Wabanaki Blues (5 page)

“No problem,” I lie. “Which direction is the outhouse?”

He points to a nearby knoll.

I push though a tangle of overgrown bull briars that tell me Grumps prefers the woods to this outhouse.

“Remember to keep an eye out for poison ivy,” he calls. “You know the old saying: leaves of three, turn and flee.”

He doesn't need to warn me to watch out; tripping on his front step taught me to observe my footing. But it appears I have bigger worries than itchy plants. A skunk scampers out a burrowed hole under the outhouse door. I gently tug a few vines off the door handle and check for more stray animals before entering. Inside, I find only a splintered wooden seat covering a hole that hangs over a bottomless pit. In lieu of toilet paper, there's a pile of torn newspapers, filled with small-town personal ads. My flashlight catches one that says, “Logger Looking for Big Love.” I groan, fully realizing how far away from Hartford I really am. So far, the trees and animals feel great but the people up here may be another story.

Grumps' cabin windows shine with a melted caramel glow that tells me he's lit his woodstove. I recognize that glow from the lantern light tours of Mystic Seaport's nineteenth-century village. Dad took us there because he loves outdated stuff. I have to wonder about Grumps' motives for living in the past. Does he do it because his wife was alive in the past?

My flashlight beam falls on a patch of burnt-looking chaga mushrooms. I know these fungi because a kid at tribal camp picked some off a birch tree and ate them. Our counselor phoned the Connecticut Poison Control Center. But they told her he'd be fine, more than fine, actually, as these things are some kind of super-cure. I want to bring a bag of these home to fix whatever is wrong with Mom.

Bilki chimes in loud and clear, inside my head. “The flora, fauna, and fungi of these woods are all sentient beings.”

I decide to leave the mushrooms alone and head inside the glowing cabin.

“Where do I wash my hands?” I ask, arms outstretched.

Grumps directs me to an iron hand pump built into the kitchen counter over a tin washbasin with a hard clump of handmade soap beside it.

“This jewelweed soap will take care of your poison ivy.”

I notice the black flecks in it. “I don't have any poison ivy. I was careful where I stepped.”

“What about where you put your hands? Were there any vines on the outhouse door?”

I decide to lather up with the nasty soap while Grumps jingles his keys, searching for a particular one. He finds it and sticks it into the wall. I don't see any door in front of him, never mind a keyhole. Yet, unbelievably, a full-sized door opens in the wall before him. I shake my hands dry and shuffle closer. Upon careful examination, I find the well-concealed keyhole. I caress the door's knotty pine wood panels. They match those on the wall, making the door nearly invisible until opened. I wonder if this is Grumps' fine carpentry work.

Inside his secret door, Grumps moves a stack of yellowing art magazines to retrieve a faded rainbow tower of towels. I can't understand why he bothers locking up these grungy things. He hands me a frayed pink one that looks like it used to be red. Moving to the other side of the room, he sticks another skeleton key into the wall and opens an even larger hidden door that leads outdoors. He points his flashlight at a generator and steps outside to fill it with gasoline. I fall to my knees over the sight of this lifesaving modern contraption. Maybe he's not so old-fashioned after all.

He chuckles over my worshipful stance. “Forget it, City Gal. I know what you're thinking. This isn't some luxury camping trip. The generator is only for things that matter, like refrigeration and tools. That's it. There'll be no electric lights, television, phone, or computers in this cabin. We don't need hot water this time of year, either. You can wash up and do your laundry in Second Connecticut Lake, out back.”

This remark about bathing and washing in a lake is clearly a joke. I open a window to check if there's even a real lake outside. Regrettably, something glistens, like moonlit waters.

I try to smoke Grumps out, “Why would a body of water be called ‘Second Connecticut Lake' way up here in northern New Hampshire?”

He twitches, appearing to have something annoying stuck in his eye. “They don't teach much geography in Hartford, do they, City Gal? There are four Connecticut lakes in New Hampshire. Their water flows south into the Connecticut River that runs through your hometown of Hartford into The Great Salt Sea. ‘Connecticut' is the Algonquian Indian word for long, tidal river. It was our east coast superhighway, back when we got around everywhere by canoe.”

Lucky me. I get a geography lesson
and
a history lesson. Granted, I feel ignorant for not knowing all this—considering Mom teaches Native American history—but I hope these sorts of wise-old-man lessons won't go on all summer. I read
Heidi
in the sixth grade. It's a story about an abandoned Swiss girl from the city who goes to live with her grouchy know-it-all grandfather in the mountains. I hated that book.

Grumps lights an oil lamp on the counter. He opens my guitar case and removes Rosalita. The hairs on my arm leap to attention. I rarely let anybody touch my axe. But I remind myself she was a gift from him and try to remain respectful.

He strums a few bars from the 1970s tune, “Come and Get Your Love,” by the American Indian singer Redbone. The iridescent shell tones on the mother of pearl “R” reflect a rainbow of color in the lamplight. I wonder if this colorful “R” stands for Redbone. After all, I was the one who named the guitar Rosalita. I never asked my grandparents if the instrument had a former name. I would ask this question now if I didn't have bigger concerns. What if I'm really spending my whole summer with no lights, no phone, no computer, no television, and no hot running water?

I can't live like that. A knife block glinting on the kitchen counter catches my eye. Grumps notices my interest in it. He unlocks another hidden door and stuffs the knife block inside, then relocks it protectively. I wonder how much Mom said about me telling her I considered jumping off the roof of City Place last year. I also wonder what's up with all his locked doors.

The old man tucks the key ring under his armpit and turns to look me in the eye, like he's reading my mind. “Curious about my locked doors, aren't you, City Gal? One day they'll be yours to open, and you'll wish you'd kept them shut. For now, all you need to know is that they contain several treasures, including The Secret of Wabanaki.”

“The Secret of Wah?” I say. “All I've seen so far are household goods. I'm not twelve anymore, Grumps. I can't be enticed by magic doors filled with secrets.”

I know he's trying to inveigle me, a trick he learned from Bilki. My phone beeps to signal it's nearly lost power. I realize there's no way to recharge it, no way to text anyone or call for help if he decides to lock me inside one of these cupboards. I sneak a peek at his wristwatch to check the time. It's got a big white plastic domed face and winds by hand. It's the kind of watch that was popular in the early 1970s. Currently, it reads nine o'clock.

Grumps catches me looking and glances at his watch. “Look at the time! You should hit the hay, City Gal. Things always look better in the morning.”

“It's too early for me to go to sleep.”

“Not when you have to get up at five.”

“Why would I get up at five?”

“To feed the bears. Up here, we make sacrifices for the animals and the trees. They do the same for us.” He points to the woodstove. “This stove is fueled with wood, and we cook animal meat on it. That's two sacrifices the trees and animals have made for us. In return, we do things for them, like feeding the bears.”

“I don't eat meat and we heat our Hartford apartment with gas,” I quip.

He shakes his head and unlocks another secret door. From inside, he pulls out a huge bunch of bananas and lays them on the kitchen counter. “I know you enjoy bananas. But remember, they're mostly for the bears. Still, we don't want them to become tame, so we let them find their own nuts and honey.”

I gawk slack-jawed at the bananas. “Couldn't you poison a bear from New England by giving it tropical fruit?”

“Why? You're a Native of New England, and you love banana with your peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Right?”

I close my eyes, reminding myself that my city logic is bunk in these woods.

“You let me worry about what to feed the bears, City Gal. I know a bit more about the creatures of these woods than you do. Your grandmother's family has protected this place for a long time. I also learned about the woods, growing up with the old-timers at Mohegan. But I learned much more up here, from the deep woods themselves. Of course, I'm only the interim caretaker of these northern woods until one of your grandmother's Wabanaki people steps in to take over.”

“That won't be me,” I say, patting my chest, worried by his mispronnuntiation of her tribe's name.

“We'll see,” he replies.

I've had enough of this old man. I put in my earbuds. With the last juice in my phone, I listen to the full-length version of blues' goddess Bessie Smith's “St. Louis Blues.” Her words suggest an option for me, if things get too weird here.

“Feel tomorrow like I feel today, I'll pack my trunk, make my getaway.”

Three

The Secrets of Indian Stream

Pots and pans clank at dawn. I stumble out of my room to use the outhouse and smell something cooking on the stove that's definitely not vegetarian. Bull briars catch my ankle, and I focus on my footsteps. Something smacks into my forehead. It's big, furry, alive, and smells like musky honey. Everything goes blurry. My legs wobble. My body throbs. I've run into Chenoo. Chenoo, for sure. Chenoo, the cold-hearted, the flesh-eater, the killer-terror. So much for my friendly woods. The creature's voice grumbles like a 1970s muscle car. I quake from head to toe. My eyes begin to clear, and I see what this thing looks like.

What I'm facing is not Chenoo. It's a bear's rump and it's enormous. Chenoo might have been better. I pat my thumping heart to keep it from breaking through my heaving chest. Grumps' fantasy about friendly bears is absurd. I was insane to feel safe in these woods. This thing will turn around and start mauling me any second now. I hate bananas. Thanks to them, my life will end at seventeen. I mentally say good-bye to Lizzy, Beetle, and my guitar, Rosalita. At least I left her inside where she's safe. After I'm gone, I hope my parents don't give her to Lizzy. Her finger work sucks, her turnarounds bite, and she doesn't get the blues. But they probably will give her my guitar because they always exercise poor judgment. Look at their neglect in leaving me here. The thick scent of animal musk gags me. I picture our Mohegan chief offering the eulogy at my funeral. I see her searching for words to avoid stating the butt-obvious: that a foolish Indian girl died because she wasn't paying attention when she went frolicking in the northern woods and got eaten by a bear.

Amidst the mourners—who are far fewer than normal for a funeral on the Mohegan Reservation—I notice Rasima cuddling Beetle. She pulls him closer, and closer.…

Adrenaline shoots through me. I pull myself together and focus on finding a solution to this problem as if it's the last five minutes of my algebra final. Sadly, the only idea I come up with is begging Bilki for help.

She responds to my supplication with the words: “Thankfulness is the most important virtue.”

Really? That's all I get in this emergency? I understand that she wants me to appreciate the fact that I'm still alive, and that this bear has not immediately turned and torn me to pieces, or risen up on its two hind legs and roared, or made a single threatening gesture. Wait! Come to think of it, the creature hasn't budged.

A cautious optimism creeps into my mind. Why would this woodland animal like me any less than the others who greeted me like one of its own when I arrived? Plus, a bear bumping into a human being is like me tripping over a puppy, or more likely, a hamster. I suddenly feel sympathetic toward household pets. A warm mist rises off the bear's sleek back, which is flecked with hairs ranging from chocolate to toffee-colored. Apparently, black bears are not always black. The creature gracefully ambles around to eye me, still on all fours. A shock of blond fur pokes out from the top of its head like a bad punk rock dye job.

Its ears pop up like soft round homespun mittens. Its copper penny eyes blink with curiosity. The pointed golden-brown claws on its paws appear almost manicured.

I'm thinking I might be okay, when its eyes flare. This bear thinks it knows me, in a bad way. The hairs on its mitten ears prickle, alight with energy. Its eyes flash metallically. It quivers back its snout, exposing raw pink and black gums, baring a full range of healthy teeth, including canines sharpened to dagger-points. This is no friendly moose or mellow mountain lion. I don't dare take a breath. It's ready to pounce.

“Marilynn!” Grumps calls out from behind me.

The bear's quivering jaw snaps shut.

“You'll have to excuse my city gal granddaughter,” he continues. “She's a bit of a klutz, not accustomed to looking out for other creatures.”

There's so much adrenaline running through me that my sentences run over one another. “You talk to bears? You call this one Marilyn? Is it because she's blond, like Marilyn Monroe?”

“No, of course not,” Grumps steps forward. After some difficulty bending, he mashes half a dozen bananas in front of the bear and speaks under his breath, as if I've embarrassed him in front of her. “This lovely creature spells her name differently than that old-time Hollywood actress. She uses two n's, and her last name is Awasos. You know the word. It means black bear in Abenaki and Mohegan. Her first name is a recent addition. I chose it to honor our Mohegan chief.”

“I would have asked our chief if she wanted a bear named after her. Besides, shouldn't you have named this bear after an Abenaki Chief, considering she's living in their territory?”

Grumps eyes me curiously, as if I'm an exotic bug. “Don't you know that animals have their own territories?” He pulls his loose white hair back into a ponytail and wraps it with a red rubber band. “For somebody as special as your relatives up here claim you to be, you sure don't know much.”

“What folks up here would be talking about me? I don't know a soul in this town.”

“We can talk about that later. Right now, I'd like to present Marilynn Awasos,” He bows ceremoniously to the bear. “Marilynn is a lineal descendant of The Great Bear, the most ancient and powerful creature in all these woods, in the whole world, in fact. Someday, you might meet The Great Bear yourself. But let's hope it doesn't come to that.”

Marilynn's mitten ears perk up. So do mine. This Great Bear sounds worse than
Chenoo
and
Windigo
put together. I hope to avoid it.

Grumps dumps another bunch of peeled bananas on the back steps. Marilynn blinks her coppery eyes in thanks. Her muscular shoulders roil like a bodybuilder's, as she pushes the fruit with her paws and dips her broad snout to chomp down the yellow mush. I watch for any sign that this tropical fruit does not agree with her. I'm secretly hoping she might keel over and vomit from an allergic reaction, or run away, disgusted by the taste. Sadly, the fruit seems to go down fine. Once she's finished, she rolls back her gums and bares her glistening teeth at me again. This time, her snout is twitching and she licks her canines. The shiver that runs through me feels like a minor electrocution. I don't think Marilynn and I will ever be friends.

Grumps steps right up and speaks into her mitten ear, “That's the last of the bananas, Marilynn. It looks like me and City Gal need to make a trip to the general store to pick up more.”

The bear is eyeing me suspiciously. No matter what he says, this creature doesn't feel friendly like the other animals in these woods. This bear is dangerous. The combination of my adrenaline rush and Marilynn's munching and slurping makes my stomach growl.

“Grumps, I'm hungry.”

We bid Marilynn good-bye and head inside. The sun has risen. I now see the cabin fully for the first time. The bright mismatched glassware on the windowsill looks like somebody spilled a bag of Skittles. The dishes on the wall rack are decorated with woodland animals, like some of the ones on my bracelet. There's a plate featuring baby bears eating blueberries. Another shows a huge black bear catching a lake trout. I'm sure these are supposed to be cute portraits. But I have trouble thinking of bears as cute.

I search for a place to sit. The only seats appear to be two straight-backed maple chairs set beside a rough-hewn pine kitchen table and two rockers that face the woodstove. One of the rockers is stained strawberry, the other mustard. I'm guessing the strawberry one belonged to Bilki because Grumps always raved about her strawberry smile, not to mention that mustard suits Grumps' disposition. I never thought I'd miss Mom's relic of a navy futon, but I do. At least it has a plush cushion. In contrast to the sparse furniture, there are far too many oil lamps in here. The lamp I most admire sits taller than the rest, on the kitchen countertop. It's two-toned, with a swirling lime-green bottom and a cerise glass top. It reminds me of those Bob Marley cocktails that Mom slings down like water. The table boasts a tin lamp the colors of my favorite apples—granny smith, golden, and red delicious.

I see two cooked venison steaks in a cast iron pan on the stove. That explains the smell I noticed earlier. Yuck.

“Do you have any pancake mix?” I ask.

“Sorry, I forgot you don't eat red meat.” He lowers his head and wraps the steaks. “I got this venison from my pal, Sadie. She still hunts. I gave up hunting after your mother's accident.”

Ah, mom's car accident. It was bound to come up eventually. It drifts into family conversations like an unknown scent, vaguely threatening, always mysterious. All I know for sure is that it gave mom a scar and a hatred for this place.

I try to focus on the positive. “I see you've picked up most of the clothes from the floor. The room looks great.”

What I don't say is that I grimly noticed the cast iron woodstove that warms the place appears to be his only cooking device. I should have taken a hint from the cast iron stove charm on my bracelet. It follows that the iron hand pump and speckled tin washbasin constitute his only sink and faucet. I really am living in the past. I can't hide my disappointment.

Grumps pours coffee from a black iron pot into a blue speckled tin cup, like I'm in a scene from an old cowboy movie. Other speckled cups hang from wooden pegs on the wall. None of them match. He hands my cup to me, grinning. “Try this. It's my specialty.”

I hesitate.

“Smell it, if you're skeptical.”

I sniff and swoon. It's so rich and smoky, almost chocolaty. I sip it. “This is the best coffee I've ever had.” The song “Home on the Range”
pops into my head and sticks
.

I raise my cup to salute Grumps but he's already staring into another time, his hand resting on the picture of Bilki behind his rocker.

I open the fridge to put the meat away and notice two glassy-eyed lake trout lying on a newspaper on the top rack.

“I like fish,” I say. I want to explain that I only avoid eating land animals due to my slaughterhouse apartment building. But that statement would just give him another opportunity to take a dig at my City Gal lifestyle. So instead I say, “You can fry this fish and I can make Bilki's baked beans to go with it. She taught me how.

“You'll make your grandmother's beans?” Grumps eyes twinkle. “Get dressed and we'll pick up the ingredients at the general store. You can also get what you need to make your peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwiches.”

Uplifted by the prospect of edible food, more awake, and enjoying the illumination of bright summer sunlight, I find my bedroom delightfully transformed. My scratchy wool blanket is the color of overripe blueberries. The woodland wall mural includes plants and animals made with brushstrokes of glittering silver and electric indigo. Azure cornflowers cover the corners of the dresser. Teal ivy vines wrap the bedposts. The ceiling is midnight blue, dappled with pale cobalt stars, including the bold constellations of The Hunter and The Great Bear. The leaves on the floor are a vibrant swirling sapphire, so odd and so un-autumn-like. Imagine mom hating New England fall foliage so much that she made her mother paint the leaves in her room blue—the one color they never turn.

I emerge into the main room, wearing a tee shirt that's not my usual grim black. It's tie-dyed, featuring a peace sign riddled with bullet holes, the logo for the band “Shooting for Peace.”

“Grumps,” I ask, “what ingredients do we already have for the baked beans?”

He unlocks a new door in the wall with his skeleton keys. This one is stuffed with old recipe books, along with mason jars full of home-canned vegetables, and a bin of dried herbs, which he pushes aside. “I've got your dried beans right here. We can start soaking them now. I've also got plenty of maple syrup to sweeten them.” He pulls out a mason jar, hand-labeled “Chief's Private Syrup Stash,” and smiles.

“What's up with the locked doors? Do you think somebody is going to steal food from a cabin in the middle of the woods? Who would do that? The bears?”

“I'm guarding the Secret of Wabanaki for your grandmother.”

“Wabanaki. Sure.” I'm figuring his mind is going and he's forgotten how to say “Abenaki.” I refocus him on the task at hand. “By the way, Bilki always threw an onion and a dash of ketchup and mustard into her beans.”

“We'll add those to the list, City Gal,” he says, shoving Rosalita at me, as if she's a kid sister who needs watching.

He drops a key in my free hand, and waves me outside, around the backside of his woodpile and whips a dirty canvas cover off a sky-blue Ford pickup truck with two white doors. The hood and front end are a slightly darker blue than the truck bed. My guess is this vehicle dates back to the 1980s.

“Whad'ya think?”

“I think it looks like two clouds on a sunny day.”

He slaps his knee. “I'll be darned if that's not exactly what your mother said when I bought it for her! Blue was her favorite color when she was young.”

“It still is,” I respond. “We share a bluesy mindset. It's the one thing we have in common.”

“You got more than that in common with your mom. You'll learn that one day.” Grumps hitches up his overalls gruffly. “Go ahead and take the wheel. My eyesight's going.”

“I don't have a driver's license.” I eye the hard metal dashboard and the unfamiliar standard-style shifter and clutch.

“Nobody cares about that up here. Most folks in Indian Stream are driving snowmobiles before they can read. You're seventeen. Time you learned to handle a truck.” He points to the pedals. “Press the left one, pump the right one twice, put your right foot on the middle one, and twist the key in the dashboard.”

I try it. The engine revs in a choking, sputtering, twentieth-century kind of way.