Three September 1965 #2
We made our way deeper into the woods, following the sounds Kenneth was making.
John called for him to come back, but there was no sign of him.
When we finally caught up to him, he was sitting on a large stone, out of breath.
I stopped and looked around me. Nothing was familiar.
I knew these woods from helping Kiju, but this was new, this place was not committed to my memory.
I turned in the small opening in the trees, looking for anything familiar, but there was nothing—no familiar group of mushrooms on the ground, no chaga, its shape distinct and leaning toward home, no tree with an odd-shaped trunk telling me to head south. Nothing.
“Thanks a lot, Kenneth. Now we’re lost.”
He shrugged as he stood up, his breathing back to normal. “We’ll be fine. We’re Indians. At least, some of us are.” He glanced over at Susan, who stuck out her tongue. “We can’t get lost.”
“You really are an idiot sometimes, Kenneth,” John said.
The two of them argued while I wandered, not too far, not out of earshot, looking desperately for something familiar, something to tell us where we were, but there was nothing.
And then, in the darkness of daylight, I saw some moss growing at the foot of a tree, its dark green glimmering in the half-light.
Kiju said that moss likes the moisture and the dark of the north, so if I ever get lost, look for the moss and head in the opposite direction to get home.
I leaned down and pulled a tuft of moss and held it to my nose.
It smelled of earth, of clean. Behind me, they were still arguing.
“We need to go in that direction.” I pointed south.
“You don’t know that,” Kenneth said. “Besides her”—he nodded his head toward Susan—“you’re the least Indian of us all.”
I ignored him.
“You’re one to talk,” John defended me.
“Just trust me.” I stood up, straightened my pants, the old ones Kiju said were only for playing outside and not for school, and headed toward a grand old oak tree.
It reminded me of the birthing tree, a sister maybe, I thought as I approached her.
All three fell in line. If we didn’t get home soon, everyone would know we’d disobeyed, and the thought of Kiju being cross with me pushed me through the trees.
It wasn’t long before we came to the clearing with the shack, and everyone sighed in relief.
It was getting dark. The sun sets quicker in the woods and I was afraid of getting lost again.
But my fears of staying in the woods for the night vanished when I heard my name being called.
It was Big Ben, called that on account of his being taller than anyone else by at least a head or two.
He was, aside from my grandmother, my favourite human.
I hollered back and we continued this way until his looming form emerged from the trees ahead of us, a flashlight in his hand and Kenneth’s father behind him.
Ben looked relieved; Kenneth’s father, Reg, looked angry.
His red face glared first at Kenneth and then at me. I shrunk back.
“Thank god.” Ben grabbed me into a hug and placed his hand on John’s shoulder. “Let’s get you home. You had us all in a panic.”
“Sorry,” was all I could say.
“Should be,” Reg said. His voice was low and had a menace to it. He looked me up and down then moved his gaze to Susan, who shrunk in behind me. We all knew the rumours about him, his drinking, his anger, his fists.
Ben moved past him, a barrier between Reg and myself. John, Susan and I followed. Reg whispered something to Kenneth before they followed us down the trail and out of the woods.
Kiju and John’s and Susan’s mothers met us at the edge of the woods.
They cried with relief when we emerged, sporting a few scrapes from tree branches we couldn’t see in the dark, tired and a little hungry, but otherwise fine.
Their relief soon turned to annoyance, and Susan was put in the back seat of her car and taken away.
It would be Christmas before she was permitted to come back for a visit.
John was taken to his camp and he told me later that he was given a stern lecture on responsibility.
Kiju followed me into the house and made a cup of hot chocolate.
“You can never do that to me again, Aliet. You need to promise me. I haven’t been that scared since the night we lost your mother. Don’t ever do that to me again. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I whispered into my cup, embarrassed and guilty for having made her worry. And I kept that promise. I never went into those woods again without her. And when we did go searching for medicines, I stayed close.
Kenneth was forbidden from that day forward to have anything to do with any of us.
When he saw us, he glared and turned away.
When we tried to talk to him, he ignored us, pretended we weren’t even there in front of him.
He went from mean to meaner the older we got.
Until the violence—rumoured to be the reason his mother had left just after his brother was born—was transferred from his father to him and he became a monster of a boy and then a monster of a man.
But there was a time when we were all friends.
I’d like to say that it’s funny how life turns out, but there was nothing funny about it.