Shouts announced Martin’s and the boys’ arrival with three smaller canoes. Uncle Alex supervised the placement of packs and people in them. He took his Elder’s place in the first canoe before they moved towards the north bank several kilometers away.
Before the second night in the new camp, brush lean-to shelters had been fashioned to face a central fire pit where the women prepared the meals. Smaller “bear-fires” burned in outlying pits.
The third night in camp, a despondent group sat around the fire. Two days without moose sign had passed. Nikolas and his dog brought in rabbits and a goose to provide the camp with fresh meat but the moose remained elusive.
The weather stayed warm. The bushes close to camp were heavy with Manitoba mashkigimin—high-bush cranberries—and a few late fruiting pikwadjish—wild mushrooms—were found on the forest floor. With a supply of walleyes and pike from the lake, the women prepared daily meals. The hunters grumbled as they ate, and complained every night that the moose must have moved farther northwest from Rabbit Lake.
When Auntie Rose heard this, she developed another bout of sulky silence. The women hoped her moody spell would soon end. Such behavior disturbed the harmony of the camp.
Each night, campfires provided a sense of safety, holding the thick darkness of the wilderness at bay. For Rose, the shadowy trees concealed matchi manadad—very evil things, the dead who live—watching, waiting to steal forward if the fires died.
The nights in this part of Manitoba were cold, silent, and, to Rose, threatening. She listened for whispering voices or the whistling calls, but heard nothing. Rose pulled her blanket tighter and recited songs of protection for herself and the group. Her repeated chants lasted until the first gray streaks of false dawn.
On the fifth morning, a damp haze of fog hung over the forest and camp blurring the outlines of everything it touched. The men sat huddled around the central fire.
Martin spoke to Peter and Uncle Alex. “Ain’t no moose for three-day’s walk. I say we go up past Rabbit Lake. What you think?”
Old Alex rubbed his hands together and held them palms outward to the campfire. “Good idea,” he said. “That lake has a big bog at the north end. There’s a big sinkhole in the middle of the bog you gotta watch out for, but it’s a safe enough place to camp and hunt.”
Peter said, “I heard nobody goes up there.”
“That sinkhole has a bad name, that’s why some hunters don’t go there,” Uncle Alex said. “It’s called the ‘death hole.’ Been there before. It’s a strange place.”
Auntie Rose stared at Alex and shook her head vigorously in negation. Martin saw the old uncle telegraph a quick message with his eyes.
Auntie Rose slammed her hand down on the earth and shouted, “No! Never—you can’t go there. Something bad will happen!”
Prunie was surprised when her auntie spoke out with such emphatic anger. When Rose disagreed with anything or anyone, she usually turned silent and never shouted.
Alex turned to Rose. “Not the time to speak of visions and deaths.” To the other men he said, “It is nothing. Get ready to leave.”
Uncle Alex acted as if the harsh exchange had not taken place and said, “We will leave when the sun stands directly over us and camp out by Rabbit Lake.”
It was obvious that old Rose did not like this plan at all. She went silent in her sulky manner. This time her silence seemed to convey something more than just disapproval.
Prunie saw a different expression on her auntie’s face—a look of fear. It flashed quickly like a burst of flame from bear fat dropped in a campfire. The old woman’s expression filled Prunie with a sense of dread.
At noon, the men packed their gear into three small canoes. When the hunters started paddling away, Martin shouted to Rose who stood apart from the others.
“Keep prayin’ for us and we’re all gonna come back.” Martin could not hear the words the old woman whispered to the wind.
The hunters arrived at Rabbit Lake before nightfall. Peter built a large fire. The bright blaze illuminated the shelters made from tarps and branches. They ate smoked fish and talked.
Nikolas sat close to the fire ring, squatting on his haunches, his arm draped about his dog. He stared north in the direction of the bog. “Uncle Alex, you said people didn’t come up here. Is there something you didn’t tell us about this place?”
Alex swallowed the bite of smoked pike before he spoke. “Your Auntie Rose is a superstitious old woman,” Alex said.
“There was a flat space where the bog is now, a burial site for murdered Cree and Ojibwe people. Generations ago the Dene people from up north fought our people over that flat place—good hunting land. The Dene pretended to leave but came back before dawn and slaughtered all the men in the camp. Old ones say they left the bodies unburied and put a Dene curse on the corpses. The spirits of the dead were unhappy.”
“What did our people do?” Martin asked Alex.
“Stories say our people came up here and buried all they could find and built spirit houses over the graves. Maybe it was too late to calm the spirits of those dead men. I don’t know. But no one from our tribes ever came back here much after that.”
“But that happened years ago,” Nikolas said.
“Yes,” Alex said. “Right after the bodies were buried, a big fire came through and burned all the trees and brush as well as the grave houses. The rains and heavy snows created high run-off and filled the creeks to overflowing. Creeks changed course and turned the burial ground into a lake for a few years until most of it dried up. Now it’s nothing but a bog with that deep sinkhole in the middle.”
Uncle Alex knocked tobacco ash from his pipe. “Now it’s grown back. Where there’s willows and water, you got moose. We’ll have good luck tomorrow.”
Martin heard gravel crunch and saw Nikolas and his dog leave the fire and walk to the edge of Rabbit Lake. A swift gust of wind grew the fire’s embers into flame. In the sudden fire-flare, Martin saw the man and the dog clearly. What Martin saw on Nikolas’s face was terror. Nikolas returned and knelt beside his dog and stared into the fire.
“What’s the matter?” Martin waited for an answer. None came. “You think maybe bad things live up in that bog?” Nikolas still did not answer. The dog crouched at his side whined and shifted his ears.
Peter put his arm around Nikolas and said, “You’re not afraid of an old tale about some things that died there a long time ago, are you?”
Again Nikolas did not answer. He pushed Peter’s arm from his shoulder and stood up abruptly. Nikolas stepped out of the ring of firelight; his dog followed at his heels, whimpering. They faced the forest and the bog, watching and listening.
“I need some sleep,” Martin yawned. “I’m shootin’ moose tomorrow.” Martin, Peter, and Alex went to the spruce bough shelters.
Freddie stood beside Nikolas. “Don’t be payin’ any heed to long ago stories. There ain’t no such things around today.”
“What makes you so sure, Freddie?” Nikolas muttered.
“Because nobody’s seen anything for almost a hundred years, that’s why I’m sure.”
“Maybe they weren’t lookin’ in the right places, Freddie.”
“You’re actin’ crazy, Nikolas. I’m goin’ to bed. Don’t let the spooks and matchi men get you.” Freddie laughed and walked away.
Nikolas stood alone staring into the darkness. The dog growled low in his throat, lifted his ears and pointed his muzzle into the air, sniffing. Nikolas moved back towards the fire. Some innate memory struggled to access ancient warnings. His senses became acute. He heard sounds. They came out of the black night, swirling to his ears on the mists rising from the sinkhole in the bog. The sounds were high-pitched whistles, dropping in tone and fading away to nothingness.