Transcription
Chapter 17
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. Grandpa had said that wolves didn't mess with humans, but even if I opened up the throttle on the Ski Doo full blast, they could probably reach the cabin before I did. I didn't move a muscle, but neither did they. They were staring right at me.
There was nothing I could do but follow Grandpa Liam's directions. I slowly accelerated this Skoo right up to the door of the cabin. I left it running and hopped off. I kept facing the wolves and walked backward to the door, opening it just enough for Buster to come out. Then I got back on the Skoo, swooped up Buster, tucked him in my coat with just his head sticking out, and sped off toward Pickerel Lake.
I had to slow down by the lake shore to make sure I didn't catch on any unseen logs below the snow cover. But once I was on Pickerel, I opened the throttle up wide. I glanced over my shoulder a few times, but it looked like the wolves hadn't moved once from the time I first saw them. It took a while for my heartbeat to come back down.
Then I started to think. Grandpa Liam must have been crazy to trust a 15-year-old kid with his Skoo solo on a wilderness route he had never traveled before. A lot of things could go wrong. I really hoped that I wouldn't mess this up. It would be a disaster if I got lost or we lost all the meat from my first kill. I was thinking about the wolves too. What if they decided to come after Buster? What if they were checking my rabbit snares again? Maybe my "Never Cry Wolf" plan would work in spite of all my stressing.
Grandpa Liam's instructions were pretty solid. I recognized the beaver house on the south shore of Pickerel and found a little portage into the next pond. There, the lakes and ponds got smaller as I navigated the chain. We had set beaver traps on many of them. I only slowed down for the portages and beaver dams.
The sun was setting and the dense cloud cover was darkening quickly when I saw the silhouette of Grandpa Liam at the edge of the next pond. True to his word, he had dragged the moose quarters, backstraps, head, and hide to the lake. I motored up and then shut off the Skoo, dismounted, and gave him a tight hug, accidentally squishing Buster between us. He laughed and looked at me quizzically. "Everything okay, Ezra?"
"Yeah, I have a story for you, but I can wait."
"Okay." We lifted the pieces into the sled with Buster dancing in circles in excitement. "All right, Ezra, take this tobacco and grab those." Grandpa Liam said. He pointed to a dark red piece of meat and a ball of fur on the ice.
"What is that?"
"Every animal has a special part, a sacred part that we don't eat. On some animals, it's the liver; on others, it's a different organ. This is the one for the moose. You have to put that in a bush or tree as high as he walks with your tobacco, and you put these two." He reached down and grabbed the piece of fur, placing it in my hand. It must have weighed half a pound.
"What is this?"
"His nuts."
"What?"
"Those are his male parts." Grandpa Liam was straight-faced and unflinching.
"Oh my God, Grandpa."
Then he burst into laughter. "Yes, grandson, those are his testicles. The whole package, really. Frank and beans."
"You can't be serious. Is this some joke you play on all people who get their first kill?"
"If it were a joke, I'd make you eat them for supper. This is for real. His male parts are sacred too."
"Really? You're going to put those in a tree too, with tobacco?"
"The first prayer you made right after you shot was to the moose. This time, you pray to our Creator and all the spirits around us to bless the Moose Nation, to be numerous and healthy. You look out for the moose now, the way this one looked out for you."
I did what I was told. I found a thick tag alder and put his sacred parts there. I put tobacco down and I prayed. I prayed for the Moose Nation, for the forest, for our treaty lands, for this sacred place. I prayed it would all be safe from the mines and logging and pollution, from all the dirty snow and everything that caused it everywhere else.
When I made it back to the Skoo, I cranked the ratchet straps to make sure none of our meat would fall out on the ride back to the cabin. It wasn't until after I looked up that I noticed the strange look on Grandpa Liam's face.
"What?"
"You're a fine young man, Ezra. You're my family. You're a successful hunter now, but it's more than that. You're a success as a man."
I didn't know what to say to that. "You can drive us back, Ezra."
The last light was fading from the sky, so I turned on the Skoo lights and drove us carefully back through the chain of lakes toward home. As I navigated up the bank from Pickerel, I thought I saw shadows in the dark racing across the lake back toward the kill site.
It was completely dark when we got to the cabin, and all the excitement and effort had left me hungrier than I'd ever been. We didn't have time to cut ice for Grandpa's storage cache, so we put the moose quarters on the roof of the cabin for the morning. "It'll be safe there until morning. The eagle and vultures don't fly at night, and the only animal crazy enough to come after it is Chi, and he's sleeping in his den kilometers from here." Grandpa seemed sure, but I knew I'd feel a lot better when we had everything stored away in the cache tomorrow.
It took Grandpa about 10 minutes to stoke the fire and heat up the corned beef hash and baked beans on the drolet. I practically inhaled my supper. Nothing had tasted so good. When I finally caught my breath and the food hit my belly, I told Grandpa Liam about the wolves.
"I still think there's no way they peed everywhere you did to accept your territory around those snares, but we'll give it a look in the morning before we check traps." I boiled water in the tea kettle and poured a cup for each of us, adding tea bags, and tried to work up a little more courage.
"Grandpa, can I ask you a question?"
"Anything."
"When we were back at the res, right before we came to Chief's Bridge, you told me you were in Northeast Minneapolis before. Well, we were. We were there several times. We came down for your birth, for a couple of your early birthdays, and we were there after you punched that locker. We never liked the city. We never trusted the people there, but we always loved you."
"Wait, so you were in the same place the night of the fire?" I had thought it was him, but I needed to know for sure. I tilted my head, trying to read his body language as well as his words. Grandpa Liam stiffened for just a second, but he seemed nonplussed as he responded. He looked right at me with eyes kind and unflinching. "Yes, we came to convince Byron to come back here with you. The city swallowed up two of your cousins and your mom, each in different ways. We didn't want it to take you too. Those shoulder people were awful, and we were worried about you. If they didn't get you, the drugs would, or the gangs, or the justice system."
"I was hurt." Now I could feel my body tense in response. "Grandpa, I'm stronger than that."
"I'm sorry. As I can see that now."
"My anger made me bolder. Did you start the fire?"
"No way. If I wanted to take somebody out, I'd do it something something way more dramatic." He laughed, and upset though I was, I couldn't help but smile.
"I let out a big breath. But I... what about the burn scar on Grandma's hand?"
Grandpa Liam studied my face for a second before he answered that one. I thought I might have overstepped asking that question so directly. "She burned at pulling the baking pan, the baking pan from the oven, weeks before the Schroer fire." I couldn't think of any reason not to believe him.
"Grandpa, I've been trying to figure out who killed the Schroers. Everyone seemed to think it could be me, at least it felt like that. Detective Williams, Matt Schroeder, even my dad."
"Why do you think we're out here, Ezra?"
"I ignored the question. I feel like nobody trusts me. Your dad wants you to have a long, healthy, happy life with you in Canada. Someone like Detective Williams can't make a rush judgment. He'll have to complete his investigation before they make any arrests. They'll find the culprit if it wasn't actually an accident, and you'll be safe and out of trouble until they do."
"So sending me here was my dad's version of sending me to the juvenile detention center?"
"Don't be a fool, grandson. Your dad sent you here because he wants you to know our ways, and because I've been begging him to do it for your entire life. Your dad stayed up all night the night of the fire, pacing the hallway outside your door and keeping visual in the kitchen. He... he was worried about your injury and the effect of the pain meds they gave you. He knew your heart and your whereabouts the entire night."
"If he knew where I was, why did he... why did he even have to ask me?"
"I think he wanted to see if you'd lie, you know, to cover for a friend."
"Nora?"
"Your dad is clever like that."
"Not clever enough. She would never hurt somebody, even to protect herself."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Positive."
"Now I was mad at my dad and my grandpa. He grabbed the book off the shelf on the north wall and shuffled to his bed with Buster and a kerosene lamp. I took out my notebooks and sat at the table. After that, in one, I added the information about Grandma Emma's burn and the whereabouts of all the clouds on the night of the fire, but I didn't write down any suspicions of Nora. That was ridiculous. In the other notebook, I wrote about my big day. Somehow, putting everything down in that notebook softened my anger toward Grandpa Liam. He was just being honest and answering my questions, even if he was wrong. I threw a couple of logs into the drolet and went to bed. Buster and Grandpa Liam were already lost in slumber."
Chapter 18
We were up at first light. There was so much to do. Breakfast was wild rice with dried cranberries. We used powdered milk to mix with water and added a little maple syrup. I had to finish sorting out the moose meat before we did anything else. We dressed light in preparation for hard physical labor rather than the normal layers of trapping clothes. I wore dickies and Muck Boots with a lighter jacket. Grandpa Liam wore his canvas carhartt bibs and Under Armour, but no jacket.
We took the chainsaw and two sets of log skidding tongs down to Manny Duan and cut big blocks of ice from the lake, pulling and skidding them until we could get them in the game sled. Then we hurried back to the cabin to set them in the food cache. Moved all the moose meat there and packed it with more ice blocks and then sawdust. It really was a clever way to keep the stash frozen and impossible for animals to get at.
We also had to spend some time working on the moose head. The moose's beard we kept from medicine. We used the chainsaw to separate the antlers from the skull. Then we saved the brain, which was just warm enough still not to be frozen solid. "We'll use that to soften the hide when we tan it," Grandpa Liam said.
After that, we checked my rabbit snares. I had four snowshoe hares in the snares, and not a single set was raided on the outside of my perimeter. There were wolf tracks everywhere. My plan had worked. I could feel the warm glow of satisfaction deep in my gut as I waited for Grandpa Liam to notice.
"Look, Ezra, they didn't mark your spot, but they didn't raid your snares either. It's amazing."
"I actually put little pieces of beaver meat on the other side of my perimeter." I smiled.
Grandpa Liam studied the tracks intently for several minutes, moving in a slow circle along my perimeter, and then looking at me with newfound respect. "Ah, it's still amazing. It's like they accepted that meat as an offering and agreed to stay on their side of your line. It's really hard to believe."
"This is even harder for me to say, but you were right, and I was wrong."
"I wasn't totally right, but you weren't totally wrong either." I smiled again. "I'd still recommend not setting out more food for them. They might start to expect it. Let's see how you do snaring with just one offering for the wolves, okay?"
We grabbed snow bibs and trapping coats and headed off to check the rest of the traps and snares. The cloud cover disappeared, and the bright pale winter sun reflected off the snow. It was so bright that it was painful to look around. The snow glittered and dazzled. It even looked like there was a circular rainbow around the sun.
"Grandpa, what does that mean?"
"It seemed like a... it seemed like it might be of spiritual importance."
"That's a sun dog. It means it's going to be cold." I looked for a smile or sign that he was just messing with me, but he just kept rummaging in his backpack without a second glance. Then he had handed me a pair of sunglasses. "Put these on, Ezra." They definitely weren't cool. I looked like I'd stole Dwight Schrute's nerd glasses from the set of The Office and had them shaded just for this. Grandpa Liam's looked like looked more like West Studley's profile picture on the cover of GQ. At least Nora wasn't here to see this.
We spent the rest of the day on the loops. The north loops seemed to produce more success than the south this time. By the time we got back, and my body was complaining between hauling the moose into the cache, skidding ice blocks, and pulling and resetting beaver traps, my back was shot.
"That'll give you a true Ojibwe build, Ezra. Your neck, back, and shoulders will grow strong. I bet Nora will like that." That joke was all the second time you said it, and that was a dozen jokes ago.
"She's just a friend, Grandpa."
"Okay." He drew out, but he still laughed. The clear sky and sun dog meant cold weather coming. There wasn't a cloud around to hold the heat.
When the sun set, Grandpa Liam loaded the drolet after supper and started putting on layers of clothes. "Ezra, let's walk down to Manny Duan. We're going to get a show tonight." Tired though I was, I donned my heavy clothes again without complaint. We walked all the way down to Manny Duan rather than use the Skoo. We left Buster behind.
Grandpa Liam was right. The Northern Lights were arching and dancing in the night sky. We walked out onto the lake far enough so the shoreline looked like a dark, jagged line far in the distance. Then Grandpa Liam motioned and dropped to his knees. I got down to see if something was wrong, but he just pulled a tiny birch bark basket out of his pocket. It was just big enough to hold a spoonful of wild rice with a little maple syrup on top. He put it right on the ice and packed a little snow around it so it wouldn't blow or tip over. Then he put some tobacco there.
"Gimigamig, andig for our relatives on the other side. We remember you and offer you this food." His face looked solemn, and in the glow of the Northern Lights, perhaps a little older.
We lay down on the ice on our backs, still warm and insulated in our heavy coats, bibs, and layers. The Northern Lights continued to oscillate green and blue with an occasional flash of yellow or orange. I had never seen anything quite so beautiful.
"Grandpa, do you miss your parents and the other people who changed the worlds, the ones on the other side dancing up there?"
"My sweet boy, I miss them more than words can tell. The older I get, the more people I know on the other side. I'm not lonely because I have Emma and you and your dad, but I feel lost and longing. I'm patient, you know. I'm happy to wait until my time comes. Life is sweet. Watching you become a man fills me with joy, Ezra. I don't want to miss anything. I hope you'll be patient with your time too. You have so much to live for, and so many people who love you."
"I've been so mad at my dad. I feel like you should have stopped my mom from working at the pulp factory."
"He should have known. You might not believe me, Ezra, but your mom loved her job at Erickson. She actually made more money than your dad. It must have given her a sense of independence and empowerment that means a lot to people, especially when they had a childhood like hers. It's probably the main reason your folks stayed in Northeast. You know, your dad would have been happy to teach Ojibwe at Rainy River Community College in International Falls or Seven Generations Education Institute in Fort Francis so he could be a little closer to Red Gut."
I must have looked incredulous. "Ezra, your parents had no way of knowing that the pulp mill could make your mom sick."
I sighed. Grandpa Liam studied my face for a minute and added, "I think your dad did the best he could, you know, Ezra. He loves you most of all."
We stayed like that for a long time, listening to the wind whistle through the pines on the distant shore, watching the kaleidoscope of color dancing in the sky, and maybe both of us thinking about my mom and Grandpa Liam's parents, Nora's dad, and all our family in this world and the next. Just for a moment, I felt a little, little twinge of pain in the scar on my left hand, run down my arm and toward my heart.