Kathy Little Bird (31 page)

For all its intensity, it was a summer storm, and next day the skies had forgotten the ferocious black banks of clouds. Once again everything was serene.

Time out of mind.

We took a long hike. After a while the trail was overgrown and wild, because not many people went this far. We looked out over the water at a cruise ship headed for Alaska. “We’ll make that trip when we’re old. It will be fun, we’ll lie out on deck with steamer rugs over us.”

I had no sooner said this than I tripped and fell. That is, I didn’t trip, but I fell.

“Kathy,” Abram exclaimed, helping me up. “What happened? Did you stub your toe? There are all these creepers and…”

I kept assuring him I was all right. “I don’t think I tripped.”

He looked worried at that. “If you didn’t trip, then…Kathy, these headaches you’ve been having—I think you should see a doctor.”

“I’ll race you to the point,” I said. “If I win, I don’t go to the doctor.” With that I pushed him hard so he lost his balance. I raced ahead and got to the point first.

Time flew by, we took snapshots of each other, against the bay, under a tree, in the boat, out of the boat. Abram rigged a device whereby, with a string attached to the shutter, he could get in the picture with me and then pull the string. It worked half the time; the other half it pulled the camera over.

Only a few honeymoon days left. I began to wonder—how many times left to take the boat out? The balky outboard motor never took hold until Abram uttered the one oath he allowed himself: “Judas Priest!”—I’d tell myself to remember…remember. The sun flowed over your body massaging every part of you. It was in this drowsy relaxed state that I started thinking about what I had put out of my mind the day of the picnic. At the periphery of thought was a question.

What if this unrealistic person who was me, who could so easily become lost in music, made as bad a wife as she had a
mother? Had Abram thought of that when I told him about my daughter?

Well, he should have.

I should have.

Abram deserved the best, and what if that wasn’t me? I was entering into a new existence with absolutely no preparation. I would never show up for a rehearsal like that. The thought brought on another of my headaches.

W
E
took the mail plane to Vancouver, and from there to Edmonton, where we hired a car for the drive to St. Alban’s. As the countryside grew familiar, Abram squeezed my hand. We recognized the flowers that came up to the road on both sides, crocus and larkspur. The forest too had its own remembered character. It was not a dark wood but light, with silver aspen fluttering heart-shaped leaves. There was something magical about a pastel forest.

An excitement rose in me as we left the town, the same small town I remembered. Would the Eight Bells be standing? Would my stepfather still be proprietor, or in sixteen years had he perhaps died and passed it on to Jas? Or would it long ago have been sold?

Abram spotted it first.

I wondered if the pub would be open midafternoons. It looked closed. Abram tried the door and it was unlocked.

We peered into the darkness and stepped hesitantly inside. Abram called into the room, which appeared empty.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I discerned a figure slouched on one chair, his feet on another, sound asleep.

“Hello,” Abram called again.

The figure roused, stretched, kicked away the second chair and got to its feet, “What the devil…”

I went toward him. “Is it Jas? Are you Jas?” This was a big man, six two and hefty. I went up to him and looked into his face. “It is! You are! Oh Jas, I’m so happy to see you! It’s Kathy.”

“Kathy?”

Yes, it was Jason. It always took him a while to catch on. “You grew, Jas.” And I put my arms about him and hugged and kissed him. “I didn’t know you’d be so big. Look, I brought Abram. We just got married.”

“Wait! Hold on! You’re Kathy?…My sister Kathy?”

“Don’t I look like her?”

“Never! You’re this gorgeous lady out of a fashion magazine. Kathy was just a kid in jeans. Here, let me put on the light.” He stepped behind the counter and switched it on. “Gee horse-a-feathers, Kathy!” He caught me up in a great bear hug, then extended a hand to Abram. “And Abram. It’s great to see you.”

“You too,” Abram said, as the two shook hands and drew each other into a back-slapping embrace.

“So how the hell are you, Kathy?”

“Jellet’s dead, then, if you’re running the place?”

“That’s right. Four years ago. Morrie’s been dead eight years last January.”

“Morrie’s dead?” The wind was knocked out of me. I felt as though I’d taken a body blow. Mum was at my shoulder. I’d let her down. I should have been here—maybe then…but I’d been too ashamed. Too ashamed to contact either of my brothers. I had, to tell them they were uncles—but that was in a dream. When I actually sent Jas a letter, it came back. That must have been before he returned to run the Eight Bells.

Jas was officiating, playing the host. “Sit down, both of you, I’ll get you a beer. Here you go. Must have been a thirsty drive.”

“Thanks.” But I couldn’t shake death out of my head. “What happened?”

“He was discouraged. No job, no prospects. He drank more than was good for him. Me? I wouldn’t sell him drinks. But others did. He walked into the big light.” He broke off to exclaim, “I can’t believe I’m talking to you.”

“And you, Jas—a big kid trying to hide your sweetness. And now, a big guy—also not letting anyone know you. Are you married?”

“Well, not what you could call married. Polly and I were together six or seven years—it felt like a marriage. Then one day out of the blue, she ups and elopes with a customer.”

“What a shame.”

“I don’t know, I miss the customer more than her.”

“Oh Jas, it’s terrible about Morrie. I ran off and left you both. I was such an unthinking girl, and I doubt I’m much better now.”

“Your being here wouldn’t have made a difference. Morrie was always brooding, shut up in himself.”

“At least you’re here, Jas.”

“We’re all that’s left.”

He sounded so downhearted that before I knew it I was telling him—really telling him this time, about Kathy.

“You have a daughter?”

“Yes. You’re an uncle.”

“Well, what do you know?”

He became silent when I told him I hadn’t raised her. He was my brother; I had to tell him the truth.

“So she thinks you’re dead?”

“And she has to go on thinking that. Because when she thinks of me, at least she won’t hate me.”

All this time he hadn’t known I was the Little Bird on his jukebox. I went over to the machine, punched up one of my songs, and sang along with it.

Jas was dumbfounded. I think he’d read about the scandal the papers made of the hearing and deportation, because he hadn’t much to say on the subject.

As we were leaving he gave me another hug. “I’m mighty glad you finally came to your senses, Kathy, and hooked up with Abram. He’ll look after you good and proper, although I don’t see you making a Mennonite out of her,” he added over my shoulder. Abram wrote out our Montreal address,
and they exchanged phone numbers. Abram invited him to visit us over Thanksgiving or Christmas.

It was hard to let go of my big-little brother now that I’d found him. I gave him a last kiss. “And don’t wipe that one off.”

He grinned as we remembered.

We went back to the motel and were up early and on the pitted old road to the res. It was, like most Indian reservations, a place that time forgot.

I drove because I knew just where her house was, a bit past the others and…sure enough with its door open.

Abram stayed with the car; I jumped out, went up the porch steps, and looked in. Elk Woman had a bowl in her lap and was spooning a batter. I threw back my head and began to sing.

The motion of her hands slowed and she cocked her head. After while she said, “That you, Skayo, Little Bird?”

I flew in and threw my arms around her. It was almost as though I were hugging Mum. I was hugging those times and those days.

“Come out on the back steps and have a smoke,” she suggested.

I followed her out and watched as she produced the old pipe and paper matches from her pocket. She lit up, drew in
a long aromatic puff, and handed the pipe to me. “There aren’t many days left we can sit outside like this. Autumn will be here in colored feathers.”

I nodded, handing the pipe back to her.

She inhaled another deep, slow breath. “You been gone a damn long time. Where you been?”

“In big cities.”

Elk Woman gathered her saliva into a neat little ball and spat expertly beside her foot.

“They don’t want me in the U.S. anymore; they threw me out for trying to raise money to get Indian land back.”

Elk Woman looked skeptical. “How’d you propose to do that?”

“Legally, in a court of law.”

Elk Woman shook her head. “They’re white men’s courts, Little Bird.”

“But they ceded the land to us in the Fort Laramie Treaty.”

Surprisingly Elk Woman knew all about that treaty. “Sarah, who was a friend of Mrs. Mike, who taught me medicine and herbs, she talked of Red Cloud. He was the chief who put his print to that treaty. His grandson, named Red Cloud, is alive today. Ninety-three years old, with five children, eighteen grandchildren, and thirty-two great-grandchildren. It would be good if his old eyes could see this thing.”

“It won’t happen, Elk Woman. They wouldn’t let us raise the money.”

“It would take a great deal of money. How did you expect to come by it?”

“I was going to sing.”

She nodded approval. “Singing hasn’t been tried. War has been tried and it failed. Perhaps singing will succeed. There are some among the elders who say the world came into existence through singing.”

“But like I said, it didn’t come off. They stopped us.”

Elk Woman hugged herself and rocked back and forth. “Yes. It’s an old story. Again and again they stop us. But we are still here and the land is still here…”

We smoked a while holding this thought.

“I see a wedding band on your finger.”

“I have a new husband. Abram Willems, the boy I traded shadows with.”

“Then you have stopped fighting yourself?”

“I hope so. Elk Woman, I told my brother, and now I want to tell you that I have a daughter.”

She absorbed this along with a draught of smoke. “But not with this man?”

“No, with my first husband. She is fifteen years old.”

“Is she with you? Bring her to me and I will ask the blessing of the Grandmothers on her life.”

“She doesn’t live with me, Elk Woman; I didn’t bring her up.”

She digested this, and finally said. “But you named her?”

“I named her.”

“She is Kathy, like your mother, like Mrs. Mike, like you?”

“She is Kathy Mason.”

“Naming is everything.” She put her hands over her eyes
and muttered something, then cocked her head as though listening to a reply. When she turned to me again it was to say simply, “The Grandmothers will know her.”

“Thank you, Elk Woman.” After a few moments I made ready to leave. “I must go, I want to visit Mum’s grave.”

“Why? She is not there. Better to bring in your second husband; I want to know this Abram.”

Abram came in and we were served tea and bannock.

Elk Woman explained to us that when she was eleven she had given my mum a wolf tail. Apparently this gave her proprietary rights in her life and that of her children and even in my redheaded Kathy.

I was amused to see that the unlikely pair, Mennonite husband and old Cree friend, took an instant liking to each other. We stayed late propounding philosophies and putting forth world views. We solved current crises: North Ireland, India and Pakistan, the conflict in the Holy Land. Abram insisted Elk Woman visit us.

“At Thanksgiving or Christmas,” I said mischievously.

Before leaving Alberta we called on Abram’s parents. I recognized them both. I had seen them many times as a child, but we had never spoken. I don’t imagine they read the newspapers, or knew anything about me. I was glad of that; it must have been hard enough to take in a modern young woman wearing heels and lipstick and a stylishly short skirt.

They made a sincere effort, I thought, to be cordial, and I came away with a good opinion of the people Abram came
from: decent, God-fearing, hardworking folk. What wild seed sprouted in Abram’s makeup, pricked at him and caused him to question and to search, to be, in fact, Abram?

O
N
the flight back to Montreal I developed a headache, far worse than those I’d been having. The ache was so intense it seemed to balloon around me until I was just a head with pain. I attributed it to all the excitement. I dug in my purse, found some Tylenol, and the attendant brought me a glass of water. I leaned against Abram, and by the time we landed felt better.

Deplaning, I staggered and almost fell. Abram steadied me, and I made it into the reception area and into a seat, where I promptly passed out. “As soon as I get you home, you’re seeing a doctor.”