Up Ghost River (3 page)

Rounding the corner, I saw the fire before I saw Mama. In the fading light, she was standing holding her baby daughter, Rita, gently patting her on the back. Around her the rest of them were squatting—Papa, my four-year-old brother, Alex, and our hunting friends, Charles and Bernadette Tomikatick, and their kids Madeline, thirteen, Gabriel, eleven, and Joseph, nine. Normally Alex and I tried to play with the Tomikatick boys because they were older and knew how to shoot slingshots and carve sticks, but this time they huddled close to the fire same as everyone else.

“This isn't good,” Papa said. “She's not eating. Try feeding her again.”

“I'm trying,” Mama replied. “She's not eating. We should go back to see the doctor.”

“We can't go back. It's too far,” Papa said.

“She hasn't eaten in two days,” Mama said. “And her poo is watery and yellow.”

“She'll be fine,” he said, but he glanced worriedly at my baby sister.

I went to my place beside Papa, but Mama wanted to go to sleep, and Papa said we needed to make an early start, so we all left the Tomikaticks and the fire and went to our house. Inside, Mama gave me Rita and I put her on the moosehide blankets that covered the floor. Her skin felt funny—sticky and hot to the touch. As I lay her down she woke up and began to cry again. Mama crawled toward her and curled beside her, stroking her hair until Rita finally quieted and fell asleep.

Strange dreams. A grey wolf with yellow eyes, running. I stumbled forward and tried to catch her. I touched her thick winter fur, but she slipped from my grasp. I ran behind but she was faster than me. Then the same sense of dread as I had walking back to camp, the feeling of fog rising up, mist wrapping around me and I can't see and can't breathe.

I opened my eyes to see my family's sleeping bodies. I rolled over to look at Rita. Her eyelashes were completely still. She looked so peaceful. Her jet black hair was damp and her lips flecked by the remnants of Mama's milk. I watched her sleep and felt an overwhelming urge to hold and love her. To feel her soft cheeks against my own.

Carefully, I unpeeled Mama's arm from her tiny body. I stroked her hair and she seemed to move, but I wasn't sure. The ends of her tiny fingernails looked like slices of moon. I kissed her hand. I reached underneath her, picking her up and whispering, “Wake up, little Rita.” I scooted to the exit, grabbing some moosehide skins to cover us both. The sun was just starting to rise. Outside, I held her against my chest and walked toward the river, rocking her back and forth. Her body was limp and heavy. And then I looked at her face, and something was different—paler maybe. I felt the first waves of panic.

I quickly walked back to our house, opened the moss-covered door and looked inside. Everyone else was still asleep. What to do with my sister? If I tried to step over the sleeping bodies to lay Rita back down, maybe they would wake and think I had caused her death. But if I didn't, then they would wake in a few hours anyway, and I'd be holding Rita, and then I was back to the beginning: something lifeless in my hands. I stared at my sister and began to whisper,
Please, Gitchi Manitou, the Great Creator. Please. Not now
.

I crept into the house. No one woke as I stepped over the slumbering bodies. I gently picked up Mama's arm. She had golden skin, just like me. I wrapped her arm around Rita. Mama stirred and snuggled her closer. She stayed asleep. I watched them both, hoping Rita's eyes would move. I lay back down and waited for people to wake.

When the air had warmed, Mama opened her eyes and stretched. She relaxed her arm, drawing Rita in closer, and stroked her hair. “My baby girl.” She sat up, still holding her. Rita sagged like a doll. Then she looked closely at her face. “Rita?” she said. “Rita?” Then “Keshayno!”

“Mmm …” Papa stirred.

“Wake!” Mama shouted.

He stretched and rubbed his eyes. “Yes, Netchi, my loved one.”

“It's Rita,” Mama said, holding out the baby. Rita's head flopped forward, like a bird with a broken neck.

“No,” Papa said. His voice came out strangled. He shook his head back and forth. “No, no, no, no.”

Mama began to cry.

Alex sat straight up. “What?” he said. “What is it?” He looked between Mama and Papa, who slumped like a moose after it has been shot. Mama held Rita tightly, grasping her to her chest as if she could squeeze her back to life. Tears welled and rolled down Alex's cheeks. I wanted to cry, too, but there was too much happening in my heart.

We all went outside. It was December. The sky was pale grey and the cold was hard against my cheeks. Snowflakes blanketed the already white ground. We stood outside the house for a while and no one said anything. Mama rocked Rita back and forth.

I heard a noise behind me. Charles Tomikatick was peering out from his mud house. “Everything okay?” he said. He looked between our faces, his eyes saddening as he understood. He ducked back inside to tell the others.

Everyone came out and they took it in turns to wrap their arms around Mama, who was still holding Rita. After a few moments Papa fetched some logs from beside our house and started to build a cooking fire. Normally Mama got the water for morning tea, but she just cradled Rita. Papa made everyone hot bush tea, which is extra sweet. Charles began cutting wood to make a little coffin for Rita.

Mama gazed into the fire. Papa came up behind her and said, “Netchi, we should bury her.”

“Not now,” she said.

“Yes now.”

“Just let me hold her.”

“Netchi. She is dead. It is time.”

“She'll be okay,” Mama replied. “Just let me hold her. Just for a bit.” Papa looked between her and Rita and sighed.

Charles finished the coffin and Mama gently laid Rita inside, wrapped in a blanket.

We packed up and Papa fed the five dogs with some meat that Charles gave him. We strapped the coffin tightly to the top of the sled. Alex and I climbed into our seat and we set off, Mama walking beside the sled.

By lunch the dogs were tired, as was everyone in the group. Papa called ahead to the Tomikaticks and they halted their sled. Papa built a fire
and Charles came over and gave us some of his pemmican. Once we'd eaten, Papa got up from where he'd been squatting next to the fire.

“It's time,” he said to Mama. “We should bury her right here.”

“No,” she said. “I want a Christian burial.”

“There are no churches around, Netchi. Not for miles.”

“There's a cemetery at Ghost River.”

“That's sixty miles away.”

“That's not too far.”

“No, Netchi.”

“Rita was a Christian. She needs a Christian burial.”

“Rita is Cree. She will go to the Spirit World along the Three Day Road.”

The Spirit World was different from the Christian one, as far as I could tell. It was home to dead people who looked like me—our Cree ancestors who protected the living. It was both here and far away, Heaven and Earth, a place where the ancestors lived, our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles,
gookums
and
moshoms
, stretching back until the First People, spirits that became human when they touched foot on this land. We were their descendants, made by Gitchi Manitou. When we died, we went to live with our relations in the Spirit World. It was somewhere familiar to me, as comforting as bush tea, whereas Heaven seemed strange. I didn't know much about it, just what I had gleaned from bits of conversation and a painting that Mama had shown me when she took me to church for the first time last summer. Around the painting was a golden frame. The painting showed lots of people standing on clouds, and babies with wings, weird creatures with pale skin and yellow hair, part bird and part white man.

“Ghost River is too far,” Papa said. “Let's light the Sacred Fire here.” The Sacred Fire would last three days, the length of the wake. A fierce flame, it could not be allowed to go out during that time,
for it would guide Rita to the place of death, to be with the spirits of the ancestors and Gitchi Manitou.

“The ground is already frozen,” Mama said.

“We can thaw it with a fire. I can be the Ghost Walker.” Ghost Walkers could leave this world a little while to guide spirits along the Three Day Road, so they didn't grow confused or lost.

“No,” Mama said. “No. That's not right. Rita was a Christian.”

“So you'd rather delay Rita's burial than have a good Cree one now?”

Mama pursed her lips but said nothing.

“Fine,” Papa said.

We said goodbye to the Tomikaticks and began to head south, toward Ghost River. All day we travelled overland through the snow, with Mama walking behind.

When the sun sank red into the trees, we stopped. Charles had given Papa some extra pemmican but we didn't have a lot and my stomach felt hollow after eating. I was tired, but Papa said we had to “keep going, keep going.” Alex sat down in the snow, and then I did the same.

“It's time to get moving again,” Papa said, and put us back on the sled. Alex got off again. “Come on!” Papa looked at all of us, shook his head, and began to untie our dogs. We helped Mama build a fire, and Papa found a good sheltered place to put up a tent for our overnight stay. Then he began sawing some logs, building a wooden platform to store our meat and keep it from the wolves and bears. He raised Rita's coffin and put it on the platform next to our food.

I crawled inside the blankets and lay down on the hides, beside Alex. Rita had sometimes slept beside me, and I missed rubbing up against her smooth skin. I shut my eyes and listened to the night. Still and quiet, except for the occasional sound of
scree scree
, the call of the
nighthawk. Papa fell asleep quickly and started snoring. I could tell by Mama's breathing that she was still awake. It was faster than Papa's. Unsteady. She didn't fall asleep for a long while.

Where was Rita now? Was her spirit between two worlds, life and death, in the In-Between? Would she hang around, as did some of the dead, still troubled? Would she whisper in my ears? Or come to me in my dreams to make things right? I imagined her coming to me.
Mama
, she said.
Mama, mama
. She couldn't yet say my name,
Edmund. It's Ed
, I said.
Mama
, she replied. In my dream, I reached for her, but her spirit slipped through my arms. She faded and was gone.

When we awoke Papa had left. Alex and I fed the dogs and made the cooking fire. The shadows on Ghost River had shortened. Papa came back with a handful of white fur. He skinned the snowshoe hare, and after cutting it up he put it in the saucepan with snow for the broth. We waited until it was cooked, then Mama gave us pieces of meat. Papa put oats into the broth for the dogs.

After breakfast, Papa took Rita down from the platform and opened the casket. I hurried over. She looked the same as before except her skin was greyer and there was frost on her eyelids. Mama wanted to put her in her special baby bag, the
tikinagan
, as if she was still alive, but Papa said no. We needed to help her cross to the Other Side, he said. We need to help her let go.

Papa closed the lid, wiping his eyes and nose. He secured the ropes around the casket and prepared a spot for Alex and me on the sled. He tied on the blankets, food and utensils. Mama would walk behind the sled again.

A lifeless body, but a living spirit. Her spirit slowly slipping from her body into the next world, the place of the ancestors, the realm of the manitous. There she could run with the spirit animals, and greet her great
gookums
and great
moshoms
. She would be surrounded by those who loved her. She would be at peace. She would be free.

We set off. Mama didn't say much as we walked, and sometimes stifled a cry. Papa left her alone, and we walked until our break at midday. We stopped to have something to eat, and to give the dogs some beaver fat. Before we started moving again, I heard him say, “It's not your fault.”

“Maybe we could have done something if we were in town. Gone to the
wemistikoshiw
doctor.”

“But we weren't.”

“He'd help. I know it.”

“You don't know that.”

“Yes I do.”

“Netchi,” he said. “Please. Let it go.”

“She was my baby, Keshayno. She was our baby girl.”

“I know.”

At Ghost River trading post, everyone came out to meet us. I think they must have seen us coming on the sled over the snow and ice. It was lucky because my uncle and aunt, Meshen and Emily, must have been passing through, and were there too.

“Oh, Abraham,” Meshen said. “I'm so sorry. What happened?”

“She …” Papa said. He opened his mouth and shut it again. He swallowed, took a deep breath and nodded.

“It's okay, Abraham. Let's unload her. Emily, take them to the room at the back of Mr. Scott's store. They need to rest.”

Next day, the service was at the place with all the crosses. It looked pretty much like the one back home behind the church, except here more grave markers were made of rough wood, whereas ours were all stone. We walked there with Papa and Meshen carrying Rita's coffin. At the front was a holy man, but he looked nothing like the priest, Father Lavois, at home in Fort Albany. He was wearing torn pants instead of a black dress. He swayed from side to side like
a duck and sometimes let off loud, smelly farts, which he tried to mask by coughing.

“Where's the priest, Mama?” I asked.

“He's away. This is his helper.”

“Why is he special, Mama?”

“Because he is the Creator's helper on Earth. The priest couldn't be here, so he gave that man his powers.”

He didn't look like he had special powers. He looked like he had a funny tummy.

After the coffin was lowered into the ground, the stinky man asked my family if they wanted to say any words.