Transcription
Chapter 16
We got into a flow after that. Third day, we checked the line every other day and the rabbit snares daily. Snowshoe hares were prey for many animals, and Grandpa Liam wanted our sets checked often so they wouldn't steal our kills. In the afternoons and off days, we worked on hides. I did homework then too. We only had disruptions when it snowed more than a couple of inches, which forced us to reset the snares.
And we started to eat beaver meat with our meals after that. It was pretty good with oatmeal in the morning. Any bones or parts that we couldn't use got loaded into the sled, and we brought them out in the woods and left them there with tobacco offerings. The sacred parts of the animal were put as offerings, either in the woods for most of the animals, or in the water for the beavers and muskrats.
Grandpa was right about raiders taking the kills from my rabbit snares. There were tracks everywhere. He usually made me check those, too, and I wasn't skilled at identifying the animals. Maybe coyotes or wolves did it, I thought. Finally, I brought Grandpa Liam with me to check. "No sensible coyote would come into these parts. The wolves would kill them. I think you have wolves hitting the rabbit snares. It's unusual, but not unheard of."
"What should we do?"
"Well, Ezra, we are Wolf Clan, so the wolf is the only animal in the woods we're forbidden to kill. You'll have to let them have their way. They'll probably get bored or hungry and go after bigger game anyways."
I read a book by Farley Mowat called *Never Cry Wolf*. The guy in that book drank pots of tea and peed everywhere to mark his territory, and the wolves peed where he peed and accepted his claim.
Grandpa Liam laughed. "Ezra, you're a charming boy, but Farley Mowat's book is fiction. It's make-believe. I will admit, for a white guy, he seemed to have his head screwed on straight about the sacredness of wolves, but there's no way the wolves will play along with you and leave your snares alone based on where you pee."
"You read *Never Cry Wolf*?" I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I read all the books on the shelves of our cabin. I've been reading daily since I was a little kid. My dad did too; he's the one who made it a habit for me. And a lot of trappers read like this. We entertain each other with stories when we're together, and we entertain ourselves by reading when we're alone.
"You know so much about the woods, Grandpa. I never really knew until now that you were so book-smart, too."
He squeezed my shoulder for a second. "Tomorrow, we'll go hunting. You can come out here and pee by your snares wherever you want."
Before we go, I guess stubbornness runs in our family. I got up at first light and started drinking tea. I waited until my bladder felt ready to burst, then I took two mason jars to the outhouse and nearly filled them both. I figured I'd save myself a lot of trouble and mark my rabbit territory. In a few minutes, I walked them over to the snares and went in a wide circle around the area, dropping a little pee every 10 feet or so. After that, I walked the perimeter again, just a few feet out from where I'd peed, and put a small piece of beaver meat every 10 feet or so. I wasn't sure if any of this would have any effect, but if there was even the smallest chance that I could prove Grandpa Liam wrong, I was determined to do it.
Grandpa Liam was waiting outside, gassing up the skidoo when I got back to the cabin. "Change into your camouflage clothes. It's hunting time."
I felt a surge of adrenaline as I moved with determined precision through the mundane tasks of brushing my teeth and donning my hunting clothes. It took me just a minute or two to load the gear and jump on the skidoo. We had the sled, but no tools or supplies except for two knives, one hatchet, and the 7mm.
Grandpa Liam had me drive down the South Loop Road for a couple of miles and then cut across one of the ponds there, through the deep snow. He tacked up a bright orange target against a spruce tree and then we motored about 100 yards out on the lake. I had practiced shooting with Grandpa Liam once in a while in the summer, but he gave me a refresher on the bolt action and the clip for the 7mm, as well as the safety and scope. He had me lean over the skidoo, carefully bracing my arms, and breathe slowly, pulling the trigger once in the middle of my breath. We did that four times. The recoil from the 7mm wasn't so bad with all my layers of clothing, but the sharp report of the rifle rung in my ears. He had a pair of binoculars in his coat and watched my bullet placement. Then he checked the target. Everything landed on the target, but one bullet pulled low and left. "I think you were anticipating the kick on your first shot. If we can get you up on a moose or deer, just keep your cool and shoot like you did right here."
We took the skidoo to the other end of the pond, and there was a massive beaver dam there. Grandpa Liam took a blaze orange ribbon from his coat pocket and tied it as high as he could reach on a willow sapling. "If anything exciting happens today, it's easy to get turned around out here. Some of the ponds look a lot alike. This can help you spot your places, even in poor light."
We left the skidoo and started walking along the creek. It was too brushy for snowshoes, but the snow was past my knees and slow walking. The creek below the beaver dam was frozen over, but it widened as we went. After 45 minutes of walking, I was sweating like a tiny tot at the Leech Lake Fourth of July powwow.
"Let's crawl in here," grandpa said in the thicket of cedar. We were completely disguised. Grandpa broke a couple of branches so we could have a view of the creek. "Look down there," he said. "There are springs in the creek here, and the ice is weak. It's open much of the year. The otter use the opening to come on the ice from time to time. Moose like it here because they are so big. It's a lot of work to eat enough snow to stay hydrated. They like the open water spot for drinking, and in the winter they eat cedar buds and hazel brush instead of grass and lily pad roots."
Grandpa Liam handed me the rifle, directed me to chamber a round and put the safety on, then he laid down on the cedar branches he'd broken off for my view window and fell fast asleep. It must have been a good sleep, too, because I think he snored loud enough to scare away all the animals in the forest. There was an otter that kept popping up through the little opening in the ice, but I didn't see anything else.
So I started thinking about Nora. I wondered if she was scared back in Northeast. Was everything okay down there? I wondered about my dad, too. I probably stressed him out. I knew I hadn't been very warm with him. My head dropped for a minute, just long enough to realize that my toes were cold.
A loud crash jerked me out of my head. I strained my eyes, scanning the shoreline. What was that? There, not 30 yards away, a young bull moose emerged from the thicket and started walking across the ice toward the otter hole. Even with his thick, dark winter coat, his musculature seemed to ripple in the winter sun. His horns were smaller than an older bull, but his body was enormous. I wanted to kick Grandpa Liam so he could come approach me through this, but there wasn't time. I shouldered the rifle and put the crosshairs on the moose. His fur was blacker than charcoal, and the crosshairs of the rifle were too. I couldn't even see where to aim. I just kept the rifle up and slowly followed his path. The angle improved, and finally I could see the crosshairs. I breathed in, held, and slowly exhaled. The rifle cracked in the crisp winter air. I saw the hind legs of the moose kick once, like a horse trying to buck off a rider at the Calgary Stampede, and then he ran.
I turned to see if Grandpa Liam was awake. He must have been up for a while because he was standing behind me. He slapped me on the shoulder. "You got him, Ezra. You got him! But he ran away."
A bull moose can weigh as much as 540 kilograms, that's 1200 pounds to you. They can run with a bullet straight through the heart for a long distance, but they only kick like that when they're hit in the heart or aorta. "Let's go. Let's go have a look."
We went out to where the moose had been standing when I shot him, and sure enough, there was a tuft of hair and a small spatter of blood in the snow. Grandpa Liam dropped an orange ribbon there and packed some snow around one end so it wouldn't blow away. We followed the path the moose took, and pretty soon we found a clear blood trail. It got bigger as we went, a crescendo of vermilion jets, unmistakable in the pure white snow. And there, just inside the tree line on the far shore, the moose was lying, his enormous body prostrate and motionless.
Grandpa Liam clapped me on the back and handed me a pouch of tobacco. "You'll make two offerings here. The second one will be later, to the Creator and the spirits, and you'll make that with his sacred parts after you've cut the meat and organs. But the first, you make to the moose that you harvested. Hold the tobacco in your left hand, that one's closest to your heart, and you speak to this moose and give him thanks. Tell him you're sorry and promise him that you won't waste his hide or body. Tell him you did this so you could provide for the people."
"Do I have to do this in Ojibwe?"
"You have to do this from your heart."
I hesitated, then tried my best to say everything I could in our language. "Migwetch." I pulled it off, but it made me want to pay more attention to Grandpa Liam, Grandpa Emma, and my dad when they were speaking our language.
Grandpa Liam seemed pleased. "Now the real work begins, Ezra. We only have a few hours of light, and you shot one of the biggest moose in the entire tree area. Skinning and quartering without a block and tackle is going to take some time." He motioned and talked me through the process. Working side by side, we gutted him first. I had been around animal harvesting for years, but usually it was piles of hides on stretchers or boxes in Grandpa Liam's screened-in porch. I had never shot an animal before, and I had never seen so much blood in one place. The body was warm and gave a distinct smell. It wasn't a bad smell, but it was visceral and penetrating, like hot cedar tea, mud, and body odor mixed together, overwhelming my other senses. For some reason, it reminded me of the dream I had back in Northeast, where I was hunting with the wolves.
"Grandpa, would the wolves take our kill?"
"Any wolf would be delighted to eat your kill, but they really don't attack humans. If we are here, they'll keep their distance, but you can be sure that when night falls, there will be animals all over this place. Fox, fisher, and wolf. First come, first served. Anything we leave behind after gutting."
We skinned him, rolling the large body side to side until we worked it off. Then we used the knives to cut the meat into quarters, strip the back straps and loins, cut the briskets, and trim smaller cuts from the rib cage. We had to use a hatchet to cut the hind quarter ball joints, but everything else was easily done with a simple knife. It still took us an hour.
"Ezra, I'm sending you back after the skidoo. Just follow our tracks, and you'll find it easily enough. Then come and get me. You won't be able to come the same way. There are way too many deadfalls and too much brush, and you won't be able to come up the creek from the Twin Lake Landing down the trail. There are too many springs in the creek, and you'll put the skidoo and yourself straight through the ice, and that'll be the end of you both. You'll have to double back on the South Loop trail to the cabin. From there, it's a shortcut through the woods of Pickle Lake. You just go right down the chain of lakes where we've been setting beaver traps on until you find me here. There's either a creek or portage between each one, so go slow. The ice should be fine."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to finish my nap." He chuckled. "I'm going to skid your kill out onto the ice and keep the animals away until you get here. Be careful, but don't waste time. When you get to the cabin, grab Buster and bring him with. We'll be away from the snares, and if you have any trouble at all, he'll be more help than the entire Royal Canadian Mounted Police."
I was a sweaty mess by the time I made it back to the skidoo. I had driven it with Grandpa Liam, but never by myself, and I had never taken the route he described by myself either. What if I got lost? What if I crashed the machine? What if the animals got my kill before I could get over there? I could see the orange ribbon Grandpa Liam had tied above the trailhead from 300 yards away. I fired up the skidoo and made it back to the main trail, then I opened it up. If I hadn't been so stressed out about navigating back to the kill site, I would have enjoyed that ride even more. My eyes started to water as I rocketed across the hard-packed South Loop trail to the clearing by the cabin. I let go of the throttle and brought the machine to a stop so I could wipe the water out. On my periphery, I caught a faint movement at the far edge of the clearing where my rabbit's line was. Just a little flash of brown and gray. I turned my gaze to the movement and froze, stiffer than a walleye pike left overnight in a tip-up hole. There were four wolves standing at the far edge of the clearing. Two were mottled gray with black streaks, one darker brown, and one a light gray, so light it almost looked white. "Oh, gima," I whispered.