“Some people think so. Some not. Self-government give us control over minerals in our traditional lands. Mining companies say we got lots. They want to build mines. Reggie says we need to do this.”
“I imagine he would, since he seems to have a cozy relationship with one of them.”
“Many elders don’t want mines.”
“Why not? It would bring in much-needed revenue.”
“Yah. But mines destroy land, scare animals away, and kill the fish. Look at what gold mines do to Yellowknife. Too much pollution. A girl die from eating snow near the mine. We want to leave our land like when the Creator gave it in our care. We can get money other ways.”
“Excuse me,” the nurse said. “I would appreciate if you both could go elsewhere for the moment. I want to change her dressings.”
“Happy to. I see it’s almost dinner time, so we should be leaving anyway.” I gave Teht’aa’s arm a farewell pat. “I’d love to be here when she wakes up. Do you think it’s going to be soon?”
“Hard to tell. Sometimes when they start moving like this, it happens quickly. I or the nurse who comes on duty after me will call if she looks close to regaining consciousness.”
“That would be wonderful.”
“But keep in mind, it’s likely she won’t recognize you. They’re pretty groggy, with some memory loss. It usually returns, but it can be a bit disconcerting at first.”
“I don’t care, as long as she’s awake.”
With Uncle Joe following close behind, I left with more spring in my step than I’d had since receiving that fateful phone call from Derrick.
TWENTY-two
I wanted to decline. I was in no mood for socializing, particularly with people I didn’t know. But Uncle Joe was so insistent on my coming to his son Malcolm’s house for dinner, I felt I couldn’t turn him down. It was the right decision. They wrapped me in the warmth of their large and loving family. Without hesitation, his daughter-in-law Shelagh folded me, a stranger, into her ample bosom as if we were long-lost friends. For a couple of hours I was able to shove my worries aside and enjoy their company, though I couldn’t help but think that this family gathering was incomplete without Teht’aa and Eric.
Houses didn’t come cheap in Yellowknife. Teht’aa had been very discouraged when she discovered the only house she could afford to buy was a trapper’s one-room cabin on the outskirts of the town. Though she’d been attracted to its lakeside location, the lack of electricity and running water dissuaded her.
So I was surprised at the size of Malcolm’s home in the Dene community of N’dilo, an island extension to the peninsula Old Town straddled. I’d been expecting a discreet bungalow and instead found myself entering a spacious log house built on a granite outcrop overlooking Yellowknife’s Back Bay. The winged, two-storey structure with its expansive picture windows and high, vaulted ceilings could rival the rustic elegance of ranchers’ lodges featured in architectural magazines. Although its logs were new round cedar from British Columbia and its design decidedly modern, I felt a pang of homesickness for my century-old, squared-timber house standing atop its own granite cliff.
This prompted me to wonder about Malcolm’s job. I found out when his father asked when he’d be returning to the mine. Turned out his son worked in one of the diamond mines close to the Arctic Circle. Because of the isolation, employees worked two weeks on with two weeks off. Malcolm was just starting his second week off.
“He’s been working for them fifteen years,” Shelagh added, her face beaming with pride. “Right after he graduated from University of Alberta.”
“You have a lovely house to show for it.”
“Thanks. We pinched our pennies for many years. Papa Joe has helped out too.” She wrapped her arms around the old man and gave him a noisy kiss on the cheek.
Eight of us, including three of Malcolm and Shelagh’s five children, plus the husband of the very pregnant daughter, crowded around the kitchen table. The spacious modern kitchen rivalled my own country kitchen in size, but the two double-door refrigerators and state-of-the-art six-burner induction stove put my aging appliances to shame.
We gorged on caribou stew and bannock with a side order of smoked whitefish that had been grilled on the outside barbeque. But as much as I was enjoying it, I felt guilty at the thought of Eric eating jail fare. Tomorrow night, though, if everything went the way his defence attorney said it would, I’d be treating my husband to the best food Yellowknife had to offer.
Earlier, while Uncle Joe and I were en route from the hospital, Sally had finally returned my call. Eric’s bail hearing was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. In the morning, she wanted Uncle Joe and me to go to the courthouse to sign documents as sureties. We decided to do this separately so one of us could be with Teht’aa when she regained consciousness. Though the nurse hadn’t yet called, I was still feeling optimistic that come morning Teht’aa would be with us in mind as well as body.
Lost to my own musings, I didn’t hear the question until the old man shouted in my ear, “Malcolm wants to know if you are related to Father Harris.”
Malcolm, scraping the last of the stew from his plate with a piece of bannock, was a carbon copy of his father, including the distinctive nose, except twenty-five or so years younger, with unblemished black hair and a face that spoke of a much easier life than his father had lived.
“Sorry. Who’s Father Harris?”
“He’s a fixture in Yellowknife. Worked at Saint Anne’s before they closed it.”
“That’s the residential school your father went to, isn’t it? Did you go there too?”
“Fortunately for me and my brother, we were living in Medicine Hat, so I went to a regular school. Not that it was an entirely happy experience. My cousins weren’t so lucky. They went to Saint Anne’s.”
“Did they have a bad time there?”
He glanced at his father, whose face remained studiously impassive. “They never said. Since your last name is Harris, I was wondering if there was a connection.”
“I doubt it. I’ve never heard anyone in my family mention any relatives living in the Northwest Territories. I also suspect from the honorific that he is a Catholic, and I’m afraid the Harris side of my family is diehard Protestant, if religious at all.”
“I thought he might’ve dropped by the hospital to see Teht’aa. For some reason she feels sorry for the man. He’s a bit of a sad sight. He spends most of his time walking the streets looking out for the homeless.”
“A noble cause in itself. I take it he doesn’t have a church.”
“I imagine he’s retired. He’s about Dad’s age. Have you met Gloria yet? He keeps an eye on her for Teht’aa.”
“Gloria and I have had a few, shall we say, encounters. What’s her story?”
“Dad, you should probably tell it. You know more than I do.”
“No different than a lot of kids today.” He concentrated on savouring his last spoonful of stew before ripping off a piece of bannock to mop up the rest.
“I know you don’t like to talk about it, Papa Joe,” interjected Shelagh. “But we shouldn’t hide these things. Meg’s family. She should know about the family, good or bad.”
Following the others’ example, I tore off a piece of bannock and let it soak up the remaining sauce on my plate while I waited. I wasn’t going to push Uncle Joe. I figured he would tell me when he was ready. The caribou stew had been delicious, almost as good as Eric’s moose stew. The bannock was tasty too. Silence reigned but for the sound of scraping bannock and smacking lips as the others joined me in the wait.
“One of your best, Shelagh.” Uncle Joe patted his stomach. “Hits the spot.”
“You always say that, Papa Joe. I could cook a dried-out moosehide and you’d say the same thing.” She laughed a light girlish twitter that belied her age. “Meg, I suppose you could call Gloria another of o
ur lost souls. Teht’aa, bless her, was trying to help her. Robbery, drunk and disorderly, prostitution, I swear there wasn’t—”
“You talkin’ about that slut?” piped up the younger boy.
I put the age of the three children to be early to mid-twenties. While the other son and the pregnant daughter bore the stamp of their father, this son had not only the laughing brown eyes of his mother, but also her propensity to put on weight.
“I see her picking up johns all the time behind the Gold Range,” he continued between mouthfuls of fish. “She’s so fuckin’ scrawny it’d be like fuckin’ a toothpick.”
“Christopher, your language,” his mother shot back.
“You too hard on the girl,” Uncle Joe broke in. “She had her troubles, but life not been easy for her.”
“As if it’s been easy for the rest of us,” his daughter-in-law retorted. “My mother was a drunk too, so drunk the authorities took me away and put me into care. I was even younger than Gloria was. And I never saw my mother again. At least she got to see her mother.”
“You have strong medicine power, Shelagh. You can overcome anything.”
“You and your stupid medicine power. It doesn’t exist anymore. It disappeared when the church took over our lives.”
Her chair scraped on the tiled floor as she pushed away from the table and started collecting the dirty plates. Being well trained by my mother, I rose to help, but she motioned me to stay put, so I passed the dirty plates down to her end of the table.
“But it still there. We just don’t know how to recognize it anymore,” Uncle Joe said. “Sadly, Gloria not born with much medicine power. She not equipped to deal with bad things life throw at her.”
He helped himself to the last morsel of fish before the plate was whisked out of reach, savoured its smoky flavour, then pointed his fork at me. “Like I tell you, Gloria is Claire’s daughter, my sister Florence’s middle girl. Claire had problems. After Saint Anne’s, she forgot how to be Dene. She didn’t want to live in Digadeh. But she had problem in Yellowknife too. Florence try to help, but Claire think her mother a stupid Indian. Treat her badly. She ended up a drunk with three kids by three different men.
“Gloria and older girls were in and out of care. Sometime they live with Florence. But Claire take them away. She don’t want her girls near her mother. Once Gloria live with me and Mary. Only ten year old, but a handful, kept running away, stealing things from the Northern. She were too much for Mary. By then Mary had the cancer. When Claire off the booze she a good mum. But she couldn’t stay away from it. Gloria was living with Claire in Yellowknife, when they find Claire in snow bank. Drunk, she passed out and froze to death.”
“I remember,” Malcolm added. “Happened about ten years ago. The police contacted me because I was the only family member living in Yellowknife. I had to deal with getting the body shipped to Digadeh for burial. I’ll never forget how my cousin looked. She used to be a very pretty woman, but a lifetime of drinking and living with men who beat her had changed her beyond recognition.“
“What happened to Gloria?” I asked, eyeing the homemade chocolate cake that was making its way to the table.
“She fifteen,” Uncle Joe answered. “Almost too old for care, so authorities send her to her grandmother. She like Florence, so live with her until Florence get sick. When they take Florence to hospital in Yellowknife, Gloria go too and stay in Yellowknife when Florence come back to Digadeh. Gloria smart girl. She like school. So she learn enough to get a job. But it don’t last. She find easier way to make money.”
“What happened to her sisters?”
“The oldest died. Got sick. The other live here. She got that fetal alcohol disease, like my nephew. Has tough time. Lives on the streets mostly.”
“FASD. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder,” Shelagh added. “Unfortunately, we have a high incidence amongst our people because of the high rate of alcohol addiction. The disorder manifests itself in low intelligence and various behavioural and emotional conditions, such as an inability to control anger. We have a FASD program at the hospital where I work that helps those affected to better manage their lives. But it’s for kids, and unfortunately Gloria’s sister is too old to benefit.” She slid an enormous slice of chocolate cake onto a plate and passed it over to me.
My initial reaction was to pass it on to one of the men, but then I decided I needed some comfort food.
“Gloria doesn’t have it, does she?”
“Claire was in jail when she pregnant with Gloria. Not much booze in there, eh?” Uncle Joe chortled.
“I gather Gloria has a child. Is this history repeating itself?” I asked.
“You’re talking about Anita,” Shelagh answered. “A real sweetie, about five years old. She lives in Digadeh with Florence. Gloria loves her, and from what I’ve seen she’s a good mother. But thank goodness she’s smart enough to know her child is better off with Florence. She visits her daughter fairly often. Teht’aa’s been trying to convince her to stay in Digadeh, but she won’t.”
The silence returned as we concentrated on gobbling up every last crumb of cake. It rivalled the cakes my family’s cook baked when I was growing up. I was waffling over whether to have a second helping when the phone decided for me.
It was the nurse from the hospital. Teht’aa had woken up.
TWENTY-three
Teht’aa was awake. Thank God. And she no longer needed to be medevaced. But I wasn’t jumping up and down with joy, not yet.
Although her eyes were open, they weren’t focusing on anything or anyone. They would drift from her great uncle to me and back again but didn’t seem to register our actual presence. She spoke mostly gibberish, something about needing her blueberry, which she said over and over again. She also kept asking, “Where am I?” and “What’s happened?” but paid no attention to our answers.
At least she was trying to talk this morning. Last night, when the nurse had allowed me to spend a few minutes with her, she had been mostly silent with the occasional groan of pain.
It was as if she was with us, yet wasn’t. The nurse had tied her arms to the bed because she wouldn’t stop trying to pull the IV needle from her hand or remove the bandages from her face. The nurse assured us that this was normal, that within a few hours Teht’aa should be more aware of her surroundings. On the plus side, most of the machines were gone. The ventilator had been removed, along with the ECG. But she was still hooked up to the machine that monitored her heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen intake.
I had been sitting with her for most of the morning, apart from my visit to the courthouse, and had seen only marginal improvement. When I finally left her in the care of Uncle Joe, she was sleeping and had been for the last couple of hours.
I wanted to arrive at the courthouse in plenty of time for the start of the bail hearings. In my latest phone call with Sally, she reiterated her client’s request for me not to attend. However, once she’d performed her duty as his lawyer, she let drop that the hearings started at two o’clock and that Eric’s case was the second on the docket.
Unsure of the length of time it would take for the first case to be heard, I decided to be there from the start. Unfortunately, Sally had forgotten to tell me the number of the courtroom. I only discovered after I’d entered the courthouse that there were several. Thankfully, a person leaving the elevator was able to direct me to the one on the main floor where the show cause hearings took place.
With no little amount of trepidation, I opened the door, expecting to find the kind of dark, cavernous room one sees in the movies, with tiers of seats for spectators. I was hoping to sit unseen in a back corner behind other spectators. No such luck. The room was bright, with only a few rows of seats. There was no place for me to hide.
A man in a uniform guarding the door raised his eyebrows in question. I mumbled something about attending a bail hearing and sat dow
n on one of the hard plastic chairs in the back row. The room was almost empty but for a murder of sombre-suited men and women sitting in the first couple of rows. They too glanced at me questioningly but turned their eyes to the front when a side door opened. They hastily stood up as a perfectly coifed woman wearing black robes strode across to the judge’s bench, leaving the Canadian and NWT flags fluttering in her wake. She sat down to face us. Everyone bowed and resumed their chairs, except for me. Uncertain of court protocol, I’d only decided to stand after I noticed another person who looked more like a spectator than a lawyer standing. I was partway up when everyone sat down.
The first defendant, a bored-looking young man with a bad case of acne, was escorted by a guard through a more solid door than the one to the judge’s chambers and took his seat behind a wall of glass. The judge started reading out the charges and the conditions of release, and so began the first hearing.
Though the proceedings were new to me, and the case, a robbery with an assault using a dangerous weapon, in this case bear spray, had the potential to be interesting, if not a tad farcical, I paid little attention. I was more interested in it ending quickly. I tried to peer through the narrow window in the prisoner’s door to see Eric waiting. But all I saw was the occasional face of another guard standing behind it.
As the case progressed, more people entered the room, most of them lawyers and others looking equally officious. I waited for Sally to arrive. The hearing finally ended with the defendant being denied bail, primarily because this was his twenty-seventh charge and he had a history of noncompliance with previous release conditions.
I tried to assure myself that this wasn’t the case with Eric. He was an upstanding citizen with only one prior conviction, a thirty-year-old one at that. Surely the judge wouldn’t hesitate to release him.
After we rose for the judge to leave the room, I expected Eric’s lawyer to take her place in the front row. When Sally didn’t appear, I checked to see if she was waiting in the lobby and found it empty. When the judge raised his gavel again and still no Sally, I grew more anxious. When a defendant who was not Eric was escorted into the room, I knew something was wrong.
Purple Palette for Murder Page 11