I walked back into the front room. Mike had been gone two hours. I stirred up the fire and put on tea. He'd be coming home cold and in need of something hot. The floor was icy. I got into bed and curled myself into a ball. I felt lonesome. I wished Mike was here. I mustn't go to sleep—the fire's lit. I closed my eyes. I was warm now and drowsy.
Suddenly I was awake, very awake and listening. Someone was knocking. Mike wouldn't knock. I got out of bed and into a bathrobe. The fire was ashes and embers. There was someone at the window—Mike.
He called to me, "Don't open it, Kathy."
I walked to the window and stared out at him.
"I don't want to come in," he said. "Wiya-sha's baby just died of diphtheria. I'll sleep in the office."
"But, Mike ..." I couldn't grasp it.
"If this is an isolated case, it will only be for five or six days. You'll walk down and leave my meals for me, okay?"
"Yes," I said "but—"
"If you need me, just hang a sheet out the window."
"You're sure it was diphtheria?"
"Pretty sure. Listen, darling. Don't worry. About the only precaution you can take is to swab your throat and the kids' with iodine."
"How?"
"With a feather. Dip it in the iodine bottle."
The glass was between us. A red coal smoldering in his hair made me think I was dreaming. But then I saw it was a reflection.
"If you need me, hang out a sheet."
"Yes."
"But when you bring the food down, don't come in. Just leave it on the porch."
"Will it be bad?"
"Maybe not. We'll know by morning."
By morning broken cries and lamentations drifting in from the village woke me. Mary Aroon was frightened and began to cry. I shut all the windows and locked the door.
"It's the wind," I told Mary Aroon.
"Why is it crying?"
"Eat your cereal."
I drew pictures for her, and she colored them with her crayons.
"Mama," and she held up my attempt at a hen which she had colored with barbaric reds and purples.
"That's very nice," I said, "but try to stay inside the lines."
She went at it again. I washed the breakfast dishes and threw out the cold tea that no one had drunk the night before. I splashed the water and rattled the dishes and tried to hum an Irish lullaby, but now and then a wild, despairing cry reached us, and always the moaning underneath. I found myself straining to hear it. Maybe it was the wind, or maybe it was the low, sad notes of old Bill's organ.
I put on Mike's breakfast. While I waited for the toast I looked out at the office. There was no sign of him. But there was a flash of movement over by the group of birch. It was a man running. He was naked. Naked in below zero weather. As I stared, he flung himself into the snow, buried his hands in it, pressed it to him like a covering. A woman ran to him, half-raised him. He reached his arms back longingly and plunged them into the snow. She pulled him to his feet, and, supporting him, they walked a few uneven steps. But his strength had been spent in that first wild flight. He sagged suddenly in her arms; his head fell across her shoulder. She lowered him to the ground, and with her hands under his armpits dragged him past scrub brush and trees until they were hidden. My toast was burning.
"Mama," Mary Aroon held up a pink tree.
"Yes," I said. "It's very pretty!"
By the time Mike's new piece of toast was done he was at the window knocking. Mary Aroon ran and held up the tree and the hen for him to see.
"Kathy," he said, "you've got to help me."
"Mike, are you all right?"
"Fine, but it's everywhere. They're lying four in a bed. Half of 'em don't have food in the house. Those who do can't stand up to get it. Get your biggest pots. Fill 'em with water and boil a couple of pounds of beef and a couple of pounds of rice in 'em."
"Yes," I said.
"When it's done, signal with the sheet and I'll come get it. Put it out on the porch. If you can spare any bread, put that out too."
"Mike!" I yelled it and beat the window because he was turning away. "You've got to have breakfast."
"Later."
"No, now. You're exposing yourself to all those sick people. You'll get sick too if you don't keep up your strength. It's all ready."
"All right." He walked away. I opened the door a crack and set out the food. When the door was safely shut, he came back and began to eat. I told him about the man in the snow.
"Poor devil, fever. Sometimes they do that."
I asked him what he was doing for them.
"Nothing. I passed out all the quinine I had. Now I'm giving them alcohol. It's a stimulant, and that's what's needed. But food is the best. If we can keep their strength up."
He left, but was back in an hour for the soup. I passed out the three pots. It took all my strength to lift them off the stove. I dragged them across the floor and set them on the porch. Mike carried the first two off. On his way back for the third, he told me the Mission was giving food too. It was closed and no one allowed inside. But Father Grouard set out food as I did.
"Sarah and Constance?" I asked.
They were all right, and tending the sick.
"Did you swab out the kids' throats?" Mike asked.
"Yes."
"Well, do it again." And he walked off toward the reserve.
The day dragged on. No one came near the house. Mary Aroon and Ralph took their naps early. They'd played hard and were ready for them. I tried to keep busy. There was a lot of mending to do. I dumped some miscellaneous socks from my work basket into my lap.
I don't know how long I worked. I don't know how long I sat there not working. I realized my fingers had stopped, and that I was listening. I had determined not to listen, but the low drone was hypnotic. It was grief. They were crying for their dead. I tried to picture grief, but I couldn't. Death was the long, black-robed figure with the head of a skull that stalked through posters. But you couldn't make a picture of grief. Grief was negative, not having.
The room darkened and I looked up. There at the window, with
her back to the sun, a woman stood looking at me. Her hair was all undone, and the wind whipped it against her face and body. She held out a bundle to me, and her eyes pleaded.
I walked to the window. I could see how pale she was. Her eyes burned hollow with fever. I couldn't remember her name. I had seen her last week at the store and before that in the village. She lifted her bundle against the glass of the window. It was a baby. Dead and already stiff.
I ran to the door and started to undo the series of bolts I had fastened. Mary Aroon padded in from the bedroom, tripping over her long flannel nightgown. I snatched her up in my arms and threw myself against the door. It was still held by the latch. I set the baby down and frantically shot the bolts. Mary Aroon tagged after me as I ran to the window. I pushed her away. I didn't know—maybe she could catch it through the glass.
"Please," I shouted to the woman, "go back home. I can't let you in."
She remained motionless, holding out her baby as though that answered me.
"What do you want?"
The woman swallowed. She tried to speak. The effort made her choke. She spat in the snow, saliva with queer gray flecks in it.
"Go home. Lie down."
She pushed the dead baby toward me. Her mouth formed a word, formed it again and again. At last I understood.
"Medicine." She wanted medicine for the child.
"Go home," I said. "You're sick, go home."
She mouthed the word at me again, "Medicine."
She continued to look at me. She waited expectantly. She didn't understand.
"Go to Sergeant Mike. Sergeant Mike will give you medicine."
Her eyes dulled, and she shook her head slowly. She's been to Mike; poor Mike, the liquor must have given out too. Or maybe the baby was already dead then. The woman still watched
me. I was the white woman. I was expected to do something. I couldn't stand it.
"I can't help you. Go away, go away!"
She turned obediently and walked off my porch. She walked unsteadily and when the choking seized her, she fell. It was terrible to see her protect the dead baby from the jar with her own body. She made no effort to rise. Her face contorted as she struggled for breath; her body twisted and jerked. Strands of her hair beat at her like lashes. The spasm was still on her, but she looked straight at me and pointed up.
An owl flew over my house. I looked back at her. Was that what she meant, the owl? Her lips drew back, she was laughing at me. No, poor thing, it was only a gasping for breath that didn't come. She fell forward in the snow, across her child. The wind lifted her hair, it crawled uneasily about her.
I turned away from the two dead people in my front yard. I picked up Mary Aroon. She mustn't see. She . . . and all the time the face of the woman was before me. Why had she laughed? I felt it was a curse on me, an unclean thing. If only she hadn't laughed.
But it wasn't her laughing that frightened me so much, it was that bird. What was there—something about an owl—then I remembered. An owl flying over the house brings death. An old Indian superstition.
Twenty-four
Ralph woke crying. The glands under his jaws were swollen. His throat looked red. I put Mary Aroon in our room and hung out the sheet. By the time Mike came, there were large grayish patches in his throat.
"Mike," I said, "do something."
Mike kept hot towels on the baby's throat, and he had me boil water on the stove so the room would be moist.
"Feed him all he'll eat, Kathy."
"No, I want some medicine," I said, and shuddered at the word. That other woman, she'd wanted medicine too.
"There's an antitoxin," Mike said.
"Do you have it here?"
He shook his head. "Take two or three months to bring it in, and the stuff's got to be fresh."
"It's not fair! Just because we don't live in a town."
Mike leaned over and felt the baby's pulse. He didn't say anything when he took his hand away.
I made soup, and when I brought it in Ralph was turning from side to side. Mike held the bowl, and I tried to feed him. But the pain in his throat wouldn't let him swallow.
"Ralph, baby, this is the train we're going to see Grandmother on. It goes to Boston, and this is the way to, Boston, right down the little red lane." Only it wasn't a little red lane. White patches covered it, and it was turning a thick yellow. I drew back frightened.
"It looks like leather."
"It will be all right, Kathy. The disease is just running its course."
"Don't lie to me, Mike," I said.
"I won't, girl,"
Ralph choked. He was fighting for every breath.
That night Mary Aroon held onto her throat and cried. "Mama," she said, "Mama!"
I tacked up her pink tree and the purple and red hen where she could see them. I put the gingham bear on her pillow and fed her.
Ralph began to cough saliva; it had gray flecks in it. The little body twisted. Every organ in him strained for air. Why couldn't I put my own breath into him? Why?
The hoarse rasping sound gave way to a gurgle. Ralph struggled and lay still. Mike bent over him. When he raised his head, I knew. I guess I'd known before. He put his arms around me, but I broke away.
"No!" I said. "No, no!"
Seven hours later, we lost Mary Aroon. I told her we'd go on the sled again, that she could keep the puppy in the house, that he could sleep on her bed. I promised her anything, anything. But the yellow membrane grew in her throat, choking her. I kept the compresses hot. But, suddenly, the writhing stopped.
"Kathy," Mike said.
"But she's never been sick! She's never been sick a day in her life!"
He tried to lift me up, but I clung to her, still promising her the puppy, a rag doll, stories.
"Kathy," he said, "Constance's girl, Barbette, she's been sick since yesterday."
I didn't answer him. I cradled Mary Aroon, I whispered pleading words to her.
"Kathy, don't!"
"All right." I stood up.
"Darling, you can't do any good here. Go to Constance."
Mike, this was Mike, wanting me to do something. I loved Mike, so I packed a basket, I put in the right things; but all the time anger throbbed in me, a terrible anger against this country, this Grouard.
"Mike," I said, and I was careful not to look at him, "if we'd been in a town—"
"Don't, Kathy. You mustn't think like that."
He walked with me, carrying the basket. I couldn't believe they were gone. My babies. Where had they gone to? Was Mary Aroon wandering through a hazy unreal world looking for her mother? And the baby, he was too little even to do that. Or was that the end? Were they only allowed to live a few months and then, nothing? Why? What was it about? I thought of the Chinese painting, the little man, the unimportant man.
"No, it couldn't be like that."
"Kathy, shhh! I love you."
I didn't know I'd spoken out loud.
We walked to Constance's house.
Madeleine sat with Timmy on the steps; she was blue with cold. They watched us go in but didn't say anything.
The fire had gone out. I shivered. Barbette lay on a bed at the far end of the room. Constance was on her knees beside her. She got up slowly and smiled a weary smile.
"Yes," she said. "The food. You brought food. We will take it into the village. There is no need here."
I leaned against the door. It seemed natural to me that Barbette was dead.
After a while Constance spoke again.
She started to ask me about my children, I could see that she did, but she stopped. Mike stood slightly behind me. He must have made some sign.
She put on a sweater, a jacket, and a coat. Mike went out and I heard him say to Tim, "Stick around, I'm going to need you."
He was back in a moment with a couple of sticks. "If you're going into the village, Kathy, I want you to take these. The dogs are dangerous. They haven't been fed for a week."
I nodded and took the sticks from him. There was an ache in me for Mike. I thought of myself holding him, kissing him, drawing the pain out of him. I thought of it, but I knew I wouldn't do it, that I couldn't do it. I went out with Constance. Timmy came around the side of the house with a shovel in his hand. I tried not to see.
We walked on a long way.
Once Constance said, "My dear—" and then, "O God!"
Once I changed the basket to my other hand.
The crying and the moaning closed around me. The first house I walked into, they were all dead but an old woman who sat on the floor, her head covered by a blanket, mourning. I put a half-loaf of bread beside her and went out.
The scene outside the next cabin held me. It was like a drawing I had seen in one of the McTavish books—a vision of William Blake's—and everyone knew he was mad. Out the window hung a pair of legs. And in the snow a young man kept clubbing a snarling phantom of a dog. I grasped my stick in both hands and walked toward them. The dog turned on me. I struck it on the nose and it backed off, whining. Another dog, lean and gaunt and ragged, crawled as close as he dared, on his belly. The two watched, their saliva dripping, while the man lowered the body of a girl into the snow. Lifting her, he climbed on the roof and laid her down.
I looked at the roofs of the other cabins, and for the first time saw the rows of feet. I saw then that there were bodies lashed to the trees too. That's the way Mike kept our meat in the winter. Best refrigeration in the world, he'd say. Only you had to be careful to pick a thin-trunked tree or a sapling so a cat or a bear couldn't climb it.
Here and there what I thought was a shadow detached itself from shadow and jumped, yelping at the trees. The creatures would fall back whining their disappointment and their hunger. Luckily most of the dogs were awa
y with the trappers. Only the females with pups had been left, but now these pups were half-grown, and starving. The Indians fed them twice a week, which was only enough to keep life in them. But who could do even that now? Who could fish for them when sickness was a whirlwind among the people?
The mangy animals at my feet had inched forward. I flailed out with my stick and they cowered. The young Indian slid down from the roof and turned into the empty house. I put the other half-loaf of bread inside the door. He shook his head. "Where her shadow go, I follow."
The soft Cree words hurt his throat. He choked. Why had I not seen how gray his face was? He stumbled and half-fell onto a bed of skins. I rekindled the fire, went to him, but he motioned me away.
"Let me at least bring you warm soup." He shook his head. I sighed and turned away. As I reached the door, he called me back. "Mrs. Mike!"
"Yes," I said. "Let me make you easier."
"The dogs."
I didn't understand.
"The dogs," he said. "They break in maybe."
"I'll wedge the door."
"Yes," he said, "for I must lie here many days. Sergeant Mike, him have one, two, maybe three men help him. We die too fast. . . is not enough."
I wedged the door. I remembered that for the ever-after world of the Crees, they must keep their bodies intact. It would not do to appear before Gitche Manito mauled and torn by huskies.
I hurried past the rows of bodies waiting for Mike's shovel, and into a tepee where three children lay tossing. I hauled water, I set it to boil. It was a poor home; they had only manure to burn. I wrung out compresses. I forced soup down swollen throats. Sometimes the little dark faces blurred, and it was my own two I was fighting for.