A campfire blocked the entrance to their campsite against marauding bears attracted by the moose kill. Prunie pushed the flensing tool against stretched skin to remove fat and fibers. The final tanned skin would be smooth as the velvet cloth sold at the Nelson River trading post.
Bot flies darted around Prunie’s head and arms so she ran to the enveloping alder wood smoke of smudge fires where she was free of the buzzing pests. Prunie used the tail of her blood-spattered shirt to wipe her watering eyes. She left the smoke and walked to the riverbank fifty paces away. Prunie scanned the lake. Something moved far out on the water. She shaded her eyes with her hands to make out the object. A freight canoe with a single sail moved far out on the water. The canoe came closer and she recognized the man at the tiller.
My Uncle Alex from Cranberry Portage, Prunie thought. Coming to visit his relatives at Reed Lake.
Wind scudded across the water and threw up spumes of white froth. The man turned the canoe into the sudden gust. The sail lofted. Prunie saw the painted clan symbol on the canvas and recognized several people in the canoe.
“Hey, husband,” she called out. “People are coming: Uncle Alex and my aunties. There are other men with him.” Martin turned from his butchering. “They smelled my moose meat over there in Cranberry.” He laughed. “I know your relatives. They can sniff meat twenty kilometers away. Am I wrong?”
“Yes, wrong. Perhaps they come just to visit,” Prunie said. “We’ll feed them, no? It’s good I shot this moose. You’re lucky your husband is a great hunter.” He planted a kiss on her nose and laughed. The woman laughed with him and rolled her eyes.
“You should get to cookin’,” Martin said. With a knife as long as his wife’s forearm, he sliced through the carcass and pried loose a section of ribs.
“I’ll roast these over a slow fire,” Prunie said. “But I need meat for stew. They’ll need hot soup. It’s cold on the lake.” Martin cut several lean strips from the belly of the moose. Prunie went to her cooking fire with her arms full of meat.
Martin walked to the rock ledge boat landing at the river’s mouth and waited for the canoe to nudge into shore. He saw the guns and the backpacks and knew the relatives were not just visiting, but hunting.
Old Alex climbed from the canoe bobbing in shallow water. The old man waded to shore. As tribal elder and leader of a hunting party, it was his duty to be the first ashore.
The old man shook Martin’s hand. “Hello, my relative.” Prunie’s cousins, both in their early thirties, greeted Martin.
“Remember me? I’m Peter and this is my brother, Freddie.” Freddie pumped Martin’s hand.
“Uncle, good to see you,” Prunie embraced the old man. “Good to see you, niece. It has been a year.”
Martin waded out to the canoe and picked up an auntie in each arm and carried them to shore. There were squeals and laughter.
“Don’t drop them!” Old Alex shouted. “They are the only ones to cook and take care of me.”
Peter tried to help the third and eldest of the aunties ashore. The old woman waved him off. She crawled out of the canoe, lifted two layers of long skirts above her knee-high rubber boots and plodded through the water. A large black dog leapt out of the canoe and splashed behind her. One of the strangers whistled a shrill command. The dog dropped on his belly on the gravel shore.
The visitors followed Prunie to her campfire where they drank hot soup and warmed themselves. The oldest woman stirred the ashes of the fire with a willow stick before she dropped in a bundle of tobacco, cedar twigs and red yarn. Her offering flared for a moment and the fire smoldered as before.
“I had to do that, Prunie,” the old Auntie Rose said. “That’s my prayer offering to Manitou. I been prayin’ since we left home. That lake is dangerous with the crosswinds rushin’ in.”
“Oh, Sister Rose, you worry too much about everythin’. You’re always praying for somethin’ or other,” Alex said.
“Somebody’s got to do the prayin’ or we wouldn’t have any protection at all.”
“I’m glad you pray, Auntie Rose. It makes me feel safer,” Prunie said. “Do you pray too, Auntie Sophia?”
“I sure do, but when Rose tells me I ought to be prayin’ to the Old Ones, I get peevish. I’m a good Catholic, Prunie,” Auntie Sophia said.
“Well I wish prayers could kill these pesky bugs!” Young Aunt Nettie swatted at a circling ring of black flies swarming around her head.
“Hard freeze works better than prayers on bugs,” Uncle Alex said.
The youngest of the aunties made a sound like “Pish” and walked downwind of a smudge fire and let the smoke discourage the pests.
“We haven’t seen moose on our side of the lake. Don’t know where they gone to,” Alex said.
“Alex is too old to hunt moose.” Aunt Sophia said.
“I am not too old,” the old man replied.
“If I say you are—then you are,” Sophia replied. “That’s why these two boys came along—to get some moose meat for us—forgot to introduce them.”
“These boys are from our village,” Auntie Rose explained. “The tall one is Nikolas. That black dog is his. It’s a good duck dog. This skinny one is Ephraim. They is good boys.”
“And good hunters, too,” Sophia added.
The man called Nikolas whistled again and the black dog came and crouched at his feet. “This is River. I call him River ’cause he takes to water every chance he gets. Never go any place without him,” Nikolas said.
“You never go any place without that silly cap either,” Auntie Sophia pointed to the leather hat the man wore. It was decorated with fishing lures, bits of shell, dangling beads and animal fetishes. The hat was firmly tied under the man’s chin with leather thongs.
“He sleeps in that damned hat,” Alex said. “Come on, we got to talk huntin’.”
“You’re a pushy old man bringing up the main subject without first jest visitin’,” Sophia said.
“And you won’t let a man talk about huntin’ in peace.” Sophia kicked at Alex’s moccasin-shod foot and missed. She shrugged and walked away to join Prunie and Nettie at the cooking fire. As she passed her eldest sister, Sophia noticed that Rose held a spruce root basket in her hands and a tattered red blanket was draped over her arm.
“What you plannin’ to do with that stuff, Rose?” Sophia asked, frowning. She recognized the divining tools and knew her sister intended to consult the bones and foretell the future.
“Leave me be, Sophia!” Rose croaked. “I’m gonna go off yonder and do me some prayin’.”
“Prayin’, I don’t mind, Rose, but tossin’ around them old bones and little colored rocks is the devil’s work in my way of thinkin’.”
“Then stop thinkin’. Don’t pay me any mind and let me do my niganadjimowin divinin’ in peace.”
“Oh go off by yourself and throw them smelly old bones all over the place if you want. My advice is to toss all that evil stuff in the Grassy River.” Sophia turned abruptly and went to tend the roasting ribs.
Rose moved several meters farther away and spread her blanket. She peered inside the basket. The bones were there. The porcupine bones would tell her of hunting success and the beaver hipbone foretold the fate of all in the camp. The other tiny bones and colored agate stones and the pindjigos-san medicine bag helped old Rose with vague details of her divinations. She covered the opening of the basket with her hand and shook it seven times. She sang divination song-prayers before she turned the basket upside down and let the contents spill on the worn red blanket. Rose bent to study the pattern the bones made. She read the message:
Three moose will be taken—not by these hunters but by others. Danger surrounds this camp. Two hunters will die!
“Ka! Kawin! Namawiya! Ka! Ka!” She cried out. “No! Oh my, no! Oh no!” and slumped to the ground.
Prunie saw her old auntie fall and rushed to her side. “What is it, Auntie?” Prunie asked.
“I think she fainted,” Nikolas
said, hurrying to their side. “I’m all right you two.” Rose allowed herself to be raised to a sitting position. “The bones’ message scared me. I’m all right, but this camp and two of the hunters are in danger. Two gonna die!”
Nikolas shook his head, eyes growing wide. “Who? Which one of us is it? When? Who will die?” he asked.
“Foolish man!” Rose hissed. “The bones don’t give me a time and a place! They don’t spell out names if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
Prunie looked up into Nikolas’s worried face and forced a smile. “Sometimes what the bones reveal never come true. Isn’t that right, Auntie? Sometimes the bones reveal things that have already happened.”
The old auntie did not answer. She gathered her divining items and replaced them in her basket.
Nikolas helped Rose to her feet. “Sometimes things you see don’t happen?”
“Prunie said that. I didn’t,” Rose said. “I might read the bones wrong—but it doesn’t happen often. I must make prayers to Manitou. The danger is from the dead ones who live. Go away and leave me be.”
Nikolas watched the old woman hobble off to pray and turned to Prunie. “What is that old one talking about? You believe in all this stuff?”
“You shouldn’t worry about what she saw in the bones. Forget about this, Nikolas. Don’t say anything to the others and neither will I.” Prunie tried to sound calm. Nikolas hesitated before nodding his agreement.
When she finished her prayers, a grim-faced Auntie Rose joined the other women. When Sophia asked Rose what was wrong, the older sister said nothing, put down the carving knife and walked away. Auntie Rose kept apart from everyone. She stared into space, silent and alone. Prunie felt uneasy and it showed on her face.
Sophia patted her arm and said, “Don’t worry, Prunie. Rose is in one of her moods. She always gets that way whenever she messes with them old bones. She calls it ‘seein’ visions.’ What she imagines she sees, I ignore. She just wants attention. She’ll get over her bad mood and be her regular sassy self in a few hours.”
Nikolas joined the men at their campfire. Uncle Alex discussed the route from the headwaters of Reed Lake to the west bank, then north where moose were to be found.
“I had good luck up at Rabbit Lake ’bout seven, maybe eight seasons ago,” Uncle Alex said.
“Then let’s head up there,” Martin said.
“We’ll need canoes,” Peter said. “Can’t get the big canoe up there.”
“We’ll borrow from my relatives,” Martin said.
“Good,” Alex said. “Here’s the plan. Martin and Peter will hunt together with me and Freddie as a second team. Nikolas will be the go-between for the two groups.”
That night Prunie walked to the lean-to where Martin rested, puffing on his clay pipe. She crawled into bed.
Martin blew out a puff of smoke, took the pipe from his mouth. “Did you see the look on Auntie Rose’s face when she heard we’ll go up to Rabbit Lake?” Martin asked.
“I was too busy listening to Uncle’s plans to notice,” Prunie said. “Auntie Rose has been in a bad mood all day.”
Martin gave a big sigh.
“What do you want to tell me?” Prunie asked. “Did Auntie Rose say something to you tonight?”
He phrased his answer carefully. “This is not the first time Rose talked about danger around that lake. When she came here four years ago she told me never to go there if I was alone.”
“But you’re not going alone,” Prunie said. “So what’s the problem?”
He rolled on his side and faced his wife. “Auntie Rose said she’d had visions; warnings, she called them, about some dead things.”
“If she wants to warn you, to protect you, let her do it. Old people, like Auntie Rose, are the only ones who still know how to do such things. If I knew the old protection songs and how to make amulets to protect you, believe me, I’d do it.”
“I thought you were a church member.”
“I am, but maybe there’s something true and powerful in the old ways. I want you back safe and in one piece.”
“I’ll come back safe. I’ve not hunted over that way, ever since old Rose spooked me four years ago.”
“What did she do?”
“She took me aside and said she wanted to talk. She looked towards Rabbit Lake and started talking to herself as much as to me,” Martin explained. “She said the night was full of evil spirits on the other shore; dead things walkin’ around and don’t I see ’em? I tell her, ‘No. I don’t see no dead things.’ Then she asks, ‘Did you ever hear any whistlin’ when you was over there at night?’ ”
“No.” I told her. ‘You will some day, she said, when you hear the whistlin’ you’ll know. The wanisid manitous, evil spirit things is around. Somebody’s gonna die.’ ”
Prunie lay beside her husband. She felt a chill in spite of the warmth of the heavy quilts and blankets. Memories of old legends; stories of the hairy men; the wendigo; wild men of the woods, the ganibod; the dead people who walk; the under-the-lake-people; the old tales invaded her brain like misty ghosts that wouldn’t take clear shape or form. The fear of something ancient, something terrible and deadly, some- thing she knew existed but had never seen nor heard grew within her. She shuddered and Martin, feeling her tremble, asked if she was cold.
“Yes,” she said and snuggled against him. She slept fitfully, awakening suddenly in the late night. She was jolted upright in the bed still feeling the tugging, clawed hands of some nightmare creatures, imagined dream horrors.
The camp came alive with morning activity. Supplies were pushed into backpacks. Freddie and Ephraim carried gear to the lakeshore. Prunie and Sophia helped Nettie pour water on the campfires while they waited for Martin, Peter, and Nikolas to come up the lake with the canoes borrowed from the villagers. Auntie Rose paced back and forth at the far end of the spit of land and muttered her prayers.
Shouts announced Martin’s and the boys’ arrival with three smaller canoes. Uncle Alex supervised the placement of packs and people in them. He took his Elder’s place in the first canoe before they moved towards the north bank several kilometers away.
Before the second night in the new camp, brush lean-to shelters had been fashioned to face a central fire pit where the women prepared the meals. Smaller “bear-fires” burned in outlying pits.
The third night in camp, a despondent group sat around the fire. Two days without moose sign had passed. Nikolas and his dog brought in rabbits and a goose to provide the camp with fresh meat but the moose remained elusive.
The weather stayed warm. The bushes close to camp were heavy with Manitoba mashkigimin—high-bush cranberries—and a few late fruiting pikwadjish—wild mushrooms—were found on the forest floor. With a supply of walleyes and pike from the lake, the women prepared daily meals. The hunters grumbled as they ate, and complained every night that the moose must have moved farther northwest from Rabbit Lake.
When Auntie Rose heard this, she developed another bout of sulky silence. The women hoped her moody spell would soon end. Such behavior disturbed the harmony of the camp.
Each night, campfires provided a sense of safety, holding the thick darkness of the wilderness at bay. For Rose, the shadowy trees concealed matchi manadad—very evil things, the dead who live—watching, waiting to steal forward if the fires died.
The nights in this part of Manitoba were cold, silent, and, to Rose, threatening. She listened for whispering voices or the whistling calls, but heard nothing. Rose pulled her blanket tighter and recited songs of protection for herself and the group. Her repeated chants lasted until the first gray streaks of false dawn.
On the fifth morning, a damp haze of fog hung over the forest and camp blurring the outlines of everything it touched. The men sat huddled around the central fire.
Martin spoke to Peter and Uncle Alex. “Ain’t no moose for three-day’s walk. I say we go up past Rabbit Lake. What you think?”
Old Alex rubbed his hands together and h
eld them palms outward to the campfire. “Good idea,” he said. “That lake has a big bog at the north end. There’s a big sinkhole in the middle of the bog you gotta watch out for, but it’s a safe enough place to camp and hunt.”
Peter said, “I heard nobody goes up there.”
“That sinkhole has a bad name, that’s why some hunters don’t go there,” Uncle Alex said. “It’s called the ‘death hole.’ Been there before. It’s a strange place.”
Auntie Rose stared at Alex and shook her head vigorously in negation. Martin saw the old uncle telegraph a quick message with his eyes.
Auntie Rose slammed her hand down on the earth and shouted, “No! Never—you can’t go there. Something bad will happen!”
Prunie was surprised when her auntie spoke out with such emphatic anger. When Rose disagreed with anything or anyone, she usually turned silent and never shouted.
Alex turned to Rose. “Not the time to speak of visions and deaths.” To the other men he said, “It is nothing. Get ready to leave.”
Uncle Alex acted as if the harsh exchange had not taken place and said, “We will leave when the sun stands directly over us and camp out by Rabbit Lake.”
It was obvious that old Rose did not like this plan at all. She went silent in her sulky manner. This time her silence seemed to convey something more than just disapproval.
Prunie saw a different expression on her auntie’s face—a look of fear. It flashed quickly like a burst of flame from bear fat dropped in a campfire. The old woman’s expression filled Prunie with a sense of dread.
At noon, the men packed their gear into three small canoes. When the hunters started paddling away, Martin shouted to Rose who stood apart from the others.
“Keep prayin’ for us and we’re all gonna come back.” Martin could not hear the words the old woman whispered to the wind.
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