Through Black Spruce

  “Let’s just say that the percentage of patients in Will’s situation who make a full or even partial recovery is extremely low.” Eva looks at me. “And each day that passes without response drops that percentage lower.”

  I can feel tears begin to sting my eyes.

  Eva says, “That doesn’t mean you give up, Annie.”

  I’m squeezing Gordon’s shoulders hard without meaning to.

  25

  CALLING GEESE

  Over the course of the next month, I paid a number of visits to the family. At first it was to try and figure out when it was they were to leave so that I could begin my own packing. But I’d learned to like them and their easy company. I took the daughters out to show them how I trap. I shared a few meals with them, always bringing something so as not to deplete their supplies. Me, my gut told me that they knew nothing of any troubles down in Moosonee. But when they returned, they’d talk of seeing me, and then it was only a matter of time. Maybe I could convince them, before they left, to not speak of me. But that’d only bring them questions, and the old woman, she seemed normal most of the time but showed signs of forgetfulness and sometimes slipped into moments where she looked lost and didn’t know her own husband. And she was direct with her questions. No control over any of this. I’d be placing myself in their hands when they left. If I stayed.

  I began pulling out old maps of this part of Ontario, looking for other possible places to go to and set up a winter camp. Hard work to find somewhere new, before the snows came. This island, Akimiski, is huge. More than fifty miles across. More than thirty long. Other good places existed on this island. But if the police or the RCMP got wind that I was here, how would I do something as simple as hide the smoke of my fire on a clear day from a man in a plane? No matter what I tried to figure out, the simple knowledge that I couldn’t stay here any longer returned.

  Hiding in some tiny part of the massive landscape that is Mushkegowuk wasn’t the problem. It was finding the right place, a place on a lake or river, a place that offered escape quickly. But most important, I needed to find a place that allowed me to survive by offering me its animals. That’s always the crapshoot. So many of my people over the generations came to the table to gamble only to have the animals not even show up.

  With October, the geese began to prepare. The family here told me they’d hunt for a week before they departed. I’d already built my own blinds around my lake and had helped old Koosis construct a number of his own. By a fire at night we burned logs and attached curved boughs to the bodies till we had dozens of decoys. Kookum taught her granddaughters how to weave the tamarack into a different type of decoy until there were many.

  I listened to the niska, to the geese, each evening as they gathered on the lake. Their voices had taken on a different sound. Agitated, your mother Lisette would call it. They gathered as dusk fell, and the excitement in their voices came to its height just before night crept across the lake. They knew their long flight was coming, and the promise of travel made them sound like children. I’d not begun my hunting yet. The geese were still gathering, and if I timed it well, I’d shoot enough geese over a few days to feed me late into winter. But soon as I started my shooting I would announce myself. The geese, they’d send out word over the course of those days that this lake was no longer a good place. And so first I’d help the family do their hunting near the shoreline before I came back to my lake to kill my own.

  Dawn still hunched an hour away as I followed the little trail I’d cut from the lake to the creek. Anyone who had bush sense could find me if they found this trail, but it didn’t matter. I already knew I’d be leaving soon. In a month the snow would be flying, and the winter would begin settling, laying herself out over the forest and the muskeg and the water. Then the time of true suffering would begin. Along this thin trail I carried a heavy pack of shells for my shotgun, some extra warm clothes, smoked trout, tobacco, and a new bottle of rye. If today was successful, I would drink. And if the old man wanted some, I’d offer. He and his woman brought none of it with them. Years of the life I had lived taught me to note these things, to smell them out. I wouldn’t drink around the children, though. That time in my life had passed.

  The creek opened itself up to me as the first light of morning began to seep through the cloud. Overcast, but not a bad day for geese. Already the bottle in my pack called to me. Maybe I’d sneak sips soon. Some of my finest memories were of being half-drunk, sitting in a stand and waiting. Those old memories can’t be burnt or drowned.

  The skeleton of the whale loomed up. I stepped into its cavity and sat for a moment. My fingers rolled a cigarette as I looked around me. That first day I found this place felt like forever ago, summer sun so warm it was like I was in the tropics. But today the whale’s bones sang a different message. I felt the chill of the Arctic waters in them, the desperate hunt for food, the storm that finally caught it and beached it so far from its home. I wanted to imagine the wind through the bones whistling. What must it have been like to die like this? The horribly slow reverse of drowning. Nothing quick in this death. Massive lungs crushed for air and the simple weight of this animal’s body slowly suffocating itself. The trickle of a freshwater creek a taunt to the rest of the body.

  Not a good feeling in the whale this morning, and so I walked out of its body and tramped down the creek. The animals on this island must have rejoiced upon its death, though. I pictured the marten, the lynx, the black bear and polar bear, the flies and their maggots, the fox, the wolf, the whisky jack and the crow, all of them meeting here and grinning at their good fortune. I saw the animals in turn coming up to feast and then I saw like I once saw on the Discovery Channel a fast motion camera capturing these same animals coming up and eating, then departing, the whale pulled apart in mouthfuls like you would a house until only the framework remained.

  The sun began to peek up, so I walked as quick as my leg allowed. Best to be in the blind already, but the geese, they’d be flying all day today. The first ones, though, those are always the special ones.

  Old Koosis waited, squatting by the quiet tent heavy with morning dew. His head of white hair stood out against the still dark morning. I squatted by him and pulled two cigarettes from the pocket of my flannel and handed him one. We sat on our haunches and smoked, looking out to the bay, misty and dark. A good couple of blinds waited to our left in a cove on the mudflat, the flat flecked with grasses and nests in the grasses, protected from wind. The geese had already been stirring and more would be flying in those first short hours of dawn. We’d have to make our way to the blind quietly. Koosis handed me a cup of instant coffee, cooling in the tin mug.

  “A good morning,” he said.

  “Perfect.”

  We stood and picked up our packs, slung our shotguns over our shoulders, made our way back up toward the stunted spruce, trying to walk quiet in the suck of mud, crouching as we cut toward the blind, following the muskeg grass that kept us from sinking too deep.

  A good blind we had built. Dry floor of spruce boughs and its height so that we could sit without being seen on rough benches. A big view of this marsh. Only the standing when the time came, shotguns at our shoulders. Good place. All we needed for the day sat at our feet in this tight space.

  As the light grew stronger, our morning laziness left, and we loaded and checked our guns. The old man peered out to the horizon. Our decoys lay carefully scattered in front of us on the shore and in the water. Some with heads bent as if feeding, others with necks craned. Hard to tell they weren’t real in this light. The old man would begin calling when the time was right. We needed to tempt the geese close in to us. They’d arrive in waves and then just the matter of aiming well once we called them with our own throats. I smoked one more cigarette while I still had the time. The old man didn’t like my doing it. I could tell he worried about its scent scaring them off. But the wind blew into us, and I decided this was okay.

  The day grew more gloomy and smelled of rain. My c
oat soaked through with the heavy air. Hard in this light to make out anything on the horizon. This day was a very bad day for flying a plane but a good day for the geese.

  Old Koosis spotted the first group coming in from the north, black of wings flashing in the grey. He tensed his throat, cupped his hands around his mouth, and began calling. When I spotted them, I joined in. At first my throat felt too tense, and I squeaked rather than called, almost laughed out loud at my foolishness. Children’s voices are so much better at this. You, nieces, were champion callers. But when I found the tension in my vocal cords, I made the awwuuk, awwuk, awwuk, just as I once taught you. We watched careful and adjusted the intensity of our calls as the geese responded mid-flight. First almost desperate to get their ear, then plaintive, a happy note to let them know that the decoys below us had found a perfect spot for breakfast and a rest. This first V of geese turned to us, but then, a hundred yards out or so got spooked, the lead flyer turning abruptly and leading them higher and away.

  The old man looked at me, grinning. He placed his index and middle fingers together and pretended to take a drag from a cigarette.

  “Jushstuk,” I said.

  He laughed. We sat back and waited. I considered lighting another cigarette just to bug him.

  The second V of geese swung in, honking out, us calling back. This group was a good one, twenty or thirty, looking to land. I could feel it. I slipped the safety off the top of my gun with my thumb and tensed for the standing and shooting. The geese stopped flapping their wings and glided in closer, webbed feet just beginning to stretch out, at the point where they’d either catch on or it would be too late for them. At the right distance, close enough to see their black eyeballs choosing the marsh they’d land upon, we both stood and began firing. Boom! Pump the old shell out. Boom! Pump. Boom! Pump. The geese still in the air worked their wings, panicked. When they retreated thirty yards, I stopped firing. We’d taken three each, watched the disorganized flock work hard and disappear over the spruce in the distance. I slipped the safety back on and reloaded the shotgun.

  When we were sure another flock wasn’t coming soon, we made our way out of the blind and through the mud, picked up the dead birds by the necks, and carried them back to our blind. I lit a cigarette and reached into my pack, pulling out the big bottle of rye. I watched from the corner of my eye for the old man’s reaction. He didn’t give one. I broke the seal with a twist of my hand and took a good sip, then handed the bottle over to him. He didn’t say no, but didn’t take the bottle, either. “Been a long time for me,” he said. I took another swig and put the bottle on the spruce between us. On the dash, old man.

  I began to worry these might be the only geese we got today. The sun broke weak through the clouds, and we sat quiet and stared out. I had a good buzz on, me. Rye on an empty stomach. I pulled some smoked trout from my pack, and we ate it slow.

  Old Koosis sniffed the air. “More within an hour or two.” I’d noticed a wind shift, was interested to see if he was right. “You have someone fly you in here?” he asked. “Drop you off?”

  “I’m camped on an interior lake,” I answered, pretending to mishear him. “Good place. Should be a good lake for geese.”

  “Me, I saw polar bear tracks on the shore not far from my camp yesterday.” Koosis looked over to me. “Told my woman to fire her rifle if she needed any help.”

  “Why not have them here with us?”

  “My granddaughters would scare away everything.” He went quiet for a while, and I knew he wanted to say more. “My woman, she’s got the diabetes bad,” he said. “Bad enough the doctors say it will kill her.”

  I nodded.

  “What’s worse,” he continued, “she is becoming a child in her head again. Forgets things all the time, sometimes even where she is or who I am. She talks more than she ever has before, her. Doesn’t know when to stop. Tells me stories about when she was a kid.” He stopped, and I worried he’d start crying. “She’s gotten worse this last year.” He straightened up on the bench. Looked from the ground to the horizon. “But this is good for her, away from Attawapiskat for a while. She’s better in the good air away from people.”This the most he’d said to me at one time. Probably more than he’d said to anyone in years.

  I offered to go back and check on them, but Koosis shook his head. “My woman, she has the moose rifle strapped on her shoulder.” He looked at me. “She can shoot it better than us. We been around polar bears all our lives. She’s killed more breaking into our camp than me.”

  I smiled. “My wife. She used to be a pretty good shot, too. Never killed a polar bear, though.”

  Old Koosis nodded.

  When the geese returned, they returned full on. Both of the first two flocks winged right in to our decoys, and we fired and reloaded fast as we could. I began to head down to retrieve them when I heard the honking of another V coming in. Crazy. We aimed and fired, aimed and fired until our barrels were too hot to touch. There were as many dead geese on the marsh as decoys.

  When finally it was all right to, we made our way out and began collecting them. Most were heavy with summer feeding. Good-looking geese. I tied a thin rope around the neck of each and moved on. When I had a rope of ten, I hauled its weight back to the blind. Much plucking tonight. The old man could carry as many as me on his string. He was old school. Thin and hard, white hair thick as a lynx pelt. Healthy one, him.

  When I headed back to collect more, I came across a goose that was still alive. It flapped its good wing in panic as I approached, its big black head looking at me, white feathers like a smile under its beak. The round black eyeball stared up at me. I didn’t like this part. Never did. But to let something suffer unnecessarily is the worst sin of all. I kneeled on the goose’s chest, whispered “Meegwetch, ntontem,” and squeezed the air from its lungs. The body tightened in convulsions, but the brain, it wasn’t registering pain anymore. I tied it to the others.

  The later afternoon until dusk continued in this way, geese coming in, now to roost, old Koosis and me shooting well until I was concerned with how we’d carry all the geese back before night settled. But the old man was strong, and me, I continued to sip off the bottle. We walked back and forth between the blind and the camp, Kookum and her grandchildren set to the plucking, feathers flying in rips from the still warm animals. They looked up to us, the two girls laughing, down in their black hair, a long flight feather tucked in each of their messy braids. The youngest one reached over and tickled her grandma’s arm with a wing. Kookum shooed her away. She looked up at me. “I will make you a warm pair of winter mitts before we leave.” She’d already forgotten her offer. I smiled and nodded.

  My last trip to the camp from the blind, I weaved and stumbled from the rye, and this made me sad. The best goose hunt I’d ever had, but today I never really got that first hour of elation when the drinking starts. So many times that first hour makes all of the rest of it worthwhile. But today was a steady pull on the bottle, and I jumped the warm brightness straight to heavy clumsiness. Koosis asked me to share dinner, but I was embarrassed to be drunk in front of his family. I told him as much. He nodded. “Come back tomorrow,” he said in Cree. “We will eat till we burst.”

  I thanked him and made my way back into the bush.

  26

  POSTCARDS

  I’ve lied for you to keep you here. Don’t make me look like an idiot. I’m sure you’ve lied before, too, especially when it was a means to a good end. Do you want them to send you down south? You know that’ll be it for you. Yes, I lied. Prove to them that it was for good reason.

  I lied about something else not long ago, but only to make another person feel better. Is that so wrong? You tell me. Wake up and tell me. First, though, let me tell you about this other lie.

  I lean over the railing of the rooftop and imagine floating down, my lavender cocktail dress fluttering around me, the wind picking me up before I gain any speed, my silver pumps aiming down, straight down. I look up and see the p
eople above staring at me and clapping, whistling in excitement. Gordon stands among them in the vintage 1940s tailored suit that’s a little too short for him in the sleeves. His long black hair is pulled back tight, a small silver turtle pendant for his Anishnabek relations tied into the start of his braid.

  The weight of the thick silver choker pulls at my neck, this choker Violet lent to me for the night. I daydream from the railing, and I know Gordon keeps an eye on me in his fine suit. Too many people were staring at the two of us when we came out onto this rooftop, the half hit of E Violet slipped me earlier just kicking in. So I grabbed Gordon’s hand and led him here so I could breathe and gather my nerves.

  I look over to him, so handsome, a silent-movie Indian looking nervous for the dozens of people nearby chattering and drinking. “I’ll get you a beer. Be right back,” I say, heading toward the gauntlet we just walked through. Women stare at me, men, too, and I feel their eyes even when I’m past them. Maybe it’s my getup, the cocktail dress showing so much leg, the silver heels, the silver choker that Violet placed around my neck and screeched about. My black hair is loosely tied and long down my back. I hold my sequined clutch too tight in my hand and weave through the crowd, ignoring them all. A man holding a tray of thin, tall glasses asks me if I’d care for one. “I’d care for two,” I say, and he smiles at me. What is up with this night?

  The music. I can hear Butterfoot behind the beat, cock my head and listen more closely. The wail of an ancestor just below the pound, so subtle that I think only I can hear it. He has come. We will spend some time together later tonight.

  Gordon watches me when I approach. What’s he seeing? He looks like a boy seeing the crush of his first ice breakup. My heartbeat bumps rapid now, my feet not touching the ground, and I hand him his champagne and clink his glass and sip mine and the bubbles make me float more. I look good. I feel so good. I reach out and touch the lapel of his jacket decades older than I am. “It’s perfect on you.” I want to dance with him, but he’d never do it. “Dance with me,” I say anyways.