The Marrow Thieves

by Cherie Dimaline

  “Minerva had a baby?”

  “No,” responded Tree. “He was one of us, one of the leftovers. But he became hers and then one winter he died from cough.”

  I did see a panic in Minerva’s eyes the next time she stopped to scoop thick medicine into us, opening her mouth to imitate what we should do, as if we were all sick babies she was trying to save. I’m not sure her old heart could take another round of sick and worry.

  It was tough walking away from the resort. I looked back more than once. What if we had stayed there a bit longer? Would Rose have visited me in my bed again? Would she have gotten over whatever weirdness sat between us now and have even just fallen asleep on my shoulder by the candle fire? I’d never know for sure. I could dream about it, though. I was thankful for the gift of dreams more than ever.

  Slopper and RiRi were still little so they were closer to the vicious edge than the rest of us. Their contempt for Miig and his power over the group seeped to the surface.

  “Who made him Chief, anyway,” Slopper moaned, kicking rocks as we started into the woods.

  “Yeah, who?” echoed RiRi, kicking at the air beside her friend. Her anger was made cute with her little voice and slight lisp of youth. She was wearing a new pair of bright pink rubber boots. She’d found them under the bed in her room the first morning.

  “Look! They’re made outta candy,” she’d said, then licked the shiny surface of one boot and cringed. “Not candy.”

  RiRi had never had candy, but she’d seen pictures and heard stories about it. So every time something was shiny or bright — and these boots were both — she assumed they were candy. It was a constant disappointing hunt for her.

  “You goof.” I laughed at her screwed-up face. “They’re not candy, they’re just shiny plastic. Put them on.” I helped her out of her old runners that were too big and had been handed down from Slopper. The boots popped on, and she stood in them.

  “They fit me, French!” she squealed, clomping down the hall one way and then back. I couldn’t help but giggle along with her as she stomped by. When she got to the far end, though, she stopped, her little dark head hanging a bit.

  “What’s wrong? Do they pinch?”

  “Maybe she was Nish. Maybe they took her outta her bed.”

  “What?”

  She turned around. “Maybe the girl whose boots these are got taken. Maybe she had a bad dream and then they knew she was Nish and they called in the ’cruiters and they took her.” There was a hitch between “took” and “her.” She was close to tears.

  “No way, RiRi. If she was Nish she would be too fast for any old Recruiter.”

  “No one would leave these.” She looked down at her shiny feet. “No one would leave these on purpose.” She couldn’t believe her luck and assumed the worst for their backstory. Now that she knew what was really going on, her imagination had a dark streak in it.

  “Nah.” I tried to cheer her up. “I bet she was some rich kid, the kind with yellow curls and her very own pierced ears. I bet she just had so many shoes with her that she forgot this one pair. I bet she didn’t even notice they were gone.”

  “Yeah.” She stomped past me. “I’m going to find Slopper.” She made her way down the stairs, jumping down one at a time.

  I wasn’t sure she’d bought my version of the origin of the boots, but the next day she was wearing them as she chased after Slopper through the huge front room with the double fireplaces.

  We had been walking since daybreak. But it was noon before we smelled the smoke.

  “Where’s that coming from?” Slopper lifted his wide nose to the air like a puppy. “I smell cooking.”

  “No, that’s not cooking, it’s just smoke.” I corrected.

  “Why else would there be smoke?”

  “Fire,” replied Miig. He didn’t seem shocked. He must have smelled it for the past mile, the old fox.

  “Fire? Without cooking?” Slopper looked around for confirmation. “But why?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of an accidental fire?” It was RiRi who answered. The fear in her face made me think she must have seen one of these accidental fires up close in her short lifetime. Or maybe it was more of that new dark streak.

  Slopper mirrored her expression, though he shook his head no.

  “French.” Miig called me over to him. “I need you to climb that pine and check it out. Do a 360, wouldya?”

  I nodded, wiggled out of my burden, and took a run at the tall tree he’d pointed out. I climbed hand over foot for as long as momentum would take me and then switched to a slower shimmy until the branches started and I could use them as steps. It grew quiet in the cushion of brush, the air thick with needles and sap. I paused for a minute and listened. My own breath, the measured thud of my heart, and the slow whoosh of a constant, cold wind. Despite the urgency, despite the world as it was at that moment, I felt content, maybe even a little more than that. I was alive and climbing a tree and a girl that I was weak for was safe on the ground below. And I was doing something strong to keep her safe, to keep all of them safe. I felt old-timey, and something lush burst open in my chest.

  Then I resumed the climb, pulling myself from foothold to handhold until the branches thinned and the trunk narrowed so that my hands touched on the other side when I hugged it before the next shimmy up. I found a good crook to hold me steady and looked out.

  The smoke coiled above the treetops, a single cumulous bloom of grey far enough to the west that it looked manageable. Below it the trees were moving in impossible directions, shaking back and forth, then swaying like fainting giants, then popping out of sight. Plumes of dust kicked up as they winked out. Straining, I heard the slow rumble of enterprise, a low, steady thrum. The disappearance of the trees paused and, when the dust settled to a solid haze, there was a flash of yellow in the gap. I sighed, not making sense of it, but understanding enough to know I had to get to Miig and relay the scene. I began the slow, controlled fall back down.

  “Well, is it food?” Slopper called up through cupped hands when I was about ten feet up. Tree gave him a light chuck on the shoulder.

  “What? A man can’t be hungry?”

  I leapt the last four feet and dusted off my pants. “Miig, it’s really weird. You should see the …”

  He cut me off, “Let’s talk about that up front here, French. No need to bother everyone.”

  “But it’s so …”

  “French, up front with me. Chi-Boy, take the back. Everyone, grab your stuff.” He was stern now, back to his order-barking tone. Chi-Boy slipped off the trail to reappear in behind the twins. He was used to obeying.

  I shrugged back into my pack and dragged my feet to follow Miig, upset that I had news I couldn’t share, especially with Rose, who looked at me now with curious dark eyes. I could have dragged that story out for a mile at least, could have spoken in a low voice so I’d have to stay close to her ear. Maybe even thrown an arm over her shoulder. Frigging Miig, so bossy. RiRi and Slopper were right, who died and made this guy Chief? Wanted all the info for himself first.

  I stomped up beside Miig, who kept a few yards to the front.

  “Tell me.”

  “I saw smoke and stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Trees moving and something yellow under the smoke.”

  “Where?”

  “West.”

  He didn’t ask anything more for a full two minutes and we walked in silence.

  “Minerva was feeding her new grandson when the Recruiters busted into her home. They took the baby, raped her, and left her for dead. They answered to no one but the Pope himself, back then.”

  I unintentionally slowed down, so shocked I couldn’t make my feet move with proper cadence. That shock froze into anger, and I sped back up directly beside Miig. He continued.

  “Wab was alone for two
whole years before she came to us. For the last six weeks of that time, she followed us in the trees, unable to trust that we wouldn’t hurt her too. I knew she was there, I could see her peeking closer at night when she thought we were asleep.”

  I said nothing, thinking of the story she’d shared with us at Four Winds.

  “Both RiRi and Slopper first came to us with a parent each. Both of them lost them to the schools later on. RiRi was just a baby when her mother was dragged off. Slopper, his dad went crazy one night, running straight into a Recruiter camp before we could stop him.”

  “Stop,” I whispered.

  He took a few more strides. “Tree and Zheegwon, they were held by a colony of townspeople who tried different ways to extract their dreams, figuring they’d found some kinda personal reservoir with Indian twins.”

  I tried to picture the serious white people as we’d come to know them, in their suits and hard briefcases and closely cropped hair. It was hard to imagine them getting excitable.

  “We found them tied up in a barn, dangling like scarecrows from a rope thrown over a beam.” He sighed, paused for another breath. “They were full of holes that’d been stitched up with rough thread, all up and down their sides. And with a pinky missing on each hand. They were seven then.”

  I wanted to throw up. I felt the bile burn at the base of my throat. This was my family. I didn’t want to know all of this. I couldn’t take anymore.

  “Stop. Please.” I could barely get the words out.

  “I lost my husband in the schools. We were taken there together.”

  “Isaac?” I asked, remembering my father’s first meeting with Miig.

  He nodded, wincing at bit at the name like a remembered wound pinching at a nerve. He rubbed the marriage tattoo he shared with Isaac, a story he’d told us when RiRi had asked about the black outline of a buffalo on the back of his left hand.

  “That’s my wedding ring. Isaac had the same.”

  He slowed a bit, wavering off to the side, nearer to the trees, reaching out to lean against a birch as he paused. I stopped begging for him to stop.

  MIIGWANS’ COMING-TO STORY

  Isaac was a kind man, too kind really, for his own good. We’d made it out to our cottage. It was far enough in the bush that we knew we could manage there for at least a season or two before anyone even thought to come this way. It was deep winter when we arrived. We drove our Jeep to the main road and then parked it a few meters in. Then we unhitched quads from the pull and made our way to the cabin. It was still early days — all rumors and speculation — so we probably weren’t as careful as we should have been. Still, we felt safe out there.

  It used to be Isaac’s grandfather’s hunting camp. Over the years since the wedding, we’d fixed it up and put on an addition, taking down the smoker and installing a greenhouse. We were completely off the grid, which worked out perfectly since the power to remote areas had been cut long ago.

  We had an uneventful three months, cut off but still together. Isaac was a poet, you see, and in the adversity the words kept coming. In some ways we were still happy. Isaac had his words, both English and Cree, and I had my Isaac.

  Then one night, we heard a commotion in the bush.

  “Mimi, we should go check. Could be game?” Isaac was cautiously hopeful. It was infectious. So far we’d managed to grab less than a dozen rabbits and only a skinny deer. What a day that one was — we resurrected an old ceremony for that deer. The smaller re-wilded breeds that people were living on, hamsters and cats, hadn’t herded this far into the bush yet.

  We took the rifle and went out to check, snowshoes on the deep snow, soft shuffle and silence. It was so quiet out here any noise carried. We walked across the expanse of what we considered our yard, then through a thin collection of birch to the tool shed. In a clearing, two hundred feet from the shed, were three people — a man, a woman, and another, younger woman. We watched from the trees for a bit. Only the younger one had a look I recognized. She was obviously Cree, but looked more plains than northern, so she was far from home. The others, I wasn’t sure. They were dark, but they were speaking too low and in English, so I couldn’t grab an accent or slang to place them.

  Isaac looked at me, eyebrows arched. I knew what he was thinking. He had a soft spot for strays. I think that’s why he took a chance on me to begin with, a long-haired hunter who’d wandered into North Town at the same time he was breezing through, reading from his latest book at a number of libraries and the few bookstores still scattered about. It was about the time literature was going through a bit of a renaissance, people clinging to that old adage about bedtime stories and the dreams they might bring. Isaac was unafraid of the rumors being thrown around about new factories where experiments were held and the danger that was coming. It was more because he felt he had value as a poet than the fact that he was a pale, green-eyed half-breed — and he did. But he overestimated how long that would last. And how quickly people would forget the art in the Indian and instead see only the commodity.

  “We should stay alone.” It was barely a whisper.

  “They’ll stumble on the cottage anyway. They’re too close now.”

  I rolled my eyes. There was no use trying to talk him out of anything once he’d made up his mind.

  When we came into the clearing, gun raised, they jumped and hastily greeted us in stumbling Anishnaabe, all except the second female, who must have been in her early twenties. She lifted her hood to cover her head and throw her face in shadows. The older woman yanked it back down and pulled her to her feet, apologizing for her rudeness.

  Right away they smelled that Isaac was the kinder one and directed all their chatter to him.

  “Oh, brother, I tripped on a log back that way. Really messed up my ankle.” He bent down to rub at it, wincing as he did. “I was like, miigwetch, thanks a lot for that. Geez.”

  The man limped about to gather the few items they’d started to unpack, already guessing Isaac would extend the inevitable invitation.

  “Yes, holy. I’m just exhausted. My binoojiing won’t let up and give me rest and I feel crampy.” The older woman arched her back and rubbed her rounded belly. I thought she just looked chubby; she was too soft and even all around.

  “My husband is a healer. He can have a look at you both,” Isaac said proudly, placing a hand on my shoulder. I sighed.

  “No, no.” The man was loud. “I’ll be okay, just a bit of a twist. And my wife, well, she’s just a complainer. First baby and all …”

  The girl stayed quiet, lips tight, eyes to the ground.

  We carried the man’s packs and he hopped along with an arm thrown over his wife’s shoulders. I should have guessed then from the softness of the canvas on the backpack, like it was brand new from the store, the way it was only one-layer kind of wet and not soaked through and frozen stiff in the snow. I should have guessed from the way he wasn’t meticulous about packing up and almost left behind a precious tin of canned meat, like it was nothing. Like he could grab more at any time. The girl dragged along behind.

  “You can stay until your ankle gets better,” Isaac offered.

  “Shouldn’t take longer than a day,” I remarked, throwing the too-light packs on the floor of the front hall. Isaac squeezed the back of my elbow in the dark.

  “A day or two,” I amended. But only because I loved my husband.

  “We appreciate it,” the woman said. “What with me being in this condition and all. Any time inside helps.”

  They slept in our spare room, all three of them, even though we offered the youngest the pullout couch in the front room. In fact, she was never left alone, the older woman even milling about in the hallway outside the bathroom when she went in. And I couldn’t get a straight answer on how she knew them. Over soup that afternoon she said they were her cousins. But in the evening in front of the fire, while he nursed a glass of our rare w
hiskey (he asked for a second glass even, how rude), the man told Isaac she was his wife’s sister. And she always seemed skittish … scared, maybe.

  “Oh, Mimi, you’re so suspicious,” Isaac told me that night under our duvet, the weight of his calf over my ankle. “You’d be skittish too if we were on the run in the woods.”

  I knew he was right. I tried to be more hospitable. But still, something kept me alert to discomfort. I was up and in the kitchen long before anyone else stirred, watching the snow fall in slow motion flakes in the yard.

  The second day passed without remark. The trio slept late, wolfed down more of our lunch offering than was polite, and then retreated for an afternoon nap. Dinner found Isaac straining to make conversation over spaghetti and bannock while our guests glared at each other and watched the windows.

  Something woke me up in the middle of the night. I lay in bed for a while, listening to Isaac breathe and the wind knot around the bare branches outside. I walked out into the hallway half lit by the moonlight falling in through the small, curtain-less window at the end and banged straight into the girl. She’d been standing in the shadows by our door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t see you there.” I apologized but then grew angry. What in the hell was she doing by our door in the middle of the night? “How long …”

  She pushed a calloused finger along my lips, and I shut up. “I can’t do this no more. You and your man gotta run.”

  I pushed her hand away from my face, noticing the way it shook. “What do you mean, we gotta run? This is our home. We don’t have to do anything.”

  That’s when she pulled up her pant leg and I saw the black ankle monitor, blinking red in the dark like a buoy. That’s also when the man came out into the hallway and saw us, then the blinking light laid bare and in plain sight. He yelled in a language I later found out was Tagalog, and the older woman rushed into the hallway. She grabbed at the younger woman by her braid, cursing in her language and dragging her back to their room.

  “She’s crazy. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” The man laughed nervously. He shrugged his shoulders and took a few steps towards me, steps that were unencumbered by the limp that had made him a useless guest who couldn’t help gather wood or leave with his odd family in tow.