Free Bone Coulee by Larry Warwaruk

Crows Cree Nation. Glen told Angela that she should get to know the Chorniaks, that she should be nice to them and that she should suggest how nice it would be to have Bone Coulee designated as an Aboriginal heritage site. But her mother wants more than that. She wants those men to pay for Uncle Thomas. And what price? Money? Land? Life? Glen said to be nice. But he said more than that. He said to sweet-talk Mac Chorniak. “Use the acting skills you learned in your university drama class,” Glen said. “Get him to show you around the coulee to let him know just how much its heritage means to us.”
    But that’s not Mother’s approach. She would shove Mac Chorniak down the buffalo jump if she could. Angela draws a quick sketch of a man’s figure. It falls head first, arms and legs flailing as it hits the ground to smash its head on a rock.
    Across the way, sunlight exposes the tipi rings. Angela hopes to finds things to craft in her class: an odd-shaped stone, a meadowlark, goldfinch, or oriole feather, or a feather from that raven.
    She hears it calling from the grove. It flies up from its branch, only to light on another where it seems bent on scolding something below. At the sight of Angela, an owl hops on the ground at the base of one of the grandfather trees. It flaps one wing and click clicks with its beak. The other wing hangs broken. Angela attempts to pick it up, but it pecks at her hands and beats at her with its healthy wing.
    She can’t just leave the owl helpless, though she imagines that the raven wouldn’t mind. She gets a blanket from the panel truck, spreads it open and covers the owl. She then wraps the bird into a bundle and lays it on the seat of the truck and heads back to town.
    Before she takes it into the house, she carefully rewraps the blanket to have the bird’s head exposed.
    “Look what I have,” she tells her mother, who backs off, her hand shaking her cane so much that she nearly falls down on the floor.
    “Get that death bird out of here!”
    “It has a broken wing.”
    “Don’t you know that owls bring death? I don’t like them. Owls are death!”
    “I can’t just toss it out for cats to eat!”
    “Maybe your friend Darlene will take it. Let it hex the Chorniaks. Phone her, but first get that bird out of this house.”
    “I’ll set it in the porch,” Angela says.

    At the kitchen window with his binoculars, Mac sees Angela take the owl into the house, and he can’t resist his urge to go for a closer look. Besides, it’s only the neighbourly thing to do to welcome newcomers to the community.
    He knocks, and Angela comes to the door.
    “I thought I’d drop over and introduce myself, formally, as a neighbour should. I’m Mac Chorniak. You’ve met Darlene, my daughter-in-law, who’s in your class. And I was just wondering if you might need help with something?” They both look down at the owl where it lies wrapped in a blanket on a bench.
    “It’s got a broken wing,” Angela says. “I was out at your coulee.”
    “Might need a vet to look at it.”
    “There must be one in Bad Hills. I can take it when I go for my class.”
    “I will,” Mac said. “If it’s okay with you. Doc McLochlin is a personal friend of mine. You can bet that Doc McLochlin will fix him up good as new.”

• Chapter 6 •
    M ac feels that he’s done a good deed, and when Lee comes over the following afternoon he senses that he’s about due to be called upon for another. But his son doesn’t come right out and ask. Instead he tries to get a rise out of him.
    “Darlene tells me you’ve been out running errands for your new neighbours.”
    “You might want to try it,” Mac says as he pulls on the handle of his La-Z-Boy so he can sit upright.
    “Anyway,” Lee says, “Darlene was wondering if you’d care to come out tonight for Garth’s birthday supper.”
    “How old?”
    “He’ll be twenty-five tomorrow. And speaking of tomorrow, have you got anything planned?”
    “Nothing