somewhere in a place far away, singing soft and low, over and over and over â¦Â bihâkee-yan, bihâkee-yan, bihâkee-yan.
BOOK TWO
BEEDAHBUN
First of all, youâve got to realize that the lake is like a reflector, okay? What I mean is that on those long, calm nights we get around here, a voice can carry for miles. We used to eavesdrop on conversations whenever weâd see Myron Fisher and Mabel Copenace heading out on the bay in her auntieâs canoe. Theyâd be talking all lovey-dovey across the bay and weâd catch every line. Old Myron would be mad as hell and chase us all around the townsite whenever weâd repeat what we figured were the sweetest lines of the evening. Myron and Mabel have been married for about three years now, got themselves a boy named Theodore and are living in a house at the east end of the townsite. Maybe all the teasing helped, Idonât know. Anyway, the lake is like a reflector that can take a whisper clean across.
Now according to Mabelâs auntieânot the one with the canoe, the other thatâs older and has a face like a fresh-scraped deer hide once the wetâs all squeezed outâthere was a time on this reserve when the lake was the only way to get a hold of someone on the other side. People would just wander on down to the dock and yell across.
Actually, White Dogâs not the only reserve up hereâs got their own open-lake telephone. This northern part of Ontarioâs full of lakes and we Ojibways always seem to be finding ourselves settling down on the shores of one. Once youâve seen one of our long summer sunsets from across a northern lake, well, you start to get a better idea of why the old people would settle down there.
Anyway, Iâd been back here about four months. My ma had cut my Afro off about three days after I was home and around about that time I was one scruffy-looking Indian. Funny how fate turns things around, eh? I told Ma about the old Pancho Santilla gaffe I used to run on people before I became a black man and she just looked at me and laughed.
âGood thing you donâ try that now, my boy,â she said. âPeople see you like this with no hair now they be callinâ you one a them Mexican hairlesses!â
Funny lady, that Ma.
Making White Dog my home wasnât as easy as maybe I make it sound. For days on end I still wanted tohightail it back to familiar streets. I felt like a very big fish out of water for the longest time and to tell the truth, it was scary. But the White Dog folks and the feeling that was seeping into me from this land all started getting me to feeling more and more comfortable the longer I hung around. In fact, I donât remember ever making the decision to stay. It was more like one day I was walking around and it was already made. Nobody was coaxing the answer out of me all that time either. I took to feeling like Iâd just been a part of the place forever and like Stanley had told me those first few days, everyone just seemed to want to treat me like a little kid. The little kid theyâd never got a chance to know. Pretty hard to think of leaving a place when everyoneâs feeding you, giving you things and making you feel all special all the time. Anyway, I fell into the idea of being home long before I even knew thatâs where I was. Took some getting used to though.
See, there wasnât much to do except hang out with my brothers and their friends and try to fit in and not stick out all at the same time. Which is kinda hard when you donât speak the language, never done any of the things people like to do around here like hunt and fish and all and youâre running around with a heada hair looks like a bad scalping job by a near-sighted Cree. But I was slowly getting comfortable. Most folks knew who I was, where Iâd been, some of the things Iâd done out there, and were pretty hip to the fact that I hadnât been
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