Keeper'n Me

by Richard Wagamese

  Something in the big brooding silence I saw coming outta Jackie made all of this easy to believe. He was a big, strong man. I seen a lotta guys that looked like that in the pen and I knew that my brother was one of the those guys you really didn’t wanna cross too hard. Kinda give them their territory and let them be was the best advice. I’m no slouch when it comes to a good go, but I know my limits and teeing off with my brother wasn’t within them.

  “I remember comin’ out to the barn one day in that foster home,” Stanley was saying. “You were already gone about three weeks an’ all of us were hurtin’ pretty bad about it. I’m goin’ out to the barn to start chores an’ I see Jackie leanin’ out the hay mow window, way up on the one side lookin’ out towards the road. I watched him. Pretty soon I saw him lift a rifle to his shoulder. That farmer guy always let us bigger kids use the .22 to shoot woodchucks, an’ Jackie had it with him in the barn. Anyway, pretty soon I heard a car comin’ an’ Jackie heard it too. Was the farmer. Mr. Wright, his name was. He turns into the long lane an’ Jackie’s pointin’ that gun at him all the way up the lane. Followed him with that gun even after he got outta the truck an’ walked into the house. He never put that gun down for about a minute after Mr. Wright went inside. After that I watched him each day after school an’ ev’ry day he was up in that hay mow trackin’ Mr. Wright with that .22. Ev’ry day. Never ever let him know that I saw him. Figured it was his little secret. But it was sure spooky, boy. That’s how wild he was, even then. Was only seven then. He really hated the place an’ he hated them for lettin’ you be taken away, an’ sometimes these days, little brother, I think he kinda hated himself for not bein’ able to stop it. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  We walked through the bush that day for a few more hours, me’n Stanley. Both kinda lost in our memories of childhood, thinking about our big brother and where he might be at inside himself. Until this conversation I figured I was the only one who ever really had a hard time because of my being taken away. But from what Stanley was saying and from what I could see, there was a different kind of pain seeping outta my brother Jackie. A throbbing kinda ache in the bones. The kind heroes must get when they realize all of a sudden that they can’t save everybody. The losing overshadowing the saving.

  Me’n Jane were thumbing through her photo album a few weeks later. I can’t believe the memory that woman’s got for even the smallest details. Like she soaks up everything around her all the time and all you gotta do is give her memory a little squeeze sometime and it all drips out, every detail. She loves talking about it all too and her eyes get that big shiny look you see in the eyes of kids on Christmas or birthdays. I like seeing her like that and even now I’ll ask about something just to see her light up again. A walking, talking Raven encyclopedia, that one.

  We’re going through the pages and she’s introducing me to people I haven’t met yet when we come to a bunch of pictures of her’n Jackie and big bunches of other people in different places. Everybody’s got long hair and wearing red bandanas or red armbands in each picture.

  “You guys had a club goin’?” I asked.

  She smiled at me the way she still does sometimes when I ask about things that she figures I oughta have known about.

  “Yeah. Yeah, bro’. It was a club, all right. A war club was what it was. Ever hearda aim?”

  “Yeah. It’s a toothpaste takes the danger outta getting close!”

  She likes it when I’m being funny or jiving around to my music at Ma’s. She says that’s when she feels like she’s around the little kid got taken away from her. Kinda like living the childhood we never had together. Funny lady, that Jane sometimes.

  “No, this aim was no toothpaste. Stands for the American Indian Movement. Me’n Jackie got involved with ’em back in the early seventies. AIM was a really strong Indian organization. Tried to change the way government an’ even our own people were dealin’ with our problems. Lotsa young people got into it. Lotta angry young people. Me’n Jackie fit right in, ’specially him.

  “Around here we got into this thing called the Ojibway Warriors Society, which was tied right up with what aim was tryin’ to do. We didn’t figure our leadership was doin’ much in the way of stoppin’ our land bein’ taken away. Didn’t figure they were doin’ much about anythin’ really. We figured us young people had more power an’ more answers, so we got together an’ started pushin’.

  “Lotta us didn’t take no shit from anybody. Real strong in our Indian beliefs. The Ojibway Warriors an’ aim were our way of sayin’ we wanted the best for our people. Wanted the treaties honored, promises kept, wanted a future. Jackie got to be a real leader. Ev’rybody listened when he spoke an’ he spoke good. Real hardline. You know, you seen it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Seen it. But I still don’t know why he’s pissed at me.”

  She took my hands in hers and looked at me in that soft sister way she has. “It’s not you he’s mad at, Garnet. You’re just an innocent bystander really. Jackie’s a lot like our dad.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, they did spend some time together before he died. Jackie’d go an’ sleep over at Dad’s cabin and they’d talk an’ stuff. Not lots but a few times. He knew more about our pa than anybody and he’s like him lots. Dad’d take him out on the trapline when he was just small on accounta Jackie learned things real fast and could do things that most kids can’t do till they’re maybe thirteen, fourteen. Him’n the bush are pretty tied up together. Just like Pa.

  “Our dad was real strong on the fam’ly. That’s why what happened hurt him so much. Fam’ly an’ keepin’ it together was all that mattered. He’da fought anythin’ that threatened it. Bear, wolverine, anythin’. But the system was somethin’ he didn’t understand an’ when you can’t understand somethin’ you don’t know how to fight it. Dad figured he lost. Figured he was weak. He died thinkin’ that. Jackie inherited that fam’ly waya thinkin’ from him an’ he was always angry at what happened to us. Turned into a big broodin’ angry wounded bear kinda guy just like our dad was in the end. Gotta lotta the bear in him, that Jackie. Gotta lotta the bear in him.”

  “So what’s this gotta do with me? Why won’t he talk to me? And why the hell does he seem so pissed at me?”

  “AIM was Jackie’s way of gettin’ back. He didn’t know how to fight the system either, an’ when the Ojibway Warriors an’ AIM came along he found his way of fightin’ it. Not only fightin’ it but gettin’ back at it. Also found a way of gettin’ all that anger out.

  “Spent a lotta time with the traditional elders we got to lead our actions. Us young people back then really saw the strength in the old ways an’ we didn’t do nothin’ without consultin’ the elders, smokin’ the pipe, doin’ sweats an’ prayin’. Used the slogan”In the spirit of Crazy Horse “on accounta that’s exactly how Crazy Horse prepared himself for battle. Traditional way. Prayer. Pray for the enemy as well as yourself. Pray for the people. Jackie was one of the most eager.

  “In ’74 the government was tryin’ to take away a big chunka land belonged to one of the reserves outside Kenora. Turned it into a park an’ called it Anishanabe Park like that was enough to keep us happy. Makin’ money offa that park but never gave no money to the people. So we went in there an’ took it over one summer. Took it over an’ demanded that they honor the treaty that said it was Indian land. We had guns an’ lotsa support from AIM after a while. Had the OPP, the army an’ even had some FBI wanderin’ around once it all got into full swing.

  “Jackie was the spokesman. Good speaker. Made it all make sense for them reporters who never understood anythin’ about Indians before. Made them cops an’ army guys back right off too. All that anger was right up front with him an’ it served the people well that time.

  “We stayed in the park all that summer an’ when we fin’lly got a promise that the people would be compensated we came out. Never fired a shot but got what we wanted. Jackie an’ three others got arrested but no one went to jai
l. Too much newspaper coverage by then.

  “Mosta us just went back into our lives but Jackie kept on goin’. He went to the States an’ hooked up with AIM an’ traveled all around doin’ things with them. When he came back here he didn’t talk too much about it but he was even stronger in pushin’ for Indian ways in ev’rythin’. AIM kinda died out after a while, but Jackie’s still got all that stuff inside him. Strong Indian. So seein’ you around here again reminds him of all that, all the hurt he felt, all the stuff that never got resolved despite AIM, all the personal stuff, an’ I think it gets all that anger stirrin’ around in him again. Only this time there’s no place to put it an’ I think that scares him some.”

  “Sure don’t seem all too scared to me,” I said, wondering how the hell I coulda missed out on hearing about this when it was happening.

  “Gotta lotta the bear in him, like I said. Bear’s a good warrior. Doesn’t show fear. But the bear learns how to live with it though, an’ that’s what Jackie never learned. How to live with it.”

  Summer turned over slowly into autumn and before we knew it we could feel the chill of that winter easing into our mornings. Around here the seasons changing are so gradual you gotta learn to feel them before you ever see them. The grass gets a different texture when you’re walking on it and the lake gets itself a slightly sharper edge when it sloshes up on your hands as you’re filling up that lard pail with the day’s water. The air doesn’t move so much and you start to hear things a whole lot better, especially in the early mornings. Keeper says the winter months are special on accounta that’s when the old stories are told. Once those “long snow moons” arrive the elders in those old tribal days would gather the people around a fire and tell them stories long into the night sometimes.

  Keeper says there’s two reasons why stories are told only in the winter months. One was on accounta the spirits of the world get kinda sleepy then too and some of them drop right off into slumberland. So if someone was telling a story about bad spirits, they wouldn’t overhear and maybe get offended and want some revenge or something. The other reason was on accounta the people. See, winter being such a brutal time in this country, all cold and windy for about six months, sometimes getting down to thirty below for weeks at a time, there wasn’t lots for the people to do. Couldn’t hunt real good and too cold for the kids to play, so they could give all their attention to the stories. Elders knew that trying to get our people to listen to stories and the teachings within them was next to impossible in the summers when there was all kindsa other distractions. See, the important thing about our stories isn’t so much the listening, it’s the time you spend thinking about them. There’s lots of traditional thinking buried deep within each story and the longer you spend thinking about it the more you learn about yourself, your people and the Indian way.

  Anyway, winter slid in pretty easy that first year. Ma’n me got a lotta meat from people on accounta I was no screaming hell at hunting yet, and we got Big Ed to freeze most of it in the big locker he kept at the back of his store. Stanley, Jane’n me and our uncles went picking wild rice and got enough for the winter for everybody. All around the reserve people were getting ready for the long snow moons that were looming up big and cold and powerful on the other side of the horizon.

  I was over visiting Keeper one day just after the first snow flew and he was asking me whether things had gotten any better between Jackie’n me.

  “Not really,” I said. “He don’t come around Ma’s so much and never tries to talk to me.”

  “Hmmpfh,” Keeper said, lighting up his pipe. “Hmmpfh. Gotta lotta the bear in him, that Jackie. Gotta lotta the bear in him. So I guess you kinda need to use a little of the bear to get his attention back. Sounds like a bear thing to me.”

  “Whaddaya mean, bear thing? Jane said that too. What do you want me to do, hibernate with him?” I get a little irked at the way Indians will lay something out there like this “bear thing” and then not explain. I’ve learned since that it’s just the way they get your attention when they wanna lay something important on you, but it still irked me some.

  Keeper banged the ash from his pipe into the garbage can. “Us humans, we’re not born with the same kinda gifts the animals got. Sure, us we got lotsa things they don’t too but they come out ahead in a big way. See, animals got a better deal on accounta they’re born knowin’ exactly who an’ what they are. Us we gotta search for that. Bear comes out into the world jus’ knowin’ it’s a bear. Fox same thing. Rabbit same thing. I been around a long time an’ never seen no erotic bear.”

  “Erotic?”

  “Yeah, you know, confused like.”

  “No, no, no, no,” I said, laughing and putting my hand on his shoulder. “Neurotic. Erotic means horny all the time. Neurotic means confused.”

  “Oh,” Keeper said, laughing pretty good too now. “In that case I have seen a few erotic bears! Fact, I guess I been kinda new-rotic ’bout bein’ erotic too a few times! Heh, heh, heh.”

  It took a while for us to settle down.

  “See,” he finally continued, “animals right off know who an’ what they are. So the old people knew this an’ started watchin’ the animal people to learn from ’em. That’s where big parta the Indyun way comes from. From the animal people. Another big part comes from the plant people an’ rock people but that’s another story. Us we get to know we’re human bein’s after a while. Know pretty soon we’re boys or girls, maybe even know lots ’bout our fam’ly tree. Still, takes us long time before we find the truth about who we are. You know this good already on accounta comin’ back here an’ all. But us we all gotta search out our own truth an’ find our own life.

  “Someday you watch bears. Never no trouble gettin’ along in the bear fam’ly. Wrassle lots, growl around too, but always close an’ lovin’ with each other. Mother bear teaches them young ones an’ they learn. No big fuss, jus’ bear learnin’. You gotta be same way now. Gotta be like bears an’ play.”

  “Play? Play?”

  “Bears they play lots. You watch ’em, you’ll see. Play lots. Mama bear knows that gettin’ the attention of them cubs gonna be tough. So when she wants to teach ’em how bears should be she makes up a game. You watch how she teaches ’em to hunt. She’ll take ’em to a big meadow an’ start to gallopin’ around after mice. When she catches one she’ll give it to the cubs an’ run off to gallop around some more, really playin’ up the fun of it. Well, pretty soon them cubs get to likin’ the taste of mice an’ bein’ cubs they take natchrel to all the runnin’ an’ gallopin’ around. Pretty soon they’re out there chasin’ them mice an’ not even knowin’ that they just learned somethin’ that’ll keep ’em alive forever.

  “Same way with you an’ that brother of yours that’s got a lotta the bear in him. It’s gonna take playin’ to get through.”

  “Okay, but play what?” I was thinking maybe this was just another Indian riddle.

  “You gotta figure out what to play. Reason you gotta play with each other is on accounta you never had no chance to do that ever. Maybe if you be kids awhile you’ll learn more about bein’ men. It’s a bear thing really.”

  I walked back to Ma’s that day through that first real staying-on-the-ground snow of the year wondering about this bear thing, wondering what to play, wondering how to get Jackie to play it anyway and wondering if what we were gonna learn in the process would keep us alive forever.

  Funny how things work out sometimes. I must have spent about three weeks trying to figure it out. Every morning I’d catch him peering over at me with a twinkle in his eye on accounta he could tell I was still trying to work it out. He wouldn’t say anything though and pretty soon I just kinda surrendered to the problem and asked for a little help to learn to see my way through when we prayed in the morning. Funny how it works out sometimes.

  Hockey season got started in a big way and the White Dog Flyers were starting to look around for players. I played every winter in the pen for the farm team and
I’ve always had pretty good wheels. I like passing more than scoring and I had a lotta pride in my play making and skating ability. Never was the scrapping type on accounta I figured I could finesse my way through anything. So naturally I wanted to try out for the team.

  Around here hockey’s the next biggest thing to bingo. My uncle Gilbert’s known as the best talent to come outta this area and once got to scrimmage with the Chicago Blackhawks back in the days when Bobby Hull was just a rookie. So around here Raven’s to hockey what Red Sky is to country singing. Both Stanley’n Jackie were regulars on the Flyers and had been for years, with Stanley being a stay-at-home defenseman type and Jackie more of a power forward who kinda likes the rough stuff in the corners. What with my uncles Joe and Charlie still skating and Gilbert kinda part-timing through the seasons you’d almost think we should have been called the White Dog Ravens. Anyway, I was looking forward to playing. Both to relieve the boredom and to get some exercise.

  “Gonna make an Indyun hockey player outta your baby boy,” Uncle Joe told my ma one night when we were down at the community hall watching Bert Otter flood the rink. “Gotta be tough to play Indyun hockey, Garnet, not like them city leagues an’ lot tougher’n your jail playin’. Lot tougher.”

  “That’s right,” Stanley said. “Around here when they ask you how hard your slap is, they’re not talkin’ about your shot!”

  Jackie walked in about then and nodded to all of us and turned to watch the flooding. I was kinda glad I was gonna be playing on his side on accounta he’s so big regular he was gonna be huge with pads on. I shivered imagining him lining somebody up for a big bodycheck. Glad it wasn’t gonna be me.

  “Garnet’s comin’ out for the Flyers, Jack,” Stanley said. “Gonna be a full five of Ravens out there this year. Says he’s some kinda slick passin’ center, make your game better.”