The Silence

by Karen Lee White

  So, there we were. We ordered and got two chicken dinners to share. We see our country cousin Haywire walkin’ up, and Johnnie runs out and gets him. Geez, it was weird how Arthur would just show up like that, when he came into town from the bush like he knew where to find us!

  Anyways, I went to the can. Meanwhile I didn’t know those guys had moved tables. This white family took our first table. Well, how was I supposed to know? I wanted to scare those idiots, and so I jumped out from behind the divider and raised my arms up like a bear and yelled as loud as I could, “YAH!” like an Indian war cry in a Western. Only it wasn’t my cousins, it was that white family and they went whiter, and the dad dropped his chicken. My cousins snickered at the next table. They told me later I kinda stood there with my arms up like a bear for a while, and went real white – well, I’m pretty dark, so as white as I could go.

  Geez, I felt stupid. And that white family thought I was nuts. A drunk. I could tell. They kept looking over real scared the whole time we were there. Their little girl had big eyes and they stayed on me. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Johnnie and kept breakin’ out snickerin’ the whole time we were in there, lookin’ at each other and shakin’ their heads. Geez, I coulda choked the both of ’em!

  Johnnie and Haywire had real nice cowboy boots. Me, I had winter boots for cold weather. Didn’t figure I was the cowboy boot typa guy.

  They always bugged me: They said I didn’t need shiny cowboy boots, because everyone was lookin’ at my shiny smile like I didn’t know how to do anything else.

  Haywire’s girlfriend Leah said I had a smile that could light up the world. I thought that was how her smile was.

  Man, we were all in love with that girl. She didn’t even know it. When I tried to tell her one day she just said, “Sammy, I don’t wanna hear about it!” I just wanted her to know she was special to us. She wasn’t from us, but she was part of us. Wish I got to tell her that. But, after I died, and saw how hard she cried at the funeral, I knew she felt it.

  Yeah, I died way before I meant to. I didn’t get to see my nieces and nephews grow up. I didn’t get to see the next spring, and the wild roses that grow all over up on Grey Mountain. That’s where they planted me.

  Johnnie got buried up in his mom’s village, ’cause up here we follow our mom’s way. Me, I didn’t follow anyone, nobody remembered where Mom was from. I had a Catholic funeral.

  An old drunk man thought the priest was takin’ too long. He started yellin’ at the top of his lungs right in the church, “Let’s get this show on the road!”

  But you know what? I got a fancy gravestone. Johnnie got a tent, because his family didn’t have the money to put a grave house around him. Some people get ’em with windows and everything. Some just get a fence, just around the grave. I guess so they won’t wander out of the graveyard after. Johnnie’s Mom and Dad stayed with his body for four days and nights. That’s the old way.

  They had a Anglican funeral, I guess for insurance. The minister sang hymns to a cassette in a fallin’ down log church. Real off-key.

  They threw Johnnie a potlatch after. Yup, I saw where they stuck up a grave tent in that little Indian village graveyard above the river over my cousin’s mom’s village.

  All my friends came to send me off. You shoulda seen all the cars! They didn’t pour a twenty-sixer of C.C. on my grave like I always told them to if anything happened. But Leah is gonna do it one day. She remembered, and she keeps thinkin’ about it and it’s a lotta years ago! I see that when I hang around her at night.

  One night, four years after the fire, she prayed for all of us that died. We were there waiting. Smiling at her in a circle around her bed when she woke. She stared at us, smiling back, until she remembered we were dead. She freaked right out. We had to leave because her mind couldn’t take it, us being there. Oh well, least she knew we came to visit. And I got to see her smile one more time before she hollered, “Holy Sheee-IT” – at the top of her lungs.

  I won’t say anything else, but that girl doesn’t wear anything when she sleeps, heh heh.

  l

  Leah woke, panicked, as she remembered – she had no job.

  She picked up the journal and read, recognized nothing. The handwriting didn’t look like hers. These were not her words. They were those of Haywire’s cousin Sammy. She could not read past the first lines. She went back to bed and did not wake up until Sunday.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MOON OF THE WITCH, Verse Three

  Wake up sudden

  Someone screaming my name

  Can’t hear nothing

  Oh, but I heard it just the same

  Straight to the heart

  It ain’t no wonder I’m so afraid of the dark

  Chorus:

  Can’t sleep under that moon, no

  Can’t sleep under that moon

  Oh no no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no

  l

  Faro Festival CBC Sunday Night Concert

  The workshops yesterday went good and I had a good performance last night. I got laryngitis today. I went into the gym and deep-breathed.

  I was croaking like a frog when I talked about the songs, but when I sang my voice was right there! It was so amazing to hear my name announced just before I walked on. To be up on that stage, blinded by lights, seeing only the first two rows of people. Knowing there were hundreds. Feeling their pride because I was representing the Yukon. I swear their applause for the Northern performers was much louder.

  My knees could easily have given out. I was so overwhelmed by nerves! But I did it. I focused on Uncle right in the front row. He was smiling up at me, and he stood right up and clapped hard after every song. I surprised him when I sang the one I wrote for him, “Courage in my Eyes.” I could see tears in his eyes.

  When I went up to the performers lounge right after playing, the famous performers gave me a standing ovation! I was so amazed. Humbled. I never expected that.

  Bruce Cockburn leaned over and said, “We do that when we recognize ones who will be coming up now.”

  I couldn’t say a word. I could only smile. I feel so over the moon! I can’t sleep and it’s 1:00 a.m.

  l

  Monday Morning!

  Uncle and I are on the bus home. There’s so much to write, but I’m feeling really tired after a jam-packed weekend. One of the professional backup musicians just walked down the bus to give me his business card! He said when I’m ready to record I should come to Edmonton and I can stay with him; he would arrange whatever I need. Uncle Angus just looked at him, dead straight. Not smiling. That’s not like Uncle, he is usually pretty friendly. Then I understood that this guy was trying to take advantage and had bad intent. I just thanked him and took it as a compliment. I could tell Uncle was not happy with him. He was looking at him very seriously, and the guy got nervous, couldn’t finish his sentence, and went back to his seat.

  My performance went fantastic and the workshops as well. When I made mistakes in the guitar playing, I made them consistently each time around, so they became part of the song. And I’m happy I proved to myself that I can control my voice when I’m very nervous.

  I found that I can immerse into the songs. I can feel them as I’m singing. I try so hard to feel what I sing. Even if I’m covering someone else’s song, I try to relive whatever the song is about. I try to sing from the pain, or the joy, or the peace the words speak of.

  One of the other Yukon performers came up saying something in my voice had touched her deeply and made her cry. I think that’s the best compliment I ever had.

  I also found out I can forget the words to my own songs, but never covers! That is so totally weird! I have to figure the answer out, because I forgot some lyrics. I just played an instrumental break, let my mind go blank, and the words kind of popped in. I have to work harder to remember the lines. It’s a terrible feeling to suddenly go blank.

  I also had this strange, mystic thing happen. A couple of times, I went someplace else
. My soul travelled while I was singing. I would land back into my body and think, “Oh no, where am I in the song?” But I’d let my instinct tell me, and let it grasp the words. Somehow, I knew I did right.

  l

  The fog world is an ugly stranger. Each morning she awakes to the dense grey that owns everything. Slowly, an angry sun burns through, and for a few hours the sun is high and bright in a deep blue sky. Feeble hope returns. The water sparkles, she can see the mountains. Still, she cannot gather courage to go outside.

  By late afternoon fog slinks across the water. It comes slow at first, encroaching just above the sparkling sun water. Then large and swallowing, it sucks Leah’s frail hope with it. Each day, this awful swallowing.

  l

  Leah loaded the film labelled “Haywire.” She saw his young face on the screen, and a pang went right through her body at the sight of the man she loved so terribly, even now. His wiry frame bent as he hefted a big truck tire toward the open, gaping teeth of the lug nuts.

  She heard her voice, off camera, “Tell me about your childhood.”

  l

  “Don’t interrup – I gotta get these new moggasins on my truck. Geez, good thing these tires are the same big.

  “So, like I said, I don’t know who my dad was. My mother you know is Doris from the Charlie family, from Little Annie Lake. I grew up at the lake, with Mom, all my uncles and aunties, and Gramma Maisey. Great Gramma went last springtime; she was 102. We knew when she told us all one day, ‘Don’t cry for me when I’m gone.’ All the old people use ta warn us like that. It made us scared ’cause we knew it meant they were gonna go, and they were always right.

  “We all lived in the log cabin my Great Grandpa built, by the lake. I don’t remember much about him, ’cept that everybody respected him and listened to him, and nobody acted disrespectful around him.”

  “What was the worst thing that ever happened?” her younger voice asked. Why would she have asked him such a thing?

  “When I was six, the RCMP came and grabbed me for the Anglican Mission School for Indians in Carcross. That place was bad. Fed us mouldy food, most of it had maggots. We knew not to eat those things. I threw it up mostly. They locked us in rooms for days if they didn’t like how we behaved.

  “My cousin Molly never said I was her cousin, or they wouldn’t have allowed us to talk. She tried to watch over me. I never forgot that. Anyways, I kept takin’ a group of little kids through the mountains away from that school. Some kids weren’t bush trained, so I found food for ’em. Roots, berries, the inside bark of trees we could eat, even in winter, if I couldn’t snare rabbits. We always got caught and sent back.

  “Once, it was by an RCMP. He asked us about why we ran away. He took us back, and in front of the whole school he said he wanted to eat with us kids. I remember that Head Matron looked real worried. ‘No, come and eat in the staff room,’ and he says, ‘No, feed me what you made for these kids’ – and that cop sat right down with us. After that, things changed lots. I think that cop musta said something and it made things a little better. They never had maggots in the food and nobody got beaten into the dirt after that. Not in front of anyone, anyways.

  “That bad nighttime stuff still happened. I know.

  “I grew up huntin’ before I went off to that school. Knew how to trap, snowshoe the trapline, and ice-fish. We gaffed round fish in the fall, in the creek near the cabin. Had to be careful, there was wolverines there.

  “One time I came on a wolverine on the path to the road. That wolverine stood up like a human and put his paws out to me just like he was tellin’ me to stop. Then I smelled the grizzly. Man, they stink! That wolverine was tryin’ to warn me about the grizzly just up the trail. Good thing I listened.

  “The animals on this lan’ can tell you a lot. Like every time somebody close to me dies, before I hear about it there’s something that I see. They’re not real shy, unless you have a dog in your yard. One time I caught one standing in the bush near the house. It wasn’t afraid of me. But if three people die on the same night, like in the fire I lost my cousins Johnnie and Sammy, and Sammy’s girl, three of them were there just on the side of the road when I was driving. They just stood there together. It happens every time.”

  “How come you go and get your mom when you knock down a moose?” Leah heard laughter in her younger voice.

  “I’m a good hunter, but I go grab my mom when I got something. I don’t look Indian to some people, so I used to get ‘Dry Meat’ – my nickname for dark-skinned Indian – so the Game Warder wouldn’t give me no trouble. Must look like the old man; he musta been some white guy. I look for him sometimes on the street, when I go to town. Try to see if some guy looks like me.

  “Don’t like town, me, I like the bush. Use ta like visitin’ Gramma up the road, with Uncle Angus, he looked after her. The band made a new house for them and put it up on a hill. Only thing is, the water ran down the hill so the outhouse ran into the creek.

  “Remember when Gramma got real sick and spent five months in the Whitehorse hospital? Geez, when you and me picked her up she got ready to go in five minutes, her kerchief and all! I remember how happy you and I were. She wanted to stop by the bead store, and next thing I knew – $150 of my bucks later – she comes out, me hauling bags of beads, hides, needles. Man, all she wanted to do was get home and sew and bead! She called me Grandsonny. I never saw her so happy!

  “Remember when I teased her about she had to pay me back, she pointed her finger at me an’ said, ‘Shit you!’ just like she always did. You and I grinned at each other. Tried hard not to laugh”

  l

  In the film labelled “Gramma Maisey,” Leah watches Gramma’s tiny hands flicker on the screen, illustrating the story as she speaks. Leah loves how she drawls the vowels for emphasis:

  “I been born lo-o-ong time ago. Been same place a-a-all my life. Hard growin’ up time. Go hunting lo-o-ong ways, stop, dry meat. Run fish nets wintertime. Haul moose quarter on my back. Haul water. Lo-o-ots hard work. Oh, boy. Never stop. Hands cold runnin’ nets under ice wintertime. We work hard that time. Sometime real cold, no food, animals quit movin’, can’t hunt. One winter no food – ate spruce tree, inside part. Boy, re-e-eal happy when we got moose that time.

  “My mom, she die when I only eleven year ’ole. I do her jobs. Lo-o-ots hard work, feed kids, make clothes, clean clothes, lots work. Thirteen kids. No friends. No time. Too much to do, too far in bush. Travel to town once year maybe. Carcross. See Kutchen people that time. White people. They don’ like us. Say we stink. We say they the stink thing. We bath in snow water that time. Ruuuub down hide clothes and moccasins with fresh snow wintertime. Summertime swim in lake.

  “I like swim that time, me. I swim re-e-eal good.

  “Sad when baby die springtime right after mom go. My father quit talkin’ lo-o-ong time that time. Baby sick, no money for medicine. Hard for Ind’n people that time – lo-o-ots babies die, we call ’em ‘Baby’ first two years. They only get name after, ’cause so many die.

  “Never get shoe ’til grown. Wear moggasins. Make for all my brothers and sisters and father. Jacket sometime too, with beadwork if we got money for beads.

  “Ha-a-ard get money that time. Only from sellin’ trapline furs that time. When I was twelve, me an’ my brother trapped furs as high as a .22 – that how much it cost for our own .22 that time.

  “U.S. Army come Second Worl’ war, make pipeline all that way Norman Wells, Dad cousin lead ’em through bush on dog team that time.

  “First time I see Negro man, no woman. They like Indian girls and lo-o-ots have babies. Nobody care. Lo-o-ots Ind’ns die that time, got sick from those army people. Lots babies die, they happy for new ones. And some army man they don’t ask for be with Ind’n women, just do it. Not Negro ones, they like be with Ind’ns, they laugh same like us. They always come visit. Bring food for kids. They been good to us Ind’ns. Some stay with Ind’n woman when army gone. Got lo-o-ots kids.

  �
��That time we travel by raft summertime, love dog team wintertime. Snow come, dogs go from pack dog to sleigh dog. They love sleigh. Hard work, cook feed for dogs. Bear dog we got to keep bears away. Pack dogs for heavy carrying. Bi-i-ig pot on fire outside, I do that time. One time dogs bit from no food. Arm got real sick. Father got spruce pitch, mix up with bear grease. Make that sickness go that time. Oh, boy, that hurts. Haul water for family sore arms. Bath those kids with sore arm, haul wood with that sore arm.

  “Real tough for Ind’ns that time. Not like people with truck and those skidoo. Us we just got dogs, our feet, raft, sleigh.

  “Boy, those times we work hard all day from sun come up and sun go down. We know sign – bush sign. When to hunt, when moose coming down from high country fall time. Know when best berry pickin’. Boy, us girls we like berry pickin’. No boys, just girls and we la-a-augh and la-a-augh and tell stories.”

  Leah’s chest ached as tears streamed. The voice on the film caressed her heart like Gramma’s tiny hands.

  “That time we don’t talk to men – only brothers, fathers and uncles and cousins. Bad if we look at man. Never do. Keep eyes down. Old way my mother taught me.

  “I know best rabbit snare. We watch animals to know best place snare, catch lots. They fight and waiting when we come by and run those snares. Lo-o-ots times we could only eat those rabbits and they kept us alive.

  “If we look at men in eyes, we could snare like rabbits but Mother wants good girls, so we listen, but laugh about set snares for men.

  “Sometime coyotes steal our snare game. Those coyotes come after our dog, but bear dog they bark, and scare ’em off. Grouse too, we get without .22, all you need is good aim an’ a rock. Hit ’em in the head. Same way porcupine – we club ’em, singe ’em. We dry lots fish, meat for wintertime; gee, lots work for us. Fall time, tan hides with brains – hides re-e-eal soft. Put rabbit fur inside winter moggasin, those made high up so snow don’t get in. Keep foot warm better than any boot.

  “Sure like Grandsonny, Arthur, bring me rabbit and grouse all time. He think of Gramma first all time. I keep bannock and tea on stove, he always hungry, that Arthur.