The reserve is filthy. Beer bottles and crushed cartons are scattered everywhere. Smack in the middle of the road sits an old pickup on four flat tires, its hood open and the windshield shattered. The other cars have to drive around it. No one pays any attention to the rusty carcass, even though it will never rot away, not like a broken birchbark canoe.

The truck has been there since the day Vincent moved into his new house. He didn’t think he would need his canoe anymore, so he traded it for an old pickup that belonged to a carpet layer who had finished his contract on the reserve. Vincent figured with autumn coming it would be good not to have to store the canoe over the winter. He thought a pickup would be more useful.

Vincent would drive down the only road in the reserve until he got to the dump two miles out. Then he would drive back again. He couldn’t go anywhere else because he didn’t have a license and the pickup wasn’t certified.

One week after he bought the truck, he got a flat tire. So he just stopped the truck in the middle of the road. He got out of the truck and stared at the tire, trying to understand what had just happened. Then he looked around to see whether anyone could help. But people just looked on from a distance, curious to see what he was going to do. Finally, Vincent kicked the flat tire, slammed the truck door and walked back to his house on foot. Ever since then, the pickup has just been rusting away in that same spot.

When they built the reserve, the ministry also gave us a dump. It’s a huge hole where the contractor threw all his trash — leftover wood, sacks of cement, empty gasoline barrels, even an old tractor. Every day the kitchen help also threw in a truckload full of garbage bags.

There’s no word in our language for dump. What could such a thing possibly be good for? Still, it has become an attraction. We have nothing else to do in the evenings, so we wander down to the dump. Sometimes we surprise black bears rummaging in the garbage, looking for food. At first they would run away when they saw us, but now they just eat right under our noses.

9

MANIE SITS SILENTLY in her armchair, her hands resting on her thighs. She’s not rocking. I stand behind her and we both look out the window in dismay.

Alex is sitting in the back seat of an RCMP car, his head on his knees, his face hidden. He’s wearing handcuffs. We can’t hear him but we know he’s crying. His shoulders are shaking.

Last night he got in a fight with his cousin and stabbed him to death. He was in such a rage that no one could stop him.