The Night Wanderer (2 page)

“Granny Ruth! I'm sixteen. I've stopped growing. This is as big as my feet are ever gonna get! At least I hope so,” she had added as an afterthought. Tiffany even lifted up her foot and slammed it on the shoe counter to emphasize her point. However, that fact seemed irrelevant to Granny Ruth. “
Caween
”—the single Anishinabe word spoken by the old woman—conveyed a lot more than a simple
no
. It was in the tone of “conversation over.” Tiffany had complained, “You never listen to me!”

“Oh, like you know everything.” That was Granny Ruth—short, sweet, and to the point. No one but the Pope himself could convince her that just maybe, possibly, somebody else might be right. So she bought Tiffany the large, shiny shoes.

From that day forward, Tiffany had sworn never again to shop at Wal-Mart. Truth be told, she did have a deep love for her Granny Ruth and couldn't blame her for being herself. But Wal-Mart had made it possible for Granny Ruth to shop cheaply, and provided the atrocious black shoes that felt like sweaty, unfashionable, glistening boats on her feet. Somebody had to be blamed.

But she kept all of this to herself because at that very moment, sitting beside her, driving his 1994 Dodge Sunrise, was Tony Banks. And Tiffany wanted to make damned sure Tony Banks would never know anything even slightly negative about her. Tony was Tiffany's boyfriend . . . that had such a nice ring to it. Or, better yet, she was Tony's girlfriend. Either way she was happy.

“You look like you need help,” were the first words he had said to her about a month ago. Oh, she'd seen him around school a lot, he was hard to miss: tall but not too tall, nicely built but not too nicely built, and hair that had a kind of shaggy look but not too shaggy. But this was the first time he had ever spoken to her. And it was in the library, of all places. A place where geeks went to practice geekiness. Normally Tiffany wouldn't be in the library, but she was researching a class project. There she was, going through a bunch of car books—specifically stuff for carburetor settings—or at least that was what she thought she was researching. Like a lot of her subjects in school, she had trouble understanding the relevance of the material. Her frustration must have been pretty evident because that was exactly what brought the luscious Tony Banks over to her study stall.

“Yeah, um, I'm trying to figure out how you set up a carburetor, you know, for a car.”

“That's where you usually find them.” Tony cleared his throat. “Why are you looking up carburetor settings?” He sat down beside her. Tiffany could feel his leg against hers. “Most girls aren't usually into that.” He looked genuinely interested.

“Automotive care. It was either that or shop, and I'm not really interested in learning how to operate a circulating saw. At least learning about a car might come in handy someday, I suppose.” He smelled so clean. Nice shirt too, with a line pattern that showed off his chest. “But this carburetor thing is really pissing me off. I don't think I'll ever need to set a carburetor. That's what mechanics do. Not girls.” She realized she was giving a speech and shut up immediately. She was rewarded with an amused smile.

“Not a very politically correct thing to say.” He cleared his throat again. “Anyway, my father's a mechanic. What kind of car are you looking for?”

“Dodge Caravan.”

Tony snorted derisively. “A minivan. I hate minivans. Don't you?”

Immediately she nodded. So far in her sixteen years she had yet to develop a firm opinion on the status of Dodge Caravans, but if Tony Banks didn't like them, that was good enough for her. He leaned over, took the book from her, and started to rummage through the pages. “These books are impossible to read, but working in my father's garage has taught me a few things.” Then suddenly, there, in front of Tiffany, lay all the vital statistics of the Dodge Caravan. Everything she needed to know—more than she would ever need to know—found for her by Tony Banks.

“Glad to help.” He put the book down, smiled and turned away. Then he started coughing and clearing his throat. Unwilling to let him just leave like that, Tiffany heard herself ask, “Something wrong with your throat?”

“Yeah, gets like this in the fall. Allergies and dampness, I think. Let me know if you need any more help.” Across the library, Tony's friend George waved to him and Tony waved back. Then he was gone, disappearing into the shelves of books. She stared at the Dodge statistics for a moment, not really seeing them, but hearing Tony's cough across the silent library. Maybe there was something she could do for him.

So now they sat, hand in hand, as he drove her home. What had begun in the high-school library was continuing on a lonely Ontario highway, and Tiffany was pleased. The guy beside her was tall, good-looking, and had his own car. For Tiffany, it was definitely a hat trick. They had been dating for almost a month and were still feeling each other out. This was Tiffany's first real relationship and she was nervous, though again she would never let Tony know. Cool and laid-back. That was the image Tiffany wanted to project. Whining about sore feet simply did not fit into it.

“What are you thinking?” Tony suddenly asked.

Oh no, he had caught her staring at him, like some love-starved fourteen-year-old. Tiffany opened her mouth to respond but decided to use the international, all-purpose teenage response. She shrugged. And it was a good shrug, because Tony nodded knowingly and went back to negotiating the long road to Tiffany's house.

Under the collar of his shirt she could see the
weekah
root lying against his chest, still wrapped in the thin buckskin pouch she had given him. He no longer coughed or cleared his throat, and Tiffany took full credit for that. It was Granny Ruth that gave her the remedy, but it was Tiffany's idea, and that's what counted.

That night, after the chance encounter in the library, Tiffany had asked her grandmother what to do about a pesky frog in the throat. “Chop the legs off and fry 'em up!” she answered with a cackle. That had been Granny Ruth's favorite food as a child, but she hadn't had any frog's legs for many years now. Nobody seemed to remember how to cook them or why they would eat them. For the old woman, it was just one more thing that had disappeared since her childhood.

But a quick roll of Tiffany's eyes let her know her humor was not appreciated. “What's his name?” asked Granny Ruth.

“Whose name?”

“Whoever has this frog-in-the-throat problem. I know it ain't you. Your father's fine. So it has to be somebody else, and probably not from the village. Maybe somebody you got your eye on? You're about that age. Is it or ain't it?” Granny Ruth sat back, waiting for a response. And Tiffany found herself blushing, which isn't easy when you've got a dusky copper complexion.

Granny Ruth smiled at her granddaughter's discomfort for a moment and then left the room. Now Tiffany was sorry she'd asked. One thing Granny Ruth was known for, other than notoriously bad taste in shoes, was knowing interesting Native facts like traditional remedies. Maybe she knew something that Tiffany could give to Tony. And she could say it was secret, ancient Native stuff. That always sounded cool.

Granny Ruth re-entered the kitchen, this time with something in her hand. She held it out for Tiffany to see. She vaguely recognized it. “
Weekah
root?”

“Have him, or whoever, wear this around his neck. Get him to chew a bit of it occasionally. Should clear up whatever's bothering him. If what he's got ain't too bad and he don't die.” She laughed again until she noticed Tiffany wasn't laughing. “In my day, people would have thought that was funny.” For Granny Ruth and many of her generation,
weekah
root, which grew deep in the swamps, was a cure-all for many ills. It was even supposed to keep angry dogs away if you carried it in your pockets.

Two days after their encounter in the library, Tiffany found Tony at his locker. She held out the root for him, neatly wrapped in a buckskin thong, except for one exposed end. “What's this?” was his predictable question.

“
Weekah
root. It's supposed to . . . it will help you with your throat. Ancient Indian magic stuff.”

Tony took the small, brown root and rolled it around in his hand. He even smelled it, puzzled but intrigued. “What do I do with it?”

“Wear it around your neck and every once in a while chew on a bit of it.”

Tony's eyes widened. “Chew on it? How much?”

“Just a little. My grandmother said it's good for what ails you.” Tiffany stood there, pleased. Normally her belief in ancient Aboriginal wisdom seldom went beyond the ghost stories told to her by her uncles around the campfire, but who knows, maybe some of this stuff might be true. And she could tell by the look in Tony's eyes that there was a definite curiosity. He would remember this gift, and more importantly, he would remember her.

The Welcome to the Otter Lake First Nations sign whizzed past them. Another fifteen minutes and she'd be home, nestled in her lower middle-class Aboriginal existence. Tiffany Hunter was band member 913, out of an estimated 1,100 or so. Located in the central lake region of Ontario, it wasn't the biggest Native community in the country, but it wasn't the smallest either. Tiffany had lived there all her life. Other than isolated school trips to Toronto and Ottawa, and to cheer the local team at a hockey tournament in Sudbury, her sixteen years of existence had occurred within forty-five minutes of her house. She longed to see the world, but until she was old enough to do something about it, she had to be content with seeing what little the world would send her. And not a lot of the world crossed over into the Otter Lake First Nations.

Her cousin and best friend Darla always joked that if God ever decided to give the world an enema, he would stick the hose here in Otter Lake. Tiffany had laughed at the joke but was too embarrassed to admit she didn't know what it meant. Later when she asked her father, she was totally grossed out. Tiffany had always wanted to appear more worldly than she really was, but there were some things that were just
too
worldly.

As the trees got thicker, Tiffany checked her watch and was pleasantly surprised at how early it was in the afternoon. One of the advantages of having a boyfriend with a car was that Tiffany didn't always have to take the bus home from school with all the younger grades. Really, she should have got a boyfriend years ago. But with her father coming from a family of nine, and her mother from a brood of eleven, that meant a first-cousin head count of well over sixty. Of course that did not include any second cousins, or first cousins once removed. Once those were taken into consideration, Tiffany was related to more people than worked in a Toronto office tower. That made dating a little difficult on a small reserve.

“You're kinda quiet,” said Tony.

“Just thinking.” Good, always make them think you're mysterious. And deep. Thinking is deep. Deep can be good. Unless of course it is too deep. Nobody likes anybody who is too deep. She would have to work this out later. Tiffany was new to dating and had not yet figured out all its existential aspects.

In reality, it was the geography test she had taken earlier that day that was keeping her quiet. The topic had been how the map of Europe had changed from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War. Important information that was, no doubt, essential to everyday life on the Otter Lake Reserve. Nazis, Bolsheviks, League of Nations, and all that stuff was in her opinion a waste of time. If the need to know these things ever arose, she had the Internet and some books and she was sure they would be handy the next time any Nazis or Bolsheviks came trudging through. However, just to avoid trouble, she did hope and pray she got at least fifty percent.

Tony had quizzed her to prep for the test during one of their car rides. That almost made it fun. Tony loved geography. Much like his work in his father's garage, Tony liked fixed things. Solid dates, places, names, that sort of stuff. Details that didn't change. Yet he still needed Tiffany's help in navigating the roads of Otter Lake. Long, winding stretches of pavement that led in and out of the woods that would test the abilities of any professional geographer.