This was about three weeks after I got here and no one expected him to really go, so it was an even bigger surprise for folks when old Keeper asked to stay an extra coupla weeks because he figured he needed it.
His best drinking buddies had been wandering around pretty confused about all of it. My uncle Buddy wasnât buying any of it.
âAh, that old fartâs just restinâ up,â he said. âBeen drunk as long as meân Keeper been drunk, you stay that way!â
He was the one to know. Uncle Buddy used to say that when heâs âwhistled overâ as he calls it, they wonât have to waste any money on embalming fluid on accounta heâs drunk enough in one lifetime to keep him pickled forever. And thereâs those around who agree.
Anyway, there was a lotta differing opinion on whether old Keeper meant what he said about having enough. I thought about this all across the lake. Keeper was one of the people who were there in Stanleyâs cabin to meet me that first day. I hadnât seen too much of him after that, being so busy getting to know folks and visiting around like I was then. I remember carrying him outta the bush once when heâd passed out in there and was getting rained on real good and I remember catching his eye one night on the shoreline staring out across the lake while I was sitting there doing the same, but we werenât exactly buddies or anything. Still, one of the things you learn around here first is that you gotta respect what the old folks either tell you or ask you to do. Itâs part of the way we are. So I headed over to find out what the old guy wanted.
I stopped by home to grab a warmer jacket and found my ma sitting at the table. Maâs one a the best moccasin makers in the area and she was hard at it again that night. She was trying to teach me how to do things like beadwork and stuff but my fingers never went the way they were supposed to and I was always leaving little piles of half-done things lying around for her to fix up. Anyway, she was sitting there sewing away like her hands donât need help from her eyes and she was smiling.
âAh-ha. Got holda you, eh? Keeperâs lookinâ for you.â
âWhat for? That old guy doesnât even hardly know me.â
âWell, that olâ guyâs got somethinâ he wantsta tell you. Might help you find your way around.â
âYou talk to him?â
âHey-yuh,â she said. âWe been friends long time, Keeperân me. We were in the residential school together for a while and we even been drunk a few times too.â
âOh, I get it. Maybe now that heâs all sobered up and got his memory back he wants to tell me some juicy stories about him and you!â
âHmmpfh,â Ma said, but smiling all the while. âAinât no juicy stories! Even if there were, that old guy couldnât do any real good stories proper justice anyhow!â
âSo where is he?â
â âMember the old cabin we showed you round the bay?â
âWhere my grampa lived?â
âHey-yuh. Heâs stayinâ there now.â
â âKay then. Iâll be back soon.â
â ââKay then. Careful walkinâ through that bush.â
â âKay then.â
My grampa was the oldest person on this reserve when he died. Heâd have been about ninety-eight and passed on about three years before I made it home. Heâd never ever learned English and from what my ma and other people told me, he was the last of the real traditional Ojibway around here. He had a sweat lodge near the cabin where I was headed, made tobacco offerings, tried to help people and held pipe ceremonies at his place now and again. Real traditional man. I never knew anything about all that when I went out to meet Keeper that night and frankly all the talk Iâd heard about it freaked me out.Sometimes it was hard to shake
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