Fearless Warriors

by Drew Hayden Taylor

  “Get in.” She was short and terse. I obeyed. “Let’s go home.” Again I obeyed and we were soon roaring down the only road in Japland.

  Now I was in the difficult position of determining if I should ask, or wait for her to volunteer the information. Always an onerous decision.

  Luckily I was saved the burden. “He’s not well. That man needs serious help.”

  “Allan Martin? Why? What did he do?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it. The man’s nuts.”

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  She looked at me, and there was anger in her eyes. Serious anger. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  She turned quiet again. I was just about to press the point when the gates flew open.

  “We were sitting there at his kitchen table, drinking coffee as he was rummaging around in his cupboards for his can of money. He keeps all his money in an old coffee can. Hey I can accept that. Nothing too weird about that. Mom used to keep her money in the bottom drawer of her dresser, remember that? Then he starts asking me questions about you and me, about our relationship as brother and sister. I knew something was up but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

  “What did he want to know?”

  “Whether or not I would die for you? Or you would for me? I tried to change the subject but it always came back to that. He kept insisting, asking, like he had to know or he’d die.”

  Then it occurred to me. “His brothers?”

  “That’s what I thought. And I thought, ‘hey, this is a job for a counsellor, not me.’ So I tried to get out of the situation but he asked me if I thought he was responsible for what happened to his brothers. If he ran out on them by coming to Canada. He thinks he killed them.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “I told him of course not, and that I didn’t know him well enough to comment on any of this stuff anyways. That’s when he started getting angry. He started accusing me of blaming him for what he did. Both of us in fact. He thinks that’s why you never came in the house. You had condemned him and didn’t want anything to do with him. And he started swearing that he did what he thought was best, the war was wrong, all this sixties shit, he wasn’t responsible for his brothers dying in Vietnam.”

  “Maybe he should listen to himself.”

  Angela looked out the window. The dandelions had long since turned to white puffs of fuzz, which floated on the breeze. On first glance, it looked like it was snowing.

  “He started crying as I got up to leave. I think their names were Robert and Bruce. Those were the two names he was calling, over and over and over again. Should I tell somebody about this? You know, to help him? After all, he is a lonely old man.”

  I thought for a moment. “This is a little out of the way of our health clinic. Who would know what to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She noticed the blood stains on my jean jacket. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing, just a scratch. It’ll go away.”

  Angela was silent for a moment. “Do you think I should have stayed?”

  I floored the gas pedal as we entered the dip in the road, signalling we were crossing the boundary and leaving Japland.

  “Nah, not everyone wants to be helped.”

  Girl Who Loved Her Horses

  Mom was kind of strange, and as a result she attracted other strange people. Every Indian reserve in Canada has its share of strange individuals, just like any other town, but Mom sort of collected them like my sister’s room collects dust bunnies.

  And it was through one of Mom’s peculiarities that I met Danielle, so many years ago. As a way of encouraging us kids to expand and develop our artistic nature, Mom set aside part of her beloved kitchen as a private art school. Near the back door, beside our antiquated refrigerator, was what she called “The Everything Wall.” To eleven-year-old children, reality was what you made it, and mother understood that.

  It was just a strip of wall, about three feet high and four feet long, just underneath where the wallpaper started. It was painted white, and near the baseboard there was always a package of pencil crayons. Our job, and that of pretty well every kid in the village, was to keep “The Everything Wall” stocked with people, places and things. There was a never-ending stream of kids in our kitchen, all anxious to do the once forbidden but now legal act of drawing on kitchen walls. And every Monday she would get my father to paint it white again. Tuesday belonged to my sister and me. That was our day, and our day alone to draw the first images on that sacred virgin white wall. The other village kids could do what they wanted the rest of the week.

  That’s how we met Danielle. By “we” I mean William and I. William, not Billy or Willy as he always stressed, and I were best friends way back then. Nothing happened in the reserve that we didn’t know about, participate in or deny knowing anything about. It sort of set the stage for William’s later election as Chief.

  To us, Danielle was kind of strange. But it was nothing an eleven-year-old could put his finger on. She was quiet, and seemed to be one of those characters you see in the comics with a little cloud over her head. Nobody ever paid much attention to her, she would just come and go. She was from across the railroad tracks in the non-status community. But we all went to the same school.

  I think I’d seen her around for about two years before we’d ever talked. And even then it was only because I’d knocked her down once accidentally when William was chasing me. Then it was a simple “sorry” and I was gone.

  That’s why it was such a surprise to see her walk, however timidly, in through our kitchen door. William, my sister and I were playing our own version of Crazy Eights while Mom puttered around the kitchen doing odd things but never managing to organize anything. Danielle stood there at the door, her shadow falling across the sparsely decorated “Everything Wall” (it was early in the week). I think she was as frightened as we were surprised. We’d never seen her anywhere outside of school, and none of us knew what to say or how to react. Then, as always, Mom took charge. I think it was the little lost kitten look that emanated from Danielle that attracted our Mother.

  “Well, hello there. I don’t believe I’ve seen you in this house before.”

  “She’s from across the tracks, Mom. Her name is Danielle.”

  Her maternal instincts in full blossom, Mom knelt down to her. Danielle looked so tiny and frightened, even we felt some inkling of sympathy for her, and you know how cliquish eleven-year-olds can be.

  “Danielle. What a pretty name. And what can we do for you, Danielle?”

  Danielle stood there, all four feet two inches of her. To us it didn’t sound like that difficult a question, but it looked like Danielle was struggling with some eternal query of life. William snickered rudely, foreshadowing why he would not be Chief for very long. Finally Danielle, her eyes almost welling up with tears, looked to her right at “The Everything Wall.”

  Her voice sounded like someone had stepped on a mouse. “I heard that kids could come here and draw.”

  Mom stood beside us, a warming smile on her face. “I thought so. Well, it took you long enough to come and visit.” This was true. “The Everything Wall” had been in existence for over three months by then, and every kid in the village who could hold a pencil and create a thought (and a few who couldn’t) had muddied the floors of our kitchen.

  Mom reached over and took a handful of pencil crayons from the package on the counter. “Danielle, who are your parents?” One of Mom’s secret rules said: “In order to find out about the child, find out about the parents.” Mom knew most people in the village and quite a few outside, too.

  Danielle shifted from one foot to another uneasily. “My mother’s name is Elsie Fiddler,” she paused uncomfortably, “I don’t have a father.” Mom paused, and my sister and I noticed this. Evidently, she knew this Elsie Fiddler, and what she knew wasn’t too good.

  She handed the crayons to Danielle, studying her intently. At first it looked like Danielle was going to run,
but she held her ground. Something in her wanted to draw.

  To my sister and me, this amounted to a personal insult. It was Tuesday, we had sole right to “The Everything Wall.” Even William stayed clear of it on this day. Unwilling to accept such indignities in our own house, we started to raise a protest. The protest remained lodged in our throats when Mom gave us her patented glare. It was a look that combined several different messages in one simple glance: “I’m your mother,” “Don’t mess with me,” “Have some compassion,” “I make the rules here” and a plethora of other statements. To this day I haven’t mastered it, but I think it only comes with having children. They must teach it at the hospital.

  With a slight mumble that might have been a “thank you,” she took the pencils and knelt before the wall. Mom backed off and poured herself a cup of coffee. She smiled as Danielle squinted at the wall and made her first tentative marks. But, as always, there was housework to be done and no one but her to do it. My fourteen-year-old sister, as a political statement (or so she says) refused to do housework on principle. “These are the eighties, Mom. I will not become a prisoner to the house.” She was quite emphatic about the whole thing, but I suspected that she was just lazy. The only woman I’ve ever known who got tired just going to the bathroom.

  The rest of us watched for a moment before we got caught up in our card game. After a while, we forgot that Danielle was even there—that’s how much noise she made, just the occasional squeak of a pencil crayon on a wall.

  About thirty minutes passed before my mother came back into the kitchen and inquired about the game. I was losing as usual. Back then I sort of suspected that William cheated—little did I realize that later this would become a major factor in his demotion to ex-Chief. Watergate had nothing on him. I confessed that I was losing and waited for a soothing phrase or caress, which mothers are supposed to give. There was no reply, which was odd for my mother.

  Mom was standing over us, staring at the forgotten Danielle, her body hiding the wall. I kicked my sister and nodded towards Mom, her back still to us. “Mom?” I said, a little puzzled by her behaviour.

  She turned to us, with a look of amazement that I’d never seen before on her face. It was a look so few of us get in this world anymore. Below her, in front of Danielle who was putting the finishing touches on it, was the head and neck of a horse. But not just any horse. It was like no horse I had ever seen before, nor had my mother, my sister or my friends. Glowing with colour and energy, it covered a third of the wall. It seemed to radiate everything that Danielle, its creator, wasn’t. The mane flowed in the breeze like flames from a bonfire. The neck was solid and muscular, something that had never seen weakness, and the eyes, those eyes flashed freedom and exhilaration. They surveyed a free prairie and a horizon to run to. The picture was breathtaking, not because a ten-year-old had drawn it, but because it was a horse every human being on the planet wanted but could never have. Yet Danielle had captured it in her own way.

  After adding a few touches to the mane, in just the right places, she calmly handed what remained of the pencil crayons to my mother, who took them silently, her eyes never leaving the horse that seemed to stare back. Danielle uttered another polite “thank you” and was gone out the door. We all were left to stare for what seemed an eternity at that amazing horse. My mother knelt and touched the horse’s neck, never uttering a word.

  That Monday, my mother refused to let my father paint it over. My sister and I had to agree—we never got tired of looking at the power of that animal. Our father argued that we shouldn’t play favourites. If we saved one painting, what would all the other kids say? Mom didn’t listen or care, and threatened to shave my father bald when he went to sleep if he touched that painting. We children, while feeling no particular fondness for Danielle, quickly offered to let Dad paint over our drawings to show it didn’t bother us. Overcome by superior odds, Dad had to agree, though I secretly believe he, too, held a special fondness for that image.

  So there it stayed. All the other kids were equally amazed. “Danielle did this?” was the common question. The following Tuesday she showed up again, at about the same time. Only this time she had a bit more of an eager expression, and almost a smile. Mom was overjoyed with her arrival and proudly showed Danielle the untouched picture.

  Danielle stared at it, the look of eagerness and anticipation slowly washing from her face. She only uttered “it’s still here.”

  “Yes dear, it was too beautiful to paint over. I thought we’d save it.”

  Evidently this was not in Danielle’s plans. She suddenly went back to the Danielle we knew before, like a snail retreating into its shell. Mom couldn’t understand it—she had expected Danielle to be flattered. Instead, there stood a small, deflated little girl.

  “But I was told you paint it over so we can draw some more.” It was then Mom realized her mistake.

  For Danielle, the joy wasn’t so much in having the finished project, it was the drawing of the horse that fascinated her. She wanted the horse to be painted over so she could draw it again, and again and again. It was sort of some childlike Zen thing I suppose.

  That night, Mom again managed the impossible. She got Dad to whip out his paint brush one day after he’d already painted most of “The Everything Wall,” and miss his favourite wrestling show in the process. The wall was again pristine white.

  The next day at school my sister and I tracked down Danielle as Mother had asked. We were all curious to see if she could recreate that memorable image of the horse. We told her it had been painted over. Standing there in the hallway, struggling to look into our faces, she nodded, “oh, okay then.” She turned and ran off to her class.

  “What a weird bird she is,” replied my sister. I just shrugged and went on with my life.

  I kind of got the feeling Mom expected her to show up that afternoon after school. This so-called “weird bird” and her perfect horse had definitely made an impression on our family. Every time a figure came along the road in front of our house, my mom would casually look out to see who it was. It wasn’t until the following Tuesday that Danielle made another appearance.

  Again she stood at the door, barely making a noise as she opened it and closed it behind her. She smiled at us faintly, and my mother smiled back. “You know where the pencils are, Danielle, and the wall.”

  With scarcely more than a “yes, Ma’am,” Danielle was once again in front of “The Everything Wall.” Only this time, she had an audience. My mother, my sister, William and myself never once stood up or moved, afraid it would destroy her concentration, although I doubt anything short of a nuclear holocaust would have bothered her. She ignored us all. We sat there and watched her for forty-five minutes and saw the birth of a horse. It was the same horse, exactly, stroke for stroke. It slowly took shape, a few broad lines gradually forming something wonderful. We were amazed. Even William, who has a snarky comment for everything, didn’t dare say a word. In the end, Danielle stood back, checked over her work, and smiled her small smile.

  “Thank you,” was again all she said as she left. I don’t remember if we replied. We were still in awe of what that little girl had created. The same magnificent creature we saw last week was there again in front of us. Our eyes traced every line, and drank in the picture.

  Every Tuesday for the next year saw Danielle on her knees in our kitchen. It didn’t matter what the weather was like outside, or what was happening in the village, she was there. Gradually the thrill of seeing her create wore off, but not the effects of the final image. Before school, going out to play, taking the garbage out, every time we went past “The Everything Wall” we would stop, even for a second, and admire “The Stallion,” as we grew to call it. Sometimes the colour changed, and maybe a slight change in the direction of the mane, but “The Stallion” itself remained virtually unchanged for that year.

  Once, I think in jealousy, William tried to make Danielle draw a dog, a simple dog. The always nervous Danielle capitul
ated and gave William something that loosely resembled a cross between an amoeba and a chicken. For Danielle it had to be a horse, that horse. “The Stallion” was part of her, and it gave her a chance to be something she really wasn’t.

  Sometime later William read a story, which in itself was unusual, about the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse. In the same book was an article about another great warrior cut from the same cloth, Man Afraid Of His Horses. William, with his peculiar sense of humour, decided to christen Danielle with a new name. Make her into some sort of a Warrioress for the meek, I guess.

  “From now on we’ll call her Girl Who Loved Her Horses. Everybody got that? That’s her new name.” Of course, after a few days, we all got bored with calling her such a long name and soon it petered out. I think Danielle was flattered by such a name, but of course she never said anything about it one way or another.

  Then one day she stopped coming. Elsie Fiddler had met a man, got married and moved to the city, taking Danielle and “The Stallion” with her. Except for my Mom, we never grew particularly close to Danielle, no matter how much time she spent in our house. I felt we knew more about “The Stallion” than we did about her. In a bizarre way, we missed that flaming animal more that we missed Danielle. It was sad, actually. We never really heard from them again.

  Thoughts and memories fade, and so does the need for an “Everything Wall.” A few months after Danielle left, we slowly lost interest in expressing ourselves in such a childish way. It was also a pain to bend over to draw or get down on our knees. We had outgrown it in more ways than one.

  We went on with our lives. High school came and went, then a year of college, and for me an engagement till she left me for a woman. William became one of the youngest chiefs ever elected, and also one of the youngest ever kicked out of office. He now runs a marina on the reserve, plotting coups and revolutions. Mom and Dad separated, then got back together when Sis got sick. The doctor prescribed lots of exercise for her recovery, which to my sister was worse than cod liver oil.