Nicole grabbed the pot of water and poured it into the wash basin. As it splashed onto the clothes and steam swelled into her face, she turned her head to the living room behind her. “How you guys doing in there?”
“Good,” Nangohns replied. “We’re building a new house for Nookomis and Mishomis!”
Nicole put the empty pot back on the stove top and picked up the wooden spoon beside the sink to mix the detergent into the clothes. “A new house! I’m gonna have to come and see that!”
She looked into the living room, where she saw her children sitting on the carpet, playing with toy blocks. Nangohns’s pink sweatshirt was fading and the holes in the knees of Maiingan’s small jeans were growing daily. Both kids would outgrow these clothes soon anyway, and somehow they’d have to find some bigger ones soon. They both looked up at her, smiling.
“Why do Nookomis and Mishomis need a new house?” Nicole asked. “Theirs is still in good shape,”
“This one’s their summer house,” replied Maiingan.
“Summer house!” echoed the girl.
“Oh, I see. Why do they need a summer house?” Nicole untied her bun and regathered it more tightly and neatly.
“Just in case,” Maiingan said and turned his eyes back down to the interlocking plastic.
“Just in case, eh,” she muttered. “Well, I gotta go outside just for a minute.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Nangohns answered.
Nicole went back to the kitchen to get the pot and came back through the living room to put on her winter boots. She didn’t bother grabbing her jacket from the coat rack. She opened the door, went quickly out into the chill, and dipped the pot into the high snow. She packed the snow into the pot and brought it back into the house.
By anyone’s guess, it was mid-March. Terry Meegis was probably the only one who still knew the exact date. Nicole preferred to wait out the winter rather than lament the days since the power went out or generate any false optimism about how close it was to spring.
But the more tolerable temperatures and heavier snow indicated that winter had peaked. At least a month and a half of snow and cold remained, but the days were longer and the twilight hung long over the horizon in the luminous blue that foretold spring. Soon there would be no more snowmelt for drinking, cooking, and washing water and they would have to figure something else out. There would be no return to running water.
Back in the basement, Nicole dumped the snow into the large plastic basin a few metres from the wood stove. A collection of basins, buckets, and bins held melted snow water. On the other side, a smaller number of large pots contained water that had already been boiled for consumption. It was an efficient rotation and it hadn’t taken too long for them to adjust. After all, it was how Dan and Patricia’s generation had grown up.
Nicole heard a knock. She put the pot on the floor and walked upstairs to see Tyler standing at the door. Two braids hung behind his ears and his grey toque was pulled down over his eyebrows. He feigned a weak smile when he saw her. Without going all the way to the door, she waved him in.
Tyler stepped inside and closed the door. He looked at the kids on the floor and smiled. “Boozhoo binoojiinyag!” he declared warmly. “Hey, kids! Whatcha doing?”
“Making houses!” Nangohns replied.
“Oh, ever good houses. We’ll need to give youse guys a job next summer!”
Tyler turned to Nicole.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Is Ev around?”
“No, he went out into the bush to check some snares.”
“When do you think he’ll be back?”
“I dunno. Probably soon. He left pretty early this morning. What’s going on?”
He sighed, and his broad shoulders drooped. “Auntie Aileen died.”
Nicole covered her mouth. Tears welled in her brown eyes.
Twenty-Nine
Evan ran the back of his moose-hide glove across his face. The rabbit-fur trim collected his tears. He struggled not to sob as he and Tyler pulled Aileen’s body across the heavy snow. His chest felt tight, his arms heavy, and his legs burned as he lifted each snowshoe forward.
He had arrived home from his trip into the bush the day before to find Tyler walking down the steps. Aileen’s niece Amanda had gone to check on her and found her dead, bundled in her bed at home.
Evan had felt numb at first and he hadn’t cried over Aileen’s death until later at night. She had been his surrogate grandmother, his go-to elder whenever he had questions about the old ways, and he had loved her. He hoped she had enjoyed his visits, for they had always been special to him. He had known she would go eventually, but he had hoped that it would not be this soon.
The smell of sage smudge lingered in his nose, and the travelling song her family had sung for her rang in his ears. Before Evan and Tyler had shown up, her children and grandchildren had debated over where she should go. Tradition called for four days of grieving and celebration before giving a body back to the earth, but the ground was still too hard for burial. So her family had spent the night singing songs and making initial preparations for her journey to the spirit world, outfitting her with the traditional medicines and tools she needed to cross over safely.
Their snowshoes flapped against their boots. Tyler cleared his throat. “Uh, so how are we supposed to put her in there?” he asked nervously. Neither wanted to look back at the elder’s body wrapped in dark grey blankets on a bed of cedar boughs.
“I think we’re just supposed to smudge around her,” Evan answered, patting his front left pocket to feel for the sweetgrass Amanda had handed him. “Then we have to put down tobacco and ask for her to be safe there.”
“Okay. Are we supposed to do a song or anything else?”
“No, Amanda said they’d come down later to do another song.”
“Alright,” Tyler said in obvious relief. These protocols were new to him too.
They walked up over the hill that used to be the driveway to the office. The road lay at least a metre and a half beneath the snow, but it was easier to walk across now that it was late winter. The powder had compacted and they sank less each day. The walls of the band office came into view, and Evan took a deep breath.
The air was damp. The sled glided along with a muffled whoosh. Evan and Tyler guided it carefully towards the building that once bustled with life but now only housed the dead. Their regular trips here throughout the winter had made trails and a clearing in the snow in front of the garage door that clanked and rattled as Tyler pulled the chains from the inside.
Their sorrow kept them silent. Evan pulled the sled slowly onto the cold concrete floor. He dropped the yellow rope and finally turned to look at the elder’s body. The rolled blankets fit snugly around Aileen’s small frame. He pictured her resting peacefully on her bed of cedar.
“I hate to say this,” Tyler said, breaking the silence. “But I think we’re gonna have to do some rearranging in here.”
Evan looked back to the three rows of bodies that stretched wall to wall, and from the back nearly all the way to the door. “Goddamn, I think you’re right.”
The death toll had reached twenty-two. Twenty-three, if you counted Mark Phillips, the man Justin Scott had killed at the beginning of winter. But his body was not here. It still lay on the outskirts of the reserve, frozen and buried in snow where it had been left in the moments after he was shot. There was still some room at the front, but it was small and cramped by the door, and both men wanted to give Aileen the dignity of sufficient space.