He stopped and drank half the glass of water on the podium, spilling some down his jacket, where the drops sparkled in the light until they were absorbed by the cloth. He looked up into the lights, seemed to draw breath, then continued in his earnest rapid-fire baritone.
“We know better about DDT now. But what makes us think we are any smarter about the effects of vast clear-cutting of a very fragile ecosystem? Hah? There are countless unknowns here. And we don’t even know how much we don’t know.”
Finally, when listeners began looking at their watches and some in the rear sidled guiltily out of the hall, he came to an end: “Incompetent forest… ignorance… wood fiber, battles… disturbances… chemical destruction… slow-growing… unstoppable.” He lowered his voice dramatically, paused and then whispered into the microphone, “Now we are finishing off the cold land of little sticks, the great breeding grounds for millions of birds, the cleansing breath of the earth, the spring nutrient runoff to the ocean that revitalizes everything — the beginning of the great food chain. You people,” he said, looking at the audience. “We are killing… the… great… boreal… forest.” There was a frictional hissing sound as people moved in their seats, then small applause and the noise of seats folding back into place as everyone rose. A college official came out and announced that Dr. Onehube would speak at noon the next day on overpopulation — a lecture titled “SRO — Standing Room Only.”
As they left the auditorium Felix heard a man behind him say, “Another tree-hugging eco-nut.” Jeanne’s face was stiff. Without looking at Felix she said, “I feel completely stupid, helpless. What are we doing but cramming our heads with words? Felix, what can we do?”
“I don’t know.” They walked in silence. The rain was finished, pushed along by the rising wind, its raw edge slicing off the water.
• • •
Impossible to go back to the study schedule after the call to activism, but where to begin? Jeanne reorganized the stacks of paper and books on her study table. She came on the profile of Sapatisia Sel torn from the power company’s newsletter and read it with fresh interest.
“Felix, I want to know why she said that the old Mi’kmaw medicine plants can’t be used anymore. I bet she knows how to help the forest. The article says she lives on Cape George. Let’s go find her.”
“How can we get there? No car.”
They left it there for several days. Alice came down with the flu and Jeanne stayed home from classes to run the child care and cook. Alice’s reservation friends brought Mi’kmaw medicines for the sick woman. Jeanne was delighted to see the medicines in use and to hear their clicking names even if she didn’t know what they meant: wijok’jemusi, wisowtakjijkl, pako’si-jipisk, pko’kmin, miti, pakosi, tupsi, l’mu’ji’jmanaqsi, kjimuatkw, stoqon. Morning, noon and night Alice was inundated with washes, gargles, tisanes, decoctions, brews, teas and infusions.
“You see,” said Jeanne to Felix. “The medicines are still used! That Sapatisia has some explaining to do.”
Another week and Alice was on her feet again, cured. “Layin there in bed I decided to give up meetins of the Child Help Program. Just too tired at the end of the day,” she said, and looked it, her round face mottled and puffy as a cheese soufflé.
“Hitchhike,” whispered Jeanne to Felix, who was struggling into his old torn jacket.
“You just won’t give up, will you?” And he was out into the early darkness.
• • •
Alice found the way. “You can get a ride. It seems like,” she said, “Johnny Stick is goin that way. He’s pretty good company now. He started goin to those ‘truth and reconciliation’ meetings a few years ago. Helps to know you are not alone in the boat.”
“What was the matter with him?” asked Felix, who picked up a tone in her voice.
“Oh, that bad stuff from years ago when he was a kid. The resi school.”
“Mr. Stick is all right to take a ride with?”
“Yes. He’s fine. He’s got a carpenter job up there fixin the handrail in the old lighthouse. It hasn’t blinked a blink for sailors for eighty years but the tourists like it. In the summer there’s a chips truck in the parking lot, does good business, so that shaky old handrail, got chip grease and salt all over it. He said be ready tomorrow mornin. Early. Bring your blankets. You can rough it a few nights.”
• • •
Mr. Stick was in his late middle years, his dark jowls clean-shaven. The back of his pickup held an enormous red cooler and under a tarp the handrail sections for the lighthouse. He said, “Nice maple rail. Same finish like one of them no-stick fry pans. So where do y’want to go on the Cape?”
“We don’t know. I mean, we’re looking for a woman named Sapatisia Sel. But we don’t know exactly where she lives.”
“Here’s the deal. You help me put that rail in place you’ll get a round trip and a place to sleep. And your dinner.”
Jeanne nodded. Mr. Stick gazed out at the horizon for a long minute before he snapped to and said gruffly, “Then let’s get goin. Hop in!” He talked as he drove. “I know who you mean. Egga Sel’s daughter. Sapatisia. There’s not too many live out on the Cape except motel and restaurant people in the tourist season. I guess she’s got a place out there. Somewhere.” They all knew everything was for the tourists, the despised tourists who kept Nova Scotia alive.
“She knows about the old Mi’kmaw medicines. That’s why we want to talk to her,” said Jeanne.
“Seen a woman go along the cliffs with a basket. I thought she was a berry picker first time I see her, but it wasn’t the season. I never seen her up close to talk to. I knew Egga pretty good. Long ago. At least I think it was her. Not sure. Cliff path below the lighthouse. Seen her when I was measurin for the handrail. Stayed three nights, slept in the truck and I seen this woman couple times. Must be good stuff grows down there.”
Mr. Stick said, “She’s a Sel. Try and find a Mi’kmaq ain’t related to a Sel! Get up pretty early in the mornin for that. I got some gneg wetagutijig cousin Sels.”
Driving slowly in the thickening fog, he said that Felix and Jeanne, between times of helping him, could watch for the woman. “Sapatisia, she went to university, travel all over the world. But I don’t know if you’ll see her, way the fog’s workin up. Not much hope for today,” he said as he turned onto the gravel drive to the lighthouse.
“Look!” said Jeanne, pointing at the storage building. They all saw a fading movement.
“No, no! I see her yet. Ala’tett. Way over there.” Mr. Stick pointed at a blob that was gone as soon as he spoke. “Wait for mornin. I think she comes back.”
He made a fire in the parking lot, cooked hot dogs in a dirty cast-iron frying pan. Then, yawning, he said good night and retired to his truck, where they could see the glint of a bottle as he tilted it up. The cousins went into the lighthouse, unrolled their sleeping bags.
• • •
All the next day the fog hung heavy and unmoving. Felix and Jeanne held the railing steady while Mr. Stick bolted the sections to the braces. He fussed with joins and angles, took the sections down again and made minute adjustments. He worked without talking. The light was dimming when he was satisfied with the railing.
• • •
The next morning sprang open brilliantly clear with a snapping wind shooting up their jacket sleeves. Mr. Stick ate dry bread for breakfast, didn’t offer any to them but drank deeply from his thermos of stone-cold black tea, then smoked his pipe. “Got to clean her up a little,” he said, meaning the railing. Jeanne and Felix climbed to the top of the lighthouse.