The House

By Dawn Natelle

Finally, a new story. This chapter is a bit longer than most of mine, but I did want to get to the transgendered part in the first chapters.

William Grey was a little shorter than most of the third year students at England's famous Harrow School, standing 5’8”, but he had broad shoulders and strong arms developed from three years of swimming and rowing. William was the only third year on the school’s senior swim team, which was usually just fourth years: where he was a specialist in longer races. Harrow doesn’t have a school rowing team, but he rowed in the eights, fours, pairs and single sculls on the Henley team near the college. William also excelled at Harrow Football, the school’s insane version of soccer or rugby, played with a huge ball about the size of an airbag, which could weigh up to 20 pounds when it was wet, as happened in some games.

His most memorable Harrow Football game had been when he was in first year, and tried to head the huge ball into the net like one might in soccer. Apparently he scored, but he only found out when he came to in the local hospital A and E department with a concussion. Since then he refrained from trying to head the rock-like ball.

His dark brown hair was neatly trimmed, as required at Harrow, and he was dressed in the typical Harrow day uniform of straw hat, grey trousers, and a white shirt with a navy coat. This was the same uniform worn by four fourth year boys from Bradby’s House who seemed to be picking on a first year student from Drurie’s House, the house that William lived in.

“Hey there, what are you lads doing to him?” William said as he approached the gang, who had roughed up the smaller boy’s clothing and were now playing ‘keep-away’ with the boy’s straw hat. If the hat were damaged, the boy would be in trouble with the beak, the house headmaster.

“Buzz off, Tea,” the biggest of the fourth year boys taunted. Tea was William’s nickname, and the only thing he was ever referred to by students. (Faculty called him Grey, of course). But William’s grandfather was the Earl of Grey, so Tea had become the nickname given to his eldest brother when he had entered the school 10 years earlier. When the second brother in the family started three years later, he was named Tea Two, by the boys. For William’s first year, he was Tea Three, but since his brother left, he was now simply Tea.

There was an historical precedent to the nicknames. The Second Earl of Grey was prime minister in the 1800s, and a brand of tea was named Earl Grey Tea after the then prime minister. William’s grandfather was the current Seventh Earl, and his father was Viscount Howick. On his grandfather’s passing his father would become Earl, and Richard (Tea One) would become Viscount. As third son William would be unlikely to receive a title. In English terminology sons of a noble are: the heir, the spare, and the who-cares. As a ‘who-cares’, William was expected to convert the more than 100,000 pound sterling tuition the family was paying for four years at Harrow into a place at Oxford or Cambridge and then lucrative business career.

Right now this was largely immaterial, as Bluster, the big lad from Bradbury’s, was approaching William showing some annoyance over having his fun with young Wiley interrupted. Suddenly, Bluster’s fist started towards William’s face, and that was the point where everything went black.

For a second Tea thought he was going to wind up in A and E again, but a moment later his vision returned and he found the four Bradbury fourth year boys scattered about him on the ground, all bleeding profusely.

“That was bloody marvelous,” young Wiley said, looking at William with a look of adoration in his eyes. “You were like a ninja or something, Tea. Can you teach me to do that?”

“No. No I can’t,” William said. He wasn’t even sure what had happened. But Wiley recounted the fight as they walked back to their house. When Bluster punched, William had apparently ducked, and then grabbed the bigger boy’s arm, tossing him over his shoulder to the ground. Two other boys grabbed his arms, and the last boy took a mighty swing at him. But William dodged again, and the blow hit one of the boys holding him, knocking him out. He then used his free hand to swing at the other boy, knocking him back. Then it was a three-punch combination that bloodied and floored the boy who had hit his housemate.

This left the final boy standing, and William had punched him again, in the throat this time, and as the boy sank to the ground, another punch hit him in the face.

At this point Bluster was trying to get back to his feet, and William grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him to his feet. When William pulled back to strike again Bluster pissed his pants. Then William dropped his arm, and the boy pulled back, looking at his three friends bleeding on the pathway.

“We ain’t done with you yet, Tea,” the boy said. “We won’t go to the Beaks with this. Anyone caught fighting can’t go to the trip to New York at Christmas break. But when we get back, you are toast, even if we have to get the entire house to pay you back.”

William and Wiley left at that point, with the adoring shell (first year) describing the fight all the way back to Drurie’s. It wasn’t until that night, when he was alone in his room (upper-class students at Harrow have private rooms) that he found out what really had happened.

He had fallen asleep at his normal time, but was wakened by the sound of voices in his room. As he lay half asleep and half awake, he recognized three voices speaking a foreign language. One was clearly female, and another was clearly male, with the deepest voice William had ever heard. And the other voice was male, but higher and softer, nearly female. After listening for a few minutes, William started to recognize the language, and understand what was being said.

«It is too early,» the woman said. «He is not ready. Maybe next year?»

«Things will happen soon that will make this year better,» the deep voice said.

«But he is so young, » the other man said.

«He will do, » deep voice said. «Look, he already knows the language. »

«What language is it? » William said. He didn’t actually speak, but he knew that the others heard what he was thinking, and responded.

«It is Ojibwe, » the woman said. «The language of our people. »

«You are Indians. Red Indians from America, » William said with a sudden insight.

«The proper term today is First Nations, » the woman replied. «And we are from Canada, not America. As are you. »

«No I am not, » William protested. «I am from England. Our family history goes back to the 1400s, if not farther. »

«I need to tell you a story, » the woman said. «In 1904 the fourth Earl Grey came to Canada as governor general. His third son was 21 and was a bit of a ladies man. He got not one, but two young women pregnant at about the same time. One was one of his sister’s maids. The other was a pretty young Ojibwe maiden who he met when a pow-wow ceremony was held for the governor general and his family. »

«He continued his relationship with the maid, and was surprised to find that she was with child, causing no small scandal within the family. The maid was elevated to be a companion of his sister, tempering the scandal somewhat. »

«A day before that girl gave birth, the Ojibwe maiden had a son, and got word to the father, who came to the tribe, and saw a familial resemblance in the infant. He took the boy with him back to Rideau Hall, the governor general’s residence, where the other infant was born that night. He gave the boy to the young girl and told her that she was to say that both children were hers. In return he would marry her, and she would be further elevated. »

«But the Indian maiden? » William protested. «She just lost her baby like that? How was such a thing possible? »

«See, he empathizes with the mother, » the second male voice said. «He is truly the right one. »

The female voice continued. «At that time our people had no power to match that of a Lord. He simply took what he wanted. The mother was heartbroken, of course, but she had no recourse. Eventually she married a brave, and had three other children. She never forgot her son and prayed to Manidoo to have him returned. I know all this because I am one of her daughter’s, and your great, great, great aunt. »

«I am related to you? » William asked.

«Yes. The boy stolen from the people is your great, great, grandfather, » she said. «The others here are Flint, who was my great great grandfather, and a great warrior in the wars with the Iroquois, and Red Oak, who was his grandfather back in the times before the white man arrived. He is two-spirited, and one of the most famous medicine men in our history. »

«The fact that you speak our language is a sign that you are the chosen one, » Red Oak said. «We didn’t expect to move so quickly on this, but when you were threatened today, Flint took over, and ended the assault on your person. »

«Flint was the one that beat up those boys? » William asked.

«Yes, » Flint’s deep voice boomed. «And they were men, as you are. They were assaulting a boy, and you stepped in to protect the child. That shows honor befitting an Ojibwe warrior. »

«I am no warrior. And I am what, 1/16 Ojibwe? Hardly anything. »

«It is 1/32, and that is enough, » the woman said. «You are flying across the great water soon, and when you land you will need to leave your English people and return to your native land, Canada. It will be a long journey, and very difficult. We will come back each night to make plans.»”

«You will sleep now, » Red Oak said. «More deeply than normal so that you will not be tired in the morning from our talks. Sleep. »

----- - -----

The next morning William woke up, certain that he had dreamed the entire episode. But he looked onto the Internet and located a site written in Ojibwe, and found that he could understand the language he had never seen before. Something really had happened.

And that evening, and the next, he conversed with Flint, Red Oak, and Mimiha (whose name did not translate to English as the others did). He was wondering what would happen the next evening when everything changed. It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001 at about 2 p.m. in London when the BBC started showing video from New York of airliners crashing into the buildings of the World Trade Center. Eventually one building, then the other, fell to the earth.

That evening the voices returned, but in a much more somber mood than the day before. «Three thousand voices stilled,» Mimiha said. «Much disruption in the second life.»

«Will your school trip still take place in December?» Flint asked.

«We still aren’t sure,» William said. «Right now there are no flights into the US at all. Surely that will change in three months. But we don’t know what the mood of the Americans will be. In the past, every year the school trip alternated between New York City and Washington, DC. That let the students go to one place in year three and the other in year four. Last year was Washington. But I’m not sure the school wants to go to New York while the cleanup will probably still be underway.»

«One suggestion is that the trip this year will be to Toronto and Niagara Falls Canada,» William continued. «You see, we have 22 boys who are Arabs at the school, and 14 of those are Moslem. They fear that they might not be safe going to America at this time.»

«Canada would be better for us,» Flint said. «Toronto is only a hundred miles or so from your target campsite, more than 500 miles closer than from New York. And you will not have to cross the border.»

--------- ------- -----

Term ended in mid-December, and the class trip was to fly out the next day. As expected the trip went to Toronto, rather than New York, since Moslems were still being treated poorly at entry to the US. The trip would visit the sights of Toronto, with a one-day side trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

Once the trip itinerary had been announced months earlier, planning by The Three, as William now thought of them, intensified. The boy started amassing Canadian currency, converting most of his £50 weekly allowance to the point where he had nearly a thousand Canadian dollars, along with the £500 pounds that his parents sent for spending money on the trip.

He has also purchased some garments from a thrift shop: primarily women's clothing, which Red Oak insisted was essential to the plan. He also purchased a blonde wig in a pageboy cut. All the female attire was packed into one of the two bags he could carry, with his male clothes in the second bag, mostly uniforms. The trip organizers wanted the spectacle of 80 English public school boys in uniform and straw hats to attract attention when they were in Canada.

The third piece of luggage was a backpack, that William purchased instead of the more common briefcases that the other boys brought as their carry-on. He said he wanted to ‘look like a Canadian’ with the pack.

Another thing that William had done to prepare was to learn to speak without an English accent. He would read aloud quietly in his room, with Mimiha correcting his mistakes. After the few months, he was able to speak with a Canadian accent.

The flight to Canada was largely uneventful. The plane landed at Pearson airport just outside of Toronto, and the boys were bussed to the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto. It was a stodgy older hotel, but had a British tradition that attracted the attention of the staff planning the trip.

The first several days of the trip were filled with visits to Toronto attractions. The Canada’s Wonderland amusement park was closed for winter, but the boys went to the CN Tower, the adjoining aquarium, the museum and art gallery, the science center, a modern play, and an opera. A side-trip to Stratford, a small city an hour away, to see the Canadian Shakespearean Festival production of MacBeth was planned for the day after the trip to Niagara.

The trip was four days along when the Niagara trip was to occur. A bus pulled up outside the hotel, and at 6 a.m. the boys got on board as the teachers took attendance. Except it was not William who got on wearing his hoodie. It was a young girl that one of the fourth years had convinced they were in love. William lent the hoodie, and gave up the space on the bus, so the young lovers could have more time together (and the older boy could get his hands under William’s hoodie).

The bus left, and William came out of his rooms, trying to look like a young Canadian teen. He sauntered over to the subway and took a train several blocks north, where his Internet research had said an outdoors specialty store was located.

William told the staff that he was heading into Northern Ontario and needed supplies.

“A tent?” the clerk asked. “These are our most popular. They have a space-age fiber that reduces the weight of the tent in half. A four person tent will only weigh three pounds.”

“No, I would prefer a natural fiber like wool or cotton,” William said, having sensed a feeling of disgust from the people in his head at the thought of the plastics in the modern tent. They pretty much told him that they wouldn’t go into such a tent with him.

“Most of the other tents are nylon,” the clerk said. “Would that work?” William shook his head. “Wait, I have an idea,” the man darted to the back of the store.

William then had an argument in his head with the three. He agreed to a canvas tent, if one was available, but would get a lighter nylon sleeping bag. The three could come into the tent to talk to him at night without needing to get into his sleeping bag. He did have to promise to get a natural sleeping roll once he could acquire the hides. The man came back as William started to wonder how he would gather hides.

The clerk carried an older looking tent package to the front. “This was one of the attempts by the traditional makers to come up with a light weight canvas tent about 20 years ago. It still weighs 14 pounds, and didn’t sell well when the synthetics came out. I can let you have it for $10 just to get it out of the warehouse.”

A nylon sleeping bag weighing 5 pounds that cost $75 was next, followed by an aluminum cooking kit of a cup, plate, flatwear and two small cooking pots. Three different knives, a sharpening stone, a flint kit, and a hand axe followed. William looked at the bows and arrows, but Flint refused to let him buy one of the compound bows. Instead William got four-dozen steel hunting arrowheads and five bow strings of a composition that the hunter in his head approved of.

The final purchases were food. There were several hunters’ MRE (meal ready to eat) that he chose from, as well as a five-pound bag of beans and a two-pound bag of rice. The clerk made sure he also got two pounds of salt to make the food more palatable.

William staggered back to the subway with the new, larger backpack he had bought to carry all his gear and headed back to his hotel room. It was nearly noon, and he had to vacate the hotel by then.

He took his two backpacks over to the bus station down the road from the hotel, and went into a handicapped washroom. There he stripped out of his clothes, bundling the jeans and plaid shirt into a small package, and cramming them into his new pack, also stuffing in his sneakers and five sets of socks.

Then he pulled things out of the older backpack. Luckily no one else had snooped, or they would wonder why he had a dress, wig and makeup kit in there.

In the washroom he slipped on the dress and then the wig. He had practiced doing makeup three or four times, and was able to put on a soft look that made his face look at least a little feminine. It may have been a little amateurish, but that would be expected from a girl his age. The dress had sleeves to conceal his muscular shoulders and arms. He certainly didn’t look pretty, but he did look female, and blonde.

From there he went and purchased a ticket to Ottawa from the Greyhound agent, who barely looked at him as he punched out the ticket for the 4 p.m. bus. William selected the northern bus, which took an additional hour to get to Ottawa, due taking the TransCanada (two lane) highway instead of the expressway along the lakeshore. But the northern route had the advantage of stopping quite near the wilderness area William was aiming for.

«There is your bus,» Mimiha said. «Take a seat behind the driver. Carry your sack with you … you will need it when you get off, and if you set in on the seat next to you, no others will sit too close.»

When the bus doors opened, William popped in, setting his packsack on the seat next to him on the seats right behind the driver, while most people stored their luggage on the bins underneath the bus. The driver packed all the other riders’ luggage under the bus, and checked tickets of the other riders as they entered. When he got on, he came to William.

“Your ticket, miss?” he said, and then checked it. He gestured at the packsack on the adjoining seat. “You may have to move that if there are enough riders later on. We aren’t full yet, but several should get on in Peterborough.”

William nodded in agreement, not wanting to speak. Mimiha had made him practice in a feminine voice back in England, as the plan was developed, but he was less than confident that he could sound like a girl. Even a little off, and the driver might look closer at the hefty shoulders and minimally convincing makeup and wig.

Right at four the bus pulled out. It was an express bus, stopping at the eastern end of Toronto, then in the city of Peterborough. Then the next stop was the tiny village of Actinolite, with a ten-minute stop at a little general store attached to a gas station. The passengers could get a sandwich or a coffee there.

William got out with his backpack and headed to the washroom in the store. Since there was a washroom on the bus, there was no one waiting for it, and he went straight in. He pulled off the dress and wig, and got his jeans and plaid shirt on. He tried to remove the little makeup he had by washing his face with warm water, but found that the stuff was pretty difficult to remove.

«You need some bear fat,» Mimiha suggested.

«Sorry, I don’t have any of that,» William thought back. Instead he went into the stall and found nearly a full roll of tissue, and brought out more than a yard of it.

He got rid of most of the lipstick and mascara eventually, and was about to leave when he heard the ‘all aboard’ call from the bus, and paused. Only after he heard the bus pull away did he come out. He managed to slip out a side door unnoticed by the staff, who were cleaning up after the rush of passengers.

William headed north immediately, and found himself 50 yards from the forest. Soon he was deep within the woods.

Chapter 2

Since it was December, and fully dark when the bus had gotten to the stop at 8 p.m. William didn’t travel far in the bush. Luckily Flint, Red Oak and Mimiha directed his steps in the dark. He walked for an hour, which they said was a mile into the forest. They directed him to a clearing, where he pitched his tent by flashlight, then crawled inside. He fell asleep almost immediately.

In the morning the Three led him onward once he packed up his tent and sleeping bag. There had been a snowfall during the night, which left an inch of the fluffy white stuff on the ground. It was not enough to cause problems walking, but it would cover his tracks from the night before, in case anyone was looking for him already.

He walked another four miles in a little over an hour. Travel was much quicker in daylight. Much of the trip was along the banks of a River.

«What river is this?» he wondered.

«It is Skootamatta,» Flint said. «In the language of your people that would be Burnt Shoreline. But for some reason they call it Skootamatta as we did.»

Even though he was only five miles from the highway, it was sufficiently remote that he was unlikely to see hunters or hikers. The river might occasionally see canoeists, but a quarter mile down river it broadened out into a wide, swampy area that was too shallow for even canoes except in spring runoff. Few enthusiasts would portage around the shallows, and those that did would be unlikely to go into the forest far.

«Make your permanent camp here,» ordered Flint. «There is a small spring about 200 yards to the north. The water in the river gets bad in the fall, but the spring runs pure and clean all through the year. Even in the coldest weather it still runs.»

William pitched the tent, and then started chopping down small saplings under the direction of Mimiha and Red Oak. Over the next three days he had built a traditional Ojibwe lodge, six feet wide, 14 feet long, and four feet high, with a birchbark covering that he hoped would keep the inside dry through the winter.

«It will leak,» Mimiha warned. «We need many deerskins to cover the roof and make it snug. In wet weather you can use your tent to keep dry. But you can make a fire in here to cook away from the snow.»

Later that night all three of the spirits gathered and announced that there would be a naming. «You have a white man name,» Mimiha said. «You need a name of the people.»

“My name is William Grey,” the boy insisted.

«There is no word in the language for William,» Flint said. «I would name you Waabijiizi ma’lingan.»

“Grey wolf,” William said, since he now spoke Ojibwe flawlessly. “I rather like that. I would use Waabijiizi (Grey) as a short name.”

Flint shuddered at the mispronunciation, but accepted it and from that point on William was gone, and Waabijiizi replaced him. (For this story we will use the English version – Grey Wolf -- in most cases. It is easier to read.)

Flint taught Grey Wolf how to make a bow and arrows, and how to use them. He also showed how to make traps for rabbits and squirrels. The traps paid off first, and a week after finishing the lodge Grey Wolf got his first meat for the pot: a rabbit. It was late in January when he shot his first deer, a young buck with four points. He feasted on the venison that night, after he cleaned the smallish animal. Mimiha told him that he could get three days out of the fresh meat before it started to go bad in the early winter weather, so he made the lodge into a smokehouse and dried strips of meat over the next two days, so that none would be wasted.

After he had smoked that meat, he decided to build a smaller smokehouse. At the same time, Mimiha taught him how to treat the hide of the deer. Flint sneered at that, saying that tanning was squaw’s work, but Mimiha sneered back that there were no squaws in the area to take on the work, so if Grey didn’t do it, the hide would spoil. In a few weeks the hide was cured and made a nice spare blanket for the cold February nights.

More snow followed that first inch back in December, and by mid-January it was several feet deep. Red Oak was the craftsman of the three, and he taught Grey Wolf how to make snowshoes. The first pair was heavy and rudimentary, but after he had killed the deer, there was ample gut to make a better pair with a woven mesh bottom. They made walking on the snow fairly easy he made another two pairs, each better than the last. He discovered that he had an artistic bent, and made carvings on the latter pair of shoes that actually looked good.

While the snow was at its highest Red Oak also taught Grey how to make a cedar strip canoe and over the next two months, into early spring, he completed a 19-foot canoe out of cedar trees he felled himself by hand, then split, cured, and shaped into pieced.

«It goes much faster with your steel tools,» Flint said as Grey worked. «With a stone axe it would take a year to fell the trees and shape the wood for a smaller canoe. I think perhaps your steel tools are a good idea.»

“That is good,” Grey said. “I hope to sell the snowshoes and the canoe down at the store. I will buy or order more tools that will make it easier to work with wood. I especially want a spoke-shave to make arrows and to work on the bow.”

It was early May when the last remnants of snow disappeared from the woods around the camp. The river was flowing rapidly with spring run-off, and Grey was running out of supplies. He had killed a larger buck in early March, and there was plenty of jerky left in the larder, but the beans and rice were nearly gone and he had completely used up the salt in curing the second deerskin.

So Grey loaded his snowshoes into the canoe, and paddled off down the rapidly flowing river downstream to the village of Actinolite. He had seen a few Dreamcatcher crafts on the wall of the bus station when he got off it last December. He planned to offer his wares to them first, and if they were not interested he would head on down to Tweed and try his luck there.

Just before coming to the place where the highway crossed the river, Grey happened to notice a huge house on a rise, looking over the river. It was two floors high, and massive, with a balcony surrounding the entire second story of the house. The house looked somewhat dilapidated, with areas of the balcony roof caved in. Grey soon had to stop staring at the old house, as the bridge was coming up, and he wanted to dock the canoe before then, near the general store.

Grey carried his snowshoes into the store, and showed them to the owner. “Those two pair are exquisite. We used to sell quite a few native things here, but most of our suppliers now sell online. I could sell those two pair for $399 each,” he said. “I can give you $200 a pair for them.”

“I want $300,” Grey said. “But it will be in store credit.”

“Done,” the shopkeeper said. He priced most of the goods in the store at nearly double what he paid for them, so with store credit it would be like paying $150 a pair.”

“I also have a canoe, if you want to bid on that?” Grey said.

They went out and looked at the canoe where Grey had pulled it from the river. “It has only been used once, on the trip down here from my camp. It doesn’t leak anywhere, and handles perfectly.”

The man looked over the canoe. It would sell fast for $4000. “I can offer you $2500 store credit for it,” he suggested, and was surprised when Grey accepted his offer.

Grey spent two hours in the store, and amazed the shopkeeper with his selections. He bought a spade head with a broken handle, three old axe heads, two galvanized pails, many 5-pound bags of beans and rice, and all the salt the store carried.

When the shopkeeper found that he needed the salt for curing pelts, he quoted good prices for deerskins. Grey said that he needed his skins. He did get prices from the storekeeper for beaver, rabbit, coon, and bear, in case he got enough of those to make a trip worthwhile. Apparently there were two trappers in the area who supplied the store, which then sent the hides to a wholesaler.

Grey did not find what he was really looking for: woodworking tools. The storekeeper did mention a farmer down the road a mile who had a lot of tools. He even told Grey that he would convert $200 of his store credit to cash.

“Just be careful with old Biggins. He think’s he is a master bargainer. Whatever he asks, offer him a quarter of that. He’ll probably settle for half what his first offer is. Then ask him to throw something else in. He doesn’t have a lot of cash since he retired, so he’ll probably deal fair for ready cash,” the shopkeeper warned.

Grey had a full load, and suggested that he come back in a week, when the man said he could get in some 20-pound bags of salt in his next delivery.

“How are you going to get back with no canoe,” the shopkeeper asked.

Grey smiled. “The river is too fast to paddle upstream anyway. I’ll just walk home.”

And he did, arriving back at the camp just before dusk and happy to make a stew with the jerky and a few vegetables he had bought at the store.

A week later Grey was back, and the storekeeper was happy to hand the $200 to the young brave. He had already sold one set of snowshoes to a man from Toronto for $500 and the canoe parked on the store porch was attracting attention from the people who just stopped for gas. The shopkeeper also had two bags of salt and a few other items that Grey had asked for waiting for him after he got back from the farmer down the road.

In the old farmer’s barn, Grey was in heaven. It contained a massive amount of tools, some antique, all rusted. He put together a collection of about 40 items, and asked for a price.

“That’s a big lot,” the old man said. “I s’pose I could let you have it for $150.”

“Two much,” Grey said. “Most of it is more rust than tools. It’ll take me hours till I can make any of it useful again. I could do $30, no $40.”

“That’s my retirement there,” the old man said. “Best I could do is an even hundred.”

They negotiated down to $80, which Grey considered fair. Then he pointed to a bushel at the edge of the barn. “But you have to throw in some of those taters there. Five nice good ones, and another five of the ones going to seed.”

“Done”, the old man said, and Grey loaded the tools into his knapsack. He was looking forward to potatoes in his stew tonight, and to planting a potato garden near his camp.

The summer and fall was spent with Grey building another canoe, this one of birch bark, and three more pairs of snowshoes. He lived on mainly venison, but did manage to shoot a bear in July.

«I think you are ready,» Flint said as the bear was approaching. «Use your best arrow, and have the big knife ready.»

“A knife? Why?”

«In case you miss. You won’t have time to draw another arrow. Just get the knife out and hope that you don’t get hurt too badly when it mauls you.»

Grey gulped, and then the bear turned towards him. Grey let fly with his arrow at the animal not 25 feet away. The arrow went into his chest, and he had to pull his knife as the roaring animal bounded towards him. He was knocked from his feet as the animal collapsed a yard in front of him. Grey used the knife across the animal’s throat, but he was pretty sure it was already dead.

It took all day to bring the black bear back to the camp, clean it and start to smoke the less fatty meats. Unlike the venison he had cleaned and smoked in the past, bear was tasty fresh, but less appetizing as jerky. The bear did provide him with bear fat, which Mimiha claimed was useful as soap, shampoo, and for other medicinal uses.

When he was not hunting or building, Mimiha had him wandering through the bush. She pointed out edible items like berries, good mushrooms, and roots. Red Oak accompanied them on most of these trips, and also pointed out many other plants that he said had medicinal purposes. He made Grey gather these, always taking no more than a quarter of a population so it would regenerate. What he took was put into a deerskin pouch, and eventually there were dozens of them in the camp.

One night in November, nearly a year into his stay in the camp, Flint woke him. «Emergency. Get a knife, ax and canteen and hurry. We are needed.»

The three made him run through the darkness towards the east, a direction he had seldom travelled in. After a few miles, Grey stopped, and thought he heard an engine in the distance. Another mile later, he stopped again, and indeed there was an engine. As he listened he heard the engine cough twice and then go silent.

They ran on, and soon came to a car, barely visible in the starlight. Grey saw that a plastic flex pipe was running from the exhaust up to a small hole in the rear window, with duct tape holding it in place on either end. He went across to the driver side, and found a girl slumped over inside. The doors were locked, so he took the axe he had brought, and smashed the rear window behind the driver so he could reach around and unlock the door.

As he unfastened the seatbelt he felt something was wrong. The woman was huge. Much larger than Grey. The inside of the car reeked of exhaust fumes. Grey tugged, and with a lot of effort managed to pull woman out of the car. Her wig fell off, and one of her boobs was caught by the seatbelt, and stayed up near her neck.

It wasn’t a woman, but a man dressed in a flowery sundress. A big man. And he wasn’t breathing.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

We move the story along a little further. Not many caught the one reference to the House in the first posting, but this one will give a bit more background.

Chapter 3 – Meet Sunflower

Grey tugged and pulled to get the body a few feet from the car. Grey had been strong and athletic before coming to Canada, and the past year in the wilderness had only improved his fitness. But the man in the dress was huge, and dragging nearly 300 pounds was a chore for any 17-year-old boy.

As soon as he was a distance from the car, Red Oak shouted in his head that he had to get the man breathing again. Grey had one First Aid certificate in England, but that was nearly four years ago. He knelt down and gave the man mouth-to-mouth. «Now the heart,» Red Oak said. Grey moved to doing chest compressions. «Back to the mouth,» and Grey moved back. Eventually they had a heartbeat, and shallow breathing.

The man was too big to move easily, Grey realized. «Woman,» Red Oak insisted.

“What?” Grey said as he tried to figure out what to do next.

«She is two spirited, and when she is dressed like this, you must refer to her as a female.»

“I just wish she weighed like a female,” Grey retorted. “Do you have any good ideas how we get her back to camp? I can’t leave her here. This is an old logging road and there may not be anyone down here for years.”

«A travois,» Flint said. «We can make a travois, and you might be able to pull it.»

“And I might die of a heart attack trying,” Grey retorted, but he went to the car and pulled out his axe and made his way to a sapling.

«Too small,» Flint said. «Half as big again. That is a lot of weight.»

He moved to an older sapling, and quickly chopped it down, and then took off all the branches closer than 16 feet to the end. Then he chopped it off at the 16-foot mark before duplicating the feat on another similar sapling.

«Now the crosspieces. They can be smaller. Like that first sapling you were going to use. Ideally we should have six, but I think four will work. I know you are not very good at using twisted branches to join cross woods.»

Grey Wolf then cut six cross pieces, and laid them into position on the longer pieces, about a foot apart. “Screw twisted branches,” he said as he went and fished out a nearly new roll of duct tape from the back seat of the car. “This is better, and faster.”

He had the pieces taped together in five minutes, well under the hour that Flint thought he would take with twisted branches. Then it was a matter of getting her on the travois bed. Grey could roll her: barely. He finally rolled her twice, so that she was on her back on the travois. All the tugging and pulling had an affect. She seemed less pale. In fact Mimiha suggested he give her some water, and she managed to take in two swallows before choking and turning her head aside.

Grey took a long swallow before putting the canteen aside. He gathered up the hose that had been on the exhaust pipe, and discovered that the heat from the pipe had melted the duct tape, and it was loose: only a tenth of the deadly gas got into the car. “Manidoo likes this one,” he grunted as he lifted the other end of the travois.

The ground here was Canadian Shield rock, and he was barely able to pull the travois for a quarter mile before dropping it, exhausted. He was about to slump to the ground himself when Red Oak barked inside his head: «Not yet. There is more to do. Go over into the marshes.»

Grey staggered over, taking another long drink as he walked. That seemed to refresh him a lot. He found the plants that Red Oak wanted him to find, and brought several back to the unconscious woman. First he gave the woman two more swallows of water, and then broke apart the plants, placing two leaves inside her cheeks, and laying the rest on her chest.

«Fix it,» Mimiha said. Grey realized that he was staring at the misplaced breast, which had almost come free of her dress when he was rolling her over. He took it out, finding it to be an old bath towel rolled up into a ball. He rolled it again, neater, and then slid it into the old bra she was wearing. He then made the other match.

Just my luck, Grey thought. My first chance to touch a woman’s breast, and it turns out to be terry cloth.

He then took another swig of water, and started trudging along, towing the travois. He soon got to the end of the rock, about a half-mile from the abandoned car, and knew he could not pull it through the loose soil of the trail, which in many places was narrower than the base rails of the travois. What would he do? Stop every five paces to chop down a sapling?

When he got to the end of the rock, he dropped the travois again, and took another swig of water. His canteen was now half empty. He was proud of it. It was the first cedar canteen that didn’t leak like the earlier five had. It held enough water for a day, although sharing with the girl would reduce its capacity. And running water in the late fall was seldom found. He might be fairly thirsty before he got back to his clean little stream at the campsite.

Red Oak had him going into the bush to look for more, different herbs. There were two types this time, and Red Oak made him look long for ones that were still at least a little green. He took the small handful back to the unconscious girl.

«Big Smiles is doing better,» Mimiha said.

“What did you call her? Big Smiles?”

«Yes, I can reach into her head now. She called herself Dorothy when she was dressed like this, which was rare. That isn’t a proper name for her. I will call her Big Smiles, and hopefully she will like that name. »

“I can’t see her in this world living with Big Smiles as a name. How about Sunflower? They are big, and they seem to smile at you,” Grey was mixing a bit of water with the herbs at Red Oak’s command.

«That is a far better name,» Mimiha said. «We will use that, unless she hates it. No, I spoke to her inside her head, and she said she liked it.»

Grey fished the two leaves out of Sunflower’s mouth, and then spread the paste onto the same parts of her mouth that the leaves had been on. He heard Red Oak start to count. When he got to five, the girl shuddered and opened her eyes, retching and spitting. “That’s fucking horrible,” she said in a voice that was unladylike both in the words she said, and the voice she used. Her voice was nearly as deep as Flint’s.

«Ten,» Red Oak said. «Give her some water now to rinse out the taste.»

Grey handed her the canteen and she filled her mouth, sloshing it like mouthwash, and then spitting it out. She duplicated the process and was going for a third time when Grey suggested she only take a drink. “That is all the water we have,” he noted.

Sunflower took a deep draught of water, nearly emptying the canteen. “Am I in heaven now? That stuff sure didn’t taste very heavenly. But I did hear an angel in my head.”

“Manidoo is looking after you, Sunflower,” Grey said. “She made the duct tape on the end of your tailpipe heat up and melt. Not much gas got into the car. We got there just in time to save you.”

“And what makes you think I wanted to be saved,” she said bitterly. “My entire life is a joke. I am transgendered: a female brain in a male body. And it couldn’t be a nice small body like yours.” She put out a hand and Grey used all his strength to pull her up. And up. And up. When she was standing, she was towering over Grey: nearly a foot taller. And she weighed twice was he did. She fixed the wig on her head with one hand: Grey had just placed it there loosely when she was on the travois.

“No, I had to be 6’5” tall. And they made me play football, and put me on diets that got my weight up to 315 pounds. How the hell could I ever transition into a woman looking like that? A peaceful death by CO2 would have been a blessing. Now what am I to do?”

“You could come with us, Sunflower,” Grey said. “I have a camp a few miles further into the bush. Manidoo wanted you to live, and I will help her make sure you do.”

“Why are you calling me Sunflower? My name is Earl.”

“Even in a dress?”

“No. It is Dorothy then. But I like Sunflower more. The angel in my head told me.”

“That is Mimiha. We also have Flint, and Red Oak. Red Oak is two-spirited like you, so you might hear from him too. I don’t think Flint will talk to you. He is upset that you have a warrior’s body but a woman’s mind.”

Sunflower staggered for a few feet and then slowly started moving normally. Between Red Oak’s potions, and the good clean air she was inhaling deeply, she seemed to be recovering from her ordeal. Grey picked up the empty travois.

“If anyone comes and finds that car, they might notice the scratches we made on the rock. But if we take the travois back to camp, they won’t be able to track us easily. I don’t know if I will ever have need for one again: A travois is a tool the Plains natives used. Our people lived in the forest, and these are definitely not useful here,” Grey said.

“What is your name?” Sunflower said as they walked towards the camp.

“I am Grey. Grey Wolf is my First Nations name. William Grey is my real name. I have been living in the bush for a year now.”

“Wow, don’t you have family worried about you? Wait a second. There was a big thing on TV a year ago about this English Lord who got lost on a school trip. Is that you?”

“It could be. I’m not a Lord though, although my Grandfather and father are. But I am a third son and won’t inherit anything. I got a call from what you are calling the angels in our heads to come back to Canada to right a wrong done 100 years ago. I am the replacement for an infant stolen from the people.”

As they walked Sunflower gave his story. His mother died giving him birth. His father was a truck driver and he lived mostly with his paternal grandmother. Earl Dipsen was his birth name, but he hated being a boy almost from the time he started school and they made him play with boys instead of girls. The fact that he was bigger than boys two years older through school prevented any bullying, but his feminine heart continually cried out for release.

In high school he was a star lineman on the team, and set a record for sacks his first year, and then beat it three times. He received a college scholarship to MacMaster University in Hamilton and bulked up on the diets that the team staff put him on, along with weightlifting training. He finished college, helping Mac win the Canadian championship three times, and was drafted into the CFL by the Ottawa RedBlacks. But finally the straw broke, and Earl decided to dress one last time, and headed into the woods halfway between Hamilton and Ottawa to end it all.

Finally they reached the camp, and both went immediately to the spring stream. “Ladies first,” Grey said and Sunflower refilled the canteen, then drained it.

“That is wonderful stuff,” she said as Grey drank, and then filled the canteen for dinner. “Why do you refer to me as a lady? I know I don’t look like one.”

“You are two-spirited,” Grey said. “That is rare, but understood by our people. I refer to you as a woman because that is what your soul is. I will continue to treat you as a woman as long as you stay here. You are what? Eight years older than me, so it won’t be a romantic relationship. But you can consider yourself my new big sister.”

“Really big sister,” Sunflower said. “I think I will like it here. I can be me, and nobody will be staring at the giant man/woman.”

Grey took some venison jerky and put it into the water. He decided to add rice to the mixture, and a half hour later the meal was cooked. He took the pot off the fire, and dished out a third onto each of the two plates in his camp kit. He ate one third and was only halfway through when Sunflower finished her plate. He took the plate from her big hands, and dished out the rest of the pot for her. She quickly finished that.

“Shit,” she said. “This body is just too damn big. I want to lose weight, but I can’t seem to have the willpower. So I just pig out.”

“You weren’t pigging out,” Grey said. “I made a triple batch of what I normally make. I figured since you are twice my size I needed twice as much for you.”

“But I want to lose weight,” Sunflower whined.

«I can help with that,» Mimiha said to both of them. «But you need to lose slowly and carefully. Not feeding your body enough can result in you getting sick, and there are no doctors making house calls out here. Starting tomorrow I will tell you when and how much to eat. You will get a lot of exercise out here too. I can see you easily losing 100 pounds over the next year.»

“That would be wonderful. If I could get under 200, that would even be better.”

“Yes, but when we get fresh meat we pig out,” Grey said. “The diet comes off so we can use as much of the animals as we can. I hate wasting good food.”

They took the cooking gear to the spring stream and cleaned the dishes. Breakfast tomorrow would only be a strip of jerky each. Then they headed back into the lodge, which was toasty warm from the cook fire. Normally Grey would let the fire run down before popping into his sleeping bag. Tonight he put another log on the fire, and went into his tent and pulled out the sleeping bag. He also had one bearskin and three deer pelts that he hoped would keep Sunflower warm through the night. This was mid-November. He wasn’t sure what would happen in February when it truly got cold.

But this night they sat around the campfire for several hours, chatting.

“This is nice,” Grey said. “I wasn’t lonely before: not with those three chattering through my head. But it is nice to have a real person to talk to. It makes me think of something you said earlier. About my family.”

“You miss them?” Sunflower guessed.

“Not really,” Grey said. “I’ve been going to residential schools since Grade Four. My family are just people I visit two or three times a year. I do love them, especially my Mom, but it isn’t like I’ve been close to them. I guess it is the way for a Lord’s son. Especially a ‘who cares’. But I wonder what my parents think. Do they think I am dead? I should send them a letter.”

“That would be good,” Sunflower said. “Last year they really put a lot of effort into finding you. I think they were mostly looking in the Niagara region though.”

“That’s good,” Grey said. “I’m glad they didn’t realize I was coming to the bush land. But sending a letter would be dangerous. I’m still underage. I’m 16, no 17 now. What is the age of majority in Canada?”

“Nineteen for drinking, but I think you can vote at 18,” Sunflower said.

“I think I will wait till I am 19 before I let them know where I am,” Grey said. “I don’t want them coming back and taking me back to England. But I’d like to let Mom know I am okay. I wonder if I wrote a letter and had Frank Stover mail it from Toronto when he is there. I certainly don’t want an Actinolite post mark on it. Frank runs the store in Actinolite where I sell the canoes and snowshoes I make.”

“You make canoes? And snowshoes?”

“I do. We will need to make a bigger pair of snowshoes for you, or you will be snow bound all winter. I’ll take the canoe down to the store to sell in spring, and we should be able to have several pairs of snowshoes at that time. Perhaps even a second canoe. But I want to take these two smaller pairs down to the store soon. There could be a big storm anytime now, and while I had enough food for winter for one. But with two of us now …”

“Three, really. You should count me double.”

“Two,” Grey said politely. “But I think I will head down there tomorrow. Wanna come?”

“Me? No!” Sunflower recoiled at the idea. “I don’t want anyone to see me.”

“Oh?” Grey said. “I think I will head further on then, down to Tweed. There are a few things I want that the store might not have.”

As the fire died down they both bundled into their sleeping gear, and soon fell deep asleep.

----- ------ -----

When Sunflower awoke and came out of the tent, she found Grey sitting at the edge of the stream with a pot of warmed water on his lap. “Whatcha doing,” she asked.

He turned, and she could see a mass of white on his face.

“Shaving,” he said as he took his knife and slid it down his cheek, taking a lot of the white stuff off. “I’m lucky. I only need to shave once a week, even at my age. Flint says it is my Ojibwe heritage. Braves of our tribe seldom need to shave. I put another pot into the coals to warm up in case you wanted a go.”

Sunflower ran her hand across her cheek and was disgusted to find that she was at the three-day stage of beard growth. She needed to shave daily, with a second shave if she wanted to get rid of the five o’clock shadow.

“You lucky bugger. Short and no beard. Wanna trade bodies?” Sunflower said jokingly. “Where did you get the shaving cream?”

“Actually it is bear fat,” Grey said.

“Yuck.”

“Well maybe, but Mimiha says that native women would put it on their face to keep their skin smooth, so I don’t think it will hurt you to shave with it.”

After Grey finished, and washed the remaining fat away he honed his big knife again. The skill in shaving with a knife is to make sure it is super sharp. The girl spent nearly a half hour shaving while Grey packed up for his trip south. When she finished, Grey checked her over and found a few little spots she had missed. She had also nicked herself twice, and Grey got out one of the salves Red Oak had made for him and quickly stemmed the bleeding once she had washed the fat off her face.

---- ----- -----

Grey came out of the forest near the store, and looked around. He could barely see the big house on the other side of the river. A few steps further and a copse of trees would block it from view. He stared at it for a moment, and then headed to the store.

“Grey,” Frank said when he walked into the store. “With more stock, I hope.”

“Yes, two more pairs. I’d make more, but it is limited by how many deer I take. I use the intestines for the webbing. But I would like cash for this pair. I’m going on down to Tweed today to get some things from the specialty stores. I know you could order what I want, but I need these things right now.”

“No problem,” Frank said. “Three hundred eh? I’ve got that much in the back. You have certainly earned it. I’ve sold everything you made so far, and have a couple people looking for canoes, just based on pictures of the first one.”

“I have made a birch bark canoe,” Grey said. “I will make at least one more cedar strip this winter, perhaps two.” He went through the store and picked up more supplies, putting them into a small pile to be picked up later. He bought two canvas bags for them, since he expected to fill his backpack in Tweed.

“Can you tell me anything about the big house on the other side of the river?” he asked Frank.

“Ridge House?” Frank responded. “Not much to say. It’s a massive old place, built in the 20s, so nearly a hundred years old. At one time there were seven families in the place, but now only Daisy Ridgemark lives there. She’s the last of the family. They ran a pretty big lumber operation here until the early 90s, when her brother died. Since then she had lived in the house alone.”

“She still owns a passel of land,” a bearded man drinking a coffee added. “My name is Dan Smith. Her land runs from the river for a mile up the road. And it runs five miles back, all on this side of the river.”

“Grey Wolf,” Grey shook the man’s hand. “Good to meet you.” He realized that the woman must own the land on the other side of the river from his camp.

“Look,” Dan said. “I’m headed down to Tweed right now. Two minutes in my truck will save you a half hour walk. Interested?”

Frank came back with the cash, and Grey decided to take up the man’s offer. In a big city one might worry about getting into a car with an unknown person, but in the small town hospitality of eastern Ontario this offer not seem sinister. And Frank seemed to know the man, and didn’t warn his new supplier from taking the offer.

As a result Grey was getting out of Dan’s truck in downtown Tweed minutes later. After thanking the man Grey looked around. Tweed is a small town of under 2000 residents. Main Street was two blocks long, with older stores lining both sides. No Walmart, but a large grocery store at one end of the town seemed to be the limit of commercial activities. Grey walked down the street, and found what he thought he wanted. A shop with a hand-painted sign reading ‘Sew Sew Crafts’ looked inviting. He went in and immediately knew he was in the right place.

The back of the store carried bolts of material on shelves. Grey bought 20 yards of heavy blue denim, and eight yards of a nice flowery print that he thought Sunflower would like. Then he bought another eight yards of a nice white material which had a lacy pattern pressed into the fabric. The clerk also helped him get a complete sewing kit. Good scissors, a collection of buttons, clasps and other closures, 16 different colors of thread and a set of needles. The needles in the kit were not large enough for use on deerskin, so Grey also got some specialty needles and thicker thread in white, black and red. He also bought a collection of zippers, including some two feet long.

He continued through the store, and bought two large balls of a pink wool. Then, near the counter he saw kits of colorful beads. He bought all three of the smallest size, which included 12 different colors.

With his goods stuffed into his knapsack, he left the store. There was a woman’s wear store next door, and he went in.

The clerk looked at him quizzically, and Grey said: “I am looking for a dress for a friend. She is rather big …”

“Oh we have several dresses that would fit you,” the clerk said with a smile as she walked to a back corner of the shop.

“No, this would not be for me,” he said. “She is much bigger than me. At least a foot or so larger around the bust.”

The clerk just stared for a second, then said: “The largest we have is triple XL. But that is only an inch or two bigger than your chest. Sorry.”

“No problem,” Grey said as he left. He saw a men’s clothing store across the street and headed to it.

“I need a pair of coveralls for a friend,” Grey said. “Sh … he is about 6’5” and about 300 pounds. Do you have anything of the type?”

“We do sir,” the clerk said. “We have a lot of larger farmers around here. Probably not that tall, but we can definitely find something to fit him. Can he come in for a fitting?”

“No, that won’t be possible,” Grey said. “Maybe you could show me what you have, and I could pick what I think will fit him.”

“Not a problem. And if they don’t fit, bring them back in clean, resalable condition and we can do an exchange. I can even special order something in.”

Grey purchased the coveralls, and then headed back out into the street. He saw a library at the corner and headed in. As he hoped, there were two computer terminals for visitors to use. The librarian helped him get set up on one of them, and then left.

Grey first went to Wikipedia and looked up the page on his father. He found that there was a section on the ‘missing son’ and pored through it. He then went into newspaper archives and read the stories about the search that appeared in both the Toronto and London England newspapers.

Finally, he went to G-Mail and opened the account he had created when he was in the Harrow computer classes. He wrote out a message to his mum, saying that he had spent the last year in Ottawa and was now travelling to Toronto, stopping at a little town along the way to send a message. He said he was well without giving too many details on how he was living, and promised to come visit her after he turned 19, in nearly two years. He said he was unable to respond to any return email for quite some time. Finally, he hit send, hoping that he hadn’t just given himself away.

Grey’s sack was nearly full, but he did stop in at the local bakery to buy a loaf of bread. He hadn’t eaten wheat bread for over a year, and craved it. He then went to a little fruit store and bought apples, carrots, onions, and broccoli. There were still many potatoes from the garden he had planted last year, so he could treat Sun to a feast tonight.

By chance, as he was walking down the road a familiar pickup truck pulled over in front of him. It was Dan, and he offered to drive Grey back to the store on the highway. Grey tried to pay Dan $5 ‘for gas’ but the man refused to accept it, even though he was not planning to go to the store again. Dan had again saved Grey of a walk of over five miles.

The result was that Grey returned to the campsite just after lunch, instead of at dusk. As he approached, he could hear Sunflower talking in the distance. Who was she talking to, Grey wondered?

She heard him eventually, and came back to the camp. “Grey?” she called out.

“Yes, it is me. Who are you talking to?”

“Oh, Mimiha has been teaching me to talk more like a woman,” she said, and then she changed her voice. “Is it working?”

Grey could detect a slight difference. “Oh yes, I can tell the difference.” It still sounded like a man, but not so deep as it had been.

Mimiha just gave me crap for going back to the old voice when I first called out,” Sunflower said. “She’s been making me practice all morning, and Red Oak has had me out searching for various herbs and plants. He says he only needs one more, but won’t say what it is for.”

“Well, we can go searching after lunch. Have you eaten? I have the makings for a feast tonight.”

“I just had a strip of jerky,” Sun said. “It isn’t much, but it does take the hunger off.”

“That’s what I had too, on the way back from the store. I got a few rides, so that saved me some hours of walking.”

“So what did you get?” Sun said excitedly.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

I suspect the last section of this will lead to some discussion and supposition in the story: Dawn.

Chapter 4 – Christmas Gifts

“So what did you get?” Sun said excitedly.

“We should look for the missing ingredient for Red Oak first,” Grey said. “He even had me looking as I was approaching the camp. A bit of a pain with a backpack on, and two bags from the store.

«It is fairly easy to find earlier in the year,» Red Oak said. «But now that the above-ground parts are all wilted, you have to dig down and find the bulb. If a cut in it makes your eyes water, then you have the right plant.»

Something clicked for Grey. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the bag of vegetables from the store in Tweed. “Is it something like this?” He held up an onion.

«Yes, that is it. I’ve never seen one so big though.»

“It is called an onion. It won’t be a local wild one though. Will it still work?”

«If it makes her cry as she cuts it, then it will work.»

“Oh I’m pretty sure that it will work, then,” Grey said. “How much does she need?”

«A quarter of that one. And can you save another quarter? She may need to make a second batch of the mixture in a week to 10 days.»

“A cut onion will not keep that long,” Grey said. “But I bought two, so we will just save the other one. Uncut it should not spoil.”

For the next hour Grey made his stew in one pot, and Sun worked on making the mixture under the guidance of Red Oak. He looked over, and saw that she was crying pretty profusely, catching all the tears in the pot she was mixing.

«The tears are important,» Red Oak explained. «They hold the mixture of the other ingredients together. It looks a little dry, but I think we should do a test.»

“What is it supposed to do?” Grey asked.

«It is an old potion for old squaws that grow hair on their face. It will kill hairs inside the pores of the skin. I hope it will remove Sunflower’s beard.»

Sun squealed in delight: “I want to try it.”

«First spread a little on your arm. It will sting. If it is unbearable wash it off with water.»

Sun spread a small portion of the mixture on her lower arm, spreading it about two inches wide and six inches long. You could see the sting register on her face, growing into actual pain. But she held out for nearly two minutes before finally letting out a howl as she splashed water on it.

“Look, the hair is gone,” she said with both glee and a wince. Grey looked at her arm, and the spot where the paste had been and indeed it was completely hairless.

«No hair will ever grow again in that spot,» Red Oak said.

“I need to do my face,” Sun crowed.

“Not if it hurts that much,” Grey insisted.

“I don’t care. Even if I can only do bits at a time, I will put up with it to get rid of my beard,” Sun insisted.

«We can try to add some more liquid. The mixture should be more of a paste, not gravelly like it is,» Red Oak said. »Tears would be best, but with no more onion that won’t happen. Try a little of the water the vegetables are boiling in.»

Grey dipped a mug into the boiling water and scooped out a bit. He handed it to Sun: for some reason she had to mix the potion herself. Red Oak told her to add a third of the liquid in, and mix it up.

The potion now looked more like a paste or poultice, and Sun mixed it until it was cooler. Then Red Oak had her smear it on all of her face and neck. Grey pointed out a few spots where she had missed, and then helped her get her sideburns even.

She finally was finished, and wiped her gooey hands on her arms to use the last of the paste from them.

“Not so painful as before,” she said through gritted teeth. Grey was just glad it was her and not him going through the pain. She endured though, leaning back and closing her eyes. Eventually Red Oak spoke «That is enough. The material is starting to crumble. It will not do anything more. You can do a second coating if that was not enough.»

While Sun had mixed the water into the mixture, Grey had walked over to the spring and filled water in two of the big aluminum pails from the store. It was into one of these that Sun plunged her face, washing away the mixture. Her face came up completely hairless.

“You are pretty,” Grey said. “I didn’t notice before, when there was always stubble. But you have a much smaller nose than most men, and your chin is kinda pointed. You really do look pretty.”

“Thanks,” Sun said, turning red at the compliment, but still pleased that she looked more feminine now.

«Don’t your arms hurt?» Red Oak asked.

“Oh my, with the pain from my face gone I hardly noticed it,” Sun said, plunging her arms into the water and clearing away the rest of the poultice. When she pulled her arms out, they were nearly hairless from wrist to elbow on the tops. The bottoms of her lower arms had not been treated, but there wasn’t much hair there at all. And her upper arms were also fairly hairless up to the shoulders, where they reverted back into a forest of man-ness.

“There is enough to do my chest,” she said. “And perhaps enough to do my back, if you will help, Grey?”

“Anything I can do,” the young man said. With that Sun undid her dress, and removed the sweatshirt that she had on under it to keep warm. It was Grey’s largest and fit tightly on her torso. Grey was a little surprised to see a male-looking chest, with small nipples. He had been thinking of her as a woman so much that he was expecting a flat-chested woman under there.

Sun reached in and took half the remaining mixture and spread it across her extremely hairy chest and shoulders. She only left it for 10 minutes this time. It was not the pain that got to her, but the cold. She rinsed off, and Grey bundled her up in a bearskin next to the fire to warm up again. He looked at the remaining poultice.

“This won’t make me lose my hair anywhere, will it?” he asked.

«Not unless you get it on your armpits or groin,» Red Oak said. «That is the only place you have hair to lose.»

Well, that revelation embarrassed Grey a bit, but he had Sun doff the bearskin and face away from him. He took up the rest of the poultice and spread it all across her hairy back. When he was done, he asked Sun to raise her arms, and then wiped his hands clean on her armpits. He plunged his hands into the second bucket and rinsed off the trace of poultice that remained.

She lasted 15 minutes again until Red Oak ordered Grey to clear the guck off. He used a rabbit pelt like a rag and splashed water on her until the entire poultice was gone. Her hairy back was now clear and smooth. “It looks beautiful now, Sun,” he told her. He didn’t mention that it didn’t look like a girl’s back. Her muscles and the size of it showed the strength and power she still had.

Surprisingly, she didn’t button up her dress, took off the bottom and but ran naked out of the lodge and into the icy river, singing as she went. Grey was slow to react. He had seen her naked groin, and her penis was at least half again larger than his. He finally shook off the image, and got out the bearskin to put around the naked girl who was still singing as she was bundled into the robes and set down by the fire.

“Your voice even sounds higher,” Grey noted. “Or was that just the cold water?” Coming out of the river her genitals had looked smaller, but still bigger than Grey’s.

“I didn’t even think of which voice I was using,” Sun said breaking into another verse of the song she had been singing. This time her voice was even higher.

“That sounds just like a girl,” Grey said.

“Truly?”

“Really truly.”

«It can be more,» Red Oak said. «You can rinse the buckets, but leave the pot her poultice was in. She can eat from that, and the rest of the medicine will go inside of her.»

“What will that do? Remove hairs inside of her?”

«Oh no,» Red Oak said. «All of the hairs inside are needed by the body. But it will concentrate around her throat. That is where the voice lives. The potion will tighten it and make it higher. The last voice she used will become her normal voice and she will not be able to sound like a man even if she tries.»

“That, oh let’s do that,” Sun sang out. “What a wonderful thing that was. We will have to do more next week with the other onion. My legs still look like fur, not skin.”

Grey put the venison jerky into the vegetable pot and then headed out to carefully wash the pails in the river first, and then the spring stream. He hung them upside down on the posts where they were stored, and then came back into the lodge, finding Sun in her dress again.

“It is going to be a while before the stew is ready, so let’s look at what else I bought,” as he went to his sacks. The items from the store were pretty boring, more rice, beans and salt. But then he went to the knapsack.

“Is that bread?” Sun shrieked. “Oh I so want a slice of bread. It has been so long.”

«One slice a day,» Mimiha said.

Sunflower’s face fell. “Oh well, that is better than none. But won’t the bread go bad at that rate?”

“You are the one on a diet,” Grey teased. “I haven’t had bread for over a year, and I’m going to have two slices with each meal. It should be gone in four days.”

He quelled her disappointment by pulling out the bib-overalls. She looked at them with interest and then noticed the legs. “These are men clothes,” she said in disgust, dropping them.

“No, but look,” Grey pulled out the roll of denim fabric. This is nearly the same color. You could cut the legs apart and sew a big triangle of fabric between each leg, front and back. Voila, cute maxiskirt.”

“But I don’t know how to sew, and I don’t have the sewing equipment,” she said sadly.

“You can learn to sew. I’m sure Mimiha can help guide you, and ‘Tada’,” he pulled out the sewing gear.

«Oooh, beads,» Mimiha said when she saw the kits. «You can decorate your new skirt, with those, and many other things. In the old days you could make wampum with all that.”

“She still could,” Grey said. “The store likes selling First Nations crafts. If you were to make some strips of beadwork, they will pay. And Mimiha can teach you how to make Dreamcatchers too. Frank said he would like to get some of them.”

Next Grey pulled out the other two bolts of fabric. Sun oohed over the pretty print, envisioning it as a new dress that fit her properly, not like the baggy old sun dress she was still wearing. But then Grey handed her the white print, and she gasped.

“It is so pretty. What will I do with it? It isn’t the right thing for the woods.”

“I don’t know,” Grey said. “It just sort of called to me as being perfect for you. Maybe a nightdress.”

“Oh yes, yes, yes,” Sunflower crowed. “It would be perfect for that. It would be too cold until spring, but by then maybe my sewing skills will be good enough to work on something so beautiful.”

Finally Grey pulled two large balls of yarn out of the bag. “What are these for?” Sun said. “Do I need to learn to knit too?”

Grey mumbled a bit, then said: “They are to replace the towels in your … uh … bra.”

Sun’s eyes lit up as she understood. She turned around, and Grey could see that she was doing something under her sweatshirt. She turned back around and he could see the change. They were smaller: apparently yarn compresses more than terry. But the shape was smoother and Sunflower had a huge grin on her face. “Thanks Grey. They are great. Although I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if I did take up knitting.”

Grey chuckled, then laughed, and finally was rolling on the floor to the point Sun was worried about him getting too close to the fire. Finally he stopped.

“What was all that?” she asked.

“I had a mental image that just broke me up,” Grey said, still giggling. “You were knitting, and the yarn was coming out of your boob. As you made the scarf longer, one boob got smaller.”

“If I start to knit, you will get me more yarn and needles and stuff. I wonder if Mimiha could teach me?”

«Knitting is not a traditional art,» the spirit said. «But I could go into the mind of one of the townspeople who know how, and learn. Then I could teach you.»

“You can do that?” Grey asked. “Go into people’s minds and tap their knowledge.”

«In most cases, yes. The person would never know I was there. I would go in when they are sleeping, and they would dream that they are teaching the art to a young girl. Over several nights the dream would have the girl progress from a beginner to an expert, and this would let me master the art. Then I could teach it to Sunflower.»

“That is cool,” Grey said.

---- ----- ----

The pair spent the next few weeks working around the camp. They got started on a cedar strip canoe and Grey learned that Sun was proficient with tools: perhaps more than he was. She helped get the rusty old tools from the farmer into working order, and those made canoe-building faster than ever before.

“My dad was a trucker,” she explained as they worked together. “I lived with Grandma, but when Dad was between runs we spent a lot of time in his garage. He liked doing mechanical stuff, like making old cars run again. He also was into woodworking, and made fine furniture. He was planning to retire from trucking and do woodworking full time, with mechanics as a hobby. Then he was in the crash …” Sun choked up, and Grey stepped over and put his arms around the big body.

“Thanks,” Sun said, pulling back from the hug. “Grandma died that fall, just five weeks after my 18th birthday. I was alone, and that made me really get into football at Mac. The team was the only family I had, so I did things like the weights and the diet that I probably shouldn’t have.”

They worked silently for a while, and then Grey spoke: “I don’t think I ever told you but I sent an email to my Mum when I was in Tweed. I looked through the Internet and it seems that everyone is okay over there, but I think Mum will be glad to know I am okay. I’m going to let them know more when I turn 19, I think. Maybe even invite them over to see things here. I explained that I am here to replace the baby that my ancestor stole. I hope she understands.”

“You should go to Tweed again,” Sun said. “Maybe your Mum has answered your email. I have no family. I don’t want you to lose yours.”

“I guess I don’t have to go to Tweed,” Grey said. It is Gmail, so any computer will access it. Frank at the store might let me use his computer. But I can’t reply again from here. I said I was going to Toronto, and if they have any detectives on the case, two emails sourced from this area will immediately get them looking around here.”

----- ----- ------

Two days before Christmas the first big storm of the year dumped nearly a foot of snow on the camp. Sun was pretty much confined to the cabin, although she did have to trudge through the snow to the outhouse. But going anywhere else was just not worth the effort. In some places there were drifts five feet high.

Grey did the outdoor work on his snowshoes, bringing in water and wood. In the lodge they worked at opposite ends of the building, making Christmas presents for each other. Grey knew he was getting something sewn, and Sun knew that she was getting something of wood, but neither knew what it was.

On Christmas morning they woke to find another few inches of snow had fallen. Both went to the outhouse, and then came back to the roaring fire that Grey had made, as large as was safe inside a wooden structure. There would be no scrimping on firewood on Christmas Day.

“It doesn’t look like Santa left anything for you,” Grey said when she returned to the cozy lodge.

“He never has. I have prayed for a vagina for about 20 years, and never got one.”

“Well, I can’t give you that, but I hope you will like this.” He handed her a pair of oversized snowshoes that would support her weight on the snow.

“Oh, they are so pretty,” Sun said, looking at the intricate carving that Grey had added to the toe and heel sections of the frame. His carving ability had greatly improved over the past year, and he was proud of the lacy patterns he had added to the shoes. The heels had about 14 inches of lacy carving, and he traced out the work ‘Sunflower’ on each side in the lace. Sun squealed with delight when he showed it to her.

“This is your present,” she said, handing him a deerskin wrapped around something. Grey peeled back the skin and found a pair of deerskin mukluks. “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” he said. “We may need that skin to keep you warm this winter.”

“Well those sneakers you have been wearing are pretty much shot,” Sun said. “And Mimiha says these will keep you warm and dry in winter. There is enough left of the pelt for me to make a pair for myself, and perhaps a pair of makizins.”

Grey pulled on the boots, noticing that there was a beadwork design at the top. “These fit perfectly,” he said, leaning over to give his ‘big sister’ a heartfelt hug, which she returned. The boots went nearly to his knees, and he would no longer have to place wet socks near the fire to dry.

«And I have a gift for Sunflower too,» Mimiha said. «You have been here for just over six weeks, and I want to tell you that you have lost 15 pounds of weight, according to the scales your people use.»

“Thank you Mimiha,” she said. “That is wonderful, and makes me glad that you have been making me stop from eating as much as I want.”

“But not tonight,” Grey said. “I am using the last of the potatoes from our garden in our Christmas feast, and we will both eat as much as we want.”

------- ------ ----

Four days later Sun had finished her own mukluks, and was using her snowshoes to putter about the camp. It was a sunny spell, and Grey was up near the spring stream getting water while she was down exploring on the other side of the camp.

«I must talk with you, Grey Wolf,» Red Oak said.

“What is it,” Grey said.

«We have all the ingredients but one for a treatment for Sunflower. It will make her more feminine. It can’t make her shorter, or her chest smaller, but it will give her female breasts. The weight on her stomach will move to her hips and rear. If she continues to lose weight, she could get a female figure … although still large.»

“What is the missing ingredient?”

«We need quite a lot of urine from a pregnant moose. Probably one of your pails full will last for the entire year. The moose only breed in the fall, and in February and March a cow will be to the point where the urine is ready, right up until she drops her foal.»

“My god. How do I get urine from a moose? I haven’t hunted one yet, but I’ve seen them. They are huge.”

«That will be for Flint and you to work out. You only need to do this if you really want to.»

“I do, more than anything,” Grey said. “Sun deserves it. But … oh my God … how will I do it?”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

I am not going to be able to keep this chapter a day pace going, but enjoy it while it lasts: Dawn.

Chapter 5 – Mooz

The cow moose lay at rest a few miles from the camp. It had mated with a bull in September, at the start of the mating season. It was now early March, and she was almost six months into an eight-month pregnancy. The bull had left her to mate with as many others as possible. Daddy moose does not do anything to help Momma during her time with a developing baby.

In the last two months of pregnancy, a cow is especially vulnerable. She is less mobile than normally, and spends a lot of time lying on the cold ground. She has to get up to eat and drink. Drink is especially a problem. The river is frozen over and even her weight and big hooves can not break through two-inch (or thicker) ice. In the past she had come near a little spring for her pregnancies, but this year there was a man-smell at the spring, so she had stopped a mile further away. When there was snow she would eat that for water, but eventually she had to go to the spring at time and slowly got used to the man-smell. No man ever came near when she came to drink in early morning or late night. She would browse on the trees as she came and went.

Today as she lay basking in the noon-day sun she heard singing. It went on for hours, and she closed her eyes for a nap. Suddenly, her senses alerted her to danger and her eyes popped open. The singing was close, and the man making the noise was close. When he saw she was awake, and struggling to get up, he tossed something near her, and started to back away, still facing her, and still singing. She got to her feet, but didn’t dart away. He kept going further and further back. She saw that he didn’t carry air-sticks. And if he had a knife, he could have used it when he was close and she was defenseless on the ground.

When he was a long distance away, but still watching her, she relaxed a bit. She looked down at what he had thrown. It was a bundle of cedar branches, from higher up in a tree, beyond her normal reach. There were fresh spring buds forming on the branches, especially tasty at this time of year. She nibbled a few, keeping her eye on the man, and then gorged herself, only looking up occasionally to watch the man. Halfway through her meal she saw the man was gone.

Then, when she finished eating, she saw that the man was back, carrying a shiny thing on a handle. It looked heavy. He approached slowly, always singing. She was standing this time, and could back away if needed. But she was curious. What was the silver thing? It smelled like water: the good kind from the spring, not river water.

When the man was five feet away, she stepped back two feet. The man did not follow, but instead set the shiny thing down, and then backed away. When he was 30 feet away, the cow stepped up to the shiny thing. It held water, and she realized she was thirsty. Her whole snout fit into the shiny thing, and she was able to drink deeply. She lifted her head and found that the shiny thing tipped over, and the remaining half of the water spilled out. She had enough water, although she wished there was some more. It was a good end to her feast of cedar buds.

The man walked up, focusing his attention on the shiny thing and not her. That calmed her, and she stood less than three feet away until he reached down and took the shiny thing away. He walked away backwards again, and then turned and headed off to where he had set up a small tent.

The cow nestled down again while the man was gone out of sight. When he came back, he was carrying the shiny thing again. But he set it down near his tent. The cow was a little upset. She didn’t want to go all the way over there, near all the man things, to get some more water.

But then the man had bent down and picked up another bundle of cedar. He carried it over to her. She didn’t try to get up this time, and he placed the bundle in front of her, where she could nibble on it without rising. He went back again, still singing to her. She decided she liked the singing, and trusted the man: a little.

She ate for another hour, cleaning off all the best buds and sprouts from the cedar branches. The rest was not as tasty, but would make a meal if necessary. Then she saw the man approaching again, carrying the shiny thing. This time she let him bring it close, and allowed him to hold it as she drank from it while still lying down. It didn’t tip this time, so she was able to drink the entire bucket of water. When she was done, the man backed away and she napped for a while.

It was dusk when she woke. She was surprised that she had slept so long, but realized that the man had been singing the whole time. The sound was faint when she fell asleep, as the man had gone for more water. But as she slept the singing told her there was no danger nearby.

When she woke, he brought another bunch of cedar, and she browsed slowly on it. When she felt full, for the first time in months, she snorted out a short blast, and the man picked up the shiny thing and brought it to her so she could drink again, this time only taking three-quarters of the pail. The man then backed off.

Normally at this time she would go to the spring for water, but there was no need tonight. She did scramble up to her feet, and walked a few dozen yards from her nest, and peed. Then she went a bit further and defecated. She normally did this while walking to the spring, but there seemed no need. She went back to her nest, lying down close to her cedar. It would make a good breakfast.

She didn’t hear singing during the night, but when the eastern horizon started to lighten, she heard it again as she saw the man coming out of a copse, fiddling with the strings at his crotch. She nibbled at the remainder of the cedar, and then she bleated again so he would bring her water. He had a small fire going, and he quickly went back to it. She could smell man-food sizzling as the man burned some deer meet. She was happy he ate deer, and not moose. After he finished eating, he brought another bundle of cedar, and then walked away from his tent carrying the empty shiny thing. He returned, and she could see it was full. She knew that he would bring her the water when she called for it.

---- ----- ------

Grey had been on his mission for three days now. Flint had been hopeless in coming up with a way to harvest the urine. Everything he suggested ended up with the moose dead and it’s meat being taken to feed the tribe. Except that the tribe was only two people, and one of them dearly needed moose urine, not moose steak.

It was Mimiha who came up with the idea of making friends with the Mooz, as the people called it. She suggested he sing to her, and bring her food and water. Red Oak and Flint scoffed at the idea, but when Grey made big progress on the first day, Red Oak relented. Flint never did.

By now Grey was able to go right up to the moose. She especially liked it when he scratched her haunches. Last night she had allowed him to walk with her to her urination spot, and allowed him to stand nearby as she peed. He had named her Daria, after a cartoon he once watched. Her big eyes reminded him of Daria’s glasses.

This morning he was doing the same thing, except he was carrying a deerskin bag that he had sewn last month. Sun had been bemused by the shape of it: about a foot long with a four-inch circular base. The top was about 10 inches in diameter. Grey finally told her it was for catching chipmunks. She left it at that, although she did wonder what they were going to do with the tiny animals if he caught any.

Now Grey carried the water-proof bag along, and when Daria started to tinkle, he reached it down and tried to catch the fluid. Daria was skittish about this new thing, and more of the liquid hit his hand than went into the bag. But when she was finished he took the bag back to camp and poured it into one of the 12 one-quart sealing jars that he had brought from the store last month. It was barely an inch of liquid. Then he ran to the river and used his axe to chop through the ice. He then plunged his wet hand, the axe handle, and the bag into the water to clean them.

Just then Daria bellowed. She wanted breakfast. He took her another bunch of cedar, noting that the pile was getting low. After giving Daria her water, he brought up the last of the cedar, and then headed out into the bush to cut more down. He chopped three trees down, and dragged the first back to camp, where he barely started trimming the branches off when Daria bugled for her water. Then, when he got back, he cleaned the tree, which would be useful for making snowshoes. The branches from them seemed to be enough for a day’s feed for the moose. One tree a day, he reckoned.

Through the day he dragged the other trees back to camp, stripped them down, and ran back and forth with food and water for Daria. Finally, at the end of the day he hustled to catch up with her as she moved to her pee-place. He managed to get the bag into place just before she started. This time she wasn’t fidgety, and he got most of the urine into the bag. At least none landed on his hands this time.

Back in the tent he poured the liquid into the jar containing the pee from the morning, and found that the jar was now half full. He washed the bag out, and then settled Daria down for the night.

----- ------- ------

«Danger, danger. Wolves attacking.» Flint shouted, waking Grey from his sleep several nights later. He grabbed his bow and arrows, and two knives, and rushed out. Daria was awake, and trying to get to her feet as three wolves closed in around her. Grey shot four arrows over the next 50 seconds, and at the end of it all three wolves lay dead or dying around Daria, who was in a panic.

Grey went to her, and for a second she was skittish, but then allowed him to comfort her. Slowly her heartbeat lessened, as she realized she had an ally against the wolves, and she and her calf might survive.

«There, on the rise,» Flint said. «That is the Alpha male. He is just within your range. No, not that one, she is the Alpha female. Yes, that one.» Flint could see which wolf Grey was looking at, and they adjusted accordingly.

«No, aim higher. Higher. Hig … That’s perfect. There is a slight wind, so aim a foot and a half to the left. Now shoot!»

The arrow, to Grey’s surprise, curved on an arc that led it right to the wolf, striking it in the chest. It toppled, and fell. For several minutes nothing happened until one of the other larger wolves leapt at the carcass and started to tear. The wolves were hungry at the end of winter, and if moose meat were not available they would eat their own kind.

«Good shot,» Flint told him. «Without an Alpha male they will spend at least a few hours working out a new Alpha. They will be back though. They need food. You must gather up the carcasses. Wolf meat will make you some good meals. It is cold enough to freeze in your tent if you keep it away from the fire. And you need to recover your arrows. Not the one on the rise. Consider it lost.»

Grey pulled the three carcasses back to the tent, and started to skin them. Three wolf hides should help keep Sun warm through the next winter, unless she found other uses for them. She had begun getting proficient with her sewing. Grey was wearing deerskin trousers and a shirt that kept him warm when he was moving about, and a bear cape to wear at the fire to keep his back warm. Sun had killed the bear: a larger one than Grey had gotten earlier.

When the skinning was done, Grey took a bucket of water to Daria. She was skittish at first: he smelled of wolf. But her eyes told her that he was alone. She could hear the wolves off in the distance ‘electing’ a new Alpha male.

«Sunflower is coming,» Mimiha said. «I told her you needed help, and to bring her bow and arrows.»

That was good, Grey thought as he planned for the next attack. He only had 11 arrows left, three already blooded. But there seemed to be over 20 wolves in the pack. If they all came at once, they would get Daria, and probably him too.

Sun trotted into the camp and called for Grey. Daria jumped at the sound, fearing another attack.

Grey answered softly: “I am over here. Put down your arrows and any knives. Then walk very carefully, and stop if I tell you.”

“He’s beautiful,” Sun said as she started walking towards them.

“He is a she. A very pregnant she,” Grey clarified.

“Oh, I thought he, I mean she, just had a pot belly. That makes way more sense.”

It took nearly 20 minutes for Sun to approach the moose, with Grey calling for her to stop whenever Daria got too jittery. Eventually the moose realized that Grey had some control over the newcomer, and that she too was a friend. And a bigger one at that.

“Scratch her hindquarters,” Grey told Sun. Daria relaxed completely at that.

With Daria watered they went to get their bows. Daria no longer was afraid of the ‘air sticks’ since they had saved her from the wolves. And now it was completely quiet out on the plain. The moose faced into the danger, more confident now that she was standing, although she knew that she couldn’t kick as well due to her calf.

Sun stood on the right of the moose, with a quiver holding 24 arrows. She had also brought another dozen of Grey’s so they were both well equipped.

As Grey feared, most of the pack attacked at once. Sun fired at the ones to the right, and he shot the ones to the left. One wolf got to within 10 feet of Sun before Grey shot him, but the others were killed further out. Sun actually shot one fleeing wolf 200 yards away as the last five wolves ran for their new Alpha pair.

The second longest wolf lay only 60 yards out and Sun went out to claim the pelt while Grey covered her. “One of mine,” she crowed as she held up the arrow. “That’s two for me, counting him.” She pointed at the distant kill, which now had the remaining six wolves approaching it for a final meal.

In the end it was no contest. Sun had shot 12 wolves and Grey got seven. “But you got the most important one,” Sun told him. She pointed at the nearest wolf, which had been preparing to jump at the girl.

They gathered in the 18 carcasses, dragging them in a large arc to keep them away from Daria. Sun put Grey to shame by often dragging two. He tried to match her, but couldn’t. The wolves were just too heavy. For him.

This time they took turns at skinning and gutting the animals. The one not with the wolf skins would be with Daria, placating and calming her. She had seen the wolves trotting off to the northeast, away from them, and eventually calmed down enough to lay down again,

«You can tell Sunflower,» Red Oak said. «About why you are out here. There is enough urine now to make a first batch of the potion. I’ll have her start it back at camp after she finishes moving all these pelts back.»

“Not a chance,” Grey said. “If I know Sun she will scream and dance about, and Daria is just too fragile for all that right now. You tell her when she is in camp.”

An hour later Sun headed back to camp carrying 8 wolf pelts, which was a heavy load even for her. A few minutes after she left Grey heard a gleeful distant shout and knew that Sun knew what was in the picture for her.

She was back at the tent twenty minutes later, towing a small sled. She ran up to Grey and lifted him from the ground in a mighty hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she crowed. “You are the best brother ever, to do this for me. Red Oak told me that there is enough for two months of potion now, and that you should be able to get another 10 jars before Daria gives birth. He says that by this time next year I will have my own boobies, and will start looking like a woman. A big woman, but like a woman. So where is it? I want to start mixing the potion today.”

She piled the rest of the pelts on the sled, which she had made while Grey was with Daria. It was narrow enough to go through the bush trails, yet allowed her to pull much more than she could otherwise. She took one of the full sealing jars, and with it nestled in her arms, and the deer hide harness around her chest, she slowly pulled the loaded sled back to the camp.

She had told Grey that Red Oak said it would take three days to brew the potion, and Grey told her that he wanted her to come back to let him see her take the first drink. Actually, he wanted to be near in case something went wrong.

------ -- -- ----

It was actually four days later when Sun arrived again, holding the sealer jar, which was only a quarter full of a darkish paste. Grey was between runs on feeding and watering Daria, and had two fresh cedars to trim down, but went right to her.

“Is that it?” he said, looking at the gooey substance within.

“Yes, It smells horrid, and Red Oak says it will taste as bad. “Do you have drinking water here? I can wash it down right away.”

“I have my canteen,” Grey said.

“You will have to make me one of those,” Sun said. “I have tried three times, and they always leak.”

“Yeah, it took me about that many tries to get it right,” Grey said. “I’ll show you the trick when we get back settled. So, are you ready to try?”

“I was ready when it was still bubbling in the pot,” she said. “If it wasn’t my promise to you, I would already have done it. Red Oak says to take as much as will fit on my finger, but I think I should use my pinky finger, because my hands are so big. This has to last for a month if I am able to get through the year.”

She tried to stick her hand into the jar, and found she couldn’t fit it in.

“Should I get a finger full for you?”

«Not unless you are hoping to get boobies too,» Red Oak warned. «But if she uses a clean stick it will work.»

Grey went to his cedar pile, and shaved off an eight-inch long stick, then cleaned the bark from the end. Meanwhile Sunflower was dancing from foot to foot like someone needing to go to the bathroom. She grabbed the stick from him and got a dollop on the end, and then plunged it into her mouth.

She could have swallowed poop and her face would not have looked worse. She grabbed the canteen out of Grey’s hand, and took a long swig. She grimaced again, and then took another long drink.

“That is the most horrid stuff I’ve ever put in my mouth, and I used to eat in the Mac cafeteria,” she finally said. “But I don’t care. I will take a dose every day for the rest of my life if it does what it is supposed to.”

“Red Oak,” Grey said. “Isn’t there something we can do to make it less horrid tasting?”

“But not less effective,” Sun added in.

«The only thing I know of is a tree we call the sweetwater tree. In the spring you can get the sweetwater out of it, and if you boil it for two days, it gets to be a syrup. Some of that added to the potion is easier to swallow, but it still tastes bad.»

“Sugar maple trees,” Grey guessed. “If we find some, we could tap them.”

«There are 50 sweetwater trees just on the other side of the river,» Flint informed them.

“Great. I can order some spouts and buckets through the store, and they will get here in three weeks,” Grey said excitedly. Then his enthusiasm died. “And that will be too late for the season, or most of it. I guess I can buy some syrup in bottles from the store. They have a big display. Frank says that all the tourists want it.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sun said. “I’m willing to drink it without.”

“For a couple days, I guess,” Grey said. “If you are willing to look after Daria for me for a few days I will snowshoe down to the store and buy some.”

For the next two days the pair stayed with the moose cow as Sun learned the routine and Daria got familiar with her. Each day at noon Sun took another dose of the potion, and every time it was as bad as the last.

On the third day Grey was up as the eastern skies were lightening, and he headed down the riverbank towards the store. He arrived just before noon, and only chatted for a minute with Frank.

“I need Maple Syrup,” Grey said, taking five of the smallish bottles from the display. The sign read “Real Maple Syrup. $19.95.”

“Those will only be $10 each to you,” Frank said as he wrapped up the package. “I mark them up high because tourists will pay anything for them. My cost is only $4 a bottle by the case.”

Grey hurried away, saying that they had one birch bark canoe, and one cedar strip coming down once the ice was off the river. He sped back to the tent as fast as he could, which is not that fast on snowshoes.

He found that Daria had bonded well with Sun, but the cow moose let out a bellow of delight when she saw her man-friend approaching. Grey went to the animal immediately, after hugging Sun, and scratched her haunches. He could almost swear he could hear her purr.

The next day Sun took her potion, and used a knife to scrape it onto a spoon half full of syrup. She swallowed it, and then her water. “That is still yuck, but it is only a quarter as bad as the old yuck. Thanks for getting me the syrup, Grey.”

“You are worth it, big sister,” Grey said. “So it’s been a week. Any effects?”

“I feel a tingling in my boobies,” Sun said. “Red Oak says that is mostly just in my brain. He says it will be nearly a month before I can feel anything up there, and two months after that before you can see anything. It will still be yarn until then.”

------- - -------

The pair spent most of their time at the tent for the rest of the month and into April. The rains were starting to wash away the snow, and they kept busy tending to Daria, and working on snowshoes when it was dry enough.

Before the ice on the river went out, Flint led Grey across the river to see the ‘sweetwater trees’. Grey recognized them as maples. But the odd thing was that they were planted in five neat rows of 10 trees each, spaced evenly apart. Many maple saplings grew in between but it was as if the mature trees had been planted.

Then they looked around, and found five other groves planted in rows. Closest to the river were beautiful mature Black Walnut trees, then 50 White Oak, 50 elm, and after the Maples 50 Chestnut and finally 50 Red Oak. In the surrounding forest it was the same as the other side of the river, a random mixture of cedar, birch, pine and spruce.

Grey headed back to camp. The trees were definitely farmed. He couldn’t tap the maples without permission. Perhaps the house near the road?

When they got back to camp Sun was in a tizzy. They had filled the last sealer jar a week earlier, but were keeping an eye on Daria until she gave birth. And now apparently Red Oak was sure the time was near. He couldn’t promise, just saying that the little girl moose inside would decide herself when she would meet the world.

Neither Grey or Sun got much sleep that night. And just as the eastern skies lightened, Daria bugled a call. First the head came out, and a minute later the tiny body followed. Daria immediately started licking the calf, stopping occasional to proudly look at Grey and Sun as if to say ‘look what I made.’

The two didn’t leave until the little thing got to her wobbly feet. She almost immediately found a teat, and didn’t leave it for some time. Grey went and got a bucket of water for Daria.

“Sorry old girl,” he said as she drank. “This is the last one. You’ll have to get your own water now. You are a little big to become our camp puppy, as much as Sun here is starting to fall in love with your daughter.”

“Jane,” Sun said. “You got to name the momma so I get to name her little one. Jane: Daria’s best friend in the TV show.”

“Hi Jane,” Grey said, then turned to look at Sun, who was weeping.

“What’s wrong, sis?”

“Oh, it is just me being a girl. I mean: I will never be able to do that.”

“What, pass a baby moose through your vagina?” Grey said with a smile.

“No silly,” Sun said, smiling at his ridiculousness. “Having a baby. I want so to the a mother, Grey.”

He hugged here gently. “Maybe you will, sis. This is a weird world and anything can happen.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

This chapter just visits some of the characters in the story and provides some background: Dawn.

Chapter Six – Mum, Dan and Daisy

Just before the ice on the river broke up, Grey headed down to the store for spring supplies. He wanted to know which of the three canoes to bring down first – Sun and he had done three over the winter, along with 18 pairs of snowshoes and some other crafts that Sunflower had made: beadwork and dreamcatchers.

“I have two cedar strip, and one birch bark,” he told Frank. “I can deliver the third one probably a month later.”

“Probably one of each to start, and as many of the snowshoes as you can. They really aren’t a winter item. Mostly Toronto tourists who buy them as wall decorations. I can’t imagine anyone snowshoeing in Toronto, although I guess some are hunters,” Frank said.

“Do you mind if I borrow your computer for a few minutes,” Grey said. “Just for some email.”

“Sure. Just let me log out of my ordering page,” Frank said. “And feel free to print anything you want. There is lots of paper in the laser.” A minute later he put Grey into the Internet Explorer home page. He left, and then Grey signed onto to G-Mail, where he found two incoming messages. One was written minutes after the message he had sent his Mum.

Dear William

I can’t tell you how happy I was to see your e-mail. I was sure you had died somewhere in Canada. Your Dad was even planning to put a memorial up in the family plot. He will be so surprised when he finds you mailed me. Please come home, William. I want to see you again. It has been nearly a year now since when your last summer break would have occurred. I miss you.

Love, Mum

PS – please write back as soon as you can.

The second message was about 10 days later.

Dear William

I have to update what I wrote last week. Your message caused no little concern here at the house. Your father read it, and then took it to your grandfather. Finally there was a meeting with them, I, and your eldest brother Chuck.

Your Grandfather confirmed what you said happened with the fourth Earl’s son. He is our ancestor, of course, and that means that his son, the Indian boy, may be deemed illegitimate. That, of course would mean the estate and title would go off to another branch of the family, and we would be ruined.

Your grandfather said he thought this knowledge would go to the grave with him, and is most interested in knowing how you found out. Please do not share this information with anyone else.

You hold all the cards now. If you love your family you will keep this secret. Your father is nearly 50 now, and doesn’t have any profession beyond managing the estate. And there are no ads in the Times seeking former Earls.

The result of the meeting was that they want you to stay in Canada. If you do come home to visit, it would have to be under another identity. The estate will fund you to any reasonable level. You know that we are land rich, but don’t have a lot of cash. Your grandfather thinks we could scrap together £1500 pounds a week if you need cash. Just please keep things quiet.

We had been using quite a bit of the money that would have gone to tuition at Harrow and college at Cambridge or Oxford to pay for detectives in Toronto searching for you. I understand right now they have some lad in a place called Font Hill, near Niagara Falls, under surveillance. Is that you? Anyway, your grandfather is calling them off the case, and that money will now go into an account for you.

Dear boy, I love you dearly, in spite of all this. Perhaps I can come to Canada and meet you again.

Love, Mum

P.S. You may be an uncle soon. Chuck married Lady Janet Cromwell on Valentine’s Day, and my mother’s intuition says that she may be carrying a child, although they haven’t made an announcement yet. She is the daughter of a Baron, so the marriage is a move up for her. But she is a sweet young thing, and clearly loves Chuck for himself, not his titles. I can’t believe I will be a grannie soon.

Grey leaned back and printed both letters. Then, with Frank still busy in the store, he used Google to search some online stores for a specialty item. He sought a 58B bra. Sun was still wearing the same bra she tried to commit suicide in a half year earlier, and it was getting pretty tattered. She said it was a 44DD, with a chain of things called ‘bra extenders’ across her back. As a result, the cups in the front were too close together, and definitely would not be right when her breasts started coming in.

Grey decided to buy three bras and a few pairs of panties. He had bought her several pairs of panties at the stores in Tweed, but they were cuts for older women. She would like some sexier ones, Grey thought. He called out to Frank asking if he could have the package sent to the store, and for Frank to put it on his credit card. The shopkeeper agreed, and came in to put in his address and credit card details.

He could not help but see what was being ordered, and smiled as he hit the send button.

“I thought you might have a friend up there,” Frank said. “Your production this winter is quite high. I hope things are going well with you.”

“She is my sister,” Grey said. “Sunflower Wolf. When I bring down the new stock, she may agree to meet you. She is pretty shy though. I hope you can open an account for her with the store as well. She should get credit for half of the canoes and snowshoes, and all of the crafts.”

“I can do that. Oh, a friend of yours just came in for a coffee.”

A friend? Who could it be, Grey wondered. He popped his head out of the office and saw it was Dan, the man who had driven him to Tweed several times.

“Hi Grey,” the bearded man said. “Are you busy? Care to go for a little drive?”

“Well, I was planning to head back to camp right away, but I guess a little trip will pay off if we can pick up some bread along the way, and a few groceries.”

Dan paid for his coffee and the two headed out to his old truck. Once buckled in, Dan headed out to the west, a direction Grey hadn’t been since he came that way from Toronto.

“I wanted to tell you a bit about myself,” Dan started. “You probably wonder how someone my age is retired. I am part Ojibwe, like you. My grandfather married a white girl, who moved to the reserve and got her First Nations status. So I am 3/4 Ojibwe. Both my parents worked in corrections facilities near Kingston. They like to have some First Nations staff for prisoners of the people to relate to.”

“The beauty of living in Kingston was that I was able to join the Canadian Forces Reserves when I was in high school at 16. My marks on graduation were high enough that the Canadian Forces put me though the Royal Military College in return for a promise to serve for 10 years after. So when I finished college and my 10 years, I was still 33, but I had 17 years of service. It was a no brainer to do another eight years and be eligible for a full pension at 41.”

“Where did you serve?” Grey asked.

“I became a peacekeeping specialist,” Dan said. “It was a good move. I served in both Somalia missions, from 1992 to 1995. It was hard work, but I moved up from Captain to Major during that time. They dangled a colonelcy in front of me when I mentioned retirement, but I decided that a larger pension was not worth the extra five years. Even as a retired Major I receive more money than most people around here earn.”

“Here is Madoc,” Dan said as they drove into a small town slightly smaller than Tweed. “They have a nice bakery here.”

“Good, let’s stop in and get some bread, and maybe some goodies too.” Grey thought Sunflower would like a treat, if Mimiha would let her break her diet for a day or two.

«Yes, she has been working hard all morning on snowshoes. She can have a treat or two,» Mimiha said in Grey’s head.

After they bought some fruits and vegetables in the local grocery the men got back into the truck, heading south. Dan was especially pleased when Grey offered him a pastry from the bakery.

“These are good,” he mumbled with his mouth full. “I’ll have to make my way to Madoc more often.”

“They are good,” Grey agreed as he ate his.

“Let me continue,” Dan said. “So it was 1999 and my father had passed, and my mother was in a rental place in Kingston. They owned a cottage near Tweed, so my first job on retirement was to renovate and winterize the place. Mom lives there with me now. She spends most days at the senior’s center in Tweed, playing cards, knitting, and mostly gossiping with the other ladies her age.”

“I’m too young to be a senior, so once the renovations were done I started becoming the ‘help guy’ in town. I have about 10 different seniors that I visit each week, morning or afternoon to check if they are okay, and to do any little errands they need done. It started one day when a voice in my head told me an older man was in trouble. I went to his house, and there was no answer at the door. I knew something was wrong, so I broke the window pane next to the knob, and unlocked the door.”

“I found the man inside, lying on the floor, with a broken hip. He was in the kitchen, and the stove was on with something burning in a pot. I called 911 for an ambulance, which were there in minutes. They had him out quickly and headed to the hospital.”

“I stayed in the house, and was cleaning up a bit. Apparently he was making chicken noodle soup, but the water had boiled away, burning the noodles and chicken, making a mess in the pan. I was scrubbing the pot when an OPP officer arrived, gun in hand.”

“I admitted to breaking in, but pointed out that robbers and thieves seldom do the dishes at the house they break into. The officer was Cindy Rohmer. She is about 30 and cute as a button: too old for you, and too young for me, I guess. She would be a catch for someone though. Anyway, I had to go through a long interview with her, mostly because she didn’t understand how I knew the man was hurt from outside the house. Voices in my head didn’t get through her cop filter.”

“She wouldn’t leave until I did, and I had to replace the broken glass in the doorway, so she stayed in the open house while I went to the hardware store for glass. After I fixed the window, she had found the keys to the door on the wall, and we were able to lock the place.”

“That was the start of my visitations. One senior told another and now there are 10. But it is my evenings that are busiest. It started a couple years back, when I offered to take over the local cub pack. One of the requirements is that I had to be a Christian, because the Boy Scouts seem to think that only Christians have any moral fibre. They turned me down, closing the program rather than accepting someone who serves Manidoo.”

“I had done three sessions before they ejected me, and the boys liked me. Eight of them asked me to set up a non-Scout program. I called it the Ojibwe Young Warriors, and we continued on, meeting in a church hall, of all places. I think we had 10 boys when I planned the first campout after getting three fathers to agree to come along.”

“We begged and borrowed, and got eight tents. Two adults in two and two boys in each of another five. The last tent was for cooking. We went into the bush and I had an entire weekend’s activities planned. One thing I wanted to teach them was how to move silently through the bush. It wasn’t working until we had the boys split up in two groups. I had one group and a dad had another. The other two dads were preparing breakfast.”

“In my group, I sent any boy I could hear to the back of the group, and soon they were being very quiet. We came over a rise and saw two does eating the lower branches of a cedar tree. The boys stood and stared for over two minutes, when the other group came up on us. The deer bolted long before the noisy warriors got over the rise, so they were confused why we stopped. When they found out they missed the deer, they were upset, until the boys in the first group chided them for being so noisy and scaring the deer away.”

“The next morning I took the other group of boys first, and trained them to be quiet, and finally led them to the top of the rise where the deer were back at the trees. This time the second group came up silently. Apparently their leader had been the only noisy one, and they made him go to the back until he got quiet. All twelve of us watched the deer eat for nearly 10 minutes, until a boy coughed and they bolted. The other boys were merciless teasing the boy who coughed, and he was nearly in tears when I pointed out that it is hard to be deer-quiet for so long. All the boys drank from their canteens and realized that thirst would have made some else cough if the first boy hadn’t”

“We found the deer nest, where they slept that night, and also an old antler, that was full of little bugs, as well chew marks. It let me teach them how something like an old antler fit into the ecosystem of the forest, with rodents gnawing it for the calcium, and then the bugs using it as a home as it deteriorated.”

“Well, after word of that campout got around at the school, I had 25 boys the next week, and 45 the week after. And there were girls that wanted in on the fun. So now I have three groups of boys with an average of 20 per group, and 15 girls on Mondays. I hold meetings four nights a week. We join together on camps and the fathers and mothers line up to help.”

“That sounds incredible,” Grey said.

“It is very rewarding,” Dan said. “Of course you would know that being out in the bush almost all the time. Flint says you have quite the little setup there.”

Grey felt like he had the wind knocked out of him. How did this man know about Flint? He racked him brain trying to remember if he had inadvertently mentioned the warrior in his head.

“Flint came to me the day after 9-11,” Dan said. “At first I thought it was a dream, until he started coming during the day. It was Flint who told me the man was down with a broken hip. He made sure I was in the store the day a bus came in when a young girl went into a washroom, and a young boy came out 15 minutes later. Flint had me there to distract the staff so you could get to the woods without anyone noticing.”

“I was also 15 minutes away when you rescued Sunflower from the car,” Dan said. “You were gone when I got there, but I would have taken her to the hospital if you couldn’t move her. But it seems that things have worked out much better for her with you than she would have been in a hospital.”

“Wow,” was all Grey could say.

“And did you wonder why I was always at Frank’s store when you came? I don’t spend that much time there, but Flint tells me when you are coming.”

They had passed by Tweed, and were now in Actinolite. Dan stopped at the store, and Grey put his bread and groceries with the goods he had bought from there. He offered pastries from Madoc to Frank, his wife, and his helper. No sense having too many left to tempt Sun.

Grey then walked down the highway from the store, crossing the river and turned into the lane that went to the big house. The house was a half-mile past the river, and another half-mile in from the road. As he walked, Grey spoke with Flint.

“So how many other people do you communicate with?” Grey asked.

«Many. In the numbers your people use, 643.»

Grey came to a complete stop. “You talk to 643 people? How many of them live around here?”

«Oh, there are only 48 still living. The others are in the past … I lived a long time ago,» Flint said. «As for those living around here, there are only the three of you: Sunflower, yourself and Dan. All but two of the others are Ojibwe, one on Lake Huron and one on Gitchie-goomi.»

Lake Superior, Grey translated mentally. “So do you contact the others often?”

«Not really.» Flint said. «Lone Owl, the warrior on Lake Huron needs me quite a bit, but the others rarely contact me.»

Grey walked on in silence, coming to the lane entering the house. There was an old sign that had fallen down and he turned it over to see that it had once said ‘Ridge House’ in faded paint. He set it back down gently, thinking that he and Sun could fix it up again for the owner.

Then the house appeared in his view, and he knew much more needed to be done than fixing a sign. The house was a shambles. A beautiful porch surrounded the building, which was massive. It was 90 feet wide, and 120 feet deep. Behind there were four rather large barns and outbuildings. None of the buildings seemed to have been painted in the past 20 years. An old lady of about 60 sat on the one good area of the porch.

“Good day sir,” she greeted him. “You will have to go around to the east side, I am afraid,” she called out in a healthy voice. “The steps on the west and south sides are not safe.”

As Grey got to the ‘good’ steps he wondered how bad the other steps were: these looked pretty rickety. “Good day madam. My name is Grey Wolf. I would be honored if you called me Grey,” he said. “I understand you own all the land around here.”

“One mile from the easternmost part of the river bank back to the river itself, and four miles from the road allowance to the north,” she said, as though reciting it. “That is what the original deed from 1839 says. It was 2600 acres originally, although my father bought three farms to the east during the depression. Probably 3000 acres now. When we were lumbering, which was until 1984, we were one of the biggest operations in the province. My name is Daisy Ridgemark, and you may call me Daisy.”

“It is about your trees I come, Daisy,” Grey said. “My camp is on the other side of the river, but I came across some Maple Trees at the rear of your property, I think. I would like to tap those trees for Maple syrup next spring, if you give me your permission.”

“That land belongs to you,” Daisy said, surprising Grey. “Those trees were planted on empty land by your people, the Ojibwe tribe that once lived there. All in neat rows, right?” Grey nodded.

“That was the first part of the forest that my family cleared. There was a thought that they would farm the land, but the soil around here is too weak for farming. My great, great grandfather lived in Peterborough, and he was a captain in the militia in 1837 when the rebellion occurred. His company put down any rebels in the area, and there was no rebellion here, like in Toronto, Montreal and some other places.”

“He was allowed to buy this tract of land in 1839 in return for $200 and waiving of several hundred dollars of expenses he claimed from the Rebellion. The province decided that giving him empty land in an uninhabited area was cheaper than paying out cash they didn’t have. My ancestor built a log cabin back by the river, and cleared land. After three years of failing to raise a crop, he decided to use the crop that was already here: the trees. He built a sawmill on the river, and started cutting wood. That was 1845, and most of the wood in the buildings from Tweed to Madoc used his trees.”

“Great Grandfather moved the mill closer to the road in 1867, mainly because the trees had all been harvested from the back half mile of the land. It was my grandfather, in 1898 who gave the empty lands to the Ojibwe’s that lived here: about 18 families. The chief at the time was a very methodical woman, and she ordered the planting of saplings in that row and column pattern that you see today. Most of the trees are a newer generation. When the Indians would see that a tree was past maturity, they would cut it down and haul it to the mill … that big barn beside the house here. The mill paid them, but only about half its worth. Cheating the Indians was pretty common back then.”

“The band suffered badly during the depression, with so many townspeople hunting for food. We offered to help, but your people are proud, and only rarely would the squaws bring the little ones to the house, where we fed them oatmeal. Many died during the depression and most moved out to other reserves before the war. I think there were three left after V-E day, and the last one seemed to disappear around 1960. I was born in 1943, and used to tramp back there in the 50s. I remember a very old man, still tending the trees, and living near a small spring that had the freshest cold water. The last time I was back there his tent had been ripped up, and he was nowhere to be found.”

“Oh my, I am rambling. I seldom get visitors you see. I go to church every Sunday, but it is mostly the reverend who talks then. To make my long story shorter, I still consider that land to be owned by the tribe, even though the deed says it is my land. You can tap the trees, cut them down if you want. That is your land.”

“I thank you for your generosity,” Grey said, “on behalf of myself and my people. There are at least five maples that should be harvested, as well as some oaks. I would like to take down some pine as well. We will transplant new saplings to replace any we harvest. I guess the pine are on your land.”

“No, consider the back half mile of the land to be yours to use and manage, at least as long as I live. If I remember correctly, the planted stands are only half that depth. So you can take as many pine as you want.”

“How many are in your band,” Daisy asked.

“There are only the two of us: my sister and I.”

“So few? Perhaps your people will prosper back there again. I shall have to amend my will to make sure that whoever follows me will not try to take your land. That has happened far too often to your people. Perhaps you can bring your sister to visit. I would dearly love to chat with another woman. Is she older, or younger than you?”

“She is a few years older, nearly 26 now,” Grey said. “But she is very shy. I will tell her you have invited us back.”

Grey left to return to the store, and then on to the camp. Sun loved the pastry, and the fact she could have two slices of the bread. “Mimiha says I have lost over 40 pounds since I came here, and since I started taking the potion it is coming off quicker,” Sun bragged. “No wonder she is allowing me a diet break.”

“Good,” Grey said, “because tonight I am making a feast: potatoes, bread, carrots, onion and some of that venison steak that we froze last month. In a week or two it will warm up and all the remaining steaks will have to be smoked into jerky.”

As he cooked, he told her all about the days activities, and then admired all the work she had done on snowshoes.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Sunflower gets up the nerve to finally meet people, with an amazing result: Dawn.

Chapter 7 Sunflower meets the World

The ice on the river soon broke up, and it was easy paddling to the store. Grey begged Sunflower to accompany him, since there were two canoes and about two dozen snowshoes for the store: more than he could deliver. She finally agreed to take one canoe down, and to help unload the gear on the bank, and then run back to the woods and wait for Grey to finish up his business. They would walk back together.

They paddled down river with the current, but near the road Grey pulled into the band, and grounded his paddle to hold the canoe steady. Sun pulled in next to him.

“I’ve never noticed that before,” Grey said, pointing to a mass of stones. “I wonder what that was.”

“It could have been part of a dam, or a bridge,” Sun said. “In the old days the roads were in different locations.”

Perplexed by the stones, they let their canoes loose and casually drifted another 100 yards to where Grey usually landed his supplies. It was easier with Sun there. Last year he had to hold the canoe steady and toss the snowshoes out on the bank, then try to get out without getting too wet, and finally pull the canoe up the bank.

Sun hopped out of her canoe with Grey holding it steady, and then lugged it out of the water, with 10 snowshoes in it. She didn’t even get wet. She then held Grey’s canoe steady so he could get out, and before he could turn around she had pulled it up the bank.

“It is cool having a sister as strong as you,” Grey said. “That would be a lot harder for me alone. I’m going into the store now. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

His answer was watching Sunflower trotting to the treeline, about 50 yards away. He waited until she was nearly at the trees before he went to get Frank from the store.

“You do beautiful work,” Frank said as he looked at the designs woodburned into the canoes and snowshoes. “These will sell easily.”

“I have a designer on staff now,” Grey said.

“She didn’t come down with you, did she,” Frank said, glancing around. “She did, didn’t she? You couldn’t have brought two canoes alone. Where is she?”

“I told you she was shy,” Grey said. “Don’t look, but she is waiting for me just inside the trees. If you look, she will probably run away, and I’ll have to walk back to camp alone.”

“No problem,” Frank said, and he didn’t stare as they carried the canoes and snowshoes into the shed behind the store. He did glance at the treeline as they worked, but could not spot the girl.

They went into the store to do the paperwork, and as promised he had set up an account for Sun. As Grey was signing his, Frank darted off. He came back with a bouquet of a dozen tulips, and a small paper bag.

“These are for your friend,” Frank said. “I don’t know of any girl that doesn’t like getting flowers. And in the bag are three bulbs that were left over in the planting. I think if they are planted now, they will still flower this year. And in future years there will be more and more bulbs that can be transplanted.”

“Thanks Frank. I’ll be sure to give these to her. I know she will love them.”

Grey walked out from the store alone, and Sun poked her head out to watch him approach. Soon she realized that he was carrying flowers.

“Oh they are beautiful, Grey,” she said as he neared. “Thank you for buying them for me.”

“They are not from me,” Grey said. “They are a gift from Frank. And there are three bulbs in the bag so you can have flowers after these die.”

“Why did he do that?” Sun said. “I will have to thank him, won’t I? Oh dear.”

“Men give flowers to pretty girls,” Grey said. “And it would only be polite to thank him.”

It took them nearly an hour to get back to the store, with Sun stopping several times to get her nerve up. Finally Grey made a bet with her that no one would call her names or embarrass her. Loser would make dinner. It was a no-lose bet for him, because it was his turn to make dinner that night anyway. But it did help Sun keep her nerve up.

“I won’t go in,” Sun said at the back door to the store. “Just ask him out here and I will thank him, and then we will head back.”

Grey came out of the store with Frank: “Frank, I would like to introduce you to Sunflower Wolf. Sun, this is Frank Stover.”

For a second Sun was tongue-tied. But the man did not show that he was surprised by her height. He actually was, but immediately realized that this was why Sun was so shy. He smiled and looked up into her face. “You look just as cute as Grey claimed,” he said.

“He has to say that. He is my brother. I just wanted to thank you for these flowers. They are so beautiful.”

“Well I am not your brother, and I think you are as beautiful as those flowers. We have some others later in the season, but tulips bloom early. Won’t you come into the store? I’d love to show you around. There is no one here except my wife, Miriam, and our clerk Wendy. I’ll treat you to a slice of pie. We have banana crème today.”

The offer made Sun’s mouth water. She hadn’t eaten pie for over a year, and the thought of having her favorite was irresistible.

“Just for a minute?” Grey said. “I’d love to taste pie again.”

That made her agree, and they went into the store. Miriam was a tall woman, at 5’10” but of course that was much less than Sun. And Wendy was a chubby little thing barely 5-foot tall. But both were polite in greeting Sunflower.

Wendy served them pie, and offered coffee to go with it. “Oh coffee,” Sun said. “Do you know how long it is since I have had a coffee? Please.

“I am more of a tea person,” Grey said. The waitress waddled off to get the drinks, returning and placing them in front of the pie-eaters. “One Earl Grey, and one house coffee,” she said, and wondered what the pair thought was so funny to the two as they started to giggle.

“Excellent tea,” Grey said as his sipped the beverage named after his ancestor.

“At the camp he tries to make tea out of dandelions,” Sunflower said. “It is absolutely horrid stuff. Wendy pulled up a chair, and got herself a coffee, after asking Sun if she could join them for her break.

When Grey had finished his pie he took his coffee over and chatted with Frank, while Miriam took her coffee over to the girls. The break was nearly a half hour long when Frank clapped his hands and announced that it was an hour until the bus would come, and they had to get ready.

As Sun realized that meant soon 50 or so strangers would be coming into the shop and she was not yet ready to deal with a crowd. She took her flowers, which Miriam had put into a cheap glass vase, and headed out the door, with Grey right behind, thrilled that she had finally broken the barrier.

On the way back Sun wouldn’t stop talking about the visit, and how much she had enjoyed chatting. “And they treated me just like a girl,” she noted in amazement.

“That’s because you are a girl,” Grey said. “A very tall girl, but still a girl.” Sunflower beamed at the thought. “Perhaps you will go with me to meet Miss Ridgemark the next time we go.”

Sun hummed and hawed for a bit, and finally said: “I think I will. I don’t want to go anywhere that has a lot of people. But I think I will go with you to see her. But that is all.”

“One more,” Grey said. “Dan Smith. He already knows about your background, although I don’t think we need to tell anyone else.”

“He knows? How?” Sun said with alarm.

“Remember me telling you? He talks to Flint, just like we do,” Grey said. “He actually drove all the way out to where you left your car. He would have taken you if we hadn’t been able to work out a way to pull you away before you woke up.”

“Does he talk with Red Oak and Mimiha?” Sun asked.

«No he doesn’t,» Mimiha answered «But he sounds like he is a nice man, based on what Flint says. And you did wonderfully today. If you want to be a woman, you have to get out there more. I am proud of you,»

“Thanks,” a somewhat embarrassed Sunflower replied.

For the next two weeks the pair worked independently most of the time. Sun worked hard on making beaded deerskin patches and dreamcatchers. She had taken a few of those to the store in the recent visit, and all three of the shop people had complimented her on them. She especially wanted to give dreamcatchers to Wendy and Miriam as gifts. And another slice of pie would also go over well.

Grey mostly worked on cleaning up and sharpening more of the tools that he had bought on his first trip out of the camp.

Finally Sun had her works finished, and begged for another trip to the store. There were five slabs of frozen venison left in the underground cold cellar Grey had built, and they were finally starting to melt in the warm weather. There was no way they would last until they could be eaten, so Grey brought out four to take and see if the store could use them, leaving one for their supper over the next two nights. They wrapped everything up in a bearskin, and Sun strapped it over her ample shoulders. Grey said they needed more beans, at the store, so agreed to make the trip. He considered letting her go herself, but felt that she might not be ready for that.

As they approached the store, she stopped and pointed to a barn behind and beside the store. “What is that?”

“I dunno. Looks like a pile of junk to me,” Grey said.

“No it isn’t,” Sun said as she hurried towards the junk pile. “That is a 1946 GMC AK series pickup truck. Mint. I wonder if Frank would sell it. It doesn’t look like it is running.” There was junk piled both in front and behind the truck.

“Well, you already have over $2000 on your account if you want to buy it. Although I don’t know why you would.”

“It’s beautiful,” Sun said. “It will take some work to get it running again, but it would be worth it.”

“That’s right, you used to fix up old cars with your Dad, didn’t you,” Grey said as things clicked into place. He thought about making a comment about fixing old trucks as not being very ladylike, but bit his tongue as he realized how excited this was making her.

“Come on,” Grey tugged her arm and got absolutely nowhere. Sun was not someone you could pull along. “Let’s take your things into the store and ask Frank about the truck.”

That got her moving, when they got into the coffee shop, there was one patron there, who naturally stared at Sun. “Because you’re tall,” Grey said softly, and she relaxed. Wendy belted out a cheery greeting, followed by one from Frank and Miriam. The other patron stopped staring when Sun sat down at a table and unwrapped the bearskin. Seated, Sun no longer looked so tall.

She unwrapped the skin, and first took out two dreamcatchers, handing one each to Wendy and Miriam, who both squealed in delight at the gifts. “And these others are for Frank, to sell,” she said handing him another dozen. “And another dozen beaded deer skin strips.”

“Then there are these four slabs of venison,” Grey said. “The bottom one has started to melt, and should be used up first, but the other three could go into your freezer. My cold storage at the camp is getting above freezing, so they would just go bad up there.”

Frank carted the meat off to the freezer and the prep table, while Wendy squealed “Pulled venison burgers!”

Miriam explained that when the store got venison in, it was usually roasted to the point of falling apart, and then the pulled-apart meat was mixed into a sauce that was a store secret, but apparently so tasty that pulled venison burgers would draw people from Tweed and Madoc to the store. “I’ll have to post a notice on our web page,” she said.

Frank came back and picked up the bearskin. “This is gorgeous. Did you take it, Grey?”

He snorted. “No. Sun got it a few months back. I have taken a bear, but it was quite a bit smaller than this.”

“How much?” Frank asked. “I could probably sell this for up to $800. Would you take $400 for it?”

“What about a trade,” Sun asked. “I really like that old truck out by your barn. Even up?”

“What? That old thing? I bought it from a feller for $1000 10 years ago, and less than a month later the engine seized up or something. It has sat out there since then. I hate to take a loss on it, but I’ll gladly trade it for the skin. It’s not making me any money out there rusting, and mother here will probably kill me if I don’t clear up that scrap pile soon.”

“Deal,” Sun said, and shook hands.

“Where will you put it,” Miriam asked. “I doubt you can get it back to your camp. There are no roads back there, are there?”

Sunflower looked as though someone had taken a knife and removed her heart. She hadn’t considered where she would put the truck.

“I’d let you keep it here for a bit,” Frank said, until he caught the look Miriam glared at him, “except it might not be a positive factor in my marriage.”

Grey came to the rescue: “We can take it to the grove at the back of Daisy’s land. She said we could use it for whatever we wanted. There is a bit of road back there. A few saplings have sprung up on it, but we can clear those away pretty quickly. But how do we tow it back there?”

“I’d tow it with the van,” Frank said, “but I really wouldn’t trust that old road. What you really need is someone with an old pickup.”

“Did someone call my name,” a voice came from near the door. They turned around to see Dan Smith approaching the little group. Introductions were made, since Sun had not met Dan yet, and she and the men went out to look at the truck.

All four tires were flat, and it had settled into ruts. There was very little rust on the body. Sunflower went into the cab and was surprised at how clean it was: a lot of dust, but no sign that varmints had nested there. There were probably better nesting places in the other junk around.

“We would have to get new tires, or at least put some air in these,” Dan said. “They might hold up long enough to transport it to the grove. I have an air compressor that works off the lighter in my truck. If they deflate half way there, then we will just pump them up again.” He rubbed off the dust on the front left tire and noted the size.

“I know a place that might have some that would fit,” Dan said. “We could take a spin over there and check. Do you have any cash?”

Sun looked at Frank. “Can I make a withdrawal from my account at the Bank of Frank?” she asked.

“Bank of Frank. I like that,” the storeowner said. “I can spare $300 right now. We’ll make that all back seven dollars a time selling your pulled venison burgers. I’ll have it back within a week.”

“You have pulled venison?” Dan asked. “I want one.”

“Not until tomorrow,” Frank said, “assuming Mirian has started on the first steak.”

“He is to get as many of them as he wants, off my account,” Grey said. “Payback for getting this truck moved over.”

“Well, we have to get the truck over there first,” Dan said. “We should see if it will roll, or if the axles are locked up. Grey, you are smallest, so you should steer while the rest of us push.”

Sun reluctantly left the driver’s seat, and Grey took over, a little embarrassed that he steered, and not the woman in the group. But he knew she could push at least three times as much as him.

The other three went to the back, and pushed once Grey had it in neutral. For a minute the truck and its 10 years of inertia defied them. Sunflower closed her eyes and imagined that she was back on the football field at Mac. With a might shove, aided by the two men, she pushed and the truck moved forward about 10 feet.

“Good, it rolls fine. Some good tires, or air in these, and we’ll have it over on the other side in no time,” Dan said.

“Sun, do you want to head out with me for the tires,” Dan asked. Grey was sure she would refuse, or at least insist that he accompany them, but to her surprise she agreed. She really wanted that truck.

“Yeah,” she said. “Grey, can you head back to camp and get the axes? Any maybe start clearing the road?”

Grey left the others heading back to camp. With the river high he would have to backtrack and cross on the highway bridge, but at least that meant he would be able to clear the saplings from the front to the back. It was over an hour later when he found the first sapling, still in sight of the house. He started chopping.

------ ----- ------

Meanwhile Dan took had taken Sun to the same barn where Grey had gotten his woodworking tools so long ago. The man greeted Dan, and took a long look at Sun, as most people do. She looked like a girl in her denim maxi skirt, but a very tall one.

“Watcha after, Dan?” the grizzled old farmer said.

“Tires,” Dan said. “Mind if we look through your collection?”

“He’p yerselves,” he said. “They’s $40 a tire if’n there is tread, $10 for bald.”

There had to be 200 tires stacked up at the back of the barn. As they walked past, several old tools caught Sun’s eyes. Tires first, then tools, she told herself.

It turned out that there were a dozen older tires in the size the truck needed. They picked out four that had really good tread, and then another almost as good for a spare.

As Dan hauled the five tires to his truck, Sun went through the tools. Grey had bought exclusively woodworking tools. Sun needed auto mechanic’s tools, especially wrenches. She started a little collection, and found some specialty tools as well, that would normally have been found only in a 1950s garage.

“Them’s the best tires in the place,” the farmer said. “I’m gonna need $50 each for them four good ones.”

“You said $40,” Sun said, dropping a peach basket full of tools in the truck. “I only have $300, so how about $200 for the five tires, and the other $100 for these tools.” She stood close to the man, and being nearly a foot taller, he was more than a little intimidated.

They made the deal, and headed back to the store just as the morning bus departed.

Dan pulled up next to the older truck, and hopped out. He grabbed the x-shaped tire iron that Sun had picked up among the tools and tried to loosen the nuts on the first wheel.

He finally stood up after being unsuccessful in even budging the nuts. “Sorry Sun, but these aren’t going anywhere. I think we will need to get some penetrating oil and give them a day to loosen up.

Dan headed off to Tweed to the Canadian Tire to get some supplies, and Sun stayed. Before Dan was even out of the parking lot she had the first lug nut off. She then went around and loosened the other nuts. They were tight, and she had to use a trick her father had taught her, making a small twist, and then putting her substantial weight onto the iron. Most nuts came lose on the first try, but a few took as many as five.

Next she brought out the old leaf jack she had gotten from the barn, and set it on an old board. She jacked up one side of the truck near the tire and pulled the wheel. There were tools in the set she had bought that allowed her to remove the old rubber, and mount the new tire. All that was needed was to get air in the tires.

When Dan pulled back in she had three tires finished, and was working on a fourth.

“So I guess you don’t need penetrating oil,” he said as he walked up. As well as the penetrating oil he had several cans of engine oil, car wax, and several chamois rags.

“Not now, but eventually I will need it,” Sun said. “You don’t happen to have that compressor handy, do you?”

“I do. I stopped off at home and picked it up,” Dan said. He quickly had it hooked up, and started filling tires as Sun continued working on the others. The first two tires had air before she finished the spare. She then moved to using a wire brush to clean all the lug posts on the wheel. She had all the lug nuts in a bowl of oil, and they gleamed up quickly when wiped down with a chamois.

The spare was finally filled as she finished, and the two of them then mounted the tires, with Sun holding a tire in place while Dan tightened the nuts. He got them as tight as possible, and then Sun took over. To Dan’s surprise, she was able to tighten each nut as much as a quarter turn beyond what he had done.

She had one side of the car up with the jack, and the other side resting on a large rock she had pulled into position. These were removed, and the truck sat prettily on newer tires.

“Do you want to tow it over now?” Dan asked, looking at the sun, which was getting low in the western sky. “I can come back tomorrow?”

“Now, if we can,” Sun begged. The second bus had just left, and Frank came out, pulling a huge rope. They fixed it to the front chassis of the older truck, and put a loop over the hitch on Dan’s truck. He got in his, and Sun slid into hers and put it back into neutral, releasing the hand brake. Dan drove forward until the rope was taut.

Frank moved back: a snapped rope is dangerous. Sun waved, and Dan moved out in first gear. For a second the old truck resisted, but finally it started moving and rolling as Dan headed out to the highway. Frank heard a girlish squeal of delight from the rear vehicle as they headed out to the highway, driving on the shoulder.

There was a little problem in getting into the lane of the house, but soon they were on it. Daisy was on the porch, and waved as they went past. Grey had stopped in earlier to get permission, and to visit the old lady for a few minutes. But he had not been idle, and soon they started seeing sapling stumps cut a few inches above the road level. They drove on until they got near the grove, where they saw Grey working at removing more saplings.

“Hooray,” he shouted to them as Dan shut down his truck “I didn’t think you would get it here today.”

“She’s a good worker, and really knows her stuff,” Dan said. Sun finally slid out from the cab of her truck, with a smile on her face that Grey had only seen once before. She was this excited when she first bathed her hairless body, but not since. She ran up to Dan, who she had only met that morning, and hugged him, lifting him off the ground.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said before putting the amazed man back down on the ground. “You have been so much help. You make sure you get as many venison burgers as you can eat. You have earned them.”

“Do you think someone will steal it if we leave it here?” Sun asked Grey.

“Not likely, if the engine is seized,” Grey said. “But we should put your tools in the cab.” He reached into the bed where the fruit basket of tools sat and tried to lift it. Instead his feet left the ground.

“Pretty heavy,” Sun said reaching in and easily lifting the basket up and out. “Get the door for me.”

Soon the cab was locked and the three were in the cab of Dan’s truck, with Grey in the middle, feeling small between the taller people on either side. Dan drove them to the house, where they had a visit with Daisy. Apparently she was one of the seniors that Dan visited weekly. Earlier he had phoned the two he usually met on Tuesdays and said he would be a day late on his visit.

Daisy and Sun brewed a tea for the men. Sun hardly realized that she had just met someone new and felt no tension with Daisy. In fact, when the older woman asked her to get down some things from a top shelf, she just reached up and did it, saving Daisy from having to go up on a step stool.

In the end Daisy apologized for only having a package of store-bought cookies to go with the tea, and somehow this merged into an agreement where she would teach Sun how to cook and bake, in return for the two of them coming to dinner each night.

Grey agreed, even if it meant that they would have to walk all the way to their camp on the other side of the river in the evenings, after visiting Daisy.

This night, at least, they had Dan to give them a ride to the store, and they would only have to walk home from there. All the way on the walk through the darkening woods Sun excitedly explained her plans for the truck. She had three canoes built in her head to buy the parts she would need.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Nine Chapters in just over a week. I feel like Angharad when she was churning out a chapter a day. Now I just have to finish 3200 more to catch up. I wonder if Ang could check to see if there are any Dormouses (Dormice?) in Ontario: Dawn.

Chapter 8 – Moving days

The next morning Grey was up early, while Sun slept in after having trouble getting to sleep after the excitement of the truck. When she did get up, she saw that he had taken down much of the lodge, and the wigwam he slept in. It was all piled on the bank of the river, where the canoe was fastened to a post in the water.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Where is the lodge, and your wigwam?”

“The lodge is mostly there,” He pointed to a pile of saplings and birch bark. I have already taken the wigwam across the river. We might as well make use of the canoe while we can.”

“But why?”

“I realized walking home that it would be stupid to keep living here. You would have to walk all the way down to the road, then all the way back up the lane to work on your truck. It would take an hour, and another hour at the end of the day. We have no need to be on this side of the river … at least until Daria comes back, and by then we can walk across on the ice.”

“So we just move? What if I don’t want to move?”

“Well, we could stay if you want. The lodge will go back up pretty quickly. I’d leave the wigwam over there anyway. I want to have a base for working on the trees in the grove. But if you want to stay …” he said.

“No moving makes sense. I just would have been nice if you talked to me about it before you made up our minds.”

“Sorry. I was thinking about it as we walked home, but you were so amped up about the truck I didn’t want to throw something else at you. I made up my mind before I fell asleep. I was going to tell you first thing in the morning, but that was nearly three hours ago.”

Sun sulked a bit as she chewed on a jerky for breakfast, but soon got excited about the move. Grey was in the canoe for most of the trips, which were a triangle due to the fast moving current. The canoe went across at an angle downriver, and then came back empty on another angle. Then the two towed the empty canoe back up along the bank to where they started, and loaded for another trip.

Eventually they had most of the tools and disassembled buildings on the far bank, and Sun would go across with Grey on a last trip. “Wait a second,” Grey said, and ran back and lifted a stone from the ground. He picked something up, and brought it to Sun in the canoe.

“It’s Earl’s wallet,” she said. “What do I want with this?”

“Well, there is over $60 in there that you can spend on your truck. But mostly it is for your driver’s license, or at least Earl’s. You will need a license with the truck. Eventually we will figure out how to change that one for the real you. I admit it will be a bit embarrassing to use that one, but it will save you having to go to the trouble of taking the tests all again like I will before I get a license. I am over 16 now, but I think lack of ID papers will be a barrier to me getting one. At least one of us needs to drive.”

“Do you know how?” Sun asked.

“Not really. I started this when I was 16, and my family had planned to have me learn during summer break. That never happened, of course. Maybe you can teach me?”

“In my beautiful truck? I don’t know. If you keep making man-mistakes like you did about the move I might not,” Sun chided.

They got into the canoe, and with both paddling, they made it across on a lesser slant, landing a dozen yards upstream of the prior trips Grey had made. He jumped out and took the remaining supplies, and turned to watch Sun pick up the canoe from the end and carry it onto the bank. “We don’t want to scratch it,” she said. “Frank would have to sell it as used.”

They left the goods where they had been dropped. Sun went to her truck, to unlock it and make sure it was still okay. Grey walked across the grove following the direction that Miss Ridgemark had described as being to the spring. He came across a stream near the end of the planted trees, and followed it to its source, a spring slightly larger than the one on the other side of the river. They probably came from the same aquifer, he realized. There was a good clearing for a campsite about 50 feet from the spring.

When he got back he found that Sun had piled a lot of the lodge onto the little sled she had built in the winter. It didn’t work as well on the summer grass, but it could be moved with some effort. “Pick up those saplings, and follow me,” she said, wrestling the sled to the south.

“But the campsite will be over there, almost a half mile from here,” Grey said, pointing towards the spring.

“We can put the wigwams over there,” Sun said. “But this time I made the decision, and the lodge will go up next to the truck. I need a workspace.”

Grey sighed and followed his burly sister. When they got there they worked out a decision. Grey would only work on erecting the lodge if Sun would agree to work on the wigwams and other elements of the camp after, and not start working on her truck immediately. She was hesitant, but finally agreed with him that it made sense, as much as she wanted to get to work pulling the truck apart.

While it had taken Grey a week to erect the lodge initially, there was less work now, since all the components were there and ready. And with two working, one of whom was taller than the lodge, they finished late in the evening. They decided to spend the night there, and set up a camp, making a feast of the last of the venison and a pot of beans. They were both famished, having only had jerky for lunch, and crawled into opposite ends of the lodge to sleep.

The next day they both worked at setting up the camp. Grey started to dig the latrine, and after watching him for a minute Sun took over, and was four times faster with the spade. Grey erected the two wigwams first, and then started to cut saplings for a third, larger cook-wigwam to replace the lodge. It was large enough for the two of them to sleep together, when February came again. Many of the really cold nights last winter had the two spooned together platonically for warmth.

There was no need to make a cold storage pit until fall, so there was no digging required after the latrine was up. Sun erected that building, but replaced the birch bark walls with deerskin ‘for privacy’.

The following day Sun headed to her truck, and Grey headed into the bush south of the grove to harvest some spruce. He wanted to turn the trees into lumber to repair the house. He had already felled one tree.

It was a shriek from Sun that attracted his attention. He ran towards the sound, and for a second had trouble seeing her. She was on her hands and knees.

“It is a skull. A human skull I think,” she said as she brushed dirt away from a bone.

«Yes,» Red Oak confirmed. «That is the skull of Lone Goose, the last member of the tribe that cared for these trees. He must have died out here in the middle of the grove. I don’t know if animals killed him, or if it was just old age, but animals did come clean the carcass. The bones have been scattered, and many were broken to get at the marrow inside.»

“That is horrible,” Sun said. “We must bury him.”

«A proper Ojibwe burial would honor him,» Mimiha added. «A warrior can never rest fully until he has been given the last rituals, unless he dies in battle.»

“But he died 40 or 50 years ago, according to Miss Ridgemark,” Grey said. “We definitely need to bury him.”

«To do so will be a four day ceremony,» Mimiha said. «That is usually from the time of death, but it his case it will be from the time the first bone was found. Where shall we lay him out?»

“He spent his entire life tending the grove,” Sun said. “It should be somewhere near the center of the grove.”

«That would be ideal,» Red Oak said. «But first we must find as many bones as possible, and place them into position.

For the next six hours the two scoured the area, with Red Oak directing Grey, and Mimiha directing Sunflower. They found just over half a skeleton, many times having to dig a half foot down from where the spirits said a bone was located, only to find a small finger or toe. The spirits could identify each bone and it was placed on a deerskin in proper position.

It was getting near dusk when they heard Dan’s truck. “Flint told me what you found,” he said as he got out. “I brought some supplies too. Flint said you need to have a feast each night for four nights.”

“Since we have your truck here, do you think we could invite Miss Ridgemark out here?” Grey asked as he folded the skin over the skeleton like an envelope. “I think she is the only one around who knew the man.”

The three rode back to the house, and found the old lady on the porch. It was past her suppertime, but she said she hadn’t eaten. She offered to cook for her visitors though.

“No, I’m afraid we have some bad news,” Sun said. “We came across some bones in the grove. We are pretty sure they are the First Nation’s man you met when you were a young girl.”

“Lone Goose?” Daisy said. “I guess it must have happened, but it is still a shock. It always is when you lose someone you knew. It happens too often at my age. Did he die well?”

“We don’t know,” Grey said. “But the bones were scattered, probably by animals. We want to have an Ojibwe ceremony to send him off. Would you like to come? There will be feasts for four nights, but even if you only want to come to one it would honor him.”

“I will come to all four, if Dan will drive me. I can’t walk far anymore.”

“I’ll be glad to,” Dan said. “It is as if he was part of my band.”

They drove back to the bones, with Grey riding in the bed of the truck. When they stopped, Daisy took about four steps before Sun scooped her up and carried her to the camp claiming that she ‘weighed nothing’ to the delight of the old woman, who was pleased that she had not put on weight like so many of her contemporaries had.

Dan and Grey each took one end of the deerskin and carefully and respectfully carried it to the camp. Mimiha said that the camp was where the first three feasts should be, and a last smaller one would be at the burial site, after the hole was filled in. She stressed the importance of aligning the body east to west.

«We need to make it so when his friends come to accompany him to the Sacred Hunting Grounds in the West, he will see them coming, and not get lost going west,» she said.

They had a somber feast, with Dan, Grey and Sun singing funeral songs in Ojibwe as Daisy hummed along. Finally Dan and Daisy headed back to the house while the other two held a vigil until the moon was high. Then they went to bed.

The following three days were somber. Mimiha said they were allowed to work, but only if they were quiet about it. Luckily Grey had felled a large pine the day before the body was found, and merely had to trim the branches and begin splitting the wood.

He cut the tree into nine-foot sections with his axe, and then with the help of Red Oak found the best way to spit the wood lengthwise. He used his hatchet reversed as a hammer, and placed wedges into the places the spirit pointed to. Driving the wedges into the wood split it, and with Red Oak’s skill he was able to come up with either 1x6 or 2x4 boards that were the full nine feet long.

Sun worked on cleaning her new tools, feeling it was disrespectful to be tearing apart the truck while the ceremonies were underway. She finished late on the last day, and wandered back to the camp. She got a shovel and started to dig in the middle of the grove: a hole six feet long, two wide, and six feet deep.

Each night Dan had brought Daisy out to the feast, which followed the pattern of the first night. On this night Sun carried Daisy to the burial spot, almost in the middle of the grove. She set her down, and they stood somberly while Dan and Grey brought the deerskin to the grave, and slowly lowered it deep in the earth. Grey then added a bow, three arrows, and a cedar shield into the grave. A portion of the night’s feast was also added, and one of the canteens full of water. These items would allow the warrior to make his trip west.

Grey thought that some words were necessary at such a time so he stood and started to speak. “Lone Goose, we return you to your people. You spent many years in this grove, tending it. And for a long time it has been untended. Let it be known that now, and into the future, my sister Sunflower and I will take up your work and tend your trees. I only hope that we can do justice to the work you spent so much time on. I call your old friend, Daisy Ridgemark to cast the first earth.”

Daisy stood up and took the tool, but only gathered a quarter of a spade of earth, and cast it onto the bones. “Goose, my friend, when I was young you always had time to talk to me, and teach me about your world. I hope that you are finally released to your reward. You deserve it.”

Dan went next. “I am not of your band, but after the past four nights I feel that I am a part of a new band, an extension of your old band. If Sun and Grey will have me, I shall be a part of their band.” He shoveled in ten full spades of earth.

Sun went last. “From this day forth we name this Lone Goose Grove. Your spirit will always be welcome here.” She started refilling the hole she had dug out just hours before. She went faster and faster and finally Grey had to grab her arm so the she would give him a turn. After a few spades full, he thought he had finished the hole, but when he stopped she grabbed the shovel again and added a dozen more, until there was a slight mound over the grave, which was aligned perfectly towards the west.

The four remaining ate a somber meal, until midway through, when Dan, Sun and Grey all heard a new voice in their heads.

«I thank you all. I am Lone Goose, and I have wandered aimlessly among these trees since I fell. Now I see my father, and two uncles walked towards me to take me to the Sacred Hunting Ground. You have honored me, and that honors you. I go now. May peace and happy hunting follow you for the rest of your lives.»

“We just heard from Lone Goose,” Sun told Daisy. “He is pleased to be honored, and has passed on to join his relatives.” Daisy had a tear in her eye, and Sun had many. Even the men had to wipe their eyes on their sleeves.

“Please. Could you all come with me to my house?” Daisy begged. "I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Sun and Grey gathered up their bedrolls, and Daisy promised to have blankets for Dan. Thus Sun and Grey spent their first night in the old house, comforting an old lady.

Chapter 9 – Lightning Strikes

After the burial, Sun and Grey fell into a routine for about six weeks. Every morning they were up with the sun. Sun went to the lodge, and worked at tearing the old truck apart. She tried hard to fix the old parts, but in many cases could not, so she became a regular customer at the two auto parts stores in Peterborough. NAPA had most of what she wanted, and at a cheaper price, but a local store would source old parts for her over the Internet, sometimes getting new-old parts from across North America.

As a result, Sun went to the store at least once every day to see if a new part had been delivered on the bus. She was no longer concerned about people staring at her. She was now confident in her beauty, and wore her buckskins to the store where riders often pointed at ‘the giant squaw’ or the ‘huge Indian maiden.’ People from the area got used to her, and seldom gave a second glance when they saw her: many actually smiled and spoke to her like any other village resident.

Grey spent his mornings chopping wood, usually from sunup till noon. He would then take the sled, which he had converted into a wheelbarrow, full of wood to the house. He spent the morning visiting Daisy and helping her make a lunch for the three of them. In the afternoon, Sun went back to her truck, Daisy had a nap, and Grey would work on his wood. He had cut rough boards and planks out of the tree, but once he got the wood to the house, he had to trim it to fit. A 2x4 is not actually two inches by four inches, but a half-inch less in each direction. He had to plane the new wood down to fit, and make it match the bad or broken board exactly.

Around three Sun would come to the house, and Daisy would give her cooking lessons, making the dinner the three of them would eat. Grey or Sun continued to hunt deer to augment their diet, but now that they could keep food cold or frozen in Daisy’s kitchen, there was no need to make jerky.

In the evening one would work, while the other kept Daisy company until the sun was setting. Then they headed back to their camp. During this time they became familiar with the house.

It was huge for a single house, with over 3,000 square feet on the three floors (the basement even had an eight-foot clearance, like the second story. The ceilings on the ground floor were 10 feet high.) The plan for the house was simple. There was a five-foot wide hall around the entire floor, 20 feet in from the outside. This left a 40 foot by 70 foot space in the middle. On the ground floor it was 40 by 95, since there was no hall at the front. This was a traditional great room on the ground floor. On the second floor it designed as a playroom for the children that had never come to the house.

There were up to seven families in the house at different times, but none of Daisy’s seven brothers ever had children. In spite of her father being so prolific, something genetic prevented his sons from being fertile. That was one reason Daisy never married: she was asked when she was 24, but eventually declined. She couldn’t bear the thought that she might have children while her seven sisters-in-law were deprived of them.

The walls along the sides on the ground floor were of varying widths, with the smallest only 12 feet wide. This made roomy 20x12 bedrooms, and other rooms were 15 feet wide. The back of the house had a huge kitchen that spanned the entire width of the house, other than stairways and pantries. This beautiful kitchen space was now unused with only one person in the big house.

Daisy lived in three rooms. She had one room at the back as a smaller kitchen, the next room was her living room, and finally there was her bedroom. Across the hall was a washroom, which included a full bath that Sun and Grey already were making good use of. The house did not have hot water at first: there were four water heaters in the basement, but none worked. Daisy would heat water on her stove for her bath, but the others used it cold: they were used to bathing in the near freezing water (even in summer) of the stream. There were cheers all around when Sun managed to cobble together parts from the four old heaters to get one that worked, allowing hot baths and showers.

The basement of the house did not have the same arrangement. On the west side, there was an area with the furnace and other utility spaces, but most of the room was a huge open space that was 50x90 feet. One wall was mirrored: Until 1995 Daisy had taught ballet and other dance classes here.

First Grey got the three sets of steps onto the veranda repaired and safe, and then he finished half of the porch decking at the front of the house, so one could safely get from the east steps to the west.

Sun had her truck running in early September. She still needed to work on the starter, but with some clever use of screwdrivers, she was able to get the engine purring.

That night a thunderstorm rolled through at 10. Sun and Grey had watched the ugly looking clouds rolling in as they walked home from dinner with Daisy, and just made it to the large wigwam before the rain started to fall. They could see lightning to the west, and hear thunder getting closer and closer.

They huddled together in the large wigwam, wondering if they would be able to get to their sleeping wigwams without getting soaked. Suddenly there was a huge boom, and the ground shook.

“That was close,” Sun said.

“Yes. I think I just lost a tree,” Grey replied.

“Look over to the road. I see a red glow. Isn’t that near the house?”

Grey looked, and his heart sank. “That is the house. It is on fire!”

“Oh no! Daisy!” Sun cried. Both of them stood and immediately tore out of the shelter, with no concerns about getting wet. They just needed to get to their friend, and her house.

They ran full tilt, with Mimiha and Red Oak directing their footsteps. As they were on one step the spirit would call out ‘short’ or ‘long’, allowing the two to run full tilt in the dark without stumbling as they missed any possible roots or other impediments on the path.

As they got close, they could see that the fire was not bad, having been beaten down by the intense rain. “I will deal with the fire,” Grey said. “You look after Daisy.”

Most of the fire on the outside of the building was out, but the balcony was gone, and much of the upstairs rooms. The two downstairs rooms were a charred mess, and small blazes flamed here and there. With the old wood in the building, any one of those flareups could turn the building into a conflagration.

Grey took his deerskin coat and started beating down the flames. After a while he saw Dan beside him doing the same. “Go upstairs,” Grey ordered. “There might be flames up there. And go slowly. Those stairs are not safe.”

Dan was back five minutes later as Grey looked around at the largely extinguished fire. He was now just kicking burnt wood, trying to ensure that there were no embers inside the blackened wood. If there were, he would kick the wood outside, where the rain would quickly eliminate any hot spots.

“It was pretty good up there,” Dan said. “Just two or three hot spots. The roof is pretty much gone up there, and the rain kept the fire down. The floor of that room kept the rain out of a lot of this room, so you had more work.”

“I think it is done now,” Grey said, breathing heavily. “We should check back every five or ten minutes just to make sure. Let’s go see Sun and Daisy.”

They found the women sitting on the couch. Sun was holding Daisy in her lap as if the old woman was a child, rocking her back and forth.

“Do we need to leave?” Sun asked as Daisy wept. She was ready to pick the woman up and run with a second’s notice.

“No, we have it out,” Grey said, Dan nodding. “There are two rooms at the back that are burned up pretty bad, but the rain put most of it out. If it had been a dry lightning strike, we’d all be watching the biggest bonfire ever right now.”

“Oh my house, my beautiful house,” Daisy moaned. “Is it ruined? Will I have to move? I’ve lived here my whole life. I want to die here … just not so soon.”

“No, I can fix it,” Grey said. “I will fix it. The north steps and the rest of the porch can wait. I will start closing those rooms in tomorrow.”

“Unless Daisy had insurance,” Dan said. “Did you dear? We will have to wait for the insurance agent to see it.”

“I can’t figure out why it hit there,” Grey said. “There are lightening rods on each corner of the house, and one in the center of each side. The rod in that corner must have been bad. I’ll check all the others tomorrow.”

“Will you all stay with me tonight,” Daisy begged. She looked at Dan. “Not you. Your mother will be worried about you. But if you other two stay I will feel so much better.”

“Of course we will stay,” Sun said. “We will spend the night tonight, and every night until you tell us to leave.”

“That will never happen dear,” Daisy said. “Perhaps Grey will look around and find a couple rooms you can live in. But until he does you will stay in my rooms. The kitchen and living room will be open to you.”

Dan left, and the others stayed up for several hours. They calmed Daisy down, and Grey went to go check the burnt out rooms several times. Finally Sun announced that Daisy needed to sleep, and took her into her room, climbing into bed to cuddle with her for the night. Grey slept on the couch, with Flint waking him several times during the night to check on the fire area. The spirit said the boy could sleep, and he would alert him if there were a problem, but Grey insisted on being awakened every two hours.

Dan had taken Daisy’s insurance papers and called the agent early in the morning, and then arrived at the house before she got there. He was able to join in with the other three for a breakfast. Grey couldn’t remember having eggs for breakfast, and bacon. They had just finished when they heard a car on the drive.

“You stay here with Sun,” Grey said told Daisy. “Dan and I will get started with the agent.”

There was an appraiser with the agent, so she went inside to join the women while he surveyed the damage.

“Wow,” was the first thing he said. “How did the whole place not go up in smoke?”

“Manidoo was with us,” Grey said. “She poured a pretty heavy rain on the place.”

“Yes, lucky,” the appraiser said. “He went up on the newly repaired steps, and Grey had to warn him that he was going on some unsafe planks as he neared the burned out area.”

“You know I can’t cover this work,” the man said. “Only the area where the fire was, and 10 feet on either side. We insure against fire, not neglect.”

“Of course,” Grey said. The man look surprised, as if he was expecting an argument.

The man measured, then calculated on his laptop, and finally came to the conclusion that the damage would cost $40,000 to repair. “You will need to get three bids from contractors. Send them in and we will allow you to choose between the lower two.”

“What if I want to do the work myself?” Grey said.

“Yourself?” the man said. “That would be allowed. We will only pay out to the amount of the lowest bid then. And you will have to have the county building inspector approve any work.”

“That will be okay,” Grey said. He turned to Dan. “Do you know of any contractors in the area?”

“Several. I can get them out here today or tomorrow. And I will help you with the work.”

In the light of day they found that four of the eight lightning rods were defective, including the one at the corner where the lightning struck. “You will have to repair those within a month,” the appraiser said, “or else your insurance will go up steeply. I need a building or fire inspector report sent to the office showing the work was done correctly."

They went into the house and found that the agent had finished all the paperwork with Daisy. She collected her appraiser, and they left.

“She said that men would come and fix it,” Daisy said. “I don’t want strange men working on my house. I just want it back the way it was.”

“Don’t worry, Daisy,” Grey said. “Dan and I will do the work. There will be some men out to look at it and make estimates, but Dan and I fix it for you.”

“I want to see it,” Daisy insisted. They took her out the east door, and then walked along the repaired porch to the west door. Grey stopped them at the end of the repaired section. Daisy was used to walking with her head down to prevent a stumble on the porch when it had been broken, so she only looked up when Grey ordered a halt.

“Oh my house. My beautiful house. All black and evil smelling,” she actually sagged at the sight and Sun had to hold her up.

“We can fix it,” Grey said.

“Good as new,” Dan said.

“Or better,” Sun added. “Now let’s get you away from all of this. I’m going to spend the entire day with you.”

“But your truck, dear?” Daisy said.

“I love my truck,” Sun admitted. “But I love you more. It will wait. I am waiting for some starter parts anyway.”

Frank came by soon after, and volunteered to pull his old trailer over to block the lane, and keep sightseers from coming in. The local Tweed newspaper came by, and was allowed to take photos. She spoke with Sun to get quotes for a story. Daisy had been getting the little weekly newspaper since she learned to read, and said they had a right to the story, but she was still too upset to talk to them. Sun gave details of what happened, and announced that there was insurance and that the house, famous in the area, would be rebuilt.

The contractors came the next day, and each gave a quote. After receiving the quotes, Grey handed each man a $100 bill. He told them he knew he would do the work himself, and want to compensate them for making a quote on a job they would never be able to win. In the end the low quote was $32,000, and the others were also below the $40,000 estimate. The quotes were sent off to the agent, and she authorized construction to start.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

The daily postings will continue for a while. I already have Chapter 11 half written: Dawn.

Chapter 10 – Rabbit joins the band

The repairs to the house continued with Dan, Grey and Sun all working on it. Dan wanted to buy lumber to make the repairs, while Grey considered this a waste of 3000 acres of good trees. He finally did agree to buy two chainsaws and a commercial planer. The chainsaws meant they could fell a pine in less than an hour with the big saw, and then clean it of bark and branches with the smaller saw. The big saw would then cut it to lengths of just over 8 feet. Not using an axe to cut and section the trees would save a lot of wood.

It still took time to split the logs into planks and boards. Grey was starting to see how the wood grain ran, and would make suggestions on where to drive the wedges. Red Oak would only correct him if he was wrong, and those times began to be further and further apart.

When Sun’s auto parts shipment came in, she disappeared for a few days, and then when Grey and Dan were loading wood on Dan’s truck, they heard the sound of an engine. Sure enough, it was Sunflower, and she backed her truck up expertly and Grey started to load lumber into it.

A few days later the planing mill came in, and the deliveryman dropped it on the front lawn. There was a debate on where to put it. The basement of the house was considered. That was close, but the noise would bother Daisy.

“Why don’t you put it into one of the barns,” Daisy finally said.

“They are all padlocked,” Sun said. “I’ve tried to get in.”

“Oh dear,” Daisy said. “I don’t know where the keys are.”

“Well, with your permission we could just take off the locks and replace them with new ones.”

So Sun soon had her chisel and was snapping the lock hasps out of the wood. The first building was a stable, with 12 stalls. At one time the mill had used animals for moving wood. The second building turned out to be a garage, and Sun squealed when she opened the door. Inside was a 1983 Ford LTD sedan in what looked like running condition, a small Farmall tractor from the 40s, and an old bus from about the same generation. The latter vehicles looked like they needed work. It turns out that the car was the one Daisy had stopped driving 5 years ago after a near-accident. The older vehicles had been collected years ago, and just stored there.

The third and largest barn gained another squeal from Sun. The place was the old mill, and was full of huge and strange machines that she would be able to work on. There was a huge crosscut saw that had a 50-inch blade, as well as a smaller rip saw that could cut logs into board lumber. Grey looked up and saw that the upper reaches of the barn had pulleys and large cloth belts running across it. He darted outside, and swam through the bushes grown up beside the barn. At the river edge, he saw the stone formation that he had earlier seen from the river.

“They must have run the mill from a dam,” he said, pointing to the belts above.

“Yes, but luckily they converted to electricity at some point,” Sun said gleefully. “Everything seems to run on three-phase electric, which is what your new planer needs. I think that machine,” she pointed to a massive one four-feet wide and 12-feet long, “is the old planer. I will play with it last, since you just spent $3000 on your new toy.”

The power in all the buildings was out, but when the power company came out and turned on the three-phase unit, all the other buildings were powered as well. Most were pretty dingy, with only one 150-watt bulb in the stables, and too few bulbs in the other buildings. It probably was brighter than the lanterns that would have been used when it was mill-driven, but Sun made plans to add lighting, starting in her garage.

New locks were fixed to all the doors, with Sun holding the keys. With the new planer and chainsaws, they sped through construction with Dan and Grey getting the repairs to the burned out rooms done by early December, including repair of the back stair near the fire, and all of the veranda decking.

One morning Sun and Grey were heading towards the store. Now that they had the house closed in, they had decided that they would spend half their day working on crafts, snowshoes, and canoes. Frank had been begging for new stock for weeks.

As they got to the road, they spotted a feral dog, a German shepherd mix, chasing something in the field across the road. There were more than a few wild dogs in the area, and this one looked young and particularly mangy, a sign it was not a pet.

Suddenly a rabbit, its fur mostly turned to white for the winter, darted out across the highway. It was nearly hit by a car speeding past. Highway 7, the TransCanada highway to Toronto, was one of the busiest two lane highways in the province.

Then the dog burst out of the brush near the road, chasing the rabbit. He was not so lucky, and a speeding van clipped his hindquarters. The driver slowed for a second, then sped up and off down the highway.

Both Sun and Grey had the image of the dog being hit, and then spinning through the air squealing, and finally hitting the pavement with a thud, seared into their brains. The next two cars had seen it get hit, and pulled out around it. By then Sun was at the road, and picked up the dog.

“Is it alive?” she said when she got to the road shoulder.

“Barely, and sinking fast. Take him to the house,” Grey said, and he started singing an Ojibwe healing song that came from his heart, as he had never heard it before.

Soon the animal was bleeding on the table in the great hall, which Sun had only cleaned up a few weeks before. Grey sat down in front of the dog on one of the chairs, and Sun sat next to him. Grey put his head down on the table, still singing. It was as if he was in a coma, except for the song.

Grey found himself in a strange place, with wet red goo running onto the squishy floor and down all the walls. He saw strange pipes pumping the red out. Instinctively he reached up to one pipe, finding it soft and flexible. It was a blood vein, he realized. He was inside the dog somehow.

He ran his hand across the vein, and slowly it repaired. He looked and saw the other end, and joined the two together, and they merged, no longer showering him in blood. He worked through the cavity he was in, finding smaller and smaller veins to repair. Soon there was no further blood and in fact the body seemed to have some mechanism to remove the blood, and soon there were pink walls and floor instead of red.

He was starting to get tired, and knew that there were broken bones to be healed, as well as other things to be done. Then he felt a third hand come out from his body, to join with a smaller hand. It was Sun’s spiritual hand, which was much smaller than Grey’s. He felt her energy flow through the connection, and he was revived enough to try and repair the broken hip bones. As he was doing so, he felt another surge of energy: Sun had placed her left hand on his right hand outside of the body. Now he noticed how much bigger her hands were in real life.

With the hipbones repaired, he moved up to the spine. There was not much room here, but he crawled along the bones until he found the broken parts: one was shattered and three others broken or cracked. He fixed the shattered bone first, and then the others. He was tiring again, and he felt he was draining Sun. Finally the spine bones were fixed, but something was wrong. The nerves inside were not working. He crawled further up, to where the spinal column was working, and then slowly repaired the injury all the way to the tailbones, which flexed. He realized that the dog had just wagged his tail.

Grey stopped singing, and came out of the body. He was exhausted, but there was a living, healthy dog sitting next to him, licking his face in gratitude. Like most people, Grey was unable to resist smiling when being licked by a puppy. Sun was nearly as tired, but she got up and went to the kitchen, to find a half-pound of hamburger. She added two eggs into the bowl and brought it out and put it in front of the dog, then went back and got a bowl of water. Grey was starting to feel some energy in his body again, and he stroked the dog as it ravenously ate and drank.

“The poor thing is skin and bones,” Sun noted, as she stroked his matted fur. “He needs a bath too. “

«That was amazing,» Red Oak said to the two of them. «The student surpasses the master. I have never heard that song. Parts of it, but not in its entirety. You are truly a Medicine Man now. I can still teach you much, but it appears that you can teach me now.”

“What do we call him?” Sun asked.

“White Rabbit Chaser,” Grey said. “Rabbit for short.”

And that is how Rabbit joined the family. He only heard his full name when he did something wrong, usually with Sun shouting at him. He would come to her with his head down and tail between his legs until she finally relented and petted him. She bathed him once a week, even though he hated the soap and water. He put up with it only due to his love for her. He seemed to know the two people who saved his life.

He could almost always be seen following Grey. He didn’t needed to be taught to heel: he did it naturally to keep close to his new master. He would only leave him to go to Sun, sitting at the door to her barn as she worked within. He was guarding her.

Daisy fell in love with him, once he had been bathed and Sun had worked the matting out of his fur. In the evenings when the little family sat in the living room he would sit with his head on her lap getting petted. But if Sun or Grey were to leave the room, he would follow after, only returning to Daisy when they were back in the room.

Sun took him to a local vet, and he was checked out in return for one of her dreamcatchers. The vet said he was in good health, and administered his shots. She guessed his age at 9 months.

A few days after the healing, Sun and Grey were discussing it. Apparently Sun could see what Grey was seeing, after her third hand connected them. “It was so nice having the smaller hand for a change,” she noted.

“It is because your soul is that of a woman,” Grey said. “So naturally the hand of your soul would be smaller.”

Sun and Grey worked hard during the following three weeks before Christmas, and got four pairs of snowshoes done, and a cedar-strip canoe that Frank had sold with the promise of a Christmas delivery date. The man who bought it actually came to the house on Christmas Eve to pick it up. He was thrilled with the quality of the work, as well as meeting the builders.

Earlier that month Daisy had asked Dan to take her for Christmas shopping, while Sun was nearby. Sun noted that she and Grey tended to make gifts for one another, and she agreed to the tradition. She had knitted for years, to pass time in the evenings, and had a hall closet containing a huge collection of scarfs, mittens, and other odds and ends she could share. She only had one gift to make, and worked on it at times when Sun was in the garage working.

It was decided that Dan must come to Christmas at the house, and that meant his mother would come too, since she couldn’t be alone for Christmas. So all through the month of December Lois came to the family dinners on Sundays, and she quickly became good friends with Daisy.

On Christmas morning everyone was in the house. Rooms had been cleaned up for Lois and Dan. A huge breakfast had been cooked up in the kitchen and was enjoyed by all, and then they went into the livingroom where a Christmas Tree had been set up the night before. All the decorations on the tree were natural or from the house. Daisy had donated her collection of commemorative spoons, and they gleamed in the firelight. Grey had gathered about 50 different pine cones, and used natural dyes to color them. Sun had polished some of her smaller tools, and they were hung on the tree as well. It actually looked quite impressive.

Daisy looked at the pretty tree, with presents spread out around it. “You know,” she said. “I had a dream last night that there were children in the house: excited over Christmas, and squealing in delight with their presents. They called me Grandma. It was so special.”

“Don’t look at me,” Sun said. “I can’t have kids, as much as I would like to.” She leaned over and kissed the old lady. “But it is a wonderful dream, and I wish I had been in it.”

The highlights of the presents included Sun’s gift for Daisy: a pair of moccasins. “We call them makizins and I thought you would like them,” she said as Daisy admired them. “They are beautiful,” she gushed, and doffed her slippers and put them on. Her eyes widened.

“Oh my,” she said. “They are so soft. And so warm. I’m old, and when you get old your feet are always cold. But with these my feet are toasty warm. Let me get you my gift for you.”

She pointed out a package and Sun reached down to get it. It was wrapped in Christmas paper. She opened it, and found a large wool sweater/jacket. She put it on, and it fit perfectly. The front was a traditional scene of a man hunting with a rifle on one side and a deer on the other. Except she had altered the scene, and it was clearly a woman, shooting a bow. Sun gently hugged the woman, with her appreciation of the gift clearly in her eyes.

Daisy’s other gifts were scarfs for the men, and a knitted blanket for Lois.

This year Grey had gotten Sun a special gift. He had collected a dozen tools from her garage and replaced the old cracked and broken handles with new maple handles. Each one had an image of a Sunflower burned into it.

“So that’s where they went to,” Sun said of the missing tools as she unwrapped them from the deerskin he had wrapped them in. “I needed that chisel yesterday.”

Her gift to him also seemed to be wrapped in deerskin, but when he opened it the wrapping turned into the gift. It was a new deerskin coat, replacing the one that had been burned fighting the fire. The siblings hugged each other.

Everyone got a present from every other person, and all agreed that it was more special that the gifts had been handmade rather than purchased in a store. Even Rabbit got a gift. Grey had cut out a piece of bear fur, with the hair removed, to make him a sturdy collar, and then Sun had beaded it with his name. He allowed Grey to put it on him, and then strutted around the room, as if to say: I have clothes too now.

“Christmas gets better each year,” Grey finally said. “My first year in Canada I was alone and lonely. The next one I had Sun, and she was the greatest gift I ever got.” All the women said ‘aah.’ “Now it is like a real Christmas, with a family. My family. I love you all.”

“Maybe next year or later there will be babies running around,” Daisy said, unable to get her dream out of her mind. Even if Sun could not have children, Grey could.

Then the group hugged each other in true companionship and love.

“Oh wait,” Daisy said. “Look here!” She went to the far side of the room and removed a covering, to show six stockings hung on the wall, each with a name knitted on.

“When I was looking for gifts, I found these old stockings: man sized.”

“Sunflower-sized.” Sun said with a laugh.

“I sewed on the names, and filled them with goodies. There will be an orange in the toe, because of tradition, and then the rest are cookies and things Sun and I baked. Except for Rabbit. His have dog biscuits and a can of dog food in the toe.”

After that they sang Christmas Carols, and a few Ojibwe songs until it was ready for the Christmas feast that Sun and Daisy had prepared. Just before they all sat down to eat, Sun moved out of the room to take her potion.

“That has been amazing for you,” Grey said as he saw her. “Not even a full year, and now no one would ever think you were a man. You have stopped using the wool, haven’t you?”

“Yes. This is all me. Since the fire. I donated the wool to Daisy. “

“Is there much potion left?”

“Yes. And I still have two jars of Mooz pee. But we will have to hope that Daria comes back next year if I hope to keep using it.” Sun said.

“I sure she will. Saving her from wolves probably made her want to come back. If not, then I will have to tame another mooz.”

They went out and rejoined the others, and a grand feast was held in the ballroom. Everyone ate too much, and there was laughing and singing and gaiety among friends. All the while Rabbit sat on the floor beside Grey, only leaving when he saw a hand drop below the table to offer him a tidbit.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Another daily dose of happenings in the Grove: Dawn.

Chapter 11 – Wood theft

In January the pair worked as hard as before. They finished another canoe, and 10 more snowshoes. Their balances at Frank’s Bank were getting low with all the expenses and no income. They were buying the majority of the groceries for the house. During this time Grey spent half days fixing up more rooms in the house, and starting on the balcony, which was in worse shape than the verandah had been. Sun worked in the barns. She had the LTD tuned and working in a few hours, but the mill equipment intrigued her and she started taking apart the rip saw, since Grey said that was the most useful tool, if she could make it work.

The insurance money finally came in, and a heating and cooling company from Peterborough was called in to replace the old oil furnace, which no longer worked. A new propane unit was installed that was large enough to heat and air-condition the house. For the past five years, since the old furnace died, Daisy had kept warm in the winter with the wood stove in her living room. Trips to the bathroom were cold, but she got used to it. Dan chopped wood for the fire, and stacked in where she could get it. In the summer, air conditioning meant going out onto the verandah.

During the week the contractors were installing the equipment Sun spent all her time at the house, helping wherever she could. She wanted to learn how to do the work since the contract was not for the entire house, and eventually she hoped to complete it. She made friends immediately with the men when she helped them bring the new furnace into the house. She carried almost as much of the weight as the other three men.

Later, when the men were installing ducts, her height allowed her to stand and hold up one end of a duct while the HVAC man at the other end fastened it. The furnace/air conditioner contract was $12,000, and the equipment was over-powered to be large enough for the whole house, but to install ducts through the entire place would have more than doubled that price. Only the east side, where Daisy and the others lived, was completed.

The work Sun provided meant the men were done nearly a day early. She sweet-talked them to putting a duct into the second story above Daisy’s living room, just so she could learn how it was done. The duct was installed, replacing the old tin one, and Sunflower learned valuable knowledge on how to install second floor ducts. The duct was closed off though: there was no sense wasting gas to heat the unused room. There were now heat in five unused rooms on the east side of the house that could be used for guests.

While Sun was learning everything that she needed to know about HVAC, Grey took a trip up to the old camp. The river was now frozen thick enough to cross, and he wanted to scope out the area where Daria would nest. Flint told him that the cow moose was pregnant, and feeding in the area, so he felt sure she would come to his camp in April.

Grey looked around the campsite where he had spent nearly two years before they moved across the river. He took a sip of water from the stream, deciding that it was just as pure as the spring in Lone Goose grove. He headed back across the river to the grove, and then stopped dead. There were two stumps where there once had been mature Black Walnut trees growing.

«Men came the last two nights,» Red Oak said. «Did you not know? We thought you sent them.»

“No we didn’t,” an outraged Grey said. “How many men?”

«Two. They had a truck like Dan’s with a long trailer. They cut down the tree, cut off the branches, and split the tree into three sections for the trailer. They used the noisemaker’s that you and Dan use now.»

Chainsaws. Grey studied the stumps and saw that the trees were thicker than the saws, and two cuts had to be made. Full trees like these would sell for $6,000 each at a lumber mill that dealt in exotic hardwoods. No doubt they would try to take down the remaining 48 trees, and then start in on the less valuable oaks and maples. The tree rustlers must have thought they found a goldmine. And it was clear they knew they were stealing, since they came at night, driving the lane beside the river. Suddenly Grey knew why Rabbit had awaked barking two nights ago. The dog was warning them of the intruders, and Grey had snapped at him, ordering him to be quiet. Grey leaned over and rubbed the neck of his faithful friend, who had accompanied him on the trip over the river.

“Will they come back? Tonight?” Grey asked Red Oak.

«Probably,» the spirit said. «White men tend to work five days then take two off. I think they will come tonight, and then again tomorrow.»

“They will find a reception for them tonight, so I don’t think we will have to worry about tomorrow,” Grey said.

That night they heard the pickup truck bouncing down the lane with the wagon attached to it at around 2 a.m. Rabbit wanted to bark at it, but Grey just put his hand across his muzzle, and the dog understood to stay quiet. Sun was not with them, but was elsewhere in the woods, also watching.

The men turned the truck around, with the wagon near to one of the Black Walnut trees. Soon the saw roared to life, and in a minute the sound changed as the saw bit into wood. That was when Grey stood up, and moved into action, pointing his most powerful flashlight, torch as he called it, at the saw, then turning it on.

The saw died as soon as the light was on it, and the operator pulled it out of the inch-deep cut he had already made. As the saw sputtered to silence, Grey heard one man shout. “What was that?”

The other man had a torch of his own, and played it across Grey. “It’s a kid. And he is alone. Unarmed.”

The first man ran to the truck and returned holding a long gun: Grey didn’t know if it was a rifle or shotgun. The other man kept his torch on the boy. Grey kept his on the man with the gun.

“Drop the flashlight or you won’t like the consequences,” Man two called out. Man one aimed the gun.

“Aieeeee, shit. I am shot,” Man one screamed as he tried to drop the gun. It didn’t fall, since an arrow through his forearm had pinned the gunstock to his arm. Nice shot, Sun, Grey thought as he walked up to the men. Man two was lying on the ground, quaking in front of a vicious snarling Rabbit.

“He has a wolf with him,” that man said. “What happened?”

“I was shot, that’s what happened. I’ve got an arrow through my arm and into my shotgun.”

“You’re in trouble, kid,” the man on the ground said. “This is a legal logging operation, on crown land, and you are interfering with it.”

“I’m in trouble?” Grey chuckled. “I’m not the one with a semi-feral wolf about to tear out his throat. One certain word from me, and he will do it.” The man cowered closer to the ground. “And remember, there is my Ojibwe friend in the bush with an arrow pointed at your friend’s heart. Did you know that a good Ojibwe archer can let a second arrow fly without missing before the first one lands? You two are in deep trouble.”

“First, if this was a legal logging operation, why is it happening at 2 a.m.? Second, this is not crown land, and we are employees of the lady who owns it. You have stolen $12,000 worth of wood, and we insist on being paid. The only statement you made that was true is that we are interfering with it.

Grey heard a truck on the road. He hoped it was who he thought it was, and not another ‘logger.’

«Yes, it is Dan,» Flint said. «Good shooting Sunflower. I notified him, and he has a police officer coming.»

Dan appeared, and the men realized they were in real trouble, with an adult male now present. Both men were leaking: one bleeding from his hand, and the other had a wet spot around his crotch as he cowered in front of the ‘wolf.’ Dan’s truck headlights flooded the area, so Grey turned off his torch. Rabbit jumped up to great his friend Dan, and the man on the ground cursed. “It’s only a dog,” he said with a swear. When he started to get up, Dan kicked him in the side, hard, with steel-toed boots.

“Bad idea,” he said as the man let out a woof as the air left his body. “I have a friend who is coming out to look after things. Wait where you are for a few minutes.”

Less than a minute later an OPP cruiser pulled up, and the man on the road groaned again. His friend was less worried. Being arrested wouldn’t be too bad for him, if it meant he would get that arrow out of his arm.

Const. Cindy Rohmer looked over the situation. She cuffed the man on the ground and was cursing that her cruiser was going to be covered in piss. Then the tallest woman she had ever seen appeared, carrying a bow and quiver. And the deerskin she had been sitting on in the bush. She set it down on the rear seat of the cruiser and gestured for the man to sit on it.

“You got shot by a woman, Andy,” the man yelled to his friend, “but she’s a flippin’ giant.”

Cindy radioed in for an EMT, and then went to the bleeding man. The wound was still bleeding, but not in a terminal way. She had the joy of handcuffing that man too, and with his arm stapled to the gun, doing so was more than a little painful.

She interviewed that man first, so that when the EMT arrived he could be taken to the hospital. The ambulance arrived, and the attendant agreed to take the man to the hospital in Tweed without a police escort. He only asked for the key to the cuffs.

“I could take that arrow out for you,” Sun said sweetly.

“I’m sure you could,” Cindy replied, “but we will need to have photos.”

“Can I get the arrowhead back?” Sun asked.

“Unlikely,” the officer said. “Even if you are not charged, it will probably not be released. The OPP don’t look kindly at people shoot arrows into other people.”

“Even when he was pointing his gun at my brother?”

“Even then. And I will have to take your bow and the other two arrows.” Grey’s eyes lit up then. There is no way that Sun would have come out with less than two dozen arrows. And that didn’t look like her best bow.

Cindy took the bow, and pulled on the string. She was barely able to pull it six inches. “How can you shoot a bow like this?”

Sun took the bow from her, and pulled it back a full three feet. The constable’s eyes widened. “I wouldn’t want to have to take you down in a barroom brawl,” she said.

“Not a problem,” Grey said. “Sunflower doesn’t drink.”

The ambulance drove off, and the officer ordered the others to wait while she got into the cruiser and interviewed the second thug. Then she got out and went up to Dan.

“You know, every time I meet you I wind up with an incident report that has all the guys in the station laughing aloud. Why do I think this will happen again? What did you see?”

“Not much,” Dan said. “It was pretty much over by the time I got here. The one fellow was bleeding, but not badly, and the other was laying in the dirt.”

“He said you beat him,” Cindy said.

“I gave him a good clip in the ribs with my boot when he tried to get up. He didn’t try again, and I didn’t hit him a second time.”

“I can vouch to that,” Grey said. “And I,” Sun added. “I was in the woods at the time, but the lights from Dan’s truck pretty much lit up everything.”

“Okay pretty boy,” she told Dan with a smile that Sun found interesting. “You wait here while I talk to the First Nations pair.”

Grey immediately eased up at the woman’s use of the proper terminology. He told her how they had discovered the two trees missing, and decided to stake out the site this night, hoping to catch the thieves in action.”

“So you went vigilante on us instead of calling the police?” Cindy said.

“It we had called you out to look at two stumps, do you think your chief or sergeant, or whatever would have authorized you to participate in an all night vigil? Grey asked.

“No, probably not,” Cindy said. “But that arrow went a long way into the gun stock. A few inches either way and we might have needed a coroner out here instead of an EMT.”

“Sun does not miss, even by an inch, when she is aiming from that distance,” Grey bragged.

“We don’t know that,” Cindy replied. “But no harm was done. I’m going to have to ask you to stop shooting at people,” she told Sun.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot promise that,” the bigger woman said. “If a man is pointing a gun at my brother I will do what I can to stop him. If he had fired, that arrow would have gone into his head, and then another would have killed his friend, so I could go and tend to Grey.”

The officer was conflicted. She couldn’t disagree with Sun, but at the same time she couldn’t encourage vigilantism. Finally she just moved on.

She got Grey to admit to seeing one of the men sawing into the tree. She got small evidence bags from her cruiser, and took samples of sawdust from the tree and from the saw. She wanted to move the saw to the bed of the pickup but didn’t know how without disturbing fingerprints until Grey and Dan lifted it with a branch through the middle of the saw. “I’ve seen you cops do that on TV with a pencil and a pistol,” Dan claimed with a smile. She smiled back, and Sun noticed the connection again.

Finally she was finished, and drove the second thug to Tweed, where she would pick up his partner from the hospital, sans arrows. She also needed the gun as evidence. She hoped that the medical personnel would have gloves on, and not leave prints.

Grey shook Dan’s hand as she drove out. “That girl likes you,” Sun accused.

“What? I am too old for her,” Dan insisted. “I’m close to 50, and she is what? 32?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sun insisted. “A woman will put up with a lot for a good guy, and you are a good guy. Who else will she meet up here? The louts she pulls drunk out of the bar? Tree rustlers? You need to ask her out.”

“She is really cute,” Grey added. “Maybe if you won’t ask her out, I will.”

“What?” Dan’s head snapped around. “You are too young for her. The other way round. You’re still a teenager, aren’t you?” Grey nodded, finished with goading his friend.

“Naw,” Dan finally said, climbing into his truck.

Police had come and picked up the truck and saw the next day, after dusting for prints. Then Grey had repaired the damage to the third tree, and planted two Black Walnut saplings beside the stumps. Red Oak specified the distance, saying that the rotting stumps would nourish the new trees in the cycle of life.

The court case was two months later. The pair pled guilty on the advice of their lawyer, offering restitution for the two trees they had taken. They had only spent a little of the cash they had gotten from the mill. The judge determined that the value of the saw would equal the amount they had spent.

The truck was returned to the man who owned it, who promptly sold it to pay for his lawyer. The saw was released to Grey, along with the restitution money, as the agent for Miss Ridgmark.

The week after the trial was over, Sun called Cindy Rohmer and asked her to come to Sunday dinner to thank her for her help.

Cindy and Dan were seated next to each other at the dinner table, and were largely quiet through the meal, in spite of Sun’s attempts to get them to talk. Finally, as she was serving dessert, she whacked Dan on the side of his head, and a whack from Sun is no small thing.

“What?” he said, rubbing his head.

“You’ve spent the last hour sitting next to the prettiest woman in Hastings County, and you don’t say a word to her. Are you daft?”

“Is this dinner a setup?” Cindy finally was catching on.

“Yes, but the big lug sitting next to you is too stupid to figure it out,” Sun said. “He thinks he is too old for you.”

Cindy looked intently at Dan, who turned so red he nearly glowed. “I think I would go out with him, if he asked.”

Suddenly Dan was 13 again, asking a girl to the school dance. “I … er, I mean … uhm … would you like to go out? With me? Maybe dinner and a movie in Peterborough?”

“I would love to,” Cindy said, sliding her chair closer to Dan. By the end of the evening they were talking. Not lovers. Not yet. But at least talking. And with a date planned.

Long before this set up, Grey had moved out of the house, with a small wigwam across the river. There were a lot of sealer jars this time: there was a big set of them in the basement of the house that Sun found when she cleaned up down there.

Daria returned while Grey was erecting the hut, and immediately bugled for attention. He watered her, then chopped down a young cedar to feed her. He barely had the wigwam finished by nightfall. Jane was not to be seen: moose usually chase away the yearlings when they have mated again.

Rabbit wanted to come with Grey, but Daria found him too much like a wolf to make friends, so Grey sent him back to Sun. He was only allowed to come to the camp when she came to visit about once a week, to pick up the filled sealers that were like gold to her. The dog had to stay near the wigwam and not go near the moose.

Daria gave birth to two young males, and once they were firm on their feet Grey packed things up and headed south to the house. There were no wolf attacks or any other kind of scare this time and Daria let him go with a parting bleat. She would have been fine with having him close for protection and to feed and water her, and didn’t seem to understand his reluctance to devoting the rest of his life to her luxury.

She tried to follow him across the ice, but it was just starting to break up in early April and wouldn’t take her weight. Even Sun wouldn’t cross it, but the lighter Grey carried his camp goods across and walked home to the big house.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

OK, it finally happened. I need a break. There will be no chapter this weekend. Perhaps one on Monday if the muse strikes on the weekend: Dawn.

Chapter 12

In March, the week after Daria had her calves, Grey found himself back near the river. Dan was having a long-weekend campout for his Ojibwe Junior Warriors youth group and Grey had donated the Grove and his services for a three-day weekend. The boys (and a few girls) who had gotten permission slips signed, got out of school at lunch on Friday, and would be out until lunch on Monday.

Tents were erected through the grove on Friday afternoon for the boys and the leaders. The girls would sleep in the two smaller wigwams, which just needed to be cleaned out. The boys had to clear a spot and then erect their tents. Grey helped the leaders put up the tent they would sleep in, and went around to make sure the boys weren’t trying to put up a tent in a bad spot. Sloping land and worse, low spots that would flood if it rained, were the key problems to watch for.

Once tents were up, Grey took a walk through the grove with the students, explaining what the kinds of trees were. He showed how the leaves, cones (for conifers), bark and even the shape of acorns could help identify the species of a tree. At the end, groups of four were sent on a scavenger hunt to find certain tree types.

The winning teams were lined up and taken into the maple tree part of the grove. Earlier Grey had found that the maple sap had just started to flow steadily, and he brought out a collection of buckets and spigots that had been in the basement of the house. He showed the first four boys how to pound in the spigots and to attach the buckets. Since the grove had so many mature trees most had three buckets, and one huge old Maple took four. There were four less mature trees in the grove that only got a single bucket.

There were 42 junior warriors, and 50 trees, so everyone got one, with those with the smaller trees getting two. Grey just looked around and realized that the kids were saving him a lot of time in tapping the trees. And they would empty the buckets for three days as well.

In the evening a dinner of Sloppy Joes was served, to the delight of the kids, and after another hike through the woods, a campfire was set up with fallen branches that had been found on the hike. Grey was impressed at how many of the warriors tried to identify the wood they found. They were only right half the time, but even in their wrong guesses they were learning.

When the wood was stacked in the clearing near the spring, Dan chopped some of the longer branches to size as Grey showed the children how to make a fire using birch bark paper and a flint piece. Soon he had a fire of kindling burning, and larger and larger pieces of wood were added until there was a blazing fire.

Camp songs were sung, and Grey taught a simple Ojibwa tune to the kids, translating as he sang the words. Soon most of the kids were singing it as Grey beat on a drum he had constructed (with Flint’s help) last year. Some of the words were being mispronounced, but every child thought he or she was really speaking Ojibwe.

Eventually tired eyes led Grey to call it a night, and the kids were sent off to their camps. The parents were beat too, and went into their tents. Grey and Rabbit went into Grey’s old pup tent: Dan had warned that some of the fathers snored pretty badly, and Grey wanted to stay alert.

After about an hour there was silence from the tents of the children, and a gentle roar of snores from the Dads. Rabbit sat up, perking his ears, and then slipped out of the tent.

Grey was too tired to get up and investigate. However a few minutes later he heard snarling and barking from the area of the wigwams. It turned out that several of the boys tents thought it would be great fun to go to the wigwams and try to convince the girls that they were wild bears. They hoped to get the girls to run out screaming.

However it was the four boys who ran back screaming: Rabbit had growled from beside a wigwam, and the boys thought he was a wolf in the moonlight. The boys came to the parental tent, and leaped inside, waking the surprised Dads. It took nearly an hour to settle everything down. Grey eventually got up, and promised the boys that their little prank would earn them a treat the next day.

Grey went to bed alone: Rabbit had been invited into the wigwams and slept with the girls. Grey woke up before sunup, a little upset at the short sleep, and when the sun was just peeping up he went around and woke the boys, asking who wanted to see some wildlife.

Only about 15 boys and 2 girls climbed out of bed, rushing to the three latrines as Grey stoked the fires for breakfast. Then Grey led the early risers to the river, impressed at how well Dan had taught them to move silently through the woods.

At the river edge, they sat on various logs and watched the morning procession of animals coming for a morning drink. Daria was still in the area, and she brought her two bull calves to the water on the other side, with their new, gangly legs all akimbo as they tried to drink. On the nearer side they saw otter, deer with fawns, and to Grey’s surprise, several beaver. He hadn’t seen beaver in the area before.

They sat for over an hour until there stopped being so many other animals coming. The reason soon manifested itself. The wolf pack, now up to 12, came to drink. No other animals appeared while they were there. And then there was a black bear mother, with two cubs: this finally drew ‘aahs’ from the girls, and some boys, and that noise scared away the other animals.

“Come along now,” Grey said softly. “I am proud of you. You kept stone quiet for nearly an hour and you got to see some real nature. We will leave now so other animals can come to drink.”

They got back to camp a few minutes later, just as Dan was leading another dozen back who had woken up too late to join Grey. They had gone to the river on the west, rather than to the north where Grey was, and had seen a smaller collection of animals. No moose or bear, but otters, beaver, and deer. They were pleased.

The sleepy-heads in the camp were not so happy at having missed the show. “S’not fair,” insisted on of the girls. “You should have taken all of us.”

“I asked in every tent, and both wigwams,” Grey said. “I believe it was you who said ‘Go way. It’s too early’. Nature does not work to the schedule of man. You can’t see nature like a videocassette you can pop in at your pleasure. Nature has its own schedule, and you have to adapt to it.”

Most of the kids understand, but Grey heard ‘s’not fair’ repeated a few more times.

The fathers had gotten up and cooked a huge helping of scrambled eggs in one pan, bacon in another, and sausages in a third over the fire Grey had built up. Everyone ate well especially Rabbit, who darted back and forth from one hand to another, getting nibbles of bacon and sausage.

“All right,” Grey said when the ravenous pack of eaters started to slow down. “There was an incident last night where four boys decided to have some fun and scare the girls. The tables were turned, and I think I mostly heard boy screams. Let’s have the four boys stand up.”

The ashamed and somewhat frightened boys stood in front of Grey, who they considered more of a real Ojibwe then even Dan. Would they be sent home? Kicked out of the Warriors? Or even suffer physical punishment?

“In return for keeping us up all night, you four will miss today’s activities. Instead you will man the maple sap pots, one of which Dan is just now placing on the coals. You need to keep the fire burning, but not so much that you can’t stir the sap.”

“Now, everyone, including you four, needs to go out to the maple grove to collect the first batch of sap. Dan and I will go down between row 1 and 2 and 4 and 5 of the trees with big buckets, and you kids will go to the tree you tapped yesterday and take off the tins and drain them into the buckets. Try to be quick, we don’t want to miss any drips from the spigots if we can help it. We will do this again at noon and after supper.”

“What time is it, Grey?” a boy asked.

Grey looked at the sun, just over the horizon. “For this time in the spring, I would say it is about 8 to 8:15,” he said.

“It is 8:13,” one of the parents said, and the kids all gasped at how close Grey was, without a watch.

Once the syrup was in the pot, the children, other than the four on pot duty, followed Grey into the Oak part of the grove.

“You will notice that there are a lot of saplings growing here, but not in Black Walnut or Maple groves. That is because I have been tending those groves, clearing away the saplings and underbrush. I leave a few saplings in case a tree dies and needs to be taken down. You know that big Sugar Maple that has four buckets? It has a rot in the heartwood, and I will probably harvest it this fall, and plant a sapling in its place. It will be many years before the new tree is large enough to be tapped again.”

“We saw some stumps in the black walnut grove,” said one of the boys who had gone with Dan to the river. “Dan said you planted saplings to replace them.”

“Yes, the new saplings are right near the stumps, so as they grow the old tree will nourish the new one. It is how nature works in a cycle. Some of us saw wolves this morning. They will eat the otters and deer if they get a chance. It is all a part of how nature works.”

“They should kill all the wolves,” a girl said. “The deer are pretty.”

“Sun and I killed many wolves last winter. They were attacking a pregnant moose we had made friends with. But we did not kill all of them. We left enough that the pack could grow again, and we saw this morning that they have many pups with them now. But it is important that we have wolves, and that they kill the deer. If no deer were killed then eventually the deer over-population would eat all the young trees. Then there would be no food for the deer, and they would all die. Then the wolves would die with no deer or other animals to eat. And when the mature trees die, there would be no young trees to take their place. This beautiful land would be a desert. There needs to be a balance in nature. The Ojibwe understand this. I hope you can understand this, and let nature take its true course.”

Grey looked over his audience and saw that his little speech had made a connection with the kids. They realized that nature was not like a park or a zoo. Animals died so that other animals could live.

“My uncle hunts deer,” a boy said. “There is even a deer’s head in his basement rec room. It is pretty, but I sometimes wish it could be wild. Do you believe in hunting Grey?”

“Yes I do. Sun and I lived by hunting for over a year before we moved into the big house. I still take a deer or bear when we need more meat. But I hunt with a bow. Sunflower is actually a better hunter than I am. I don’t believe in hunting with guns. There is no talent in killing a deer a half-mile away. I have to get to about here to that big tree, from a deer to kill it cleanly. Sun can shoot a bit further. And I absolutely hate people who hunt, and do not eat the meat. That is not hunting, it is an evil sport.”

“You must use a gun to hunt bear,” another boy said. “I saw a big bear skin in the store that was huge. You couldn’t kill that with a bow.”

“Actually Sun shot that bear with a bow and arrow. They only thing is, with a bear you don’t miss. If you do, you better have a knife handy, and expect to be bloodied when it is over. Or dead.”

“But we are wasting the sun talking,” Grey moved to a lighter topic. “Today we are going to cut staves. I want everyone to go stand next to a sapling. It should be no more than 2-inches at the base, and at least an inch-and-a-half as high as you can reach. Make sure it is straight. It can have branches, but the fewer the better. I’ll go around and check.”

Grey was carrying a deerskin bag with five hatchets in it. When he found a Warrior with a suitable sapling, he gave the child a hatchet and asked that it be cut within six inches of the ground. When done with the hatchet, it was passed to another child. After they all had a sapling cut, they each took off the branches, ideally with only two cuts per branch. A cut on the underside first meant that the cut on the top would not tear down the bark. Finally, they all cut the sapling at the top, which took fewer chops than at the bottom, leaving a six-foot stave.

"This afternoon we will all take turns using knives to cut the bark from the saplings, and then you will need to let them dry for six weeks or so. Then you will be able to finish them up. We will debark them after lunch."

With five hatchets and nearly 50 children, you might think that there would be boredom starting, but Grey told stories of the past, and how the Ojibwe lived at different times as they worked. There were huge groans when he explained how children of the people lived when there were no televisions, telephones, or Internet. But they seemed to appreciate how the simpler way of life could be better, with people helping each other as a clan, and not just a family.

When everyone walked back to camp with proto-staves the boys who had been working the sap pot looked envious. Grey announced that their punishment would end after lunch, which was pot of hotdogs, with enough for two per boy or girl. However first everyone had to go make another collection of sap, adding it to the first pot.

Grey then took the four truants to the Oak grove and had them cut down staves. With four boys and five hatchets, it went quicker, and they were back in time to get the 10 hotdogs that had been saved for them. Rabbit again was getting his fill. Most of the girls were satisfied with only a hotdog and a half, and donated the other half to the hero who had saved them the night before.

In the afternoon on Saturday the children used knives to strip the bark from the staves. Grey was ready when the first boy nicked himself with his knife, and produced a handmade salve that he had prepared which treated the wound immediately. The salve would allow the skin to rejoin, and then by Monday afternoon only a slight scar would be left. Later another boy cut himself, but deeper, and normally a trip to the hospital would be required for a few stitches. But Grey merely pulled the pieces of skin together, holding it with a strip of deer gut, and then applied the salve as before, and covered the wound. The salve on the first boy dried over the day, and Grey was able to wash it away in the spring. But the second boy, although the wound was healing, had to have another dose of the salve, with the process repeated in the morning, and again at noon the next day.

After the staves were cleaned, Grey explained their use, showing one he had made the year before.

“Mine is a clear stave only for walking, although I did use it once when I got too close to a raccoon’s kits, and she attacked. A whack on the head and she backed off. But I think that Dan is going to have you guys do your staves up in Boy Scout style. That means putting grooves in wood at 12-inch marks for five feet, and inch marks for the other six inches. Can anyone tell me why we don’t do that now?”

There was no reaction from the students until Jace, one of the smallest boys in the group, raised his hand and said: “You said the staves have to dry out. If they dry out, they probably shrink, and any measurements we did now would be wrong.”

“Perfect answer,” Grey said. “Now it is important to know that the wood is not as strong now as it will be when it is dried out, so don’t try any of these things until Dan tells you it is alright. Otherwise your stave will crack, and be useless.”

“Here are some tricks you can do with staves. Imagine you need to climb a tree to check out where you are in a forest. One boy needs to climb. Two others can hold one of two staves and the boy climbing can use this to get a boost to the branches of the tree. Experienced campers, if they are the same height, can even put a second stave on their shoulders to make a second step. With two boys it spreads the weight out, compared to a single boy trying to boost another.”

Another trick is that three staves together can make a tripod,” he borrowed two green staves and used his to make the tripod. You can use this to cook something over a fire. With a tripod at each end, and one running across, you have the start to a lean-to. A group like this would be too big for a six-foot lean-to, but additional tripods and cross pieces could extend it to make a shelter from the wind for everyone.”

“A couple other uses: making a stretcher with a blanket and two staves; testing the depth of a river before you try to ford it; a barrier to keep a crowd back; measuring distances, estimating weights of fish and other items, and estimating the heights of trees and other things. We will be getting into the last few tricks on Monday morning, if we have time. Be warned, they involve Math.” There was a general groan.

“Finally, scouts often wrap things around their staves. Two loops around a two-inch stave will be a foot of material. So you could put a 20-foot cord in 40 loops, and have rope handy for any use, as well as making a softer spot on the stave for your hand. And 100 loops of fishing line will give you 50 feet of line, allowing you to fish with the stave as your pole.”

The kids were all astonished at how useful the staves could be for camping, and what they were learning. There was another walk through the grove while the parents cooked dinner, Sloppy Joes again. The Warriors were much better at identifying the trees, and Grey added material on the uses of the various types of wood. The young people were incredibly exited to learn that the Black Walnut trees were worth $6000 each, and the values of some of the other trees. Suddenly little Jace shouted out: “That means all these trees are worth $800,000.” He had done the calculations in his head.

“And with the surrounding trees, they are worth more than a million dollars,” Grey said. “Nature can be quite valuable.”

After dinner, and another emptying of the Maple Syrup containers, there was another campfire and this time when the kids went to sleep, there were no hi-jinks. Rabbit did spend the night in the girls’ wigwams, spending most of the night in the arms of one girl or the other.

Sunday went much as the prior day did. All but four of the children got up to go to the river at daybreak. Grey took one group a bit northeast to a new spot, Dan went to where Grey had been on Saturday, and a parent led a group west where Dan had been the prior day.

All groups managed to see wildlife, although the parent-led group saw less, due to being noiser. Daria was back, but saw Dan instead of Grey, so was less interested. Grey’s group was lucky, seeing a rare bobcat and her cute kittens.

After breakfast Grey held a session on arrow making. He said the art of making a bow would have to come later.

“Does this mean we get to come back?” several excited boys asked.

“If you are good, and respect nature the way Grey tells you, we might be able to have our first fall campout out here,” Dan said with general cheering following. “We will have one more outing in June, but that will be down at my cottage on the lake. Swimming gear will be required. It will be only one night. My mother can’t put up with so many for longer than that.” More cheering.

“Can Grey come too?” one of the girls asked. “He tells the best stories. You listen and are all into the story and then when it is over you learned something from it.” There were general begging cries through the group.

“I can’t promise,” Grey said. “But I will try to join you.” More cheers.

After the arrows were made, and a few of them looked like they might fly further than they could be thrown, Sunflower appeared at the camp. They boys seemed in awe of her, but the girls were happy to have a member of their gender present, even if she was more than three times their size.

Sun and Grey demonstrated shooting, with Grey able to hit a sapling 100 yards out. Sun shot putting her first arrow almost through Grey’s, then hit another sapling 150 yards out, and finally sending an arrow 200 yards.

“Ha, you missed,” one of the boys jeered.

“Did she?” Grey asked. “Run out there and pull out arrows from the trees, and look around for the arrow from that last tree.”

The boy did, and came back with all four arrows, puffing from the exertion of the run. “She did hit the last tree,” he gasped. “The arrow just nicked the side of the tree. That is frigging amazing shooting.”

“Practice is the key to bowmanship,” Sun said, “or bow-woman-ship. If you want to be good at it you need to work at it. I try to shoot for a half hour each night, although since I moved to the house I have missed too many nights.”

Grey then let the students try to pull Sun’s bows (she had brought two). Grey could pull the string back nearly a foot, but the boys could only pull from three to eight inches. The girls were lucky to pull two inches. They were amazed when Sun pulled the string back a full three feet.

That evening Grey was at the spring when he heard several boys joking.

“This is the best tasting water,” one lad said.

“Like Entwash from the Lord of the Rings,” another said.

“Then Jace should drink a lot, and he might grow bigger,” the first said.

“Yeah, then the bullies in Grade 8 won’t be able to dunk him in the trash bins,” a third boy said. That was when Grey stepped in.

“Are you saying that you watch one of your friends being bullied and you didn’t do anything?” Grey said.

“Well, they are Grade 8s, and one failed so he is like Grade 9. We can’t do anything about it. They only take lunch money from the little kids. Jace is the only one from our group that they pick on.”

Around the campfire Grey had a message for the group.

“I just learned that there is bullying going on at your school,” he said. “That ends now. You are all Ojibwe Junior Warriors, and if you want to come back to the grove, then you will have to act like it.”

“Ojibwe do not let the small and defenseless be pushed around by bullies and thugs. You girls are young, but soon you will be of the age and bullies may try to intimidate you to do things you are not ready for. This will not happen, if I am involved with your group.”

“But they are bigger than us, Grey.”

“One-on-one they might be. But there are nearly 40 of you. Do you think the bullies would fight you all? Bullies don’t like to fight. They like to scare people. If you stand up to them, they will back off. They might even try to fight a few. But if they learn that if they bloody one of you, then they will have to face three, four, or five more, they will run. Bullies are cowards. Stand up to them once, and you will never have to do it again.”

“And I’m not saying it is just Jace you need to protect. He is a member of your tribe, and I am a little ashamed at you that you have let this happen to him. But you also stand up for the smaller kids who are not in your tribe.”

The older boys in the group looked ashamed. They didn’t want Grey looking down on them. One bigger boy stood up and spoke: “Next week at school we will stop them. Who is with me?”

Two more boys stood: “I am.”

Another dozen stood: “Us too!”

Finally every boy in the group, and all of the girls were standing. “Us too!”

“Great,” Grey said. “If you do this, then you are true Ojibwe. I will be proud of you all.”

Monday morning was mostly cleanup, although every child was up to see the animals at the river in the same three groups, but with different leaders. All the kids wanted to go with Grey, or Dan, but the groups were mixed so that any student not with Grey in the past went with him.

Breakfast followed, and then cleanup. The last emptying of the buckets was made, with the sap going into a second kettle. Grey had gotten up during the nights to stoke the fires under the first sap pot and the sap in it was nearly syrup. When parents started to arrive at 11, the camp was clear, except for Grey’s tent. The last activity of the campout was for each child to get a cedar stick, and plunge it into the syrup. After blowing on it to cool it, they got a taste of the Maple Syrup they had made. Many parents, and younger siblings also got a taste. Soon the last car (or occasionally a truck) left with much waving, and Grey and Rabbit were alone in the grove. Grey looked around. The camp was completely clean: he had told the kids that Ojibwe leave a camp looking as if they hadn’t been there. It wasn’t that good, but he was proud of how well they had picked up.

He went down to the maple grove with a bucket, and started to empty the collection pots. His help was gone, and he would have three weeks more of this before the sap stopped running. Rabbit trotted alongside, a little sorry that all his girl friends were gone, but happy to be with Grey.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

The little break helped. A story today, and I have the one for tomorrow well underway. I will try to get you four this week: Dawn.

Chapter 13 – More friends

It was about a week after Grey returned to the house following Maple Syrup season when he was alerted by Flint that Dan had picked up someone from a ditch outside of Belleville, the city of 50,000 about 30 miles south of Tweed. He was bringing him back to the house, for some reason.

Almost a half hour later Dan parked his pickup in the yard, and went to the side door, and got out a barely conscious child from the passenger side. The boy was small for a 12-year-old, and soaked to the skin. Sun and Grey went out, and the big woman took the boy from Dan, and headed into the house. “He’s burning up,” she said as she headed to the house.

On the way in Dan explained: “Flint found him and directed me to the ditch where he was laying. He was able to talk for a bit, and said he was running away from home, and was in a panic that I would take him back there. Only when I said I was taking him to Tweed did he relax, and finally fall asleep. That was when Flint said I should take him to you, our medicine man.”

Inside the house they found that Sun had taken him to the Great Hall, and stripped him of his soaked clothing. She had him bundled up in deerskins, lying on the big table. “His temperature is way too high,” she said as Grey sat in the chair facing the boy. He put his hand on the lad’s head.

“He is about 103,” Grey said, not realizing how he knew. He started his healing chant and soon found himself inside the boy. It only took a few seconds to clear up his cold, emptying his sinuses and easing the strep in his throat, lowering the temperature by a degree. But he knew the boy was still was perilously ill. He had pneumonia.

Almost as soon as Grey realized it, he found himself in the boy’s lungs, the more severely infected right one first. He also realized that he was holding his stave. Looking around he saw that many of the air sacs in the lung were filled with liquid. He pointed the stave at one, and a blue ray flashed out, and the sac was empty. He worked his way up and down the lung. It only took a fraction of a second at each sac, but there were thousands. When he had finished, and the lung glowed with a healthy pink, he found himself transported over to the other lung, where he repeated the session, slowly clearing the rest of the disease away.

He then looked around, and saw the boy had countless bruises and welt marks on his arms and back. He had been whipped hard with a belt. One arm had been broken, and had reset slightly off, limiting its use. Grey healed the bruises and then straightened and reset the once-broken arm so it would be as good as new.

He came to in his chair: tired but not exhausted the way he was after curing Rabbit of his injuries. Dan got him a drink of cold water from the fridge, and he drank it down, which refreshed him almost completely.

He went into Daisy’s living room, and saw Sun on the couch, cuddling the boy in her arms. He looked even smaller as she held him, with Daisy looking on, concerned.

“He is well now,” Sun reported. “No temperature, and he is only napping.”

“I know,” Grey said with a smile. “I did it.”

Just then the lad stirred, looked up at Sun’s smiling face, and then just snuggled tighter into her arms. “I like you,” he said in a small, adolescent voice. “Will you be my new mom?”

You could see Sun almost bursting with desire, but instead she said: “What about your old mom? Don’t you want to be with her?”

“She is alright,” the boy said. “But she lives with Earl, and I hate him. He is not my real dad, but he acts like he is. He is always beating on me, ‘to toughen me up’ and if my Mom tries to get him to stop, he beats her too. On Monday he was watching football on TV and at halftime he said I had to learn to play that. When I said I thought it was a stupid game, he started hitting me. He switched to hitting Mom when she took my side.”

“They thought I went to my room, but I just went to pack up some things, and then crawled out my window. I headed north, where the man in the truck found me the next night after it started to rain.”

“Son,” Dan said. “It is Thursday now. You were out there for four days. What part of the city did you live in?”

“The north end,” the boy said. “Would you be my new Dad? I like you too.”

Sun hugged the boy tighter as Dan spoke: “You were about 10 miles out of town. You probably walked that far before dawn, and then were lying in that ditch for the next three days. You are lucky you didn’t die.”

“It would be better if I had. I don’t want to go back there, ever,” he said. “Don’t make me go back there.”

“We can’t promise you anything,” Sun said with a sigh. “But you need to call your Mom and let her know you are okay. I’ll bet she is super upset, not knowing if you are alive or not. Will you call her? For me?”

The boy hesitated for a moment. “If I call her, then Earl will know where I am. I don’t want him to come get me. He will hit me again.”

“The boy was badly abused,” Grey said. “Unfortunately I healed the injuries so the man cannot be charged.”

“Hey, my arm is good again,” the boy said. “And my back doesn’t hurt where Earl hit me last week with the belt.”

Sun finally got the boy to call his mother.

“Hi Mom, it is Darryl.”

---

“I’m okay. I’m with some friends.”

---

“No, outside of the city. I’m not coming back.”

---

“No. Earl will hit me again.”

---

“I know, but he drinks all the time. And then we get beat up. I’m not coming home.”

---

“I will stay with these people. They don’t hit people.”

---

“No, I won’t say where I am. Earl will come get me.”

At that point Sun took the phone away from Darryl.

“Hello Mrs. …”

---

“Mrs. Carson. I am Sunflower Wolf and we are taking care of your son for you. He appears to have been beaten badly.”

---

“I’m sure Earl is quite sweet when his is sober. The problem is when he is drunk. He will not hit Darryl again. We have promised the boy that. Now we just have to figure out how to make that work.”

---

“Of course Darryl is gay. I could see that immediately. What is wrong with that?”

---

“I don’t care what Earl thinks. What do you think? Do you think Darryl is sinning by being gay?”

---

“Do you know that many gay teens commit suicide if they are not supported at home? Would you prefer a dead son to a gay one?”

---

“Look. There is a way. Do you love your son more than you love Earl?”

---

“It is not that hard a question.”

---

“They you can come up here and be safe with Darryl. We can have a car down there for you in a half hour. Pack up a few things. What is Earl doing?”

---

“Well be quiet and don’t wake him. How long is he usually out when he gets into a drunken stupor?”

---

“You can leave him a note if you want. And if he does find where you two are, you can be certain that he won’t be able to come and get you. I kinda hope he tries. I don’t like men who beat smaller women and kids.”

---

“Give me your address. We will be there in about 40 minutes.”

Sun hung up the phone, then spoke to the boy on her lap. “Your mom is coming here. She will be here in the morning. Daisy will get you to bed before she arrives, and Grey will be here to. Have you met Rabbit?”

Rabbit jumped off Daisy’s lap and went to the boy. “Rabbit is a funny name for a dog,” Darryl said, wrapping an arm around the dog’s neck. He looked at Daisy. “You look like a Grandma. Will you be my grandma?”

“I certainly will, sweetheart,” Daisy said, glowing with pleasure.

“And I like you too,” he said to Grey. “Can you be my friend?”

The boy then looked at Sun. “If Mom is coming, then you can’t be my mom. Can you be my second mom?”

“How about I be your friend too. Grey is my bother.”

Sun then slid the boy off onto the sofa and got the address she had written down. “We should take the LTD,” she told Dan, and the two left minutes later.

Once they left, Grey set up a room for Darryl, and an adjoining room for his mother. While there were a lot of rooms in the house, not all had beds, and on some of the beds, the mattress was downright funky, and had been taken to the dump recently. Grey actually had to take the mattress and bed from his room to furnish a room for Darryl’s mother, if she returned as everyone was hoping. He was just as comfortable sleeping on the floor on deerskins. Sun would do the same if it turned out another room were needed.

By the time he finished, and went back to the living room, where Darryl was curled up on Daisy’s lap, Sun and Dan were at the address that his mother had given. A thin woman, clearly native, came to the door as the car stopped. Dan was out first, and walked up to the porch quietly, with Sun right behind.

“Oh thank you gentlemen for coming,” the woman said quietly. “Oh, I am sorry. I guess I should say lady,” she added as Sun got close enough to see well.

“I spoke to you on the phone,” Sun said softly. “Sunflower Wolf. This is Dan Smith. I was the one who spoke to you on the phone.”

“How is Darryl? Is he all right?” the woman said. “Oh, you can call me Jennifer.”

“He is fine. He had a bit of a cold but that is better now. I suspect right now he has an arm around Rabbit or he is sleeping on Daisy’s lap. He named her his new grandma, and she was tickled to hear it. I suppose he has other grandparents.”

“Not really,” Jennifer said as she lifted several suitcases out on to the porch. “My parents cut off contact with me when I married Earl. I don’t even know if he has any. I didn’t even tell my parents about Darryl.”

“You will now I hope,” Sun said, picking up three of the larger suitcases. Dan took the other two. That only left Jennifer to carry a box of photos and other mementos she wanted to keep. “A boy should know his grandparents.”

“Perhaps,” Jennifer said. “They were right about Earl. I should have listened to them instead of fighting them about it. You say you have a pet rabbit? Darryl loves animals: Earl wouldn’t allow him to have a pet.”

The three got into the car, with Dan driving and Jennifer curled up next to Sun in the passenger seat. “Rabbit is not a rabbit, strange as that sounds,” Sun said. “He is a dog, mostly German Shepherd, and we call him Rabbit because he was chasing a rabbit to our house when we adopted him.”

“German Shepherd,” Jennifer sounded surprised. “Darryl doesn’t like big dogs, usually.”

“Well, Rabbit has a way with people,” Sun said. “He tends to worm his way into your heart easily. You will see.”

Just as Dan was pulling away the door to the house slammed open, and a man on the porch started yelling at them. He took a few steps, tripping off the steps and face-planting into the uncut lawn.”

Jennifer snuggled in to Sun. “Oh my. I was hoping he was too drunk to wake up. He’ll get in his car and follow us.”

“Not a chance,” Dan said. “Drunk as he is we will have several miles head start on him. I wish I had one of those cell phone things. I’d call the Belleville police to be on the lookout for a drunk driver.”

“He drives drunk all the time,” Jenn said, still snuggled into Sun. “They haven’t caught him yet. What will happen if he catches us? I don’t want to go back with him.”

“You don’t need to go with anyone if you don’t want to,” Sun said. “Is he bigger than me?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone bigger than you,” Jenn confessed. “He isn’t even as big as … Dan?”

“Well, Dan is ex-military, and could handle your ex alone. And I could handle him, but I might kill him. I don’t look kindly on men who beat up women. I saw you limping to the car, and how gingerly you got into it. Mark my words, if you and Darryl stay with us, no man will ever hit you again.”

“That sounds like heaven,” Jennifer said. “But will I be able to stay? I have my work. I am in the bakery at the grocery store in Northland Mall. I need to be there on Tuesday.”

“That gives you a day to decide what you want to do. Daisy has already said that Darryl can live in the house. I doubt you will be turned away. As for your job, I can let you borrow this car, or my truck to commute if you want. But I’m not sure I want you down her by yourself with that man around. Does he have a job?”

“No. He used to work at a gas station, but he went to work drunk too often. Customers phoned in saying he was pumping gas with a lit cigarette, and he was fired. For the past year he has been ‘looking.’ We have been getting deeper and deeper in debt. I would buy groceries on payday, and then he would take the rest of the money for his booze. We rent the house, and got an eviction notice last week. All the bills for everything else are far behind, too. The only bill he ever paid was his tab at the bar.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about him tonight,” Sun said. “Just nestle in next to me and rest.”

In a few minutes she was sound asleep, and not long after they arrived at the house, where Sun carried her up the steps and into the living room.

“Mama,” Darryl shouted from Daisy’s lap before he leapt to the floor. That woke Jenn up.

“Dary,” she called as Sun let her down. She put out a hand as the boy was about to leap on his mother.

“None of that, son,” Sun said. “She is sore from the beating your father gave her.”

“He is no father of mine,” Darryl spat out, stopping dead and taking his mother’s hand. “I hate him. Is he coming too?”

“Not likely,” Sun said. “Now let’s take your Mom into the Great Hall for Grey to take a look at her. He is a kind of a doctor.”

In the Great Hall she was helped up on the table by Sun, and Darryl again took one of her hands. Grey approached, and Jenn thought the young, small man couldn’t possibly be a doctor yet, unless his name was Doogie Howser. She certainly wasn’t going to take her clothes off in front of him.

But Grey merely started singing. Jenn was Ojibwe, but didn’t speak the language. She had heard her parents speak it though. Soon the boy/man was in a trance, with his head slumped on the table in front of her.

Then she could feel something odd moving about inside of her. She felt it near her ribs, which suddenly stopped hurting. She suspected they had been cracked, but Earl forbid her from going to the hospital for fear that the abuse would be discovered.

After that the moving sensation travelled to different parts of her body, and one bruise after another was healed. Last it went down her leg, which had been broken by a kick a year ago. Earl had made a splint for it, and it healed, but never correctly. Now she felt the bones being taken painlessly apart, and then aligned properly, and finally healed. Suddenly the singing stopped.

Jennifer looked up. Sun held a huge glass of water, and Grey drank it in one long gulp.

“It was easier with the boy holding her hand,” Grey said. “And I think I am getting better at it.”

“At what?” Jennifer said. Then she suddenly noticed that there was no pain. She hadn’t felt ‘no pain’ for nearly two years since Earl had taken a logging job in BC that lasted four months before he was fired and came home. He had money, so it took him two months to drink his was across the country. Those six months had allowed Jenn’s bruises to heal. Within a month of his return he had broken her leg.

She gingerly got up from the table and tested her bad leg. It was now a good leg, and she did a little dance on it.

“Now you can hug her,” Sun said, and Darryl immediately leapt on his mother, nearly knocking her over. He was small, but weighed almost as much as she did. Sun had to put out a hand to keep her from toppling over.

“I thought I lost you for ever,” Jenn said. “And Earl was irate. All he ever did was beat you, but when you left he acted like something was stolen from him. He hit me till I passed out.”

“Never again,” Sun said softly, but Jenn heard and smiled. It was nice to feel safe.

Another voice came from the end of the hall. It was Daisy, carrying two plates: “Time for food,” she said as she walked in. Darryl ran to her, giving her a hug, and then taking one of the plates.

“This is my grandma now, Mama. She is just wonderful. Look at the nice meal she made for you,” the boy said as Daisy beamed. He set the plate in front of Jenn.

“And another plate for you, my boy,” Daisy said. “We fed him a few hours ago, but both of you need to get some meat on those bones. Eat up.”

“Coffee, tea, or water,” Sun said, walking to the kitchen. “There is nothing alcoholic in this house.”

“Coffee would be nice, but I saw the way that Grey downed that big glass of water. I think I will try that: but in a normal-sized glass.”

“Water will be better for you this late,” Grey said. “I have beds set up in adjoining rooms for you. We’ll get your things moved in after you eat. I want you to stay up for at least an hour after eating. It is best not to eat a big meal and then go straight to bed.”

“And it is a wonderful meal,” Jenn said. “And I can see why you like this water so well. It is so cold and lovely.”

“It is just some leftovers from supper,” Daisy said. “The beef would have gone into sandwiches tomorrow for lunches. And the potatoes would have been hash browns for breakfast. I just love cooking for my new family. And since Darryl has adopted me as grandma, I will have to adopt you as my second daughter, after Sunflower.”

They were in the living room now, and Jenn noted: “Sunflower. That is such a pretty name. I wish I had a native name. Jennifer is so ‘white’ and I don’t match it at all.” She looked down at her dark arms, finally without bruises.

“If you want I can make a suggestion,” Grey said. “Unbroken Willow. Willow for short. You bent under pressure, but you never broke.”

“Wow, I absolutely love it,” Willow said. “Do you like it Darryl?”

“I prefer Mama,” the boy said, nearly asleep on Daisy’s lap.

“I’ll take him to bed,” Sun said, picking the boy up and carrying him off. “You can stop off and say goodnight when you go,” she told Willow.

In the room Grey had picked for the boy, Sun laid him on the bed and helped him out of his clothes. He said he slept in his underwear, something Earl had made him do. Apparently it was manly and pajamas were not. When Sun had tucked him into bed, he held his arms out wide until she came close enough for a hug. “I love you Sun,” he said softly.

The tall woman choked up. “I love you too, Darryl,” she was finally able to whisper.

She walked back to the living room in tears, and finally blurted out: “I love that little boy. He is so sweet.” Willow just smiled a motherly agreement.

They had been talking about Willow’s future while she was away. The consensus was that in the morning she would phone her boss and tell him that she was taking a week off.

“Not asking, telling,” Dan insisted. “You have a little boy who spent three nights in a ditch, and you need to spend time with him. If your boss argues, quit on the spot. I have heard that Frank has been thinking of getting more help in when the buses come in. With you close here at the house, you could walk there in a couple minutes, and a few more in winter.”

“Do you snowshoe?” Grey asked.

“No. What kind of Ojibwe woman am I?” she said.

“We will make you a pair: small enough for you to manage. And we will teach you how to use them. And don’t worry about money. If Frank takes you on, you will have a little spending cash for you and Darryl. Rent here is reasonable. You pay in love for Daisy.”

Willow jumped up and went over and hugged Daisy. “Here is the first month’s rent, and expect several more payments like that every day. You are my new mamma and I have missed this with my real one.”

“Remember, you are to call your parents during this break week you have,” Sun admonished.

“Can I go to bed now, doctor?” Willow said to Grey, giving him a big hug as well. Then it was Dan’s turn, as he was headed out the door to get back to his Mom at the cottage.

Sun showed her to her room, and they peeked in on the sleeping boy. Willow leaned over and kissed his cheek, and “Night, Mama” could barely be heard.

They then went into the next room. “I don’t know if you will be able to fit all that into your little closet,” Sun said, looking at the five bags.

“Two of them are Darryl’s things,” she said. “And I will manage the rest somehow. A lot of it is winter wear. Can that be stored somewhere?”

“Oh, we have tons of space in the basement,” Sun said.

Willow wrapped her arms around Sun, not quite reaching at the back. “I guess you are my sister now. I love you too.”

Sun choked up for the second time in an hour. “I love you,” she said as Willow closed the door.

----

You will notice that I used a new (to me, anyway) writing technique where I only used one side of a telephone conversation, the way you hear it when you are listening to someone else on the phone. Let me know in the comments how it worked. Could you figure out the unsaid side of the conversation, at least most of the time? Thanks

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Not much action this chapter, but we are setting things up for some later: Dawn.

Chapter 14 – Squirrel

The next morning Willow made the call to her boss, who was not happy that she was taking time off. In the end he insisted that she be at work the next day, or consider her job lost. This upset her a lot, but she walked over to the store with Grey, while Darryl and Sun worked in the garage.

At the store, Willow looked around with wide eyes. There was one pair of unsold snowshoes on the wall, and Grey noted that she could work on making those, or more dreamcatchers if Frank didn’t offer her a job.

They sat and got a pie and coffee each, with Frank noting that he was short-staffed with a bus coming in a half hour later.

“Where is Wendy?” Grey asked.

“Off sick,” the harried storeowner said. “And tomorrow and the next day are her days off. We are going to be going nuts till Friday. The bus never takes a day off.”

“Do you want a clerk?” Grey said.

“Are you offering? I could use you, although I make more money when you are building canoes for me.”

“What about Willow here? She’s new in the area, and looking for work. She lives in the house, and is willing to take part-time or full-time.”

Frank looked at the girl. “Finish that pie. Your break is over. You can drink your coffee as you go through our extensive orientation process. That is the door the customers come in: up to 80 at a time when there is a bus. They line up along here and usually order a coffee or pop, and a sandwich. Miriam is making sandwiches up ahead. A coffee or pop is a looney. A sandwich is $5. I usually work cash, because Wendy is way faster than me on sandwiches. But we will start you on cash today.”

Willow just looked at Grey in bewilderment.

“Do you want the job?” Grey asked.

“Yes,” she finally said, standing and moving over to the till.

“It will be full time, eight hours a day with an unpaid hour for lunch,” Frank said. “That is for three days, till Wendy is back. Then it will be part time, covering when the buses come in, except the days when Wendy is off. Those will be full time days. So you will get 28 hours a week, or 36 if you want to work all seven days. Pay is $10 an hour for the first two weeks. After that, if we both like how things are going, it will be $12 an hour.”

“I was at the store for two years before they moved me off minimum wage,” Willow said. “I was only making $12 an hour there, for a 35 hour week. Without a drunk husband to support, I’ll be making more money here.”

Grey left the woman at the store, after eating the last few bites of her lemon pie. His apple pie was long gone. He gathered up Rabbit, who was chasing squirrels behind the store. He had learned his lesson, and never came near cars in the parking lot, let alone on the highway. He would always walk on the far side of Grey when they were near the road.

On the way back, Grey stopped at the mill, where Sun was still working on the saws. He saw a bored looking Darryl sitting on an overturned bucket near the door.

“Where’s Mama?” the boy said with a tinge of alarm.

“She got a job,” Grey said. “She’s working at the store.”

“Can I go see her?” The boy was kneeling down to hug Rabbit.

“Maybe when it is her lunchtime. I think today she will have lunch there. Let’s go tell Daisy to make her up a plate for lunch. In fact, we will see if she will make three. It can’t hurt to bribe her bosses with a free homemade lunch on her first day. Frank and Miriam probably get tired of eating stale sandwiches that the bus passengers don’t buy.”

Just then there was a loud metallic screech from the mill, followed by a squeal of joy from Sun. “I’ve had penetrating oil on that nut for days,” she said. “And it finally loosened.” She squirted another shot of oil, and soon had the nut coming off easily. A second later she had the huge 50-inch blade off the crosscut saw. She easily hefted the blade free, and when Grey went to help, she noted that it weighed 40-pounds.

“Well, that’s garbage,” she said. “I don’t know where we will get a replacement for it, or worse, be able to pay for it.”

“What’s wrong with that one? Can’t you just sharpen it?” Grey asked.

“No, it is wonky. Only a little, but a saw cutting wood that has a flutter like that is worthless, and more than a little dangerous. The faster it goes, the more the flutter, and if you add wood to it, then it is even worse. A blade has to run true and straight.”

“Let’s take it to the store and see if Frank can sell it. He likes weird stuff, and a 50” saw blade is about as weird as weird comes.”

“Okay, let me know when you are going, and I’ll help carry it,” she said. “What are your plans for the morning.”

“I thought I might teach Darryl how to make dreamcatchers, since you have kind of given up on them, to play with your greasy machines.”

“Good, although dreamcatchers are kinda a girl thing, aren’t they?”

“I taught you how to make them, didn’t I?” Grey retorted, hoping that the comment by Sun wouldn’t turn off Darryl. After all, many Ojibwe boys make the ornaments before moving onto snowshoes and canoes.

“I don’t mind if it is a girl thing, Uncle Grey,” Darryl said.

“Uncle?”

“Well, grandma said both Mama and Sun were her daughters, and you were her son. Adopted I mean. So I figure that makes you my Uncle and Sunflower my Aunt,” the boy explained.

“Well, I am honored to be your uncle,” Grey said, and was immediately rewarded with a hug.

The boys went into the house, and found Daisy in the kitchen. She had a few pounds of roast beef left over from dinner the night before, and made up ‘to go’ plates for the three at the store, and the three that would be delivering it: Sun, Grey and Darryl.

“You have lunch duty tomorrow,” Daisy told Grey as they finished up the scalloped potatoes and vegetables to go with the beef covered in gravy. The house had tin plates with lids that the food had been served up in when the workers at the mill in the 50s were too busy to come to the house. These made excellent containers for the meal, especially when Daisy put them into a warm oven so that the food would still be warm when they got to the store.

“No problem. I like to cook,” Grey said.

“Can I help?” Darryl said.

“Sure thing, my boy,” Grey said. Darryl glowed when Grey called him ‘my boy.’ Earl had called him the same thing on occasion, and it was as if he owned the boy. When Grey said it, Darryl knew it meant that he loved him. And Darryl loved Grey back.

When the meal was ready, Grey realized that Daisy would be the only one having lunch in the house. “Dary, run out to the mill and tell Sun to bring the LTD around. I think we need to take Daisy to the store with us. She doesn’t want to eat alone here.”

Daisy had a tear in her eye when the boy ran out the door, singing ‘Grandma’s coming, Grandma’s coming.”

“I love that boy,” she said as he headed to the mill. “And I love you too, son of mine,” she wrapped an arm around Grey. “As I was plating up the food I realized that I was going to be eating alone, for the first time in a long time, and it was making me sad. Then, when you said we were all going to the store, it just made me so happy. I haven’t been there in years, since I started having trouble on those old steps. Your new ones are so much easier to climb.”

They heard the car come into the lane, with Darryl bouncing around in the passenger seat. Grey helped Daisy down the steps, or at least until Sun picked the lady up and carried her to the car, where Dary was holding the passenger door open. Grey darted back into the kitchen to get the meals.

It was only a two-minute drive, but Daisy enjoyed every second of it. “Now don’t you go carrying me into the store,” she told Sun. “A woman needs her respect, and I can handle that far.”

At the store, the harried staff were just cleaning up from the early bus to Ottawa. When they saw the home cooked dinners, they were elated. Frank and Miriam worked seven days a week, and seldom ate anything other than leftover bus sandwiches.

“So how do you like working here,” Grey asked Willow.

“I love it,” she said. “I have been meeting the locals who come in for coffee and pie. The bus was hectic, but I kept the line moving. Frank only had to help me on the register once.”

“We are keeping her,” Frank joked. “We will chain her up in the back. She’s a hard worker, friendly and smart. You don’t get all of those in a worker very often.”

Darryl sputtered. “You can’t chain my Mama up. She can work here, but she has to come home to our house after work.”

“He was just joking, Dary,” Grey said, tousling the boy’s hair. “It means they really like your mom.”

“Well, I really like her too,” the boy said in a slight pout. Just then a customer came in and Willow popped up. Frank also stood, and pushed her back to her seat. “See,” he told the boy. Then he turned to Willow, and told her: “This is your lunch. Miriam and I will take turns with customers during this wonderful meal.”

Willow enthusiastically described her morning, and Darryl told his mother all he had done while she was working. Grey told her that he wanted to take the boy out for an overnight campout in the Grove. Willow quickly agreed. She trusted Grey with her son completely.

Eventually the lunch hour was over, and the tin plates were scrapped clean. Willow went back to work, learning how to make pies, and the others piled into the LTD. But they didn’t head straight home. First they drove to Madoc, where Dary kept his grandmother company in the car while Grey and Sun went into the bakery to buy some desserts. Most of the people they met stared at Sunflower, but she no longer was self conscious, and just smiled at the gawkers.

Back in the car, they found Daisy was pointing out to Dary which stores were new, and which ones she remembered from her last trip to the village, 15 years ago. Then they drove through the countryside, and came into Tweed from the west. It also had been years since she had seen it.

They stopped again, and Sun and Grey went into the grocery to get supplies for the feast that Grey had planned for tomorrow. Sun had been in Tweed many times, and only new people stared at her. It was getting close to summer, and the cottagers were starting to come into town. When they got back, Dary was sitting quietly while Daisy dozed. She woke up when Sun’s weight pushed the driver’s side down.

“Oh my,” she said. “I must have dropped off. This is usually my nap time. But I wouldn’t have missed this for the world: to see all the old places again, and the new ones too. I feel 10 years younger.”

“Now stop that,” Sun said. “You are not all that old. Most people just retire at 65. You have many years left with us.”

“Now that all you are in the house, I don’t mind,” she said. “It is such a lively place again.”

“It is a shame that I couldn’t cure your hip or the arthritis,” Grey said. “I would have thought all the time you spent with Lone Goose would have given you Ojibwe status, but apparently not. My song wouldn’t let me cure you. At least I found that I can only cure those with at least a little Ojibwe blood. It keeps me centered to know that I am not magical.”

Back at the house Sun carried Daisy to her bed while the boys carried in the groceries. “Thank you for the dessert, Uncle Grey,” Dary said.

“So polite,” Sun said as she walked into the living room. The boy ran to her and hugged her legs. “And thank you for the ride, Auntie Sun,” he added. “Grandma and I had such a good time with her showing me about all the old buildings in those towns.”

“So what are the boys doing today?” Sun asked. Darryl looked up at Grey in anticipation of a fun afternoon.

“Well, since Willow gave her permission, we are going on an overnight campout to the grove. We will be back before 10 tomorrow, and then we are going to make a feast for lunch.”

Grey had a full pack, although it was not heavy, containing mostly deer and bearskins to sleep on and under. They would stay in one of the smaller wigwams. Of course he also had a hatchet, knife and bow and arrows. Rabbit loped along beside.

They entered the grove at the Black Walnut end. This time, as well as showing the bark, leaves and shape of the tree, Grey had the boy close his eyes with both hands on the bark, and Grey sang a recognition song in Ojibwe. From that minute on, Darryl never forgot the tree. They did this with all the other trees in the grove, and several others outside of it. In the oak groves the boy picked up more than a dozen acorns he found on the ground.

Grey dropped his pack at wigwam, and showed Dary how to build a fire in the Ojibway way. A small fire was burning when he took the boy to the spring, where they both drank from the clear, cold water.

“That is great,” the boy said. “It tastes so much better than the water from the house.”

“For a time Sun and I carried water back to the house from here,” Grey explained. “But it got to be too time-consuming when the water at the house is so close to this if it is kept cold.”

They walked back past the fire, where Grey told him how important it is to keep an eye on any fire you make in the woods. It was fine, so they continued into the grove to a point where Grey could just see the fire. Rabbit was made to stay at the fire.

Grey made Darryl stand facing the trees, and then stood behind him, facing the same direction and putting his arms over the boy’s shoulder. Both closed their eyes, and Grey started to sing in Ojibwe. He sang for about 10 minutes, and then stopped. “When you open your eyes, look for the first animal you can see. Open!”

“A squirrel,” Dary said. “So cute.”

“I should have known,” Grey mused. “You have acorns in your pockets, right?”

“Yes. I thought they were pretty.”

“Take one, and toss it to the left: about 30 feet. Not at the squirrel: he will think you are throwing a stone.”

Dary tossed an acorn, and the squirrel flinched, but only jumped a few feet away.

Then the little critter looked at the acorn, sniffed a few times, and hopped over to it to snatch it up and chew it up, leaving only the cap.

“He ate it, he ate it,” Dary said in delight, keeping his voice low.

“Now toss one to where he was standing before,” Grey said. “but not so far.” Again the squirrel came and ate it.

They continued this, with shorter and shorter tosses until finally Dary was just dropping the nuts.

“He’s not eating them anymore,” the boy said. “He just puts them into his cheeks.”

“He is saving them for later, or to share,” Grey said. “But squirrels are greedy little characters, and will never leave an acorn. If you dropped one more then he couldn’t carry them all in his cheeks, but he would try. He would go a step or two and an acorn would fall out. Then he would pick it up, and another one would fall out. It is really cute to watch.”

“I think it would be mean,” Dary said. “Teasing the little squirrel.”

“Oh, I guess it would,” Grey said. “But what you have just done is to discover your spirit animal: the squirrel. It is a part of your totem, to use the teachings of a far-away tribe.”

They walked back to the fire, and found a small tendril of fire had escaped the pit and was creeping along a strip of dry pine needles. “This is why you always watch a fire in the woods,” Grey said. “I could see that from where we were playing with your squirrel. If it got bigger, say to that pile of needles over there, it could become a big fire that would be hard to put out. And if we didn’t put it out, we would have a forest fire that might burn all the way to the house. But you can put that out by stepping on it.”

Dary tentatively stepped on the flames, extinguishing them. Once he realized the flame wouldn’t hurt him through his sneakers, he was more aggressive and soon had all the fire out.

“If there was a forest fire, what would happen to the house?” Darryl asked.

“In the worst case it could burn the house down. Daisy has insurance on the place, but I doubt she would rebuild it as big as it is now. And we would have to find a place to live while they are rebuilding.”

“We would have to go back to Earl,” Dary wailed.

“No!” Grey said firmly, grasping the boy in a hug. “I will never let you go back to that man. You are safe with us forever, or until you grow up. Now, what do you want, dinner or cutting your stave?”

“Dinner. I am hungry,” the boy said. “What is a stave?”

Grey explained as he prepared the dinner: a stew that he had ingredients for in his pack. Breakfast in the morning would be oatmeal with a small bottle of maple syrup. After explaining the stave, Grey rolled on to recounting about the fire at the house last summer. Finally he looked up and saw the boy sitting with his back against a tree. There were four squirrels sitting in a circle around him, waiting for him to fish another acorn out of his pockets. Finally, his hand went into an empty pocket, and he said: “That’s all guys. I will look for some more tomorrow.”

The two boys then ate their portion of stew, and followed it up with another drink of spring water. They went into the oak grove, and cut a sapling for Darryl’s stave. The boy didn’t like the hatchet, and in the end Grey had to cut it down, and top it off. Dary did drag it back to the camp, dropping it when he saw the fire. He ran over to check that the fire was contained, and then came back to his sapling.

He tried very hard to de-bark it, but nicked his hand with the knife. Grey had brought along a healing poultice, and as soon as it was applied, the pain stopped. But Grey had to finish off the stave.

The next morning Grey awoke before dawn, as he always did in the woods. He found the little boy had moved over the night, and was spooned closely to his back. Grey slowly wormed his way out, dressed, and tossed another two deer skins on Dary. He was just coming out of the outhouse when he saw a pink little rocket, wearing only tiny white briefs, tear out of the wigwam and into the outhouse.

It was late May, but in Ontario it is still very cool in the morning, so Grey went to the wigwam and picked up two of the deer skins. He sat with them on his lap, and when the pink rocket appeared again, he waved it over and bundled the boy in furs.

“And now you know that you put your clothes on before you go to the latrine,” Grey admonished.

“But I had to go really bad,” Dary explained.

“Let me guess. You stayed in the warm furs until it was too late,” Grey suggested. “Then you didn’t have time to dress. Next time get up a few minutes earlier so you can have clothes on. Now, if you are warmed up, go get your things on. I want to take you for a little walk.”

They went to the river north of the came as dawn broke, and the boy was astonished to see all the wildlife appear for a morning drink. Daria was there with her boys, who were much less gangly than they had been the last time in the spring. She saw him, and bugled an angry call at him, as if to say ‘get your butt over here with some water and some cedar trees’. Grey just laughed at him.

“That is Daria,” Grey explained. “She is the spirit animal for Sunflower and I, as well as a friend. I might have to come up and see her this winter.”

“Can I come?” Dary asked.

“No,” Grey laughed. “You will be in school this winter.”

“Ugh, I hate school. They beat me up there,”

“Well, it will be a new school. And if they try to beat you up there, tell Sun. She will make sure no one hurts you. I think Dan has a plan to stop all the bullying at your new school in Tweed.”

“Can I call him Uncle Dan?” Dary asked. “I love him just as much as you. And Aunt Cindy? She is nice too.”

“Well, it is possible,” Grey said. “Dan is my best friend, and kids often call friends of their parents Uncle. But hold off on Aunt Cindy. She has only been dating Dan for a little while, and you don’t want to push it.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

This is a shorter chapter, but I hope to post another tomorrow, and then take the weekend off again: Dawn.

Chapter 15 – The accident

Darryl and Grey worked for several hours making their feast. It was to be a two parter: first a lunch, and then a dinner. Daisy supervised, since no one else was in the house and Rabbit insisted on being in the kitchen with the boys.

Grey got the frozen mutton he had bought in the store yesterday, and lined it up on the counter. “That’s a lot of lamb chops,” Daisy noted.

“We will have lot to dinner. I am inviting Dan and his mom, Lois. I’d invite Cindy too, but she is working till 10 today,” Grey said.

“Well I am looking forward to Lamb chops,” Daisy said. “I can’t remember the last time I had those.”

“Yeah. Lately it’s been venison, beef or ham. I thought we were due for a change. Plus it will give Dary a nice first attempt at making dinner.”

“Is it mutton for lunch too?” Daisy asked.

“No, we have some ham left over from the other night. Dary is going to chop it up small while I make some scalloped potatoes. Lunch will be a casserole. We will serve it a little late, so Willow can join in on her lunch break.”

They ate at 12:35, with Dary proudly telling his mother that ‘he’ made lunch. Willow had to rush back to work, but Sun sat and visited with Daisy until it was time for her nap. They boys cleared the table and did the dishes, and then started working on Part 2 of the feast. This required baked potatoes to go with the pork chops, along with carrots that Dary carefully peeled.

“It looks like Grey has two following his every move,” Sun said as she watched Dary constantly looking to Grey for affirmation that he was doing well. Rabbit was the second one constantly watching Grey.

“A little bit of hero worship,” Daisy said.

“He really couldn’t choose a better hero,” Sun said of her brother. Shortly thereafter she took Daisy to her living room, so she could nap on her sofa. Sun went back to the mill, where she had been working on the saws.

At about 5 a car spun into the driveway and Grey went out on the porch to see who it was. A strange man was having trouble getting out of his car: a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner that had seen better days. The car had been painted a garish purple color, apparently with a paintbrush. The paint job probably took $1000 off the value of the vehicle, which even Grey could tell was running poorly.

Grey saw the reason the man was having trouble getting out of the car: he was wasted-drunk, and had to lean on the car to stand up.

«Flint, tell Dan to contact Cindy. There is a man at the house who is way over the limit for driving. If she parks outside of the house on the highway, she can pull him over when he leaves.»

“What can I do for you?” Grey then called down to the man.

“I’m lookin’ fer my wife and kid,” the man called out, and Grey knew this must be the famous Earl. “Send ‘em out. She ain’t been to work for a couple days now and I need the money. Had to sell my good car and buy this piece o’ crap.”

Just then Darryl came out to the porch, wearing one of Daisy’s frilly aprons to keep his clothes clean while cooking. “I turned the stove down,” he told Grey softly as he approached the sound of his ex-father’s voice.

Earl seemed to go ballistic when he saw Darryl in the apron. A man cooking was a sin to him, and wearing female clothing on top of that just made it worse. He broke into a swearing fit that was so bad he fell onto the laneway gravel.

“Whar’s yer mother, boy?” Earl called out. Darryl moved next to Grey, and stood close, and Grey put an arm on his shoulder. “Git away from that dirty Injun,” Earl yelled. “You doan know whar he’d bin.”

“I’ve been in a better place than you,” Grey called out, and Earl took that as a challenge to fight, even though he couldn’t even stand unassisted. Grey knew he could handle the drunk, without the assistance of Flint or Sun.

“His mother is working, and won’t be done for several hours,” Grey said. “You will be long gone by then.” He was about to head down and bundle the man into his car when he saw Sun coming out from the mill. Her eyes were on the old car more than the man.

«Cindy is about a mile away,» Flint said.

“Put him in his car,” Grey told Sun. Then he turned to the man. “Earl, you are drunk. I don’t advise you drive anywhere in that condition.”

“Wha cundish’in?” he slurred. Then Sun approached and picked him up. Physically: holding him a foot off the ground with one arm. The other arm opened the car door and she tossed the man in, so he was sprawled across the front seats. It took him nearly two minutes before he could worm his way into the driver seat, as Sun walked around the car, studying and admiring it.

Earl finally spun out of the lane, sending gravel flying, but not hitting Sun, who was off to the side. She climbed the steps, and told Grey: “I want that car.”

Earl hit the highway at about 50 kph and quickly accelerated to 100. He didn’t even notice the police cruiser on his tail until he had passed Actinolite and was on the way to Madoc, even though all the cruiser’s lights and sirens were wailing.

Cindy was in the cruiser, and was five car lengths behind when Earl decided wrong and started to speed up. He could barely control the car at 100, but when he got to 160 he was all over the road. Cindy let him have room, falling back to a mile behind noting that he was now up to near 180. She was close enough that approaching cars would see the lights and siren and pull off to the side of the road. Even there they were not safe, and Earl swung wildly from side to side on the two-lane road. But at least the lights and siren prevented a terrible head-on collision. Twice drivers in oncoming vehicles had to speed ahead a bit to avoid being hit.

Nearing Madoc Cindy saw with horror that a van had pulled to the side of the road, and Earl was heading directly at it, as though intending to commit murder-suicide on the approaching car. The driver saw him coming, and wisely put his car in reverse, and drove back as fast as he could. Earl hit the shoulder, and his wheel dug in, pulling the car into the ditch and then it flipped twice before wrapping around a big old maple tree on the far side of the ditch.

Cindy pulled across onto the far shoulder, nearest the tree, and a glance told her Earl had not survived the wreck. She scrambled across the ditch, and saw that there was no way for her to extract the body. She went to her cruiser and radioed for backup, a Jaws of Life team, and the nearest EMT ambulance.

She then went to the van. There were a man and woman in the front seat with a baby seat between them. The woman was holding the crying baby in her arms. In the back there were three girls and a boy, all with ashen faces after their ordeal. They were all under 12.

“Thank you officer,” the man said. “If I hadn’t seen your lights I wouldn’t have pulled over, and we would have hit head on. I saw his eyes. He wanted to crash into us.”

“Did he make it?” the woman asked.

“I can’t say officially,” Cindy said, “but I don’t think so. Help is on the way. Is anyone here hurt?”

“The baby was startled by it all,” the man said. “But thank God we are all okay. I keep seeing his eyes looking at me as he came at us.”

Cindy got information and details from the family, which was actually a single father, his kids, and his girlfriend, headed off to Perth, their original destination. Apparently the man had been taking his girlfriend to meet his parents for the first time.

They left as a crew from the Madoc Volunteer Fire Department arrived, carrying their Jaws of Life. They set up, but had to wait for the ambulance, since the EMTs would direct their work. A doctor arrived when they were halfway through cutting the car apart, and he pronounced the victim dead, then left. Cindy stayed to watch the badly mangled body be placed on a stretcher, and then covered. She fought the urge to turn and vomit into the ditch.

Just then the backup cruiser arrived. In rural Ontario there are seldom more than one or two cars patrolling on a weekday afternoon, so this cruiser had to come from a half hour away. The officer took over from Cindy, who had to sit in her car to recover. Eventually she came out. The firefighters were finishing up. They had to cut the car nearly in half to extract the body, and then finished the job later. They had to cut the vehicle into four pieces to release it from the tree. It was lying in pieces, waiting for a wrecker-truck with a crane to come to pick up the scrap and take it to the Madoc auto wreckers.

Cindy left the scene of the accident, and drove to the OPP detachment, just the other side of Madoc. Her sergeant was on duty, and the man recognized that his constable was a bit shaken by the accident.

“Take the rest of the shift off, and the next two days. I suspect the SIU may want to talk to you, but this shouldn’t require a special investigation. The morgue called, and they report the man’s alcohol level was 0.38.”

Cindy whistled. In Ontario the legal limit for driving is 0.08, so the man was more than four times over the legal limit. “Well, he was driving like it,” Cindy said. “He was swerving from lane to lane, and nearly collided with several drivers on the road. Luckily they were all paying attention and slowed or stopped when they saw my lights. Then he seemed to target the last driver, and ran straight for him. Bill, there were five kids in that car. He was going 180. The way he hit the tree, he would have killed all of them if they collided.”

“Take three days,” the sergeant said. “One will have to come from your vacation days, but you seem to need it.”

Cindy sat at a desk in the detachment for another 15 minutes, until she felt calm enough to drive. She phoned Dan’s house and got no answer. She really needed someone to hold her. On a chance, she phoned the house, and found that he was there. They spoke for a few minutes, and then she headed out.

“That was Cindy,” Dan said. “Apparently there was an accident, and Earl is dead.”

“Is the car okay?” Sun immediately asked.

“Sunflower Wolf!” Daisy said. “Show some respect. A man died.”

“Nobody here loved him,” a defiant Darryl said. His mother nodded, although not as stringently. “At least now he will never hit us again.”

“Cindy is coming by,” Dan said. “Can we stay here tonight?”

“Of course, son,” Daisy said. “That is why we have bedrooms set up for your Mom and you.”

“Cindy can have my room, and I’ll use the sofa,” Dan said. “She is pretty shook up, so if you can keep your questions to a minimum,” he looked at Sun, “it would be appreciated.”

“I really didn’t want to go home all that much anyway,” Lois said. “Since the Hitchings sold the other cottage and bought their condo in Belleville, it has been pretty lonely out there. The new people have been in a couple times, but I haven’t met them. They live in Kingston, I hear.”

“I suspect they will be out for the May 24 weekend coming up,” Dan said. “Most cottagers are out for that.”

“Well, I’ll be happier here, with Daisy,” Lois said. “Maybe we can make a dinner to match the one that Grey and Darryl made tonight.”

“I should put together a plate for Cindy,” Grey said. “Do you want to help, Dary?”

“Yes please,” the boy answered.

The plate was never used. Cindy came in soon after, and fell straight into Dan’s arms. He could feel her tremble as he led her to the sofa. They sat, arm in arm, and Cindy found that she drew strength from her new boyfriend. It helped that he had been in combat before, and just held her, without speaking.

After a few minutes, Cindy started to tell the others about the chase and accident. She felt she was drawing strength from Dan, and telling the story helped her wash it out of her mind.

“Why didn’t you smash him off the road, like they do on TV,” Darryl asked as she described the chase.

“That isn’t our way with the OPP,” she said calmly. “Some American forces will attempt to immobilize a fleeing car that way, but our rules are clear. We lay back a ways, and keep the siren and lights on to alert other drivers. Our primary goal is to end the chase without any loss of life.”

“His life doesn’t matter,” Darryl sneered. “I just wish it had happened sooner.”

“But then you wouldn’t have come to the house, where we all love you,” Grey said, pulling the boy onto his lap. “Manidoo has plans for all of us, and the abuse you had to take will be paid back by the love you get here.”

“I s’pose,” the boy said, as Cindy went back to her story.

“So you are a hero, then,” Willow said. “Your action saved that family’s lives.”

“I don’t feel like a hero,” she said. “But I do feel a lot better here with all of you around. It feels like family.”

“But the car was ruined,” Sun asked.

“It is in four different pieces now,” Cindy said.

“It could be used for parts,” she said hopefully.

“You are not making Daisy’s property into a wrecker’s yard,” Grey said firmly. “If you ever get another car like that, and need parts, you can go to the wrecker in Madoc and buy them there.” Sun just pouted.

He turned to Cindy. “Do you want to eat,” Grey asked.

“No, thanks. I just want to lie down for a bit. Is there a place?” she said.

“Yes, let’s go to my room,” Dan said, and led her there.

The rest of the group was up for two more hours, and Dan did not come out of the room.

The next morning Cindy was up and smiling as she helped Lois and Sun make breakfast for the entire family.

“What do you call a grown man who just holds and cuddles with a shaken-up young woman in bed?” Cindy asked Sun.

“A good man, I think,” Sun said.

“Well, he won’t get away with it again,” Cindy said. “And it won’t be long.”

“He is the right one then?” Sun asked.

“Definitely. It is like there is a whole piece of my life that was missing, and now I am complete.”

Lois came over to hug her. “Welcome to the family, dear. Ever since Dan met you I knew you would be a perfect fit for him. Even during those months when he refused to believe that he could be good enough for you.”

“You know, ever since I came by to arrest a house burglar, and found him washing dishes in that old man’s house, and generally cleaning up I was attracted to him. Then I found out how he was going out to help run errands for seniors, and running a club for young people. How can you not fall in love with a guy like that?”

She looked at Sun and chuckled. “Finally you had to slap him upside the head to get him to ask me out. I’ll thank you forever for that.”

Then men came into the kitchen. Hungry men. That ended the girl talk, but Cindy went over to Dan, sitting on his lap and eating off his plate. He didn’t object. It must be love, when you can take a man’s food and he doesn’t care.

(In Canada the metric system is used officially, although Imperial is used in some cases, like the staves. For our American readers, 50 kph is 30 mph; 100 kph is 60 mph, a bit over the legal highway speed limit (and what most people drive), and 180 kph is about 110 mph.)

The House

By Dawn Natelle

I managed to write this chapter without killing anyone. Look for the next chapter on Monday or Tuesday: Dawn.

Chapter 16 – Auctions and actions

When everyone was finished breakfast, most headed into the big kitchen. There was no direct door between the kitchens: you had to enter the looping hallway, turn right, and you were at the kitchen door that had, until this morning, been nailed shut. Grey had pulled out the nails this morning, leaving minimal marks in the wood.

Last night Willow had expressed interest in using the big kitchen for some baking, and as a result, everyone went there to clean the place up. Except Willow. Daisy had said there were some baking pans in the basement, so she headed down there. She returned a few minutes later with four bread pan sets: the commercial type that held four loaves of bread in pans welded together.

“Oh my, I remember those,” Daisy said. “When the house was full, we used to bake bread twice a week, eight loaves at a time. I don’t know why we had four sets.”

“I have to run to the store,” Willow lamented. “Darryl, will you head down to the basement and bring up the four bun pans down there?” She then darted off to jog to the store.

Darryl looked a little afraid of going into the basement alone, so Grey told him he would come along. They found the pans easily: Willow must have set them aside. But Grey also searched through the pile and found pie plates, cake tins, and cookie sheets, so both of them went upstairs with loaded arms.

When they got there it was a beehive of activity. Dan was on hands and knees scrubbing the linoleum floor, while Cindy was scrubbing the walls. She was happy to have something physical to do to take her mind off the prior day. Sun was in heaven. There were two six burner ranges in the place, each with double ovens. She had one taken apart. At the very least they needed new electrical, and a good cleaning. And the way Sun cleaned was to take everything apart, and clean from the bottom up.

Daisy and Lois had steel wool, and were working at scouring the bread pans. Dary got into a chair beside them, and joined in. Grey decided to take on the windows, which were so dirty almost no light was coming in. He was experienced at this: he had done the same in all the bedrooms he had opened up earlier in the year. He did the insides first, and then went outside to finish. As he worked, the room got brighter and brighter, and the crew could see more and more dirt to clean.

Rabbit helped too, running from one team member to another, barking or yipping, and then accepting a pat on the head before running elsewhere.

“He is the foreman,” Dan joked. “Don’t slow down or he’ll be all over you.”

Grey was first to finish a task, and came in to start on the triple porcelain sink. It was yellow over all, except for the nearly black bottoms. He started to scrub, and slowly saw bits of white reappear.

They worked all day, with Dary making sandwiches for lunch. He lost his partners after the meal, as an exhausted Lois and Daisy went for naps. But Dary continued to scrub pans. They had the bread pans gleaming like new, and the boy was working on cake tins. He loved cake, and hoped a few clean plans would lead to a special dessert later. Dan had to dart away, kissing Cindy as he left. He needed to visit his seniors in town, and see if they needed anything. He knew that he would be at least one hour with each: at the very least they need the visiting time they got when he came over.

By suppertime, arranged by Lois and Daisy, the big kitchen was a whole new place.

The windows gleamed, one range was finished and worked perfectly. Sun had been a bit concerned when one oven didn’t work, until Daisy informed her that it was only a proofing oven, and not designed to get hot. She was now working on the second range, and hoped that Willow wouldn’t need two tomorrow. The sinks were now shiny white, with chrome catch-basins instead of black crud. The counter was clean along the long wall, and even the maple butcher block was ready for action. The floor was spotless and the walls turned out to be a pale yellow under all the grime. Grey had even gotten up on a ladder and cleaned the ceiling fixtures, putting in new energy-efficient bulbs, and removing layers of dust from the shades.

Dan had returned, and shouted at him as the dust settled onto his scrubbed floor, but Grey just swept up the mess: easy to do when the floor was so clean to start.

They finished up as Willow returned home. She was nearly in tears as she looked at the transformed workplace. “It is beautiful,” she said, as she looked here and there. “I will have to make something special for all of you.”

“I helped, Mama,” Dary said. “Look, clean cake tins.”

“So I have to put cakes on the list of things to make, do I?” she said with a smile. “What kind? Chocolate, I presume.”

“Yes please,” the boy said, hugging his mother.

“Well tomorrow I am on short hours, with Wendy back. And Frank paid me cash for my hours so far, so I need a ride into Tweed to buy supplies, or the loan of a vehicle. Next week I have three full days again. Wendy gets Monday off for the May 2-4 weekend that week”

“You can use the LTD or my truck, depending on how many go with you,” Sun offered.

“Thanks.”

“Better take the car,” Dan said. “There is an auction sale in Tweed and we might be able to pick up some beds and other furniture cheap.”

In rural Ontario, when the last occupant of a house passes, the contents of the house are usually sold by auctions, occasionally with two houses together for a single sale. People come from all over: locals to get bargains, and dealers from across the province looking for antiques. As a result, the better-looking goods sell for a top dollar, but mundane items, like beds, dressers, and vanities go for a low price, sometimes only a dollar. Local people looking for antiques are especially interested, since they know the dealers will only bid up to a wholesale price.

Cindy drove Sun’s truck to the sale, with Grey as a passenger. They followed Dan and Dary in his truck. The sale was at the house, which would be sold through an agent later, and all the streets in the area were packed with cars and pickups. Dan paid a lady guarding her driveway $10 to let them park there. She smiled, and decided to go to the sale with them now that she no longer had to protect her property. Grey said they would help her carry any goods she bought home.

At the sale they looked over the goods, with Dan suggesting prices for various items. He didn’t go over $10 on any beds, with most at $5. Dary fell in love with a nice set of bunk-beds, and Dan said they would go up to $25 on those, although he was sure they would sell for near $100.

There were two sets of living-room furniture: one good set that was out of their price range, and one older set they would try for. Dary wandered off, as kids can do in rural Ontario, and found boxes of treasures. One was tins of baking supplies, another was full of kitchen gadgets, and a third had plateware that clearly was not valuable, unlike a beautiful set of silverware that eventually sold for $200. A box of mugs and glasses was considered: with so many in the house these and plateware were in short supply. Finally a box that caught his eye was full of books: some for smaller kids, some for older ones, and some that he thought his grandma would like.

In the end, they bought seven beds. The bunk beds went for $135, to Dary’s dismay, but Grey went up to the buyer and asked if the man wanted to sell the mattresses. Many people want new mattresses on their beds, and this man was one. He told Grey he could take the mattresses for free to save him from having to dispose of them.

“See Dary,” Grey said. “We have mattresses now, and we have trees at home. We can make our own bunk beds that will sell for hundreds when you are done with them.” For that he got a big hug for the boy.

They had also spent $100 on a tattered old sofa set, matching chair, and three other easy chairs. They bought all the boxes that Dary had spied out. The books went for the $2 opening bid Dan had made. The other four cost under $30 in total.

After the sale ended, the trucks were loaded up with mattresses and beds, and the boxes had to go into the cabs, on laps and around feet. The lady who had given them parking had spent $200, and they took a beautiful sideboard to her house in Sun’s truck before filling it with their goods.

As they were about done, a man who had paid $50 for a fairly nice recliner saw it pop open as he was loading it into the next truck to Dan. He discovered that the inner mechanism was broken and seemed beyond repair (to him). Grey offered him $10 cash ‘for parts’ and the man jumped at the offer. Grey knew that the chair would provide Sun with hours of enjoyment, and probably would be working again in a week or so.

The ride back to the house was much slower with the loads in back, but they eventually arrived, and slowly started unloading. Grey knew which rooms needed beds, and they soon had one truck unloaded. It was Dan’s, and he and Sun headed back to the sale to pick up the living-room furniture that they had left at the sale. None of it was good enough quality that anyone would try to steal it. While they were gone, the others unloaded the 49 Chev, and got the other beds into the house. The box of books went into the Great Hall, and that was the point where they lost Dary, as he started poring through some picture books.

Cindy and Grey got the rest of the goods in. Daisy and Willow were glad to see the glassware, plateware, and kitchen gadgets, which quickly (after a wash) found places in the new kitchen.

Beds were set up, including one in Grey’s room, where Cindy was surprised to find that he had been sleeping on the floor under deerskins.

“It’s not bad, I’ve slept on the ground in all weather. Here in an air-conditioned room it is like heaven.”

Dan and Sun returned, and the living-room furniture was set up in the Great Hall. This room was much larger than Daisy’s little living room, and with the growing crowd living in the house, it made visiting more comfortable. The only TV set was in there, and Daisy liked that. It meant that Dary would come in and snuggle on the bed next to her in the evenings, to her great delight.

The whole crew stayed for supper, although Cindy, Dan and Lois said they would have to get back to their cottage tomorrow. It would be the Saturday of the long weekend, and they didn’t know their new neighbors yet.

The next morning Willow was up early, eager to get her baking started. She had confessed that while at the grocery store, her baking experience had mainly consisted of taking frozen lumps of dough from a box, putting it on a pan, and then when it had thawed and risen, putting it into the oven. Now she wanted to learn how to bake from scratch. Daisy had given her a collection of recipe sheets that had been in her kitchen for years. But the real goldmine came when Dary found a copy of the “Fannie Farmer Baking Book” in the box of books from the auction sale. Willow spent several hours reading the book, which include descriptions of techniques used in baking, as well as ingredient lists, like Daisy’s recipes.

When Cindy and Dan, both aglow after consummating their relationship, took Lois back to the cottage, Willow and her son followed them as far as Tweed to buy baking supplies. They bought a 10-kg bag of flour, and large packages of salt, sugar (brown, white, and icing), baking powder, baking soda, and a small jar of yeast. They also bought food-coloring, spices that Daisy didn’t have in her kitchen, milk, cream and butter, and at Dary’s insistence, some decorative sprinkles. They then headed back to the house to start baking.

Meanwhile, Dan drove to the cottage, and found that the access road was completely blocked by vehicles on either side. In fact, there were nearly a dozen cars parked on the north side of the road to the access road.

“How do we get in Danny?” Lois asked timidly. “I can’t walk all that way.”

After a moment Dan made up his mind. “It hasn’t rained for over a week: we will go this way”, and he drove into and out of a shallow ditch, and then across the grass towards their cottage. “This is our land anyway, although half of the road is as well.”

“Those cars are parked illegally,” Cindy said. “You can’t block an access road like that.”

“Well, call the cops,” Dan joked.

“No need,” Cindy said. “I happen to have my citation book in my purse. I never leave home without it. It looks like six cars are going to get tickets: no seven, counting the one blocking your driveway.”

“And look,” Lois said. “There are pup tents on my front lawn.”

“I should just drive across them,” Dan said, and turned towards the tents. But then he turned back to avoid them.

“I’m glad you did that,” Cindy said. “There could have been someone napping in one of those. And I would have had to give you a citation for careless driving. I don’t want to be testifying against my new boyfriend in court.”

They pulled the car up on the lawn near the front door to the cottage, and Cindy helped Lois into the place. She had never seen the place before, so Lois showed her around. Dan stayed outside, and started pulling up the three tents. He had unpegged the first and dragged it out to the road, and was starting to take down the second when a group of boys, teenage or college aged, approached.

“Hey man, what are you doing?” one boy said. “Those are our tents.”

“And this is my land, and I don’t recall giving you permission to put them there.”

“He’s just an old man,” said a boy wearing only swim shorts. He was clearly fit with a six pack that only came from working out. “We can take him.” The boy was holding a beer, which he handed to a smaller friend.

Dan went into a defensive stance as the slightly drunk boy approached. He’s probably never been in a real fight, Dan thought as the boy neared and took a swing. Dan grabbed his muscular arm and pulled, throwing the big lad over his shoulder and onto the gravel drive.

That caused another four lads to come at him, and Dan was able to keep them off him. Soon three of the four were dazed and on the ground as result of headshots the ex-army officer had gotten in. The fourth was closing in, more cautious and more sober than his friends.

It was at this point when Cindy had come to the front of the cottage, drawn by the noise of fighting. She saw a boy who had picked up a five-foot long two-by-four and was coming at Dan from behind.

Dan grappled with the boy in front of him, and then he heard a scream from inside the cottage, followed by a second scream. That was when everything went black.

When his head cleared he heard one of the two boys still standing shout: “He’s a fuckin’ ninja.” He could see that the boy he had been wrestling with unconscious on the drive, while another boy was standing to the side with a stunned expression. He was holding a two-by-four.

Cindy was now standing next to him, and using her police command voice she shouted at the boy with the lumber: “Drop your weapon. This is all over.” The boy dropped the wood, and Dan saw Cindy take a pair of handcuffs from her purse. He also noted that there were now nearly 100 people ringing the fight scene.

That was when Dan dropped to his knee and found that the unconscious boy was no longer breathing. Dan rolled him over, elevated his head and started CPR, rotating between chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth.

As he was providing CPR, Flint started talking to Dan: «Sorry to interfere. You were doing well with the first few. But the boy with the big stick was coming at you from behind, so I had to take over. I twisted, and the boy you were wrestling with took the blow from his friend. I took out three more with kicks to the throat or head before your squaw came out and I decided to leave your body.»

«Thanks, I think,» Dan said internally. He finally stopped the CPR for a second and called to his mom. “Mom. Call for an ambulance: two if they can spare them. And then call the cops to tell them officer Cindy needs a backup.”

“Mention assault causing bodily harm,” Cindy added. “And tell them to take the lawn the way Dan did to get in.”

The first EMT ambulance was on the scene in minutes, having been making a drop at the hospital in Tweed. The EMTs took over from Dan on the CPR and announced that the boy had a slight pulse and was alive: barely. He and the most damaged of the others, who had taken a kick to the throat by Flint, were bundled into the ambulance. One EMT did a quick triage on the others, selecting two other boys to go to the hospital in the second ambulance, and then ordering four others to go to the ambulance in cars. Three boys were hurt, but did not seem to require hospital treatment.

The next car in was an OPP cruiser. The handcuffed boy was put in the back while Cindy updated her partner on the events. The boy would be booked and charged with assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon. The boy Dan identified as starting the fight would be charged with simple assault, since he didn’t actually hit Dan. The others were let off with warnings.

Two of the cars blocking the lane had taken boys to the hospital, but the two officers then ticketed the others, to the dismay of the drivers, who found that the tickets were for $125 each. The road was cleared, although the second ambulance had also gone over the grass.

Just when the road was cleared a big septic tank service truck arrived, and was able to get up to Dan’s drive, but no further due to the cars parked haphazardly in the other cottage lot.

An older couple came out of the crowd: the man speaking quickly to the truck driver, and then approaching Dan.

“Henry Coswald,” the man said. “I guess I am your new neighbor. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. This whole weekend has been a disaster. Could we use your lane to park a few cars? Just temporarily. I need to get that truck through. Our septic system is clogged up badly.”

“That can happen with 100 people using one toilet,” Dan said with a smile. City people: they don’t understand the limitations to services in cottage country. “Yes, you can move cars in, and a few can fit on the grass here.” He noticed that the other tents were now gone.

The man went back and started shouting orders to the kids, and directing traffic to allow the truck to near the back of the house. Meanwhile the woman who had come with Henry came up to Lois and Dan. “Susan Coswald,” she said. “I am so sorry about this. What a terrible way to have to introduce yourself to neighbors.” She paused, then turned red before continuing. “I don’t suppose I could use your washroom. I haven’t gone all morning and it is starting to hurt. The boys, and the young girls, have been going out into the woods, but a woman my age …”

Lois led her to the washroom. “I wish I could help you all, but then my system would plug up.”

“Would six more be a bother?” Susan shouted from inside the room. “I have four sisters-in-law, and two sisters who would be so grateful.”

When she came out, with a look of relief on her face, she went to the door and waved in her sisters, calling out that younger girls who started moving towards Lois’s cottage would have to wait for the septic truck to finish. The other adult ladies came in and made a line outside of the door, doing little dances as they waited.

Lois made tea, because that is what Lois did when people visited. She and Susan sat in the front room, and Lois made a cup for each of the other women as they came out.

“Our new place is a disaster,” Susan explained. “Henry and I bought it a couple weeks ago and decided to open it up this weekend. The Hitchings had left it fully furnished, so we thought it was ready for us. I think there are 15 cousins, and they each were to bring one friend, but a few brought two. It was our kids that were the real culprits: I have two in university and two in high school, and they each brought 10 to 20 with them for a May 2-4 bash.”

“But last night at about 11 the toilet stopped flushing, and this morning the water ran out. The back yard is a mess. It is squishy with septic water. And several tents were out in it. You saw the problem with parking, and then those clowns deciding to fight your son … I assume he is your son.”

“Yes, and the young girl is an OPP officer, his girlfriend. Dan was in the army for 25 years: a peacekeeper in Somalia for some of that time. He can look after himself, although when I saw that boy swing a 2x4 at him from behind I was sure he was going to be hurt. But then the other boy got hit, and Cindy stopped everything right away. Without even pulling a gun.”

“And they say your boy saved young John’s life with CPR. I can only thank you for that. This would not be a very relaxing place to go if there had been a death here the first day.”

“Nor for me,” Lois said. “Especially if it had been my son who died. I don’t know if any of those boys know CPR, or if they would have used it after the fight.”

Just then Henry came to the door. Lois answered it, and directed him to the washroom, to his relief. Dan came in a minute later. “Cindy is going to the station with Ben, her partner, and will probably work a full shift today. They will go to the house and pick up her cruiser. She has her uniform there.”

Henry came out and told the sisters that the cottage was being closed, and that they would have to pull out. “The man on the truck has drained the tank, but he said that the lines will still be half full, and if everybody stays it will fill again overnight. The well is also going to be out for at least six hours. He told the lineup waiting to use the toilet that they would have to get a bucket of water from the lake to flush it. There is a little bucket brigade going on.”

“The bad news is that the septic system is pretty shot. It was legal when it was put in 35 years ago, but now it is far short of the health department regulations. A whole new weeping bed is needed, and it will require at least 5 acres more land. We will have to figure out who owns the lot behind us and see if they will sever off some of their land.”

“That is our land,” Dan said. “It is ten acres, and it is unlikely that the county would allow a severance. There wouldn’t be enough land left for another house and its septic bed.”

“So we are screwed,” Henry said. “Unless you could be convinced to sell the entire lot?”

“Well, that much land out here, close to the lake but not on it, would go for $100,000 if we are lucky.”

“I’ll pay $150,000,” Henry said. “In fact, would your mother be interested in selling this cottage too? Having both places will make it easier to have family out here. This is a lovely place. I wouldn’t mind staying here while the visitors stay in the Hitchings house.”

“Is the septic good here?” Susan asked.

“We have had the place for 25 years,” Lois said. “It was just a summer place until Danny fixed it up for me a few years back and we moved in. There have never been any problems in all that time. I think the tank was drained about 15 years back, so it might need it again.”

“And a little tip many cottages use is to never flush after a pee, or at the end of the night,” Dan said. “It really conserves the water in your well. Speaking of which, I wouldn’t use your taps. The overflow from the septic tank has probably polluted it. You can bring some buckets over here to get water for cooking and washing up. We have an outside tap on the lake side.”

Just then one of the uncles came to the door. Apparently some of the college kids were arguing about leaving. They had made plans to do May 2-4 here, and weren’t happy about the change in plans.

Henry stormed out of the cottage, and Susan followed: “I think you two need to talk about selling, if you are interested at all.”

Alone, Dan went through the pros and cons of selling, but Lois interrupted. “I don’t want to live here any more. This used to be nice and quiet, but now it seems that this is going to be a weekend place for the Coswalds, with visitors all the time. Do you think Daisy would let us move into the house full time?”

“Do I think Daisy would let her best friend move in? I suspect so. Even if she doesn’t want us, I know she will let us stay until we can rent of buy another place. “I’m going to ask $200,000 for the cottage, which is double what we could get in a panic sale. We’ll go down to $300,000 in total if they want both properties. Let’s just see if they have the cash.”

“Susan said they were both professors,” Lois said. “He is at the University in Kingston, and she is at the community college. So they both have high paying jobs.”

“And four kids, two in college and two soon to go,” Dan warned. “All we can do is ask.”

Susan and Henry came back later and the four sat around the table.

“My mother has loved this place for years,” Dan started off. “But she has a good friend up on the highway that has a lot of space and will probably take us in. So we might be interested in an offer.”

“We paid the Hutchings $150,000 and this place is nicer,” Henry said. “Would you take 175?”

“The number we had in mind was 200,” Dan said.

Henry put on a pained look. Dan was unsure if it was a negotiating tactic, or real. “I don’t know. We have kids to put through College. My mother died last summer in Toronto, and we recently sold her house for $900,000. Buying the first cottage was a no brainer, but another $350,000 … that’s a half million in total of what we hoped was a retirement fund.”

“It still is a retirement fund,” Dan pressed. “You will own the entire peninsula here. You could sell it, or you could retire out here. It really is lovely in the fall and spring. And in winter you occasionally see deer in the backyard. Tell you what. If you are buying both properties, we will go down to 300. For the two.”

“Sold,” Henry said. “And with no real estate commissions. There will be lawyer fees involved though, I guess.”

“One of the teachers at my college is a lawyer,” Susan said. “We have lunch all the time. I think she would do it as fast as possible.”

“Well we will be out of the place by Friday, which I assume is the next day you will be up after the long weekend. We will want all the furnishings, so you might want to buy some things in Kingston. If you give me a looney, that can be the rent until the real estate closing.”

“Done,” Henry said, sliding over a $1 coin.

“Come on mother, let’s head over to the house,” Dan said.

-----

In Canada the May holiday is held on the second last Monday of the month, a week before America celebrates Memorial Day. The official title is Victoria Day, but everyone calls it the May 2-4 (Two four) weekend. Many a joke has been made over the fact that beer in Ontario is usually sold in cases of 24 cans or bottles, and this is referred to as a 2-4 case.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Another little chapter that brings another 24 beings to the house: Dawn.

Chapter 17 –

After Lois and Dan got to the house in early afternoon, Daisy told them that they were to stay as long as they wanted. There was a fantastic aroma in the house while Willow’s first batch of bread was baking. She had left it in the oven when she went over to the store to cover the two evening buses, and Daisy took it out of the oven.

After it cooled in the pans for a few minutes, Grey was anxious to get the wonderful smelling food out where it could cool faster, and be tasted quicker. He lifted the pans and turned them over, and shook. And shook. The bread wobbled a bit, but would not release from the pans.

“It’s stuck,” he said.

“Try running a knife around it,” Daisy suggested.

Grey did that, around all four sides of all four loaves, and nothing happened, except a bit more wobbling. “Can you pull on one?” he asked Daisy.

She did, and soon the loaf popped free. Or at least part of it did. The top and sides of the loaf came free, but the bottom inch or so was stuck in the bread pan. Grey set the pan down, and used a fork to scrape it off the bottom of the pan.

“It looks like Willow didn’t use anything to grease the pans,” Daisy said.

“Anyway, it is good,” Grey mumbled with some of the bread from the bottom of the pan in his mouth. “How do we get the rest out?”

“Same way, I guess,” Daisy said. “There is no way to get it out intact.” So Grey just pulled the tops of the bread out, scrapping the bottoms, and then set the pan in one of the sinks to soak.

“It is still edible, just not pretty,” Grey said. “Willow will be so upset.”

Over supper, more than a loaf of the bread was eagerly eaten, and Willow explained that at the grocery store you didn’t need to grease the pans. “Now that I think of it, every six months or so they sent half the pans to a place in Ottawa to put some Teflon kind of stuff on them.”

“Well, until you get those Tefloned, you will have to grease them,” Daisy said. “You can use butter, shortening, bacon fat (which gives the bread a wonderful flavor), or even Sun’s bear fat.”

“Nobody is touching my bear fat,” Sun said, mock-angrily. “Do you know how hard it is to get more? You have to kill a very angry bear.”

“I will try bacon-fat tomorrow,” Willow said.

“Tomorrow?” Grey asked. “I mean we ate an entire loaf today. There are almost three left. Will we need more tomorrow?”

“I want to take it to the store, if it turns out better,” the woman explained. “I’m hoping that Frank likes the idea of using fresh bread in the sandwiches for the buses. I’ll go in a half hour earlier for the morning and test it out on them. Four loaves only makes 36 sandwiches, so we need a lot more than four loaves in a day.”

“Nine per loaf,” Dan calculated. “You could get more if you sliced thinner. I cut the slices big today because they aren’t full loaves without bottoms.”

“No, I love that thickness,” Willow said. “I mean it is about half again as thick as a Wonder Bread slice, but that adds to the charm of the whole home-baked thing.”

After dinner Sun practically dragged Willow to the phone to call her parents. She came back with tears in her eyes.

“They are coming down from Sudbury tomorrow. Apparently Dad has a job with the Ministry of Natural Resources up there, but he said he would take a couple personal days. Mom wanted to get into the car immediately and drive through the night. They really want to meet Darryl.” She turned to her son. “Make sure you put some clean clothes on tomorrow. Your grandparents will be in around noon, if Dad leaves at 6 a.m. like I suspect he will.”

Grey woke before dawn, as usual, and was surprised to hear sounds coming from the kitchen. Willow had been up for most of the night, making another batch of bread: eight loaves this time, in pans greased with bacon fat. She had slept for short periods while the bread was rising, and decided that the bread in the proofing chamber was ready to go into the hot oven. She smiled at Grey when he came in just as she was loading the second set of pans.

“I decided to double the recipe and make eight loaves,” she said. “I really hope it will turn out well, and that Frank likes the idea. I could use the second oven, and make 16 in a batch. That might be enough bread for the store each day.”

“What will you sell it for?” Grey asked.

“I don’t know. Frank buys Wonder Bread for $2.50 a loaf. To beat that I would have to charge $2.25,” she said. “So 16 loaves would be $36 a day, or about $250 a week. That would help with my salary.”

“How much do the ingredients cost?”

“Oh, I forgot that. I will have to figure it out.” She sat down and did some calculations, finally looking up in shock. “The ingredients cost $1.40 a loaf, and that doesn’t count the cost of power for the stoves, or any rental to Daisy for using this kitchen. I guess I won’t make a fortune like I thought. I’ll make less than a dollar a loaf.”

“Maybe you are looking at it the wrong way,” Grey suggested. “Your bread is way better than Wonder Bread, so it should cost more, not less. Price the bread at $3.50 a loaf for anyone who wants to buy a loaf. You can offer it to Frank for $2.90 a loaf. That way you earn $1.50 per loaf.”

“That is better,” Willow agreed.

“But is it worth $24 a day to be getting up in the early morning to make bread, especially on the days when you are working eight hours at the store?” Grey asked. She didn’t have an answer to that but was committed to her plan.

In a short time the smell of baking bread permeated through the house, causing people to wake earlier than normal. Sun was first out, and she started to fry up bacon and eggs for the crew she knew would be coming in soon.

“Another dozen eggs gone,” she mentioned to Grey. “We may need to get the old henhouse up and running again.”

“Dan has something in the works,” Willow said, but she wouldn’t go into detail and others came into the kitchen just then.

“Fresh bread smells wonderful,” Lois said as she came in for her first breakfast in her new home. Dan and Dary were right behind her.

“This batch is for the store,” Willow said.

“But we still have yesterday’s broken loaves, and they are still fresh,” Grey said as he sliced some of that bread.

As the breakfast dishes were being washed, Willow took out the bread. She inverted each of the four greased pan sets, and the bread slid out easily, with the slightest aroma of bacon on them. They were set out to cool, and just before Willow went to the store they were piled into two clean pillowcases. Willow put one over each shoulder and carried the bread off to the store.

“My god, I love your new perfume,” Frank joked as she walked into the store. The smell of the fresh bread quickly filled the store. Willow went into the back of the sandwich counter and pulled out bread, piling it on the counter behind. She took one loaf and sliced off several thick slices. She buttered one slice, laid a base of lettuce, a slice of ham and another of cheese, and then spread mayo over the top slice. She cut the bread in half and handed one to Frank and the other to Miriam. Their eyes widened in amazement as they each bit into their samples.

“I want one too,” Wendy cried out as she watched the foodgasms that the others were experiencing. Willow made another, this one egg salad, slicing it in half for Wendy, and then the other half in quarters for the bosses to taste.

“Okay, that was wonderful,” Miriam said. “It looks like you have over a dozen loaves here. Have you started a bakery?”

“Sort of. I was hoping you would want to try it out.”

They really didn’t have much chance to refuse. People coming into the store smelled the fresh bread, and by the time the bus came in they had already used up almost three loaves, and the rest of the first one. The remaining dozen went during the two buses, but the riders would not realize what a treat they were getting until they got on the road again.

“You head out now,” Frank said when they were cleaning up after the second bus. “You came in early. I don’t suppose you can make more bread for the evening busses, can you?”

Willow calculated, and decided it was impossible. Bread is a food that cannot be rushed. “Sorry, a batch started now wouldn’t be ready until nine, and the last bus comes at 7. Besides, I have some company coming today. I can make more tomorrow. Do you want 24 or 32?”

“Go with the 32,” Frank said. “I suspect we will sell more to the café crowd, and some people will want to take full loaves home as word-of-mouth gets around town. A couple asked to buy a loaf today, but I had to turn them down.”

Willow took her empty pillowcases for the house, and was just walking out the door when she noticed a car filling up at the self-service. The man looked familiar: “Dad?” she said.

“Jennifer,” he said, looking up from the pump. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” she said, and then suddenly rushed to hug the man she hadn’t seen in over 12 years. She was in tears almost immediately. The woman in the car got out, wondering who was hugging her husband, and immediately recognized her.

“Jennifer, my baby,” she sobbed as she cut into the hug. “I have missed you every day since you left us.”

“You girls get into the car,” her father, Wilf, said. “I’ll pay for the gas and then you can take me to meet my grandson.”

Minutes later they were at the house. It was an hour before lunch, so they went into the Great Hall living room where Darryl was reading his new books.

“Darryl,” Willow said. “I want you to meet some people. This is your grandfather, and this is your grandmother.”

“I already have a grandmother,” the boy said as he stood up.

“Yes,” Daisy said. “But most people have two grandmothers. Go give her a hug.”

He walked up to Wilf, and politely shook his hand. But Elaine, his grandmother, was having none of that. She immediately pulled the boy into a hug, and after a minute he melted into the love that she was radiating.

“This is a wonderful house, Jennifer,” Elaine said, with the boy still trapped in her arms.

“I go by Willow now,” Willow said. “Getting closer in touch with my heritage, and washing away some of the pain of the last 12 years. Oh Mom, I was so stupid. I should have listened to you.”

“But then you wouldn’t have this treasure, would you?” Elaine said, still holding Darryl. “We knew he was not a good man, but the more we tried to tell you, the more you fought for him.”

“He wasn’t bad for the first few years,” Willow said. “But after a while, especially when he felt Darryl wasn’t turning into the kind of man he was … well, things got bad. He started drinking: a lot.”

“Where is he?” Wilf asked. “I’d like to take a cane to him. That is the only thing that makes that type learn.”

“He is gone,” Willow said. “An accident a few days ago.”

“I’m glad,” Dary said from his position on Elaine’s lap. “He can never hit us again.”

“He hit you!” Wilf nearly roared, getting red in the face with rage.

“It is over, Daddy,” Willow said. “Everything turned out right. Daisy here owns this house, she adopted Darryl as a grandson.” She introduced the others as well.

Lunch was sandwiches made from Willow’s first batch of bread, and her parents had a chuckle about why the bread didn’t have bottoms on the slices. They did rave about the bread’s taste, though, and another loaf and a half was eaten.

After lunch the older ladies went to nap, and Willow and Sun took Elaine on a tour of the house and the property. The men went out to the grove, and surprisingly Dary stayed with the women.

Wilf, as a conservation officer, was interested in all aspects of the property, and Grey gave the explanation of how the natives had cared for the land for so many years, until Lone Goose had died.

“It was a bit of a mess when I took over,” Grey said. “Saplings and underbrush all though the grove. I finally cleared that all out.”

“Wow, I’ve never seen such a beautiful stand of Black Walnut,” Wilf said, immediately recognizing the species. He then looked at piles of underbrush. “I like the way you have piled all the underbrush between the rows of trees.”

“I call them the hedges,” Grey said. “I left about five foot wide sections between the trees, and then piled all the cut saplings and branches over them: anything where the wood was too small to be usable. It makes a good hiding place for smaller animals like chipmunk, gopher, and squirrels, and even ground birds like quail. It keeps the Grove alive and busy.”

The three men stood in the center of the grove and just let the ambience of the setting wash over them.

“It is a mystical place,” Dan suggested. “Grey brings people out here to let them find their spirit animal.”

“Can you do that for me?” Wilf asked. “My parents didn’t get into the old ways, and both my grandparents died when I was young.”

Grey sent Dan back to the house, asking him to bring the women out to the Grove. He then put his arms around Wilf and sang his calling song, while both of had closed eyes. When Wilf opened his, for a moment he could not see any animal. Then, far into the forest, he saw a wolf staring at him intently. It moved slightly, then ran away.

“That was amazing,” Wilf said. “You have to do it for Elaine.”

“I will. I sent Dan back to the house to get them. I did Darryl a few weeks back, and he saw a squirrel. Dan is a hawk, and Willow was a raccoon. You are the first wolf. It only works for people who are at least a part native. Look, there they come.”

“He is a lovely boy,” Wilf said, eyes on his grandson skipping beside the women in the distance. “You know he adores you like a father? I see it in his eyes. I am so glad that there is a good man in his life now.”

“Me?” Grey scoffed. “I am only a few years older than him. He calls me his uncle, but it is really more like a big brother.”

“Uncle, big brother, father: the title doesn’t matter,” Wilf said. “It is what you do for him that counts.”

“Dan left to make his afternoon calls on the seniors,” Sun said as they approached.

“Why don’t you take the others over to see the spring, Sun,” Grey asked. “Leave Elaine with me. Wilf wants her to discover her spirit animal.”

Five minutes later he led the awestruck woman to the spring. Willow and her Dad were catching up, and Sun was cleaning up the wigwams, feeling that Grey’s level of housekeeping was not up to hers. Dary was off near the edge of the clearing, apparently having a chat with some squirrels.

“She is a chipmunk,” Grey told them, getting her a drink of water in the tin cup that had somehow made it to the spring.

Her eyes opened wider as she drank down the ice cold water. “This is wonderful. This whole experience is wonderful. It is the most rewarding event of my life, other than getting married and giving birth to Jennifer.”

“Willow,” the girl reminded her.

“Oh yes, sorry. But you will have to give an old lady a break. I’ve thought of you as Jennifer for years. My poor, lost daughter,” Elaine gave Willow a hug.

“Let’s head back to the house now,” Sun suggested. “I don’t worry about Daisy being left alone anymore, now that Lois has moved in. But I have some more work to do in the mill, and Grey can show Wilf how he makes a canoe. He has three in various stages of construction. Willow has to head off to the store for her afternoon shift.”

“I would dearly like to see canoe building,” the older man said.

“So would I,” Elaine said. Darryl decided to accompany his grandparents, since the dirty old mill had no attractions for him.

Almost two hours later, Dan drove into the lane, and came out to the canoe shed carrying a cardboard box. There was a noise coming from the box.”

“What’s in there?” the curious little boy asked.

Dan pulled back the top of the carton, and Dary immediately saw that it was full of two dozen day-old chicks.

“How cute,” Darryl sang out. “Can I hold one?”

“If you are very careful,” Dan said. “Those little suckers cost me almost $3 each.” He turned to Rabbit, who was running back and forth in excitement. “These are not for your dinner,” he told the dog, who immediately stopped, and reacted with a ‘who? me?’ look.

Dary scooped up one of the little birds and gently cuddled it in his hands, bringing it up to his cheek, so he could run the tiny feathers against his face. “What do we do with them?” he asked.

“I talked about this with your Mom, and she thinks you are ready for this. Do you want to be the Mama chicken for these little ones? They need to be fed and watered several times a day at this age, and most importantly have a place where they can be warm. Do you want the job? It does involve cleaning up bird poop as well.”

“Oh, yes please,” he said in a small voice. “I would love to be their Mama. What do I need to do?”

“Come into the stables then,” Dan said, picking up the noisy box. Darryl held his chick in his hands as he followed Dan.

Inside the stable you could see that there had been quite a bit of work done. The five stable stalls had been cleaned and scoured, but at the back of the building there was a chicken coop. A long piece of eavestrough pipe was lying on the ground. Dan set the birds down there.

“This used to be a blacksmith, I think,” Dan said. “There is an little apartment in the back that I think the smith lived in.”

“There is a water tap right between those two big fire pits. Take this pail and fill it about a quarter full. Don’t fill it any more, or you won’t be able to lift it. Water is heavy.” Darryl did so, and then filled the eavestrough slowly. Water sloshed all the way to the blocked ends, and the pipe was tilted so that the small birds could reach the water level. They all went straight for the pipe and started to lap up water.

“They are thirsty,” Darryl said as he watched his young charges drink.

“They haven’t had water for a day,” Dan said. “They were sent in the mail to the TSC store in Tweed, where I picked them up. Next we need to feed them. I have several bags of feed in the truck.

“I’m ahead of you,” Grey said. “Here it is.”

Dan tore off the top of the bag, and told Dary to take out two big handsful of chick starter feed. He put it in a little pile, and as soon as some chicks had their full of water, they moved to the pile. Soon there were too many to feed comfortably, so Darryl made three other piles, with five to seven chicks at each.

“That should last them for about an hour,” Dan said. “Then you will have to refill the piles. The next ones will probably last four hours, since they won’t be so starved by then. You need to come out early in the morning to put more out and check the water. You want these to be full laying chickens in four or five months.”

He then led the boy to the coop itself. There were 30 nesting places in three rows at the back. “The chicks are too small for these,” Dan said. “But when they get bigger they will want to make nests. Before that we will have to bring in straw and make starter nests. I know where to get a bale of straw. And after that, you will have to start checking for eggs. I expect we will get 14 or 15 eggs a day for about a year, and then we need to get new chicks in and go through it all again.”

“What happens to the old ones when the new ones come in?” Dary said, suspecting he knew the answer.

“They will become dinner. We will eat a lot of chicken for about a month,” Grey said.

“Oh,” a small voice said. “It is that circle of life thing you told me about, isn’t it? Will I have to kill them?”

“No, I think one of us will handle that,” Dan said. “Your job is just to keep them alive. There is one more thing they need that I didn’t tell you about yet. They have to be kept warm. Momma hens actually sit on the babies until they get bigger. Here we have a hot box.” He took Darryl over to a wooden box that had three 150-watt incandescent light bulbs burning in it. These bulbs will keep them warm. Two will do the job, but with only one, or worse none, the chicks will die. So you have to check each day that no bulbs are burnt out. And if there is a power outage, you will need to come out here with some blankets, and lie down so they can crowd around you for heat.”

“I would be like the Momma then,” Dary said proudly.

“Yes you would. And look! There are four that have already found Rabbit and are cuddling up to him.”

“Let them stay with him for a bit,” Grey suggested. “He will become protective of them. I don’t think Rabbit will spend any more nights in the house. That is a good thing. We don’t have any foxes around the house now, but if there are adult chickens, we will. Rabbit is big enough to keep foxes away.”

“Good idea,” Dan said. “You can stay here till Sun comes in for dinner. By then Rabbit will be fed up being a Momma, so you can start taking the chicks into the hotbox when there are 10 or so cuddling him, and the rest when Sun comes. I guess another job for you will to bring Rabbit his dinner each night.”

“You can come back to check on them after dinner,” Grey said. “But you are to come to bed when it starts to get dark.”

“Dan said there is a room back there,” Dary said. “Can I live there?”

“No, I don’t think your mother would approve of that,” Grey said. “Besides, as the chicks get bigger, they need less and less care. It won’t be a full time job. For you. Rabbit might find it is. After supper you should bring out the skins from his bed, along with his supper. He can drink out of the eaves trough.”

As the men walked back to the house, leaving the excited boy with his new tasks, Wilf spoke for the first time” “That is a good thing you two are doing for Darryl. He is just old enough for some responsibility, and he will grow with it.”

“Responsibility?” Dan said with a laugh. “I’m doing it for the fresh eggs.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

I have been told that some people who do not visit the site daily are missing chapters, since when a new one goes up, then the old ones are dropped from the font page. So if you didn’t read Chapter 17 on Monday, you might want to go back and read it now: Dawn.

Chapter 18 – Meet Pierre

It was several days later. Yesterday Willow’s parents headed north just after lunch. Daisy had invited them to move in, and Elaine dearly wanted to. But Wilf said he had four more years before he could take early retirement, and a government pension was worth waiting for. But they promised to stay in Willow and Darryl’s lives. They would come visit every year at least twice.

Dary took quickly to his new responsibilities, tending the chicks closely. He would even take a book out to the coop to read while he watched over them. Rabbit had also taken to the birds, and would push them back into their area with his nose if they strayed too far.

Dary was walking out to the sheds after breakfast with Grey, who was planning to work some more on the canoes when a message came through. This time it was Mimiha: «There is trouble,» she said. «On the dirt road south of the house, about a quarter mile in. Take Rabbit.»

“Can you look after the chicks without Rabbit?” Grey asked Dary. “I need him for a bit.”

“Sure,” the boy said as he entered the coop. Grey whistled, and the dog looked confused: staring back at the chicks he had adopted, and then up at Dary. “Go with him, boy,” Dary said, and then Rabbit shot out after Grey.

Crossing the road was a chore. It was near the place where Rabbit had been hit by a car, and the dog was scared of both the road and the cars zooming past. He rubbed so tight against Grey’s leg that you might have thought they were joined. Eventually there was a gap of several miles between vehicles, and Grey trotted across the highway, with Rabbit practically attached to him.

Once on the opposite shoulder, the dog moved away, closer to the ditch. He wouldn’t go far as they walked a half mile east to a gravel side road. This road was seldom used, and wasn’t even ploughed in the winter. Three miles in was a dairy farm, and then some other properties, and thus the township ploughed the road to the south when it snowed.

About a mile along Grey discovered the problem Mimiha had seen. There were large Holstein cattle on the sides of the road, eating grass growing in the ditches. They must have broken out of their pen and gone after the virgin grass. Rabbit immediately went into action, running back and forth, herding the animals south again.

Grey had less luck. He tried pushing one of the huge animals, and it was like pushing a brick wall. Suddenly he felt something behind him, and turned to find a black wall behind him. It was a horse. But not just any horse. It was a huge draft horse that was taller at the shoulder than Grey’s height. A Belgian or Percheron, he decided.

“Hi boy,” Grey said, stroking the huge beast’s back. “I’d have no trouble herding these beasts if I could ride you, would I? Do you think you would let me up? It would be a long way down if you decide you don’t want me up there, so let me down gently if you have a problem with it.”

Grey took a deep breath, and a fistful of mane, and hauled himself up. Once he was on the broad back of the horse it danced a bit, then calmed down, looking back at the man as if he was proud to have a rider. Grey then started herding cattle south towards the farm.

Eventually he came to the north pen of the farm, and saw the problem. There was a gate, and it was open. He slid down after Rabbit and the big horse had gotten the last cow inside the pen. The gate catch seemed to be broken, and any cow pressing on it could open it. He closed it, and then laid a large branch across it. It would hold for a short while, but the cows would soon work their way out again.

He mounted the horse again, and then headed to the farmhouse. He got off the horse and headed to the house, but then saw that there were people in the barn stacking bales. The big horse wandered off to a water trough on the other side near a small shed.

“Hi there,” he said to the working farmers. There was an older man, probably the father, since the three boys ranged in age from 28 to 18 looked like younger versions of him.

They all turned, and the old man spoke. “What kin I do fer youse?”

“Your gate to the north pen is broken. I found about 20 cows on the road. Probably no danger on that road, but if they wandered out to the highway …”

“Yep. The OPP’d give me a ticket, or worse one of them fool drivers’ld hit one. Ayr they still loose?”

“No. My dog Rabbit helped round them up. They are in the pen, but the latch on the gate is broken. I used a stick to close it temporarily, but it needs to be fixed properly.”

“Yer a li’l thing to be movin’ cattle about,” the farmer said. “How’d yer manage?”

“Luckily there was a big black horse with one white sock out there,” Grey said. “He let me ride him and we pushed the cattle back.”

The farmer stared for a moment, and then broke out laughing. “Yer had me fer a minute kid, till you sed youse rode Devil. Thet horse ain’t never bin rode. What’s yer game?”

“That’s the truth,” Grey said.

“If youse rode Devil you kin have him,” the farmer said.

“Dad. Look.” The youngest boy pointed to the black horse, trotting out from around the barn after having his fill of water.

“What the …” The man looked at Grey again. “Did yer really ride ‘im?”

Grey answered by whistling. The big horse trotted over, and Grey hauled himself up. He then put the horse through some of the paces he had discovered out on the road. He turned him left, right, and even made him back up. As they went through the paces, he saw a raggedy old man standing near the smaller shed.

“Yer a magick man, you is,” the farmer said. “Paul, git one o’ the bikes and head out and check out that gate. Take some tools and parts wi’ you.”

Grey rode the horse, and the youngest son rode a moped out to the gate, with Rabbit trotting along, keeping closer to the horse then the noisy machine. When they got to the gate, it took nearly two hours to properly fix it. Grey suspected that Sun would have done the repair in 15 minutes.

During that time Grey got the entire story about the farm. Paul’s grandfather had come over from Holland after the war, and started off with four cows and a big vegetable garden. Over the years, the garden stopped being the source of the family wealth, and more and more cattle were bought. They had 30 now, and had just bought quota for another 15 under Ontario’s dairy supply management program.

Devil got his name for being unbroken. All three of the boys had tried, and two had been injured being thrown. He was trained to pull a wagon, or other implements, usually in a team with Marie, the second oldest of the farm’s four Percherons, but he never was broken to a saddle. Devil was 6, Marie 4 and the youngsters were Red, 3 and Stone 2. The farm had decided to sell the horses since it was Paul who cared for them mostly, and he was headed off to college in Toronto in the fall. They also wanted to tear down the stable to build an extension to the barn.

Grey also discovered that the old raggedy man was George Henson, the farm’s former blacksmith. He was now in his 70s and no longer had the strength to work the forge. The farmers had let him live in the forge rent-free for the past 8 or so years since he stopped working, but now with the old forge/stables were being torn down for the addition to the barn he would have to move. Paul didn’t know what would happen to the old man, who seldom came to the house, living on his small Canada pension.

When the gate was fixed to the satisfaction of both boys, they headed back to the farmhouse, where they found everyone getting lunch. Grey was invited to stay, and soon sat down to a meal that also included the apparent mother of the boys, and an older man who was probably the original farmer.

“Well son, I cain’t give you Devil like I sed,” the farmer said. “Pappy ‘minded me thet we got the horses from the big house onta other side o’ the road back in th’ 50s. We was jist startin’ out then, and them horses hepped us plough an’ stuff. Not the same horses, o’ course, but their pappy’s and momma’s. Anywayz the deal we got when the mill sent ‘em to us, free and clear, wuz that we hadda offer them to the house agin if we wuz to sell ‘em. So you kin only have Devil if the house don’t want ‘em.”

“I am pretty sure the house will want them,” Grey said. “I live there with Daisy … Miss Ridgemark. I fix the place up, and we recently cleaned out the old stable there. Your horses would be quite happy there.”

“Than it’s settled. Will youse take all th’ tack and th’ wagon?”

“We would be happy to.”

“Good, that means we jist need ter git rid of ol’ George an’ his tools and then we kin start on th’ extension to th’ barn.”

“We might even be able to help with that,” Grey said. “There is a room in the old smithy at the mill. We might be able to get him into that.”

“He caint pay much rent,” the farmer said. “He’s on pension, and it ain’t a big un.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Grey said. “Let me go talk to him first.”

Grey walked over to the shed, and found the old man eating a plate of beans.

“Gidday, sir,” the man said, standing quickly. “Can I offer you a plate o’ beans?”

“I just ate in the house,” Grey said. “They told me you were looking for a new place.”

“Yeah, I gotta be out of here by the end of June. I asked about a few places but the rent is almost as much as my check. Some are more. I was even thinking about living in the woods. The land behind the store is government land, I think.”

Grey looked at him. After living in the woods for two years, he doubted someone the age of George would survive even one year in the wild. Luckily there was another option.

“You know the forge over at the House,” Grey said.

“The one across the highway? I apprenticed to old ‘Orry there fer six years back in the day.”

“Well, there is a room or two at the back that you could move into.”

“’Orry’s old place? That’s bigger than my place here. Nicer too, if I remember right. What do you want for rent?”

Grey looked around at the smith’s tools. It looked like a complete shop, and one that would set Sun’s mouth to watering. Everything was covered in a layer of dust, but looked usable.

“Do you own the tools?”

“Yep. You looking to get into the smithy business?” George said. “Your arms look good, and broad shoulders, but you really don’t have the height or weight. I reckon I could teach you a bit though.”

“It wouldn’t be for me, but someone bigger than me. If you bring all your tools, and agree to teach us how to use them properly, you can have the room rent-free. For as long as you live.”

The old mans eyes watered up. He grabbed an old rag and wiped them, claiming it was because the years at the forge made his eyes watery. But he was clearly glad to have a new place to live.

“Do you know much about horses?” Grey asked.

“I’m a blacksmith,” George snorted. “’course I know about horses. Not the current bunch, but I shod all the other ones afore I hung up my hammer. Paul, the kid, he looks after them now, and I have to say he isn’t going a good job. All four of them need new shoes or their going to have foot problems soon. But Paul, he don’t listen to advice very well.”

“Well, I am Ojibwe,” Grey said. “And we honor the elders. Your knowledge is invaluable to us, and we would dearly love to have you move in. Daisy will have the final say of course, but I doubt she will turn you down.”

“Miss Daisy was a little girl when I was ‘prenticing. She used to come down to the forge a lot. Cutest little blonde thing. I made little toys and such for her. I’d dearly love to talk to her again.

It took two hours for George, Grey and Paul to load and hitch the wagon. Devil, which Grey decided to rename Pierre, and Madam would pull the loaded wagon, and Red and Stone were hitched behind. The first load had all the harnesses and saddles, and a good amount of George’s tools. It would take another load to get the rest.

They went up the north road that Grey had come down, past the gate, that now seemed solid in spite of a cow rubbing against it in hopes of popping it open again. When they got to the highway, Grey slapped the bench between George and himself, and Rabbit quickly jumped up, glad to not have to cross the road on foot. As they waited, Grey learned that George had some skills at leather working and harness and saddle making. The old man told him that the reason the black horse had never been ridden was that the saddle they used was too narrow for his broad back, and it pinched. A man in the saddle was downright painful, so of course the horse bucked.

“Dern fools wouldn’t listen to me try to tell them what was wrong,” George said. “They thought they knew it all.”

They waited nearly five minutes before there was a gap in the traffic long enough for the wagon to cross to the far shoulder. As they turned in at the lane, George noticed Sun carrying a log into the mill. “Now that fella could be a smith,” George said as he saw her heft the heavy wood.

“Except that isn’t a fella,” Gray said with a smile as Sun turned and waved at the approaching wagon. “But she is the person you will teach smithery to.”

“What did you do, Grey?” Sun said as they met. “They are beautiful. Names! Now!”

“Pierre and Madame up front with Red and Stone in the back,” Grey said.

The girl put her arms around Pierre’s neck, something she could do without reaching up the way Grey had to. The horse seemed to instantly bond with her. “He is big enough for me to ride,” she said.

“And a lot more,” Grey said. “This is George Henson. He is a smith and I’m hoping he will be able to teach us to look after these beasts. I want to be able to use them to haul logs from the grove and bush. We won’t have to chop logs up to fit on the pickups.”

“I am honored to meet you, Mr. Henson,” Sun said, shaking the old man’s hands.

“Oh, she has the grip of a smith,” he said. “She will do quite well.”

Sun and Grey unhitched the team under George’s tutelage, and brought the horses into the stable, much to the dismay of Dary, who saw his chicks all run in fear for the hot box. George remembered the place immediately, and found a tap that fed water into the drinking troughs in each of the four stalls.

“They are scaring my chicks,” an indignant Dary called out.

“They will be fine, little shaver,” George said. “Give them an hour or two and they’ll be back out for their food and water. The horses are just something new for them to get used to.”

Sun then picked the boy up and set him on the back of Stone, the smallest horse. “Do you think you would like to learn to ride? I know I would,” she said, holding him up.

“No. Maybe. Yes. But they are so big. Don’t let go. Do you have any smaller ones?”

“That is the package. We have one stall left, so we could get a pony, but not as cheaply as these fellows,” Grey said.

He then took the old man into the rooms at the back. There was no bed in it, but there were now lots of those in the house that could be moved out, Grey told him.

“I got my little cooker at the other shed,” George said. “I can move it over next trip.”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Sun said, after respecting Dary’s demand to be let down. “I suspect that Daisy will insist on you eating with us.”

“Me, eating with the family? I couldn’t,” George said.

“Don’t you understand?” Sun said, hugging the man firmly. “You are part of the family over here.”

They walked over to the house. Daisy and Lois had been sitting on the porch on the new bench that Grey had made, and Sun had upholstered with bearskins. They stood and walked to the rail as Grey explained the situation.

“Miss Ridgemark, you are as pretty as ever,” George said sincerely. She giggled at the compliment.

“I remember you fondly,” Daisy said to George. “I would love to rent you the stable rooms under the deal you made with Grey. I only have two stipulations. One is that you eat your meals in here with the family. The other is that you call me Daisy. That Miss Ridgemark stuff grates my nerves.”

Next was a trip into town in Sun’s pickup. First, they went to the feed mill and bought grain for the new teams, then Grey took George to the farm store where Dan had bought the chicks. They purchased three pairs of overalls, and a half dozen plaid shirt for George, who insisted on paying for them himself. He said he would buy new shoes and work boots with his next check.

On the way back, they stopped at the local farm where they had bought old tools in the past, and bought four bales of hay, and four straw bales, which made a full load on the small pickup. George knew the old farmer, and negotiated him down from his outrageous ‘city slicker’ prices to a fair farm price.

Back at the farm the truck was unloaded, with Grey struggling to carry a single bale of straw while Sun carried a bale of the heavier hay in either hand. Soon the horses were munching away.

It was too late for another trip to the dairy farm, so they just brought over a bed from the house, and some blankets for George. Then they led him to the house, where he showered and put on new clothes for supper.

------

For those not familiar with farm life, there is a big difference between straw and hay. Straw is the stalks after grain has been removed from the heads. Hay is full grass (often alfalfa) that is raised as a crop to feed livestock. Straw has little nutritional value, and is generally used for bedding for animals, and to help clear away waste. Hay is much more expensive than straw.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

I have been told that some people who do not visit the site daily are missing chapters, since when a new one goes up, then the old ones are dropped from the font page. So if you didn’t read Chapter 17 on Monday of Chapter 18 on Tuesday, you might want to go back and read it now: Dawn.

Chapter 19 – More people

It took about six meals with the family for George to get over his shyness. Daisy and Lois loved having a man about who was their age, and soon the three were teasing each other, and reminiscing about the old days. Not that George spent much time at the house, other than meals. He was in the smithy almost all the time.

They had picked up the rest of his tools in a few trips by truck. George didn’t want to risk the horses on the highway until their hooves had been trimmed back and they were reshod. Once his tools were in place, he taught Sun how to trim hooves, which were several months overdue. The horses were all now unshod for a few weeks until George and Sun could get the forge operational, and for Sun to learn how to make horseshoes. The horses didn’t mind being ‘barefoot’ for a few days, and would gingerly walk across the lane to graze on the lawn while their keepers worked in the forge.

Sun’s first attempts at shoes were rather bad, and had to go into a scrap pile. Eventually she made a pair of horseshoes that were almost perfect: these would provide a popular summer game for the house. Then she started making real shoes for the horses, eventually getting the knack under George’s expert tutelage. A week or so later all four horses had new shoes, and they turned to fixing a saddle for Pierre.

The saddle from the dairy farm had to be dissected, and Grey was involved in this, as he wanted to learn saddlery. They removed the metal components, and Sun bent them into a new shape that George said would suit the big horse. Then Grey sewed up the old leather. Putting the saddle on the horse was not easy: the animal weighed just over a ton. But with Sun holding him firm, Grey was able to put the saddle on, and then cinch it.

At first Pierre balked, but then he realized that the saddle didn’t hurt anymore. Grey got on out on the grass, where being bucked off was not liable to cause serious injury. Again Pierre balked, but then with no pain he took Grey for a little run. The past week had left him needing a run.

Finally they saddled Madame in her tack, which had always fit, and Grey mounted her. Pierre looked a bit put out that the boy wasn’t riding him, but then Sun hoisted herself on the Black. It didn’t take the two much effort to get the horses into a gallop, and soon they were racing to the Grove and back. Later they took the other two horses out: Red was just big enough to carry Sun and Grey rode the youngster, Stone.

Eventually they built a racecourse of four miles around the property, and races were common, both as entertainment for the people in the house, and to exercise the horses when Grey didn’t need them to haul logs. As well as Sun and Grey; Dan, Cindy and Willow all rode the animals. Dary rode in one race, riding double with Grey on Red. They immediately fell behind, because Grey had to use one arm to hold Dary safe on the animal, and half way along, they slowed to a trot, far behind the others. Dary was terrified on the ride, and begged Grey to stop. Finally a trot was slow enough for the boy, and the rest of the ride allowed him to dry his tears before coming up to the others at the finish line. He never raced again, although he wasn’t afraid of the animals: as long as he wasn’t on top of one.

It was mid June when a BMW pulled into the house. A man in an expensive-looking suit got out and went up to the porch. Grey and Sun were just coming out after lunch. “Is this an Inn?” the man asked. “My wife and I would like a room.”

Sun had continued down to the car, and Red Oak alerted her to the woman’s condition. «She is near her time. Soon she will pass into our world,» the old medicine man said.

As Grey was telling the man of the nearest inns, Sun interrupted him, opening the car door and scooping the woman into her arms. She weighed less than Dary. “To the Great Hall,” she called to Grey, carrying the woman past her confused husband. “Red Oak says she is part Seneca.”

Soon Grey was sitting in front of the woman who had been laid out on the table, starting his song. Sun explained to the man that Grey was a healer, and might be able to help. That was the last thing he heard as he transported inside.

Black, black, black. The woman seemed to be covered in black. Grey had his stave, and pointed it out to the black covering her heart. He aimed, and a blue light shot out, searing the black away from the heart, which was only beating feebly. He eliminated a strip of black, and then saw the thin red strip remaining slowly get smaller and smaller as the black crept back in.

He had to make continual strokes with the stave, burning away the black. Slowly the red section widened as he worked his way around the heart. It was not until he was near the original starting point that it started beating stronger. Even so, there was still more black that had seeped over the starting point, and he had to continue until the heart was completely red, and the heart beat stronger.

Then it was the lungs. The black was even thicker here, and Grey had to make two or three strokes to break through. Slowly he cleared up the right lung. After that he moved to the left lung. He finally had to stop.

Back in the real world Sun held him a pitcher of ice water, and he drank deeply, taking in nearly a quart.

“You need to rest now,” Sun said. “She is doing better.”

“Better than the last four months,” the man in the suit said. “Thank you for saving Nora. She has been diagnosed with cancer. When they told her it is terminal, she wanted to come out into the wild and see nature before she died. Her doctors didn’t want her to go, but she is stubborn. Thank you for saving her. Is the cancer gone?”

“No. No it is not.” Grey said, drinking another long slake of water. “I have to go back in. The cancer will keep growing unless I get rid of it all. You hold her hand,” he told the man.” Then Sun: “you hold my hand. I need all the support I can get.”

With that he started singing the healing song, and soon was back inside. Black was attacking the lungs from the top, and the heart from the aorta. He burned it back in both areas, and then proceeded through her body, gradually clearing out the blackness. Grey felt the support from Sun, and to a smaller extent the man was helping too.

He finally looked around and saw no more black. ‘Is that all?’ he asked himself, and immediately he saw little spots of blue glowing here and there throughout the body, including her breasts and ovaries. He knew these indicated little buds of cancer just waiting to attack. It would be years before they gathered the strength to attack again, but now Grey shot at each one with his stave. Eventually there were none, and Grey stopped his song.

He took the water that Sun offered, no longer cold, but still refreshing him. Then Sun caught him as he fell off his chair.

Several times Grey came out of his dazed state, usually to find Sun feeding him Daisy’s chicken soup. Then one day he woke completely. His body was exhausted, but he staggered to the nearest washroom. After using the toilet, he barely had the energy to shower. It was Dary who came in to bring him a clean set of skins to put on.

In the Great Hall he met the man in the suit, who now was in more casual clothes, and his patient, who looked fitter than Grey did.

“Thank you for saving me,” Nora said. “Usually it is the doctor who tells the patient to get bed rest, but this time I will tell it to you. I am a doctor, a pediatrician, but I can still tell that you are exhausted.”

“I need food,” Grey said. “I haven’t had solid food for what, two days?”

“Make that eight days,” John, the suit-man said as Daisy came out and put a plate of food in front of Grey. “We were worried about you, but Sun said that some … spirits … said you would be okay. I am John Jenson, and your patient is my wife Nora. I am … was … a lawyer. I left my practice a half-year ago to be with Nora. The partners were not pleased with me wanting a reduced workload, so I quit.”

“We love it out here,” Nora said as Grey wolfed down the meal. “Daisy said that we can stay as long as we like, and we are taking her up on that. We were working in the city: chasing the almighty dollar. Out here we find we are actually living, in a way we couldn’t in the city. We have walked out to your Grove almost every day, or rode out on one of your beautiful horses. It is such a mystical place. I feel energized just standing there among the mighty trees. They make you feel small and insignificant, and then they make you feel important. I wish we could stay here forever.”

“You can dear, we love having you,” Daisy said as she took the clean plate away from Grey and put another full one in its place.

Later Dan came in and told Grey that he had missed the final campout for the Ojibwe Junior Warriors during his recovery. He did have some information on bullying at the public school in Tweed. “Apparently, after we had talked to the kids in the campout at the grove the kids went to school on Tuesday, and Jace was bullied again. But this time seven boys from the Warriors went over to the three boys doing the bullying. They made them give Jace back the twoonie they had extorted from him, and then insisted that they go back to every other child they had taken money from and return it.”

“They refused, and attacked the boy who was spokesman, hoping that would scare the others off. Instead all six of the others, plus little Jace, jumped in and soon the bullies were all on the ground, pleading for a chance to return the money.”

“Where were the schoolyard monitors at the time?” Grey asked.

“Nowhere to be seen. The principal called all 11 boys to the office at the start of classes, and announced that fighting was not allowed, and suspended them all for three days. The bullies had a hard time catching up, but the Junior Warriors caught up because the girls, and the other smaller guys, took notes and explained the material covered to them in tutorial sessions. There was a history test that Friday, and the eight Warriors who were off did well thanks to the tutoring, and all three bullies failed badly,” Dan said.

“When do they meet again?” Grey asked. “I want to tell them all how proud I am of them.”

“They don’t meet until September now, with summer vacations on,” Dan said.

“I will come to your first sessions,” Grey said.

With that he stood up and found that his strength was starting to return. Sun was napping: she had stayed up with him a lot during the past week, and was exhausted too. Grey went to the stables, where George was tiding up the workspace, and lining up jobs for Sun to work on when she got back to work. Grey was astonished at how much bigger Dary’s chicks were. They were more than twice the size and were starting to look more like chickens.

The boy, on the other hand, was nearly the same. When he saw Grey he ran and leaped on him in a hug. “You are okay,” the boy said. “I prayed to Manidoo that you would be. I came to see you several times, but you were always asleep. One time Sun was feeding you, but your eyes stayed closed.”

“Do I remember getting a little kiss?” Grey said, touching his cheek.

“Yes, you remember? I kissed you just there every time I visited.”

“I do remember, and those kisses helped me recover. The love from you and Sun was important to me coming back.”

Grey went to the mill next, and was surprised to see that several logs he had planned to cut were neatly stacked as 1x6 boards. “I showed John how to use the rip saw,” George explained. “He was out here for a couple of days and cut up all the wood. He wanted something to do. Wanted to take the horses out to the Grove and cut down some more trees, but I said he would have to wait for you on that. You are the keeper of the trees, after all. I remember old Lone Goose and how upset he got when someone messed with his trees.”

“Yes, we can go out and cut some more trees. There is an old oak that needs to come down. But I want to be there when it happens.”

“The lad has ridden the horses, with his missus after she said she was better. I taught them both how to drive the wagon: just around the property. You wouldn’t think two city slickers like that would adapt to the house so well.”

“How about you, George?” Grey asked. “Are you adapting to the house too?”

The old man got the biggest grin. “I love it here, Grey. It is so much better than my old place on the farm. I’m a part of the family here. The ladies are so nice to me, though they do like to tease. And Darryl here is a fine companion during the day. I look after the horses, and when Sun is back I will continue teaching her smithing. I feel important: there is a meaning to my life and I’m not just waiting to die. Every morning I get up and thank God for all of you.”

“You are important,” Grey said. “We need you here. You are a link to our past. You are not Ojibwe, but I consider you an elder.”

----- -----

Pierre was antsy in his stall. He hadn’t been out for a ride in over a week. Not that he wasn’t used to that: at the other farm he often went several weeks without being out. And over there occasionally he went more than a day without food. When the horses were forgotten, the old man came in after midnight and put hay in the feed bins, and sometimes some oats as well.

At this farm the old man still fed them, but every day. He cleaned the water twice a week, and gave them oats to munch just as often. And there was always hay in the bins. He even cleaned the stalls daily, raking out the old straw and dropping new. But the one thing he didn’t do was ride them. And Pierre really wanted to run.

Then he perked up. There was the sound of woman voices giggling as they approached. Finally, they might be riding today. The big woman set a saddle on Pierre. It was the one that didn’t hurt. She then went to saddle two of the other horses. The man who had first ridden him was there too, and he saddled Madame, and checked that the saddles were tight on the other horses. The big woman pulled the cinch tight around Pierre’s middle, and put on the reins. The big horse was dancing in his stall in anticipation.

“Pierre seems eager,” Sun said to Grey, Willow and Nora as they all mounted up. “If he goes for a run, you can come along, or just trot out to the grove.”

Pierre got on the road, and his favorite rider left the reins loose. He started to gallop, and she didn’t pull him in. Soon he was running full tilt towards the trees at the rear of the farm. It wasn’t until he was in the Grove that Pierre slowed down, trotting towards the camp. He drank deeply from the spring there, and then his rider turned him around and they walked out to the edge of the Grove.

He could see the other three horses trotting towards him when his rider stopped him. The other horses sped up a little as they neared the Grove. All of the horses loved the water from the spring, and they were almost running when they got there. Pierre let them drink, and then had another long drink himself. The water was that good.

Then the four horses trotted out past the camp. They got to the end of the track that they raced on sometimes, but kept going into new territory. There was no clear path, but big horses like Pierre and Madam are like tanks, and mowed through the smaller saplings without a problem. For others, this was not true.

“Agh” Willow said, pushing a branch away from her face. “There needs to be a trail here.”

“I’m not having any problems,” Sun said from the front.

“Yeah, but you are more than a foot higher than us,” Nora said. “We are getting all the low branches.”

“One of the few benefits of being tall,” Sun said cheerfully. “I really want to go around the perimeter of the property. You could ride in the front if you want.”

“No, with Pierre first, and Madame second, I think they are getting the least amount of branch whip,” Grey said. He looked much better after his recovery. “But if you girls like this route, I’ll bring Dan and John out here tomorrow and we’ll clear a wide path for you. This looks like the corner.” They had come to a small lane there that wasn’t on Daisy’s property.

“Yes, let’s turn back to the highway,” Sun said.

“We could walk on that old road,” Willow suggested.

“Actually, the brush is thinner here,” Grey said, and it was, so they stayed on the land and paralleled the lane.

When they were almost at the highway the brush disappeared and only low bushes remained. Sun pulled up, causing the riders behind to do the same. “Look, is that what I think it is?” she asked.

“Blueberries,” Grey pronounced. “But not ripe yet. I think it will be another three or four weeks. But there are a lot of them.”

“The ground is soft here, and it is July,” Sun said. “I bet in the spring this is a regular bog. Berries like a wet environment. I want to come pick some when they are ready. Make that trail, Grey. I’ll be out once a week to check on them.”

“No picking for me,” Nora said. “I picked strawberries one summer when I was in middle school, and that was enough picking for me for the rest of my life.”

“And I have enough to do between baking and waitressing,” Willow said. “You can have the entire patch to yourself.”

They continued back to the stable, where the horses were unsaddled and rubbed down. Pierre was quite pleased with the day: a good long run, and then a longer walk. The only thing that would be better would have been to pull something and really make his muscles work.

In the house Sun asked Daisy about the berries.

“Oh yes, dear,” the old woman said. “The natives used to pick them back in the day. For the last 25 years or so a bunch from the Mohawk reservation on Quinte come up for a couple weeks. They camp out and clean the bushes. They sell most of them to Frank and Miriam who can them for their famous blueberry pies. You can pick a basket or two if you like, or buy one from them.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

It has been a while, but I have been busy. I have completed four chapters in this arc of the story. You will see them one per day to Wednesday, and I should have another one done for Thursday: Dawn.

Chapter 20 – Grey and Sun find love

The store was busy, with the café filled with folks from the house. They often came over after dinner for a slice of pie. Grey, Sun, Nora, Dan, Cindy and John were all squeezed around the largest table in the place. Grey and Sun were sitting facing the window, and immediately noticed a young native couple come in to the gas pumps on a Harley. The man was over 300 pounds, and looked like a stereotypical biker, right down to the ‘Outlaws’ patch on his leather jacket.

The girl, on the other hand was much younger, possibly still a teen, and very pretty. She was slim-looking, until she turned to profile and showed a baby bump of four or five months. She was one of those women who didn’t seem to put on baby fat elsewhere. Currently she was screaming at the man, who finally just got on his bike and drove away. After a minute, the girl turned and walked into the store.

“That’ll be $32.50,” Frank said from the till.

“What for?”

“For the gas. Your friend didn’t pay, so I expect you to,” Frank said.

The girl laughed. “I have no money.” She pulled some change out of her pocket, and it came to less than eight dollars, a couple loonies, two twoonies, and some smaller coins.

“Well, you could do an hour or so washing dishes to make it up,” Frank said. The girl was about to retort when Grey stood.

“Take it out of my account,” he told Frank, walking over to the girl. “Have you eaten today?”

“No,” she said coyly, lowering her eyes.

“Make her a sandwich with the good bread,” Grey said. “And a slice of pie. She’s eating for two.”

He took her over to a smaller table, since there was no more room at the bigger one. Willow had just finished her shift, and took Grey’s spot after serving the new girl.

Sun seethed at this. She had taken a dislike to the woman the moment she walked into the café, and it had just grown and grown as she had flirted with Grey. And Grey was not innocent either, flirting back and clearly enamored by the young woman. They sat and giggled at the table as she ate.

Finally she had finished, and apparently Grey had invited her to the house, since she walked home with the group. Sun decided to stay close to the two.

“So, your boyfriend on the bike,” Sun said. “He is the father?”

“What, of this,” the girl named Sapphire said, holding her belly. “No. And he isn’t my boyfriend. Just a friend I ride with sometimes. We had a bit of a spat, and he buggered off. Billy is no loss.”

“The father was a fellow down near Brantford, at the reserve I grew up on. He doesn’t even know. One time without condoms, and look what happens. My life has been like that.”

“So you are headed back down there now,” Sun probed.

Sapphire laughed. “God no. His wife and three kids would be a bit upset if I showed up there: especially in this condition. No, I’ll just chill out around here for a couple of days. Grey said I could. Isn’t he a cutie?”

They got to the house, and Sapphire was polite as Grey introduced her to Daisy, who agreed she could stay. Grey put her in one of the guest rooms, not too far from his, and then they went back to Great Hall, where they cuddled together on the sofa.

Sun thought she could see Grey’s common sense spilling out of his brain as he fell harder and deeper for the girl. And Sun’s dislike for Sapphire grew exponentially at the same time. Sun loved the thought that Grey had found love, but she felt that he could do so much better than this girl.

The next morning Sun saw the girl scoot out of Grey’s bedroom, and dash off to the washroom. Sun poked her head in the open door, and instantly saw the look on his face: the look that said ‘I have had sex and now I am a man’. Sun just closed the door without speaking to the smirking boy.

Things continued on for the next two days, with Grey and Sapphire nearly inseparable. The new girl seemed to be accepted well by most of the others, but Sun continued to feel dislike. For one thing Sapphire never seemed to help out with the cooking or cleaning up, or any of the small chores that are required to keep such a large house running. She spent a lot of time in Daisy’s living room, watching television. She refused to let Dary watch any of his shows, and when Daisy came out to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, she became upset that she couldn’t watch what she preferred.

It was on the third day of her stay that everything changed. She didn’t smile, and snapped at practically anything said to her. Finally she told Grey she was in withdrawal from the Percocet pills she took twice a day. She had taken her last pill the prior morning.

“I can help cure you of your addiction,” Grey said.

“I don’t want to be cured of using Percocet. I like the feeling it gives me. But I wouldn’t mind being cured of the withdrawal. This really sucks.”

“I can’t do that,” Grey said. “I would have to do a cure every time, and I don’t know how often I can do that. Sometimes it takes me up to a week to recover. Plus I don’t know if I could just cure a part of the illness.”

Instead he just cuddled her, and nursed her by bringing her meals into their room, and feeding her. That afternoon she got a call on her flip-phone. She dressed, and went out to the porch. Grey was glad, thinking she was getting over it, but was surprised when Billy, the big, fat biker pulled his Harley into the drive. Sapphire jumped up and ran down the steps to come up to Billy and kiss him, and in return he put a small pill in her cheek. She hopped on the bike, and they sped off.

Grey was heartbroken, and moped around for the rest of the day and the next morning. But then, the following day Sapphire returned, getting dropped off by Billy. As the biker sped away, Grey’s emotions soared. She was back. And in a good mood again. She claimed to be fine, but it was clear she was on the pills again.

The following day Dr. Nora sat down with Sapphire. The doctor was a pediatrician, not an ob-gyn, but she was starting to branch out from her specialty. Once she had gotten over her illness, she had gone into Tweed and met with the local doctor, who was 58. He was too young to retire, but wanted to slow down. One of the reasons he came to Tweed was to be able to hunt and fish, but his caseload seldom allowed him the time. Nora agreed to work for him on Friday and Monday once a month, as well as during all of the hunting seasons that were coming up in the fall. So she was starting to do a lot of General Practitioner work.

She gave Sapphire an exam, concentrating on the babies. Her stethoscope picked up a multiple heartbeat. “You are either carrying twins, or the baby has an irregular heartbeat,” Dr. Nora said. “I really recommend that you stop taking the Percocet. It will be damaging to the babies. Let Grey cure you … he is good. I had cancer, and he cleared it up.”

But Sapphire took offense to the lecture about her drug use, and hurriedly dressed and left. “I didn’t even want this kid, and now you say there might be two? What a fuck up for my life. How am I supposed to have fun with a little rug rat following me around, let alone two?” She never came to the doctor for a second exam.

The cycle continued, with Sapphire happy for a few days while her pills lasted, and then calling Billy for more, spending a night with him in return. Grey, still in love, placated himself that he got four or five nights with her to one for Billy.

In mid August, with Sapphire so large that Grey had to be careful making love to her, another visitor came to the house. It was Great Hawk, a Mohawk from Quinte reserve, and he was touching base with Daisy. He had brought 15 young people from his reserve to pick blueberries and was surprised to see so many living in the house. Last year Daisy had been alone.

Daisy invited him to dinner, which had just gotten underway in the Great Hall. He looked around, and took the vacant seat next to Sun. He chatted with her several times during the meal, especially after she had told him of her plans to pick some of the berries. He told her they would be there for two weeks, until the kids had to go school. Until then they were sleeping in tents near the berry patch.

It was the end of the meal, when Sun stood to clear the table that Hawk first saw how tall she was. He was just over 6’2” and she was several inches taller, in makazins (moccasins).

The next afternoon Sun saddled Pierre and took him out to the berry patch, taking the long route to give the horse some exercise. Hawk had been peeking looks towards the house all day, and some of the kids were teasing him about his lack of concentration. Then Pierre appeared from the north, surprising him.

“Sunflower, welcome,” he said, and the teens realized she was what he had been looking west for all morning. Sun dismounted, and there was a gasp from the kids when they saw her standing next to Hawk. On Pierre she looked normal size. On the ground it was an entirely different thing.

“I’m ready to start picking,” Sun said, holding up a deerskin bag that she intended to fill. It was similar to the newspaper bags that carriers used, except in deerskin and decorated with fancy beadwork.

“You can start over there,” Hawk pointed. “Nobody has gone over that area yet,”

“No, I think I will start here,” Sun pointed out an area that had been picked. The teens earned money on a piecemeal basis, so much for each basket picked. As a result, they tended to pick quickly and go for the easy berries. This resulted in picked bushes having many berries left as they went to the full bushes. But Sun was not picking for money, so she decided to clean up the other bushes, only leaving enough berries so the bog would regenerate at the end of the season.

She picked for an hour before they broke for lunch and she joined in, sitting next to Hawk as the pickers ate sandwiches that had been brought from Quinte. There were some envious eyes that stared at the sandwiches she had brought from the house using homemade bread. There was a round of cheers when Hawk said he would buy homemade bread from the store, and cold cuts from Tweed for the meals tomorrow. Sun did give Hawk a half of one of her sandwiches, refusing to take one of his two-day old Wonder Bread sandwiches in its place.

“I’ll bet that she is stronger than Hawk,” one of the teens said. Sun was not interested in fighting the man, although she was interested in him in other ways. But Hawk felt his masculinity challenged, and finally they agreed to an arm-wrestling match.

For the first minute, the two hands were steady and upright. Sun actually had the advantage of a slightly longer arm. Sun then started to push Hawk forward until he was near the 45-degree angle that is difficult to recover from in the sport. But then he found his arm flying through and pinning Sun as if she was a normal girl.

“I win,” Hawk said. “My prize is a date with you. Is there somewhere nice in Tweed?”

“I accept, but only for a dinner at the café in the store. On Wednesday?” Sun said.

After another five hours picking after lunch, Sun had filled her bag. She helped load the berries onto one of the two pickups, so they could be driven to the store to be sold. Of course, the teens were amazed at how easily she lifted the flats of berries.

As she went over to Pierre, tethered in the long, rich grass near the bog, Hawk followed. “I know you let me win the arm-wrestling,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Well, a guy has to show the kids that a mere woman can’t beat him,” Sun said.

“And you are no mere woman,” Hawk said. “You are something special.” Sun blushed.

Suddenly there was a chorus of ‘Kiss her, kiss her” from the teens, and Hawk reddened just as much as Sun had. Sun leaned down and kissed him quickly on the cheek, then hauled herself up onto Pierre and they trotted away. She took a quick look back, and caught a glimpse of the tall Mohawk, with his hand on his cheek where she had kissed him. She smiled, feeling completely different from anything in her life as she trotted down the trail to the house.

On Wednesday Sun didn’t get much work done. She took a bubble bath, and dressed in her finest powwow dress. Hawk came in, and used one of the other bathrooms to shower and change into a fresh set of clothes. They left for the store so they could be served before the last bus came in. It was a simple meal, with a venison stew that could be mopped up with Willow’s bread. After the bus rush ended, they finished up with pie.

“Cheapest date ever,” Hawk commented as he read the bill at the end.

“First date ever,” Sun said with a blush. “I really feel more comfortable here than in some place in the city.”

“Maybe we can have another one soon,” Hawk asked. “I could take you to a movie in Peterborough or Belleville. Maybe we can find a restaurant in one of those cities where you can become a regular.”

“I would like that,” Sun said. “Especially the part about getting to go out with you regularly.”

On the porch to the house, Hawk walked her up the steps to the door, and then gently reached up and kissed her. The tall woman nearly buckled, but his strength held her tightly as they kissed again and again. Finally she pulled back, awash in new emotions.

“Can we do this again Saturday night?” Hawk said.

“Kissing or the café?” she asked.

“Both, hopefully,” he said.

“Both certainly,” she replied as she opened the door.

All the women in the house were clustered around, wanting details on the date, but Sun just glided past them to her bedroom.

“It looks like it went well,” Lois said, “based on the dreamy smile on Sun’s face.”

“Very well,” Willow added. “They were like a couple of love-struck kids at the café. I guess we have to wait for details at breakfast tomorrow.”

Over the next two weeks Sun and Hawk went to the café each Wednesday and Saturday. They decided not to go to Peterborough until after the berry-picking season ended, but from that point on, they went every Friday or Saturday.

Hawk had a job in Kingston working for an aggregates business, using a front-end loader to scoop gravel, stone, topsoil, or sand onto dump trucks. He got the berry season off as unpaid leave each year, but worked either a Tuesday-Saturday or Monday-Friday shift during the rest of the year. Each weekend he would clean up, and head to the house for a date.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Part two of the Sapphire arc: Dawn.

Chapter 21 – Love breaks

In September Grey was working on the porch, making a swing, when he heard Billy peel into the lane. “Where’s my little whore?” he called from his bike.

Grey was incensed. How dare he? He put down his tools and stood up, intending to face the man who had insulted his love. He was halfway down the steps when Sapphire darted past him, kissing Billy and then taking the pill he offered. They sped out onto the highway leaving Grey in shock.

It hit him all at once. Billy was right. She was a whore. She was whoring for drugs, not money, but still a whore. Sun had been right, and he had argued against her. His love for the girl crumpled as he realized that she was nothing but a whore and a drug addict who was risking her unborn children for her own pleasure. He fell to his knees, and then laid flat out on the drive for several minutes as his world fell apart.

He eventually got up and went into the house. Dary was the only one to see him and for the first time ever he ignored the younger boy’s questions as he went to his room, now partially decorated with Sapphire’s things. He took his bow and hunting tools, along with his deerskins and bearskins and headed out, again ignoring Dary.

Grey headed to the camp near the Grove, and moved into one of the wigwams. He crawled under the skins and didn’t leave for three days, other than to drink at the spring or use the latrines. Eventually hunger got him moving, but not back to his house of shame. He shot a raccoon: not the best eating, but delicious after a 72-hour fast.

Grey finally started working. He moved the longhouse that Sun had used as a shop before she moved into the mill. He placed it near the wigwams, close enough to be the new cook building when the Ojibwe Junior Warriors next came out. Dan had come out to check on him during his second day of misery, and mentioned that the group was growing again. Grey knew that he was hinting at giving him some of the group, but Grey just stayed curled up in his skins, finally telling his best friend to leave him alone.

Two days later the longhouse was nearly finished when Grey heard a long, wracking sob. It got louder, until he saw a crying Sunflower break into the camp. He stopped working, and put his arms around his sister, who seemed heartbroken.

“He is gone. I told him, and he just left,” Sun sobbed.

“Who? What?”

“Hawk. He was pushing me to take our relationship to a new level, and I told him: about my past.”

Grey got it. To him Sun was a complete woman, but now he remembered that she was not quite complete. And Hawk would want to do things that she was unable to accommodate. And she had told him.

“What did he say?” Grey asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. He just got a blank look on his face. Not angry or anything, just … blank. He picked up his things and got in his truck and drove away. I love him, and he is gone.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Grey said. “He might come back. Or you might find someone better.”

“There is no one better,” Sun wailed.

“If he can’t accept you the way you are, then he is not the man I thought he was,” Grey said. “I really liked him.”

Sun sat cuddled in front of Grey for hours until dark fell. Grey had shot and skinned a rabbit earlier that day, so they had roast rabbit for dinner, and then fell into bed in their wigwams, with Grey supplying some of his skins for Sun. It was now fall, and cooler at night, so it was no surprise that Grey woke to find Sun spooned around him for heat.

Each of them used the latrine and spring, then ate some cold, but cooked, rabbit for breakfast.

“What happens now,” Grey asked.

“I have to go back before noon,” Sun said. “I have to take my potion. Although only for a little while longer, perhaps. I have told Dr. Nora about my … condition and she has booked me with an endocrinologist. After that she says she wants me to start on normal hormones. The ones we brew up scare her. She wanted me to quit them, but I refused. I don’t want to go backwards.”

“I will stay out here, I think,” Grey said.

“NO! I need my brother. Come back with me. She is still here. She came back the other night as if nothing happened. Moved back into your room and never even asked where you went. She is a user, and she is using you. I think we need to have Daisy kick her out.”

“Okay. I guess I have to go back sometimes,” Grey said. “And a diet of exclusively wild animals can’t be good for me. I didn’t even bring any beans or rice with me.”

They got back, and discovered that Sapphire had left again with Billy less than an hour before. Sun got her potion, and they sat around the table for lunch. Grey apologized to Dary for being rude to him, and gave the boy a big hug.

“I think we need to talk about Sapphire,” Sun started as the whole family sat around the dinner table that evening. “Grey is no longer love-struck, and I think it would be best if she was to leave. I know no one has left the house since we arrived, but she contributes nothing but strife.”

They went around the table, with everyone agreeing, until they came to Daisy.

“I can’t send her away,” the older woman said. “Most of you know that I sometimes have dreams with the house talking to me, and I had one last night. The house wants her to stay. It wouldn’t say why, but apparently her time to leave has not come. She has to stay.”

Even though Sapphire would not be back that night, Grey moved his skins into another room, and then took all of his things from his old room to that one. That evening he sat in the easy chair from the auction sale, fixed by Sun, and sat and whittled.

He had been building a set of Lincoln Logs for Dary to play with, but today he was whittling a bigger chunk of wood, a eight-inch long piece of oak about three inches thick. After about an hour he had it roughly shaped, and was working on the face. He called Dary over and showed it to him.

“This is a present from me for being so awful to you the other day, I started it out at the camp, but now it just needs some finishing touches to the face. I want you to tell me if it should be a girl face or a boy face.”

“If it is a girl face, it would be a doll,” Dary pronounced. “Boys don’t play with dolls.”

“That sounds like Earl talking,” Grey said. “Here you can play with whatever you like.”

“I can? I would like a girl face then,” he said softly. “But I am a boy. Not a girl. A boy can’t be a girl.”

“In this house you can be whatever you want,” Grey said. “A boy, a girl if you wish.”

“I can be a girl?” Dary said, trembling.

“If that is what you want,” Grey said.

The boy leapt into Grey’s arms. “I want to be a girl. I have always wanted to be a girl. Please let me be a girl.”

Grey hugged the sobbing girl, cooing into her ears. “You can be what you want, and I will always protect you. I am your uncle, and you are my niece.”

Across the room Willow sat with mouth wide open. Grey looked over to her and said “This may be a shock, but I’ve seen hints over the last while. I think Dary needs to have a long talk with Sun. She has a Masters in psychology, specializing in gender issues. Perhaps you and I could meet with Dr. Nora while they talk.”

For the rest of the evening the group split up, and Sun eventually put Dary to bed after a long talk, promising her that they would go out tomorrow and buy a nightdress and some female clothes for the new girl. She was ecstatic.

Willow was a harder sell. She had known Dary was effeminate, but assumed that he was gay. She actually was relieved that she was transsexual, or somewhere else on the gender spectrum that the doctor explained. She recoiled when the doctor told her that many trans children commit suicide when they are not supported. “Of course I would prefer a trans daughter to a dead son,” WIllow insisted.

The final decision was that Dary would accompany Sun to her meeting with the endocrinologist to see about getting blockers to prevent her looming puberty from changing her body in unwanted ways.

The next day Dary, Willow and Sun went shopping in Tweed and found several items of clothing for her. She only wanted dresses and skirts, but Sun found a pair of jeans that had feminine stitching on them for her to wear when she was checking on the chickens, who were getting close to becoming layers.

Sun also remembered when she was first wearing jeans, and bought two pairs of denim coveralls, and some denim material from the fabric shop. She explained to Dary how she had sewn big V shapes into the jeans to make them a maxi skirt, and the girl was intrigued. Especially when Sun told her that each one of them would sew a skirt, so Dary could learn how to sew simple clothes.

A few days later Sun, Willow, Dary and Grey drove to Peterborough early in the morning to meet with the endocrinologist. The woman saw Dary first, and took blood samples. The girl wore a simple sundress, even though it was getting into fall and time for warmer clothes. Next Sun was called in, and also went through the blood tests. Like Dr. Nora, the endo was concerned about the concoction that Sun had been taking.

“I would like a sample of this stuff,” the endo said. Grey had two doses of the substance, one of which Sun would take at noon. He provided the other one to the endo.

She opened to vial, and took a sniff of the vile smelling concoction. “What is in that? It smells horrid.”

“A lot of herbs and wild plants,” Sun said, “but the main ingredient is urine from a pregnant moose.”

“Moose piss? You are drinking moose piss?” the endo shrieked. “This stops now. We’ll get you on something better in a few weeks.”

“This stops the day before you provide me with an alternative,” Sun said. “Dr. Nora said that some estrogens are made from the urine of horses out in Manitoba.”

“Yes, but you don’t drink it untreated,” the endo said.

“It isn’t tasty, but it works,” Sun explained. “It has given me a female shape on a body that was nowhere near feminine before. I have breasts now: in fact over the past month or so they have been growing again. I am nearly a D cup now. They just look smaller because my band size is so huge.”

“Well I can’t stop you from taking it, I guess. Do you promise to stop if I proscribe something else? Are you planning to proceed any further with surgeries?”

“I promise. And yes, I am taking steps towards my bottom surgery. I am under Dr. Nora’s care, and I will soon start seeing a psychologist.”

“I have a list here, if you don’t have anyone,” the endo passed a sheet of paper to Sun, who quickly scanned it. She was about to put it away so she could discuss it with Dr. Nora when a name caught her attention.

“Noreen VanEyck?” Sun asked. “I went to school at Mac with a Noreen VanEyck. We did a project together.”

“It could be the same woman,” the endo said. “She is in her second year training under Dr. Volders, and hopes to develop a practice for trans patients in the Peterborough area. Right now most go to Toronto. She is quite nice, I understand.”

“Well that solves my needs to find a psych,” Sun told the endo. “I hope she can take on Dary too. It will be a longer time for her to get to the point of surgeries, but she will be ready.”

After the appointments, the endo said she would email the results to Dr. Nora, who could prescribe the needed drugs. Sun intended to get any prescriptions filled by a chain drug store in Belleville. There was a little pharmacy in Tweed, but the last thing Dary or her needed was a gossipy clerk blurting out what their medications were for.

Back at the house Sapphire was breezing through life, taking off once or twice a week with her biker, and then coming back for the free rent and meals. It was at one of these meals that she came out with this statement.

“You are a lawyer, right?” she said to John.

“Well I was,” he replied. “Right now I consider myself more of a woodsman.”

“I want an abortion,” she said. “Can I do that?”

You could cut the silence in the dining room with a knife as everyone stopped eating and stared at the girl. After a moment John spoke: “An abortion in Canada is legal at any stage. A few years back you had to have a committee of three doctors approve it, but that was declared illegal. No new law has been passed, so effectively there is no abortion law in Canada. It is a matter between a woman and her doctor.”

Sapphire turned to Nora: “You are a doctor. Will you perform an abortion on me?”

“No,” Nora blurted out. “Even if I was qualified for that type of surgery I wouldn’t. You are nearly full term with your babies. I don’t know of any doctor who would conduct a full term abortion. Maybe someone in Toronto. But I won’t even investigate the situation for you.”

“Toronto eh? Billy doesn’t go past Peterborough on his runs. Could I get an ambulance to take me there?”

“Not unless you are willing to pay a $45 fee,” Nora said. “Ambulances from private residents are not completely covered by our health care. Only transfers between hospitals are.”

“So if I went to Tweed hospital, and got them to transfer me, then it would be free?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Nora said. “But you would have to be admitted to Tweed General first.”

“I’m a pregnant woman,” Sapphire said. “I think I could get admitted fairly easily.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

The penultimate part of the Sapphire arc: Dawn.

Chapter 22 – At the hospital

Two nights later Sun got a message from Red Oak: «You are needed, come with me.» Suddenly Sun was inside her own mind somehow, and an aged native stood near her. «This is needed,» he said, and she recognized the voice of Red Oak. «Come,» he said, and they departed the house and were soon travelling through the air at a great speed, faster than an airliner.

«This is Quinte reserve, two hours into the future,» Red Oak said. They pulled up to an older house. She immediately knew somehow that it was where Hawk lived with two other single natives. They settled in front of the house, and then walked into the backyard. Everything was misty, like in a fog, grey and colorless.

Sun saw it first, and shrieked. She was surprised that there was no sound from her voice as she ran over to the body hanging from a tree. It was Hawk, cold and still, waiting for one of his roommates to discover the body.

Sun wailed in silence, and then looked at Red Oak. «You said it was two hours in the future. Can I come back and stop it?»

«You can try. We will have to go back and get your body.»

They sped back at the same speed, and during the short trip Red Oak explained: «When he left you he came home and started drinking. He hasn’t stopped since. For three weeks he has been in a stupor. He was fired from his job, and barely missed being arrested for going to the liquor store to get more booze. He misses you and doesn’t want to live without you.»

«Why didn’t he call, or come talk to me?» Sun said. «Anything but this.»

Soon they were at the house again, and Red Oak released her into her own body. For two minutes she was disorientated, but when she felt she could drive she immediately took the LTD and headed south.

At normal speeds you can get to Quinte in 42 minutes from the house. Sun made the trip in just under 30. She found the reserve, and then found the house just as it had been in her trip with Red Oak. She killed the car, and then hurried around the side of the house.

She saw Hawk: drunk, but not completely inebriated. He had a noose and rope over one shoulder, and was carrying a stepladder towards the tree.

“Need help?” Sun said, and he jumped.

“I have to do this,” Hawk said.

“Why?”

“Because I love you, and that means I am gay,” he blurted. “I don’t want to live without you.”

“So don’t,” Sun said. “And you are not gay.”

“Yes I am. I love you and you are a man,” he said.

“No. I pretended to be a man for a few decades,” Sun said. “But I was always a girl: a girl with a birth defect that I plan to correct as soon as possible. If you can wait for me, I can be the woman you want.”

“But it is gay!”

“Nuh-uh,” Sun retorted. “You have two male roommates. I assume you have seen one or both naked at times. Did that turn you on?”

“Yuck, no,” Hawk replied.

“See, you are not gay.”

“But I love you.”

“And I am a girl. A girl who loves you back. And now you are planning this? Do you know how much this would hurt me? It hurt when you ran away, but this would be a million times worse. Are you going to do this to me?”

Hawk dropped the rope and the ladder and fell into Sun’s strong arms. After five minutes of holding him, she backed off and said: “Let’s put the ladder and rope away and go back to the house. You can live there if you are willing to wait for me.”

“Oh yes,” Hawk said. “I will wait forever if I must. You complete me.”

“You will drive back with me,” she said. “We can come back for your truck and your things later. You are in no condition to drive right now.”

“What about my job?” Hawk said. “I kinda messed that up.”

“We will see about that. You can call them tomorrow and apologize for skipping out on them. It is a fair commute into Kingston from the house, but people in Toronto do that distance and more. And if they have hired someone else, then you can build canoes with Grey, if you can get him to forgive you for what you did to me. It won’t be huge money, but living at the house is not expensive.

The same evening that Sun tore off to save Hawk, Billy came by and picked up Sapphire from the house. Afterwards, the entire house became somber, as though they were already in mourning for the poor unborn babies. The following day Sapphire did not return as was usual, and everyone just assumed that the girl had decided to put her evil plan into motion.

Then, after supper the phone rang. Daisy was next to it, and answered. She came out into the Great Hall and announced that it had been the hospital and they needed Grey to come over urgently.

A confused Grey had Dan drive him into Tweed, uncertain why he was being called. When they got there a harried nurse thrust a clipboard into his hands and said: “Finish filling this out. Your wife is in labor.”

Grey was about to hand the form back and say that Sapphire was not his wife when Mimiha interrupted him: «Fill it out,» she said. «Those poor babies have a horrible woman for a mother: at least let them have a good father. One is a boy, and one a girl.»

Grey sat down and went through the form. It seems that Sapphire had started to fill out the form, and had listed him as the father. One of the things left blank was the line for the babies names. Surely Sapphire would want to name her own children, but the area was empty. Grey filled in the names Daniel Flint Wolf for the boy and Daisy Mimihaha Wolf for the girl. Most of the rest of the form was empty, and Grey filled it out as best he could, and then signed the back page under the line reading ‘father’.

He gave the form to the admitting nurse, who ushered him back to the maternity room. By the time he got there the birth was over, and the nurse was giving the boy to Sapphire to nurse. “Do you want to hold your daughter, Mr. Wolf?” the nurse asked as she handed him to Grey. He held the tiny bundle, weighing just over 3 pounds, several ounces less than her brother. He fell in love with her immediately.

“Why did you list me as father?” Grey asked Sapphire when the nurse stepped out of the room.

“Who else?” she said with a sneer. “I’m certainly not going to look after them. Billy will be back in two days, and then I am out of here. Look at this little parasite, sucking the life out of me. I can put up with it for a few days, and then I am gone. At least now I don’t have to worry about getting an abortion.”

The nurse popped in, and switched the babies so little Mimihaha could nurse for the first time, and Grey got a chance to hold Flint. He again poured his love into the little boy.

An hour later Dan took Grey home. The hospital was satisfied that the paperwork was done, and Grey was handed forms to be filled out for birth certificates. The babies were both premature, as well as naturally small due to their mother’s size, and they were kept in ICU unit incubators when they weren’t being fed. No visitors other than Grey were allowed.

Grey was stunned when he got home. Everyone was up, and after he told them the story, they all congratulated him, as if he really was the father. All but Sun, who held back, irate at Sapphire for what she had planned to do. All her happiness was tied up with Hawk, who was now living with her in her room.

On the following day Grey went back to the hospital, and spent several hours there, where the nurses were getting fed up with Sapphire. He returned to the house, planning to return before noon the next day. However that morning he got a call from the hospital, saying that Sapphire had fled the building and left on a motorcycle. Dan had just left for his senior visits, so Grey asked Sun to take him to Tweed.

On the short drive to Tweed, Grey glanced over and noticed two wet spots on Sun’s deerskin tunic. “It started about a half hour ago,” she confessed about her leaking breasts. “I don’t know if the potion is acting up or what.”

They arrived in the hospital and Grey was allowed to see the babies, still in the ICU. When they arrived there, and Sun saw the two tiny bodies in incubators, she sighed. She then introduced herself as ‘the wetnurse.’

“Thank goodness,” the nurse in the ICU said. “They are due for a feeding, and I don’t have time to wean them to bottles today. She went and got Mimihaha as Sun undid her tunic and freed a breast from her bra. Mimihaha latched right on, and started to suckle.

“I will bring you the other when you finish with her,” the relieved nurse said.

“I can handle both of them,” Sun replied, and eventually convinced the nurse to bring Flint out. While nursing Mimihaha, Sun could not remove her other breast on her own, so Grey pulled back the tunic and raised the second cup of the bra, allowing the leaking breast to wobble free. The nurse raised Flint, and he too latched on.

Up until this point there had been rumors in Tweed that Sun was really a man, but once the nurses in the hospital saw her nursing, that rumor was fated to end as word got out on the street. How can you nurse with false breasts?

Both babies nursed contentedly. Grey was amazed at how tiny they were. Each one disappeared under Sun’s large hands. Mimihaha finished first, but just lay on Sun’s breast until her slightly bigger brother finished. Grey made a quick trip to the washroom while they finished.

He came back to the sound of yelling in the room. When he got there he saw Sun grabbing a baby from the nurse, who was cowering in front of her.

The head nurse was there, and soon Grey heard what had happened. The duty nurse had taken Mimihaha to return her to the incubator without warning Sun what she was doing. Sun had seen it as someone taking her babies away, and had grabbed the woman by the collar and held her two feet up in the air before dropping her and taking the baby back.

“I cannot allow you to have this woman in the hospital after she assaulted one of my nurses. You can find another wet nurse, or have us wean them to bottles,” the head nurse said. “You could also take the babies away, but I warn you, in their premature condition they are unlikely to survive.”

Grey didn’t need to think long. Sun had fallen for the kids, and couldn’t live without them, now that she had nursed them. The only option was to take the babies home. He told the head nurse that, to her dismay, and went out to sign the release papers. Sun continued to hold the sleeping babes on her breasts. As they left, Grey heard the head nurse say, half under her breath: “You can bring the bodies back tomorrow.”

Soon they were in the car. Grey had to hold the babies while Sun pulled down her bra so she could drive. They went straight to the house and Sun immediately ran around to the passenger door to take the babies from Sun.

Inside, Dr. Nora was on hand immediately and inspected the babies. “They should be in the hospital,” she said immediately looking at their premature bodies. Even if you can’t go back to Tweed General, you can go to Kingston or Peterborough. They should be getting specialized care. Should I could call an ambulance?”

Just then Mimihaha started crying, and Flint followed suit two minutes later. Even when Sun nestled them to her breasts, they continued to wail. Finally it clicked for Nora. “They are in withdrawal,” she said. “When they were nursed by Sapphire, she still had Percocet in her breast milk. But with Sun’s pure milk, they have started withdrawal. They are so small, I don’t think they will survive withdrawal. In fact, I doubt they would survive the ambulance trip to the city.”

Sun looked Grey in the eye: “Grey. Save my babies.” It was not a request. It was an order.

They laid the screaming baby girl on the table, and Grey started his healing song. Soon he was inside the tiny baby. His Medicine Man voice told him of the many problems. Heart: undeveloped. Lungs: undeveloped. Digestive system: badly underdeveloped. Brain: severely undeveloped. Prognosis: terminal.

But Grey kept going. He saw a yellowish haze throughout the body, and started to attack it with his stave. It was the addiction to opiates, and was causing the withdrawal. He managed to clean it up over about an hour, and soon everything was pink. He stopped singing. His daughter was cooing on the table in front of him when he came out of it, while her brother continued to scream on Sun’s shoulder. He took a long drink of water from the pitcher that Daisy had brought, then told Nora about the undeveloped organs, and asked her to triage which he should work on first.

Sun swapped the babies, and Grey started chanting again. He found the same situation with Flint, but worked first at ending the withdrawal and addiction. When that was done he looked at the organs closely. It seemed that Flint was slightly more developed in most areas, and his final prognosis was only ‘Possibly terminal.’ Grey stopped his song, and took another glass of water in what was now a quiet room.

“Thank you Grey,” Sun said, taking the second baby up. Mimihaha was now nursing again, and she lifted Flint up to join them. “You have saved my babies.”

“For now,” Grey cautioned. “Mimihaha will not survive without more help, and Flint may not as well.” A look of horror went over Sun’s face.

“They will probably survive the ambulance trip now,” Dr. Nora said. “But if you want to try to heal them more, the heart and lungs are the key areas. Leave the brains for last: I don’t know of any cases where severely diminished brains can be cured. The best we can hope for is that they live, even if they are developmentally impacted.”

Grey rested, and took more water while he waiting for a baby to finish nursing. Mimihaha was done first, and Sun laid her down. Grey started singing. He was inside for two hours, and when he came out he had brought the heart and lungs up to a newborn condition. The prognosis was now upgraded to poor, a major improvement over terminal.

The babies again needed feeding. Dr. Nora said that the mending of their little bodies was consuming a lot of energy. Luckily Sun was capable of providing the two-hour feedings. When Flint finished, Grey sang himself inside and duplicated the healing he had done with Mimihaha.

After another feeding break Grey went back into his daughter. She was clearly healthier now, but the digestive system required a lot of work, nearly three hours. Soon it was fixed. The nervous and muscular systems got a bit of healing, then an exhausted Grey came out.

Sun was in a near panic. Mimihaha had started crying for food an hour ago, and Sun was willing to crawl up onto the table to nurse while Grey was healing, but Nora had advised against it while Grey was working on the digestive system. Sun immediately picked up the crying child to feed her, and Grey went into Flint after only a short break for water.

Another three hours, and again the boy was crying for food when he came out again. Grey was exhausted, and Dan, who was now back, had to practically carry him to bed. This time when he regained consciousness it was not Sun feeding him: she had other charges to feed. It was Dary who would spoon chicken soup into him. It took a week to bring him back to consciousness. That was when Grey went into Sun’s nursery to tell her the bad news. Nora came into the meeting.

“Their brains are still badly premature,” Grey told Sun. “They will not develop any further than a three-year-old, even if they live past their teen years.” He didn’t think it was good news. Essentially, Sun would have full-grown infants to care for, possibly for many years.

But Sun actually smiled. “I don’t care. I have my babies. They will live. That is all I want.”

“I will try again, maybe in a week,” Grey said. “But we can’t hope for much. Dr. Nora says there is little that can be done.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

The last chapter of the Sapphire arc. And there is another chapter tomorrow: Dawn.

Chapter 23 – Final treatments

For the next few weeks, as Grey recouped from his healing, things were routine in the house. The babies were the hit of the place. For several days Sun would not let anyone else touch them. One day, after feeding the unconscious Grey, Dary used her new ‘puppy dog eyes’ trick and Sun finally let her hold Flint as she changed Mimihaha’s diaper. That started it.

Soon, everyone had to have a turn at holding the babies, and Sun relaxed, knowing that only she could feed them. Daisy in particular was ecstatic in holding the children, telling them that “Grandma loved them” and other such cooings. Cindy held them, and then looked at Dan with an ‘I want that’ look in her eyes.

When Grey was finally up, he got another chance to hold the children that were legally, if not actually, his. He had fallen in love with them at the hospital, and going inside of their little bodies to heal them had only amplified the love. But at the first family dinner he attended he made some things clear.

“These are to be thought of as Sunflower’s children. She will be Mama, both now and if I ever fall in love again.” He looked at Hawk, sitting next to Sun and looking attentively at her. “And Hawk will be their Daddy.”

“But surely you should be Daddy,” the big native said. “It is only right.”

“No,” Grey said. “They will grow up calling Sun Momma. So long as you are with Sun, then you will be Daddy. When they learn to talk, they can call me Father or something. But you will be Daddy. They are your children too.”

Hawk looked at Mimihaha in a different way as she sat cuddled on Sun’s lap, then over at Hawk, who Dary held. He reached over and picked up the little boy, and held him close, only to get an explosive burp spewed all over himself. Everyone at the table laughed, as he looked stunned.

“Okay Daddy, time to learn how to clean up baby messes like that,” Sun said. “And I think Mimi has a present for you in her diapers: something else a Daddy needs to learn. Come on.”

The pair left for the nursery, with Dary following. She adored the children and was Sun’s primary helper in all things that came up: from either end.

As Grey regained strength he started teaching Hawk how to make canoes and snowshoes. Sun no longer had the time, and Dan worked with Grey occasionally around his schedule of elder visits and youth meetings. But Hawk needed the money from canoe building, and although a Mohawk and not Ojibwe, he was native, and the canoes could still be claimed to be completely 100% First Nations products.

When Hawk had phoned his boss to apologize, he found out that another operator had been hired to run the loader. Then a few days later Hawk got a call that the new man was ill, and could he come in for two days? This eventually worked into a regular schedule with Hawk as relief man: working every week on Saturdays, while the new man worked Monday to Friday. He would also go in on sick days or holidays the man would take. One day’s work didn’t pay a lot, but it did give him pocket money, and a chance to add a little to the food budget. Of course, when canoes were sold more substantial money would come.

Dr. Nora also was working a bit in her field. She had taken over for the town doctor’s practice one weekend a month, but there were also a few mothers in the area that were bringing their children to her direct. Daisy had given her the nice corner room that Sapphire had been in as an examination room, and her husband John had made a nice sign reading “Dr. Nora Jenson, Pediatrician” and placed it on the road next to sign reading ‘Ridge House’ that Grey had repaired and re-erected when he first moved to the house. When she was not meeting clients, or working tor the doctor at the hospital, Nora helped Willow with her bakery operation. As well as adding a batch of fresh bread for the afternoon buses, the two added a Danish pastry to the mix, and those sold well in the store both as snacks for the bus and for local people.

A full month after the twins had arrived, Grey felt ready for another attempt at healing. He took Mimihaha first. Sun was there of course, knowing she had to feed the baby at three-hour intervals. Grey had a feeling that the healing could take longer that that, and told Sun she could put the baby to breast so long as she kept her close to Grey: no more than three feet away.

Grey sang himself into the baby, and stared at the brain, which looked small and underdeveloped. «How long will this take,» he asked his Medicine Man voice.

«A long time,» the voice replied. «All you need to do is to use your stave to feed power into the child’s brain. There is mending to do at first, and you should be able to help her enough so that she can eventually reach a development age of nine or ten. That is all you can do in a treatment, which will take you a full day: nearly 24 hours. If you do more treatments later: at least two more, then you may be able to restore her to full health, and she will develop mentally as any other girl would. She will always be small, like her mother, but she will be smarter and better adjusted. Particularly with a good environment, like you and Sun will provide.»

Grey was carried to bed by Hawk this time when he had finished a 22-hour healing session. He had hoped to treat both children but was only able to help Mimihaha. While Grey recovered, the people of the house noticed the difference between the two babies, with Mimi more alert and developing faster than Flint. Once Grey had fully recovered, nearly a month later, he repeated the treatment with the boy.

This routine continued for three more months, until Mimi had her final treatment, and Grey was waiting to recover to treat Flint. This time, although Mimi was ahead, you could not tell there was a developmental difference between the two, although Dr. Nora felt that a brain scan would show differences.

Grey had just reached the point where he could eat with the others when Cindy appeared in uniform as they were eating dinner.

“This is a business trip,” she said, although she was massaging Dan’s shoulders. “I just got a report of an accident in Ottawa. A motorcycle was seen with a girl passenger riding with no helmet, so the patrol car tried to pull them over. The bike driver sped up and soon they were going 180 kph. The cruiser followed, and the driver looked back for a second. They approached a semi truck that was slowing down for the chase, and the bike collided with the rear of the truck, and slid under.”

“The driver died several hours later, and the passenger, with no helmet, died immediately. An investigation discovered that the saddlebags of the bike were filled with Percocet pills. The passenger was Sapphire, and the driver was Billy Vanderkleet, who apparently was a courier delivering drugs from the Outlaws’ clubhouse in Peterborough to dealers in Ottawa. That is why he was riding past here so often.”

The group was stunned. Grey turned to John and said: “Can you arrange for the body, Sapphire’s, to be brought here. I would like her buried in the Grove.”

“What?” Sun shouted. “How dare you honor that woman?” She gathered up the infants and stormed off to her room.

Grey found her there after the meal ended. He entered the room and shut the door behind him.

“It is not honoring her,” he said. “It is a matter of providing these two little ones with an anchor in their life. You will be their mother, now and forever. That is something that will never be taken away. But when they are older they will have to learn that you adopted them, and they will have questions about their natural mother. What you tell them will be up to you, but I feel it will be best if you, or I, can take them to her last resting place.”

“Just don’t expect me to take part in any funeral,” Sun said bitterly. “I hate that woman.”

“Even though she gave you the two gifts that you love above all else?” Grey said. “You don’t need to come to the ceremony, but I want the twins there.”

“No. They go where I go. And I am not going to that ceremony.”

“The children should go,” Grey said. “Are you going to tell them that they didn’t go to their birth-mother’s funeral because their adoptive mother was having a snit? It is up to you to go or not, and it is your right to decide if the babies are there. I will not pull rank on you over that. But I truly hope you can see clear to coming.”

The body arrived from Ottawa nearly four days after the accident, perfect timing for an Ojibwe funeral, which should happen four days after the death. The funeral home had the body wrapped in a body bag, and warned that there had been no cosmetic work done: in short, the bag should not be opened. This worked well for the funeral since traditional Ojibwe burials do not use caskets or boxes. The driver of the hearse stayed around when he learned the burial would take place in a few hours: he had a professional interest in different burial rites.

Dan and Hawk had dug a grave, 30 yards away from Lone Goose’s. Everyone from the house except Sun and the twins was there. Dan, Hawk, Grey and the funeral director lifted the wrapped body from the travelling casket, and then lowered it by ropes to the bottom of the grave.

“There will be no bow, no arrows, and no knives buried with her, as she was not a warrior. Are there any other goods that will go to the Sacred Hunting Grounds with her?” Grey said.

Daisy stepped forward, offering a plate of venison jerky, which was lowered to the grave. For a minute, no one else came forward, and then Dary reached down and picked out six small stones from the ground in front of her, and darted up to the grave and tossed them in. It took a second, but soon everyone realized that they were the size of Percocet tablets. They would represent that which Sapphire had treasured above all else.

Grey started to speak again, but stopped when he heard a noise in the distance. It was Sun, carrying the twins. He waited for her to get closer, and when she stopped at the edge of the group, he spoke: “We are here to send one of the people to her reward. I hope it is to the Sacred Hunting Grounds. She was not the best of Manidoo’s children, but she was one of the people. She left us with a great gift: two great gifts, and I hope that this is enough to make her life have merit. I will cast the first earth.”

With that he gathered up a spade full of earth, and cast it on the grave. Everyone else, save the older women, did the same. Then Grey, Dan and Hawk started filling the hole.

“Give me that spade,” Sun said to Grey. She thrust the babes into his arms and took the tool and started shoveling dirt into the hole. Grey handed one of the babies to Dary, and held the other as they all watched the hole slowly full. When all the dirt had been moved, Dan started to tamp it down with his foot.

Sun pushed him aside, and then took over. At first it was tamping, but soon it began to become stomping, as she took out her frustrations on the deceased woman. When she finished, it looked like she had gotten it out of her system.

Dan’s truck drove the older ladies back, with many others riding in the truck bed. But Dary, Sun, Grey and the twins walked back, with Sun fiercely holding her children.

“I rather thought I would hear a departing word from her,” Grey mentioned as they walked.

“She spoke to me,” Sun said.

“What did she say?”

“She told me that I would be a better mother for these two than she ever could,” Sun said, pausing for a moment. I’m glad we came.”

“And the stomping at the end?” Grey asked.

“I couldn’t give her the last word,” Sun said. “But I am at peace with her now. I know that I will need to talk to these little ones some day, and now I know I can without hatred in my voice.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Just cleaning up some plot lines here. The next chapter from me will be Monday, probably. The question is whether it will be The House or a solo I have running around in my brain: Dawn.

Chapter 24 – Updates

In the half year that it took Grey to completely heal the babies, a lot happened. In September there was a big discussion on where Dary would go to school. Since Earl had always made her keep her hair in a near brushcut, her hair was still under two inches long and she felt it still made her look like a boy, which it did, in spite of efforts to feminize it. On the other hand, the school in Tweed would be a new one to her, since she had previously gone to Belleville.

Willow insisted that her daughter would go to school, until Grey asked if home schooling could be an option. Willow considered this and it seemed ideal. There was a great deal of talent in the house: Sun had a Masters, John was a lawyer, Nora was a medical doctor, Lois had taught for years, and had been a supply teacher at Tweed until two years ago. Even Daisy could contribute since she had taught ballet and other forms of dance, although not recently. Grey didn’t have credentials, but he was a history nut, and felt he could help with that, as well as his nature walks.

So several days before classes were to start John, Willow, Dary, and Lois went to the Tweed school to speak with the principal, who naturally was reluctant to support home schooling. For one thing, her school was under utilized, and every additional student helped keep the school open.

“How can we be sure that Dary will get the proper education at home?” the principal said.

“Well Lois Smith was a teacher for 40 years, and supply taught until two years ago,” John explained. “If she was capable in the job then, she certainly will be able to handle a class of one now. And there are others in the house who will be able to help in other areas.”

The principal tried a different tack: “Yes, but it is important for a student to interact with others her age. Home schooling will not allow that kind of interaction.”

“That should not be a problem,” John countered. “Dary is joining the Ojibwe Junior Warriors in the girls section. She will attend weekly meetings, as well as three or so campout events. That will provide her with a regular interaction with peers. Are you familiar with the group?”

“Yes. Yes I am,” the principal said. The boys in the group had ended a bullying problem in the school in the spring, and she was hoping that they would be able to keep bullying down when school restarted. “They seem to be an extremely positive group.”

Finally the principal caved, and agreed to support the home schooling. She recommended that Willow buy copies of the texts used in the school, and that she write all tests and exams at the school. John negotiated this back to an agreement that Dary only write the final exams at the school. In June her hair should be at least six inches long.

There was also a bit of a disagreement over books. The school wanted Willow to pay the full list price for the books, but when the secretary brought them out, she seemed to have chosen the oldest and most tattered copy of each book. John objected, and said they would just buy new copies of each book if they had to pay full price for abused books. The secretary then made another check of the bookroom, and found nearly new books of almost all the needed texts. Only one book had to be bought from the publisher: it was a science text that would be replaced the next year, and no good copies remained. The principal was happy to get cash from the other books to augment her budget.

The end result was that Dary was to start school with Lois on the Tuesday morning after Labor Day. They would have one of the other people in the house teach her in the early afternoons, while Lois took her nap.

One of those classes was a science trip to the Grove with Grey, where she learned more about botany or biology than any of the students in Tweed would. John was an expert at math, and taught that subject. But he tended to use practical examples from the farm, such as calculating the area of the stables, or the cost of feed per animal for her chickens or the horses. Useful examples of that type made the subject meaningful and fun for her.

Even Sun’s babies were a part of the curriculum for her, with Dr. Nora teaching about human development with Flint and Mimihaha as subjects.

------- -- -----

During this period John had taken on another duty, while tending to the woods with Grey. He managed to get Sun’s diplomas from McMaster University reissued in her new name. The tricky part of this was to keep the changes confidential, since Sun’s old persona ‘Earl Dipsen’ was still remembered on campus. A threat of a massive lawsuit if the story leaked out tended to focus the Registrar’s office on keeping the change confidential.

A more difficult task was getting an identity built for Grey Wolf. The boy was now nearly 19, and had no social security number, no health card, no driver’s license, no birth certificate, and no Indian Status card.

Luckily John knew someone who worked in the provincial government’s Office of the Registrar General who agreed to slip in a birth certificate for Grey. From there is was easier to get the other cards re-issued, except for the driver’s license, which required a road test and a written test. The former was easy for Grey, who had been driving on the house property for over a year. The latter involved some study, and Lois organized some practice tests for him, so that he passed the test with a near perfect score.

By the end of the year Grey had a complete set of IDs, and no longer needed a driver to leave the house property.

------------

In early November Cindy and Dan made an announcement before the residents of the house. They were going to marry, in early December. When asked why they were rushing things so much, Cindy put her hand on her stomach, and noted that things were going to change down there, and she wanted to marry before things got too far along.

The news of one more baby coming into the house resulted in many congratulations and celebrations. Dr. Nora insisted that she do regular examinations, and Cindy also promised, rather satirically, not to take drugs during the pregnancy.

The decision also made for some changes in her career. The decision to marry and have a baby had been made after Cindy had been offered an assistant sergeant position with the OPP. Of course, that would mean a reposting to a northern Ontario detachment, and delaying motherhood for at least two years. Dan offered to go with her, knowing that his mother would be well looked after in the house. But after much deliberation, and several times holding little Flint or Mimihaha, Cindy decided not to opt for the promotion route, and take the alternative mommy path. She applied for making her Madoc detachment posting permanent, and warned the Sergeant there that she would soon be seeking a maternity leave.

In Canada there is a 17-week maternity benefit. For government/union positions, like the OPP, this is increased to a full year. Most women take maternity leave right after the birth of their child, opting to have a full first year with their child. Thanks to the women officers who came before her, Cindy was able to spend the final six months of her pregnancy in a desk job in Belleville. For the last six weeks, Dan drove her to Belleville and picked her up.

The wedding was scheduled for December 8, a Wednesday in 2004. The elder Flint told Dan that he would provide a pastor for the ceremony. Of course Cindy was less than happy with the lack of firm plans, but agreed to trust the spirit. The wedding would be in the Great Hall of the House, with all the furnishing other than chairs removed. It would be a martial marital ceremony, attended by the entire Madoc detachment, all in dress uniform including four other officers who had served there but since had taken transfers. Six officers from other detachments in the area agreed to patrol the Madoc coverage area so that all could attend.

Dan had six of his army buddies appear, also in full dress uniform. Grey was best man, and attended in traditional Ojibwe powwow garb. Willow was maid of honor, while Nora and Dary were bridesmaids. Cindy’s parents came, and her father ‘gave away’ the bride, with Lois sitting next to them, and Daisy in the honored spot of ‘grandmother’ of the couple.

Sun opted not to participate. She said she needed to look after her babies, but Grey suspected she did not want to be in photos where she towered over the bridesmaids, and even the groomsmen, which included Hawk, Frank from the store, and a friend of Dan’s from town.

On the Monday of that week Cindy’s parents arrived and were impressed by the house. They had gotten the impression that their daughter was living in some kind of First Nations commune. Daisy was a big part of allaying their fears, and by the end of the week Cindy’s mom was ready to move in. However her father was an OPP inspector out of London. He had opted for the promotion track in the force, and expected to have to move at least once more before his retirement.

The next day a Volkswagen Beetle from the 60s appeared at the house, fortuitously conking out only after it had pulled into the lane. Luckily Sun was in her shed, checking on work she had put off to be a mother. Grey had built her a two-seater papoose that allowed her to carry both babies on her back. She hoisted the device off, and set it on a hook on the mill wall, and then went over to see a skinny man about her age trying to push the Bug up the lane.

“Hop in, and I’ll push,” Cindy said, and the lanky fellow got back in and shifted into neutral. Sun easily pushed the car into the mill work area, and got the man to try to man to start the car as she looked at the engine (in the rear of the car).

“It needs a lot of work,” Sun said. “I can start on it tomorrow, but I think it will take four or five days, plus whatever time I need to get parts in. This one looks like fun.”

“Is this the Daisy House,” the man said. “I am Cooper Loneowl. Pastor Cooper Loneowl. I have been told to be here to perform a traditional wedding on Friday. Am I at the right house?’

“Of course you are. Didn’t Flint tell you that?” Sun said.

“Flint? You mean you know? I mean, he is just inside my head.”

“He’s in mine too, and Dan, the groom, as well as my brother. He’s been giving us updates on your progress. I don’t know if it was his work that kept this old bucket running till you got here, or if that was just dumb luck. Come on, let me get my babies and we’ll head to the house. Cindy has been going almost insane waiting for you to get here.”

On the way in Sun explained that Cindy was white, while Dan was First Nations, so the traditional Ojibwe wedding rituals would be secondary to the white traditions. In return Cooper said that Flint had made him bring everything he needed to the house.

“I trained first as a minister: Anglican,” he said. “The church told me they wanted First Nations pastors for the northern parts of Ontario. But Flint told me that I would not be accepted as a pastor unless I had other work to show I was not lazy. So I took a year to get to be accredited as an elementary teacher. Flint said I would be more appreciated working six days a week instead of only on Sundays. I finished my last student teaching session on Friday of last week, and then Flint sent me out here.”

“You might be needed here,” Sun said. “We have one student here, a girl in grade seven who is being home-schooled. Lois, the groom’s mother, is a former teacher, and until a few years ago was a supply teacher for the school in Tweed, just down the road. Dary is a bright young girl, and I think she exhausts Lois at times. If you want to stay on at the house after the wedding, I think you could take on some of the teaching chores.”

“And pastoring?”

“Lois and her friend Daisy, who owns the house, go to church in Tweed each Sunday. One of us drives them. The rest of us are lost souls that you might be able to convert, especially if you feature Ojibwe traditional teachings.”

---------

Even earlier in the year there had been a fall fair in Tweed in September. Daisy promised to feed and look after Grey that weekend as he recovered from a healing, allowing Dary to go to the fair with Cindy and Dan.

After a few rides and games, Dary discovered a pony ride area. There were 10 horses going around a rotating pole that had eight spokes on it. There were two ponies on two opposing poles, and one each on the others.

The man was charging $2 for a three-minute ride, and had children lined up waiting. At that rate he would be earning $300 each hour. Dary finally got to the front of the line when she saw one smaller pony stumble, and then start limping badly. “He is hurt,” the girl said, and ran over to the horse, stopping all the others from circling.

“Leave him be,” the man shouted angrily. “He’ll be fine. He’s just going for the attention.”

“I think not,” Cindy said, coming up to the man and stopping him from pulling Dary away.

“Your daughter is interfering with my business,” he protested, and probably would have pushed Cindy, had Dan not come closer.

“She is not my daughter,” Cindy said, and pulled out her badge. “I am with the OPP and I deem that you are mistreating these animals. How long have they been ridden today?”

“I started at 10. They got a break for a half hour as the parade came in, but since then we have been busy.”

“So seven hours with only a short break?” Cindy summed up. “Are they getting food and water?”

“I water them every other hour, mostly,” the man said. “They will be fed at the end of the day, probably around 9 when the little children leave the fair.”

“Okay, you have a choice,” the constable said. “From now to the end of the day you will run six horses at a time, and give the others an hour rest. With food. Rotate through them, so they ride for two hours and then rest for one. The injured horse comes with me. I will take one of your wagons, and return it in about an hour.”

“The other choice is that I will close you down completely, charge you with mistreating animals, and take you to Madoc to the station. That is the route I would prefer, but I see there are a lot of children in your line who would be disappointed not to ride a live pony.”

Dan got his truck, and brought it over to hook up the horse trailer. The pony limped in, and Dary rode in the back, comforting him as they drove back to the house. They got him out, and into the spare stall in the stable. Just having the bigger horses with him seemed to help the pony, although it was clear he was in pain.

Cindy had gotten the man’s itinerary and phoned the RCSPCA (Royal Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) in all the future stops, warning them to check on him to see if he was following the guidelines she had set up.

Two weeks later Grey was well enough to sing his way into the horse, and heal the leg, which had a crack in the leg bone that normally would have cost the pony its life. But Grey was able to restore the pony to health, and a week later Dary was happily riding it around the property. The little fellow, which Dary named Tweed, seemed happy in his new life. He only had to please the little girl, instead of working for hours on end.

--------

The last big event of 2004 was Christmas. The babies stole the show, of course, receiving countless little wooden toys. Daddy Hawk had carved mobiles from spare bits of wood, one for each of the cribs he had built. Grey’s toy was even more impressive. It was a string of wooden ducks that, when pulled by a string, would waddle on uneven wheels, and occasionally turn a head and quack. Of course the infants were too small to pull it, but Dary wasn’t, and she led it around the babies as they sat on the floor, and both laughed uproariously at the sight. That made the day so much more pleasing to all.

Hawk had a special treat for Sun. He left right after lunch and returned an hour later. It was a backhoe tractor from the place he worked. He had traded 10 days of work for the old machine, which was completely seized up. But to Sun it was a glorious gift that would give her hours of enjoyment as she made it operational again.

And it was a gift to the house as well. Dan, Hawk, John, and Grey had been considering the need to expand the septic system. With more and more residents, it needed to be brought up to code. And when the men calculated out the amount of digging for the weeping bed, they realized it would be nearly a full-time task for the three of them (they all knew that Grey was not that useful with a spade.)

Dary had made Dreamcatchers for all the women, and a special one for Grey that had a moose, his spirit animal, in it. Most of the toys were handmade, but Dary scored with many dresses and other clothes bought for her. Daisy had made wooly mittens for most of the people, but the babies got small toques with earflaps to keep their tiny head warm outside, especially when they were outside with Sun, who finally had decided to let them stay with others in the house and not hanging on their papoose in the mill while she worked. She just went in to feed them, which was now every four hours or so.

Old George was thrilled to get mittens from Daisy, and other gifts from the family. He didn’t stint the others: he had made small trinkets using wire that he was still strong enough to work on the forge. Sun got some shelf holders with elaborate scrollwork sides. Willow and Nora got a baker’s rack for their kitchen. He had something for everyone.

Cooper was not missed. He received small trinkets as the newest member of the house. His gifts to others were sheets of parchment. The man was an excellent calligrapher, and his poems and saying were adored by all. Sun actually burst into tears reading hers, which was addressed to “Mother” and was a thank you note allegedly from her babies. It detailed all that she gave them, and finished with a last item “all the love in the world.”

In the afternoon Dary pulled herself away from the babies, and went to the stable. She had a big apple for each of the five occupants, and filled all their feedbags with oats, even though George had done the same thing in the morning. Her chickens got extra feed as well, and she was rewarded with 18 fresh eggs, three more than on most days. Dan had said she would get new chicks around Easter, as the older hens would be producing less.

At supper that evening Grey recalled Daisy’s prediction that they would have ‘little feet’ in the house soon had come true. Daisy then said that she had been told there was more to come in the new year, and she couldn’t be happier.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Sorry for taking so long to get this chapter out. I needed some down time. The next chapter will be out sooner. Happy Thanksgiving to the Yanks: Dawn.

The House – Red

Red stood at the back of the variety store, with his winter hood pulled tight around his neck. In February, in Canada, a parka is not rare. His basket contained two loaves of WonderBread, four packages of sandwich meat, a jar of mayo, four bottles of water, and a SaraLee frozen cake. Walking to the front, he also added a half dozen granola bars.

“That will be $42.63,” the pretty young blonde cashier said as she packed everything into two plastic bags. Red had been looking around to the back of the empty store while she rang him up, but then he pulled a seven-inch jackknife from his pocket, and said: “Open da till, bitch. Dis be a hol’up.” His plan was to use a Black accent to put off identification. He pointed the knife at the girl, who stumbled backwards a few steps, complete fear on her face.

Red waved the knife and made the girl open the till, and he reached in and grabbed the cash. There were only $65 in bills, since the store used a drop-box for large bills. Cursing, Red grabbed the loonies and toonies from the coin slots, pocketing another $30. Then he grabbed the groceries and ran to the door. As he ran out he glanced back to see the girl was on the floor, huddled behind the counter, weeping uncontrollably.

Red ran out the door. He was lucky: a snowplow had just cleaned one side of the street, and the pavement was nearly bare. He darted out onto the road, leaving no footprints, and jogged along for almost a mile. There was next to no traffic. The snow was coming down hard, and no sane person would be driving unless it was an emergency. The snow was also benefitting him, since it was covering his tracks.

At a certain spot he darted off the road. He looked back, and saw two cruisers finally arriving at the store. The girl certainly hadn’t called them immediately. Fortunately both cars had arrived from the other direction. If they had come from this way they probably would have noted the boy in the parka carrying bags that clearly showed the logo of the store that had been robbed.

There was a small drainage ditch that ran underneath the four-lane street, and Red hopped down to the culvert under the road. There was a metal grating that fenced the culvert off from people entering, but a week ago Red had found that the 50-year-old metal was rusty and easily snapped. He pulled the grate out and slipped inside.

The culvert was warmer than the outside temperature, warmed a bit by the earth. It was not warm by any means, just not fatally cold. There was a nook with a platform on it, and it clearly had been used before by another homeless person. There were old and smelly blankets there. The two cleanest went over Red, and four others underneath kept the cold from coming up, once his body heat had warmed the cubby a bit.

He opened and quickly drained one of the bottles of water. He set the bottle aside: he could refill it in the washroom of the nearby public library branch. He then made two large sandwiches with the bread and luncheon meat he had ‘purchased’. Those, and another bottle of water, filled the stomach that had not eaten for three days. He finally hacked into the cake, still frozen, and managed to melt heavenly bits inside his mouth. He curled up and went to sleep for the night.

It was not an easy night. He had dreams about the robbery. In one he had stabbed the girl, and stood and watched as blood had spread across her pale yellow uniform tunic. In another, a policeman came into the store, and saw him with the knife, and shot him, with a searing pain in his chest until he woke up in a sweat. He vowed to never rob a store again, and went back to a fitful sleep, interrupted by both cold and dreams.

The next morning he had a simple breakfast, and then went to the library. He was a regular there, making use of the Internet computers as much as possible. The women working there would nod to him, but seldom came close. He realized that it was due to the rather bad body odor he carried. He tried to keep clean in the library washroom, washing his face and under his arms, but he knew that wearing the same clothes for two months meant that he sported an unhealthy odor.

Online he searched for a place to go. For several days he came up blank as his small stash of food dwindled, as did his cash. Finally he hit the jackpot: there was a First Nations hostel in Ottawa that might take him in. He sent an email to see if he qualified. Just before noon he filled his water bottles and went back to his underground lair where he made another lunch.

It was four more days until he got a reply to his email. They said that they had two levels of support. One was only a place to sleep and shower. The other allowed daytime access. He would have to start at the first level and try to work up to the higher level. At least he would be able to shower, and sleep somewhere warm. He left that day feeling good, although he no longer had any food, other than three slices of baloney.

He had a bit of cash left from the robbery, so he went to a variety store he had been using: not the one he had robbed. He managed to buy another loaf of bread and some Kraft cheese. No dessert this time. He had enjoyed the cake, but it was gone.

The following day he looked up the bus and train sites on the Internet. He quickly discounted the train: it was far beyond the money he had left. And even the bus was more expensive than he could afford, over $60.

He decided to make up sandwiches with the rest of his bread and cheese and head to the bus station. He would get a ticket for as far as he could, and hitch the rest of the way in. At the station he booked a ticket to Actinolite, less than half way. Apparently the bus tickets were not proportionate to the distance travelled. He waited for the bus, and got on, taking a seat at the back.

The bus was not full, and Red found that none of the other passengers sat near him. His B.O. problem, he eventually realized. The bus stopped at every small town along the route, usually only for a few seconds as no one got on or got off. Then the bus driver announced that there would be a 10-minute stop at the next station, and gave a recommendation for the sandwiches served there.

The driver made Red get off at that stop: killing the boy’s hope of sneaking another few stops in. He went and stood on the side of the road, putting his thumb out as each car went by. He didn’t start to walk because once the cars were outside of the little village, they would speed up and be less likely to stop.

The bus left, and a half hour later a single woman came out. She walked down the road towards Ottawa, but he saw that she turned into a lane not far along. Red strolled down until he was at the spot she turned, and could see a big house, with several barns and outbuildings. Perhaps one of those would be warm enough to sleep in. It was now dark, and he knew there was little chance of getting a ride.

--------

Inside the house the evening meal was served as soon as Willow arrived. It was roast venison: Hawk had made a kill while hunting with Grey. The entire household was finishing up when there was a commotion out in the barns. Rabbit was barking furiously.

Hawk and Grey were first dressed and out. The noise seemed to be coming from the stable. George and Dary were not far behind, with the girl concerned about her birds, and George worried about the horses.

Inside the stable they found Rabbit still barking. “Help” came a voice from a corner stall. Pierre had a young boy pinned up against the edge of the stall.

“Eggs, two!” Dary claimed accusingly as she entered the stable, and found two eggs smashed on the floor.

“Sorry,” the boy said. “I was hoping to eat them, but then the dog attacked, and I dropped them getting into this stall. Then the horse just pushed me up against the wall and I can’t move.”

“Let’s see now,” Grey said, stroking Pierre’s nose. Slowly the horse eased up, and the boy was able to slide out. Rabbit had stopped barking when the cavalry had arrived, but still was growling at the boy, who seemed scared of him. “Who are you, and why are you in our stable.”

“I am Red Eagleclaw, and I came here hoping it would be warmer to sleep in. Then I heard the chickens, and thought I could sneak some eggs. That got the dog angry, and I wound up in the stall,” Red said. “I was hitching to Ottawa, I got as far as here on the bus, but now I am stuck. And no one picks up riders after dark.”

“No one picks up people as rank as you,” Hawk said. “When was the last time you showered?”

“A long time ago,” Red said. Dary had gone into the coop to check for more eggs, and got five. She wanted to make sure no more were broken, and took them in her basket and headed to the house. “Who is she?” Red asked. “She’s pretty.”

“She will appreciate the compliment,” Grey said, “but only if you get yourself cleaned up a bit. Come into the house. We’ll let you shower, and get you some clean clothes. I’m sure Daisy will fix up a meal for you, and let you stay for a night or two.”

The boy showered, and Sun took his clothes to the laundry in the basement and tried to wash them, but they pretty much disintegrated in the wash. The boy was only about 15, and he was Grey’s height, although much slimmer. Never-the-less Sun found some of Grey’s older clothes from their time in the camp, and felt that a few safety pins would allow him to wear them.

After a while a clean Red came out of the shower and tried on the clothes. As suspected they were quite baggy on him, and Sun had pin the shirt together, while an old belt allowed the trousers to stay up. Red was more than a little frightened by the huge woman towering over him, but managed to stay calm: this seemed to be the first good thing that had happened to him since his mother died three years ago.

As promised, there was a warm plate of roast venison, which he had never eaten before, as well as potatoes, carrots, and corn. A huge glass of milk tasted so good after nearly a year without. He ate as though the food might disappear, and Daisy looked on with pride. She loved seeing people eating her food.

After he was finished, he took the dishes to the kitchen and washed them, impressing Daisy even more: “You just earned yourself a breakfast tomorrow,” she promised.

Shortly thereafter Grey led him through the busy Great Room to a smaller room with a bed and blankets. “I know it is early, but we are getting up early tomorrow,” Grey told him as he left him in the room. In less than five minutes, the boy was asleep.

It was still dark when they rose, although not so early. It stayed dark late in the winter and it was nearly six. Grey allowed him to get dressed. He looked Ojibwe in the deerskins Sun had found for him, and Grey had a similar, newer set on. Grey pulled out two pairs of snowshoes, and in the light from the porch showed Red how to put them on and walk in them. The boy took a few headers into the snow, but then seemed to get the hang of it, and Grey led him north towards the Grove.

They passed through the Grove to the river and arrived just as dawn was breaking. The wildlife come to the river to find water wherever they could with the river mostly frozen. Grey went onto the ice and broke through in a few places, and then went back to Red. Almost at once the animals that had fled at Grey’s approach returned, and found water. The two stood for an hour, watching nature in its wonders.

“That was amazing,” Red said as they finally walked back. Grey took him into the majestic Grove and explained the different trees to the boy, both in the Grove and surrounding pine forest. He explained how he was the caretaker of the Grove and the forest, and what he did. They got to the campsite, and Red looked into the wigwams and the lodge, finally getting some of the clear, ice-cold spring water.

“That is wonderful,” Red said. “I have been drinking water a lot lately, but never as good as that.”

“I know you were promised a breakfast, but you will have to get that tomorrow,” Grey said. “But here is some venison jerky. It will keep the hunger away. Do you know how to make a fire?”

“I don’t know any of this Ojibwe stuff,” Red said. “I am Mohawk, and I lived with an uncle until about a year ago. He didn’t go for any of this heritage stuff, but I love it. Can you show me how to make a fire? The First Nation’s way?”

Grey did, and they soon had a roaring fire warming the lodge as they sat on stumps and talked. Red opened up, and told Grey his whole story, including the robbery.

“You won’t tell, will you?” Red pleaded.

“It will be hard not to,” Grey said. “We have an OPP officer living in the house: the woman who sat next to Dary in the Great Hall. I think you saw them with the babies as you followed me to your room.”

“I saw Dary. She is so pretty,” Red said. “I guess she wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a criminal.”

“She is a pretty special little girl,” Grey said. “She won’t like what you have done, but if you confess and take your punishment, she might become a friend.”

“I should confess. I feel better already, just telling you. I have nightmares most of the time: not last night, sleeping in a clean bed was just too perfect. But I suspect they will come back. What can I do?”

“Well, the first thing you need is a lawyer, and we happen to have a pretty good one in the house. Confess everything to him, and listen to what he says. Then we tell Cindy, the cop. She will arrest you, and take you to the station. You are going to have to spend some time in jail, but hopefully it will be in Madoc, and not Peterborough.”

“How long in jail?”

“I don’t know, but John will. If you are lucky we will be able to bail you out and you can come back here until the trial.”

“I don’t want a trial. I’m guilty. I put that poor clerk through hell. I will plead guilty,” Red said.

“Wait ‘til you speak with John before you make up your mind. He might think it is better to plead not guilty, and then make a deal or something.”

They put out the fire and walked back to the house, arriving just in time for lunch. After eating, the boy spent nearly two hours with John. They invited Grey in then, and John explained that the boy would appear at the Madoc Provincial Court for a hearing in two days.

Cindy was on day shift, and came home at 4 p.m. John immediately called her in and explained the situation. Cindy agreed to let the boy spend the night at the house before taking him in, since she didn’t want to go back and fill out all the paperwork that night. She did insist on the boy’s room being locked from the outside, and Grey put a padlock on it before supper, and nailed the window shut.

The next morning, after getting his promised breakfast from Daisy, Cindy drove him to Madoc, where he was put into one of the holding cells for court the next day.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Sorry for the long gap. I had trouble with this chapter, and it isn’t one of my best. But when I finished it the next chapter or two came to me, and thus will be written sooner: Dawn

Judge Susan Pettersen was in the president’s office of the Madoc Legion, having lunch with the other members of her team: the crown attorney, the court reporter and the court clerk. The Ontario lower level court, known as Provincial Court until 1999, was now know as the Ontario Court of Justice. Judge Pettersen was based in Peterborough, but came to rural courts in Madoc and Lakefield on alternate Wednesdays. Normally the courts run from 10 a.m. until the docket was cleared, but today there was a more serious case to be dealt with – armed robbery – and therefore a second sitting was set for 2 p.m. to deal with that.

The crown attorney was first to leave the lunch at 1:45. He wanted to meet the defense attorney, who he hadn’t faced before. He found John Jenson in the courtroom (actually the main meeting room of the Legion, set up to resemble a normal court.)

At 1:55 the accused was brought into the court by OPP officers, who handled courtroom security. Red Eagleclaw was seated in the dock, with a police officer standing next to him. Red was glad to see familiar faces in the courtroom. As well as John; Hawk, Sun, Grey and even Dary were in the public gallery.

At 2 sharp the clerk announced the judge, and everyone stood until she was seated. The clerk then announced the charge of robbery with a weapon, not being a firearm. Next up was the crown attorney, Charles Tomis, who recounted the alleged crime.

“On February 4 a person entered the Glowmart Variety Store at the intersection of Lansdown Street East and Ashburnham Drive. The sole clerk at the time, Tanya Keith, finished checking out the only person in the store at the time. The goods requested were valued at $42.53. Instead of offering payment, the accused, Red Eagleclaw, pulled a knife from his pocket, and pointed it at the clerk, insisting she open the register. She did, and he pocketed $95 in coin and bills. He then ran out the door. The clerk was unable to continue working alone at the store, and quit the following day. She has since left her college course due to inability to concentrate on her courses. Upon information received, the OPP arrested the accused two days ago.”

“Is that the knife?” The judge said, pointing to Red’s small knife on the evidence table.

“Yes ma’am. That knife was found on the accused’s person when he was arrested by Madoc OPP two nights ago.”

The clerk instructed Red to stand, and read the charge out to him, ending with “How do you plead?”

“Guilty ma’am. I did it and I want to serve my time. I have since learned that our First Nation’s codes do not look well on those who act like I did. I cannot deny any of the things that man said. I with to atone.”

“How old are you?” the judge asked.

“I am 15, ma’am,” Red said.

“Why is this being tried in adult court,” the judge asked.

“There have been many cases of youth robbing or stealing from variety stores,” the crown attorney said. “Our office decided to make an example for others. Robbery is a very serious crime, and we want to put a stop to it immediately.”

“And the fact that the accused is a First Nation’s boy with no family makes it easier, no doubt,” the judge said. She turned to Red: “Don’t you have a lawyer? A plea of guilty on a charge this serious is most unusual.”

“I speak for Mr. Eagleclaw,” John said. “We discussed the case in some detail. I especially wanted to fight the decision to send him to an adult court. But he refused that and insisted on pleading guilty and saving the court from the expenses of a trial. We do wish to speak to sentence, and to bond if sentence will not be given today.”

“The Crown does not recommend any bond, and that the accused be held in Peterborough Jail until sentencing,” Mr. Tomis said.

“There will be no sentencing until I return here in two weeks,” the judge said. “Mr. Jenson, can you explain why you think that bond should be granted?”

“Yes ma’am. The Crown précis of the case left out several key facts. Red was not arrested as a result of information received. He confessed his crime to OPP officer Cindy Smith, nee Rohmer, who then arrested him and brought him into the Madoc detachment cells, where I understand he had been a model prisoner.”

“Since he confessed to the crime, and pled guilty today, I can see no reason why he would not appear for sentencing. We have a location where he can live until that time, and it is our hope that he will start home-schooling there with another student in the house. He will spend time working with the horses at the mill, and be exposed to the trades of millwork, carpentry, lumber management, auto mechanics and blacksmithing. A third facet of his time will be to spend time with the natives in the community, and to learn more about his heritage.”

The judge looked to the Crown: “Comments?”

“We will insist on bail of $25,000 for such a serious crime,” Mr. Tomis said.

“I don’t have any money,” Red exclaimed.

“No, but you have friends who love you and trust you,” John said. “Your honor, we have $10,000 here for bail. If you set a higher level, then we ask two days to raise it.”

“I set bail at $15,000,” the judge said. “Two days to remit the last $5000 at Peterborough courthouse. Bail is revoked immediately if the accused sets foot off the property that has been described. I expect to see you back here in two weeks, young man.”

That was about all Red could take. He blurted out a “Yes ma’am. Thank you ma’am,” before collapsing into tears. He barely could rise while the judge left the room.

Once she was gone, Sun hurried up to the dock and took Red into her arms, lifting the young boy clear of the small barrier. She sat down on a nearby chair and took Red onto her lap, rocking and comforting him. He flashed back to when he was younger, and his mother was still alive: Sun was holding him and rocking him gently like she did.

For a few minutes he just sobbed in joy, and then looked up and saw that all the people from the house were watching, except for John, who was off signing papers and paying the money for bail: money that they had all given because they trusted him. Red could never repay that trust, he thought. Then he noticed Dary smiling at him.

He immediately stopped sobbing: he wouldn’t let her see him cry. He got up from Sun’s lap, but not before she gave him a kiss on the cheek. It nearly brought the tears back. When John was done they all piled into the two vehicles that had come to court. John rode the pickup with Sun with Red, and the rest drove behind in Daisy’s LTD.

On the short ride home John explained the terms of the bail to Red. He could go anywhere on the extensive house property, but if he left it then his new friends would lose the $15,000. If he appeared for court in two weeks, then the money would be returned. He was told that as an adult, he could be sentenced to three to five years in jail. Had the robbery been with a gun rather than a knife, five years would be the minimum. So at least one thing had gone right on that day.

At the house Cooper immediately took Dary, who had missed class to attend the court, into the little classroom in the basement. She was assigned a three-page paper on how a court works. Red accompanied her, and Cooper started assessing his new student to see where his skills were.

The teacher was less than pleased. The boy read at a Grade three level, and was only slightly better in math. His spelling was horrible, of course, and he hadn’t seemed to retain much science or history after two years on the street. He admitted that he hadn’t enjoyed anything about school except for recess. Cooper started him reading. A half hour later Dary was done her paper, and handed it to the teacher, and then curled up next to Red and looked into the book he was reading from. Cooper left the boy with Dary, and went off to mark her paper, which was excellent as normal.

Meanwhile the two continued to read, with Dary helping when Red stumbled over a word, making him sound it out, and then correcting it if still wrong. Red was a bit tense with the pretty girl sitting so close, but concentrated as hard as he could for her, and as a result made more progress than he had with Cooper.

The class lasted until nearly supper, and then Dary darted off to set the table, one of her chores. Red asked to help, and the pair soon had the table set and helped Willow and Nora bring out the food.

Red had not experienced family style dining like this. His uncle’s family had just cooked up packaged meals, seldom cooking anything other than stovetop or microwave meals. The one exception was grilling, which his uncle did often after the welfare checks came in and there was money for steaks. Red never got a full steak, but would have one split three ways with his cousins, with Red always getting the small piece.

But dinner here was done with big bowls or platters of food passed around. The meat tonight was a venison roast, and when Red took the smallest slice, Dary, sitting next to him, took another slice and plopped it on his plate before taking her own. The sides were corn, carrots, a potato salad, mashed potatoes and pie and pastry for dessert. Red was full at the end of the meal, probably for the first time since he had run away two years earlier.

After the meal the entire family met in the Great Hall after the dishes were cleared and washed. Dary had Red wash as she dried, so he could learn where various items went. When they joined the others in the Hall, Grey called Red over. He was making wooden blocks for the babies to play with when they got older. He handed Red a large carving knife, and showed him how to whittle the blocks into shape. The boy was amazed that they trusted him with a knife, but then realized they had entrusted him with a large amount of their money. His faith in the people of the house just grew stronger and stronger.

Dary helped. She took each block that the men cut and sketched the faces with a pencil. One side of each block would represent a letter: there would be 26 in total. She drew the shape of the capital letter on one face, and then the lower case letter on the opposite side. The other four faces would have pictures of items that started with that letter. On the A, for instance, there was an apple, an arrow, an anvil, and an amik, the Ojibwe word for beaver: all things that the babies would find in or near the house. The use of Ojibwe would help the babies learn the language later.

Once she was done, Grey used other whittling tools to start to carve out the pictures, showing Red how the various tools in his set worked. Soon Red was shaping out some of the simpler shapes, like the blueberries on the B block. Eventually Grey decided that they should clean up and head off to bed. He did promise that he would take Red out to the Grove after school on Friday.

Thursday the boy’s day was split into three parts. He started the morning by going out to the stable with Dary while she fed the horses and got her eggs for breakfast. She decided that Red would feed the horses. Pierre looked suspiciously at the boy he had trapped earlier in the week, but when the boy put clean water in his trough, and filled his hay and grain bins they were friends for life.

Dary came back from delivering her eggs, and showed the boy how to groom the horses, starting with the younger ones. Then she groomed Madame, and Red groomed Pierre, with the huge horse getting more and more accustomed to the boy.

After breakfast, George took Red and started up the forge, showing the boy the various tools and a few techniques. George decided that Red might grow big enough to be a smith, especially if he spent a good amount of time pumping the bellows for the forge.

“Will we be able to work more after lunch, George?” Red asked.

“Not likely,” George said. “I likes to have a little nap after I eats. And I don’t want you startin’ the forge up when I’se not with you. Couple of weeks larning and you kin give it a go, but not afore. Asides, I think Cooper will want you for some book larning after lunch.”

It was true: after the meal was cleared up, the two youngsters went to school. Dary explained that she had spent the morning babysitting, her favorite task at the house. It allowed Sun spend all morning at the mill. Sun would get her baby time after lunch while the older ladies napped, and then when they were up they would baby-sit while Sun went back to the mill.

In the classroom Cooper explained that Grey’s trip to the grove on Friday was actually a science lesson, and told Grey that when he came back he was expected to explain the differences between various type of tree: bark, leaf, and shape. Dary reminded Cooper that there would be no leafs on the deciduous trees. The teacher amended the instructions to describing the needles on the conifers he saw, and made Dary explain what deciduous meant, since Red clearly had not understood. Cooper also wanted the boy to identify and describe 10 different animals that he would see.

After class, which included two hours of Dary helping Red improve his reading, the two helped with dinner. Dary was becoming a good little cook, and she helped Red learn to make a hearty stew with the leftover venison and fresh root vegetables. The boy learned that he enjoyed being in the kitchen – in fact he enjoyed being anywhere near Dary, to tell the truth.

Another evening was spent working on the blocks and then the kids were sent to bed.

Friday morning Red went to tend to the animals on his own, as Dary collected her eggs. After breakfast Red went back to the stable with George, and was shown how to harness the horses. First Madame and Pierre were on the wagon, and George climbed up into the box and soon had Red holding the reins as they took a ride to the Grove and back to give the animals exercise. Afterwards they took up the tack and Red rubbed down the pair.

The younger horses were Elysa and Stone, and these were saddled and ridden. George said he was too old to ride, so Red rode each of the two horses around the property, rubbing them down when finished. This took the better part of the morning, and Sun came in from the mill to collect the two for lunch. After lunch Grey took Red to the Grove.

They each carried a full backpack, and went out on snowshoes, which Red took to easily. There was about a six-inch snowpack, and they avoided the wagon tracks that Red and George had made in the morning. They bypassed the grove and were in a clearing when Grey dropped his pack in the snow, and told Red to do the same.

Grey then stood close behind the boy, and started to sing the song to attract the spirit animals to find out what Red would see first. It was a coyote. (Grey pronounced it koi-oat, not the American pronunciation of ki-o-tee.) The animal ran away and the men picked up their packs and continued on to the camp.

Red gathered wood while Grey got water for the camp, and then unpacked the tools. He had started using the camp for building canoes, and was out here three or four days a week, often with John, Hawk, or Dan with him. He had found that when they worked near the mill, with it’s myriad of tools, it was too easy to use a mechanical tool to do a job, rather than hand tools. Flint had objected in his head, claiming that they were making a factory out of a handcraft, and Grey had agreed, moving the work to the camp.

After Red had gathered enough deadwood to provide a good fire for the evening, Grey started showing him how to build the cedar strip canoe which was partially under construction. They worked on it for six hours, with a stop for a supper of venison stew that Grey had filched from the kitchen. It had not been enough for another family dinner, but was perfect for four meals: supper tonight and lunch tomorrow.

When the early winter dusk fell, the fire was lit, and the two sat in its warmth as Grey told native tales that Flint, Mimiha and Redoak had passed on to him in the past. The boy just lapped up the tales, which were his heritage.

They went to bed earlier than they did at the house, but both fell asleep quickly after all the work they had done.

It was still dark when Grey roused the boy. After a quick trip to the latrine he got two sticks of venison jerky for breakfast and then donned his snowshoes and followed Grey to the river.

Grey had brought a hatchet, and they chopped holes in the three-inch thick river ice in five sections about 20 yards apart. Then they stepped back and leaned against a fallen tree and watched as the animals appeared. There were moose, deer, rabbits, a porcupine, beaver, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoon, and a lone wolf.

“That is only nine,” Red said as he lamented the assignment Cooper had given him. “I need ten.”

“There was a coyote yesterday,” Grey reminded him.

“Oh yeah. That’s ten,” the boy said happily. “And it was so cool seeing all of them like this. Thanks for bringing me out here. And for telling me all those stories last night. It makes me really feel like I am First Nations now. I’ve never felt this way before. You know, proud. Before it was like being ‘Indian’ was something negative. Thanks so much.”

Grey felt more than a little happy to be able to make the boy feel more confident and proud as he led the way to the grove. He explained the job of tending the trees that he had inherited from Lone Goose, and showed Red the old native’s grave, where they both prayed and gave thanks to the work that the old man had done for so many years.

Red learned all about the big trees in the grove, and compared them with the bark of their younger saplings. Then they went into the forest proper and looked at the cedars, pines, and spruce that grew there, and compared them to the hardwoods. Finally they came back and Red showed that he remembered all the wood types, and was able to identify the saplings in between, where a sapling could be from one of the two species on either side.

Then it was lunch, the rest of the stew, which Grey had placed in a rope hanging from a tree to keep the raccoons from getting to it. Soon they had reheated the frozen stew over the fire, and had a good meal. Then it was five more hours working on the canoe, and finally a walk home under the darkening skies.

After dinner there was no carving: instead Grey made Red recall the stories he had told the boy the night previous, knowing that retelling the tales would cement them into his mind. Grey filled in the odd bit, but Red did most of the telling, and Dary drank up the tales just as Red had, sitting on her legs in that way that girls did.

“We need to write these down,” Dary said. “We will make books for the babies: Flint and Mimihaha. You can tell the stories, and I will write them out, and then we can both draw pictures. When the babies are old enough, we can read them aloud.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

A quicker turnaround on this chapter. Another one on Monday or Tuesday, I hope: Dawn.

Chapter 27 – Father Snow

The next day was Sunday, but there were still chores to be done. Red fed and brushed down the horses before breakfast, and after the entire house gathered in the Great Room, where Cooper took off his teacher hat (figuratively) and put on his pastor robes (literally). Since he had joined the house Daisy and Lois had stopped going to the little church in Tweed, and now attended his services in the house.

It was a mixed-style of service. The hymns sung were Christian, but the sermon was based on more of the First Nations culture, with prayers to Manidoo, the sun, and the moon. More Christian hymns ended the service.

After lunch Red and Dary babysat, and the boy got his first experience changing diapers, much to his displeasure. But when little Flint giggled when laying naked on the changing table, it made it all worthwhile.

The two passed their young charges over to Sun as it was time for them to be fed, and Red was amazed to see the big woman casually take out a breast and begin suckling Flint. The babies were big enough, and active enough that Sun no longer tried to feed both at once, so Dary was holding Mimihaha while her brother fed.

“Stop staring, Red,” she told the boy, who looked at her with a startled look.

“It is fine, Dary,” Sun said as she nursed with a huge smile on her face. “You stared too, the first time you saw it.”

“Yeah, but I am a girl, and he is a boy.”

“That doesn’t matter. It is a natural thing, and it is why women have breasts. It is good for a boy to know that. Looking, and asking questions is a good way for a boy to become a caring man,” Sun said.

“What does it feel like?” Red said. Sun had said questions were okay.

“It is hard to say. I know that it makes me so happy to do it, and the babies seem to enjoy it as well. Once I got used to the feeling it just became like a natural bodily function: you don’t think how it feels to pee, do you? Not that this feels anything like that. It just feels right. It will start to hurt a bit if I go too long between feedings, but this little vacuum’s don’t let that happen very often.”

“Thanks Sun,” the boy said.

“Here, take Flint. He’s done,” Sun said handing the baby to Red. There was a pop as his lips let go of the nipple. She buttoned that breast up, and then let down the other as Dary handed Mimihaha to her. The girl offered to take Flint from the boy, who refused, setting the baby to his shoulder and patting his back to get a burp.

The burp came, with more than a little spit over his back. “I offered to take him,” Dary said with a smile. “Now you have been christened.” She now took the cooing boy while Red ran off to change his shirt.

After the feeding was done, Sun took both babies. She worked so much during the week, she saved Sunday’s for Momma time.

Dary and Red spent most of the rest of the afternoon sitting in the Hall, working on their books for the babies. Red would remember a tale that Grey had told him at the camp, and Dary would write it down in her feminine handwriting. After several hours they finished the fifth tale, and Dary was bored.

“Tell me a new story, Red,” she begged, pulling her legs up under her like she had the night before.

“A new story,” Red sputtered. “I don’t make up the stories. They are Grey’s. And he said his spirits told them to him.”

“But I want a new story,” Dary pouted, and that completely defeated the boy. He would do anything for the pretty little girl.

“Well, during church I was thinking about Christmas, and how it is a Christian holiday. Santa Claus is a part of it, and it really isn’t a part of the Ojibwe tradition. So I was thinking of something else: Father Snow.”

Dary clapped her hands in glee. “Yes, that is a proper story. What does Father Snow look like?”

“Not like a fat man in red velvet,” Red said. “He is an Ojibwe elder. Tall and thin but very, very old. He wears deerskins, with long fringe, and a headdress of many feathers. Not just eagle, but of all birds, twisted into a beautiful beaded head band.”

“Does he have elves making toys at the North Pole?” Dary asked, and the boy thought about it.

“No. His base is on Turtle Island, the place where all the peoples came from originally, and where the happy hunting grounds are for those who die. He doesn’t have elves, but animals making the toys. The beavers cut down trees and shape them into pieces that the other animals can work with. Birds carry the bits of wood from one place to another. Raccoons have nimble little hands that shape and assemble the wood into toys, and then the squirrels paint the pieces with colorful dyes that the chipmunks gather and mix. All of the finished toys are placed into big bags, and piled on the backs of several moose. Father Snow has no sled: he walks in snowshoes from place to place and delivers all the toys to the children.

“On Christmas Eve?” Dary squealed with glee.

“No. On third night. The Ojibwe do not have a Christmas, or didn’t until the white man came. But they did have a celebration for Longest Night, or the solstice as Cooper calls it. The first night after Longest Night is when the elders are honored by all the people. The second night is when the parents and caregivers are honored by their children. And on third night, which usually is December 25, the children get their toys from Father Snow, and from their families as well.”

“That sounds very much like what happened 400 years ago, according to Redoak,” Grey said. Red looked around and saw that everyone in the room was staring at him, as well as Dary. “There was no Father Snow, but there were several days of celebration after Longest Night, which was one of the holiest days of the year for the Ojibwe and other tribes.”

“Well I think it is a wonderful idea,” Daisy said. “I think that we should forego Christmas this year, and follow the Father Snow traditions instead. When Sun and Grey came here and we had that first Christmas, with only gifts that were hand made, it seemed so special. I think this will be more special.”

“What about stockings?” Dary asked. “Do they hang stockings up on the mantle?”

“No,” Red said. “The makizin boots are piled by the door, and Father Snow puts small toys and treats in them. There is no Christmas tree either. Instead the snowshoes for the family are piled up, and decorated on first night, since the people don’t go outside until after third night.

Dary had been sketching while Red told his story, and held up her sheet. “Does this look like him?” She had sketched a tall, older native elder in buckskins, leading three huge bull moose with bundles and packages on their backs. Red declared the picture perfect, and proposed that it be a cover of another book for the babies, explaining the new Ojibwe feasting time.

----------

It was about 10 a.m. on Monday when the compact car pulled into the house. Red was working in the mill with Sun and Grey, refurbishing an old school bus. She mainly worked on the engine and transmission, but set Red to working on the seats. Sun wanted the quality seats of Greyhound busses, and not the sad, uncomfortable seats that had been in the bus originally. Grey worked with Red: he wanted to make several of the seats fold down into beds for longer trips and was working out the mechanism as well as supervising the boy.

A small, wide woman got out of the car and looked around in confusion. Sun noticed her first, and got the men to go out with her to the woman.

“Can we help you,” Grey asked. The woman approached him and held out her hand.

“I am Saralynn Volders, CSC,” she said. “Correctional Services Canada” she clarified when she saw the blank looks on the other three.

“I am here to inspect this facility,” the woman said. “I understand that you have a prisoner serving his restricted bail time here. I’m to evaluate security, inspect the cells, and assess the facility.”

“Run and get John, Red,” Grey said, and the boy darted off. Sun and Grey led the woman into the house.

“Can I see the cells first,” she asked, and they headed down to Red’s bedroom. “We don’t call them cells,” Sun said in a somewhat snide voice. “This is his room.”

The woman entered the room, and was amazed at its size. “I’m surprised you don’t house more than one in a room this size,” she said. “You could easily hold four in a room this size. But I don’t see the toilet.”

“There is a toilet just down the hall, on the inside,” Grey said.

“But how does the boy go it he needs after the rooms are locked down?”

“There is no lock down. Red is free to use the bathroom at any time.”

“But …” the woman shrieked. “He has a knife.” She pointed to the 12-inch woodsman’s knife sitting on the dresser.”

“Several knives,” Grey explained. “There is also a smaller whittling knife around somewhere, and a jack-knife.”

“But the boy committed a crime with a knife,” the woman said. “How can you be sure he will not attack you all and escape?”

“First of all, until sentence has been passed, you cannot say he committed a crime,” John said from the door. Red stood next to him. “And the entire principle of this place is trust. We trust that he will not harm anyone. And he will not leave because this place is the best possible place he could be in, of all the correctional facilities in the province.”

“Madness,” the woman muttered. “No cells, no lockdown, access to weapons. At least there are guards,” she looked up at Sun. “I see you don’t wear a uniform though.”

“No, and I don’t consider myself a guard,” Sun said. “This morning I was acting as a mentor for the boy, who was doing upholstery on the bus we are refurbishing. There are other mentors for the boy.”

“One is our blacksmith, in the stables,” Grey said. “Red? Can you run out and harness Pierre and Madame? I want to take this lady to the Grove.” Red darted out of the house.

“Do you have the time?” Grey asked. “I would hope you can have the chance to have lunch with us.”

“Yes, I have nutritional areas to fill out for my report. Joining the noon meal would be an excellent way to do that.”

“Then I would like to take you to a special place on the property. I think it will help you understand us better.”

As they left the house, Ms. Volders looked at the stables, and the road. “How can you be sure that he didn’t run away? The road is as close as the building. Do you have a leg monitor on him?”

“No. We trust him,” John said. “If he ran away he would be caught quickly and placed in a far worse place than this. He likes it here. See, there are the horses, all harnessed up and ready. This is only the second time he has harnessed the team.”

Grey inspected the harness, and pronounced the work perfect. The woman noticed the glow of pride on the boy’s face when Grey complimented him. Red then helped the woman up to the wagon seat, while Grey climbed up on the driver’s side.

“My. They are big animals, aren’t they,” Ms. Volders noted as they started off to the rear of the property. “I know that several facilities use animals to develop trust in inmates. Do you find it so here?”

“We don’t think of Red as an inmate,” Grey said as the horses trotted off to the Grove. “We think of him as family. Sun, the tall woman, has two babies not yet a year old, and Red is allowed to handle them. In fact, last night one barfed all over him, to his surprise.”

“And he didn’t act out?”

“Red does not act out. He loves those babies as much as if they were his brothers and sisters. I know he thinks of Sun as his second mother. His problems all started when he was four, and his mother died giving birth to another child who also died. Red was sent to an uncle, who already had six children, and the boy didn’t get much attention there. He wasn’t molested as such, unless you consider starvation of love to be such. When he was nearly 13 he ran away, and the uncle didn’t do much other than notify the authorities.”

“He was lucky, and was found on the streets of Toronto by a transvestite hooker, who took him in and fed him for over a year. Then the woman was attacked by a ‘client’ and was put in hospital for several months. Of course Red had to live rough again, and eventually wound up in Peterborough, where he eventually robbed the store to get food to live on. You know the rest from the reports on him.”

“He has had a hard life then,” she said.

“And you can understand how we don’t need to constrain him. This is the first place in 10 years where he has had love, except from an elderly transvestite. There is no way he would leave us, and I know for a fact that when he finally is sent away to atone for his crimes there will be a lot of tears in that old house.”

“You can support him in jail,” Ms. Volders said. “Visits and such.”

“We are already trying to work out a schedule amongst the adults. We intend to visit him weekly, although it is hard not knowing where he will be.” Grey pulled up the horses in the middle of the Grove.

“This is the Grove. About 100 years ago the First Nations people of the area planted the trees here to pay back the people of the mill for their kindness. A forest fire destroyed all the trees on the other side of the river, and as a result there were no animals to hunt, and most of the gathering places were burned. This resulted in a famine that year, but the entire band was invited to camp in the backyard of the house and were fed daily. It wasn’t great food, but it was what the household ate. No other house or farm in the area would feed the natives: most chased them away.”

“Ever since that time the Ojibwe looked after this Grove, with the exception of a few years before I took over the task.”

“You care for this?” the woman said. “It is so peaceful. The only time I ever felt like this was when I spent an hour alone in an 800-year-old cathedral in England. This place is just as holy as that was.”

Grey sat for another half hour, and the woman did not seem to mind, looking up at the great trees, and occasionally noticing birds or wildlife, often after Grey pointed something out to her.

“One more place, and this will give us a chance to pick up some passengers for the ride back to lunch. One is Red’s teacher, and I suspect you will want to talk to him.”

“The boy is receiving schooling?” the woman said. “How nice.”

At the camp Hawk took the horses and Grey led the woman to the canoe that Cooper and Hawk had nearly finished. Grey pointed out the work that Red had done over the weekend, impressing the officer.

On the way back Hawk drove the team, and Grey sat in the back where he could hear Cooper explaining how much the boy had improved over the past few days. “I wish I could have him for a year, instead of a week,” Cooper said. “I’m sure I could have him back to his grade level by then.”

Back at the house Ms. Volders sat at the table as the cooks, along with Dary and Red, brought out the food. It was only the leftovers from the Sunday roast, but it was a full, tasty, and healthy meal. The woman was impressed when, at the end of the meal, Dary and Red cleared the table and did the dishes as the older women and George left to go to their naps.

“I need to leave now,” Ms. Volders said. “I appreciate the wonderful meal that was served, and can assure that there will be no points lost on the evaluation for nutrition. In fact, I think that a very positive report will come of this. I have to admit I was leery of the security at the facility, but in the end I can see how the trust factor could make this one of the most successful facilities in the system.”

“And if the report is approved, you will be in the system. You will be a class E facility, the lowest security level, and you will receive a payment of $400 a day for housing Red, backdated to last Wednesday. Just don’t count on the money coming quickly. The CSC is notorious for delaying payments. It will probably be two months before your money comes.”

“We don’t need any money for looking after Red,” Grey said.

“But we will accept it,” John said. “We can save the $6,000 for when Grey is finally released. He will need funds at that time.”

“No,” Red shouted. “The money must go to the girl at the store. I messed up her life: she should get it.”

Ms. Volders left the house and drove back to Kingston trying to see how she could write her report to help the generous boy who had so greatly impressed her.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Another short chapter to get us to the court sentencing. I hope to get one more chapter done before the end of the week: Dawn

Chapter 28 – Waiting

That evening the Great Hall was subdued after the kids finished the dishes for dinner. Dary was unusually quiet, and just sat playing with the babies at first. Red suggested that they work on their legends books, and the girl just snapped: “What’s the use. You’re going away in another week.” She then got up and fled the room.

“I think she heard some of what that CSC official said,” Sun suggested. “I’ll go talk to her if you look after the babies, Red.”

“No, let me go,” the boy said. “It is me she needs to talk too.”

He went into the hall with Dary’s room, next to Willow’s. He tapped on the door. No answer. He tapped again. No answer. The third time he tapped he heard a sobbing voice call out “Go away. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

“I’m going to stand here all night if I have to,” Red said. “I can’t stand it when you are hurting. Please let me in.”

“Okay,” she sobbed. “It’s not locked. But I don’t want to talk.”

Red went in, leaving the door wide open. He didn’t want to be accused of anything. He sat on the bed and listened to Dary sob into her pillow. He reached out and put his hand on her arm. She pulled it away. But a second later the arm came back, and grasped his hand. The sobbing seemed to slow, and slowly she rolled over, letting go with one hand but immediately grabbing his hand with her other one.

“Everything is messed up again,” she sobbed. “For a few days it was wonderful, but then that awful woman came and talked about you going to jail.”

“I have to go to jail, Dary,” Red said. “I did a horrible thing, and I need to be punished. But it will only be bearable if I know you are out here and still care about me. I really like you Dary. I know people say we are too young to be in love, but that is what it feels like to me.”

Dary started sobbing again, loudly, confusing the boy. He just couldn’t understand girls.

“What? Don’t you like me?” he asked.

More sobbing. Then: “Yes I do. That is part of the problem.”

“What problem?”

“I am like Sun,” she said, and sobbed some more.

Red tried to think of ways that Dary could be like Sun. Sun was a mother, Dary wasn’t. They certainly were not alike physically. Red loved Sun as a second mother, but she wasn’t nearly as pretty as Dary. He was unable to see the comparison.

“I don’t see how,” the boy said.

“Sun, and I both lived as boys when we were younger,” she finally blurted out. “When Sun told Hawk, he ran away for a while.”

“You mean like trans?” Red said. “I guess you are lucky then, because I can’t run away anywhere. I guess I’ll just have to stay here and keep liking you.”

Dary rolled over and wiped her eyes, which showed amazement. “You won’t run away? You don’t think I am horrible?”

Red chuckled. “The best place I lived before I moved here was with a person named Fred. Or Rikki, if she was in the mood or working. I met a lot of trans people at that house. Some transsexuals, some transvestites like Fred. And some who just weren’t sure. But I guess you are sure: transsexual?”

“Yes,” Dary said. “I take pills the doctor gets me so I don’t turn all boyish. They are called blockers.”

“That’s why you are so pretty,” Red said. “You are the prettiest girl in the world.”

Dary blushed, but smiled for the first time that evening. “I’ll be taking another set of pills soon, to make me look more girlish, and to get breasts. Then when I turn 18 I can get my thing removed. Then I will be a real girl.”

“You are a real girl now, to me,” Red said, and hugged the girl. She resisted for a second, and then melted into the hug. “I will be out of jail in three years,” he continued. “I hope you will wait for me.”

“I will,” she sobbed. “It will be so hard. Sun says someone from the house will go to your jail every weekend, if it is close enough to here. I want to go on every trip. And if we don’t, then I will send a letter. I will write even if I go, so you get something to read each week.”

“Then I guess I will have to work extra hard with Cooper in learning to read and write. My handwriting and reading are horrible. The other subjects won’t matter as much – although I do want to spend as much time with Grey as I can. The stuff he teaches me – it just seems to fill holes in my soul, and makes me feel more like a complete person. I hope I get enough from him to last me three years.”

“I know what you mean,” Dary said. “He helped me a lot, both when I dressed like a boy, and then when he found out I really was a girl. Before it was like looking through a dirty window, and now it is so perfectly clear.”

“That’s it exactly. Let’s go back and work on our books. If I only have a week left, I want to get as much done as possible. I want the babies to get our books for gifts this Christmas. You will have to write me and tell me all about Christmas – or better, tell me in a visit.”

“Oh I am sure there will be a visit after Christmas. I will have to give you my gift, won’t I?”

They headed back into the Great Hall, where all the other residents smiled at them, walking close together, holding hands. Dary went to get her books, and then sat next to Red, who sat close enough to Grey to get help if he forgot a part of the legends.

They were working for about an hour until Sun got up, handing one babe to Willow and the other to Nora. She left for 10 minutes, and then returned holding a guitar.

“I found this in the basement,” she said. “The neck was broken, but between Grey and I we fixed it, and it plays pretty true for a cheaper guitar. I used to play when I was in high school and college. I’d like to try a tune from the old days.

She sang:

Listen people to a story
That was written long ago,
'bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folks below.

On the mountain was a treasure
Hidden deep beneath a stone,
And the valley people swore
They'd have it for their very own.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.

There won't be any trumpets blowing,
Come the judgment day,
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came the answer from the kingdom,
With our brothers we will share,
All the riches of the mountain,
All the treasure buried there.

Now the valley cried with anger,
Mount your horses, draw your swords
And they killed the mountain people,
So they won their just rewards

Now they stood before the treasure
On the mountain dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
Peace on earth, was all it said.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat and friend,
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.

There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day,
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.

(Original Caste)

For nearly a minute there was total silence in the hall as the final notes drifted away. Then a spontaneous applause broke out, lasting another two minutes. As it drifted away, Dary spoke excitedly: “Can you teach me to play, Sun? That was beautiful.”

“Me too,” said Red. “I don’t have long here, I guess. But if you could at least teach me the basics, maybe I could teach myself in jail. I’d have to get a guitar, I guess.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Grey said. “There was another guitar and quite a few other old instruments in the basement where we found that one. We should be able to fix up another one for you. It won’t look pretty, but if the sound is right that is all that counts. In fact, in some of the places you might wind up a pretty instrument would be stolen or broken. A battered looking one probably won’t draw attention.”

“Those instruments are from the 80s,” Daisy explained. “As well as my dance school, Harry, a local musician gave lessons down there. When he died, I guess I inherited all the instruments. There should be some good ones down there along with the broken ones that Harry was hoping to fix. You folks are welcome to any that you can find that work, or that can be made to work.”

“Now it is time for you two youngsters to go to bed,” Sun said. “And no more tears. You never gain anything by crying about the future.”

------

Over the next few days the routine continued. Cooper agreed to concentrate on reading and writing until Wednesday, and one exercise that they both loved was writing letters to each other. Cooper didn’t mark these, saying that they were private, and by the end of the week they had evolved into early love letters. The amount of effort Red put into writing these was immense, since they were for Dary, and she treasured them, saving each one into her bottom dresser drawer.

Grey went out with Red as well, sometimes singly and sometimes with Dary. Red had become a favorite of the horses, particularly Pierre, who he often rode bareback, realizing that they memories of racing over the snowing Grove were things that would help him maintain his sanity over the next three years.

He also worked a bit with George, but the old man said that he would not gain much skill on only a week. Instead he told the boy some exercises that would allow him to build up his body over the next few years. He said that he hoped that he would be around to continue the apprenticeship in three years. This left Red perplexed. He hadn’t realized that some of the older people in the house might not be here when he returned: Daisy, Lois or George. And even some of the younger ones may be gone, either through accidents or just moving on.

He talked about it to Sun and Grey while working on the old bus: one of the key projects at the house at the time. Both of them claimed that they would still be there. Sun was so big and apparently indestructible that Red relaxed. As for Grey, even though he was only a few years older, Red considered him an elder, and just knew that he would survive to grow into that role.

Finally, on the final Tuesday night Red went around and said goodbye to every member of the household, even speaking seriously to the babies, who answered with a giggle (Mimihah) and a fart (Flint). The elder members of the household took his words seriously, and more than a few tears were shed. It was all too much for Dary, who ran off to her room halfway through. Red finished up and then went after her.

Sun found them a half hour later. Dary was under the covers, and Red on top, but they were laying together, holding each other closely and cooing softly to each other. Sun gave them a 10 minute warning, and then 15 minutes came back to usher Red to his room.

The next morning was the court sentencing.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

This ends Red’s story arc. I have a few more arcs that could be added to the story if there is demand. Readership has dropped off. Let me know if you want more: Dawn.

Tanya Keith took a seat at the Madoc temporary courtroom in the visitor’s gallery. It was nearly a half hour before the court time, and Tanya’a ride in, an inspector of the Peterborough police department, had disappeared into the lawyer’s area. Tanya, a short, pretty blonde, looked around and noticed one seat with an extremely tall woman sitting in it. Since Tanya was still a bit upset after the robbery ten weeks ago, she decided to sit next to the big woman for safety. This would be the first time she met the man who robbed her, and she was still afraid, even with so many police around.

“Have you been here before?” Tanya asked.

“Two weeks ago,” said Sun. “Why are you here?”

“A victim’s statement,” Tanya said as she saw the inspector appear.

“Oh, good,” the officer said. “You are with friends. I just got a call that there has been another robbery in the city, and I need to head back as soon as possible to investigate it. Can you get a ride with your friend, or do I need to wait until you finish your statement?”

“We will make sure she gets home safely,” Sun said before the girl could speak.

Seconds later the call to “all rise” was made, and the judge took the bench and Red stood while the charges against him were repeated.

“That’s not him,” Tanya whispered to Sun. “It was a much bigger black man who robbed me.” Sun just shushed her.

The court clerk told the judge: “I would like to go out of order on the victim’s statements, as the police inspector has to rush back to Peterborough. I call Inspector Winslow Hunt to give a statement.”

“Thank you,” the inspector said, taking the stand. “The city of Peterborough has been besieged by 18 robberies of variety stores over the past 12 months, including one more earlier today. It is important that the judicial system back up the police by showing that this cannot continue without punishment. We plead for a severe sentence in this case.”

“Do you have any questions, Mr. Jenson?” The judge asked. “Mr. Tomis? Thank you inspector. You may head back to your duties.”

The next step, back to normal order, was the recommendations for sentence by the attorneys. “Mr. Jensen, would you make a recommendation?” the clerk asked.

“I have witnessed the accused for the past two weeks, nearly three, and have seen a great deal of remorse on his part. He pled guilty saving the expense of a trial where he should have been tried as a juvenile at least. He also surrendered to the OPP and wishes to put this abnormal action behind him. He had not eaten for three days prior to the robbery, and is now upset at having caused the clerk anxiety. We will ask for a five-year suspended sentence, which is in line with some of the other sentences given in the past year in cases where an accused did not forego trial.”

“I cannot provide a suspended sentence, Mr. Jenson,” the judge said.

“In that case we will recommend a sentence of three years or less in a minimum security institution with some record of rehabilitation, your honor,” John sat down.

“Mr. Tomis,” the court clerk asked, and the crown attorney stood.

“We cannot agree to a minimal sentence,” the crown said. “There have been far too many robberies in Peterborough, and if this trial had been held there, the courtroom would be full of people screaming for harsh penalties. We ask for a five-year term, in at least a medium security institution.”

“Thank you Mr. Tomis,” the judge said. “Please note that this is not a trial, since the accused plead guilty. Had a trial occurred, the venue would have been Peterborough. I understand there is one more impact statement before I pronounce sentence. Please come forward my dear,” she said as Tanya stood.

When in front of the judge, Tanya dropped a bombshell. “That is not the man who robbed me,” she said. “That is just a boy. It was a big black man who held the knife!”

“What do you say to that,” the judge asked Red. “You pled guilty to this crime. Why would you do that?”

“Because it was me,” Red said. “I had a hoodie on, pulled close about my face, and I don’t think she saw anything except the knife. I used a black accent, thinking it would confuse the police. And I think I stood on a rail in front of the counter, which would have made me seem taller.”

“In that case, we will continue,” the judge said. “Go ahead with your statement, dear.”

Tanya read a statement written on Peterborough police stationery. “I am Tanya Keith, and on February 18, I was the sole clerk at my variety store. I was a student in the Social Service Worker program at Fleming College, in the second of four terms. After the robbery, I was unable to work again, nor to continue my courses. I spent most of the next month huddled in my apartment. I read my course books, after a week or two, but I couldn’t bear to leave my apartment, other than for food at the little shop down the street. My education is in shambles, and my student loans are nearly gone. I am nearly two months behind in my rent and won’t be able to get any more OSAP (Ontario Student Awards Program) money since I failed out this term. I don’t know what I will do.”

“We will give you money,” Red shouted out.

The judge rapped her small travelling gavel: “Any more outbursts like that will not be tolerated, young man. Now can someone explain what you mean?”

“I can, if it please the court,” John said. “Our property, Ridge House, was classed as a holding institution, as I understand. We were led to believe that a payment of several thousand dollars are due us for looking after Red … Mr. Eagleclaw, during the past two weeks during his bail period. Those who run the house decided that the entire amount would be saved until Red is released at the end of his sentence, to help him get on his feet. But he insisted that the entire amount be made available to Miss Keith to allow her to get herself back into her education. I will discuss this with her after court.”

“That is quite noble,” the judge said. “But now it is my turn. You may sit down, Miss Keith.” The girl went down and sat back beside Sun, who gave her a huge hug that continued into the judge’s address.

“I have given this case more thought than most sentencings get,” she started. “I thought I had my mind made up on Wednesday, but the following day I was at the arraignment for a man who had been a native boy about Mr. Ravenclaw’s age the first time he appeared before me. I had sentenced him to three months in a juvenile institution. He is now 25, and was arrested for dealing hard drugs in Peterborough. Being put into the system at 16 had not rehabilitated him in any way, and that made my idea of sentencing Mr. Ravenclaw to a juvenile institution less attractive.”

“Then yesterday I had a visit from a woman from CSC in Kingston. Apparently she had been sent to your property two weeks earlier just to see if Mr. Ravenclaw was present, and obeying the terms of his bail. Instead she went further and wrote up a full report qualifying the property as a Class E penal institution. She managed to get it approved by her deputy minister on Monday, probably a record for the workings of CSC. She then spent all of yesterday afternoon convincing me that this institution was a miracle place.”

“Apparently there are many First Nations members on the property, and they have provided Mr. Ravenclaw with extensive and valuable mentoring. There is a family atmosphere at the place, and two infants live there, including a third on the way. There are horses there, and it is well known that working with animals helps in rehabilitation of young men. There is also a lumber mill, machine shop, and blacksmith’s shop there, so the boy will probably learn one or more valuable trades. There is even a school there, run by a resident minister. Education would provided in juvenile institutions, but not in the more severe locations recommended by the crown. And I don’t know of any other school where the student pupil ratio is 2:1.”

“Therefore I sentence Fredrick Ravenclaw to a term on three years in the custody of Ridge House. Parole will not be allowed until after 15 months.”

“Thank you Mrs. Judge,” Red blurted out. “I promise you I will never be back here again.”

“I am counting on that,” the judge said as she rose and left the courtroom. The crown attorney slammed a book shut and then followed her, clearly irate.

John led Red off to get his papers dealt with. A heavily pregnant Cindy Smith and another O.P.P. officer would take Red to the house in their squad car.

Sun sat with Tanya until Red had left, and then John joined them as the three got into Sun’s pickup for a ride to Peterborough. Hawk drove the LTD back to the house.

At the house Dary heard the cars pull into the drive, but acted listlessly, as she had the entire morning as she tended the babies. Daisy peeked out the window and then went to the Great Hall. “I’ll watch the babies, Dary” she said. “I think you are needed outside.”

She peeked out the window, and saw Cindy and another male officer with – Red. He heard her whoop from inside the house, and started towards it. The male officer put a hand on his shoulder, restraining him. “I can look after it from here, Bob,” Cindy told the other officer. “But please take off those cuffs. He is going to need his arms in a second.”

Dary ran down the five steps, only hitting two and embraced the young boy. “You’re back. I thought they were going to take you to jail.” Then she froze up with a sad face. “Or is this just a visit along the way?”

“No, this is my jail,” Red said. “I had the nicest judge, and Ms. Volders from a week ago got this place graded so it could be my jail.”

The pair walked off together, confusing the male officer. The normal process was that they accompany the prisoner to his cell, or a reception area within the jail. Cindy laughed. “Don’t worry. She is one of the guards here. He is safe.”

--------

At the same time as the O.P.P. were escorting Red to the house, Sun and John were taking Tanya home. On the way she was telling John about her financial problems.

“Where do you pay your rent?” the lawyer asked,

“The rental office is near the college,” Tanya said giving the address.

“Take us there, Sun,” John asked.

At the rental office, John and Tanya went in to pay the rent arrears.

“You owe $1630: $800 twice and $30 for a bounced check,” the clerk said. “There is an eviction notice for next Friday. Please be out of the unit by 5 p.m.”

“Do you mean that paying the arrears does not clear the eviction notice?” John asked.

“I don’t think so. Only the agent can cancel the notice.”

“Okay. Here is a check for $2430. That is the arrears and three months rent. Therefore you cannot evict her until after next month is over. And not even then, since there will be no arrears. If your agent fails to cancel the notice, then your company will be sued. Here is my card.”

The girl clipped the card and the check to some paperwork, and John and Tanya left, with the girl laughing. “It is cool knowing a lawyer. You are pretty good. Now what?”

To Fleming, your college: “We are going to see what we can do about getting your schooling caught up.

At the college the three went to the office of the dean for the School of Justice and Community Development, where they were able to get an appointment immediately when they said they were from out-of-town.

John outlined the problems Tanya had gone through, and the dean was helpful. She called in the program coordinator for Social Service Worker, who recognized Tanya.

“I only have a minute,” the coordinator said. “I have to monitor the exam for Prevention and Health Promotion with Ms. Lecarre.”

Tanya perked up. “That is the one course that I home studied the most on. Ms. Lecarre mostly taught from the book, so I might be able to pass that one.”

“Can she write the exam?” John asked the dean.

“She has not officially dropped out of the program, so there is no reason why not,” the dean said.

“Come along, Tanya,” the coordinator said. “This exam usually takes a bit over an hour. Nice to meet the rest of you.”

“Now, about the other courses. I see that the course load for this term was eight courses with 21 hours,” John said, looking at the college website on his iPad. If Tanya manages a pass in the exam she is writing, that will leave seven courses and 18 hours left. Will she be able to take those in term three?”

Unfortunately no,” the dean said. The courses are only offered in the January term, not September. And the fourth term of this program is a Field Placement, so she would not be able to that and take classes at the same time.

“Is there a summer term?” John asked.

“Sort of,” the dean said, “we usually get two or three students per term who fail one or more courses. We often provide an online or semi-online option for those students, so we can retain them in the program for the next year. We could put Tanya into any of those. The only course that we know isn’t being offered this summer is the one she is currently writing her exam for. Ms. Lecarre and her husband are taking a sailing trip around the Great Lakes over the summer.”

“What about the others: are they offering online courses?”

“We don’t arrange that until the exams are written and marked,” the dean said. “You are welcome to go to the professors and check their intentions.”

“Are the professors paid extra for the summer classes?” John asked.

“Yes, they get $40 per student,” the dean said.

“We would like to offer $1800 to the college so that you can pay an extra $100 for any professor who accommodates Tanya with a summer course. This might encourage any who wouldn’t do it for only $40,” John said. “I assume it would work best if we paid the college rather than directly to the teachers.”

“Oh definitely,” the Dean said. “I can imagine the accusations of bribery if a student was paying a teacher.”

“Oh, and give me an application so that Tanya can do her field placement at our facility,” John added. “We are a correctional institution, and we also provide home care support for the elderly in nearby communities.”

Sun and John went around the campus, visiting the professors of the courses that Tanya had missed. The girl had been a top student, and was well liked by all the teachers. As a result all professors agreed to offer the summer program for her. Of the seven courses three were totally online, while the other four required one day a week at the campus as a lab session. John pressed those professors to offer the on-site meetings on Wednesdays.

Back at the Dean’s office, a smiling Tanya appeared after her exam. “I think I aced it,” she said with a smile. Shortly thereafter the program coordinator appeared. “I checked the answer key and your paper, and you got most of the answers right,” she told the girl. “I can’t give you your official mark, but it will definitely be more than a pass.”

“And I think we have arranged for you to attend summer classes online,” John said. “Hopefully you will only have to come to the college once or twice a week for labs. If it turns out that the labs are on the same day, it means we wasted the rent on your apartment.”

“How?” Tanya asked.

“Sun and I want to kidnap you, and take you to the House at Actinolite. We hope to offer you a Field Placement there after you finish term three,” John said. “You can drive into Peterborough one day a week. If the labs are over several days, then you will use your apartment during the week, and just come to the house on weekends. And of course you will have a busy week on campus in the fall, so you need the apartment then.”

“You will need to apply to host a field placement,” the coordinator said. “If you qualify with meaningful work for the student, then I will approve it.”

“I have the papers from the Dean,” John said. Ridge House is a class E penal institution and Tanya would support the First Nations inmates. Since there are only a few at the house, she will also support the elderly outreach program that one of our members provides.”

“Penal, indigenous and elderly outreach,” the coordinator said. “These are three of the key areas the program aims for. Congratulations Tanya. It looks like you will have the prize placement next year.”

They drove back to Tanya’s apartment and picked up her schoolbooks and computer, and headed east to the house where Tanya was assigned a room on the second floor. She met all the members of the household in the evening, and sat down to dinner with them.

“Are you looking for work?” Willow asked. “I need someone to make bread in the mornings, and help out with the busses at the store and gas station you probably saw just before you pulled in here. It is the Greyhound stop for the trips to Ottawa, and there are four a day, two each way. You would get five hours at minimum wage.”

“She doesn’t need money,” Red said from the end of the table. “She gets money from my fees: as much as she needs.”

“Don’t worry Red,” John said. “We spent a pile of your money on her today, paying her rent and summer tuition. Besides, in a week or so she will be doing 18 hours of work a week on her computer. Maybe she can do bread, but probably not the store.”

“Well, what about for the next week until classes start?” Willow persisted. “It will give you something to do, and then you will be available as an emergency temp worker if we need you for a day or two some weeks.”

“She will also be going out with Dan on his calls, I hope,” John said. He explained about the field placement. “That would be perfect,” Dan said. “There are over 30 seniors on my waiting list. If you could work a full day and help 30 a day it would help. It would ease my conscience not to have so many without a weekly visit. I’ll take you out on my morning rounds this week. I think we can work around the busses at the store.”

“Wow, this all sounds so amazing,” Tanya said.

“You know, it is easy to start an elderly outreach program,” Dan said. “But it will be a lot harder to end it after the placement ends. The seniors get used to their visits. I know I hear about it if I miss a week.”

“Perhaps we can make it permanent,” Grey said. “John can look into funding, and perhaps we can give Tanya a job after school ends. Even if we don’t get funding for it, the House could pay her: at least until Red’s term is up and we stop getting the allocations from that.”

“A job?” Tanya said. “That is so great.”

“Come on,” Dary said. “Red can look after the dishes alone tonight. Let me take you to your room. Grey and I got it ready once John called from Peterborough. I hope you like it.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Thanks for all the kudos and comments for 29. I will keep this story going for another 10 chapters or so. I have started on a new one that I may launch before this finishes: Dawn

Chapter 30 –Sugar and Guitars

Tanya woke to the smells of bacon frying and people talking in the kitchen below her room. It was the first time in weeks that she had not had any nightmares about the robbery, so she dressed in some of the things she brought from her apartment and headed downstairs. Many of the people of the house were eating breakfast.

“Ah sweetheart, the newest member of my little family,” Daisy said, coming over to hug the girl. “Did you sleep well?” It was hard not to fall in love with the little senior citizen who was always so friendly and helpful: especially not when she was filling a plate with scrambled eggs and bacon.

“These eggs are amazing,” Tanya said as she ate. Dary beamed with pride.

“We have our own chickens in the stable,” she said. “I gather them up every morning, so these are as fresh as can be. Dan is getting me a new batch of chicks in next week, so we will be able to see them.”

“What other animals are there on the farm?” Tanya asked.

“Just horses: four and a pony. And a dog called Rabbit. You will see them later,” Dary said. “Red is out hitching the horses up to the wagon. We are taking them back to the camp today. It is the end of the Maple syrup season and we have to gather up the pails. It should have been done sooner, but with court cases and such we have just left the pails on the tree.”

Soon after they heard the boy come to the rear of the house with the wagon. “Whoa, those are big horses,” Tanya said. She really didn’t want to sit next to Red, but didn’t have to worry, as Dary jumped up on the wagon first and nestled in beside him. Tanya used the same steps as Dary to climb up the wagon, and was glad she had worn jeans.

“We have 50 sugar maples in the grove, and we were able to tap 47 of them this year,” Dary said. “We also put pails on another 16 trees in the bush proper to fill out the crop. Apparently the house can earn almost $10000 a year from the trees. I like the fact that there is good syrup for the Sunday pancakes.”

“Hawk says that they got over a gallon of syrup per tree this year,” Red said. “That means we have almost 60 gallons to bottle up later, for Frank’s store this year. The little bottles are on order, and we have enough labels left from last year to glue on. The whole house will work on it, and it will take a couple days.”

They were soon in the Grove and Red parked the horses in a central location where they could nibble on the spring grass while the three went from tree to tree and pulled the pails and spigots out, tossing them into the backs of the wagon. Then they went to the camp, and pulled up the giant kettles the sap had boiled in. After that they drove through the bush proper and tried to spot the 16 trees that were tapped. The first 13 were easy, but they had to look hard to find the other three. With all that done they headed back to the house.

“I like it here,” Tanya said. “I lived in the city all my life. Peterborough is not big like Toronto, but it is way different from here. This seems so quiet and peaceful. You can hear the birds and even see animals like rabbits and such. I really like it. In the city the only animals you hear are dogs barking.”

“Wait ‘til Grey brings you out to the river,” Dary said. “It is just the other side of the grove. He makes you come before sun up, like 5 a.m. and you can see all the animals come to the river to drink for the day.”

“Five a.m.?” Tanya sputtered. “That is crazy time. Why so early?”

“Because that is when the animals are out: sunup. It is later in winter, but there are not so many animals. A lot hibernate during winter. If you are lucky he will take you out for an overnight trip. You spend the night in a wigwam and he will teach you how to build a fire. Then it is only a few minutes to get to the river.”

“He took me out with snowshoes earlier in the winter,” Red said. “It will be easier in the spring, and warmer in the wigwam. Although deerskin and bearskins are pretty warm.”

Tanya thought for a while. “You mean there are bear out here? Are we safe?”

“Oh sure,” Red said. “I’ve only seen them at the river, and they are more scared of us than we are of them.”

“I’m pretty sure I would be more scared if I saw a bear,” Tanya said. “I mean if they have bearskins, that must mean someone hunts them.”

“Grey says he will take me on a hunt, when Sun says my bow skills are better,” Red said. “I brought a bow today, in case we saw something. We like a fresh buck every month or two.” With that he pulled the horses up and aimed an arrow at a tree about 50 yards away. He shot, and the arrow glanced off the side of the tree. “I need to be able to hit it in the center, so it goes in, and from 100 yards. Sun can shoot 200 yards. And I need to get that arrow or Sun will skin my hide for losing it.”

He handed the reins over to Dary and ran after the arrow. “You really like him, don’t you?” the elder girl asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Dary said. “He’s 15 and I’m only 13, but we really clicked when I came here. How old are you?”

“I just turned 20,” Tanya said. “I don’t have a boyfriend at college.”

“Why not?” Red said as he climbed back into the wagon, arrow in hand. “Are the boys there that stupid? You are super pretty.” As he said it he hugged Dary to show her he was still her boyfriend. “You are too old for me, and I already have the cutest girl in the province, but I can’t believe there are no boys after you.”

“Well, there were 44 students in our class, and only two boys. And it turned out they were both gay,” Tanya said. “A lot of the girls in the class chased the boys from the police foundations course, but I concentrated on my studies. And work.”

“‘Til I screwed that up,” Red said remorsefully.

“Don’t worry, everything is better now,” Tanya said. She was actually getting to like Red. “I practically have a job now, and when I get to class with the girls in September they will be so jealous that I already have a practical lined up.”

“Where do these sap tools go,” Red asked Dary as they neared the house.

“It the old barn next to the stable,” the girl replied. “We got them out of the basement when we first started tapping the trees, but they want to clean that up. Park in front and we’ll help you put them away.”

With three sets of hands the work went quickly, and then Dary and Tanya went into the hen house while Red stowed the wagon under its tarp and then took the horses into the stable to rub them down. By the time they were done, it was nearing lunch.

When the noon meal was underway, Sun told Dary that she needed to tend the babies after lunch, since she hadn’t had them for the morning. The big woman also told Red that he was to work on the bus. Sun had the motor working, and all that was left was to finish the new seats. Grey had come up with a way to make normal seats for four people fold down and make a double bed. Sun wanted one on each side of the bus, and Red was to be the upholsterer.

Tanya stayed with Dary looking after the babies, who were now nearly a year old. As it was a nice spring day, the girls took the babies out onto the porch where they basked in the warm sun, although the air was still cold. Soon Dary heard voices at the back of the house, and went back to check.

Dan, John, and Hawk were in the back yard, wading in soggy grass in the area of the septic tank in their high rubber boots.

“What’s up?” Dary called down from the porch.

“We are just making up some plans for the new septic tank,” John replied. “It was fine when only Daisy, Sun and Grey were living here, but with so many in the house now it is overloaded. If the county health department came out they would … well, I don’t know what they would do. We need a bigger tank, for one thing, and we plan on making the weeping bed a lot longer, with five branches instead of four.”

“Luckily we have the backhoe Sun fixed up,” Hawk said. “I’ll be starting on the digging as soon as it dries up a bit here. I want to teach Red how to run a backhoe: he’ll probably get nearly a month of experience.”

“Right now we are just getting some measurements to figure out how much sand and gravel we will need for the new tank and trenches, and to work out what everything is going to cost. It may stretch our budget to the limit,” John said as he wrote numbers down on a piece of paper.”

“Will this new system get rid of the smell back here?” Dary asked. “It would be nice if we could open the windows on the back kitchen without it smelling like an outhouse.”

“We’ll have it done by Canada Day, and the odor should be gone soon after,” Dan said. “Now is that cute little blonde around? I have to go out on my afternoon rounds, and she wanted to come. Besides, three men on a tape measure is overkill.”

“Tanya is in the front with the babies. I think she is ready to go.”

Dan and Tanya headed off to their calls. Dan introduced her to the patrons of his outreach, and she got along well with both. One was a retired man, who kept calling Tanya ‘cutie’ and the second visit was with an elderly woman, who enjoyed having another woman to talk to while Dan headed out to buy her groceries. They finished the two trips in under an hour each. Dan noted that in a few more weeks he would have to do grass cutting and yard work for them, and the visits would take a little longer.

They got back an hour before the first evening bus would come to the store, so Dan dropped her there, and headed back to the house, where he helped Red and Grey on the upholstery work on the bus. Sun was working on the outside with a sander, roughing up the metal before painting. She was on a ladder (even she was not tall enough to reach the top of the bus) to erase the old ‘School Bus’ markings from the front and back. She also needed to eliminate the warnings on the doors before the bus would be street legal.

After several hours Sun saw Willow and Tanya walking home from the store, and the other boys inside the bus were warned that it was dinnertime. Dary had done most of the meal herself, with some assistance from Dan and Hawk, who had barbecued venison steaks on the grill while she had made several side dishes and a salad.

Over the meal everyone discussed their days, with Tanya excitedly explaining her new jobs, and the trip to the Grove in the morning. The men explained that they had worked out the costs involved in putting in the septic system. The one area they could save in would be in buying a tank. John had found plans for a tank on the Internet and with free lumber from the mill, they could build a form and have it filled with concrete at a lower price than buying a tank. The other large cost would be in having gravel and sand brought in to line the tank and the weeping beds.

«Why would you buy sand and gravel when it is free in the earth?» Miniha asked Grey mentally.

«It is free, but we don’t know of where to dig for it on the property,» Grey replied.

«There are five different sand areas near the house, and three with good gravel,» Miniha said.

“Miniha says that there are sand and gravel on the property,” Grey said. “If Sun lets me have the morning off tomorrow then I will head out with Hawk and the backhoe and see if it is good enough for the job.”

“I hope it is,” John said. “Sand and gravel were a large part of the cost. Now if you could dig up some plastic piping for the weeping beds, we would be laughing.”

As they cleared the table, Tanya confusedly asked Dary: “how did the little baby girl know there was sand on the property, and how did she tell Grey? She is just learning to talk.”

Dary laughed. “The baby is Minihaha, named after Miniha, one of the First Nations people that live in Grey’s head. They talk to Sun as well, and one of them, named Flint also talks to Dan. And I guess there is a forth one: ‘the medicine man’ that helps Grey when he operates.”

“Operates?”

“Yes, he can start singing and then go inside of the bodies of animals or people that have First Nations’ ancestry,” Dary said. “He healed me when I first came here, and Nora, who had cancer when she came.”

“He can go inside of you? That sounds creepy. I don’t want someone inside of me,” Tanya said.

“If you were sick you would,” Dary said. “He can poof away a cold or the flu in about 10 minutes. You don’t look like you are First Nations, with that blonde hair. If you get sick you will have to get Nora to look after you. She is John’s wife, and works most days in the hospital in Tweed.”

In the Great Hall after dinner Sun got out her guitar. She had been giving the kids lessons for the past week, concentrating on Red, who they thought would be going away. So it was Dary who got the first lesson this time. As Sun was showing her how to hold the guitar, and where to put her hands, Red got up and ran to his room, coming back with a rather beat-up guitar that he offered to Tanya.

“Here. This one is old and busted up, but it plays pretty well. You can follow along with Sun,” Red said.

Tanya took the instrument and started to play and sing. She was clearly not a newcomer to music:

He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious

He was a punk
She did ballet
What more can I say

He wanted her
She'd never tell
Secretly she wanted him as well

But all of her friends
Stuck up their nose
They had a problem with his baggy clothes

He was a skater boy
She said see you later boy
He wasn't good enough for her

She had a pretty face
But her head was up in space
She needed to come back down to earth

Five years from now
She sits at home
Feeding the baby she's all alone

She turns on TV
Guess who she sees
Skater boy rockin' up MTV

She calls up her friends
They already know
And they've all got tickets to see his show

She tags along
Stands in the crowd
Looks up at the man that she turned down

He was a skater boy
She said see you later boy
He wasn't good enough for her

Now he's a super star
Slamming on his guitar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?

He was a skater boy
She said see you later boy
He wasn't good enough for her

Now he's a super star
Slamming on his guitar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?

Sorry girl but you missed out
Well tough luck that boy's mine now
We are more than just good friends
This is how the story ends

Too bad that you couldn't see
See the man that boy could be
There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

He's just a boy
And I'm just a girl
Can I make it any more obvious

We are in love
Haven't you heard
How we rock each others world

I'm with the skater boy
I said see you later boy
I'll be back stage after the show

I'll be at the studio
Singing the song we wrote
About a girl you used to know

I'm with the skater boy
I said see you later boy
I'll be back stage after the show

I'll be at the studio
Singing the song we wrote
About a girl you used to know

Avril Ramona Lavigne

“That was awesome,” Dary said, clapping her hands as she held her guitar. “Now we have two teachers. And you know the newer songs. I love Avril: she comes from just down the road in Napanee. I wish she came back there more often.”

I have a guitar back at my apartment. I didn’t think I would need it here. I’ll pick it up the next time I go to Peterborough,” Tanya said.

The two couples sat down, the Dary and Tanya learning Sk8er Boi and Sun and Red working on One Tin Soldier. When the two-hour lesson finally ended, Sun and Tanya performed a small concert for the family to compensate for having made them listen to the beginners plinking away as they learned. The pair found they had quite a collection of songs in common: mainly older songs for the adults. They played the Beatles, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, some Leonard Cohen, and a few newer ones by Justin Bieber, another Ontario boy. The impromptu show ended with Sun doing a Leona Boyd classical solo to round out the largely Canadian performance (other than the three Beatles songs).

That night Tanya went to bed feeling better than she had for years. She felt she had discovered a second family in with wilderness of eastern Ontario.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

The last intermediary chapter. A new arc starts next chapter: Dawn

Chapter 31 – Treasures and SMores

The next day was Friday, and Tanya booted her computer and discovered an email from her college. She had received a mark of 88% on the exam she had taken, so she had one course completed from her winter session. She also noticed the other courses were listed on the computer, which meant she was registered in them. Unfortunately there was no content in the courses: the professors would probably load that next week.

The good news was that there was a schedule listing for her. It turned out that four of her classes had labs, with three scheduled on Wednesday and another on Thursday mornings. So it looked like she would need her apartment in the city for Wednesday nights. A hotel might be a bit cheaper, but she liked the apartment and she would need it for the fall term.

Tanya had woken early, and went down to get breakfast. She saw several of the family in the kitchen, and smelled the wonderful aroma of bread baking. “Breakfast won’t be ready until I get the eggs,” Dary said. “Wanna come?”

Red walked with them to the stables, where he fed and watered the horses while Dary filled her basket. Once done, they headed back to the house where breakfast was served with the farm-fresh eggs. Everyone seemed to know what was going on after, and Dary got the babies. Red was to spend a session with Cooper, the teacher, and Tanya was asked to join them in the little classroom in the basement.

Red was started on his reading practice while Cooper asked Tanya about her courses. “They are on the computer,” she said, “but none of the content is posted yet. I really don’t have to worry about the first seven weeks, before the robbery screwed things up. I guess I will just review the work.”

Cooper was looking over her course outlines. “I think you should plan on working hard right from the start. That way you will be ready when the new stuff hits and can be a top student. I am here to help you whenever you need. I’ll review your papers and help you understand anything you don’t understand from your texts. I took several Sociology courses in university, and I see much of the same material in your outlines.”

“You can scoot off now,” Cooper concluded. “Dary will be upstairs with the babies. She is pretty much caught up on her grade eight classes, and won’t be studying anymore. She will be going to the school in Tweed for exams in June, and next year she will go to Madoc for high school. Red will take his grade nine as home schooling, so in September I will need to find something else to keep me busy.”

In the Great Room Dary was up looking after the twins, and Tanya sat down with her. The babies were at the crawling stage, and Flint seemed soon to walk at almost eight months of age. This made infant care harder, since the girls were often jumping up to pull one of the tots back into the play area. The favorite activity was reading, using both books that Dary and Red had created as well as books that had been bought for the favorite residents of the house.

“What is all that junk in the basement?” Tanya asked about the clutter she had seen while talking to Cooper pushed into one corner of the huge room.

“That is where we keep finding treasures. It was all over down there at first, Sun says, and she and Grey just pushed it around to make some space for the school when I first came here last year,” Dary said.

“Treasures? That sounds like it might be fun to explore down there,” Tanya said.

“We can ask,” Dary said. “I think Red is nearly done on the bus. If we call it cleaning up rather than hunting for treasures, then they might go for it. We can ask Sun when she is feeding the babies at lunch. She might let Red help us. It will help to have some boy muscles involved.”

In the end Grey, Cooper, and John joined in. Sun and Hawk would continue painting the bus. The cleaners had to work quietly while the ladies had their naps, but eventually Lois and Daisy came down to watch, and there was no longer a need to be so quiet.

Red found the first treasure: several broken guitars. There were three in total, all smashed in one way or another. He handed them to Grey, who suggested that all three could be repaired. “In fact, if you can fix all of these, you might gain the skills needed to make a guitar from scratch. Most of the wood in these is maple. There is ebony up here, and we don’t grow that in Canada. But I’m sure we can buy it if we need more.”

“There should be more instruments in there somewhere,” Daisy said. “Horns and violins, I think. There used to be quite a band that practiced down here. They took all the good instruments with them, but any broken ones were left in the pile.”

“I see a horn,” Tanya said, “and look, a sax. Help me pull them out, Red.”

The boy set down his treasure of guitars and pulled out a bugle, a French horn, an alto sax and a clarinet. The horns were all badly dented.

“I bet if you take those out to George, he will teach you how to tap those dents out. I know he did body work on cars for a time, and the skills could be transferrable,” Daisy said.

“What’s this,” Dary said, pulling out an odd contraption. It had a wooden base of 18 by 24 inches, with a pole sticking up one end and a large bulb contraption at the end of the post, with a knob that allowed the bulb to run up and down. A frayed power cord hung down.

“Oh my,” Daisy said with a gasp. “That is Robert’s enlarger. Robert was only 10 when I was born, and he was into photography when he was a teen. He was going to be a professional photographer before he died at 22. There should be more stuff in there.

“I used to do photography, and that is an enlarger,” John confirmed. “There should be a lens that goes in here. You put a negative into this: well, after we replace the broken glass. The knob raises or lowers the head to focus the negative. Then you expose the paper on the base. You need chemicals and trays to process the print.”

“Look, here is a box with stuff in it,” Red said. “And there is a silver suitcase behind it.”

“Those are the trays, and some bottles of chemicals. They will be pretty much expired years ago and worthless. But here is the lens for the enlarger,” John said, looking through the glass at a light. “It looks like it is pretty well intact.”

By then Red had wrested out the metallic suitcase, which was only silver in color, not precious metal.

“That is Robert’s camera case,” Daisy said in a whisper as John opened it.

The lawyer let out a gasp as the case was opened to show a small black camera and several lenses in it. “That’s a Hasselblad. That kit is probably worth over $1000. And what is that file cabinet in the corner? I might be able to use that in my office.”

It took John and Grey together to wrestle the file cabinet out of the corner. It turned out to be full of negatives. Daisy confirmed that the pictures were those Robert had taken, and it was clear that she would love to see negatives made into prints.

“Uncle John, can you teach me how to use this camera?” Dary asked.

“Sure thing, peanut,” he replied. “And I think we will have to think about setting up a darkroom down here too. It looks like Daisy would love to see some of those negatives made into prints.

Other treasures came out of the pile. There was a large collection of clothes in boxes, which Daisy said were props for the shows that her dance students wore in the shows they did. Most were smaller, but would fit Dary, but Tanya found more than a few that would fit her and were retro-chic again.

Then there was an old sewing machine and considerable amounts of material. Daisy agreed to teach Dary how to sew, and Tanya wanted to be included in those sessions as well. About that time Sun came in, and heard the offer, and begged to be included: she found it almost impossible to find clothing that fit her properly.

When all the treasures were removed, the pile in the corner was much smaller. Dinner that evening was a rushed affair cleaning up left-overs, since so much time had been spent in the basement.

In the evening Dary and John worked with the camera, and the girl was soon taking photos of everyone in the family: without film in the camera. John promised to take her to Peterborough where she could get some of the 120 film the camera needed, and also to find out about darkroom supplies.

The next afternoon Grey got Dary and Tanya and handed each of them a loaded backpack. Dary had been through this before, but it was Tanya's first trip to the Grove with Grey. Tanya discovered that her spirit animal was a squirrel, the same as Dary’s. They went to the camp and set up, and then Grey and Dary led the girl to the grove. It was Dary who told which tree was which, and described the bark and tree shape, with Grey only stepping in when she was wrong (seldom) or forgot something.

Grey added information about the buds of each tree, which were just coming out, and described the shape of the leaves. Dary showed Tanya how to make a proper fire, and took her to the spring where Tanya was amazed at the taste of the cold water: she was used to the fluoridated water from the city. The water at the house was pure, but not so cold as the spring water.

They had a campfire to warm up the stew that Grey had prepared the night before. This was uncooked, and thus had to spend more time on the fires, with one girl or the other occasionally poking it with a sharpened stick to see if the vegetables in it were done.

After the meal it was only starting to get dark, so Grey took them into the bush to the east and followed along some deer trails he knew of. They spotted three deer: one doe and her two fawns had nested for the evening, and when the three came silently upon them the momma stood up between them and her fawns. Once the little ones were on their feet, the doe ushered them away from the humans, and ran with them at their speed.

“So cute,” Darla said. “All those little spots. Is it true the spots tell you if the fawn is male or female?”

“No,” Grey said. “You can only tell by looking closely at the space between the rear legs. The myth that the dots on a male are straight is untrue. The spots are camouflage, so any fixed pattern would be less effective. They ran away too quickly for me to be sure, but I think those were both little girls.”

After the walk, which ended in dark, a new fire was set up and Grey told Dary to look in the bottom portion of her backpack. Inside was a package of graham crackers, big marshmallows, and bits of chocolate. “Smores!” she called excitedly from the wigwam. Grey had been picking up twigs along the walk, using his knife to cut them from the green saplings along the way. He had about 10, and showed the girls how you make smores in the bush. Each twig had three small branches at the end, and you could use another twig to weave between the three. This made a small pocket that could hold the two crackers with marshmallow and chocolate between them.

It was not easy to cook them. Just tilting a little let the soft goopy mixture fall into the fire, but seeing the tasty treat burn away in the fire encouraged the girls to learn quickly to have a steady hand. After about three of the treats were cooked the green twigs started to burn, and Grey had to supply another branch. In the end, they ran out of crackers first, with each of the girls cooking about five: enough for a tasty treat at the end of their long hike.

The girls snuggled together in the wigwam under several skins, while Grey sat at the fire for another hour and then went into his wigwam. He woke before dawn. Everyone at the house said that he had an internal alarm clock, but in fact it was Mimiha who would wake him before sunup.

The girls were waked while it was still dark. Dary knew the routine, and made the first dash for the latrine. When she came back and started to dress she told Tanya where she had gone, and the older girl suddenly realized she had a pressing need and darted off.

They each had a drink of water, and filled a cedar canteen with spring water before following Grey to the river as the pre-dawn light started to illuminate their way. They got to the river, which was several feet higher than normal due to the spring runoff. The three sat on a log near the forest and watched the animals come to the water to drink.

At one point Grey pointed, and the girls saw the deer from last night come down to drink. There were other deer at the river, but these were the only group of three. Tanya saw a black bear and her two cubs from a distance. She was surprised at how small the mother was. The girl’s experience prior to this had been TV or the movies, where big grizzlies or polar bears are usually shown.

“I thought bears were bigger,” she whispered to Grey.

“She is a little smaller than normal, but not much,” the man replied softly. “But you don’t want to get between her and her cubs. Those are only a few weeks old. You are lucky: you don’t normally see them out of the den at that age.”

“They are so cute,” Dary said. “Can we take them home with us?”

“You could only do that if you killed the mother? Do you want to do that? I won’t, but I do have my bow back in the camp.”

“No, of course not,” Dary agreed.

“If you did take the little ones: say the mother died in an accident. Could you raise the cubs?” Tanya asked.

“Many times there are cubs who lose a mother,” Grey said. “The cubs usually die in their den waiting for her to return and feed them. If you found them then, and brought them to the house, you could raise them. But they are only little and cute like that for a few months, and then get as big as the mother: bigger if they are male.”

“I know of a gas station that had a bear chained up in the side yard, and people used to stop to get gas there so the kids could see and sometimes feed the bear,” Tanya said.

“That is terrible,” Grey said. “It is like slavery, chaining up a wild animal, even if it is tamed. The creatures of the forest deserve to live free and wild, taking their chances in the open forest.”

When the girls finally tired of watching the wildlife, they walked along the River. A fish jumped one of the rapids. “That is a Brook Trout,” Grey explained. Sun and I ate many of them when we were living in the camp.”

“You lived at the camp?” Dary asked. “She had not heard the full story of how the two came to the area.”

“Not our camp,” Grey said. “We had another camp on the other side of the river. It is on conservation authority land. This side is owned by Daisy. We lived over there for two years. We came to this side and were at the new camp for only a few days when the house caught fire in a lightening storm. We ran to the house and put out the fire, and Daisy didn’t want us to leave. Now we just find more and more people, and the house is nearly full.”

Soon they were walking through the grove, and later approached the house. As they neared Grey noticed a man near the stables talking with George. They went that way, since Dary wanted to check out her hens, and see where Red was.

“Hi neighbor,” the young man said, and then Grey recognized him. It was Paul VanKleek, the youngest son from the dairy across the road. “My term at university just ended and I wanted to come across and see how the horses are making out. And George has been telling me that you have treated him right.”

Grey noticed that the boy was talking to him, but was staring at Tanya. “This is Tanya Keith, Paul. Paul VanKleek, Tanya. They run the dairy farm across the highway from here. Paul and his family donated the horses and the wagon, and George too, I guess.”

“I think I’ve talked to George more in the past half hour than I did in the 18 years he lived at our farm,” Paul said, still looking at Tanya. “He tells me that you folk let him eat at the big house.”

“Yes, and we have a Sunday lunch coming up soon,” Grey said as he watched Sun, Red and Dary headed off to the house. Would you like to join us?” Grey asked the boy.

“Better say yes, boy,” George said. The ladies in the house put on a good meal. “Plus you might be lucky enough to sit next to that pretty girl.”

Both Tanya and Paul turned red, but not enough that they didn’t mind walking side by side to the house. George and Grey walked a bit behind, with the old smith chuckling as he talked about young love.

Paul called his mother from the house and told her he was eating at Ridge House. And Tanya did manage to save him a spot at the table next to her, where the two compared their first years at university (Paul) and the college (Tanya).

Before the end of the meal Paul had offered to let Tanya have dinner at the dairy’s farmhouse, and she agreed. It was clear to everyone in the house that the two were connecting.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

The promised new arc. And I know how much you all like a good cliffhanger: Dawn

Chapter 32 – The Chip Truck, part one

Dary was looking after the babies on the front porch in the late April sun. A vehicle sped into the lane. It was a van with a huge graphic of a clown on the side, with the words Walter’s Chips at the top. The van stopped, and a chubby native girl stepped out, holding a small child.

“Is there a doctor here?” she shouted out to Dary.

“Yes, you are lucky. She is at the hospital most days, but she is here today,” Dary called back. “Is your child ill?” Sun and Red were coming out from the mill at a trot, where the bus had been getting another coat of paint, the final white primer coat.

Just then the chip truck sped out of the lane. Sun got to the woman first and immediately saw that the child was severely ill. “Walter went for gas,” the native girl said. “Can the doctor help Billy? Walter is in an awful hurry to get to London and we can’t wait.”

“I doubt we can cure your son in a few minutes,” Nora said turning to Red “Get Grey: I think he is with the horses.”

Red ran for the stable while Sun and Nora took the child and his mother up to the doctor’s office, where John was working on the computer.

“It looks like pneumonia,” Nora said. “We do have a medicine man who will try to help, but either way we need to keep the boy here for several days.”

“Oh, Walter will be so upset,” the woman said. “My name is Belle Johnson, and Walter and I are contracted to spend a week in southwestern Ontario at a small May Day festival. We will be back here on May 2 or 3.”

“The boy needs treatment,” Nora said. “He might well die if you travel with him. Even taking him to a hospital in London would be dangerous. He could deteriorate as you travel.”

“Can we leave him with you?” Belle said. “Walter saw the gas station just down the road, and went to fill up. He will be back here at any time, wanting us to go.”

“Here is a guardianship form,” John said, pulling a page out of the computer. “It will allow us to treat and care for your child until your return. If you and your husband can sign it we can keep Billy while you are away.”

Belle signed the paper immediately, as a horn beeped from the driveway. It was the chip truck. Belle opened the door and explained that Billy would stay at the House while they were in London. Walter quickly scribbled his name on the form while Sun and John watched, and then thrust the form back at her. She handed it to Sun, and Belle got into the van. Walter pulled out before the door was even shut, kicking up gravel as he headed out onto the road.

Sun and John went into the house. Both of them would sign the guardianship form as witnesses. Inside they found that Grey was already singing his healing song in front of the boy, who looked to be about two years old.

Four hours later, Grey stood up. “He is fine now,” he told Nora. “I left him sleeping and I think I will wait until he wakes up in an hour or so. Could your white medicine have cured him?”

“I think so,” Nora asked. “We would have had to use antibiotics, and it would have taken four days, not four hours. I saw the mother was First Nations, so I assumed you should try your methods first.”

“He is only half native,” John said. “I got a good look at the father, and he is a tall white man. Looked a little rough, actually.”

“Well, it was enough,” Grey said as he took another long draught of the spring water that Sun had brought while he was inside the boy, curing him. “I think I am getting better at this. In the earlier days a four-hour treatment would have left me completely wiped out. I’m tired, and don’t think I could heal a mouse right now, but at least it doesn’t make me need to go to bed for a week.”

Shortly after, the boy woke and started to cry. Nora picked him up, but he was still agitated. Finally Grey took him into his arms and the boy immediately calmed down and stopped his tears.

“Looks like you have a new friend,” Nora joked. After a few minutes Grey put the boy down, but Billy was shy with everyone but Grey. He seemed to insist on holding one of Grey’s legs when the older man moved. Eventually Billy was in Grey’s arms as he was carried out into the Great Hall, where Dary was looking after the babies, who captured Billy’s attention. Grey sat down on the sofa next to Daisy, and slowly the boy made friends with the older woman, eventually agreeing to move to her lap from Grey’s. A few minutes later he slid down to the floor and walked over to get a closer look at the babies.

Flint was unable to walk on his own yet, but he managed to pull himself up onto Billy and hang off the older child, and the two walked across the room in an infantile three-legged race that made everyone in the room smile. Dary quickly made friends with Billy by reading a book to him.

But when Grey stood and went to the kitchen to start on lunch, Billy shot after him like a bullet. Lunch that day was soup and sandwiches, and when Grey sat down at his normal spot he soon found someone scaling up his leg and sitting on his lap. Grey didn’t mind: He rather liked the little boy. He spooned a few spoons of soup into the lad, and then cut an egg salad sandwich into bite-sized pieces, which the boy devoured.

“He seems hungry,” Nora noted as she watched Grey feeding the boy, cautioning against bites too large several times.

“I wonder if he wants some banana puree,” Sun said, and she had Dary slid a bowl of the food the babies were eating over to Grey. Sun was starting to wean her charges. She didn’t have enough milk for the two as they grew into toddlers. Both were eating a little solid food now, and Flint seemed to enjoy cow milk. Minihaha preferred her mother’s milk, and Sun was glad to provide as much as possible.

Billy tried the banana, and eagerly ate it. He also drank milk from a glass that Grey slowly tipped so he could drink without spilling.

“You look good doing that,” Dan said. “I just hope I can do as well when I have to get into it.” Cindy was still a few months away from giving birth so Dan and her, and grandma Lois, were getting anxious.

“Yeah,” Grey said. “I really like the little fellow. It’s a pity he will only be with us for a week.

---------------

“As Walter and Belle pulled out from the house, and sped past the store, he said: “They have really good pie in there. I had a slice of blueberry.”

“I like pie,” Belle whined.

“You don’t need pie,” Walter snapped. “You are fat enough, aren’t you?”

The girl couldn’t argue. She had been thin once, when she was last in high school in Grade 10. Then she had run away with the young man who had bought a chip truck with the inheritance he got when his father died. It was a small inheritance, but provided the down payment on the fully equipped van. He had been stationed on a road in the north for a few years, and did a good business, hiring girls from the local reservation to man the truck.

Then a new highway went in, and his business dried up as the traffic did. At about the same time his latest employee got pregnant, and in what Walter now considered temporary insanity, he married the girl. There was one good thing though. Once they were married, he didn’t have to pay her a salary. That was fine until she got too big to work well in the van, and he again had to hire a helper. That girl lasted until five months after Billy was born, when Walter insisted that Belle could take over again.

Billy grew up hanging from a jumping gym in the corner of the van. As business dropped lower and lower, they stopped using a motel, and Walter and Belle would sleep on a foam pad on the floor of the van. Billy slept in a corner, but was always there. Thus Walter was happy that the boy was staying at the doctor. Perhaps he would be able to get laid again.

The boy was more of a problem to Walter than he was worth. First it had been the constant expense of buying diapers. And while that point had passed the kid was constantly outgrowing his clothes and Belle would insist he needed more. She had been talking about another shopping trip before the kid got sick.

They arrived in London just after midnight. It had been a quiet drive, with Belle worried about her son, and Walter worried about the business. He was four months behind in payments on the van, almost $10,000, and was strapped for supplies. He had enough potatoes and oil to last this week, but would have to restock soon … with money he didn’t have. One good thing is that the repo men he assumed were after the van thought it was still in the Ottawa area when it was actually going to be far away in London.

He had a contract for one week at the fair, and hoped to find a permanent location in the area. He hoped to locate something for $1000 a month or less, with ample parking and a good tourist route where people would see his van. The carnival booth had been arranged thanks to a high school friend of his that was involved with Rotary in this area. The friend said that the site would cost $500, but would provide him a good location. So it was to his surprise to find another chip truck less than 40 yards away when he stopped to set up.

To many people a chip truck looks like a ticket to make money. You open the window and people start throwing cash at you. But in fact it is a hard business. In Walters’ case he had the payments on the van to look after, plus the site fees. Then there was the cost of potatoes (cheap) and the cost of oil (expensive). Labor was another cost that Walter didn’t need to worry about, since Belle and he would do all the work. Walter walked over to the other van, and noted that the prices were lower: he would have to cut his to match. And even then many people would go to a truck they knew from the past.

He wandered back to his truck in a foul mood. He pretty much raped his young wife, telling her she wouldn’t be allowed to use the phone in the morning if she didn’t provide her services. She desperately wanted to call and see how her son was, so she reluctantly let him have his way, then rolled over to sleep as far from him as possible on the foam.

In the morning Walter was up first, and kept control of the phone. He was hoping to find a location to permanently station the van for the summer, preferably along the tourist routes near Lake Huron. As soon as 9 a.m. hit he phoned every village and municipality office along the way to see if they had chip wagon licenses. There were none: those that existed were booked, and many did not allow mobile trucks because the permanent restaurants would protest unfair competition.

Belle finally got to use the phone at 11, and her call to the House was answered by Dary. She called Grey, who was trying to find some better clothes for the boy: the clothes he came in were far too small.

“Grey Wolf speaking,” Grey said.

“It is Belle Johnson. I left my boy there yesterday evening.”

“Billy? He is fine now. In fact he is right here now. Would you like to speak to him?” Grey said. “Billy, do you want to talk to your Mommy?”

Billy was on Grey’s lap in a second, holding the phone. “Say hello to Mommy,” Grey prompted.

“Hi mommy,” the boy said. The girl’s heart leaped as she heard him, sounding completely healthy.

“Are you okay, darling boy?” Belle said. “Are they treating you well?”

“Gway fix me,” the boy said. “Him make all the booboos go ‘way. Me like Gway.”

“And Gway likes Billy,” Grey said into the phone.

Belle spoke with her son for a few minutes longer. By then Walter was standing next to her, pointing at his wrist in the universal sign to get off the phone. Reluctantly, she did, promising her son that she would see him in a few days.

-----------

Back at the House, Grey just gave up and took Billy out in his old clothes, asking Sun if he could borrow the LTD, which had car seats for the babies in the back. He was able to adjust one to fit Billy, and the two headed off to Tweed, where the little clothing store had a limited arrangement of children’s clothes. Grey bought the boy jeans, socks, underwear, three cheap t-shirts and a pair of sneakers. The clothes were a bit big if anything: the clerk at the store said he would grow into them.

Then, after a stop in the bakery for cookies, they headed home to put on the new clothes.

At lunch that day Willow had big news: Frank at the store was naming her manager. Wendy the original waitress had seniority, but Willow had more of a managerial bent. Frank and his wife had not taken a day off since opening the store eight years earlier and realized that with Willow in the store, they could leave for a few days. They hoped to take a long-weekend trip to Montreal a week or two before the May 24 weekend, when traffic on the highway (and thus the store) would pick up for summer.

So they named Willow manager, and told her to hire a few more people to work the store when they were gone. A minimum of four people was ideal when the busses came in. Tanya said she would help when she could, but she couldn’t work on Wednesday or Thursday when she was in school in Peterborough. Dary volunteered, but Willow decided that her daughter was too young.

Hawk came up with the most valuable suggestion. His sister Feather was not planning to go to college, and was nearly finished high school. She, and perhaps a friend, could come up and interview with Willow, who Frank had delegated the hiring process to.

Cooper noted that the girls would be still in school until mid-June, and suggested that he could set up a home study for them, since most of their classes would be preparing for exams.

----------

Walter was pissed. First of all the chip truck across the way was getting all the business. They had been in the area for years, and people liked their product. They would have a lineup of five or six people before anyone came over to Walter’s truck. Sales had been miserable for the first three days of the carnival: and then the rains came. It poured on Thursday and Friday, and the sales at the truck were a pittance. Then Saturday was spotty with rain off and on, which cut the crowds at the carnival in half, or more.

Sunday had started with rain, which ended about 10, but that was enough to kill the crowds for the day. Walter had been increasingly quiet all week, and now was hardly speaking to Belle. He announced that they were closing early just after lunch: most of the rides were also being dismantled. He went around to turn up the heat on all three fryers.

Belle noticed that all the fryers were at max heat, and starting to smoke, so she turned them down, as was normal for closing up. Ideally they wanted the fat to solidify before they drove away, and she was anxious to get back to Actinolite to see her son.

Walter slapped her wrists when she was changing the third fryer. “What are you doing, woman?” he snapped. “I turned those up, and you should leave them be. I want to burn off all the gunk in the oil.”

“I was hoping we would leave quickly,” Belle said. “I want to see Billy tonight.”

“Forget that,” Walter sneered. “I want to cruise the lakefront highway and see if there is a better, cheaper spot for the truck. We didn’t make enough to get new oil, so we have to use what we have. Billy can wait for another day or two. You said he was okay.”

While he was talking, Walter turned the heat back on, and the oil was smoking badly again. Then Walter grabbed Belle and held her close. For a moment she resisted, and then nestled into the man who she had loved. And then Walter spit his lit cigarette into the oil of the nearest fryer.

------------

“That’s just horrible,” Lois said as she and Daisy were watching the news from Peterborough, the nearest station.

“What is that?” John asked: he had been reading.

“There was a terrible fire in London,” Lois said. “It showed a someone coming out of a chip truck, all on fire. They shouldn’t put things like that on TV.

John jumped to attention, and dashed off to his computer in the office, firing it up. He had recently found a new site on the Internet called YouTube, and he booted it. A quick search found the video he was looking for: Chip Truck Fire in London, Canada.

One quick view of the two-minute video caused him to call in Sun and Grey.

“Watch this,” he told the two. “The first few seconds of the video showed some men taking down a Ferris wheel. Then there was an explosion, and the camera turned 180 degrees to show a chip truck ablaze. Then a person came out the door, clothes completely in flames like a human torch. A man from the Ferris wheel reacted immediately, grabbing a blanket and jumping on the burning person, quickly putting out the flames. Not a minute later EMT crews were present: they must have been stationed at the carnival.”

“Can you back it up?” Grey asked. “Just before the person comes out.” John fiddled, and got the video back to where Grey wanted and froze it. All three looked in horror as they saw the clown face on the side of the truck with the words Walter’s Chips at the top. It was Billy’s parents.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

More on this arc. Some of the commenters to the last chapter were pretty close to what I planned: Dawn

Chapter 33 – The Chip Truck (part two)

John reacted first to the sight of the burning chip truck on the video, racing to the phone to call London Police for more information. The others watched as he spoke.

“Hello, I would like to get more information about the chip truck fire today at the carnival. Yes, I’ll hold.”

“This is John Jenson. I think I may have some information on the chip truck fire. I am the guardian of the son of the people who were in the fire. What is the condition of the couple?”

“One deceased, one at the London University Hospital burn unit?”

“The deceased will be Walter Johnson. The wife is Belle.”

“They were of no fixed address: they travelled around in their truck, occasionally staying in motels.”

“Thank you, you have been most helpful.”

“First call done,” John told the others. I will need to call the hospital to see about Belle’s condition. I assume we will go to her?”

“Definitely,” Grey said. “Who will go? I need to be able to heal her, if I can. I’d like Sun with me. Can you leave the babies?”

“Yes,” the tall woman said. “They are starting to wean: this will just rush things a bit. Dary can look after them, and Billy. I’ll probably dry up without either of them feeding, but this is more important. We need to gas up the new bus. It is perfect for taking so many to London and bringing back a patient.”

“Let’s go and fill up,” Willow said. “I can turn on the pumps for you if Frank is not still there.” The two left.

“I’ll go talk to Dary,” Grey said. “She can look after the babies. What about Billy? Do we take him?”

“No,” Daisy said. She seldom used her power as matriarch of the house, but his time she was insistent. She did not want the boy going to the hospital where his mother was. He would only be told that Belle had a ‘big booboo” and that Grey was gone to help her.

Grey returned to hear the last part of John’s next phone call.

“I am a lawyer, ma’am. I suspect I understand the Freedom of Information Laws better than you. As the guardian of the woman’s son, I am ipso facto the next of kin to your patient, and am entitled to information on her condition. Can you tell me this, or do I need to speak to your supervisor?”

“Thank you ma’am. If you could let them know that we are coming, and should be there in five hours or less. Her doctor will travel with us.”

He hung up the phone. “Her condition is critical and she is in the ICU of the burn unit. Apparently they aren’t sure she will last the night. We need to leave right now.”

Grey, John, Nora and Hawk walked out towards the store, rather than waiting for the bus to return. It only had minimal fuel in it, so it took a fair time to fill the big gas tanks on it. Sun was just finishing up when they got there and everyone filed into the bus. Willow would return to the house after locking up the store. There was more than enough money on Grey’s account to pay for the gas.

Hawk drove, with Sun standing beside him at the front, listening to make sure the engine sounded right. The others sat in the back, although Grey first converted the seats into a bed on the left side, so that he could treat Belle as soon as she was released from the hospital.

“This is actually quite nice,” Nora said as she sat in one of the big seats at the front. John sat next to her and Grey took the window seat behind her. Sun returned once she was certain the engine was working perfectly, and sat next to him, with her long legs sprawled out into the aisle.

From then on it was a long, tiring drive. Luckily they crossed through the north of Toronto freeway/parking lot after rush hour, and were only slowed once, when some clown in an SUV thought he could push a transport driver around (he couldn’t, as his crumpled vehicle attested). Sun spelled off Hawk after 90 minutes, and John drove for an hour after that. Hawk got back in the driver’s seat as they neared London: he knew the city and was soon driving up to the front of the hospital. John had called ahead on his flip phone and informed the burn unit that they were on the way. He had told them that the House would pay for private accommodation for Belle.

Ontario has government health care, and Belle would be looked after at no cost to her. But that would be ward treatment, in rooms of four to eight people. Most big companies have supplemental care plans, which allow for semi-private treatment, which means a room with two patients. Rare was fully private accommodation, with a room to your self. Belle was still in ICU, which would be a treatment ward, but just telling them that she would get private coverage raised her profile in the hospital as a VIP with better treatment. The hospital charged additional fees for semi-private and private rooms, so it encouraged the best care possible for those patients.

Inside there was the normal run around until they found the burn unit hidden in the back of the huge hospital. Hawk stayed with the bus: John gave him his cell phone and said they would call him when and if he was needed. Hawk then took the bus to a nearby service station to fill up for the trip back.

In the ward they were initially repulsed by the ward nurse, until Nora noted that she was a doctor. They were eventually led to the ward, and Grey sat down next to the bandage-wrapped patient. He had felt a connection with her almost as soon as they entered the hospital, and started to hum his song as they searched for the burn unit. Sun realized he was singing softly, and took his arm to guide his steps: he couldn’t see the real world well while he was inside.

By the time they had reached the burn unit, Grey was inside the woman. He immediately started working on shock aversion: shock was as likely to cause he death as the massive burns she had received. In a few minutes he had lessened the shock and her heart was beating more regularly.

“Heart rate up 20 percent,” a nurse monitoring the machines reported.

“What?” said the burn doctor, who had been speaking to Nora: as a doctor she was the only one in the group he deigned to speak with. “How is that possible? That man must have jostled a wire or something. I want him out of my ICU.”

“Are you certain of that?” John said. “I am the lawyer for both him and your patient. Both are First Nations’ people. Are you refusing to allow them to seek treatment in their natural traditions? You may want to talk to your lawyer and the hospital lawyer before you answer that. Lawsuits can be costly.”

The elderly doctor sputtered, then relented: “He can stay as long as he doesn’t impair her care, or disrupt other patients.”

“He is singing very softly,” John said. “And the nurse said the heart rate was improving, I believe.” The doctor merely turned back to Nora, not realizing that John was her husband.

“She was on critical three,” he told her, using the hospital code for patients not expected to live more than a few hours. “With an improved heart rate she might be up to critical 2 or 1. Her left ear and eye were destroyed in the explosion: fourth degree burns. The entire left side of her body has third degree burns, and the right side is first or second degree burns. If she lives the eye and ear will be totally gone. Her nose is also ruined on the left side. It could be repaired, except there will be no place to get graft skin from until her right side heals: several weeks at least.”

While this discussion was going on Grey was working on the eye. His medicine man mentor was telling him a different story. Everything was reparable, but it would take time: a long time.

What happened? Grey thought and immediately he accessed Belle’s memories. He saw the inside of the truck as the fryers heated up. When Walter grabbed her, Grey knew immediately that it was not a loving embrace. He was restraining her physically. It was no accident, but a murder-suicide.

Grey saw the cigarette arc towards the fryer. Everything exploded when it was several inches from the grease: the heat was far beyond the flash point. That fryer exploded into violent flame and the other two fryers went up within a second. The second one exploded and threw hot oil on both of them. This caused Walter to lose consciousness and crumple to the floor. Most of the grease ball had hit him, although some got Belle in the face, and caused her to stagger back out the door at the rear of the van, her clothing immediately ablaze. She fell down the steps, and lay burning on the ground until the fair worker smothered the flames with a blanket. From that point on all she felt was pain. Until now, as Grey gradually killed the pain nerves and allowed her to start on the long road to recovery.

«All these bandages are hindering the healing,» the mentor said. «Have them remove the bandages.»

“We need to have the bandages removed,” Grey said to Nora, coming out for a few moments, and drinking from the large water bottle Sun held. “They aren’t helping.”

Nora hesitated, knowing that burn bandages were key to keeping infections out of the wounds. She had been worried about this: as a pediatrician she didn’t have to skills to wrap new bandages every few hours, like the nurses here did. Nevertheless she suggested that the bandages be left off at the next change. The ICU nurse looked shocked, and turned to the doctor.

“Absolutely not,” the old man said. “The wounds must be covered to minimize infections. In a case this severe it will probably be infections that kill her, not the burns.”

Grey merely started to sing his song softly and went back to work. There were a few infections here and there, and he easily quelled them. Belle was now resting in less pain, and Grey started looking at the eye. The eyeball had fallen free of the socket in the accident, and was now held in place by bandages.

The optic nerve was intact, although damaged somewhat when the eyeball had been jarred loose. Grey worked on strengthening it. Within the eye various parts were damaged. The lens was off kilter, the iris was frozen at the wide-open state it had been in while in the dark van, and the retina was burned out in places.

While he was working, the doctor had left, and Nora was pretty much in charge as the nurses changed shifts. A nurse practitioner came in with a dose of Kadian to add to the IV bag. Nora stopped her, and asked Grey if the morphine drug was needed. He only paused for a second and said no, he was controlling the pain, which caused the eyes of the nurse to go wide. Nora called a halt to the Kadian. She had made the original doctor add her to the patient record as her physician, so the nurse reluctantly agreed.

It was eight hours later when Grey came up again. “I have been working on her eyes, he told Nora. The one is badly damaged but I think I can save it. There isn’t much left of her ear or nose, though. You know this was a murder-suicide, don’t you? He intended to kill them both, but was positioned in a way that he actually saved her from some of the danger.”

Soon after, a new doctor came in, He was younger, at about 40, but nearly as pompous as the older doctor. “I am told that someone stopped the Kadian treatment on the girl,” he said in an accusatory voice.

“That would be me,” Nora said. “The patient has no need for morphine.”

“Are you a doctor?” the man accused.

“Yes I am,” she said. “I have more than 30 years medical experience. I will admit that you probably have far more experience with burn victims, but you haven’t even examined this patient yet, have you?”

The doctor shook his head no, and then conducted a full examination as the nurse was replacing the bandages. When he was finished, he came back to Nora.

“I have never seen a patient with burns like that still alive,” he said. “But you are right, she doesn’t seem to be in severe pain. I would think she had been with us for two weeks, with such a strong pulse and good blood pressure. The burns need a lot of time to heal, and we will have to remove the ear, and possibly the nose. We can graft a new nose for her once the minor burns on her right side heal.”

“We are thinking of removing her to eastern Ontario,” Nora said. “That is where her friends and family are.”

“Oh, that is too bad,” the doctor said. “We are the best burn unit in the province, although Kingston General and Ottawa General are both good. Which would you take her to?”

“Kingston is closer,” Nora said.

“Well, it will take four hours to book an ambulance to go that far,” the doctor said. “You will need a nurse to accompany her.”

“We have transport arranged,” Nora said. “And I will travel with her.”

“In that case it will take a little over an hour,” the doctor said. “The patient needs to be wrapped again, and there is paper work to be filled out.”

“John here will look after the paper work,” Nora said. “He is the patient’s lawyer.”

Grey had moved back into position when the doctor had finished his examination, and was again singing. He continued to do so until the paperwork was finished and Hawk had the bus at the hospital entrance. Belle was wheeled on a gurney to the bus, and then gently lifted into the bed in the rear of the bus. The hospital staff left, a bit uneasy about allowing a patient who seemed to be improving leave on such a make-shift transport.

The trip back to Actinolite was relatively uneventful. Grey spent the entire trip singing to Belle. Nora did cut free all the bandages once they were out of London.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“As sure as I can be. I trust my mentor and he says she will heal faster this way,” Grey said. “There are not a lot of swear words in Ojibwe, but I heard all of them, and some new ones, from the mentor each time they re-bandaged her. I just have to keep a lookout for infections, and kill them off.”

He took another long drink of water from Sun, and looked up at the woman he considered his sister. “It is funny,” he told her. “I should be exhausted after all this healing, yet I feel remarkably good. It is like I am getting a recharge out of her body.”

It was past supper when they got Home, and they managed to get Belle into Grey’s room while the others were kept in the Great Room to minimize commotion. It was felt that with Grey treating her, his room was the best place for her. There was already a cot for Billy in there, and Grey was comfortable sleeping on the floor as she was treated.

Belle regained some consciousness early the next morning, but not to the outside world. Grey was singing treatment on her eyes when he was suddenly aware of her.

«Who are you? What are you doing?» she thought.

«You were badly burned in a fire,» Grey told her. «I am trying to heal you. I healed your son last week.»

«Billy? Where is he? And what are you doing inside of me?»

«Billy is right here in this very room, sleeping,» Grey said, as he fought to relive the panic that was rising in the girl. «When he wakes up he will want to see you.»

«What happened? I remember a fire, and then a great pain. It is better now.»

«Thank you. You were burned badly, but we will try to fix you up,” Grey said. «Now I would like you to go back to sleep. I will wake you when Billy is up,» Grey then sedated the woman and continued to work on her eye.

An hour later Billy woke, and went right over to Grey, who was on his knees next to the bed, and gave him a hug. “This is your mother,” Grey told the boy, and held him up to see. The boy recoiled at the sight.”

“That is not Mommy,” he said forcefully. “My Mommy is pretty. This lady is all red and stuff.”

“But it is your Mommy,” Grey said. “She was in a fire, and got all these booboos. I am trying to fix them. Will you hold her hand while sing to her? The one on this side is not so sore, but don’t squeeze too hard.”

He set the boy up to hold Belle’s right hand, which Grey had healed a bit earlier, expecting this. Billy’s eye went wide when he put his hand into his mother’s. “This is my Mommy. Get better Mommy,” he said.

“Grey was back inside, singing and he felt a surge of support from the woman. «Let me talk to him,» she said.

«Okay. Open your eye. Only the left one will work, and it might be very blurry. You can try to speak him,» Grey said.

He watched from inside as she tried to open her eye, and then move her lips. Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke: “ ‘illy. I ‘uv ew.’

“I love you too, Mommy. Please get better. Grey is my friend and he says he will help make your booboos go ‘way. I love you so much.”

It was then that Dary entered the room to get Billy for breakfast. She gasped in horror when she saw the woman lying naked on the bed.

«Do I look that bad?» Belle asked when she heard the reaction through her remaining ear.

«It is pretty bad,» Grey said. «That is Dary. She is the one who looks after Billy. She came to get him his breakfast.»

«Then she can see me, I guess,» Belle said. «But I don’t want anyone else to see me looking like this.»

“Dary, can you take Billy to breakfast? And tell the others that Belle doesn’t wish to see any other visitors,” Grey told the girl, who took the boy away.

«Is she a good girl?» Belle asked.

«One of the best,» Grey said. «Now lets’ get back to making you well. It is going to take a long time: months, not weeks. But eventually we will have you up and about.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Chapter 34 – Carrying on

Grey spent nearly 18 hours a day working on Belle during the first three days she was in the house, and then on the fourth day he surprised the other residents by appearing for dinner.

“My internal mentor said I need to give her some time between treatments. I will only give a 4-hour session in the morning and another in the afternoon,” he said as he sat down. Billy slipped out of his chair next to Dary and climbed up on Grey’s lap. Dary carried his dinner plate over so Grey could help the boy eat.

“I’ve nearly got her eye repaired,” Grey said. “She won’t be able to see out of it for a few more weeks, but all the damage is healed. I am working on her nose next. She is quite upset that she is so badly disfigured. I think the nose will take a week, and then I need to work on her left ear. All the hair on left side was burned away, and the nurses in London shaved the right side. After all that, in a month or two, she will be able to come to dinner, if she can be convinced too. At the very least she needs to be able to start walking around before her joints seize up.”

“She can do that,” Daisy said. “No one will pay any attention to her looks as she walks about.

“In our sewing lessons, you said we should make a dress or something,” Dary said to Daisy. “I want to make a robe for Belle so she can be covered as she walks. She turned back to Grey. “Ask if she would like a big hood that will cover her face?”

“That would be great,” he said. “She needs something light and airy. She can’t wear much underwear and heavy material would chafe the burns.”

“I will make one too,” Tanya said. “Then she will be able to change off.”

“I will do the same,” Sun said.

«You are already loved,» Grey told Belle in their next treatments. «Three of the girls in the house want to make you robes to go through the halls when you start to walk.»

«I don’t want them,» Belle complained. «I don’t want to have anyone see me like this. Just you, Billy and that nice girl that brings me soup. I look like a monster, and I won’t ever leave the bed.»

«Yes you will,» Grey ordered. «If you don’t get up and exercise you won’t be able to eventually. Don’t you want to be able to walk with Billy? I know I love walking with him. He is such a smart little guy, coming in every morning to sing to you and help me treat you.»

«Maybe for Billy, but I don’t want anyone else to see me.»

«A lot of them have already seen you. Five of us went to London to get you. And you looked much worse then. Plus Dary, the girl who brings you soup for lunch. Almost as many have seen you than for the ones who haven’t. When I say you are ready, you will start exercising by walking the halls, with Billy or me.”

«Okay,» she relented.

A routine started to develop. Grey spent four hours before lunch with Belle. Since he woke up at 4 or 5 a.m., it left him some time free to work in the mill. Sun took to getting up early to join him. At 8 he would start his treatments on the girl, with Billy usually coming in to ‘help’ at the start of the sessions. His three-year-old attention span was only 15 or 20 minutes before he ran off to play with Dary and the babies, but Grey noticed that the healing went better while he was there, with Belle encouraged by her son’s presence. Billy even learned some of the lines from Grey’s song, and would sing it along with his hero.

It was another week later when John made announcement. “The correctional office wants to send us two boys for the next year. They are both natives from Brantford area and have developed a habit of stealing cars, joyriding, and then setting the cars on fire on the reserve, usually within walking distance of their homes. They were tried as juveniles, but it was determined that they come and join us, due to the success we have had with Red.”

“Are they cute?” Theresa said. She and Hawk’s sister Feather had come up from the reserve at Belleville to work in the store, and were rooming at the House.

“I don’t know, never having seen them,” but they are eighteen and nearly eighteen, if that helps,” John said.

“Will we create a fund for each of them like we were going to do with Red?” Sun asked.

“I don’t think we can. At least not all the money,” John said. “The House needs some of the income. And they will only be here for a year. We are paid $900 a week to care for them, so if we put away $500 of that in a fund it would come to $26,000 each at their release. They could attend a college program on that, or get a good start on university.”

“The adults around the table discussed it, and came to agreement to take in the boys and put away $500 a week for them.

“I know you have put money away for me,” Tanya said. “But I don’t think I should get all of Red’s money. He will need something when he gets out.”

“We have about $5000 in Red’s account so far,” John said. “We spent quite a lot of money for you so far: your rent and tuition. I suspect we can give you $100 or $150 a week spending money once you move back to Peterborough, as well as all your bills for cable, utilities, and phone. He will still be getting $1500 a month into his fund until you move back here in January, and then $2500. He will have quite a nice little fund built up by his release date.”

“Do I have to leave when the five years is up?” Red asked, almost tearfully.

“No. At that time you will be free to go if you want, or stay here,” Daisy said. “We all love you dearly, my son.”

“And I love you all too,” Red replied, fighting off tears, which he considered unmanly.

The new boys came a week later, and were amazed at their luck. Red was assigned to show them around. They would share a room with bunk beds.

“Wood. Nice,” Don said as he ran his hands along the bunk bed. “Most places just have metal. And those look like real mattresses too. But where is the toilet?”

“The toilets are in the bathrooms, down the hall,” Red said. “I’ll take you there in a minute.”

“What?” Ron said. “A guard comes and lets us out and takes us there?”

“There are no guards here, and your rooms are never locked,” Red explained.

“Wow, so what stops us from leaving in the middle of the night?” Don asked.

Red tapped the boy’s head. “Is there anything up there? Why would you want to run when you are in the best place in the world for you? I’ve lived on the streets before, and it is no fun. That is assuming you could get to a city from here. People don’t pick up hitchhikers in this area, with all the prisons around.”

Later they were in the stables, and Red was showing the boys the horses, which really impressed them with their size. Rabbit came over and sniffed each of the boys, and then went back to his chicken-watching duties. George came out and showed the boys his forge, and promised to teach basic smithery to them. Both were big enough, and just needed more muscle to become good at the art, he said.

Dary came in a little later holding a tray. “My new chicks are in,” she told Red as she went back. John had built a new-better brooding tray for them. “Look forward to eating a lot of chicken in the next month or so, once these little guys start laying. Some of the older hens just aren’t producing any more.”

“Cute chick,” Ron said as Dary flounced back to the house.

“She is only 13,” Red said possessively. “Not for you. There are other cute girls in the House. Feather and Theresa are closer to your age, and want to meet you. They are working at the store right now.”

“What are they in for?” Don asked.

“Nothing. They just live here. We three are the only ones who were sent here by the courts. You really don’t get it, do you? The judge is not punishing you by sending you here. She gave you the greatest gift you could get. This place is great,” Red explained again.

The two new boys came into the dining area and were surprised to find that they were expected to set the table. They did so, and soon the entire household arrived and they had a hearty lunch. They then cleared the table and washed the dishes along with Red, while Dary dried and put the plates away.

Grey came along soon after. “Come,” he told the boys. “We are going to a little camp we have in the back of the property. It is pretty sacred to the people, and hopefully you will see that being one of the people is an honor that is not shown by burning cars.”

They got backpacks on and walked to the Grove, where Grey did his normal teaching about the kinds of tree in the Grove. He sang their spirit animals forth: coyote for Don and crow for Ron. Then they worked for a few hours on the canoes, with Grey trying to let them see into the wood as they worked it. Ron was just starting to get it, although Don seemed to have a barrier up against it.

That night the boys slept in the boys’ wigwam, after a long campfire where Grey told many stories and tales of the people. Both boys found themselves tired from the work on the canoes, but slept well and were surprised when Grey woke them in the early morning. Don was sure that the elder hadn’t slept all night. He had woken twice during the night, and each time saw Grey at the fire, chanting softly.

The boys went to latrine and had a small breakfast of porridge that Grey had cooked as they slept. Just as the dawn started lightening the eastern sky the three walked in single file to the river, where the boys saw the various animals watering.

“You could shoot one of those deer so easily,” Don noted, holding his arms up as if he had a rifle.

“It is not so easy,” Grey said. “First, there is no honor in hunting at a watering place unless your people are starving. And a warrior of the people never hunts with a rifle. We only use bow. You will learn how to make and use a bow in the future. Sun is the best teacher, or her husband Hawk. You will spend a lot of time back here with him working on the canoes.”

“So we are free labor,” Don sneered.

“No. You will be allocated money for the work you do: a share of the profits we get selling the canoe. Plus you learn a valuable skill. In a year you will be able to go to college, or buy equipment to start a canoe-making business back at your homes.”

After a while, less than he spent with most visitors to the river at dawn, Grey led the boys back to the camp to clean up, and then to the house.

“I want to be there before eight,” Grey said. “I skipped an important appointment yesterday afternoon to bring you two out here. I don’t want to miss another one.”

As they walked, they could see people starting to move around near the House. First there was Dary getting her eggs, then Sun walking to the mill. Then two cute girls they had not met were heading to the store, although they were not close enough to see them clearly. Finally Grey stopped them at the gate.

He turned to Don: “There you go. That is the road off the property. You still seem to want to leave this place. Go if you want. I will walk to the house and call the OPP, who will have a cruiser here in about 10 or 15 minutes. So you might get a 20 minute head start.” He turned to Ron: “I assume you don’t want to leave.”

“No way,” the taller boy said. “Red was right. You’d have to be crazy to leave here. What will happen if they catch Don?”

“It is not if, but when they catch him,” Grey said. “He will be assigned to a more secure prison, with gates and guards and no family atmosphere.”

“I don’t want to run,” Don said. “I did last night, and I thank you for staying up all night so I didn’t. I do dumb things sometimes, like burning cars. I don’t want to do anything dumb here. After your stories about the People, and then watching all the different kinds of animals: I want to learn more.”

“Good. There is Red. I think George is going to spend the morning with you on the anvil, and in the afternoon Cooper will want the three of you in class for your four hours of schooling.” Both boys groaned at the idea of school.

School didn’t turn out so bad. Today Cooper had five students: Red, the new boys, as well as the two girls from the store. Dary came down, but acted more as a teacher’s aide.

The girls were prepping for their high school exams and were worried about their Chemistry course, so Cooper set up a chemistry lab in the basement, and was reviewing chemical reactions by showing some explosions and other actions when chemicals were mixed. It was high school chemistry, so it was a bit over Dary and Red’s level. But the girls and the new boys seemed to get it after the sessions.

The girls had to run to the store after two hours: they were reluctant to go because it was so interesting. For the last two hours of the class Dary had Red working on his math and the two older boys were doing geometry. At the end of the session Don came up to Cooper and said: “You are a great teacher. I hate school, or at least I did back home. But you make things interesting, and don’t jump ahead when I don’t get something. You keep at it until it is going through my thick head. How much will we learn over the next year?

I hope to get you a Grade 12 level in English, Math and French. Those are the basics that you need to get into a college program. We might also be able to get you Chemistry and Biology. Then with a sixth subject: probably Ojibwe, you can get a high school diploma by distance learning. Your term will end next June, so you can think about a career. Luckily you will get a touch of auto-mechanics, body work, and carpentry while you are here, as well as animal management and forestry. Hopefully you will have a career in mind when you get out of here.”

The septic tank system had been installed, and the new boys got a chance to learn how to use the backhoe over the next few days, covering the trenches and tank pit. The sand from the woods had been brought over to the House for filling trenches. The gravel was not of proper quality, so several truck loads of crushed stone was brought in to go around the plastic piping of the weeping bed. Once the pipes were covered, then the piles of dirt were pushed back into the trenches.

When the trenches had been dug up, John had insisted that the top foot of soil be carted off into a pile. This worked out, since the sand, stone, and pipes used about a foot of space. The tailings from the rest of the trench were just piled next to the trench, much easier than putting it on the wagon and having the horses cart it to the side. That top foot of topsoil was not needed in the trenches, so it was scrapped back over the front half of the bed, forming a level of rich top soil several inches thick.

“That will make a great garden for us next year,” John said to Dary. “Can you work out what you would like to plant? A little sketch. We can order seed catalogues in, and in January or February we will order seed and start seedlings in the south facing windows. Next fall we will have a wonderful crop of tomatoes, onions, potatoes and whatever else we need.”

“Great,” Dary said. “Too bad we couldn’t grow fruit trees here too. Apples and oranges would be nice.”

“I doubt you will get oranges unless we can build a greenhouse,” John said. “There just isn’t enough sun here for them to mature. But apples do well in this climate. They need a well-drained soil, so the area by the house isn’t good, but the gravel ridge near the back will work, if we can clear other trees away to plant an orchard. Pears and peaches can also grow there.”

Dary ran off to start working on sketches, and used the Internet to look up which vegetables could grow in the eastern Ontario climate.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Chapter 35 – Love and Murder

It had been 10 weeks since Belle had come back from London – late July – and Grey decided that it was time. At breakfast he asked Tanya if she would look after the babies, and for Dary to come with him, bringing the robe she made for Belle.

“It’s time,” Grey told Belle. “We are going for a walk today.”

“No,” Belle said. “I doan wanna.”

“I don’t care,” Grey said, “Dary made this beautiful robe for you and I want to see it on you.” For the last 10 weeks Belle had been largely naked on the bed, with only a thin sheet over her while Grey and Billy were healing her. She reluctantly let Grey help her turn sideways, and then let Dary help her into the robe, which was difficult as her whole left side was still badly scarred and it was difficult for her to raise her arm. It took nearly 15 minutes to get the robe on and several times Grey had to sing to her and go in and ease the pain.

“Dary, go get Billy and send him in,” Grey said. “You can stay with the babies if you wish.”

Billy tapped on the door, and came in when Grey called. “Mommy looks pretty,” the young boy said as he saw his mother dressed for the first time in months.

“I think she looks pretty too. We are going to take her for a walk,” Grey said. I want you to take her good hand.” Billy knew this was the right hand. And when he put his little hands around it, Belle was flooded with love from her son. Grey took the left hand, still scarred but no longer painful.

The pain came when Belle took her first step. Her left leg was still badly scarred, and she nearly cried at the pain she felt from the stiff leg joint.

“It hurts too much,” Belle cried.

“Momma’s booboo still hurts?” Billy asked.

Grey started to sing, and take the pain away. «You need to do this or you will never be able to walk again. Let’s try again, and I will try to keep the pain down.»

«That’s better,» she said. «It still hurts, but I can bear it.»

«Tell Billy to lead us down to the end of the hall, and back,» Grey ordered, and the three left the room.

At the end of the hall Daisy appeared, to Belle’s consternation. “Do you mind if I join you,” the older woman asked. “You are looking so much better today, my dear.”

Belle wanted so much to say no, but she knew Daisy was the owner of the house and you couldn’t be rude to the person who had allowed you to live in her home for several months. “Thanks,” Belle said. “Dary made it for me. There is a hood: can you pull it up over my face? I am so ugly.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” Daisy said. “Your face is not entirely healed, but we can all see the beauty that lurks below. That is what is important. You know that when she first came here Sun was like you, not wanting people to see her.”

“But Sun is beautiful,” Belle said.

“It was her height that bothered her,” Daisy said. “She wouldn’t leave the house, even to go to the store – until she learned they had the old truck for sale. Now she walks freely about in Tweed and Madoc, and even in Peterborough where she sees her doctor. She ignores the people who stare at her. She knows that people who know her accept her and that is all that is important.”

“I don’t think I will ever be able to do that,” Belle said.

“Not all at once,” Daisy said. “But with the nice summer weather you will be walking on the verandah before you know it, and perhaps more.”

“This was enough for me,” Belle said as they returned to her door. “It hurts a lot just walking.”

“It will hurt less and less,” Grey said as he came forth, knowing that the deadened nerves would allow her to get back to her bed. “I will ease the pain this week, but by next week you should be able to do it on your own.”

Belle made it to her bed, and winced as she lay down again. Grey had not deadened the nerves on her back. Daisy took Billy, and Grey sang his way inside of her to check that everything was all right.

“You will be joining us for supper soon,” he said. “The soup Dary feeds you every noon, and the excess weight you once held has kept you going, but soon you will need more. You were quite chubby when you left Billy with us, but now you are getting very thin.”

“It is not a weight-loss program I would recommend,” Belle joked. “And I don’t want to go to the dinner table, as good as it smells most evenings. So many people staring at me.”

“No one is going to stare at you,” Grey said. “And I won’t let them feed you in the room. But I want you walking better before we worry about that. One thing at a time. And I will keep working on your face during that time.”

---------------

The next morning Dan led his visibly pregnant wife to his truck. She had been working in Belleville at the OPP regional office for several months now, going through the ‘cold case’ files of the region. It was mind-numbingly boring work. Every week or so she would find something: often an exhibit that might have DNA evidence that could be tested. But once she had gotten a match, the case went to the detectives, who would investigate further.

Today, once they got into the truck, Dan froze and seemed to be in a trance for a few seconds.

“I just got a message from Flint,” Dan said. “We have to make a stop on the way.” Rather than turning south to Belleville, he continued east towards Ottawa, slowing and turning into a farm about 20 miles from Actinolite.

He stopped the car in the laneway and went to help his pregnant wife from the passenger seat. As they arrived a three-legged dog ran up to them barking, and then turned and ran to the open barn door in his funny, hopping manner.

“I think he wants us to follow,” Cindy said. She was in full uniform, and radioed in her position, noting she would be late into the office. She was still on the radio when she neared the barn door, and saw the crumpled pile of rags lying there. Dan had rushed ahead and felt the cold wrist of the man. “He’s dead,” he said. Cindy then changed the call and asked for homicide detectives.

“Don’t touch anything,” she warned Dan. The man had fallen onto his back, and it was clear that he had died from a blow to the head that had crushed into his skull. Dan pointed to an old crescent wrench lying on the ground. “That is the murder weapon,” Dan said. There was a .22 rifle lying next to the man on his right side.

“How do you know?” Cindy asked.

“Flint saw it all. The man who did it was a native, about 6’2” tall, age 24, wearing glasses and a tan t-shirt with jeans and a jean jacket. He killed this man, and then went into the house, came out and fled in a white pickup that was in the yard.

Cindy was about to write down the description, and then realized that she couldn’t provide an acceptable explanation for how she had learned this. She couldn’t tell people that her husband had a spirit in his head.

She looked into the yard, and saw where a pickup had sat. It had peeled out at some speed, and the tracks could easily be followed out to the highway. She sent Dan out to follow the tracks and find out which direction they went on the highway.

“He went to Ottawa,” Dan said.

“Good, but we need some way of showing that without involving spirits in your head,” Cindy said. “Follow the tracks. In a few minutes dozens of police cars will be tearing into this place, and the tracks will be obliterated. Please follow them, and take a picture on your phone of the tracks as they approach the highway.”

Dan trotted off. It had rained two nights ago, and the only marks on the lane were from his own truck, coming in, and the suspect’s car going out. Before he got back from taking his picture, the first patrol car arrived. It was from Madoc, and the officers knew Dan, and opened the rear door to allow him a ride back to the farmstead, which was a good 200 yards from the highway.

Meanwhile, Cindy had entered the house. The only room that seemed disturbed was the kitchen. The fridge door was open and one of those pre-baked chickens from a grocery store deli was there. On the counter a loaf of bread sat, the end neither secured or folded under as most people did to prevent the bread from staling. There was also a quart of milk sitting on the counter. Either the dead man was making a snack when he was alerted to the intruder on his property or the killer had come into the house after the crime and sought food. Cindy was betting on the latter.

She noticed a slip of paper sticking out of one of the drawers, and she used a pencil to open the drawer without leaving prints. The drawer was filled with papers, and looked as though it had been rifled through. The top of the pile of papers was a tax bill, which included a name and the address of the farm.

“Sam, can you take this information and find out what vehicles are registered to this address. Use the address, since the vehicles could be registered to a farm name instead of the personal name,” Cindy said to one of the officers who had come in from Madoc.

She then went into the living room, where she saw an open and unlocked gun case with a .303 inside. There was also a spot for the .22 that was next to the man. She headed outside again, approaching her husband and her colleague from Madoc who were standing over the body. The three-legged dog sat nearby, not understanding why his master wouldn’t get up.

Cindy looked at the body. There was a wrapped cough drop lying next to his left pocket, and a store receipt next to the right one. She also noticed a crumb of chicken a bit further away.

“The killer went into the house and got some food,” she said. “He then came out and went through the man’s pockets, possibly taking his wallet and keys. A few other things came out of the pockets. The bit of chicken there is probably from a bird that is in the house, in the kitchen. “Skipes, can you check that rifle? Bending over is not easy for me at this time.”

“It was fired once. Too long ago to smell the powder, but it doesn’t look like it was cleaned since firing,” the officer said.

The next car to arrive was from the House. It was Sun’s truck and she had Nora with her. Dan realized that Nora was an assistant coroner, and would have been called in shortly after Cindy had made her call out. She knelt next to the body, and quickly pronounced the man dead: killed instantly by a blunt object striking the head. She told the police that they should send the body to Tweed hospital where she would do an autopsy in the tiny morgue in the basement. It was the first time that room would be used since she had started working at the hospital.

After getting the coroner’s report, the Madoc officers covered the body with a sheet, while Cindy went into the barn. She noticed a little nest of straw that was facing the barn door. There were scuffs on the ground in front and at the side. It looked like the killer had slept or lain there before the incident. There was what looked like a bullet hole in the beam near the nest. There were also two broken chicken eggs on the ground a few feet away. Cindy had one of the officers dig out the bullet hole.

The farm was a small operation, with a half-dozen hens and seven cattle, Angus beef cows. There were also five calves. Cindy heard whimpering, and came upon a nest of six German Shepherd puppies, huddled beneath their mother. Tripod, as Cindy had mentally named the three-legged dog, stood protectively beside them.

“Sun?” Cindy called out. “There are some cattle out there that need food and water. Can you throw out a few baled of hay for them, and fill the water trough? Walk around on the left so you don’t make a mess of the scene.” Sun did so, carrying out one bale of hay in each hand from the pile in the barn. She also threw out some chicken feed, and made sure the birds had water.

About a half hour from the time Cindy and Dan arrived, the investigators from Belleville pulled in. Inspector Riley was in charge, and Cindy had worked with him for the past two months on cold cases she had uncovered. Cindy went to him immediately and updated him on everything she had found.

“How is it you are not a detective?” Riley asked. “You have done a wonderful job here. I agree with all your surmises. We need to get an APB out on the farm pickup. You said he was headed to Ottawa?”

“Definitely, unless he turned around on the highway. And I don’t think that is likely. We already posted the APB,” Cindy said. “If there was money in the wallet there is a good chance that he will stop for food again. We should get the Ottawa regional police involved to check out restaurants in the west end of the city.”

She knew exactly where the suspect was. Just prior to the Belleville OPP arriving, Dan had told her that the man was now at a Macdonald’s in a mall near Kanata. But she couldn’t say that to the detective: not without explaining how she knew. She just hoped that a cruiser would spot the pickup before he left.

Cindy spent the rest of the day at the farm. Once the fingerprinting crew had finished in the kitchen, she got three cans of dog food out and used a can opener to open them. Sun then took them out to the hungry dogs and fed the two adult animals, who immediately decided that they liked her. So when she and Nora left the site, soon after, following an ambulance containing the body, there was a cardboard box containing the mother and pups, with Tripod standing watch in the box of the truck, trying to balance in the moving vehicle on three legs. He eventually lay down to combat the jostling of the truck.

Sun dropped Nora at the hospital, and then headed back to the House where Dary was first to meet her, squealing with joy at finding the pups and their Mom. Sun carried the box to the stable, where Rabbit was quite happy to welcome his company in. Tripod followed with Dary: the young girl unable to stop laughing at his three-legged motion. Rabbit and Tripod faced off in the stable. Tripod was a bit bigger, but knew that his lack of a leg meant he could not be the dominant animal, and knelt submissively in front of Rabbit. There were four females in the litter, so that meant that Rabbit would have his choice of girlfriends.

It was eight when Cindy left the scene, just after the Belleville crew. A radio message had reported the capture of a 6’2” First Nations man wearing glasses, a tan t-shirt and a denim jacket and jeans. He was taken to Belleville jail where his fingerprints matched those found on the scene.

It looked like an open and shut case.

Nora didn’t get back until after Cindy and Dan, after her autopsy was completed and the cause of death determined to be caused by a blunt instrument breaking the man’s skull. Death was probably instantaneous. Nora went immediately to John’s computer and wrote her report, emailing it to the Belleville office of the OPP.

That evening in the Great Hall after dinner, Dary had brought in two of the puppies, along with Tripod to the delight of the babies and Billy. Grey lured Tripod off to his room, once the dog was contented that his babies were safe with Dary and Sun.

“What is that?” Belle said as Grey came into the room with the dog.

“A friend for you,” Grey told her, as the dog immediately came up to her and stood on his two hind legs. The sole front paw pressed against Belle’s good hand.

“He is a darling. How did he lose the other leg?” Belle asked.

“We don’t know,” Grey said. “But I wanted you to meet him. Something terrible happened to him and he has carried on. He has six puppies, two of which are out entrancing Billy in the Great Room. He faced peril, but fought through it. With three legs he runs almost as fast as rabbit.”

“So he is a lesson to me,” Belle said softly as she stroked Tripod’s head. “I need to follow his example. To fight and not give up.”

“And to not worry about looking different,” Grey said. “I am your doctor. I know that you are capable of having more children.”

“Hah,” Belle snorted. “Who would have someone like me?”

“I would,” Grey said softly. “I think you are beautiful.”

Belle gasped. “Really? I think I have been in love with you almost from the start. But I never dreamed you would want to be more than my doctor.”

“There is a little boy out there that needs a real Dad,” Grey said. “I love him dearly, and did since before you came back. And as I’ve seen you fight through everything, I’ve grown to love you too.”

With that he reached over and kissed her deeply, with the kiss only breaking when Tripod started to lick Grey’s cheek.

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Chapter 36 – Love and Murder (part two)

Dan and Cindy drove to Belleville in the morning. Dan had arranged for Tanya to go to visit his seniors to allow him the chance to hang around Belleville, if he was needed.

Cindy lamented that she would be back to boring cold case reviews again, after such an exciting day yesterday. But when she came in, she found Inspector Riley near the door. “Can you join me, Cindy?” he asked. “Since you did such a good job yesterday I thought you would like to be involved in interviewing the perp.”

“Taking notes?” Cindy asked.

“Heavens no, we will have a steno doing that. I thought we might do a ‘good cop, pregnant cop’ routine.” He looked up at Dan, who had never been in the building before.

“Oh, this is my husband Dan,” Cindy said. “Dan, please meet Inspector Riley. Dan has been driving me to work since it is a bit hard for me to get behind the wheel.”

“I remember seeing you at the crime scene yesterday,” the inspector said.

“Nice to meet you,” Dan said, shaking the officer’s hand. “I was wondering if there is anyone looking after the animals at the farm.”

“We have an officer out there now,” the inspector said. “VanErp is a city boy though. I don’t know that he would have any experience with animals. We’ll have to get someone else out there … unless you are offering.”

“My morning is free,” Dan said. “I’d be glad to help out.”

“Eliz? Send a message to VanErp telling him this gentleman is coming out to help with the animals.”

Dan headed out to the farm, where he found a young and bored looking officer sitting in his cruiser to prevent curiosity-seekers from coming into the property, in case further investigation was needed.

The constable moved his car aside and then followed Dan in. He helped Dan as they freshened the water in the trough, and put out more hay. The bales Sun had put out were gone, so the two men spread out six more, although they had to carry them one at a time. After they finished, Dan was about to head back to Belleville when a BMW drove up the lane.

“Excuse me sir,” the constable said. “This is a crime scene. You will have to leave.”

“Give me a break, officer,” the man said. “I just got out of the Tweed morgue from identifying my father, and then making funeral arrangements. I lived in this house for over 20 years and I think I have the right to be here.”

“I’s so sorry for your loss,” Dan said, putting a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. “I lost my father a few years ago, although not in such awful conditions.”

The man almost immediately changed from angry to friendly and smiled at Dan.

“Winthrope Carter,” he said holding out his hand to shake. “My Dad was 84. My sister and I were trying to get him to move into a home since Mom died five years ago. He said he would move ‘when he got old’. So his passing wasn’t unexpected, although the method was.”

“So what will you do with the farm?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know. Are you local? I have a law practice in Toronto but I am a bit young to retire. My sister probably won’t want to move here either. Will the place sell?”

“I doubt it would sell as a working farm,” Dan said. “The house is in good shape, but very old. How many acres of land?”

“Dad had 300,” Carter said. “There was only 120 when I was a boy. God, I hated farming. I went into Law mainly to avoid having to throw bales of hay around. I will do anything to avoid it.”

“I doubt you would get good money selling it as a going operation,” Dan said. “There aren’t enough cattle for an efficient operation. It was enough for your Dad to top up his pension, but anyone buying it would need to expand to at least 10 or 20 times as many head. That makes the barn too small for wintering. Your best bet might be to rent. You could get a few hundred a month for the house, and you could share-crop the land with a neighboring farmer. Share crop would allow another farmer to get more land without the cost of buying it and you would make some money each fall.”

“So I would have to sell the cattle,” Carter realized. “I still wind up herding cattle, and I have to finish up by Monday, because I have a court case in Toronto then that I must be at.”

“I think the livestock barn in Ottawa is the closest for stock sales,” Dan said. “They won’t have cow-calf sales until Wednesday, though. And this is not a great time to be selling … very few operations are looking to build stock this late in the year. And your herd is just too big for one trip in that old truck.”

“I wonder,” Carter said. “Would you be interested in looking after things for me. Look after the animals until the sale, then take them to Ottawa and sell them. It’ll take two weeks, I guess. Would you do it for $200?”

“No, but that gives me an idea,” Dan said. “Let me make a call.”

Dan called back to the House, and got John on the phone. After a brief conversation he put his phone back into his pocket.

“Here’s an idea,” Dan said. “I have a few people coming out to look at the place. We have some land down the road, and might be able to take the stock and continue to raise it. In the fall, when the calves are ready to sell, we would provide you with one, completely butchered to fill your freezer. And we would share the revenues from any sales in Ottawa. We would be taking one or two cows each year for our own use as well.”

“Hmm,” Carter mused. “It would be better if we got our meat in spring, for summer barbequing. Could you deliver in May?”

“Not easily,” Dan explained. “The calves are too small then. You want a full summer to get them up to weight. But a full cow will more than fill your freezer through the winter and into the next summer. We’d need all the equipment in the barn. Heck, we’d like the barn as well. You don’t need it for the tenants of the house. We would tear it down and sell the wood. You get half the proceeds, and none of the work.”

“Would you be our agent up here?” Carter asked. “Collect the rent on the house and look after leasing out the land?”

“Let’s see. My colleagues are just pulling up.”

Sun was driving her old truck, and John and Grey were with her. “Winny, you old coot,” John called out as he approached the two men. “I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age? How are you doing?”

“I’ve been better, John,” Carter said. “I haven’t seen you since your wife got ill and you semi-retired. I’m surprised to see you haven’t come back to your firm after she passed.”

“She didn’t pass,” John said. “She is the doctor in the Tweed hospital. She made a full recovery.”

Sun had made a beeline to the old three-ton truck, while Grey waited for the men to reunite. After Dan introduced everyone, he outlined his idea. There was general agreement over Dan’s ideas, until Sun came back.

“The truck is nearly worthless,” she said. “It’s old, and has been worked hard and put away wet. I doubt you can get $1000 for it. If you can find a sucker.”

“So you don’t want it as part of the deal,” Carter said. “I suppose we could leave it here as scrap.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want it,” Sun said. “It needs a lot of work, but I can probably keep it on the roads for another 10 years.”

“She managed to get that out of a junk pile,” Grey said, pointing to the red GMC truck that they had arrived in.”

“It is gorgeous,” Carter said. “A ‘46?”

“Yep,” Sun said with pride. “I won’t do any bodywork on the three-ton, but I can restore the engine. And Grey can do some work on the back end. Some of the lumber in there is pretty dodgy looking.”

“And you can’t have anything Dodgy on a GMC, can you?” Carter said. Sun got the joke immediately, and the others joined in a second later. Grey wasn’t sure that John had gotten it all.

Soon handshakes were made all around. John had taken copious notes, and went back to the house with Sun and Grey to draft up a contract. Carter headed off to Belleville, following Dan so he could find the police station to make his statement.

At the station, Cindy had entered the interview room with Inspector Riley earlier. A small older woman was clearly the Legal Aide lawyer, while the tall young First Nations’ man sat next to her. The inspector helped Cindy into her seat, then took his own.

“Is this some kind of trick?” the lawyer asked, standing. “Bringing a pregnant woman into an interrogation?”

“No trick. While Ms Smith is due to take a maternity leave soon, she is still an active member of the force,” the inspector said. “In fact, she was the lead officer on the investigation yesterday. It is entirely appropriate for her to be here.”

“Could I get your name, sir?” Cindy asked the prisoner.

“Jeremiah Whiteriver,” he replied, sounding extremely concerned.

“Okay Jerry,” she continued, but the lawyer popped to her feet.

“He said his name was Jeremiah,” she said. “Please use his proper name.”

“It is alright,” the man said to her. “All my friends call me Jerry.”

The lawyer sat in a sulk and Cindy continued.

“Okay Jerry, I have a pretty good idea of what happened yesterday morning. Can you tell me what led you to Mr. Carter’s farm?”

“Don’t answer that,” the lawyer said. “You don’t have to say you were at the farm.”

“Please, madam,” the inspector said. “We have over 220 of his fingerprints at the farm, inside the farmhouse and he was arrested driving a vehicle from the farmhouse. I’m no lawyer, but I think your attention should be in getting a lower charge for the offence, not pretending it didn’t happen. A man is dead, and this man was involved.”

“Yes I was,” Jerry said, soliciting a gasp from his lawyer. The man turned to Cindy.

“I was living on the streets of Toronto … or starving there, I guess. A kind woman dropped a $20 into my tin, so I decided to go to Ottawa. Everyone knows there is a First Nations shelter there that never turns anyone away. I decided to try to get there. My bus ticket only took me to Actinolite and I stopped at the little store there.”

“I know the place,” Cindy said. “Good pie.”

“You should taste it when you haven’t eaten for three days,” Jerry said. “I didn’t have any money, but when I asked about work the nice lady running the place said she could give me an hour’s work cleaning their deep fryer. While the grease was draining from the machine, they fed me a dinner: open face roast sandwich and that blueberry pie.”

“I earned it cleaning the fryer,” he added. “Those things are evil. I could see why none of the women wanted to clean it. All the dried up flour and stuff winds up as a sludge at the bottom of the unit. I had to scoop it all out into a box, and then into a trash bag. It took me the hour, and then they were closing up. They even threw in a couple of stale sandwiches left after the bus had gone.”

“I tried to hitchhike, but got no rides,” Jerry said. “I walked about six miles that night, and stayed in a barn. Then I got up early, before the farmer, and headed back to the road, hoping to get a ride in the light. No luck. A couple of OPP stopped and asked me where I was going, but it is legal to walk along the road so they didn’t do anything. That night I went into the other farm. The place where it happened.”

“I slept fairly snug in the old barn. There was a nest of puppies. All the cattle were outside, but I could hear chickens in the back. I woke up the next morning pretty hungry after a day and a half with no food, so I thought to go back and steal a couple eggs before heading out to the road. It was still a bit dark outside.”

“When I went for the eggs this weird three-legged dog started barking at me and causing a ruckus. He even took a bite out of my leg. And that must have woken the farmer, who came at me with a gun. He got a shot off, and I dropped the eggs. I was standing next to the tool bench, so I grabbed a wrench and threw it at him. I just wanted to make him stop shooting … but I heard it hit him with a sickening sound and he fell. I went over to him and saw the mark on his head, so I ran to the house. I knew it was bad.”

“At first I was going to call an ambulance, but I realized I would be in trouble and didn’t. In the house I found some food, and grabbed it, and went back to the man, to see if he was okay. When I got there he wasn’t breathing, and his skin was getting all clammy feeling and cold. I got his wallet and the keys to his truck and headed to Ottawa. I am so sorry I killed him.”

“I’m sure you are,” the inspector said. “It sounds like you might be able to get the charge down to manslaughter. Murder one would get you 25 years in jail. With a good lawyer, you can get five to seven years, and with good behavior parole after two years.”

“I will handle advising my client,” the snippy lawyer said. “He will fight this.”

“And you will ring up a good portion of fees from Legal Aide no doubt,” Cindy mentioned. “I hope you will advise your client that a plea of guilty might lessen his sentence. There is absolutely no chance he can be released on this charge, and only a botched case will result in anything more than manslaughter.”

“We will use the self-defense in court,” the lawyer said. “He was shot at and only reacted in his own defense.”

“And that is why it is manslaughter instead of second-degree murder,” Cindy retorted. “First degree is not in question: he had no prior intent to kill. But he was illegally on the farmer’s property, and he fled without calling medical help for the man.”

“There is no ‘stand your ground’ law in Canada,” Cindy added. “If the farmer had killed you, it would be him getting charged with manslaughter, not you. And for him it would probably turn into a life sentence. He should have called the police in, not shot at you. But he is beyond the reach of the law now.”

Jerry gasped: “Don’t tell me he might have lived if I had called an ambulance.”

“No,” Cindy said. “The coroner said he died within seconds of the wrench hitting him. You could not have saved him once the wrench was thrown.”

“Thank God. This is bad enough, but if I could have saved him, but didn’t … that would be horrible.”

“We will leave you here to talk with your lawyer,” Inspector Riley said. “When she leaves the officer outside the door will take you back to the cell.”

The inspector and Cindy went to another room.

“That went well, I think,” he told her. “You should be a detective rather than a patrol officer. Do you want to handle the court case?”

“Hello?” said Cindy looking at her belly. “I will be having a baby in the next few weeks, and then it is maternity leave for a year. The trial will be over before then.”

“Not necessarily,” the inspector said. “The wheels of justice turn ever so slow in Canada. A murder trial is not usually held within two years, sometimes longer. You could be done the mat. leave and be ready to come down here to work for me.”

“I’ve already turned down one transfer/promotion,” Cindy said. “Although one down here might be workable. The last offer was to Sergeant up north somewhere. I have my husband and my life up in Actinolite. And soon I will have a baby up there, with lots of support people in my life, including my mother-in-law.”

Cindy then noticed Dan sitting in the waiting room to take her to lunch. He then browsed around Belleville until her shift ended and then drove her back to the House. At lunch he told her of the deal they had made to buy the farm: or it’s stock at least.

Back at the House that evening they found out that as well as buying the cattle herd and the chickens, which had already been moved into Dary’s coop, they discovered that they had bought the barn and all its contents. The neighbor who was interested in sharecropping the land didn’t need a barn, and there would be no value in letting the renters of the house use it. So the men from the house were planning a ‘barn lowering’ to tear it apart. The barn boards could be sold at a high rate to people in Toronto or Kingston who wanted barn boards for renovations.

And once the old barn was down, a new one would have to be built at the house to provide space for the cattle. They would live outside, gazing on the farmyard and into the forest, during the summer. But in the winter the pregnant cows would need a place to keep warm.

As well, a small apartment was planned for the upstairs of the barn. Tanya and Paul were getting close, and Daisy suggested that they might want a place of their own if they ever made a commitment to each other. Paul had practically made the House a second home, only going to his parent’s to sleep, and accompanied Tanya to her apartment each week of the summer, presumably sleeping with the girl. The big block in their relationship would come in September, when Tanya would live full time in Peterborough, and Paul would be in his second year at the university in Kingston.

That evening, when Dary went to the stables to pick out two puppies to take in for the babies to play with, Grey and Billy came with her. Grey told Billy that he was to pick out one of the puppies to be his very own dog. Billy had to sit down and play with all six, under the watchful eye of Tripod and Mamma, the name Dary had given the mother dog. Finally he chose one, and carried it into the house as Dary carried the other two.

“Remember, you will have to help Dary bring him back,” Grey said as the little boy proudly carried his puppy. “His mommy needs to feed him for a couple more weeks. And you will have to feed him after that, so that he knows that you are his master.”

At the house Billy ran to show his puppy to his mother. Meanwhile in the Great Hall Sun decided that two more of the puppies would belong to her babies. Dan then rubbed his wife’s stomach and suggested that one more would go to his child, once born.

“That leaves two,” Grey said. “Should we advertise to get rid of them?”

“I think not,” Daisy said. “I had a dog until he died just a year before you and Sun moved in. I think having two more dogs would suit me.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

The penultimate chapter: Dawn

Chapter 37 – Preparations

Over the next two weeks the men of the House worked hard in the forest and at the mill, creating lumber for the new barn. Dan looked after the cattle at the farm after driving Cindy to work, and also started looking at the old barn, trying to plan how best to dismantle it. He tore down a few boards and brought them back to the House. He also rooted around inside the barn junk pile with Sun, and found more than a few treasures. One was a cement mixer. Sun had already taken the motor and transmission of the old three-ton truck apart, and planned to have it ready soon for work in moving both lumber and cattle.

John had been busy after the murder, and contacted the judge in Belleville, telling her about the Ridge House center. He noted that while the inmates to date had been younger, it would be an ideal place for Jerry Whitewater to await trial. While it was unlikely that he would be allowed to stay in such a low security site if convicted, John convinced the judge that it would be an ideal location for him to reside while waiting for trial, assuming he couldn’t make bail.

The bail hearing was held the next day, and a $100,000 bail was set. Since Jerry couldn’t afford even a $100 bail, the judge ordered him to Ridge House, and the next day two sheriffs came to deliver him.

The next morning Grey took him out to the camp and the Grove, and the following morning they went to the river for dawn feeding time. Jerry came back to the house knowing that his spirit animal was a deer, and that his First Nations’ heritage was important, after hearing all the stories that Grey told him around the campfire, and while walking through the Grove and forest.

Dary was now the official photographer of the house. She used her camera to take pictures of the barn board that Dan had brought over, and had it listed for sale on eBay, with considerable interest in the wood happening almost immediately. The few boards were sold at what Dan considered a ridiculous price by auction, and word was spread online that there would be more planks and beams available for the end of August.

Grey had built Dary a darkroom in the basement of the house, and she was spending most of her afternoons there. She had taken pictures of everyone in the house except Belle, and had many pictures of the young ones: the babies and Billy. The puppies were also photographed many times.

The boys: Ron, Don, Jerry, and Red, were using the backhoe to prepare the ground for the new barn, just north of the stables. They wouldn’t be allowed off the property to work on demolishing the old barn, so they took the lead in building the new one. It would use spruce logs from the forest in most areas, but Grey had determined that one of the maples in the Grove was ready to harvest, and it was felled, yielding four separate 4x6 beams 20 feet long, as well as more lumber besides. Those beams would be the main structure for the barn. The cement mixer would be used to create the floor, so the boys started by clearing the soil and bringing stone and sand from the forest to make a base for it.

Then an expected bug happened: Cindy was at work in Belleville and felt a first contraction. She called Dan, and he got to her quickly enough that they decided to drive back to Tweed hospital instead of using the Belleville hospital. Cindy really wanted Nora to make the delivery. That evening, just after 8 p.m., Dan phoned the House where everyone was eating, and announced that Daisy Ann Smith had entered the world and was doing fine. There was so much interest in going to the hospital that the bus was used so all could attend, except the boys who were amazed to find that they were left alone and trusted to look after the house.

At the hospital, there was an assembly line of people going into the room to see Cindy and little Daisy. Eventually everyone had gotten his or her fill of the newborn, except maybe grandma Lois and Daisy, who fell instantly in love with her namesake.

Dan missed working at the farm for a few days, first looking after Cindy at the hospital, and when she was released he spent time with her at home. Grey took over tending to the cattle, except those days that Tanya’s boyfriend Paul was at the house. As a dairyman he had experience with cattle, although not beef.

When Dan was ready to get back into it there was a major effort to bring down the old barn. First the newly tuned three-ton brought several loads of junk over to the House to be piled next to the mill. Before winter they would be moved again: into the new barn.

The barn boards were pulled down and stacked onto the truck, and brought to the mill. Some of the thicker boards were run through the mill, and ripped so that two boards were gotten out of one.

Finally the roof was taken off. Most of the cedar shingles were old and ruined and put into a trash bin that Dan had ordered in. The roof rafters looked salable though, and finally only the shell of the barn was left. Grey was intensely interested in the construction of the frame, which he wanted to duplicate in a slightly larger size with the new barn. The frame had been built without nails, using dowels and mortise and tenon joints that would never rust or weaken. Nails had only been used to attach boards to the frame.

Near the end of July the barn was gone entirely, and the farmer who was planning to sharecrop the land the next year went over it carefully and determined that he could harrow it and seed it without worrying about his equipment being torn up.

Dan had already found a tenant for the house, a young man who wound up working on the demolition with Dan, Grey, John, and Sun in return for a discount on his first month’s rent.

In August the work turned to the new barn. The boys had laid a fairly level floor with four inches of concrete. Cooper had been their supervisor. The frame was made of the maple beams and some recovered beams from the old barn. John reasoned that no one would want to buy massive heavy beams, and they used the old mill to rip four planks from the sides of each big beam, resulting in salable lumber and a smaller beam for the new barn. These recovered beams and the maple beams were soon erected by the entire crew. The backhoe and the power of the three ton were both used to help lift the heavy beams into position, and in almost every case the maple dowels Grey had made fit snuggly into the holes drilled for them.

In late August plans were being made for school in September. Dary was to catch the bus at the store. Technically, the bus driver would pick her up at the gate, now kept closed to keep the cattle off the road. But Willow knew the bus driver, who stopped in for a coffee and a roll after her morning run, and made points for Dary by arranging the pickup at the store, so the driver could pop in and get a coffee and a pastry in the morning when she stopped for Dary.

Tanya was headed back to school in Peterborough. She had finished all her summer courses in mid-August, and was again at the top of her class. Her professors were thrilled with the papers she had written about the seniors she had visited, as well as a major report she had done on the boys in the correctional system.

Her boyfriend Paul was going to Kingston to university, but planned to get to Peterborough whenever he could. It was more likely that it would be Tanya spending weekends in Kingston though. Sun had renovated an old AMC Pacer so Tanya could return to at least the House on weekends. Most weekends she passed the house in her Pink Pacer and picked up Paul from Kingston, so he could visit his parents and then come over to the house for the bulk of the weekend.

Red was also going into Grade 9, and Cooper arranged for him to be home-schooled as a part of the same class as Dary, so the girl could bring home papers from class, which Cooper then incorporated into lessons for the boy. John had plans to apply for parole for him in the winter term, so he could go to school in Madoc with Dary.

The boys, Ron and Don, would also be homeschooled by Cooper for the fall term, with their one-year sentences over early in February. Then they were to finish Grade 12. Both wanted to go to community college in Peterborough, with Ron interested in auto body after working with Sun, and Don wanting to take cabinet making. Between canoe building and working on the instruments with Red, he felt a career working with wood was in his bailiwick. So far Red was on his fourth guitar, and had sold the third one for $300 to a lad in Tweed. His earlier models were a bit too primitive for sale.

It was November when the next big event happened at Actinolite. Frank and Miriam from the store had taken holidays around Victoria Day, Canada Day, Heritage Day and Labor Day. They were very happy with Willow running the store and gas station. Imperial Oil supplied Esso gas to the station, and had received so many complimentary notes from motorists about the store that the company decided to take it over. They made a huge offer to Frank, and he jumped at the chance to take an early retirement.

Willow was still manager, but there was a ‘merchandiser’ who took over much of the operations, particularly buying.

The first change was that he stopped buying bread from the House bakery. He wanted to use the cheaper Wonder Bread. Of course no one bought bread at the store anymore: you could buy Wonder Bread anywhere. A good number of the former store customers now came to the house and bought bread there.

The next change was to stop selling home made pies and pastries. Andrew, the ‘merchandiser’ said that factory pies and pastries were half the price. Then he complained to Willow when sales in the store went down.

“We should be making a killing on pies,” he said. “These pies only cost us a dollar wholesale. Cutting into 6 and selling them for $3 means we should be making $17 a pie.”

“Yes,” Willow said. “But the pies are smaller, and they aren’t as tasty. We used to sell a homemade pie for $2.50 a slice or $15 a pie. Our profit was probably $8 a pie, but we sold more and it made people come in and buy other things.”

“Just you wait, Andrew said. “In a few months this will be the best store in the system.”

The place had been renowned for its pies, and people driving the highway would stop in to gas up and get a meal, with pie for dessert. When the luscious homemade pies disappeared, so did the traffic. Both gas and store sales dropped significantly.

Just before Christmas, Willow was fired as manager. Her job had been eroded away slowly anyway, with less and less duties. The entire staff of the store quit as well, and the ‘merchandiser’ found himself pumping gas. The store itself was closed for two weeks, to the chagrin of Greyhound, who decided to move the meal stop on the route to Havelock, just down the highway.

The store was reopened just after Christmas, but the man running it had trouble keeping staff, and sales continued to drop as more and more traffic found out about the store-bought pies and boring sandwiches, which were now delivered in rather than being made fresh for the customers. The meals portions of the café declined as well, with no experienced cooks.

Another decision Andrew made was to stop selling native crafts in the store. He replaced the hand made canoes with fiberglass ones from Toronto, and the Dreamcatchers with ones made in China. The same canoe that he had on display in November was there in June the next year, while the House canoes, now sold at the Mill, seldom were on display more than a week. And most of the canoes were made on order, not casual purchase.

Over that winter the men of the house moved the fence back to the rear of the Mill and the House, and put a gravel parking lot in front of the Mill. Then they built a strip of buildings at the front of the Mill, and Willow opened the Old Mill Café and Bakery there, with a huge billboard touting “Homemade Pies” facing the highway.

It took some time, but slowly people started making this their feeding stop on the highway. The result was that soon there was no traffic at the store, and even the gas business dried up. It would last another year, until Imperial decided to close the underperforming location.

The Christmas festivities at the house that winter were special. Sun had invited the parents of all the boys, so that Ron and Don, and Jerry all had family come, who were impressed with the House, the Grove, and especially the mature attitudes of their sons, who all vowed never to break the law again.

There were fewer homemade gifts this year, but one person who went all out the way was Dary, who made her new photography hobby pay off. Daisy was in tears when she was presented with old two picture enlargements from the negative collection that had been found in the basement. One was her entire family, including herself as a cute little girl of about four. Another was a headshot of her beloved brother, who must have set the camera up and used the timer, or had someone else click the shutter.

She also drew tears from Lois, for a color photo of her baby granddaughter. Dan and Cindy also got a copy, but their tears didn’t match those of Lois. Sun got a nice shot of her holding her two tots on her knees, and Grey and Belle got a prized shot of Billy sitting on Grey’s knee, listening to a story and looking up at his ‘father’ with eyes full of love.

Red made the frames for all the many photos that Dary had shot and presented, some with intricate carving.

The fourth day of the celebration, when the kids got their presents, was bedlam, now that there were three tots running about. Billy could run and the twins, at a year and a half, were not far behind him. Don had a little sister who was two, and she was right into the mix.

In the middle of the chaos, Grey heard Daisy tell Lois: “This is what a Christmas should be. All these people, these babies, they are my family. This is what I dreamed for when I was alone all those years.”

The House

By Dawn Natelle

Chapter 38 – The End

It was about 10 years after the prior chapter.

A car arrived at the house, with three females asking for Dary. The girl recognized the older woman as being from the Children’s Aid Society. Dary and Red had recently been assessed to be foster parents, or adopt.

“Dary,” the woman said. “I know you were looking for younger children, but these two girls are 13, and we have had no luck in placing them. I wonder if you could foster them for a few weeks or months.”

“But I am only 23,” Dary protested. “Red is a few years older, but teenagers?” She seemed to steel herself. “And I will not take them for weeks or months. They will stay with me for as long as they want.”

“And if we don’t want to stay in this dump?” the taller of the girls, Dawn, said.

“Well, then I guess we would have to talk about that,” Dary said.” I hope we can make this into a loving home for you.”

“Love? Home? Sure,” Dawn sneered. “Like we are going to get that.”

“I dunno, Dawn.” Sandra said. “It looks like this is a farm. I like animals. Maybe this place will be better.”

“Well, it can’t be worse, can it,” Dawn said. “We’ll try it.” Dary hugged each girl, although both of them took the hug stiffly, and Dary sent the CAS lady on her way.

“Come on, let’s explore the farm,” Dary said. “You noticed the cattle. We have both dairy and beef cattle here, mainly to supply the Houses and the café. My Mom works in the café by the highway. You can work there, if you want to.”

“So you are going to put us to work,” Dawn sneered. “Slave labor for your little farm.”

“No, you don’t have to work,” Dary said. “It is up to you. You get free bed and board here, but no allowance. If you work you can earn some spending money. Most girls can’t get work at 13 … you are family though, so you can. The littlest kids have chores on the farm, and get an allowance. Only the babies don’t work.”

“This barn is where Red works,” Dary said as she opened the door to a cluster of men working. “He makes custom guitars, and sells them to professional musicians all over the world.” She wrapped her arms around kissed her man, and the girls showed a bit of the typical teen ‘ick’ but also a bit of surprise at seeing the love on display.

“Ricky in the next booth is making violins. The aren’t as famous as the guitars … yet, but he only became a master a few months back. Steve is a journeyman, and his specialty is horns … I think he is working on a French horn, if all those parts spread out around him are what I think they are. Ralph, and Nick are the apprentices, and they help the others out when needed. Guys, these pretty ladies are new to the house. Dawn and Sandra.” To Red she said: “Foster daughters. A bit older than we thought we would get, but still a ready-made family.”

“Can you play that?” Dawn asked Red, pointing at the partially-built guitar.

“Red can play anything,” Dary boasted.

“More to the point, can you teach me how to play?”

Red got a big smile on his face: “I would love to teach my daughter how to make music. This one is still a few days away from completion, but I’ll bring a good learner guitar to the Great Hall tonight and give you your first lesson. You too?” he looked at Sandra.

“Maybe later, after Dawn learns,” Sandra said.

“That’s good. It is easier to teach one at a time,” Red said, hugging each of the girls. Dawn seemed a little less tense this time.

The girls left the barn and went into the stable next door. “Oh horses,” Sandra squealed. “Can we ride them?”

“Yes. Not today though. Tomorrow I have plans for a little ride,” Dary said.

“They are really big,” Dawn noted. “Really, really big.”

“But so gentle. Give this one a hug. He is the smallest of the six, and only two years old.” Dary didn’t have to prod Sandra. She had immediately wrapped her arms around the neck of another bigger horse.

“That is Stone,” Dary told her. “He is the oldest, since Madam died. Next is Elysa, my favorite and Mamma to the other four. Dawn has Kitten there.”

“Kitten? A silly name for a horse, but I like kittens,” said Dawn, who seemed less afraid of the horse.

Back behind the stables is the forge, and then the chickens. I used to look after them when I was your age, but Mimi has taken over now. Let’s go to the house.” After a peek at the birds they headed to the house. Dary led them to the back hall on the second floor. “We have empty rooms here. Do you want to share, or get your own rooms?”

“We get to choose?” Dawn asked in amazement. “I can’t remember not having to share. There were five us per room at the last place.”

“I’d like my own room,” Sandra said. “Dawn snores.”

“I do not,” Dawn snapped back.

“How would you know?” Sandra said. “You only do it when you are asleep.”

Dawn opened her mouth to retort, but realized there was nothing she could say to that, except “Do not.”

“Who want’s this room?” Dary asked. Sandra put in a claim by jumping on the bed.

“Now let’s talk about school,” Dary said, and the faces of both girls fell. “There are three more months of school. You can take the bus to Tweed for the middle school, or to Madoc if you are in high school. Or we can home school you.”

“My last grade is six,” Dawn said in a soft voice.

“I passed grade seven, barely,” Sandra added.

“Don’t worry,” Dary said. “We’ll have Cooper evaluate you, and work out a program that will get you into high school when you are ready. He is a great teacher: he taught both me and Red.”

They looked into Dawn’s room next, and Dary learned that the girls had no clothes beyond what they wore. “Shopping trip to Tweed,” Dary announced. “The selection there isn’t great, but we can get you some night gowns and underwear, and some jean’s and tops. Just be aware that the tops will probably promote concert tours that happened before you were born. We’ll plan another trip to Peterborough later.”

The girls got back to the house just before supper. And were amazed at about 60 people from the two houses getting together for a meal, with the dishes passed from one to another. As they ate, Dary introduced all the unfamiliar faces, including the boys from the second house, who stared rather intently at the new girls.

After the meals, the boys took down the tables and Dary and the girls helped clean up and do the wash-up. After the boys had traipsed off to their house, the girls went out to the Great Room, where Red waited for Dawn with his training guitar, and a beginner’s one for her.

Sandra sat near Dary on the other side of the big room, after the elder girl scooped up one of the infants from the floor to get some baby time in. The two chatted.

“So that is what you were hoping for from the CAS,” Sandra said as she watched Dary play with the baby.

“It is what we expected,” Dary admitted. “But this house has ways of matching the right people to the right position. I’m just hoping that you two will be happy here, and eventually want to be adopted.”

“You would adopt us? Then you don’t get CAS fostering money,” Sandra said.

“That will be your decision,” Dary said. “If you want to join the family we would love to have you. If you want to stay under foster care, that will be fine too. It is up to you.”

“Most places we stayed at ran fostering as a business,” Sandra said. “Get enough kids so they don’t have to work … Most of them stinted on food and clothing to have more money for their booze or drugs.”

“Well, that is not the way we do it here,” Dary said. “I just want you to feel loved.”

“I am starting to feel that way,” Sandra said. “I mean you already spent a ton of money for clothes and bedding for our rooms. And you are always making us decide. One room or two, where to go to school, whether to get adopted, what type of chores we will do: I don’t think I’ve ever had to make so many decisions in one day.”

“Here is another,” Dary said. “Do you want to hold the baby?” She held out the infant, and Sandra recoiled back.

“Not me. Dawn might want to, but I don’t like babies. Or boys. Did you see the way the guys from the other house were staring at me?”

“Did that bother you? Most young girls don’t mind, if the boys are cute and near their age.”

“I don’t think boys are cute at all,” Sandra said, and then clasped her hand over her mouth as if she had said something bad.

“There is nothing wrong with that,” Dary said softly.

“At the last place they found out I like girls,” Sandra sobbed. “They made me go to a pastor who tried to cure me of the ‘devil’.”

“It is not a devil that makes you like girls,” Dary said. “Thirteen is a bit early to decide, but if you turn out to be lesbian, that makes no difference to me. Tomorrow night I will tell you two my story, and it is a doozy.”

“You are cool,” Sandra said as she hugged Dary. “I think I will like it here.”

“I hope so, honey,” Dary said as she hugged back. And at the other side of the room Dawn put her guitar down and stood up to hug her teacher. “You are cool,” she told Red. “I like it here.”

“Time for the evil foster-mother to step in,” Dary said as she approached. “You two need to be off to bed. There is no lights out time. You can have another half hour to chat, and then another half hour to read or play your guitar. I will trust you to go to bed after that.”

Sandra picked up a book and then headed off to her room with her ‘sister’. They both went into Dawn’s room first, where she plucked her guitar chords as she sat on the bed. “You are pretty good with that already,” Sandra said.

“Yeah, Red is a good teacher,” Dawn said. “I saw you chatting with Dary. What did she say? Nothing bad I hope.”

“No, I told her I was gay, and she was cool with it,” Sandra said.

“Cool. That leaves all those scrumptious boys from the other house for me,” Dawn joked. “A couple of them looked pretty good to me.”

“Yeah, too bad there weren’t any girls over there for me,” Sandra said. “But I think if I do meet a nice girl and bring her home Dary will be cool with it.”

The next day, after lunch, Dary told Red to saddle up three horses. During the morning Dary had put together three packsacks, and after the washing up was done, she handed one to each of the girls and they headed over to the stable.

Red was holding the three saddled horses, which were prancing around in anticipation of a ride. Dawn had never ridden before, so Red helped her aboard Kitten and walked the horse about, giving her a lesson on how to start, stop, and turn the horse.

“You shouldn’t need to worry,” Red told the girl, who was just short of terrified. “Kitten will follow the older horses. All you have to do is stay on top of her.”

Sandra had ridden before, although never on such a large horse, and Dary had been riding the big horses since she was a teen. The three headed off, until they came in sight of Grove, where they saw Grey standing in full Ojibwe regalia.

“You remember Grey, our medicine man,” Dary said. “He wants to offer you a little ceremony out here to find your spirit animal. You hop off first, Sandra, and Dawn and I will walk towards the Grove a bit. Come get us when you are done.”

Five minutes later, Sandra ran up. “I am a wolf. It is so cool, you have to do it Dawn.” Dawn and Dary had gotten down, so the other girl ran off to Grey. “I am a deer, he says,” Dawn reported. “What are you, mom?”

She verbally stumbled after saying the M word, as if she would be rebuked for it, but Dary just smiled and glowed with pleasure. “I did this 12 years ago, daughter,” she said. “I am a squirrel.”

“I get to call Red Dad first,” Sandra insisted. The two were more like sisters than natural ones, Dary told herself, and admitted that she was starting to love them like a natural mother.

The three walked the horses over to the camp and put them in the longhouse that had become a second stable for the animals. “We have to feed and water them,” Dary said, pointing to bales of straw and hay at the back. But we need to water ourselves first before the horses roil everything up.”

The girls all took tin cups to drink water out of, as well as canteens to fill with clean water. After they came back, they led the horses out to water.

Back in the longhouse the three of them together pulled out a bale of straw and cut it open to cover the dirt floor of the stable. Then a bale of hay was split allowing all three horses to eat. The hardest job was in getting the heavy saddles off the animals. It took all three to carry them.

“We have to muck out the place tomorrow before we leave,” Dary said. “It is messy, but we have to do it if we ever want to ride again. The other thing we have to do is brush down the horses.”

“I definitely want to ride again,” Dawn said. “It was scary at first, but by the end it was really fun. Can Sandra and I come out here alone, just for a ride?”

“For a ride, or even a campout,” Dary said. “This is your home now.”

“The best home I’ve ever had,” Sandra said softly, and Dawn nodded. Dary just teared up a bit.

“We need to get the wigwam cleaned up and ready for us to sleep in tonight, and then we are going to need to gather wood for a fire. I’ll tell you a bit about the trees around here as we go,” Dary said. “Grey, our medicine man is the real expert on the trees, so if you ever get a chance to come out with him, jump on it.”

“We are staying overnight?” Sandra squealed. “Cool.” Dawn nodded in agreement.

After a few hours, and another watering of the horses, Dary taught them how to build an Ojibwe fire, although she cheated using a Bic lighter to get the fire going. Soon there was a pot of potatoes, onions, carrots, and venison chunks, making a hearty stew. As they watched the fire cook their dinner, Dary told them the story of the house and how it had developed, including her personal history.

“I can’t believe you were ever a boy,” Dawn said. “You are so pretty.”

“I was never a boy. I just thought I was. And we caught it before I started turning into a man.”

“And that’s why you are cool with me being gay,” Sandra said.

“If you are, yes. But remember that 13 is pretty early to know for sure. You might go to high school and some big football player will sweep you off your feet.”

“Yuuck,” Sandra said, and Dary started to believe that she may actually be gay.

After a satisfying dinner, and a wash-up in the spring, the girls cooked smores over the coals and chatted about their lives. Dary’s heart went out to the poor girls, who seemed to have had nothing but hardships since they were born. She vowed to herself that she would ensure that the next 13 years would be much better for them.

It was still light out when Dary had the girls head into the wigwam for bed. She put out the fire, and then went into join them, finding them both sleeping already. The outdoors air just seems conducive to good restful sleep. And yes, Dawn does snore. Red does too, so it did not bother Dary.

The next morning it was still dark when Dary was awakened by the sound of Grey’s whistle. He had spent the night sleep in the Grove, as he had promised.

She was first to use the toilet, and came back to find the other two awake, but fighting getting up. “You will need to get up soon to get rid of all that spring water you drank last night,” she said softly. “Better get moving before your need means you don’t have time to get dressed. It is really cool out there in the springtime mornings.”

Dawn was first to pull on her new jeans and a shirt, and then ran shrieking to the outhouse. Sandra fought for a little longer, and then set a record in dressing and ran out, passing Dawn as she returned. Dary gave the girl a stick of venison jerky for breakfast, and then watered the horses again. When Sandra got back she also got a stick of jerky, and put it in her mouth, finding it soothed the hunger pangs.

“It is still freaking night time,” Sandra said. “Why are we up so early?”

“We are going to see the magic of the house,” Dary said. “I love doing this. Usually I have my camera, but today we will store these memories in our heads and our hearts. Come on. Walk in single file and hold on to the girl in front. It is still dark. Call out if you get separated. There is no moon tonight, and enough cloud to block the stars.”

By the time they were half way to the river predawn broke through and gave enough barely light to see by. The girls were incredibly noisy walkers, Dary realized. Grey would not put up with the noise. Finally they turned the corner and walked up to the fallen tree that had a good view of the river.

Dawn squealed when she saw three deer heading to the water for their morning drink, and immediately knew she had done wrong when they scattered at the noise. From then on both girls were quiet. For the next hour they watched in silent awe as nature paraded itself in front of them.

“Come on,” Dary said. “It is getting pretty light now. The smaller animals won’t be back, but deer, wolf, and moose will come by during the day at different times. Let’s head back.

Dawn just grabbed Dary in a hug. “Thank you for bringing us here, Mom. This really is a magical place.” Sandra joined into the hug, and held it for a while after her sister let go.

When they got back to the camp they found that someone had saddled the horses and mucked out the longhouse. Dary silently thanked Grey for doing it, and it allowed her to take her two daughters back to the house after their bonding experience. As they rode back, it was Sandra who first spoke: “Were you serious that we could be adopted? I really want you to be my mom,” she said to Dary. Dawn then said “Me too,” and Dary nearly burst out in pride.

“I would love to have you a part of my family,” she said. “We will talk to John when we get back to the house. He is our lawyer.”

Dawn rode more confidently now and soon they were near the barn. Red happened to step outside of the building. “Hey Daddy,” Sandra called out. “Can you or one of your boys help us with these saddles?”

-----------

Everyone from the house was gathered in the grove. Grey had Bobby, now 13, with Belle and their three younger children. Sun and Hawk had the twins, nearly 11 now, along with their four other adopted children. Dary and Red were now a wedded couple, and had two adopted children, and their grandmother Willow was with them. Dan and Cindy had three children, and Cooper Lone Owl with his recent wife Felicity were also there, along with nearly 20 inhabitants of the west house, where the incarcerated members of the community lived.

There were now two houses on the property, with a new West House built several years ago to make room for the increasing numbers of offenders being sent to the Ridge House. The fact that no one had ever tried to escape the house and that almost all who had done time there were never again in trouble with the law made it the preferred location for judges in the province to send First Nations youth for rehabilitation. Many times there were attempts to send white boys as well, but the House rejected these all. It was strictly for First Nation’s youth and the correctional department could not convince Sun and Grey to consider trying to make the system that worked so well for natives open to all. Sun and Grey knew a large part of the treatment was in instilling First Nation’s pride in the residents and it was felt White clients would be disruptive. They did allow other wardens to come and look at their program if they thought it might be adapted to work in other situations.

In spite of the many young people in the crowd, all were somber. It was the funeral of Daisy Ridgemark after all. Her best friend Lois had passed two months earlier, from cancer, and after a few weeks Daisy had gone downhill, eventually dying in her sleep two nights ago. When Lois had been sick she had refused to let Grey cure her, and he only used his skills to combat the pain of the cancer. With Daisy, who had no native blood, Grey was unable to help. There was another death the same week as Daisy. All through her period of illness the dog Rabbit, had laid beside her bed, and the elderly woman often rested her hand on the head of the old dog.

“Don’t worry,” Daisy had told Grey as she slowly slipped away. “My time has past, and I can only thank the Lord for giving me a few years as ‘grandma’ to so many little ones. I remember thinking as the house started to burn after that lightning strike so long ago that it was the worst day of my life. It was actually the best, when Sun and you came to live with me.”

Cooper had devised a combination of First Nations and Christian traditions, unlike Lois who had a first nation burial. The grave faced west, as the one Lois had just to the rear. Next to Lois was the grave of George Jenson, who had lived in the blacksmith shop until he took ill and died of old age. Lone Goose also had a grave in that row. Daisy was laid in the front as a place of honor.

After everyone in the ceremony had tossed earth in the open grave, the men filled it completely with their spades, then a new tradition that had started with Lois was continued, and each person placed a stone on the grave. Sun was first, placing a rather large block of stone, to be followed by the others in the crowd, right down to the infants and toddlers – the newest grandchildren – who dropped smaller stones.

Later Kyle Moosebuck, the stonemason who had joined the band when the new house was built, would build a little cairn over the grave. Sun was last to approach, and she placed a brass plaque in front of the stones. It read “Daisy Ridgemark, 1938 to 2016. Mother of none, grandmother of many.” Similar plaques were on the cairns of the others. Lois’s said “Beloved Mother and Grandmother.” On George’s the motto was “Maker of Beautiful Things” while Lone Goose’s said “Keeper of the Grove”.

All the plaques shone brightly. Shortly after George died, Grey started the tradition of going out once a month during the warmer months and polishing the plaque that Sun had made for Lone Gooses’ grave. Red accompanied him to do the same for George. When Lois died, Cindy’s young daughter Daisy started doing her grandmother’s plaque. Mimi had claimed the right to do the original Daisy’s plaque.

More than five years ago Daisy had sold the house and the land to the band for a token payment. It was a longer chore for John to get the band listed with the province as an Indian Reservation. It only happened when the band said it would not seek any money for the prior land claim settlements that had brought millions to reserves across the province. After that things started to roll and Ridge Indian Reserve was now official.

The band did not need claims’ money. They were self sufficient in their communal way. They had cornered the market on canoe building in the province, setting the standard for both cedar strip and birch bark craft. Boys who had spent more than a year in the correctional house often left to return to their own communities and make canoes there that could be branded with the “Ridge Reserve” trademark. The reserve also made snowshoes, and provided guide services to hunters going into the crown lands around the reserve.

The little store had recovered all of the business that the other store once had, other than the bus service and was again the coffee stop for the residents of the area. The bakery and store complex now employed 22 people. Behind it was the Old Mill Body Shop where residents brought their cars for repairs and bodywork. But the big income came from the classic cars that Sun restored to showroom condition and sold every spring in a California car show.

In a corner of the old stable Red Eagleclaw had a small shop where he and four apprentices made guitars by hand. Professional musicians came to prefer the custom instruments, and many of the guitars sold for over $4000 each.

The House was increasingly self-sufficient. Paul VanKleek had eventually married Tanya, and they looked after the farming operations, with both beef and dairy cattle providing food for the house. There was now a rather large henhouse tended by Mimi Dipsen, one of Sun’s twins. And Dary Eagleclaw tended the seven-acre market garden, with help of the boys from the West House, raising vegetables for the evening meals, when everyone got together in the Old House great room for a communal dinner made in the big kitchen.

The end