Читать книгу Meg Harris Mysteries 5-Book Bundle - R.J. Harlick - Страница 31

I’d no sooner arrived home than clouds blackened the sky, and the rain came down. For the next four days, it poured almost as if Marie’s kije manido were mourning her senseless death, until the day of her burial, when the sun finally shoved the low clouds away.

And through these cold, wet days, I waited in dread of the phone call that would confirm what the cave’s evidence so clearly pointed towards, Marie had shot Louis and then herself. But it was too easy a verdict, one I didn’t want to accept. I even tried to steer Sgt. LaFramboise away from the obvious by finally telling him my suspicions about the two sets of footprints on the beach the morning after Marie died and Tommy’s use of a boat that same morning.

Early that morning, the phone call finally came, from Eric. Murder-suicide. Louis’s p’tit gars the weapon. Case closed. It looked as if LaFramboise had paid as much attention to my evidence as he would to a mosquito. Even Eric felt the verdict was fair. Maybe it was. I wasn’t sure. But I was an outsider. My evidence could tear the band apart, so I hadn’t told Eric what I suspected.

Instead, I retreated as I usually did to Aunt Aggie’s rocker on the verandah with a tumbler of vodka clutched in my hand. I tried to wash away my uncertainties with the usual tonic of rhythmic rocking, the hypnotic view of Echo Lake, and of course the mind-numbing vodka.

Except after a few sips, I put the glass down. Eric was right. I didn’t need this stuff. In fact, I hadn’t felt the need to drown myself in it since my confrontation with Gareth. It looked as if fear of him had been the motivation behind my drinking. Once that fear was gone, I no longer needed the crutch.

I continued rocking and thinking about Marie. Reluctantly, I came to accept that murder-suicide was the only plausible verdict. After years of abuse from Louis, she had finally snapped. When she realized she’d killed him, she had fled to the island, where, in a state of remorse, she’d killed herself. The footprints were purely coincidental, made by other people who just happened to be visiting the beach around the same time. As for Tommy and the boat, there was obviously another explanation. I would ask him at the first opportunity.

And this was how I felt as I drove to Marie’s healing ceremony in the early afternoon. Originally, I’d decided not to go. It was a traditional Algonquin ceremony intended to ease the pain of the death of one of their own. As an outsider, I felt it wasn’t my place to attend. Besides, I didn’t want to create any discord should Tommy or other band members object to my presence. Instead, I would only attend her funeral service, which was to follow afterwards in the Migiskan Church.

But a quick call from Eric wanting me to explain my absence convinced me otherwise. He said I was no less affected by Marie’s death. I too could benefit from the healing process. And if anyone objected to my presence, he’d deal with them. Swayed but still fearful of causing a disturbance, I agonized a few more minutes before deciding. By the time I arrived at the low cedar strip building of the Ceremonial Hall, the ceremony had started.

I almost turned back at the sound of chanting. But deciding that Marie was more important than my discomfort, I entered the already crowded room. The chanting stopped. Every face turned towards me. Embarrassed, I stopped. And then the elder sitting at the circle’s entrance, an older woman I didn’t know, turned towards me and smiled.

Although I didn’t understand her Algonquin words, the meaning was clear: “Please, enter the circle.” She indicated its clockwise direction. Thankfully I knew enough to honour the circle, otherwise I would not only have embarrassed myself further by walking in the wrong direction, but would also have angered the spirits.

I searched for a place to sit, but Marie’s friends had already filled in the circle. Those not early enough to get a seat on the surrounding cedar benches sat cross-legged on the floor a respectable distance from the centre. Eric smiled from the far end and pointed to a few spots on the floor where I might squeeze in. However, before I reached these, John-Joe, acknowledging my presence with a sombre nod, vacated his seat on a bench and took one of the free spots on the floor. I gratefully accepted his offer.

I smiled hi to the few people I knew, Marie’s friend Dorothy, dressed soberly in black, my coffee drinking buddy Frosty in a clean shirt. Not far from Dorothy sat Charlie Cardinal, beside a fat downtrodden looking woman, probably his wife. I even nodded at him, figuring he wasn’t totally bad, given his special bond with Marie.

Tommy sat cross-legged near Eric. He didn’t so much as glance in my direction, let alone acknowledge my presence. From the closed-in look on his face, I didn’t think he was paying too much attention to anyone.

Kneeling before a small pottery bowl of burning smudge, the elder resumed her quiet chanting. She placed bits of dried sweetgrass and cedar into the bowl and fanned it with her brown-speckled eagle feather. Her clothes were simple, a plain cotton skirt and a black turtleneck sweater covered by a fringed deerskin vest. Over her grey-streaked hair she wore a band of pink and blue beads. But it was the expression on her heavily lined face I found the most remarkable, a look of serenity that bespoke of someone wholly at peace.

Although I’d never been to a healing ceremony before, I recognized, from the smudging ceremonies I’d attended, the traditional elder’s medicine bundle lying in the centre of the circle. Its sacred objects were scattered over a well-used piece of deerskin with its four corners marked in turn by a traditional yellow, black, white or red flag. Though these four colours have many different meanings, the one I preferred equated them to the races of mankind, and because the circle provided equality, no one race was placed higher than the other on the circle.

This elder’s sacred objects were an odd assortment of natural and man-made; a fine piece of jade next to a small crystal vase, black mussel shells sprinkled over what looked to be a shocking pink velvet shawl. While none were what I’d call medicinal, all would have sacred meaning to this elder. Perhaps a special person had given her the vase, or she’d found the shells on sacred ground. Even the unusual pink colour must have significance, for in addition to the shawl and her headband, there was a dyed pink ostrich feather and choker of pink beads.

With the smoking smudge pot in her hand, the elder walked slowly around the circle, stopping at participants to allow them to cleanse themselves with its sweet smelling smoke. The first time I’d attended a ceremony, I’d felt a bit ridiculous performing the motions of the ritual washing. Now, with a few more ceremonies under my belt, I found myself wafting the smoke over my body twice to ensure I was cleansed enough to open the path to Marie’s spirit.

I’d expected the mood of the ceremony to be sombre and sad. Instead, people smiled and talked quietly amongst themselves as the elder moved from participant to participant. I found myself liking this relaxed, friendly mood, a sharp contrast to the religious restraint I was used to.

When the elder had finished, she returned to her seat at the circle’s entrance and began chanting in Algonquin. Then she switched to English, the one language she could be assured of all band members understanding. She talked of Marie and the sadness of her untimely death. She didn’t mention how Marie had died, but I could see in others’ eyes that it was foremost in their minds. Then she invited the circle to share their memories of Marie.

Charlie Cardinal was the first to take up the offer. “You people know Marie and me were like brother and sister. We grew up together at my mother’s hearth. Times were hard. Food scarce, but we were happy. In summer, we lived in the bush. Marie cleaned my first deer. I killed her first fish. We followed the cry of the loon to a secret lake, where I had my vision quest. Then, one day it was all gone, forever.”

He moved his glance deliberately around the circle, then directed his angry eyes at me. “Fuckin’ residential school!” he spat out. “Destroyed our way of life.”

A hushed silence followed. The elder admonished him quietly, saying this was a time for healing, not angry confrontation.

Nonetheless, I squirmed inwardly as every pair of eyes turned to me. While I was no stranger to the damage inflicted by the Church-run residential schools on the Indian nations, I felt now was not the moment to do anything other than murmur some kind of apology and keep my eyes downcast.

I also knew what the school had done to Marie. She had told me one day last summer. So as Charlie continued with his memories of Marie, I remembered my own conversation with her.

“I was just a little thing, not eight years old, when they told me I gotta leave my Mooti,” Marie had said in her quiet matter-of-fact tone, with no hint of accusation. “I cried many days. The sisters yell at me to stop, forget my people. They say our ways no good. I gotta do things the way they do things. But it was very hard. They hit me many times. I run away. They find me and bring me back. Hit me again. I run away. Again they find me and hit me. Again I run away. But this time I hide. They don’t find me.

“I go to the big city. I live on street, no money, no trees, no song of laughing bird. It was very hard. I wanna go home, back to my Mooti, but didn’t know how. Finally, Dorothy’s mother find me and bring me home. I never leave my people again.”

By the end of her story, I was feeling no little amount of shame and wondering how I could make up for my own people’s misguided ethnocentrism.

Marie did it for me by simply saying, “For long time I angry with the sisters and the white man. I also want my Mooti to stop working for Miz Agatta. But Miz Agatta change me. She teach me not every white man bad. She show me the good in the white man’s ways can work with the good in my people’s ways. So now I just feel sorry for the sisters. Their eyes were blinded.”

As I remembered Marie’s words, I realized the depth of inner strength they revealed, an inner strength that probably helped her to face other hurdles in her life, like Louis.

An elderly woman in a purple dream scarf took over from Charlie. She began by saying, “Marie so young, so pretty when she come home. But she was cursed.” And that set the tone for her continuation of Marie’s story.

After Marie’s return from the streets of Montreal, she had moved in with her mother into the small cabin, which Whispering Pine shared with Charlie’s family. But there were too many people and too few rooms. Fights were frequent.

“And some mens were bad.” The woman turned to Charlie, who offhandedly shrugged his shoulders.

So Marie had moved in with Dorothy’s family. For a time, everything went well. She found work, was able to bring a bit of money into the household. And then tragedy struck. Someone left some socks to dry on the wood stove overnight. They caught fire and ignited nearby curtains. Within minutes the house was gone. Marie was forced to move back with her mother and the Cardinal family.

“Terrible time she had,” said the woman, sadly shaking her head. “I told her come live with me all alone in my small cabin, but she say she can’t. Poor girl.”

A deer skin covered arm slapped Charlie on the back, while another face snickered.

The elder, shaking her head, glanced in their direction. The smiles disappeared from the men’s faces. Their gaze dropped to the floor.

Eric continued, “Snake Woman’s right. What happened was wrong. Still is. I was only a boy at the time, ten or eleven, but I haven’t forgotten the snickering. ‘Marie had better keep her legs clamped shut,’ many whispered. ‘Old Man Cardinal is trying his damnedest to pry them open.’ We thought it funny, not caring how it hurt Marie. We forgot that in Marie’s eyes, Charlie’s father was her father too.”

The smirk on Charlie’s face changed to stone. “So my old man wouldn’t leave her alone, but I never touched her, never. What about you? Don’t say you never wanted a go at her.”

I could almost see the blushing under Eric’s tan. “Okay, I admit, as a boy I had a crush on her too,” he said. “She was one gorgeous chick. In fact, my friends and I used to follow her through the village. But it was innocent fun. She’d laugh and throw stones to chase us away, and then she’d signal us to come join her, play tag, go fishing. But in the end, you know what happened.”

He paused to look at the now still faces around the circle, then he continued, “She ran to Louis because we wouldn’t leave her alone.”

No one smirked. Several nodded sadly.

“Remember how he arrived twenty-five years ago? Right after kije nòdin, the great wind, which destroyed half the village,” Eric said. “I can still feel the terror of that shrieking wind which uprooted trees and sent our homes flying into the air. We were cleaning up the mess when Louis arrived one day from the south.

“Remember his shiny new red Chev? The kind of car few of us had ever seen, much less owned. He said he’d help us, make us rich. We believed him. In fact, we made him our administrator. How naïvely stupid we were. We gave him the keys to the kitty and never once thought it might be at risk.

“And I’m sure those of you old enough can recall the riches he promised.” Eric paused.

Some grizzled heads nodded knowingly. A few turned their glances towards Charlie, who puffed his chest out and said, “Okay, so Louis said there was gold on our land. But that was different.”

“Only difference this time, Charlie,” replied a small, wizened man with his eagle feather attached to his headband, “us elders are a lot smarter. We learned good. So don’t bring your little white rocks with gold in ’em like Louis done and ask for money to get your mine goin’, ’cause we ain’t givin’ ya one red cent.”

“I don’t need your money,” growled Charlie. “Whether you like it, or not, this mine’s going to happen. This time there really is gold. I seen it.”

“Enough,” Eric said. “For now we’re talking about Marie. I don’t blame her for being deceived as much as the rest of us. Louis was sure one cool customer back then, before drink got to him, especially with those white man eyes. And I supposed she probably thought of him as a means of getting out of here. But it didn’t happen. By the time Louis’s fraud was discovered, she was pregnant and the money gone. She once told me that she moved in with Louis because she wanted her child to grow up with its real father.”

All eyes turned towards Tommy, but his gaze remained fixed on the elder’s medicine bundle in the centre of the circle.

“Not the best choice in husbands,” Dorothy added. “All loving sweetness until she moved in with him. Then she started sporting black eyes and swollen cheeks. I ignored it at first, thinking the abuse wasn’t that different from the other relationships I knew. But then it got serious. She turned up at my house, clutching her arm. It was broken in three places. Marie told me she’d fallen from a chair while cleaning windows. This time I didn’t believe her. Eventually, she owned up that Louis had come home angry and drunk.”

Dorothy brushed a tear from her cheek. “I tried, as I tried on several later occasions, to convince her to leave him. But she refused to listen. Said she loved him, couldn’t leave him to fend for himself. Besides, she believed he didn’t mean to hurt her. He loved her. It was only the drink that had taken over.

“Maybe it was, but she sure put up with more living hell than blissful love, right up until her bitter end. If only I’d been more forceful, maybe she’d still be alive today.” And the tears began coursing down Dorothy’s chiselled face.

A large woman with a kindly smile wrapped her arm around Dorothy, while another said, “Don’t blame yourself, widigik. We all knew, and none of us did a thing about it.”

I silently agreed as I thought of the time, only days before her death, when I had meekly let Louis drag Marie away.

Wiping the tears from her face, Dorothy said, “But despite all the years of abuse, I never thought it would end this way. I find it very hard to believe she finally turned on Louis and killed him. Why? You know she was a gentle person. Not once did I ever see her respond in anger to Louis’s abuse. She just accepted it as her lot in life, as she did anything else, good or bad. In fact, Louis had calmed down in recent years, more shouting than actual physical abuse.”

Dorothy ran her eyes over the cheerless faces and asked, “So why now? What did Louis do that was so terrible Marie could no longer endure it?”

A hushed silence ensued as each person pondered the implications of her question.

The elder answered for us. “Marie was a good woman. She endured much hardship with little complaint. Now she is with the spirits. They will know if she killed him for good reason. If not, she will answer to their anger.”

She paused and scanned the waiting faces. “But I think, if she killed Louis, she had good reason, very good reason.”

As the elder continued in Algonquin, I considered the door she’d left open with her words, “If Marie killed Louis”.

I thought over the many examples I’d just heard of the uncomplaining resolve with which Marie had faced life. They helped to finally convince me that she would never have killed Louis, no matter how hard she was pressed. And because Marie was a survivor, she would never have ended her own life. So I promised myself I would find her killer, no matter how disruptive it might be to the band.