The Great Death

by John Smelcer

  The faraway wolf howled again.

  Millie felt the grip of a nauseating fear. She wondered if wolves had taken her sister. She had failed to keep her promise to watch over Maura. The white snow was settling lightly onto Millie’s bright red blanket and her long black hair.

  “Maura,” she said, so softly that even she couldn’t hear the word above the din of the river.

  She turned slowly, looking in every direction for her sister, for a sign.

  “Maura!” she screamed.

  The loud river didn’t answer. The silent hills didn’t answer. And the spruce trees only swayed in the slight breeze blowing the snow sideways.

  Millie shouted her sister’s name again and waited. Nothing. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted yet again. She heard a sound approaching from upriver. But the sound was not Maura, only a low-flying duck. Its beating wings propelled it to the distant bend, and it was gone.

  Millie ran downriver, still clutching the blanket under her chin for warmth. She did not see her sister or the dogs. The notion crept into her mind that she might face the rest of the journey alone, might face the rest of her life alone. She felt her heartbeat quicken, a fluttering like a flock of small birds.

  She turned and walked briskly back toward the makeshift camp, shivering, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

  “M-a-u-r-a!” she yelled, her voice breaking as she began to cry. “Maura!”

  When she reached camp, she crawled beneath the tarp and built a small fire. She sat beside it staring into it as if the flames were meaningful, as if they held her future. The flickering fire and the curling smoke reminded her of the burned bodies back in the village. She wondered if she might be the very last person in the world.

  Lost in her grieving, Millie did not hear Tundra approach, did not immediately sense his presence. And then, startled, she snapped her head to see Tundra sitting beside her. She looked up and there was Maura emerging from the woods, Blue following happily at her side.

  Millie crawled out from beneath the tarp and jumped to her feet.

  “Maura! Where have you been? I … I…”

  But her words were hushed by the sound of the river.

  Maura did not hear her until she was standing alongside the tarp.

  “Where have you been?” asked Millie, inconspicuously wiping away a tear, trying to hide that she had been crying.

  “I woke up early,” Maura replied. “I was hungry, so I went and picked berries.” She showed Millie a pocket full of assorted berries.

  Millie straightened her dress with her hands. She cleared her throat before she spoke. “I thought the wolves got you,” she said sternly. “Next time tell me before you do something like that.”

  Maura sat down on the log and pulled handfuls of berries from her pockets.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you up. You looked so peaceful in your blanket. Want some?” she asked, holding out a cupped hand.

  For the next hour the girls sat quietly beneath the tarp beside the campfire eating, occasionally petting a dog whenever one came near. Maura had fed them palmfuls of berries in the woods. They wanted more. As they sat Millie and Maura thought about the people in their village and about the long, uncertain journey ahead. They both worried, yet neither said a word, trying to be strong for the other.

  Little by little, the snowfall slowed and turned into a rainy drizzle, and the whiteness was washed from the land.

  Before long, the rain stopped, the sky cleared somewhat, and while the midday sun warmed the northern world, the sisters readied themselves for their trek downriver. They had no idea how far they would eventually have to walk to find other people, but they understood that without the canoe the rest of their travels would be on foot.

  They planned.

  The crate they had salvaged from the river was too heavy to carry by hand, even with the two of them, along the narrow, brush-covered, and often vanishing trail. So they decided to share the burden in what seemed a more efficient way, dividing the supplies. Millie carried more weight since she was older and stronger.

  Maura cut a length of rope and tied it around her waist as a kind of belt, hanging the hatchet on one side and the leather-sheathed hunting knife on the other. When Millie turned around and saw her sister garbed in her blanket-shawl, cinched at the waist with her rope belt and its attached hardware, she was a little shocked. Maura looked quite fierce. She had also rolled up the blankets with the parkas and mukluks in the middle, tied the bundles securely, and fashioned a kind of rope harness, which she slung over her shoulders. The burden was bulky but relatively light.

  Millie draped the coiled rope over one shoulder and folded the heavy canvas tarp with the pot and jar of matches tucked safely inside. She was able to wear the tarp like a rucksack, holding the loops of the rope with both hands. The girls divided the remaining bullets, placing them into pockets, lessening the chance of losing all of them at once.

  The brass cartridges clinked as they walked about.

  When they were packed, Millie grabbed the rifle from where it was leaning against the weathered log and set out resolutely down the trail, with Maura close behind her. The dogs wandered ahead, exploring every scent along the way. Sunlight danced on the ground through spruce boughs, and low clouds tangled in the hilltops, bending to the blue-gray curve of the sky.

  For the most part, the forest trail, faintly blazed by hatchet marks on tree trunks, followed the river only a few steps from the bank. But every now and then, it opened onto long gravel bars and the girls would see bear tracks in the sand and mud, some very large. At such times, Millie would hold the loaded rifle a little more firmly, concerned that they might come upon a startled, unwary bear.

  At least they had the dogs. Their keen noses would smell bears from a long way off. Twice the dogs began barking and bolted into the forest, only to emerge later with their tails wagging. Perhaps, the girls thought, they had merely smelled a grouse or a rabbit or a moose.

  In the late afternoon, the dogs raced down the trail and began barking madly. Millie nervously checked the rifle chamber, certain that they were tangling with a bear. They walked slowly, Maura staying behind her sister. Millie held her breath as she approached the ruckus, her hands trembling, the shaking rifle aimed toward the noise. But it was only a porcupine, standing still with its rump turned to the dogs. Blue’s snout was full of quills, which served only to increase his ferocity toward the motionless creature.

  It was the way of all dogs, a kind of innate, endearing stupidity. Millie had seen her father and uncles pull quills from dogs only to watch them rush right back for more.

  The girls knew how to kill and clean porcupine. They had helped their father and their uncles. They liked its dark meat, especially boiled into its own soup. There was no need to waste a bullet. Aside from the sharp quills, which porcupines do not throw or shoot at attackers, despite the myths, the creature was defenseless. A simple clubbing would kill it almost instantly. It had no protection against the club.

  Millie found a stout stick, and while Maura pulled the two barking dogs away, Millie clubbed its head. It took three tries, but she killed it. There are no quills on a porcupine’s feet, so she rolled it over with the stick and pulled it by a leg. She dragged it down to the river’s edge. The dogs cautiously sniffed at it and growled before joining the sisters as they gathered kindling and firewood. Most of the wood on the ground was soaked from the morning’s wet snow and drizzle, but they were able to gather great armfuls of dry twigs and branches from the undergrowth of spruce trees. The upper boughs had concealed them from even a hard rain. They built a large fire, and when it was ready, Millie rolled the porcupine onto the flames, turning it with a stick until all the quills had burned away. With the quills gone, it is as easy to quarter a porcupine as it is to quarter a rabbit or beaver.

  While Millie cut up supper, Maura carefully pulled quills from Blue’s swollen snout. It was a difficult task. The dog flinched and whimpered and tried to
wriggle free, but he understood what the girl was doing and did not bite. No doubt he had encountered porcupines before. He tried to be brave. Tundra lay near the fire, watching the commotion. Using a trick learned from her father, Maura used two flat skipping stones to grip each dark brown-and-white needlelike quill, pulling fast and hard until all the quills were gone.

  Blue licked her face when she was done and then ran off to play with Tundra along the river.

  Millie roasted some of the meat on sticks; some she tossed into a pot of boiling water. She cooked the entire porcupine, giving the dogs a fair share. After all, it was they who had cornered it. There was enough cooked meat to last for several days, especially now that the weather was turning colder and the meat would not spoil quickly.

  While Millie tended to the boiling soup, stirring it with a twig, Maura sat on a boulder, whittling bark from a stout stick, making herself a walking cane, which came up to her shoulders. Listening to the river, Maura thought of Mother and Father and of all the dead people back in their village. She couldn’t forget their faces, the burned bodies, the scavenging dogs and bears, the smell. She tried to put the images out of her mind. It all seemed far away and unreal, even though they really hadn’t traveled so far.

  Since it was already late in the evening, the sun resting on the lip of hills, the sisters made camp. For the rest of the night, the four travelers sat around a warming fire, eating porcupine, drinking the rich meaty broth, and watching constellations move across the sky—the slow dance of the galaxy spinning around the North Star.

  Ts'iłk'ey Kole

  (Nine)

  Raven flew down and landed on a tree.

  “Why are you traveling all alone?” he asked the destitute woman. “Where are your people? Where is your husband?”

  The woman was frightened. She had never seen a talking raven before.

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, as the girls marched along the leaf-blanketed trail carrying their cumbersome packs—Maura singing one of her favorite songs to console herself—a cow moose and her calf sprang up without warning. The cow almost trampled the girls, who had surprised her sleeping in an alder thicket just off the path. The dogs, chasing sandpipers and seagulls along the riverbank, had not smelled the moose—the wind was blowing from the wrong direction.

  The two moose trotted onto the gravel shoreline. The dogs saw them and abruptly burst after them, barking as they ran. To escape, the cow plunged into the choppy water and swam toward the other bank, as the treacherous current carried her far downriver. The dogs followed on the gravel bank, barking continually. But she was strong and heavy. She made it to the other side.

  The little calf, unnoticed by the dogs, was left behind, uncertain of following her mother into the raging river. She called to her mother while stepping hesitantly into the water up to her belly. The current snatched her and dragged her downriver. She was too small and too young to fight the roiling waters, which tossed her about and rolled her head-over-hoof. She was drowning. Her feebleminded mother stood on the far shore watching.

  “We have to save it!” Maura yelled to her sister, as she ran along the gravel bar, trying to catch up with the drowning moose calf. When she was just ahead of it at a spot that looked to be less swift and less deep, Maura dropped her pack of blankets on the gravel beach and crashed nearly up to her waist into the river.

  Millie tried to catch up, but her heavy, bulky load slowed her.

  “Stop, Maura!” she yelled. “You can’t swim! You’ll drown!”

  Although Maura weighed less than the calf, she caught hold of it just long enough for it to regain a foothold and stand upright in the shallow water. When the half-drowned calf was standing safely on shore, Maura trudged back to her sister, smiling broadly, the soaking-wet dress and blanket-shawl clinging to her skinny body.

  Tundra and Blue were still far down the gravel bar, barking at the cow moose standing on the opposite bank.

  “Are you crazy?” Millie asked.

  “I had to save it,” Maura replied, shivering from the icy water, her arms wrapped across her chest. “We scared it into the river. It would have been our fault if it had died. I couldn’t save anyone in the village.… I had to save the moose. It was our fault, don’t you see?”

  Millie was looking intently in the opposite direction, at something over Maura’s shoulder. The baby moose was approaching. Maura turned slowly and saw the calf. When it stopped, only a few steps from her, Maura held out her open hand. The calf jumped sideways, as if to turn and flee, but it did not run away. The two girls remained very still. Again the calf moved forward. It walked right up to Maura and sniffed her hand. Both girls barely breathed. And then the calf stepped closer and pressed its blond head against Maura’s waist and held it there while Maura stroked its cheeks and long nose, speaking to it softly.

  “Kasuun deniigi. Beautiful little moose,” she whispered.

  The dumbstruck cow stood across the river, watching safely from her side of nature, blinking, unable to fathom the moment.

  Millie also stood quietly. She had never seen or heard of anything like this. Her eyes filled with warm tears. She too touched the calf, ran her fingers gently through its soft mane and smelled the musty odor of its wet coat. And then the calf bolted lightly back to the water’s edge.

  The girls walked downriver to fetch the dogs, who were still barking at the cow moose on the other side of the water. Then they returned to the forest trail, holding the dogs to keep them from harassing the calf, watching from afar as the anxious cow finally swam back across the churning river, rejoined her calf, and vanished into the trees, the calf at her heels.

  When they were far enough away, Millie built a large fire to warm and dry her sister. They ate roasted porcupine. Though Millie was angry that her sister had risked her life so foolishly, she was also proud of her. While she sat by the fire, poking a stick at the embers, she couldn’t help but wonder what she would have done if Maura had drowned saving the calf.

  Maura was all that she had in the world.

  * * *

  Later that same day, about two miles downriver from where Maura had saved the moose calf, the girls saw something curious in the water. Their trail was meandering along a hillside, perhaps a hundred feet from the shore and about ten feet in elevation above the river, so at first they didn’t recognize what it was. They picked their way through the brush and down the slope, until they were close enough to see that it was a human body, as pale as ghosts in stories the sisters recalled the elders telling. The People believed that spirits of the dead roam the natural world, oblivious to the fact that they are dead. Even the spirits of animals walk the earth, doing the same things they had done in life, for the most part invisible to the living.

  The torso was submerged just below the surface, caught on a log, bent over backward, the face staring at the sky. And though the corpse was swollen and discolored, translucent as the soft, white flesh of grayling or whitefish, the girls could tell that it was the man from the empty cabin upriver where they had found Tundra and Blue.

  The old man’s dogs now stood on the high bank beside the two sisters, sniffing the air uneasily, whining softly as they looked down at the pale and grotesque face of their dead owner.

  Millie was the first to speak. “He must have come downriver just as we have.” They figured that the man wandered off in a fevered delirium caused by the red spots and fell into the river, his mottled body carried by the current, eventually lodging against this log.

  “Should we bury him?” Maura asked without taking her eyes off the pale cadaver, one lazy arm floating up and down as if waving good-bye.

  Millie agreed that it would be the right thing to do, but first they would have to retrieve his body.

  The cut bank was deep, and swift water pressed the man against the log. Neither sister could see a way to wade out there. Finding a long stick, Millie tried to hook the ragged clothing still cloaking much of the corpse. They took turns, but were unable to catch anything. Millie dec
ided what they needed was a longer pole and something more hooklike; so she affixed a sharply curved, foot-long piece of wood to the end of the stick with a length of rope.

  She tried again, this time dropping the hooked end of the pole slightly upstream of the man, allowing the current to wash it downriver, snagging the waving arm.

  “Pull,” grunted Millie, already tugging with all her weight.

  Maura helped heave, and together they managed to free the body from the log. But the deadweight was too heavy in the strong current. It broke loose and floated away. Frustrated, the girls watched as the body was carried downriver, sinking slowly into the shadowy depths until there was nothing left to see except the river and the foaming boulders and the rising moon, perfectly nestled between two ridges in the darkening valley.

  The sisters made camp on a sandbar, setting up the tarp like a tent over a long pole. They built a crackling fire outside the tent and sat beside it while the dogs licked and scratched themselves. Neither sister said a word, even when both crawled into their bedding, closed their eyes, and tried not to think about corpses adrift on blue water as they lay close by the fire, which eventually burned down to a heap of cold ashes, as cold and gray as the ash mounds in their abandoned village.

  And while they waited for sleep, snow fell as lightly as ash, as silently as ash, unmelting. This would be the night of ashes.

  Hwlazaan

  (Ten)

  “My husband died in a hunting accident,” she replied, her voice trembling in fear. “I have been outcast to wander the wilderness with my three small boys. We are cold and hungry and lost, and I fear that we will not survive long.”

  THE TARP SAGGED so low from the night’s snowfall that Maura couldn’t even sit upright without her head touching it. She pushed aside the door flap, which was no more than two ends of the tarp brought together and held in place by stones. Almost a foot of snow lay on the ground, dead-white and pillowed, the load bending double the thin willows and alders. The heavy snow muffled even the silence.