It was time to return her, and it looked as if I was the one who had to do it.
That was the conclusion I was reaching while I sat with the Paynes in the waiting room of the Somerset Hospital, anxiously awaiting word of Jid. After the ambulance had raced off with his aunt by his side, Ed had offered to take me to the hospital. I’d agreed, knowing I was in no condition to drive, but upon arrival, we were told only family could be with the boy, so we waited uneasy hours in the sterile waiting room. At one point his aunt and uncle came out to wait while the doctors operated on their nephew.
“It’s all your fault,” his aunt said angrily, taking a seat as far away as possible in the crowded room. “You should’ve left those bones in the ground.”
I pretended her words didn’t bother me, but they did. She was right. I was to blame. As always. I shouldn’t have taken Jid fishing. And…I shouldn’t have disturbed the Ancient One.
Against all rational thought, I was beginning to believe the irrational. I had caused the spirits’ anger. They’d even tried to warn me of pending danger this morning, but I’d chosen to ignore them…as I’d been doing all along. Look at all the calamities that had occurred since I had found the bones.
First, Jid had come down with strep throat, then the disease had spread to other band members, ending with the tragic death of his grandmother. Then the Migiskan had started quarrelling with the authorities over rightful ownership of the remains, which had culminated in the theft of the bones themselves and the murder of the archeologist responsible for them.
A normally mild-mannered man stood accused of being both the killer and the thief, while his community was fighting bitterly amongst themselves over whether his crimes were in fact crimes.
Then there was the revelation of Teht’aa’s drug problem and the return of Billie’s cancer… and the rift between Eric and me.
After this morning’s accident, which had struck like a bolt of lightning sent from the gods, I couldn’t pretend any longer that this was all coincidence. Something else was going on, and maybe, just maybe, it was because the gods were angry. Grandfather Albert had threatened dire results if the Ancient One wasn’t returned to Mother Earth. I was beginning to believe he was right and that Jid’s fluke accident this morning meant that the remains were still unburied.
Because I was the one who had disturbed her, I felt I was the one who should return her to where she belonged. When I did, I hoped the spirits would be appeased, and Jid would survive the accident with nothing more than a sore head. I no longer cared about the bones’ scientific value. Saving a child’s life was more important.
Although Jid’s operation had gone well, the doctors would continue to keep him in an induced coma until satisfied the swelling had gone down. This could take several days. Since only his aunt and uncle were allowed into his room, I decided my waiting time could be put to better use by trying to return the Ancient One to where she’d lain hidden for over eleven thousand years beside the DeMontigny River.
My first task was to locate the remains. Although I still found it difficult to believe that Robbie would steal them, let alone kill for them, I could only assume that the police had sufficient evidence to charge him. Therefore I would have to find out from him where they were hidden. Not an easy task with him sitting in jail and me not allowed near him. There was, however, one person who had ready access. His father, Grandfather Albert.
Although I did not like the idea of asking for help from this stubborn old man, who deemed me his enemy, I felt this was one instance in which he would help me.
I’d also have to do this without George finding out, for if he were to learn that I was destroying his chance of obtaining the Clovis Chair, he would do whatever he could to stop me. But maybe his harsh handling by Pete’s men at the blockade had been enough to send him back to Ottawa and keep him there.
My hopes, however, were soon dashed, for as I passed the Migiskan General Store on the way to the old man’s house, my eyes fell on the tall, limping man with his bright blond hair. I would just have to stay well out of his way and make sure Grandfather Albert didn’t tell anyone other than his son.
Although George could be here with another artifact for the Paynes, I also thought his continued presence could just as likely be a sign that the Ancient One was indeed somewhere close at hand. Believing Robbie had stolen the bones, he would no doubt assume they were here on the reserve and was probably doing his best to try to find them before they were lost to him forever.
As I drove past Robbie’s workshop, I glanced at the Paynes’ almost-finished canoe, standing forlornly on its table perch, and wondered if it would ever get completed. Even though I’d visited his workshop on numerous occasions, I’d never been inside the simple log house he shared with his father. It was one of the few original buildings left on the reserve. Most of the haphazard and ruggedly-built cabins erected in the reserve’s early years had been replaced by government issue; your classic boring, vinyl-clad bungalow that more properly belonged in a treeless suburb than amongst the birch and pine of the reserve.
Like most First Nations reserves in Canada, all land and buildings were communally owned. The concept of private property did not exist. This was in keeping not only with traditional native ways but also government policy. It was the responsibility of the Band Council to determine who lived where. Although Grandfather Albert, as the band’s esteemed elder, had been offered his choice of any of the shiny new houses, he’d insisted on staying in the home his forefathers had built when the reserve had been established in the mid 1800s.
Ancient it indeed looked standing in a shaft of late afternoon sun a short distance from Robbie’s work yard. Tiny, singlepaned windows. A corrugated tin roof, probably put on when metal had replaced cedar shake. Its tarnished surface was splattered with tar and a few gleaming squares where repairs had been made. It was doubtful a coat of paint had ever graced any of the wooden surfaces of the overlapping lean-to additions, now blackened by weather and age, but the round cedar logs looked as sturdy as the day they had been stacked one on top of the other to form the outer walls.
Albert Kohoko, his hunched height barely reaching past the mid-point of the frame, was standing in the cabin’s opened door when I stopped my truck.
Bracing myself for a venomous onslaught, I put on my friendliest smile and said, “Hello, Grandfather Albert.”
True to form, he growled, “You! What you want?”
I took a deep breath and said, “I have a proposition for you.”
He hunched his shoulders as if to say, “So?”
Although it was unlikely anyone was nearby, I nevertheless said, “Can I come inside? It’s something I want to keep just between the two of us.”
I could feel the power of his piercing black eyes as they tried to penetrate my thoughts. Then, almost as if he had read them, he abruptly turned in the doorway and headed into the halflight of his home.
It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the small room, lit only by the tree-shaded daylight filtering in through two narrow windows. Although I’d expected the air to be hot and muggy, I was pleasantly surprised by a moist coolness. Perhaps there was something to be said for small windows and thick logs. Then I noticed the thick block of ice sprinkled with sawdust standing in a large metal pan in the middle of the room. The original air conditioning.
I didn’t need to ask where the ice had come from. I remembered from my early visits to Three Deer Point, when my great-aunt had been very much alive, the big blocks of lake ice that had been cut during the winter. Aunt Aggie had stored them under layers of insulating sawdust in her ice shed dug deep into the ground. She’d used them in her ancient icebox, despite having electricity since the mid 1960s, and she’d used them just as Grandfather was doing, for air conditioning.
“You return our ancestor’s bones to Mother Earth,” the old man said, without waiting for my proposition.
“I want you to help me.”
He nodded as if it were a given. “Tell me how you do this?”
“I plan to rent a float plane and fly the bones into the lake where I found them. I would like you to come with me to give them a proper burial.”
“Good. I come.”
I’d noticed that at no time did he ask where I was supposed to be getting the bones. I took this to mean that he already knew their current hiding place.
“I’m doing this for Jid.”
He nodded as if he already knew.
“We need to do this as soon as possible. I’m looking at tomorrow, if I can charter a plane that quickly.” I was going to try Boreal Airways, the same airline company Eric had used to fly us in to the start of our fateful canoe trip.
“Good.” His wispy grey hair drifted with another nod of his head.
“I am assuming you will bring the bones with you.” I waited for his response.
“When you ready, I ready,” he said, without directly admitting anything. Nonetheless, I felt his answer confirmed my suspicions that he either had the Ancient One or knew where she was located.
“You tell no one, eh?” he continued.
“I agree we should have absolute secrecy with this. We don’t want anyone stopping us or returning to the site after we’ve buried her.”
“Good.” He started walking towards the door, signalling the end of our conversation.
Before I stepped outside, he placed his arthritic hand on my arm and smiled. “You do this, you good lady. Kije Manidu be happy.”
I smiled back, feeling for the first time since my modern ways had collided with his ancient wisdom that we’d finally opened the door to establishing a truce.