Or working out, Maggie added to herself. Then the kitchen door opened with a crash and the infamous Sammy Aandeg entered. He stood there, a man over seventy with a shock of white hair and a wrinkled face that included two suspicious eyes, holding in his left hand a worn plastic bag. Maggie thought he was skinnier than she remembered and oddly smaller. The old man caught sight of Maggie and scowled, his whole face melting into a frown.
John looked genuinely happy to see him. “Hey, Sammy, what’ve you got there?”
The man answered gruffly with one word in Anishnawbe.
John responded in English. “Sure they’re not toadstools? Might kill you.”
Sammy scowled again and swore at John, again in Anishnawbe. He waddled through the kitchen, heading to the living room, his thumb and two fingers on his free hand constantly rubbing against each other. As he shuffled by, he glanced at Maggie and started speaking at length. But not to her. To himself. The words poured out of him.
Laughing, John got out of the man’s way. “Okay, okay, just asking. You don’t have to get mean.”
Sammy continued talking to himself as he left the room. Maggie’s command of the language was good, not great, so she under stood enough to know he was talking about her. His Anishnawbe was excellent, but his syntax and phrasing sounded strange, even to her.
“I told you he was funny. Didn’t I say he was better than TV? I’ll be back in just a second.” John walked out of the room, leaving her alone in the kitchen.
She could still hear Sammy muttering to himself, his Anishnawbe practically indecipherable unless she paid seriously close attention.
Over the next minute or so, Maggie quickly put together enough Anishnawbe words to properly introduce herself from the doorway to the living room. “Hi, Sammy Aandeg. I don’t know if you know me, but my mother and father were…” She didn’t get very far because the man sitting on the couch threw a mushroom at her. It bounced off her shoulder and landed on the table, where it rolled around. “… Lillian and Leonard Benojee…” she managed to finish, unsure if she should continue.
At the mention of Lillian’s name, Sammy looked up at her. She could almost see him struggling to surface through decades of alcohol, like her mother’s name was some sort of lifesaver he was grasping to reach. Evidently he managed to grab it with a couple of fingers, because he got up from the couch, still talking in his peculiar Anishnawbe, and wandered by Maggie into the kitchen. He nodded once at her. Not moving, Maggie watched as he shuffled around, apparently making something to eat. After a few minutes, he presented Maggie with a piece of toast with some jam on it. The way he held it out, it seemed to Maggie to be more than just toast and jam, like the gluten, sugar and strawberries all contained precious memories. She took it, and he gave her a weak smile before the more familiar Sammy came rushing back.
Mumbling once more to himself, he ignored Maggie as he passed her and left the room, his three fingers never stopping their friction.
Again there was something oddly familiar about what Sammy was saying. He had stopped talking about her and had started reciting something. She cursed herself for not being more fluent in her mother’s language. The mystery began to annoy her, so she put down the toast and ran over some of the words she had recognized, then translated them back to English to establish a pattern.
John re-entered the room and interrupted her thought process. He was dressed for their evening together. He wore his black pants, denim instead of leather, but he still had his boots on. And his shirt was a lovely shade of green to bring out those magnificent hazel eyes.
“Wow,” she said. “You clean up nice.”
“Thank you, madam,” he said, giving an exaggerated bow. “Clean underwear too. Ironed shirt. They do make a difference. I do believe I am presentable to the public now. You sure are lucky I made our dinner already. I was not expecting you to show up here.”
The shirt looked like it had been cut to accent his build. Maggie immediately regretted not having put on something a little more… attractive. He almost looked prettier than she did, and that was never a good thing.
“Where are we going on this little picnic?”
From out of the refrigerator, John removed a medium-sized cardboard box. “Our dinner. Judge it by the contents, not the cardboard. I thought we’d go to a place that’s near where you live. Down by Beer Bay, I think it’s called. There’s a lovely spot by the dock. What do you say?”
Maggie stood up. “I’m game. What about Sammy?”
“Sammy? He’ll be okay. He’s looked after himself here for almost sixty years.”
“John, did you understand what he was saying? I mean, his Anishnawbe?”
While they talked, John was in the kitchen, grabbing cutlery, salt, pepper, napkins and such. “Yeah. He’s been helping me bone up on it. I’m actually getting quite good now. Pretty soon you’ll think I’ve been speaking it all my life. Where did I put the matches? Can’t have an evening picnic without a campfire. Oh, here they are. Ready?”
Somewhere upstairs Sammy was talking to himself. “John, have you ever noticed that the way he talks is kind of strange? I mean, he obviously speaks it very well but he speaks it really differently too. Do you know why?”
John opened the door and waited for Maggie to join him outside. “Of course. Took me a while to figure it out but the answer finally occurred to me. Well, are you coming? Or did you suddenly have an attack of good judgment?”
They both exited the house and Maggie instinctively walked toward her car as John walked toward his bike. They were both at their vehicles before they noticed they were standing separately.
“Um, Maggie, it might be more fun if we took my bike. Something tells me a 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle has got to be more kicks than a 2002 Chrysler. What do you say?”
A chance to ride on that fabulous machine once more? To snuggle against tall, White and handsome again? Sure, she convinced herself, why the hell not? Maggie locked her car doors. She didn’t normally do that out here but Sammy had unnerved her.
“What was that you were saying about something occurring to you, regarding Sammy?”
John pushed his bike out from the protection of the shed. “Oh, that. He speaks in iambic pentameter.”
Maggie stopped halfway to John’s bike, trying to understand. “Iambic what?”
“Pentameter. You know, like Shakespeare.”
It sounded so… everyday, the way John put it. “‘To be or not to be… ’—that kind of thing?”
“Yep, only in Anishnawbe. Same structure, weak, strong, weak, strong. Ten syllables. All the usual rules. Took me a while to figure it out. I’m not exactly a Shakespearean scholar, you know. You look surprised. There are more things in heaven and earth, Maggie. Here—” John held out her crash helmet, which was now painted similarly to his. His still had the raven on the side, but hers bore a different image.
“Is that a beaver?” she asked.
“Yep. Good eye. Hard working. Industrious. Beautiful. Loving to its children. Nice tail. When I thought of you, I instantly thought of a beaver.”
Maggie wasn’t exactly sure how to take that, or the innocent smile that came with the explanation.
“I… I… okay.” She held the helmet in her hands, looking it over. It was indeed a good representation of a beaver, allowing for some artistic licence. But for some reason, she felt vaguely insulted. “Um, you were saying about Sammy…”
“Right,” he said as he swung his leg over the motorcycle. “From what I can make out by what he says between soliloquies, he went to residential school.”
“Yeah, I know that much. My mother was there with him, as well as a few others. Told me some pretty horrible things happened to him. She was so lucky she was there only two years.”
“I find you make your own luck. But back to Sammy. Unfortunately there was some bastard there named Father McKenzie, directly from England, who thought the sun rose and set on Her Majesty’s mighty empire. To him, there was the Bible an
d Shakespeare. Everything else was bargain-basement literature, not really worth studying. So, he was here to civilize the Native people.”
Maggie took her position on the bike in front of John, carefully placing the picnic basket on her lap. Part of her was disappointed there would be no in-transit cuddling as the picnic basket required dual hand restraint. She was also engrossed in what John was telling her.
“Evidently when he was younger, Sammy was a bit of a rebel. As you probably know, they forbade the students from speaking their language, but God bless him, he refused to give it up. Even as a kid he was scrappy. They beat him practically every day. I think to the point it made him kinda crazy. That can happen after a decade of abuse. He spoke English, but every once in a while when they thought they’d won, he’d let loose some Anishnawbe just to piss them off.”
“What does that have to do with Shakespeare?”
“That’s the real clever part. The teacher who so loved the Bard would get incensed that this young Indian boy would dare to corrupt what he considered the most beautiful words ever written, by speaking them in a filthy bastard language. He considered that a personal insult. So the man took it upon himself to dish out all Sammy’s corporal punishment. Somewhere in Sammy’s mind, he’s made the decision to speak just Anishnawbe. I don’t think he has spoken a word of English since. And he only speaks Anishnawbe in iambic pentameter. It was sort of his revenge on the guy. Can you imagine the kind of self-discipline and intelligence that it would take to do that day after day? His mind is kind of stuck on it now. Sort of in a mental loop. Everybody just thinks he’s crazy old Sammy Aandeg, but there’s method to his madness. You should hear his Lear monologue. Quite moving and amazing. Stratford could make a fortune off him.”
“That’s… original. I never knew any of that. How amazing.” John nodded. “I’ll say. And if you read between the lines, I also think the guy was abusing him, in more ways than one. You don’t get to be like Sammy, screaming in the night the way he does, unless the Father was doing a little more of ‘do as I say, not as I do’ than was proper. Oh well, I think Sammy’s got the last laugh. I bet to this day that guy’s cursing Sammy in… what’s that place called? Hell. What a great story, huh? Took me forever to get it out of him.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes it is, but hey, it’s kept him strong in his own way, and given him a purpose. How many people out there have either? Okay, put your helmet on, it’s dinner time!”
Maggie donned her helmet just in time, because John gunned the machine. It took off with a lurch.
Sitting at the very top of the telephone-totem pole, on the raven’s head, was a lone raccoon, watching the motorcycle as it receded into the distance. Its little fingers twitched occasionally.
All the way to Beer Bay, the Indian chief was nestled atop the gas tank of the Indian Chief, and very conscious of her proximity to the personable young man. Still, Maggie found her thoughts returning to her encounter with Sammy Aandeg, and what happened in his youth. As they made their way through the streets of Otter Lake, her hands protectively held the box across the gas tank. Absentmindedly, she wondered what a man like John had made them to eat. She would know soon enough.
Less than fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a secluded part of the bay. Turning off the ignition, John waited for her to get off before getting off himself and removing his helmet. “I love this place,” he said.
“You do? Why?”
“It brings back so many memories. Maybe I’ll tell you some of them someday. Hey, let’s go out to the dock to eat. It’s perfect there.” Grabbing the box and tucking it under his arm, he extended his hand for Maggie to take.
Together, they walked toward the water. The sun was still fairly high above the horizon, casting light on this lazy spring evening. John pulled a blanket from his saddlebags and spread it on the planks. “Dinner has begun.”
Slowly he unpacked all the goodies he had prepared. From the box he pulled out a bottle of Chilean Syrah.
“You keep telling me you don’t drink!” said Maggie.
“I don’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t get you drunk. And for me, some apple juice.”
Next came a salad. “Greek salad. Love the stuff. We never had any cheese when I was young. Can’t get enough of it now,” said John. This was followed by a large, green plastic container.
“What’s in here?” As she opened it, Maggie was hit by the most amazing aroma. “Hmm, I love chili. Smells wonderful.”
“I doubt you’ve had chili like this. It’s moose chili with a couple of unique touches thrown in. I think you’ll like it.”
“John, I am impressed. Where did you learn to cook?”
John gave her some cutlery wrapped in a napkin. “I spend a lot of time on my own. So I have to amuse myself. Buns! I forgot the buns!” He retrieved the bread from the box. “There, does everything look right?”
“Everything looks great,” said Maggie.
“Now for the wine.” John grabbed the bottle and wrestled with the cork. “I seem to be opening a lot of wine for you.”
“I hope it doesn’t give you any bad ideas about me.”
“Oh, all the ideas I have about you are very bad,” he said with a smirk.
He was flirting with her. It had been a very long time since anybody had flirted with her. And somewhere in the back of her mind was the ancient floppy disk with all her flirting programming on it. It was obvious that she would have to update it to a thumb drive pretty soon. After all, this was a full-fledged date. Maggie Second was on a date. A widowed mother of one, out here for a romantic evening with a stunningly attractive, younger, White man.
She was the chief. He rode a motorcycle. Somewhere in all this, she was sure, were the makings of a made-for-TV-movie.
After opening the bottle, she watched him ladle out the chili. Not your typical first-date meal, but what was? she wondered. Her first date with Clifford had consisted of two Whopper combos. So she was hardly an expert. She accepted the full bowl.
“Enjoy,” he said.
And she did.
SIXTEEN
The sun was dangling near the horizon, saying farewell to this part of the continent. Meanwhile, on the other side of John and Maggie’s world, the impatient moon was already fighting its way above the distant shore. Nobody else was around, though the odd boat skimmed by on the far side of the bay. On the dock in front of them were the remnants of their dinner. John and Maggie were sitting side by side, the past hour having drawn them closer.
“No kidding. I have been all across this country. A couple of times. From ocean, to ocean, to ocean, to way past that thing called the border. Both the American and the Mexican. I have seen mountains, prairies, oceans, trees, lakes, everything. This is a big country but I like to think I’m bigger.” John filled her wineglass again from the three-quarters-empty bottle. There was no reason for her to drink fast. They had all the time in the world.
“Have you been to the Arctic? Nunavut?”
“Once. That’s where I saw the inukshuk. But I don’t care for the Arctic. I try never to go above the treeline. Not my kind of place.”
“But aren’t the prairies pretty treeless?”
“That’s different.”
“How is that different?” asked Maggie. Her cheeks were unusually flushed in the failing light.
“Do you really want to know? Okay, there are trees in the prairies. You just have to know where to look for them.”
“There are so many places I would want to go. I envy you. Why did you stop travelling?”
John’s mood seemed to shift slightly, like wispy clouds crossing in front of the moon. “I developed what could be called a drinking problem.”
“I know. You mentioned something about it the other day. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“No, that’s okay. It’s good therapy. It’s called sharing. Anyway, it was a pretty bad problem. It lasted for a while. Hard to travel when you’re
passed out.”
“You? Really?”
“Yep. But, as they say, I’m much better now. I did learn one good thing from all those years of drinking, though. I can say ‘Southern Comfort’ in fourteen different Aboriginal languages. Seriously. Want to hear some?” She nodded eagerly. “Keep in mind there’s no actual word for alcohol in most Indigenous languages, but the term Southern Comfort is a different story. Let’s see, there’s entiene aon’wesenhtshera.”
Maggie was perplexed. She shook her head, not understanding the language.
“That’s Mohawk. From our friends to the south. How about… let’s see… sow-wee-nook a-stee-si-ni.”
Maggie couldn’t identify that language either.
“That’s Cree,” he explained. “Then there’s ahhh klup-ee-huh!”
“I think you just spit on me.”
“Sorry, it’s a very guttural language. It’s Nuu-Chah-nulth. Okay, I’ll give you an easy one. Zhaawnong Minodewin. Recognize that?”
Maggie thought for a moment, trying to deconstruct the various prefixes and suffixes. “That’s Anishnawbe!”
John smiled. “Very good.”
“Not bad, for a White guy.”
John noticed she was slurring her words slightly. Gently, Maggie lay back on the dock, looking up at the skies. She seemed to be studying them.
“You’re not falling asleep, are you?” he said.
“Me? Nope. Wide awake. Just looking up there, at the stars. God, I haven’t been down here having so much fun in years.” She took a deep breath. “You are a very interesting man, Mr. Richardson. Very interesting. I’m having a great time. Very great.” She smiled as a distant meteor burned up in the earth’s atmosphere. She pointed at it. “A something… star!”
He looked amused. Then, after putting the dinner remains back in the box, he got to his feet. “Chief Second, I think it’s time for a fire. Don’t you?”
Maggie sat up. “Fire. Yes, fire. Bonfire! Big one.”
“How about we start with a campfire. That might be fun.” John helped her move off the dock to the shore, near a circle of blackened rocks. “This looks like a good spot.”
Motorcycles & Sweetgrass Page 15
