Wabanaki Blues (4 page)

“You'll be fine here, Mona,” she continues. “The animals won't bother you, if you don't bother them. You need to take a reality check and start walking.”

This woman, who just dry-swallowed two la la pills, is telling me to take a “reality check.” I picture myself gathering her mountain of precious research notes into a pile and burning them in a beautiful bonfire.

Dad pats my arm with the back of his hand, in a careless farewell. According to him, hugging and kissing is for folks with more brawn than brains. He could be right. Beetle and I both got D's in Algebra. I love to picture Beetle's muscular arms wrapped around me while he presses his smirking lips into mine, even if there is no point in daydreaming about him anymore.

I shake myself back to consciousness and try to sound reasonable. “Let's call Grumps to make sure he's home.”

My father wipes his fogged-up glasses. “There's no need. Your grandfather is expecting you. We're here a bit early but he never goes anywhere.”

Mom arches her perfect eyebrows at him. “Your father is right. Nobody up here ever leaves.”

Dad's pupils start moving, not quite flipping all the way back into his head, but bouncing upwards. After briefly searching his brain for the right file, he says, “Nobody up here ever leaves, eh? Unless, she's a beautiful young woman who cons an older man into helping her escape from a crazy family that believes their Native American myths are real.”

“So now you were conned into marrying me,” Mom snivels into a tissue.

“Wait just one minute, Lila Sassafras Elmwood…”

This could go on for hours. Their arguments loiter into doomsday. A forest full of hungry bears suddenly doesn't seem so bad. I open my door and hop out of the gear-stuffed car, landing with a muddy splash, splattering myself up to Etta's eyebrows. I grab Rosalita and my duffel bag and slog through the brown goo.

I check the bars on my cell phone and notice there's no reception. “Please don't tell me there's no service here.”

They take a break in bickering to shake their heads no, like two bobbleheads from the Disney villains collection.

“That's great,” I groan.

Something black slithers past my muddy ankle, and I shriek. “Was that a deadly water moccasin snake?” My eyes follow the slimy ripple into the shadowy woods.

Mom hangs out the window for a look. “Reality check, Mona. There are no water moccasins this far north. That was only a black racer snake. Scary, but harmless.”

Before today, I'd never seen a bear or a snake outside the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence. I react like any dufus confronting danger in the wilderness: I crack a joke. “Bears, snakes. I'm guessing the flesh-eating
Windigo
will be next. Right?”

Mom wrinkles her nose at me as if I've failed to research the correct assignment for her Native American history class. “
Windigo
?” She speaks this northern Indian word with a Canadian accent. “
Chenoo
is the only monster people talk about around here. You should know that. But don't worry. It's been years since anybody's seen one.”

I think hard, trying to remember anything about a
Chenoo
from summer camp story time on the Mohegan reservation. Nothing comes to mind. It must be a northern Indian thing. Mom is notoriously stingy about sharing her mother's traditions.

Dad waves limply. “Farewell Mona. You'll be fine.”

He steers into a tight U-turn. Red Bully thumps over a couple of boulders and sprays my face with mud. Mom waves at my mud-freckles until her strained face disappears past the familiar cluster of four birches. I wonder if she's really going to Russia, or checking into some drug rehab facility.

Something shifts the moment my parents disappear and it's just me alone in these woods.
I may be what Grumps calls a “City Gal,” but I sure don't hate trees or fall foliage, like Mom. The mud engulfing my feet isn't that bad either. It's warm and soft, welcoming actually. Like the trees. The sun has just slipped below the horizon, and suddenly everything is illuminated, glowing, like each tree radiates its own light from deep inside. The general lack of manmade noise adds to this effect. There are no beeping crosswalks, no squealing brakes, and no blasting car stereos. There's not another human being in earshot, like I'm in one of those religious movies where all the good people rocket off planet Earth and leave us losers behind. But it's not really silent. The sounds, here, are simply new ones. These woods have their own melody. My soaked Chuck Taylor sneakers gurgle and pop in the mud. Bee-boppa-loo-bop. Not far away, something grinds low and throaty, in a real Ray Charles whiskey growl. That growl is coming from a different direction than the black bear we saw earlier. How many bears can there be up here? Until today I thought they were extinct in New England. Surprise on me. I focus on more comforting sounds. A whippoorwill whistles its shrill evening cry, and a redheaded woodpecker offers a jazz downbeat—ratta-tat, ratta-tat-tat. This place may not be as much of a blues haven as Shankdaddy's neighborhood at the other end of Manburn Street, but it's definitely got strains and rhythms.

I'm probably noticing more sounds because I can see less and less. The sun has dropped like a stone, turning the sky from passion pink to grizzly gray. Everything appears in shadow or silhouette. I pull a peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwich from my duffel and consider dropping bits of it along this trail, in case I need to find my way back. Then I remember those videos of Yellowstone National Park where stupid campers leave out food and hungry bears attack them.

The animals won't bother you, if you don't bother them.
That's what Mom said. But what does she know? It's better not to lure the bears.

I pass a boulder shaped like a giant turtle. Yellow cat eyes pop out from behind it. It's a mountain lion but it merely blinks at me, disinterested, like I'm a fellow homey from the ‘hood. I can see why Grumps stayed up here after Bilki died and didn't return to tribal elder housing on the Mohegan Reservation. This place draws you in. Plus, considering my grandfather's rough temperament, I realize how fortunate we are he chose to stay up here, in these woods.

Wait a minute…
these
woods? What if these woods are nowhere near Bilki's house? What if my parents dropped me off on the wrong road? Mom had a lot of trouble locating the turn off the main road. A sharp chill begins in my neck and skitters to my toes. Mom is heavily medicated. She could have easily picked the wrong road.

I keep moving because stopping will get me nothing. A hum fills the air, maybe from a swarm of insects? Maybe from the wind? Maybe from the whispers of the trees? Are they guiding me? Either way, it's soothing. The last gleams of sunlight twinkle through the white pines, like holiday lightbulbs going out on this land full of Christmas trees, one by one. My eyes adjust to see things in a strange gloaming blue light. The mountain lion that was behind the boulder has moved closer but still doesn't feel threatening. A bull moose saunters past me and nods. Orange pineo mushrooms on the side of an oak stump expand before my eyes. I recognize them from nature class at tribal camp. Soft moss spreads across the forest floor. I can see things growing! I avoid an anthill because my eyes peer through the earth, into the bustling insect metropolis. I belong to this forest like I've never belonged anywhere. I am these oaks and pines. I am the moss. I am the mushrooms. I am the wildcat. I am the moose. I am the ants. I'm all of it. Okay, I'm also overtired.

I trip and fall on a flat stone with a sharp edge that bruises my foot. So much for my cosmic unification with the Great North Woods. I check Rosalita. Fortunately, she remains undamaged because I dropped her onto my duffel. I don't bother to get up. What's the point? I have no idea where I'm going or where I am. I sit, rubbing my sore and injured foot. In my exuberance over these woods, I got careless and stupid. I should have been more careful.

I don't dare try and stand. What if I can't get up? What if nobody comes looking for me for a month? That's what happened to Mia Delaney, wasn't it? Her classmates assumed she rode off with her lover into the sunset, when in fact he must have circled back to the school basement and locked her inside. Her parents didn't search for her at her own high school. If they did, they could have saved her. What kind of parents don't comb every inch of their kid's territory after they disappear? What kind of parents drop their daughter off in the middle of the New Hampshire woods without making sure she gets to her grandfather's cabin safely?

My foot throbs. I lay my head on my duffel and stare up at the stars. There are so many here. I pick out the few constellations I know.

The temperature drops, sending shivers through me.

“Bilki, what am I supposed to do?” I ask, lifting my arm to the stars and jangling my charm bracelet.

My grandmother comes through with only one word, “Reach.”

What does she mean? Reach for the stars? Reach inside myself? Reach around me? I'm about to curse her vagueness when my reaching hand touches another flat stone with a sharp straight edge that was clearly cut by some machine. This is definitely a step. My tripping stone is a step, attached to another step. I scramble up them on my muddy hands and knees. There has to be something beyond these steps.

I remember the tiny flashlight on my keychain. Lizzy gave it to me last September when I freaked out after a hurricane killed our power for a week. I raise my beam of light to reveal a panel of wood covered with a swirl of crimson and gold. I wave the light around and see it's a door painted with fall leaves. Only Bilki could have created this. I've found my grandparents' cabin!

I hobble to my feet and tap the door with my good foot. It flies open, which is a sign to call the cops where I come from. My narrow beam of light reveals a room littered with flannel-lined jeans, thick wool socks, leatherwork gloves, rubber fish waders, cotton union suits, and crewneck sweaters, all tossed around like an L.L. Bean showroom in late December. In Hartford, this sort of strewn-about mess would suggest the thieves had already come and gone.

“Hey Grumps!” I pull on the nearest sweater. It smells smoky, like firewood.

There's no reply.

I lay Rosalita against the cabin's log wall and push a torn goose down vest off a rocking chair. A flurry of feathers falls past my tiny flashlight beam like light snow. I collapse on the rocker and gobble my peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich amid this feather snowstorm. I realize I need a bathroom and stand without much trouble, flashing my beam around. This cabin has only two rooms beyond the central living space. One has a pumpkin-colored door with a mushroom painted on it. Bilki loved the color pumpkin. She used to call it the marriage of sunlight and cherries. I walk over and push this door open. The room doesn't smell bright and fruity. It smells as if Grumps has not changed the sheets since his wife died. I close it, quickly, gagging.

The other bedroom has a blue door with a spider web painted on it. The wall opposite the bed features a mural depicting deep blue woods with Bilki's signature vortex at the center. A swirl of leaves, also in blue, covers the floor. In this dim light, everything appears bruised. Mom definitely chose the colors in here. I dump my stuff on the bed, which is covered with flannel sheets and a scratchy wool blanket. At least the room smells okay and the blues complement my personality and musical persuasion. There are a few unexpected drawbacks. I can't find a light switch, and neither bedroom has a bathroom.

I return to the main room where my weak flashlight beam glints against something metallic on the rough plank kitchen counter. It's a jailor's-style key ring loaded with heavy iron skeleton keys. There are no locks on these bedroom doors or anywhere else in here that I can see. I jingle the keys and think about all the horror movies that use skeleton keys as props. Those movies generally feature half-seen monsters slashing teenagers. I swallow hard. What does Grumps use them for?

I sit back down on the feather-coated rocker and fold my muddy legs, pretzel-style. With every passing minute, my knees press tighter together. I really need a bathroom. Plus, it's getting colder by the minute. Apparently summer nights are not always that summery this close to the Canadian border.

The distant sound of someone singing catches my ear. It's the old “Indian Hunter's Song” and it's definitely Grumps who is singing it because he emphasizes the line: “Oh why does the white man follow my path, like the hounds on the tiger's track?”

I wonder if I should tell him my dad keeps a Siberian tiger's skull inside a locked box in our basement storage unit. I wonder how violently Mom would explode, if she ever found it. What am I saying? My mind must be rambling because I'm exhausted and overjoyed to hear Grumps' voice.

Overjoyed to hear Grumps' voice.
Who would have thought I'd ever think that?

I wag my itsy bitsy flashlight in the direction of his singing and gulp. He's wearing overalls that look as though they've never been washed. His long ponytail has faded to white and his belly hangs real low, like an honest-to-God Native American Santa Claus, minus the good nature and clean suit.

“Do you have a bathroom?” I holler, now bruising my knees with pressure.

“Hello to you, too, City Gal,” he says roughly. “I'm sorry you found the place deserted. I thought you'd be here a bit later. As far as an indoor bathroom goes, there ain't any. But there's an outhouse out back. Or there's always the woods.”

He unclips an industrial-sized flashlight from a loop on his overalls and hands it to me. “Your mom should have given you a proper flashlight to bring along. I guess she forgot we don't have streetlamps up here. I'm glad to see you kept your wits about you and weren't spooked by the dark. These woods are Abenaki country, your territory. They'll always keep you safe.”