B.L. Blanchard - The Peacekeeper

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text copyright 2022 by Brooke Blanchard Tabshouri

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by 47North, Seattle

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ISBN-13: 9781542036511

ISBN-10: 1542036518

Cover design by Faceout Studio, Molly von Borstel

For Toufic.

You were right.

Dont tell anyone I said that.

CONTENTS

An Urban Indian belongs to the city, and cities belong to the earth. Everything here is formed in relation to every other living and nonliving thing from the earth. All our relations. The process that brings anything to its current formchemical, synthetic, technological, or otherwisedoesnt make the product not a product of the living earth. Buildings, freeways, carsare these not of the earth? Were they shipped in from Mars, the moon? Is it because theyre processed, manufactured, or that we handle them? Are we so different? Were we at one time not something else entirely, Homo sapiens, single-celled organisms, space dust, unidentifiable pre-bang quantum theory? Cities form in the same way as galaxies... We ride buses, trains, and cars across, over, and under concrete plains. Being Indian has never been about returning to the land. The land is everywhere or nowhere.

Tommy Orange, There There

Grandfather,

Look at our brokenness.

We know that in all creation

Only the human family

Has strayed from the Sacred Way.

We know that we are the ones

Who are divided

And we are the ones

Who must come back together

To walk in the Sacred Way.

Grandfather,

Sacred One,

Teach us love, compassion, and honour

That we may heal the earth

And heal each other.

Dr. Art Solomon, Grandfather Story

Chapter One

Anishinaabe Moon: Manoomin Giizis (Ricing Moon)

Islamic Calendar: 13 Dhu al-Hijjah 1441

Chinese Calendar: Cycle 78, year 37, month 6, day 14 (Year of the Rat)

Hebrew Calendar: 13 Av 5780

Mayan Calendar: 13.0.7.13.2

Gregorian Calendar: Monday, 3 August 2020

Ethiopian Calendar: 27 Hamle 2012

Everyone in Baawitigong remembered where they were the night Neebin was murdered.

Except for her son.

It happened the night of the ceremony celebrating the beginning of the traditional Manoomin harvest. A full Ricing Moon had bathed the village in silver light, and the sound of drums, dancing, and laughter had filled the crisp and cloudless sky. Like many other seventeen-year-old boys, Chibenashi had left the harvest festival early with his friends, partied a little too hard, and passed out. When he woke up, his mother was gone, and so was his memory of the night.

His sister, who had been only twelve when it happened, never recovered from the trauma of losing her mother so young. Their father confessed to the murder and had disappeared from their lives as suddenly as their mother had. Taking care of his sister for the last twenty years had been both his privilege and his penance.

Ashwiyaa?

This morning, she lay on the floor in the living room of their wigwam, neither seeing nor hearing, wrapped in a blanket with Binesi, the thunderbird, stitched in beads with its wings spread protectively across her back and around her arms as the gray morning light peeked through the windows. The fireplacelarge, open, and framed by river rockswas empty and cold, ashes from fires past layered one on top of another in a dull heap. Ashwiyaa withdrew deeper into herself, spinning the blanket into a cocoon around her. Chibenashi envied her. She was like this most mornings, especially now. Tomorrow was Manoomin.

Chibenashi gently shook Ashwiyaas shoulder.

Miine! she yelped with a start. She began hyperventilating. He wrapped his arms around her and shushed her, desperate to calm her before she spun out of control and he was trapped at home with her for the rest of the day. He rocked her back and forth as if she were a baby. Ashwiyaas breathing slowed in time with her big brothers hand stroking down her long hair. She shivered like a new fawn, afraid of every snapped twig, hoping that if she lay still, she would disappear. Outside the window, they could hear the tinkle of the wind chimes from their neighbors home. Ashwiyaas gaze was fixed on the unblinking eye of the dream catcher in the window. Their mother had twisted the branch and woven intertwining helixes from blue sinew, then strung it with white and yellow beads and shells so it looked like a galaxy. It was like she still watched over them, catching some but not all of the nightmares before they reached her children.

It did nothing for guilt.

Did you dream about anything last night? he asked.

She did not respond. Which usually meant that she could not remember her dream. Not a bad sign but not a great one either. Not bad was about as good as things got in their family, so he let himself smile just a bit.

The smartwatch on his wrist dinged. Ashwiyaa knew what this meant. She gave him a pained look and grabbed his wrist. Her grip was strong and her nails long and ragged. They dug into the flesh of his arm like talons.

Meoquanee will be here in a little bit to check on you, he said. Ashwiyaa stared at him, silently, shaking her head. I promise.

A staring contest ensued. If Ashwiyaa won, he was staying home. Slowly, painfully, she released him. Victory was fleeting. Clearly, it was going to be one of those days.

He quickly showered and dressed; he had a small window of opportunity to get out the door before this turned into an ordeal. He made for the door and walked straight into his mothers best friend, Meoquanee. What she lacked in height and girth she made up for in stubbornness and confidence. Tall on the inside, she called it. Chibenashi had once told her that that should have been her name.

Meoquanee bore a basket full of frybread and venison covered with a towel to keep it warmcomfort food for what was one of the hardest days of the year for him and Ashwiyaa. Better than that garbage you find down at the port, she said in greeting, as if frybread were healthy. Chibenashi met her morning smile with a scowl, and she patted him on the cheek in return and brushed past him into the wigwam. He grunted and shut the door.

Meoquanee greeted Ashwiyaa in a singsong voice as she waved a sprig of cedar to purify the wigwam. In response, Ashwiyaa curled up further. Chibenashi wanted to join her. It was too early, and Meoquanee was too happy. Meoquanee hummed to herself as she put away the food and began tidying the kitchen.

Meoquanee had once confessed to him that she had always felt responsible for his mothers murder, that she should have recognized the signs of a problem in the marriage, and yet she hadnt intervened. Meoquanee had been making up for her perceived failure by caring for Chibenashi and Ashwiyaa as if they were her own. No amount of protest could make her stop. Everyone else had stopped long ago. Not her. Even though they were now in their thirties, she came every day as if they were still children in need of a mother. Chibenashi supposed they still were.