Five Little Indians

by Michelle Good

  “Okay, mister, I got you this far, so no more complaining. Go to sleep.”

  John Lennon curled up in front of the wood stove and Clara sat in the old, overstuffed chair where the old woman had been sitting the evening before, drinking her tea as the darkness seeped in around the cabin. It wasn’t long before the warmth of the wood stove and John Lennon’s soft snoring lulled her back to sleep, the thick quilt wrapped around her.

  The morning sun slowly filled the porch and Clara could feel John Lennon staring at her in an urgent silence. She opened her eyes and he smiled at her, his ears half down, tail thumping the floor.

  “Yeah, yeah, come on.”

  She wrapped the quilt around her shoulders and opened the door for him. He raced to the tree line, circled three times before lifting his leg, making sure he always had his eyes on her. He’d always been protective, but after Willow Flats he was even more vigilant, and nothing could calm him if he couldn’t see her. Clara hoped he would mellow out again.

  Clara quickly stuck her head in the cabin door and looked around the neat and organized interior. The Old Woman was not there. Clara wondered how she might have missed her going out before sunrise. She stepped inside and washed her face, wondering if she would be able to wash her clothes. Everything she owned was in the Falcon, which no doubt had been seized by the police. She stood in the porch doorway as John Lennon sniffed around the perimeter of the clearing. She pulled on her boots, trying to ignore the ache in her shoulder.

  “Come on, boy.” John Lennon dashed toward her, tongue lolling, ears pricked. “Let’s check this place out a little.” He ran ahead of her, his huge paws tossing up the thin layer of snow from last night’s storm.

  Clara wandered along the tree line, trying to orient herself. All she remembered from the night before was the rough ride in the back of the truck, her and John Lennon hiding under the tarp, and then the Old Woman in the porch, beckoning her in. Next thing she remembered was waking to John Lennon crying out for her. She put it together that she must have passed out.

  Clara came around the corner of the cabin and found herself on a trail that wound through a grove of black poplar, now all but naked of their leaves, their twisted black limbs framed against the sky. The path was slippery with rotting orange-black leaves partially covered in snow. She kept her eyes on her feet, careful not to fall. When she looked up, she found herself in a clearing. At its centre was a dome-shaped structure made of living willows, their boughs woven loosely together to form a ceiling. There was an entrance, a carefully crafted arch, the top no higher than her waist. Inside the structure was a firepit, bare of any remnants of a fire. Over to one side of the clearing was a carefully stacked woodpile, secured under a tarp, and in front of it a clearly well-used firepit. She looked back over her shoulder and saw John Lennon sitting quietly in the middle of the path a few feet from the entrance to the clearing, ears forward, eyes fixed on Clara.

  “This way, buddy.” She slapped her thigh gently. He didn’t move an inch. “What’s up with you?” He shook his head and huffed.

  A prickle of fear worked its way up her spine, and she walked slowly away from the clearing. John Lennon bounded toward the cabin when he saw Clara heading back up the trail. She looked back over her shoulder at the structure and could have sworn she heard soft singing underneath the tinkling she’d heard well into the night. It was only then, as she wandered back toward the cabin, that she saw them, dozens of small and very old coloured glass bottles hanging from the poplar trees in clutches of two or three. A rainbow against the black, twisted limbs, they swayed in the now-gentle breeze, tinkling as though giving voice to the wind. She wondered how long they had hung there, witness to the changing seasons, and the dark feeling left her. The music of the bottles took her back to those days before Indian School, back to those long walks with her mother though the birch groves, her mother up ahead, Clara transfixed by the songs of angels in the treetops.

  When she rounded the front of the small cabin, the Old Woman was back, her small footprints in the snow leading to the front door. Clara looked down at John Lennon.

  “I’m okay, man. You stay out here for now.”

  Clara rekindled a small fire in the porch stove and pointed to where he’d slept the night before. As was his habit, he turned around three times and then flopped down and curled up tight, his eyes following her as she walked through the front door.

  The Old Woman was bent over, loading up the wood cookstove with poplar rounds. She straightened up and wiped the wisps of hair off her forehead.

  “You’re back.” She lifted a large black cast iron fry pan off its hook on the wall and set it on the stove.

  “You too.” Her face burned red at her smart-ass impertinence. One day, she thought, I will learn to just shut up. “You know, can’t remember if they told me your name.”

  “Mariah.”

  “Clara.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  She was a wiry little woman, not more than five feet tall, hair almost completely white in a neat braid that fell below her hips. She wore a calf-length cotton skirt, red with tiny yellow flowers, the hem falling just over the top of her wraparound moccasins. She pushed up the long sleeves of the blue turtleneck sweater and exposed her tightly muscled forearms, her hands obviously accustomed to hard work. She had piercing brown eyes, so dark they seemed black, and the lines around them suggested mirth as well as age.

  Clara turned to her again. “Hey, I’m sorry about last night and the dog. I don’t want you to think I’m not thankful. I am. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

  Her stern face softened for a moment and she beckoned. “Come on over, I made some bannock. There’s jam too, from the last huckleberries of the season. Try some.” She put a plate of warm bannock on the small plank table and pushed the Mason jar of jam toward her.

  It was a relief to see her soften, and until that first bite of flaky, soft bannock, melted butter and tart huckleberry jam, Clara hadn’t realized just how hungry she was. Mariah laughed as Clara reached for a second piece before the first was done.

  “I’ll make a stew for dinner. Get you fed right.” She placed a tin cup of black tea in front of her. “You can help me peel potatoes.” Mariah put a large bowl of potatoes and a paring knife next to Clara.

  Clara finished the first piece of bannock, and the second tasted even better than the first. Then she turned to her and said, “It’s not just words, Mariah. I am so thankful to you. I would be in jail if they hadn’t brought me here.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be the first,” she said as she expertly browned the venison that would make their stew. The way she moved around her little kitchen made Clara think of her mom, making something out of nothing, always finding a way to push back the hunger.

  “Does someone hunt for you?” Clara wondered if she had dropped the deer herself.

  “People come here pretty regular. Some bring meat if they’ve had a good hunt. I have a trapline, too. Rabbits.”

  “You don’t get afraid living out here all by yourself?”

  She tossed Clara a box of wooden matches. “Days are getting shorter. Light those lanterns, would you? This place is home. Nothing for me to fear here.”

  Clara had never lit a kerosene lamp before, but the room was soon shining with the yellow flames after she figured out the first one. “Have you always lived here?”

  “My grandmother raised me here. Hid me. Kept me out of the Indian Schools.”

  Rolling over her like a dark cloud was the memory of her mom telling Clara why she had to go to school. “I had to go.”

  “Hmmm. My mother died of the coughing sickness, so my father brought me here, to my grandmother, when I was very small. I saw him a few times after that, but he left me to her. She was a healer.”

  Clara glanced at Mariah as though she was hearing Sister Mary talk in her head. Witch doctor.

  “Not many people alive know about this place of hers. Just the ones who keep it safe.
This is a healing place, Clara.”

  Clara peeled as she listened.

  “Once we get this stew on, I’ll take a look at that shoulder. It doesn’t feel good to me.”

  “It doesn’t feel good to me either.”

  There was something calming about Mariah. She was stern to the point of being gruff, but just as there had been something other than annoyance under her words last night, there was something under her austere exterior that hinted at a gentle kindness.

  Mariah relieved Clara of the peeled potatoes and added them to the simmering stew. “I guess your baby out there might like that,” she said, pointing to the meat scraps and shin bone.

  “Thank you. I know he’s hungry.” She took the scraps outside for John Lennon and watched him devour them in no time then settle in to gnaw on the bone, working to get at the rich marrow. He would be busy for a while.

  Clara walked back into the house. Mariah had cleared off the table, a hide bundle replacing the remains of their meal. She beckoned Clara over as she loosened the rawhide straps that held the bundle together.

  “Take your sweater off.”

  She slipped out of her sweater, self-conscious in her undershirt, and sat down beside the table. Mariah brought a bowl of warm water and placed it beside Clara, then carefully unwound the bandages from around her shoulder. A foul smell filled her nostrils and the bandage was stuck to the wound.

  “Infection,” Mariah said. “This will hurt a bit, but if we don’t do something now, you could lose this arm.”

  “Should I go to the hospital?” Panic started rising in her. “How can I even contact anyone?” Mariah didn’t have electricity, much less a telephone.

  “Don’t worry. Just be still.”

  Mariah soaked the dressing with the warm water and soon it fell away, leaving the infected wound exposed.

  “Okay, now just sit here and let the air at it. I’m going to mix up a poultice for you.”

  She opened her bundle and in it were dozens of bags of plants, seeds, teas, tree fungi and long braids of grasses. The air filled with the most pleasant, earthy smell. Sister’s damning voice in Clara’s head quieted and she felt at peace.

  “Mariah, how did I come to be here? This is not chance. Tell me. Please.”

  “Vera.”

  Mariah carefully selected the items from her bundle and set a pot to boil on the stove. She pulled a swath of muslin from under the table and laid it out beside the bundle. She then placed layers of her plants on the muslin, wrapped and tied the package carefully, and immersed it in the boiling water. After just a few minutes she pulled it out and wrapped it in a hand towel. She dipped a clean cotton swab in the amber liquid left in the pot, gently cleaned the wound, then placed the hot poultice overtop and re-bandaged the shoulder.

  “Vera contacted the woman who drove you up here and told her you were coming. She asked her to bring you to me for a while. None of us imagined it would be like this, running from the cops and all.”

  Clara shuddered and looked over her shoulder, needing John Lennon. He must have been feeling the same way because, just then, he snuck his head into the doorway between the porch and the main cabin, before scuttling back to his spot by the stove when Mariah turned and saw him.

  “Vera is so kind-hearted,” Clara said, brushing past John Lennon’s effort to join the conversation.

  “Like a daughter to me, that one. She’s worried about you. Figures you need some good medicine, and not just for that shoulder. Here, drink this tea. I’m going to build up the fire on the porch and you can sit and rest out there with your dog. I can see the medicine between you.”

  She walked out into the porch and Clara could feel the tears rising. It had been a long time since she’d felt so cared for. She brushed the tears aside and wondered what her mom would say about all this.

  Mariah picked up a pile of neatly folded tarps. “Vera sent these up with you. Good thing. I needed new ones. I’ll be back in a while. Come on now, go rest by the fire.”

  Mariah left Clara there, tea in hand, the wood stove open, its warmth comforting body and soul. John Lennon even wagged his tail at Mariah as she left, carrying her mound of tarps.

  It was long after dark when she returned, and Clara had dozed off. John Lennon woke her with his thumping tail.

  “Come in with me. We need to talk.”

  They sat again at the table.

  “I see you were out by the sweat lodge.”

  “I’ve heard of them before. George and Vera talk about it. I grew up in Indian School. I don’t know anything about that stuff.”

  “Hmmm.” Mariah crossed her hands in her lap. “Well, it’s there for you if you want, Clara.”

  “For what?”

  “Like I said before, this is a healing place.”

  “My arm will be better soon.”

  “What about the rest of you? Do you ever think of our ancestors and how we are connected to them? Do you pray, Clara?”

  Clara stiffened, the familiar rage rushing through her veins. “Pray? You mean talk to myself and imagine some guy in the sky will make it all better?” Clara stood. “I gotta check on John Lennon.”

  Mariah put her hand on Clara’s arm. “Sit. Talk with me. There is something here for you to learn.”

  Clara sat back down but looked away from her.

  “Clara, the separation between us and all who have come before us, that long line of ancestors, is nothing more than perception. Our teachings, the sweat and other ceremonies, they show us how to open our spirits so we can perceive and be open to the guidance of the ancients. You are so filled with rage. It will eat you alive, child. That is not our way.”

  Clara’s mind flashed back to the Indian School and the echoing silence of the angels as Lily breathed her last breath. Where were the ancients then?

  “I think you know more than you let on,” Mariah said. “I’ll be at the lodge at sunrise.”

  “John Lennon wouldn’t go near it,” Clara challenged her. “I trust him.”

  Mariah looked at John Lennon’s nose, barely inside the cabin door. “He’s just smart. Knows that dogs aren’t supposed to go around the lodge.” She tried to hide her smile at John Lennon’s trespassing nose. “You’re welcome there.”

  The winter set in, slow and vengeful, sucking all warmth from the air. Within a couple of weeks Mariah and Clara slipped into a comfortable routine. Mariah cooked and was thankful that Clara kept the woodbox full. Sometimes, on clear days, Mariah would take Clara out on her trapline. She showed Clara the fine art of tying snares and dispatching rabbits as kindly as possible. Whenever they found one in a snare, Mariah would reach into the pouch tied around her waist, put down tobacco with soft Cree words, and then knock it over the head, efficiently and even lovingly. She taught Clara the unique way of skinning a rabbit, much like taking off a sweater, once the cuts were made on the extremities. Clara would get dizzy sometimes as she watched Mariah dress the rabbits, thinking back to Indian School and how Sister Mary would’ve knocked her on the head if she saw a return to such savagery. It pleased Clara, thinking of that evil woman and how she would see her Christian mission as failed, seeing Clara in the hands of this pagan.

  After a while Clara got used to a group of people who came to the cabin to join Mariah in the lodge. There was a regular core group, as well as some that came just every now and then. Mariah never extended her invitation to Clara again, but Clara knew the lodge was always open to her. After dark, when the songs, rising into the air, signalled the door was closed, Clara would bundle up as warmly as possible and sneak down toward the lodge. Just before the pathway widened into the clearing, she would huddle halfway behind an old poplar and listen to the singing. It was kind of like the drumming she’d heard in the Friendship Centres, but different at the same time. Sometimes she felt a power rising in those songs that would leave her in a panic she didn’t really understand. Mariah was a good woman; that Clara knew without a doubt. But it terrified her anyway, and inevitably it w
as Sister Mary and her threats of eternal damnation that chased her back up the pathway to the cabin.

  One night, breathless from her gallop up the snowy hill, Clara stood outside the porch brushing the snow off her clothes and kicking it off her boots. John Lennon stood with his paws on the sill of the porch window, ears up, smiling at her. As clean of snow as possible, she went into the porch, stripped off her gear and stuffed it in a corner beside the woodbox. She tickled John Lennon behind the ears and went into the cabin to wash in the warm water from the wood stove reservoir, trying to take the chill pink out of her face before Mariah and the rest came back.

  Clara was laying out the feast food in the way Mariah had taught her when the first of the group made their way back into the cabin. Mariah looked at her and smiled knowingly. Damn that woman, Clara thought. Can’t get anything over on her.

  “Clara, could you please prepare the offering and take it down to the lodge.”

  Clara could feel her face tightening. “Do I have to?” Everyone in the room was momentarily motionless, aghast but wordless.

  Aggie, one of the younger women, walked over to Clara by the feast table and picked up a small plate and handed it to her. “It’s an honour to offer the food to the ancestors. Come on, I’ll help you.”

  Clara took a tiny sampling of everything on the feast table, as she had seen others do before. Simple food—bannock, soup, a pie, fruit, dried meat, tea, but always game meat, berries, corn and candy. Aggie added another piece of candy.

  “The ancestors love sweets,” she said.

  Clara walked behind Aggie on the trail to the lodge, the plate of food in her hand. Aggie stood next to the fire in front of the lodge and nodded toward her.

  “So, what do I do?” The irritation in Clara rose. How was she supposed to know?