The Wolf at the End of the World

Chapter 2: Deep Water

Chapter 2: Deep WaterED TWO RIVERS WAS DREAMING. In his dream, he was no longer an old Ojibwe man with a bad back. He was a hell-diver duck, young and strong and full of life. The hell-diver had been his personal manitou since his vision quest when he was twelve. Fifty-five years ago. Dreams of the hell-diver had special meaning. He would learn something tonight.

He floated on a black lake at night, his webbed feet moving him easily over small swells. The moon shone full and bright and cold on the lake, but could not penetrate the water’s dark surface, giving no hint of what lay beneath.

He dove, and darkness closed around him. The water was warm at first, warmer than the night air above had been. But a chill seeped through the soft down under his feathers as his feet drove him deeper. Deeper and closer. Closer to what lay below, to what lay waiting, had lain waiting for so long….

Ed woke, gasping for breath. He sat up, and as he did, pain stabbed his lower back and shot down his right leg. He groaned. The memory of youth and strength from the dream slipped away. He sighed. Back to reality. The bedside clock glared at him in red digits: 3:46 a.m.

Vera stirred beside him. “Ed?”

He grunted.

“You okay?” she mumbled.

No, he wasn’t okay, but he wouldn’t mention his dream. His wife was white and a Christian, but that wasn’t why he didn’t tell her. His vision dreams worried her. He’d been right too many times. “Damn back’s killing me.”

“Can you move? Want something for it?”

“I’m okay. Gonna get up for a while till it calms down.”

Vera was snoring again by the time he managed to slip his legs over the side of the bed. He rose slowly, waited for the pain to subside, then pulled on his pants and went quietly into their small living room.

He and Vera lived above the general store they ran in Thunder Lake. The place was small, but big enough for them. Enough space for living and enough to be alone when they got on each other’s nerves, which wasn’t often.

He eased into the old armchair by the window overlooking the street below. Turning on the small television with the remote, he flipped channels, not watching what appeared, just wanting a flow of images to wash the dream from his mind. Finally, he clicked the TV off. Damn thing only got half the channels anyway.

Outside, the stoplight at the corner changed, throwing a patch of red on the room’s faded wallpaper, like blood splashed on the wall.

Red, he thought. Just red. Not blood. Damn dream, getting me all morbid.

A dream of deep water.

He knew what that meant. He’d kept the old beliefs and practices. The priests at the residential school had tried to beat them out of him, but he’d been one of the lucky ones. He’d only spent four years in the school before his father spirited him away to live with his grandfather in the bush. And his grandfather had taught him the old ways.

He’d tried to pass those ways on to his son, but Charlie had never been interested. Charlie had never been forced into a residential school like Ed had, but to Ed, his son was still a victim. He’d lost his culture.

Charlie didn’t see it that way. “What’s that s**t ever brought us?” Charlie had demanded recently, when he caught Ed and Mary discussing differences between Ojibwe and Cree shaking tent ceremonies. “Did it keep our land for us? Can it get us jobs? Why don’t you conjure me up a new car?”

“Dad, I enjoy Grampa’s stories,” Mary replied.

Charlie glared at Mary. “And you, too. It was bad enough, him filling your head with all the stories when you were a kid. But you’re going to university—”

“To study anthropology,” Mary said. “And this relates to that. Shaman practices of the Ojibwe and other Anishinabe cultures share similarities with ancient rituals around the world.”

“Ancient,” Charlie had snorted, walking out of the room. “You got that right.”

Ed shook his head as he sat in the darkness. Well, at least Mary still wanted to hear the old stories, hear him talk of the old ways, even if now it was just part of her studies of dead cultures. Dying, he corrected himself. Not dead yet. Just like him. Not quite dead yet.

Mary’s face faded from his mind, morphing into the black lake of his dream. Having thoughts of his granddaughter alongside a vision of deep water sent a chill through him.

When he’d acquired the hell-diver as his personal manitou so many years ago, he thought the duck a particularly appropriate spirit guide. As a bird, it was one with the realm of the air. Spirits of the air were benevolent, more indulgent of the foibles of humans. But the hell-diver was also at home in the water, and the Ojibwe believed it acted as a messenger to the spirits of the underworld, malevolent beings who dwelled in the deep places of the world. Underground. Deep water.

No use having a spirit guide if it only picked up half the channels.

He knew what dreams of deep water meant. Something bad was coming, maybe already here. He tried to recall the dream. He had a feeling it had told him more than he remembered, which wasn’t much, beyond a sense of foreboding.

Downstairs, somebody knocked on the door to the store. He jumped. Vera stirred in the bedroom. He stood, wincing at the pain in his back. With a feeling of apprehension, he started down the stairs. Didn’t have to be a shaman to read this sign. A knock at four in the morning was never good news.

In the store, he shuffled past the new floor display of bathroom tissue. The only light came from the front windows. The thin curtain on the door window showed a silhouette wearing a familiar hat.

OPP. Ontario Provincial Police.

He stopped, putting a hand on a shelf to steady himself, knocking a tin of corn niblets to the floor. Was it Charlie? In an accident? Maybe just in another fight, and they locked him up until morning. But the cops wouldn’t wake Ed for that.

The silhouette outside knocked again. He forced himself to move. What else could it be? Not Mary. She was a good kid. Never went to the bars. She’d be home safe in bed this time of night. Mary was okay. Charlie was okay.

Everybody’s okay, he told himself as he unlocked the door.

A cold draft hit him. A female constable stood outside. White, stocky. Willie Burrell. Ed knew all the cops. It was a small town, and the store had been broken into twice. Plus all those times bailing Charlie out after some brawl. Behind her, another cop leaned on a cruiser. Frank Mueller. A real prick.

Willie’s lips were pressed together into a tight line, as if afraid something might escape from behind them. She nodded. “Ed.”

“Willie,” Ed said, running a hand through his long gray hair. “What’s up?”

“Afraid I have some bad news.”

Don’t ask, he thought. If he didn’t ask, it hadn’t happened. As soon as he asked, as soon as he heard, then it was real. At the curb, Mueller lit a cigarette. The sudden flame caught Ed’s eye. Mueller flicked the match into a puddle. It hit the dirty water with a hiss, sending ripples across it that recalled the black lake of his dream.

He pulled his eyes back to Willie’s face. “What’s happened?”

“We’ve found a body. No ID, but a native girl, we think.”

Native girl. Not Mary. No, not that. “Where?” he asked. It would be somewhere off the Rez, else the native police would be the ones at his door.

“Near the dam lake,” Willie said. “Since you’re a council elder, we’re hoping you can identify her. Sorry.”

The dam lake. Deep water. The thought came unbidden, and the coldness inside him grew. But he just nodded. “Gimme a minute.”

Closing the door, he leaned against the wall. Native girl. Somewhere inside, he could feel something slipping away, some part of his life that wasn’t coming back, as if it were sinking beneath the surface of that dark oily lake from his dream.

Leaving a note for Vera, he dressed, put on his coat, and stepped outside.

~~~

ED SAT IN THE BACK of the cruiser, the cops in the front, Mueller driving. The dam site was about seven miles southeast of town, accessible by old logging roads and a drive of at least fifteen minutes.

They didn’t talk much. Willie seemed shaken up, and Mueller never went out of his way to talk with any Ojibwe. The silence suited Ed at first, afraid to learn more of the victim, afraid it would sound like Mary.

But then the black forest flowing past the road started shifting into the dark lake in his dream, and he suddenly wanted something to take his mind off the vision. “How’d she die? This kid?” Not Mary, just some kid. Some poor other kid.

Willie paused before answering. “Animal attack by the looks of it.”

“What do you mean? Bite marks on the body?”

Mueller’s lip curled. He’s grinning, Ed thought. The asshole’s grinning. Willie looked back. “She was eaten, Ed.”

He frowned. Animal encounters in the bush were common, but attacks were rare. Deaths even more so. “What did it look like? From the wounds. What kind of animal?”

Mueller shrugged. “What are we? The Discovery Channel? Something hungry. Not much left of the body.”

Willie looked back at Ed again, but didn’t say anything. A few minutes later, Mueller turned onto the dam road. About a mile in, he pulled over at the foot of a slope leading up to a forested ridge overlooking the dam and its lake.

“Thought the body was at the dam,” Ed said as they got out.

Willie nodded up the slope. “On the ridge.”

They started up the incline, Willie and Mueller leading the way with flashlights. Ed followed, wincing from the pain in his back whenever he missed his step in the dim moonlight.

“Who found the body?” he asked.

“Security guards from the dam,” Willie said. “There’d been more vandalism, and they were chasing some suspects.” Mueller snorted at the word “suspects.” Willie continued. “Their dogs followed one trail but lost it. Whoever it was, they were heading back to the Rez. Then the guards turned the dogs loose again on another scent. Found the body in a clearing overlooking the dam.”

They reached the top of the ridge, and Ed was glad to see that Mueller seemed as winded as he was. “Any chance the dogs killed her?”

The cops glanced at each other. Mueller’s smirk disappeared. Willie shook her head. “The guards found the dogs huddled in a corner of the clearing as far from the body as they could get. Whining like they were afraid of it.”

Ed frowned. “Probably could smell whatever attacked her.”

Mueller snorted again. “These are Dobermans. Trained guard dogs. Not much those mothers are afraid of.”

But they were afraid of something, Ed thought.

Willie led them to a path into the trees, marked off with yellow police tape. Ed looked at the tape. “You’re gonna let a civilian into a crime scene?”

“The SOC officer cleared it with Forensic ID in the Soo,” Willie said. “Our team’s finished with the site. It’s okay.”

SOC. Scenes of Crime. Ed frowned. If the OPP Forensic Identification unit in Sault Ste. Marie had cleared access to the scene, then they’d already decided this was an accidental death.

Ducking under the tape, they started along the path, Ed behind the cops. The path was narrow, so conversation stopped until they reached a clearing. As they stepped out of the trees, he caught a whiff of mushrooms, sharp and acrid, mixed with something sickly sweet. A childhood memory tickled at the back of his mind, but then fled.

Four big torchlights sat on the ground in each corner of the clearing, their beams facing in. A man not in uniform knelt hunched over the body, while a uniformed cop shone a flashlight onto it. They blocked any view of the corpse’s face, but the lower part of the torso was visible. Ed caught his breath.

All the clothing had been ripped off, and most of the flesh was missing from the limbs and pelvis, leaving bones shining white and red in the flashlight’s beam. He turned away. Two other cops were completing a scan of the ground in the clearing. One was Bill Thornton, a staff sergeant and the senior OPP officer in Thunder Lake. He would be the SOC officer. Thornton said something to the other cop and then walked over to them.

Thornton shook Ed’s hand. “Ed. Sorry about dragging you out here….” He kept talking, saying all the usual stuff. Ed nodded, not listening, trying not to look at the body.

The man kneeling beside the body stood up and started to walk toward them. He was balding and wore wire-rimmed glasses and a rumpled gray suit. Ben Capshaw, the local medical examiner. The corpse’s face was visible now, but Ed didn’t look at it, telling himself to focus on Capshaw, not the body. He didn’t need to know yet.

Capshaw had a clear plastic bag in his hand. Something glinted in it, shiny and silver. Still avoiding the body, Ed’s eyes ran to the brightness in the bag. It was a necklace, big silver loops with an oval pendant attached.

A sudden cry escaped him, and he took a step back as his legs almost gave way.

“Ed?” Willie said. “You okay?”

Ignoring her, he walked slowly to the body. To where his granddaughter, his beautiful granddaughter, lay dead.

Beautiful no more. He stared at the mutilated corpse, forcing himself to look at the face. Multiple parallel slashes that looked like claw marks had ripped most of the flesh away, but he could still recognize Mary. Just as he’d recognized the necklace he’d given her for her sixteenth birthday.

His tears came, and with them, a river of memories—holding Mary when she was born—her first birthday—playing the snow dart game with her—teaching her to hunt and fish—telling her stories in the hunting lodge on long winter nights—listening with her as the moon sang across a summer night sky—helping her review before her exams—watching her grow year by year into a beautiful young woman, smart and strong.

Wiping his eyes, he straightened and turned away from the thing at his feet. That wasn’t Mary anymore. Mary was gone. She was in the Spirit World now. In the distance, the dark lake lay calm, reflecting the sinking half moon like an obsidian mirror. His dream of deep water intruded again. Could’ve been the same time, he thought. I could’ve been having that dream when she was dying.

No. His hands clenched into fists. No. Not dying. Being killed. Something killed her. Killed his granddaughter. And he was going to find out what it was.

But he let none of this show on his face as he walked back to the waiting cops. The Ojibwe way was silent fortitude in the face of hardship. But even if his emotions rarely showed, they were still there.

“Ed?” Willie asked.

“It’s Mary,” he said, his voice low but strong. Willie gave a little gasp. “It’s my granddaughter.” He stopped. No, not it. “She is my granddaughter.” Or should he say, “She was my granddaughter?” What was correct here? He shook his head. Get a grip.

He pointed to the bag with the necklace. “That’s hers. On that pendant, there’s a blue heron. On the back, it says—” His words caught in his throat, and he had to look away before he could continue. “In Ojibwe, it says, ‘Fly where your dreams take you.’”

“So she’s Charlie’s kid,” Mueller said, as if that explained something.

“Jesus, I’m so sorry, Ed,” Thornton said.

Ed knew he meant it. “Did it happen here?”

Capshaw nodded. “Yes, judging from the amount of blood where the, uh, the body was found. There’s no blood anywhere else.”

“When?”

“Probably not more than three hours ago,” Capshaw replied. “The autopsy will confirm that, of course.”

“So she helped torch the trucks at the dam site,” Mueller muttered. “A trouble-maker like her old man.”

Ed moved toward Mueller, but Thornton stepped between them. “Shut up, Mueller,” Thornton said, his voice sharp.

Mueller glared at Thornton, but said nothing. Shooting a black look at Ed, he turned and stalked out of the clearing.

Thornton sighed. “Sorry, Ed. He’s an asshole.”

Ed didn’t answer. He watched as Capshaw closed Mary’s body bag, the sound of the zipper slicing into him like a knife.

“You want me to call Charlie and Elizabeth?” Thornton asked after a moment.

Elizabeth was Mary’s mom. “I’ll call them,” Ed said quietly, still staring at the body bag. “What killed her?”

Thornton looked surprised. “Animal attack, for sure. Pretty obvious from the state of the, uh, well, you know….”

“What kind?”

Thornton shrugged. “Bear. Wolves, maybe.”

“Find any tracks?”

“No, but this clearing’s all rock. Capshaw’ll be able to tell us from the bite marks and any hair he finds on the, uh…that he finds.” Telling Ed again that he was sorry, Thornton left to talk to Capshaw.

Ed walked to where the clearing overlooked the dam and its captured lake. He shook his head. The dam had been bad news from the start, splitting the Ojibwe community. He and others had protested against the loss of their hunting territories, the impact on wildlife. More had argued that the money the provincial government was offering could buy much-needed social services on the Rez. Others, like Charlie, had just wanted the money that new jobs at the site would bring.

In the end, the money had won. Money always won.

He stared at the dark lake, remembering the priests teaching the story of Noah’s Ark. That flood had been to cleanse the world of evil. Guess it’d missed a few spots, he thought. Seemed that white man floods destroyed what was good, not what was evil. The flooding here hadn’t saved the animals in pairs—it’d killed them or driven them away.

Now his Mary was gone too.

Willie walked up beside him. She squeezed his arm. “Let me take you home, Ed.”

He sighed and nodded. Turning to go, he glanced down the slope. He stopped. “Willie, give me your flashlight, will you?”

Willie handed the light to him, and he shone the beam over the ground. He’d been a hunter since he was a kid and a guide for years before he met Vera. He saw something. There. And there. “Something went down here. Not too long ago.”

Willie squinted down the hill. “How can you tell?”

“Pine needles been kicked up. They’re wet. Something turned them over recently.” He started down the hill, grabbing tree trunks for balance with his free hand, avoiding areas that had been disturbed. He almost slipped twice, his back screaming each time.

Twenty feet down, he knelt beside an impression in the ground. The smell of mushrooms, acrid and sharp, stung his nostrils again. Again, something stirred in childhood memories but skittered away. The ground was softer here. He carefully brushed away dead needles and leaves from the impression. When he’d uncovered it all, he stood.

Willie came up beside him. “Find something?”

He pointed with the flashlight beam.

“Holy s**t,” she said.

It was a footprint. A barefoot, human footprint.