Five Little Indians

by Michelle Good

  The first few months were like a dream. Kenny and his mother rose with the birds and most days headed to the smokehouse, taking a lunch with them along with the tools they would need. Even more than the house, the smokehouse was like a wound each of them carried, a brutal reminder of the day Kenny was taken. The day the first fire was lit in the smokehouse was like a rebirth. Bella’s expert fillet knife glinted in the sun, the red salmon ribbons hanging and waving gently in the breeze above the smoke. For Kenny, this was home.

  They fell into an easy routine, tending the smokehouse, carefully preserving half-smoked salmon, managing a simple life. On Sundays they would stay home all day with the curtains closed, just in case the visiting priest got wind of Kenny’s return. Neither of them spoke of their years apart, and over time the truth of their separation grew between them, like a silent wound, untended and festering. Kenny started spending more time at the docks, visiting the fishermen and making friends. Every now and then Clifford or Mack would give him some work. Kenny would carefully count his pay, folding the bills neatly in three and slipping them into an old, slim tobacco tin he’d rescued from the junk heap. Bella started spending less time at the smokehouse, more time at the kitchen table, smoking and gazing out the window. Sometimes she wouldn’t even hear Kenny when he came in from a day of wandering. He would slip into the chair beside her and marvel at the two-inch ash at the end of her smoke.

  “Mom?” Kenny said, moving the tray under her precarious ash. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  Her eyes looked as though she was rising from some perilous place deep inside her. “Oh, don’t worry, boy. Everything’s okay.” She stubbed the already-dead cigarette in the ashtray and instinctively wiped her hands on her apron. “Are you ready for your lunch?”

  “Mom, it’s suppertime.”

  His mother looked out the window at the changing afternoon light. “Well, so it is. Go wash up. I’ll cook.”

  They ate in silence these days, words growing more and more awkward between them. Kenny would wash the dishes, Bella would dry. But on this day, she reached for her sweater instead. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Kenny reached for the towel to wipe the suds off his hands. “I’ll come.”

  “No, that’s okay. I won’t be long. Just finish up there.”

  It was long after dark when she finally returned. Kenny lay in his bed, still and quiet, watching. She lit a candle on the kitchen table, pulled the bottle from her purse and set it on the table. She looked at it for what seemed like forever before slowly twisting the cap off and taking a long draw. Kenny turned his back to the open door and closed his eyes.

  The following morning, his mother was gone. The coffee pot was cold. The ashtray had been emptied, the bottle was gone, but a wave of sadness rolled over Kenny just the same. He took his jacket off the hook by the door, slipped it on, and walked to the docks and filled his day with odd jobs, adding a few bills to his tobacco tin. Late afternoon, he headed to the smokehouse. It felt as if his mother’s heart was pulling him there. The racks were empty, but the wonderful smell of smoked fish still permeated the building from their last batch. He found his mother sitting on their driftwood seat, gazing out to sea. Without a word, he sat beside her and took her hand. Wordless, they sat pressed together for what seemed like hours.

  Finally, he whispered, “What’s the matter, Mom? Aren’t you glad I’m home?”

  She looked at him and tried to speak but could find no words. Kenny reached for her hands and held them in his. They sat, mute, watching the sun begin its lazy descent into the sea.

  “I just don’t know what to do.” Bella squeezed Kenny’s hand. “It’s like most of me is gone and I can’t get it back.”

  “Clifford has some work for me. He’s heading to Rupert. Gonna take me with him.”

  “You like working with him. That’s good.”

  “I’ll be back on Saturday.”

  “Okay, boy.”

  Kenny stood, hugged his mom and headed for the docks, strangely relieved by the idea of heading out on the boat.

  It was New Year’s Eve on Saturday, and the sun had just set as Kenny walked up the path to the house. A box of empty beer bottles sat on the small painted stool next to a damp bag of garbage. Kenny opened the door and saw some woman he didn’t know sleeping in his mother’s armchair. Bella sat at the table, a glass of wine in her hand, and a man and a woman argued about who had made the last booze run. His mother looked up just as Kenny slipped back out the door.

  He spent the night in the net shed next to the dock. The following morning was bright and clear. Chilled and hungry, he walked to the last slip, where he knew he’d find Mack hard at work, getting ready to head south.

  “Hey, Happy New Year, kid! It’s 1967. Wonder what craziness the world will cook up this year.”

  “Yeah, same to you,” Kenny replied. “You got any work?”

  “You lookin’?”

  “Yup. As much as you got.” Kenny felt for his tobacco tin in his shirt pocket.

  Mack beckoned him aboard. Kenny carefully counted out ones and fives from his tobacco tin and passed Mack twenty bucks. “Give that to my mother next time you see her, okay?”

  Mack folded the bills carefully, then put his hand on Kenny’s shoulder for a moment before they turned to ready the boat for sea.

  2

  Lucy

  You.” Sister Mary loomed over the senior girls at breakfast, pointing to Lucy. “Back to the dorm. I will be there presently.”

  Lucy waited until Sister was gone. She looked at the girls she shared her meals with and shrugged her shoulders. “Now what?”

  Edna, Lucy’s closest friend since Maisie’s departure, spoke up with a catch in her throat. “I told you. It’s your birthday tomorrow. You’re gonna leave.”

  The following day was Lucy’s sixteenth birthday. It was well known to the inmates at the Mission that they were supposed to be allowed to leave the school when they turned sixteen. But it didn’t always happen that way. Since they were cut off from the Mainland, it was not as if the students could just walk away. They needed aid and permission. Sometimes, especially in the cases of orphaned children with no one to raise questions, they would be kept at the Mission for years after they hit the age of freedom. At sixteen, their status quietly changed. They became the voiceless ghosts, paid a few dollars in return for long days as scullery maids and labourers—mid-century indentured servants. Lucy fully expected she would be the next pitiful graduate scrubbing the huge pots and pans encrusted with old porridge or stew. She was resigned, wondering what else she would do anyway.

  Lucy sat on her cot, hands in her lap, trying to ignore the fear rising in her as she waited for Sister. She ran her hand through her hair, her fingertips homing in on the raised scars from the razor. Finally, she could hear the reports of Sister’s hard leather heels announcing her approach. She counted them and sat on her hands so they wouldn’t shake. She looked to the window at the low-hanging clouds, hoping for the best.

  Sister stopped at the end of Lucy’s cot, the clicking of her rosary beads carrying on an extra beat after the footfalls stopped. She placed a small cardboard suitcase on the cot.

  “You’re leaving tomorrow. Pack your things. The boatman will be picking you up at the dock at three.”

  Lucy reached for the suitcase. “Where am I going?” Lucy almost smiled at how short Sister had become over the years. She remembered Sister looming over her with the razor ten long years ago, when Lucy stood before her, fresh off the boat, seasick and terrified. She had seemed like a giantess then.

  “We have a ticket for you to Vancouver.”

  “But I don’t have any family there. What am I to do there?”

  “You have no family anywhere as far as we can tell. What you do or where you go once you get there is no longer my concern. We will give you the address for the welfare office.” She looked down her nose and sniffed. “Bring your suitcase down to lunch. New girls are arriving tomorrow, so strip your bed
in the morning. Go to the laundry and make it up again with clean linen. You will leave after the noon meal at some point. Now go to class.” Sister turned away from Lucy, the crackling of her regalia fading, the dorm sinking back into silence.

  Lucy placed the suitcase on the floor at her feet and sat once again on the bed, numb with the notion of freedom. She reached into the small metal locker beside her bed and retrieved the small pink envelope. Maisie had promised she would write when she left last year, and she had. Once. Lucy pulled the single sheet from the envelope and once again took comfort from her friend’s words. When they let you out, come find me. I have a job and you can stay with me. Lucy tucked the letter into the suitcase and slipped it under the cot.

  A strange lightness filled her as she walked to the classroom. She looked at the worn black-and-white floor tile, the thickly painted windowsills, the warped glass of the old panes, the giant crucifix on the chapel door. It seemed impossible that she would not see them again after today. Lucy slipped quietly into her place in the classroom.

  “Well?” In the next desk, Edna stole a glance at Lucy.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Told you.” Edna’s eyes welled with tears. She caught them before they fell.

  “Eyes front, Edna, or you will be in the corner again with your friend the dunce cap.”

  “Yes, Sister.” Edna waited until the teacher turned once again to the blackboard. “Tomorrow?”

  Lucy whispered. “Yes. Vancouver.”

  Edna’s mouth fell open. “Are you going to see Maisie?”

  Lucy nodded toward the front of the class and Sister’s broad hips shimmying to the rhythm of her chalk as it moved along the blackboard. Lucy pressed a finger to her lips. “Let’s talk at lunch.”

  Edna had a talent for gossip, although she was a little iffy on the facts most times. All the senior girls would know Lucy’s news long before she had a chance to tell them. When the lunch bell rang, she felt the trance take hold again as she took it all in with new eyes. Never again would she wash those stairs or dust the banisters or clean Father’s rooms. She smiled as she walked into the dining hall, the rest of her dorm mates there, huddled around Edna at their table.

  “Lucy! Hurry up!” Edna beckoned her friend, announcing for the rest of the girls at the table, “See, I told you it was true.” All eyes were on Lucy as she took her place at the table, waiting for confirmation.

  “Yes, it’s true.” Lucy looked at them in their brown leotards and school skirts, all the same, like a chain of dolls cut from brown paper. “Sister says I’m going to Vancouver.”

  “Are you going to stay with Maisie?”

  “Did she ever write again?” The girls all spoke at once, peppering Lucy with questions.

  “I only got one letter from her, but she told me to come see her, so I will.”

  Edna looked at her friend, the excitement draining from her face. She burst into tears. “You’ll forget about us too.”

  Lucy grabbed her friend’s hand. “Wipe your tears, Edna. How could I ever forget you?” The girls laughed. “You’re getting out next year too, right?”

  Edna nodded, wiping her face. “Yeah, can’t keep me any longer than that.”

  “Well, you can come see me then too.”

  “Let’s have a party tonight.” Edna had that look about her, the one that Lucy knew meant she had trouble in mind. “Fresh baking tonight for the nuns. I may have to take a trip to the kitchen after lights out.”

  Lucy shook her head and smiled. “Edna, you are a fine thief.”

  The girls choked back their laughter as Sister approached to silence them, stopping short and turning away as the girls sank into silence.

  Edna rolled her eyes. “Why should they get all that while we starve?”

  The girls nodded silently, slurping the thin soup that was their daily fare, happy for a chunk of potato, ecstatic for a piece of the gristle or fat that passed for meat.

  That night, the girls lay in their beds feigning sleep, waiting. Lucy lay on her side and watched Edna place her ear against Sister’s door, listening for the familiar snoring. She smiled at her friend as Edna moved silently toward the stairs, pillowcase in hand. Lucy counted, a habit she had never slipped out of since that first day in the classroom when Sister had hit her over and over with her pointer stick because she didn’t know her letters. Now she counted everything, especially when she was nervous, which seemed to be more and more often. She counted the cots in the dorm, the desks in the classroom, the tables in the dining hall, the panes in the windows, the seconds it took for the clouds to cover the moon. It calmed her. Tonight, she counted the seconds it took for Edna to return to the dorm, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four. It was as if Edna would not come back if she didn’t count. Five thousand, six thousand, seven thousand. Finally, she returned, looking like a wiry hobo with her pillowcase slung over her shoulder, bulging with the promise of a good feed.

  The girls slipped out of their beds and tiptoed to their place under the glowing red exit sign. There, in the red darkness, they gathered round as Edna rolled open the pillowcase to reveal the booty. Oatmeal cookies, cinnamon buns, butter tarts, shortbread. Edna handed each girl a treat, saving Lucy for last. Lucy reached for hers, but Edna pulled it back.

  “Wait a minute, Lucy.” Edna felt around in the bottom of the bag. “Don’t look!”

  Lucy dutifully covered her eyes, wondering what her friend was up to now.

  “Okay, open ’em!”

  Lucy moved her hands from her eyes and there before her was a single pink candle sticking out of the cinnamon bun. Edna reached once more into the bag, fished out a kitchen match, struck it with her thumbnail and set the candle aflame. The girls sang the birthday song in whispered tones and then pushed the bun toward Lucy.

  “Make a wish!” Edna held the bun out for Lucy to blow out the candle. “Make it a good one, I only got one match.” The girls giggled quietly, tugging at Lucy’s pyjama sleeve, urging her to make a wish.

  Lucy closed her eyes and blew out the candle.

  “Well?” Edna raised her eyebrows.

  “I can’t tell you! Or it won’t come true.”

  Edna started chanting in whispered tones, “Lucy and Kenny, sittin’ in a tree.”

  The other girls giggled behind their hands and joined in. “K–I–S–S–I–N–G!”

  Lucy blushed and nudged Edna. “Geez, you! Cut it out.”

  The girls finished their treats and snuck back to bed. Lucy counted as each of them fell into the deep breathing of sleep. Sleep did not come to her, though. Instead, she watched the night fade into the brooding grey clouds of a coastal morning. While the other girls still slept, she slid the cardboard suitcase out from under her bed and flipped it open. She opened her locker and emptied it of her things, packing them for her trip. She closed the lid of the suitcase over her bobby pins, a change of clothes, her hairbrush, a toothbrush and the pink envelope. Lucy dressed and sat on her bed, the tears rising as she watched her friends sleep, wondering if she would ever see them again. They had been together forever. She turned to look to the other side of the dorm and caught Edna in the next bed looking at her.

  “Don’t cry, Lucy. You’re free. Be happy.”

  “I will write, Edna, I promise. And more than once, too.”

  “I know you will.” Edna stood up by the side of her bed, reached into her locker and pulled out a small cloth purse made of odd pieces of fabric sewn together. “I made this. I collected scraps when we were mending the boys’ clothes. I thought I might need a purse when I left. You take it, okay?”

  Lucy took the bag, tears getting the best of her. The two girls hugged each other, the pale-yellow moonlight melting into darkness as the clouds covered the moon.

  The mist sat low on Arrowhead Bay as Lucy followed Sister Mary down the hill toward the dock. She turned, looking up. Edna and the girls were crowded together by the dining hall window. Lucy stopped and waved, wishing she didn’t
have to leave them, for a moment wanting to race back to the dining hall. Edna pushed the window open and stuck her head out.

  “See you next year, Lucy!”

  Lucy waved and turned once again toward the dock. Sister was well ahead now. Lucy quickened her step to catch up, willing herself not to look back. She caught up with Sister, the boatman stubbing out his cigarette when he saw them approach. Sister Mary handed Lucy a slip of paper.

  “This is your voucher for the bus ticket.” She nodded toward the boatman. “He will take you to the bus depot. Give it to the ticket girl and they will give you a proper ticket.”

  “Thank you, Sister.”

  “Now don’t forget your prayers.”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  Sister Mary handed her a small envelope. “It’s a prayer card. Saint Christopher. For your travels. Now go.” She turned her attention to the boatman. “Take her directly to the bus depot.” Without another word, Sister Mary turned back to the school, her rosary chattering, her heels beating that sharp, familiar rhythm on the wooden dock. The boatman helped Lucy on board and gunned the engines. Halfway across the bay, she could see the Mission rising above the rainforest. She wondered if Edna was in the corner with the dunce cap. She tucked the envelope in her purse.

  The morning fog had all but evaporated under the sun’s efforts at spring. Everything seemed so bright to Lucy. Even the air seemed fresher, the water a deep blue rather than the persistent grey she saw from the windows of the Mission. The brightly coloured houses that speckled the hillside above the bay seemed to be welcoming Lucy as the boatman skilfully docked the boat. He helped her step down to the dock, the short trip across the bay at an end.

  “There’s the bus depot.” He pointed. “Over there.”

  Lucy squinted toward the corrugated iron building. “The one with the dog sign on top?”