Dark Witness (10 page)

"I'm done. Heading back. Yeah, kind of interesting." He told her what he'd found and then listened as she ran through the weather and let him know that Boris was off his food.

"He misses me," Andre laughed. Before he signed off he had one more thing: "Nell, do a fly over about five miles northeast and then come back and get me. Keep your eyes open."

"What am I looking for?" she asked.

"A passenger from this wreck. Might be a woman. She'd be on foot."

"Injured?" Nell came back.

"Not even sure if she exists, but a look-see won't hurt. Watch for any encampments," he said.

"Got it. See you in the a.m. my friend."

Andre Guillard
Rogered that
and started his hike back to the place where Nell would pick him up. This time instead of looking for signs of poachers, Andre kept his eyes open for any indication that someone had walked away from that crash. All he saw was snow and trees and a moose the size of a mini-van. Soon Andre Guillard was thinking what a lucky man he was that life in this part of the world was pretty darn simple.

When you were dead you were dead, and when you were alive it was glorious.

***

Mama Cecilia wore the moccasins her son had given her on her birthday. The moccasins were a little too big and were made to look like they were caribou but they were not. They were plastic. Cheap beads of yellow and pink were stitched onto the top of them in a flower pattern. The leaves of the flower were iridescent green. Mama Cecilia had never seen that color on a leaf in all of the years that she had walked on the earth. Her son had given these moccasins to her, remembering her birthday the year he was sober, and buying them with money he had taken from her wallet. As with all of life, Mama Cecilia knew there were happy things and unhappy ones. She was happy he remembered her birthday and unhappy that he had stolen from her to buy a gift.

But what could she expect from a drunkard except big sadness and small happinesses?

Her son did not hunt, he did not fish, and he did not have a job. He had a woman once, not his wife. Together they had a daughter, but even the daughter was not enough to make him want to live in the world. In the end, Mama Cecilia had to believe what Oki, the shaman, told her: her son's spirits were bad spirits. She did not, however, have to accept what he told her.

Today, the sound of the cheap moccasins on the cracked linoleum floor was like sandpaper as Mama moved back and forth, washing the dishes, drying them, putting them on the open shelves in the kitchen of the small and silent house. She used her foot to move aside the washtub that would catch the drip that would come through the ceiling when the heavy snow came and melted and came again. Three steps across the kitchen, she opened the back door and walked down the old wooden steps, holding onto the handrail that wobbled when she leaned too hard upon it. The wind blew as she stepped onto the hard packed ground that had a goodly amount of snow. Mama Cecilia didn't pull her sweater closer because it would not warm her quickly enough to bother. She was only taking the clothes off the line that was strung between an old metal pole and an even older wooden one. On that line, her son's underwear and jeans danced in the wind like clothes on stiff-legged ghosts. She unhooked the wooden pins and put them in the bucket near the post. Carrying the near frozen clothes, she retraced her steps, and held a little tighter to the rickety handrail as she went back up the stairs and into the house.

She folded the jeans over her arm and even folded the underwear in half as she went through the small living room, past her own bedroom, and to the door of her son's room. There was no knob to turn or lock to lock. There was only a hole where the knob and the lock had once been so the door opened soundlessly. Inside, a little bit of light bled through the high window, but it was like the light in the eyes of a dying man, flat and faded and difficult to see through. The curtains she had made for her son when he was a child still hung there. The cowboys and the horses they rode upon had faded so that the horses looked like stumps and the cowboys like mushrooms.

"Go away."

Her son always knew when she was there. He always ordered her away. He moved as if he was agitated. Even though his legs were short, they were too long for the narrow bed. His shirt crept up his back and she saw his smooth skin. The black hair on his head was bent in many directions. She could not see his face, but she didn't have to in order to see his anger. His anger was dull and black like coal inside the belly of a cast iron stove.

Mama Cecilia was not startled when he spoke to her nor was she hurt by his admonition. Her son was always awake enough to know when someone living was close, and he was sure to send the living person away before he caught their condition. Most people were afraid of his gruffness, and the smell of his breath, and his wild hair, and his red eyes, but she was not.

"You should get up. I have food."

Mama Cecilia laid his clean, cold clothes on the wooden chair. She wanted to sit beside the metal bed, smooth his hair, and lay her hands upon him, and share her good spirits.

"Leave me alone."

He muttered and swatted at an imaginary mother because Mama Cecilia had not sat beside the bed. She stood there, her squat body unmoving, her chubby hands by her side. She said, "I am going for a while. I am going to the lodge about Susan, your daughter."

He made noises, not words, and that was disrespectful. She wanted to call sharply to him but she had no real name to call him that felt right on her tongue. Calling sharply without a name would not be the same. He liked to be called Cole like his white father who had left them, but she could not say that name. He would not answer to his native name, so she shuffled away without calling sharply or saying a name.

She closed the door, went to her own room, and sat on the bed that was neatly made up. She did not turn on the light because she found the gathering grey comforting. It did not hide her from the world the way her son's dark room hid him, it embraced her gently so that she could become one with the changing season.

Mama sat with her back erect and folded her hands in her lap. She saw that her lap was large and wondered when she had grown so wide. There were times that she still believed herself slim and quick and beautiful. Mama Cecilia loved when those moments came, but then they were gone. She was herself, an old woman with long grey hair to braid and small dark eyes that no longer saw much even of her own village. Her high full cheeks were soft, but they were wasted. There was no one to kiss them, no husband or grandchildren or even a dog to love her enough. The wrinkles around her eyes were deep and furrowed more from closely held sorrow than shared joy. She was sad to be old, but to be old was no excuse for sitting down and weeping.

Finally, Mama Cecilia leaned over. Her stomach folded, pushing the breath out of her as she removed the cheap moccasins. She picked up the ones she had made from the hide of a caribou with the fur turned inside. Plain as they were, these moccasins were her treasure. She had stitched them together with a length of hide that she had tanned herself when she was a young bride. The shoes were softer than the day she had first worn them. Her sharp and practical brain had not changed with the passing of the years and neither had her feet. They were still small although everything in between her head and her feet had gotten bigger and softer. Her heart was the biggest and softest of all. If it had not been, she would not be putting on her good moccasins and going to the lodge.

When she was done, Mama Cecilia stood up and her long skirt fell to her toes. No one would know that she wore proper moccasins, but she would know. She took off her house sweater and her apron and hung them on a hook next to her good sweater. The good sweater she took down, put on, and buttoned up to her chin. When that was done she went to her small closet and took out her parka, her
amaut,
made of seal and fox and wolf. It was too early in the season for this coat, but it was good to wear it to the lodge.

In the hall, Mama Cecilia cast a look at her son's room. She heard nothing, not even snoring. She went back through the small house and took the paper from the table by the door. This she put in her pocket, and then she opened the door and stepped outside. Mama Cecilia did not bother to lock the door behind her. There was nothing to steal inside her house. If someone were so desperate that they must steal nothing then she would not begrudge them.

She did not pause between the closing of the door and beginning her journey. She looked neither left nor right. Soon she had walked down to the road that was not paved, her arms at her sides, her chubby fingers hanging loose, and her narrow dark eyes on the straight path. The breeze could not find even a single strand of her hair to toy with so tight was her braid. Her cheeks did not flush with cold because they were the color of polished mahogany and a blush could not shine through.

Mama Cecilia walked one mile and some feet and then she was at the lodge. She opened the door and ducked her head to enter. Inside, Mama Cecilia straightened, standing only a little taller than she was wide. She breathed in through her short, flat nose and her old eyes looked slowly around the big room. The benches lining the walls were empty, but then she saw that someone was at the far end of the long hall sitting at the table where the chief usually sat and spoke about important things. But he was not sitting there often since he, too, had moved to the city.

"Mama Cecilia."

"Hello, Priscilla Wolf Skin." Mama greeted the woman who was very much younger than she, which didn't mean she was young at all. Priscilla Wolf Skin did not greet her back in the old way because she was very excited about things that seemed big to her but which were not.

"I'm putting the report in order. The chief is coming in a few weeks, and we need to have an accounting of us all. There are so few of us, but it is still a chore that must be done correctly," the young woman chirped.

Mama nodded and kept her eyes on Priscilla who had not asked her or her son to make an accounting of themselves. It seemed to Mama Cecilia that she should make an accounting before Priscilla could make one to the chief. But Mama did not speak. She just looked at Priscilla who was forty years plus five. She was old enough to know that the chiefs did not care about the people here but Mama Cecilia didn't want to make Priscilla feel sad, so she didn't point out that the chiefs had been making promises for all the eighty years Mama Cecilia had been alive. Nothing got better; everything got worse.

"Are you alright?" Priscilla asked.

This was a kind question; still Mama Cecilia was a little disappointed that it was Priscilla asking it. She had hoped for someone with years to speak to her.

"Are you alone?" Mama asked.

"Yes."

Mama nodded. Without a telephone to call to the village she had to take her chances. Now that it was only Priscilla Wolf Skin, Mama Cecilia assumed her spirits meant for her to find this woman.

When she decided this, she put her hand in her pocket and withdrew the paper she had so carefully read over the last few days. She unfolded it and put it on the table in front of Priscilla.

"I have this letter from my granddaughter."

Priscilla rested her eyes on Mama Cecilia for only a flicker before she took the paper, opened it, and read it. Then she read it again. Mama Cecilia waited, knowing everything came in its own time including what Priscilla Wolf Skin would have to say. While she waited, Mama looked with her eyes here and there but did not turn with her body. She saw the dust motes clinging to the weak light coming through the glass in the lodge windows. That glass was melting from the top down because that was what happened to ancient glass. She saw the wooden floor and felt her feet upon it. It felt good to stand on something older than her feet.

"Your granddaughter is in Eagle, Mama. That is so far away."

"Not too far," Mama answered with some authority even though her chubby hands were still by her side, her voice flat and practical, and she made no motion to indicate she had any authority. "She doesn't give me a phone number or an address, but she says to send money to that place. I would like to go find her and bring her back to help her father. I would like to find out if the people at that place know how I can find her."

"I think that would be hard without a phone number or address. I think this is just an office to wire money."

"She won't be far away if this is where I send money," Mama assured her. "But I cannot go alone. Will you come with me, Priscilla Wolf Skin?"

"Mama Cecilia," Priscilla lamented, as her brow knotted. "I have my children. My husband hasn't worked in so long. I couldn't get the money. And look, it says your Susan wants money. I don't think you have enough to send her some and to pay for a trip to Eagle, do you?"

Mama Cecilia took the letter back, folded it, and remained silent. Priscilla's concern deepened because it seemed clear now that no matter what she said, Mama Cecilia was determined to do this thing. Priscilla wanted to tell the old woman that her son was not worth saving, but that would not be kind. So she said:

"Does your Cole know? He should know. He should be the one to go find her, Mama. Or, at the very least, he should go with you if you are determined."

Mama Cecilia nodded. All that Priscilla Wolf Skin said was true. Her son should go, but he would not even if Mama begged him. She could die, and he might not notice. That's how sure she was that Cole would not go to Eagle. But if she could bring her granddaughter back to this village, Cole might see her and want to be a good man for her. When Mama died, she would have someone to mourn her. Mama was almost certain that she was not enough to inspire her son to be a good man so she would put another person in his way. That person would be Susan.

"Do you want me to talk to Cole?"

Priscilla Wolf Skin was calling after the old woman who was now leaving. She did not answer Priscilla who, Mama knew, thought she was helping just by asking the question. She was not. That Mama Cecilia left dissatisfied was not a bad thing. It only meant that the way to where she needed to go would not be straight.