You stood for a long time and listened as the moose crashed away through the forest, your bare hand throbbing in the cold, the branches cracking like gunshots in your ears. The cold must have come while you stood still so long, and the fear, hidden in it, came back too. To fight it, you put your mitten back on and began to walk again, following the tracks. If only you had a rifle, you thought to yourself. “If I had a rifle today, I would be feeding us through the hard months,” you said out loud.
You began to create your story, how you craftily followed the tracks, some of the time through a blizzard, even! How you could smell the great beast before it smelled you, how your arrows bounced harmlessly off his thick hide, and did this not prove you were beyond childish toys and needed a man’s weapon? How the
beast turned and when he saw you his antlers fell off in sheer terror. Your Auntie would have to give you a rifle then and there. But then the thought of me and your worry that you might never see me again came back fast, forcing tears from your eyes that froze before they could reach your chin.
Bit by bit, as you followed the moose’s trail, you took a bite of the fear and swallowed it, let your hungry belly dissolve it. Auntie would pick up your tracks and find you. You would come to a place you recognized. You would double back and find your way home. But the dark bush you’d already come through stopped you from turning around.
Was it then that all the stories of the
windigos
came back? Tall as trees with mouths full of sharpened teeth. You imagined them as you struggled through the snow that glittered painfully in the afternoon sun. You’d heard the stories that Auntie was a
windigo
killer. You came from a family of
windigo
killers. You knew
windigos
were real.
Nephew struggles when he hears the words. He calls out once again and I wait for him to calm.
When the sun had passed its low winter zenith and there was still no sign of Auntie, you heard a great racket arise in the dense forest ahead, a noise you’d never heard before. You were sure you’d stumbled across a
windigo
. It sounded like feet stamping in snow, like many people whistling to one another and rustling dead tree branches. When you realized there was nothing else you could do, you re-drew your bow and crawled up to the clearing where the noise came from.
In the midst of it, on a bare pine, the needles long fallen off, stood the biggest grouse you’d ever seen, wings spread, its voice calling out. Below it there was a circle of other grouse, thirty or forty of them at least, moving in unison around the tree. Do you remember how they danced side by side, around and around, the big grouse calling out, leading them, how you watched transfixed so that you
lost track of time? And then something amazing happened. The big grouse stopped beating his wings, called out, and the other grouse immediately stopped, ruffled their feathers so that they appeared to grow twice their size, then started dancing again, but in the other direction. You’d never seen anything like it in your life. Nobody would believe such a thing, a bird dance in the forest!
As you watched, their pattern reminded you of something else you’d seen before, out of the eyesight of the watchful nuns. Your own people gathering in summer to celebrate an easy season, a tradition they carried on despite the stern words of the
wemistikoshiw
church. You stared at these birds dancing in the snow, the sunlight reflecting in it in thousands of tiny ice crystals. You saw in their movement the movement of your own people as they travelled from winter to summer to winter again, dancing through the years.
You saw for the first time the circle. Even though you could not yet express it in words, you understood the seasons, the teepee, the shaking tent, the wigwam, the fire circle, the
matatosowin
. You saw all of life is in the circle, and realized that you always come back, in one way or another, to where you have been before.
Nephew is quieter now, breathing easier, staring into the fire and the rocks that heat at its centre.
And here you are back on the river where you started your journey, but this time with me.
I fall silent for a while, empty for the moment of words. I force a little more food into him, feed him by mouth. Not much of the food or the story remains. I don’t know how many of my words he has heard. I think that some of them have slipped into his head. I start my story the third time, the last time.
And so, Nephew, you watched these birds dance in their circle and you realized how much we are alike. You’d forgotten about your fear as you watched them, and just as quickly as it had started, the dance ended. The big grouse and a few stragglers remained, but soon
the big grouse flapped his wings and flew off. You must have been lonely then, and hungry. You’d not eaten since the morning.
A straggler, a female by her colouring, sat alone in a pine by the clearing. You picked up your bow with an arrow meant for a
windigo
still nocked in it, and you estimated the distance. Your muscles were cold and aching from being still so long. You aimed a little above her. You let go of the arrow, keeping your right arm straight and your left fingers by your ear as I had taught you. The arrow whispered off, moving quickly across the distance, then through the bird’s chest. She dropped from her perch, dead before she hit the ground. You stood and walked to her.
You made a cook fire with some dried branches and built it big to warm yourself. Placing the grouse on her back, you spread the wings out and placed a foot on each of them, close to where they met the body. You grasped her feet and pulled up so that her naked breast popped out of her feathers. You wasted no time in skewering it on a stick and placing it in the fire. As it cooked you plucked her little wings and placed them over the fire too. You were hungry. As you waited, you sifted through her innards and pierced her gullet to see what she’d eaten. Just some pine needles.
And that is when I walked up to you. “It smells good,” I said, scaring you so that you almost fell into the fire. “Will you share with me?”
We ate the bird without speaking. You were very happy to see me. I told you that you had done well on your own today, even if you had scared off the moose. I told you that not many people get to witness the mating dance of the grouse. You realized then that I had been close to you all along. Instead of being upset, you seemed very proud. I knew then that you would be a great bush man, Nephew.
I stop speaking for a while, listen to his breathing. The little tremors return every few minutes.
We continued to follow the moose the next morning, caught up to him two days later. Do you remember that? I gave you my old rifle
that was taller than you were, told you to aim below and just behind his shoulder. You aimed and fired perfectly, and as we followed his blood trail I saw that the bullet had pierced his lung. When we found him we butchered him and ate until we could eat no more, then we packed what we could carry and buried the rest.
When we returned home with our prize, we invited all the other
awawatuk
who could come to a feast. It was a special time for you. Do you remember all of the bush Indians coming to us, Nephew? How they brought you little gifts, eagle feathers and necklaces, charms and bullets? Do you remember how well we all ate, bannock dipped in fat, dried berries, meat?
After the eating we sat laughing and talking, more than ten of us, the men praising your hunting skills as the fire cast shadows in our bark house. We all sat on fresh-cut spruce boughs. Do you remember the smell of it?
My voice is desperate now. He burns so hot that the sweat dries on his body as quickly as it is made. Now is when he will decide. I can feel him struggle.
I asked you to tell a story of your first hunt. Your face blushed, but it was from pride. You told the tale of your day, how you lost me but continued on, how it seemed that the moose snorted laughter at you on the frozen lake, how you worried about
windigos
getting you, and how you came upon the grouse and watched their dance. Your hands danced with the story, Nephew, and the children who were there listened with open mouths.
“Show us how the grouse danced,” Old Francis said, and drunk from the attention, you stood, and made everyone else stand around the fire too. You imitated the big grouse, and everyone lifted their arms and moved around the circle. Do you remember? You called out and we moved around the circle, and then you raised your arms and called out again and we all touched our fingertips above our heads and moved the other way, you rustling your arms like feathered
wings and everyone laughing. And that is when I said, “From now on we call you Little Bird Dancer,” and everyone laughed and agreed it was a good name for you.
Nephew goes still. I hold my breath to see if his is still there. I begin to cry. His heart still beats through his thin frame.
I drift off to join him in sleep and try to dream what he dreams, images of nights bathed in greens and reds, faces of soldiers he has known. The air turning poison. Men wearing monstrous masks. Nephew running from something. All of them running from something. Great fear. Turning to look. It is Elijah.
NIPIWIN
Dying
I
AM BESIDE A FIRE
with Auntie when I awake. I know my pain was so great that I crawled into the canoe to escape it. Now I am here and she has been telling me the story of my childhood. Days before Elijah.
I can no longer escape him. I do not have the energy. I remember our last day together.
Orders are given to advance across a length of open field between two hedgerows. There is a problem with this, though. The enemy has a machine gun and plenty of whiz-bangs somewhere near the border of the village that our company is to secure, and every time a soldier tries to cross, he is shot down or blown up before he gets halfway. The field that separates the Canadians from Fritz erupts as shells land in it.
The C.O. back in the safety of his bunker decides that if we can’t get across singly, we will go as a group. When I hear this latest order, I want to scream. I want to find the C.O. and force him at gunpoint to go across first. I begin swearing in whispers and the whispers grow louder. The others look at me. They are not used to hearing me speak, never mind in anger. I spit out all the evil words I know in Cree and English.
Fat laughs. “I say! That was a good one!”
I reach for the twine with its ID’s about my neck and rip it off.
“I am not a part of such a stupid army,” I shout, throwing it into the field. I leave my medicine bundle about my neck. That alone is who I am.
“What’s the disturbance here?” the lieutenant says, coming up behind us.
We huddle and stare across the field. I want to protest but the English words in my head become garbled before they can leave my mouth.
“Let’s go, gentlemen, shall we?” the lieutenant says, standing, then jumping out and starting at a trot across the field.
As soon as the rest stand and follow I hear the
thunk
of a rifle grenade and then watch as the lieutenant shoots up into the air, arms waving, as if he has suddenly discovered the secret of flight. I realize before he lands that his legs have been left lying on the ground in front of me as neatly as if he’d taken them off and placed them there. I trip over them, which is a good thing because the machine gun opens up with its
rat-a-tat
and the bullets sing just above my head.
I stay on the ground and crawl as fast as I have ever crawled before, others falling on me dead or dying as they hit the ground. Elijah bounds past, firing his revolver toward the machine gun and diving behind the hedgerow to safety. I stand then and run too, full out, bullets kicking up earth at my feet, making me run harder. I make it to the other hedgerow and turn back, see others running or falling.
A whiz-bang catches one of the soldiers square in the middle of the torso and he disintegrates into a red spray of chunks. Fat is behind him a little way and shields his eyes, screaming.
“Run, Fat, run!” the ones behind the hedgerow begin to shout to him, and he seems oriented by the voices. He lumbers toward us, machine-gun fire all around him like angry bees. Impossibly, he reaches the hedgerow, falls in a sweating heap at our feet. Three of us drag him to more cover.
Elijah is left in command now. He peers through the hedgerow as bullets above us rip it to pieces. “We can’t stay here forever, boys.” And as he says this the artillery shells scream in again, first from the German side and then from ours. The German shells pound closer to where we hide.
Elijah points out in the field to a large crater with a nice lip to it, but it is twenty murderous yards away. “X, you come with me,” he shouts, smiles. “All of the rest of you begin firing and don’t stop. Somebody needs to take that machine gun out. When X and I get to the crater, head back and let the C.O. know to send up reinforcements.”
Immediately, I realize the error in Elijah’s judgment. The worst thing possible is to leave the two of us alone in the crater without any covering fire. Why does Elijah want to be alone with me out there?
He stands and waits for me.
My body reacts against my will and I stand too. Elijah’s pull is so strong. These last years since we left Mushkegowuk we’ve been on a river, and now the river has led to rapids. It’s too late for me to bail and get to shore. I stand and join him.
“Ashtum,”
Elijah says. “Come.”
We break out of the hedge and run fast as we can, bent at the waist, toward the crater. The machine gun erupts again. Bullets whine by my head, one of them tearing a gash through my shirt sleeve. My arm begins to burn. Elijah is ahead of me and zigzags as if he knows exactly which path to take. I try to keep up, waiting for the bullet that will throw me down. It doesn’t come. We launch ourselves into the crater and crawl to the bottom.
My arm has gone numb, and does not respond well when I try to move it to look at the wound. I can see that a bullet has caught me through the meaty part of my biceps. Blood pumps out with each heartbeat.