Five Days of the Ghost (13 page)

“I went into the town to talk to the govmint agent fella ‘bout a treaty. Had big house, that guy. Still there, I guess. Fella name Bond.”

Noah shot me a quick look and I heard John catch his breath. Inside me, tension began to squeeze like a cold fist.

“Talked to that guy long time, day after day. Explained what the peoples needed—lotta land without no White boats or machines or stone buildings. Lotta land for trapping, hunting.

“That guy, he promised me all kinds things. Said he was White Father sent by govmint to take care of us Chippewa children. Said my peoples would get evrythin' I asked. I just hadda make a mark on a paper.

“I tol' him I gotta talk with the Elders ‘bout all that. That's our way. The peoples gotta agree. He said I could mark the paper, come back tomorrow, I was Chief. I said no, gotta have a council.

“Went back home. Couldn't find some Elders. They was gone into the hills, north. My wife and my kids, they was worse. Sick real bad. My heart was achin' for them. Couldn't do nothin' for them, their sufferin', ‘cept wait and see if they was stronger than the bad sickness-spirit.

“Next day I went an' tol' Bond I couldn't sign. Had to wait for sickness to pass and Council could get back together. He got real mad. Then, little later, Bond tol' me he could get strong medicine for the peoples, White medicine, would chase the sickness away.”

Chief Copegog paused and cleared his throat.

“But I had to mark the paper first.”

John groaned and swore and shook his head. Noah dropped his head and his long black hair fell across his face.

“I tol' him I would talk to Elders. I would find them in the hills, one by one, talk to ‘em, if he would give the medicine. He said No, mark the paper first.”

The Chief was looking at the ground too. He was talking almost in a whisper, so that his voice seemed to come from a hundred years away.

“So I did that thing he wanted. Took a big feather with black water on the end and marked a paper. Made a scratchy sound, that feather. Then Bond, he gave me a cloth bag with brown powder in it. Had strong smell, that powder. Said boil some powder in water, get sick peoples to drink it. Sickness be driven away.

“I went back to the home place fast as I could. Gave out the powder to my family and the peoples there and later took some into the hills to find rest of my peoples. Was gone three days.

“Came back to the home place and my kids was dead. Wife was dead. Found them all in the wood lodge, all swelled up, with tongues hangin' out. Bad smell there, too.

“My heart sneaked away, then. Never came back.”

The old man let out a long, painful sigh. When he started talking again, the rhythm speeded up.

“Same day, an Elder tol' me that medicine, that's no good. Said it was somethin' lotta Whites drank. Called it ‘coffee.'

“And all the peoples was mad at me. Said White mens came, told ‘em to get off that land. White land now. Told ‘em we all hadda move across the lake. Waved a paper ‘roun', called it Surrender Number 48, said it had my mark on it.

“Then I knew that Bond fella, he tricked me.

“Same night, I went ‘cross the lake to talk to Bond, make him take back that paper. He laughed at me. Used an Ojibwe word to me, bad word, meant I was lowest thing alive.

“I could see my kids' faces in front of me when I took out my knife and kilt that guy.” Chief Copegog stopped talking and cleared his throat again. He lifted his head. There were tears running down his wrinkled cheeks.

“I ran away into the bush after that. Nothin' to go home for. Lived alone in shame lotta years.

“One winter mornin' I was pushin' along a frozen river bank, checkin' the trapline. Snow was deep that winter, hard goin'. Big storm came up that day, blew in fast. Had to hole up to wait out the blizzard. Waited three days. I was sittin' in there in the dark, in my shelter, freezin'. Started thinkin' ‘bout my family. Felt so bad I went out that place, walked into the wind's teeth. Laid down in a snowdrift and went to sleep.

“When I left this world, couldn't get into the next one. Now I got to lead the peoples there when their time comes, but I got to stay between. I'm outcast.”

The cigar was cold in his hands.

“But that wasn't your fault!” I said. “You did the best you could.”

Chief Copegog frowned and shook his head.

“That's White thinkin'. Our way, we got to decide together. We're a nation, all peoples fit, all got a place. Even crazy ones or sick ones or old ones. All got a place. I betrayed that, see? Decided on my own. ‘Cause I wanted that medicine for my kids, specially them kids born same minute. Thought of myself, not my nation. Now … ”

He didn't finish the sentence.

Noah said, “Is your punishment … eternal?”

“I got to do this till I pay back my peoples. Sometimes outcast can get back in if he does somethin' special good.”

I felt kind of selfish then about bothering Chief Copegog with my problem, but what else could I do?

“Chief Copegog, this thing I was telling you about, could you help me with it?”

“Could try, little girl, but I'm in spirit world now.”

“Well, this problem is sort of
about
the spirit world.”

He smiled, creasing up his already creased face.

“Okay, I help you then. Try, anyway.”

So I told him about Kenny. And I made sure he knew that we, Kenny and I, were twins, just like his kids.

“And now,” I finished up, “we”—I pointed to John and Noah—”we know for sure that Kenny is trying to talk to us from the spirit world but we don't know why or what he's trying to tell us.

“Could you,” I blurted finally, “could you come with us and talk to him for me—I mean, us?”

Noah jabbed me in the ribs just as John hissed, “Are you nuts, Karen?”

Noah leaned over so that his mouth brushed against my ear and added so softly I could hardly pick up what he was saying, “It's the
same house
, remember? The house where he—”

“Sure,” I said out loud, “but—”

“Karen,” Noah whispered, “can you imagine what kind of forces would come pouring out of the next world if
he
came to your house?”

“Karen.” It was John talking. “I think we better
talk
about this!”

Noah wouldn't let up. “Listen, don't you get it? If Chief Copegog comes to your house—and you conveniently left that little tidbit out when you asked your favour—don't you realize that Bond's ghost might join us too? Do you want them
both
in your upstairs hall? A murderer and a dirty rotten drunken cheat?”

I looked into the Chief's calm, sad face. I pushed Noah away and said to Chief Copegog, “Will you come?”

“Yep. Can't go ‘way for too long, though.” He pointed to the earth in front of him. “Think he's almost ready to cross over, and I got to be here when he's ready.”

I got to my feet and said over John's and Noah's protests, “Let's go, then.”

Tuesday Afternoon:
Our House

Chief Copegog led the way back to the boat, with me behind him and the guys behind me. They talked excitedly to each other all the way but I couldn't make out what they were saying. And I was pretty sure I didn't
want
to know.

Chief Copegog sort of
glided
through the bush. The three of us were always shoving branches aside, ducking under things, waving mosquitoes away, tripping ourselves up. Not Chief Copegog. He hardly ever moved his arms. He slipped around and between trees like a—well, like a ghost. Except you could tell he had always walked that way.

The water in the bay was so calm and clear I could see the sand bottom and the trees that lined the shore were reflected on the surface.

John and Noah dragged the little aluminum boat from the trees and settled it into the calm water of the bay, breaking up the image of the sky and trees on the surface. Noah squatted and held the boat against the flat rock shore so we could get in. John dropped the packs into the bow of the boat where they thumped on the aluminum floor.

Chief Copegog stared down at the water behind the boat. The light breeze stirred his long black hair. A frown creased his brow and the corners of his mouth turned down.

“That boat, she don't smell so good.”

I looked where Chief Copegog was looking. Around the scaly blue motor was a pretty rainbow floating on the water. Except I knew the rainbow was caused by gas and oil leaking into the lake.

“Sorry about that,” said Noah. “It's my uncle's boat,” he added, as if that explained anything.

I climbed into the boat, rocking it like crazy. Noah had to hold the gunwale to keep it steady. It wasn't a very big boat, and my weight made it tilt to one side.

I sat down on the centre seat, facing the back, then Chief Copegog stepped in, just like he would if he was stepping over a string that was lying on the ground. The boat didn't rock. It didn't even move. And after he sat down on the seat with me the boat still tilted to my side.

I shot a look at John. He made a soft whistling sound just before he scrambled into the back. Last came Noah, pushing off the rock beach as he hopped in. He plunked himself down beside John. The boat floated free.

I was shivering like mad and I could see John hugging himself to keep warm but pretending not to. The aluminum seat under me was like a slab of ice.

I turned to Chief Copegog and said as politely as I could, “Um … do you think you could turn down the cold a little?”

Chief Copegog looked startled for a second, then grinned, showing his stumpy teeth and the gaps where there weren't any.

“Can try, little girl.”

The cold melted away. Most of it, anyway.

Noah pulled the choke on the old motor, squeezed the bulb on the gas line, and then gave a great heave on the starter rope. The motor turned over a couple of times, coughing. A blue cloud of exhaust boiled out behind the boat. I looked at Chief Copegog. His eyes opened a little wider, then went back to normal. Then he scowled again and wrinkled his big flat nose.

“Scare all the ducks, birds, animals off with that stink and noise thing,” he said. “Reminds me of that place, York.”

Noah yanked again and the motor woke up, growling, then settled down to a drone.

As we turned out of the bay into the lake a long, sleek boat roared past. It was one of those speed boats we called cigarettes because they were so long and narrow and it was pulling four skiers on bright yellow ropes that fanned out from the back of the boat. The skiers came so close to us we could hear them laughing and screaming—three girls and a guy in black rubber wet suits—and the spray from the skis splashed us. They waved as they passed.

Chief Copegog grunted and looked around. It was still a sunny afternoon and there were lots of windsurfers out, trying to capture some of the light breeze in their wildly coloured sails. A cabin cruiser plowed down the channel, heading for the narrows, leaving a creamy wake behind it.

I wasn't paying too much attention to what was going on out on the lake, though. I was starting to feel pretty guilty about not telling Chief Copegog what house we lived in. Guilty and scared. What if Noah was right? What if, when Chief Copegog came into our house, he met up with Bond the Creep? And what if Noah was wrong? What if ghosts
could
hurt people?

Then another thought hit me. A thought that made me feel worse, not better. What if spirits could hurt other spirits? It sounded crazy, but it wasn't any crazier than droning across Lake Couchiching in an aluminum fishing boat with two boys and a ghost. What, I thought, if Bond's ghost hurt Chief Copegog?

And what if he hurt Kenny?

 

We were pretty near the town docks when I said to Noah, “How about you guys dropping Chief Copegog and me off at our boathouse.”

I knew that Noah wouldn't want to leave the boat at our place because his uncle went fishing almost every night and he would be looking for his boat.

Noah spun the motor around and the boat swerved back up the lake.

“Sure, no problem.”

I didn't want to say it out loud, but to get to our house from the town docks we'd have to walk through Couchiching Park, right past the big statue of Sammy Dee. I wasn't worried about people in the park seeing Chief Copegog. He could just not appear to them. I didn't want him to see the statue. I figured maybe he'd had enough of that stuff to last
ten
lifetimes.

When we got to our place I was relieved to see that Skinny Minnie wasn't in the back yard. Our house stood tall and silent, and the willow at the shore looked quiet and peaceful.

Noah cut the motor and the boat slipped neatly into the dark boathouse behind our rowboat. I scrambled up onto the dock and turned around to give Chief Copegog a hand.

He wasn't there.

“What the—”

“Look behind you, Karen.” John was smiling, showing his braces to the world.

I turned to see Chief Copegog standing beside the rowboat. He wasn't laughing, though. He stood in the gloom of the boathouse quietly. He didn't look around or show any interest in where he was. Did he know, I wondered. His face was a grim, carved mask again—his mouth a hard straight line, eyes deep, like black caves.

“How did you
do
that?” I said.

His voice was like sandpaper dragged across metal. “Not so hard.”

Noah restarted the motor, backed the boat out into the lake and headed toward the town docks. John waved to us.

I made up my mind then. I was going to tell Chief Copegog about our house.

“Chief Copegog, let's go sit in the sun, okay?” I said.

“Sure. Feel like a smoke too.”

He didn't even look at our house when we stepped out into the sun. Squinting, I checked out the yard again to see if Minnie was there. She wasn't. I heard music—
Blonde Syrup
, her favourite group—coming from the front yard. She probably hadn't even
moved
since we left.

I led Chief Copegog to the dock and we sat at the end, our feet dangling, facing Chiefs' Island.

“Umm, Chief Copegog,” I began.

He was unwrapping a cigar. Just before he stuck it into his mouth he said, “Yep, know that. Recognized it right away.” He laid the cellophane wrapper on the plank beside him.

“You … you read my mind!”

He struck a match from a matchbook that said
Champlain Hotel
on it and held the match to the tip of the cigar. He puffed a few times, jetting thick white smoke out of his mouth. He squeezed the burned match head to powder and placed the match on the plank beside the wrapper. He took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at it, then at me.

“I get pictures sometimes, what you're thinkin'.”

“Is that how you knew … um, is that why you told me that night you knew I had troubles?”

He nodded and looked out over the green lake. He looked the same way he did in the graveyard when he stared off into the trees. The afternoon sun was bright on the shore of Chiefs' Island. Chief Copegog pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb, back to our house.

“Looks better now, that house. Got a good feelin' comin' from it, mostly.”

I didn't catch on to that “mostly” at first. I was too busy feeling relieved.

“Are you … are you sorry you … about what happened between you and Bond?”

Chief Copegog was silent for a moment before he answered. “Killin', that's never no good. He was bad man, that Bond. But I met lots of bad mens all the time I been alive. Some white mens, some my peoples. Can't go ‘round killin' all them mens you think is bad. But that time, I lost my smart thinkin'.”

He touched himself on his chest. “Thought with my heart. Kilt him for my family reasons.”

Chief Copegog heaved a big sigh. “Nope,” he said again, “killin', that's never no good.”

I looked down into the still water at my feet. I could see a school of minnows darting around, back and forth. A water spider skated across the surface, a dimple under each of his legs where it rested on the water.

“I wouldn't blame you if you decided to change your mind about helping me and Kenny, Chief Copegog. I mean, now that you know where we live. This place must hold really bad memories for you. Noah thinks that Bond the Cr—that Bond's spirit might be there, as well as Kenny's.”

Chief Copegog took a drag on the cigar and let the smoke roll out his nostrils. With his other hand he pulled at his earlobe.

His voice had a hard edge to it. “Know he's there,” he said slowly. “Can feel him.”

I felt a pain like somebody just punched me in the stomach. A fear pain. Except fear isn't a strong enough word. Now I knew why, a couple of minutes ago, he had said “mostly.”

I turned and looked at the house. It was shadowed now and the windows stared out across the yard at me like blank lifeless eyes. Suddenly it didn't look like the home I loved. It looked like an enemy.

Bond's ghost was in there.

“Is Kenny in there, too?” I asked Chief Copegog. “Can you feel him?”

“Could feel him when we was out on the water. Yep, he's around here all right.”

“Is he … do you think Bond would hurt him?”

“Don't know ‘bout that, little girl. My peoples, once they're on the Other Side, they can't hurt each other. But we're all between worlds now. And the Whites, they're strange peoples. Don't know about them.”

It sounded strange, him talking like that. I mean, I was a White, but he never seemed to include me when he talked about them.

“Do you have any idea why Kenny is in our house?”

“He wants talk to you. You're his born same minute sister. That Bond, I dunno why he's here. Maybe trapped between Sides, like me.”

I wished he'd quit talking about Bond. I didn't really care about him. He scared the life out of me and I wished he'd go wherever he was supposed to be. But all I cared about was getting Kenny back.

“I wonder why Kenny is in between Sides,” I said.

A shadow of surprise crossed Chief Copegog's face.

“Thought you maybe knew that,” he said. “It's you. You're keepin' him here.”

 

About fifteen minutes later John and Noah came walking across the yard. They came over to the dock. Chief Copegog had finished his cigar and was sitting staring out over the lake. He could do that, I learned—sit and say nothing and stare. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he scared, as scared as I was? Was he sad?

“Well,” John said, “guess we should go in.”

We walked across the yard and went into the kitchen.

“Let's go upstairs, Chief Copegog,” I said.

And that's when we heard it.

It was as if the house had been holding its breath. Waiting. As soon as Chief Copegog was inside it breathed out slowly in a long, long sigh, the way you do when you've been expecting something bad to happen and it finally comes along. Only this was worse. Lots worse. It sounded like hate. And fear. It made my skin crawl.

“What the heck was
that
?” John exclaimed from behind me.

The long wicked sigh sighed again, like a curse.

Noah said, “I don't like the sound of it, whatever it was.”

“That's spirit world talkin',” Chief Copegog said.

Our feet thumped faster on the stairs. The closer we got to the top, the colder we felt. As soon as we got into the upstairs hall and turned toward my room the sigh changed to deep, fast, loud breathing. Like something chasing you in a nightmare.

Bam! Bam! Bam!
One by one, all the bedroom doors slammed shut.

I looked at Chief Copegog. He didn't seem as scared as I was. He didn't seem scared at all. But his face was hard and dark and grim.

He led the way down the hall to my room and opened the door. He went inside.

We followed him. Before I got to the door I stopped and looked at the floor.

There was a large, dark brown stain on the hardwood. It filled the space in front of my door.

“What's that?” I said, afraid to know.

“It looks like—” John began. His voice was shaking so badly I could hardly understand him.

Noah's vocal cords weren't working so hot either.

“Yeah, it's a blood stain,” he croaked.

The heavy breathing sound began again, deep long breaths, as if the hallway was a throat. The sound rose, getting louder and louder, until it was like a roaring wind.

We rushed into my room, stepping over the blood, and slammed the door behind us.