Keeper'n Me (32 page)
She hugged me again. As I unfolded the shirt the material felt familiar. It wasn't until I had it all held out
in front of me that I knew what it was. It was the balloon-sleeved yellow shirt I had on the day I arrived at White Dog. The sleeves were cut back regular, the long pointed collar was gone and the ribbons ran across the chest and back and down the arms. It was beautiful.
“You saved this thing?”
“Hey-yuh. Always kinda wanted to remember how you looked. Didn't know it'd come to be like this though. Not till a while ago anyway.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
“Wanted to make it up for you on accounta now it's like your life. Our way got built onto the way you had to grow up. Where you come from is always gonna be part of where you go now. See?”
“Hey-huh. I see. Don't know what to say, though.”
“Don't say nothin'. Put it on.”
“Now?”
“Now. Then dance me around all night. Look pretty jake with that on.”
When I slipped that shirt over top of my T-shirt the whole room erupted in applause. It fit perfectly, of course, Ma being the expert sewer that she is, and it felt like an old friend. Lazarus'n Keeper came over to give it a good feel and me another handshake. When the drummers started their first round dance song of the evening Ma'n me were the first ones on the floor. Round dance is where everyone gets together holding hands in a big circle. It's the big social dance at all our gatherings and a big favorite everywhere I've been.
Most everyone there that night joined in right away. When that first one was over Ma'n me headed over to check out the other gifts.
There were handmade moose-hide gloves, a tanned buckskin jacket with really beautiful flowered beadwork across the back, moccasins, a deer-hide pouch that I knew would be perfect for holding my smudging stuff, bullets, fishing line and an old beaver fur hat with big earflaps.
“Gonna look real jake in all that,” Keeper said, peering over my shoulder.
“Really,” I said.
“No more James Brown Indian, I guess, eh?” Stanley whispered in my ear.
“No more, bro'.”
“Might wanna look at the linin' of that jacket,” Jane said.
I wasn't surprised. It was the lime green trousers I'd worn with that yellow shirt. Everyone laughed.
“I shot the deer'n tanned the hide,” Jackie said, squeezing my shoulder hard. “Jane did the beadin'. Was my idea to use the pants. Were gonna save it for Christmas but this seemed like a better idea.”
“Do you know what kinda underwear you were wearin' that day?” Keeper blurted out.
“No. Why?”
“On accounta they just might surface in that beaver hat!”
We all laughed and there was a big circle of hugs again in that little group.
The rest of that evening was spent talking with people who wandered over one after another. I met cousins twice removed, nephews'n nieces, uncles'n aunts and a lot of people who knew my family. We laughed and talked and danced long into the night. By the time the people started winding their way towards home and their beds I was wearing all those things I'd been given to wear. Felt real good and I still prefer the smell of smoky tanned hide to any other perfume in the world.
“Lookin' jake, Garnet! Lookin' jake!” I must have heard that about fifty times from different people. Somehow I knew they weren't just talking about the things I was wearing.
“Wanna go home now, my boy?” Ma said, looking pretty worn out by this time.
“No, Ma, I think I wanna take a little walk by the lake for a while. I know I'll be warm. Got gloves'n everything.”
“You okay?”
“Hey-yuh. I Just need to think about all this for a bit.”
“Â 'Kay then. Don't be long. That old Keeper's gonna wanna be having his breakfast cooked up same as usual, you know.”
“Hey-yuh. I know. I won't be long.”
“Â 'Kay then.”
“Â 'Kay then.”
“See you.”
“See you, Ma”
She walked off towards home and the rest of my little family followed her. I watched them walk across the
light that was thrown from the hall until they disappeared into the night. When I felt the hand on my back I knew it was Keeper.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I'm okay. Kinda feelin' humble though. Wanna go have a little walk by the lake.”
“That's good. You go. Feel what you're feelin'. Remember it an' keep part of it inside you. Save it. Sometime you're gonna need it. It's good.”
“Lazarus gone?”
“Hey-yuh. Too old to party it up all night no more. Sleepin' at Isaac's. Gonna head home early.”
“Good man, that Lazarus.”
“Hey-yuh. Good man.”
“He's gonna be your teacher now, eh?”
“Hey-yuh. It's time. Time to carry through on that deal I made with Harold. Start really bein' a keeper.”
“Keeper?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you, man.”
“Hey-yuh. I know. An' me â¦Â I love you too, Garnet Raven. I love you too.”
We put our hands on each other's shoulders and stared into each other's eyes through the tears that were there. It was a look as pure as the current I'd felt running through old Lazarus when he took my hand. No words. Wasn't any need for them anymore. We stood there looking at each other for a long time while the last of the people filed past, unashamed of showing our feelings for
each other, unashamed to let others see us like that and as connected as those two eagle feathers that hung on the wall of Ma's cabin. Finally, we sniffled and nodded at each other real slow. He gave my shoulder one last squeeze and turned towards Shotgun Bay and his little cabin in the bush. I watched him move across that same stretch of light until he reached the edge of the darkness. Then he stopped and turned to face me.
“Garnet?”
“Yeah?”
“Mornin'?”
“Yeah. Mornin'.”
“Â 'Kay. Jus' checkin'.”
“Keeper?”
“Yeah?”
“Dreams.”
“Hey-yuh,” he said with a wave. “You too. Dreams.”
The moon is a hand drum that hangs in the sky. It hangs there on nights like that night of the feast, lit up forever by the spirits of people who search the sky for magic. The dreamers. The believers. The ones who know that power lives in the things we see'n hear'n wonder about. The ones who come to stand upon the land and search for stories. Teachings. The blazes made by them that went before. The signs that mark the path we're all supposed to follow. The path of the heart. The path of the Anishanabe. The path of the human beings. The red road.
They used to tell me in that life I lived before that there's only four directions. North, south, east and west. They were wrong. That red road's got seven of them and for a human being to learn to travel well, like old Lazarus signaled to me that night, they gotta learn to walk all seven. Seven makes the circle. The complete journey. The whole human being. In our way there's the four usual ones I mentioned but it's the other three that make the road so tough to travel. Them three are up and down andâinside.
The old ones say that there's a fire for each one of them directions. A fire where the travelers sit when they reach it. Warm themselves. Rest. Reflect on the journey. Gather with the old ones who sit by that fire forever, waiting for the stragglers, the lonesome and the afraid.
Travel each direction, you learn to see and hear and feel more. Sit by each of those fires and gather your strength. East is the place of light where the sun comes from. You travel that road you learn illumination. The beginnings of knowing. South is the place of innocence and trust. Southern travelers learn to listen to the teachings with an open heart and open ears. West is the look inside place. Investigating what you feel. Growing. North is the place of wisdom. You pause. Look back along the path you followed and see the lessons, the teachings. Reflect. And the up and the down is the motion of life. The day-by-day things we get so hung up on all the time. The things that make us forget how far
we traveled. The lessons that came from breathing. The teachings built into the power of choice we picked up along the way. That's where we practice the wisdom we found from traveling the first four. Through the motions of that up'n down. And that last fire, that last destination on that red road, is inside. The place of truth. The warmest fire. The fire that chases out the darkness. You gather there with all the travelers who made that journey too and you are alone no more. There's feasting and celebration. Great stories are told and you learn that you gotta keep that fire going on accounta there's more to come. There's always more to come. Travelers who are gonna need a guide because we're all tourists really. And you never get a map until you reach that seventh fire.
I thought about that journey that night. Watching that hand-drum moon hanging over White Dog Lake reminded me how far I'd come. How far I'd come since the night that old man'n me watched it float across the sky. The night I found my guide. The night I took that first step along that red road. The night I started home.
Learn to be a good human being, he said. Learn to be a good man. Then sometime along the way you start to realize that because you done those things you learned how to be a good Indyun. A good Anishanabe. You learned the
why
of this life instead of just the
how. You
found your way to that seventh fire. Hmmpfh. Who'd have ever figured this? Looking jake, they said. Looking
jake. Sitting under that moon that night I knew for the first time what it was all about. Looking jake was sitting by that seventh fire. Sitting by the fire that burns on the fuel of your own truth. The logs and kindling you picked up along that red road.
It's been five years since I came home along that bumpy as hell gravel road. Just over three since the night of that feast and I'm still a tourist. Got a good guide though. Got a good guide. He's been workin' with old Lazarus ever since that night and teachin' me as he goes along. We spend a lotta time going over those old teachings, them old ways of seeing, and it's funny because there's always this feeling coming up inside me when we talk long into those nights, that somewhere, sometime I heard it all before. Like it's not so much being taught to me as reawakened. Rekindled. Like I sat by that fire before. Hmmpfh. Maybe the old coot's right all along. We do carry the embers of those old fires inside us. Something inside us keeps those embers glowing and it just takes a good guide to lead us back there and teach us how to stoke them up again. Firekeepers. Tourists. All of us. Hmmpfh. Who'da figured it, eh?
We still go sit by the edge of Shotgun Bay and watch that big orange hand drum of a moon float across the sky. Still walk over through the frost and snow and rain to pray and sing and cook breakfast. Still having adventures and laughter. Still learning. Looking more'n more jake all the time. Be a storyteller, he told me. Talk about the real Indyuns. About what
you learned, where you traveled, where you've been all this time. Tell them. Tell them stories on accounta them they all need guides too. Hmmpfh. Guess we're all Indians really. Heh, heh, heh.
AN EXTRACT FROM RICHARD WAGAMESE'S
FORTHCOMING NEW NOVEL
DREAM WHEELS
â
Prologue
T
HE
O
LD
O
NES SAY
that fate has a smell, a feel, a presence, a tactile heft in the air. Animals know it. It's what brings hunter and prey together. They recognize the ancient call and there's a quickening in the blood that drives the senses into edginess, readiness: the wild spawned in the scent. It's why a wolf pack will halt their dash across a white tumble of snow to look at a man. Stand there in the sudden timeless quiet and gaze at him, solemn amber eyes dilating, the threat leaned forward before whirling as one dark body to disappear into the trees. They do that to return him to the wild, to make all things even once again: to restore proper knowledge. The Old Ones say animals bless a man with
those moments by returning him to the senses he surrendered when he claimed language, knowledge and invention as power.
The great bull sensed it and it shivered. The loose skin draped across its bulk belied the tough muscle and sinew that gave locomotive strength to its movement in the chute. The smell was in the air. The ancient smell. It gave a new and different air to the harsh light and dust of the arena. This was old, this scent, causing something to stir in its Indian and Spanish blood that it had never encountered before. Not death, not threat, not challenge because the bull had faced those many times. No, this was more than that. This was more a bidding than an urge, a call forward, an invitation to spectacle, a beckoning to an edge the bull had never approached before. The bull shifted its eighteen hundred pounds and there wasn't much room to spare on either side of its ribs. It didn't like the feel of the wood, the closeness, the thin prick of rough-sawn board along its sides. The rage of others was dribbled into the board against its nose, and the bull shivered again and stamped its heavy cloven feet into the dirt of the arena floor. The noise of the crowd beyond the chutes rose and fell awkwardly against the babble of the cowboys tugging and rubbing and plying leather in preparation amidst the jingle of metal, the snap and rub and crinkle of hard rope and the clomp of booted feet and the whinny and nicker of horses unsettled by the turn of the air, the high, sharp slice of the ancient order that called to them now too. A moment
was coming, a confrontation. The bull bellowed once and banged the sides of the chute.
Man feet scraped on the boards at its side, the side facing away from the open ocean of the infield: the man side. Out there, in the packed brown dirt rectangle pressed together by high wooden fencing, was his world, the one the bull controlled, the one they entered with the smell of fear high in the air. The men talked, their voices strained, tight in their throats, and the bull felt the abrasive itch of rope start around its shoulders. Just as the dull clank of cowbell rang beside him the bull caught the flare of action between the boards of the chute as another bull and rider exploded into the arena. The noise of the crowd swelled incredibly and there came the bashing and buckling sounds of leather, rope, bell, skin and bone crashing against each other amplified by roiling clouds of dirt that held it, gave it the shape and tone and snap of electrified energy. It didn't last long. A long, drawn-out sigh accompanied the rider suddenly slammed into the dirt, the sound rising again as bright-costumed men raced about attracting the bull's anger, diverting it away from the rider who scrambled to his feet, eyes ablaze with a strange mix of indignation and fear, and leaped for the security of the fencing. The great bull bellowed to its cousin in the infield and shook the sides of the chute in celebration of another display of power. The men around it spoke bravely to each other but the bull felt the anxiety creeping just beneath their words. It enjoyed that and it bellowed again.
The movement around the chute increased. Men in front of it were pulling rope against the gate that would soon fling open and send the bull careening into the light and heat and dirt of the battle. The men over top of its back moved silently, deliberately now, and the bull stamped and rolled back and forth, side to side, front to back in the chute forcing them to agitation, their words harsher to each other. The rope about its shoulders was secured and the clank belt set in place. The heavy clink and rattle of the bell angered the bull. It dangled beneath it heavy as another testicle but irksome, foreign, and as its weight settled the bull smelled the ancient smell again and rolled its eyes in their sockets to look upward at the men, rolling its head while it did so and giving the topmost boards a solid thwack and shiver.
It watched the young man climb the fence. Saw the set of his face, determined, calm and strong beneath the fear and felt the firm slap of his gloved hand on its neck as he leaned over, feet straddled on each side of the chute. The man bore the smell too. The bull shifted in the chute, made a small bit of room to accommodate the legs of this man who smelled so richly of that ancient call. It felt the dull rounded rowel of spur against its flank as the man slid into place and it shivered, the loose skin unsettling the man, feeling him grip with his thighs searching for hold, finding it and relaxing again. The bull snorted and half rose on its hind feet, twisting its head side to side and trumpeting the acceptance of this challenge and hearing the buzz of the crowd rise in time
with its huge head over the top of the chute. The men spoke quicker, shorter words snapped at each other and the bull felt the waxed rope being pulled tighter and tighter about its girth.
This was the call. This was the ancient order of things, the primal encounter, the scent of the coming together, bone to bone, blood to blood and will to will. The bull understood this. It knew that the man straddling its back answered the same urge. The scent was high in the air now. Fate. Destiny. Life itself, keen as the wolves' call in its blood. The great bull bawled its challenge again and felt the air contract as the crowd drew breath, sensed the man tighten his grip, felt the pull and yank and strain of rope and the ripple of gloved fingers in the small hollow behind its shoulders. It reared again in the chute. Wild. Raging. The call driving it back into primordial time.
He planted his feet on the third rail of the chute and allowed himself one quick look at the arena. It never failed to amaze him. People of all sorts gathered together to witness a part of his life that he had never quite learned to equate with spectacle. Joe Willie had always ridden as a matter of fact. From the time he could remember he had been straddling something, from his father's bouncing thigh in the living room to the pony at three, the sheep at mutton busting at four, the horses at six, the steers at eight and finally, the bulls at ten. Sticking and staying had come to him as naturally as
walking and riding, lunging out of the chute on a bareback horse, a saddle bronc or a bull like the champion Brahma cross beneath him now, was merely the definition of a life, a cowboy life bred in his Ojibway-Sioux bones as surely as this rodeo grew out of the old Wild West shows his great-grandfather had whooped and hollered and ridden in alongside old Buffalo Bill himself.
Joe Willie shrugged. Too busy for those thoughts now, too busy to entertain anything but the feel of this great bull, the ribs of it through the loose skin against his calves and thighs telegraphing twists and jumps and kicks in a microsecond, reacting to it, sticking and staying. He needed to think ahead to that first mad plunge out of the chute. The dervish beneath him whipping him forward eight seconds in time to definition, truth, life itself.
The bull was called See Four after the powerful military explosive and the number of seconds a rider would likely see on its back before its energy detonated completely and he was blown skyward to crash and eat arena dirt. Up to now that name had held true. See Four was a living legend. Unridable, they said. Bred of bloodstock that had proven to be champion rodeo stock as well, See Four was the draw a cowboy didn't want in any short go or preliminary round. He was a money killer. Eighteen hundred pounds, nearly six feet high at the shoulder, with a hump from his Brahma roots swelling into a neck and head wider than a horse's haunches. Only the space behind the shoulders allowed a rider any chance at all. Only there was there purchase, the slim chance to exist
there a tumultuous eight seconds. Behind that slight margin the bull owned everything. To slip beyond it a cowboy could only hope to be thrown clear enough to escape the fury of the hooves and horns when he landed. Behind it was cataclysm.
Joe Willie measured it from above. He rubbed the tough leather glove on his left hand against the inside of his thighs, allowing a little of the rosin to stick there. The bull had reared suddenly, causing him to lose his concentration, and he'd stepped up and off to reclaim his focus. Now, he could feel the world narrowing in scope. He heaved a deep breath, heard the sound of the crowd shrinking, diminishing, the yells of the cowboys pulling backwards out of the air until only a thick, heavy, muffled silence remained where the creak of leather, the huff of the breath of the bull, his own tattered breath and the thudded stamp of hoof on ground existed to be heard. Then he slid downward onto the brindled back of See Four. Everything was slow motion now, from the clenching of his hand under the bull rope to the steady hauling in of tension on the same rope from his father's hands. His eyes unblinking, he saw nothing but the squashed elongated U of the bull's horns. Peripherally the slo-mo preparations of his friends and supporters keyed him up, excited him, edged him closer to the moment. He felt his father's hand on his shoulder and allowed himself a brief second to look and caught his steely-eyed nod.
“Suicide wrap,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Gotta be,” he said, gritting his teeth.
His father nodded grimly, then began looping the bull rope between the fingers of Joe Willie's gloved hand. The wrap made it easier to hold the rope but also made it three times harder to free the hand during or after the ride. Joe Willie watched as his father tended to the latch. This ride was everything. This ride was the ride to the top of the world.
The rodeo announcer's voice seeped through.
“Coming out of chute number three, a young cowboy who can take over the number one ranking for the title of All-Round Cowboy with a successful ride. He's already a champion in the saddle bronc and the bareback riding and he's matched up here with the undefeated, unridden legend, See Four. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, as tough as they come, a true cowboy, Joe Willie Wolfchild!”
He heaved a deep, rib-expanding breath and let it go slowly. Beneath him the bull shuddered once then settled into a curious quiet. They sat there connected by the bull rope and one gloved hand, waiting. There was a smell in the air. Joe Willie shook his head once quickly to clear it, shivered his legs against the bull's sides, raised his right arm slowly to clear the top rail of the chute and nodded solemnly to the rope man at the front of the chute.
And the world exploded.
The great bull was true to his name. He detonated. The rage in him was complete and perfect and whole and
when the gate flew open he felt it blast apart into a shrapnel of motion. There was no reason to it at first, just an explosion out of the chute, just a relinquishing of boundaries, just a launch into a space he understood the order of. Implicitly. His eyes rolled back and upward and he caught the flare of the lights as he raised his shoulders and then drove them downward with a powerful kick of his back hooves. The man's weight stayed where it was supposed to. He felt it settle into the pocket of flesh behind the bone of his shoulder and he felt the twin kick of spurs against the bottom of his neck. When he landed after the first kick out of the chute the bull began to reason.
He felt the hand against his back. He felt the man's bulk pinned to that point and the greater part of his weight leaned toward it. Left. The bull understood the direction intuitively and knew that the man would struggle to maintain his position, the rest of his body, toward the hand. He twisted violently the opposite way.
See Four spun, once, twice, three times, four times in a delirious circle, kicking, bucking, head and shoulder rolling away from the strength of the hand on his back. Just at the height of the spin's energy he halted it, kicked twice, arched his back and bucked before spinning back to the hand side. The clank of the bell spiked into the centre of his head, frenzied him, enraged him further, and he knew when the man was gone the sound would disappear. So he spun. He spun and kicked and bucked against the bright whirl of the lights, the roar of the
people far away across the ocean of dirt and the splash of colour of the other men bounding and leaping around his mad tear. He rolled his great head at them, bawled loudly and thrashed his horns from side to side while kicking and throwing his rear the opposite direction.
That's when he felt it. The slip, the loss of contact. The feel of air between the slamming buttocks of the man and his spine. He began to work the air. He ignored the man and focused his rage on that pocket of air, trying to increase it, stretch it, enlarge it, use it to separate the man from the rope around his shoulders. He drove all four hooves clear of the ground in a wild, hurtling leap that drew screams from those faraway people and a deep grunt from the man on his back. When his hooves slammed back into the earth he spun again and as he did, he kicked out, leaned away from the glove and felt the air pop open and he knew he'd won.
He spun twice then reversed it. When he did he felt the man float free, felt him take to the air except for the hand that stayed tight to the rope. This confused the bull. The weight was suddenly gone from his back but presented itself now, unpredictably, at his side with a hard knock in the ribs as the man slammed into his flank, the pressure of the hand pulling fiercely to that side. He kicked and spun the other way, determined to end this. He felt the man dragged along. There were others now. The brightly coloured men were racing about screaming in man talk and waving at the bull and others yelling and running and flailing their hats in his face.