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Algonquin Indian Reservation
Ontario, Canada
She wasn’t Native American and she certainly wasn’t Caucasian. Her mother was a full Mohawk and her father Slavic. Her complexion was several shades lighter than her mother’s. Her Slavic genes moderated the high cheekbones common to members of her tribe. And then there was her hair. It had a different texture and color. She wore it very short—again not a Mohawk practice.
When she started school on the reservation her classmates questioned her ethnicity. She wasn’t like the other girls in her classes. She attended a community college in New York and obtained a two-year degree in Information Technology. Then she took her first professional job in the Hudson Valley. Yet, even in professional settings, she inevitably found herself answering questions about her background, her parents.
It was always about how she didn’t fit in. She couldn’t escape it.
So, she left her promising job and returned to the reservation moving in with her mother. Since there were no job opportunities in IT on the “Res,” she spent her time tracking and capturing small game. Her Uncle Nelson Tyendinaga took her on her first hunt. It didn’t take long before she was teaching him. Elisabeth Ristovski enjoyed the solitude of the hunt and her mom was always glad when she returned.
Of course, she was “Tech Support” for her family. Her mother was hopeless when it came to technology and she avoided it at all cost. She refused to operate her television using a remote even though it was becoming more difficult to find a new television with readily accessible hand controls.
Her half-brother Boots Tyendinaga didn’t need her help. He could text, use email, and surf the web. And even when he did need assistance, he was often too embarrassed to ask for it. He didn’t want his half-sister to know what types of sites he visited, with whom he corresponded, or why. By contrast, her Uncle Nelson always—always—needed her help. He was a disaster when it came to technology.
Nelson was a steel walker and a hunter. He was brave and fearless. Two qualities that tend to not work well with personal technology. He was always misplacing files and email attachments he downloaded from the Internet. He had the habit of creating multiple copies of everything, including systems of folders that were to be his new, improved filing system. He just never used them.
He password protected everything. He just couldn’t remember the passwords he selected. His method was to name a file a single word which he associated with a passage from famous native songs. The passage became his password. Elisabeth spent hours with her Uncle Nelson as she tried to guess his passwords, and in the process, he taught her many of the Mohawk songs.
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Processing the death of a loved one must be the worst task for those who survive. In a short period, she’d lost both her half-brother and her cherished uncle. Their deaths were violent, unexplained, and took place far away from the Res and everything she knew. One day they were there and a part of her life. Then the next they were gone forever without even saying good-bye.
The loss was even harder on her mother. For weeks on end she refused to leave her bedroom. She stopped cooking and cleaning, two activities which ordinarily gave her life purpose and meaning. Elisabeth became her caretaker which meant she didn’t have time to deal with her loss, until her mother died of a broken heart. Then she had the small house all to herself and all the time in the world.
So much death in so short a period.
Elisabeth decided to clean out her Uncle’s house and take up residence there. His presence was felt everywhere: Every corner, every piece of furniture, and especially his personal computer.
She spent her time guessing the passwords for each folder and file. She surprised herself at how proficient she’d become, how many of the native songs her uncle had taught her.
She read all the correspondence.
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Piecing together the chronological history she came to know her uncle in a way she never did before. She didn’t know he was ill with Addison’s Disease and how he was likely to suffer as he aged. She hadn’t previously known why he stopped working the high steel. Although, she’d always wondered why.
And she certainly didn’t know that her uncle was a contract killer for hire, although she belatedly recognized he had the requisite skill set.
Elisabeth read the correspondence from Elsemere. Her uncle brought her half-brother into the “family business.” He was proficient at it, but something unexpected happened in Kansas. Uncle Nelson was sent by Elsemere to find out what and why. He was expected to fix the problem.
Elisabeth returned to her mother’s house and found her half-brother’s laptop in his room. Unlike their uncle, Boots was obsessive about organizing his folders and files. Everything was annotated and structured into chains providing a context for all his correspondence.
He didn’t believe in passwords.
But he did leave her a map that could take her to Joe McRory and Alice Linda.
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She spent the entire next day wrapped in her uncle’s blanket. It carried his scent and gave her strength. Finally, she saw the path forward. She didn’t know any of these people, but they took from her the only people who accepted her without question. They took the only peace she ever knew.
They would be made to answer for what they’d done.