I feel heat retreating in waves from my hands and chest. My chant ends. My whole body tingles, prey to a thousand pleasing pricks of sensation. I smile at my well-being. I open my eyes and think I catch a glimpse of a large, dark shape disappearing into the bushes on the edge of the traditional shelter space. I jerk my head up, drawn by the call of a crow perched on the crown of the tree facing me. “Caw, caw,” it cries, prancing on the branch. My joyful laughter is its answer. “Washiya, noumoushoum, mist’migmetch!”
The sound of footsteps distracts me. Daniel has returned from his walk, a strained smile on his lips. “I saw a bear cross the creek … it took me by surprise!”
I laugh outright as I return my objects to my medicine bag. Would I end up adopting my Cree people’s beliefs or would I chalk these phemonena up to a coincidence or an animal’s curiosity just as my father Joseph did when I was a child? Yet since Sibi’s death, he’s spoken of animals that visit him in his dreams and of luminous strangers who appear at the foot of his bed at night. Despite his age, my father still has a phenomenal memory and astonishing presence of mind. Even when he looks to be dozing in front of the TV, he’ll still answer our questions should one of us drop by the house where he lives, in spite of any misgivings we may have, on his own. He and I have started talking about the constant presence of the bear figure in my dreams and of omens that have come true, like Maman’s death, the illness of one of my brothers, another’s suicide attempt.
Only Sibi’s death was announced differently. I hadn’t grasped the message’s meaning. Papa is used to long silences. But he likes to share his memories. One time when the two of us were alone, he spoke to me of events surrounding the day I was conceived. At the age of eighty-three, Papa has begun to reveal his inner life to me.…
They were on their trapping grounds with my grandmother and her family. It was a cold late November day and a deep layer of snow blanketed the ground. His father-in-law, Sam, was walking ahead when he noticed what looked like a bear’s den.
“Sam stuck close to me. I ask ’im to climb up on top of the washe to wake the bear, if there’s one. I look through the opening up front, see a li’l light movin’ inside in the dark, figger it’s an animal’s eye, so I shoot.… A helluva lot of gruntin’ and shufflin’ goin’ on! I got one cartridge left in my shotgun. I wait for that bear to stick out its muzzle, brace myself good and I got ’im! A whoppin’ male! Then I figger out Sam’s gone. I look round, no Sam.… I look up and see him almost five hundred feet away, top of a hill. Some quick runnin’ he must’ve done to get there that fast. Some helper!”
They emptied its stomach, tied its back legs together, and dragged it back to camp. My father still gets a chuckle thinking of how scared Sam was.
“I was frozen stiff from head to toe,” my father continues. “Our tent was warm with the stove on, but me I’m shiverin’ anyways. Then what happens but your mother pushes back the blankets and starts to roll down her long wool stockings. We’d only been married a month by then. She lays on top of me and warms me up somethin’ fierce! Ha! M’girl, your mother was never so good as that night! You came into the world nine months later.”
Moved, Papa clears his throat and heads over to make some coffee. After he was widowed fifteen years ago, he stayed on his own, ignoring the phone calls and presents from certain lonely women. Despite alcohol’s ravages, the love of his life had been our mother and he didn’t seek out another companion. He asks if I’d like some coffee. I join him at the kitchen table. He continues his story about the bear.
“Your great-uncle George found two orphaned bear cubs and brought ’em to the Pointe-Aux-Vents camp. The kids gotta kick outta them, you more than anyone, not even a year old. You’d grab onta the cub’s fur to stand up and fall on your bum when it moved. Then you’d crawl after it fast as your legs could go. It was like it was scared of you. We all got a good laugh outta that.”
Once the cubs grew too big, roasts were made out of them for the late September moukoushan, the wind-up to summer when people headed out to the trapping grounds.
19
DANIEL
AUGUST 2004
BACK ON THE ROAD, Daniel and I agree that I’ll drive till darkness falls. He’s tired and wants some sleep. The clock shows it’s barely six. We’ll be in Matagami early enough to have a hot meal tonight in the restaurant at the motel on the way into the city. I like to drive in silence, my gaze on the horizon where clouds cling to the crowns of pointed spruce trees. The landscape inhabits me like music. Softly, I hum the tune of my most recent meditation. Would I forget it otherwise?
We drive south. The sun casts its rays on my sleeping companion, who’s oblivious to their continued warmth. He snores. Tenderness washes over me seeing how trusting he is in sleep. His features are childlike despite the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and his near-white beard. I’m grateful to him for being here with me. Grateful to life for having met him in our later years after several relationships both tumultuous and calm, and a number of children. He was working for Indigenous economic development programs. At a symposium in Quebec City attended by some three hundred people from different nations, I represented my community’s Indigenous centre. A man approached me to congratulate me on the outfit I’d chosen to wear and added, intimidated, “You know, I’d love to be as daring as you. I especially want to tell you how much I love your intense, brazen, and oh-so human poetry!”
He blushed, saddled with the grey wool suit in which he faded to nothing despite the blue of the tie that highlighted his eyes. I sensed he harboured a secret wound. It felt like I was face to face with a being fragile in both body and soul. Instead of clothing him, his suit disguised him as a civil servant.
The following year, on the first day of another Indigenous Friendship Centre meeting where Daniel sat next to me, he made a date for us to go out for pizza. To talk about literature. He’d pick me up in my hotel lobby. It was September, a hot, sunny day. After a quick shower, I slipped into a light dress. He showed up wearing jeans and a muscle shirt that accentuated the blue of his eyes. On the spur of the moment, I said, “You do have shoulders!” and felt his biceps to check their firmness. It was the first time lightning struck because of a sleeveless T-shirt!
Daniel sleeps on while the heat of my remembering has me melting like brie in the sun. Softly, I sing words by Reggiani, my favorite singer:
“Toi, qui ne seras jamais
Une grande personne
Ne me quitte jamais
Je t’aime…”
Which moves me even more. Daniel wakes just as I’m dabbing at my eyes with a tissue. He stretches and yawns, “Why’re you crying?” he asks.
“Because of you, you melt my heart!” I tell him.
“What did I do I exactly?”
“Nothing at all. Don’t you ever feel moved by me?”
He smiles. “I get a hard-on whenever you speak Cree.”
When I hit him with my balled-up tissue, he’s still shaking with laughter and pretending to fend off a much more dangerous attack. What a lech!
I park the car on the side of the road to stretch my legs and take a badly-needed pee. My bladder’s suffering from the consequences of early menopause. After a bit of a stretch, we get back in the car. Daniel takes the wheel and turns on the radio. Since he’s not a fan of country music, he switches it off again. In a strong nasal twang, I sing,
“Thank God for the radio
When I’m on the road
When I’m far from home
And feeling so blue.…”
As a final flourish, I howl like a she-wolf in heat. Now he’s the one with tears in his eyes! Tears of laughter.
20
THE LYNX
AUGUST 2004
WE BOOK A ROOM in a motel on the way into Matagami, too tired to pitch our tent or to use our camping gear to make a meal. We want our last night of travel given over to co
mfort and love’s ardour. I’ve barely stepped out of the shower before I tackle Daniel and nibble the sensitive skin around his neck and shoulders. A gambit guaranteed to drive him crazy.
After making love, hunger pangs set in. Grudgingly, we slip our clothes back on and walk down the hall to the dining room. Daniel offers me wine knowing the effect it has on my libido, and says straight-faced, “Red for my Red?” He knows that white wine knocks me out while red wine revvs me up.
The next morning, I wake from a singular dream. Snuggled against Daniel, I describe it to him.
From the window in the house’s north door, I watch five panthers at play. They’re sliding otter-like down the snow that’s accumulated on the car overnight. I hurry to lock and bolt the door. A woman who looks like me appears and I clearly understand that she is in fact a panther in disguise. I am glad she can’t come inside. However, she steps easily through the bolted door. Instantly, the entranceway expands. I’m afraid. Daniel suggests we kill her. I suggest we call the SPCA instead or the game warden. Ignoring me, he comes up with a complicated system whereby the woman will shoot herself. I feel an increasing sense of unease. Meekly, she obeys Daniel. Standing facing me, she stares at me with eyes full of tenderness as she pulls the trigger. The bullet enters through the back of her head and exits out her forehead. But she doesn’t fall as blood runs down her face. Just then, I see Daniel behind her, his face all bloody, bearing the exact same wound as the panther woman.
I can feel Daniel’s breath on my neck, but he stays silent. An intuition makes its way to my brain. I hesitate for a second before asking him, “Tell me, Daniel, does it bother you that I might become a shaman or may already be one?”
“I don’t know,” he says, “I haven’t thought about it. But you know how I mistrust religion.…”
He gets up, heads for the bathroom and turns on the taps in the shower.
On our way to the gas station, we meet Harry, Jos, and Allaisy’s eldest son, with his sister Eena and his wife Joyce. Eena, who used to live in our village across from Pointe-Aux-Vents and has kept in touch with my family, introduces me. Harry remembers Tititèche, the Little Little One, and exclaims to see how tall and big-boned I’ve grown. I vaguely remember him. He inquires after my father’s health. “I used to go hunting with him,” he says, “He was great!”
He’s a slim, good-looking man with bulging muscles and greying temples. I ask how old he is. My question doesn’t surprise him in the least. With pride, he raises his whiskerless chin and says, “Seventy-one!” I inquire after Bobby, his younger brother, who liked to tease both Alice and me caught up in our little girl games.
Harry tells me that a good part of their parents’ former hunting grounds have been returned to them thanks to the signing of the James Bay Agreement.
“Bobby’d love to see you again, he always thought you were a pretty one even though the two of you were related,” he says.
I give Harry a gentle shove and utter a long drawn-out, “Huhhh…” to show my embarrassment. Eena roars with laughter at my typical Cree reaction. Daniel walks over. It’s time to leave if we don’t want to have to rush.
I find it strange this bumping into members of my extended family unexpectedly, as though my memories of them are following me on our trip to James Bay. Seated behind the wheel, I talk about Eena and Harry and recall that part of my childhood for Daniel. We’ve been driving for a half hour or so when I see an animal’s body lying on the side of the road. It looks like a huge cat with a long tail.
“What do you think that was?”
Daniel doesn’t know what I mean since, distracted by my story, he didn’t see the creature. I wonder if it was a cougar, the large feline some observers claim to have glimpsed in our part of the country over the past few years. “Let’s have a look,” I say, parking the car. Daniel walks over to the body as I rummage through our portable fridge for some cold water. And fruit, in there somewhere with our backpacks and sleeping bags. The sloppy packing is a sign of the weariness that comes at trip’s end. When I finally look up, my husband has vanished. I stride over to what I think is a cougar. It’s a lynx! Lying on its belly with its one dislocated hind leg stretched out beneath its pelvis, making it look like a long tail. How is it that this beautiful grown animal could be hit head-on on this straight, flat road?
Daniel’s arrival pulls me away from my thoughts. He’s coming up a trail that plunges into the jack pines next to the lynx’s body. His expression puzzles me. He won’t say what he found on the path. Just tells me to go see for myself. Unsettled, my heart starts beating faster. From a distance, I catch a glimpse of three crosses; a familiar mask hangs from one of them. My friend Denis Kistabish, a musican and carver, lies beneath that cross. Under the other two lie his brother Johnny and his father Mathias. I have a connection with the people buried here!
We would visit the Kistabish family whenever our parents took us to the Amos Algonquin reserve. Before he met Maman, Papa, born in La Sarre, used to hunt on Algonquin territory. Although they didn’t have much use for him at first, his respect for their people eventually earned him their friendship. He spoke their language and lived the same lifestyle. I even think he dated a few women from their community before enlisting in the army and leaving for the European front. Denis played his drum for me at one of my public poetry readings. We had plans for a multidisciplinary show some day. As for Johnny, a law student, he was everyone’s friend. At the time of their death, I was out of the country for seminars and conference presentations. Their niece had told me their ashes were buried on ancestral land, but I didn’t know exactly where. Because of a dead lynx and a curious husband, here I stand staring at their graves. My sorrow is equalled only by the joy I feel at finally being able to say my good-byes.
A blue jay snaps me out of my reverie. Reluctantly, I leave the peaceful, soothing spot behind.…
I go back for one last look at the lynx, the guardian animal of secrets according to my mother’s tradition. Was it my friends’ totem? But why had their guardian chosen death to put me in touch with their spirit? Who knows? Lost in thought, I join Daniel who waits for me behind the wheel.
21
THE ACCIDENT
AUGUST 2004
A PLASTIC CONTAINER IN HAND, I crouch down in front of bushes bursting with blueberries, our dessert after sandwiches at lunch. Daniel has parked the car on the side of the logging road. Trucks loaded down with logs raise the fine dust created by the past few sunny days. I half-think how this spot seems far from ideal, but hunger makes my husband impatient so.… He starts walking toward a hill on the road ahead to find a picnic spot. I hear another flatbed truck’s engine. I stop gathering berries and shout, “Daniel, let’s go somewhere else for lunch, this is no place for a picnic! We’ll eat in the car if we have to.”
He turns just as two all-terrain vehicles, side by side, barrel down the hill he’s on. On their heels comes the truck whose driver does his best to brake, honking all the while. I can no longer see Daniel for all the dust. Yet the truck screeches to a halt just in front of our car. My heart is seized in an icy grip. This can’t be happening. God, please no, in God’s name, no!
I run, run as fast as my legs weak with terror will carry me. No, he’ll get back up again.… Yes, he will, long before I reach the spot where he disappeared.… I scream, “DANIEL, GET UP! GET UUP! I BEG YOU! DANIEL!” I lose my footing on the gravel and slide more than race to his side. He looks to be asleep in the ditch, his head resting on a rock turned red with his blood. What should I do? Not move him, yes, that’s it, don’t move him.… Check to see if he’s breathing, his pulse, yes, on his neck with two fingers.… Blow into his mouth to help him breathe, yes, that’s it.… Oh, right, AN AMBULANCE! WE NEED AN AMBULANCE! Once again, I cry out to the blue of the sky stretched above us, indifferent. Blue before. Blue after. Forever blue.
I give a start as a voice thick with emotion answers.
“It’s comin’, lady, I called 911 on my cell. They’re comin’ from Amos, nearby … ten, fifteen minutes max .…”
I’m shaking all over, my teeth chattering and I see … I see reflected in his face the terror my eyes project. He stares at the ground, arms dangling. He says, “The ATVs passed me on the hill, gotta be kids to pull a crazy stunt like that. When I laid eyes on your husband, he was fallin’ into the ditch already. It’s not my fault, lady … not my fault.…”
I can see now that he’s crying. This young man, the same age as my son, moves me. I thank him for stopping and am touched by the thought of my Simon. Long minutes pass. Through the impatience of waiting, I keep speaking to my husband, hoping he’ll hear me, cling to life. My body still trembles and refuses to do my bidding.
The man glances at Daniel and the shudder in his eyes turns my gaze back to my loved one. He has opened his eyes the colour of the sky and focuses them on mine gone misty with mad hope, struck by their blue gracing me with the gentlest light that no firmament will ever bestow. I lean over, kiss his lips. He murmurs, I have trouble hearing him past the shrill wail of rapidly approaching sirens.
“…Didn’t tell all … that love … life.” His voice. Again. Speak to me again! Again! I focus on him with all my might, offering him my breath, my life in exchange for one more word. But the blue no longer flickers. Only seems to shrink then grow dark. I lose myself inside, vaguely hear doors slam and men’s and women’s voices, a swirling around the two of us. Another siren. Someone puts their hands on my shoulders and walks me away from Daniel.
“Excuse me, ma’am, we have to move him.…” I cling to the arm helping me to my feet but fall back to my knees. Then I crawl from the ditch to let the paramedics place the oxygen mask on Daniel’s face. They handle him gently, check his vital signs. Endless seconds. Finally, they strap him onto a stretcher, taking infinite care with his head sticky with blood.
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