The ghosts of memory swirled around them. And then another story began to unravel. “One winter,” she told him, “I found a sparrow in the snow. It must have flown against the window. Its beak was bleeding, and it had managed to dig itself into a snowbank, and I think maybe it was slowly freezing to death.”
Lonny gazed into the green glinting water. I don't know him, but I do, she thought. Everything until now, in our lives, has been leading to this moment. She moved closer to him again. Hip to hip, knee to knee. I don't care about what I should do or shouldn't do, she thought. This feels right. I like him. And it's good to feel this fire in my body and to comfort him and to be here with him by this lake.
“I pulled the bird out of the snowbank,” she continued.
“I took it into the house and wrapped it in a towel and phoned Grandpa, and he brought over an old birdcage he had at his place. He looked at the sparrow and said, âIt just needs rest, that's all.' And then he eased it into the cage.”
Lonny sat up a little straighter. He lifted his hand and placed his fingers gently on the bone at the back of her neck. Then she sighed and put her head on his chest, and his arm came slowly around her, like a question.
“Well,” said Alex, “we left that sparrow in a dark room, and in a couple of hours it started hopping around the cage. I gave it some chopped-up pecans, and it ate those. And then it started to flutter around, clinging to the metal sides. âIt's ready to go now,' Grandpa said. But I wasn't ready yet to let it go. It was freezing outside. How would it survive?”
Lonny put his other arm around her, hugging her, tenderly stroking the flesh below her sleeve.
“âSparrows are tough,' Grandpa said. And then he waited, like always, for me to make up my mind. The sparrow was getting desperate. Beating its wings against the silver bars. It was awful. And I felt, I don't know, sick, I guess. Finally I put my hand in the cage and captured it. It bit me. It was strong. Its thoughts were already out there in the cold north wind. It bit me again before I could get it through the open window. And then it flew out over the snow. Grandpa said, âSomeday after I'm gone, you'll think about this day.'”
For a long time she and Lonny lingered there, by the lake. Some people, she was thinking, don't ever get to know how wonderful it is to do something so simple as this. Just sitting side by side, together, on a big sunny rock.
Under the blue starry night he sat on Earl's steps and waited for her. There were ancient whisperings in the cosmos. The full moon shone in a beautiful way on the abandoned LaFrenière cabin, on its soft silvery wood. This is what I've learned about waiting, he thought. If you wait with all of your senses, you don't wait empty.
And then light from Earl's kitchen flooded in behind him. She came out, wrapped in a long quilt, her hair gleaming down her back like the sheen of an animal diving under water.
They walked up together. Medicine Bluff irradiated a smoky haze. Halfway up, poplar leaves clicked, old women's tongues. Near the crest of the hill, she turned. Cradled in her arms, glowing with moon, were her father's ashes.
She opened the box and set it down on the sagesmelling land. In the space of four heartbeats, her left hand came away, pale with the powder of her father's bones. She made a fist, held it high, danced
in a circle, threw back her head, and howled like a wolf.
He watched as she released Earl McKay's ashes. Some scattered down the hill. The rest flew like a blessing over a large scar of dark green and were carried away on the strong night winds.
This book owes its being to many rich sources, not the least of which is the spirit of the land that whispered to me all through my lucky freewheeling childhood in nature.
A huge debt of gratitude is due the First Nations people as a whole, those female and male voices who speak their passionate worldwide warrior truth.
There are, as well, certain individuals I wish to thank for their loving and generous participation in the journey: Brian Brooks, Maureen Hunter, Margaret Shaw-MacKinnon, Jean Karl, Judy V. Wilson, Dominic Barth, Patsy Aldana, Shelley Tanaka, Melanie Kroupa, Mary Kate McDonald, Laara Fitznor, Virginia Maracle, Sidura Lud-wig, Beth Burrows, Todd Schaus, Brock Adams, Sonny Clarke, Gary Granzberg, Delia Dewart, George Toles, Alice Drader, Pauline Wood Steiman, Mona Lynne Howden, David Stewart, and my friends at Red Willow Lodgeâ Jules and Margaret Lavallee, Betty Rodway, and Gerry Scharienâ
migwitch
, you guys. I'll always remember that the mosquitoes leave at exactly 11:26 at night.
The Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council, always there for artists in this country, once again came through with greatly appreciated and generous funding.
Last, and most humbly, I want to honor the spirits of the ancestors who guided my waking visions and nighttime dreams and never once gave up on this willing but frequently dense translator.