Tiffany turned away from him. “Don’t be so melodramatic. You’re only a few years older than me. Unless you were involved in some big African massacre, I seriously doubt you’ve seen so much death.” She paused for a second.
“I’ve seen enough.”
There had once been a great war. Actually, Pierre had lived through many great and vicious wars, but this one in particular, as a sample of human carnage, shocked even him. One dark night, swiftly crossing a battlefield as only he could do, he came across hundreds of dead bodies. They were scattered haphazardly as far as his powerful eyes could see. They were all damaged in different ways, small bullet holes perforating the corpses, or entire arms, legs, and heads missing, as if torn off by a monster.
Even though he had seen more death and pain than a thousand doctors, he was stunned at the sheer volume. What little humanity was left in him cried out. Such waste. Such evil. Such stupidity. However, one soldier was still alive. He was missing his leg below the knee and wouldn’t last much longer. Pierre could see the blood slowly trickling out the open wound and soaking the already saturated ground. The soldier couldn’t have been much older than nineteen. He cried out to Pierre, in French. Appalled at the devastation, but still curious, Pierre knelt down beside the soldier.
Barely able to speak, the boy was asking for a priest. He knew he was going to die but wanted absolution—the last rites. He asked the man, who was dressed in black, if he was a priest. Not knowing what to say, Pierre merely nodded. Then the boy confessed his sins and the man marvelled at the pettiness of what mortals called sins. Afterward, spiritually satisfied, the boy complained of his pain and how he wished it would go away.
So Pierre took the boy’s pain away. What was one more death in a field of death?
To Tiffany, Pierre seemed lost in thought. Then he spoke, though she couldn’t tell if he was talking to her or something in his imagination. “But that was long ago, when I was so very young.”
“What was? And how old are you anyway? You don’t look that old.” Maybe he was pulling her leg after all.
Pierre looked at her for a second, almost seeing a face he hadn’t seen in longer than she could possibly believe. “Looks can be deceiving. Take your own interpretation of your life. You have a roof over your head. You are provided with three meals a day. You have friends. Though you do not seem to believe me, two very concerned individuals are looking for you. You are not abused and you live here on this land, where your people have always lived.” His tone changed, became almost mocking. “I guess most people would not understand how horrible that must be for you. You think you’re miserable and have nothing to live for, but it is something many would dream of.”
With an angry snort, Tiffany jumped up. “Thanks for the use of the jacket, but I am out of here.” Pierre caught the coat as she tossed it to him.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find some place.” In the darkness, she almost tripped over a car tire rut in the gravel beach. Maybe she’d pop in on one of her relatives, grab a couch and some food. Or go up to the top of the drumlin and pretend she could fly. It would leave a messy corpse, but by then she wouldn’t care.
“Wait.” Pierre’s voice echoed across the forest. Tiffany stopped and turned around. “Let me show you something first.”
Suspicious, Tiffany kept her eyes on him. “What?”
“I can’t tell you. It will be meaningless unless I show you. Besides, if you’re planning to kill yourself, what’s another hour. Death isn’t going anywhere. It will always be there waiting. Part of the fun of life is making him, or her, wait. Just give me another ten minutes of your time, then you can walk away and I promise I will never bother you again.” With that, he knelt down and started to sift through the dirt and gravel at his feet.
Still keeping an eye on him, but curious, Tiffany approached.
“When I was young, much like you I was restless, wanted to see and do more than normally a boy in my environment was able. So I decided to seize the initiative and see the world, so to speak. I threw my fate to the winds. A lot of things happened when I did that, some fabulous, others tragic. After much time, it all eventually led me here. To Otter Lake. To your house. To right here.”
Again with the old talk. “You must have been pretty young.” Maybe he was a runaway, on his own since he was fourteen or something like that.
“Very, very young.” All the while, he continued to search through all the little bits of rock, cigarette butts, bottle caps, and discarded pieces of plastic that littered the ground.
“What are you doing? What are you looking for?”
“This!” Triumphantly, he held up a small chunk of rock and examined it closely. But it was too dark for Tiffany to make out exactly what it was.
Curious, she took the rock chip from Pierre’s hand and held it up in the moonlight. Silhouetted, Tiffany could tell instantly. “It’s an arrowhead. So this is where you found them.”
Nodding, Pierre found a second one. “Here’s another.”
“This is what you wanted to show me? More arrowheads?”
Pierre closed his fist around the second one, like it was a vital piece of his history. “Tiffany, my dear, you look but you do not see. To some, this might be a simple hunk of rock. To you and me, it’s more than that, it’s an arrowhead. It’s a heritage. A history. What were they used for? Do you know that?”
She could feel the sharp flint texture of the arrowhead between her fingers. “Yeah, hunting . . . and sometimes fighting, I think.”
“Yes. Now, other than the fact there are arrowheads here, what is so special about this place?”
Looking around, Tiffany was confused. It was a rocky beach like a dozen others she’d seen in the area. “This is where people load and unload their boats. It looks like any beach to me. What am I looking for?”
Pierre shook his head. “You just can’t see it. You have to feel it.”
Tiffany looked more confused. What was Pierre getting at that was so important? “It’s kinda pretty. Bad swimming though. Too many weeds. What else . . . ?”
Pierre walked behind her, in an effort to open up the possibilities. “Think for a moment. There’s a lake over there, and over there on that side is a small ridge. And over here is the drumlin to its back. The only way here is the way we came. What does that tell you? Think like your ancestors . . . There’s a reason these arrowheads are here.”
Tiffany’s head swung back and forth between the direction of the ridge and the lake. And then back to Pierre. “Um . . . I don’t know. You can tell who’s coming and who’s going, I guess. Kind of hard to sneak up on you?”
“Exactly. Very defendable. The lake provides you miles of clear sight, and the ridge protects your back. Now what would make a place like this desirable?”
It was late at night, Tiffany was still hungry, cold, miserable, and definitely was not expecting a pop quiz by the lake. But something about this line of discussion intrigued her. She knew there was a point to this, that it was important, and Pierre was leading her someplace. So she played along. She started to put all the pieces together in her mind. Like baking a cake, all the ingredients were there, she was just waiting for the timer to go off and tell her it was ready. Then it came to her.
“The village. This is where that old village used to be, the one the old people used to talk about.” Excited, Tiffany began to visualize where the village might be situated and how it might look. She forgot her discomfort and let her curiosity take over. “But how can you be sure? I mean, a couple of arrowheads and a ridge?”
Once more, Pierre picked up a handful of earth and let it slide through his hands. “The village was here a long, long time ago. Long before your grandmother was born. But trust me, there was indeed a village here once. Do what I’m doing and tell me what you feel.”
Copying what Pierre was doing, Tiffany analyzed what her hands could tell her in the dark. “Uh, let’s see. Dirt, leaves, twigs, rocks, a piece
of glass—”
“Keep looking.”
Immediately, Tiffany knew she found something. “What’s this? Another arrowhead?”
Pierre could see the object in Tiffany’s hand and knew what it was. He’d made several as a child. “No, too big.”
Tiffany rolled it around in her hand for a few seconds, feeling the texture, weighing it, going through a dozen possibilities in her head. It was definitely man-made. Bigger than an arrowhead but roughly the same configuration. So, that meant . . . what could it mean? “It’s a spearhead, isn’t it?”
Pierre nodded. “I’d say so.”
Fascinated, Tiffany continued to roll it around in her hand. “A spearhead, huh? So this is what they used to hunt deer and animals. Wow, this is neat. You do a lot of this kind of thing, Pierre?”
“Not in a long time.”
She dropped down on her haunches once again and started rummaging through the loose ground. “Dad would love this stuff. Granny Ruth too.”
“But I thought you didn’t care about them? At least that’s what I thought you said.” In the darkness, Tiffany couldn’t see Pierre’s face, so she couldn’t tell if he was mocking her. His voice gave no clue.
“Just drop it, okay?”
“Consider it dropped.”
“Hey, I found another one, an arrowhead. How many people do you think lived here?” Tiffany stood up, wiping her hands. Using a fingernail, she chipped away at the encrusted dirt on the arrowhead.
“Not hard to tell, really. The size of the area pretty well limited the number of people. At best I’d say no more than fifty, maybe seventy people during the summer.”
Tiffany tucked both the arrowhead and the spearhead into her coat pocket with the other two. She made a mental note to come back here when it got lighter.
“What do you think it was like here?”
“I thought you weren’t interested in history.”
“This isn’t history. This is right here.” She was still straining to find more fascinating things on the ground.
“Just think, Tiffany. For hundreds or even thousands of years, Anishinabe people lived here. They hunted, laughed, played, made love, and died in the village that once stood here. And in that same village over those same centuries were hundreds and possibly thousands of young girls just like you, asking the same questions. Standing right where you are standing.”
Tiffany stopped scanning the ground. “You think?”
For a moment, Tiffany could almost hear Pierre’s eyes close and his mind slip far, far away. For the first time since she’d met him, there was almost a happy quality to his voice.
“Let me tell you what this place was probably like. It was peaceful. Men, women, children . . . families. The village would be divided into family huts: wigwams, lodges, whatever you wish to call them. Everybody would have roles and responsibilities. Fishing would have been good, hunting too. Probably a very happy existence, children playing in the sunlight. Being told stories by their parents and enjoying life.” “Sounds wonderful,” said Tiffany.
“It was, I’m sure,” replied Pierre.
Tiffany sat on the big rock again. “You know, it’s hard to picture those days. You hear and read about them and try to imagine it—”
“The same earth you are standing on has been stood on by generations of your ancestors. The air you breathe, even these trees you don’t notice, have been touched and climbed by those that came before you. That rock you were sitting on, how many behinds have sat there, watching the sun set?”
“Sometimes I don’t know what being Anishinabe means,” she confessed. “According to Tony and his father, it has something to do with taxes. For my father, its hunting and fishing and stuff like that. My grandmother believes its all about speaking Anishinabe. Then there are land claims and all sorts of political stuff that I don’t really understand.”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes. It’s all those things. And none of them.”
Tiffany took in what the man was saying. She pictured the wigwams, the children running and playing in the water, back when there would have been no European milfoil clogging up the waterway. No cottages on the far end of the lake. Just pure water, forest, and rivers as far as the eye could see. And lots of Tiffanys getting into trouble, no doubt. She found herself half believing she had been living here, a long time ago.
“That doesn’t help much. But this is amazing. It really is. You know, I’ve heard these stories all my life but—”
“You thought they were just stories. You must remember, all stories start somewhere.”
“I bet this place is full of stories.” She could feel the heavier spearhead in her pocket.
As if on cue, Pierre stood up, his weakness gone momentarily. “Want to hear one? It’s a very old story. It’s a bit frightening. Think you can handle it?”
“I’ll try,” she said, her voice full of sarcasm. Then she shivered. “And I’m not shivering from your scary story either. I’m just very cold. And wet.” She pulled the coat tighter.
“Well, let’s do something about that then,” said Pierre. He took one of the arrowheads from his pocket, along with the house key Keith had given him. Kneeling down, he gathered some dried grass and twigs together into a small pile on the gravel. Tiffany watched him curiously as he started striking the key against the arrowhead.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making a fire. This arrowhead is made from flint. The key from steel. Put the two together with a sufficient amount of force and you get a spark. Now put a spark and some dried kindling together and you get fire. If it’s done properly.”
“And you know how to do this?” Suddenly a spark flew from the collision and landed in the dried grass. Pierre blew gently on it until it caught and became a small fire. He added more twigs until they became engulfed in flames, then larger pieces of wood. In no time at all, he had a comfortable if modest fire going.
“I’ve done it before. It’s one of those things you never forget.”
The small fire created a cocoon of light and heat. Wanting to help, Tiffany pulled an old log over and they sat down on it. She sat with her legs facing the fire, in the hope of drying her pants and warming up her numb legs. Across from her sat her new friend, letting the light and memories flood over him.
Finally semi-comfortable, Tiffany felt a lot better. The feeling was returning to her toes. “You know, if I had something to eat, things would be just fine.” Almost immediately, a jar of bread-and-butter pickles appeared in front of her, resting on Pierre’s hand.
“I thought you might be a bit famished. I’m sorry, but it’s all I could grab in such short notice. They seem to be everywhere. You want?”
“Damn right I want.” Eagerly, Tiffany grabbed the jar and forced open the lid. Sloppily, her fingers dug out a handful of the pickles and quickly shoved them into her mouth.
Watching her eat the pickles with so much satisfaction reminded Pierre of his own situation and he quickly looked away, uncomfortably aware of the emptiness in his stomach, and the potential for tragedy that always hovered above him.
“Perhaps I should have brought a fork,” commented Pierre. Tiffany shook her head, she was quite content. She picked out a few more before she tried to speak between chews.
“Maybe I’m turning into my grandmother,” she said, licking her finger. “I’m sorry. You said you were hungry too.” Tiffany offered the jar to Pierre, who declined.
“No, thank you. I’m not fond of pickles. But you enjoy.” And she did.
Still looking into the fire, Pierre thought about his next words. He had promised the girl a story. He’d amassed quite a few over the years, but he knew the one he should be telling her. One of those types of stories that was too wild to be true . . . but you never knew, it could have happened. Those make the best stories. He took a deep breath, deciding how to begin.
“This story was told to me by my great-grandfather—”
“The one that was from here?” Tiffan
y interrupted.
He nodded. “Yes, that one. This is a story that supposedly happened a long, long time ago. Nobody really believes it happened, but I do. And he swore it was true.”
Tiffany leaned forward. “Granny Ruth says all her stories are true too.”
“Perhaps as long as three hundred or even three hundred and fifty years ago, things were very different. The white man had not yet come to this part of the country. And when they did arrive, they were poor, often starving, looking to get rich off furs and gold if they could find any. In many places, Native people held the balance of power. In most cases, they helped the white man survive in this country, prevented them from starving, dying of scurvy, and things like that.”
“Yeah, I remember reading about that stuff in history,” said Tiffany.
“But your history books wouldn’t have told you that one time, a very young man, just a little older than you, from a small Anishinabe village similar to the one that stood here, was bored with life, even though he was still very young, and wanted adventure. One day he decided to go with a French trader back to this stranger’s country, to see what could be discovered. He wanted to see more than what his village offered. He snuck away without telling his parents. He was young and already thought he knew everything . . .”
As he told his story, Pierre’s mind wandered back to long-forgotten adventures. Of famous and not-so-famous people he had met.Of all the places his eyes had seen, ranging from the cold steppes of Russia, to the rugged beauty of Scandinavia, all the way down to the warm sands of the Mediterranean. He had made few friends over the years, his very nature forcing him into a life of solitude. But occasionally there would be a warm light in a cold window.
There was Karl in Austria, who introduced him to the game of chess. José, who taught him to bullfight by the light of the moon one warm spring. And Sarah in Scotland, who had saved his life by allowing him to stay in her barn as the sun began to rise. He verbally painted their pictures with the warmth of distant memories. And yet in Europe, there always seemed to be a war. Somebody was always fighting somebody. There was lots of death, destruction, and horror, more than anything he could have imagined in his childhood. Every square inch of land on that continent had been fought over, sometimes several times, ever since people had started to record such things.
The Night Wanderer Page 18
