The Cure for Death by Lightning (25 page)

“What if he’s in there?” I said again.

“Then we’ll knock on the door like friendly neighbors and more likely than not he won’t answer the door. He’ll pretend he’s not there. Or he’ll run off. You ever seen him talk to anyone?”

I wiped the sweat from my face with the loose ends of my brother’s shirt. “I don’t know.”

“Come on!” said Nora. She marched boldly across the meadow, knocking a path through fireweed and milkweed, black-eyed Susan and oxeye daisy, yarrow and thistle. I straggled along behind her, picking a few wildflowers as I went. This far up the mountain, the meadow was as much as two weeks behind the growth in the valley. The air was cooler, and the wind that swept off the top slope still had the bite of snow in it. I reached the little cabin with my heart thudding in my chest and my hands full of quickly wilting wildflowers. Nora was standing in the shade of the porch. The whole structure was even smaller than it had first appeared, like a child’s playhouse with a high ceiling. Everything was swept clean. A little bucket of geraniums grew on a stump by the door. Nora gestured to me and we stooped into the window, cupping our hands over our eyes against the reflection.

“He’s out,” said Nora.

The cabin was just one tiny room with a cot, a small table, and one chair. A kerosene lamp and bowl sat on the table. At the foot of the bed stood a tiny three-shelf bookcase full of books. A pair of woolen pants, a white shirt, and a pair of long johns hung on pegs above the cot. There were no pictures, not even a calendar, on the walls. There was a small stump by the cot on which Coyote Jack had placed a milk jug of wildflowers, like the ones I held in my fist, in front of an old framed photograph of a young white woman.

“Who do you think that is?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Nora.

“Could be his wife.”

“Coyote Jack with a wife?”

“Could be. She could be dead. Or maybe she ran away. Maybe he came up here running from heartbreak.”

“I can’t see Coyote Jack with a woman of any kind,” said Nora.

“Doesn’t seem possible, does it? Maybe it’s his mum, the Swede’s wife. She used to live in our house, you know.”

“I know. But she was a half-breed.”

“Who would it be then?”

“Maybe it’s somebody else’s picture,” said Nora. “Somebody he doesn’t know. He’s so lonely, he stole some strange lady’s photograph so he could make believe someone loves him.”

“I think you should be making up the stories,” I said. “Not your granny.”

There was a crashing in the bush. Nora and I turned and backed up to the little window, breathless and looking all around us. The crashing stopped and went on again, stopped, and a fawn stepped out of the woods. It high-stepped into the field and then called, mewing exactly like a kitten.

We let out our breaths.

“Jesus,” said Nora.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Nora led the way, stepping off the tiny porch already in a full run. The fawn leapt one way and another and then bounced back into the bush. I ran the whole way back down the mountain, clutching the jam jars in my pockets. Before I knew it, we’d crashed through the bush behind the church on the reserve. We didn’t stop running until we reached Bertha’s house.

The pregnant woman and the one with webbed fingers came out of one of the many rooms when they heard Nora and me run into the house. Nora’s mother was sitting with Bertha at the table, sewing.

“Beth, dear!” said Bertha. “You come sit right down!”

I went to pull out the tiny jars of jam from my pocket and realized my lightning arm was still hanging on tight to the wildflowers I’d picked on Coyote Jack’s plateau, so I handed Bertha those as well.

“Well, where did you get these?” said Bertha.

“Up near Coyote Jack’s place,” I said.

Nora’s mother looked up angrily at the two of us. Nora pulled my sleeve to get my attention and shook her head.

“What are you, stupid?” Nora’s mother said to Nora, in her gruff man-voice. “Going up there after all I’ve told you? What are you, dumb? Worthless little half-breed.”

Nora didn’t say anything. She stared out the window over the bed.
Bertha glanced over at Nora’s mother and then went back to her sewing.

“You shouldn’t go up there,” said Bertha, quietly. “That man’s not well.”

“We didn’t do anything,” I said. “I mean, we didn’t go inside his house or anything. We were just out walking.”

“Well, I used to go out walking, too,” said Bertha. “I’d walk and walk and walk, all through the bush and down Blood Road, and all over the plains with the horses. When I was just a young thing, not even sixteen. But that’s what you did, you went out alone in the bush, both girls and boys, for a long time, weeks. That’s where you met your guardian spirit, your power, something like your Christian people’s angels.”

Bertha smiled at Nora’s mother, and the woman glared angrily back. Bertha sighed and went back to sewing. “But then I got old and started believing what I was told about going out,” she said. “Mostly the men, my brothers and uncles. They said I had to be careful. There was always something out there to get me. Sometimes they said a bear. Sometimes my mother said a man, a bad man, would come after me and get me. I got scared. Then I didn’t walk anymore. Now, of course, the young girls don’t get their power from anywhere. They’re afraid to go out searching for it.”

“I’m not scared,” said Nora.

“You should be,” said her mother. I watched her and her odd extra finger for a while as she sewed.

“Look at me!” said Bertha. “I got old and fat and scared.”

“You’re not scared of anybody,” I said. “You yell at my father even.”

Bertha laughed at that. “I’m scared,” she said. “Plenty scared. But that’s no good. You don’t be scared. Be smart. If somebody hurts you, you hurt back until they stop. Go out into the bush until you find your own trail. But my uncles, they were right about some of that. There is always something out there to get you. Know that, but don’t be scared. Go hunt it down, so it don’t get you.”

“That kind of talk will get them killed,” said Nora’s mother.

“Tell Beth the stories about Coyote,” said Nora. “She had one following today.”

“Oh! There are so many!” said Bertha.

“The scary ones,” said Nora. “The ones where he eats his wives.”

Bertha looked over at Nora’s mother. Nora’s mother shook her head once. “Oh, those are just stories,” said Bertha.

“Come on, tell her,” said Nora.

Bertha picked up her sewing again. “Well, in the old times Coyote was a shape-shifter,” she said. “He could be a fox, or mouse or man, or a deer, whatever he wanted to be.”

I looked over at Nora, and she grinned.

“But he was still Coyote,” said Bertha. “Always looking for trouble. He was greedy. Now, Coyote’s son had two wives and Coyote wanted one of them. He did some magic and made a beautiful and strange bird appear at the top of a tree. ‘Son,’ he said. ‘Go climb that tree and bring me that bird. I’m too old to climb.’ Coyote’s son did as he asked, but as the son climbed, Coyote made the tree higher and higher. Soon the son was tired and wanted to come back down, but Coyote called, ‘You’re almost there! Climb a little farther and bring me that bird!’ So the son kept on climbing. Coyote made the tree higher and higher until it reached the sky. Then he pulled all his old wrinkly skin tight and tied it up in a bow behind him and pretended to be his own son. He tried to sleep with his son’s two wives. But one of the wives wasn’t fooled and she ran off. In the meantime, Coyote’s son had reached the sky and found a strange world up there where the dead people lived. He recognized an old man he’d known when the old man was alive and he asked the old man to help him get back to earth. The old man tied a rope to a basket, and Coyote’s son climbed into it and he lowered him back to earth. When Coyote’s son reached the earth, he saw the wife his father had not been able to fool in a big crowd of people traveling to Kamloops. The wife saw him and recognized him and they went off to live together.”

“What happened to the other woman?” I said. “The son’s other wife.”

“I don’t know,” said Bertha. “Coyote probably killed her. He killed all his wives sooner or later.”

“How about Coyote?” I said. “What happened to him?”

“He went on to do other things,” said Bertha.

“So what’s the point?” I said.

“Point?” said Bertha.

“The point of the story,” I said.

“There’s no moral,” said Bertha. “It’s just a story. You take what you want from it. Did you know your ancestors, you white people, came from Coyote? You are his children. That’s why you act like that. Always greedy. Got to have everything for yourselves. Always got your mouths open, yipping and yapping. Always chasing your tail, round and round. Rush, rush. Always telling fibs. Can’t turn your back on Coyote’s children. Well, that’s not you, of course, Beth.”

She grinned at me and I went shy. Nora shrugged and her mother went on shaking her head.

“So did Coyote die?” I said. “Did anybody get even and kill him?”

“Not then,” said Bertha.

“How could he live?”

“He’s Coyote.”

“He’s like a god?”

“Maybe more like a Devil,” said Bertha. “But that’s too simple. He’s not a bad guy exactly. No good guys and bad guys. The world doesn’t work like that.”

The woman with the webbed fingers shook her head at Bertha and crossed her arms. Bertha looked at her as she talked.

“Of course the old men here wouldn’t agree with that,” said Bertha. “To them, Coyote gave us good things, like salmon. But he’s a clown, a scary little clown, like that Hitler, always getting into trouble. Always beating his women. Stealing women. Killing women. But then Coyote also clears away the rules when they get too muddy. He knows what’s at the root of things: a good meal, sleep, water to drink, a lover. Those are the things that matter. He doesn’t know about shame, not until the end. Then he learns to be sorry. It’s good sometimes to turn everything on its head. That’s what Coyote does — makes everything crazy, breaks all the rules, puts on ladies’ clothing and drinks until he sleeps. I won’t have none of that in my house. But sometimes that’s good, like them pills your mum gives you every week, eh? Them laxatives. Doing things different, and having a big laugh, cleans you out. Not good to be all stuffed up, living righteous all the time. That makes you sick too. Like that Mrs. Bell. She’s one sick lady. Give her a laxative, eh?”

Everyone except Nora’s mother laughed at that. She kept her head
down and kept the smile off her face, though you could see it was a struggle.

“Anyhow, Coyote’s not all bad,” said Bertha. “He gave us night and day, the seasons. Just like his children, you white people, he gave us good things and lots that weren’t so good. In the stories, in the end, Coyote learns to feel sorry for what he done. Maybe someday his kids will learn to feel sorry for what they done. Maybe someday they’ll come around.”

I lifted my cup to take a drink and the lightning arm went dead on me. The cup leapt out of my hand like a live thing and tumbled to the floor, spilling lukewarm coffee all over.

“Oh! You all right?” said Bertha.

Nora handed me a dry dishrag to sponge off my lap, and then wiped the floor with a mop. I cleaned myself up as best I could with my left hand. My right arm hung beside me without any life in it. I put the rag on the table and lifted the dead arm onto my lap and cradled it there.

“What you got happening there?” said Bertha.

“Beth was hit by lightning,” said Nora. “Now that arm goes limp on her all the time.”

Bertha came over to me and inspected my arm in the way she looked over a pair of men’s work pants for holes to mend. She shook my arm and it wobbled like a rag doll’s.

“Never seen a thing like that,” she said.

“It comes back. It tingles, then it hurts, then I can use it again. It doesn’t last long. But I never know when it’s going to happen.”

“Lightning, you say?” said Bertha.

She gave me back my dead arm and sat down again.

“Let me tell you about lightning,” she said. “In the before times, Mosquito saw a young girl, no older than you. He said, ‘She’ll make a tender dinner.’ So he went to the girl and sucked blood from her. When he was full, he flew up, way up into the sky, full of the girl’s blood, up to where Lightning lives. Lightning said to Mosquito, ‘Where did you get all that good red blood? I want some!’ But Mosquito knew what would happen if he told Lightning where he’d got his blood. He didn’t want Lightning to kill the young girl because he wanted to go back for more supper. So he said to Lightning, ‘On the very tops of trees are little red buds. That’s where I got my blood! I sucked it from the tops
of the trees.’ Lightning believed Mosquito. That’s why lightning still strikes the tops of trees.”

I giggled and Bertha sat back and went on sewing. Nora poured more coffee.

“You said something last time I was here,” I said to Bertha. “About the children on our place, the homesteader’s children, how they died. You said they died like Sarah Kemp.”

Nora’s mother looked up at Bertha and let her sewing drop in her lap.

“Yes, they died like that,” said Bertha. “They went missing and then they were found all chewed up. Other children too, here, in the village, Indian kids. But those kids were never found. They’re still walking out there, walking and walking.”

“Mother!” said Nora’s mother.

“I know, I know,” said Bertha. “My daughter here thinks I’m full of stories, stories Christ people don’t like. But I remember. The white men that searched said it was some animal gone crazy that got those kids. They shot a bear just like they shot one this spring and said it was that bear that got the kids. But it wasn’t. The thing that got those kids walked these mountains for a long time after that.”

“But they found the homesteader’s children,” I said.

“Yes, those children they found,” said Bertha. “White children. Well, half-white. Killed near their own home. But none of them from the reserve, none of them who were killed in the bush. My father and brothers told me when they were hunting they sometimes came across a little child’s footprints and they’d follow them but wouldn’t find nothing. My brother came home saying he found little footprints just the year before he died. That was a long time after those children went missing.”