We stay under the bridge during the day. Eat more nettles and yarrow flowers. I grab at a fish from a pool below a mini waterfall. It squiggles out of my hands.
I’m too hungry to give up. I unbutton my shirt, get my arms out, fling the make-believe net over one surprised fish.
“Aha. You’re one who didn’t get away.”
Beanie laughs, the first I’ve heard from her. She has a knife she stole from the dining room. Not very sharp, but I manage to slit the tender belly open below the gill like I watched my mother do before the School. I scrape the insides into the river.
“Yuck. That’s good enough.” We have to build a fire, keep it small. I climb along the riverbank and stumble on a small circle of ashes in the wall of rocks at the end of the bridge. Someone here before us.
“Beanie, look. Another runaway, you think?”
“Shush. Hush.”
I’m making too much noise. She is nervous, afraid of getting caught. She hasn’t told me what happened before she was returned to the School. She hasn’t talked about Mr. B, either. I don’t push it.
“Tonight we’ll move out.” Beanie sounds like that western story Sister read at school.
About once an hour a car rumbles over the bridge. I wait for silence after one passes, light the mini collection of dry leaves and sticks I’ve piled in the fire pit. The tiny flame catches. I thread the fish onto a stick and prop it over the fire on the rocks. Perfect, I breathe, quiet, waiting for Beanie’s approval.
Crackle, snap, splat. The stick burns through, dumping the fish into the fire. “Oh, shit.” It feels so good to swear. I scrape the fish clean on a rock, rebuild the fire.
This time the stick holds. Smoke flares, then dies. Only a little daytime exposure.
“Jeannie Squirt, you’re a genius.”
Beanie gawks at the smoky, fat slab of pink fish spread on green nettle leaves. The colours are majestic, almost like not real. Our miracle food is eaten in seconds, once we get over the shock. Beanie has called me my kid’s name—from back when.
“Tonight we’ll move out.” Beanie sounds like that western story Sister read at school. Outlaws, horses and cowboys chasing. The bad guys getting caught—or killed.
Geese are on the move. Honk, honk, honk. They fly in Vs over the bridge, one group swooping at the river, the next following. It’s that time of year. I watch their direction. South by southwest, my father always said; that’s where they go. Are we near home? Somehow I feel home is very far away.
“Beanie?” She’s asleep in the middle of the day.
Resting up for tonight. I lie down next to her on the tarp. She doesn’t know I’m here until I squirm, move my legs. She pokes me in the ribs. Sleep, sleep. I’m back at the School, watching for Mr. B. He is the worst of the teachers, the most dreaded. Beanie won’t talk about him, what happens when he twists her arm and takes her away during the night. I hunch over my sketchbook, draw the dorm beds in endless rows. Miss Crosbie has taught me to use long strokes for distance and short ones for close up.
I dream about fat red pieces of fish sizzling on racks over a fire my mom is poking to stir up the heat. I want to catch another fish in the river, but Beanie is stuffing our packs, ready to leave. My shirt is crispy dry from the sun.
It’s a dark night. Clouds shadow the stars. Good cover for runaways. We walk from one farm road to the next, occasional dots of light in scattered buildings down a gravel track. Beanie says we have to get to a city before there’s a place to sleep proper. I don’t know how she knows this. Is it wishful thinking? I’m too hungry to protest. Our fish feast was a long time ago.
“Shush. Listen. I think it’s a train.” Our village was on a train line. That’s how they took us to the School. Off to the right in the direction of the train sound, a light flickers low, between rows of corn. We crouch in the ditch by the road seconds before a pick-up careens past, belching black exhaust in our faces. No letup. No discovery of two runaways frozen in headlights.
We walk without making a sound towards the flickering glow on the ground, make out a smaller flame nearby. A train whooshes through, passenger cars, moving fast.
A deep voice comes from the bigger fire. “We’ll wait for the next one. It may slow for the switch coming up. If it does, put out your fire and run for the car with the open door.”
“I ain’t puttin’ out ’til I know,” says an answer from the almost invisible fire on the edge of the trampled grass where three men are squatting, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Put it out before you run,” the deep voice says. “I’ll give you a couple of matches to restart if you need them.”
“You ain’t got all the answers, big man,” says the little-fire voice. In the distance a train whistles at a level crossing, slows. I feel familiar vibrations in the ground. It’s a long freight approaching.
The three tramps douse their fires, roll their belongings in seconds and take off for the tracks. We follow just out of sight. Beanie shows no sign of fear. I haven’t discovered her bravery, where she gets it or if she cares.
There’s an open space in a boxcar, directly in front of us. I give Beanie a leg up and she pulls me in beside her. The three tramps are as stunned as we are when we discover each other in the same place at the same time. Are we all runaways from school I want to ask, but my English isn’t up to it. The deep voice holds out a bag of peanuts in their shells. Beanie and I cup our hands to receive this gift from Manito.
“Thank you,” I say in Cree.
“You’re welcome,” the big voice answers in English. “Gotta cut the Indian crap. Gives you away, and you don’t want anyone to know you’re a runaway.”
“How did you know?” I blurt out with the peanut shells.
“Where do you think we all come from?” the voice in the corner mutters. “Here, have a drink of water. Don’t mind my used canteen. Only one I grabbed on my way out. Sure good to have. G’night.” I watch him slide into his bedroll, snug and warm.
Beanie and I scoot into the opposite corner and wrap our tarp around our shoulders. Big Voice slips into the shadows away from the sliding door. There is another figure, the third one at the camp? It’s a boy, maybe younger than us. I think he’s asleep already. The empty boxcar sways, jerks, stops, rolls forward. Where are we going? Does anyone know?
He says no Indian. English words, yes, but not my mother’s way of talking, so much of which I can’t remember. The School has done good.
The train motion puts everyone to sleep. I dream we are going home. Slowly, more slowly, then movement stops. Brakes screech. A wall of the boxcar slides open.
“Yep, they’re in here,” a man yells.
“Up, you guys. Better hurry.” He tells us what to do as if he’s a conductor.
We jump out of the boxcar onto the ground. I feel my ankle crunch and try to rise to run.
Beanie grabs my arm; the other three are already gone. The boxcar rolls back, erasing our escape.
There’s a maze of tracks in front, on the sides, in back. I test my ankle; decide it isn’t too bad.
Beanie pulls me over rows of steel rods. Finally, a grassy field.
We walk to a road. The lights of a town. A city? Beanie and I have never seen either.
We rest in a ditch. My ankle is twice its normal size. Beanie moves it around a bit.
“Don’t. That hurts.” I’m careful not to scream with pain.
“Just trying to see if it’s broken,” Beanie says. We both agree it’s probably only sprained. Sunrise outlines a jagged collection of tall buildings with lower squares spreading from the centre like blocks of wood. We walk, hobble, into a new day.
A car slows behind us. Stops. A woman’s voice asks if we have a place to walk to.
Beanie tries to sound grownup, independent. “We’re going over there.” She points to the buildings in the distance. “My sister has sprained her ankle,” she adds.
“Please let me give you a ride. I’ll take you to the Catholic church. They have a shelter. Even a guest house if you have a little money.”
“No, thank you,” Beanie says. “We’re not Catholic.”
“You don’t have to be Catholic to go there. They will be serving breakfast to everyone by the time we arrive.” The lady moves toward her car, opens the rear door for us.
At the thought of breakfast, we get in.
It’s a nice place. We use the washroom, clean our filthy hands. Sit next to three other new arrivals. I recognize Deep Voice when he reminds me, “No Indian.”
“Promise,” I answer. Someone comes over my shoulder with more pancakes. It’s the lady with the car. How can I be so lucky? I was in that damn school for 10 years. I’ve been out for less than 10 days and I’m eating pancakes in a Catholic church, the same thing that kept me in the School. Then I can’t swallow. Will they take me back?
“Whatsa matter?” Big Voice asks me.
“Back. Will they take us back?”
“Nah. Too much trouble. Besides, we’ve come a long way. At least I have. Prob’ly you too. We’ll need their shelter for a while, ’til we get jobs ’n’ everything.” Beanie is listening from my other side. She’s on her fourth pancake.
“My English. Not so good,” I sputter.
“You’ll get it. Just no Indian.” He sounds so sure, so old.
I watch the brown-skin girl across the table. She looks new too. I mutter under my breath thank you in Cree and she smiles.
When we finish breakfast, the lady with the car takes us down a hallway to a dorm room with 12 cots, six on each side facing each other. “This is where you can sleep,” she says in her cheery voice. Beanie and I look at each other and turn to leave, but my ankle stops me. It’s too sore to let me go on.
“Just for tonight,” I tell Beanie. “Until the pain is better.”
“Just one night,” Beanie says. “Too much like the School.” She shivers, tightens her sweater around her arms.
“I’ll get you some ice,” the car lady offers and goes back towards the kitchen. I don’t know what she means. Ice for what?
I sit on the cot, swing my swollen ankle up to rest. The car lady appears with ice wrapped in a towel and puts it around my ankle. It’s cold but feels good.
“My name’s Claire,” she smiles in my face, pinning me in my place on the cot. I look away, over at Beanie, who is lying on her back staring at the ceiling. “Lunch is at 12; supper at 5:00.”
My sister and I sleep. Sister Jolene chases a rat around the dorm beds; a giant toad jumps out and trips her. I wake up laughing. A bell rings. Lunch time. My ankle is way better after the magic ice.
Jeanne Louise. I print my name on the name tag by my plate. Beanie writes Minnie Mouse. She looks up, past my matted hair.
“Tomorrow we go.” It’s a statement, no maybe. There’s a fresh towel on my cot when I return and I don’t know when a hot shower has felt so good, especially as most of our showers at the School were cold. Beanie’s long hair is shining black after her shampoo. Beau Noir, the girls at the School called her. She has brushed it every night since I can remember.
It’s a dark night. Clouds shadow the stars. Good cover for runaways.
We leave after breakfast. My pants and shirt and underwear I rinsed in the shower are sticky dry, good enough, like my ankle that’s still swollen and sore.
A car stops on the road, offers a ride and Beanie accepts.
“Where to, pretty ladies?” a harsh voice asks.
“Downtown,” Beanie answers. Are we really pretty ladies?
The car moves forward, swerves around a tight corner, throws Beanie against the driver.
“Stop. This is our place.” She has seen an Indian sign for tobacco at a house near the road.
“Ain’t downtown yet.” He doesn’t stop.
At a red light, Beanie leans across me and flips the door handle. Good thing I’m holding on or I would have fallen out before Beanie pushes me. In a flash we are free.
“Gotta be careful of these guys,” she mutters.
How does she know? I wonder again. What has she seen with Mr. B or when she ran away?
We walk on a sidewalk along a busy street. Stores, people, mostly white faces. Almost unconsciously we follow someone that looks like Big Man from the train and church. He turns a corner, away from the busy street, disappears behind a blank wall. We walk past the building, duck into an alley with a beaten path that leads to an open doorway. We know we need a shelter. We’ve heard stories about runaways at the School. So here’s a place to sleep at night, sort of.
When my eyes adjust to the dark, I see brown faces lying on pieces of mattress or tarps like we have. Someone is cooking and I feel faint from the thought of food. Beanie discards her pack on top of our tarp, eases mine off my shoulders, guides me to the soup line on the back wall of the huge open space. I can only think Cree, Manito. No Indian out loud. I remember.
I pick up litter around a school yard and someone—a teacher?—plants some dollars in my hand. Beanie goes out at night and returns with enough money to rent a room of our own. Two flights up, two beds, dirty toilet on the landing, a wisp of heat. Beans from a can, stale bread dumped behind the corner store. No Sisters with whips, no Mr. Bs. I figure the new ones pay. Beanie brushes her hair every night before she goes out.
During the day she sleeps. I walk, learn the city. There’s a river park where walkers, mostly brown-skinned, gather, drink from paper bags. I watch as pills and needles are passed around, hidden in the bushes. There’s a tension, everyone watches everyone, and themselves.
Alize, the Indian girl from the Catholic church sleeps—passed out—on a bench. No one pays attention. I draw the river curving around a bend, park benches, low buildings in the distance. By some miracle I still have my runaway bag and my exercise book of drawings I’ve kept since I was kidnapped from my home in Grade 1. I keep the bag in hiding, even from Beanie. I don’t want her to see herself on my pages. She might tear them up. Everything’s a bigger secret with my sister.
Whoop whoop. Lights flashing. Police swarming the park, behind the bushes. I am pushed into the back of what looks like the boxcar on the train.
I end up at what they tell me is an old prison; another school, I think, only no nuns, no Father LeBlanc. I am in a room with a metal bed and blanket, no mattress. Where is Beanie?
Someone leaves a bucket of water, a pile of rags. “If you do some work, you can eat. The washrooms are all yours. Get them clean the first time. Or you’ll have to do them again.”
They aren’t too bad. It actually feels good to do some work.
Beanie doesn’t come.
They let me stay three nights, four… hoping Beanie will show up? A worker—someone like Claire—tells me to get a job.
I try at 7-Eleven; they say come back the next day. I return three times, three days in a row. “Come in clean clothes and you can sweep the grounds.”
I can’t find Beanie. I check the room we rented and there’s a drunk man sprzawled on my bed. I recognize him from the river park where I got arrested for doing nothing.
“She ain’t here. Go fuck yourself. Halfbreed.”
At the jail, Alize is lying on a cot next to mine when I return from my search for Beanie. “Where you from?” she whispers in Michif.
During the day she sleeps. I walk, learn the city. There’s a tension. Everyone watches everyone, and themselves.
“Don’t know,” I answer in English. “Beanie says she knows, but she’s missing. Can’t find her nowhere—anywhere.” I’m trying to speak good. I’m learning, but I need Beanie.
A V of geese invades the horizon. Honk, honk. I follow their formation, try to draw them, like I remember from close-up at home. Flying south, free.
I have four coloured pencils left. I make miniatures. Pale sky, pillow clouds, ripples for a river—in a three-inch square free as air. A tiny Beanie, two inches tall walking a cornfield, pack on her back. The train boxcar with three sets of tracks going nowhere in another corner of the paper. I’m saving the pencils, paper too.
I’ll keep the drawings for Beanie. The pictures will talk to her, get past her secrets. I have hope.
It’s a dark night. Something jars my shoulder. Maybe a rat? I jump out of bed, stare into Beanie’s eyes.
“Get your stuff. Let’s go.” Where now? I grab my pack, shove the pencils and exercise book in first.
Born in Chicago in 1938, Janice Kenyon emigrated to Victoria, BC, where she worked as a nurse. She moved to High River in the early 2000s to be near her daughter and grandchildren in Calgary. As a 66-year-old she took an epic cycling trip, which inspired Bike Ride with a Twist: 8,321 km Across Canada (Kachina Press/Sandhill, 2006). Janice’s other books include the biography Any Damn Thing (Gomer Press). Her fiction won honourable mention in the WGA 2020 Pandemic Postcards Contest. Janice passed away July 29, 2023. On the day before she died, she joked this would be the year she won Alberta Views’ fiction contest. She was prescient.
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