“You are fighting for what you believe in. That is rarely a bad thing,” Grandpa assured her.
“Well, this is happening everywhere. The land is being sucked up by the city. Even if I stop it here…there are so many cities.”
Grandpa shook his head and thought. He remembered a story that would teach without forcing a direction.
“Hmmm…. I once saw a beaver build a dam across a fast-moving river.” He held a finger in the air like it was a talking stick. “It was too fast for her to make a dam straight across. Any small amount of mud she put in place was swept away.” He used his arm to wave the mud farther down an imaginary stream.
“So…she found a narrow spot where the river was bent.” Grandpa curved his hand to mimic the river’s change in flow. “There was an eddy there. And she made…big half circles of mud and sticks, like a U. She made that small eddy bigger. And slowly, adding little branch, after little branch, she was able to build a dam across that fast water. Maybe you need to find a narrow place where you can make your dam.”
“Where?” Denice had tears in her eyes.
“A nation’s law is supposed to be the will of its people. I think you need to go and speak to their lawmakers.”
“The government? ”
“If that’s where the lawmakers are, then yes.”
“I see what you mean, Grandpa. So…this was all worthless, wasn’t it?” Denice’s sadness was evident.
“Did you start out doing something you believe in?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hurt anyone?”
Denice laughed. “Just me.”
“Did you learn something?”
Denice thought. “Yes…yes, I did.”
“Once you learned something, did you use that information to come up with a better way of doing what you want to do?”
“I think so.”
“Then…this will only be worthless if you do not act on your vision.” Grandpa stroked her hair.
Denice stared out across the lake, and then at the crowd of people waiting for the boat that held the rescued archeologist.
“How do we get you off of here? Where are the handcuff keys?” Samuel looked at the pipe as though it was a puzzle.
“Handcuff keys?” Denice smiled. “I’m just holding my hands together in here.”
Atim laughed. “You mean they could have just pulled you off of there if they wanted?”
“I was going to use handcuffs, but I forgot them.” Denice looked sheepish. She slid her red, raw hands out from the confines of the pipe. “Oh! The pins and needles!” The exhausted activist spread out her fingers and then made a fist.
“Wait till you try to stand up, cuz,” Sam warned with a smile.
“Don’t laugh at me!” Denice tried to raise her voice, but it was too hoarse. She managed to chuckle.
“Is it over? Is she done?” Steven from Smokey Bend suddenly stuck his head into the group.
“I’m just getting started,” Denice stated. “But I’m taking the fight to them.”
As Chickadee helped Denice straighten her legs, her older cousin moaned in pain.
Steven knelt down and rubbed her back.
The noise from the crowd farther down the dock suddenly rose. The RCMP boat had been spotted.
“Grandpa?” Sam questioned his Elder, eager to see and hear what was happening. The chatter grew as the sound of the approaching boat was heard.
“I’ll sit with her,” Steven offered. He looked at Denice with concern.
“Okay, Mighty Muskrats…go see them bring in the bone-digger.” Denice knew the curiosity that infused her cousins. “I’ll be okay.”
The Mighty Muskrats paused until Grandpa nodded his permission. The boys took off down the dock to check out the crowd. Chickadee took her grandfather’s hand and pulled him along.
The boys stopped outside of the circle. They were unable to see anything. But when Grandpa arrived, the crowd parted at the sight of him. The kids followed in his wake as he made his way to the front.
Uncle Levi and Gus were there. They smiled at the family as they came through the crowd. The Muskrats jostled for position in front of the forest of legs. The archeologist had finally stepped out of the RCMP boat and onto the dock.
Dr. Pixton was wrapped in a blanket. His skin was chalk-white and the veins on his hands stood out in blue. The doctor’s spine was bowed from the weight of the experience. All of his energy was being spent shivering. He looked permanently cold.
“We have to get him to the ambulance!” the RCMP sergeant shouted. “He has hypothermia.”
“Clear the way!” the company manager yelled.
Although the officer and Makowski were in a hurry, the doctor wasn’t. He walked at a glacial pace, refusing to be hurried or put on a stretcher.
“I’ll make it,” he gritted his chattering teeth as spoke.
A TV news reporter from the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network appeared out of the crowd and shoved a microphone in Dr. Pixton’s face.
“Doctor, what happened out there?”
“Leave him be! Can’t you see he’s weak?” Makowski’s thick arm tried to sweep the reporter aside.
The young Native journalist stood her ground and pointed the microphone at the manager. “Well, can you tell us what happened?”
Makowski suddenly realized that he was being taped. He straightened up and changed the tone of his voice.
“He told us he pulled ashore to go look at the Indians’ …uh…the people of Windy Lake’s old winter camp, but he got lost and never made it back to his boat.”
Suddenly, the doctor stopped his determined march. The crowd hushed.
“I…am small.” The old bone-digger took the reporter’s arm and looked into her eyes. “But do you know how big it is? The universe…the wheels within wheels…the circle in the sky? I saw them!”
The reporter slowly took her arm back.
“You saw the universe?” She looked around at those in the crowd as though to confirm she had heard right.
“I was hungry. I was alone. Your people lived here…and survived!” The archeologist spoke as though it were a revelation.
The reporter looked uncomfortable and mumbled, “I’m Anishinaabe. My people are from down south….”
“What strength!” Dr. Pixton looked around at the crowd happily. Makowski opened his mouth to say something, stopped, started again, and then shook his head in bewilderment. He touched the doctor’s back, urging him to walk on.
“What will you do now?” the reporter probed.
Dr. Pixton thought for a moment and laughed weakly. “No more field work for me. No more digging up the bones of Native people. It’s time I met some of the living ones.” He reached out, squeezed the reporter’s arm sincerely, and then walked to the waiting ambulance. The doctor’s change of heart was whispered through the crowd. Eager to hear more, everyone followed the old man as he was helped onto a stretcher.
As the ambulance was pulling out of the parking lot, the lead RCMP officer turned to the crowd and the APTN cameras. “I want to thank you all for volunteering to look for Dr. Pixton. We were able to bring him home due to your help!”
The people in the crowd cheered and patted each other on the back. The Mighty Muskrats looked at each other gleefully. Grandpa smiled and tousled Otter’s hair.
The officer went on.
“We really want to thank the Windy Lake Police, Levi and Gus, for not only arranging the volunteers, but also giving us the information that helped us change our search location…and actually find the doctor. Come up here and say something, Gus.”
Gus was a funny guy who was used to being the center of attention. “I’d like to claim the credit, I really would….” He shrugged. “But I have to give credit where credit is due. It was the Mighty Muskrats who figured it o
ut.”
A great “Oh-ho!” went up from the crowd. The RCMP officer looked a bit chagrined. The Mighty Muskrats were pushed forward into the center of the circle.
Gus smiled at them and lined them up and patted them on the back. The APTN camera was rolling.
Gus spoke to the crowd and the reporter.
“We thought, from the way we found the boat, that someone had pulled it into the mud of the delta. But these kids figured out that wasn’t the way it happened. How did it happen, Otter?”
Otter shielded his eyes from the camera’s bright light. “Grandpa told us that if we wanted to know the secret, we’d have to know the delta and what the birds know. Well, the birds know that if you pick up a snake and drop it, you can kill it!”
The reporter had no idea what Otter was talking about. She waited expectantly. He smiled with a feeling of completion.
Chickadee pushed Sam forward.
“…And that’s how we found out the boat’s rope was pulled out by a hawk…and not Dr. Pixton, or someone who stole the boat. We also found out the rain-on-snow event followed by the dam opening was enough to lift the boat. Then the wind must have just naturally pushed it to the other side of the lake.”
The reporter looked impressed. Denice and Steven pushed through the crowd. Steven had his arm around her waist and was helping her walk. They both smiled when they saw Denice’s little cousins. Grandpa proudly watched his grandchildren from the edge of the crowd.
Sam continued. “That’s when we figured a hawk saw the rope. It must have picked it up and tried to pull it high, but, of course, the boat was too heavy. So, the hawk dropped the rope, making it look like someone had pulled it out. Everyone was searching on the wrong side of the lake.”
The RCMP officer, after hearing the whole story, smiled at the kids.
The reporter tightened up the line of Mighty Muskrats. Sam, Chickadee, Atim, and Otter hugged each other and giggled uncontrollably.
“There you have it, folks,” the reporter said into the camera. “The case of Windy Lake has been solved by these kids, called…” She motioned to Sam as though he should say the name.
Instead, the four sleuths looked at each other and with a wide grin they yelled as one, “The Mighty Muskrats!”
About the Author
Michael Hutchinson is a citizen of the Misipawistik Cree Nation in the Treaty 5 territory. As a teen, he pulled nets on Lake Winnipeg, fought forest fires in the Canadian Shield, and worked at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Station’s Underground Research Lab. As a young adult, he worked as a bartender, a caterer for rock concerts and movie shoots, and, eventually, as a print reporter for publications such as The Calgary Straight and AboriginalTimes. After being headhunted by the Indian Claims Commission, Michael moved from journalism to the communications side of the desk and worked for the ICC in Ottawa as a writer. He returned to his home province to start a family. Since then, he has worked as the Director of Communications for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, a project manager for the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba, where he helped create the “We are all treaty people” campaign, and as a communications officer for the Assembly of First Nations. Over seven years ago, he jumped at the chance to make mini-documentaries for the first season of APTN Investigates. Michael then became host of APTN National News and produced APTN’s sit-down interview show, Face to Face, and APTN’s version of Politically Incorrect, The Laughing Drum. Michael was recently in charge of communications for the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, an advocacy organization for First Nations in northern Manitoba. He is currently the Press Secretary for the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, an advocacy organization for First Nations across Canada. His greatest accomplishments are his two lovely daughters.
Copyright
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Hutchinson, Michael, 1971-, author
The case of Windy Lake / Michael Hutchinson.
(Mighty Muskrats mystery)
ISBN 978-1-77260-085-8 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-77260-116-9 (hardcover)
I. Title.
PS8615.U827C37 2019 jC813'.6 C2018-905146-9
Copyright © 2019 by Michael Hutchinson
Cover © 2019 by Gillian Newland
Edited by Gillian O’Reilly and Kathryn Cole
Printed and bound in Canada
Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
Published by
Second Story Press
20 Maud Street, Suite 401
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5V 2M5
www.secondstorypress.ca
The Case of Windy Lake Page 10
