Red Wolf

by Jennifer Dance

  Finally he slept and dreamed.

  “Tell me a story, Mishomis,” he asked, nuzzling his face into Grandfather’s chest. “The one about Nanabozho … in the beginning …”

  “In the beginning,” Grandfather started, “Creator made a world of —”

  Red Wolf joined in, “Water… wind … Rock … and fire.”

  “That’s right! And to the sun he gave the power to heat and light the earth.

  To the earth he gave the power of growth and healing.

  To the water he gave purity and renewal.

  To the wind he gave music, and the breath of life itself.

  After these things, Creator made animals and us, The People, Anishnaabek.

  But The People had much to learn about how to live on this earth, about how to —”

  “Hunt,” Red Wolf chimed in loudly.

  “And how to —” Grandfather looked expectantly at the boy.

  “Heal?” the child said hesitantly.

  “Yes! The Great Spirit needed to teach us about kindness, honesty, and generosity. So He sent a teacher whose name was —”

  “Nanabozho!”

  “Looking at Nanabozho, you wouldn’t know that he was any different from you,” the old man continued, “but he was. He was half spirit and half human. His mother was Woman, and his father was the West Wind! And what could Nanabozho do?”

  “He could do wondrous things,” Red Wolf answered proudly.

  The weathered creases on the old man’s face deepened and a toothless smile stretched across his open lips. “When Nanabozho walked the earth, Creator sent Ma’een’gun, the wolf, to walk with him, to talk with him and hunt with him.”

  “They were friends?” Red Wolf suggested.

  “Yes, but they were more than friends. Nanabozho and Ma’een’gun became like brothers. But one day when they were hunting together they got so excited that they disobeyed the instructions and they killed more than they needed. They killed just for the fun of it.”

  “That was bad, wasn’t it, Grandfather?”

  “Yes, it was,” the old man affirmed, the strong, deep tone of his voice disguising the frailty of aging flesh and bones.

  “And from that day forward, Creator made Nanabozho and Ma’een’gun, and all their descendants, both wolf and man, walk on separate paths.”

  “They were not allowed to be friends anymore?”

  The old man paused, working his tongue around his few remaining teeth while thinking of a way to answer the child. “It became a different friendship,” he finally said. “Ma’een’gun is still our brother. More than that — Ma’een’gun is our spirit guide. But wolves walk one path and we walk another. Sometimes the paths are close together. Sometimes not. Sometimes they go in the same direction. Sometimes not.”

  The old man lovingly touched his grandson’s head, his aged eyes bright with love. “But when we need guidance the spirit wolves are always close by.

  “Always.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Red Wolf was jolted into consciousness by a loud clanging. With a thumping heart, he clapped his hands over his ears and ran for his mother. He fell from the bed and landed flat on his face on the wooden floorboards, the wolf head pendant falling from his hand and skittering along the floor, disappearing under the next bed. Everyone was looking at him and laughing at him. He knew this even though he lay face down on the floor, but all he was worried about was if anyone had seen the wolf head. He pleaded with it to remain hidden until he could safely retrieve it.

  “Silence!” Father Thomas ordered.

  The laughter stopped.

  Red Wolf scrambled to his feet, the foreign surroundings crashing into him like a charging bull moose. Instantly he was wide awake and terrified. Outside the barred window it was still dark, but in the yellow lamplight he could see the other boys in their nightshirts, kneeling beside their beds, pressing their palms and fingers together.

  Red Wolf knelt beside his bed and copied them, but he peeked through narrowed eyes, not wanting to miss any command that might earn him punishment.

  Father Thomas, wearing a white nightrobe, was talking in the language that made no sense. He rocked back and forth on his slippered heels, exposing glimpses of blue-grey ankles. He didn’t have his ruler with him. Red Wolf followed the priest’s upward gaze, wondering who he was talking to up there, but he could see no one. The wooden beams and rafters were more substantial than the slim poles of his birch-bark wiigwam, but there was no opening for the smoke from the fire. In fact, there was no fire! Red Wolf had never lived without fire, and the damp cold of the dormitory soon caused him to shiver.

  “Aaah-men,” the boys said.

  Mister Hall, his bald head shining in the lamplight, entered the dormitory making a drumming rhythm by smacking his walking cane into the palm of his hand. Red Wolf thought that soon there would be singing or dancing. He was shocked when the boys who had wet beds leaned over to touch their toes, upending their bare bottoms. Mother Hall used words to admonish each child, then Mister Hall used his cane, and finally Father Thomas added a blessing. It went like this:

  “You filthy boy!” Thwack. “God save your heathen soul. Amen.”

  “You disgusting bed-wetter!” Thwack. “God save you from your pagan ways. Amen.”

  “You good-for-nothing Indian!” Thwack. “God bless you, even though you’re an Indian.”

  In this manner Red Wolf began to understand the English language.

  Still in their nightshirts, the boys put on their school boots. Red Wolf fumbled at the trailing laces then hid them down inside the boots against his bare ankles.

  “Ablutions!” Mother Hall shouted, choosing a boy to carry the communal night-soil bucket.

  Immediately, the children fell into line behind the boy with the pail. Red Wolf brought up the rear, where he imitated the rhythm of their swinging arms and marching feet. The line proceeded out the dormitory, along the corridor, down two flights of stairs, and along a passageway to the side of the building. As soon as the first boy in line pushed open the door, Red Wolf wriggled his nose at the stench then stood aghast at the sight that met his eyes; some twenty boys sat on a long bench that straddled a deep, smelly trench. Their nightshirts were hiked around their waists, and ankle boots, on the ends of bare legs, waved in the air. A boy jumped off the bench and the next in line took his place, then another and another. When it was Red Wolf’s turn he didn’t move fast enough.

  “Hurry up. Get on the throne,” the latrine orderly said. “You have two minutes. After that you have to wait until tomorrow.” Red Wolf didn’t understand the words, though he knew what he was supposed to do. But since the orderly’s demeanour was not threatening, since his skin was brown not white, since he held no ruler or leather strips, Red Wolf didn’t rush.

  “You lost ten seconds already,” the youth said, stretching his hand toward Red Wolf and showing him the pocket watch in his palm.

  Had Red Wolf’s senses not already been in overload, the moving hands of the timepiece would have fascinated him. Instead, he approached the vacant space on the bench and holding his breath peered through the round hole in the wood. It looked very big, and he wondered if he could balance on it without falling through, but the orderly was getting increasingly impatient, so he climbed up, trying not to sit on his nightshirt, and settled his skinny buttocks over the hole.

  For the next part of the ablutions routine Red Wolf went to the adjacent washhouse and waited in line again. When it was his turn he hung a bucket over the spigot, then leaned his body weight over the long handle. He was impressed when icy water instantly spewed into the pail, without any sign of a lake or river. He carried the half-filled bucket to where other boys were stripping off their nightshirts and washing their bodies, under the vigilant eyes of Mother Hall. Once again, he watched carefully and copied the others, first picking up a cake of lye soap and a rag, then washing himself in the following order; hands, face, armpits, backside, and feet. Finally a larger rag was used
to rub dry.

  Throughout this part of the daily routine, Mother Hall repeated a mantra that Red Wolf would later come to understand. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

  After pouring the dirty water down a drain and hanging the rags to dry, the children donned their nightshirts and boots again and marched back to the dormitory to make their beds and put on their school uniforms. While everyone was distracted, Red Wolf scrambled under the bed as though his life depended on it, retrieved the wolf head, and plunged it safely in his pocket. For a few moments he felt much better, but as soon as Mother Hall noticed his untied laces, his stomach tensed again.

  “You’ve got to learn this quickly,” she said, bending over and tying a bow. “I can’t be leaning over all the time, not with this bad back of mine.” Red Wolf strained to see how the woman manipulated the laces, but Mother Hall’s spindly fingers moved too fast. Then it was breakfast.

  Never had Red Wolf seen a room as large as the refectory, and never had he seen so many boys. They were all wearing the same clothes and the same vacant expression. And they were all silent. A plump woman at the counter ladled food into his upheld bowl. He stared at the thick, lumpy goop, but was soon pushed along by impatient boys and steered toward one of many plank tables.

  A booming voice broke the silence. “Let us pray.”

  Red Wolf copied the other children as they bowed their heads, closed their eyes, and held their hands in the position he had learned that morning.

  “Thank you, Lord, for the bounty that you have provided today, for the food which we will now enjoy —”

  Red Wolf peeked at Father Thomas. The priest had changed out of his nightclothes and was once again wearing the black robe from the previous day. The boy thought it strange that the robe had no openings at the front. The robes of The People opened down the front. Mister Hall’s shirt opened down the front. So did Red Wolf’s new school shirt and the shirts of all the other boys. But Father Thomas’s robe didn’t seem to have any openings, and the stiff white collar that throttled his neck appeared to be the wrong way round, too. Red Wolf wondered if the priest had forgotten the right way to dress himself.

  The boy looked at the crossed sticks that hung from the Father’s neck. Red Wolf furtively slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and caressed the piece of carved bone, seeing the image of the wolf head through his fingertips. The warmth that came to his fingers as he rubbed them over the bone made him feel warm all over. My wolf is much nicer than his sticks. Is that why they tried to take it away from me? Do they want it for themselves?

  Finally the boy deduced, correctly, that since the priest was the only one wearing women’s skirts, the only one wearing his clothing backwards, and the only one wearing the crossed sticks, Father Thomas must be chief.

  Red Wolf’s stomach growled. He had not eaten since the previous morning, and he was hungry. Food was in front of everyone, but nobody was eating! They were poised over their bowls, immobile as rock carvings, heads lowered, eyes closed, palms together. Red Wolf ascertained that Father Thomas’s eyes were firmly shut, then quickly dunked two fingers into the porridge and scooped it into his mouth. He had barely tasted the sticky food when a firm blow on the back of his head sent his hands flying into his bowl.

  “There will be no eating when Father Thomas is talking to our Lord,” hissed Mister Hall, his bald head red with outrage and orange hairs bristling from his ears. Mister Hall’s angry outburst was over as quickly as it had come and Father Thomas continued with his prayer.

  “Thank you, Lord, for all the gifts you have bestowed on us today. Thank you for providing these lost children with this home and thank you for giving me, and all the staff here, another day to minister to their souls. And for what we are about to receive … make us truly grateful.”

  The chorus of Aaah-men was barely out of the mouths of the children before they were shovelling down spoonfuls of porridge. Red Wolf stared around him in disbelief, absently licking the sticky mess from his fingers.

  It was now Mother Hall who whacked him on the back of his head. “Spoon!” she said, pushing a cold, shiny utensil into his hand. “Only savages eat with their hands.”

  Red Wolf took the spoon and copied the others, but he had lost his appetite and he did not like the taste of the food. He listened to the clanking and scraping of metal spoons on enamelled bowls. The sound was abrasive and jarring compared to the duller sound of maple ladles on maple bowls. He laid down his spoon and waited.

  “Nishin! Eat. Quick,” the boy next to him whispered in the language of The People. “If you don’t, they hold you and push it down your throat. And you get a haircut like Henry over there!” He gestured with his lower lip to a boy who had a three-finger-wide strip of baldness running down the centre of his scalp from forehead to nape. In horror, Red Wolf ate the food, almost gagging on the lumps. He had barely finished when the bell clanged again and without a word the boys were instantly on their feet, waiting in silence in one of several lines to wash, dry, and stack their own dishes and spoons.

  With the dishwashing done, and with the bell clanging yet again, the boys walked silently away in different directions.

  Red Wolf didn’t know where to go.

  “Follow Henry,” the other boy whispered. “He’s in Grade One. He should be in Grade Two, like me, but he’s doing Grade One again.”

  “Why?” Red Wolf asked.

  “Because he’s a stupid Indian.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Henry was easy to follow. His bald stripe set him apart, and once inside the Grade One classroom he was a head taller than the other boys. The teacher took Red Wolf’s hand and led him to the front of the class. All the boys stared at the newcomer with expressionless faces, everyone except Henry, who sat front and centre with a scowl on his face.

  “Say, ‘Good morning’ to George,” the teacher instructed the class.

  “Good morning to George,” they said in unison.

  Henry rolled his eyes at their stupidity.

  Turning to face Red Wolf, the man pointed at his own chest. “Master Evans,” he said, several times over until Red Wolf was able to repeat the name perfectly. This pleased the man, who smiled and tousled the boy’s hair for a long time. Red Wolf felt uncomfortable.

  Master Evans showed Red Wolf a nametag that said George. All of the children, except Henry, had similar nametags pinned to their shirts. When Red Wolf successfully sounded out each letter of his new name, the teacher beamed and pinned the nametag on him. Then he pointed at Henry. “Henry, you may go back to your old desk now.”

  The big boy moved quickly to the back row, obviously happy to be returning to his old location. The teacher steered Red Wolf by his shoulders to the empty desk.

  “Sit down!”

  Red Wolf understood! He slid across the smooth oak seat that was still warm from Henry’s backside. He wriggled around, slipping and sliding on the well-worn surface.

  Suddenly a ruler smacked down on Red Wolf’s desk a fraction of an inch from his arm. He jumped and let out a startled yelp, inadvertently banging his knees on the underside of the desk.

  “Sit still!”

  Red Wolf understood that, too.

  Some of the boys were giggling, almost inaudibly, but Henry’s laughter was loud and scornful.

  Master Evans’ voice was shrill. “Silence!”

  The boys were quiet, and Red Wolf learned another word.

  The teacher turned his back to the children and with a short white stick made marks on a large blackboard that hung on the wall. Red Wolf knew these must be the tracks his father had spoken of, the white man’s signs that he must learn before he could leave school. He gazed at the marks and hoped for understanding. It didn’t come.

  The children lifted the tops of their desks, took out slates, and worked at copying the teacher’s writing, their faces furrowed with concentration. Red Wolf did the same. He clutched the smooth stick in his fingers, chewed on his lower lip, and contemplated how to start. He made hi
s first mark. The chalk screeched and snapped in two. Red Wolf was mortified. The teacher directed a chain of meaningless words at him, and he felt everyone’s eyes boring into his back. He wished he could disappear. He closed his eyes tight, but when he reopened them he was still in the classroom, still at Bruce County Indian Residential School, still far from his parents and Crooked Ear. He picked up half of the chalk and made the same tapping sound as the other boys.

  Master Evans was small-boned, almost to the point of being fragile. He was nothing like Mister Hall in size or weight. His voice was small, too, and he carried only a ruler, not a cane or strips of leather. Even so, when he walked up and down between the rows of desks, Red Wolf was afraid, and as his footsteps got closer Red Wolf tensed in anticipation of punishment. He knew that the marks he was making on the slate bore no similarity to those on the blackboard, just as the tracks made by Crooked Ear’s paws were different from those made by the split hooves of a deer. By the time the teacher peered over his shoulder, sweat from the palms of his hands had dampened his slate.

  Master Evans unclipped a thick wad of felt from his belt and leaned over.

  Red Wolf flinched.

  Master Evans wiped the slate clean. “Try again,” he said.

  Red Wolf breathed a sigh of relief.

  In the way of The People, HeWhoWhistles had taught his son to observe; to watch and listen. Red Wolf was only five but he could identify a bird from its song. He could recognize the thumping hind feet of an alarmed rabbit, the huffing of rutting elk, the bark of a vixen calling her mate, the caw of a raven when food was close. He could even gauge approaching weather by listening to the wind and feeling it on his skin. So in the confines of the school where language gave him little information, he watched how hands moved and how facial expressions changed. He listened to tone of voice and inflection, unconsciously knowing that these things gave meaning to unfamiliar words.