Bare and Dead: Pauline

MIKE CLAYMORE MYSTERY #3: PAULINE

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Chapter 1

"I am Richard, son of Michael, son of Mary Morris and Duncan Claymore. I don't understand, Dad. Why is Grandma as important in my lineage as Grandpa? Why is Grandma Claymore more important than Mom or her parents?" Father and son are bonding in a way they seldom have time to do daily.

"Because your Grandmother was Mary Morris, a clans woman of the Mohawks. Amongst the Iroquois Nations the female is dominant in the extended family. Her mother and mother before her had the power to call the warriors to battle, to name chiefs and to remove them from power. We say to dehorn them. She gave me my name at birth, as was her right. The same was true for your Uncle Terry and aunts, Nancy and Caitlin."

"Who is Broken Feather?" Curiosity has piqued Rick's interest although he shivers in the car by his father's side.

"Grandma Mary's brother; and Broken Feather is not his true name. My brother gave him that name in jest and it stuck. In Iroquoian his name would be translated as 'Two Long Feathers', but his common name is David Morris. My brother and I often called him Broken Feather."

"When will I see the Six Nations?"

The question catches Mike off guard but he responds, "Maybe the next time your mother and I go to visit Jeff and Nina in Markham. It is time for you to meet your uncle. Until then I will try to teach you the Mohawk philosophy." His voice becomes sad, "I am not a good teacher. I don't live in the traditions."

"Why?"

"I don't know for sure." He shrugs his shoulders, "I grew up with Terry and we were young warriors, taught by Broken Feather and encouraged by my mother to follow the ways of the Mohawk. Then Terry left to take work in New York on the high steel construction and my father started teaching me to play the bagpipes. I loved the music and so did my mother. Your Grandfather Duncan could play the pipes like no man I've ever heard before. Nancy was still at home in those days and so was Caitlin, of course, since she was younger than I. I looked for work when I graduated from school with a senior matriculation, as they called it in the reserve school. I guess, about that time, I got caught up in the Anglican philosophy and the church was a big part of my life. When Dad took Mom to see the highlands of his youth in Scotland they never came back." His countenance becomes sad.

"I turned my back on the teachings of my youth. I felt the Anglican God had failed me and the Mohawks didn't offer me any future. I joined the Navy. I was young, like you, and I felt rebellious of all authority, but I craved structure in my life. I wanted a place to call home, with others around me of a like mind. I found that in the Navy and it sufficed for a while."

"How old were you then, Dad?"

"Eighteen. I met your mother when I was nineteen and she was seventeen. Then you came along. We lived in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia then and when I got out of the Navy we moved to Ontario. Do you remember Kingston?"

"A little bit. I remember you in uniform. Did we live by the water? I think I remember the big water near our place."

"That was Collins Bay, part of Lake Ontario. Do you remember Aunt Caitlin? That was when she met Grant McQarrie and she used to come around to visit with him, before they married and moved to Quebec.

"I think I remember her. Always with a smile and long straight black hair, like grandma's."

"You don't remember your Grandmother Mary. You weren't born yet, when she died."

"I saw pictures of her back then. I think Aunt Caitlin had some photos. Haven't you got any pictures of grandma?"

Mike touches his head. "In here are the best ones. I had some put away in a box in a closet but I don't know where they are. I haven't looked at them in years. I don't even know if that box came west with us."

Rick grins, "It did. Mom has shown them to me. I like the one in doeskin the best. She was very young and pretty in that one."

A tear squeezes out of the corner of Mike's eye and he says, "She was young and pretty when she died, my son. Let's get back to work on this sweat lodge."

Mike Claymore is a half-breed, according to society, but he does not accept labels. In his heart he thinks of himself as a man, no different than any other man he meets. He carries himself proudly through his daily labors, always striving to do his best at his chosen professions. In the Navy he learned to drive a truck in the motor pool while stationed in the Maritimes. He found he loved to drive and hauled heavy armaments from coast to coast. He found it easy to pick up girls to accompany him when he was on the long hauls and that was how he met his wife, Marlene. She was a Scottish lass of the McRae's in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, Canada and he enjoyed her company from the first moment he laid eyes upon her.

She was young and wild, in her last days of school. She was exciting and a good match for him. Mike is tall, just over six feet, and Marlene was gangly then at five foot, eight inches. She was developing a remarkable figure and it continued to fill out during her early pregnancy for Richard. All Mike saw was that she looked better each time he saw her. They talked of marriage before they knew she was with child, so the news did not greatly distress them. He took her back to Dartmouth with him and they honeymooned all the way across Canada.

After the birth of their son, Mike got out of the Navy and they moved to Kingston, Ontario. He got work with The Canadian Penitentiary Service (CPS), at Kingston as a prison guard. He was tall and strong, as well as being an ex-serviceman. The cadre of guards welcomed him. He found the work boring so took every advantage he could of courses being offered to learn more about the justice system. For a time he thought of joining the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). During this time his two daughters; Shelly and Janet (Jan) were born.

Caught in a delicate affair with a female officer of the OPP and craving new opportunities, he moved his family back to the west coast to Abbotsford, British Columbia. He found work easily with a local security firm and advanced quickly with them to do investigations of insurance and other fraud cases. But the work was slow and he was not making it, financially. Three children had to be fed, as well as a wife.

He returned to his first love, driving truck, and went to work for Canadian Pacific Express and Transport (CPX) in Port Coquitlam (POCO) at their Pacific Terminal. He drives truck about three days a week on intermediate haulage throughout B.C. and into Alberta, sometimes even into Saskatchewan. The rest of the week he spends doing security work for himself and his partner, Trudy Garneau.

Trudy Millicent Garneau (nee Black) was a truck stop waitress in the Fraser Valley parted from her husband who caught Mike's eye while driving. As in the days of driving for the Navy, he finds himself caught up in the merry go round of easy pick ups and his big blue Kenworth sleeper accommodates many young waitresses. But Trudy is not satisfied to wait for his next visit. She insinuates herself into his life as his mistress and becomes his partner in the security business. She moves to Chilliwack, a short thirty-minute drive from Mike's home. She befriends his wife and is eventually accepted by her as a sister wife to her husband. It is not an easy alliance and frowned upon by her family, but now Trudy is pregnant and seems to be a permanent fixture in his life.

Now his son is ten years old and he is trying to teach him some of the teachings of his youth that he has found missing in his current lifestyle. They are on a friend's farm in Columbia Valley back of Cultus Lake near the International Boundary between Canada and the United States. Mike points at the artificial opening between the trees on the mountainside to the east and west of them.

"That is an example of the territorialism of the white man. Never satisfied to take what they need and leave the rest for other's needs, they seek always to acquire more and mark this land with their fences. They don't understand that there is plenty for all, so they hoard what ever they can. The Mohawk way is for each to take only what they need and give thanks for the blessing. The white man draws a line in the sand and says; this is my land and my trees and my fish and my fowl. If you are starving, do not cross this line. We say, this land is good and will provide for us all. Take what you need. But we have learned to live within their boundaries and take on their ways. Sometimes it tastes bitter in the throat!"

They toil seeking branches and Mike shows Richard how to form the frame. They are near the back of his friend, Ray's farm. Ray is a native born here in the Fraser Valley and Mike met him while driving for CPX. Ray is a local driver for CPX and handles deliveries within the Fraser Valley. He maintains this family farm but lives in POCO most of the time. He was the one who suggested to Mike that he take his son and build a sweat lodge when Mike was complaining of his son's lack of native culture. Ray's wife, Holly, lives here on the farm most of the time, occasionally visiting Ray when she feels like it. Each summer Ray comes out to the farm for a few weeks to commune with nature and meet with his daughter.

Mike has met his daughters but does not know it. He has admired one when he recently visited a local nudist camp on a complicated murder investigation. She was the one in tawny bare skin who showed them the way to the hot tub and he found her total nudity most agreeable to his eye.

It is only March but it is warm already and the spring heat is definitely indicating a long hot summer. Early flowers are budding everywhere and the cherry blossoms have fallen like snow throughout the valley.

Mike has a few days off and has taken this opportunity to be with his son. His 69 Mustang convertible is parked not too far away but he ensures it is far enough that he will not hear the cell phone, even with the top down. He does not want them to be disturbed.

"Well, son, let's rest for a bit. The purpose of building this sweat lodge is not just to see it built. It is a holy place. What will make it holy are the memories of the communications we will have here. In gathering together to build a lodge, men converse with one another and exchange ideas or share memories. Ideally we will communicate with those gone on before us, but even if that does not happen, you and I will share our labors and knowledge. Do you understand?"

"I think so, Dad. Can you tell me more about Grandma Morris?"

"Already you feel the influence. She was Mary Claymore but by rights she was Mary Morris and she was 'she who waits' to all her friends and many of her family. In Iroquoian 'she who waits' means much more than in this language. It means she who is attentive and knowledgeable, steeped in the wisdom of nature and the earth. My mother was all of that and much more. Even though she left the tribe and married a white man, she was respected by all and was sought for her advice. Broken Feather brought a young squaw to her from Niagara Falls who was pregnant by a white man, a drunkard and a debaser of women. She chastised the girl for laying and drinking with the man, then took her in until the child was born. She taught her how to care for a home, to cook and sew and care for a husband, and then introduced her to a young clergyman from the Anglican Church. He married her and as far as I know, they are still happily married."

"Is Broken Feather married?"

"No. He has never found his help mate for this life."

"Why do you have two help mates, Dad?"

"That is a good question, my son. I didn't plan to have two. It just happened. It is a hazard of my life style, I guess. Caught between two worlds, I often find solace in the arms of the closest female. Hopefully you will not have that problem. I am only a half breed and your mother is full white so you are white with some Mohawk blood in your veins."

"I told Julie I'm part Indian. She wanted to know what part. I guess it's in my blood, eh Dad?"

"Yes, I suppose it is. You still hang out with Julie a lot, do you?"

Richard turns a bit pink and says, "Yes. I like her red hair and her round breasts."

"I guess you would. You two aren't fooling around any more, are you?"

"No. She says we will have sex when she is eighteen. She says twenty - one is too long to wait. That's eleven years! I think that's pretty good for me, too."

"No more talk of masturbating each other?"

"No. I know that was wrong and so does she. I only do it at home now, in the bathroom. She says she does it in bed at night. It must be an awful mess. I don't think I'd want to sleep with her."

Mike grins and says, "I guess not!" He gets up and pours water from a water skin over the frame to cleanse the maple, representative of the sap and maple sugar so important to the Mohawks where he grew up. He starts covering the frame with branches of cedar. Richard comes to help and the sweat begins to show through his thin shirt. Mike pulls his shirt off and Richard sighs as he does the same. Father and son strain at latching and looping strips of bark to hold the branches in place.

Ray has graciously allowed them to cut two trees on his property, a maple and a cedar. Trimming the maple provides them with stout supple branches to make the frame and slicing the bark makes long strips of binding. Trimming the cedar provides them with bows to be thatched in place and cover the frame. Mike trims the trees completely and makes the solid wood available for Ray to cut later for firewood.

Patiently Mike shows Richard how to loop the bindings over the bows and place the bows so they overlap. The sweat lodge takes shape before their eyes as the sun sinks behind some cloud in the western sky. While they still have light, Mike checks inside for gaps in the thatching and marks two spots in his mind's eye for more work. He points them out to his son.

When they are finished it looks like a mound about twelve feet by eight with a small opening in the front and a small hole in the roof to allow excess smoke to escape. In the twilight they study their handicraft and cool off from their labors by sitting on a log.

"Well son, does it look right to you?"

"I don't know. I never saw one before. Have you?"

"When I was your age I remember building one with Terry and your great uncle. I think we have it right. Do you think you can manage to bring that steel grate I put in the car while I find us a rock to put it on?"

"Sure. I'll be right back." He runs towards the car and Mike wishes he had his energy. He stretches and goes to a round stone with a flat top he has marked earlier in his mind. He prods it with a limb and succeeds in rolling it to the lodge and through the door. He places it near the center as Richard returns with the grate. Mike mounts the grate on the flat top of the stone and wiggles the stone to level it and seat it in the ground.

When he is satisfied he steps outside and walks away towards the car. Richard follows along at his heels. When they reach the car Mike opens the trunk and gives him a small armload of sweet grass and a pouch of tobacco to carry. He gets out two doeskin bags, a mat and a blanket, and then brings them along, too. The bags are smaller than a woman's purse but bigger than a man's wallet.

On returning to the lodge Mike has Richard place the sweet grass and blanket inside near one wall while he lays the pouch of tobacco on them and the mat goes on the floor. They go and gather twigs for a fire. Mike lays a fire by the log and starts a small fire in the grate inside the lodge. He places hand size rocks in a circle on the grate around the fire. He explains to his son, "Never use the white granite rocks. When heated and cooled by the water sprinkled on them they can explode. Choose the black porous rocks and handle them with respect."

Larger branches crackle in the fire by the log as Mike tends to the small fire in the grate. He adds small branches to it and joins Richard on the log outside. Bare chested, they sit side by side on the log and Mike holds up the two doeskin bags.

"This empty bag is yours, my son. It is your medicine bag. In it you will keep your magic."

Richard stares at him wide eyed in the firelight. "Magic?"

"I will show you some of mine." He opens the worn bag as he hands the new one to Richard. He draws out a flat stone and says; "I found this stone by the sweat lodge my brother and I built with Broken Feather." He rubs it and smiles. "It was a warm night and the wind rustled the leaves in the maples. Terry was fourteen and I was nine. He wore a breach cloth and a beaded armlet that he had made himself. He looked so much like a warrior, that I felt ashamed in my bare skin, but then I noticed that Two Long Feathers was naked as well. I felt much better then and felt the stone by my foot. I collected it to help me remember."

Richard takes the small flat stone and studies it. Mike pushes off his boots and socks while he is studying the stone. He wiggles his toes in the grass and feels the earth under his feet. Richard hands him the stone. He lays it on the log and draws from the bag a battered pocket watch.

"This was my father's and it worked when he last used it, but in the accident..." He holds it and studies it by the light of the fire. "He was a tall man and wore a kilt on occasions. I have never worn the kilt. He had two brothers in Scotland and visited with them before the accident. By some quirk of fate he mentioned to one of them that his final resting place would be beside his wife in Canada. Otherwise they may very well have had him buried there, in Scotland with his family. He rests with Mary beside the Mohawk Chapel in Brantford, Ontario now. She..." He stops and says no more as he dangles the watch by it's chain for Richard's inspection.

Richard brings the palm of his hand to take the weight of the watch off the chain and says, "This was Grandpa Duncan's?" He looks at it and brings his hand away to let it dangle. "I saw this chain in a picture of him."

Mike carefully takes the chain off the watch and holds it out to him. "Take the chain for your bag, my son." As Richard slips the chain within the folds of doeskin Mike thinks of the painstaking work he carried out evenings in his basement office this last winter sewing the pieces of leather to make the pouch. He used his own bag as an example so as to make it as much like his as a twin. He lays the watch with the stone on the pouch on the log. He says, "Free your feet and feel the earth." He goes inside to tend to the small fire in the grate and when he returns his son is in bare feet.

Mike has a fine patina of sweat on his shoulders from the heat in the lodge and feels it will soon be time to go inside where the rock circle is beginning to glow a dull red. As he sits on the log he says, "Can you feel the good earth with your bare toes now?"

"Yes, Dad. It feels good but the little stones are sharp."

"It is Flint, the evil twin who brings weeds and sharp stones to cut our feet. Hearken to what I tell you. She who fell from the sky gave birth to a daughter and that daughter gave birth to twin boys. One was born in the natural way, like we talked about this last winter, and that was Sky Holder, he who is responsible for corn, squash, fruit, tobacco and all good things that grow from the earth. The second twin was born of the mother's armpit and that was Flint, he who is responsible for weeds, vermin and other evils upon the earth. They are the Primal Twins representing good and evil."

"They are like God and the devil, eh?"

"Similar, but not at all the same. In your Bible, God is portrayed as being in the likeness of us but in spiritual form and all-powerful in all things. His most beauteous angel is thrown down, cast out from his sight, for the evil in his heart. It is he who tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden and he who tempts the Son of God when he was made flesh, in order to thwart God's will. In the basic idea that one is good and the other evil, there is a parallel. You know what I mean by a parallel?"