Scattered Bones (33 page)

Bob Taylor is walking back and forth nervously. As soon as Arthur Jan and Sinclair Lewis leave for the south, The Treaty Party will set out in the opposite direction, and he is eager to pack up. Where is his crew?

Happy Doc Mac stands encircled by Marguerite Linklater, Madeline Ballendine, Flora Michel, Helen Bear and Juliette Bird. They giggle at everything he says.

Ernst Wentworth paces about, upset that he still hasn’t yet been able to confront his daughter. He just can’t believe that she’s become involved with that native boy. She’s given him as wide a berth as she can manage. Right now, in broad daylight, she is standing on the far side of the beach, holding hands with that Indian, Joe Sewap, her lover.

Lucretia Wentworth flaps about like an excited Sandpiper trying to catch
her
lover’s eye. Arthur Jan avoids her. He has decided that he’ll dump the scrawny clergyman’s wife. There’s a curvaceous blonde show girl waiting for him in New York, of that he’s sure. Curiously, his side-kick Bibiane Ratt is nowhere to be seen.

Father Bonnald is waving at Joe, trying to get his attention. He wants to tell him that the water is low at this time of year on the Sturgeon-Weir River and he should look out for rocks hiding just beneath the surface.

Claude Lewis is sitting on a washed up log, contentedly smoking his pipe and writing his daily letter to his wife. His brother, having boozed the entire night, is passed out on the sand. The Famous Writer is about to miss the spectacle of a lifetime.

First the whir of the engine is heard. Then a loud, slow, solemn drum beat. The people on the beach look up and spot the three canoes attached by a rope, one following another like a circus parade. Who is that sitting in the stern of the lead boat, steering the little motor? Of all people, Florence Smith! Is that Chief
Whitebear in the bow? He’s deathly ill. So what’s he doing there?

Abruptly, the lead canoe turns sharply to the right until its bow almost touches the stern of the third boat. Chief
Whitebear somehow manages to catch hold of a rope and attach the two. Now the three boats form a distinct triangle

Florence stands up. She’s holding what looks like a torch. Now it’s lit – the flame can barely be seen against the brilliant, sparkling water, but the greyish smoke is clearly visible as it rises. Like a menacing fairy, she begins waving an incendiary wand, first over one canoe, then the second, then the third. Suddenly the entire flotilla is engulfed in a hellish inferno.

Florence disappears, but in the undulating flames the Chief can be made out. He sits motionless.

Within minutes, there’s nothing left except wafts of smoke and traces of gasoline spreading circles of pink, green, and yellow on the water’s surface.

The spectators stare stupefied until a boom resounds through the forest, and a little girl calls out, “Look there! Look up!” Everyone turns around. Arthur Jan’s house has exploded; a fireball is wafting up to heaven.

~•~

Days later
Bibiane Ratt’s body is found in the bush. The Mountie who is sent to investigate can’t believe his eyes. The victim had been tied to a tree, his legs and arms stretched wide, his head secured upright by his Assomption sash which has been looped around his neck and then tied tight to a branch. The bullets which tore into his torso had been fired from many angles. If the Mountie hadn’t known better –
nothing like this ever happens in Indian country – he would think that a firing squad had performed an execution.

Arthur Jan rummages through the rubble of his destroyed house, but finds only the left arm of the “Young Sultan Wearing a Mask” Höchst Porcelain, 1775. He collapses on what used to be his doorsteps and weeps.

Meanwhile the entire Cree population of Pelican Narrows gathers at his store. Since there’s no one to serve them, they have a wonderful time. Hours go by as calico dresses, beaver traps, boxes of tea, bottles of HP sauce, kegs of Bibiane’s homemade liquor, are pilfered. This doesn’t upset the proprietor. Arthur Jan has fled Pelican Narrows, never to be heard of again.

Florence Smith manages to swim to The Island where she will live with the dogs until the Mounties complete their futile investigation and leave. When, weeks later, she returns home, nobody blinks an eye.

Waiting to greet Chief Cornelius Whitebear is his
pawachi-kan
. Loon collects his corpse in her wings and lays its down carefully on the bottom of the lake. She then gathers the scattered bones that had tumbled out the boxes when the canoes burned. She places them atop The Chief. They will rest forever together. The ancestors will stay home. As Loon says, a displaced soul is better than no soul at all.

Acknowledgements

While this book is a work of fiction, it was inspired by a number of first-hand accounts of events in Pelican Narrows in July 1924. In particular:
Arthur Jan’s Memoirs
, self-published in 1960;
Sinclair Lewis & Mantrap: The Saskatchewan Trip
by Claude B. Lewis, Main Street Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1985; the reports of W.R. Taylor, Indian agent, to the Department of Indian Affairs during the 1920s; the reports of
Missions de la Congrégation des Oblats de Marie Immaculée
1919-1930; and
The Diocese of Saskatchewan, Synod Journals
1920s.

Secondary sources include
The Vicar Apostolic of Keewatin, Canada
, by Mary Agatha Gray, Librairie Beauchemin, 1939;
Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships
, Canadian Plains Research Centre, 2002; and my book,
Bitter Embrace: White Society’s Assault on the Woodland Cree
, McClelland & Stewart, 2005.

I am indebted to my editor, Dave Margoshes, who provided such valuable insights and advice. I would like to thank Peter Gordon
Ballantyne of the Peter Ballantyne First Nation, Pelican Narrows Reserve, for his help, and also Gail Greer, Henry Jerzy and Kathleen Brooks for their much-appreciated encouragement.

About the Author

Maggie Siggins
is the author of twelve books including
Canadian Tragedy: The Story of JoAnn and Colin Thatcher
, which received an Arthur Ellis Award for crime writing and
Revenge of the Land
, which won a Governor General’s Award for Nonfiction.
Riel: A Life of Revolution; In Her Own Time: A Cultural History of Women
; and
Bitter Embrace: White Society’s Assault on the Woodland Cree
all won the City of Regina Best Book Award and were named a
Globe and Mail
Best Book of the Year.
Canadian Tragedy
and
Revenge of the Land
were made into four-hour miniseries broadcast on CBC and American networks.
Scattered Bones
, is her first book of fiction.

Maggie has also written-produced more than twenty documentaries for her company, Four Square Entertainment, of which she is vice-
president, creative. Her films include the award-winning
Stage, Screen and Reserve: The Life and Times of Gordon Tootoosis,
the eight-part series,
Scarred by History
and the acclaimed
A Cruel Wind Blows
.

Maggie lives in Toronto with her husband Gerald Sperling and two dogs.