Timber Wolf

by Caroline Pignat

  Yet, not one of those forty-six faces is the man from my dream. The man I know is my da. He wasn’t here. I’m sure of it. He’s not looking for me, because he doesn’t even know I’m missing. I take comfort in that. It makes sense. Why else wouldn’t a father keep searching for his son?

  I rub my hands together and hold them out before the fire. Still, someone knows I’m here. These shantymen—surely they know I’ve been left behind.

  I made mistakes, I admit that. But these men had children of their own. I can’t believe they’d just go off and leave me. They wouldn’t, would they?

  It’s a dangerous place, the bush. Pierre’s voice returns, unbidden, calling up another memory. Only we weren’t in the shanty. This time, he’d cornered me out in the woods. I’d run off after the men left me at the water’s edge. After what happened to Mick. I didn’t want any of them to see the tears drawing cold lines down my face, but Pierre had followed.

  Leave me be, Pierre. Fear filled my voice and chest. I glanced around the clearing, but I knew no one was there. The drive had started, and the men were on the river.

  Do you know how long I have waited for this? First my father’s hand and now Mick. He shoved me and I landed hard on my backside.

  Stop, Pierre, don’t—

  Without warning, his boot hit me in the gut, knocking out wind and words. I had to get out of there. Rolling to my stomach, I started to crawl, scrabbling at the coarse snow with red-raw hands. If I could just make it to the trees, I thought, I might be able to—

  Pierre grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet. It’s time you paid, Bébite. He swung his fist, catching my cheek. Light exploded around me, followed by a searing throb, as though his fist were a blacksmith’s iron and not mere flesh and bone. My head rang like a struck anvil. Pierre pounded my side and I crumpled, but it did nothing to block the next blow. Or the next.

  I … didn’t do … I didn’t mean … the words escaped in wet gasps through blood, tears, spit, and snot.

  You think you’re a real man, eh, little Bébite? You will have to learn to fight better than this. With a grunt, he punched my side once more, reveling in my pain. Grabbing my collar, he dragged me to a stand and rested his hand on my shoulder as he considered what to do next. Me, I should kill you now and be done with it. No one would miss you. It’s a dangerous place, the bush. People die out here all the time.

  From my swelling eye, I glanced at the bluff’s edge one step behind me, at the rocky ground nearly fifteen feet below. I could jump, I thought, trying to convince myself. I looked back at Pierre. His eyes were hard, resolute. He’d made his decision. Whatever it was, ’twas surely bad for me.

  Pierre tightened his grip on my collar and cocked his other fist. Just as he was about to launch his knuckled cannonball at me, I kicked up my legs and threw out my arms, shoving off with whatever strength I had left. The force of it exploded between us and Pierre staggered back a few paces, as did I, but one step from the edge was all I had. Limbs flailing, I dropped over the bluff, slowly at first, as though floating, before slamming the ground with the force of a felled timber. It crushed all breath from me and I lay there gasping, mouth sucking vainly like a cod tossed ashore.

  Pierre’s head appeared over the ledge. He seemed miles above. Your stupidity will kill you sooner or later, his voice echoed. He hesitated for a moment—maybe he was thinking of coming down to help me or finish me. Either way, he simply left.

  It started to snow, then, as I lay there fighting to breathe. Fighting to live. And I realized that I did not want to fight anymore. The shantymen were on the river. They couldn’t stop the drive to look for a runaway cookee even if they wanted to. And who would want to look for me, anyway? Darkness seeped into the edges of my vision, as I watched the white flakes float towards me. Like angel feathers, I thought, amazed by their numbing touch. But if there was an angel, I never saw it, for the darkness soon spilled over, and all went black.

  CHAPTER 25

  The ax bites into the log and sticks there, and I raise them both overhead before slamming them to the ground. The force of it wedges the blade deeper and deeper until, finally, the wood splinters. Picking up the bits, I toss them on the log pile. I don’t really need more firewood, but there’s something about chopping that helps me think. Or maybe, it just keeps my mind off things long enough for me to calm down. Either way, I’m sweating in my shirtsleeves, bashing the bejaysus out of the logs, and it feels good. Real good. I’m so into it I don’t even hear Mahingan coming.

  “Did you chop all of that?” he asks.

  The sound makes me jump and the blade skips off the log, just missing my leg.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I blurt. “I nearly cut my foot off. Jaysus, can’t you just walk up like a normal person?”

  He folds his arms and tilts his head. “Can’t you just use your ears like a normal person?” He juts his jaw towards the log pile. “Did you chop all that?”

  I nod. So, I didn’t do it all today, but ’twas me that chopped it when the camp was up and running. I vented back here often, it seems. Still, I let him think it’s my afternoon’s work.

  “Come back to yell at me some more?” I say, taking another log and setting it on the stump I use for a chopping block.

  Mahingan shrugs.

  “How’s your arm?”

  “Mishomis says I should get the use of these fingers back, but I need to be—”

  “Patient?” I finish for him. I didn’t realize the gash had injured his grip. It reminds me of Benoît. I spit in my hands, go back to my chopping.

  “Mishomis says to invite you to eat with us tonight. We’re having the beaver I caught.” He clenches his jaw. “I mean ... we caught.”

  This boy is nothing like the one that went storming out of here the other day. He seems deflated. Smaller. I wonder what else his grandfather has been saying to him. Mind you, I’m not the same boy he left, thanks to the few memories I’ve unearthed.

  “He says it is time,” Mahingan continues. “He wants to talk with you about who you are.”

  I glance at him over my shoulder. “I already know more than I want to know about that.”

  Mahingan frowns. This wasn’t the answer he expected. “He wants to tell you about the Wolf.”

  I pause mid-swing. I never told Mahingan about my wolf encounters. “What about the wolf?”

  “I don’t know; he didn’t tell me. The message is for you.”

  “What message?”

  Mahingan speaks loud and slow as if I can’t hear. “I do not know. He did not tell me.”

  I’m hungry for a good feed, but no meal is worth this frustration. “How do you even know about the wolf?”

  “It is my kin.” He folds his arms and his chest puffs up a bit. “My father gave me this name, Mahingan. It means Wolf.”

  I wonder how much he knows about my wolf visits. “Were you spying on me the night I touched it?”

  “You touched it?” he says, in disbelief.

  “Yes.” It feels amazing to finally tell someone, even if it is Mahingan.

  “But how ... you’re not even Anishnaabe ... you don’t even know ...” His voice rises with frustration.

  “So,” I say, “you did come to yell some more.”

  “No,” says he, catching himself. “I came to invite you to eat with us. I did what I was asked. Come or don’t come. It is no difference to me.” He turns and starts walking away.

  A warm meal. My mouth waters. All this chopping has worked up a right appetite. “I don’t even know how to find your home.”

  “I do,” he calls back over his shoulder, not missing a beat.

  I swing the ax once more, wedging the blade into the stump, and, grabbing my coat, run after him.

  CHAPTER 26

  Their bark-covered home is not far from the shanty. I’m surprised I’d never come across it before. On the way, Mahingan tells me it’s one of many places they use while hunting. “We build the smaller pikogan for shelter—i
t’s light and sturdy, perfect for traveling on the traplines. Mishomis and I have only a few more traps to check before going home to our main winter camp.”

  When I ask, he tells me his mother, sisters, and baby brother stay in that camp from October to March, along with his aunts and little cousins.

  “They keep the camp running. Waiting for the men to return with game. But every year, it seems there is less and less hunting to be had. I worry that, like many other Anishnaabeg, soon we will not have enough to eat.” His shoulders slump slightly. “I hope my uncles and cousins hunting along our other family traplines are having more success,” he adds.

  The many clear-cut glades around the shanty come to mind and I wonder if that’s where he hunted before. But I don’t ask.

  “Is your father with them?” I say.

  Mahingan pauses for a moment, but he doesn’t look at me. “My father died six months ago.” Head down, he picks up his pace, a clear sign that this conversation is over.

  My heart goes out to him. He must miss him terribly. I miss mine, too. But at least when I get out of these never-ending woods, I’ll see my father again.

  Grandfather welcomes us in to his pikogan. Small as it is, I’m glad of it, for the wind’s chill is picking up, cutting through my coat like a blade fresh from the grindstone. The sky, now slate gray, hangs low and heavy. Even I can tell ’tis full of flurries. I’ll not be tarrying long, not if I want to get back to the shanty before the storm.

  He’s already laid out a small feast. A few baskets of dried berries, a bowl of orange mush—squash, I think, or pumpkin. From the center of the pikogan, meat dangles on a long rope over the fire. ’Tis the beaver, all right. Shed of its skin, strung up by its back legs, it slowly spins on the rope’s unwinding twist. Whatever guilt I had is gone as I smell it roasting. My stomach growls, my mouth slathered, wet as the dripping meat.

  Grandfather checks it and, satisfied, unties the rope. He carves off a few pieces and sets them aside in a smaller bowl. Mahingan’s stomach gurgles on the other side of me, but he doesn’t make a move. Doesn’t dig in. So neither will I. Bloody torture is what it is.

  Then the old man takes a scoop from each bowl and basket and fills the smaller dish. I hold out my hands as he turns to me with it, but he passes right by and leans over the fire, stopping to scrape the whole lot into the flames. I glance at Mahingan, for surely he’s as shocked as I, but neither of them seems to notice me. Grandfather takes a pinch of tobacco and throws it in over the burning food. He’s mad, well and truly. I’m sure of it.

  “We thank Kichi Manido, Creator, for giving us this food, by giving some back,” he says, not looking at me. My face burns—for he’s read my mind.

  “Like saying Grace?” I ask.

  “If we are not thankful, why should we be given more?”

  He has a point. I never thought of it like that.

  He hands Mahingan a small knife and the boy near leaps out of his seat to cut a hunk for himself. I follow suit, pulling my knife from my pocket and slicing a wedge of the hot meat, eat it right off the back of the blade.

  Dear God in heaven, it’s good!

  By the time the meal is done, I swear Mahingan’s belly is two sizes larger. Mine surely feels it. His greasy face slips into a grin and I can’t help but smile back.

  CHAPTER 27

  After the meal, Mahingan’s grandfather carves the remaining meat and sets it aside for smoking. Then, removing the animal’s skull, he ties it together with the bones of its feet and gives the unusual collection to Mahingan, who takes it outside. I figure it’s for the dog. Slipping on my coat, I follow him, but he heads away from the dog, stopping in front of a slender birch tree a few yards from the pikogan. As I approach, I notice dozens of animal skulls and bones dangling from the white branches.

  Mahingan ties the beaver bones alongside the others with such reverence, it feels like we’re in a church and not outdoors. Or maybe the outdoors is his church.

  Without its flesh and fur, the beaver’s orangey incisors seem nearly twice as long. I stare at them as the breeze rattles the skull among the bones. “Those are some teeth,” I say.

  “Some teeth,” Mahingan echoes, flexing his injured arm.

  “I still can’t believe you caught that with your bare hands.”

  He stands in silence for a few moments, reminding me of his grandfather. “My father taught me. He showed me many things about hunting,” he says, stepping back from the birch. “He taught me to always thank the animal whose life keeps us living.”

  “So why do you hang up its bones?” I say. “Why not give it to the dog?”

  His look turns on me so fast I think I was wrong to ask. I didn’t mean any disrespect; I just wondered is all.

  “We give it back to the forest, to honor the beaver. It’s the way our ancestors have done it for thousands of years. So that the beaver will continue to allow themselves to be caught by us.”

  I don’t really have a reply to that. It doesn’t make sense that a beaver or any animal would give its life on purpose. Still, if his people have been doing this for generation after generation, who am I to question it? Maybe they know something I don’t.

  We return to the shelter and settle by the fire. Grandfather lights a pipe and stares off, deep in thought. Though I should be getting on my way, the warmth and glow is too inviting. Even the smell of the tobacco comforts me. I’m in no rush to go back to the big, empty shanty or to learn what other memories it holds in its cold shadows. And so we wait, Mahingan and me, while his grandfather teaches us patience once more. Finally, he speaks.

  “Learn from the Wolf.” He stops, draws on his pipe.

  I settle in, ready to get his wisdom, but after five minutes go by, it seems that is all he’s going to say. I slip off my belt and, using my knife, carve a small beaver and an axe to remind me of the shanty. But long after I’ve finished, Grandfather still does not speak.

  Finally, after an eternity of silence, I have to ask. “What do you mean? How will I learn from a wolf? Does it know my family? Or where I live? Or my name?” I mean it as a joke, but no one laughs.

  “You do ask too many questions,” Grandfather states.

  Mahingan snorts.

  Is this why he brought me here? What sort of message is this?

  “Mahingan said you were going to tell me about who I am,” I challenge. I don’t mean to sound rude. I’m only stating the truth.

  Grandfather nods at Mahingan who begins to speak. “Remember the day on the ice?”

  How could I forget? My bones ache with the very thought of that cold water.

  “I was looking at your fishing hole and the ice broke and I fell in. I would have died if it weren’t for you, Mahingan.” It occurs to me that I never did thank him for that.

  “I didn’t save you,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s sorry or proud of it. “I yelled at you to get off the ice. The weather had been too warm; the ice was too thin.” He doesn’t mention the snowball or the insults. Mind you, he also leaves out the fact that I was poaching. Fishing on his claim.

  “I saw you go under,” Mahingan continues, “but you were too far out for me to reach you with a branch and I did not trust the ice. Then, as I stood on the shore, I heard him coming. Paws pounding the snow, panting, growing nearer and nearer as he raced up from behind. The Wolf ran right past me and out onto the ice. Splaying his legs wide and crouching low, he crawled to where you’d disappeared. When you came up that one last time, he grabbed your sleeve in his jaws and jerked and jerked until he’d dragged you out.”

  At first, I think Mahingan’s only teasing, but there’s no hint of humor on him, and even Grandfather Wawatie nods as though Mahingan speaks true. I wonder whether Mahingan would have saved me or, like Pierre, left me for dead in my own mess. I honestly can’t say for sure what he would have done. Nor would do, were it to happen again. But I feel he’s telling the truth.

  As crazy as it sounds, that wolf saved me, so he did. Though I’ve no
idea why.

  CHAPTER 28

  Grandfather Wawatie tells Mahingan to walk me back to the shanty. I want to say I can find my own way home, but, truth be told, I can’t. Much as I hate taking it, I need Mahingan’s help. But as we start walking into the dark woods, I begin to wonder if I might have been better on my own. For Mahingan’s of a mind to spook me, so he is. And with an imagination like mine, it doesn’t take much before I’m one scare away from wetting myself. Though I’d never tell him that. Not in a million years.

  “What’s that?” he says, stopping again, his dark eyes shifting side to side. “Did you hear it?”

  I freeze. Listen to the sound of my breath. Twigs snap in the distance, but I can’t tell if it’s from cold or footsteps. Even the shadows play tricks on me, showing me what’s not there.

  Mahingan glances at the moon disappearing behind the gray clouds. “The Windigo will surely be on the prowl this night.”

  “Windigo,” says I, as hooked as a hungry trout. “What’s that?”

  “The Windigo towers above the tallest man, but is as gaunt as a skeleton,” Mahingan answers, his eyes wide. “It smells of death and decay, for that is what it brings as it seeks to feed its never-ending hunger.”

  “An animal?” I’ve never seen one like that before.

  “No, a Manido. A spirit.” The wind whistles in the trees, rattling their dead branches. “And the more it eats,” Mahingan continues, “the bigger it gets. But as it grows, so does its hunger.”