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Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three

God, what's happening to me? She lay her head down on the cold gray Formica table to ease the throbbing in her chest. It was as if someone had their hand around her heart and was squeezing the life out of it. Suddenly the image of another place flashed into her mind, a small familiar place. But the colours were wrong, the angle wrong. There was a smell of blood and a searing pain and a strangled cry. The vision bathed her in a sense of foreboding.

"You're name Cathleen McCaffrey?" She could barely hear his voice across the table in the interrogation room of the Waller Street Police Station. She squinted in the direction of the speaker. He was hazy, on the other side of her dissolving vision. A vision or the dregs of the hashish Julian had brought over last night, she asked herself. What had Julian called it? Black Leb, best hash on the market. A bunch of them had smoked it from a hookah at their Glen Avenue flop house. Was it Julian who had screwed her or someone else? She couldn't remember. Best stuff made you forget everything.

"Miss McCaffrey, I am Corporal Hooper of the RCMP Fraud Investigation Unit and this is Constable Bedard. We would like to ask you a few questions."

"I know my rights. You may have me on possession, but we didn't have enough for trafficking." Reality was fanning away the haze. Think straight, Kate, she cautioned herself, or you'll dig yourself in deeper.

"Says here this is your third trip to Waller Street and the charges were dropped on both priors by order of the Police Chief. Maybe you won't be so lucky this time." The one named Hooper smirked as he spoke.

"You're the Narc, you tell me."

"We're not from Narcotic, Cat'leen. Fraud Investigation, remember?" The other one spoke this time in a lilting Quebecois accent.

"B'en Qu'es-que tu veux?" she shot back in an accent from the streets.

"Ton pere. Ses affaires. "

"Va t'en bas." She stood up, made her way to the door and pounded her fist into the metal. "Someone let me out of here."

"You may as well talk to us, Cat'leen. No one will come until we finish 'ere."

"What makes you think I know anything about my father's business?" she spat back after returning to her chair.

"Come now, you must know something. You're still living with him, more-or-less, when you're not with your loser friends at Glen Avenue. We've been eavesdropping on your phone conversations for the last couple of months. Sounds like you're a real good listener." Hooper replied quietly.

She felt the adrenaline rise in her gut. Fight or flight, the memory of her anthropology professor lecturing on the subject at Carleton University popped into her head as she sat listening to the words of Dudley-Do-Right.

"You have no right violating my privacy or my father's privacy."

"We have a warrant to tap your father's phone." Hooper smiled apologetically.

His words leapt down her throat, burned at the pit of her stomach. Jesus what had they said to each other in the past while, beyond his pleading with her to come back home and her insistence that he get the hell out of her life? She looked deeply into the English one's eyes and thought she detected fear, the smell of blood.

"I have nothing to say to you." she hissed back.

"Pas une bonne idee, ma chere." The Frenchman whispered. "Aiding and abetting, not reporting what you know, it's all the same to a judge. Tu es complice d'un crime, an accomplice, hein? It will go bad for you when we catch him."

"Bedard is right, Cathleen. You'll be charged and tried as if you had committed the crimes yourself. Think about it. It's the right thing to do. You know that. A lot of good people have suffered because of your father. Maxwell Hendry killed himself. I wouldn't want that on my conscience." Corporal Hooper handed her his business card and reached for a button under the table.

"You're free to go, Miss McCaffrey, it seems your father is still a force to be reckoned with in this city, but for how much longer?"

*

Bedard lit up a Gitaine as they watched the woman disappear down the hall. "Maudit Irelandais! The only thing worse is a Limey slut. Think they own the godammed country, collis!"

But she didn't quite fit the part to Brian Hooper's thinking. Sure her eyes were that typical Irish blue-green, her nose and cheeks were covered in freckles and the thick wavy hair that cascaded down her shoulders was a rich strawberry blonde-colour you so often saw on the "Come to Eire" posters. But she didn't have that north European height or build. In fact if she weighed more than ninety pounds soaking wet, or stood taller than the middle of his chest, he would have been surprised. Her face was a little too broad, her cheekbones too high, her features too big. And her skin. To one as sensitive to physical characteristics as he had trained himself to be, it was plain to see that her skin was too dark to be of Irish descent. She had an eerie look about her, he mused, piercing, intimidating, like a disabled eagle on a keeper's arm.

Weird chick, he thought as he passed his hand across his face. All the time he had been speaking to her he had wanted to get up and run away and his nose had been filled with the smell of blood. Weird chick.

"That's your problem, Lucien, you only see things in terms of race." Hooper ran a hand through a stubby thatch of jet-black hair and fanned Bedard's smoke away from his face. "You miss a lot that way."

"Oh. I was wondering why they gave this case to you, mon noir. You can see into the soul. So tell me, medicine man, what do you see in that bitch's soul, or does she 'ave one at all?"

Hooper felt the heat rise in his cheeks knew that his anger was escaping from his eyes. Was it just another one of Lucien's stupid remarks or was he echoing the current water cooler talk? In any event he decided then and there that he had had enough of this arrogant Pepsi. The Commander could go to hell with his "Bilingual/Bicultural Balance in the Unit". He would have him sent back to Vice as soon as possible.

White Earth Ojibway Reservation, Minnesota, February, 1973

"My father will want her buried in Ottawa." Cathleen found it difficult to meet the elder woman's eyes.

"Four days." The old woman took her hand and stroked it gently. It gave Cathleen the courage to look into her face, look into her dark cow-eyes framed by deep-set smile lines and grizzled eyebrows.

"Four days 'til what, Nookomis Mina?"

"We will make our own ceremony for your Nana. You will see. It will be the time for her spirit to join her ancestors. Then you can take her body back to her white family."

They sat quietly in her grandmother's cabin. It was typical of the shacks on the Rez, no electricity, no plumbing, save the hand pump at the pitted-gray porcelain sink. In the summer, water drained quickly into the back yard where Nana had grown corn, pumpkin and squash. But by February, it could take half a day for sink water to seep below the frost line. In a corner an old black woodstove held court on a slate platform demanding that anyone who dared live there see to its insatiable appetite. Its black pipes snaked across the wooden beams to the closed-in bedroom at the opposite end. The rest of the space was split between a parlour and a kitchen. In the parlour was a threadbare armchair flanked by a mismatched ottoman, some odd lamp tables and a rag rug. In the kitchen with its ill-fitting cupboards, a solid table sheltering press-back chairs. Decorating the rough-hewn stucco walls were an odd assortment of pictures, of Jesus and Mary displaying pierced hearts and stigmata and dogs dressed like people playing cards.

Cathleen and Nookomis Mina sat at the table, an old pine thing painted glossy green, chipped here and there where it was most vulnerable. Nana's round brown teapot rose from its surface, like some sacred vessel. The tea was piping hot and plentiful.

Nookomis Mina leaned over to pour them both another cup. "You been comin' here every summer for ten years now, ever since your grandmother come back to us, to her people. We're your people too, Cathleen, whether you like it or not."

"I know, Nookomis." But her tone seemed false to her own ears. At best she could only claim a connection of familiarity, she mused, certainly not a blood relationship. Even Nana couldn't have claimed that. And yet Nana had chosen to return to this place, a place where she had always been an outsider even though it had meant leaving the farm, Aunt Lilith and Auntie Bridget and her only grandchild behind.

No, it had been much more than that. She had left her, abandoned her, like her mother had abandoned her for death, and her father had abandoned her for his business. Empty words, Nookomis Mina, she thought. When Nana's memory fades from this place, you'll abandon me too.

She sighed deeply and smiled at the old woman as she took another sip of tea. Less than a week ago she had been cooling her heels in Waller Street Police Station, listening to threats from some two-bit Mounties. The memory of her vision trickled through her mind. It had been a warning, she mused, Nana's way of telling her something was wrong. If she had only listened to it, maybe she could have done something. Instead, here she was, sitting in Nana's wood-frame cabin in the middle of White Earth, Minnesota. Annie McCaffrey, her Nana, the only person who had taken the time and interest to know who she really lay dead in a morgue back in Duluth.

The last couple of days felt like a nightmare of flickering shapes created by a smoky coal-oil lamp on dark walls. The cabin with its sweet smell of burning wood mixed with mothballs and Yardley's Lavender was no longer a refuge from her guilt, from her sense of shame. Now it was as lonely a shell as the inside of her head, cold, despite the proximity of the woodstove, empty despite Nookomis Mina's warm hand on hers.

When Elijah Landreville, Chief of the White Earth Ojibway had called Ottawa three days ago, his message had been short and to the point. "Your grandmother is sick. She wants you to come."

"My father will want to come too. She had responded.

"No, only you."

She knew her father would be concerned, maybe even hurt when she told him what was going on. Deep down, she knew also that he would be relieved not having to leave the safety of his latest real estate scam for a bloody Indian reservation.

His Lincoln had been oppressively warm during the ride to the airport. She had glanced longingly at the controls, unbuttoned her down-filled parka but did not dare to reach over to switch the heat off or roll the window down. Daddy didn't like people telling him what to do in any space he called his own.

"Who's meeting you in Duluth?" he asked without taking his eyes off the road.

"I don't know. Elijah said he would send someone."

"Well whoever it is make sure you gas up before heading out. Damn people never think of those things. And make sure the heap they're driving has a chance in hell of making it back to White Earth. This time of year you'll freeze to death waiting for someone to stop and help."

"Yes, daddy." she sighed trying to block out his "damn Indian" speech.

"You got that credit card I gave you?"

"Yes, I have it."

"Well use it. If you have any doubts, just use it."

"I'll be back in a couple of days." She assured him, as she kissed him good-bye at the airport. "You know Nana, it's just her way."

"It's always been her way, Cathleen." His hug had been tight, tense, his kiss preoccupied.

As the plane reached cruising altitude, she looked out at the perfect turquoise sky and then down at the billowy clouds that seemed to be propping her up. The brilliance of it all made her eyes heavy, her body relax. She leaned back into memories of run-down shacks made beautiful by the people who lived in them, children, barefoot and dirty, rag-covered and laughing as they invented fantastic stories and games around bent wire and wheel rims rescued from the nearby garbage dump. Memories of her time there, welcomed, accepted even, but set apart in their ramshackle world by clean clothes, light hair and eyes, stung her as they always did whenever she journeyed back to White Earth.

She tried easing the pain with the Time magazine she had picked up. On the cover there was a picture of armed men with long hair and painted faces standing defiantly in front of a white clapboard church. The caption read, "Siege at Wounded Knee". She found the cover story and read the articles surrounding the subject. An interview with Dennis Banks, a radical Ojibway from Leech Lake Reserve caught her attention.

"You think the genocide has stopped? Well think again. The weapons you use today are far more effective than guns. Alcohol, poverty, residential schools, all these thing are killing Indian people in larger numbers than the Gatling guns you used to wipe us out here eighty three years ago. You are killing us from the inside out."

"Killing us from the inside out." She stored his words in a place deep within her, close to where the pain lived.

Elijah met her in Duluth, his black Stetson with the lone eagle feather towering above the crowd as she stepped through Immigration. The airport was busy with travelers. He seemed so serene, so muted against the backdrop of frosted mink coats. Musak drowned out his quiet greeting, but not his radiant smile. They made their way out, against the oncoming crowd, Elijah leading the way.

He hoisted her heavy valise into the bed of the battered old pickup before scrambling up into the ratty seat of the cab. When he started the tired engine she glanced instinctively to the gas gauge only to realize that it was broken. He caught her intent and smiled warmly. "I filled up on the way here." After some coaxing with the gears, the pickup jerked grudgingly toward the exit.

"Your grandmother is dying." He waited until they had cleared the airport parking lot and were on the expressway to speak. "Last week she took a bad turn, so we brought her into town. The doctor said there was nothing he could do, she is too old and her heart is bad. She wanted to go home, but I took her to Matthew Cardinale's place instead, because I knew she wouldn't make it back."

"Why didn't you tell me this on the phone? Nana should be with her family, not at Matthew Cardinale's house." He had deliberately limited her options, her father's options, even Nana's options she thought. Anger rose in her chest.

Elijah Landreville's face grew hard, his tone cold. "She wants to see you, no one else." They made their way down the road in the silence of the labouring engine and the metallic vibration of loose parts.

Matthew Cardinale's house was crowded with White Earth people. She tried not to glare at the familiar faces as she stepped through the front door. Instead she followed Elijah to a room in the back of the house where her grandmother lay. Elijah went to Nana's head and whispered something. The only word Cathleen could make out was "ninga".

Eyes closed, the old woman extended a shaky hand in her direction. Cathleen knelt at the bedside and clutched the hand to her heart. "I'm here, Nana." Her tears overflowed onto the old woman's translucent skin. Nana was too weak to speak, but she managed a familiar smile, one that had always felt like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Only then did Cathleen notice the fragrance of burning sweet grass, and the soft voice of Mina Wolf-Healer chanting tunelessly somewhere behind her. She glanced over to Elijah on the other side of the bed, his face stone somber, his long braids askew from removing his hat. He was holding Nana's other hand. Her own son should be here, Cathleen thought. But her anger was banished by a wash of serenity and resignation. Peace and contentment passed into her heart through the fluttering pulse of the old woman's fingers. It was as if she was telling her that things were exactly as they should be.

Cathleen looked over to Elijah Landreville as he sat, his eyes fixed on Nana's face. A sense of loss, overwhelming, misplaced, to her way of thinking seemed to be reflected in the way he held his jaw and knit his brow. How important could one old white woman be to be to the chief of an Indian reservation?

Within a couple of hours, the old woman's breathing became laboured, and her muscles tightened to an unspoken pain. All in the tiny room waited in silence until the old woman's head sank back into the rose-patterned pillowcase and her last breath eased out of her lifeless body. Cathleen sat motionless, still holding on, waiting for Nana to inhale again, one second, then one minute, then two. She turned from her grandmother's peaceful face, distracted by the glint of a knife and watched Elijah hack off his braids. He placed them in the old woman's hand, the one he had held as she slipped away.

****

Now she shivered in the frosty air of Nana's cabin as she opened her eyes to the next morning, the first sunrise without her grandmother. A sense of hideous loss seared through her body. She curled up to staunch it, dragged her cheek through the tears on her pillow. "How am I supposed to go on without you?" she whispered.

After awhile she realized Mina Wolf-Healer was sitting in the wicker rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom. Her wizened face echoed her own sorrow, her eyes silently shared her pain.

"What time is it?" Cathleen stretched her arms above her as she spoke.

Nookomis Mina looked out the window and squinted toward the winter sun. "Mid-morning." It was another one of those damn Indian things that daddy found so irritating. But mid-morning was about as close to accurate as they ever got.

"I need to go into town to phone home. My father will want her buried in Ottawa." She struggled out of the warm bed and shrunk back when her feet touched the ice-cold linoleum floor.

The old woman smiled and brought her Nana's knit slippers. "Four days," she smiled.

After breakfast Mina led her out to the shed that leaned crookedly against the kitchen door and tapped her cane on the arched cover of an old steamer trunk in the corner. "Bring it into the house." The trunk was too heavy and cumbersome to carry, so Cathleen dragged it across the threshold by its mottled leather handle. The lock was brittle as the old woman turned the key. The smell of mothballs and sage filled her nostrils as the lid squeaked open.

"Last winter, your grandmother showed me what was in this box. She asked me to open it for you after she died." The tissue crackled and scattered like desiccated leaves as Nookomis Mina uncovered the first layer. "This box is full of relics and remembrances of your ancestors. It was the box of your grandmother, who we knew by her real name, Meya'wigobiwik, a Mide, a healer woman of the Bear Clan. Now it is the box of Cathleen McCaffrey who must find her own name among the people."

"What people, Nookomis? You're not making any sense."

Mina ignored her question, turned her attention back to the box. She reached for a packet covered in tattered paper and placed it in Cathleen's hands. "This is a Bear Clan medicine bundle. The contents of this pouch are sacred to your family. Meya' opened it only rarely in her lifetime and she never felt worthy of the honour. I trust you not to open it until you have been purified, until you take your place among the people." She gently wrested it from her and restored it to the box. "You can look at the rest of the things on your own. Each one of them has great meaning to your past. Each one of them represents a stone in your circle."

"What do you mean, my circle? Why would Nana have a sacred bundle, she was Catholic to the core? God, she forced me to say the rosary every night I spent with her."

Mina only smiled and again rummaged about in the steamer trunk. Her eyes mirrored success and she drew out a thick black notebook. "When your grandmother returned to White Earth, she knew the day would come when either her line would continue through you, or it would be lost forever to what she called the hollow. She said, just like her, you would someday have to choose between the path of the Wayaabishkiiwed and the path of the Anishinaa'beg. I think she knew all along that your time of choosing would come only after her spirit crossed over."

Cathleen felt her heart pounding as she listened to Mina's words, half-wished she could believe what she was hearing. But logic was against it. This was 1973 for heaven sake. Religion was dead, God was dead. How could she choose something that didn't exist anymore except in the minds of eccentric old Indians?

"Look at me, Nookomis Mina. I am a white woman, not an Indian. Nana was white too. Her own family still doesn't know why she left Breckenridge to come here. How can I possibly choose to be an Indian when I'm white?"

"Your grandmother was the daughter of two Anishinaa'bee people, Mitig'wakik, known to you as Delia Landreville, and Ickwe'saigun, my uncle."

"No, Mina, Nana's father's name was Anthony Graham."

"Your Grandmother was born before the Wayaabishkiiwed pony soldier named Anthony Graham took Delia Landreville as his wife."

She fell silent, stunned by what the old woman said. Why hadn't Nana ever said anything about this? Why had she left the telling of this to a stranger? Why?

"She told you in other ways, Cathleen. You must have suspected it." Nookomis Mina spoke as if she had read her mind.

"No, I accepted all of it as Nana's way. From the time I was little she never explained herself. She just ...did."

"Meya' feared your father, what he would do if you ever went home with tales of your true self. She told me that it was more important that you be able to come here and live among your people than know the truth and be kept from them."

"Then why didn't she tell me when I grew older? Surely I could have kept the secret then? God knows, I carry my share of family secrets."

"It was for that very reason, Cathleen. She knew how heavy your spirit was already and questioned the wisdom of burdening it even more."

But knowing didn't change anything, did it? She was still the daughter of two Irish Catholics, even if as it turned out, one of them was a half-breed Indian. What did genetics matter anyway? Hadn't she been raised in a white world by seemingly white people?

Mina smiled and offered her the notebook. "Let Meya' tell you the story. She wrote it for you, so that you would have the wisdom to choose your path."

Cathleen took the notebook, tentatively at first, but then clutched it to her chest, It's all I have left of her, she thought. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. Nookomis Mina hugged her gently, stroked her soft blonde hair with gnarled leathery fingers.

"Now I have to go. Welfare workers took away Donna Stone's kids last night. They will be scattered across the country by tomorrow if we don't go and get them back. I'll be here when you need me." She whispered in her ear, and left silently, as if dissolving into the air.

My beloved Cathleen. How I wish I were here to help you through the loss I know you are feeling. If the Great Mystery, whom we call the Gitchi-Manitou granted my wish, then you and my son Elijah were with me at the end, and all has happened as the ancestors wanted it.

"Her son." Cathleen closed the notebook and conjured up Elijah Landreville in her mind, an imposing man, standing proud and muscular even in middle age, giant hands, equally dexterous on the land as in his law office. She searched the grizzled features of his aging face for similarities with Nana's, with her own and smiled when she found them. But who was his father? When was he born? Where?

She turned her attention to the trunk. Inside was another box, with SEARS ROEBUCK embossed on the lid. She laid out the contents, a moth-worn blue serge military jacket with pitted brass buttons, one missing, a yellowed newspaper clipping and a short note addressed to Meya'. "It is time you made your choice. The people need you more than ever." it said.

The newspaper clipping was an obituary of someone named Vincent Landreville, born August 16, 1885, deceased June 7, 1962. She nodded to herself as she read on; "...father of Elijah." He too had been a lawyer, a land-claims expert and General Council to the Sandy Lake Ojibway. The last phrase was written in a phonetic transcription of the Ojibway language. K'neekaunissinaun, waukwenng k'd'izhau.

The jacket was very old, frayed badly at the cuffs and hem, gold cord patchy where it lay hidden from time and use. Where it had worn away at the elbows there were buckskin patches, brightly embroidered circles with animals and the sun. She stroked one of the buttons and squinted to read the worn inscription; "US 7th Cavalry".

Back to the trunk, she lifted out something wrapped in blue tissue paper. It was a doeskin shift, bleached white, embroidered with bear symbols in brightly coloured cloth, dyed quill and beads. There were moccasins of equally intricate design that tied just below the knee. Another tissue-wrapped bundle contained a plain blouse, yellowed with time and a gray wool skirt, badly moth-eaten. Both were heavily stained copper-brown in the front.

Scattered at the bottom of the trunk were sepia-toned photographs of Nana as a young woman, of Grandpa McCaffrey in uniform, an album of photos taken at Breckenridge around the time of the First World War, judging by the dress of the people. The same farmhouse she had known as a child peeked unchanged through the same trees. She stopped at the picture of a tall woman stuffed into a high-collared Victorian dress with leg-o-mutton sleeves. Someone had written "Delia" on the back. This is my great-grandmother.

A striking Indian woman stared seriously back at her across time. She wondered if her father had ever seen this photo for indeed this was the first time she had ever laid eyes on it herself. In the same envelope was a picture of a slight man, boyish almost, in a stiff gray suit, sporting a mustache that seemed too big for his face. She recognized him from an old family photograph in the farmhouse back in Breckenridge. This was Anthony Graham.

Another envelope was marked "Vincent 1916", in Nana's handwriting. In it was a framed picture of a young Indian warrior, intense in expression, staring at an unknown point. He wore a simple headdress of four eagle feathers. Long black hair mixed with beaded tendrils cascaded freely over his shoulders. His right hand held a crooked stick, wound with rawhide and ornamented with feathers and bones. His left hand, was hidden behind a hooped shield with the mark of a bear paw in the centre. Half covering a buckskin shirt, and the many beaded necklaces around his neck was the blue serge military jacket with the missing button.

At the very bottom of the trunk was a stiff birch bark cylinder a little over a foot long. Tendrils of beaded rawhide decorated one side of the cylinder and the birch caps at either end were embroidered in dyed quillwork. She gently pried one of the caps off and slipped the buckskin-wrapped object out. It was a pipe, like the ones she had seen in old westerns. Its bowl was made out of finely sculpted red clay, imprinted with a tiny wolf's head. An eagle feather set in rawhide hung down from where the bowl joined the burnished brown wood of its bore. She set it down in front of her to admire its simple beauty.

In what seemed to be an order that made sense, she lined the pictures up on the rug in front of the ceremonial pipe, the military jacket, the doeskin shift and the blouse and skirt. She scanned her work, and made adjustments. The pipe and the blue-serge jacket belonged together, the woman in Victorian clothes needed to be placed with the doeskin shift and the picture of Anthony Graham belonged on top of the stained gray skirt. To her the arrangement seemed a shorthand of a story eighty-three years long, the black notebook, a key to these things. But how could things tell a story better than words?

She sat on the floor, arms clutched around her knees, half-expecting the relics to start telling their own story. The objects created an uneasy silence in her mind, drew her back to the sad time in her life, a time without Nana, when she had chosen to turn her back on magic, replace it with Glen Avenue and drugs. At first she thought living on the edge would be just as satisfying, just as effective at soothing her soul as going to White Earth. But sex and drugs, even Black Leb, could only take her so far before reality came crashing back around her. Nana's crazy ways, her stories, her old rundown cabin, and all the weird people in this place could make her forget everything, if only for the summer months.

She picked up the notebook and opened it. With her fingers she sought Nana's mystical touch across the indented trails of blue ink. But it was like reaching for a shadow.

Concerning the events of July 1962

"I started this journal in The Hollow, when I received a box in the mail. It was postmarked White Earth, Minnesota, and I think I knew before I opened it what would be inside. It was of course my father's jacket, the one Vincent Gidagaakoons and No'dinens found in his cabin after he was killed. Mina had sent it to me along with the write-up in the Tomahawk of Vincent's death. What I didn't expect was Mina's request to return. After so many years of being away, why was it important for me to go home, why now?

"Do you remember how to go on a vision quest? Mina telephoned the next day to ask me this. "The question you must ask the Gitchi-Manitou is Who am I? Where do I belong?"

She was right. For many long years I had tried to be both Indian and White and knew I had failed to be either. I thought I had struck a compromise by building a third person out of the ashes of the first two, but even this fell short of my spirit. With Vincent's passing, I had lost a way back to my first identity. The time had come to find another way, or stay put.

A vision quest is a sacred journey not to be made lightly or without preparation. I couldn't build a proper sweatlodge, but Bridget, Lilith and I improvised one out of tarpaulin drop sheets and rope. The kitchen stove and a cauldron of water served as our source of heat and steam.

We took the telephone off the hook, stripped off our clothing and climbed inside our makeshift sweatlodge. If anyone had wandered by, they would have thought that those three old bats had finally gone crazy after living together for so long. Bridget and Lilith were adamant that they share this stage of my quest for fear I would topple over or maybe for fear that I was really losing my mind. We started with prayers to Jesus and all the saints, to our ancestors and to the Gitchi-Manitou. I fasted and prayed and sweat to prepare for my vision.

By the morning of the fourth day, I slipped into the place where visions lived. Bridget brought me to my favourite spot overlooking the beaver dam at the mouth of Blue Sea Lake. She laid a blanket down for me to sit on and guided me to it. Then she retreated down the hillside to leave me to the forces of my vision.

As I sat there, the sounds of birds and running water drifted away and were replaced by thick heavy sheets of snow blowing in a heartbeat rhythm, blinding my path stealing my breath. I had no idea where I was, only that I was walking against the wind. I looked around for a point of reference and found it in the dull snowy glow of the winter sun. I could hear a baby crying in the distance.

"Annie, come over here. The baby is over here." Through the wall of snow, I heard a familiar voice.

"Lilith, is that you?" I called out as I made my way toward it. The snow squall lifted, and there she stood, my precious stepsister, wings spread against the blinding snow, her gray dove body as large as a human body.

"Do you remember this place, Annie?"

"No, but I feel cold and hungry." The baby was still crying, only louder now. Lilith motioned me over to a pile of something, half-covered in snow. As I made my way over to it, I noticed someone else in a soldier-blue greatcoat walking toward the same pile. The pile heaved a little and then lay still. I reached it before he did. The stench of blood, of filthy clothes and stale gunpowder was overpowering.

"This is Wounded Knee. My mother is here."

"That's right, Annie." Lilith beamed at me from the other side of the pile as if she were proud of me for solving the riddle.

"And the baby is me."

The soldier pulled the stiff corpses from the top of the pile until he got to the bottom and the source of the crying. Mama looked up at him in resignation, young and beautiful and covered in rags.

"Stand up." The soldier motioned to her with the bayonet attached to the muzzle of his rifle. Mama stood up slowly, silently clutching her crying bundle close to her breast. They stood facing each other until another soldier rode up.

"What's this, Corporal Graham?"

"A squaw Sir, and a baby. I found her under some bodies." The soldier on horseback paced around the disheveled scene. "Is she the only one?"

"Yes Sir."

"Finish her off and continue with your detail." The soldier rode away before the Corporal could acknowledge his order.

He lowered his rifle and went over to get a closer look. Mama pulled away her tattered blanket and smiled faintly at him. "It's a girl," she said quietly in English. He bit his lip hard and then looked around at the dozen or so groups of men scattered across the flat firing their guns intermittently, loading corpses onto buckboards.

"Can you walk?" he asked her.

Mama nodded as she covered me back up. The Corporal took off his greatcoat and threw it around Mama's shoulders. He guided her to the nearest wagon.

Lilith took my hand and led me away from the buckboard that the soldier had found for Mama and the baby. She guided me to her back and we flew over the snowy badlands into summer. We entered a clearing filled with Indian People, laughing and chatting with each other. At the far end of the clearing was a long dome-shaped lodge made of ironwood poles and canvas tarpaulin shellacked green and stiff.

"Look Lilith, A waginogon." I turned to my stepsister in delight and then realized that I hadn't uttered an Anishinaa'bee word in thirty years. The realization filled me with remorse. "What ceremony?"

"Sundance." She smiled at me and pointed to a doeskin shift set with shimmering bead and quillwork. "Remember? It was your first time in the Sacred Circle. The Elders chose you to be White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman."

"And Vincent Gidagaakoons was the Sundancer." I added. I wanted to kiss her for bringing me back to this place, but when I reached for her, she dissolved into a breeze on my cheek.

"Do you remember White Buffalo Calf-Pipe Woman's lesson?" She whispered in my ear as she swept around my head.

"All creation is one, and we are joined to everything in the Sacred Circle of life." more words I hadn't spoken in a long time.

The drum began to beat slowly and the people began gathering inside the waginogon. I joined my mother and the other women in the inner circle. I was nine years old again, and the doeskin shift was too big for me. Mama led me around the inner circle in a slow sidestepping dance.

The Elders led Vincent into the centre circle, fresh and glistening from a ceremonial sweat. He was naked except for a loincloth, and painted all over with the symbols of our Clan, Bear Clan. His face and arms were covered in black ash. It was like he was in a trance. Nookomis Dinah, the healer woman and Jacob Two Fingers, Vincent's uncle-stepfather brought him the Clan pipe to smoke. Vincent offered the pipe to the ancestors in thanks for letting him join them in the Sundance.

Jacob took his knife and pierced Vincent just above his nipples so that the bone awls could be inserted. Blood flowed over his chest, Vincent stood proud, trying hard not to wince at the pain. The Elders blew eagle-bone whistles and the drums beat to the rhythm of our hearts. Once the awls were in place, Jacob fastened a rawhide rope to them and then to a sturdy branch of a poplar tree stretched taut and buried in the earth for the ceremony. He tied buffalo skulls, ancient war prizes from the Lakota, to Vincent's ankles. He gave Vincent his own bone whistle to blow and placed an eagle feather in each of his hands.

Vincent started his dance at the eastern point of the tree and moved on the same path as the sun, toward the south, and then the west, and then the north. At the four key points of the circle, he leaned against the rope and blew the bone whistle. I continued dancing, outside his circle but with him in spirit, feeling his pain, smelling his blood.

He danced until his skin tore away from the bone awls and he fell backwards to the hard dirt floor. The drums went silent and I stopped. The Elders helped him to his feet, took the eagle feathers from his hands and gave him a bowl of cooked corn and wild rice. The circle of people parted as he stumbled and swayed over to where I stood. I smiled shyly to him, took a handful of the mixture and broke my fast. He smiled back then fell to his knees, exhausted.

Summer bled into the red leaves of fall and the soft arch of the waginogon sharpened into the angles of a little brick house set into the folds of the Gatineau Hills. Lilith resumed her human shape and we sat on the front stoop watching the sun set over the fields.

"Do you remember what Father Brennan used to say, Annie?"

"He said, it didn't matter what name you gave to God or to Jesus or what stories you told to celebrate His power. It was the idea that counted, nothing else. The only thing that mattered was that you celebrated the idea," I replied looking off to the red horizon.

"Annie, you've stopped celebrating, haven't you?"

I looked up at her, surprised "I go to Mass as often as I can, say the Beads five times a day. You and Bridget say them with me." But my words only made her shake her head.

"You go through the motions well enough, but you don't believe in it. When you were a child dancing in the ceremonies, when you told me White Earth stories in secret and scattered sweet grass in the wind, the idea was alive." She sighed and looked across the field toward the setting sun. I reached into her mind for the idea in her eyes. Her thoughts formed on my lips, "Time is running out."

"The day you decided to abandon the idea and live only in its form, you started dying, your people started dying. Look at the sun, it's going down, Annie. And it's a pity too. You already know that the little girl born of your white son is a shaman child, born with visions and the ability to reach into the mind and heal. Without your guidance how will she find her Sacred Path? How will you find your own?"

As she spoke, I felt tears well up in my eyes. For the first time in a long time I started crying, sobbing with grief over the waste I was bringing down upon my ancestors and my descendants. I tasted the tears of regret over paths not followed, children not raised, love not consummated. In the distance I heard someone calling me "Annie, wake up." I felt a hand on my shoulder shaking me. I opened my eyes to searing sunlight and a shaded face leaning into my own. "Are you all right? Do you know who you are?" the dark figure asked.

I answered in the voice of a made decision. "I am Meya'wigibiwik, The One Who Stands Strong."

"Do you believe I'm a shaman child, Nookomis Mina?" Cathleen picked at the wild rice soup the old woman had brought her for lunch. It was warm and plain with chunks of musty- tasting meat. The little bit that found her stomach made a big difference to the chill she felt inside.

"You could be, like your grandmother. It is something that lies waiting inside until it is called up." Nookomis Mina looked over to where she had arranged the items on the rug and smiled. "You did a pretty good job putting those things in order. Where do you think that came from?" She tapped the middle of her chest to indicate the answer.

"Tell me about vision quests, Nookomis." She laid the spoon to the side of her bowl. What harm was there escaping in myth and magic, for the moment at least?

"A vision in our language is called ina'bandumo'win. Women have them more easily than men because they come with pain. And we alone suffer the pain of childbirth. That is why Anishinaa'bee men honour women and take their council seriously. Not like Lakota men who make their women walk behind them and exclude them from the sweatlodge."

Nookomis Mina laughed heartily and slapped her knee "My grandmother used to tell me the only reason she would ever walk behind a man was to kick his behind."

"You must prepare for ina'bandumo'win." she continued, "Go without food, purify yourself with sweats, pray to the Gitchi-Manitou. Men and sometimes even women Sundance so the ina'bandumo'win will come. And when the vision time does comes, the Gitchi-Manitou may reveal your secret name, give you power against your enemy, tell you what path to take. Anything can happen."

The old woman stopped the lesson abruptly and began clearing the dishes from the table. "Leave them in the sink. I'll do them in the morning. You need to get back to your reading."

Cathleen wrapped herself in a blanket and settled into Nana's old armchair. She thought about Dennis Banks' words again, about dying from the inside out. Ever since daddy had involved her in his business deals, a black cloud had descended. Listless, without purpose or connection, she knew she had been drifting, cutting herself off from everyone around her, from everything that was happening. And now she too was dead from the inside out, happily dead, she thought, until Nana reminded her with real death that there were still living parts left.

Daddy had been too busy to listen to her when she was little, uncomfortable when she had asked him the questions that had mattered so much. "Why did Mommy die? Where is she now?" Instead she found herself shipped off to The Hollow as often as possible where answers came in stories told while milking cows and feeding chickens.

Then Nana left, just like that, no explanation, no good-byes. Oh sure she made daddy promise to let her spend summer with her, after all it was damn convenient for him. But where did that leave her for the other nine months?

She had never been a child, she mused. No, she was a resource, someone to lean on, even when she was too young to understand what he was doing.

"Do you love daddy more than anyone else in the world, Katie?"

She winced at the memory of these words. "Oh yes, daddy." And she felt sick when she thought about her reply.

Then there was the ledger. From the time she was thirteen and daddy figured she was old enough to understand what she was doing, he had called upon her loyalty, on the same blood that flowed through their veins to keep secret account of his evil. She became his witness, his notary.

Was it any wonder that White Earth had become a refuge, that she had gladly exchanged marble floors and a whirlpool bath for no floors at all and an outdoor privy? Nana's only demand was that she nurture herself and repair her spirit. Nana had been the reflecting pond, where she had found the courage to look at herself for who she was.

Daddy demanded everything from her, gave her nothing in return except money and a gilded roof over her head. Nana asked for nothing, gave her everything in return. Or had she?

Now the RCMP were vying for her services as well. It wasn't enough that she had to chronicle the horror of her father's deeds, reduce blackmail, extortion and bribery to debits and credits and a bottom line. Now she was expected to go against the blood in her veins, call the dogs down on her own flesh.

Me, shaman woman to the Bear Clan People. I don't think so, Nana. Try Judas Goat or Glen Avenue loser or better still, daddy's little whore.

It's too late now. she sighed, too late for me, never time for me. She picked up the black notebook and flipped to the section where she had left off. Shall I pierce my chest and dance for my vision, Nana? She laughed silently. I don't think I would even feel pain if you drove a stake through my heart right now.

When I returned to White Earth in the fall of 1962, memories flooded back in abundance, gifts from the ancestors. The odjitcag, the spirit of my father spoke to me every night, telling me to write this down and then that. Where do I begin? I prayed. And he answered in the wind at my window, "Begin where your vision left off." Of course.

White Earth Reservation, the latter half of 1901

When I was young, Indian religion and Indian ceremonies were against the law. Many of them still are. We had to conduct them in secret, in places where the white man would not find us. Our word for white man was "Wayaabishkiiwed".

The Sundance ceremony was one that the Wayaabishkiiwed were particularly afraid of because it made warriors out of young men. So when Herbert Wold, the Indian Agent for our reservation got wind that there had been one in June 1901, he ordered all the men of the village to appear before him. Because my Papa, Anthony Graham, had been a pony soldier and had fought the Indians when he was young, Mr. Wold asked him to act as his deputy.

Papa was glad whenever the white people involved him in their affairs. His marriage to my mother, the squaw who should have died at Wounded Knee, had exiled him from his own kind. He disliked Indian people in general, and the Sandy Lake Ojibway in particular. So it must have gotten mighty lonely for him at times.

Mama understood this, as only she could and tried to ease his pain by creating a circle of white life around him. When he was at home, she cooked beef and spoke English to everyone who entered our house. She learned to read and write so she could understand what was important to him and speak with knowledge about it. She even became a Catholic and had me baptized too so he would rest easy about where we would spend eternity.

But then again, as only she could, she also remained true to her own people. As soon as Papa was out of range, she reverted to the traditional ways and assumed her role as Elder and Healer to the Bear Clan people.

The Elders asked Mr. Wold if they could be present when the inspections were done, hoping that when they got to Vincent, they would be able to intercede on his behalf and keep him out of jail. Since Mama was an Elder she was allowed to go in with the rest of them, and I slipped in behind her. They had to use the assembly hall attached to the Bureau Office to hold all of us, the Council of Elders, Papa, Mr. Wold and the rest of the Indian men. It was already hot when we packed in there and I remember the room smelling of fresh sweat mixed with the pine of the creaky floorboards. We opened the windows full and wedged both doors to let whatever little breeze there was come wafting in. Papa ordered all gathered to stand by a far wall, gave Mama a sharp look when he noticed she was there. But when he saw me peeking out from behind her skirt, he pulled her aside and told her to take me home. She smiled at him, the way she always did when she knew she wasn't going to obey and said, "It will hold everything up." Papa stormed off to the other side of the room.

The inspections began, the Elder men going first. They proudly pointed at old scars and challenged Mr. Wold to arrest them. He just checked their names off the list and moved on. Many of the men had Sundance marks, and I believe it frightened Papa and Mr. Wold to see them. No one else could tell though, from their official manner.

Finally they came to Vincent. He unbuttoned his shirt, let it drop to the floor and then stood as proudly as he could. His whole chest was covered in so many cuts and scrapes that you couldn't make out the Sundance marks from the rest. Except for the sound of hands fanning the hot air, everyone in the room went silent, waiting to see how Mr. Wold would react.

"What happened to you, boy?" He asked him, but Vincent wouldn't answer.

Jacob Two-Fingers stepped forward. "Excuse me, sir, but he don't speak English. I can ask him for you, if you want."

"Go ahead."

Jacob turned to Vincent and spoke to him in our language. I remember thinking about how funny it was that we could understand both sides of what was said and the Wayaabishkiiwed couldn't.

"What did you do to your chest Gidagaakoons Sundancer?"

"Tell them I fell on a barbed-wire fence." Vincent remained stone-faced as he spoke.

"He says he was out late last night and tripped over a pile of barbed-wire in the dark."

Mr. Wold looked unconvinced. "Ask him what he was doing out so late."

"The barbed-wire was a good idea. Do not worry, son. I think I can take care of it from here. Just say something to me so they think you are answering their question."

"If this does not work, it is a good day to die, Nindede."

Jacob turned back to the Indian Agent. "He says he was hot and he needed to pee. When he got outside, he decided not to use the outhouse and went for the bushes instead. That's where he fell on the barbed wire."

Papa and Mr. Wold approached Vincent for a closer look. The Elders watched without expression as the two inspected the area of his chest where you would expect to find Sundance wounds.

"How old is this boy, Jacob?" Mr. Wold spoke as he returned to his desk.

"Fourteen."

"He's a little old not to be knowing English." The agent challenged him.

"His folks were trappers, lived in the bush all their lives. No need for English. He only came to live with me last year, after his people died."

"Messed himself up real good, Jacob. Good enough that we can't be sure what we're lookin' at here." Mr. Wold spoke loud enough that we could all hear him. "You tell him this for me. I got my eye on him. Better drop that cocky young buck attitude real quick, or he'll be cooling it off in a cell upstate."

Jacob nodded and turned to Vincent. "You fooled them good, Gidagaakoons." Jacob bent down and picked his shirt up for him. "But be careful from now on, watch your back, these Wayaabishkiiwed are afraid of you."

"They should be afraid." Vincent took his shirt from his stepfather and strode out of the hall.

Cathleen retrieved the picture of Vincent Landreville from the rug and ran her fingers across the dusty glass. She felt drawn to him, to his fighting spirit and his contempt for those who were trying to kill him from the inside out.

Why was it she had seen only their passive acceptance of the system, and their quiet desolation numbed in alcohol and methyl's? It was as if Vincent's defiance had come and gone without notice. But then Nana must have noticed, she thought. It must have drawn her to him.

Where did Nana fit into all this? she wondered. Did she return to White Earth to take up Vincent's fight after he died? In all the years she had been coming to the rez, she had never seen her take on any white who came calling, or challenge any system that governed her people. There had been no clandestine meetings that she could remember, no confrontations with the police, not even polite conversations with white officials.

No fights, only children, lots of dirty little faces screaming around the place. In fact whenever she came there was always some kid living in the cabin with her, sometimes two. Nana would never explain what they were doing there. Instead she would say "This is Myron, this is Doris. You children decide who gets the couch and who gets the floor." She drifted back over the memory of summertime filled with adventure and exploration. After playing all day in the neighbouring woods, the gang of them would pile back to the cabin for meals of roasted corn and squash, and something called manomin, wild rice boiled with maple sugar. And then there were the stories, told by moonlight, of magical creatures called manitou and tricksters, tales of the beginning of the earth and of how the animals got their names. Nana could spin a tale that would make your eyes as round as saucers, and the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

But of all the images she had of her grandmother, there were none that came close to that of revolutionary.

The Sundance incident was the last straw for the white community. Their laws weren't enough to stop the spread of evil and savage ways on the reservation. What they needed to do was build a school so they could at least save the Indian children and make them good Christian Americans. So in September 1901, they told the Anishinaa'bee Council of Elders that the Jesuits would set up a school. They would have to send all the children to it or lose their winter rations.

The Council met in secret to discuss what this would mean. Mama went along and she took me with her. They met around the stove in Nookomis Dinah's kitchen, over bowls of corn soup and steaming raspberry-leaf tea.

"I have heard of these places." I remember Nookomis Dinah, saying to those who were there. "Some of them make the children live away from their families, make them feel ashamed of being Indian. I have even heard they beat the old ways out of them. Residential schools, they call them."

"What can we do? They will starve us out." Jacob Two-Fingers spoke as he inhaled the pungent steam of his tea.

"When the children get home from the Wayaabishkiiwed School, then we can take over." This was the shaman woman's advice, and they all knew that she spoke with true wisdom and spirit. The Council of Elders agreed.

The Indian Bureau called the village to a meeting shortly after that to introduce the community to the new schoolteachers and officials. A school board had been elected from the white members of the church up Spengler way.

The meeting started with a prayer. "Oh God, who has entrusted us with the upbringing and succor of the ignorant savages on this reservation, grant us the strength and wisdom to guide them into your everlasting kingdom. Through Christ our Lord, Amen."

Herbert Wold, the Indian Agent was first to speak. "All children between the ages of five and sixteen must attend school. Until the new schoolhouse is completed next spring, you will bring your children to the Indian Bureau Office starting next Monday at 9:00 in the morning. Now I'll pass you over to our new Principal, Father Larose."

Father Larose was a little man, Muk-a-day'i-konayayg, Blackrobe like the rest of the priests on the reservation. He wore thick little glasses that made his round eyes seem even smaller. And when he spoke, he tucked his hands into the sleeves of his cassock making his upper body like a hoop with a big silver cross in the centre.

"The children will wear uniforms, the girls, a black dress with white collar and cuffs, the boys, black pants, white shirt, and a black tie. Shoes for both girls and boys will be black Oxfords. Girls will tie their hair back in a modest fashion, no braids, no feathers, no ornaments. Boys will wear their hair cut short, no feathers, no ornaments. Your children will be educated in English and taught the same things as all Catholic American children. And when the time comes, they will receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Communion. Any use of the Ojibway language is forbidden. Any practice of the Ojibway religion is forbidden. Any child or adult caught violating these rules will be severely punished. Any questions?"

"So much black." I remember thinking, "Why do the Wayaabishkiwed want to turn everything black?"

The room was silent. We had learned long ago not to react to anything they said to us. But Jacob Two-Fingers raised his hand anyway. "I have a question for Father Larose. Where we goin' to get the money to buy all these fancy clothes for our children?"

"The clothes will be provided to you." Mr. Wold answered him. "Their cost will be deducted from tribal payments for the next three months. It will be up to you to keep them neat and clean. Any other questions?"

"Three months, so we starve anyway." Jacob Two Fingers, countered under his breath. Mama hushed him with an elbow deftly planted in his ribs.

The following Monday we went down to the Indian Office to go to school. It would be a long time before our uniforms arrived, but the parents tried to put on a good face by dressing us in our Sunday best.

I walked to the Indian Bureau with Vincent Gidagaakoons. He looked worried and upset. "Jacob says you can already read. And you speak their language well enough," Vincent said.

"Yeah, my Papa taught me." We kicked a stone back and forth as we ambled down the lane.

"So far, I have avoided the Wayaabishkiiwed and their strange ways, Annie. I do not think I will ever get used to them."

"Are you afraid, Gidagaakoons Sundancer?" I taunted him, as any child would taunt another.

"Me? Afraid?" He bunted me into a pile of raked leaves and dirty snow but not before I grabbed him and took him down with me. I wondered as we walked jostling each other and laughing how Vincent would get along in school without English.

On the first day, the Sister asked each one of us to stand and tell her our name and age and whether we could read or write. When my turn came, I stood tall and smiled, like Mama had told me.

"Annie Graham. I can read and I can write some."

"Your father is white, isn't he, Annie Graham?"

"Yes, Sister."

She moved on to Vincent. He swallowed hard and stood up, but he didn't say a word.

"Well?" The Sister was getting angry.

So I stood up. "His name is Vincent Landreville, Sister. He's my cousin." I didn't tell her his Indian name because it would have given her power over him. "He can only speak Indian, and he knows he'll get punished if he does that."

"So I don't suppose he can read?"

"I don't think so, Sister."

She sighed and moved on. I smiled at Vincent and motioned him to sit down. From that point I knew for sure that I would have to be his lookout. It was only right, he was after all, a warrior and a Sundancer, and I had been his White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman.

Although he was five years older than I was, they put him in my class because they thought he was simple-minded. I decided to sit close to him, so I could whisper the teacher's instructions to him when she wasn't looking

The morning our uniforms came, Vincent and I had a good laugh at each other. Jacob had cut Vincent's coarse hair short, and it stuck up all over the place making him look even less like a respectable schoolboy than his long plaits had. It had been a hard thing for him to lose his hair. Among the people, long hair was an indication of strength and good medicine. Jacob told him that the Sundance protected him now, and his long hair would only cause him trouble in White Earth. Vincent looked silly in the white shirt and tie, like some dressed-up wild animal. All his life he had worn only hand-sewn deerskin moccasins lined in rabbit fur. The stiff oxfords rubbed his heels and toes into angry red blisters.

"Hey Annie, you look like one of those Sisters in that black dress." He poked at my collar and pulled on the hem.

"You look pretty funny too. I have never seen a Gidagaakoons wearing shoes?" The thought of a deer dressed up as a schoolboy made us laugh even harder. Vincent fanned his hands out alongside his ears to imitate antlers, pawed the earth like a buck and then knocked me over into a snowbank. We played warring bucks all the way to the Indian Bureau Office. But as we reached the steps, Vincent's body straightened into defiance, his face darkened to dead serious and we entered the building.

Sister St. Michael came up behind us and asked us to approach her desk. "I want you to tell Vincent that he must try to learn English if I am going to teach him anything."

"Sister, I'll have to say it in Indian."

"That's ok, Annie, I'm asking you to speak to him for me."

I turned to Vincent. "She says you have to learn English so she can teach you."

"What could she possibly teach me? I already know what I need to know."

I turned to the Sister wondering what to say and then remembered how Jacob had taken liberties translating for him at the assembly hall. "He says he'll try."

"Good, you tell him I expect him to be speaking to me directly very soon."

I turned to Vincent trying to look as serious as possible. "If you will not learn from them, then you will have to learn from me, Vincent. They will not let you get away with it."

My words brought an arrogant smile to his face. "You tell her that I am Bear Clan, and my ancestors made the river red with the blood of her people. That is all I have to learn in my life."

"He says Thank You, Sister."

She waved us back to our seats.

All that morning I worried about him. He looked like he was going to walk right out of there at any minute. At lunch we sat down together in the assembly hall, as far away from the teachers as we could. He took his shoes off to relieve his aching feet. We both watched as Father Larose loped over.

"Put your shoes back on, boy." the priest ordered.

"Please, Father, his feet are hurting real bad. He'll put them on when we go back to class." I tried to defend him.

"Return to your class now, Miss Graham."

Vincent stood up slowly, staring coldly into the priest's eyes, clenching his fists in preparation for a fight. I had to say something to stop him.

"Debwe, Vincent, put your shoes on, or he will send you to jail."

They both looked at me in horror. Father Larose turned to face me as I put my hands over my mouth. Wisdom replaced anger in Vincent's face and he sat down to put his shoes on.

"I'm sorry, Father." I tried to rescue myself.

Forgetting about Vincent, the priest grabbed me by the arm and hauled me back to Sister St Michael. They discussed what to do with me as if I wasn't there. It was my first offense, Sister argued, and I was the child of a white man. What good would it do to strap me?

"Send a note home to her father," she said. "Let him deal with her in his own way. The best punishment for that defiant Indian boy as well as Annie is humiliation."

So they forced me to kneel at my desk with my arms outstretched for the rest of the afternoon and pray Hail Mary's for forgiveness. I didn't think about myself or how much my shoulders hurt after awhile, and I didn't pray to Mary to forgive my sin. All I could think about was Vincent behind me and how ashamed and how angry he felt. Instead I prayed to the ancestors that they would grant him the wisdom to hold his temper. When Sister finally rang the afternoon bell, I sat back on my knees thankful that my prayers had been answered.

On the way home he was sullen. I knew his pride was hurt, and I wished there was some way to fix it. "Do not feel bad, Vincent. I was honoured to protect a Sundancer."

"I will make them pay." He kicked snow into the air and hammered his fist into his hand.

As I watched him bluster and fume, it struck me that he had missed the point the Elders had so often tried to teach us. Someone had to set him straight, and I guess I would have to be that someone. "Have you not heard a word Nookomis Dinah or your Nindede has spoken, Vincent Gidagaakoons? Have all those years in the bush made your head soft? The Elders tell us over and over again this is Sixth Fire time, you cannot fight them. There are as many of them as black flies in the summer. The Elders say you must find your way inside, where they cannot go, remember? So what if you have to learn to read and speak English? They cannot take away your pride, unless you give it to them. Learn their language and their ways. It will only make you stronger in your own ways. Use your head to defeat them, because you will not be able to use anything else."

He stopped and smiled at me, touched my face. "Jacob told me you were born at a great massacre of the Lakota by the Wayaabiishkiwed pony soldiers."

"It is the story my mother tells." I felt embarrassed and turned away from him.

"Maybe that is what makes you strong." He looked into the sky and down the street as he thought things out. After a bit, he turned to me and smiled. "I used to think you were weak and corrupt with Wayaabishkiwed blood. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I will learn to read and write, and learn to speak their evil language. But I will learn from the people, from you, not them."

Somehow the trouble waiting for me at home didn't seem all that bad knowing that I had gotten through to Vincent. From that day on, Gidagaakoons Sundancer came over after supper whenever he could to make good on his plan. He learned quickly, first from me until I could no longer teach him, then from Mama.

At school he was still cold and arrogant to the teachers and the priests. But at least he answered when spoken to, and he did what was expected of him. Before the new schoolhouse was finished, he no longer needed me to translate for him, and they had to move him into the senior grade to satisfy his growing reading and writing skills. I missed not having him beside me in class, not looking out for him. But then we still walked together in the morning and the evening, and we did our homework together at my dining room table."

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