soon.” Champion blinked at the thrice-punctured man, to be assured that he had indeed spoken, and could he please say more? But the victim’s mouth remained unopened, leaving Champion to look elsewhere for the source of these words.
Champion turned his face upward until the little bones of his neck began to smart. There, way up, hovered the giant, beaming face of Father Lafleur.
S IX
C hampion-Jeremiah — he was willing to concede that much of a name change, for now — sat with his black-covered scribbler, his stubby yellow pencil, and the mud-caked fingernails he was anxious that nobody see. Twenty-nine other Cree boys and girls his age sat in rows around him, thirty little wooden desks dappled with late-September sunlight filtering through the yellow, brown, and orange leaves of birch and poplar trees. This golden light culminated at the front of the room, the usual domain of the fearsome grade-one teacher, Sister Saint-Antoine. In her place now stood the even more fearsome principal of the school. As he spoke, the oblate scraped a metal-edged wooden ruler across a large paper chart on which was drawn — in complex detail and swirling, extravagant colours — a cloudy place that he referred to as heaven. Champion-Jeremiah suspected that this might be the same locale Father Bouchard called
keechigeesigook
.
Heaven had a substantial population of beautiful blond men with feathery wings and flowing white dresses, fluttering about and playing musical instruments that Champion-Jeremiah had never seen before: some resembled small guitars with oval contours and humped backs, others oversize slingshots with laundry lines strung across them. The caribou hunter’s son noted, with stinging disappointment, that accordions were nowhere to be seen. The men with wings played and sang all day long, so Father Lafleur appeared to be explaining, and escorted people from their graves beneath the earth to one side of an ornate golden chair on which sat an old, bearded man.
Among the people rising from these graves to heaven, Champion-Jeremiah tried to spot one Indian person but could not.
Taking a chunk of white chalk in hand, Father Lafleur printed “GOD” on the black slate beside the chart, evidently intending that the meaningless word be copied down.
“But to see God after you die,” he lectured on, pointing to the old man in the chair, “you must do as you are told.” The words swept over the students like a wind. Champion-Jeremiah peered at the image of God and thought he looked rather like Kookoos Cook dressed up as Santa Claus except that his skin was white and that, for some reason, he was aiming a huge thunderbolt down at Earth and glaring venomously.
Slowly, laboriously, Champion-Jeremiah scrawled the word “GOD” on the left page of his scribbler and finished off hishandiwork with a great black period. The word loomed large and threatening; he felt an urge to rub it out.
“Hell,” the priest yanked Champion-Jeremiah out of his doleful rumination with his stabbing emphasis, “is where you will go if you are bad.”
Hell looked more engaging. It was filled with tunnels, and Champion-Jeremiah had a great affection for tunnels. A main tunnel snaked from just below the surface of the earth to its very bottom and others ran off to each side in twists and knots and turns, not unlike the Wuchusk Oochisk River and its unruly tributaries. Champion-Jeremiah thought of the tunnels he and Gabriel made every winter in the deep snow of Eemanapiteepitat, then realized that Gabriel would have to make tunnels by himself this winter.
Skinny, slimy creatures with blackish-brownish scaly skin, long, pointy tails, and horns on their heads were pulling people from their coffins and throwing them into the depths with pitchforks, laughing gleefully. At the ends of the seven tributaries were dank-looking flame-lined caves where dark-skinned people sat.
Aha! This is where the Indians are, thought Champion-Jeremiah, relieved that
Champion turned his face upward until the little bones of his neck began to smart. There, way up, hovered the giant, beaming face of Father Lafleur.
S IX
C hampion-Jeremiah — he was willing to concede that much of a name change, for now — sat with his black-covered scribbler, his stubby yellow pencil, and the mud-caked fingernails he was anxious that nobody see. Twenty-nine other Cree boys and girls his age sat in rows around him, thirty little wooden desks dappled with late-September sunlight filtering through the yellow, brown, and orange leaves of birch and poplar trees. This golden light culminated at the front of the room, the usual domain of the fearsome grade-one teacher, Sister Saint-Antoine. In her place now stood the even more fearsome principal of the school. As he spoke, the oblate scraped a metal-edged wooden ruler across a large paper chart on which was drawn — in complex detail and swirling, extravagant colours — a cloudy place that he referred to as heaven. Champion-Jeremiah suspected that this might be the same locale Father Bouchard called
keechigeesigook
.
Heaven had a substantial population of beautiful blond men with feathery wings and flowing white dresses, fluttering about and playing musical instruments that Champion-Jeremiah had never seen before: some resembled small guitars with oval contours and humped backs, others oversize slingshots with laundry lines strung across them. The caribou hunter’s son noted, with stinging disappointment, that accordions were nowhere to be seen. The men with wings played and sang all day long, so Father Lafleur appeared to be explaining, and escorted people from their graves beneath the earth to one side of an ornate golden chair on which sat an old, bearded man.
Among the people rising from these graves to heaven, Champion-Jeremiah tried to spot one Indian person but could not.
Taking a chunk of white chalk in hand, Father Lafleur printed “GOD” on the black slate beside the chart, evidently intending that the meaningless word be copied down.
“But to see God after you die,” he lectured on, pointing to the old man in the chair, “you must do as you are told.” The words swept over the students like a wind. Champion-Jeremiah peered at the image of God and thought he looked rather like Kookoos Cook dressed up as Santa Claus except that his skin was white and that, for some reason, he was aiming a huge thunderbolt down at Earth and glaring venomously.
Slowly, laboriously, Champion-Jeremiah scrawled the word “GOD” on the left page of his scribbler and finished off hishandiwork with a great black period. The word loomed large and threatening; he felt an urge to rub it out.
“Hell,” the priest yanked Champion-Jeremiah out of his doleful rumination with his stabbing emphasis, “is where you will go if you are bad.”
Hell looked more engaging. It was filled with tunnels, and Champion-Jeremiah had a great affection for tunnels. A main tunnel snaked from just below the surface of the earth to its very bottom and others ran off to each side in twists and knots and turns, not unlike the Wuchusk Oochisk River and its unruly tributaries. Champion-Jeremiah thought of the tunnels he and Gabriel made every winter in the deep snow of Eemanapiteepitat, then realized that Gabriel would have to make tunnels by himself this winter.
Skinny, slimy creatures with blackish-brownish scaly skin, long, pointy tails, and horns on their heads were pulling people from their coffins and throwing them into the depths with pitchforks, laughing gleefully. At the ends of the seven tributaries were dank-looking flame-lined caves where dark-skinned people sat.
Aha! This is where the Indians are, thought Champion-Jeremiah, relieved that
Similar Books
