Andrei and the Snow Walker

by Larry Warwaruk

  “I was wondering,” Mr. Kuzyk says, shifting on his perch to sit upright, hands on his knees, “people I know from Horo-denka tell me that Danylo Skomar arrived with you. Is that not true, Mrs. Bayda?”

  “He is my father, and he lives with us.”

  “Many from Horodenka knew Danylo Skomar. He still plays the willow flute? Still tells stories?”

  “Is there time for such things in this country?” Mama asks. “The men are away working.”

  “I was wondering,” Wasyl says again. “I notice you have no chickens.”

  “Where would I get money for chickens?”

  “I have an extra setting hen. Hens setting all over the yard...in the barn loft, the bush. They have nests all over the place.” He reaches back in the buggy and hands Andrei a straw-lined box filled with eggs, and then a burlap sack containing the hen. “I bring it to you, Mrs. Bayda, and next year when it has raised its brood, you can return a hen.”

  “A hen? Oi, oi.” Mama swipes dust from her apron. She bobs forward and back, as if in a swoon, as if she’s about to bow her head to the ground at Mr. Kuzyk’s feet. “We could use chickens, but you don’t have to...”

  “And a cow,” Mr. Kuzyk says.

  “And a cow!” Mother’s hands go to her face. She crosses herself. “Glory to God!” she says.

  “The wolves took her calf, so now there’s too much milk for just me and my mother. We are milking three others. You might be able to use a cow?”

  “I tell you, we have no money.”

  “Pay me later, when you can. Take it off my hands. It’s all right. Go, boy. Take it. Untie it.”

  “Oi, oi,” Mama says. “Dyakuyu! Thank you! Thank you! Come in to our buda for tea, Mr. Kuzyk.” She points toward the shelter. “Marusia. Go. Cut some cornmeal cake.”

  “No, it’s all right, Mrs. I have no time. No time. Thank you. Thank you, anyway. I have to be on my way. My mother is waiting with my dinner. I don’t want to be late.”

  Wasyl Kuzyk turns the surrey around and then taps the reins on the horse’s rump, all the while taking one last look at Andrei’s sister. “Glory to Christ!” he says once again, and drives out of the clearing onto the trail through the bush.

  Andrei whispers to Marusia. “Do you think he’s nice looking?” He runs into the bush as she picks up a stick.

  “Don’t you be so stupid,” Mama says. “What if he turns around and sees you? A cow,” she says to herself. “As if from heaven, here we are all at once with a setting hen and a cow. What will Stefan say when he sees us with a cow?” She holds on to its rope, and stares off in the direction of Mr. Kuzyk’s disappearing buggy.

  Chapter 5

  Andrei hadn’t dared to go back to the rock by himself, and with Dido away there is no one to ask. He wouldn’t ask him anyway. It will have to be on Dido’s invitation that Andrei goes back. The rattles frightened him. He doesn’t know if they were snakes or what. But mostly he was frightened by the bear. Could it have been something to do with the cup? Somebody will have to be with him if he ever goes back to find out.

  All tasks in Canada are ten times larger, the land ten times bigger, and Andrei is depended on to do the work. Mama said they must hurry with a garden if they want to survive the winter. It seems like he spends weeks pulling roots and picking rocks from the garden plot. When he tires from garden work, he and Marusia chop trees for a barn. They will build it as big as, if not bigger than, the buda, only he won’t have to excavate the floor. A cow would never step down into a pit. It’s simple enough to tamp in the two end posts, simple for him and Marusia to lift the roof beam in place, simple to lean posts against the beam for the slanted roof. They don’t worry about sods; instead they will thatch the roof with grass. With the warmer days, mosquitoes will come, Mr. Kuzyk says. He says that soon during the early evenings they will be unbearable. It will be good to have a shelter for the cow. It won’t be mosquito-proof, but a hay-covered barn is better than nothing. Andrei can set a smudge close by, as long as he doesn’t set the barn on fire.

  When he’s not barn building, he’s helping with the finishing touches to the buda. Mama has made the peech, the clay oven, against the end wall. Andrei helped her weave its willow frame. Then she plastered it with the best of clay, inside and out, making its walls six inches thick, even thicker on its broad top where Andrei sleeps. The floor is glazed shiny black with a mix of fine clay, soot, and wet cow manure. Using the drawknife, Andrei has made a door from poles, and he’s fitted the pane of glass they brought from Rosthern. A week before the Green Holidays, the buda is finished.

  After all this work, Andrei has an urge to explore, to see if he can seek out Gabriel and Chi Pete at the river crossing, about four miles away. Andrei wishes to find things out about cowboys. When the family came on the wagon over a month ago, he had noticed the horses penned in a corral at the river crossing, the team that Chi Pete led to the ferry, one horse named Raven and the smaller one, Crow. Gabriel’s hat had reminded Andrei of a poster on the wall in the Winnipeg immigration hall. It showed a cowboy on horseback, wearing a black hat just like Gabriel’s. Dido Danylo had asked the interpreter what the writing on the poster said: Cowboys Ride the Range in the Last Best West!

  “I’m going to check the rabbit snares,” he tells his mother. Andrei sets out on the grassy trail winding through the bush. He’s not all that sure how far it is to the river crossing. He’s not even all that sure how far it is to the rock. Did he have his eyes shut tight the evening he ran home? And the day they arrived, the day the Baydas rode on the wagon to the homestead, there were so many new things to see that Andrei didn’t pay attention to the distance. He wonders, if he walks all the way, and meets up with cowboys and horses, will it be dark before he gets there and back home?

  Tato and Dido Danylo have been gone a long time. When they get back, they’ll be surprised to see how big the garden is. And what about the cow? Won’t they be surprised to see the cow, a barn built for it, all mudded and everything. Andrei’s mother wonders if they should start cutting hay. Should Andrei leave word at the crossing that they have a cow? Who could he tell, who would understand the Ukrainian language, and how would the news get to Tato? He could tell Gabriel. Andrei can’t walk all the way to Rosthern to tell the Jewish merchant. What if Tato buys a cow? He said he would, and then they’d have two. Will the barn be big enough for two cows and a team of oxen?

  The fresh green grass has grown above his knees. Poplar saplings, bursting with green foliage, rise up here and there above the grass, the sign of Pentecost, the glory of the Green Holidays. Year after year leafy branches graced every doorway in their village. But it was a chore getting them. Here you can’t walk ten feet anywhere without the brushing of green branches. It’s already June in Canada, but you can’t change the calendar for the Holy days of the church. “Let the English be two weeks ahead with their Roman Calendar,” Mama said, “but Pentecost is on Pentecost. Nobody can change that.”

  On each side the forest looms skyward, Andrei’s eyes penetrating through walls of trees into darkness, and he feels a mosquito sting his forehead. He swats, blood splatters on his fingers. A squirrel skirts up a tree trunk, chattering, while higher yet a raven lands, black feathers ruffling, the branch bobbing up and down, sunlight blinking. The bushes sing with the chirping of birds. In open spots, bees hum in the pink patches of prairie roses. It seems that the very air droops with the sweet scent of aspen and rose.

  Strawberries grow along the edge of the trees. Andrei stops to pick a few. He wishes he had something to put them in. The berries are small, but there are many, all of them sweet and full of juice. He’s on his knees in the middle of the patch of berries. Mosquitoes hum in a cloud above his head.

  He senses that he’s not alone. He gets to his feet and hurries further down the trail to the open stretch that looks down on the hillside and the big rock. Something moves far below in the willows. He wonders if it is a deer. But then he’s reminded of the shadowy figure he saw above the
burial mounds the morning he saw the light. The same ghost-like movement of a black shadow, more the outline of a human figure than that of a deer. A minute later something else moves fluttering out of the branches, a crow swooping off to the east. And then from the west, a horse and rider appear.

  From the distance, Andrei can’t be sure, but the rider’s dressed the same as the young man who brought them on the wagon to the homestead. As the horse climbs the hill, getting closer, Andrei can make out his features. It is Gabriel. Andrei waves, and the large black horse bobs its head up and down, as if it’s doing the answering. Gabriel wears his cowboy hat. A red sash is tied around his waist, and he carries a rifle resting on the horn of his saddle.

  “The Bayda boy,” Gabriel says, when he reaches Andrei. “A long way from your homestead. Where are you headed?”

  “Just out walking,” Andrei says. “Are you hunting?”

  “Jump up here on Raven.”

  Gabriel asks questions. He wants to know how Andrei’s family is getting along. Have they built a house? Do they have a garden? He has talked to Andrei’s father and grandfather when they crossed on the ferry on their way to work for Jake Klassen. He asks about Andrei’s sister Marusia.

  Andrei asks about Chi Pete. “He wants to pay you a visit,” Gabriel says. “Would it be all right for him to come?”

  “Can he? Of course! We could go hunting. Does he have a rifle?”

  “We are all hunters,” Gabriel says.

  “Are you an Indian?”

  “I am Métis,” Gabriel says. “Both Indian and French.”

  “And you are a cowboy?”

  “I suppose,” Gabriel says.

  “How come you speak Ukrainian so well?”

  “Not well,” Gabriel says.

  “At least I understand you.”

  “I help Uncle Moise at the ferry. Ukrainians come through nearly every day, and I try talking to them. Uncle Moise says he’s too old to learn a new language.”

  “Does anyone live close by here?”

  “Indians come and go,” Gabriel says. “Nobody farming. Our cattle graze along the river.”

  “There’s Indians?”

  “Lots north of here at the Reserve. But in the summer they like to travel. They follow a trail along the river to Saskatoon and farther south. It used to be a lot farther when there were buffalo.”

  “Did you hunt buffalo?”

  “Not me, but my father remembers.”

  “Where are the buffalo?”

  “All of them shot,” Gabriel says.

  “Will they ever come back?”

  “No,” Gabriel says. “It would need a very strong medicine to bring them back.”

  Gabriel gives a short tug on the reins and the horse stops. Hidden part way into the willows, a red rag is tied to a branch. “He’s been here,” Gabriel says.

  “Who?”

  “Snow Walker.”

  “Just because of that piece of cloth, you think somebody has been here?”

  “Snow Walker leaves signs.”

  “Why?” Andrei gazes around in every direction.

  “One of his tricks,” Gabriel says. “He’s a spirit man who lives alone.”

  “Why is he called Snow Walker?”

  “It is said that he predicts the coming of bad weather. Some even say that he can cause it to happen.”

  “Is he a Métis?”

  “Cree of the One Arrow people. But he lives at the river by himself, as if watching out for the arrival of intruders.”

  “Will he do something to us?”

  “We’ll just move along. Go about our business. He’ll appear to us if he wants to, but probably not.”

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “A few times. I can recall once, many years ago. I was on a horse with my father, just like you are with me, but I was much younger, on this very trail. I remember them talking, and many times after my father would tell the story at gatherings. He’d talk about Snow Walker to scare us children, and the old people would laugh. They said he could turn himself into a bear. He is very wise.”

  “He doesn’t really turn himself into a bear,” Andrei says. “How could he do that?”

  “Perhaps just stories to scare children,” Gabriel says. “But Snow Walker is real, all the same. On this very trail he and Father talked about the English soldiers stealing the church bell from Batoche. My father thought this was an evil act. Snow Walker didn’t think so. He said the bell was bad medicine of the black robes and it was just as well it was gone.”

  They ride through the woods in silence. When they come across an animal’s bed, Gabriel dismounts. It’s a mere impression in the leaves that Andrei would not have noticed by himself. Gabriel presses his palm to the bed.

  “Fresh.”

  “Is it a deer?” Andrei asks.

  “Too large. Moose, I think. See the gouges? The leaves disturbed? We scared him up.”

  They walk for two hours, Andrei leading the horse and Gabriel scouting the tracks, spotting a broken twig here, and there the spots of uprooted turf on the forest floor. Then Gabriel stands still, one hand upright signalling Andrei to stop, the other hand holding the rifle. All is silent, but then a muffled cough sounds from somewhere close. Andrei sees no further than ten or fifteen feet into the trees.

  Another cough and Andrei senses the direction. Gabriel aims the rifle, the shape of moose antlers slowly forming out of a tangle of twigs and branches. The rifle fires. A thud, a grunt, and a crash of trees.

  The moose kicks, legs a frenzy in its death throes.

  Andrei can’t believe this. In Ukraine such events were for the sport of the Polish landlords, not the people. Even the rich would never have hunted an animal this big. Gabriel stabs its throat and the blood pumps out in spurts. He cuts out the tongue, slices a tip off the end and tosses it into his mouth.

  “Try some?” Andrei shakes his head. Gabriel laughs, hands the tongue to Andrei, then rolls the moose onto its back. He grabs the antlers and twists the head to the side, bracing it against the animal’s shoulder. Andrei sets the tongue down on a patch of grass then holds on to a back leg.

  Gabriel slices the hide from the animal’s neck down to its pelvis. He skins with the tip of his knife, pulling the hide away from the flesh, carefully spreading it on the forest floor. Soon the carcass lies bare on its own blanket. Now he cuts through the flesh, from top to bottom.

  Gabriel hands Andrei a hatchet. “Cut branches,” he says, “and lay them in piles. Many branches.”

  Hands red with blood, Gabriel draws out the entrails. He gives Andrei the heart, kidneys, and liver to lay on the branches, then hands him his fire-blackened tea can.

  “Get water from the creek,” he says.

  “Where?”

  “That way through the trees,” he says, pointing ahead. “Not far, maybe thirty yards.”

  When Andrei returns, Gabriel is turning intestines inside-out, the dung pellets plopping to the ground like marbles. He scrapes the intestines with his knife, then swishes them in the can of water.

  “They are good to eat roasted,” he says.

  The paunch is swelled up like a balloon. Gabriel punctures it and a puff of foul air escapes. He slices open one of the four stomachs.

  “Take the bible to the creek,” he tells Andrei. “Rinse it out. Everything.”

  “The bible?”

  “That’s what my mother calls it. Clean out everything, then rinse. Swish the bible back and forth in the water.”

  It’s like a ball split open, filled with vegetation piled layer upon layer, like pages, the membranes less than half an inch apart, covered with countless tiny nodes. Andrei runs with it, gets to the creek, and submerges the stomach. He works the linings with his fingers, all the time sloshing the bible up and down, and around and around in the water. After half an hour of this, he takes it back to Gabriel.

  “Good job, Andrei. It’s no small task to clean up the bible. It’s my mother’s favourite part of the moose. She will
say a prayer for you.”

  They stack meat in piles. Gabriel tells Andrei to lay out more branches. The meat is stacked in this way...a layer of branches then a layer of meat, a layer of branches...meat...

  “We’ll take it to your place,” Gabriel says. “Your mama might like to have some.”

  He and Andrei pack the cooled meat on the hide blanket, enclosing it by tying up the hide, first the front legs, then the back. The horse then drags the moose meat like a sled through the bush to the trail, and another mile to the Bayda farm.

  Andrei can’t wait to hear what Mama will say. He sees her and Marusia standing behind the willow fence they are weaving to enclose the garden. Mama draws her hands up to her face, eyes fixed on the horse and the parcel dragging behind. Marusia glances this way and that, but each time returning to Gabriel. She brushes dust from her clothing, clutches her dress and apron, shaking them.

  “My friend,” Andrei says. “Remember, at the ferry? He brought us here on the wagon. Remember Gabriel? He wants to give us some meat.”

  “Too much,” Mama says.

  “Not all of it,” Andrei says. “Just a little. Just what his horse can’t pack home.”

  Gabriel gets Andrei started in building a smoking rack, cutting willows and tying them, forming frames on tripods. He opens the hide and starts preparing the meat. Marusia and Mama watch carefully. He slices the meat in sheets, like red rags, cut with the grain and not against it, so thin you can almost see through it.

  Marusia runs to the buda and returns with a sharp knife. She kneels on the ground beside Gabriel.

  “Sure,” he says, “you try it.” He takes hold of her knife hand. She glances up to him a moment, half questioning about the task, and half absorbed in the deep brown sparkle of his eyes.

  “Keep it thin and even,” he says. With their left hands holding the meat, he grips her right hand with his and guides the knife slicing into the red flesh. Andrei stands behind them holding a length of willow.