Yes. To die. It was the right time. It was the right place. Fitting that he would make a meal for a wolverine. Was that what Eden had meant about being born an Indian and dying like an Indian? If he could no longer feed his own family, then at least he could feed a beast. They were attached by an invisible bond to the earth, the Kinchuinicks. Time perhaps, to make it more physical.

He opened his eyes and gave one last glance up at the rumbling cars that were squealing and creaking by, indifferent to his agony. Slowly Sam unclenched the fingers of his left hand, pulling them from their jagged crack, and placed his palm on the rock. Simple. Now the right hand, and it would be over. The snow was flying in his eyes, thrown up in a crazy whirling frenzy by the tons of passing steel.

Sam flexed the fingers of his right hand inside the crevice of rock that held them and looked up through the mini twisters of flying flakes. The train was slowing. The car that was emerging from the dark arch was taking its time, but something about its progress made Sam narrow his eyes and lift his head. The car already free of the tunnel was a standard red freight box, CP lettering, white chevron. But already he could see that the next car was different. It looked normal at first, its CP logo gliding out of the tunnel until its entirety emerged from the dark sheath of the arch. On the side of this otherwise ordinary box-car were a series of huge hieroglyphics, painted carefully, beautifully, delicately, in gold.

Sam was sweating on his agonizing perch, his mouth open, eyes narrow as slits. Of course he knew those marks. He had painted them on the canvas of Calvin’s sweat-lodges many times. The arrow. The eagle. The buffalo skull. The symbol for a heart. So many more now before him, and all gleaming ridiculously on the side of a freight wagon snaking through the mountains, coupled between its mundane companions.

As the car rolled past they shone and sparkled, almost dazzling Sam with their brilliance despite the fading grey light. He read the marks as though they were on a page before him, watching breathlessly as the car rolled on and was followed by a normal red freight box sporting only a number and its dirty white lettering.

Slowly Sam’s free hand slipped back into its crevice and took his weight again. He panted and pressed his face against the rough freezing rock. Above him the noise of the train continued its clamour and he fought to find breath as it masked his grunts.