Northwest Angle

FORTY-ONE

The child woke at first light. Jenny lifted him from the bedding inside the ice chest that had cradled him all night and walked away from where Aaron and Stephen still lay in their sleeping bags, dead to the world. From the stovepipe atop Meloux’s cabin, smoke rose white against the faint blue of the dawn sky, and Jenny could smell biscuits baking. She saw light through an open window, heard the whisper of quiet conversation inside, and thought about joining Rainy and Henry, who were clearly awake. For a little while, however, she wanted to be alone with Waaboo.

There was a path that led away from the cabin, across the meadow, and through an outcropping of tall rocks. On the other side was a fire ring full of the ash of many fires and surrounded by sections of tree trunk cut to serve as stools. Jenny had been there on many occasions with her father and Stephen, while Henry Meloux fed sage and cedar to the fire in the ring. It was a place sacred to the old Mide. She sat on one of the makeshift stools, and stared at the water of Iron Lake not more than a dozen feet away, smooth and gray as smoked glass. Somewhere on the lake a loon cried and another answered.

“Waaboozoons,” she said aloud. She brushed his fine black hair with her fingertips and stared down into his dark eyes, which stared right back at her. “What are you thinking, Little Rabbit?”

“Not much,” came the reply, but it didn’t come from Little Rabbit. It was Henry Meloux who’d spoken.

Jenny looked up as the old man walked slowly toward her from the opening in the rocks. He wore overalls and a long-sleeved flannel shirt, though the day was warm already and promised to be hot. He wore no hat, and his long white hair hung down and framed his face, which was like sandstone fractured by time and the elements. His old dog, Walleye, came with him, padding softly at his heels. Meloux seated himself on a sawed section of tree trunk next to Jenny. Waaboo’s eyes swung toward him briefly, then back to Jenny’s face.

“He does not think,” Meloux said. “He only feels. And what he feels is comfort and love. What every child should feel, but some do not. This one is lucky.”

“His mother was killed, Henry. How lucky is that?”

“But he is alive. And he found you, and you found him.”

Walleye had taken an interest in the child. He put his wet, black nose near Waaboo and sniffed, and his tail thumped the ground. Then he walked in a circle twice and lay down near Meloux.

The old Mide watched the baby in Jenny’s arms, his eyes warm with affection. “I don’t claim to understand the Great Mystery that is Kitchimanidoo, but I believe that nothing happens without purpose. This child has been given to you for a reason.”

“He’s not mine, Henry. I’m sure the authorities will find someone else they’ll say he belongs to.”

“Belongs.” Meloux seemed to consider the word. “I believe no one belongs to anyone else. You, me, Waaboozoons, we are all dust borrowed for a little while from Grandmother Earth. And even that dust does not belong to her. She has borrowed it from all creation, which is the Great Mystery, which is Kitchimanidoo. And if you ask this old man, I would say that another way to think about Kitchimanidoo is as a great gift. Kitchimanidoo is not about keeping. Nothing belongs to anyone. All of creation is meant as a giving.”

“I’m not sure that a white court would see it that way, Henry.”

The old man smiled. “Think big.”

Rainy appeared between the rocks and came toward them. In one hand she held a bottle prepared for the baby, in the other, a steaming mug. She brought them both to Jenny.

“What’s this?” Jenny asked, taking the mug.

“An old Ojibwe brew,” Rainy replied with a sly smile. “Henry taught me how to make it.”

The old man nodded. “I have seen it help a woman make milk. If you are going to be mother to this child, it would be a good thing to be a mother in all ways.”

“What’s in it?”

Rainy said, “It’s safe, Jenny. Don’t worry. And it’s really rather good.”

Jenny sipped and found that Rainy was right. It tasted of blackberry and honey and something that she couldn’t identify but that wasn’t at all unpleasant.

“It may help,” Meloux said. “But I believe there is something powerful at work here that will help you more.”

“What, Henry?”

“I will let you think about that,” he said. “I am going back to the cabin. Come on, old dog. You are probably hungry. I know I am.”

Walleye eased himself to his feet.

Rainy said, “I’ll be there in a minute, Uncle Henry.”

“I can butter and jam my own biscuit, Niece,” he replied, a bit churlish.

He walked away slowly, and Walleye followed at a pace that kept him easily at the old man’s side.

When he’d gone, Rainy explained, “He’s generally okay with me being here, but he sometimes gets resentful of my nursing.”

“What do you do for him?”

“Mostly the heavy work. His washing and the cooking and the cleaning. I go into Allouette for groceries,” she said, speaking of the larger of the two communities on the Iron Lake Reservation. “I charge my cell phone while I’m there.”

“You walk?”

“My Jeep’s parked on a logging road a couple of miles from here. Henry, if he could, would walk the whole way into town and back. He’s done it all his life. Until now.”

“He has to be well over ninety,” Jenny said. “Isn’t it about time he slowed down?”

“Try telling that to Uncle Henry.”

The baby pulled away from Jenny and began to fuss in a way that she had learned was all about his empty stomach. Rainy handed her the bottle. Jenny tested the warmth of the formula with a few drops against her wrist. Satisfied, she offered it to Waaboo, who took it immediately. Jenny gently sealed the cleft in his lip with her index finger. She looked up and saw Rainy watching, her almond eyes warm with what Jenny read as approval.

“You told me last night we’d talk more about Henry this morning,” she said. “What’s going on with him?”

“I don’t know,” Rainy said. “And for all his wisdom in the art of healing, he doesn’t either. He believes it has nothing to do with his age, and he may well be right. I’ve known Anishinaabe men and women who’ve lived a good life and worked hard well past a hundred. There’s no reason that Uncle Henry, who’s taken good care of himself all his life, shouldn’t be among them. But something’s threatening him, it’s clear. What that threat is, we just don’t know, either of us.”

“The hand trembling, could it be Parkinson’s?”

“It could be, but with Parkinson’s I’d expect to see more symptoms—the tremors spreading beyond his hands, a shuffling gait, a stoop, compulsive behavior, orthostatic hypotension—which I don’t. It could be a dozen other diseases, although the symptoms don’t really fit very well with any diagnosis I’ve tried on my own so far.”

“He won’t see a doctor?”

Rainy shook her head. “And I’ll respect his wish.”

“Though it may kill him?”

“There are so many things in life we have no control over. Dying ought to be one that we do. If it’s what Uncle Henry wants, that’s the way it will be.”

Jenny said, “This can’t be easy for you.”

The first bit of dawn sun finally inched above the treetops, a sliver of fire that made Iron Lake burn. Rainy stared out across the still, brilliant water and breathed deeply the clean morning air.

“I love this place. I came thinking I could help Uncle Henry. I’ve found that being here has helped me as well.” She smiled at Jenny. “My children are grown and gone. For a long time, I haven’t had a clear direction in my life. Being here, though it’s not always easy, has been a blessing. The one demand I made was that we get a new woodstove so I could cook decently,” she said with a pleasant laugh.

“Stephen said you want to become a member of the Grand Medicine Society.”

“Uncle Henry has been teaching me. If I become a Mide as a result, that would be good. But it’s his knowledge, his wisdom I’m after.” She laughed. “In this, there are no diplomas.”

Waaboo finished his bottle. Jenny laid him against her shoulder and patted him until he’d burped. Then both women stood and turned toward the cabin.

“Migwech,” Jenny said. “For what?”

“For helping Henry. And for helping me.”

Rainy hugged her and said, “Love is the only river I know whose current flows both ways.”