“Make them wait. Tell them that I have other cats to kick this morning…I mean, tell them that I’ll see them later.”

But the camera is already rolling. It sweeps across the reserve, the trees, the police, the loggers, the standoff, while the reporter talks non-stop into her microphone.

“This another one of your lousy tricks, Larivière?” the sergeant says to me in a low voice. “Bringing in the TV people?”

I smile to myself. His voice hardens.

“Larivière, I’ve had enough. I’m arresting you on the charge of —”

He stops. A look of panic sweeps over his face. He’s looking over my shoulder but I don’t know what has attracted his attention. The loggers are silent, their arms slack. We are surrounded by a strange silence filled with rumblings.

Tom begins to beat his drum softly, and the sound seeps through the pine forest like a spell.

Then I see a large group approaching.

Who are they? Where have they come from?

It’s our people! Indians! First I see a dozen, but then there are more and more of them. The crowd swells like a herd of caribou on the tundra. They are coming slowly but surely, the women in their plaid shawls and dresses, the men in their worn cloth trousers, their flannel shirts, their high logging boots. Several are wearing peaked caps or felt hats pulled down over their ears. It is a sea of sunburnt faces and thick black hair.

The sight sends shivers over my whole body. I can see Manie, Sam, and behind them Charlotte and Pinamen walking with an older woman. Indians are coming from every direction. They’re coming on the road, pouring out of the houses on the reserve. They’re coming in canoes filled to the brim. They’re coming out of the forest behind me.

The pine forest is crawling with Indians — old ones, women holding children by the hand or in tikinagans. Chizoo, Mowat, Wawatee, Loon, Chabot, Kistabish, Brascoupé, Commanda, Papati… They are all here, as well as several others that I don’t know. It is as if all the Indians on earth are coming here this morning to stand together.

Then I see William dressed in his red-and-black checked lumber jacket. He’s walking with a firm step, his head high. Nancy and the children are by his side. He’s carrying a canvas bag over his shoulder.

He walks over and looks me right in the eye. Then he takes an ax out of his bag, holds it by the handle and with one blow sinks the blade into a nearby log.

It’s the ax I left behind in the band office.

Each family stands in front of one of the big pines bordering the forest. There are silent Indians everywhere, standing together in pride and solidarity in front of the rows of police, the loggers, the trucks.

We have taken over. We are here, the cameras are rolling, the young woman has stopped talking.