Waubgeshig Rice - Moon of the Crusted Snow

Evan exhaled forcefully and let his own shoulders settle, as if he were about to squeeze a trigger with a moose in sight. “We were okay without you. And we’ll be okay without you. We been up here longer than you been.”

Scott squinted. “Is that a threat, Ev?”

“We don’t need you, Scott.”

“Bullshit.”

“We know this land.”

“I doubt that. Maybe you guys do. Not the rest of the deadbeats here.”

“It’s in all of them. They know it.”

“Don’t get all Indian on me now.”

Evan softened his tone and bared his palms in Scott’s direction. “Why did you come here, anyway?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”

“What are you running from?”

“Your boys saw what was happening down there.”

“Why’d you think it’d be better here?”

The door at the back porch clicked and creaked open, and Cam emerged from inside. As he closed the door behind him and came into plain sight, Evan noticed his little brother’s bare arms and the front of his overalls covered in blood. Cam’s gaze was locked on the firepit. Evan felt his stomach drop. “Cam!” he blurted, his voice cracking.

Cam looked at his brother and his friends standing off against the white men. His eyes cleared as he recognized the familiar faces, almost as if he were emerging from a deep spell. He looked down at his bloody hands and began to sob.

“What in the holy fuck is going on here?” shouted Isaiah.

Evan shook off the sickening feeling in his gut and asked Scott outright, “Did you steal a body?”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Fuck sakes, man. Who cares?”

“We care. Those are our relatives!”

“It doesn’t matter if I did. This is a matter of survival, boys.”

Evan felt Tyler tense beside him. “You’re a fuckin’ murderer and a fuckin’ cannibal!” Tyler shouted. He made to move towards Cam, who stood frozen, but Evan held out his arm to stop him.

“Alright, everyone, calm the fuck down.” Evan fought to regain control of the situation.

“Let’s just have a look at what’s on the fire there, Scott.” He took a step towards the pot.

Scott pulled a pistol from the sweatshirt’s pouch and pointed it at Evan. “Now you just hold up there, boy,” he ordered. Evan stopped walking and slowly raised his hands. Tyler and Isaiah unshouldered their guns. “You both calm the fuck down too.” Scott waved the barrel at them. “You’ve seen me use this.”

“All of you, chill out,” said Evan as he raised his open palms. “Let’s just take a step back…”

Scott fired three shots, and Evan crumpled to the ground. As Scott turned to fire on Tyler and Isaiah, his head burst open above his left eye in a spray of blood, bone, and brain. He fell forward.

Meghan Connor stood on the back porch with the rifle sight up to her eye. Cam cowered on the wooden deck beside her. Her light brown hair draped over her shoulder and the butt of the gun. Her body heaved with shock. Scott lay face down, motionless, as blood leaked from his head into the snow, spreading crimson across the white.

Evan grunted, and Tyler scrambled to help him. Isaiah fixed his gun on the other two men, who put their hands up in surrender. He looked to Meghan on the porch, still holding her rifle. She nodded, and trained her gun on her husband and his friend, who froze in place. She muttered something to Cam, who remained crouched, crying into his bloody hands.

Isaiah turned his gaze back to the other men, and he knew there was nothing left to fear. Richer and Brad Connor were defeated without Scott. They were now outnumbered and outgunned. They would likely be banished from the territory for the part they had played, but that was the community’s decision. The water in the pot continued to bubble as the fire crackled beneath it. Isaiah took a few cautious steps towards it to look inside.

The sun broke through the clouds, striking the snow as they dragged the sled past the abandoned Northern. Months had passed since anyone had walked this way, so Tyler and Isaiah were forging a new trail in the heavy snow. Their arms burned as they dragged the body behind them and sweat dripped from their noses. They said nothing, listening only to the sound their snowshoes made and the steady shushing of the plastic sled.

No signs of life remained at this end of the community. The portal to the South was dormant and barren. The store itself lay in ruin with the door agape and the windows smashed. Isaiah squinted to look inside but couldn’t make out the empty shelves or anything else in the darkness. He turned his attention back to the path in front of him and saw the small white ridge that led to the old service road just beyond it.

Isaiah and Tyler reached the incline. Neither looked back to the body behind them. Their skin was ashen and dark bags hung under their brown eyes. Tyler wiped his brow on the arm of his jacket and tucked the straggling strands of long black hair behind his ear. Isaiah adjusted the beak of his ball cap. His ears were catching a bit of a chill. He nodded at Tyler, and they summoned the strength to lift Scott’s body to the top of the ridge.

The snow was soft and would soon melt, so it was easy for them to dig it in slightly and bring it to rest. They could no longer ignore the corpse. They had grown to loathe the man in his short time in their community but they pitied him in death. No one would ever know what had driven him or what had brought him to their town. Now they felt only relief that he would be gone, a blip in the communal memory of this terrible winter.

The friends looked at each other one more time, and Tyler gave the body a heavy shove. It slid slowly down the other side of the ridge. He looked away before it stopped, and both men turned to walk towards the community, the light sled skimming behind them.

Scott’s body slid over where Mark Phillips’s still-frozen corpse lay under a thick blanket of snow. It came to a rest in a slight dip in the snow. It was left to freeze in the waning weeks of winter, and when the melt came, the crows and wolves would arrive for a taste of flesh.

Nicole lifted her sunglasses and rested them on her head as she turned back into the house for one last pass-through. The frames rested in the weave of the braid tied tightly against her scalp. She stood in the living room and gazed at the stripped-down surroundings.

The pictures were gone from the walls. The cushions had been pulled from the couch and the chairs. Anything wooden, such as a coffee or side tables, had long been removed. The large black rectangle of a television remained on the wall but it had been two winters now since it flickered.

She walked through the living room and into the kitchen where the absent cupboard doors exposed a small stack of dishes. The essentials had been moved out weeks before. All the kitchen furniture was also gone, taken out and stored for fire fuel.

Nicole had done her best to ignore any nostalgia for this home she and Evan had created for their family. The children were still young. They would forget. But the memories in this place were strong and lasting for her. She didn’t know if they would ever return, but she had stored a small collection of mementos in a corner of the basement in case they could someday come back for them.

Nicole started towards the door to the basement to go down and sort through the pile one last time, but she stopped and shook her head. She had already packed two photo albums and made bundles for both Maiingan and Nangohns to carry on their journeys to remind them of how their life once was.

So she decided not to go back downstairs and left the rest of the pictures, baby toys, electronics, and other mementos in a pile under the white wedding dress she never got to wear. She and Evan had always planned to get married eventually, and she was going to wear her mother’s wedding dress. But holding that kind of event made no sense now, and they’d never be able to mark an anniversary anyway. Still, she put her faith in the belief that this was not the last time she’d be in this place.