Totem

by Jennifer Maruno

  Dedicated to teachers around the world who

  love and respect their students.

  1

  School 1935

  Jonny Joe couldn’t remember the first time he noticed the old Indian with the long, flowing hair standing in the woods. He figured the old man watched him because he was the only white kid on Kuper Island. The other boys never paid any attention to the guy. When Jonny called out to him, they all just laughed.

  “Watch out!” the old man yelled out that day.

  Jonny looked up just as a load of firewood tumbled from a truck.

  When he woke in the infirmary, the old man sat on a chair across from his bed.

  “You got hit hard,” he said.

  Jonny touched the lump on his forehead and winced.

  A nun moved to the side of Jonny’s bed. Her milk-white hand passed him a damp cloth. “Put this on your forehead,” she said with a touch of annoyance.

  Jonny turned to her and whispered, “I don’t know the name of my visitor.”

  Her eyes grew wide under the panel of starched linen. “Who are you talking about?”

  Jonny looked at her face in surprise. “The man in the chair.”

  “You really did get bumped,” the nun said with a frown. “There’s no one there.”

  Jonny turned back to the chair. The curtain next to it fluttered in the breeze. She was right, no one was there.

  He sank back into his pillow and laid the cloth across his forehead, but hearing the familiar sound of heavy boots striding through the corridor, he pulled it down over his eyes. Father John’s huge feet took steps so large, the skirts of his cassock groaned. When he rolled up his sleeves, his arms were as hard as baseball bats.

  “How is he?” the priest asked the nun.

  “He thought he had a visitor,” the nun said.

  “Who would possibly come to visit him?”

  “He’s just seeing things,” the nun said. “It happens after a bump on the head.”

  “Hope he isn’t seeing a wolf,” a voice from the hallway murmured.

  Jonny knew it came from one of the girls from the school. He could hear the sound of water dripping into a pail as she twisted her cleaning rag. Several girls spent the day on their dark-stockinged knees cleaning the floors of the school as part of their training. They were so shiny Jonny could slide in his socks from one end of the hall to the other.

  “A wolf,” Father John called out to the girl in the corridor. “Why would you think that?”

  “You know what they say about his family,” the girl said.

  “His family was killed by a wolf?” Father John asked.

  “Don’t know ’bout that,” the girl said, “but a wolf brought him to the front door.”

  “What do you mean a wolf brought him to the front door?” the priest demanded in his booming voice. “How could a wolf ferry a baby from the mainland, across the channel, and through the bush to a school on an island?” He gave out a long, exasperated sigh. “You people have such foolish ideas.”

  Father John moved directly over Jonny.

  Jonny lay quietly, not daring to move.

  “One more day and he’s back in class,” the priest declared, then left.

  Jonny removed the cloth to look. The girl wore the usual uniform of navy blue with a wide white collar. Her short, straight haircut was like all the other girls. What does she mean everyone knows the story about the wolf? No one has told me, not once, in all my fourteen years of living at Redemption Residential. With her back to him, he couldn’t see her face. She picked up her bucket and moved down the hallway. How can I find her to ask?

  He rolled over to face the window. Jonny always knew he had no parents. The school priests had insisted he stop asking questions about his past when he was six years old. They said it showed a lack of gratitude for the good care that they gave him. They also told him to ignore any memories he might have. But sometimes fragments of happenings came to him. Maybe that’s why he imagined the old man visiting him.

  That night Jonny dreamed of finding a carved chest at the foot of his bed, full of animal skins. Jonny sifted through them to a silver-white pelt. He lifted it from the chest and held it to the light. The beauty of the glistening fur made him sigh.

  To his surprise the pelt shuddered, leapt from his arms, and took the shape of a wolf. Its sharp black claws scuttled across the wooden floor to the window ledge. It mounted the sill, looked back at Jonny, and jumped out. Jonny watched it lope across the yard, down the hill, and toward the river.

  He jerked himself awake, pulled back the covers, and crawled to the edge of his bed. There was no cedar box. The sudden movements made him dizzy. He lay back down thinking how real it had all seemed.

  “One night there was much rain,” a voice in the dark said.

  “Sshh,” Jonny warned. Whoever was in the infirmary should know to keep quiet after lights out.

  “The water crept around the houses. The great poles trembled and groaned.”

  “Sshh,” Jonny repeated, as the hall light went on. He closed his eyes, hoping there wouldn’t be an inspection — or worse. But the light went out and no one came to check. Jonny lay in the dark wondering about what he had just heard. It sounded like a story.

  The voice spoke again. “The rain still fell. The people stayed on their platforms as the water rose higher and higher. Day came and the rain still fell. Night came and the rain still fell. The chief of the village ordered the warriors to tie their canoes together.”

  “Who are you?” Jonny whispered. “And why are you telling me all this?”

  The clouds parted. The moon shone through the barred window as an ancient hand pressed Jonny’s shoulder. He looked up into the old man’s face.

  “‘Hurry,’ the chief told them all,” the old man continued. The deep lines around his mouth hardly moved as he spoke. “‘Leave your houses and sit in your canoes.’ And the people did. For many days and nights the people drifted in the high water. In fear, they watched it rise above the treetops.”

  Jonny sat up. Every boy in the dormitory had felt a priest’s wrath at one time or another for talking after lights out. If Father John had to come up the extra flight of stairs, there would definitely be a problem. “We will both get in trouble if you don’t leave.”

  But the man from the woods didn’t seem to hear as he stared off into the distance. “At last the rain stopped and the sun came out,” he said. “Everyone was hungry, wet, and tired. On a rise of dry land, a young boy spotted a goat. He paddled to the shore to catch it, but the goat disappeared. The boy left his canoe and searched. He found more goats inside a huge, dry cave full of driftwood and stranded fish.”

  “Who are you?” Jonny asked again.

  The old man from the hill took something from the woven pouch hanging around his neck. His weathered hand pressed a small round stone into Jonny’s hand.

  Jonny took it. At first he didn’t understand what was so important about a stone washed smooth by the water. There were hundreds of them along the shore. He ran his thumb over the surface. The feeling brought him a sense of comfort. Then he turned it over to find a carved engraving of a small owl.

  “You must find your way to Golden Mountain,” the old man said.

  When Jonny looked up, the old man had disappeared.

  2

  Missing

  When Jonny entered the dining hall at breakfast a few days later, everyone stopped eating to stare. He slipped into his usual place on the bench at the wooden table.

  “Klahawya, Whiteman,” Sam, the oldest boy in the school, called out to him. Jonny had gotten the nickname the first time he showed up for basketball. They all laughed at him wearing the team singlet with the word “Indian” printed across it. “We thought you ended up in the basement.
”

  “Bump on the head,” Jonny explained, reaching for a slice of bread. He took a spoon loaded with white lard from the jam jar and scraped it across the bread. With the back of the spoon he smashed it down and spread it around. There was no point telling anyone they’d kept him in the infirmary for a few days because of his dreams. One night it had been a log cabin consumed by fire. Another night it had been a man with a pipe. The smoke drifted upwards to the sky and formed the face of a wolf. Each time he told the nun, she just shook her head and applied another cold compress.

  “Your bed wasn’t the only one empty in the dorm,” Sam said, lowering his voice. “Tom-One, Tommy-Two, Billy, and Jimmy took off.”

  Jonny put down his spoon. He’d heard those boys whispering their escape plans at night, but hadn’t thought they would really do it. But why now? he thought. They were all going home for the summer in a couple of weeks.

  “Father John found out at bed check this morning,” Sam told him, sticking his spoon into the grey mushy porridge they called muckamuck. “One of the canoes is missing.”

  Father Paul, the school principal, dragged his heavy, thick-soled shoe, which compensated for a short leg, to the centre of the dining room. His white hair, yellow with oil, stood straight up like a wooden brush. He tapped his cane on the floor and waited. Jonny turned and faced him.

  The rest of the boys kept right on eating.

  Father Paul lifted his cane and brought it down on one of the tables. The metal plates and mugs clattered.

  The room fell silent.

  “Four boys ran away last night,” he said, shivering with anger. His hard, dry body rattled as he spat out the words. “All of them were in Dormitory C.”

  The whole room turned and looked in the direction of Jonny’s table.

  Father Paul lifted his cane and pointed at them. “I know that everyone in Dormitory C knows exactly where those boys are heading.” He waved the tip of the cane at them. “I am not going to send out a search party until I know where to search.” He lowered the cane and rested both hands on it. “Which of you is going to tell me where they went?”

  “No one is going to tell Old Stumpy anything,” Sam announced in a loud voice.

  Everyone stared down at their plates.

  The priest whirled on his good heel and moved to their table. “I will find out,” he threatened as he laid his cane across their table. Jonny stared at the brown spots on Father Paul’s dry, veiny hand, not daring to move. His stained cassock carried the musky smell of old clothes and body odour.

  “You give me no other choice,” the priest murmured. “One by one, you will get this across your dirty little knuckles until I find out.”

  The bell clanged for class. The boys leapt from their benches to line up at the doorway.

  Father Paul placed his cane on Sam’s shoulder as he moved to get up. “Tell me where they went,” he hissed.

  Sam looked Father Paul straight in his bloodshot eyes. “Who knows?” he said.

  Father Paul placed the tip of his cane into the middle of Sam’s chest and pushed him backward.

  Sam bit his lip as the priest prodded him down the hall.

  In the classroom, Father Gregory yanked down the large map of the world. He paced in front of it, wringing his thin hands, as the boys opened their notebooks. He picked up the pointer and tapped the map. The boys scribbled the name of the continent. Father Gregory paced from door to window, window to door, his cassock swishing. When he hit Africa for the second time, Jonny knew Father Gregory wasn’t paying any attention to what he was doing.

  The classroom door burst open and Father John shoved Sam inside. The tall, lanky boy stumbled to his desk, his eyes burning red. He slumped into his seat, his arms dangling at his sides, and closed his eyes. His bruised, swollen fingers looked like rotting carrots.

  Father Gregory put his hand on Sam’s shoulder, but Sam shrugged it off.

  The school bell clanged again. This time it was for work.

  Everyone made for the door. Jonny’s class had the job of chopping firewood. Once the truck was loaded, they took it to the dock, where they piled the logs onto the old barge. Built by students, the long flat boat forever needed bailing, which kept the boys busy as they moved across the water. The priests sold the wood in town, but the boys never saw any of the money.

  “Jonny,” Father Gregory called. He handed him a rag and a can of brass polish. “Today, you stay inside,” he said. “You can polish door knobs instead of loading the truck.” Father Gregory placed his long, elegant hand on Jonny’s head. “Don’t forget evening prayers,” he said with a wink. “I missed your beautiful blue eyes at Mass.”

  There were no door knobs to polish on the second or third floor. In fact, there were no doors at all in the dormitories, nothing but rows and rows of grey-blanketed beds.

  Suddenly he heard Father Paul yell, “I’m seventy-two years of age. I plan to finish my career in peace, not chasing dirty Indians through the forest.” The door to his office slammed. Jonny wondered what he was talking about.

  Jonny started at the opposite end of the building and worked his way down the hall, making the brass knobs above the keyholes glisten. It wasn’t until he heard the heavy sound of leather boots beating down the stairs that he looked up.

  “We need Father Gregory at the dock!” Father John yelled to Jonny as he raced out the front door. Clutching the hem of his cassock with his large, meaty hand, he sprinted across the yard. His great neck bulged red over his white collar.

  Jonny threw the rag on top of the can of polish and raced out the back door to the clang of the old metal triangle on the dock. Everyone knew if it rang at any time other than a meal they were supposed to return to the school.

  By the time he got to the woodlot, his class was piling into the back of the truck. Father Gregory waved him aboard. When the truck arrived at the dock, Father John stood at the edge holding a wet, limp body.

  Father Gregory jumped from the cab and took the sodden boy from him.

  Three other boys, wrapped in blankets, sat in the bow of a small outboard boat with their heads down. Father John reached down to pull another boy from the boat, but the Indian fisherman stood in his way.

  “Who’s in the boat?” someone whispered.

  “It’s the boys from Dormitory C,” someone replied.

  “I think Father Gregory has Tommy-Two,” someone else said.

  “He doesn’t look so good,” someone whispered.

  Everyone heard Father John shout at the fisherman as he waved his arms in the direction of the school. It was clear to those watching he wanted all boys out of the boat and back at the school, but the fisherman refused to hand over the other three. When Sister Theresa approached to plead with him, the Indian motioned her away as well.

  “They must have capsized,” one of the boys hissed. “Good thing the guy in the boat was around. That water’s cold.”

  The fisherman turned his back on the priest, gunned the motor, and swung the boat in the direction of the mainland, leaving behind a huge spray of white foam.

  Father John screamed so loudly after the boys in the boat, his face went purple.

  Father Gregory carried the unconscious boy up to the school. Father John followed.

  At least the beatings will stop, Jonny thought, as he headed back to his work.

  That night, everyone in Dormitory C lay in their beds listening to the sound of the wind. No one whispered about escaping, they just counted the days until the summer vacation.

  Jonny’s thoughts drifted to the old man from the woods. He could still feel the touch of his warm, firm hand on his shoulder. He put his hand in the small hole on the underside of his pillow to check on the carved stone that he had given him. That guy was real, he told himself. Those nuns just didn’t want him around. No one wants Indians around.

  A huge crack of thunder startled them all.

  “The Old Man isn’t happy,” whispered one of the boys.

  “Why did you
say that?” Jonny asked, sitting upright.

  “I don’t know,” the boy replied. “My father says it all the time when it thunders.”

  “My Grandmother told me it was Thunderbird beating its wings,” someone added.

  “The lightning flashes when it blinks its eyes,” a third voice whispered in the dark.

  Jonny lay back down. He had no grandmother to tell him stories like this. A lump rose in his throat. He had no one to tell him anything. At times like this he wondered about his mother. Jonny closed his eyes and for a brief moment saw the smiling face of a young woman with blue eyes and honey-coloured hair. He wished he could remember more.

  The rain slashed at the windows. The sound brought back some of the man’s words. “The water crept around the houses. The great poles trembled and groaned.”

  Jonny watched the lightning flash across the sky and dance about the mountains. What houses and poles were the old man talking about? He remembered the man’s parting words. How can I ever find Golden Mountain?

  3

  New Kid

  Sam’s swollen fingers could barely lift the spoon of brown beans into his mouth at breakfast the next morning. Jonny slathered a piece of bread with lard for him. With four places empty at their table, there should be more bread to eat, but there wasn’t.

  Talk about the escape flew about the tables like a flock of birds. The kids whispered to each other in what the priests called their devil language.

  “Lawman chako,” Sam said in a loud voice, hinting to the others that the nun in the room was close enough to overhear. They switched to English and discussed what they would do with their families on the summer vacation. There would be fishing expeditions, fires on the beach, and canoe races when they got together with their parents.

  “You going to race?” one of the boys asked Sam. Then everyone suffered the silence of such a stupid question, remembering Sam’s hands. He would be lucky if he could hold a pencil, much less a paddle, by the end of the summer.