Keeper'n Me by Richard Wagamese Page A

disappeared. He’s home.”
    People started coming up and shaking my hand and smiling and touching me and there were tears everywhere as I heard the names of aunts and uncles and cousins and just plain White Dog folk for the first time. Stanley stood off to the side looking over at me and smiling, smiling and smiling. After a while they all moved away and started looking me over again.
    â€œHo-leeee!” said a voice.
    â€œWow!”
    â€œSure he’s a Raven?” someone asked. “Looks like a walkin’ fishin’ lure or somethin’!”
    â€œYeah, that hair’s a good reminder to the kids ’bout foolin’ round with the electircal!”
    â€œAn’ what’s that smell? Smell like that should have fruit flies all around his head!”
    â€œDamndest-lookin’ Indyun I ever saw! Looks kinda like that singer we seen on TV that time. What’s ’is name now? James Brown? Yeah. We got us one James Brown-lookin’ Indian here!”
    â€œCome on,” Stanley said once people started moving away. “There’s a buncha people up at my house been feelin’ kinda down ’cause they figured you weren’t comin’. Seein’ you’s gonna make ’em all feel a whole lot better. You okay?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “Least, I think so. It’s kinda weird, man.”
    â€œYeah,” he said, “I guess so. Wanted to ease you in slow but you weren’t on the bus. What happened?”
    â€œNothin’, man,” I said. “Don’t matter.”
    â€œLeast you’re here now,” he said. “That’s all we wanted. Took a long time to find you.”
    â€œTell me about it,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
    They been comin’ for our kids long time now. Nothin’ new. Not for us. They been comin’ on the sly for years. I always thought it was us Indyuns s’posed to do all the sneakin’ and creepin’ around. But those white people, boy, they got us beat when it come to sneakin’ through the bushes. Maybe we taught ’em too much. Heh, heh, heh
.
    The boy’s story’s not much diff’rent from what we seen around here for a long time. Sure, in them movies us Indyuns are always runnin’ off with children and raisin’ them up savage. Give ’em funny-soundin’ names like Found on the Prairie, Buffalo Dog or somethin’. I always figured they shoulda called ’em Wind in His Pants, Plenty Bingos, Busts Up Laughing or Sneaks Off Necking. Somethin’ really Indyun. Heh, heh, heh. But in the real world it’s the white people kept on sneakin’ off with our kids. Guess they figured they were doin’ us a favor. Gonna give them kids the benefit of good white teachin’, raise them up proper. Only thing they did was create a whole new kinda Indyun. We used to call them Apples before we really knew what was happenin’. Called ’em Apples on accounta they’re red on the outside and white on the inside. It was a cruel joke on accounta it was never their fault. Only those not livin’ with respect use that term now
.
    But we lost a generation here. In the beginning it was the missionary schools. Residential schools they called them. Me I
was there. They come and got me when I was five and took me and a handful of others. The boy’s mother was one of them. They took us and cut off our hair, dressed us in baggy clothes so we all looked the same, told us our way of livin’ and prayin’ was wrong and evil. Got beat up for speakin’ Indyun. If we did that we’d all burn in hell they told us. Me I figured I was already brown why not burn the rest of the way, so I ran away. Came back here. Lots of others stayed though. Lots never ever came back and them that did were real diff’rent. Got the Indyun all scraped off their insides. Like bein’ Indyun was a fungus or somethin’. They scraped it