“It asked for Snowbird,” I said.
Snowbird looked at me once quickly, with milky eyes. He nodded. “Be my eyes,” he said to Torchy as he put his head down. He started chanting. He was praying in Tlicho. He opened the door. “I see a tall man eating meat about thirty steps ahead,” Torchy said. “He’s ripping into it with his teeth. His hands look broken.”
Snowbird produced a small stone, an amulet of bone, and a braid of hair. He then started to chant. In his other hand he held a sandwich bag packed with red meat. I smelled something like rotten eggs. Sulfur?
“Turn on the taps,” I said. “They hate the sound of running water.” Torchy narrowed his eyes and focused. He was chewing something slowly. Rat root?
Snowbird was focused, too. The blind holy man placed his left hand on Torchy’s shoulder and they moved as one into the house. “Close the door behind me. Severina, turn on the taps.”
Severina did as she was told. She gagged when she caught a whiff of the house. I immediately heard water run from the tub inside the bathroom. I heard a whimper begin from inside the house from the screened window in the bathroom. Then it turned to shrieking. What was inside Dean was terrified. I looked at the playground. All the kids were gone. Thank God.
“Let’s go,” Severina said. “We have to go.” She took my hand and we ran as fast as we could together to the residence.
We ran. We ran through town without speaking. I had the axe. We ran and I asked her only once. “Tell me about the rat root,” I said.
“I don’t know. But we must burn it. Anything it asked you for – whatever they ask for, you must burn.”
They? There were more. “What was that? What was inside Dean?”
“A Wheetago,” she whispered.
“Wheetago?” I repeated.
“Shh,” she said. “They’re listening.” My skin tightened in fear again. I held onto Torchy’s axe, ready to draw it if anything came at us.
We ran past CJBS to her house. It was still light out. There was a burn barrel in the backyard. I placed the axe on a picnic table on its side, keeping it close.
There was a box of matches, kindling, old branches ready to go. I lit a match and touched it to old newspaper, last week’s News/North. Sparks rose as the fire engulfed the twigs and newspaper I had set inside there earlier. Thank God it hadn’t rained.
“Hurry,” she said. I could see her ankles and wrists had yarrow tied around them as well.
I pulled out Snowbird’s rat root. “This is the only thing that saved me,” I said. “That and my belt.” The rat root – this was why it couldn’t come close. This is why its bones shattered and split when it came for me.
I was scared. I was scared that the world would know now about what I had seen. I took the rat root with the red string. I did not understand why we had to burn it but that thing had asked for it. It had protected me. Snowbird had given it to me two nights ago when he’d come over for supper. “I have a gift,” he’d said. “Keep it with you.” He patted my hoodie pocket. “Na. Here.”
That was all he said. He must have known. I dropped the rat root into the fire. We watched it go up. It curled and bubbled as the flames caught it.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How did it get here?”
“Bad medicine,” Severina said, making the sign of the cross. “It’s all bad medicine. Those kids were praying for power and it came to them as a coyote. It spoke to them and bit Dean.”
I stopped. “That’s a coyote inside of Dean?”
“A Wheetago,” she repeated softly.
“A what?”
“Those who suffer. He wanted you to bring him Snowbird?”
I nodded.
“Oh thank God you got everyone away,” she said. “Thank God. Thank God.”
She started to shake. “Evil,” she spoke. “It’s all evil.”
“Tell me about these….” I asked. “How do you say it?”
She looked at me. “You don’t know?”
I shook my head. “I’ve heard of the Bushmen and the little people but not these.”
She took a big breath and watched the fire. “The Wheetagos are cannibals. They’re from the south but the people there are strong. Their medicine and Wheetago hunters have pushed them north. These… things, the more they eat the hungrier they become; the more they drink the thirstier they become. Maybe they got bit or cursed. But they suffer. If they don’t eat, they will chew on their tongues and lips, gnaw on the insides of their cheeks, bite their own fingers off at the joints and suck on them just to feed.”
I dry swallowed. This was my dream. Last night. The tar sands. The Shark Throats. It was all coming true! I nodded, wincing at what I saw in Dean. “Can they save him?”
“They’ll have to blind him.”
Blind him? I thought of Torchy’s spear.
I got scared to hear this and wished I had my belt. It was still there. We had the axe. Northern lights washed in greens and blues across the sky. Silent. Ancient. Could God protect us from this? If these were older than Jesus, I bet they used the northern lights to hunt under.
Severina threw branches and kindling on the flames. “If you bring them what they ask for they can give birth to their own family.” I closed my eyes as this washed over me. I thought of the bucket that it spat into.
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“Snowbird is my adopted grandfather. He is a Wheetago hunter. We’ve been preparing with Torchy and the triplets.”
“The triplets?” I said. “They were part of this?”
“Yes, they were to stall for time.”
“They could have been bitten.”
“No,” she said. “They were protected.”
She held up rat root. “Snowbird gave seven of us medicine.”
My jaw dropped. “This was all part of a plan.”
“Snowbird saw all of this in a dream. He planned tonight out. We were to bait the Wheetago and you were to save us.”
I just about fainted. “No… but you left.”
“Yes, my job was to get Snowbird when you arrived. He knew you’d stand up to it. He saw all of this in his dream.”
“But” – I paused – “Snowbird is blind.”
“He wasn’t always,” she said and put her rat root into her pocket.
Not born blind? Was he a Wheetago once?
“He wants to train you for more.”
I froze. “More what?”
She nodded. “He told me you have medicine and we will need it.”
The voice! A voice spoke to me. Telling me about the tooth.
“Medicine? Take it easy.”
“We cannot let them give birth to more.”
My blood ran cold. I thought of the tooth I knocked out of Dean’s mouth, the eyetooth. Could this be used as a weapon against them? I thought again of what Snowbird said, how they were older than Jesus. If so, this would mean they’d been beaten and there were techniques to fight and kill them. But were there techniques to save the people inside them? Dean was still in there. They had to save him. What did the dream say: stop the Tar Sands – at all costs.
“Thank God you’re okay,” Severina said. “You got the triplets out. You got Rupert and his friends out.”
I sighed. My arms were rubbery and I was exhausted. It saw me. Its eye flashed hate and hunger and ferocity. “How does it give birth?”
She thought about it and spoke quietly. She started to shake. “From their mouths.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said. So it was true. The dream was unfolding through all of us.
Severina leaned into me, hugging me. “Thank you for saving my cousins,” she whispered and kissed my neck. Her lips were cold. “There better be a fuckin’ heaven after all this.” Do something, I thought. Focus and do something. This is your chance. I held her. I he
ld her by the fire. I had never been hugged like this before. I closed my eyes and hugged her back. I licked my split lip before kissing her gently. She kissed me back. She was shivering.
We heard the sirens of the police, the ambulance and then the fire truck going towards the part of town where Rupert lived. Then we heard the dogs start to howl. I did not know what to think anymore, except that Snowbird and Torchy would come back after dealing with whatever it was in Dean. I looked at Severina and she hugged me again. We were the perfect size for each other. I looked up and the northern lights weaved their way over us, braiding themselves into blues and a night rainbow of blues and greens.
The howling of the dogs was met with a new sound, a yipping and crazy cry of coyotes. Coyotes. Yes, it was true. They’d moved up here two winters ago and we could hear them at night. They too were not from here. Nor did they belong here. But they were. Their yips and snapping barks rose in a chorus that drove the dogs crazy. Were they the scouts for these Dog Men? It was like the whole town was howling now as I tightened my hug on Severina. This war was just beginning. They had risen and I had the training of my Sensei. I held Severina close. With Snowbird, Torchy and her by my side, we could face them. They were using dog medicine. Sulfur in the meat to defeat the spirit inside, maybe. This was dog medicine I had learned from my ehtsi.
If they can give birth, they need each other. “It’s going to be okay,” I said, eyeing the axe on the table. I closed my eyes and kissed the top of her head, inhaling Severina’s scent and the yarrow ties around her. “I promise.”
To my surprise, Severina whispered in my ear. “Snowbird has a message for you.”
I leaned back. “What?”
She leaned into me and pulled me close. “He said, ‘If you save everyone and put yourself before the beast and walk away, then you will know how heroes are born.’” And there I was, anointed finally as the warrior I’d always wanted to be.
Tonight we would wait to see what would happen to Dean. Then I would talk to Snowbird. The dream said it was sent to two people. After, we’d have to decide what to do about the tar sands. We had to stop them. We had to.
That grizzly, the pregnant mother, I realized. This is a mother slapping her hands against our windows with new life inside of her telling us that the murder of our world was coming. Those moose running away. They were all trying to warn us: things were going to get bloody and worse. I knew, as the cries of the dogs and the coyotes grew, that deep down inside this was not over. Not yet… no way….
Children of the Sundance
“Let’s play a new game,” Treyton said.
I placed Skeletor at the head of my attack armada. “What kind of new game?” I was totally going to win Catapults tonight before the pizza party, before Treyton and Blaire would try to leave their bodies. My friends and their armies would not stand up to any of my Ninjalix tonight. I’d been practising with the catapult Brutus helped me make, and I could pretty much take out anything within a five-foot radius.
It was Friday night – the best night of the week. Another sleep over at Blaire’s. This meant four handmade pizzas – three Hawaiian (my fave) and one with caribou meat (all for Mr. Sparrow) – and a two-litre of milk left in the freezer for exactly the perfect moment it became the sweet slush of snowflakes. And you could eat and drink as much as you wanted. That was the best part. Not like Trey’s whose folks were cheap.
“What are you planning now?” Blaire asked suspiciously.
Treyton sat back. “It’s a new game that will help us.”
You had to be careful with Treyton’s new games. Since I was initiated, he was getting us to try to leave our bodies at night as we lay in our sleeping bags with all three of our heads touching. “Can you feel it?” he’d ask. “Can you?”
I’d try but I’d always fall asleep. Trey and Blaire said they flew together at night. I wanted to believe them. I wanted so badly to believe that I, too, could leave my body and float around town and see what Chandra, Marcy and Sharon were up to. I’d love to sit in their room and watch them do homework or get their clothes ready for the next day at school. In the mornings, Blaire and Trey would both talk about their adventures and I’d watch them closely to see if they were lying. Their stories were crazy. Lately, they both said they felt like we were being followed, like there was something behind them waiting above the house that wanted them to keep flying up and up, and they did because they were scared, but the higher they rose, they felt lighter and lighter until Treyton realized that if they flew one mile more their bodies would die.
Thank God I never went with them. I carried a small thumb knife my dad gave me since then. It fit into my pocket and was razor sharp. Treyton and Blaire quit trying for a few weeks, but I had a sense they wanted to “astral project” tonight.
“So do you?” Treyton asked. “Do you want to play a new game?”
I studied Treyton and realized he hadn’t set up any of his G.I. Joes or any of his HISS Tanks. Destro and his buddies were all there, but they were still lying on their backs and their weapons were still in their baggies. Trey had some first generation G.I. Joes we weren’t allowed to touch because the thumbs were delicate. His dad gave them to him and Trey made a point of reminding us of that every time we played Catapults.
“Trey,” I asked. “What kind of new game?”
“Well,” he said. “You know next year we’re going to high school, right?”
Blaire and I looked at each other. “Yeah.”
“It’s time we helped each other. You know, build each other up?”
“How?” Blaire sat back.
Blaire’s speech impediment was getting better. His r’s were sometimes w’s. It was like he was missing his top teeth. “Later” was “Ladew.” “Never” was “nevew.” I didn’t mind it. We’d gotten used to it since kindergarten. I actually looked forward to it. It was kind of like my blankie.
“Well,” Treyton said. “What if we played a game where two of us stayed in the room and the other one left and the two of us who stayed in the room got to talk about what we don’t like about the other and then when we’re ready, we knock and the other person comes back in and then we tell them about what they have to work on.”
I felt my cheeks starting to burn. “Why do we have to do that? Why can’t we just play Catapults and eat pizzas?”
“Because we need to get stronger, you know?”
I looked at Blaire. He was thinking about it.
“I don’t like this.” I checked my Transformers watch and realized supper wouldn’t be ready for at least another forty minutes. Why did the Sparrows have to eat so late?
“Okay,” Blaire said. “I think we should do this. I’ll go fewst.”
“What?” I asked. “Blaire?”
He shrugged. “You guys will probably talk about my speech impediment but that’s okay. I’m… wherking on it.” He stood up and walked out the door, closing it gently behind him.
I looked at Treyton. “This feels mean.” I wasn’t thinking so much about Blaire. I was worried about me. What if they said something that would wreck me forever? I was Dogrib. They were white. What if this became an issue again? I’d already ditched Brutus as a friend so I could be with Trey and Blaire, so there was no going back now.
“Clarence,” he said. “We gotta. I think about how to get better all the time. Don’t you?”
There was that tone again. It was the same tone he used the first time we had a sleep over and he asked if I had brought any jammies to Blaire’s. “No,” I said. I was going to use my long johns and Star Wars T-shirt. “Only Indians sleep in their clothes,” he said and we all laughed, but that stung. It hurt. I thought of my parents and hoped he was kidding but, deep down, I knew he wasn’t.
“Hey,” I said, looking at my He-Man collection and my catapult. “I’m happy. Let’s just have a pizza party and then you guys can try and leave your
bodies later.”
He shook his head. “Don’t you want to grow?”
I sighed. “I don’t want to be mean to Blaire.”
“Blaire,” he spat. “He’s not even trying with that speech thing. He still talks baby talk. Don’t you think that’ll slow us down at the bush pawties?”
I couldn’t believe he’d make fun of Blaire like that. I wanted to leave but Mom and Dad were at the drum dance. Plus it was snowing like crazy. Plus I saw the pizza doughs rising on the counter when I came in!
“Okay,” he said. “We won’t talk about his speech impediment, but look at his face. Look at those moles. They’re spreading.”
“What?” I said. “Where?”
He pointed to the right side of his face. “Around his jaw. There’s seven of them. Last year he only had five.” He then pointed out a map along his face, starting with his head and working down his entire face. “They look exactly like the Big Dipper now.”
“Well what can he do about that?”
Treyton lowered his voice. “He could get them scraped off.”
“What?”
“Or bleached. I asked my mom about it.”
“This is dumb,” I said. “You’re being mean. First of all, Blaire’s really trying with his speech therapist. Do you see him going every Wednesday? And he’s in there for over an hour. He has cue cards and even his parents go with him.”
“Not good enough,” Treyton exhaled like he just had a smoke. “He’ll slow us down.”
“Slow you down,” I wanted to say. This was happening more and more. It was like Treyton was biding his time at the pizza parties. He and I used to be so close. We used to walk around for hours down by the landslide, exploring, climbing, building. Blaire started tagging along and it turned out Blaire’s parents were fun. Treyton’s parents were cheapskates and never put on the heat when we slept over.
There was a knock on the door. It was Blaire. “Can I come back?”
I looked at Treyton and gave him a dirty look. “Yes.”
Godless But Loyal To Heaven Page 4