children were banned from going anywhere close to the infirmary, but George broke the rule and sneaked into the corridor in the hope of seeing Turtle. He was shocked when he saw the large number of beds that spilled out of the infirmary and were lined up in the corridor. More children were sick than he had realized. He didn’t see Turtle.
“You can’t be here!” the nurse exclaimed. “You’ll catch the sickness.”
“Is Turtle here … 298?” George asked, backing away.
The nurse looked very sad. “You have to leave right now, George.”
“Is he here?” George insisted.
“No. He’s gone.”
“Where’s he gone?” George asked.
The nurse had tears in her eyes. “He’s not in pain anymore, George. He’s home.”
George was relieved.
The young nurse barely slept. She worked around the clock. The job at Bruce County Indian Residential School was her first job since training and she so wanted to nurse the children back to health, but there were too many children and she was overwhelmed. She longed to get away, to go home to her mother and father. In desperation she went down on her knees and with tears brimming from her closed eyes she prayed, “God, find me a way out.”
She had never heard the voice of God, and she didn’t expect a verbal answer, but in her heart she suddenly knew that she had to stay with the children, to treat their ailments as best she could, but more importantly to comfort them and hold their hands and be with them when their sad souls left their bodies. She promised herself that no child would die alone, unnoticed. She prayed that God would help her.
The nurse was too busy with the living and the dying to know that the dead were taken, unceremoniously, to the potting shed in a wheelbarrow. Mother Hall wrote the tags that Mister Hall then wired onto the big toes of the cold corpses. If, during its short life, a child had imprinted itself onto the mind of a staff member, a Christian name was written on the toe-tag, but those who had not been particularly memorable went to “heaven” with the same identity they had lived by: a number.
Initially the bodies were placed in rough-sawn pine boxes, stacked from the ground up to economize on space. Rakes, hoes, shovels, and forks once spread at random throughout the shed were leaned up against the stacked boxes with a semblance of order. But when the carpenter could no longer keep pace with the demand for coffins, the bodies, wrapped in sheets, were placed directly on the slatted tables. They remained there, guarded by rat traps, until the ground thawed in the spring.
For a while George believed that Turtle had gone home to his parents, but one day in religious knowledge class, Father Thomas referred to Heaven as “Our Eternal Home.”
There was a jolt inside George’s chest. And he knew the truth.
The next morning when Mother Hall came to the dormitory, Red Wolf raised his hand and waited until she permitted him to speak.
“Please, Mother, I ask for haircut.”
Everyone looked at him as if he had gone mad.
Mother Hall smiled with delight. “Of course, 366. Tomorrow is haircut day for this dormitory, so you won’t have to wait much longer.”
The following day, as his hair fell to the ground, Red Wolf closed his eyes tight to prevent the spill of tears and, in the way of The People, he said goodbye to his friend.
Spring came. The afternoon sun beat down on the shiny metal roof of the potting shed, releasing the faintest scent of death through the cracks in the timbers. But the nights were still cool and an early morning fog settled over the grounds of Bruce County School. It dampened the coveralls of the gaunt youths who wielded long-handled shovels. The Indian agent’s dog joined them as they dug, scrabbling vigorously with his front paws, sending dirt flying through his hind legs. A safe distance away, three ravens attempted to alight on the same wooden cross. They jockeyed for dominance, flapping and squawking until the cross gave way and collapsed onto the grass, sending the birds back into the air.
They flew in a circle of reconnaissance, landing this time on a rectangular box that lay untended on the grass. United in a common task, they pecked at the wood, pulling fibres away with their strong beaks and claws. The smell, barely discernible to human senses, drove them into a frenzy of activity. But their efforts were thwarted. Father Thomas appeared at the back door of the school and lumbered toward the birds, waving his arms and shouting. The dog joined the chase, forcing the ravens to disappear into the mist. They retreated to the safety of the roof, where they preened and waited. But this was not their lucky day, and before the sun had burned away the mist, the corpses had been buried deep in the ground.
Father Thomas added the final touches. He smoothed the fresh mounds of soil with the back of the shovel and pushed newly cut pine crosses into the soft dirt. He frowned, annoyed that the sap from the fresh wood was sticking to his hands. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and tried to rub off the resin, but it only smeared. Sighing, he crossed himself and beseeched God to save the souls of the little savages. Then he went about his day.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The previous September, when Red Wolf returned to school to start Grade Two, Crooked Ear had lingered again at the edge of the forest. After several days he seemed to understand that the boy was not coming back, so he turned his nose south and let instinct take him back to Clear Lake. Seraph was not pleased to see his nephew, driving him away from the pack as before and allowing him to live only on the fringe until Crooked Ear had once again displayed complete subservience.
The cold months passed and finally the frozen lake began to thaw, and the wolves basked again in the sun on the granite outcrop high on the ridge. Seraph’s second litter was born, and it was then that Crooked Ear’s legs became restless and he felt the urge to move on. When the trilliums faded on the forest floor and new leaves unfurled on the maples, he trotted away from Clear Lake, drawn once more to the place where instinct told him the boy would reappear. And there he waited. When the scent of the little Upright drifted to his twitching nostrils, Crooked Ear yipped and quivered with excitement.
Red Wolf, too, was overjoyed to see his friend again. When he nestled his face into the wolf’s fur, the turmoil inside of him became still. But the boy’s reunion with his parents did not have the same calming effect. In their presence he felt stirred up inside and he behaved in ways that he didn’t understand. It was as if he was a pot of stew boiling over the fire. Great globs splattered over the edge, burning whatever they landed on.
His parents still called him Mishqua Ma’een’gun. It was Mishqua Ma’een’gun this, and Mishqua Ma’een’gun that, until finally he blurted out, “Don’t call me that. I’m George. Are you stupid? Why can’t you remember? Say it, say George.”
HeWhoWhistles and StarWoman were speechless, their mouths agape, dismayed at the anger that spewed from their son’s mouth along with the foreign words.
He spelled out the name. “G-E-O-R-G-E.”
There was no response.
George continued his tirade, unable to
