The man who only weeks ago had sat in his bath flicking through a truck magazine, dreaming of a holiday in Europe with his family, wondering if he should take a course in first aid to help him get on the Patrol; the man who had decided he was white though no one else noticed; this man dug around in his mind and found those ancient and sacred words that had stayed buried for so long under a stone he had constructed from hate. Hunting Wolf, son of Killing Wolf, father of Running Wolf, opened his mouth, closed his eyes and began to chant. ‘Sikoch Pik-sik-see … Pachitia Inustanatkini … Natomachestai …’

Calvin was closing his eyes, swaying with the rhythmic chanting of his companion, holding his hands above his shoulders and joining in the prayer.

The words came softly from Sam’s lips and between them the fire roared with new life as though sugar had been thrown in its midst.

The deer that watched them from outside the tunnel mouth saw two figures bending and swaying over roaring flames, stopping only to lift and eat the leaves that were laid out before them. It saw their massive shadows dance on the walls, and when the chanting stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and the two men snapped upright into rigid positions, the deer scampered off into the woods in alarm. It sensed danger greater than these chanting figures and it ran until it was many miles away, far from the scent of something it feared more than man.

49

Alberta 1907 Siding Twenty-three

He cradled the big man in his arms like a baby. Hunting Wolf lay quietly, his head resting in the thin crook of Henderson’s elbow and looked up at the sky. The snow-flakes were huge and flat, pirouetting in tight columns where the wind interfered with their descent. He wondered where they began, these flakes. What height were they falling from? He smiled weakly, remembering the stories his mother had told him about the Snow Spirit shaking its bundle and making the white pebbles in its pouch turn to crystal flakes flying down to cover the land. He knew different. He’d flown above the clouds in winter with his guide, seen the clouds below empty their heavy loads and knew there was no Snow Spirit, no pebbles.

But he could almost believe watching them now, that these were special flakes, falling from only a few feet above his aching head, created specially for this ragged white man, and for him, a ragged Kinchuinick. They fell on his brow and melted quickly as he turned his gaze from the sky to the tortured white face of Henderson.

‘He was with you. All the way here. Did you feel him?’