  Virgil shook his head. “Nanabush?”

  “Yep, Nanabush. It was those petroglyphs you mentioned that got me thinking. I thought it was impossible but still… you see, Virgil, many cultures, ours included, believe the west is the land of the dead.”

  Things clicked for Virgil. “The setting sun!”

  “Exactly. He arrived, and your grandma, my mother, went west. Nanabush knows how to get there, and back. And now, maybe, he has developed an infatuation with your mom.”

  “Oh my god! I just thought he wanted to move to Vancouver with her. Mom… in the land of the dead. Uncle Wayne, I don’t want her to die.” A nervous and wide-eyed Virgil asked the obvious. “So… what do we do? If this is Nanabush, we gotta do something. We can’t let him take Mom!”

  Just above Virgil’s head was a tree branch about the size of a child’s wrist. In the gloom of the forest, he could barely make out his uncle reaching above him and grabbing the branch with his left hand. There was a loud cracking sound and the boy felt bits of bark and cedar falling on him. Wayne held the snapped branch in front of his nephew’s face.

  “If this is Nanabush in the flesh, as outrageous as that may sound, and I think he is, he’s not a person you want to have around your mother. Around anybody. In the last couple of generations, his stories have been domesticated and gentrified. Remember, Virgil, where he goes, mischief follows. Luckily he’s half human, and we can deal with that part. Knowing that, we must try to convince him to move on.”

  Virgil took the branch and felt the broken end. Since this whole thing began, he had felt something small but uncomfortable lodged in the pit of his stomach. Over the last ten minutes it had grown to be quite substantial, grown to about the size of a motorcycle.

  Nestled in her bed with most of the twigs and grass removed from her hair, and just a slight headache from the wine, Maggie thought about the evening’s events, and as a result, her mind was doing more back flips than most high-school cheerleaders. It had been a life-altering night for sure. Well, maybe that was a bit exaggerated. It certainly had been a year-altering night. It couldn’t have been the wine. Though she did have a fairly low tolerance for alcohol, her personality didn’t radically change, like some people’s. Even when she was young, and guys were always after her, the offering of gifts of Labatt and Molson had had little effect. But what had happened tonight? Now that was the question.

  Maybe it was the combination of the wine, the moon and the man. That was a definite possibility because she couldn’t tell where one began and the other left off. She had gone from first base to a home run, covering all of the bases along the way. Furthermore, she had enjoyed it all under a blanket of stars. This was very un-Maggie-like behaviour. She blamed her own innate shyness for thinking all the animals of the forest were watching them together on the blanket on the dock, wrapped up in each other.

  She still wasn’t sure how she felt about the whole thing. It had been a while since she’d felt the things she’d felt tonight, both physically and emotionally. Hell, even intellectually and spiritually too. It would take some time to figure this all out. Meanwhile, she was content to let her body tingle magnificently.

  When John had dropped her off at the house, she’d wondered if Virgil would be able to tell what had happened, but luckily he wasn’t home. There was a note on the table saying he’d gone out with one of her brothers but he had neglected to say which one. It wasn’t like him to be out so late by himself, but she was pleased he was making an effort to socialize more. It seemed to be a night for socializing for both of them. In the dark, Maggie blushed and pulled the blanket over her face. A small giggle escaped.

  And they never did take that swim.

  Outside her window, perched high in a tree, a raccoon was watching her.

  With her parents at their weekly bowling excursion in town, and her brother and sister off at a local high-school dance, Dakota had gone down to the dock again. She’d been spending more and more time out there, with her dad’s binoculars. She’d told her parents she was doing a project on the moon and was making notes on what she could see. Little did she know her parents were now planning to buy her a telescope next Christmas.

  So much had been happening over at Beer Bay lately, she could barely keep track of it. And it all seemed to revolve around John Clayton. It had grown late, and John and what she was fairly positive were several raccoons, had left. But they might be back, and so she had waited. And waited. And waited. She had not wanted to miss a thing. She’d waited until her body could wait no more.

  Now she was sound asleep, her head resting on the binoculars case, dreaming the dre
ams of a thirteen-year-old girl.

  Life with two teenage siblings had taught her to sleep soundly, so she didn’t hear the sound of the motorcycle approaching the front of her house, or the engine being shut off. Or the sound of boots walking the planks of her dock and stopping so close. She was also unaware of the man standing over her, watching her sleep. Now it was her turn to be observed. She shivered a bit in the spring night, but did not waken.

  EIGHTEEN

  The next morning a refreshed and still-tingly Maggie rose, ready to face what fresh hell the day might throw at her. Automatically, she checked Virgil’s room and saw him safely tucked in his bed. She hadn’t heard him come in. Wow, Maggie thought, she must have been really tired. Virgil rolled over, still fully dressed in yesterday’s clothes, grumbling discontentedly in his sleep.

  Closing his door she decided that today would be a day for full-blown caffeinated coffee, none of that half-decaf stuff she’d been drinking since her husband died. She knew she had a can packed away in the back of the cupboard for just such emergencies—or hangovers.

  Or so she thought. She was on her second search of the cupboard, moving cans and packages around, when she heard a voice behind her. A man’s irritated voice.

  “Christ, you’re noisy in the morning!”

  Startled, she turned, dropping a can of peas on the floor. Coming toward her from the living room was her brother Wayne, in his underwear and a T-shirt, scratching an armpit. It took a moment for the image to register. He rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  “Wayne?”

  “That’s my name. What is so damn important in that cupboard?” He yawned again.

  “Coffee. I was looking for coffee.”

  He turned around and went into the living room, where apparently he’d been sleeping on the couch. “It’s already in the coffee maker. Just turn it on. That’s one thing about living with no electricity. You have to boil your coffee. Not the same. Luckily I remember how Momma’s worked. Do you remember how I like mine?”

  Still having difficulty believing her recluse brother was here, in her house, half naked at that, Maggie peeked around the doorway to see him folding the blankets on the couch. Then he started to get dressed. It all seemed so normal.

  “Two sugars,” she answered. “Wayne, don’t get me wrong, but what are you doing here? It’s been almost a year since you came to visit any of the family, outside of Mom.”

  “Things have changed. I should have brought my laundry. Washing machines: one of the three greatest inventions of White people. Big sister, we have to talk.” He started rubbing his feet. “But first, you gonna turn the coffee on or what? Man, my feet hurt.”

  “Your feet? What?”

  Behind her, Maggie heard Virgil’s door open, and saw her sleepy son walk out.

  “Hey, Mom. Hey, Uncle Wayne. What’s up?”

  Maggie looked at the both of them, sensing something was amiss. “I’d like to know that myself.”

  The early part of the morning passed quickly. Maggie made breakfast for her son and brother, grabbed a shower and went about getting ready for work. All the time, though, she had a nagging suspicion the two males in the house knew what she’d been up to the night before.

  Eventually, just before she was to leave for the Band Office, Virgil excused himself, saying he was going to get ready for school. That seemed to Maggie more of a strategic manoeuvre than a statement of intent, because how often do thirteen-year-olds say, “Well, school’s calling. Don’t want to be late”? Especially Virgil.

  “Wayne, what’s going on here?” she asked after Virgil had left the room.

  Wayne took a sip from his third cup of coffee, carefully choosing his words. “Maggie, it’s good to see you. I really should visit more. I’m seriously going to try. And, uh, Virgil’s been telling me things. And we’ve found out other things. Events are happening around here that I think you need to know about.”

  “What things?”

  “This guy, the one that calls himself John…”

  “John? Has Virgil told you about John?” Suddenly it dawned on Maggie. “Oh my God, it’s my son, isn’t it? He’s upset, thinking I’m replacing his father. He’s jealous. Oh, my poor boy. This has all happened so fast. This is all new to me too.”

  “Oh, Maggie, take a breath. That’s what I thought at first, but it has nothing to do with Virgil. Actually, it has everything to do with this situation, but not in the way you think. Uh, this is kind of awkward, but… John’s not what he seems to be. You need to be careful.”

  “John? And just who is John, then, other than a man that you’ve never met? And by the way, why are you here, really?” It seemed to Maggie that the more her brother talked, the less sense he was making. And why was everybody obsessed with John? Was it just family concern, or something more?

  “Maggie, listen carefully.” And Wayne began to explain.

  “Get out!” yelled Maggie, visibly shaking. The calm of breakfast had ended.

  “Maggie…”

  “Wayne, I swear, I will knock your head off if you talk like that around Virgil. Do you know how insane this sounds?”

  Wayne hesitated before confessing. “Yes, I do, and he knows already. We’ve been discussing the possibility since yesterday.”

  “What do you mean since yesterday? Did he go over to your island by himself?”

  “Well, he was worried about you and that guy and, yes, he canoed over to my island. He thought maybe I could talk some sense into either you or ‘John’…”

  Maggie’s eyes practically burned a hole through Wayne. “Yesterday was a school day. What was he doing canoeing across the lake? Alone.”

  “Maggie, I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture here…”

  Maggie was indeed not seeing Wayne’s bigger picture. At the moment, she was seeing only red, and not the red usually associated with Native people.

  “Virgil Second!” she yelled as she threw open the door to Virgil’s bedroom.

  Startled, he scurried over the bed and into the far corner. He knew he was in deep trouble, on a number of different fronts. He wondered if his uncle could use an apprentice.

  “Your uncle was just telling me that you canoed across the lake yesterday. Alone. Is that true?”

  That would be the first nail in his coffin. “Yes, Mom.”

  “Yesterday was a school day. Weren’t you supposed to be at school? Didn’t you promise me you would start spending more time at school and not doing this kind of thing?”

  Virgil could hear the hammer hitting the next nail. “Yes, Mom.”

  “And you did all this to talk… to gossip behind my back, and to come up with the idea that John is, in fact, Nanabush, a fictional character from Native mythology. Am I understanding this all correctly?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  Then the silence fell. No more questions or nail-hammering, just a long piercing stare of an angry and pissed-off mother. In retrospect, Virgil would rather have faced a few more nails than the passing seconds (actually more like an eternity) of silence.

  Finally: “Get to school.”

  Nodding vigorously to the point of almost hurting his neck, Virgil grabbed his knapsack and ran out the door. It seemed his uncle had been of no help in dealing with his angry mother, and now Virgil was quite happy to leave him behind to deal with her alone. Getting an education, at the moment, definitely seemed preferable to facing his mom’s wrath. It had been a long time since he’d run full out to his class. Seething, Maggie watched her son leave, though bolt seemed the more correct word. She had never been the sort of person to get unduly angry. She was, in fact, the calm one of the family, and her job practically demanded it. But today was an unusual day. So Wayne was to witness a rare treat.

  “And as for you…” she said as she turned to face him.

  “Uh, Maggie, I didn’t know yesterday was a school day. Sorry… not that I had anything to do with it.”

  “Everybody knows Wednesday is usually a school day.”


  “Today’s Wednesday?”

  “No, today is Thursday. Yesterday was Wednesday.” Maggie struggled to keep her voice calm. “Most people also know what day of the week it is.”

  “Well, there’s no need to get so snippy. I don’t have a calendar on the island. Geez, Maggie, you know, you’ve always been bossy. Now, about John…”

  Unable to deal with her lunatic brother, Maggie opted to push him toward the door. All the way across the living room from the kitchen and to the front door, she shoved him, and then she shoved him through it.

  All the while, Wayne tried to reason with her, but he never got past uttering, “Maggie…” before she would push him again, almost knocking him over. One chair and a lamp fell to the ground along the way.

  “I want you out of here. Go back to your island. Leave me and Virgil alone. John too.”

  Wayne fought the impulse to defend himself, which he easily could have done. Rarely do circumstances arise, however, where the use of a deadly martial art is permissible on an irate sister. Instead, he let himself be pushed, struggling at least to maintain his balance, which luckily was an integral part of his training.

  Once he was out the door, Maggie stopped, breathing hard.

  “If you’d just listen to me, we…” he pleaded.

  She pushed him one more time, almost causing him to tumble down the cement steps. “Wayne, you are my brother, and because of that, I love you. But I will pound your face in if you continue with this ludicrous line of thought.”

  “What is it with you and violence? Were you always like this?”

  “Me and violence? Mr. Indian Kung Fu? I am not violent!”

  Now it was Wayne’s turn to display his temper. “Are you kidding! You used to beat me up. All the time. I still have nightmares of you coming into my room with a bucket of cold water. Of hip-checking me into the lake. Of kicking me in the shins, all the time. Taking my boots away on the way home from school, in winter! You were a vicious, mean sister!”