Bernie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “So what? You see a Blackfoot warrior hanging around the Eiffel Tower, and you’re going to forget it? Probably made all the newspapers.”

“Leroy was a Blackfoot warrior?”

“Close enough,” said Bernie. “So, where are you two planning to go next?”

“Follow the postcards,” Mimi told her mother. “We’ll just follow the postcards.”

Sometimes, Bernie would pick up Chinese takeout in Lethbridge. Pork fried rice, chicken with black beans, teriyaki beef, and steamed dumplings. I would set the table, while Mimi’s mother caught her daughter up on the local gossip.

“So, I have this idea,” Mimi said. “And I don’t want either of you to say anything until I’m done explaining. Can you two do that?”

“Probably not,” said Mimi’s mother. “You want a fork or chopsticks?”

“What do you guys know about medicine bundles?”

I helped myself to some of the chicken before it disappeared.

Mimi didn’t wait for an answer. “They’re mnemonic devices.”

Bernie waggled a chopstick at her daughter. “Someone’s been on Google again.”

The teriyaki beef looked good, but I knew it had too much sugar for me.

“Bundles contain things like feathers or stones or bones,” Mimi explained between bites. “Each of the items could have some spiritual significance, or it might have been attached to a specific story or to a song.”

“And someone’s been reading Wikipedia.”

“But not all bundles are sacred.” Mimi scooped most of the pork fried rice onto her plate. “Some are secular. Family bundles. Bundles that are a living history.”

“Crow bundle was a family bundle,” said Bernie.

I watched Mimi take the last dumpling. “So, what’s your idea?”

Mimi picked a piece of gai lan out of her teeth. “What do you think our chances are of finding out what happened to Uncle Leroy or to the bundle?”

“What’s less than zero?”

Mimi sat back in the chair. “So,” she said, “assuming that we will never find either of them, what do you think we should do?”

“We should stay home.”

“Or?”

“We should stay home.”

Bernie kept a ready supply of ice cream and chocolate syrup in the house. Mimi and I cleared the table, while Bernie got out spoons and bowls.

“What we should do,” said Mimi, after the ice cream had been allotted, “is continue to follow the postcards around Europe and look for Uncle Leroy and the bundle. At the same time, we should create a new bundle.”

“Make our own bundle?”

“They don’t just fall out of the sky,” she told me. “People put them together. Someone put the Crow bundle together, and we could do the same thing.”

“You want to get a piece of leather and put stuff in it?”

“Not just any stuff,” said Mimi. “It would be things we find on our travels.”

Bernie thought about it and nodded. “Honour Leroy’s memory.”