Timber Wolf

by Caroline Pignat

  “Did you ever see anything so beautiful in your life, boy?” Da breathes it all in, holds it deep in his core. We’ve been up here a thousand times—’tis the same old road. But to Da, each trip here is like his first. Like he’s never seen the hills that roll around us, a great rumpled quilt of patches green and gold, or the mist from the morning’s rain rising from the furrows, or the miles upon miles of winding walls that rim the fields.

  “Did you know your great grandfather and his before him built that very wall—”

  “Stone by stone. Yes, Da. You told me,” I interrupt. Why is he talking about this? Doesn’t he know my heart is breaking?

  “Do you have to go, Da?” I say, my voice low.

  “You know I do,” he answers. He’s been working summers in the fields of England for as long as I can remember. Most of the laborers head over, for there isn’t work to be had here. Potato beds seeded, they’ll pack up and cross the Irish Sea for summer work. ’Tis the way of things.

  “Can I go with you?” My question hangs between us for a moment. I’d give anything to join him. Mick’s older brother was going—why couldn’t I?

  “I’m sorry, lad,” he says, like I knew he would.

  My shoulders droop and I pick at the sliver in the wagon bench.

  “I’d love for you to come … but I need you here,” he adds.

  At first I think he’s joking—but when I look up, his eyes are right serious. “While I’m gone, you’re the man of the house.” He holds out his hand to shake. “Can I depend on you?”

  I think about what he’s asking. ’Tis no small thing. I chew on my lip, deep in thought, as I weigh the burden. Finally, I squint up at him. “Can I still go fishing with Mick?”

  He laughs. “Of course—just let your mam know. She’ll be man-of-the-house while you’re out.”

  We shake on it. It always amazes me how small my hand feels in his.

  “So you’ll do it, then?” he says. “You’ll watch over my girls?”

  I think of Mam, Kit, and wee Annie. “Well now, what sort of Byrne would I be if I didn’t take care of my own?” says I. If he’s told us once he’s said it a million times.

  “You’re a grand lad, Jack. There’s no mistaking that. I’m right proud of you.” He claps my shoulder as he hands me the reins. I snap them on Squib’s gray hide, clicking my tongue to make him trot.

  “Come on, son,” Da says as the wagon moves on. “’Tis time to be going home.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Something changed in me after the fight with Mahingan. After Da’s words. I know now I can’t stay here. I have to move on. For the sake of my family, I have to.

  I find him around the back of their shelter, stoking a small fire by a birch-bark canoe that he has upturned and settled on two logs propped in the melting snow. Squatting by the boat, he smoothes the white-gray sheets with his bare hand, examining every dash and dot patterning the papery bark.

  “Grandfather Wawatie,” I say, sitting on a nearby log. “I dreamt of my father last night.”

  He doesn’t reply as he runs his finger along the seams where one bark strip meets another. Instead, he picks up a billy can heating by the fire and stirs. The clean scent of spruce wafts from his can as he dabs a bit of the sticky, hot goo over a buckled seam.

  “He told me to take care of the family. He always taught us a Byrne takes care of our own,” I continue. “I guess that’s why he worked so hard for his family—even if it cost him his life. And why Mam left Ireland—even if it cost hers. They sacrificed so that we could have a better life. I understand that now.”

  He stirs the can and moves to the tip of the canoe, but I know he’s listening.

  “It is time, Grandfather Wawatie. I have to find my sister, Kit,” I explain. “I have to tell her what mistakes I’ve made and hope that she’ll have it in her heart to forgive me.”

  He finishes mending the seam and looks at me, then. “And if she doesn’t?”

  I swallow. I’ve thought of that—can’t stop thinking of it, truth be told. “That is her choice. But I have to at least try to set things right between us. She is my family.”

  He considers this for a moment and then, stirring his billy can once more, daubs spruce gum on one last brown dot. “Even the tiniest hole left too long will eventually destroy the whole boat.” He looks at me then. “But often the littlest amount of spruce gum is all that is needed,” he says. “It is good that you want to patch up things with your sister. Very good.”

  I smile. “So you’ll help me, Grandfather Wawatie? You’ll show me how to get to Bytown?”

  He smirks. “Why do you think I’m fixing your canoe?”

  CHAPTER 52

  That night, my last night at the Wawatie camp, Grandfather Wawatie has a farewell feast in my honor. I’m surprised Mahingan showed up; maybe he’s just that hungry. I barely make it in time; I had an errand to run first. After we eat, I ask Grandfather Wawatie if I can say a few words. He nods and I fetch the loaded toboggan I’d dragged back from Skinner’s place, piling armload after armload of animal skins in the middle of the group. Fox, wolf, beaver, otter, rabbit, and others I don’t recognize. The way Mahingan’s mother gasps makes me think these are quite valuable, after all.

  “I want to give you what is yours—” I say. “Some of these came from your traps.”

  Kijick and his brother exchange questioning looks.

  “The trapper,” I explain, “William Slattery, he stole them. But those others he caught himself and these last few were cleaned and stretched by me.”

  “Miigwech,” Grandfather Wawatie says. “Thank you, Jack.”

  “No, thank you.” I look around the circle at their faces warmed in the fire’s glow. “You’ve welcomed me into your home. You shared your stories with me and helped me to remember mine. I learned a lot in my time in the bush; I even learned how to trench a beaver dam and walk on snowshoes.”

  “Me, I think you need a few more lessons,” Mahingan mumbles, and his cousins laugh.

  I look at Chiki and Anami. “I learned how to make bannock, catch sugar water, and roll maple taffy.” I turn my gaze to the fire and think of my time in Skinner’s shack. “I learned that everyone has a story ... and that sometimes there’s hurting before there’s healing.” I think of how I miss Da and Mam, of what I did to Benoît, to Mick, to Annie and Kit. My voice lowers as I finish. “... and I learned that the things I’d rather forget are the ones I must always remember. For the worst mistake is not learning from my mistakes.”

  Slipping off my belt, I stroke the simple carvings that run between the paw prints of wolf and bear, over the notches of days, the beaver and ax, dunbrody and jack. “You helped me to remember my stories.” I stop at the newly added feather that I’d carved that afternoon. “You are all a part of my story now.”

  “Mishomis, can I say something?” Mahingan asks. The old man nods and Mahingan clears his throat.

  I wonder if he’s going to tell them about all my mistakes, how I stole his rabbit, their rabbit, and tried poaching in their fishing hole. For stealing from Mahingan is truly the same as stealing from their mouths.

  “For twelve winters, I have heard how the white man cheated our people out of their hunting grounds. How the white man destroys the land and waters. How they brought sickness, and still do; my own father died of a white man’s disease. I swore I would hate them all.”

  An unease settles in my stomach and I glance down at the belt, the wolf and bear at opposite ends.

  “And when I met you, shognosh,” he continues, his eyes burning into mine, “I hated you for everything that every white man did to my people. You came on those ships of fever. You worked in one of the lumber camps that take our trees and ruin our rivers. You stole my rabbit.”

  I swallow. He’s right. I did all of those things. And more.

  He pauses and the silence is as heavy as the melting snow.

  “Mishomis kept making me help you ... teach you ... work with you. Why must I d
o this? I wondered. Does he not know how much anger I have for this shognosh?” He turns to his grandfather. “But that is why you did it.”

  His grandfather’s face is like stone, but his eyes soften.

  Mahingan stands and walks over to me. “Show me your father’s knife.”

  Unsure of exactly what he has in mind, I slowly pull it from my pocket and hand it to him. I wonder if he’s planning on skinning me right here and now.

  “I did not want our paths to cross. But I have learned from you, too, Jack Byrne,” he says. “You cannot fish or kill a beaver. You cannot snare a rabbit or even walk on snowshoes very well, but you listened to our stories. You honored our way, even though it was not your own. You taught me that all white people are not the same, after all.” He shoves the knife blade into his other fist and I realize as he opens it that it holds a leather sheath. Perfectly made to fit my knife, the hand-stitched leather is rimmed with a fine fringe and embroidered with tiny multicolored beads sewn in four small circles around a larger oval. A paw print. A wolf print. I look at Anami and she blushes.

  “I cut the fringe!” Chiki brags.

  “Now it is a knife worthy of a great son,” Mahingan says with a smile as he hands it back.

  I slide the sheath onto my belt and buckle it, noticing for the first time that in a circle the wolf and bear prints meet.

  Grandfather Wawatie rises and comes to stand before us both. He’s got his bowl—a smudge bowl, Chiki had called it. Once again, he wafts the sweet-smelling smoke over me with his feather, and I feel as though ’tis his very blessing settling upon me. He does the same to Mahingan. Grandfather Wawatie sets down his bowl and, taking Mahingan’s face in his hands, they touch foreheads for a few moments.

  “Mahingan,” his grandfather says. “I see you, son of my son.” He lays the shining knife in Mahingan’s open hands. “Take this now. You do your father proud. You are a son worthy of a great knife.” Mahingan’s mother wraps a blanket around his shoulders. “Your own blanket,” she says. “A sign of your independence. But one with three corners to remind you that you will always need and always have your mother’s love.”

  Grandfather Wawatie places a necklace over Mahingan’s head and settles the charm over his heart. “For your courage, inside and out.”

  Mahingan is right glowing, so he is. And I don’t blame him. He did it. A great hunter and provider for his family—a man in his grandfather’s eyes. I’m so proud of him I could burst.

  Grandfather Wawatie turns to me and takes my head in his hands. He rests his wrinkled forehead on mine and I close my eyes. “I see you, Jack Byrne. I know you. You have learned the lessons of loyalty and truth from a great Teacher—the Wolf. You are kin to this animal who is forever faithful to his pack.”

  I smile. For he does know me. He always has.

  Mahingan’s mother wraps a blanket over my shoulders. “To shelter you wherever you go.” She gives them a squeeze. “Always remember, a mother’s love never dies.”

  I feel my eyes burn. ’Tis as though Mam is standing there with me, whispering in my ear.

  Grandfather lifts a necklace up in front of my face and I see then what hangs from it. A great bear claw, just like the one on Mahingan’s. “For your courage, Jack.” Kijick hands him a paddle, which he places in my hands. “We wish you safe travels. Perhaps the currents will bring you this way again sometime.”

  I hold it in my hands and smile at the wise man. “I hope so, too.”

  CHAPTER 53

  “Stick to the shoreline,” Grandfather advises as we approach the canoe beside the cabin. “And if the waters are too white, get out and portage.”

  “That means carry the canoe,” Mahingan instructs. “But hold it by the middle or it will tip.”

  I didn’t know it was going to be a lone trip. I thought someone was coming with me. Mahingan, even. Like the few times that we’ve been out practicing. “But your canoe ...” I argue.

  “Mishomis can build another like this in a day,” Mahingan brags, hoisting up the bow as his grandfather lifts the stern.

  Like it or not, I’m on my own for this adventure. The craft is twelve feet long, at least. And they mean for me to man it and carry it single-handedly? But as they rest it upturned upon my shoulders, I realize how light it truly is. We trudge through the woods to the river’s edge. Kitchi Sibi they call it. The Great River. And it surely is. With the warmer weather and melting snow, the sparkling current is surprisingly strong and deep.

  “I thought it was called the Ottawa River,” I say. For I recall the loggers talking of it.

  “A shognosh name,” Mahingan says.

  “They named it after the Odawa,” Chiki adds, and giggles. “But everyone knows this is Algonquin territory. Well, everyone except the man who made that map.”

  Kijick and Mahingan wade in and hold the boat steady as I step aboard. The narrow hull wobbles beneath my weight and I teeter, circling my arms to get my balance.

  “Sit down, Jack!” Chiki scolds. “You act like you’ve never been in a boat before.”

  Remembering my teaching, I kneel near the middle of the canoe. “Sure, didn’t I cross the great sea? I spent eight weeks straight in a boat.” I don’t tell her ’twas nothing like this one.

  Mahingan chuckles beside me. He knows well enough.

  What am I thinking? I’ve never canoed anywhere on my own, and here I’m about to go down a raging river in a bit of bark and sap. Me—that can’t swim. I must be mad.

  “You’ll be fine,” Mahingan says, in my ear. “You know what to do. Stay low. Balance your weight. Let the river do the work.”

  Anami passes me a bundle for the journey: my blanket, a flint, her hatchet, some dried strips of meat and bannock, and a few pieces of maple sugar wrapped in small birch-bark cones. “Good luck, Jack. Find Kit and bring her back to meet us.”

  “I will,” I say, my cheeks burning in the warmth of her smile.

  Kijick hands me the paddle. I think of asking for another one to use the pair as rowing oars, but I do as he tells me and dip the broad end down the side of the boat. Kijick and Mahingan let go and the canoe bobs free. I furiously churn the water on the right side, like Mam whisking egg whites, but all I manage to do is spin in a circle like an old dog readying itself for a nap.

  “Both sides!” Chiki calls from shore, repeating Kijick’s instructions. “Stroke-stroke-switch ... stroke-stroke-switch,” she mimes the action and I follow suit.

  “You paddle as well as you snowshoe,” Mahingan yells and I can hear them laugh. I have to laugh myself, for I’ve the sailing skill of a leaf in a gutter.

  “Stroke-stroke-switch,” I mutter, dragging the dripping paddle across from one side to the other as the boat zig-zags forward. “Stroke-stroke-switch.”

  “Do not worry,” Mahingan yells one last time, his voice skimming across the rippling waters of the Kitchi Sibi. “If a piece of driftwood can make it from here to Bytown, there is still hope for you, Jack Byrne.”

  As I shift my stroke from side to side, the canoe straightens and merges with the current. I’m doing it! I’m doing it!

  I turn to Grandfather Wawatie and smile, lifting my paddle overhead in a salute. He raises his hand in reply. And so does Mahingan. I wonder if I’ll ever see them again and, fearing I won’t, I hold them in my sight for those few seconds: a family framed by thick spruce and bare birch, where they proudly stand on the disappearing shore.

  The current carries me forward, faster and faster, as the trees whip past. I smile. After all this time, I’m finally going home. For if the Wawaties taught me anything, ’tis that home is neither log nor land, but the people that we love.

  A yip echoes from the river’s edge. I know it’s him before I see his creamy fur, his golden gaze watching me from the top of the rocky cliff. Raising his snout, he howls long and true. Once. Twice. But the third one isn’t his. For other wolves have answered his call. He perks his ears and, with one last look at me, disappears into the forest.


  We are lone wolves no more. With renewed strength I settle into my small canoe, minding my balance, following the rhythm of the Great River. I will find Kit and Annie. I promised my da I’d take care of his girls.

  And that is a promise I mean to keep.

  EPILOGUE

  I approach the front door of the small, white clapboard house. It surprised me how easy it was to find her. I’d no sooner pulled my canoe up onto the wooden dock and asked the girls washing clothes in the river if they’d knew of Kathleen Byrne. She’s in the hospital, they’d said and sent me here.

  Dear God, I hope she’s all right.

  I knock. A black-robed nun opens the door. Settling her wire-rimmed glasses back upon her nose, she inspects me. I’m surely a right mess after my long journey down the river. Slipping my hat off, I twist it in my hands. “I’m looking for a girl.” I clear my throat. “I’m looking for my sister—”

  “Jack? ... jack!” A clatter behind the nun makes her turn and stand aside. Next thing I know, a body bursts through the doorway, knocking me back into the slush.

  I can hardly catch my breath as Kit, my Kit, squeezes the life out of me. “It is you. It’s really you!”

  Whatever words we said at Grosse Isle are long forgotten and forgiven, thank the Lord.

  “Oh Jack, I thought I might never see you again. And here you are!” Her face glows. “When you and Mick—”

  “I have to tell you something,” I say, pushing her back and holding her arms at her side. She’ll not want to hug me after I break the news and I hate to snuff her joy. But I have to tell her the truth. I owe her that, for I know how much Mick meant to her.

  “There was an accident on the river ... and it was ... well, it was all my fault.” I let go of her and look down at my feet. “I did something stupid and Mick rescued me ... only he ... he didn’t make it.”

  My eyes burn and grow wet. I don’t think I’ll ever get over this. But at least I’ve admitted the truth. Much as I hate to, I’ve owned it.