“You’d hate it down there,” I tell him. “All the cars and people always rushing around.”
“I don’t want to live there, Xavier. I just want to see it for once.”
A week after the bingo, Dink’s back from the bush, tearing around in his Pinto, spending money like crazy. His hair’s grown even higher on his head. Elijah, who’s knowledgeable of such things, says the hairdo’s called a pompadour, and the rumour around town is that Dink keeps it up like that with spit and hairspray. A man using hairspray! Who’s ever heard of such a thing!
Something’s happened to him while out in the bush. It’s like he’s grown bigger. Not physically, necessarily, although he does look stronger. It’s like he’s grown in self-esteem. You can see it in his walk. It used to be he’d slink around like a beat dog, but now he walks with his head high, talking to anyone who’ll listen. And what he says! I’ve heard from a few people that he’s laughing at what my brothers and I did to him, saying that the beating only served to release more power in him. He’s bragging to people that he managed to shape-shift into a bull moose while out in the bush, that he crashed through the trees all night and rutted with a cow moose at dawn by a patch of muskeg. He’s told others that he turned into a crow and flew over the reserve a few days ago. He told Zachary Goodwin about the sturgeon he was pulling out of the river at the time, and told Old Lady Koostachin next door that the hole in her roof’s peak is getting bad. All she did was bless herself and walk away. Dink has her spooked now.
People have started talking again. They always do. The old ones in the community, led by Old Lady Koostachin, began claiming they could see the black wings of death silently flapping about Dink’s head. Other elders claimed it was Weesageechak, the trickster himself, who’d taken his body over. How else to explain the talk, the hair, this new, proud Dink?
I began keeping an eye on him. Not spying, exactly, but keeping track of what he was up to. Part of Dink’s talk was about getting Gloria back. She was his first love, he was telling people, and she’d be his last. Gloria was his soulmate, so he claimed. I wasn’t going to let him get his hands on her again.
Dink followed a certain circular route every day, I soon found out. You could find him in the mornings at the trading post, talking. But people are avoiding him more and more. If no one was around, he’d wander through the magazine section, buying whatever caught his eye — hot rod magazines, ones on fishing, women’s beauty magazines, crossword puzzle books. Whenever something new came in, he’d buy it. In the afternoon he was at the Northern Store, wandering the women’s underwear section, touching the silky things and smiling to himself or juggling cans of Klik in the food aisle for the little kids. He bought many things here, too. Canned goods, camping equipment, an expensive fishing rod and tackle, a big shiny Buck knife. Late in the afternoon he’d follow the railway tracks away from Antoine’s and disappear into the bush. I could never find where he was camping out. All the time I was following him, I knew he knew I was doing it. Trying to hide from him would have been pointless. He’s too good a hunter.
I was following the tracks to Antoine’s a little while later. The sun was starting to lose its heat and the shadows were getting longer. To the left and behind me I could hear something walking lightly, maybe a dog or fox, from what I could figure. It followed for just a while, then I heard it move quicker till it was ahead, then gone. Not a minute later, Dink stepped out from the bush. He walked to the tracks and turned to face me. We both stopped and looked at one another.
“Why you following me, Xavier?” he called out.
“I’m thinking of making a documentary on shape-shifters,” I answered. “Their territory, their habits.” I could see Dink tense up at the mention. It really gets under his skin when we tease him. He’s always been sensitive that way.
“Don’t follow me anymore, Xavier,” he shouts to me when he gains his calm.
“Not till you stop mentioning my sister’s name and forget about her,” I answer.
“I love her and she loves me,” he shouts.
“She doesn’t love you, Dink. In fact she hates what you’ve become, all your bullshit. You beat her up, you asshole.” I’m beginning to get angry.
“I didn’t want to hit her. I blacked out when I did it.”
“You’re using drinking for an excuse?”
“I wasn’t drinking. I just black out sometimes and don’t remember nothing when I wake up. It’s part of what I’m becoming.”
“Don’t use your excuses with me, Francis,” I say calmly. “Gloria’s already made it clear that you’re not part of her life. You don’t exist anymore where she’s concerned.”
Dink clenches his fists and begins shaking. I’m a bit shocked by this sudden reaction, like a little earthquake is in his body, but I try not to let on.
“Nobody can tell me anymore what to do,” he says with a shaking voice. “Nobody will tell me ever again what to do or how to act. If I want something, I will take it.”
I begin walking towards him, shouting, “You will not have my sister!” over and over. Something, some anger has consumed me, set off by Dink’s tone, by the depth of his hatred for me right now. He turns and walks quickly back into the bush, is sucked up into it, it seems. I try to follow him, but he’s gone.
I turn back home. Dink’s intensity has jolted me into realizing that Gloria’s not safe. When I get home, I find her in the kitchen, reading a book.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she answers, looking up from her book and watching me sit down.
“I saw Dink just a while ago, and something’s up with him. You need to let me know what’s going on.” She makes a move to get up, but I stop her with my voice. “I’m worried, Gloria. Dink’s acting dangerous.”
“What can I tell you, Xavier?” she says. “What can I tell you that everyone else on the reserve isn’t already talking about?”
“Tell me what happened after you left Toronto.” There’s silence for a while, but Gloria finally speaks.
“We decided to stop on Manitoulin Island to visit some friends after we left Toronto. Dink hooks up with this Oliver Sandy guy who lives out in the bush and who everyone on the reserve is scared shitless of.” Gloria stops talking and looks out the window into the yard. “It’s not like I was invited out with them to do whatever they were doing. The first time I met Oliver Sandy, I was on my period and he knew it. He told me I was. Like I didn’t know it already. He acts all weird and scared of me, keeps saying I’m too powerful for him in that state, that I’m messing with his equilibrium.”
“Do you believe in that stuff?” I ask.
“All I know is that I saw some weird shit in the two months we were there. I saw less and less of Dink.”
“Did he hit you other than the time I know about?” I ask. Gloria pauses for a minute before answering.
“Yeah,” she finally says. “It started one night a few weeks into our stay. Dink came home real late and woke me up. He was all excited like a little kid. ‘Gloria!’ he says. ‘Gloria! I done it! I begun changing into a bird tonight!’ I just looked at him. ‘I begun changing into a bird! I stared down at my hand and it turned scaly, then it grew claws and then my hand was gone and in its place was a bird’s hand!’ I just started laughing. I mean, what else are you gonna do? He’s hanging out with this freak who lives in the bush and they disappear together for days at a time, then Dink comes home telling me he’s changing into a goddamn bird. I laughed and asked him what kind of drugs he was doing, and that’s when he hit me the first time. His eyes went real dark and he slapped me hard.”
I look at Gloria as she stares out the kitchen window. I let her talk more without interrupting. She needs to let some of it out.
“It was the usual story after that. He tells me he’s sorry and will never do it again, but the longer he hangs out with Sandy, the worse it gets.” She pauses again. “It sounds weird and nobody will believe me and maybe it’s only my imagination because I’m scared, but h
e started smelling ... off. At first I thought it was because he was hanging out in the woods running around like a heathen, but even after I told him no more coming in the bed till you bathe, he still smelled. It was skunky, kind of, but real faint. You can smell it on him easier when he’s sweaty. What else can I tell you? He didn’t hit me often, only when I made fun of his new bullshit. But he changed, Xavier. Something that was nice in him before grew gloomy. Bad, I guess.”
The sun’s set and Gloria looks tired. “I’m going to bed,” she says.
I sit at the table for a long time, thinking about all of it. I want to go talk with Antoine, but the truth is, I’m a little nervous to go outside in the dark right now and run into Dink. I never thought I’d feel that. In the living room I watch TV for a while, and by the time the news is on, I’m half asleep.
There’s a scream followed by something breaking. I snap awake and sit up in the chair. There’s some kind of late-night movie on and a woman in it screams as a man chases her through a house. I settle back into my chair and then Gloria screams and I jump to my feet.
I run to her room and burst through the door. In the dark I make out two figures struggling on her bed. The window’s wide open.
“Hey!” I shout and begin towards the bed. The figure jumps up in the dark and, before I can do or see much of anything, dives through the window. It all happens in a few seconds. I turn on Gloria’s bedside lamp, and she’s on her back in the bed, looking frightened.
“It’s all right. He’s gone,” I tell her. “Was that Dink?”
She begins crying as I go to the window. “It was Dink,” she says. “But he was covered in hair.” I’m looking out the window for movement. “He was trying to pick me up and drag me through the window.” A nasty-looking little mutt sits on the road, growling at me.
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Gloria and run outside. The mutt is still there, growling at me. I walk to the road to look for Dink. The little dog charges at me, howling. I pick up a stone and throw it hard, hitting the mutt in the ass. It yips and limps away quickly, crying. There’s no sign of Dink, so I head back inside. “He’s gone,” I tell Gloria. I lie beside her on the bed. “Maybe he was wearing a pelt or something,” I say to her. “Don’t worry. I’ll sleep in here tonight. He won’t come back.”
Gloria has quieted. “That fucking Francis,” she mumbles. I pick up a clump of black hair from beside her and throw it on the floor. We both eventually fall into a light sleep.
I’m out looking for Dink early the next morning. It all has to stop. Things are getting out of control. He’s not at the trading post or the Northern Store. Nobody’s seen him. I head into the bush, looking for his camp. All I find are signs that he’s been around. An old fire circle, flattened moss. He’s obviously not staying in one place for long. I don’t know if it’s my nerves, but I feel like I’m being watched. Heading back to town, I keep my eyes on the trail behind me as much as I keep them ahead. On the road into town, Dink passes by slowly in his car. The smirk on his face enrages me. I run after him.
I find his car parked by the arena. A bunch of kids are playing baseball on the diamond there, and Dink crouches by a fence, watching them. I grab a baseball bat from one of the kids and march to Dink’s car. “Don’t,” I shout, swinging the bat and smashing the driver’s side window of his car, “mess,” I shout, smashing half his front windshield, “with,” and the other half is smashed in, “my,” and the passenger window crumples. “Sister,” and with a mighty swing I bust out his big curved back window.
Dink is up and walking towards me with a heavy limp, but slows when I grasp the bat with both hands and stand facing him like a batter waiting for a sure fastball.
“Why are you limping, Dink?” I ask. “Anything to do with jumping out my window last night?”
“Actually, it was the rock you threw at me,” he says. I don’t let him see the little shock I feel inside.
“Your car will be you,” I say to him, “next time you step near my house.” I see that he isn’t going to make a go at me, so I drop the bat and walk away.
I’m halfway across the outfield when Dink begins shouting, “You can’t do that to me, Xavier. You’ve gone too far. There are things you love too that I can destroy!” I keep walking and ignore him, knowing how Dink hates to be ignored.
I stay up for most of that night, listening for signs of Dink. It’s as quiet as it always is. I fall asleep just before dawn.
Not far into the morning, the phone wakes me up. It’s Jeremy. As usual he’s with Elijah at Christine’s house. “Get to the hospital quick,” he says. My first thought is that Gloria’s there, but I can hear her in the kitchen. “It’s Antoine. He’s been stabbed.” I rush to the hospital, which isn’t much more than a nursing station. Inside, the staff won’t let me see Antoine. “He’s in emergency surgery,” the nurse says. “We flew a surgeon in from Cochrane.” I wait for hours, pacing back and forth, cursing Dink.
When the doctor finally emerges, he looks tired and glum. “Only time will tell,” he says. “Antoine’s strong for his age, but he’s very old. He’s got a punctured lung and a lacerated liver.”
The Nishnabe-Aski police interview me and I tell them about Dink’s behaviour, his threatening words, his breaking into my house, my smashing his car windows. He becomes their main suspect and the search is on. It doesn’t surprise me that he is nowhere to be found. I sit in the hospital waiting room all night. The nurses have promised to let me see Antoine if his condition stabilizes by morning.
In the middle of the night, I sneak into his room. Antoine looks tiny in the big bed. He’s got tubes sticking out of him and his breathing is shallow. His long white hair is smoothed back off his head and frames his face. I hold his hand for a while and whisper stories to him about going fishing and to the goose blinds. At one point, his hand squeezes mine. I’m not sure if it’s him or just a muscle quiver.
There are two news trucks parked outside the hospital in the morning. One is from Timmins, but the other has driven all the way up from Toronto. I’m told by Christine that Old Lady Koostachin got on the phone after the stabbing and spoke of shape-shifters and murder. The news has spread like bushfire all the way to the big city way down south. “It’s a human-interest slash crime story with some mystical Indian stuff thrown in,” I hear a cameraman say in the hospital cafeteria.
By noon, four or five more camera crews have arrived. All the big networks are represented, CBC National, CITY, CFTO. Reporters and TV crews swarm around the reserve, eating up the tidbits about bad magic, interviewing anyone they can.
One of the first is Old Lady Koostachin. She wears her best kerchief over her grey hair and stands proudly but nervously beside the reporter. Her English isn’t that good so her granddaughter stands beside her and translates. The reporter’s a pretty, serious blonde woman who comes off as talking down to Mrs. Koostachin.
“So the belief,” the reporter says, “among your people, among your tribe, is that Francis Killomonsett is a bearwalker, somebody who can physically transform himself into an animal of his choosing?”
Old Lady Koostachin’s granddaughter tries to translate as best she can, but it’s obvious she’s having trouble. Her grandmother speaks quickly, waving her hands. She goes on for a while and the interviewer begins looking nervous, but finally she stops her monologue. The interviewer moves her microphone to the granddaughter.
“Grandma says that Francis has been spying on her, that he turned into a crow and has been looking at her through a hole in her roof. Grandma says that this is the way the government forces elders to live — in conditions so bad that men disguised as crows can peek at defenceless old ladies whenever they want.” The interviewer doesn’t know what to make of that. She nods understandingly and moves on to others in the crowd.
By that afternoon, every Indian on the reserve is an expert on shape-shifting and all other things native. Paul Martin brushes his hair back with his hand and talks about how Dink comes from a long l
ine of evil medicine men. When asked if he believes Dink is responsible for stabbing Antoine, Paul looks squarely at the camera and says, “Oh sure, eh. Everybody’s known for a long time that Dink was heading for trouble.”
Jeremy and Christine and Elijah get into things too. I’m talking with them in front of the hospital when a camera crew pulls up to us and asks for an interview. I walk into the shade of the hospital. Last thing I want right now is to be on TV in some big city. But the others are more than happy to accept. A reporter from Huntsville with hair not too different from Dink’s new look interviews them with the hospital sign behind.
“This is Bill Blair reporting live from Annunciation House Reserve on the James Bay frontier. A story of legendary proportions seems to be unfolding here on this semi-isolated reservation two hundred kilometres of mostly dirt road north of the Trans-Canada Highway and Constance Lake. An elder here, reportedly a medicine man, was brutally stabbed early yesterday morning. The prime suspect is one Francis Killomonsett, a young drifter from this same reserve. And get this, folks; talk here is that he is a bearwalker. For those of you not schooled in Native lore, a bearwalker is what the indigenous inhabitants around here refer to as a shape-shifter, a man capable of physically transforming into an animal. I have with me here three acquaintances of Mr. Killomonsett: Jeremy Blueboy, Christine Okimah and Elijah Whiskeyjack. The first question I have to ask all of you is, how much of this shape-shifter talk is folklore, and how much is reality?” The interviewer puts the mike in front of the three of them. They look at one another, no one wanting to speak first. Finally, Christine leans forward to say something.
“Shit yeah, it’s true.” The interviewer looks at her, horrified. “Excuse my French. Yeah, Dink can turn into an animal if he wants. Just the other night he turned into a sasquatch and tried to kidnap our friend Xavier’s sister, Gloria, from her bedroom.”