Speak to the Earth (8 page)

“Would you come with me, please.”

Walter and Bryan followed her into a small consulting room. She pushed the door shut behind them.

“Is he …?” Bryan asked.

“He’s not in danger.” The doctor reported that she had set Jimmy’s arm, which had been broken badly in two places, upper and lower. His leg was sprained and bruised. She had also treated his abrasions and contusions. “That’s cuts and bruises,” she added. “He’s in recovery and he’s sedated.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, yes. If you want to call a mangled arm and a general mauling ‘it’.”

“He’s okay!” Bryan exclaimed to Walter, who nodded. Then, to the doctor, “Can we see him?”

“Not for a few hours, I’m afraid. By then, visiting hours will be over, so you might as well go home and come back tomorrow.”

Dog gave them a howling welcome, dancing on the end of his leash.

“How about I make us a pot of coffee, Walter, after we get into some dry clothes?” Bryan said as they pulled into the driveway and parked by the trailer.

Walter nodded and entered his trailer.

Bryan’s limbs felt heavy and lazy as he took a hot shower, then dressed in jeans and his warmest shirt to drive away the chill that had settled in his bones.

He went down to the kitchen and called Ellen’s number. When no one answered he looked up the number for the police station. Before the ringing started on the other end, he slammed down the phone. “The hell with her,” he hissed.

Walter pushed open the door, removed his boots and took a chair. Bryan poured the coffee, set out milk and sugar.

Walter took a noisy sip. “Interesting day.”

“That’s for sure. I’m glad Jimmy’s okay.”

“He’s a pretty tough guy, your uncle.”

Bryan realized, as he studied the weathered face across from him, that Walter must have been worried, too. He was fond of Jimmy — of all Bryan’s family, for that matter.

“Your mom’s pretty tough, too,” Walter added.

Yeah, that’s one word to describe her, Bryan thought. Stupid is another. Bryan reminded himself that when you were with Walter you had to listen carefully to his
silences. Was Walter trying to tell him not to worry about his mom? Well, he wasn’t worried about her at all. She’d be okay. It was Bryan who would have to go out tomorrow and wonder if everybody would stare at him or point to him behind his back and gossip. That’s Iris Troupe’s kid. She’s in jail, you know. She got hauled away like a load of wood by the cops. You’d think a woman would have more pride. And that pink track suit. I tell you!

“Some people don’t appreciate what she’s trying to do,” Walter said.

“You think she should have been out there in the rain getting a police record?” Bryan shot back. “Making a fool of herself?”

The kitchen was silent. With a sigh, Walter got up and replenished the two mugs. He sat down again and stirred his coffee slowly.

“Long time ago,” he began in a low, almost expressionless voice, “this whole area used to be my peoples.’ Well, us Nootkas lost the land and we’re all scattered now. Some of us still believe the spirits of our ancestors don’t go away to some kind of afterlife like the Christians talk about. Me, I think the ghosts of the dead stay near the living. My ancestors’ spirits are walking over there on Big Bear and Salmon, Flower Pot Island, Vickers Island. We got different names for those places in our language. The spirits are still walking in the old forests, along the creekbeds and the beaches.”

Walter blew on his coffee and took a drink. Bryan waited.

“Now the tree-cutters are gonna drive them away from their ancient lands for good. I worry sometimes, wondering where they can go.”

Bryan thought for a moment before he said, “Do you think the spirits will leave if only a few trees — you know, the real big ones — are harvested?”

Walter smiled. “Interesting word, that. ‘Harvested.’ Like them guys are ploughing up potatoes, knowing next year they can come back and there’ll be a new crop ready for them to take. An ancient rainforest isn’t a field of wheat. You don’t ‘harvest’ a thousand-year-old tree. If you cut it down, you cancel it for good.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Bryan admitted, wondering once again what there was about the way Walter talked that made things so clear.

“I hope you won’t take no offence, Bryan,” Walter said gently, “but maybe you don’t know what I mean. Some people think they can go into a forest, take the trees they want, leave the slash and bark and the timber that don’t pay lying around, and nothing changes. They think the forest is just like it was before they came. Only a few trees are missing. They don’t know. The whole thing — sea, sky, forest — it’s all connected.”

Walter joined his thumbs and index fingers to form a circle. “They’re all one. Change part of it, it’s all changed. We know that, us first peoples. That’s why, in all our bands, all our nations, the circle is a main symbol.”

Walter held up his mug, took a sip, looked at
Bryan over the rim.

“You remember the time last spring when you fell out of the boat?”

Bryan laughed softly. “I sure do.”

“You heard the whales.” It was not a question.

How did he know? Bryan thought. Ellen was the only person he had told. “Yeah, I heard them.”

“I hope you won’t take offence, my friend. You heard them singing, but you don’t know yet what they were telling you.”

“You … This is weird. You think they were
talking
to me?”

“I think everything in nature — bear, eagle, raven, even trees — they all talk to us. The earth speaks, but nowadays not too many of us listen any more. Far as I can tell, whites have never listened.”

Before Bryan could answer, the phone rang.

“Bryan? Zeke Wilson. I’m calling from the station. Listen, Bryan, I feel really bad about what happened today. With your mom and all. I … I just wanted to call and tell you they’re processing Iris right now, and she’ll be released in about an hour.”

“Okay, Zeke.”

“And, Bryan, I won’t get a chance to talk to her. Will you tell her how sorry I am?”

“Sure, Zeke. I’ll let her know.”

Bryan hung up, then told Walter what Zeke had said.

“He’s okay, Zeke is. For a cop.” Walter stood and drained his cup. “We’ll go pick her up.”

“I’m not going,” Bryan said. “I’ll wait here.”

Bryan felt pinned by Walter’s gaze. “Okay, then.”

“Walter, can I ask you something?”

“Don’t see why not.”

“Well, considering the way you feel — you know, the stuff we were just talking about — how come you’re not in the movement with Mom?”

“Well, between you and me, I guess I had a couple of brushes with the cops a few years ago. I learned to steer clear of cops as much as I can.”

As he went out the door he added, “Maybe you got something there, though.”

I
ris asked about her brother as soon as she entered the house, and Bryan told her what he knew.

“Thank God he’ll be able to use his arm again,” she said, hanging up her poncho and shrugging out of her sweater. “Walter told me Jimmy was all right but — you know Walter — no details. I had nightmares all the way home that Jimmy had lost the arm. I’ve seen that happen in some of those logging accidents.” Bryan’s mother raked her fingers through her damp hair. “Well, I’m going to have a bath and get to bed. I have to be at the supermarket at eight tomorrow.”

“You want some hot tea or something, Mom?”

“No, thanks, dear. Just my nice comfortable bed. It’s been a long day. What were you up to?”

Bryan knew then that Walter hadn’t told his mother that they had been out to the river. She didn’t know Bryan had seen her picked up and thrown into the police van.

“Well,” he began, “as a matter of fact, Mom —” and he quit when he saw the tiredness and stress in her face.
“Umm,” he began again, “I just, you know, got my work done at home and hung around.”

“That’s nice,” she said. And she dragged herself down the hall to her bedroom.

The next morning, Bryan woke early to the smell of toast and the scrape of a kitchen chair — his mother was having breakfast. Sitting up, he stuffed his pillow behind him, and leaned back against the wall and thought about what Walter had said the day before.

Although he respected his neighbour and had a lot of affection for him, Bryan could not buy all that talk about ghosts and spirits. A forest is a forest, he thought, not a spirit-land or a museum. It’s pretty, sure, but a tree is a tree.

When he heard his mother leave, he got up, showered, dressed and began to prepare breakfast for the two guests. Kevin and Otto entered the kitchen all set for another day on the picket line, Bryan observed, dressed like real live outdoorsmen in their designer active wear, carrying backpacks with Greenpeace logos on them.

“So how’s your mother?” Kevin asked, pouring syrup on a stack of pancakes.

Bryan stood with his back to the two men, ladling batter onto the frying pan. “She’s fine, thanks.”

“Glad to hear it. We really admire her commitment, right, Otto?”

“Not too many like her around,” Otto said.

“And we’re glad to be staying with kindred souls, so
to speak,” Kevin continued. “Know what I mean, Tom?”

“Tom?” Bryan flipped the half dozen pancakes and turned to face the men.

Kevin smiled. “Remember the fence?”

Bryan laughed. “Yeah.”

“So how about it? Are me and Otto in among kindred souls, like I said?”

“Well, not completely.” Embarrassed, he turned to the stove again. “My uncle isn’t exactly a tree-hugger.”

“Really. That’s too bad. Has a different view, does he?”

“Sort of.”

“How about you, Tom?”

“I’m what you’d call neutral.”

“Really. Well, I’m disappointed to hear that. Yes, sir. Oh, well.”

“That Indian next door in the trailer,” Otto said. “Is he in the movement?”

“He’s Nootka,” Bryan said. “He doesn’t like to be called Indian.”

“Whatever. Is he in the movement, then?”

Otto’s voice seemed to push too hard for Bryan’s liking. “I don’t know,” he said. “Anybody want more pancakes?”

“Not me,” Kevin answered, gulping down the last of his coffee and pushing back his chair. “I’m done.”

Otto rose, too, and began to pull on his jacket. Both men picked up their gear and went out the door.

That night Ellen came over for dinner, and when his mother got home — later than usual because she had dropped by the hospital to take some magazines and snacks to Jimmy — Bryan and Ellen had everything ready. Bryan used an original recipe of his uncle’s, which involved egg noodles, some hamburger meat fried with onions and garlic, a dollop of tomato paste and grated cheese. Ellen expressed her scepticism all through the preparation but, when the dish came out of the oven, she pronounced it a success.

Iris slumped into her chair, exhausted. “I got no lunch and no breaks today,” she said, “we were so busy. This is delicious. You two should open a restaurant.”

“We’ll call it the Clear-Cut Café,” Bryan said. Ellen gave him a harsh look.

“Very funny, kid. Don’t you start in on me. I’ve had a hard day and your uncle’s already taken a few shots at me. I felt like breaking his other arm.”

“I, for one, would like to hear about what went on yesterday, Mrs Troupe. Grumpy over there, with his mouth full, wouldn’t tell me a thing.” Bryan had asked Ellen not to tell his mother he had seen her arrested.

“Well, I can tell you that getting arrested isn’t nearly as glamorous as it is on TV. When they dumped us — and ‘dumped’ is the right word for it; those cops weren’t gentle — we were taken back to town and herded into a holding cell. About three dozen of us, I guess, including five or six kids and a few seniors. At the time we arrived the cops were still processing the fifty or so who had been
arrested at dawn when they tried to block the trucks from going into the bush.”

“You mean,” Bryan cut in, “that your group was the
second?”

“Yup.”

“It’s disgusting,” said Ellen.

“It sure is,” Bryan chimed in.

“They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” Ellen added. “Treating you people like that. As if you were criminals.”

Bryan almost choked on his last mouthful of Noodles James.

“Go on, Mrs Troupe,” Ellen urged.

“Well, there’s not much more to tell. We were charged with contempt of court and asked to sign what the legal beagles call an undertaking that we would appear for our trials — where the hell are we going to go; almost all of us live around here — and that we would not take part in any more road-blocking. About ten people refused to sign, so they were taken into Nanaimo to the minimum-security prison there.”

“Good,” Bryan hissed. Had Ellen forgotten that her father was a big gun in MFI and that her mother got most of her legal business from the company?

“Contempt of court,” Ellen commented. “Doesn’t sound too serious.”

Iris sighed, putting down her fork and pushing her empty plate aside. “Actually, it is. Judges get very touchy when they feel the court’s authority is flouted.
Sometimes I think a few of those buggers are a bit too vain about their powers. You can get quite a long sentence for contempt.”

Bryan suddenly felt afraid. “Anyway, it’s all over now for you, right, Mom? You signed, right? Or you wouldn’t be here. They wouldn’t have let you go.”

“Yes and no.”

Bryan groaned. Before he could ask what her enigmatic answer had meant, there was a loud knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Ellen said, rising. “I’m closest.”

She pulled open the door, and in stepped two RCMP offcers. Imposing in their blue uniforms, the two men seemed to fill the small kitchen.

“Iris, we need to talk to you,” one said. Bryan recognized him, but didn’t know his name.

Without moving from her chair, Iris said, “Me? What’s it about?”

“There’s been an act of sabotage in the
MFI
equipment yard,” the second cop announced dramatically. “A truck was fire-bombed.”

“ ‘Sabotage’?” Iris smirked. “What is this, a spy movie?”

“What’s this got to do with Mrs Troupe?” Ellen demanded.

The cops ignored her. “This is Norm’s Bed ’n Breakfast, isn’t it?” the first cop said, hitching up his leather belt.