William Krueger - Thunder Bay

Henry kept his rifle with him at all times. He figured Wellington was long gone, had made his way back to camp and the floatplane and had lifted off before the snow could prevent him. He considered going back to the camp himself, but decided that Wellington, if he was smart, had taken anything useful, and what he hadn’t taken he would have destroyed. Wellington’s best hope in all this was that the long winter would claim the wounded left behind. Henry had to admit it was a pretty good plan.

The snow fell fitfully into the night. Henry fed the fire and huddled near it. He heard the howl of a wolf pack on the ridge and, a while later, saw the glow of many eyes at the edges of the firelight. He fired a round into the air. The eyes vanished.

It was a long night as Henry kept his vigil, waiting for his good friend to die.

In the gray of the next morning, Henry did the hardest thing he’d ever done or would ever do.

Maurice had lasted the night. His breathing came, weak and labored. He hurt terribly from the damage of the beating he’d taken. He could barely drink the water Henry offered, and he would not eat. He drifted in and out of consciousness, never asleep, but falling instead into a fevered and incoherent kind of raving. Several times he called out to Hummingbird.

Dawn was hard to distinguish when it came. The snowfall had become steady. Wind blew along the ridge, and the snow, as it piled up, twirled into wraiths that danced across the clearing. Henry knew that if he didn’t start soon, he’d never make it south to the river and the village Maurice said was there.

In his moments of clarity, Maurice knew it, too. The snow dusted his face and turned his beard white. Despite the fire and the coat Henry had put around him, he’d begun to shiver uncontrollably. He rolled his eyes toward Henry and whispered hoarsely, “Hummingbird told me about the Path of Souls. She told me she would be waiting for me at the end.”

Henry knew of the Path of Souls. It led west, and those who died followed it to a beautiful place.

“Henry, I want to be on the Path of Souls. I want to be with Hummingbird.”

“Don’t ask me for this,” Henry said.

“I hurt, Henry. And I’m going to die anyway, we both know it. I don’t mind. It has been a good place to live. It is a good place to die, too. Henry, you would do as much for a wounded bear.”

“You’re not a bear.”

“It has been good to have you with me these many days. It was like having a son.” He reached out slowly, feebly, and laid his hand over Henry’s. “It is hard for you, I understand. It is harder for me to think that you would die, too. I want you to live, Henry. I want you to have a good, long life. Do this for me.”

Henry fought the tears, fought the rage that it should come to this, fought his great resistance to do what he understood was best.

He stood and stepped to the Indian, who’d also survived the night. He reached down and took the big hunting knife that was sheathed on the Indian’s belt. The Indian’s eyes followed him. He turned back to Maurice and knelt beside his friend.

“Migwech,” Maurice said. He smiled at Henry, and he turned his head and closed his eyes.

Henry did not hesitate. He’d killed animals in this same way. He drew the blade quickly and expertly across Maurice’s neck, severing the artery. The blood pulsed out and stained the snow around him. Maurice showed no sign of pain. He breathed raggedly several more times, then his body relaxed. He never opened his eyes again.

On his knees, Henry lifted his face to the sky that seemed to fall on him in shattered pieces. He let out a terrible cry and plunged the knife uselessly into the ground again and again, as if the earth itself were the enemy. He bent over his friend, and he wept bitterly.

When he was finished, he stood again. The wind had blown a small drift of snow against Maurice. Henry knew he couldn’t bury him. He had nothing to dig with and neither the time nor the strength to gather stones and cover his body to protect it against the scavengers. Instead, he dragged Maurice into the smokehouse. He removed the coat he’d put on Maurice and shrugged it back on his own body. He couldn’t remember the proper words for burial, neither the Ojibwe songs nor the prayers he’d heard at the mission on the rez and at the school in Flandreau. In the dark of the smokehouse that smelled of the meats Maurice had prepared to see him through the winter, Henry said, “He is on his way to you, Hummingbird. Receive him kindly.”

Henry had a long and difficult journey ahead. Three days to the village on the river, Maurice had told him. Three days for a man with two good legs. He would need food. There was plenty in the smoke-house, but Henry had no pack or knapsack to carry it in.

Then he remembered the pouches of gold under the cabin floor.

He made his way among the smoking ruins, stepping carefully around fallen beams still alive with glowing embers. The east and north walls remained intact, and most of the floorboards, though black with char, were still sound. He cleared the debris, scraped away black ash, and found the trapdoor. The rope had burned away, leaving a small hole into which Henry stuck his finger and lifted. Below, the deer-hide pouches were undamaged. Henry emptied two, pouring the gold dust over the remaining pouches. He carefully closed the trapdoor and covered it again with debris and ash so that it was invisible to the eye.

In the smokehouse, he filled the pouches with jerky and hung them from his belt. He also found a cigar box that held the flint and steel and tinder that Maurice used for the smokehouse fires. He removed them from the box and stuffed them in the pocket of his coat. He took one final look at his friend, silently wished him speed on his journey along the Path of Souls, and left. He closed the door behind him.

Snow lay several inches deep across the clearing. The storm showed no signs of letting up. He knew it could go on this way for days, the drifts growing deeper and deeper by the hour, until a man could not move through the woods without snowshoes. He walked to the Indian. The man stared up at him.

He was tough, Henry had to grant him that. With his head blown open and a cold night behind him, he still clung to life. Henry bent, undid the man’s belt, and took his sheath. He put it on his own belt and sheathed the hunting knife there. He spoke, though he wasn’t sure what the Indian understood.

“I’m leaving. Wolves came last night. They’ll come again. They have the scent of blood.”

The man’s mouth no longer worked in its wordless way, but his eyes blinked.

“I could leave you to the wolves. Serve you right to be torn apart while you’re still alive. I’m not going to do that.”

Henry slipped the rifle off his shoulder. He chambered a round and pointed the barrel at the man’s heart.

“You understand.”

The man blinked, but his eyes stayed open, staring up at Henry.

Henry pulled the trigger. The shot shattered both the stillness in the clearing and the Indian’s chest. Henry waited a moment to be certain of what he’d done. When he was satisfied, he turned and began to limp his way south.

Snow fell throughout the day. Henry struggled to keep his heading. There was no sun, nothing to navigate by so he used a trick Woodrow had taught him early on. He picked a distant tree in the line he was traveling and made straight for it. Tree by tree, he limped his way toward the river and the village Maurice had promised.

The first night he camped at the edge of a small lake. In the lee of a fallen spruce, he built a fire. He cut pine boughs and laid them on the snow near the flames and sat down to eat. The jerky tasted good, and the warmth of the fire was comforting. Then he undid the canvas wrapping on his leg, eased his pants down, and took a look at his wound. It no longer bled, but it hurt like hell, an ache and burn that never subsided. There was only one hole, the entry wound. He felt a lump at the back of his thigh, under the skin where the bullet had lodged. When Henry was a child on the rez, an older cousin named Edgar Fineday had cut his foot with an ax. He’d neglected the wound, and the skin had turned green and dark green lines had run up his leg. His cousin died. Henry didn’t want that to happen to him. He knew the bullet in him was poison. He knew the wound was prone to infection. He didn’t have much choice but to get the bullet out and do what he could to seal the wounds.