I go back to Tom. I wipe his hot forehead. Nothing matters but this. My heart beats slowly and heavily in my chest. I feel very calm.

Tom places his hand on my leg. It’s as big as a bear’s paw.

“Nipishish…” He murmurs my name softly, like a trickle of water sliding over pebbles.

“Yes, Tom.”

“You have a fine name… Nipishish…Little River. One day you will take the name your father bore so proudly. Shipu…the river. But you will be Mishtashipu, the big river, the one that guides us. When that day comes, you will know it in your heart. It will be your secret and your strength.”

“Miguetsh, Tom.”

I wipe his feverish brow. I think about what he has just said to me. I hear the wind wailing in the treetops.

“Nipishish, I leave you my drum and my song, my rifle, my tent, my canoe. Everything I have is yours. You will keep those things now. The drum, Nipishish, will speak to you in your dreams. Listen to it, because it is the beating of the heart of our people. The portage you must take is inside you. Don’t look anywhere else. When you want to talk to me, go into the forest very quietly, like a bird. Sit down and wait. Be patient. Open your eyes and your ears, breathe in the scent of the earth and the pine needles. I will be in your heart and in the trees, in the wind and in the shadows of the clouds. I’ll be very close.”

The smell of the green firs and the wood crackling in the little stove fills the tent. I feel like an eagle with its huge wings spread, circling high overhead. I see a huge territory below. I soar right inside myself. My spirit and my body are one…

The snow around me is thick. There’s no sound, not even the wind. The trees are still. The air is very pure, clear as a thin layer of ice on the edge of a stream. Everything is white and clean.

My snowshoes sink into the snow and leave tidy prints. I am on Sam’s territory, on the shore of Lac aux Quenouilles. I stop, dazzled by the white light reflecting off the blue snow.

Suddenly, in a break in the tangle of alders lining the lake, I see an enormous hare sitting on its haunches. He stares at me with his round, blood-red eyes. He sits straight up. He’s not afraid of me. I glance away for just a second and when I look back, he has disappeared. I follow his trail through the bush. I can’t find him, but all around the clearing and on the edge of the frozen lake there are trails that cross and go off in every direction, like so many portages where the big rivers meet. And I know that this territory is very rich because so many hares live here, and I’m happy.