The Trap

by John Smelcer

  The old man slowly stood up, stretched, and placed both hands on the small of his back while he looked around and listened.

  It was quiet, except for the wind, but he could hear the voice of the land talking to him. It always talked to him, telling him when to put on a jacket or take his boat out of the water. It told him when to push his fish trap into the silty river and when to put his snowmobile away for the winter.

  It spoke to him now.

  But he did not like what it had to say. It said something about old age and forgetfulness. It said something about endings, the way it must have talked to every animal ever caught in a trap.

  This time, the man placed his free foot on the trap and put all his weight on the one side, but again it didn’t open. It was a good trap, a sharp-toothed trap with a good strong spring. He had picked it just because of this, because he wanted his trap to be strong, and now it would not open even though he wanted it to.

  Albert tried opening the trap several times, but with each attempt it only stared back at him. The trap was a stupid thing. It didn’t care what it caught, just so that it caught something. It just sat there, grinning without lips. Only teeth.

  For the first time, the old man began to worry.

  He was far from home, and there would be no one around for many miles. This was his trapline, as it had been for most of his life. The villagers respected this knowledge and stayed away so as not to frighten game. It was one of the unwritten rules among the people of the north. His cabins had been broken into only once in the past twenty years, and the break-in had been the doing of white hunters who’d flown in on a small aircraft during a winter caribou hunt.

  Looking west, he saw that the sun was already so low on the edge of the world that it would be dark soon. With the darkness would come the cold.

  It had been fairly warm for several days, close to zero, maybe a few degrees above or below. But the clouds, which usually bring warmth, like a pillowy layer of white and gray insulation, had been thinning, moving out. Soon, it would get colder.

  Albert Least-Weasel knew it meant trouble if he couldn’t free himself soon. But he wasn’t afraid. It was true that he was named for a clever and ferocious small animal that eats nearly half its own body weight daily, but it was also true that he was named after a great chief from the Gulkana River region: Chief Least-Weasel Cuuy. There is a saying in Indian about that old chief. They say, “Cuuy yen su xona c’aa delyaagen su’adelniinen,” which means, “It is said that remarkable things happened to Chief Cuuy.”

  As Albert stood there thinking about his predicament, he saw the handle of his shovel sticking upright in the snow where it had landed. It came to him then that he could use the flat metal blade to pry open the trap.

  He shuffled around the tree as far as the bolted chain allowed, and reached for the handle. But it was too far away from his hand by more than a body length. The old man was not distracted and did not pause. Instead, he found a branch lying on the ground, broke off the smaller limbs, and used the long stick to try to pull the handle back toward him. He thought that if he could hook the handle near the top and pull slowly, the shovel would fall backward, toward him, bringing it closer by a few feet. Then, he’d simply use the stick to drag it closer.

  But when he reached out as far as his hand could extend with the stick, he accidentally pushed the top of the gray wooden handle, and the shovel fell forward, away from the tree. When it landed, much of it was buried under the soft new snow. Albert Least-Weasel spent the next half hour, well into darkness, trying to hook the metal blade to drag the shovel closer, but it never hooked, and it never moved. It just lay there taunting him as if it did not exist at all, as if it were still strapped on the back of the sled.

  This distressed him. There, only a dozen long steps away, was his snowmobile with his gear, even an ax with which he could cut out the deep bolt holding the chain to the tree trunk. Also, there on the sled was his rifle, a sleeping bag, and some food and coffee. Everything he needed to survive the night was on that sled, but, chained as he was, it might as well have been a thousand miles away.

  He wanted a cup of hot coffee right then. He could almost smell it.

  The sun was gone now. For the next eighteen or nineteen hours, it would be only an insistent memory to the animals who lived on this land. Even the unthinking mountains and the river in the valley far below would wait for it. Bears were smart enough to curl up and sleep through the long winter months when there would be too little to eat and too much darkness.

  The old man would miss the sun the most.

  He gave up trying to get the shovel. He knew that he needed to think about other things. He could return to the shovel in the morning. For now, he would prepare for the quickly coming, long-staying, intolerable night.

  Least-Weasel knew he needed to get his body off the frozen ground. Even inside a tent, a sleeping bag must not touch the frozen earth, which can pull out all a body’s heat, just as metal can steal the warmth from fingertips, hands, or tongue.

  Knowing this, knowing such things about life in the north, Albert broke off some of the spruce tree’s green boughs, which hung from all about his head and grew out far from the tree’s trunk, like the frame of an umbrella. Some of the lower branches were as thin as a finger, long and wispy. But most were as thick as the man’s wrist. He worked up a sweat trying to break them down, and after a while he had enough to build a small, thick bed on which to lie huddled. He collected all the smaller pieces, even those that had fallen down naturally from the wind and lay scattered about the ground beneath the tree, to build a small fire, using the pack of matches inside his shirt pocket.

  He always carried matches on such trips. Sometimes he would arrive at one of his small trapping cabins just after light abandoned the land, and he used to fumble around looking for matches in the cabin to light the oil lamps, the candles, and the small woodstove. By carrying matches with him, he avoided the fumbling and bumping into things.

  Besides, sometimes he liked to stop along the trail to build a small fire for making coffee or for companionship.

  He built a little fire, more to comfort than to warm him. The wind was dying down for the night, which was a good thing. The man kept the fire alive by feeding thin, kindling-sized pieces of wood to the yellow flames. He knew that if he built too big a fire, his fuel would be consumed too quickly, leaving him with nothing before the night was far spent. So he kept it small and huddled close.

  While staring into the flames, listening to the wood crackling as it burned, he remembered an old story about the first fire. It was a story he had heard and told many times in his long life. It is said that, a very long time ago, Indians did not have fire. They sat around in the dark eating meat raw, and they were always cold during the eternal winters. But Great Raven took pity on them as they huddled in the darkness freezing, so he asked the animals to give Man fire. Several animals tried to bring a firebrand from the rim of a volcano, but only Owl was able to carry the burning branch. He carried it in his beak, which used to be very long. But the firebrand burned down his beak until there was only a little bit left. They say that is why owls have such short beaks nowadays.

  The old man also remembered a saying about how Indians build small fires and stay close, while white men build great big fires with gasoline and whole logs but stand very far away so as not to get burned. Surely, he thought, something in that saying spoke truly of the two peoples’ philosophy of nature and its resources.

  Under a veil of stars with only a slight breeze fanning the boughs of the tree and the small yellow flames of the fire, the old man turned toward his village, toward home. For more than fifty years, whenever he was away from his wife while hunting or trapping, he would turn toward home and sing a love song to her in their Indian language. It was a sad love song, and it was the only song he ever sang to her; and although she never heard the words drifting over the great expanses or falling down valleys like rain, she always stopped whatever she was doing j
ust as the sun set on the far horizon and hummed the same sad little song.

  When he had finished singing, Least-Weasel lay on his bed of piled spruce boughs, and he was glad for his fur hat, his gloves, and his warm boots. But he knew that if the temperature went down, none of these things would help him for long. Many times in his life he had slept outdoors without fear or question.

  But this time was different and he knew it.

  Tired and nervous, he carefully placed a few more pieces of wood onto the tight flames about two feet from his face and said a small prayer for all things living. Just before he fell asleep, fitfully, somewhere from up in the hills, below where the moon rested on the knifed edge of the dark world—clean and white, as if it were chiseled from the sky—wolves began to howl, followed by a long, hard silence.

  The chief of the village had a nephew named Blackskin. The young man did not go down to stand in the sea or try to lift the great tree as the other men did. Instead, he stayed in the village and helped the elders. He brought them water and cut firewood to keep their fires burning. He slept by the fire and his skin was black from the ash and soot. The other men thought he was weak and lazy and they made fun of him. They didn’t know that every night Blackskin went down to the icy sea and stayed in longer than any of them, and he lifted great rocks over his head.

  AFTER DRIVING THE THREE MILES between his grandparents’ cabin and the small, sleepy village, Johnny Least-Weasel turned from the main trail that ran along the river and stopped his snowmobile in front of a cabin where several other machines were already parked in the yard. The log house looked like many of the other cabins in the village—snow-beaten and weathered—driven into the ground by the heavy loads of too many winters.

  A dozen sled dogs barked from the roofs of their small plywood houses until they saw who it was, recognized the figure, then settled down and curled back upon themselves. Two ravens, ubiquitous black birds of the north, were pecking at garbage scattered on the ground beside a torn dark green plastic bag. In many northern cultures, the raven, because of his tenacity and keen intelligence, was viewed as a deity of sorts—part creator, part destroyer—always the famished trickster.

  Ravens may be among the most intelligent of creatures. Ice fishermen have seen them wait in nearby trees until the stout fishing rods begin to bounce up and down, a sure sign that a fish is hooked, and then swoop down and pull the line up, a foot at a time, with their strong black beaks, stepping on the line each time to hold it fast. They repeat this until the wiggling fish is pulled from the hole—ample reward for their problem-solving ability.

  Johnny had once watched a dozen ravens steal scraps from a wolf trying to protect his meal. While the others stayed a safe distance, one raven grabbed the wolf’s tail and yanked it until the annoyed canine turned and chased him into the forest, momentarily abandoning his prize to the murder of ravens that quickly fell upon it.

  When he was fourteen, Johnny had witnessed a very strange sight—something no one but his grandfather believed. But it was true nonetheless. He had come upon a small wintry field full of ravens. There must have been more than a hundred. Every tree held a dozen birds, little black-robed priests, staring at the center of the field where a dead raven lay on the snow.

  It was a funeral. A raven funeral.

  They were mourning, cawing and cawing until, as if by some unvoiced signal, they stopped and flew away, leaving Johnny standing alone in the gathering silence of their wake.

  And no one in the village, or in any nearby village, had ever seen a raven nest or hatchling. It was almost as if their presence in the far northland was by magic. And yet they were as ubiquitous as the changing seasons. It was no wonder the raven had become a central character in the myths belonging to Johnny’s people.

  The two birds stopped rummaging, looked up, and cawed at the man. It was a warning to stay away.

  The cabin lights were all on, and Johnny could hear loud country music and talking and laughing coming from inside. Smoke was rising from the chimney, so he knew that the cabin was warm, and sparks were pouring into the night sky as well, like the first stars Raven stole from a chief in the old stories. This meant the fire was breathing too much.

  Although it had been cloudy during the past several days, the sky was clearing and he could see stars through the holes in the low clouds. When he walked toward the cabin, he could hear and feel the snow crunching the way it did when it was cold and dry. Sometimes, you can tell the humidity and temperature outside just by the way snow feels and sounds beneath your boots.

  Johnny knew from the way the treetops swayed and the low clouds above them slid quickly overhead that the sky would continue to clear and that the temperature would probably drop ten or twenty degrees.

  He walked up the creaking steps, took off his hat and gloves, knocked the snow from his boots, and stepped inside.

  The room was full of Indians. That’s what Indians call themselves, not Native Americans or American Indians. He recognized lots of people he knew. Everyone knew everyone in the village, and most of them were related. That closeness was comfortable, but it had drawbacks, too. For one thing, young people had to go to other villages to find suitable husbands or wives.

  His uncle was sitting at a table piled with empty bottles, ashtrays, and beer cans. Three other Indians sat with him.

  “Johnny!” his uncle yelled across the small cabin. “Where you been?”

  The stereo, an eight-track player hooked up to a car battery, was too loud, and Johnny could barely hear him. People sat around the room in old wooden chairs, and someone was sleeping on the red couch. None of the furniture matched. Everyone was drinking beer or whiskey and smoking cigarettes. The room was full of smoke and the smell of wood burning.

  “I was at Grandma’s,” he said, leaning close to his uncle so that he could be heard over the din. “She needed me to haul some water and bring in some firewood.”

  His uncle smiled and patted his nephew on the shoulder.

  “Good for you!” he said and then laughed. “Pour yourself a drink. There’s some glasses and ice on the counter.”

  Johnny didn’t drink anymore and his uncle knew it. Among all his friends, he was the only one who didn’t.

  “I’m okay,” he replied, looking down at the painted plywood floor. “I’m not thirsty.”

  One of the other men called across the room.

  “Hey, Johnny! Get me a beer!” The man was only a few years older than he, maybe twenty. His eyes were glassy. “They’re outside on the porch,” he said, pointing toward the door. Someone else yelled from across the room to bring him one too. It was Peter Johns, who had gone to school with Least-Weasel all of his life.

  Johnny went outside, took two beers from an open case, brought them inside, and gave them to the two men, who did not thank him.

  It had always been this way. The other young men in the village saw Johnny’s polite kindness as a weakness, and made fun of him—everyone, that is, except his grandfather, who knew that Johnny was becoming a good man, a strong man, the way men used to be back when there were few white people in this country, back when Indians still lived the old way, close to nature, and closer still to one another. People relied on one another. Their myths were full of stories about the rewards of kindness and giving, about how the strong helped the weak and how the young helped the old.

  One of Johnny’s favorites was a story of how a great Indian warrior once helped a small mouse with a berry in its mouth, struggling over a log. The Indian helped the mouse, and that winter when his people were starving, the mouse returned the favor by providing the man with a packsack full of dry berries and fish, saving the village. Many of the myths the elders told were about compassion, something the world seemed to be missing nowadays.

  Johnny walked past his uncle, who grabbed him by the shirtsleeve and held up his empty glass, shaking it so that the ice cubes rattled. It was his way of asking for a refill.

  The young Indian took the glass, dropped
in a handful of ice cubes, and poured only a tiny bit of whiskey before filling the glass with cola and stirring it. He tasted it. It was weak, but he knew that after so many glasses, his uncle could no longer tell the difference. It was his way of helping his uncle, whom he loved very much.

  In the years since his father had left, Johnny had lived on and off with his mother, who drank too much and blamed him for his father’s absence; with his uncle; or with his grandparents, in whose cabin he slept uncomfortably on a tired old sofa. But for much of the past year Johnny had lived in his own small cabin next door to his uncle’s.

  Sometimes, running low on booze, his uncle gave him money and told him to take his snowmobile up to the liquor store to buy a half gallon of cheap whiskey. And although Johnny was not old enough, he would go but always came back with a small pint and told his uncle that the store was out of the larger bottles. Though it was a trick, Johnny suspected that his uncle knew what he was trying to do.

  Sometimes, when it was only the two of them, he and his uncle would go out very late at night, stand in the thick darkness, and shout to the far mountains. It was more song than shout. They’d sing and dance to the mountains, calling to the ancestors whose spirits dwell there.

  Hai hai! Hai hai!

  They say that the plumes of smoke from volcanic vents are the campfires of ancestors long dead. His uncle always tried to teach Johnny the old ways.

  * * *

  “How’s Grandpa?” his uncle asked, even though it was his own father he asked about.

  “He’s not home. He went up his trapline a few days ago. Grandma thinks he’ll come home tomorrow.”

  Finishing the last of his drink, his uncle looked concerned and angry.

  “He’s too old to go hunting by himself. Everyone knows that. He needs to stay home like all the other old men.”

  From across the room, Peter Johns joined in the conversation.

  “Yeah!” he shouted to Johnny’s uncle, who owned the cabin and the booze. “That old man should stay home! He’s way too old! Trapping in winter is for young men!”