I went back to living as I had as a young woman, alone and quiet. Another winter came and went, and I survived to see summer again. I prayed for you boys every day, sent up offerings with sweetgrass that you be protected. I heard little bits of news from Cree who tended to their traplines. None of it was good. Thousands were dying, and a war that was supposed to have ended in a short time suddenly had no end in sight. I hungered for more news.
When an old one named Hookimaw visited one day, bringing with him a fat goose for me to roast, I was troubled by what he told
me. The
wemistikoshiw
had gone mad with war and had invented tools to kill one another that were beyond belief. I plucked the goose and prepared it for the fire while Hookimaw talked, claiming that the enemy had created an invisible weapon. When you breathed the air that it rode on, you choked to death. Was this true? Another invention was a great metal machine that rolled on tracks and fired exploding bullets.
“The
wemistikoshiw
at the trading post follow the war carefully,” Hookimaw said as we ate. “They sit and talk of it all day long.” As if knowing what I was thinking, he added, “They might even have news of your nephew.”
Before the week was over I’d packed what I needed into my canoe and paddled to within a short distance of the town. I made a summer camp and then, when I was able to summon the nerve, paddled in.
For the first time since I was a young woman, I walked openly on the streets of that place. Just as years before, the people stared at me. Cree and
wemistikoshiw
alike talked about me as soon as my back was to them. I became self-conscious, as I never had to be when alone in the bush. I was an old woman now, my hair long, black still but streaked with grey. I was thin and wiry, the veins in my arms protruding like a man’s. My clothes were in the style that had not been worn for years, my cotton shirt so threadbare it could almost be seen through. I ignored them best I could and walked toward the Company store, all the time worried that their police would arrive to lock me up.
Without warning, a great noisy rumble approached me from behind. I spun toward it, ready to protect myself, and watched as a black metal wagon bumped along the flat road, moving of its own accord. The one they called Old Man Ferguson sat in it, wearing goggles and steering it with a wheel. I stood dumbfounded as he passed, the dust from the wagon drifting up, then settling down on everything around me. The smell of it was horrible, a burning smell
that was sweet and sickening at the same time, the smell of this new era that I’d managed to live into. He halted it by the Company store and the noise rattled and choked to a stop. The air was suddenly quiet again and the birds continued chirping. They’d grown accustomed to this strange thing. I was amazed.
The store was cool and dark inside. Just as old Hookimaw had said, men sat around a table with papers opened before them. They stopped talking when I came in. I sat in a corner and waited for whatever was to happen. They began to talk about me, pointing at me with their thumbs. After a while, Old Man Ferguson came up to me and began speaking in his tongue. I did not understand it. He looked angry. He made the movement to grab me, but I was up and out of his reach before he could react. He looked startled, then began to roar.
An older Indian that I recognized stood up from where he was sitting in a dark corner and began to speak in English to Ferguson. Ferguson spoke back quickly to him. The Indian looked at me.
“They think you are a witch and a heathen and say you must leave here now or you will meet a violent end.”
“Tell them that I simply come to find out about my nephew who fights with the Canadians in their war.”
The Indian turned to Ferguson and spoke. Ferguson shook his head and replied angrily.
The Indian turned to me. “He says that you are a dirty bush Indian and a sorceress to boot and he will not have you in his store even if you have a hundred relatives in their army.”
I smiled. “Tell him that I may be a bush Indian and a sorceress, but I also know where to find the thickest, shiniest furs that any of these fat bastards have ever seen. If he allows me to find out about my nephew, I will consider repaying him the favour.”
The Indian looked nervous to say this, but did so haltingly. Ferguson bellowed, made a move toward me again, but was grabbed by one of the men at the table. They exchanged words.
“Did your nephew go to war with the one called Elijah Whiskeyjack?” the Indian finally asked me.
I nodded.
He told the men at the table this and they talked excitedly. “And you will begin trading furs with the Hudson’s Bay Company only and not have any dealings with the Revillon Brothers?” the Indian continued.
I nodded again, smiling.
The Indian spoke with them in their tongue once more. They spoke back. He turned to me. “You can find out what you may, but they do not want you here permanently.”
He looked sorry that he had to be the one to report this. I liked the laugh lines by his eyes.
“You must sit away from them and you must not touch anything in the store. They say you must leave by week’s end and return at winter’s end with as many furs as you can.”
Again I nodded.
The men sat back down uncomfortably at their table and opened the papers before them. Gradually they began to talk again, but self-consciously. After a while, they forgot about me and began talking more openly. I couldn’t hear them, so I moved closer. They stopped talking and looked at me. Two of them blessed themselves. I was close enough to them that I could smell the stink of their sweat.
I did not move, but sat, my hands folded in my lap. After a time, they began to talk again. They chattered like old women. But I could not understand, and asked the Indian, who I recognized from my childhood, to translate. I remembered his name. Joseph Netmaker. He was about the same age as me.
“Old Joseph,” I said. “Tell me what they say.”
At first the others at the table seemed irritated by his talking to me after anything was said, but after a while they seemed to forget about us. They talked of many things that I could not fully understand,
talked of many place names—Festubert, Saint-Eloi, Mount Sorrel, the Somme—all these places the sites of great battles. The battles were no longer fought in the traditional way of the
wemistikoshiw
where men rode horses and walked on foot headlong into one another. They dug themselves into the ground and lived like night animals, all while the sky was raining down iron that exploded and killed many men. I learned much on that first day, Nephew, sat there with them until it began to grow dark and they stood to leave.
I came back the next day, and the next, and always Joseph Netmaker was there to translate, but I learned little about you, Nephew, where you were, if you still lived. The feeling inside me told me that you did, and so I kept going back to that Company store. It seemed impossible to me to track you and Elijah. So many men were over there. How would I ever begin to figure out how to find you?
As I listened I began to learn things about their army. Joseph, who had spent childhood summers near our family by the Great Salt Bay, explained that men who joined the army from the same place were often kept together. This meant that you and Elijah at least had each other for protection. I asked if the men from our North Country would be sent to a particular place over there. An idea was coming to me.
Joseph spoke my question to one of the old men who constantly read and reread the papers that trickled into the Company store. The man talked for a long time, and Joseph’s face turned worried. I waited impatiently for him to translate to me.
“It is not as simple as I thought, Niska,” Joseph said when they were done talking. “So many men are killed and wounded that their groups are absorbed by bigger groups and these bigger groups constantly move to different places. The
wemistikoshiw
did tell me that the Company store would receive word of soldiers from our country who are killed or wounded. They’ve received nothing regarding your nephew.” He paused, and then said, “That is a good thing, is it not?”
I nodded.
I blended into the store well enough that they forgot about me, and so I stayed longer than I was supposed to, listening to what Joseph told me of the war. The summer was growing late, though, and I was ill prepared for a winter out in the bush. The time had come to head back out and do what I needed to do. One day I told Joseph this, and he looked like a hurt little boy.
“Why stay far away in the bush, Niska?” he said. “You can stay with me for the winter and find out more about your nephew. I have a comfortable cabin that I made myself, and it is far enough out of town that you will hardly know you are near it.”
I laughed. “You are very kind, Old Netmaker. But I have always only known living by myself. I would drive you mad with my habits and my stubbornness.”
I turned then and left, did not plan to come back to that town until the snow lay deep and I could walk in by snowshoe.
Being back by myself again was at first a difficult thing to adjust to, but after the passing of two full moons, I wondered how I’d ever been able to stay in that town for so long. I did miss Joseph’s easy company, though. I missed his round face, and once in a while he made the trip out to see me, bringing any news that might be of importance.
He appeared one bright winter morning by snowshoe, and I knew by his expression that he had something urgent to tell me. I invited him into my
askihkan
and brewed tamarack tea.
“Old Man Ferguson claims that word continues to come of your nephew’s friend, Elijah.”
I braced myself for Joseph to tell me that he had been killed.
“Ferguson says that reports come back of his bravery and his exploits in the military papers.”
I breathed out with relief. “This must also mean that they have some idea where Nephew and Elijah are,” I said.
“Yes, if they are indeed still together,” Joseph said.
“Well, I shall go back to that town and find out from Ferguson where they might be.”
Joseph smiled. “I’ve already found out this information. I thought ahead and asked Ferguson to write all of it down for me.” He pulled out a piece of paper and on it were written English words that I could not read.
We sat in silence for a time, and I stared at the fire, wondering who I might trust enough to do what I needed to do. Joseph looked away, then his eyes came back to me again.
“Obviously you want to say something,” I said. “So speak.”
“I do not understand why it is you need to know where they might be, Niska,” he said.
He chose his words carefully, spoke, I knew, so as not to offend.
“Will knowing where they are somehow ease your mind?”
“I wish to do what the
wemistikoshiw
do. I wish to write him a letter. I need to tell him that he will return home safely.” I shook my head. “But there is no
wemistikoshiw
I can trust enough to do this.”
Joseph smiled again, this time broader. “I can write it for you!” he said happily.
“You can write in their language?” I asked, unbelieving.
“Of course. I was forced, just like all the others, to go to their school. You are one of the few who did not, you know.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“I will prove it.” Joseph picked up the piece of paper and ran his finger along it, his lips moving silently. He looked up to me. “Ferguson has written that they are in the Second Division of the Canadian army. They have wintered in a place called France. Ferguson says that the army won’t say more about where, for they worry about spies. But he did say that Elijah, and your nephew, I suppose, are in something called a battalion, and its name is the Southern Ontario Rifles.”
Not much of this made sense to me, but at least it seemed that now I could send a letter which might very well get to you, Nephew.
“If we are to write a letter, what then?”
“If we are to write a letter, what then?”
“It is very simple. I take it to Ferguson, and he sends it with the other mail. It will take some time, but the letter will travel out by canoe, and then by train, and then by ship, and then by train again to your nephew.”
I travelled this route in my mind, saw you at the end of it being handed the letter, a look of wonder on your face. “Then we shall sit down right now and do it,” I said.
Although I didn’t need to say much, the going was slow. Joseph used a small nub of a pencil and wrote painstakingly on a yellowed piece of paper. He listened carefully to what I said, then put the words into English and onto the page. I told you what I had wanted to tell you but had not been able to the summer you paddled away. I said you must return home, for you were the last in our family line. One day you would raise your own child and teach him what had been taught to me. I told you that in war you must do what was necessary to survive, and that in this circumstance
Gitchi Manitou
understood if you had to kill. Elijah must know this too. I told you to make offerings with Elijah to
Gitchi Manitou
, to pray for guidance and to do everything you had to do so that you could return home.
When we were done, I asked Joseph if he had translated my words carefully. “Yes, Niska, yes,” he said.
I could see in his eyes, though, that he was not so sure.
The next day Joseph left, the letter in his pocket. I headed out to my traplines to see what furs I might find to bring to the
wemistikoshiw
store come spring. Something did not feel right, and I could not figure out what it was.
I stop talking now, and see that the sun is not far away. I have kept us up all night. Nephew’s eyes are closed but his breathing suggests that he is conscious. He seems to rest a little better than he has the last two days. I am happy to see this, lie back onto my blanket and let myself drift off into memory again.
MICISOW
Feeding
A
UNTIE
’
S TALKING
suddenly solves a mystery. I would laugh at it all if the letter had not done such damage to me. It soured me and I lost my desire for survival. Should I tell her the mistakes Old Joseph Netmaker made with his words? That would bring nothing but more sadness. Instead, I slip back a year to when I received the news.