Heart of the Wilderness (20 page)

“Papa Mac,” she said, “are we pagans?”

“Pagans?” His head came up and his eyes darkened. “That fella say something?” he asked her.

“No. Not really about—about us. But—he said they hope that by 1930 there will be no pagans left in northwest Canada,” said Kendra.

Her grandfather surprised her by chuckling. “He did, did he? Seems to me he’s taking on a pretty big job.”

“He’s going to Kenakee Falls,” went on Kendra.

“I know. He told me,” said George, shrugging into his heavy coat. It was time to check the trapline again.

“I looked up pagan in the dictionary,” went on Kendra.

“And—?” prompted her grandfather.

“It said ‘heathen.’ And then it said that a heathen is a person who doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible. Which one is that?”

George couldn’t help but chuckle again. Nonie had introduced Kendra to so many gods. Yet none of them came from the Bible. At least not to his knowledge—though he would have admitted that he knew very little about what the Bible contained.

Then he quickly sobered. Maybe it wasn’t so amusing after all.

He answered slowly, “Really doesn’t matter much as far as I can see,” said George as he drew on a mitten. “It’s all just a bunch of stories. Just different versions, that’s all.”

“So we are pagans, then?” pressed Kendra.

He reached out and pinched her cheek. “Some folks might call us that,” he answered truthfully. “Isn’t the way I think of it.”

“But who—who is the God of the Bible?” asked Kendra.

Her grandfather turned to the door and Kendra knew that he would soon be out on the trail again. “Just the white man’s version of the Indian myths,” he told her, and with a nod he left the cabin, closing the door firmly against the cold.

Chapter Sixteen

Hard Winter

The cold snap continued. Kendra now dreaded the daily round of checking the traps. She feared more for her grandfather than for herself, but he insisted that they needed the money from the furs and went out each day as usual.

Kendra, too, left the cabin each morning as soon as it was light enough to see the trail. In spite of the weather, she did have fair returns from her traps. Each day she tallied the little account she was saving toward her schooling. She really had no idea how much money it would cost, but she knew she would need to work hard to save enough if she wished to go in her eighteenth year.

The cold weather was hard on their wood supply. Kendra watched as the pile that had seemed so big in the fall grew smaller and smaller every day. She still took Nonie a sleigh filled with wood every other day. The cold made it necessary for her to pile the wood a little higher on the sled. The dogs sometimes complained about the load, but Kendra preferred one hard trip to two lighter ones and helped ease the burden by throwing her weight behind the sleigh on the upgrades. Nonie needed to have wood for her fire.

It seemed that every task was just a bit harder in the inclement weather. Kendra’s fingers often felt numb, her cheeks close to freezing in spite of her efforts to keep exposed skin from frostbite. The river ice had to be chopped to reach water for the pail or else she had to thaw snow to fill the water buckets. She didn’t know which task was the most difficult to take and alternated the one with the other.

Kendra began to wonder if there would ever be a break in the weather. Just after the first of the new year, there was some relief when the temperature climbed and the sun actually shone on the frigid world.

“Have you had any trouble?”

The words came from the red-coated Mountie who shared their supper table. He was the second visitor they’d had in the space of a few months.

“No,” said George after giving the question some thought. “I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

“Well, we’ve had reports that someone has been tampering with traps in the area. I’m going on up to Wingate to ask a few questions and see what I can find out. I’ll be back through in a week or two. I’ll stop around and see if there’s any reason for concern.”

George nodded. Stealing from traps was a serious offense. Trappers would not tolerate it. If, in fact, someone was caught in the act, the person making the discovery might well take matters into his own hands. It was no wonder that the Mountie was concerned.

The conversation was not lost on Kendra. She said nothing, but a few discomforting thoughts began to whirl in her thinking. Her traps had not been doing as well of late. She had feared that perhaps she was trapping out the area—that the smaller animals had moved on to another range. But maybe—maybe someone else was taking advantage of her traps.

After the Mountie had thanked her for the meal, shrugged back into his heavy parka and left the cabin, Kendra still mulled over his words. Had she missed something? Were there signs that she should have caught?

“Papa Mac,” she said after George had returned to the cabin, “I wonder if I have had someone bothering my trapline.”

George looked up from the moccasin he was lacing. “You’ve spotted something?” he asked.

“Well—no. That is—nothing in particular, but it does seem as if I’ve had poor catches lately. I’ve been very careful when setting the traps to hide them well and cover the scent and sprinkle fresh snow over my tracks. And I never take the team too close.

“There are still animal tracks through the area. It seems the game is there—I’m just not having the catch that I should have. At least I’m not
getting
the catch.”

George lowered himself to the chair by the table and proceeded to put on his other moccasin.

“Well—keep a sharp lookout,” he advised. “If anything looks suspicious let me know.”

Kendra nodded.

They both put on their warmest outer wear. They were facing another day on the trail to check the traplines.

“I knew it,” said Kendra, bent over her trap. “Someone
has
been stealing.”

Anger filled her. It was hard work running the trapline. If someone wanted the benefit of trapping, they should be willing to do the work for themselves. It wasn’t fair to reap from another’s labors.

Kendra lifted the tuft of hair that clung to the sprung trap, indicating that an animal had been caught. But there was no carcass anywhere to be seen.

The next trap held an otter. Kendra noted that the fur was at its prime. It should bring a nice price on the market.

But as she left the packed trail and neared the next trap, she noticed that the snow had been rearranged as though something had scuffled around in it. There had been a new fall of snow and Kendra saw no footprints or snowshoe indentations showing through it. But perhaps the culprit had been sly enough to use a small twig to brush at the spot or else had sprinkled handfuls of powdery snow to cover any tracks that might have been left behind.

The more she studied the area around the trap, the more sure she was of her suspicions and the more incensed she became. She took off her mitten and brushed her hand through the new layer of snow. There were blood stains and scattered pieces of hair just beneath the surface. There
had
been an animal caught here, and it was now gone.

Who would do such a thing? Surely it wasn’t one of the area trappers. But it had been a hard winter. Every trapper was finding it difficult to travel out in the intense cold. Perhaps someone had decided that there were easier pickings closer to the settlement. Surely, though, the people in the area knew whose trapline lay so close at hand. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe they reasoned that a young girl would not be smart enough to read the signs. Maybe she was being taken advantage of simply because she was a girl.

The thought made Kendra even angrier. She found her mind reviewing each trapper in the area, white and Indian alike, trying to sort out which one might stoop to such lowness.

It was a mental exercise that disturbed her and really profited nothing. She tried to push aside the troubling conjectures.

“Someone has been bothering my traps,” Kendra said to George that evening. Her green eyes flashed anger as she spoke the words.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Two of them had catches that had been taken before I got to them.”

“Did you find prints?”

“No. The thief is smart. He covers his tracks well. All I found were signs of the animals.”

“What animals?”

“It was hair from a lynx at the first trap. The second was a fox.

It had snowed enough to hide the prints, and whoever was there had disguised things pretty well.”

George sat silently. “I don’t like it,” he said at last. “Anyone who will rob a trap will be desperate enough to do almost anything. I’m not sure that you should go out again until after that Mountie has been through.”

“But I have the traps set. I need to check them,” argued Kendra.

“Maybe I should take your line tomorrow.”

“You have your own line to care for. The day isn’t long enough for you to cover both.”

George knew that was true. He really couldn’t argue further.

“Well, I don’t like it,” he said. “Not one bit.”

Kendra did not like it either. If someone was stealing from her traps, then someone was desperate and dangerous. She would have to be doubly cautious as she made her daily run. She hoped she could depend on Oscar to alert her if danger was about.

The next day Kendra did her run with a loaded rifle near her on the sled. She hoped she would not need to use it, but she must be ready to take action if it was necessary.

“Just bring your traps on in until this is settled,” her grandfather had suggested, but Kendra hated to give up the peak trapping season when she needed the money for her schooling.

“I’ll be careful,” she promised, and he reluctantly agreed to let her go. Nothing unusual caught her attention. She picked up four catches and reset her traps. She was glad to hurry home. Nonie needed another load of wood.

Four days later Kendra had another trap robbed. Again there had been a snowfall, so she had little hope of picking up any signs. But it made her uneasy in spite of herself. She decided not to tell her grandfather. He would just worry. She did hope that the Mountie would be back soon. The whole thing made her feel edgy. She traveled with the loaded rifle slung over her shoulder.