Maccloud falls, p.21
macCLOUD FALLS, page 21
‘I don’t care. It’s time somebody spoke up. And I’m not frightened of him, there’s nothing he can do to me that’s worse than what’s already happened.’
The elder glanced at him again, as if unsure whether he should be hearing this. She made an apologetic gesture towards him.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I can come back if this is an awkward time for you.’
She nodded, thanked him, showed him out, explaining briefly that Deeanna was her god-daughter and that she’d had a difficult time in her life lately. She’d just moved back to Cloud Falls. He nodded too, said he understood and that he hoped they’d meet again soon. She suggested he take a look around the centre – down the hallway was a framed copy of the claim of right and the pledge they’d signed last year on the centenary of the original that he might be interested in seeing, and other stuff too, maybe. He was welcome to look around.
He found the claim of right, facing the renewed pledge, both beautifully framed. On either side of the text of the 1910 claim were two feathers, presumably eagle by their size. The left hand one was beaded to display the number 1910, and the right 2010. On the opposite wall facing was a list of signatures of chiefs who had signed in 2010, the nations they represented appended. He read the text:
We the undersigned chiefs and representatives of the following indigenous nations gather together with the above signatory indigenous nations to honor the Spirit and Intent of the original Wilfred Laurier Memorial and to honor the efforts of our ancestors in the past 100 years to find a Just and Lasting resolution to the Land Question.
It was astonishing to see something he had thought was history so recently revisited and presented in this way. He’d read the original text before online, but hadn’t known it was still so current as it obviously was, the ‘Land Question.’
Bemused by this realisation, he walked on down the corridor and stumbled into an empty meeting room where hung four large Canadian government posters, each showing the life-cycle of a different salmon – Cohol, Pink, Sockeye and Steelhead – from smolt to returning adult, the prize awaited by beast and man alike. He gazed at the tracks of their migrations across the north Pacific to Kamchatka and Japan. It seemed barely possible that life should persist with such determination.
Then behind a whiteboard, standing in front of the far wall, he noticed the corner of a painting. Dark, sombre blues, with flashing sheet lightning. He peered behind the board and, to his shock, recognized it as a portrait of Lyle’s native wife, Lucy, whose name he knew was really Antko. It was a large canvas and he tried to pull it out from where it was hidden but couldn’t easily. Instead he squinted at it, as she squinted at him from within the image. It was a portrait he recognized from the photograph on the cover of the book he’d just been looking at on the elder’s desk. She was wearing the same full-length western dress buttoned up to the neck, almost scowling at the viewer. It was hard to see but he knew it was a good painting, the balance and choice of colour, the composition.
The likeness to its subject was remarkably good, but what was most striking of all was what had been omitted. The old photograph showed her and her white settler husband, with their dog, in front of their domestic abode, the cabin in the sacred valley. In the painting, it was simply she, Antko, a woman alone against a background of what appeared an ultramarine night lit by shafts of moonlight or even lightning. The image had an elemental quality, robbed of its domesticity – only the quaintly remaining buttoned-up dress suggested wife and homemaker. Had she been robed in some buckskin, or a painted blanket, it would have looked less odd, but the painter, whoever they were, had at least stripped her of the inherited identity, as wife to the Scotsman, Jimmy Lyle. He pushed the whiteboard out of the way to see it properly. The signature in the bottom left corner was ‘Deeanna’.
Outside in the warm air, he decided to look for the Indian graveyard the elder had told him about, to see if he could find Antko’s stone. The one that Jimmy Lyle had placed there, way back in 1899, long before even the claim of right. He walked along the river to the new highway bridge till he came to a pathway lined with purple flowering alfalfa on the other side, the one that led to the old wooden church. He pushed the little metal gate open and it creaked as he did so.
A black feather spiralled to the ground at his foot. On the top of a tree-trunk electricity post that steadied and stayed a half-dozen heavy wires, a single raven pivoted, tail dipping, bobbing. He took his camera from his backpack and zoomed in until he could see the sunlit arc on the curve of its beak, and its talons gripping the trunk stump. Behind it, in frame, the hulk of the mountain they called ‘The Chief’, and thundering through the canyon, the Thompson River’s urgent melt-water, though it was now late May, the mile-long trains of the CPR.
Behind him, in the Cloud Falls cemetery, Antko’s stone was tall among unmarked graves, small wooden crosses and barely detailed stones. In the scrub of sagebrush and purple alfalfa, among the sandy grit and leaves, lay the scorched remains of old bouquets, some the handmade twistings of local plants, some floral, decorative and bought. Her grave was the last, in the corner furthest from the settlement, edging close to where Highway 1 split from Highway 8, the stone text hidden from the stream of drivers even in the north lane.
A block of bare concrete, spotted with lichen, held the upright slab in place. That too seemed concrete, but had a plastered exterior in which were imprinted the words
SACRED
TO
THE MEMORY
OF
ANTKO
beloved wife of
J.A.LYLE
Died March 2, 1899
Aged 33 years
And as he approached he saw, part covered by the brush, beneath the English text, in italics, these words:
Tcuk aks kazuzems
It must be the N’laka’pamux tongue, opaque to him, but the old voice of this territory, veiled and hidden. Closer, on the ground he could see a wreath, quite a recent one, though bleached in the desert sun. An array of roses and dahlias, and another smaller flower he didn’t recognise. If they were different colours once, now all were one shade, a very faint lilac-white, like beautiful flower bones.
He felt an intruder here, among these personal gestures, these venerable reservation houses and sheds across the fence, the tinder-like wooden church on the point of tumbling down across the field. Yet the elder had told him to come here, so if someone was looking suspiciously from one of the windows, he was here with her authority. Maybe phones had already rung, the news might already have travelled, of the stranger in town from Scotland?
He thought he’d like the raven’s feather to be a sign of acceptance, and maybe of intention - what he knew in Shetland people called a ‘penn’, a quill to write with. It seemed to fit his hand, a perfect implement for ink, once cut. But then it was just a feather, about five and a half inches long, sleekly perfect, so that its many jet-black silky fibres formed something more than their distinct parts, a comb of common function, a tiny part of the raven’s essential nature – to be feathered, to fly.
He picked a sprig of purple alfalfa blossom, and placed it on the concrete base of Antko’s stone, between the gnomic N’laka’pamux inscription and the somehow very British floral wreath. He thought again of that shared portrait with husband and dog, outside the cabin where they’d lived in the hidden valley, recalling the strong face, almost scowling at the photographer, her dark gaze seeming to penetrate the camera’s lens, to joust with picture-taker’s own. Only the dress seemed alien - Lucy’s, perhaps, that other self, the Christian name given to her by the missionaries. There was no mention of ‘Lucy’ on this gravestone, here on the corner of Highway 8 and Highway 1, where the road split for Merritt or Cache Creek. No mention of God or angels, even. Whatever was sacred about this spot was sacred because of Antko’s memory.
He made his way out of the cemetery and closed the white gate, put his hands together in a momentary gesture of prayer by the wire fence. The path to the church ran through the reservation. Missionaries first, organised resistance much later. When the funeral party carried Antko’s dead body from the stoop of the little wooden church to the furthest corner of the graveyard, early in March 1899, there was no Band office.
He wondered who was there, at that funeral in the last spring of the 1800s: Antko’s relations, no doubt, and of course Lyle himself. But did the better-off settlers come to this ceremony on the edge of town – the wee Scottish Widow Spark, mistress of the famous orchards, or Mr Archie Clements, the man of property, who had built the Inn and the community Hall? Old Sigurd who gave his name to the first regular crossing of the river, who himself died later that year? Sigurd’s Crossing it was called, once upon a time, this flat-banked canyon just below where the Nicola River joins the Thompson. The N’laka’pamux had other names for all.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine that procession – he could visualize the church, quite new back then, perhaps the paint job fresh, but the pall-bearers led by the widowed husband, that cheechako who’d married the klootchman, they remained indistinct. He could picture a slow solemn walk past the settler graveyard to the furthest corner of the other, and imagine the English voice of the preacher, saying what must be said, the different tongues spoken as mourners parted again, to go to where must go – their side of the tracks. N’laka’pamux, Chinook. French, English. Mandarin, Scots, all drawn here to this huge isolated valley, the wintry river ripping past, full spring still distant, a strange array of people intent upon making new homes. And the Cheechako Lyle, finally alone at home, her presence suddenly absent among her things, did he speak distractedly to himself in the dialect of his native Shetland? The English of his education? Or in the language of this canyon that she had helped him learn?
Tcuk aks kazuzems – what could it mean? So many secrets, it seemed. The elder had told him no one outside the Cloud Falls Band really knew where their cabin was – the white people thought they did, but they were wrong, the place they thought it was wasn’t near as far away as the cabin Lyle had built for his first wife. That was much deeper in the valley, hidden. But knowing this, there was nowhere else he wanted to go more. Yet he was excluded. As he wandered back along the highway, towards the inn again, he wondered about the task of telling the story of another person’s life – any other person – the difficulty and the ethics of that. For all the knowledge he might gather of their life, the historical detail, even if he was to learn the native language, he, like Lyle, would be limited by not being one of them, and could only speculate on the deep selves that underlie actions. Yet the raven had given him its pen, as the elder had seemed to approve, he had taken up the commission, and put it in his backpack. He was there in Cloud Falls at Antko’s grave, over one hundred and eleven years since she was buried, looking for her, Jimmy Lyle, and their tangled stories.
It was getting late by the time he reached base. He had walked, for a second day, round and around Cloud Falls in the heat, but today he’d got deeper, much deeper in. His feet were swollen and sore so he bathed them, then began writing the story of the day. He’d eat at The Apple Store later. Once more over the bridge. It was only then he realised he’d forgotten to ask the elder if she had ever known his father.
The Apple Store was empty of customers when he went in. Dorothy appeared from the rear and welcomed him like a friend. He said he’d got the sun cream from the Avon lady like she’d suggested.
He was tucking into the special of the day, a chicken fricassee, and chatting with Dorothy when a large Chrysler truck pulled into the parking lot outside at speed, coming to rest just outside the window by the table where the Scotsman sat. The cowcatcher on the front filled the window like prison bars. From the cab jumped a swarthy man, a stocky figure that moved with a muscled assurance. He nodded as he passed the window, opened the door briskly, cast an expressionless glance over at the woman behind the counter, and strode over to where the stranger sat.
‘Chief Mutch,’ he said, offering a rough strong hand. The Scotsman put down his knife, reached over and shook it. ‘I’m Bert,’ he said. ‘Bert Johnson. I’m sorry, I haven’t been able to pick up messages since I got here, so I don’t if you’ve been in touch?’
The chief looked in a hurry and didn’t respond directly to his question, but gave a shrug of no importance. ‘Called along the inn, they told me you were down here,’ he said quickly, and sat down opposite the eater before he could be invited. ‘Spoke with the elder earlier. She said you two had a good meeting today.’
Bert leaned back from his half-eaten plate. ‘Yes, it was good. She was very helpful. I had no idea she had met Jimmy Lyle. She must have been quite young.’
‘Just a little kid, I guess, yeah. Listen, I’m sorry, but I gotta go down to Vancouver for a meeting otherwise I’d take you round myself, show you those places you were asking about. Be good to talk a bit too. The elder says Jimmy Lyle was a native back in Scotland. I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, it was a bit different from the situation here. But yes, he was in a way. I think he identified…’ He didn’t finish his sentence, as Chief Mutch glanced again at the counter where Dorothy was silently polishing things, ears flapping.
‘So you’re writing a book about him, then?’ he said, still watching her.
‘Well, I’m just researching at the moment. Taking notes. I just wanted to see the place he lived for myself, and talk to people, see if he was still remembered at all. And I was amazed when the elder told me that you’d had a commemoration last year.’
Chief Mutch turned his attention back to him, and frowned. ‘Not of Jimmy Lyle exactly. You know about the Laurier memorial?’
‘I do. I saw the framed text in the community centre.’
‘You know, Lyle was important, of course he was. But the story isn’t really about him, not to us. And I guess whatever you’re writing won’t really….’ He hesitated. His dark-eyed stare was intense, challenging, without the slightest flinch. The Scotsman could feel that he was a powerful presence, a poker-faced, possibly overbearing leader, a chief like the mountain above, leaning over the settlement, seemingly resolute and immoveable.
‘I can’t say what I’ll write. Not yet. But I know what his role in the memorial was, that he wrote down what the chiefs wanted.’
‘Yeah. He was their scribe. And that was important. But for us, the story is that all the chiefs in BC came here, from all over the province. Some of them travelled for days to be here. That was historic. You know why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why they gathered right then?’
The Scotsman shook his head, then shrugged. ‘Land rights?’
‘Sure, but specifically the provincial government suddenly decided to cut the amount of reserved land. No reason, no warning. They reckoned the Indians didn’t need it so much. That was why the chiefs all travelled here.’ He glanced again at the polishing audience. ‘Not much has changed since your Jimmy Lyle’s day.’ Chief Mutch smiled. ‘Your plate’s getting cold.’
The Scotsman shrugged. ‘I was finished anyway.’
‘You sure?’ His eyes flicked around the café. ‘Listen, I gotta go,’ he said, ‘But first I’ll tell you a little story. Maybe it’ll help you when you come to write your book. It’s about when I was a boy and I used to go out with my father in the truck. We would drive about, all over this territory, N’laka’pamux territory. We’d set traps and we’d watch to see how things were growing, what water was in the streams, how the snow was melting. Cause out here water is key to everything. And this one day we came to a big old gate, with a padlock on it right across our trail. The gate had a sign too, a sign that said Private Property with the name of some company, I can’t recall exactly what it was now – JPD or PDJ or something. Now, under Canadian Law this company owned the land, but under N’laka’pamux law, it was ours and always had been. People had been going through that territory for centuries just like we were that day. But there it was, a big old metal gate with this lock on it. Well, my father just backed up our truck, geared down and drove straight through it. The lock was bust open. We closed the gate behind us, and carried on. And it stayed like that. The so-called owners never went there, so they never knew. We just opened that busted gate and shut it again after us every time, and nobody ever came to repair it. The shiny new sign just got old and fell off. The Canadian government still thought that company owned it. We knew they didn’t.’
His eyes had been glazed, as if remembering his childhood and his father, but as he finished his story, Chief Mutch looked up at the Scotsman and grinned in a toothy twisted way. He had heard this story before, or rather had read it, in the thesis from the UBC archive.
‘Absentee landlords,’ the Scotsman ventured in response, ‘We have them in Scotland too. They think they own places, and try to keep the people out with their fences and signs. They use these estates for forestry and they farm deer for hunting. Their rich friends come up on hunting trips.’
The chief grinned again. ‘Well, maybe Scotland isn’t so different then. Listen, like I said, I’d take you round, show you things, but I got a meeting down in Vancouver. How long you staying?’
‘I don’t know yet. Maybe another week. Maybe more, it depends on how things go.’
‘Maybe I could arrange for someone to take you round? You don’t have a truck or a car or anything, do you?’
‘No, I’m on foot.’
‘I heard that.’ He smiled again, as if the Scotsman’s peregrinations had been the subject of a joke or two in some circle or another.
‘I like to walk,’ he said, ‘I see more that way.’
‘Well, okay. But out here in the sun, it’s not so good.’
‘Nothing’s that far, though, I’m never out too long. Tell me, though, I want to know more about Lyle’s cabin. The elder told me it was in some secret valley.’
The Chief’s demeanour changed at the mention. He frowned, leaned forward a little. ‘She told you what?’ he said, his voice a little lower in tone.
