“The man at the Four Seasons and then when I had my episode in town. It was Lewis.”
“Who’s Lewis?” Stephen asked.
“The security cop who tried to arrest us.”
Stephen frowned. “You’re sure?
“I couldn’t place him in Aurora. He was out of uniform. But yes, I’m sure.”
“He followed you?”
“He must have.”
“Why?” Maria asked.
“I don’t know. I just know it was him.”
“Is he here?” Stephen began scanning the small army of law enforcement.
Annie looked, too. “I don’t see him.”
Drumming began and a woman with a bullhorn chanted, “Mother Earth Not Dirty Dollars!” The crowd joined in, and Annie felt the energy in the air start to change, crackling as if electric.
Suddenly, the woman with the bullhorn rushed forward and a man from the crowd ran with her. She moved with catlike quickness as she mounted the nearest machine, a great earthmover with its huge bucket poised just above the ground. The bucket’s teeth pointed toward the earth so that its back formed a slightly curved but sturdy platform. And that’s where the woman and her companion took up their position. Annie saw that her agility belied her age. She wasn’t young. Her hair was fully grayed, her face deeply lined. She wore a tie-dyed T-shirt and feather earrings, and around her neck hung an intricately beaded medallion.
As she and her companion scrambled onto the earthmover, a kind of ripple went through the line of law enforcement officers, as if a great beast were testing its muscles, but no one in uniform moved yet to intervene.
Once the two protesters were perched atop the bucket, the woman held the bullhorn to her mouth and the drumming ceased.
“My name is Lorna Wigmore. I am Mikisew Cree First Nation from Canada. I’m here with you to stop the relentless destruction of Mother Earth. The oil this pipeline will carry begins with a great wounding of the land of my people. The forests where as a child I walked freely are gone, torn out by their roots. In their place is black mud as far as the eye can see, laced with killing chemicals. We are dying from the cancers caused by the heavy metals and hydrocarbons and acids that have leached into the water we drink. It is in our food, in the fish we eat, in the animals we hunt and trap. As the mining and the drilling expand, we have been forced to leave the villages that have been our homes for centuries. I weep for my people. I weep for Mother Earth. And I will fight with my last breath against the greed at the heart of this killing. Are you with me?”
In response, she received an enthusiastic cry of “Yes!” from the deep line of protesters that surrounded Annie.
The Cree woman handed the bullhorn to the man who’d mounted the bucket with her. Stephen leaned to Annie and said, “That’s Anton, Belle’s brother.”
He was a commanding figure, powerful looking as he stood erect on the great machine. His hair was long and ebony and hung draped over both shoulders. He wore a black T-shirt with PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS printed in bold white letters across the chest. He put the bullhorn to his lips.
“My name is Anton Morriseau. I am Leech Lake Anishinaabe. I am here because this pipeline, if it continues to be built, will cross land sacred to the Anishinaabeg. It will cross wetlands that not only are home to so many wild and beautiful creatures but also provide the wild rice that our people have harvested since our ancestors first came here centuries ago. The streams and rivers give us the water we drink and cook with and bathe in.
“The oil people tell us that the pipeline is safe. That’s bullshit. To the west, the Keystone Pipeline, which that company claimed would be the safest ever built, has leaked millions of gallons of crude oil in at least twenty-two separate spills in the last dozen years. These people lie. They lie for money. They lie to protect their profits. They lie to feed the insatiable hunger for oil in a world where our climate is collapsing. And they expect us to swallow those lies. A mile away, they’re preparing to destroy the village we built to shelter us in our battle here. With their bulldozers, they hope to wipe us out. They want us to stand aside and meekly let this happen. I, for one, refuse to do that. Are you with me?”
The cry in response was a resounding “Yes!”
“Then will we stand together to protect Mother Earth?”
The response was another “Yes!”
Anton Morriseau raised the bullhorn to his mouth once more, but before he spoke another word the melee began.
What happened would always be a confusion in Annie’s memory. Whether it was the protesters who poured forward or the police, she couldn’t recall. All she remembered was that very quickly the protest had turned into a riot. The crowd broke and uniforms seemed to be among them everywhere. Screams arose and bodies flew past her. She lost track of Maria and Stephen and found herself pushed along with a group of protesters who were surging toward the machines.
Her head exploded, all pain and blinding lights. She stumbled and the crowd swarmed past her. She went to her knees and dropped the shoulder bag she’d brought with her, the one gifted to her by Maria. She tried to reach for it, but the pain was like a black curtain and she squeezed her eyes shut against it.
When she opened them, she saw him. He stood above her, glaring down from a face framed by a riot helmet. She looked up into his eyes and all she saw before she blacked out was pure hatred.
Annie woke in a groggy haze. She lay in the shade of a birch tree. Sunlight, broken into bright shards by leaves and branches, littered the ground around her. She was not alone.
“She will be all right,” she heard Maria say.
“You’re sure? This has happened before?” A man’s voice.
“Yes.”
“I’m all right,” Annie managed to say.
“Can you sit up?” Maria asked.
“Help me.”
Maria and a man in a police uniform gently lifted Annie and helped her scoot backward so that she sat against the trunk of the birch. She realized that she was in a small grove of trees that stood along the bank of the Jiibay River. She couldn’t see any of the big machines or the crowd of protesters, though she could still hear angry shouts from somewhere distant. Stephen was gone.
“Where am I?” Annie asked.
“We carried you here,” Maria said.
“We?” She looked at the officer, who was very near to her, down on one knee.
“Deputy Chet Carlson,” he said. “We met a couple of days ago.”
