“What you plannin’ to do with that stuff, Rose?” Sophia asked, frowning. She recognized the divining tools and knew her sister intended to consult the bones and foretell the future.
“Leave me be, Sophia!” Rose croaked. “I’m gonna go off yonder and do me some prayin’.”
“Prayin’, I don’t mind, Rose, but tossin’ around them old bones and little colored rocks is the devil’s work in my way of thinkin’.”
“Then stop thinkin’. Don’t pay me any mind and let me do my niganadjimowin divinin’ in peace.”
“Oh go off by yourself and throw them smelly old bones all over the place if you want. My advice is to toss all that evil stuff in the Grassy River.” Sophia turned abruptly and went to tend the roasting ribs.
Rose moved several meters farther away and spread her blanket. She peered inside the basket. The bones were there. The porcupine bones would tell her of hunting success and the beaver hipbone foretold the fate of all in the camp. The other tiny bones and colored agate stones and the pindjigos-san medicine bag helped old Rose with vague details of her divinations. She covered the opening of the basket with her hand and shook it seven times. She sang divination song-prayers before she turned the basket upside down and let the contents spill on the worn red blanket. Rose bent to study the pattern the bones made. She read the message:
Three moose will be taken—not by these hunters but by others. Danger surrounds this camp. Two hunters will die!
“Ka! Kawin! Namawiya! Ka! Ka!” She cried out. “No! Oh my, no! Oh no!” and slumped to the ground.
Prunie saw her old auntie fall and rushed to her side. “What is it, Auntie?” Prunie asked.
“I think she fainted,” Nikolas said, hurrying to their side. “I’m all right you two.” Rose allowed herself to be raised to a sitting position. “The bones’ message scared me. I’m all right, but this camp and two of the hunters are in danger. Two gonna die!”
Nikolas shook his head, eyes growing wide. “Who? Which one of us is it? When? Who will die?” he asked.
“Foolish man!” Rose hissed. “The bones don’t give me a time and a place! They don’t spell out names if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
Prunie looked up into Nikolas’s worried face and forced a smile. “Sometimes what the bones reveal never come true. Isn’t that right, Auntie? Sometimes the bones reveal things that have already happened.”
The old auntie did not answer. She gathered her divining items and replaced them in her basket.
Nikolas helped Rose to her feet. “Sometimes things you see don’t happen?”
“Prunie said that. I didn’t,” Rose said. “I might read the bones wrong—but it doesn’t happen often. I must make prayers to Manitou. The danger is from the dead ones who live. Go away and leave me be.”
Nikolas watched the old woman hobble off to pray and turned to Prunie. “What is that old one talking about? You believe in all this stuff?”
“You shouldn’t worry about what she saw in the bones. Forget about this, Nikolas. Don’t say anything to the others and neither will I.” Prunie tried to sound calm. Nikolas hesitated before nodding his agreement.
When she finished her prayers, a grim-faced Auntie Rose joined the other women. When Sophia asked Rose what was wrong, the older sister said nothing, put down the carving knife and walked away. Auntie Rose kept apart from everyone. She stared into space, silent and alone. Prunie felt uneasy and it showed on her face.
Sophia patted her arm and said, “Don’t worry, Prunie. Rose is in one of her moods. She always gets that way whenever she messes with them old bones. She calls it ‘seein’ visions.’ What she imagines she sees, I ignore. She just wants attention. She’ll get over her bad mood and be her regular sassy self in a few hours.”
Nikolas joined the men at their campfire. Uncle Alex discussed the route from the headwaters of Reed Lake to the west bank, then north where moose were to be found.
“I had good luck up at Rabbit Lake ’bout seven, maybe eight seasons ago,” Uncle Alex said.
“Then let’s head up there,” Martin said.
“We’ll need canoes,” Peter said. “Can’t get the big canoe up there.”
“We’ll borrow from my relatives,” Martin said.
“Good,” Alex said. “Here’s the plan. Martin and Peter will hunt together with me and Freddie as a second team. Nikolas will be the go-between for the two groups.”
That night Prunie walked to the lean-to where Martin rested, puffing on his clay pipe. She crawled into bed.
Martin blew out a puff of smoke, took the pipe from his mouth. “Did you see the look on Auntie Rose’s face when she heard we’ll go up to Rabbit Lake?” Martin asked.
“I was too busy listening to Uncle’s plans to notice,” Prunie said. “Auntie Rose has been in a bad mood all day.”
Martin gave a big sigh.
“What do you want to tell me?” Prunie asked. “Did Auntie Rose say something to you tonight?”
He phrased his answer carefully. “This is not the first time Rose talked about danger around that lake. When she came here four years ago she told me never to go there if I was alone.”
“But you’re not going alone,” Prunie said. “So what’s the problem?”
He rolled on his side and faced his wife. “Auntie Rose said she’d had visions; warnings, she called them, about some dead things.”
“If she wants to warn you, to protect you, let her do it. Old people, like Auntie Rose, are the only ones who still know how to do such things. If I knew the old protection songs and how to make amulets to protect you, believe me, I’d do it.”
“I thought you were a church member.”
“I am, but maybe there’s something true and powerful in the old ways. I want you back safe and in one piece.”
“I’ll come back safe. I’ve not hunted over that way, ever since old Rose spooked me four years ago.”
“What did she do?”
“She took me aside and said she wanted to talk. She looked towards Rabbit Lake and started talking to herself as much as to me,” Martin explained. “She said the night was full of evil spirits on the other shore; dead things walkin’ around and don’t I see ’em? I tell her, ‘No. I don’t see no dead things.’ Then she asks, ‘Did you ever hear any whistlin’ when you was over there at night?’ ”
“No.” I told her. ‘You will some day, she said, when you hear the whistlin’ you’ll know. The wanisid manitous, evil spirit things is around. Somebody’s gonna die.’ ”
Prunie lay beside her husband. She felt a chill in spite of the warmth of the heavy quilts and blankets. Memories of old legends; stories of the hairy men; the wendigo; wild men of the woods, the ganibod; the dead people who walk; the under-the-lake-people; the old tales invaded her brain like misty ghosts that wouldn’t take clear shape or form. The fear of something ancient, something terrible and deadly, some- thing she knew existed but had never seen nor heard grew within her. She shuddered and Martin, feeling her tremble, asked if she was cold.
“Yes,” she said and snuggled against him. She slept fitfully, awakening suddenly in the late night. She was jolted upright in the bed still feeling the tugging, clawed hands of some nightmare creatures, imagined dream horrors.
The camp came alive with morning activity. Supplies were pushed into backpacks. Freddie and Ephraim carried gear to the lakeshore. Prunie and Sophia helped Nettie pour water on the campfires while they waited for Martin, Peter, and Nikolas to come up the lake with the canoes borrowed from the villagers. Auntie Rose paced back and forth at the far end of the spit of land and muttered her prayers.