Waubgeshig Rice - Moon of the Crusted Snow

Cam appeared in the doorway of the living room. “What’s going on in here?”

“Ask your brother,” said Scott.

Evan turned to look at his younger brother with a despairing affection. His face softened as he remembered just how naive and vulnerable Cam was. He remembered the sweet boy that he once was. He never really grew up. Soon his life would depend on it.

“Nothing, I was just heading out,” said Evan. “Take care of each other.”

He stepped around his brother and walked out of the house. He could hear Scott’s booming laughter from inside as he opened the door to his truck.

He could barely hear the pounding on the front door from his burrow in the safe, warm confines of the bedroom but the boom reverberated through the house. A muffled voice yelled from outside and Evan jumped out of bed.

He rounded the corner and saw Isaiah standing at the door. Evan unlocked the bolt and let him in. “Izzy, what the fuck, man?”

Isaiah was trembling, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the pre-dawn darkness. “Get dressed. We gotta go,” he said. “We got a real bad scene on our hands. I’ll explain on the way.”

Evan rushed back to the bedroom and looked for jeans and a sweater to put on over the long underwear he slept in.

“What’s going on?” Nicole asked.

“Some kind of emergency,” he said. “Izzy’s here to take me somewhere.”

“Damn. I hope everyone’s okay,”

“Me too.” He remembered the drunken scene at his brother’s the night before and he was struck with foreboding. He rushed into his clothes and leaned over to kiss Nicole. “I’ll be back as soon as I can to let you know what’s up.”

“Okay, be safe. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He ran out to Isaiah’s truck, threw open the door, and hopped in. They were peeling out of the driveway before he had a chance to shut the door.

“What’s going on?” he huffed as Isaiah tore down the road.

“Fucked up news, man. Jenna and Tara Jones froze to death last night.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Amanda found them in the ditch just down the road from her mom’s place.”

“Holy fuck.”

“Yeah, I know. Terry and Amanda are both there. She went and got him. He got Walter, who came by my place to tell me to get you. Walter’s figuring out what we’re gonna do with the bodies.”

Evan felt like he was sinking into the hard foam of the truck’s seat. It took all his will not to heave up whatever was left in his stomach. “I saw them last night.”

“What?”

“They were drinking at my brother’s place. I stopped in there to check on him.”

“Jesus Christ, man.”

“Scott was there too.”

It was the fastest drive through the rez Evan could remember. Soon they were pulling up to a small cluster of trucks and people on the side of the road. The sun was clearing the horizon, blazing orange light into the grim ditch.

Terry, Amanda, and Walter watched their approach with stricken expressions. Evan wasn’t quite ready to look at the bodies yet, so he put an arm around Amanda, who turned to give him a tight hug, her eyes bloodshot.

Evan steeled himself and stepped to the edge of the road. The two young women lay side by side in the ditch. Their brown faces were frozen blue and white. Tara’s hood concealed most of her head, but Jenna’s was down and her head was nestled into the snow with her long black hair splayed across her cousin’s face. Evan remembered the fruity smell of her hairspray as she walked past him the night before. He looked at Tara and thought of Sydney. His heart broke for her.

“I don’t know what they were doing.” Amanda began to sob, grieving her young neices. “They must have been walking home and just didn’t make it all the way.”

Terry turned to Evan. “It looks like they stuck to the road, wherever they were coming from.”

Evan cleared his throat. “I know where they came from. They were drinking at my brother’s place. I saw them there last night.”

“What?” Amanda yelped.

“Yeah, I was worried about Cam’s boy, so I stopped in to make sure they had food and wood. Except Jordan wasn’t there. He was at Sydney’s mom’s. I guess they decided to have a party.”

“Fuck sakes!” Terry stomped his foot and looked away.

Walter held up a hand. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet. They musta got drunk and couldn’t walk all the way home. We can’t argue now. We gotta figure out where to take them before everyone gets up and sees us here.”

The sun cut shadows across the snow. Soon it would shine into the windows of the homes that lined the road, rousing the inhabitants for another day. Amanda began to cry again.

“Amanda, get in my truck,” commanded Walter. “Terry, sit in there with her.” When they were in the cab and out of earshot, he turned to Evan and Isaiah. “Right now, our only option is to take them to the health station. We have no way of getting anyone up here to do a fuckin’ post mortem, and the ground’s too frozen for a proper burial. So we’ll have to keep them locked in the shed there while we sort all this shit out.”

“Walter,” Evan said. “Scott was there too.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he was there drinking with them. You know they say that he’s bootlegging the last of the booze.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

“I know. I tried to get him to leave. But I couldn’t. He wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Fuck. We’ll deal with that later too. Come on, help me get these girls ready.”

Walter had driven to the health station earlier, while Isaiah had gone to get Evan, but he didn’t know where to find the body bags. He had gone back to his own home to get old dark blankets he had stored away. He walked to the back of his truck to grab them and handed Evan and Isaiah three each.

“I don’t know how we’re supposed to do this,” admitted Isaiah, “but we should at least offer some semaa, I think.” He dug a pouch out of his jacket and passed it awkwardly to the other men. They prayed silently and put it down close to where the young women lay. They dug their stiff bodies out of the snow, wrapped them carefully, and carried them one at a time to Isaiah’s truck, placing them gently on the open truck bed. Evan stayed in the back with Tara and Jenna while Isaiah drove to their temporary resting place in the shed behind the health station.

Terry met Walter, Evan, and Isaiah at the shed after driving Amanda home. He stepped out of his red pickup, looking defeated. I gotta tell him right away , thought Evan.

“Hey, Terry, there’s something you should know about last night…” The front door of the band office swung open. It was Scott, outfitted in his snowmobile gear, holding his black helmet.

“Good morning, boys,” he bellowed. “To what do I owe this esteemed visit?”

“Not now, Scott,” Terry muttered.

“Oh? What’s up?”

“Please, just give us a few minutes.”

Scott shrugged but stayed where he was.

Evan stepped closer to the chief. “Terry,” he whispered, as close as he could stand to him. “Scott was with them last night.”

Terry squinted his eyes in chagrin. “What? With who?”

“With the girls. He was at my brother’s place last night too.”

“Well, what the fuck happened then?”

“I don’t know.”

Terry looked over Evan’s shoulder at Scott. “Goddamn it, Evan, who else was there?”

“Other than Cam and Syd, Nick and Jacob.”

“Nick Jones?”

“Well, where is he? And Jacob?”

Evan’s heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t given them a thought. They likely would have left his brother’s place sometime in the night as well, and he had no idea if they made it home.