The Curse of the Viking Grave (3 page)

Soon they were having some measure of success in their battle against the disease. Roaring fires and the strength of steaming meat soup brought renewed life to those Chipeweyans who had suffered the ravages of the disease and survived it. By the end of a week more than a score of men and women had passed the crisis and had rallied back to life—but an almost equal number had lost the struggle.

The boys got very little rest. All through the long winter
nights two boys made continual rounds of the tents to keep the fires going, while the third stretched out in exhausted sleep. They thought of only one thing: when would help come? Each day they strained their eyes across the lake to glimpse the approach of Alphonse's men, hoping that Angus Macnair and a doctor might be with them.

On a day in the last week of February, Alphonse brought a load of food to the meeting place and was met only by Jamie. The boy stood thirty yards away, as had been agreed, and he was so weary that he seemed to sag into the snow.

Alphonse's face betrayed his fear, but he spoke calmly enough.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

“It's Peetyuk,” Jamie answered. “He's sick, and Awasin's staying in the camp with him. Awasin's all right and so am I. When is help coming, Alphonse? Is there no word from my uncle yet?”

Alphonse's dark and handsome face grew darker still. He stretched out his hands as if he would close the gap between himself and the boy.

“You have much strength in you, Jamie,” he said. “Be strong now, for the news is bad.”

“Angus!” Jamie shouted. “Is he all right? Did he get through?”

“He did what he said he would, my son. Last night a messenger came from The Pas, a Cree sent by the police. He brought a letter to you from the police—but also he brought private news.

“When Angus reached Reindeer he found Penyatzi and Madees lying in a travel tent some distance from the trading post. They were very sick and none would go near them. So your uncle nursed Penyatzi and Madees. Madees still lives, although Penyatzi is no more.

“There was no help available at the trading post, so Angus traveled on. But he took the evil with him in his lungs. He got to The Pas sick. He was taken to the hospital and for a time they thought he would die. But he lives, my son, he lives. And he has sent this message to you through the lips of his friends the Crees. He says this: ‘Tell the boy he is to do as he sees fit, for he has shown himself to be a man, and a man may decide his own life for himself.' ”

Alphonse finished talking and laid a manila envelope on the snow. As he walked away from it, Jamie ran forward, picked it up and tore it open.

The Pas, Manitoba
February 18th

Jamie Macnair
Macnair Lake
Manitoba

Dear Sir:

Re: Angus Macnair

1. I have to inform you that your uncle, Angus Macnair, is hospitalized at The Pas with double pneumonia and serious complications. It is the opinion of the doctors that he will not be able to leave his bed for many
weeks and he will be unable to return north for some months, if ever.

2. Since he has no funds he is being cared for as a welfare patient.

3. It is understood that Mr. Macnair is your legal guardian. Since he is not in a position to care for you the law compels me to instruct you to report yourself to the Child Welfare authorities in Winnipeg as soon as possible.

4. You will therefore return to The Pas with the bearer of this letter, Special Constable Peter Moiestie. Transportation by rail to Winnipeg will be provided for you from there.

5. Would you please inform Chief Denikazi and Chief Meewasin that the Department of Indian Affairs has the epidemic under advisement and will try to arrange a visit by a doctor when conditions warrant.

R
OBERT
O
WEN
, Sgt.,
  i/c The Pas Detachment

 

CHAPTER
3

Angeline

S
HOCK AND RAGE CHOKED JAMIE AS
he finished the letter. He looked up, white-faced and hard-eyed.

“Listen to this, Alphonse!” he cried bitterly, and read the letter aloud.

There was a responsive anger on the Cree chief's face. “So,” he said, “they will send a doctor—when conditions warrant! Then we will show him many graves. But you, my son, what will you do?”

“I'm staying!” Jamie yelled fiercely. “You can tell Constable Moiestie if he wants me he'll find me in Denikazi's tent—with five sick Chips. He can come in there and get me if he wants to try it.”

“Easy, my son. Peter Moiestie is a Cree. Have no fear of him. He will return south without you if that is what you wish. But you must think carefully of what you do, for it is in my mind that the police will send for you again.”

“There's plenty of other things to think about,” Jamie replied more calmly. “There's Angus being treated like a down-and-out. I've got to get money to take care of him—maybe for a long time. I can't do that in an orphanage and
that's likely where they'll put me if I go outside. But if I stay here I can go on trapping and, and…there's the Viking relics! They're bound to be worth a lot of money. And we can still go north for them! That's it, Alphonse, that'll solve everything!”

Alphonse stepped nearer and nodded his head thoughtfully. “Perhaps you are right, my son. But you must remember that you are a white man, and the whites will not let you go so easily. Do not forget that they are your people.”

Jamie clenched his hands, wadded the letter into a ball and flung it onto the ice. There was bitter defiance in his voice.

“
My
people? They aren't mine! They'd let the whole lot of you die without lifting a hand to help. Don't call them
my
people, Alphonse!”

Adroitly Alphonse changed the subject.

“The decision is yours to make,” he said soothingly. “Your uncle left you free to do as you think best. But now, if the Idthen Eldeli can spare you, it would be wise to bring Peetyuk back to your cabin where he can be better cared for.”

Mention of Peetyuk quieted Jamie's anger. “I guess you're right, Alphonse. The Chips can get along without us now, so long as you keep bringing them wood and meat. And Peetyuk
is
pretty sick.”

 

The next morning as Jamie and Awasin harnessed the dogs to the carioles, Chief Denikazi appeared from his
tent, still weak but holding himself stiffly upright in the cold wind. He said nothing until Peetyuk, who was half delirious with fever, had been carefully placed in Awasin's cariole and well wrapped in deerskins. Then he grunted to attract the boys' attention and, without even looking at them, muttered a few words.

“What's he saying?” asked Jamie, who did not understand Chipeweyan.

“He says: ‘We will be here,'” Awasin translated.

“Well,
that's
not much of a thank-you speech, considering all we've done.”

Awasin glanced sharply at his friend and his usually gentle voice had an edge to it.

“Sometimes I think you do not know us at all, Jamie. What use is a speech made out of many words? Denikazi means that as long as there are Chipeweyans in this land, we will have friends. Is that not enough?”

Jamie fumbled with one of the traces and muttered: “I'm sorry, Awasin. Tell him we were glad to help his people.”

“There is no need, Jamie. He knows. Now let us go.”

A few minutes later, the boys looked back to see the old Chipeweyan still watching them. He grew small in the distance before he turned his back. Slowly Denikazi walked toward the straggling row of deerskin tents. Many of them now stood empty to the winds, while the people who had built them waited in rigid silence under the great snowdrifts—waited for spring and the thawing of the ground so that they could begin the long sleep of the dead.

The boys made the homeward journey at a good pace, for the two teams had been strengthened by the addition of Peetyuk's dogs. Because of the danger of infecting the Crees they swung wide around the camps at Thanout Lake, but as they passed the cabins most of the Crees came out to wave and shout greetings to them from a distance. Just after dark the carioles swung down Macnair Lake.

Jamie and Awasin had expected to find a deserted cabin, frosty cold after the long weeks it had stood empty. They were startled to see a soft gleam of yellow light from the two windows. They looked quickly to see if there were a sled and dogs in the yard, but there was nothing. It was all very mysterious, for it had been agreed that they should have no contact with the Crees until Peetyuk was completely over his sickness. And yet, who else but one of the Crees could have visited the cabin?

They had not long to wait for an answer. As the dogs hauled the carioles up off the lake ice they broke into a short chorus of howls, and the cabin door swung open. Framed in the lighted space was the figure of a girl. She held a kerosene lantern in her hand and it illuminated her pretty oval face and reflected the gleam of her long, black hair.

“Angeline!” Awasin cried in amazement. “What are you doing here? You must leave at once! We have Peetyuk with us and he has the lung sickness. We must get him inside. Pick up your things and go!”

“Bring him in then, quickly,” the girl replied calmly. “The cabin is ready. There is hot soup on the stove. And
do not tell me what
I
must do, brother, for our mother has permitted me to come, and our father has brought me here himself. Hurry with Peetyuk. Do not stand there like two frozen owls.”

Too astonished to argue, the boys did as they were told. Not until some time later, when the sick boy had been freshly clothed, put into his bunk, fed a little soup and had drowsed off into a feverish sleep, did they have time to question Angeline. The girl, who was busy washing dishes and setting pots of water to boil, was perfectly aware that she had them at a disadvantage. It was not until Awasin finally abandoned his big-brother attitude and pleaded with her for an explanation that she turned, smiling, and told her story.

“You have forgotten, brother, that when I was at mission school as a little girl there was the lung sickness there. I had it, but it did me no harm. When our father told us that you were coming here with Peetyuk I spoke of the need for someone to care for him, and our mother understood. Father agreed, and he brought me here this morning. It is a good thing I came. Look at you two! A bear would turn you out of his cave, you smell so bad! Here is hot water, and here clean clothing. Unless you would sleep outside with the dogs tonight, make yourselves clean!”

There is no false modesty amongst northern peoples, and Awasin bowed to the inevitable meekly enough. In a moment he had stripped off his filthy clothing and was washing himself in a bucket of scalding water, sighing with pleasure as he did so.

But being city-raised, Jamie found the situation more difficult. Finally he picked up a bucket and went out to the unheated lean-to shed at the back of the cabin where they stored things which would not be hurt by frost. Nobody said anything to him as he went out into the bitter cold, but as he stood shivering in the shed with the hot water sending up a great cloud of steam about him, he distinctly heard the sound of giggling from the cabin, and despite himself he blushed.

“Darn girl,” he complained to himself, careful to keep his voice low. “She's got no business here!”

But an hour later as he lay back on his bunk, clean and freshly clothed in a shirt and trousers Angeline had laundered that afternoon, he found that his indignation had mellowed considerably. He was even able to thank Angeline in a moderately friendly manner when she brought him a mug of coffee and asked for his moccasins so that she could mend their worn-out soles.

 

Peetyuk was indeed very ill and the long trip in the cariole had done him no good. It was several days before the fever left him. During those days Angeline cared for him with deep solicitude. She was merciless with Jamie and Awasin. Although she fed them well and saw to it that their ragged trail clothes were neatly repaired, she drove them to tasks they would normally not have bothered with. She made them scrub the grimy cabin from end to end. She forced Jamie to spend a whole day making more shelves where clothing and other oddments of gear, which
had lain helter-skelter anywhere, could be stowed neatly away. She sent Awasin off to snare snowshoe rabbits which, she said, made the best soup for sick people.

Despite the way she took control, she never raised her voice and never appeared to be giving orders. She was always demure, soft-spoken, smiling—and utterly inflexible. Jamie was baffled by her. Most of the time he resented her presence, but when he chose to be honest with himself he was grateful for the way she cared for Peetyuk and so eased the burden which would otherwise have fallen on himself and Awasin.

Although Angeline made the boys do what she required, she also saw to it that they had a chance to rest and regain their strength after the ordeal at the Chipeweyan camp. Cooking and nursing were nothing new to her for she had done both of these at home and at the mission school. But it was almost as if the Macnair cabin had become her own house and she felt a tremendous (if carefully concealed) pleasure in seeing to the domestic details. Nor was she unaware that Peetyuk, growing stronger every day, watched her busy activities with open admiration.

Awasin was resigned to her presence almost from the first. He knew his sister, and he had no intention of wasting time and energy pitting his will against hers. Besides, he recognized her value and was secretly delighted to have the benefits of her presence.

One day about a week after their return Awasin and Jamie were cutting wood together and talking about the fix Angus was in, and of what they could do about it.

“Peetyuk is much better now,” Awasin said. “With Angeline to keep the cabin and look after him, perhaps we should start trapping again. Long-hair fur is still prime and the time is coming for the muskrat and beaver. Soon my father will go south to the trading post to clear his winter debt and to outfit for the spring hunt. We can send our furs with him and he can buy the things we will need when we go north to the Barrenlands.”

Jamie brightened visibly at this suggestion. He had been doing much brooding about his problems, and the worry of being responsible for finding money to free his uncle from the degradation of being treated as a welfare case was weighing heavily on him.

“You're right, Awasin. We ought to go back to trapping. You and I can take our old lines and split up Peetyuk's between us until he's well enough to travel. Maybe we can even run part of Angus's line as well. With the furs we've already got and what we can get before break-up, we ought to be able to ship a good few bales south. We'll send the best of them straight to The Pas. There's a fur buyer there Angus knows and trusts, and he'll sell them and see to it Angus gets some money.”

So it was decided, and the next morning the two boys said good-by to a wan Peetyuk who still lay in his bunk.

Angeline helped pack their carioles and saw them off. When they made their first stop for lunch they found she had filled their grub-boxes with frozen doughnuts, packages of frozen caribou stew, and loaves of bannock—north-country bread of flour and water mixed with a pinch
of baking powder and fried in deer fat—made with dried blueberries. It was the best trail food either boy had eaten for many months and Jamie found himself thinking almost kindly of the black-haired, bright-eyed girl who waited at the cabin on Macnair Lake.