The Spawning Grounds (15 page)

Even after she was so heavily medicated that all she did was spend her days sitting in that damn captain's chair, she would not doubt what she had seen with her own eyes: the eagle that placed an offering of its own wing feather at her feet with its beak. The crow with the eyes of a woman that laughed with her, with a woman's laugh, when a calf got its head stuck in a bucket. The boy from her drawings—the boy she saw in the mirror—who compelled her to climb the railing of the bridge, to stand with arms outstretched to the damp, thunderous wind churned up by the rushing water at the narrows, to take that mystery within her back to the water, back home.

If he had only listened, Jesse told Hannah now, if he had gotten Elaine help sooner, if he had been there for her, rather than turning to other women, she might have been alive today.

“I heard Mom the other day,” Hannah said. “She called my name, woke me up. I think to let me know Bran was down at the river. Does that make me crazy too?”

He shook his head. “After your mother died, I saw her many times, in my dreams, even on the street. I ran after her once, when I saw her on this road, but it was some other woman with a similar build, a tourist.”

Abby trotted up the steps of the front deck and lay at their feet. “I guess Bran's illness means you'll be staying on,” Hannah said.

“Only until I get things cleaned up here and the sale goes through. Gina says there's a group home for kids with mental health issues. She sets kids up there all the time. I'll get Bran on the waiting list for it.” He hesitated. “I'll come back regularly, to make sure he's doing okay.”

“No, you won't.”

Jesse met her eyes. “Yes, I will. I'll have to. I'm his guardian.”

Hannah looked away and they sat in silence for a time.

Finally Hannah said, “Alex told me Gina blames herself for Mom's death. Was
that
why Mom took her life, because of your affair with Gina?”

Jesse breathed in a last toke and held the smoke within his lungs. “I think what you're really asking is why would your mom leave you?” he said, exhaling. “Why would any parent abandon their kid? There's never a good answer to that one, is there?” He held her gaze to make it clear he was speaking as much about his own leaving as her mother's.

THE CHAIR WAS
exactly where the boy had left it, in the living room facing the window. He slid a hand along the armrest, the curve that had wrapped around the woman's hips as they sat together here day after day, staring out this window to the cliff beyond the river. Perhaps, in this woman named Elaine, he had chosen poorly, but opportunities to swim up into this world were rare. The First People living over there, on the other side of the river, had learned long ago not to swim in the mother river. He had taken, instead, to watching these white men who had arrived not long ago. Sometimes they swam. Sometimes they played in that river. Sometimes they jumped into the waters as the woman Elaine had. They didn't know the stories, or him. They didn't fear him. He could navigate these white men, as he would a waterway, into this world.

The white woman named Elaine had seemed promising at first, but she was no good. The medicine that the
man named Jesse forced on her made her weak. Tired. Lost. The boy couldn't complete his task through her any more than he could through the toddler named Samuel. Instead he swam with Elaine—always swimming—in the waters between worlds, never surfacing fully. His thoughts were as entwined with hers as the branches of the trees at the logjam below the bridge. He couldn't always remember what he was here for or who he was. In time he came to realize there was no way he could use Elaine to complete his task.

Finally he had whispered,
Take me back to the river
. He whispered and whispered until the woman rose from this chair and left the house during an unobserved moment. She walked the road to the river slowly, following the footprints he made her see there. She climbed the railing of the bridge. She stood over the rushing river water with her arms spread wide like the wings of a circling eagle. And when he whispered that it was time, she fell as a diving eagle falls, into the water.

In the years that followed, he had waited for another chance to enter this world and complete his task, and here, in Brandon, he had found it. He made a fist and felt the strength in this forearm, the blood coursing through these veins like river water through the narrows. This body was young and strong. This would do.

The boy settled into the chair, feeling the cool wood of the floor beneath his bare feet. Directly in front of him, he saw his reflection in the window, this body he inhabited, this boy Bran. He put his hand to the reflection and saw only one hand now, his own.

“What are you doing?”

The boy turned to the voice and found the girl named Hannah at the door to the living room. She strode towards him so quickly he flinched and put a hand up to protect himself, expecting the blows he had experienced as the boy Samuel. When she didn't strike, he looked up, trying to make sense of her. He was still confused by this world, its shifting light, the reflections from his own that flickered and flitted about this place. Elaine followed Hannah into the room as a shadow, gliding behind her, matching her daughter's movements, mirroring her.

“Get up!” Hannah told him. “You don't sit in that chair. No one sits in the captain's chair. That was Mom's chair.”

He understood at least something of what she said. He had been listening in as the other—Bran—went about his days, taking note, learning—or relearning—the language. Still, he was uncertain. Would he give himself away if he spoke? He wouldn't chance it. There was still so much to do.

Instead he stood in front of the chair, as she demanded.

“I'm not going through this again,” she said. “You're not doing this!” Hannah took the boy by the arm and pulled him away. Then she picked up the chair and stormed out of the room with it. “No one is ever sitting in this chair again,” she said. “It's gone. I'm throwing it on Jesse's dump load.”

The boy heard the kitchen door bang shut behind her as she left the house. Then he retrieved a wooden chair from the dining room table and carried it into the living room. He positioned it carefully in front of the window to
afford him the best view of the cliff face and then he sat, to look beyond his own reflection.

Brandon was there, walking on the surface of the water, his spirit wandering aimlessly on the river. The tether between his spirit and this body was becoming ever more tenuous. Soon the connection would be lost altogether and Bran would walk the spirit path. Already, without Bran's thoughts interfering with his own, the boy felt more lucid. His purpose was clear. He
must
save his people, and this time, nothing would stop him. Not the weakness of a woman. Not the limitations imposed by a child's undeveloped mind. He looked beyond Bran, beyond the river, to the lightning on the cliff face, settled both hands on the armrests, and began.

THE CATTLE WERE
edgy, uncooperative, as they always were before a storm. Hannah had resorted to using her grandfather's yellow plastic herding cane to steer, poke and occasionally hit the cows and calves so they'd follow the fenceline into the holding pen. Abby trotted back and forth, keeping the animals moving. The dog knew her job. Once the cattle were in the pen, Jesse walked them through the funnel entrance into the loading chute and then, one by one, into the stock trailer.

This was livestock day at the small local auction house. Jesse would take this load of cattle today and haul the rest to auction in the weeks that followed. In the pasture nearby, the remaining Herefords lay in a group, huddling together as they usually did before a rain. They eyed the animals in the holding pen and listened, ears cocked, to those moaning within the stock trailer. Hannah was sure they understood they were next. Cows were not the dull beasts they were
so often imagined to be. While the heifers were nervous around Jesse, the oldest had trotted towards him with recognition when he first fed them on his return. After all these years they still remembered him.

Jesse handled the animals with a confidence that Hannah lacked. She had rarely helped her grandfather work the cattle and even then only grudgingly. She had her own many household chores, so the task of working with Stew to move the cows had most often fallen on Brandon, and he wasn't in any shape to help. When she had last checked on him he was still sitting in a chair in front of the living-room window, as he had for nearly a week now. She couldn't get him to move, except to sleep. He no longer answered when she spoke to him. He only stared out at the river, the cliff beyond, as her mother had. Hannah had always assumed it was the drugs that had made her mother so unresponsive, and she had blamed her father for forcing the medication on her. But Bran wasn't yet taking anything. His appointment with the psychiatrist wasn't until Friday.

Hannah hung Stew's herding cane on the railing of the holding pen and leaned over it, stunned by the sudden and unexpected grief she felt, at Bran's illness, yes, but also at the loss of these animals. They were only cows after all. They weren't pets—Stew had made sure she understood this early—but they were companions of a sort. She had lived with many of these animals for as long as she could remember and knew their individual personalities, moods and preferences. Abby took up her post at Hannah's feet, as she would have sat beside Stew in the past, looking as
if she shared Hannah's sorrow. Perhaps she did. Had the dog recognized that Stew wasn't coming home?

“What about the horses?” Hannah asked her father.

Jesse walked another cow into the loading chute. “Gina said she'd take the strawberry roan,” he said. “I imagine I'll sell the rest at auction.”

“Her name is Spice,” Hannah told him. “Grandpa's mare. Her name is Spice.”

Jesse turned to his daughter. “If there's one horse you want, maybe we could find a way. If you're staying in the area, maybe Gina could keep it for you.”

Hannah shook her head. She had mucked out the horses' stalls, brushed them down, fed them and talked to them, but she hadn't ridden a horse since the day of her mother's funeral, when she had jumped on the back of her grandfather's mare bareback and, holding her mane, tore across the bridge and through the reserve to the logging road that wound up Little Mountain. She rode past the bald spot above the cliff face, and through the forest beyond, until the horse, spooked by something Hannah couldn't see, or perhaps by her own fresh grief, charged beneath low-hanging cedar boughs, trying to dislodge Hannah from her back. Hannah had held on, whipped and bloodied by branches, until she finally fell, tumbling downhill through snowy boxwood and kinnikinnick, prickly Oregon grape and salal. She had lain there in the slushy snow, winded and bruised, listening as the horse snorted and charged madly through an otherwise silent forest without her. Later, the horse had found her way back on her own, after Hannah had limped home.

Jesse looked up at Little Mountain, at the huge thunderhead that mushroomed above it. “Strange to see a thunderstorm building this time of year,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. She tasted the bitter, metallic tang of ions and ozone in the air, the taste of lightning, despite the bite of winter cold. “Remember that storm over Little Mountain the Halloween when Mom was sick?” she asked. “The lightning was right on us. Thunder boomed so hard it shook the windows in the house. I crawled into bed with you and Mom because I was so scared.”

“Your mom tried to go out into it, but I dragged her back to bed and held her there. I held you both.”

Hannah turned to face her father. “That was the last night I can remember feeling like we were a family. Everything fell apart after that.”

Jesse kept his eyes on the storm building above Little Mountain but said, “I am sorry I have to sell the place.”

“Are you?” she asked.

Before he could answer, his attention was drawn past Hannah. She turned to see several trucks pull to a halt in front of the bridge, kicking up a cloud of dust. Construction workers wearing fluorescent vests and hard hats got out of each of the trucks and marched onto the bridge. Alex was the only protestor there on this weekday morning. He rose from his lawn chair to block the men's passage.

“Are they taking down the blockade?” Jesse asked Hannah. “Trying to enforce that court order on their own?”

“I don't know.”

Jesse looked at his watch. “I've got to get to the auction.
Let's get the rest of these cows loaded.”

But Hannah was watching Alex and the men who had swarmed around him. “Can you just give me a minute?” Hannah didn't wait for Jesse to answer. She jumped the wooden fence of the holding pen, cut through the pasture and climbed through the barbed-wire fence at the road. As she reached the bridge, a couple of the men from the construction crew threw protest signs over the railings. Another was shouting, jabbing his finger at Alex's chest, which Alex did his best to ignore as he talked into his cell. Hannah realized the angry man was the father of one of her classmates from high school. His last name was Holman. “What's going on?” she asked.

“You shouldn't be here,” Alex told her, still holding his cell to his ear. He grabbed her hand, squeezed and let go, urging her to leave.

“You got no right to be here either,” Holman told Alex, and ripped down another of the protest signs and threw it over the railing. The sign, which read
O Canada, Your Home on Native Land
, turned circles in the eddies below. “Go home,” he told Alex. “We're going back to work.”

“I don't think so,” Alex said, tapping the screen on his phone to end his call.

“Who's going to stop us?” Holman asked him. “You?” He looked Alex up and down. Hannah suddenly saw Alex as Holman did, still so much the boy.

“I phoned a few friends to join the party,” Alex said. He pointed across the river, at the activity his calls had
sparked on the reserve. A number of people were leaving their homes to join them on the bridge.

Holman held up his own cell. “Good for you,” he said. “I'll phone the cops. There's a court order already in place that says you got no right to be here.” As Holman made his call, one of the other men from the construction crew began a chant that all the workers picked up: “Go home, go home, go home…”

Holman ended his call and yanked down the remaining protest signs. When Alex attempted to stop him, he pushed Alex back hard.

“Hey!” said Hannah. She stepped between the men. “Leave him alone.”

Holman was tall enough to look right over her. “Fucking lazy Indian. Maybe you've got nothing better to do than sit around collecting welfare. But we've got to work—we've got mouths to feed.”

“Alex has a degree,” Hannah protested. Alex hadn't yet found work in the region, but since his return, he had offered several storytelling and acting workshops in area schools and libraries.

“Hannah, don't,” said Alex.

She looked at each of the men in turn. “Any one of you got a degree?”

“Yeah, so what's his degree in?”

Hannah hesitated. “Theatre.”

The men burst into laughter. “Hear that, boys? He's an actor.” Holman turned back to Alex. “I work on contract. I
don't get the work done, I don't get paid. You know how much I've lost because of you? How much my family has lost?”

Hannah put her hand on Holman's arm to get him to look down at her. He smelled of diesel. “Do you understand just how much will be lost if you finish that road and that development?” she asked him. “Do you know what that development could do to the river?”

Holman's glance slid to Hannah's hand on his arm, but then Abby barked from the pasture behind them and Holman looked past her. “What the fuck?” he said.

Hannah turned to see her brother walking towards them. He was naked and barefoot, stepping gingerly on the gravel as if each footfall was painful. In the holding pen behind him, Jesse fought to get the last of the cows into the trailer, oblivious to his son, bare-assed and shivering on the road.

“Jesus,” said Hannah. She took off her jean jacket and jogged towards her brother. As she met him, he looked through her rather than at her, to Little Mountain beyond. “What are you doing?” she asked. She attempted to tie her jean jacket around Brandon's waist, but he pushed her away and kept plodding. She got in his way. “Brandon, stop this. You can't walk around naked. Come on, let's go home.”

Brandon appraised her dully and then watched as an eagle circled low over their heads and drifted down to land on the dead branches of the pine standing at the footings of the bridge. The bird was a juvenile with rough, unfinished plumage. Brandon tilted his head, as if listening to it, though the bird made no sound, only looked down at him with one yellow eye.

The men from the construction crew laughed nervously at the odd sight of this naked boy. They would soon guess about Brandon's illness. Everyone would know. Hannah saw Gina's dark figure watching from her living-room window.
Shit
. Gina would take over as she always did. She would push for Brandon's hospitalization just as she had for Stew's.

Hannah took her brother by the shoulders. “Brandon! Let's go back to the house.” But he shrugged her off and started walking. “Bran,” Hannah pleaded, taking his arm again in an attempt to lead him home, but her brother yanked himself from her grip and walked unsteadily towards the bridge. He was stronger than she was now. She couldn't stop him.

The men from the construction crew parted for Brandon, and, one by one, the Shuswap protestors did the same. Brandon ignored them all—the laughing men in their fluorescent work vests, Alex's whispering cousins, aunts and uncles—as he made his way to the rise at the midpoint of the bridge.

Alex grabbed Hannah's hand to stop her from following her brother, then wrapped his arms around her from behind, holding her back. “Just watch,” he whispered into her ear. “See what he does.”

Brandon stopped at the high point of the bridge, staring up at the pictograph on Little Mountain like some open-mouthed, mentally disabled kid. Hannah strained to get out of Alex's grip, to reach her brother, but Alex wouldn't let her go. “Wait,” he said.

Brandon climbed the wooden railing and stood there swaying a little on the top rail, finding his balance. “He's going to jump off!” Hannah cried. “He's trying to kill himself.”

Alex breathed into her neck. “I don't think so.”

“Someone help him!” Hannah called out to the Shuswap protestors, but none of them moved. She knew these men and women. They would help anyone in the community, on either side of the river, for any reason, but now they seemed unwilling to interfere. No, Hannah thought, scanning their faces. They were afraid.

“I told them Grandpa Dennis's story,” Alex explained. “They know what the mystery is capable of, what's coming. Or, if they don't believe me, they're curious to see what he'll do.”

Hannah turned within Alex's arms in an attempt to get free, but he wouldn't let her go. She saw Gina striding down the road towards them, in navy skirt and heels. Hannah craned to see her father closing the door on the stock trailer. “Jesse!” Hannah yelled. “Dad!”

From the road, Gina picked up her cry. “Jesse!” And finally he stepped out from behind the trailer to see Brandon standing naked on the top railing of the bridge. He leapt over the holding pen and sprinted towards them with Abby barking at his heels.

“Alex, let me go!”

“Wait for it.”

The juvenile eagle left its perch on the dead pine and circled above them, casting a moving shadow like the zigzag of lightning against the cliff face. Then Brandon raised
his arms to the sky and the blue-green clouds immediately coalesced directly overhead, boiling in a circle at an unnatural speed. Almost at once the storm broke on them: lightning flashed over Little Mountain, and thunder boomed in the clouds above.

“Jesus,” said Hannah, flinching.

“He's practising,” said Alex. “He's building his strength, testing Brandon to see if he's strong enough.”

“Strong enough for what?”

“You'll see.”

Hannah felt the electricity of the storm suddenly gather around them. Her skin under Alex's hands tingled. The hairs on her arms and on Brandon's head stood on end. She heard a buzzing and turned to see the metal rods on the protestors' tent glowing blue with St. Elmo's fire.

“Shit,” said Alex. He let Hannah go, and she immediately scrambled to her brother. Behind her, Alex shouted, “Hannah, no!” And then, “Everyone, get off the bridge! Now! Lightning is going to hit.
Here
.” The construction crew scattered back to the relative safety of their trucks. The protestors fled the bridge in the opposite direction, to the reserve beyond.