The Marrow Thieves

by Cherie Dimaline

  The day Rose left I had learned how to write “family” in syllabics using ash on a creamy curl of birch bark. I was sitting with the Council during syllabics lessons when she walked by, slow and deliberate, sadness in her gait. She didn’t say anything, but I saw the peak of her tent collapse from the cluster where it had stood like a circus pulling up for the next town. I guess I knew it right then; I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.

  When she appeared in the clearing, all packed up and starting her long, tearful goodbyes, collecting advice and small offerings, I took off and hid in a tangle of pines about fifty meters from the camp. I didn’t want to see or hear her leave. I stayed there until the sun started to descend, hating myself every single minute. But what could I do? I had found my home, right? And I couldn’t just leave my dad; it would kill him. Leaving to go back on the search would be insanity. No, it was better that we just stuck together and stayed clear of the schools for now, until we figured out our next move, until maybe we’d gathered up enough odds and ends to open a door.

  But sitting there was torture. I kept having second thoughts that pushed needles into my feet, and I stood and started to run back more than once only to stop short and talk myself back to the pines.

  “C’mon, French,” I told myself. “You have a good place to live and you found your dad. There’s so much to learn here. What could going back into the woods possibly do?”

  I played with Miig’s pouch around my neck to keep me grounded, pulling on the mud-stained shoelace, fingering the contents through the hide. I loosed the ties a little and pushed a finger inside the top, absentmindedly seeking purchase. There was his tobacco that jabbed under my nail and then something solid, and today my hands needed to touch something real. I had to give it back to him. We’d survived the failed ambush, and he should have it back.

  I pulled it off my neck and worked the cinched top open with both hands. I grabbed what was nestled in there and worked it out, tapping tobacco crumbs into my palm so as to not lose the precious flakes.

  It was a glass vial, only half full. I spun it between my fingers and saw a label.

  “66542G, 41-year-old male, Euro-Anishnaabe.”

  This must be the vial he’d IDed as Isaac. I recalled what Miig used to tell me when I’d first come, when I was nosey enough to ask unwelcome questions and had tried to pry into the contents of that bag.

  “It’s where I keep my heart. It’s too dangerous to keep it in my chest, what with the sharp edges of bones so easily broken.”

  When I came back into the clearing, I knew for sure that she was gone. Everything felt different — smaller and bigger at the same time. As was becoming my habit when I was confused or hurt, I made my way to my dad’s. He was living in a four-walled tent with a smaller table and a cot. There were some thin rugs over the dirt floor.

  He was sitting at the table, flipping through one of the half dozen books the camp owned. This one was a hardcover by a great woman I had heard quoted at Council named Maracle. Jo-jo had brought it with her from the west, where revolution was sparking along the ragged coast. He didn’t seem surprised to see me and kicked out the chair opposite him for me to sit down.

  I sank into it and, almost on cue, my eyes filled with water. I swiped at them, but eventually they were too quick for me to keep up. My father watched for a minute and then placed the book on the table in front of him.

  He sighed so big his shoulders slumped where they curved out of his faded undershirt, so thin I could follow the angles and ridges of his scars like tattoos under fabric.

  “You remember how I told you about me and your mom meeting up in the city? About how happy we were?”

  I nodded, and dislodged tears splashed on the wood in front of me.

  “Well, I could never shake that feeling of helplessness that’d brought me to the church that day back home. It was always there, like the way a blister reminds you of itself every step.

  “Your mom, she was always smarter than me. One day she found me drinking bootleg with a couple of the boys in Chinatown. I was supposed to be looking for work that day. But your mom, she doesn’t yell. She doesn’t even get mad.”

  He paused until I lifted my head and looked at him. He was crying too, already saying goodbye.

  “Your mother, she just looks at me real serious and says, ‘Jean, running only works if you’re moving towards something, not away. Otherwise, you’ll never get anywhere.’”

  I heard this in my mother’s voice as sure as if she had been sitting on the cot behind us, braiding her hair before bed, like she always did when she came to say goodnight to me and Mitch.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, son?”

  “I have to go.”

  “I know.”

  I rose from the table, adrenaline pinching my calves to action, stopping long enough to hug him. And he kissed me on the top of my head, just like he used to when I was little. And I felt safe. Safe enough to leave him.

  I rushed out of the tent at full speed, skidded into my camp, and grabbed up all my belongings. I left our tent for Slopper and returned Miig’s pouch, hanging it off the center pole in his tent across the fire from ours. There was no time to make my goodbyes. I knew they’d understand, sure my dad would explain. Besides, I couldn’t bring myself to face Miig with the news of my departure. And I had already lost a few hours and night was falling fast.

  I took off running, away from camp, the Council, my family: running towards Rose, who was somewhere beyond the birch-beaded edge of the woods, running towards an idea of home that I wasn’t willing to lose, not even if it meant running away from the family I had already found.

  “Ahneen.”

  I almost tripped over my own feet at the sound of her voice. Sure enough, there was Rose, sitting on a log about twenty meters into the bush, her backpack at her feet. Most of her newly shorn curls were piled on top of her head in a messy bun; a few escaped and sat on her forehead like springs.

  “Jesus! You startled me.”

  She chuckled. “Startled? You damn near jumped out of your skin.”

  “Yeah, well … what are you even doing here?”

  Her brow furrowed.

  “You know what I mean. I mean, you left hours ago. I thought I was in for an evening run.” I stood in front of her, not sure if I should sit, not sure if we were continuing on just yet.

  “Yeah, well.” She kicked at the dirt between my boots. “Maybe I just wanted to give you a break.”

  “And what made you so sure I would even follow you?” I nudged the toe of her shoe with mine. She didn’t look up, but I could see the edges of a smile creep onto her cheeks. It made her eyes narrow and her forehead smooth like a pulled sheet.

  “A hunch, I guess.”

  “Oh, a hunch, eh?” I bent over, pushing my nose into the mass of curls on her head. I smelled flowers right before they burst out of their green cocoons.

  “Yeah.” She looked up, turning her face up towards mine. “A hunch. And a lot of hope.”

  I leaned further in, closing my eyes in anticipation of the bright connection of her lips. Then I heard it.

  She placed a hand on my chest, suspending my descent, alerting me that she’d heard it too.

  I listened. Runners — quiet and travelling light. I held up three fingers to indicate the number of bodies I heard pushing through the trees. They were too close for us to get a meaningful head start. We’d have to hide instead. I pointed to the ground. Rose slid off the back of the log, snaking a leg behind her and dragging her backpack as she went. I placed two hands on the mossy wood and leapt over, landing on tiptoes and then sinking down. We half burrowed in the soggy leaves, the smell of decay and rebirth clouding around us. Then we waited.

  When I heard the first pair of feet stomp by, we kept our heads down. Boots. They were definitely wearing boots and not the mesh runners of the Recruite
rs. When the second tore by I listened harder. The dull click of a rifle butt hitting a belt. Officers travelled with handguns, not rifles. I peeked over the log.

  I recognized the braid flying out behind the third runner as he rushed by, holding his rifle against his side, bandana up over his nose. I stood and called out. “Derrick?”

  He turned, slowing to a jog. He pointed in the direction they’d come from. “Unknowns, about five or six of them, half a mile northeast.”

  Northeast. That’s the way we were headed. Rose got to her knees beside me.

  “Gonna send out the welcome party.” Derrick turned and picked up speed back towards the camp. I sighed, counting the available bodies to go out with the welcome party now that Rose and I were gone. And what if they were hostile? We weren’t going to be safe to continue on until we knew what was up. I was trying to find a way to delay Rose when she got to her feet beside me.

  “Well, I guess we can wait till tomorrow.” She picked up her pack, slung it over a shoulder, and started off on a slow run after Derrick.

  “Are you sure?”

  She shouted back, “Can’t let them go without us, that would just be irresponsible.”

  I smiled. God, I really liked this girl.

  I jumped over the log and took off after her, eager for the excitement of a welcome party expedition, where you didn’t know if you’d find blood relatives, poachers, or strangers. Neither of us could imagine that everything would change in just a few hours, including the idea of keys.

  LOCKS MEAN NOTHING TO GHOSTS

  Derrick. Rose. Clarence. The twins. Bullet. Me. Seven of us. Miig was considering coming but, at the last minute, decided to stay back.

  “You’re just as good with that gun as I am. And Clarence and Bullet can track. I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.” He settled in with my dad to annotate maps with new information: construction sites, the burnt-out school …

  “All right. I’ll leave you old grandpas to it, then,” I sassed. “The real warriors will take care of this.”

  They chuckled as I sauntered away. I smiled, but it was fragile. I felt an acute pessimism at the back of my throat when they were together. How could anyone be so lucky as to have two fathers at this horrible time? Something had to give.

  “Last chance, Miig. I’ll give you a head start if you need it,” I called over my shoulder.

  “Nah, you go. There’s no adventure out there left for me anymore. I’m done.”

  We rolled out of camp within the hour. We didn’t have much light left in the day and needed to find them before dark. Leaving it to the next day might mean we’d lose track of them, or worse, they’d discover us first.

  What was left of the day was grey and windy. Wind caused problems out here. With so much moisture in the air and loose dirt from both tectonic upheavals and the new species of flora tearing up the topsoil, it was like thin mud being thrown constantly in your face. I was glad for the bandanas we wore.

  Soon enough we passed the place I’d found Rose waiting for me in the trees. I turned back now to watch her walking behind me, red printed fabric over her nose and mouth, a rifle slung on her slender back with a sling crafted from repurposed seatbelts. She gave me a thumbs-up and I returned the gesture.

  “I hope we find an Elder,” Tree said just ahead

  “Someone who can help against the schools,” Zheegwon finished.

  No one could replace Minerva, but we’d be lying if we said finding someone like her wasn’t on everybody’s minds these days.

  Bullet slowed a bit so that we were walking in tandem. She was wearing three shades of denim and an old fedora over cropped hair. “This is your first welcoming party.”

  I nodded even though it wasn’t a question.

  “We come in full aggression.” She tapped the top of her hat so that it tipped lower on her brow, trying to keep the grit from her good eye.

  “But what if there are children in the camp? What if they’re friendlies?”

  “And what if they’re not?” She turned to me slightly. “Better to apologize later than to have to bury a friend. Or worse.”

  “There’s something worse than that?”

  “Yeah, not being able to bury them.” She tilted her head forward and picked up her pace, passing in front once more.

  RiRi’s face flashed in front of my eyes. I took a misstep and stumbled over a root, my rifle sliding to my side. I caught it in my hand and readjusted the black paisley swatch over my face. You couldn’t let wounds take your focus out here. Soon we were crouched in a line behind a cluster of rock, taking stock of the newcomers.

  Four tents, military-style A-frames. A small fire with a metal grate slid overtop where they were cooking beans in a tin pot. One camper was washing up in an old red mop bucket with a crack down the side. He wore his hair in a floppy mullet shot through with silver. Something about his eyes reminded me of Minerva, and I wondered if they were related. My stomach pinched up.

  Two black women sat stirring the beans and talking about a shared memory back from the city, about a play where the main actor had been too drunk to recite his lines. With their loose sentence structure and the melodic give and take allowing a team approach to conversation I knew they were Guyanese. After the weather got violent and the islands were battered, the West Indian population here had swollen. They laughed together, and I grew nostalgic for my old life.

  There were two other campers standing by one of the tents, and it was them, if I’m honest, that made it easier for us to build aggression before we stormed in. They were having what appeared to be a casual conversation, with a relaxed ease about their posture. Neither of them was armed, and one had a towel wrapped around his head like a turban, having just finished bathing. But it was their paleness that set us on edge. One man had long blonde hair loose across his shoulders. The second, in the turban, had his shirt off, and he was pale except where his sleeves would have ended and the skin was burnt pink.

  But no old people.

  What to make of this diverse group? We hesitated, swinging between optimism and immediate hate. I wished Miig had come. He always knew what to do. And even when he didn’t, he could tell which one of us would have the pitch-perfect instinct for that moment to advise.

  It was Derrick who made the call, getting to his feet, pulling his bandana high over the bridge of his nose, stuffing his braid into the back of his shirt. “Frig, let’s just go. Day’s fading fast.”

  For once I agreed with him.

  We slid from behind the rocks and cut through the trees like moving water, crashing over the camp in ones and twos. I grabbed the mullet guy, who was startled but put up no fight. “Let’s go, over to the fire. On your knees.”

  The women were already on the ground, beans boiling over unattended. They held hands while they lay on their stomachs, Bullet standing over them with a crossbow. “Just relax right there, ladies. Relax and I won’t be forced to use this.”

  Derrick had the long-haired blond man by the back of the neck. He steered him over to the fire and pushed him down hard in the mud near the mullet, who had settled back on his considerable ass by this point.

  “Jeez man, watch out, okay? I’m not arguing with you.”

  “Shut it!” Derrick’s eyes were hostile over the horizon of fabric. He pushed the muzzle of his gun into the man’s spine, sending him sprawling on his stomach.

  “Dude, all right, I’m just gonna stay here, just like this.” The man raised his hands above his head and folded them there, seeking reprieve.

  “Boy, astum.” Clarence had the other man with the pink arms, hands held behind his back, walking over to the group. “Enough now. We, ugh, have to assess first.”

  He tried to cover up his careless Cree with English. We worked hard to disguise ourselves, especially our Indigeneity, around newcomers.

  “Astum?” The man turned
his head back towards his captor, eyes wide, mouth opening to speak again.

  It was unlike Clarence to be violent, so what happened next was more about his embarrassment over the slip-up than his true nature.

  “Never mind, you,” he growled, grabbing the man’s shoulder and jerking him so violently his towel was knocked off and a shock of dark hair fell over his face. He fell to one knee in the scuffle, landing hard.

  “Ow, Jesus!” he hissed.

  Rose stamped her foot on the damp ground. “I can’t do this.”

  She helped him to his feet and brought him over to the fire so he could pick rocks out of his bloody knee. He nodded his head at her. “Kinana’skomitin.”

  Clarence and Derrick exchanged a look. Rose helped the women up next, sitting everyone in a row, one beside the other.

  “Are you from the schools?” one of the women asked.

  “Are you?” Bullet answered with a question.

  “Us? Oh God, no,” she scoffed. “We’re helping to keep people from the damn schools.”

  Bullet looked over at the mullet, who was sitting up against a tree trunk, cleaning his nails with a sharp stick.

  “And how exactly are you doing that?”

  The women explained that they had been nurses at the Sudbury hospital and saw the treatments and “volunteer studies” first-hand. They talked about their first mission, taking children, a brother and sister, out of the program and secreting them away through a series of friends and allies. In the meantime, Clarence had lowered himself to a crouch and was in low conversation with the shirtless man who’d thanked Rose in Cree. He couldn’t help himself: Clarence was a curator of Cree. He loved his language the way Minerva had loved us, with pride and an enthusiasm of old potential repurposed.