Halfbreed Read online

  On the way home Karen was breathless with excitement. She said Smoky was from Batoche and had just come out of the penitentiary that past winter. He had a wild reputation, and though half the women were after him, he had no steady girlfriend. She went on and on, but I was too excited about my fifty dollars to pay any attention. I had not told Dad what I was doing that day, thinking I would surprise him with the money I knew I would win.

  I didn’t give Smoky much thought for the next few weeks. When I mentioned him to Daddy he hadn’t seemed upset, because he probably thought of me still as a little girl. I was home helping Sarah make lye soap one day when Smoky arrived on horseback. He smiled at me and then took his horse to the barn, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing softball with the kids. I was beside myself with excitement and managed to ruin a whole batch of soap. Finally Sarah said she would finish and told me to get supper started. She patted my arm and I blushed all over when I looked at her and realized she knew how I was feeling. Once inside, I raced upstairs to comb my hair and as I was changing my clothes I remembered what Cheechum had told me: “Never ever try to impress a man, be yourself.”

  I got back into my shirt and jeans and on the way to the kitchen I started wondering whether he had just come to see Daddy. I would make a fool of myself if I acted as if I liked him. So I prepared supper and went about my business as usual. Daddy was happy to see Smoky and invited him to spend a few days with us, and perhaps they would go hunting. During supper I acted as normal as ever, even getting into a fight with Robbie. After the dishes were done, I saddled Brandy and rode over to help Ellen with the milking. Just as I was getting ready to come home Robbie rode in with Smoky and said that they were out for a ride and had stopped to escort me home. On the way, Robbie left us and I was alone for the first time with a man.

  That started a new page in my life. It was a man, not a boy, who told me I was beautiful and wanted to see me again. I told him Daddy would never allow it because I had to wait until I was sixteen. He said that was good and that I should not be angry with Dad for making such a rule, that more fathers should do it. He promised to come as often as he could without Dad realizing it was to see me.

  Smoky would come for a day or so and go hunting with Daddy. We seldom had a chance to talk, let alone neck, but I was happy and didn’t really care. If he came such a distance to see me, then there was nothing to worry about. He came to the school dances and I would spend the whole evening with him under Sarah’s watchful eye. Once Sarah could not take me because she was sick, and seeing my disappointment, Daddy asked Smoky to chaperone me and make sure I did not leave the hall or get too friendly with anyone. I was in seventh heaven, for this was my first real date. For someone with such a terrible reputation, Smoky was a real gentleman. He never drank or got into fights at those dances, so I decided Karen had been really misinformed.

  When Karen and I went into town, Ellen and Bob did not worry about us as they assumed that our boyfriends were classmates. They did not tell Daddy that I didn’t always go to the show. Then one night he found out and there was hell to pay.

  I had begged Smoky to take me to the dance for a little while instead of the movie, and finally he gave in. He picked me up at the theatre about eight and Karen and her boyfriend came with us. I smelled whiskey on his breath, but in the excitement didn’t give it any thought. The hall was full when we arrived and everything looked normal, much to my disappointment. I had expected something wicked. The music was wonderful, different from the school dances. No one can play a fiddle and guitar like a Halfbreed. They can make these instruments come alive—laugh, cry and shout. I danced every dance. It was almost as if I had been asleep for fifteen years and had suddenly awakened. I knew nearly everyone there and wondered why Daddy had forbidden me to come.

  Smoky tried to make me leave about eleven o’clock, but I coaxed him to stay till midnight as I knew Bob and Ellen would not leave without us. About eleven-thirty people started coming in from the bar—white people as well—and you could almost cut the tension with a knife. When a Frenchman came over and grabbed me for a waltz, Smoky told him to leave me alone. Everything happened so fast: it seemed that one minute Smoky was leading me away and the next everyone was shouting and fighting, and he was gone. Karen came over and pulled me back. Smoky and the Frenchman were fighting, and because Smoky was winning, a whole group of French guys started to kick and beat him. I couldn’t stand watching so I grabbed a stove poker and waded right in. I ended up exchanging blows with a white woman and then saw Dad and a couple of men coming to Smoky’s rescue. When the fight was over, Daddy saw me and went purple with rage. He looked at Smoky and said, “She’s my daughter, what the hell are you doing here with her? I’ll settle with you later,” and with that he dragged me over to the truck where Ellen and Bob were waiting. They took Karen and me straight home. I was worried sick wondering what Daddy would do with Smoky and what was going to happen to me when he got home.

  Dad got home Sunday afternoon and called me to his room. He warned me that if I ever saw Smoky again he would beat me until I couldn’t walk. He said Smoky was only trouble and I was too young to get mixed up with a grown man, especially one with such a reputation. He said if he ever came around again he’d break his goddamn back. When I tried to interrupt, I was told to shut up. He said that I had acted like a common whore. “Your mother never did anything like that in her life, and as long as you’re under my roof you’ll act like a lady.” Finally I got angry and shouted that if he could go to such places, then why couldn’t I; that if Smoky was good enough to be his best friend why wasn’t he good enough for me? I told him I was a Campbell, not a Dubuque and if Mom was a lady then why did she run off with him? I had never talked back before, much less yelled at him. He slapped my face and knocked me over a chair, and when he went to slap me again, I said, “You’re not so hot. You’re living with that woman when you should be married to her, so don’t tell me what’s right and wrong.” He got a hurt look on his face and walked out.

  My relationship with Dad changed after that, and we had many more fights. We seemed to drift apart and our closeness was gone. I disobeyed his rules whenever I wanted to and fought back when he got angry with me. I made life miserable for Sarah, who did her best to keep peace between us.

  I continued to go to the dances in town whenever Karen and I could sneak away from Ellen, not because I really wanted to, but because Daddy had said no. I always looked for Smoky at these dances and finally one night I saw him come in—with a woman. He tried to talk to me, but all I wanted to do was hurt him. He said that Dad had told him to leave me alone until I was seventeen. Then if we wanted to see each other we could, and when I was eighteen he said we could get married. I remember looking at him and saying, “Marry you? You’ve got to be joking! I’m going to do something with my life besides make more Halfbreeds.”

  I wanted to cry. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. I loved Smoky and wanted to be with him forever, yet when I thought of him and marriage I saw only shacks, kids, no food, and both of us fighting. I saw myself with my head down and Smoky looking like an old man, laughing only when he was drunk. I loved my people so much and missed them if I couldn’t see them often. I felt alive when I went to their parties, and I overflowed with happiness when we would all sit down and share a meal, yet I hated all of it as much as I loved it.

  Chapter 14

  THE RELIEF PEOPLE WERE AT our house one afternoon when I came home from school. They told Dad he had been reported for living in common-law with Sarah, and along with all the other reports they had received over the years they would have to do something this time. Dad didn’t speak for a long time. Finally he said, “If Sarah leaves, will you help me with an allowance of some kind, so I can stay home? I don’t want Maria quitting school.” The man answered, “No, I’m sorry, Mr. Campbell. We can only help widows. You’re healthy and you can work. You’ll have to marry this woman or we’ll just have to take
the kids.”

  Dad and I sat down for the first time in months and talked without getting mad at each other. I told him that he could either marry Sarah or I could quit school—anything so we would not get sent to an orphanage. He told me not to worry, that we’d work something out.

  The next day Sarah said she was leaving us, that Dad really didn’t want to marry her and that she and the kids were getting too attached to each other. She said she’d stay until school was finished in June so I could finish grade eight. That was the most I had ever heard her say at one time.

  June came and Sarah left us. Daddy seemed to be in a daze after that, and although he worked, he was very depressed. I asked him why he wouldn’t marry Sarah. He said that he couldn’t, that Mom was the only woman he had ever loved. Nothing more was ever said, and again the responsibility for the family was left to me.

  Jamie and I had long talks those first few weeks about what we would do. Bob was going to visit a sister in Blue River, so Jamie decided he would go to British Columbia with him and look for work. He could make nearly four hundred dollars a month out there, and we couldn’t live on what he and Dad made at home.

  Dad said nothing when Jamie told him he was leaving and I doubt if he even heard him. Jamie was fourteen years old. He got a job as section man on the railroad and, true to his word, he sent money home each month. He didn’t make four hundred but it was still a fortune to us. I got a job as a clerk in a store and Dolores looked after the house. Then the relief people came again and said they were going to put us in three separate homes.

  Daddy just didn’t seem to understand what was happening to us and I was sick with fear. The relief man said I was too young to look after all of us, so I wrote Jamie that night and asked him to come home. He arrived a week later and we tried to make plans. We talked of moving to B.C., but we had no money to go anywhere. There was only one alternative. I would have to get married. Then they wouldn’t be able to say I was too young to care for a family. I thought of Smoky, but knew he had nothing, and we had to find someone who wanted to take over a large family and could afford to support all of us.

  I found my man a couple of weeks later. He came into the store one evening and spent nearly an hour talking to me. I could tell by his expensive clothes and new car that he could afford to keep us all. He was originally from Saskatchewan but lived in Vancouver. He had just come back to sell the farm left to him by his parents.

  Darrel and I became engaged on the first of October. Daddy tried to talk me out of it, saying that if I was going to marry, to marry Smoky because he loved me and was one of my own people. He said that I might never have much, but at least I would be happy. When I refused to change my mind, Dad answered, “I won’t give you my permission to get married. You’re under age.” So I told him the only thing I knew which would make him change his mind. I lied and said, “I’m going to have a baby. You have to let me.” That was it. I was married on October 27th, 1955. I had a husband and I could keep my brothers and sisters. I was fifteen years old.

  Halfbreeds love weddings, so my aunts and uncles made plans for the big day and arranged the marriage at the Catholic church. But I refused to have anything to do with the Church, saying that if it would not take my mother, it would never be good enough for me. The wedding and reception and dance would all have to be held in the school, and instead of the priest, I wanted the Anglican minister who had come to Momma’s funeral. My aunts were horrified! No one got married in a school when there was a church! I told them that no one had a funeral outside a churchyard either. My mind was made up, and as they loved me they set about to get the school decorated and to do the baking and cooking.

  Everyone was upset, but I didn’t care. I felt that our people forgot the slaps they got from the Church too easily. I was only concerned with getting married as fast as I could, before Darrel changed his mind about the prospects of inheriting six children.

  My wedding day came, and by then I realized that I didn’t even like the man who was to be my husband. Karen was my bridesmaid and knew how I felt. She tried to stop me, and said she’d even quit school if it would help us. She threatened to tell Dad that I wasn’t pregnant, but I knew that if I wanted anything better for myself and family other than an orphanage, foster home, or mud shack, I had to go through with it.

  The whole day was a nightmare for me. Darrel’s sisters came and were upset when they saw I wasn’t white, and were horrified with the “drunken Breeds” at the reception. Cheechum was heart-broken; she refused to come when she heard that Darrel was white, saying that nothing good ever comes from a mixed marriage. She had hoped that Smoky and I would marry, and if she had still been living with us we probably would have. Smoky was a great friend of Cheechum’s and he loved her very much.

  Dad broke down and cried before the wedding started. My aunts all cried. The only ones who were happy were my brothers and sisters who sat in the front row, smiling and excited. Even though I wanted to run away, I couldn’t do it, because I knew they completely depended on me. The schoolhouse was crowded to overflowing. Dad’s friends and relatives had come from as far away as Île-à-la-Crosse to see his first-born marry. There was more food than I had seen in a long time and enough liquor to last a month—homemade whiskey, wine, and kegs of beer that Darrel had supplied.

  Smoky came in just after midnight and everyone became quiet. My uncle went over to him but he pushed him aside saying, “I didn’t come here to fight. I came to say good-bye to Maria.” He turned to me and said, “What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be gone. You don’t want to leave us, do you?” Then he turned to Darrel and shook his hand. He told me as he was leaving that if things didn’t work out to come home. I wanted to leave with him but couldn’t, and suddenly the realization of what I had done hit me and I felt like crying.

  I didn’t want to leave so we stayed until five o’clock in the morning, and I’m sure I must have been the only bride from our settlement who cried as she left her wedding dance. We stayed at Darrel’s aunt’s house in Roseville and the next day drove to Saskatoon for our honeymoon. It was the farthest place I had ever been in my life.

  We came back a week later to look for a house in Prince Albert, but ended up in Kettle River. That was my first surprise. Darrel said he’d be out of money soon because his sisters were upset over our marriage, and he had to take an available job there. We rented the top floor of a big two-storey house and brought my brothers and sisters home to live with us. Jamie went back to B.C. to work and promised to send money regularly.

  Everything was all right for the first couple of months, but then Darrel began to drink. Soon he lost his job and had to find another. I was pushed around the first few times he was drunk, but then he started to beat me whenever the mood hit him. The children were frightened and Robbie would try to protect me. I became pregnant in the spring and was so sick I could hardly move. Dad knew by then that I had lied about being pregnant before, but he didn’t know about the beatings.

  One night he was staying with us when Darrel came home drunk and in an ugly mood. He slapped me and I fell down the stairs. I was taken to the hospital because the doctor was afraid I would lose the baby. However, I was okay except for a sprained ankle and a broken wrist. When I got home Daddy had beaten Darrel up, and he didn’t hit me again for a long time. The rest of the year was grim. Darrel would be gone for days at a time and when he came home he would jeer at me and call me a fat squaw. The children were unhappy and confused, and did badly in school.

  One night in December Darrel came home beaten and covered with blood. Smoky had laid a licking on him. After slapping me, he threw me on the floor and kicked me. He told me to pack up my clothes and kids and move in with that fucking Halfbreed—that the kid was probably Smoky’s anyway. I ended up in the hospital and Daddy was with me the next morning when Lisa was born. It was a miracle she even lived.

  I had no choice but to go home with
the baby to Darrel. I didn’t know what else to do with the kids, and I was afraid they’d be taken away if I tried to raise them by myself. But I made up my mind that things would be different, that I wasn’t going to let Darrel walk all over me any more. I opened up a charge account with Eaton’s catalogue and chose expensive Christmas gifts for everyone and new clothes for myself and the kids.

  Darrel still drank, but he didn’t beat me any more and things started to settle down. Everyone seemed quite happy but somehow I knew that something bad was going to happen.

  Darrel was in Prince Albert the day the welfare people came. We were all home and the children were eating lunch when a station wagon pulled up. I looked out the window and I knew that this was it. It was all over. The kids started to cry and hang on to me, but they were pulled away and were in the wagon within a few minutes. I couldn’t move. I felt like a block of stone. The wagon drove away with six little faces pressed to the windows, crying for me to help them. I walked around in a daze. Everything went to pieces inside. Dad found me lying on the bed while my baby screamed with hunger.

  Nothing was the same after that. Darrel drank more and more, and one night told me that he was the one who had phoned the welfare. He said he knew I had married him because of the kids. I tried to get the children back, but was told to leave them alone. I couldn’t even get their addresses to write them. They had been placed in permanent foster homes by the court, and Dad and I weren’t even allowed to know where they were.

  Darrel announced one day that we were leaving. He said that he was going to take me to Vancouver, and when I didn’t respond he said, “What’s the matter with you? You always wanted to go to the big city.”