The Cast Stone (14 page)

Roderick liked what Ben was saying. “It's like Indian Affairs. Oh, they were polite and dedicated, but couldn't get it through their skulls that we wanted to do something different. They genuinely could not understand anything but top down.”

“How many terms were you chief?” Leroy couldn't remember.

“Three.” Roderick held up three fingers. “Two terms in the nineties and again from '06 to '09. That's when I hung it up. We couldn't do anything. You can't change people's minds who only have one way of thinking.”

“And how do you change people's thinking?” Ben asked rhetorically.

“You don't,” Roderick answered. “All we can do is live our lives the best we can. Walk in a good way and maybe people will see us walking in a good way and want to walk with us. Can't force anyone to change, never could. It never works.”

Ben responded with a hint of sarcasm: “I think assimilation worked pretty well for Canada.”

“No it didn't. All those policies did was wreck our people, we never did become them. When they stripped our culture we didn't adopt theirs. That's still what all the grief is about, people trying to find where they belong. So from about the nineties onward there was that movement back to our spirituality. So much for assimilation.”

Leroy stayed out of the discussion. It wasn't pure politics and he wasn't really interested.

“But you got to admit that supremacy was what was behind the policy. They believed they were superior and were doing it for our own good.”

“And we learned it from them. We started to become, as you say, supremacists ourselves. Indians got to be just as good as white people at believing they were better than others. We had our hierarchies too. AFN, FSIN, Chief and Council. I even got sucked into it. They elected me chief, thought I really was a chief for a while, forgot that I was only
okimakan
and not
okimaw
.”

Ben nodded to Roderick, “
Ahie
” he agreed.

“You too, Ben. You got yourself a good education, stayed in that big university. You must have felt pretty important.”

Ben's first response was to deny the allegation, deny that he ever put himself above the people, but he knew that to verbalize the denial wouldn't be completely true. He kept silent.

“It's okay, we all got caught up in it. Now we're old, had our ups and downs. Some of us took real shit-kickings before we figured it out. When we started to act like we were better than someone else, something always came along and put us in our place. When you're an Indian, you learn it fast.”

“
Ahie
.” Ben understood. Maybe for the first time, understood why things went the way that they did. Why he really wasn't teaching anymore. It might not have had anything to do with his age or his desire to come home. Maybe those powerful forces that keep balance in the universe decided Ben needed to get balanced again. “
Ahie
,” he nodded again to his Elder Roderick.

Rosie watched Benji, saw his discomfort, saw him sit too straight, saw the mechanics of his movements. This young man was completely out his element and it showed — it showed in his voice, in his questions, or lack of questions; it was there in his silence, in his perfect politeness.

She had watched, stood aside, not part of the reunion, only an observer. She couldn't help herself. She needed to be there when Benji met his father. She needed to see what Ben would do, how he would react — it was important to her, beyond curiosity, way beyond tidbits of possible gossip. How Ben reacted when he came face to face with his child, with his offspring, with his little alter-self, would inform Rosie of the true Ben, the real man inside the image she had created.

She had stood there under the trees, watching from a distance, smiling, maybe even smirking a little as Benji explained, tried to explain, faltered — started again. She couldn't hear the words. She imagined he said who his mother was, gave his birthday, said his name again, “Benji” or “Benjamin”, or something.

She'd watched Ben's stance, watched as realization filtered through broken speech, until realization broke the stoic and the body sagged, drained of will and then Ben hugged his son and she knew, even at a distance, that Ben was crying.

She left then — quietly, soft steps away. Now she knew the true Ben and knew that he was the same Ben she had always known, only now he had another dimension. He was a father.

“This is what I wanted to show you.” Elsie felt around on the dash of her car for a tiny note pad, found it through the open window, flipped pages at the edge of the white schoolyard floodlight, not nearly enough to read by, but she didn't need to read, she only needed enough to assist her memory. Benji stood awkwardly in the gravel parking area while Elsie read out the poem she had composed on her way north, driving with one hand and scribbling with the other.

“Who needs an army?” She read with a deeper voice than she used for conversation.

“Beaten with a Bottle

Broken Spirits Spilled

Bashed

Robbed

Rolled

Stole the Little Bit of Dirt

The Earth

Broken Spirit Lost

Stole the Ragged Bit of Shirt

Ghost Danced

Bashed

Beaten by a Bottle

Spirit Spilled

Spewed

Broken Lips Speak

the English

Beaten

Bottled

Robbed

Rolled

In Drunken Stupor

Stoned.”

She looked up to try to read Benji's face. She needed him to like it, wanted him to like her for writing it, wanted him to see her as an Indian, a good Indian woman. Her mother would frown on this, trying to be noticed by a man while at a wake, disrespectful. But, she might never see him again, never see those anxious eyes, those eyes that looked through her and saw the dreams, dreams of great things, great doings.

His expression didn't tell her anything. His words did. “Read it again.”

She did. Slower, punctuated, put her heart into it. Three-quarters of the way through she realized. “He doesn't get it. He was raised white.”

“I like the sound of it. The rhythm.” He confirmed her thoughts when she finished. “I have to think about the content for awhile, but I like it.”

But did he like her, Indian woman, traditional Indian woman?

“My adopted parents weren't drinkers. I never saw a drunk person until I was in my late teens. Just never saw anybody act that way. I guess if you grow up around alcohol you might hate it. Or love it,” he corrected himself. “Alcohol is a big issue these days, but I just don't see it. Always thought it was just the right-wing Christians imposing their beliefs on the world. I guess from your perspective it would be different.”

“I didn't grow up in an alcoholic home either.” She corrected his assumption. “Mom never allowed it in the house. She's the inspiration for the poem. It echoes her words. She always said that the whiteman used alcohol to defeat us and to keep us down. To her this neo-temperance movement is a good thing for us.”

“Hey, look, a falling star.” Benji pointed toward the southern sky. “Wow. I've never seen one so bright, or that colour, almost blue.”

“Incredible. Did you make a wish?”

“No, you?”

“For good things.” she answered, “good things to come.” Good things for her and Benji.

“Are those northern lights?” Benji continued to stare at the enamel black sky and the tinge of white, almost cloud like across the eastern horizon.

“Yeah, they are. Let's go down to the lake away from these lights and maybe we can see them better. It's just down here a ways, not far.” She led the way to where water lay perfectly flat and reflected stars, northern lights, and the track of speeding satellites.

“I've never seen them before. You don't get them in Toronto.”

“Probably do, just can't see them.” Elsie could not imagine anywhere on Earth where the spirits did not dance. She stood close to him, close enough to feel his presence, and as Benji's gaze wove back and forth across the black star-studded sky, where the lights were beginning to dance in sharp waves of green tinged with red, he began to feel her presence too.

The hood smelled of vomit, not Abe's. That's all right, he thought, I've smelled vomit before.

“Abraham Isaac Friesen.” The voice was not strong, did not have natural strength to it, though the speaker tried to sound authoritative. Like a substitute teacher, Abe thought.

“Charged with conspiracy against peace, order, and good government.” The voice continued. “What is the evidence?”

“He was captured at his residence. A reliable source reported suspicious activity there and when a squad led by Captain Ross approached the residence, warning signals were activated by co-conspirators.” The voice sounded as though it was reading, flat, empty. “Several vehicles were reported fleeing the residence as the squad approached. Abraham was the lone occupant when it arrived. He was taken into custody, read his right to voluntary statement, due military process was explained. Abraham declined a voluntary statement. Upon investigation, evidence of a terrorist cell was discovered. They had occupied the loft of a barn on the premises; however, a complete search did not uncover any weapons. It is assumed that the fleeing co-conspirators removed that evidence with them.”

“Heart rate eighty-four,” Abe felt cold metal against his chest, he assumed it was a stethoscope. “Breathing normal.” The doctor's voice held a slight southern accent, an educated Virginian, Abe guessed. He slowed down his breathing, willed his body to relax. A heart rate that high showed his anxiety, and Abe needed not to be anxious.

“I'm not convinced there is evidence of imminent danger.” The substitute teacher sounded nearer.

“Upon approach to the residence, a unit was dispatched to investigate the signal fire. That unit was attacked, two officers were killed by the insurgents and two were taken captive. Their whereabouts remains unknown.”

“Imminent danger is established.” Teacher flipped a page.

“The subject is a healthy male, approximately fifty years of age, cardiovascular and respiratory systems are better than would be expected of a person of this age.”

Virginia thinks I'm old, Abe thought.

“He appears to be in better than average physical condition. It is obvious that the subject has received military fitness training. The calluses on his hands appear similar to those observed on subjects who have recently attended terrorist training.”

“Hoe and rake. I should have used herbicide in my gardens.”

Whatever hit the soles of Abe's feet, bound tightly together at the ankles, was thin and very strong. The sting was a lot sharper than he expected.

“You will only speak when asked a direct question.” The reader continued to sound like he was reading.

“Abraham Isaac Friesen; tell him he has the name of a good Christian.”

“You have the name of a good Christian.”

“Read him his charges.”