Chapter 14

The reserve is quiet at night. Not much traffic goes down the streets because the gas station and convenience store are closed. Jess felt like he was the last one still awake as he walked down the gravel road to his mom’s trailer. The air, hot and still, smelled like Manitoba summer: sour and sweet at the same time.

The headlights of a pickup bounced on the road toward him. The truck slowed down and stopped. He coughed as it kicked up a dust cloud around him, sending stones skittering into the ditch.

“Hey, kid!” The driver leaned out of the window. Jess saw a meaty arm covered in tattoos. “You know where we can find Tom Deerchild?”

Jess looked at the truck. Kind of a beater, but not in bad shape. He walked toward it. “Who’s looking?”

The driver smirked at him. His head was shaved bald. He put a cigarette to his lips and took a drag. The tip glowed orange. “You a fucking smart ass? What do you care? You know where he’s at or not?”

Another guy sitting shotgun leaned forward and stared at Jess. It was too dark to see his face, but Jess didn’t like the odds if he pissed these guys off. “Uh, you could ask at the gas station. He hangs out there sometimes.”

The driver didn’t say anything, put the truck into gear and peeled off.

Jess quickened his pace, rubber-soled sneakers grinding into the gravel road, and then decided to jog home. Once those guys discovered the gas station was closed and the reserve was quiet, they might come looking for him again.

Lights were on in the trailer when he got home, sweaty and breathing hard. He hadn’t run in a long time, but it had felt good. His heart pumped and his breath came in raspy gasps.

“Jess?” his mom called from her room at the back.

“Yeah.” He stuck his mouth under the faucet and drank.

His mom emerged from her bedroom and lay down on the couch.

“Hey, sweetie. You go to your kokum’s for dinner?”

He nodded, sat on a chair and pulled his shoes off. They were coated in dust from the road.

“Did you hear about the hydro dam? Some guys at the diner were talking about it.”

He looked up at her in surprise. “Yeah?” News spread fast on Deep River.

“They’re gonna be hiring. You should check it out. Be good money.” Stubbing out her cigarette, she turned to look at him and wrinkled her nose. “You run home? You’re all sweaty.” She slid open the pack of smokes, took one out and tapped it on the back before putting it in her mouth and lighting it.

“Yeah.” He sniffed under his arms and, not smelling anything offensive, flopped on the chair across from his mom. “Kokum told me about the dam. You think it’s a good idea?”

She frowned, the wrinkles in her forehead deepening. “Yeah, why not? It’s Deep River, it couldn’t get any worse.” She took a deep puff on her cigarette.

“Kokum said Hydro’s gonna pay for stuff, like a gathering centre. It’ll flood the land though, and wreck the river.”

“She’s always worrying about something. The dam’s coming whether she likes it or not. Government’s not going to listen to a bunch of Indians.” She exhaled, and a cloud of smoke caught the fan’s current and swirled up to the ceiling.

She turned on the TV. She only had one photo of herself as a kid. It had been taken at a cousin’s wedding up north, where she was born. Her and two sisters standing together in pastel-coloured dresses and poodle perms outside a church. A few years later she’d gone to Winnipeg, hitchhiking with a trucker who left her at a bus depot with a black eye and split lip.

His mom had met his dad a few weeks after she moved to the city. She said he was like her protector, looking out for her and helping her find places to eat. When she got pregnant, he agreed to take her home to the reserve where they’d be safe. His mom never talked about why she’d stayed, but Jess knew it was for him. She wanted him to know what it was like to be near family. Maybe she hoped his dad would come back one day.

Looking at her now, he wondered if this was the life she’d have predicted for herself when she left her home at seventeen. With frizzy hair and smoker’s teeth, she looked older than thirty-five. Her face softened when she looked at Jess, and he saw flashes of the younger version of his mom. It made him sad to think she’d chosen this life, a trailer and a dead-end job to keep him closer to the only family he had.

If he went out west, would she stay in the trailer park? They'd lived in the no-man's land between the reserve and Edelburg since he was four years old. Their neighbours were like them, a mix of First Nations and Metis, people who didn’t have status and couldn’t live on the reserve but wanted to stay close to family who did.

She could get a job at a diner anywhere. Nothing kept her here but him.

“Kokum also said the old residential school would get flooded.”

His mom shrugged.

“Did Dad ever talk about going there? To the residential school?”

She shook her head and blew a stream of smoke out the side of her mouth, angling it away from Jess. “Used to have nightmares sometimes. When he woke up, he said it was about the school, but never told me anything else. You could ask Kokum, she’d know.”

“Don’t think she likes to talk about it.”

“God, no,” she sighed.

“Night.”

“Going to bed? Gimme a kiss.” She held her cigarette off the side and held her cheek up for him. Oil from the fryer had scarred her a few years ago; pink puckered skin dotted her face. Jess leaned over and pressed his nose against hers, like he’d done as a little boy. She held his face in her hands for a moment, the butt of the cigarette touching his ear. “Love you,” she whispered.

Jess didn’t say anything but pressed a little harder.