A Long Bridge Home

by Kelly Irvin

  “I promise you won’t.” Such innocence should be preserved and honored. “Put on your seat belt.”

  He waited while she fumbled with the clasp, buckled up, and leaned back in her seat. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re taking a trip down memory lane.” His memories or those of his ancestors to be more precise. He pointed the car toward Highway 93 and Pablo. Traffic shouldn’t be too bad on a Saturday now that the tourist season was over. He scrambled for a conversation starter. “What do you know about the Kootenai tribe?”

  “The what?”

  So that’s where he started. In the half-hour drive from St. Ignatius to Pablo, he gave her an abbreviated version of the Kootenai’s history as nomadic hunters who lived in teepees, hunted buffalo, moose, and elk, and gathered berries and roots in the spring and summer that were preserved to last through the frigid winters. Together with the Salish and Pend d’Oreille tribes, their aboriginal territories covered twenty million acres in Montana, northern Idaho, and parts of the southern Canada provinces.

  They were known for being avid canoeists, trappers, and anglers. They built light craft and devices to help with fishing and hunting, like fish weirs and bird traps. Then came the years when horses, guns, traders, and Jesuit priests changed the fundamental way the Kootenai lived their lives. More changes, these devastating to the Kootenai, followed with the Hellgate Treaty in 1855 and their confinement to the reservation where they were expected to understand the concept of land ownership and to become farmers. Not able to follow their food sources, they began to starve. Even as they were forced to worship the white man’s God. Today the reservation covered 1.3 million acres with 790,000 owned by the tribes and their members.

  An occasional glance at Christine’s face assured him that she not only listened but understood the gravity of his words. Emotions flitted across her open features that hid nothing. Interest, surprise, sorrow, and obvious perplexity. When he hit tiny Pablo’s city limits, he paused in his storytelling. “Do you have questions?”

  “Your people’s God is different from the ‘white man’s’?”

  The Amish were devout. It seemed natural that she would start there. Raymond grappled for words that could be understood by someone who grew up with spiritual beliefs in a completely different context. “We believe the Sun and the Moon were brothers, and they produced the powerful life force for all creations. The Sun and Moon transformed all who chose to live on this earth into physical forms and assigned them with a domain and tools. We work to maintain that delicate balance in the natural world. Spirits inhabit everything in nature.”

  “Who do you pray to then?”

  “I don’t think we pray in the way that you mean. We coexist with Mother Earth’s creations. We show respect for all elements of the natural world. Life has no value if you don’t appreciate the earth and have regard for all that is sacred.”

  “Could our God encompass your Mother Earth? He made the earth from the void and the sun, moon, and stars. He made the animals and He made man. From man, He made woman.”

  “The difference is we don’t believe man is greater than the animals.”

  “But you hunt.”

  “To eat. We never hunt for sport. We never waste a single scrap of the bison.”

  She was quiet for a few minutes. “Our people do understand persecution. We have a book called The Martyrs’ Mirror that reminds us of the religious persecution our ancestors experienced in Europe when they left the Church of England and later when they decided they wanted adult baptism instead of the baptism of babies.”

  “The white people who took over our land didn’t just want us to worship the way they did. They wanted us to forget our language, our customs, and our way of life. My forefathers didn’t know how to survive when they couldn’t follow their food sources, so their families starved.” The injustice could never be forgotten. Natives from the mountains to the plains to the seas had similar experiences. They were bound by those experiences, whatever their battles had been in the past. “We had to get a signed piece of paper to leave the reservation for any reason. When the Bureau of Indian Affairs gathered up our children and sent them away to schools, the families thought it was for the best. At least there they would be fed.”

  “You don’t sound as if it was for the best.”

  “Our children worked at the schools before and after classes, doing the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. They were punished if they spoke their language. They were separated from their families for the first time in their lives. Our daughters bore children fathered by priests. The babies were thrown away.”

  Those dark days were in the distant past, but still they hurt.

  Her face filled with a tender sadness, Christine leaned forward to stare at the building beyond the parking lot where he pulled into a space and turned off his car’s sputtering engine. “We were blessed. Our forefathers went to court for the right to keep their children home and teach them our values and our ways. They knew our lifestyle would not be preserved if we were in constant contact with the world. It was considered our right to end our formal education at eighth grade. We have a right to teach our children as we see fit.”

  “We weren’t given that right. Instead, we have to fight tooth and nail, lot by lot, to get our land back. We’ve started our own schools and eventually opened Salish and Kootenai College. We have cultural classes like beading, quilling, the cooking of roots, drying of medicinal herbs, and language classes. Slowly but surely, we are able to reintroduce our culture to our people.”

  “In some ways our people are alike.” She stared at the round columns of the stone building. “In that we’re different than those who seem to have all the power.”

  “What was your first language?”

  “Deutsch.”

  “Mine was Kootenai only because my great-grandmother is one of the few remaining Kootenai who speaks the language. She taught her children, her grandchildren, and then she taught her great-grandchildren, including me. Now I teach it to children at the grade school.”

  “Teach me a word.”

  “Natanik.”

  “Natanik.”

  “It means ‘moon.’ It also means ‘sun.’ Only the pitch changes.” He demonstrated. Then he pointed at her. “You are pahiki—‘woman.’”

  “Now my turn.” She pointed at Raymond. “Der fux.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “‘The fox.’”

  “Very funny.”

  She grinned. “You do look a little like a fox. Very sly.”

  He pretended to stare at himself in the rearview mirror. “I look more like a deer. Fleet of foot.”

  “And tender in a pot of chili.”

  “Nice.”

  She laughed with him. She had a nice laugh. Tinkly. “So my town is called Kootenai. What does it mean?”

  “The word Kootenai doesn’t exist in our language.” That she wanted to know was amazing. Many of his own people didn’t care enough to ask. “We were originally known as the Ksunka or People of the Standing Arrow. The French called us Kootenai. It either means ‘deer robes’ or ‘water people.’ We’re not sure which.”

  “It’s funny. I’ve never really thought about it, but knowing two languages makes a person’s life richer, doesn’t it?”

  “I think so.” Learning made life richer. That a woman with an eighth-grade education understood that was equally amazing. “I feel like I’ve talked your head off.”

  She patted her head. “Nee. That means ‘no.’ It’s still here.”

  Her sense of humor reminded him of his own. The ability to laugh bound people together in friendship. “Have you had enough of me blabbing, or can you take a little more?”

  “You haven’t told me anything about yourself.”

  “These are my people we’re talking about.”

  “Dead people.” She put her hand to her mouth for a second. “That came out wrong. I mean, who are you now?”

  “I have two brothers who
live in other places. My mother died and my father was never in the picture. Gramma and my grandma Velda, who makes jewelry and sells it at craft shows around the state, are my closest family.”

  “I’m sorry about your mother.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a tiny cog in a big machine called S&K Global Solutions in Polson. It’s one of five subsidiaries of S&K Technologies. We do information technology support, research, and software development for customers like NASA and Boeing.”

  Her blank expression was normal. Most people, even those who were somewhat computer savvy, had glazed eyes when he finished describing what he did for a living.

  “Does it have something to do with computers?” She pointed to the laptop that sat on the seat between them.

  “I won’t bore you with the details, but yes. I have a bachelor’s degree in information technology from Salish and Kootenai College.”

  A perplexed look on her face, she shook her head. “Information technology?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Enough about me. What about you? What do you do? Tell me about your family.”

  “I clean houses, and I like it.” Her cheeks turned pink as she swiveled in her seat and let her gaze encompass his car. “I could do a lot of good in here.”

  Stacks of reports and papers from work. Fast-food bags. Dirty sneakers. Empty Styrofoam coffee cups. The detritus of his life. When had he last run the beast through a carwash? The date escaped him. “Family.”

  She ran through the statistics.

  “That’s a big family.” Compared to his, with two brothers and two grandparents and some great aunts and their families. “I bet you never get lonely.”

  “Do you?” Her compassion enveloped the words. “I can’t imagine not having a big family.”

  “I’m good.” Hanging on by the hair on his chinny-chin-chin. “We should get moving if we plan to get you home by five.”

  Her aunt and uncle would come home from the store early on Saturday to prepare for Sunday’s services and visiting.

  She nodded, but the knowing look remained.

  He led her to the front door of The People’s Center, where he dug out the key from his jean pocket. “This is where we teach people—visitors and our own kind—about our past.”

  “You come and go here as you please?”

  “I’m a volunteer. This time of year, it’s closed on the weekends. We’ll have it to ourselves.”

  A strange expression flitted across her face. Embarrassment, maybe even a touch of fear or guilt, appeared. The reason hit him full force. “Have you ever been alone with a man?”

  “Of course.” The words came out in a stutter. Her cheeks turned bright red, making her even prettier. “My brothers. A friend.”

  The stutter worsened over the word friend. “You mean like a date.”

  “Something like that.”

  “You don’t know me, but I promise you can trust me.” Heat toasted his own cheeks. The keys jangled in his hand. “What I mean to say is, I respect women—all women. I have no ulterior motives for bringing you here other than to try to know you and let you know me.”

  “Okay.”

  The earlier hesitation disappeared. A smile bloomed in its place like an early spring.

  He unlocked the door and held it for her. She murmured her thanks and trotted ahead of him into the foyer. They turned right into the exhibit area. Raymond took a breath. He’d told these stories hundreds of times to hundreds of visitors, but it never felt like it did this day, this place in time and space. Her inquisitive gaze sharp, her questions thoughtful, Christine wandered from exhibit to exhibit. She wanted him to teach her how to make moccasins from deer skin and explain what it must’ve been like to live in teepees in the cold Montana winter.

  “Our women could use those papoose carriers.” She touched the glass that separated them from the exhibit with the fingertips of both hands. “We have so many children and not enough hands. How are they made?”

  “The women made them using deerskins.” The division of labor wouldn’t sound odd to her. The Amish also held strong beliefs about the work men and women should do. “My grammas would know how. They’ve studied the crafts of our ancestors.”

  “I’d love to meet them and learn from them.”

  If only that were possible. Raymond hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do on this first outing was hurt Christine’s feelings. Gramma wouldn’t want him to bring a non-Native girl around. She didn’t want him spending time with her at all. Grandma Velda seldom said much about anything. The grief of losing her husband and her only child had dried up all her words. After she retired from her position as a secretary at the high school, she took up crafting jewelry from deer bone and bird feathers. She did well selling her wares. They saw less of her than ever.

  “Do they know about . . . this . . . about me?” Christine’s hands fluttered to her chest and rested there. She had sturdy but small hands. Hot water and cleansers left them chapped and dry. She wore no rings or other adornments. “Or are they like my folks—wary of mixing with those who are different?”

  “Gramma knows enough about the Amish to know your family won’t welcome my attention to you. She prefers I focus my attention on Native women. Grandma Velda traveled to Bonner Ferry this week.”

  Christine cocked her head and stared up at him. After a few seconds, she turned back to the display. “Tell me more.”

  Tears wet her eyes when he explained that smallpox decimated his tribe not once but twice. The first time it cut the tribe’s number in half. Thousands died. Twenty years later the disease hit again and the tribe died down to a third of its original size. He told her the story of the grizzly bear who took care of a little boy after everyone in his family and his community died of the disease. He took him to another tribe that adopted him.

  “You believe these stories?”

  He examined her face and saw no judgment there. “We believe animals are as smart as we are.”

  She rested her forehead against the glass that separated her from the artifacts for a few seconds. She stared at them, then turned to Raymond. “Sometimes they’re smarter. Humans kill for pleasure. They’re mean to each other. They lie and cheat. They take what doesn’t belong to them.”

  “No one knows that better than the Natives.”

  “A woman in the store said the Indians think they’re better than the whites. She said her family has been here just as long. They bought their allotments around nineteen hundred.”

  “Archaeologists have found evidence that Natives were here during the first Ice Age. We were here when Columbus ‘discovered’ this continent.”

  “A few years earlier.” She chuckled softly. “I reckon that’s why you object to being called Native American Indians.”

  “Indian isn’t so bad. The explorers were saying en dios. ‘In God.’ Indians. But there was no America when aboriginal peoples freely roamed the land.”

  With silent agreement they moved to the next exhibit. At this rate it would take days to cover everything in the room. He pointed out the next display. “This is bitterroot. It’s really a wild herb, but it’s also Montana’s state flower. Long before it was adopted in 1893, it was very important to Native tribes. The women would dig up the roots, and the whole tribe would pray. When the Salish people were starving, a grandma had children and grandchildren who were starving. She prayed and cried. Her tears hit the ground and became bitterroot. It is very bitter. It was mixed with meat or berries.”

  “What about this?” Christine pointed to the camas roots.

  “The women do a camas bake in June. They gather the roots and cook them in the ground for three days. It’s a long process.”

  “One the women are responsible for?”

  “Men do the hunting and guarding. Women take care of the children and the teepee and gather the plants and roots.”

  “It’s the same for us.”

  “Except your
women hunt and fish.”

  “They do, but I’ve never liked it. I’d rather cook and clean.” She sighed. “I’m the only one in my family who doesn’t like to camp or hike. Delilah, my sister, makes fun of me because I hate sleeping on the ground in tents. I don’t like getting dirty when we go hiking. I don’t like cleaning fish.”

  “Are you fussy, then?”

  “No, but I like things clean and neat. The outdoors is so . . . messy. I’d rather be indoors where I can keep things in their place.”

  “Maybe you need the right guide to help you see nature through a different lens, from the vantage point that my ancestors saw it. Our Creator made every animal, every plant, every tree with the same care that He made you. Only when you see in them what the Creator saw will you truly appreciate nature.”

  Her forehead wrinkled, she studied his face with an intensity that held him completely still. As if she sought something—something important. “I never thought of it that way.”

  He breathed again. “I could be that guide.”

  “I’d like that.” She ducked her head. “I feel like I’m on an adventure.”

  One didn’t normally think of a trip to a museum as an adventure, but her words held a kernel of truth. Seeking out those who were different and getting to know them was an adventure every person should have.

  “So do I.”

  17

  St. Ignatius, Montana

  So much learning in one day caused a person’s head to feel stuffed and heavy. What to think about first? Christine rode her bicycle back to Uncle Fergie’s after Raymond dropped her off at The Malt Shop. It gave her time to try to figure out what it all meant. She’d never seen a man so full of learning and so passionate about a past that’s ink had long dried on the pages of history books.

  Her father and the district elders had passion for the history that brought their ancestors from Europe to America, but it was different. More stoic. More forgiving. Because they had a forgiving faith.

  The Kootenai didn’t forgive or forget. Raymond didn’t forgive or forget. She propped her bike against the porch and clomped up the steps. He didn’t even believe in Jesus.