Come home Read online

  The Carling RCMP Detachment was exceptionally busy. There were many reports of aggressive behavior by the local Indians around Andover Lake, and up and down the Fraser River. Bill Majors’ Detachment Chief was asking for assistance from Headquarters in Regina.

  Everyone and everything was in upheaval, no one knew why all this unrest? The law hadn’t changed, the reserve regulations hadn’t changed, there was nothing to fight about.

  But sadly, the Indians didn’t think so.

  The consensus was, if something wasn’t done soon, there’d be blood in the streets. Nobody wanted that, especially the towns’ people.

  The Regional Detachment Chief chose Bill Majors to approach the Council at the Xaali’pp Great House on Friday and ask why all the discontent, and what could be done about it. He was sitting in his office at his desk trying to decide what to say when a worn out, thin, unshaven man stepped into his office.

  “Hi Bill.”

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “You can tell me what’s going on.”

  “Yes sir, and your name is?”

  “It’s me, Jack McKinnon.”

  “My god, Jack, I’d have never known you, where did you come from?”

  “I’ve been living in my cabin on Andover Lake; I’m looking for my dog.”

  “All this time?”

  “Yes. But I need to know what’s going on.”

  “Where have you been these past five months?”

  “I was at the cabin. I came to find out what’s going on.”

  Bill Majors sat and looked at the bedraggled man in front of him and knew that wasn’t so. The last he heard, Jack signed himself out of the hospital in Burnswood and disappeared.

  Rikki was frantic, and looked everywhere but she could only look so long. With no money coming in, a young boy to feed and a mortgage to pay, she had to look for a job. They were hard to find for a woman with few office skills.

  Jamison Copier/Scanner Company, a family oriented firm looked after its’ employees and found her a job. They told her Jack’s job was waiting for him when he got back on his feet. She didn’t have the heart to tell them, no one could find Jack, or his feet.

  “You better sit down,” said the Sergeant, “you tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.”

  “I don’t have a story; I need to know what’s going on.”

  “Well, for starters, we’re going to have an Indian uprising.”

  “Good.”

  What kind of reply was this?

  “Rikki looked everywhere for you, we covered the cabin several times, no one was there. Where have you been?”

  “Do you have anything to eat? I can’t remember the last time I ate. And I can’t find my dog.”

  The Sergeant reached into his bottom desk drawer and brought out an open package of chocolate Oreo cookies. His wife Jeanne didn’t approve of his private stash.

  “Thanks,” Jack said taking a cookie but not eating it, “Where are we?”

  “Jack, you’re in Carling.”

  “Oh, sure, now tell me what the white man’s law is going to do about the Indian rebellion?”

  “Why are you so interested in what we’re going to do?”

  “I need to know, when I know, I’ll find my dog.”

  “Really?”

  Bill Majors stood up and came around his desk to stand between the door and the man that said he was Jack McKinnon.

  “Come on down the hall Jack, we have it all mapped out on the wall. You can see it for yourself,” said the Sergeant as he manoeuvred behind the thin man.

  “Just down this hall,” Bill said, “here, through this door, into this room.”

  “Why are you putting me in here?” said the thin man to the Sergeant, “there’s no map on the wall.”

  “That’s O.K., just sit at the table; I’ll be back soon and tell you all you need to know.”

  “O.K.,” he said, sitting down and promptly fell asleep sitting up.

  Bill Majors shook his head, he needed some help, this was so far out of his scope of experience he didn’t even know how to describe what just happened.

  * ** *

  “You’re sure you want to do this right now, even though it’s late,” said Bill Majors’ Detachment Chief, Harry Fitzgerald as he handed over a little piece of paper with writing on it.

  The Sergeant just nodded his head and gripped the paper harder.

  “I know I’ve given you the right name,” said his Chief, “when you get to Harrisburg go to the Endowment Lands, the University of British Columbia is there, just ask anybody, he’s a very well known professor. He said he’d try to help. Remember, no matter what anyone says, don’t take the handcuffs off, and don’t undo the leg shackles, he can walk with them on. Don’t get misdirected; it’s The Dept. of Indian Affairs, BC Division.”

  “I’ll be able to find it with your directions, Sir. I’ll take my cruiser, that way I can lock him in the back, and I won’t have to worry that he’ll get away when I have to leave the car. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”

  Bill Majors put the paper with the name and address into his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap. There’d be no chance of losing it. He walked down the hall and peered into the small interrogation room through the one-way glass; it was time to leave for Harrisburg and Jack was still sitting at the table. He hadn’t moved for the past three hours.

  Bill felt sorry for him, but couldn’t help until he understood what was wrong. Opening the door, he expected his friend to stand and greet him with a word, a wave or a cheeky remark; instead, he lunged at Bill and knocked him off balance. Racing by him into the hall, he paused, unsure which way led out of the building.

  The split second of indecision was all the Sergeant needed; he dove for his legs and wrestled him to the ground. Too late he realized he needed help. As it was, the scruffy man fought like a tiger, but he was starving and had no staying power.

  He lay on the floor panting, glowering hatred from his sunken eyes. As Bill Majors helped him up, he spit in his face and swore at him in the old Xaali’pp dialect.

  He was not the man Bill knew, and was not going to cooperate.

  Bill called for a Constable from the front desk to help, it took the two of them almost 20 minutes to get the handcuffs and leg shackles on.

  After an uneventful trip to Harrisburg, the RCMP cruiser pulled into the visitor’s parking lot at the Administration Building of the University of BC. Some of the students stopped and stared at the wild man in the cruiser’s back lockup. When the Sergeant got out and frowned at them, they moved on whispering to each other. Some scruffy boys looked back and laughed.

  As luck would have it, the campus police came over to ask if he needed assistance.

  “I need to see a professor....just a moment, I have his name here,” said Bill, as he took the little piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the officer.

  “Okay, I know him; he’s over on the other side of the campus. Just go down University Boulevard here until you come to the old barracks, turn left onto Main Mall, a short block or so further, turn the only way you can, and you’ll be on Agronomy Road. It’s a big steel and glass building, the newest one we have. Just go in and check the Occupant’s Board, he’s listed there. You can park your vehicle in the No Parking Zone, put my card on the windshield and you’ll be alright.”

  “Thanks, much obliged,” said the nervous Mountie putting the officer’s card in his shirt pocket together with the small piece of paper.

  Although he grew up in Harrisburg, he hadn’t been to the UBC campus for a long time. He went to university at Loma Linda U. in Alberta, smaller school, cheaper housing.

  With only one wrong turn, he found the right building. Once you could see it, there was no mistaking the steel & glass. He parked in the ‘No Parking Zone’, checked his passenger, got out and put the campus police officer’s card under the windshield wiper.

  He found the Occupants Board as he entered the lobby
of the building, and the name he was looking for; fourth floor, room 12.

  The big question running through his mind all the way from Carling was how was he going to get Jack up to this professors’ office? He was told never to remove the restraints.

  “Guess I’ll have to ask him, he knows the situation, maybe he has an idea, he thought and called him on the house phone.”

  Sergeant Majors met Dr. Edmund Little Bow when he stepped out of the elevator. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this.

  “Hello there,” said the professor, his Indian heritage evident in his clothing and headband. “Did you bring your problem with you? I hope I’ll be able to help you. There’s so much bad information out there about the Indian Medicine Man or Shaman, and I’m glad to put some of these false ideas to rest.”

  He thinks there is no problem here, thought Bill Majors; this is going to be a wasted trip.

  “Dr. Little Bow, my name is Sergeant Bill Majors, RCMP Carling Detachment; please follow me out to my vehicle, the person my superior spoke to you about is in the back seat. He’s been missing for approximately five and half months, but today he came into the office asking questions. He needs to tell us where he’s been and why he’s in such a state. We’re sure it has to do with the problems the Indian people in our district are having.”

  “I see.”

  “My superior advised against releasing him as he’s very unstable. Any ideas?” said the Sergeant as he unlocked the vehicle and opened the passenger side door.

  “Well, I have all sorts of ideas, but will any of them work?”

  He approached the open door of the car and spoke to the man in the back seat.

  “I’m Doctor Little Bow,” he said, “tell me what’s wrong, maybe I can help.

  Jack McKinnon sat in the back seat of the vehicle and looked straight ahead. It was as though the professor hadn’t spoken.

  “May I sit in the front seat?” he asked the Sergeant, “and open the pass-through window to the back all the way so I can speak directly to him.”

  He got in and sat in the front passenger seat. He looked like he was concentrating and began to chant, as he sang he motioned with his hands.

  The hair on the back of Sergeant Majors neck stood straight up!

  Jack started to move around. The stronger the Professors’ voice, the harder he struggled. Suddenly he slumped forward.

  Dead?

  Out cold?

  “What have you done?” said the Sergeant looking at the crumpled man. He was responsible for the safety of his charge; he needed to know what was going on. And more, he needed to know why?

  Professor Little Bow also collapsed in the front seat, he was exhausted too. Breathing heavily he got out of the car and began to do knee bends. He needed more oxygen.

  The Sergeant stood open-mouthed.

  “It’s alright, Sergeant, I didn’t kill him,” Edmund Little Bow said standing up, “but I did figure out what’s wrong with him. We have to talk. Lock the doors, he can’t be allowed to wander alone. Come with me to my office, I’ll tell you what’s happening here.”

  Bill Majors gathered the research papers from headquarters that told the Professor about the situation. He then locked the vehicle securely; there’d be no escape while he was on duty.

  Turning, he followed the man with the Indian headband into the building.

  This was going to be good!

  Doctor Little Bow led the way up to his office on the fourth floor of the big glass building on the campus of the University of BC. Bill Majors looked at the back of the man in front of him and thought him the most unlikely Indian he’d ever seen. Short, overweight, with pale complexion, soft blue eyes and wheat colored hair.

  He was a very washed-out Indian.

  They rode up in the elevator, the doors opened on the fourth floor and several individuals were waiting, they stepped aside as the two men exited the elevator. No one seemed surprized by the large RCMP Sergeant and the small man... maybe it was business as usual.

  “Just down here, have you been to our university before, Sergeant?” he said, as he opened the door to a large office.

  In it were the most amazing indigenous artifacts. They hung on the walls and filled the shelves. Headdresses mounted on mannequin heads sat on every level space, shields and spears leaned in corners, woven bark baskets, beaded moccasins, some very old. And, of course, Haida carvings in all sizes and shapes.

  The Sergeant was very impressed as he walked around the room admiring it all.

  Looking for somewhere to sit, he saw a small alcove with a desk. It also held a recliner chair built specially for the man beside him.

  “Impressive, eh?”

  “You said it, where did you get all this?”

  “I’ve been collecting all my life, I saw the way you looked at me, I’m probably the least Indian looking Indian you’ll ever meet. But let me assure you, I’m 100% Tsimskaan, born and bred. It’s a spread out clan at the north end of Andover Lake, we’ve lived there for as long as anyone can remember and before.

  “And no, there’s no white blood in my line, I don’t know why I look the way I do,” he said smiling, “but inside, I’m a 6 foot, black haired, hook-nosed Indian!”

  The tirade seemed to wear the professor out and he sat heavily in his chair. A moment or two passed and he reached down to his lower desk drawer.

  “I realize we’re on Provincial Land, and I’m an Indian and you’re RCMP, but, for medicinal purposes only, I’ll give you a dollop of the Red Man’s juice to give you energy for the task at hand.”

  Bill didn’t know what to make of it all, and sat down in the only other chair in the room. He wasn’t sure what a dollop was, but the ‘Red Man’s Juice’ was familiar.

  The professor poured an oz. or so of a dark red liquid into each of the two small glasses he produced from his other bottom drawer.

  “Kwey” he said and drank it down.

  The Sergeant took a sip from his glass and looked at his host...hmm... definitely not just Portland Grape juice.

  “Getting back to the problem at hand sir, do you know what’s wrong with my prisoner? Can you help him?”

  “I don’t know yet, tell me about him.”

  “Six months ago, he was just an average man with a cabin on the north-east side of Andover Lake. He flipped his boat in early spring on his way up, and it sank, never came up even though it was supposed to be unsinkable, his dog, a good swimmer went down too. His body never came up either; we watched both sides of the lake for quite some time.

  “Jack McKinnon, the man you met downstairs also had a very disturbing experience. He said he swam to shore, spent the night in a closed cabin and walked the railway tracks back to Merriweather.”

  “It says in here,” said the professor, referring to the papers the Sergeant gave him, “this man can’t swim?”

  “He can dogpaddle. He said the dog swam with him and kept him warm when he crawled out of the lake. He also said, and I know this is true; the cabin he saw was one he wasn’t familiar with. He went up to it and tried to get inside, but it was locked securely, so he pushed the door and the frame into the cabin, found some curtains and other things and burned them in the pot belly stove to get warm.”

  “How did he start the fire, if he just crawled out of the lake?” said the listener.

  “We asked that too, he said he didn’t know. Anyway, in the morning, there was no dog, and no dog prints in the sand. He said he walked the railway tracks back to the town of Merriweather at the south end of Andover Lake.

  “His cabin is on the east side at the north end of this 15 mile lake. You probably know Andover Lake is glacier fed and very cold all year round.

  “The long and short of it all,” the Mountie said, “was the cabin he was in was at the south-west end of the lake right in front of Scuff Peak, that’s in the Bendor Range.”

  “This is some story. What’s wrong now? What’s changed?”

/>   “Jack McKinnon has been missing for over five months. Today he walked into my office and began to ask what we were going to do with the Indian uprising up and down the Fraser River. He couldn’t seem to tell us where he’d been, or what he’d been doing. And... he became very violent when I tried to insist.

  “There’s been more than a few incidents with the young men of the Xaali’pp band, but nothing that we’d class as a full blown uprising.

  “But Mr. McKinnon is something altogether different. He’s a married man with a wife and son and they’ve been frantic with worry. There’s something wrong with him, and I think it has to do with the new medicine man that came from Quebec about a year ago. We have a request in to the RCMP Division Head in Ontario, but nothings come back yet.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly got a problem. You want me to tell you what’s wrong with him?”

  “Not only what’s wrong, but what can be done to cure him?”

  “I don’t know any quick cures, but my best advice is; get him away from the medicine man. For want of a better way of explaining what’s been going on, think of it as being under hypnosis. This new medicine man took him as a way of finding out what’s going on in the enemy camp or as a hostage for a later date. I would say, that’s why he came to you today. He has to find out what he’s been told to find, and then he’ll be able to go back and explain it to his captor.”

  “If he goes back, will he get back to normal?”

  “Sorry, but I have no idea. The chant you heard me sing down stairs is a healing song, specifically for those who’ve had their souls stolen. In the old days, they put them into a ‘soul catcher’. That’s a hollow bone with a head at each end, its usually depicted as a fish, but can be anything. I’ve even seen them with stylized human heads. Only a very powerful shaman would even consider using one of those. They are very potent medicine.

  “While not well known, things like this happened in the old days. It was how a certain kind of medicine man cemented his power in the clan; they called it, ‘Stealing a Man’s Soul’. I really don’t like to think this kind of thing is going on, and this is the first time I’ve run into it. Let me do a little more research, and I’ll get back to your Department Head with my ideas.”

  “Last question, what will happen to him if we don’t let him go back?”

  “Same answer as last time, I don’t know. But I would venture to say, nothing good.”