thoughts returned to the orange hat. “How could John-Joe leave a child in this state?”
Eric started. “What does John-Joe have to do with this?”
I told him about the single snowshoe track leading away from the hut. I finished by saying, “As far as I know, John-Joe is the only person around here with an orange baseball cap.”
“Damn him. Doesn’t make sense he’d be selling marijuana. I thought he’d overcome his cocaine addiction and turned against drugs of any kind,” Eric replied. “I’ll talk to him when I get back to the Camp.”
“If you can find him,” I muttered, figuring the young man would take off once he learned about the discovery of the kids.
I brushed the boy’s tangled brown hair away from his eyes and smoothed it over the pillow. His thin face seemed so forlorn in the sterile expanse of the bedding.
“Shouldn’t we be calling the boy’s mother?” I asked.
“His mother’s dead,” Eric replied. “And his father’s in jail.”
“He must have someone looking after him.”
“His kòkomis, grandmother, but she doesn’t have a phone.”
“Give me her address, and I’ll get her.”
“No, I’ll do it. She’s blind and doesn’t speak much English.” Eric made for the door. “You stay with Ajidàmo.”
“Ajidàmo?”
“Little Squirrel,” Eric replied with a faint smile. “And usually about as frisky.”
I looked down at the still, thin body and hoped it wouldn’t be long before he was darting up a tree like his namesake, but when Eric returned with Ajidàmo’s grandmother twenty minutes later, there was little change in the child’s condition, although his breathing had become stronger.
Leaning heavily on Eric’s arm, the old woman shuffled into the room. Concern mixed with fear deepened every line on her square face. As if directed by an unknown force, her cataract clouded eyes stared straight at her silent grandson as she moved towards him. Murmuring in Algonquin, she ran her trembling arthritic fingers tenderly over his body and his face, then retrieved a small leather pouch from inside her old woollen coat.
When she started to open it, the nurse intervened. “Could you put that stuff away?” she snapped in English.
But the old woman, not comprehending, continued to work loose the thin leather thong that held the pouch closed.
Judy took the pouch from the old woman. “You can’t use it here.”
As realization dawned, perplexed anguish spread over the grandmother’s face.
“Give it back to her, Judy,” Eric interjected. “Kòkomis doesn’t mean any harm.” Besides, you might discover our old people’s ways have just as much healing power as the modern.”
Judy pursed her lips in disbelief but said nothing further to prevent the ancient practice.
The old woman shook out bits of stones and shells from the amulet and scattered them around her grandson’s head. She extracted another amulet from her pocket, along with a thin flat stone. Using her gnarled fingers as a guide, she deftly poured a trickle of dried cedar from the pouch into the slightly hollowed centre of the stone. She turned her blind eyes to Eric and said something in Algonquin, at which point the nurse cried, “Stop. You can’t burn the cedar with oxygen in the room.” She pointed to a red cannister propped in the corner of the room.
Eric spoke to the old woman, who shook her head angrily and cried “No! Make Ajidàmo good.” Tears slowly seeped from under eyelids that had probably shed more than their fair share of sorrow.
Eric, disconcerted by the weeping, looked at me helplessly.
I glanced at Little Squirrel, who seemed to be breathing easier. “Can’t we take him to where there isn’t any oxygen?”
“Yes, a good idea,” Eric added thankfully.
Judy hesitated, then perhaps finally accepting that modern medicine could sometimes use some help, grabbed the intravenous stand and expertly wheeled it together with the boy’s bed into the hall. We followed behind.
Eric lit the dried cedar. Kòkomis gently blew on the small flame and soon had a faint wisp of smoke spiralling into the air. She then placed the four of us in a circle around the head of Ajidàmo’s bed. To close the circle, I reached across the bed to Eric’s outstretched hand. He grasped it firmly and smiled. With no beginning and no end, the Anishinabeg call this ceremonial circle, the cycle of life. I squeezed Eric’s hand in return. Maybe this experience would give our relationship renewed life too.
Kòkomis extracted a long, speckled brown eagle feather from inside her coat. Using this sacred item of a respected elder, she slowly washed smoke over the still figure of her grandson. She chanted softly. Eric joined her chanting, and finally Judy, who had probably decided she shouldn’t cast aside all the traditional ways of her people.
I closed my eyes, breathed in the cleansing scent of the cedar and found myself gradually uplifted by the love that flowed from the old woman to her grandson. A feeling of peace settled over me, and I found myself lost in thoughts that had more to do with my own need for a sense of wellbeing.
A small cough brought me out of my reverie. I opened my eyes to see two shining brown eyes staring up at the smiling face of his grandmother. Smiling back, Ajidàmo whispered, “Kòkomis.”
“Amen,” I said to myself, while I tried not to think of what would have happened if I hadn’t heard the giggling in the shack.
Although the boy appeared to be suffering no ill effects other than a lingering grogginess and some minor frostbite in his toes, Judy felt he and the girl should be more thoroughly examined by a doctor.
“This was more than straight marijuana,” she said. “Grass doesn’t render kids unconscious. There had to be some other drug mixed with it.”
“Any idea what?” Eric asked.
“No, but I want a doctor to examine them both to make sure there is no residual damage, particularly to the kidneys or liver.”
In unison, Eric and I held out our bags of marijuana.
“The police can find out what it was from this,” he said.
We both smiled at the coincidence and found ourselves slipping into the easy laughter that was so much a part of our relationship. Then the image of that chiselled female face brought my laughter to a halt. Eric cast a curious glance in my direction, but I turned away and pretended to admire Ajidàmo’s bed sheet. What was the point of saying anything? He would only get angry, and I would get more upset.
Without another word I left the room and, finding Police Chief Decontie of the Migiskan Anishinabeg Police waiting in the lobby, handed him my bag of marijuana. Eric, following behind me, did likewise. Then, he, along with Kòkomis and the girl’s mother, set out for the Somerset Hospital with the two bundled-up children in his new Grand Cherokee.
I
