Quit making booda, the girls said to Hollis. Get your Christmas game face on and don’t tell LaRose there’s no Santa Claus.
If you see him, said Josette.
Snow slumped.
I’ll find him, said Hollis. He didn’t want to get involved but the words came out. I’ll tell him that Santa’s coming.
Hollis was not exactly handsome. His nose was big. Yet he was bitter and moody, so maybe more attractive than someone truly handsome. His hair was cut so it swept too neatly across his forehead.
He smoothed his hair to the side with the palm of his hand.
Rock it old school, said Josette when she caught him smoothing his hair that way.
She gave him her raised eyebrow, an accidental gesture that made him stare at her in fascination as she turned away.
The girls had decided to bring out the Eau Sauvage for their mom last. They did not trust Hollis or Willard, or even their dad, not to shatter the bottle with their feet. It was like that to live with guys. They just stepped on things, even gifts. Ojibwe girls, traditionally and now throwback traditionally, were taught from a young age not to step over things, especially boy things. Grandma’s friend Ignatia Thunder, their traditional go-to elder, had told them all that their power might short out the boys’ power. It was sexist, Josette said, another way to control the female. Snow semi-agreed. Emmaline went poker-faced. Maybe the Iron women weren’t a hundred percent with the rule, but they still couldn’t get themselves to forget about it.
The girls had bought weird gadgets for their brothers and dad. For the first time ever, Josette and Snow had bought colored tissue. They carefully arranged the boxes wrapped in transparent red paper. They put the box for their mother on a shelf. The glossy bow they’d bought for it shed red glitter on their hands.
What do we do with the presents for LaRose? said Snow.
They pushed aside the stuff on the big table — their beading, the jar lids of screws, the newspapers, schoolbooks — and began to eat their bowls of stew. Josette wanted to go over to the Ravich house and give the presents to LaRose. Snow said she couldn’t stand Aunt Nola because she was picky. Coochy just hung his head down and ate. Hollis looked at him and ducked his head down too. Emmaline watched them until they turned to her.
Did you make LaRose his moccasins? Coochy asked. He had been the youngest until LaRose. There was a note in his voice of something like panic, and his eyes were glossy with tears.
Every year Emmaline made each of them new moccasins out of smoked moosehide, lined with blanket scraps; sometimes the ankles were trimmed with rabbit fur. She did this while visiting her mother, or at home, while watching her favorite TV shows or sitting with her children at the table to make certain they finished their homework. She was very good at it and people bought special orders from her. Her moccasins sometimes fetched two or three hundred dollars. The family was proud of her work and only wore their moccasins inside the house. Even Hollis wore them — his feet cute with beadwork, not cool. They each had a box of moccasins — one pair for every year.
I made them, said Emmaline.
SHE MADE LAROSE his moccasins, Landreaux told his friend Randall, who ran sweat lodges and taught Ojibwe culture, history, and deer skinning in the tribal high school. Randall had been given ceremonies by elders he’d sought out and studied with — medicine people. Landreaux had demons, he said. Demons did not scare Randall, but he respected them.
It must have been something that happened to me when I was a kid but I can’t remember, Landreaux said.
That’s what everybody thinks, said Randall. Like if you suddenly remember what happened, you kill the demon. But it’s a whole hell of a lot more complicated.
Going up against demons was Randall’s work. Loss, dislocation, disease, addiction, and just feeling like the tattered remnants of a people with a complex history. What was in that history? What sort of knowledge? Who had they been? What were they now? Why so much fucked-upness wherever you turned?
They had heated up and carried in the rocks and now the two were sitting in the lodge wearing only baggy surfer shorts. Landreaux got the tarp down and sealed them inside. Randall dropped pinches of tobacco, sage, cedar, and powdered bear root on the livid stones. When the air was sharp with fragrance, he splashed on four ladles of water and the hot steam poured painfully into their lungs. After they prayed, Randall opened the lodge door, got the pitchfork, and brought in ten more rocks.
Okay, we’re gonna go for broke, he said. Get your towel up so you don’t blister. He closed the door and Landreaux lost track of the number of ladles Randall poured. He went dizzy and put the towel across his face, then dizzier, and lay down. Randall said a long invocation to the spirits in Anishinaabemowin, which Landreaux vaguely understood. Then Randall said, Ginitam, because Landreaux was supposed to speak. But all Landreaux could think of to say was, My family hates me for giving away LaRose.
Randall thought on this.
You did right, he said at last. They’ll come to know. You remember what all the elders said? They knew the history. Who killed the mother of the first one, Mink, and what she could do. Then her daughter, her granddaughter, the next one, and Emmaline’s mom. Evil tried to catch them all. They fought demons, outwitted them, flew. Randall talked about how people think what medicine people did in the past is magic. But it was not magic. Beyond ordinary understanding now, but not magic.
LaRose can do these things too, said Randall. He has it in him. He’s stronger than you think. Remember you thought they said he was a mirage?
Gave him the name, Mirage. I know.
That’s right.
Mirage knew how to dream the whereabouts of animals, how to leave his body during a trance and visit distant relatives. A trader named George Nelson had known others who could do this and had written about it back in the eighteenth century.
Landreaux spoke haltingly. What if the elders are just a bunch of regular old people no smarter than any of us, what if. .
They are regular old people, said Randall. But they’re people who learned off their old people, right? Like here, we had the starvation year when most of our old people gave up their food. That generation died for us, eh? So we go north. Accept their words if they feel right.
But maybe they don’t know?
Quit asking dumb questions. You’ll bust your brain if you think like that. Let me ask you something. What was that boy Dusty like anyway?
Don’t ask me that.
He ain’t a footnote to your agony, bro. What was he like? Who knew that boy the best, of your family?
Landreaux finally answered.
LaRose.
So what did LaRose know about him?
Funny kid. Played adventures. The two of them had a pack of toys they made into cartoon characters. They were hilarious if you listened in on what they made up. Dusty. .
Yeah, say his name, but use the spirit world marker. Use iban.
Dusty-iban liked to draw. He was good at drawing. We got some drawings he made for us.
Of what?
Horse. Dog. Spider-Man.
Landreaux was crying steadily in gulping sobs. Randall let that go on for a while.
Don’t you cry no more. Unless it’s for that kid. Don’t you cry no more for your own pain. You put that cry energy into your family. Into doing good for Dusty-iban’s family. When I hear you cry, I hear you cry for what you did, but you quit that now. Were you high when you shot him?
The medicine crackled. No.
Were you high?
No.
Were you high?
No.
We let our people get away with shit. We shouldn’t. That’s why I ask. Randall was quiet for a long time.