When Gloria finished translating the conversation, Florence straightened up as best she could with her hunched back, pulled the scarf tighter around her head, and smoothed her skirt. “No more talk.”
She rested her steely gaze first on Reggie and then on Hans and said via Gloria, “You should be ashamed of yourselves. Reginald, you do great dishonour to the Tlicho. As do you, Hans.”
The two men squirmed but remained silent until Reggie, bowing his head, said, “I’m sorry, Ohndah Florence. I meant no disrespect.”
Florence grunted in disbelief and continued. “You have come to learn about the purple sparkly flowers my grandmother found. I will tell you. It is time to tell their story and time for them to serve the Tlicho.”
With a smug smile, Hans nodded at Reggie, who ignored him.
“First we look at the beautiful embroidery Mamàcho Teht’aa made. Hans, give me your pieces. And Malcolm, the one you brought.”
We watched as Gloria fitted the three pieces together on the ground.
“Claire, Charmaine, and Connie,” Florence whispered, smiling wistfully at the emerging bouquet. “My daughters.”
She gazed a while longer at it before saying, “Father Harris, yours please.”
As he struggled to get up, Gloria snatched it from his hand and set it down beside the other three.
From the puzzled expressions on everyone’s faces, I knew we were thinking the same question. How in the world did the embroidery end up with Father Harris?
The old woman kissed it and clutched it to her shrivelled breast. Tears trickled down her withered cheeks. “Carol … my daughter,” she whispered.
SIXTY
We all sat in stunned silence, apart from Uncle Joe, who sorrowfully nodded while gently patting his sister’s hand. But before she would tell us the story, she insisted that we fortify ourselves with more tea.
Though the campfire smoke was blowing away from me, my eyes were tearing up from smoke. I twisted around to discover that the forest fire had finally breasted the ridge of the far shore and was a line of flame racing down to the lake. But since it had to jump over several kilometres of water, I told myself that there was nothing to get excited about. I did, however, notice that the edges of the fire seemed to be spreading outward.
Once we had our mugs of steaming tea and Dad’s cookies, thanks to Angus, Florence began her story. As impatient as I was to get to the crucial parts, I knew after her first words that she had her way of telling the story, and she wasn’t going to be rushed. So I dunked my cookie into the tea and told myself to sit back and relax. I could see Hans forcing himself to be patient too. But the others, used to Tlicho ways, were already in a state of relaxed anticipation, except for the priest. He remained focused solely on his bible. It was impossible to tell if he was paying attention to Florence’s story or was too caught up in his own miseries.
She spoke of Tlicho life as it was in her grandparents’ day, moving from camp to camp along the ancestors’ trails in search of food. A favoured fishing spot here, a good one for grayling there, a plentiful cloudberry spot on the ptarmigan island, another one where the waters rush. As she spoke of these places, I realized she knew them firsthand, for these were the locations where she harvested her own food.
Every fall her grandparents travelled the ancestors’ trails in search of the caribou herds. But one year, the herds were late. With winter arriving, the family travelled to a place that lay deep within the Barrens, a place they knew only from the old stories. She described the journey right down to the lake with the island and its magical, sparkling purple flowers, Dzièwàdi.
Hans perked up at their mention. I could see he was dying to ask the location of the island. But he didn’t know that she’d already told him. As she took us through the various parts of her grandparents’ journey, I came to realize she was giving us the oral map Teht’aa and Lucy had memorized. She was telling us where to find the diamonds.
Reggie, on the other hand, had recognized the story for what it was. He no longer relaxed backward into the chair but was leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, listening intently. But unless he had total recall, it would be nearly impossible to remember the ins and outs of the journey, which I imagine was hundreds of kilometres long, possibly even a thousand. Dzièwàdi could only be reached under the guidance of Florence or someone else who knew the story, like Teht’aa.
Florence continued her story between sips of tea replenished by her granddaughter. Much of what she related I’d already learned. The drowning of the son, the death of her grandfather at the hands of the HBC trader’s men, along with the theft of the purple brilliants and the fleeing of her grandmother with her daughter and her brother-in-law’s family to a distant part of the territory, where few Europeans dared venture. They never returned to Dzièwàdi, but Florence’s grandmother, believing the sparkly purple flowers could one day be important for her people, recorded the memory in an embroidery and the location in the story.
She used the hide and hair from a caribou her husband had shot prior to his death and blueberries to produce the purple dye, not only to represent the purple stones, but also to remember that the island was also covered in blueberry bushes. She decided on seven flowers with seven petals, because that was the number of days they travelled beyond their fall camp before discovering the island.
When she finished translating this part of the story, Gloria matched the fourth piece with the other three.
The old woman sucked in her breath. “It is many years since I see the embroidery like Mamàcho Teht’aa made it.” She ran her gnarled fingers over the seven flowers, which seemed to float above the suppleness of the hide, and smiled. “Beautiful, eh? My grandmother was very good with a needle. But she didn’t destroy the beauty. I did.”
The petals that had been ripped apart had lost too many tufts to return to their former glory. Nonetheless, the embroidery retained a magical exquisiteness.
“My mother found the pretty purple sparkles,” Florence continued. “When the white men stole them from my grandfather, they paid no attention to the young girl who’d kept a couple for herself. She put them in the head of her dolly to make it look pretty.” Turning to Anita, she said, “Child, the doll please.”
The young girl hesitated before giving her precious doll one last kiss and handing it to her great-grandmother. “Please, don’t hurt her,” she said in Tlicho.
The old woman took up the doll. “Like Anita, I loved playing with Blueberry when I was a child, as my own daughters did, even Gloria. Blueberry was the name my mother gave her to remind her of the pretty island. She once had hair more purple than blue, made from the tail of a caribou, but it fell out many years ago. She really isn’t very gorgeous, but I loved her, like Anita does.” She caressed the soft curls of her great-granddaughter.
“Sorry, child, I have to do this.” She took a hunting knife and began digging out one of the doll’s black eyes. Soon, minute tufts of black were flying away on the wind, along with tiny feathers that had been the stuffing.
After removing a fair amount of stuffing, deflating poor Blueberry’s head, she inserted her finger into the hole. “They’re in here somewhere. My mother told me she’d inserted them behind the eyes so the bad men wouldn’t get them. Ah … here is one.” She dropped it onto her palm and closed her hand around it while she searched for the other, which soon joined the first one.
“My dolly,” Anita cried out. Sobs wracked her slight frame, as she clung to her mother.
Florence bent over, kissed her weeping great-granddaughter, and spoke to her softly in Tlicho, which seemed to soothe her.
She then straightened up and opened her palm.
No one spoke. Two tiny pieces of translucent stone sparkled in the sun. One was about the size of a thumbnail, the other a fingernail. I’d been expecting to see a rich purple, like amethyst. Instead I saw a much paler, almost ethereal hue
. But there was no denying it was purple, like the lilacs I’d left behind at Three Deer Point.
“Let me see.” In his excitement to check out the stone, Hans knocked over his half-full mug while he rummaged through his pack. He extracted an instrument of the sort I’d seen gemologists use to ascertain the quality of a gem, a loupe, I thought it was called.
Not trusting him, Florence passed him the smaller stone.
Amidst “ohs” and “ahs” he examined it using the loupe. He rolled the stone around in his hand in order to catch the refraction of light. “Wunderbar! Unglaublich!” He salivated with lust.
Finally, he turned back to us. “I have never seen such a good-quality diamond. The clarity is near perfect, with no fractures, and the colour is the truest I have ever seen for a purple diamond. Very rare. You can get a lot of money for this one stone. It could be cut down to about a carat with little wastage. I’d like to see the other.”
Florence held out her hand for the smaller stone before relinquishing the larger one.
This one received the same pronouncement. When Hans started to slip it into his pocket, Gloria jumped up and snatched it from his hand. She returned it to her grandmother. “Greedy bastard,” she muttered, resuming her place by her child.
Unfazed, he demanded, “Where is the deposit?”
Florence was about to respond when Reggie cut in. “She has already given it to us.” He held up his iPhone. “I’ve recorded it.”
I should’ve known.
“Let’s get out of here.” Reggie stood up. “Thank you for your kind hospitality, Ohndah Florence.”
He and Hans were walking down the hill to their boat when Uncle Joe called out, “You guys have big problem.”
“You trying to stop us, old man?” Reggie called back.
“Fire do that,” came the succinct reply.
sixty-one
Unfortunately for the two men, the trail to the diamonds led north, directly through the forest fire. But the fire wasn’t the only thing stopping them. Ignoring Florence’s entreaty to stay, Reggie and Hans kept walking, more like running, down to their boat.
“They’re going to get Hans’s plane,” Malcolm said. “They want to stake the claim before anyone else does.”
“But can they?” I asked. “If the land doesn’t belong to them.”
“The deposit isn’t in Tlicho territory and therefore not governed by our self-government agreement. It’s considered Crown land, and the first person to register a claim owns it.”
“So are you going to let them get away with it?”
“They won’t find the deposit. They’ll try to follow Florence’s trail from the air. But I know from experience it is impossible. Many traditional markers can only be recognized at ground level. Besides, we have another trick up our sleeve.”
He and his father exchanged smug grins.
A few minutes later we discovered their secret when the two men stomped back into camp.
“What in the hell did you do to my fucking boat?” Reggie shouted. “The damn thing won’t start. Yours won’t start either.”
Chuckling, Uncle Joe opened his palm to reveal a dirty spark plug. Malcolm showed two more. Angus dangled a fourth. The three men burst into raucous laughter, which served to make Reggie angrier. He lunged at Uncle Joe, who slipped the spark plug into his pocket before the other man could snatch it away.
“Stop,” Florence said. “We not finished. Drink more tea.”
“I’d rather have a Scotch,” Reggie muttered under his breath as he flopped onto the director’s chair, almost tipping it over.
Hans, on the other hand, wasn’t deterred. “You can’t stop us. We will find the diamonds before you.”
“Already have,” Malcolm grinned. “Show them the papers, Auntie.” He repeated it in Tlicho.
She spoke to Angus, who ran into the closest tent and returned with a handbag made of shiny blue plastic, complete with a rhinestone clasp, the kind of bag that belonged in a suburban mall and not in the wilds hundreds of kilometres from nowhere. She pulled out a thick envelope.
“For Tlicho.” Smiling, she passed it to Malcolm.
“Auntie, Angus and I found the deposit three weeks ago and staked the claim in the name of Mamàcho Teht’aa Inc. A fitting name, don’t you think?” He pulled out a document and unfolded it. “Though the deposit lies outside the boundaries of the agreed Tlicho territory, it still is on land traditionally used by Tlicho.”
“You double-crossing bastards,” Reggie hissed. “You’re gonna keep the money all to yourselves. Hardly the way of our people.”
“You mean the way you were going to share?” Malcolm sneered.
Reggie snarled.
“I am president of the company, and Florence is chairman, or should I say, chairwoman. The rest of the board comes from Digadeh, including my father. The company’s mandate is to share the proceeds with our community. We are currently in discussions with Nord Diamond.”
He pulled out a leather pouch from his jacket pocket and tapped out a stone onto his palm. About the same size as the smaller of the doll’s two, it sparkled the same lilac hue in the sun.
“Here.” He tossed it toward the Grand Chief. “This is as close as you’re going to get to the diamonds. Keep it as a memory of your betrayal of our people.”
It marked a sparkling mauve arc until it landed at Reggie’s feet. He ignored it. Hans didn’t.
Malcolm continued, “After Auntie Florence learned of your interest in the diamonds, she realized the time had come to fulfill her grandmother’s legacy. She sure knows you, Reggie. She knew she couldn’t trust you, so she decided it was up to her to make sure our people received their due.
“We set up the company before heading out onto the land to follow Mamàcho Teht’aa’s trail. It took us several weeks of a lot of trial and error through some pretty rough conditions. There was a fair bit of snow and ice, which covered some of the trail markers. But we finally found Dzièwàdi. What a magical moment. They really do look like sparkling purple flowers. It’s hard to say how large the deposit is, but Nord Diamond is going to send out an exploration team once we agree to the terms. It’s not going to be cheap to develop with most of the deposit likely under the lake. But if the entire deposit is made up of purple diamonds, it’s going to bring in one hell of a lot of money for our people.”
Throughout his discourse, I thought I heard crying and looked over to see Gloria weeping softly into her grandmother’s lap. While the young woman muttered in Tlicho, the old woman gently patted her head, but the expression on her face was not the one I would expect from a woman who’d just wrested a diamond mine out from under the grasp of a greedy man. Rather, it was one of resigned sorrow.
“What’s going on?” I asked Malcolm. “Why is Gloria so upset?”
“I’m afraid she suffered from the same disease as Reggie and Hans. She’s telling Florence how sorry she is, that she didn’t mean to cause harm.”
“What harm?” Though as I asked the question, I knew the answer.
“I’m not sure, but I think we’re about to find out.”
Gloria straightened up as if summoning her courage. “You bastard,” she shouted at Hans. “I did it all for you.”
He shrugged in response while continuing to fondle the diamond.
“It’s all your fuckin’ fault. You made me betray my people.”
“You did it to yourself. I merely gave you the reason.”
Was she admitting to killing Frank?
In a rage she lunged at her former lover, who casually stepped aside, causing her to fall to the ground. Sputtering, she picked herself up and pummelled him with her fists. He grabbed her wrists and held them tightly as she struggled to break free.
Finally she stopped, gasping.
“You finished?” he said.
She glared at him bef
ore wrenching free.
She rose to her feet. “Okay everyone, listen up.”
“Remember, it’s your word against ours,” Hans said.
“We’ll see. These are my people, not yours.”
Nonetheless, a shadow of worry crept over her face as she backed away and positioned herself so she could see the entire circle. “You want to know who killed Frank?”
I noticed that Malcolm brought his rifle closer to his side.
“It wasn’t Eric.”
At last.
She swept her eyes slowly over everyone, one by one, until they landed on one man. “It was him.” Her finger pointed at Reggie.
But her chief was prepared. He’d already raised his rifle.
“Look, she’s got it all wrong. Eric did it.”
“You did. I saw you put the bloody knife in his hand,” Gloria shot back, despite the rifle being pointed straight at her.
“You gonna believe a hooker over me, your chief?” He inched backward while keeping his eyes trained on us.
With his rifle aimed, Malcolm started walking toward him. “Put the gun down, Reggie. It’s over.”
Reggie looked around wildly as if trying to find an escape route.
Uncle Joe joined in. “You’re too soft, Reggie. You wouldn’t last one week out here on your own.”
In the meantime, Angus, also armed, silently crept up behind the man. Frank’s killer stopped when he felt the barrel of the rifle in his back.
He dropped his gun and held up his arms. “Okay, okay. You win. Yes, I killed the fucker. He was going to ruin everything. He called me from Digadeh to tell me he had a crisis of conscience.” He spat out the words. “Fancy words, eh, for a dropout? Probably learned them from that fucking Teht’aa. Said he didn’t want to screw our people, so he was going to tell Florence everything.
Purple Palette for Murder Page 28