“Tanner, Tanner, the birds sing,” said a voice. It took me a sec to realize I was no longer asleep and dreaming. I rolled onto my back, wiping sleep from my eyes, trying desperately to hold my dream together and search for meaning. But it was no use. It fragmented and flitted from my mind. Gone in seconds. Glooscap was knelt over me, a stick in his hand as though he was preparing to prod me awake.
I tossed back the fur that had been keeping me warm and got to my feet. The smoldering coals were dark. Conroy and the others still slept under their furs. Simon mumbled like he usually did early in the morning.
Glooscap pointed the stick at the longhouse entrance. “We must go. They wait for us.” Too tired still to ask who “they” were, I simply followed him.
We left the darkness of the longhouse into a pre-sunrise lavender morning, warm and heavy with moisture. Those three-ringed planets were overhead, bright and clear. Same position. Stars flickered stubbornly against the coming day. Swiftly, we cut through the village, Glooscap leading the way, wending around dew-glistening tepees and firepits from which traces of smoke spiraled into the air. The odd-looking, one-eyed dog that had nipped my heel the night before appeared. It started to tail me, keeping about twenty feet back, stopping every time I turned around to look, one good eye fixed on me, goofy tongue dangling from its mouth.
A few minutes later, we entered the forest on a narrow, well-worn trail, the early morning fog so thick I could only make out ten feet or so ahead of me. I could taste the moisture.
The forest had not lost its majestic quality that had awed and frightened me the day before. It felt like even more of a magical place as we went deeper. Strange, colorful birds fluttered overhead, chirruping and twittering. Unseen creatures scurried through the dense undergrowth on either side of the trail. At first I felt some apprehension, but Glooscap never stopped or looked back. He carried on as if it was all natural. So I told myself that if there was something I needed to be aware of, he would tell me. After all, it was his backyard. And he seemed to be a capable woodsman, not to mention the Sawnay had been there for hundreds of years.
Within a minute on the trail, my cobwebs cleared. The forest fog began to dissipate. Glooscap didn’t speak, so I kept quiet and followed along five feet or so behind him, waiting to arrive at our destination so I could find out who “they” were. Glooscap moved quickly, silently, and effortlessly like a true creature of the forest. I found myself having to push to keep up, sweat running down my brow.
When we arrived at the riverbank, I finally learned the answer to who “they” were. Poowasan and Glixtan stood staring down at the river. Neither of them looked at us as we approached, not even when we took up beside them. And then I saw what they were focused on. Fish––hundreds of dead fish––were floating belly up. The same kind from the night before. An acrid smell wafted in the air, causing my nose to itch, leaving a chemical taste in the back of my throat. I could hardly believe this was the same river from which we’d drunk and washed from. A river that had been teeming with vibrant life, but was now teeming with foul death.
“Cootamain is the lifeblood of our people,” said Poowasan. “It is sick. It dies a little more each season. More days of dead finned ones and four-legged ones and winged ones happen every year. They use the river for life as my people do.” Then he looked up to those three planets, only the two highest visible above the treetops. “All this makes the Three Brothers sad.”
“We drank from it last night before Glooscap found us,” I said, my voice distant.
“If you drink from it now, you will be sick by the time the sun reaches its highest,” said Poowasan.
“And dead by nightfall,” added Glooscap.
Poowasan sighed like the thought of it pained him greatly.
As I was pondering their words, a white carcass floated by us like a piece of driftwood, its ribs jutted grotesquely against its hide. The head was just below the surface, and on it was a spiraling horn.
I was certain it was the unicorn colt we’d seen the night before that had headed upriver with its mother. And I thought how those two mythical creatures had seemed to greet us at the riverbank, helping to put our minds at ease. A pang of sadness went off deep in my being, which quickly changed to something else. My fists clenched without any thought from me. The longer I watched the colt float down the river, the tighter the clench got until my nails bit into my palms.
“What’s making it sick?” I said, turning to Poowasan. “Why’s this happening?”
“We do not know. It began eight seasons ago. Two Sawnay parties have journeyed north searching for answers. They have not returned,” he said solemnly, and then tilted back his head. A large crow or raven soared over the river, cawing angrily. “They now walk in the Spirit World.”
“Our bravest men,” said Glooscap.
“Spirit World?” I said.
“Dead,” said Glooscap, his voice less than a whisper, the quietest I’d heard him speak thus far.
“How do you know they’re dead?” I said. “Maybe they’re still searching.”
“They visit Glixtan in his dreams,” said Poowasan.
Everyone was silent for a moment, watching the long mass of fish floating down the river.
“This reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of Alberta’s oil sands,” I said.
“Alberta in the country of Canada?” said Poowasan.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said. “It’s a place where the land and rivers are being poisoned because of man’s greed. Wait––how do you know about Alberta if you came before Europeans arrived?”
“A friend of the Sawnay taught us the borders of North America,” said Poowasan.
“There are more people here from Earth?” I said, barely containing my surprise.
Before he could answer, Glixtan turned away from the river to gaze north and spoke for the first time. “A wound festers in the mountains. The wound must be healed or the death will continue until we are forced to leave this land—all living things are forced to leave. A land we have called home for five hundred years.”
“I wish I could help. I mean . . . I wish we could help,” I said. “But Conroy can’t walk without crutches––and we’re only young, and we’re not from here.” I felt younger than I actually was, saying it like that. I felt helpless and frustrated––seeing all that death and knowing I couldn’t possibly do anything to help. I didn’t have it in me. We had our own things to worry about, our own life and death problems. “Do you know how we can get home?”
There was a moment of silence before Poowasan spoke. “A friend of the Sawnay lives two days north in the Black Swamp. We speak English because of him, we know our choice to leave Mother Earth was right because of him.”
“Is this the friend who told you about the borders of North America?” I said.
“We shared the way of this world with him, and he shared with us many things about Mother Earth, about the way people walk on their journeys now. He searches for answers that we do not care to know. He will help you if he can. His name is Ambrose. Another party of Sawnay heads north to search for the cause of the sickness. They will take you with them, so you can speak to him.”
I thought about Poowasan’s offer quickly, trying to figure out what it would mean if I accepted. “What about Conroy?” I said. “He can barely walk.”
“Glooscap will take you. The others can stay as guests of the Sawnay.”
“I’ll have to talk to them,” I said.
“Then you will decide,” said Poowasan. With that, he and Glixtan both nodded, satisfied. They started off down the trail as if there was no more to discuss. Glooscap stood waiting for me.
“You go ahead. I’ll follow the trail back,” I said, looking upriver toward the reddish sun peeping over the treetops. I hooded my eyes with a hand, listening to him walk off. As far as I could see, dead fish floated on the river, like some apocalyptic biblical event was taking place. I’d never seen death on that scale before.
A sudden urge to flee the riverbank gripped me, its smell of toxin, of death. I wanted to get as far away as I possibly could––pronto––far away from that sick water that would carry the unicorn colt off the colossal waterfall and on and on until its carcass lodged against rocks miles downriver. Flies would lay their eggs, eggs would hatch into maggots, maggots would eat his flesh, and finally after all that degradation, his bones would sink to the river bottom like those bones on the bottoms of aquariums, lost in the pebbles. The colt had been far too young to die.
The sun’s rays reflected on the surface of the river like a long, writhing orange snake, not quite reaching me yet, but getting closer as the sun continued to rise above the treetops.
Seeing it all was another heavy stone for me to carry in my already hefty backpack. Shaking my head and sighing, I thought how I should be at Halton House reading L’Amour or McCarthy under the shade cast by the old oaks in the backyard. Or how I should be watching Hena and her newborn colt––alive and well––trot around the field, or even cleaning out the chicken coop as the hens and roosters strutted around the yard, pecking up insects and gobbling raucously. I definitely shouldn’t have been there seeing all that. And why me? Why had Poowasan not shown this to the others? Why not Conroy? He was the adult, the man of the group. Not me. I was only seventeen, pretty much still a kid, not even old enough to buy beer or cigarettes, barely old enough to drive. A kid who––with his uncle––had robbed banks and terrified people. We’d made it so they cringed when they heard loud noises like shouts or doors slam, made it so they had nightmares every night to awake with their hearts trying to pound out of their chests. They shook and sweated because of their frayed nerves every morning as they headed to work, wondering if it would be the day that someone tried to rob their bank again. I’d heard it all in court from the ones who’d been brave enough to stand up and read their victim impact statements. I’d stolen their sense of safety. I made it so they didn’t trust people anymore, so they doubted themselves. That was a little of what I’d done. For a brief period of my young life, I became something I despised. And I hated myself for it, and I didn’t know that I would ever stop.
Suddenly, a face appeared in the dense undergrowth beside me. It startled me, not because it was a scary face, but because I hadn’t expected to see one there. It seemed to be hovering. Then another face popped up beside the first one. That was when I recognized them, the mocha-skinned twins from the night before who I’d seen as Glooscap led us through the village. I couldn’t say how, but I knew right then they were also the performers, with those lights at the river––the girls Glooscap said were Poowasan’s daughters.
“Are you going to speak?” said the one who’d appeared first.
It was like the wires from my brain to my mouth were malfunctioning.
“I think we scared him,” she said.
“Startled, not scared,” I said. “Why were you singing and waving those lights last night?”
The talkative one emerged from the undergrowth. Her black hair was in two long braids, one on either side of her shoulders. She was dressed like all the other Sawnay in hide shirt and pants. She gave me the once-over with her almond eyes, and then both of them fixed on me. They were silent and didn’t seem interested in answering my question whatsoever, just staring at me as if I was some kind of oddity, which I guessed I was to them. Then her sister, the quiet one, pushed aside the undergrowth and stepped out beside her.
Their silence started to weird me out. “Well?” I said, with more irritation than I’d planned.
“A mourning ceremony for our father,” said the talkative one. “He journeyed north in search of answers and has not yet returned. My name is Chana. My sister is Maroona.”
The quiet one, Maroona, turned to look at the dead fish, her lips turning upside down in a frown. She shut her eyes tightly like the sight hurt tremendously. She began humming a song.
Chana spoke, “They say our father no longer walks this world, when we are not around them. Glixtan says his spirit will return to our people.” She rested a hand on her sister’s shoulder and faced the river. “Maroona prays for the dead creatures.”
“Hey, I thought Poowasan is your father?”
“He has taken us into his family as daughters.”
Maroona continued her prayer, making me feel awkward. So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I joined in the vigil.
Five minutes later, she finished her prayer. Half the sun shone over the treetops, blazing brightly. Warm on my face. The orange writhing reflection on the river was now passing me.
“Maroona has not spoken since our father left. They do not think she will speak until our father’s spirit returns.”
“What if it never returns?” I said.
“It will return,” she said with a conviction that made me believe she honestly felt it would. She rubbed her sister’s back. “He visits us in our dreams and tells us he will return.”
Fragments of my dream flitted through my mind––the weightlessness, the zooming along the corridor, the scarred wooden door, and that eye looking back at me through the keyhole. Then they vanished before I could piece them together into a coherent episode. A spell of dizziness struck me. Stars danced across my vision. I staggered backward, briefly losing my equilibrium.
Chana reached her small hand toward me, a gold ring on her finger glinting in the sun.
“Are you well, Tanner?” she said, concern in her voice.
Backing away, I blinked my eyes a few times, taking a deep breath to get some oxygen to my brain. “I’m fine,” I said, wiping a cold sweat from my brow. “How do you know my name?”
She gave a patient smile like what I’d asked was a foolish question. She pointed at her ears. “That is why the Creator gave us these, to hear names.” Then she brushed her fingers along her cheek, and said, with the innocence of a child, “What happened to your face?”
I touched the scar that ran across my cheek. No one had asked me that question in a long time. “I had an accident when I was a kid.”
She stared at me for a moment, then said, “I must go.” She said a few words to Maroona before they both turned and headed off on the trail toward the village.
“You’re leaving?” I said, feeling we hadn’t finished yet.
Chana paused to look back, letting Maroona carry on. “It is forbidden for anyone to be at the river while the poison runs.” Then she followed her sister.
I watched them go, thinking how peculiar they were: identical looking, but very different personalities, opposites really, like black and white, north and south. They rounded a bend on the trail and were lost to sight. They were Sawnay, but different in some way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t just their lighter skin, but also the way they acted, as if they walked to the beat of their own drum, as if their life there––the Sawnay’s rules and customs––didn’t define how they chose to act. They were rule breakers, free spirits. They’d been out last night by themselves, at the river this morning while the poison ran. I figured they’d been hiding in the undergrowth the entire time we’d been speaking, and heard every word that was said.
I wondered if I’d ever see them again. After deciding I wouldn’t, I stole a final glance at the floating death still passing by, no end in sight, a true trail of carnage. As I started back to the village, I noticed my fingertips were raw and scratched.