by Jay Forman
I nodded. Joshua and I had more in common than he’d ever know.
“Want to smoke a peace pipe to make it official?”
I could tell he was teasing me. “It depends on the type of the leaves you’re going to put in it. And if there are any seeds or stems in the bowl the deal’s off.”
I learned another new thing. Joshua was capable of laughing, a rich deep laugh.
“You’re all right. Come on, let’s start the tour. We can talk to Bernice while we’re here, too. This is where she works.”
****
Our first stop was at the Northern and we’d pulled up just as Big Red was stomping up the staircase on the outside of the building. He went along the balcony, passed two of the three doors that opened onto it, and knocked loudly on the last door.
A woman who matched his height, but not his girth, opened the door. Her eyes opened wide and her mouth opened a bit at the shock of seeing her visitor. She said something, laughed, and then wrapped her arms around him and most of his backpack.
“I wonder what she’s still doing here? I thought she’d gone back out into the bush.” Joshua said as he got out of the truck.
“Who is she?”
“Ross’ partner, Aileen.” He started walking toward the front door of the Northern.
“That’s her cousin. He’s not a prospector. He’s an accredited Sasquatch researcher.”
Joshua stopped and held the door half-way open. “A what?”
“You heard me. He was on the plane I came in on. He said he was coming to see his cousin.”
Joshua shook his head in disbelief and opened the door the rest of the way. “How does somebody get accredited to do that?”
“Damned if I know.” I followed him into the store, acknowledging to myself that I was actually starting to like him despite our rocky start.
I’d seen so few people out walking around Webequie that it almost felt like a ghost town and inside the store it was just as empty of human life.
“Where is everyone?”
“Petawanagang – the fall gathering camp. We spend two weeks in the spring and fall hunting up there.”
“What about the kids? Can they miss that much school?”
“Learning about our culture is just as important as what’s in your textbooks.”
The Northern was the only business on the reserve and just about every kind of business was conducted inside it. Outside was a single gas pump. Inside was a bank counter, a post office, a video rental, grocery, hardware, and clothing store all jammed into the same small space. Joshua told me that the three rooms on the second floor of the building were the only hotel rooms on the island.
He started talking in Oji-Cree to the bored-looking teenage girl who was sitting on the counter next to the cash register, leafing through a magazine. Bernice was the only word I understood Joshua say. The one word I understood in the girl’s reply was Aileen. I caught a third recognizable word in what Joshua said next – Sasquatch.
The girl’s eyes opened wide and reminded me of little Mary’s eyes when she first saw me and thought I was a ghost.
“Kitchi-sabe?” the girl whispered.
“No!” The force of Joshua’s reply startled both me and the girl. “He’s big enough, but he’s just an amitigoshi. Lee says he’s Aileen’s cousin. Lee, meet Heidi. Bernice left about an hour ago and Heidi’s filling in for her.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“You’re the one Blaze called?”
Was that to become my First Nations name? The One Blaze Called? “That’s me.”
The door opened and a man stuck his head inside to ask Joshua something in Oji-Cree.
“Be right back,” Joshua said to me. “I have to fix Frank’s alternator. It won’t take long.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. Heidi just stared at me.
“Do you think Bernice will be coming back soon? I’d like to talk to her.”
“Nah, she was really upset, said she was going to take a couple of days off.”
“I’m surprised she even came in to work, what with all that’s been going on around here over the last few days.”
“That’s not what set her off. She and Aileen got into it.” Heidi dropped down off the counter and put the month-old US Weekly magazine back in the rack near the counter.
“Got into what?” There was no point in beating around the bush or trying to be subtle with my questions. Everyone knew why I was there – I was The One Blaze Called.
“I dunno. Something to do with River. She saw Aileen talking to him out front and went screaming out of here. I was just going to go put the pizzas in the freezer and even from the back of the store I could hear her yelling ‘You leave him out of this!’, but I don’t know what she was going on about. Bernice does that, goes off on people. Oh shit!” Heidi bolted into action, running toward the back of the store. “The pizzas!”
I walked past the baby clothes, turned left at the bicycles and then right when I spotted the produce section. Heidi was just beyond two of the saddest bunches of bananas I’d ever seen, stocking the shelves of the glass-fronted freezer with some slightly defrosted pizzas that she was taking out of a box. I recognized the box; my backpack had been resting on top of it on the plane.
“Bernice told me you’re a travel writer. Do you really get to go to all the places you write about?”
I nodded. “I’m very lucky – I love my job. I’ve been to some amazing places.”
“I’ve never been anywhere, except for Thunder Bay.”
I felt sticker shock when I saw the price that was listed on the shelf in the freezer where she was stacking the pizzas. “Wow! $25 for one pizza? That’s three times what they cost in the grocery stores near my house.”
“Everything’s more expensive here because it has to be flown in. Is Toronto really that much bigger than Thunder Bay?”
“About 30 times bigger.” I stopped myself from telling her that Toronto was the fourth largest city in North America. If she couldn’t imagine how big Toronto was she’d have no reference to understand how big Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles were.
“It must be so cool to live in a place like that.”
“I wouldn’t know. I live three hours north of Toronto, near a town that’s about the same size as Webequie.”
Heidi wasn’t interested in where I lived. She had her sights set only on Toronto. “Do your ears really pop when you’re going up in the elevator in one of the tall buildings?”
“Yeah, the same way they do when you’re in a plane that’s going up.”
“My cousin and I were going to go to Toronto, we were saving up money, but then he killed himself.”
I’d heard about the spate of teenage suicides on reserves and knew too well how devastating the aftershocks could be. Her blasé tone surprised me, though. I guessed that it wasn’t the first time suicide had touched Heidi’s short life. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard for you—”
“Heidi?” A male voice called from the front of the store.
“Yeah?”
“Did you get any du Mauriers in today?”
“Yeah.” She left the remaining pizzas to continue defrosting in the box and headed to the front of the store.
Two teenage boys were standing at the cash register and neither one looked even close to being 19 years old, but Heidi didn’t ask to see their ID. She just asked them how many packs they wanted.
“One,” said the shortest boy.
“Two.” The boy who was holding a double-bladed, short-handle axe said with exaggerated macho bravado. If he’d walked into a store carrying an axe anywhere else in North America the store clerk would probably have pushed a silent alarm button. But Heidi didn’t seem the least bit concerned. She simply handed him the packages of cigarettes that he’d asked for.
“We’re going to go over to the lodge to see if they’ll let us try their guns. Joey says they brought a Magnum. Want to come with us?”
“I can’
t. Bernice took off.”
The shorter boy kept staring at my hair as if he was spellbound by it, but that spell was broken when a more vibrant colour came into the store. His tall friend almost had to drag him out the door because he was so mesmerized by the fiery giant.
“Hello again,” Big Red said with a smile. “This is the travel writer I was telling you about,” he said to the woman who followed him into the store. “This is my cousin Aileen. I’m Frazer, by the way, and your name is?”
“Lee.”
We had the appropriate ‘nice to meet you’ conversation, followed by that moment of awkward silence when no one knows what to say next. I decided to jump right in.
“I heard about what happened to your partner, Aileen. That must have been horrible for you.”
She nodded, sending ripples through her thin, shoulder-length grey hair. It looked like a hairstyle that had been neglected for quite some time. “It was. It is. I’m thinking of hanging up my prospecting hat once I finish the staking Ross and I had planned. Or maybe I’ll go back to the Yukon and join a gold crew again? A regular pay cheque would be nice.” She sighed heavily. “At least I won’t have to finish this job alone.” She turned to look at Frazer. “Frazer’s come to help me.”
“That’s what family’s for,” he said as he draped one arm over her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.
A tight-lipped smile flickered on her face for a fraction of a second.
She fascinated me. A female prospector? How many female prospectors were there? Why had she chosen to work in that field? She mentioned working in the Yukon, looking for gold. When and why had she moved to working in Northern Ontario? The Yukon was another part of the country that I’d never seen and I was looking forward to the last few days of my cross-country trip that I’d scheduled up there. I wanted to bombard her with questions about her uniquely Canadian life, her jobs, her travels. I glanced outside and saw that Joshua was still leaning over the engine under the open hood of a pick-up truck. I didn’t know how much time I’d have before he was finished working on the truck. “I would love to interview you about your experiences. Are you still going to be here tomorrow? Joshua’s showing me around and introducing me to people for the rest of today, but I haven’t got anything planned for tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, we’re just grabbing a few extra supplies and then we’re heading out. How long will you be on the res?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I could come to you?”
“That might be tricky. We’ll be on the move. Why don’t you give me your phone number and I’ll call you once I’m back in civilization? We could do a telephone interview.”
I was just about to say yes, but stopped myself. A telephone interview at a later date would work for the information I wanted for my article, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that she had been the dead man’s partner and any information she might have about him or what happened to him couldn’t wait. Then it dawned on me, she didn’t know my First Nations name, she didn’t know why I’d really come to Webequie. “I’m not actually in Webequie for just the travel articles. Arthur’s grandson asked me to come here. He’s convinced that his grandfather wouldn’t have, um, done what he’s accused of doing.”
Her jaw muscles clenched and her dark pupils contracted to the size of pinpricks. “Arthur Suganaqueb shot Ross.” There was nothing feminine about her tone now. “The police found Arthur’s gun right near Ross’ body. He did it all right. That’s why he’s been taken away. I admit he had reason to. Ross was always getting into trouble whenever we stayed anywhere too long, but he didn’t deserve to die for a quickie with Bernice. She was just as guilty of sin as Ross was – and she’s still walking around. I tried to say something nice to her grandson, River, but she gave me royal hell for even talking to him. I didn’t do anything wrong! I was just trying to be nice. And I do feel sorry for the kids. They’ve lost their grandfather. But it was their grandfather’s own fault. He chose to do what he did. He could have just punched Ross in the face. It wouldn’t have been the first time that happened. But he shot him. Killed him! I’m the last person who’s going to give you any information to contradict the facts.”
Oh boy. I hadn’t handled this well. “I’m not looking for information to get Arthur off if he did it. I’m just looking for the truth. I’d like to learn more about Ross and you’re the only person who can help me with that.” She continued to glare at me. “And I really am writing a series of articles about Canada and would truly appreciate it if I could include your story in one of them.”
“I was at our base camp when he was killed, miles away from where he was found.”
“But you knew him better than anyone up here. Maybe someone else had a reason to want to hurt him? Or maybe Arthur really did do it? If I can learn more about Ross I might be able to learn more about what happened to him?”
Joshua interrupted our second awkward silence by opening the door and coming into the store. “I’m done. Let’s go.”
“Give me a minute?” I asked him.
He looked at Aileen and Frazer, then at me. “I’ll grab some beef jerky.” He disappeared down an aisle.
“Please, Aileen? Don’t you want to be sure that the right person goes to jail?”
“Of course I do. But why did Arthur’s grandson call you? What do you know about criminal investigations?”
“Quite a bit. I grew up in a police family.” It was sort of true. My uncle, Auntie Em’s husband, ran our local OPP detachment in Anishinaabeg Falls for years. My brother had been an OPP officer – right up until he was fired. And, heck, I’d had a front row seat for the biggest criminal investigation in Anishinaabeg Falls’ history – the investigation into seven rapes and murders, culminating in the grand finale of my father’s arrest and subsequent convictions. “I’ve been involved in murder investigations before and actually played a key role in solving a couple of murders at the school where Arthur’s grandson, Blaze, is currently enrolled. That’s why he called me.”
She grabbed the wrinkled US Weekly out of the rack and slammed it on the counter. “Pen?” she said to Heidi.
Heidi pointed to a jar of pens and pencils beside the cash register.
Aileen wrote so forcefully on the back of the magazine that the pen she was using cut through several layers of pages. She tossed the pen on the counter and held the magazine out for me to take. “That’s the number to my satphone. I’ll talk to you, but just you. I don’t want anybody from Webequie there when we talk, understood?”
“Understood. Deal. Thank you.”
She turned and headed for the back of the store, moving so quickly that she almost knocked Joshua over as he walked toward me.
“You can’t blame her for being upset,” Frazer said apologetically. “She and Ross were partners for years. With him gone her whole world has been turned upside down.” He followed her down the aisle.
“What was that about?” Joshua said as he put a handful of packages of beef jerky down on the counter and then bent down to grab four large chocolate bars from the shelves under the front lip of it.
“I asked her if I could talk to her about Ross.”
“And?” He put a red $50 bill on the counter and Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister, Sir William Lyon Mackenzie King, sternly looked up at me from it.
“She wasn’t happy about it, but I think she’ll do it.”
“Isn’t she heading back out into the bush?”
“Yeah, they’re just about to leave, but she gave me her satphone number and told me to call her. I’m hoping she’ll let me go out to wherever she’s prospecting. I’d love to see a real prospecting site.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Why? You don’t think she’ll talk to me?”
“Oh, she’ll probably talk to you, but I doubt she’ll let you see where they’re staking. Prospectors don’t like anybody knowing where they’re working until they’ve recorded their claims with the Ministry of Northern Development and Min
es.”
“But don’t they have to tell your band council where they’re going to work?”
He shook his head. “We don’t own the land, remember?” He pocketed the change Heidi gave him. “Anybody can put stakes in the ground wherever they want. It’s only if they find something and somebody wants to start digging that they have to bring us into the equation.”
“Did Ross and Aileen find something?”
“Doubt it. If they had, Aileen wouldn’t have come back after flying down to Thunder Bay when the OPP flew Ross’ body out of here.”
“Were she and Ross prospecting for diamonds?”
Joshua shook his head. “The closest diamond find is over 150 kilometres northeast of here.”
“What would she and Ross have been looking for then?”
“Chromite, nickel, copper, platinum, you name it. You’re standing in the mouth of the Ring of Fire.”
“What’s the Ring of Fire?” To me, it was either a Johnny Cash song or the volatile seismic ring around the northern Pacific.
“This is practically your backyard, in Canadian measurements anyway, and you don’t even know what’s in it? You really do have a lot to learn.”
“So teach me.” Once again I had to jog to keep up with him as he strode toward his truck.
“This Ring of Fire is a mineral field. Picture a bear’s head from the side. It’s looking to the west, with its mouth open in an angry roar. Webequie sits in the middle of that open jaw.”
“And all those minerals are in that ring?”
He nodded. “Over $60 billion worth.”
People had been killed for an awful lot less.
CHAPTER SIX
We drove south toward the airport and parked in front of one of the two-storey houses.
