Kiss of the Fur Queen Read online

  Copyright © Tomson Highway 1998

  Anchor Canada edition 2005

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduces transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher — or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Reprography collective — is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Anchor Canada and colophon are trademarks.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Highway, Tomson, 1951—

  Kiss of the fur queen

  eISBN: 978-0-385-67416-4

  1. Title

  PS8565.1433K57 1999 C813′.54 C98-931194-5

  PR9199.3.H53K57 1999

  Published in Canada by

  Anchor Canada, a division of

  Random House of Canada Limited

  v3.1

  Igwani igoosi, n’seemis

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  A Note on the Trickster

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Part One - Allegro ma non troppo Chapter 1 - One

  Chapter 2 - Two

  Chapter 3 - Three

  Chapter 4 - Four

  Part Two - Andante cantabile Chapter 5 - Five

  Chapter 6 - Six

  Chapter 7 - Seven

  Chapter 8 - Eight

  Chapter 9 - Nine

  Chapter 10 - Ten

  Chapter 11 - Eleven

  Part Three - Allegretto grazioso Chapter 12 - Twelve

  Chapter 13 - Thirteen

  Chapter 14 - Fourteen

  Chapter 15 - Fifteen

  Chapter 16 - Sixteen

  Chapter 17 - Seventeen

  Chapter 18 - Eighteen

  Chapter 19 - Nineteen

  Chapter 20 - Twenty

  Chapter 21 - Twenty-One

  Chapter 22 - Twenty-Two

  Part Four - Molto agitato Chapter 23 - Twenty-Three

  Chapter 24 - Twenty-Four

  Chapter 25 - Twenty-Five

  Chapter 26 - Twenty-Six

  Chapter 27 - Twenty-Seven

  Chapter 28 - Twenty-Eight

  Chapter 29 - Twenty-Nine

  Chapter 30 - Thirty

  Chapter 31 - Thirty-One

  Chapter 32 - Thirty-Two

  Chapter 33 - Thirty-Three

  Part Five - Adagio espressivo Chapter 34 - Thirty-Four

  Chapter 35 - Thirty-Five

  Chapter 36 - Thirty-Six

  Chapter 37 - Thirty-Seven

  Chapter 38 - Thirty-Eight

  Chapter 39 - Thirty-Nine

  Chapter 40 - Forty

  Part Six - Presto con fuoco Chapter 41 - Forty-One

  Chapter 42 - Forty-Two

  Chapter 43 - Forty-Three

  Chapter 44 - Forty-Four

  Chapter 45 - Forty-Five

  Chapter 46 - Forty-Six

  Chapter 47 - Forty-Seven

  Chapter 48 - Forty-Eight

  Chapter 49 - Forty-Nine

  Glossary of Cree Terms

  A NOTE ON THE TRICKSTER

  The dream world of North American Indian mythology is inhabited by the most fantastic creatures, beings and events. Foremost among these beings is the “Trickster,” as pivotal and important a figure in our world as Christ is in the realm of Christian mythology. “Weesageechak” in Cree, “Nanabush” in Ojibway, “Raven” in others, “Coyote” in still others, this Trickster goes by many names and many guises. In fact, he can assume any guise he chooses. Essentially a comic, clownish sort of character, his role is to teach us about the nature and the meaning of existence on the planet Earth; he straddles the consciousness of man and that of God, the Great Spirit.

  The most explicit distinguishing feature between the North American Indian languages and the European languages is that in Indian (e.g. Cree, Ojibway), there is no gender. In Cree, Ojibway, etc., unlike English, French, German, etc., the male-female-neuter hierarchy is entirely absent. So that by this system of thought, the central hero figure from our mythology — theology, if you will — is theoretically neither exclusively male nor exclusively female, or is both simultaneously.

  Some say that Weesaceechak left this continent when the white man came. We believe she/he is still here among us — albeit a little the worse for wear and tear — having assumed other guises. Without the continued presence of this extraordinary figure, the core of Indian culture would be gone forever.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  There are many people to whom gratitude has to be expressed for the support, inspiration, faith, and love that they gave me during the writing of this book. In alphabetical order, they are: William Aide, Keith Anderson, Merrick Emlyn Anderson, Lilly Barnes, Micah Barnes, Elizabeth Bateman, Linda Beath, Jack Blum, Denise Bolduc, Elaine Bomberry, Peter Bomberry, Rita Bomberry, my agent Denise Bukowski, Jim Burt, Catherine Cahill, Tantoo Cardinal, Teresa Castonguay, Kennetch Charlette, Celia Chassels, Marsha Coffey, Cathie Cooper, Sharon Corder, Dale Crosby, James Cullingham, Jennifer Dean, my agent Suzanne DePoe, David Doze (Vox Management), David Earle, Bernice Eisenstein, Gloria Eshkibok, Barker Fairley, Jonathon Forbes, Carol Hay, William (Bill) Henderson, Daniel Highway, Pelagie Highway, Kathleen Jamieson, Edwin Jebb, Alexie Lalonde-Steedman, Florence Lalonde, my partner Raymond Lalonde, Thérèse Lalonde, Jani Lauzon, Larry Lewis, Doris Linklater, Edna Manitowabi, Tina Mason, Pamela Matthews, Maya Mavjee, Elva McCoy, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Linda Merasty, Louise Merasty, William (Billy) Merasty, Mary Jane McCallum, Gloria Montero, Jim Morris, Rena Morrison, Daniel David Moses, John Neale, Maxine Noel, Margarita Orszag, Ken Pitawanakwat, James Reaney, Anne Robbins, Svend Robinson, Carol Rowntree, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jaydeen Sanderson, Jenna Sanderson, Jennifer Sanderson, Jonathon (Little Joe) Sanderson, Don Sedgwick, Richard Silver, Mary Stockdale, Iris Turcott, Isabel Vincent, my editor Charis Wahl, Don Winkler, and everyone at Doubleday. As well, the following institutions are to be recognized for their generosity: the Canada Council, Concordia University, Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, and University College (University of Toronto). Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

  Lastly, a heartfelt thanks has to be extended to the storytellers of my people, the myth-makers, the weavers of dreams. For it is on their shoulders that we, the current and upcoming generation of Native writers, stand. Without them, we would have no way of telling our stories and, ultimately, no stories to tell.

  This book, of course, is a novel — all the characters and what happens to them are fictitious. Moreover, some liberty has been taken with the chronology of certain historical events — the Fur Queen beauty pageant, for instance. As a certain philosopher of ancient Greece once put it, the difference between the historian and poet/storyteller is that where the historian relates what happened, the storyteller tells us how it might have come about.

  Editor’s Note: Cree terms are used throughout this novel. For their meaning please see the Glossary, this page–this page.

  “Use your utmost endeavours to dissuade the Indians from excessive

  indulgence in the practice of dancing.”

  —From a letter by Duncan Campbell Scott,

  Deputy Superintendant General of the

  Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, Canada

  sent out as a circular on December 15, 1921.

  “At night, when the streets of your cities and villages are silent, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them, and still love this beautiful land. The whiteman will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people. For the dead are not power
less.”

  —Chief Seattle of the Squamish, 1853,

  translated by Dr. Henry Smith.

  PART ONE

  Allegro ma non troppo

  ONE

  “Mush!” the hunter cried into the wind. Through the rising vapour of a northern Manitoba February, so crisp, so dry, the snow creaked underfoot, the caribou hunter Abraham Okimasis drove his sled and team of eight grey huskies through the orange-rose-tinted dusk. His left hand gripping handlebar of sled, his right snapping moose-hide whip above his head, Abraham Okimasis was urging his huskies forward.

  “Mush!” he cried, “mush.” The desperation in his voice, like a man about to sob, surprised him.

  Abraham Okimasis could see, or thought he could, the finish line a mile away. He could also see other mushers, three, maybe four. Which meant forty more behind him. But what did these forty matter? What mattered was that, so close to the end, he was not leading. What mattered was that he was not going to win the race.

  And he was so tired, his dogs beyond tired, so tired they would have collapsed if he was to relent.

  “Mush!” the sole word left that could feed them, dogs and master both, with the will to travel on.

  Three days. One hundred and fifty miles of low-treed tundra, ice-covered lakes, all blanketed with at least two feet of snow — fifty miles per day — a hundred and fifty miles of freezing temperatures and freezing winds. And the finish line mere yards ahead.

  The shafts of vapour rising from the dogs’ panting mouths, the curls of mist emerging from their undulating backs, made them look like insubstantial wisps of air.

  “Mush!” the hunter cried to his lead dog. “Tiger-Tiger, mush.”

  He had sworn to his dear wife, Mariesis Okimasis, on pain of separation and divorce, unthinkable for a Roman Catholic in the year of our Lord 1951, that he would win the world championship just for her: the silver cup, that holy chalice was to be his twenty-first-anniversary gift to her. With these thoughts racing through his fevered mind, Abraham Okimasis edged past musher number 54 — Jean-Baptiste Ducharme of Cranberry Portage. Still not good enough.

  Half a mile to the finish line — he could see the banner now, a silvery white with bold black lettering, though he couldn’t make out the words.

  Mushers numbers 32 and 17, so close, so far: Douglas Ballantyne of Moosoogoot, Saskatchewan, at least twenty yards ahead, and Jackson Butler of Flin Flon, Manitoba, another ten ahead of that.

  “Mush!” the sound a bark into the wind.

  “Please, please, God in heaven, let me win this race,” a voice inside the caribou hunter’s body whispered, “and I will thank you with every deed, every touch, every breath for the rest of my long life, for hallowed be thy name …” The prayer strung itself, word by word, like a rosary, pulling him along, bead by bead by bead, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth …”

  Less than half a prayer and already God the Father was answering. Wasn’t that his voice Abraham Okimasis could hear in the northwest wind? Less than a quarter of a mile to go, he was sure of it, and already he had passed musher number 32, Douglas Ballantyne of Moosoogoot. And now, not forty yards away, the banner hovered over the finish line like the flaming sword of the angel guarding paradise — “The World Champion’ship Dog Derby, Trappers’ Festival, Oopaskooyak, Manitoba, February 23—25, 1951!” And now musher number 21, Abraham Okimasis of Eemanapiteepitat, Manitoba, was only ten feet behind musher number 17, Jackson Butler of Flin Flon, the finish line not thirty yards away. Twenty-five. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten …

  The screams of children, of women, of men, the barking of dogs, the blare of loudspeakers crashed over the hunter, submerging him, drowning him. A sudden darkness knocked the breath clean of his lungs, the vision from his eyes. And in his blindness, all he could sense was a small white flame, as if perceived through a long, dark tunnel, fluttering and waving like a child’s hand, beckoning him. All he knew was that he wanted to lie down and sleep forever, and only the waving flame was preventing him.

  When Abraham Okimasis surfaced, he found hands reaching for him, other hands clutching at his arms, his shoulders, his back, manoeuvring him through a mass of human flesh. Cameras, microphones were aimed at him. Men with notepads and pencils, women with pens and large red moving mouths, prying, babbling in this language of the Englishman, hard, filled with sharp, jagged angles.

  Then the caribou hunter felt himself levitating towards a platform. Wings must have been attached to his shoulders by guardian angels posing as minions of the festival, Abraham would reason some days later. And on the platform a man like a white balloon, so large, so pale, his voice thunderous and huge.

  “Boom,” the voice went, “boom, boom.” Something about “Abraham Okimasis, forty-three years old, caribou hunter, fur trapper, fisherman, boom, boom.” Something about “Abraham Okimasis, musher, from the Eemanapiteepitat Indian reserve, northwestern Manitoba, boom.” Something having to do with “Abraham Okimasis, winner of the 1951 Millington Cup World Champion’ship Dog Derby, boom, boom.” Something about “Mr. Okimasis, first Indian to win this gruelling race in its twenty-eight-year history …” The syllables became one vast, roiling rumble.

  Whereupon another darkness came over the Cree hunter. And in his blindness, all he could sense was the long, black tunnel, the small white flame so far, far away, flickering and fluttering, waving and swaying — a child’s hand? a spirit? — beckoning, summoning.

  A mile away, on a makeshift stage at one end of the high-ceilinged temple of ice hockey, seven fresh-faced, fair-haired women stood blinking under glaring lights. The youngest was eighteen, the eldest no more than twenty-three. Across the stage, a banner read: “The Fur Queen Beauty Pageant, Trappers’ Festival, 1951, Oopaskooyak, Manitoba.”

  A panel of judges had sized up these seven finalists from every angle conceivable: height, width, weight, posture, deportment, quality of face, length of neck, circumference of leg, sway of hip, length of finger, quality of tooth, lip, nose, ear, eye, and eyebrow, down to the last dimple, mole, visible hair. The women had been prodded, poked, photographed, interviewed, felt, watched, paraded around the town for the entire three days of the Trappers’ Festival, for the delectation of audiences from as far afield as Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Labrador, and even Germany, it had been reported in the Oopaskooyak Times. These seven beauties had cut ribbons, sliced cakes, unveiled snow sculptures, made pronouncements, announcements, proclamations. They had given out prizes at the muskrat-skinning contest, the trap-setting contest, the beard-growing contest, the dreaded Weetigo look-alike contest, the bannock-baking and tea-boiling contests. They had coddled babies, kissed schoolchildren, shaken hands with the mayor and his wife, danced with lonely strangers whose sole desire it was to pass one fleeting minute of their lives in the arms of a Fur Queen finalist. And now, the judges were about to reveal the most graceful, the most intelligent, the most desirable, the most beautiful. The Fur Queen.

  All puffed out in timber-wolf-lined top hat and tuxedo, the mayor, who had graciously volunteered as chairman of the judges’ panel, stepped up to the microphone at centre stage, cleared his throat, thumped his chest, opened his mouth, and trumpeted the entrance into the arena of the brave and daring men who had risked life and limb to take part in the Millington Cup World Champion’ship Dog Derby. The crowd roared.

  The chairman again cleared his throat, thumped his chest, opened his mouth, and boomed into the microphone.

  “Results of the 1951 Fur Queen Beauty Pageant, for which the decision of the judges is final. Third runner-up, Miss Linda Hawkins, Silver Lake, Manitoba.” A young woman burst into a tearful smile and stepped up to the chairman to receive her cash award and a bouquet of yellow roses, had her upper body draped by the two other judges with a yellow satin sash, and was photographed a hundred times until all she could see was showers of stars. The crowd roared.

  “Second runner-up, Miss Olivia Demchuk, Eematat, Manitoba,” boomed the chairman’s voice. And a second young woman burs
t into a tearful smile, stepped up to the chairman to receive her cash award and a bouquet of pink roses, had her upper body draped with a pink satin sash, and was photographed a hundred times until all she could see was showers of stars. The crowd roared louder.

  “First runner-up, Miss Catherine Shaw, Smallwood Lake, Manitoba,” boomed the chairman’s voice. And a third young woman burst into a tearful smile, stepped up to the chairman to receive her cash award and a bouquet of crimson roses, had her upper body draped with a crimson satin sash, and was photographed a hundred times until she was blinded by the light. The crowd roared. And roared again.

  Then the chairman of the judges’ panel cleared his throat, thumped his chest, opened his mouth, and boomed into the microphone: “And the Fur Queen for the year 1951 is …” One could hear the ticking of watches, the buzzing of incandescent lights, the hum of loudspeakers. “Miss Julie Pembrook, Wolverine River, Manitoba. Miss Julie Pembrook!” The young woman burst into a blissful smile, stepped up to the chairman to receive her cash award and a bouquet of white roses. The radiant Miss Pembrook was draped not only with a white satin sash but with a floor-length cape fashioned from the fur of arctic fox, white as day. She had her head crowned with a fox-fur tiara ornamented with a filigree of gold and silver beads, and was photographed a thousand times until all she could see was stars and showers of stars. And the crowd roared until the very ceiling of the building threatened to rise up and float off towards the planet Venus.

  In the thick of this raucous, festive throng, Abraham Okimasis stood, Cree gentleman from Eemanapiteepitat, Manitoba, caribou hunter without equal, grand champion of the world, unable to move, barely remembering to breathe. Because of the stars exploding in his own eyes, all he could see was bits and pieces of the scene before him interspersed with the vision of his lead dog Tiger-Tiger, panting out his puffs and clouds of vapour, striving for the finish line. And before the hunter could collect himself, a third darkness came upon him, the roaring in his ears gigantic. And at the far end of this new darkness appeared again the small white flame, flickering on the platform. Floating, whispering sibilance and hush, blooming into a presence, the white flame began to hum, a note so pure human ears could never have been meant to hear it. Then the presence began to take on shape — the caribou hunter could just discern a flowing cape seemingly made from fold after fold of white, luxuriant fur, swelling like the surface of a lake. The caribou hunter thought he saw a crown, made of the same white fur, hovering above this cape. And the crown sparkled and flashed with what could have been a constellation. Then Abraham Okimasis saw the sash, white, satin, draped across the upper body of a young woman so fair her skin looked chiselled out of arctic frost, her teeth pearls of ice, lips streaks of blood, eyes white flames in a pitch-black night, eyes that appeared to see nothing but the caribou hunter alone. And then the caribou hunter and the woman in white fur began floating towards each other, as if powerless to stay apart. And as the two moved closer, Abraham Okimasis could decipher the message printed across her sash, syllable by syllable, letter by letter: “The Fur Queen, 1951.”