He nods. “We have two. There’s the peace tea. It’s…” He looks at me. “Have you ever smoked weed?”
“Once.” I quirk a smile. “It wasn’t quite my thing. Slowed me down too much.”
“Right. That’s what it does. Relaxes you, makes you happy and peaceful. We have a tea like that for relaxing. The same way someone might have wine with dinner. Then there’s the ritual tea. There’s this root that grows wild here. I have no idea what the real name is, but we call it the dream-root.”
“A hallucinogen.”
“Yes. We use it for ceremonies. To bridge the gap between us and nature.” He lifts his hands, as if warding off comment. “Yes, I know. Between that and the peace tea, it sounds very nineteen sixties. But we have our ways here, and they don’t harm anyone.”
“I wasn’t going to question,” I say.
Tomas chuckles. “Tyrone sure did. He thought we were all a bunch of loony hippies, dancing naked in the woods. Our ways were definitely not his.”
“These teas, though,” I say. “I’m told the wild people have two as well. One that makes them calm and one that causes hallucinations. Are they the same?”
“I’m no scientist—I was a truck driver down south—but from what Ellen said, I think theirs are stronger versions of ours. Much stronger. Ever tried peyote?”
I shake my head.
“I have,” he says. “That’s what our ritual tea is like. We drift into a dreamlike state, hence the name. What the wild people take makes them, well, wild. Increased violence. Increased sex drive. Their version of the peace tea is also stronger. Between the two brews, they seem to make the wild people stay with the group. Ellen had family down south. Parents, siblings, friends, a job. She only came to the Yukon for an adventure that was her husband’s dream. She had no interest in staying long-term, let alone permanently.”
Nancy nods. “But the tea made her forget the rest. Her family, her job, her life. At first, she stayed with the intentio
n of getting well enough to travel back to the city. Then she just … forgot all that.”
“How did she come out of it?” I ask.
Nancy glances at Tomas, uncomfortable again. This time, he isn’t quite so quick to answer but rubs his beard, and looks back at his wife.
“There are … rules,” Tomas says. “Every community has them. Ours is no different. There are laws meant to protect us, and there are laws meant to protect our way of life, to put our belief into deed.”
“Religious prohibitions,” I say.
He makes a face. “I wouldn’t call what we practice a religion. I guess it is, but I was raised Catholic and…” He exhales. “Call it what you will. A friend with far more education than me said it’s a belief system rather than a religion. Part of that belief system is noninterference. We don’t interfere with Rockton or the First Settlement. We don’t interfere with nature, either, any more than is needed for survival.”
“And you don’t interfere with the wild people,” I say. “Or you’re not supposed to. But there’s some differing opinion on whether they’ve actually chosen that lifestyle. The woman we know was clearly a hostage, at least at first, and after a while, she was still hostage—to those teas. Her free will was being held hostage.”
“Yes,” Nancy says. “Ellen stayed by choice, but at what point was it no longer a choice? If she chose to drink the tea, and it caused her to stay, does that mean she chose to stay? Some here would say yes. But drinking the tea is a requirement for staying in that group. And it isn’t as if she realized she was losing her free will and chose to keep losing it.”
Tomas chuckles. “Nancy’s better at explaining this. It makes my head hurt. All I know is that it doesn’t seem right, leaving them out there like that, if they don’t have the … what do we call it down south? The mental capacity to choose.”
“Like seeing an addict on the street and not getting them to a shelter because they initially chose the drugs.”
“Exactly.”
“So, what you’re trying to say…” I hesitate, consider their situation, and reword it. “In a case like that, someone might choose to help a person when their community says they shouldn’t. If their community learned of it, they would be in trouble.”
Neither speaks, but both give me a look that says I’ve guessed correctly.
“Okay,” I say. “How Ellen extricated herself from the wild people is unimportant. You say your community has helped some of them. I’m guessing that means they’ve offered assistance to wild people who have voluntarily left their tribe. That is allowed. That’s not interference.”
Nancy nods. “If they leave on their own, we can offer food, trade goods, even shelter. Two of our members were former wild people. Ellen wanted to live on her own and, when she was ready, travel back home. She left her group the summer before last, and she hoped to return home in the spring. She was so excited…”
Nancy’s voice catches. Tomas puts his arm around her shoulders, and she leans against it. I eat more of my now-cold stew and glance at Dalton. He’s been silent, letting me handle this. When he catches my eye, he nods, and I’m not aware that I’m communicating anything to him, but after a moment, he speaks.
“When’s the last time you saw her?” he asks.
Nancy starts, and it might be surprise at Dalton talking, but it’s more, too. She’s sinking into her grief, and we’ve finally reached the heart of what I really must ask her. We can’t let her drift now. That’s the message Dalton read in my look.