When I stepped down from my truck, I caught the sound of easy laughter coming from around the bend.
“Someone’s sure having fun,” Jid said, as he walked beside me. I’d parked the truck about a hundred meters and out of sight from where I presumed the blockade had been set up on the main road.
“Yeah, it’s probably Pete with some friends.”
Although I’d assumed Chief Decontie would try to move Robbie first thing this morning, I didn’t think it would be before the day shift came on at eight o’clock. It was a little after that hour now.
While the morning air still hung heavy with overnight coolness, the sun piercing the gaps in the trees promised a quick return to the heat. And the acrid smell of smoke told me the forest fires continued to burn in the north.
“Sounds like they’re havin’ a pow-wow.” The boy’s voice had taken on a note of hopeful glee.
So much for the confiscation of beer. Obviously, they’d found more. On the other hand, it also meant that Chief Decontie had not yet tried to go through the blockade, otherwise the laughter would be less carefree. As we tramped along the rutted gravel road, past withered foliage ghost-like from layers of summer dust, the laughter grew louder and more raucous. At one point I thought I caught the strains of Pete’s voice issuing instructions.
“Wow,” Jid said as we rounded the corner. “Just like Oka.” As he quickened his pace, I placed a firm hand on his shoulder to restrain him. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.
About thirty metres in front of us spread a line of vehicles from the dense bush on one side of the road to a granite outcropping on the other. A freshly washed Dodge pick-up had been parked lengthwise in the middle of the road. A couple of others had been placed, headlights facing towards us, to plug in the gaps. Two very muddy ATV s were rammed into the ditches at either end to ensure that not even a bicycle could squeeze through.
The laughter stopped as Jid and I hove into view. The boy reached for my hand. “We won’t go any further, okay?” I said, stopping. Jid gripped harder.
“Hey, Pete,” called out a man with a familiar brush-cut and a weathered face, but one I couldn’t put a name to. He lounged on a lawn chair perched in the back of the new truck. A rifle rested across his knees. “Here’s the big man’s fancy woman.”
At his words, my heart twisted. I’d spent the remainder of the night cursing myself for being such a coward. As the rising sun hit my bedroom window, I’d called Eric, wanting to apologize, to try to explain, but had got only voice mail, at his home and his office. I’d hoped I would see him here.
Pete’s baseball-capped head appeared above the cab of one of the front facing pick-ups that I now recognized to be his. He upended a beer bottle and drained it. In the other hand, he raised a rifle. “Payin’ a little visit to loverboy, eh? Ya can’t today.”
I ignored his comment and searched instead for the tree markers that identified the boundary between my land and the reserve. Although it was difficult to be certain from this distance if the blockade was on the wrong side of the red-slashed tree, I decided to challenge him anyway. “I hope you’re not on my property, Pete. If so, I’ll have to ask you to move your trucks.”
Pete laughed. “Ya think I’m that dumb? I know my rights.
And I know this road is a right-of-way for all us Migiskan Anishinabeg.”
“If you step one foot on my property, I’ll have you charged with trespassing,” I countered.
“You do that, lady, and we’ll slap a land claim on you.” Then, with a shake of his rifle in my direction, he resumed his seat on the back of his truck.
His words sent a momentary jolt of fear through my veins. Many a landowner whose property lay next to a reserve had found himself tied up for years in court over claims the land rightly belonged to the band. Although the deed to Three Deer Point dated back to 1891, when my great-grandpa Joe had won the property in a poker game, I wasn’t about to test Pete’s threat.
“Hey, kid,” the man with the brush-cut shouted. “You should be on this side of the barricade.”
Jid started to loosen his grip, but I squeezed tighter. “No, it’s not a good idea.”
“But they’re my people.”
“I know, but what these men are trying to do isn’t right, and it might get dangerous.” As if to support my point, Pete fired his rifle into the air, accompanied by a war whoop. Several other men joined him.
Jid wrenched his hand free and faced me. “I gotta be with them. Kòkomis told me I should follow the ways of our people.”
“And so you should, but I don’t think your Kòkomis would want you to break the law.” I explained the situation with Robbie and what Pete was attempting to do.
“But Robbie’s my friend. I gotta help him.”
“He’s my friend too, and the best way of helping him is to let him get a fair trial in Montreal.”
“But that will be with white men, won’t it?” His once trusting eyes had taken on a questioning distrust.
As I tried to come up with an appropriate reply, my attention was distracted by sudden honking and shouting coming from the other side of the blockade.
“Let me through this instant,” yelled a voice I recognized with surprise to be George Schmidt’s. “It’s urgent. I need to get to Ottawa.”
So George hadn’t left the reserve, after all. I wondered why. I turned back to the boy in time to see him racing towards the barricade. “No, Jid! Don’t!”
But his pace didn’t falter. He grasped the hands of the guy in the back of the new truck and was swept up onto the barricade. He raised his fingers in a victory sign as he beamed back at me.
I started to yell at him to get off the truck but realized it would be useless. A greater barrier than the blockade now separated us. I had become the enemy.
I should never have brought him. I should’ve known this could happen. Instead my thoughts had been too focussed on Eric. If he got hurt…or worse…I shoved it from my mind. I didn’t want to think of the possibility.
“If you don’t let me through, I’ll ram your truck,” shouted George.
“Go ahead,” answered Pete. “Cause more damage to your fancy car than my old wreck.”
He raised his rifle and pointed it at what looked to be the top of George’s blond head. “I suggest you get back into your car and get the hell outta here. It’s gonna get real hot here real soon.”
Did his “real soon” mean Decontie was on his way?
I heard the crunch of gravel behind me and turned around to see a couple of SQ cruisers slowly coming to a stop in the middle of the road. Their flashing red and blue lights magnified the sense of urgency.
I immediately recognized the slim boyishness of Sergeant Beauchamp as he stepped out of the closest vehicle. Strapped into his bulletproof vest, he strode towards me with his hand within easy reach of his opened holster. “Madame Harris,” he said in French, “I ask that you move out of the way. The situation may become dangerous.”
“There is a little boy, a friend of mine, on that truck, who needs to be protected.” I pointed to Jid, the smile now gone from his face. His wraith-like body was sandwiched between the bulk of two men who’d joined him. One of them was Larry. The other was Pete.
The blond policeman advanced towards the waiting men. Although their rifles remained at rest, I could sense their edginess.
When he was about ten metres from the barricade, Pete shouted in English, “That’s as far as it goes, copper.” He raised his rifle slowly. Beauchamp stopped.
“Madame, you must get out of the way.” One of the other cops motioned for me to get behind the safety of the police cruisers. Two other vehicles had joined them. Their occupants, with guns pointed, squatted behind the solid metal frames.
Beauchamp, holding his empty hands up to show he came in peace, shouted in English, “I ask you to permit the boy to go to a safe place. A small child should not be involved.”
“Sure he should,” answered Pete. “Boy’s gotta right to protect his heritage, same as everyone else.”
“You want to have the responsibility for his death?”
“Only one killin’ him would be you, copper.”
I could see the fear creep across the boy’s face and sense his indecision. I shouted, “Jid, it’s okay. You’ve shown Robbie you support him. Now you can get out of the truck and go where it’s safe.”
He smiled wanly at me, then glanced up at Pete.
“I’d say we got ourselves a hostage. He’s gonna stay right here with me.” Pete wrapped the arm which held the rifle around the boy.
“Let the boy go,” the cop shouted.
I held my breath as Pete continued to hang onto Jid, whose face was stark with fear.
“Hey, cop!” George’s upper body suddenly appeared above the side of the truck, but was immediately shoved down by Larry, who joined him on the ground. A burst of swearing between the two men could be heard above the voices of other blockaders.
My eyes turned back to Jid. He was gone! Pete stood defiantly alone in the back of the truck.
“Where’s Jid?” I yelled.
“None of your damn business, white woman.”
“What have you done with him?”
“Hey cop! Over here!” George, waving his arms, limped up to the ATV blocking the left-hand ditch. “Can you get me out of here? I’m Dr. Schmidt, Director of Archeology at the National Museum of Canada. I have an important meeting to get to.”
Ignoring the archeologist, Sergeant Beauchamp called out to Pete. “We want to know if the boy is safe.”
“The kid’s fine,” George shouted back. “Now you gonna get me out of here?”
“Like the spirit thief says, the kid’s okay. You think I’m dumb enough to do something to a hostage? No way. Now back off, copper.” Pete waved his rifle at the policeman.
The cops around me gripped their guns.
Sergeant Beauchamp backed up several metres then stopped. Pete yelled again, “The spirit thief can go. But his car stays.”
“Monsieur le docteur, you must come on this side of the barrier. We will get your car later,” the sergeant shouted.
As George hesitated, Larry yelled out, “If ya go, Georgieboy, I get to keep your car. Always wanted a Beemer.”
BMW ? Last car I’d seen George driving was a Honda Civic. The fossil business must be good.
Without saying another word, the archeologist disappeared behind the blockade, to be immediately replaced by the man with the brush-cut and beer-belly.
From behind the barrier, Eric’s amplified voice suddenly rang out, “Pete, Robbie’s father and some of the other elders are here with me. We want to talk peacefully over smudge. In the meantime, you can tell your men to put their rifles down.”
My heart skipped at the sound of his voice. Would I see him?
Pete, with his rifle still firmly clenched, twisted his head around to where Eric must be standing.
“Sergeant Beauchamp, can you hear me?” Eric’s voice continued.
“Oui, monsieur.”
“I’d appreciate if you asked your men to put their guns away too. We need to resolve this in a peaceful manner.”
“Agreed, but I need to be assured that the boy is safe.”
“Not sure what boy you’re talking about.”
“It’s Jid, Eric,” I shouted. “Pete knows where he is.”
I heard an exclamation of anger, then Eric replied, “Sergeant Beauchamp, I give you my assurance that no harm will come to the boy.”
I hoped so, but I had my doubts that Pete would readily hand over his “hostage” to a man who would be trying to put an end to his blockade.
The police sergeant slowly raised his hands from his holster. He ordered his men to do likewise.
But judging by the reluctance with which some of the officers put their guns down, they didn’t think it was such a good idea. Still, within a few minutes, all were standing in front of the cruisers with their guns back in their holsters, their empty hands held out within easy view of the people manning the blockade.
Pete, however, remained unconvinced. Larry, now standing beside him, displayed the same stubborn stance.
“Pete,” Eric said, “I thought you wanted to follow the ways of our people. Resolving conflict peacefully over smudge is the way of our people. Using arms is the white man’s way.”
Touché, Eric, I thought to myself. If any argument would convince Pete, that one should.
While I could see Pete begin to waver, it looked as if Larry was going to remain stolidly defiant. Finally Pete put his rifle down, and with a nod of his head, he motioned his men to do the same. Larry was the last to lay down his rifle, and only after an angry remark from the man standing next to him.