A Tattoo in Saguenay

The boy shook her awake.

“Gram,” he whispered, “Sun’s down.”

She grasped for the dream, but it boiled off in the dark.

“I made water,” the boy whispered, and she cracked an eye to his cupped palm and the dram of sweet urine rocking in its hollow. She worked her elbows in the sand to sit up, pushing through the sudden nausea of being alive. Still the day’s heat baked at ground level, even in the last rays of twilight. The elder guided her grandson’s hand. Dipping her upper lip in his bitterness, she rolled a sip round her tongue, spreading the moisture through her mouth. The boy watched until he was satisfied she could swallow.

“Now you,” she rasped. He took a careful swig, swishing round his front teeth.

“Trap went off,” he said, gulping the little slug of piss, “Whatever it was got away.”

“Good omen,” she grunted, and she reached for the rock wall by her head, to push herself to standing, “May we be so lucky.”

***

From under the outcrop, the elder and the boy resumed their trek. The night spread out overhead, stark and clear, and the rising moon illuminated the low dunes so they rolled on and on in the velvet dark. The elder wore the cords of her sling wrapped in criss-cross from wrist to elbow, her shooting finger crooked in its loop, pouch cupped in her palm. Her last reserve of river stones kneaded together in their sack, riding much-depleted on her hip. The boy ran a sharpened thumbnail over the sheath at his side and the jawbone knife lodged within.

“Is it like you remember?” he whispered.

“No,” came her reply, and she began scaling a dune, “There were shrubs then.”

“If we walk till morning,” he said, climbing high as he could, scurrying on hands and knees up the sand, “And there isn’t shade or water, how long till we die?”

She reached back and pulled him over the peak of the dune. Joylessly, he slid down the other side.

“Minutes,” she rasped, when she caught up to him.

“Good,” he decided, and the whites of his eyes burned phosphorescent, staring up at the stars, “We won’t have to be alone.”

The elder sniffed. She gazed all along the horizon, over the rock towers and sand dunes of Quebec. Familiar constellations fixed at familiar angles lent guidance from the firmament.

“Up,” she rasped, “We’re not dead yet.”

***

“Down,” hissed the boy, tackling her round the waist.

They landed with a soft thud and a cloud of dust, the boy taking the brunt of the fall. The elder choked in the settling grit. She fumbled for the sack on her hip, shaking loose her sling. The boy rolled to his belly and withdrew his blade, teeth bared. He pointed ahead. Halfway down the rock gully, where the path forked and the moonlight turned to shadows, the trail gave way to a low recess and the unmistakable glow of a lit pipe within. For a moment, the ember burned hotter and brighter, then the hidden smoker blew a cloud that twisted skyward in a billowing plume.

“Slaver?” mouthed the boy, eyes fully dilated.

The elder plucked a stone from her hip and fit it in the split-pouch of the sling. Eyeing the void above the lit pipe, she envisaged the outline of a head, estimating a distance down the trail of less than half her maximum range. She rose to one knee and held the loaded pouch straight ahead, lining up the shot, readying to whip the stone underhand at the smoker in the dark.

The boy gripped her calf.

Further down in the depths of the gully, a figure stumbled closer, picking its way over the gravel underfoot. Its silhouette stood tall and lean and bald.

The elder scowled. Two targets, then: one pausing to swipe pebbles from its feet, head ducking and bobbing, drawing nearer all the while; the other with only a lit pipe to mark bull’s eye.

The boy squeezed her foot. She glanced over and he walked finger-legs around the edge of his outstretched palm. She nodded and they withdrew, he sheathing his knife, she wrapping her sling, the two of them wriggling like worms out of the gully, back the way they’d came.

***

“Why’s it red?” he asked, shielding his eyes from the glare.

“Magnets,” she wheezed, winded from the climb up the hill, “You’ve seen it before, back home, but blues and greens.”

“I remember,” he breathed, but he’d have been too young. The faintest smile uncurled over the elder’s face.

“No clouds this far south,” she explained, “None we can see. A teacher talked me through it. Gases up in the sky. Magnet winds blow through and get stained.”

The blazing aurora danced over the dunes of Quebec, crimson scintillations tripping in pitter-patter pulses over a starlit canvas. The boy watched through his fingers.

“Another omen,” she buzzed, “Our grandmothers’ grandmothers wish us luck.”

Gently, she pried his fingers from his face.

“They dance for us,” she said, her throat tight with pride.

They stood atop the barren hill until the northern lights frolicked to the west, leaving a pink wash in their wake.

***

They stripped at water’s edge, leaving shifts and belts on a flat rock, with weapons tucked beneath. The spring had cooled in the hours since sunset and the elder’s knuckles ached in the chill as she scooped a palmful and held it to the moonlight. Letting it fall, she inspected the water for cloudiness, but the dribbles fell clear as glass. The boy waited, cupping his nakedness with two hands. The elder nodded and he splashed in with wild glee.

They bathed together in the pool, at risk of giggles every time a cool current swept through their legs. Noses above the surface, they dipped their mouths again and again, swallowing great gulps.

“Not too fast,” the elder warned.

She allowed him some stolen moments in which to play, falling onto his back and floating under a sky still tinged aurora pink. His hair bobbed like an aqueous crown. His lips worked, reciting a story even he could not hear, with ears so blissfully submerged. After a time, she worked her way out, stopping to slough the wetness from her shoulders so she didn’t freeze in the night air.

Looking back, she caught him standing in the water, staring between her breasts, at the black inkwork there.

“You’ve seen it before,” she said, her voice as clear as the oasis, having quenched her thirst.

The boy spit a stream.

“It’s bigger than I remember,” he said, a touch of scorn in his tone.

The elder wrung out her hair.

“I’m not afraid,” the boy announced.

“Good,” she said.

She sloshed back to the rock. With a practiced hand, she scattered the last drops from her skin, then reached under her shift for her sling, only to grasp at nothing.

Gut sinking, the elder wheeled around to warn the boy, but the familiar cords of the sling whipped overhead, then tightened round her throat. An arm pinned her hands to her sides, pulling her close to a warm, muscled body. She fought for a glimpse of the water, but already her vision doubled and the moon lost its borders, bleeding ivory across a rose-tinted sky.

***

The hook ripped into the flesh of her elbow and the prominent vein there. She stared witlessly at the pan propped under her arm that caught every spurting pulse. A thin, bald man with broken teeth bent over her, watching the grisly affair with fascination.

“Boil three pints,” he babbled, “Makes blood jelly you can suck on all day.” He picked at a scab on his eyelid, probably from a stye he’d had his whole life long.

The elder panted.

“Hearts inked ‘tween your tits,” he said, “Old milk. You made a baby, long time ago.”

She rubbed fingers together, seeking the sling, a stone. The boy in the water. Her grandmothers’ grandmothers.

“I’m thirsty,” ranted the man, “Blood jelly helps.”

In sickening flashes, she studied the cave and its jagged ceiling; the man and his broken teeth; her sling cast in the dirt; the boy creeping along the ground, knife in hand.

“My eye,” the man whooped, the tendons in his neck twitching, “Hurts so-”

Another pulse hit the pan and the backsplash sprayed the elder’s cheeks. She blinked heavily, only to glimpse the jawbone knife in the man’s throat. Her grandson gripped the fiend by the forehead for leverage, sawing with frightening speed for one so young. Fury raged unchecked in his bright eyes.

The man with broken teeth hit the cave floor with a hollow crack.

***

He would not stop weeping.

“He wasn’t your first,” soothed the elder, rubbing his neck.

“He hurt you,” the boy sobbed.

There was no consoling him, even as dawn tore across the sky.

“There,” she said, pressing her sleeve to her arm, to staunch the cut, “That gulch: Saguenay.” She pointed to a dip in the land where the lake used to be. The boy sniveled the whole last stretch, until sunlight bore down upon the earth and their feet burned in the warming sands. As they approached Saguenay, a figure appeared in a vision of shade, hand raised to the sky. The elder returned the gesture, ecstatic.

“All these years” she gushed, “I’m a child again.”

***

“You’re the same,” spake the artist, gripping the elder by the chin, “Same eyes.”

The little woman was older even than the elder herself. A shock of gray flew straight up from her scalp, a thick robe covering her from neck to ankles. She stood no taller than the boy, who huddled behind his grandmother, strangely shy in the scalding light of day.

“You’ve a daughter,” recalled the artist.

“Taken years ago.”

The artist raised both hands to the sky.

“Her son,” said the elder, and she presented the boy, who curtsied to their host.

“You came for blessings,” the artist rejoiced, “I’ve food and ink.”

***

“We live by the Hudson Ocean,” said the boy, his mood much improved, “Used to be four families, now we’re ten strong.” He tore at the hunk of roast on his knife.

The artist passed pea bread. They ate round a fire, deep in the vaulted grotto. A black rill twisted through volcanic pillars.

“We’ve seen snow,” the boy bragged.

“He sees an uncommon number of uncommon things,” said the elder, sluggish from the feast.

“Now he’ll bear uncommon work,” the artist mused.

***

She led the pair to a stone table. Needles gleamed in the flickering light of a dozen tallow candles. Grandmother and grandchild left their shifts on stalagmites and perched on the slab. The artist studied the elder’s chest, reacquainting herself with her own work, then she laid a wrinkled hand to the boy’s knee to stop his shaking.

“My grandmother’s grandmother drew that locket first-hand,” said the artist to the boy, gesturing to the faded tattoo, “So the woman who wore it could trade metal for water and still keep the face framed within. That woman lived to be eldest of her people. When she died, her daughter asked for the same mark; and hers; and hers. One day, you’ll bring a daughter here and an artist will etch that locket where I etch yours today.”

“My mother,” said the elder, stroking the face on her chest, “With me still.”

“I remember your mother,” the artist assured the boy, “And will draw that girl I met years ago.”

She selected a needle and held it to the closest flame. From her robe, she brought forth a small vial. The boy’s knees shook.

“Wait,” said he, “I changed my mind. I don’t want that.”

***

“Now you’re with me always,” said the boy, hardly even wincing from the pain, and the elder saw her own face there, red and raw in the black-heart frame, and she could not deny it was so.