The House

By Dawn Natelle

Finally, a new story. This chapter is a bit longer than most of mine, but I did want to get to the transgendered part in the first chapters.

William Grey was a little shorter than most of the third year students at England's famous Harrow School, standing 5’8”, but he had broad shoulders and strong arms developed from three years of swimming and rowing. William was the only third year on the school’s senior swim team, which was usually just fourth years: where he was a specialist in longer races. Harrow doesn’t have a school rowing team, but he rowed in the eights, fours, pairs and single sculls on the Henley team near the college. William also excelled at Harrow Football, the school’s insane version of soccer or rugby, played with a huge ball about the size of an airbag, which could weigh up to 20 pounds when it was wet, as happened in some games.

His most memorable Harrow Football game had been when he was in first year, and tried to head the huge ball into the net like one might in soccer. Apparently he scored, but he only found out when he came to in the local hospital A and E department with a concussion. Since then he refrained from trying to head the rock-like ball.

His dark brown hair was neatly trimmed, as required at Harrow, and he was dressed in the typical Harrow day uniform of straw hat, grey trousers, and a white shirt with a navy coat. This was the same uniform worn by four fourth year boys from Bradby’s House who seemed to be picking on a first year student from Drurie’s House, the house that William lived in.

“Hey there, what are you lads doing to him?” William said as he approached the gang, who had roughed up the smaller boy’s clothing and were now playing ‘keep-away’ with the boy’s straw hat. If the hat were damaged, the boy would be in trouble with the beak, the house headmaster.

“Buzz off, Tea,” the biggest of the fourth year boys taunted. Tea was William’s nickname, and the only thing he was ever referred to by students. (Faculty called him Grey, of course). But William’s grandfather was the Earl of Grey, so Tea had become the nickname given to his eldest brother when he had entered the school 10 years earlier. When the second brother in the family started three years later, he was named Tea Two, by the boys. For William’s first year, he was Tea Three, but since his brother left, he was now simply Tea.

There was an historical precedent to the nicknames. The Second Earl of Grey was prime minister in the 1800s, and a brand of tea was named Earl Grey Tea after the then prime minister. William’s grandfather was the current Seventh Earl, and his father was Viscount Howick. On his grandfather’s passing his father would become Earl, and Richard (Tea One) would become Viscount. As third son William would be unlikely to receive a title. In English terminology sons of a noble are: the heir, the spare, and the who-cares. As a ‘who-cares’, William was expected to convert the more than 100,000 pound sterling tuition the family was paying for four years at Harrow into a place at Oxford or Cambridge and then lucrative business career.

Right now this was largely immaterial, as Bluster, the big lad from Bradbury’s, was approaching William showing some annoyance over having his fun with young Wiley interrupted. Suddenly, Bluster’s fist started towards William’s face, and that was the point where everything went black.

For a second Tea thought he was going to wind up in A and E again, but a moment later his vision returned and he found the four Bradbury fourth year boys scattered about him on the ground, all bleeding profusely.

“That was bloody marvelous,” young Wiley said, looking at William with a look of adoration in his eyes. “You were like a ninja or something, Tea. Can you teach me to do that?”

“No. No I can’t,” William said. He wasn’t even sure what had happened. But Wiley recounted the fight as they walked back to their house. When Bluster punched, William had apparently ducked, and then grabbed the bigger boy’s arm, tossing him over his shoulder to the ground. Two other boys grabbed his arms, and the last boy took a mighty swing at him. But William dodged again, and the blow hit one of the boys holding him, knocking him out. He then used his free hand to swing at the other boy, knocking him back. Then it was a three-punch combination that bloodied and floored the boy who had hit his housemate.

This left the final boy standing, and William had punched him again, in the throat this time, and as the boy sank to the ground, another punch hit him in the face.

At this point Bluster was trying to get back to his feet, and William grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him to his feet. When William pulled back to strike again Bluster pissed his pants. Then William dropped his arm, and the boy pulled back, looking at his three friends bleeding on the pathway.

“We ain’t done with you yet, Tea,” the boy said. “We won’t go to the Beaks with this. Anyone caught fighting can’t go to the trip to New York at Christmas break. But when we get back, you are toast, even if we have to get the entire house to pay you back.”

William and Wiley left at that point, with the adoring shell (first year) describing the fight all the way back to Drurie’s. It wasn’t until that night, when he was alone in his room (upper-class students at Harrow have private rooms) that he found out what really had happened.

He had fallen asleep at his normal time, but was wakened by the sound of voices in his room. As he lay half asleep and half awake, he recognized three voices speaking a foreign language. One was clearly female, and another was clearly male, with the deepest voice William had ever heard. And the other voice was male, but higher and softer, nearly female. After listening for a few minutes, William started to recognize the language, and understand what was being said.

«It is too early,» the woman said. «He is not ready. Maybe next year?»

«Things will happen soon that will make this year better,» the deep voice said.

«But he is so young, » the other man said.

«He will do, » deep voice said. «Look, he already knows the language. »

«What language is it? » William said. He didn’t actually speak, but he knew that the others heard what he was thinking, and responded.

«It is Ojibwe, » the woman said. «The language of our people. »

«You are Indians. Red Indians from America, » William said with a sudden insight.

«The proper term today is First Nations, » the woman replied. «And we are from Canada, not America. As are you. »

«No I am not, » William protested. «I am from England. Our family history goes back to the 1400s, if not farther. »

«I need to tell you a story, » the woman said. «In 1904 the fourth Earl Grey came to Canada as governor general. His third son was 21 and was a bit of a ladies man. He got not one, but two young women pregnant at about the same time. One was one of his sister’s maids. The other was a pretty young Ojibwe maiden who he met when a pow-wow ceremony was held for the governor general and his family. »

«He continued his relationship with the maid, and was surprised to find that she was with child, causing no small scandal within the family. The maid was elevated to be a companion of his sister, tempering the scandal somewhat. »

«A day before that girl gave birth, the Ojibwe maiden had a son, and got word to the father, who came to the tribe, and saw a familial resemblance in the infant. He took the boy with him back to Rideau Hall, the governor general’s residence, where the other infant was born that night. He gave the boy to the young girl and told her that she was to say that both children were hers. In return he would marry her, and she would be further elevated. »

«But the Indian maiden? » William protested. «She just lost her baby like that? How was such a thing possible? »

«See, he empathizes with the mother, » the second male voice said. «He is truly the right one. »

The female voice continued. «At that time our people had no power to match that of a Lord. He simply took what he wanted. The mother was heartbroken, of course, but she had no recourse. Eventually she married a brave, and had three other children. She never forgot her son and prayed to Manidoo to have him returned. I know all this because I am one of her daughter’s, and your great, great, great aunt. »

«I am related to you? » William asked.

«Yes. The boy stolen from the people is your great, great, grandfather, » she said. «The others here are Flint, who was my great great grandfather, and a great warrior in the wars with the Iroquois, and Red Oak, who was his grandfather back in the times before the white man arrived. He is two-spirited, and one of the most famous medicine men in our history. »

«The fact that you speak our language is a sign that you are the chosen one, » Red Oak said. «We didn’t expect to move so quickly on this, but when you were threatened today, Flint took over, and ended the assault on your person. »

«Flint was the one that beat up those boys? » William asked.

«Yes, » Flint’s deep voice boomed. «And they were men, as you are. They were assaulting a boy, and you stepped in to protect the child. That shows honor befitting an Ojibwe warrior. »

«I am no warrior. And I am what, 1/16 Ojibwe? Hardly anything. »

«It is 1/32, and that is enough, » the woman said. «You are flying across the great water soon, and when you land you will need to leave your English people and return to your native land, Canada. It will be a long journey, and very difficult. We will come back each night to make plans.»”

«You will sleep now, » Red Oak said. «More deeply than normal so that you will not be tired in the morning from our talks. Sleep. »

----- - -----

The next morning William woke up, certain that he had dreamed the entire episode. But he looked onto the Internet and located a site written in Ojibwe, and found that he could understand the language he had never seen before. Something really had happened.

And that evening, and the next, he conversed with Flint, Red Oak, and Mimiha (whose name did not translate to English as the others did). He was wondering what would happen the next evening when everything changed. It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001 at about 2 p.m. in London when the BBC started showing video from New York of airliners crashing into the buildings of the World Trade Center. Eventually one building, then the other, fell to the earth.

That evening the voices returned, but in a much more somber mood than the day before. «Three thousand voices stilled,» Mimiha said. «Much disruption in the second life.»

«Will your school trip still take place in December?» Flint asked.

«We still aren’t sure,» William said. «Right now there are no flights into the US at all. Surely that will change in three months. But we don’t know what the mood of the Americans will be. In the past, every year the school trip alternated between New York City and Washington, DC. That let the students go to one place in year three and the other in year four. Last year was Washington. But I’m not sure the school wants to go to New York while the cleanup will probably still be underway.»

«One suggestion is that the trip this year will be to Toronto and Niagara Falls Canada,» William continued. «You see, we have 22 boys who are Arabs at the school, and 14 of those are Moslem. They fear that they might not be safe going to America at this time.»

«Canada would be better for us,» Flint said. «Toronto is only a hundred miles or so from your target campsite, more than 500 miles closer than from New York. And you will not have to cross the border.»

--------- ------- -----

Term ended in mid-December, and the class trip was to fly out the next day. As expected the trip went to Toronto, rather than New York, since Moslems were still being treated poorly at entry to the US. The trip would visit the sights of Toronto, with a one-day side trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

Once the trip itinerary had been announced months earlier, planning by The Three, as William now thought of them, intensified. The boy started amassing Canadian currency, converting most of his £50 weekly allowance to the point where he had nearly a thousand Canadian dollars, along with the £500 pounds that his parents sent for spending money on the trip.

He has also purchased some garments from a thrift shop: primarily women's clothing, which Red Oak insisted was essential to the plan. He also purchased a blonde wig in a pageboy cut. All the female attire was packed into one of the two bags he could carry, with his male clothes in the second bag, mostly uniforms. The trip organizers wanted the spectacle of 80 English public school boys in uniform and straw hats to attract attention when they were in Canada.

The third piece of luggage was a backpack, that William purchased instead of the more common briefcases that the other boys brought as their carry-on. He said he wanted to ‘look like a Canadian’ with the pack.

Another thing that William had done to prepare was to learn to speak without an English accent. He would read aloud quietly in his room, with Mimiha correcting his mistakes. After the few months, he was able to speak with a Canadian accent.

The flight to Canada was largely uneventful. The plane landed at Pearson airport just outside of Toronto, and the boys were bussed to the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto. It was a stodgy older hotel, but had a British tradition that attracted the attention of the staff planning the trip.

The first several days of the trip were filled with visits to Toronto attractions. The Canada’s Wonderland amusement park was closed for winter, but the boys went to the CN Tower, the adjoining aquarium, the museum and art gallery, the science center, a modern play, and an opera. A side-trip to Stratford, a small city an hour away, to see the Canadian Shakespearean Festival production of MacBeth was planned for the day after the trip to Niagara.

The trip was four days along when the Niagara trip was to occur. A bus pulled up outside the hotel, and at 6 a.m. the boys got on board as the teachers took attendance. Except it was not William who got on wearing his hoodie. It was a young girl that one of the fourth years had convinced they were in love. William lent the hoodie, and gave up the space on the bus, so the young lovers could have more time together (and the older boy could get his hands under William’s hoodie).

The bus left, and William came out of his rooms, trying to look like a young Canadian teen. He sauntered over to the subway and took a train several blocks north, where his Internet research had said an outdoors specialty store was located.

William told the staff that he was heading into Northern Ontario and needed supplies.

“A tent?” the clerk asked. “These are our most popular. They have a space-age fiber that reduces the weight of the tent in half. A four person tent will only weigh three pounds.”

“No, I would prefer a natural fiber like wool or cotton,” William said, having sensed a feeling of disgust from the people in his head at the thought of the plastics in the modern tent. They pretty much told him that they wouldn’t go into such a tent with him.

“Most of the other tents are nylon,” the clerk said. “Would that work?” William shook his head. “Wait, I have an idea,” the man darted to the back of the store.

William then had an argument in his head with the three. He agreed to a canvas tent, if one was available, but would get a lighter nylon sleeping bag. The three could come into the tent to talk to him at night without needing to get into his sleeping bag. He did have to promise to get a natural sleeping roll once he could acquire the hides. The man came back as William started to wonder how he would gather hides.

The clerk carried an older looking tent package to the front. “This was one of the attempts by the traditional makers to come up with a light weight canvas tent about 20 years ago. It still weighs 14 pounds, and didn’t sell well when the synthetics came out. I can let you have it for $10 just to get it out of the warehouse.”

A nylon sleeping bag weighing 5 pounds that cost $75 was next, followed by an aluminum cooking kit of a cup, plate, flatwear and two small cooking pots. Three different knives, a sharpening stone, a flint kit, and a hand axe followed. William looked at the bows and arrows, but Flint refused to let him buy one of the compound bows. Instead William got four-dozen steel hunting arrowheads and five bow strings of a composition that the hunter in his head approved of.

The final purchases were food. There were several hunters’ MRE (meal ready to eat) that he chose from, as well as a five-pound bag of beans and a two-pound bag of rice. The clerk made sure he also got two pounds of salt to make the food more palatable.

William staggered back to the subway with the new, larger backpack he had bought to carry all his gear and headed back to his hotel room. It was nearly noon, and he had to vacate the hotel by then.

He took his two backpacks over to the bus station down the road from the hotel, and went into a handicapped washroom. There he stripped out of his clothes, bundling the jeans and plaid shirt into a small package, and cramming them into his new pack, also stuffing in his sneakers and five sets of socks.

Then he pulled things out of the older backpack. Luckily no one else had snooped, or they would wonder why he had a dress, wig and makeup kit in there.

In the washroom he slipped on the dress and then the wig. He had practiced doing makeup three or four times, and was able to put on a soft look that made his face look at least a little feminine. It may have been a little amateurish, but that would be expected from a girl his age. The dress had sleeves to conceal his muscular shoulders and arms. He certainly didn’t look pretty, but he did look female, and blonde.

From there he went and purchased a ticket to Ottawa from the Greyhound agent, who barely looked at him as he punched out the ticket for the 4 p.m. bus. William selected the northern bus, which took an additional hour to get to Ottawa, due taking the TransCanada (two lane) highway instead of the expressway along the lakeshore. But the northern route had the advantage of stopping quite near the wilderness area William was aiming for.

«There is your bus,» Mimiha said. «Take a seat behind the driver. Carry your sack with you … you will need it when you get off, and if you set in on the seat next to you, no others will sit too close.»

When the bus doors opened, William popped in, setting his packsack on the seat next to him on the seats right behind the driver, while most people stored their luggage on the bins underneath the bus. The driver packed all the other riders’ luggage under the bus, and checked tickets of the other riders as they entered. When he got on, he came to William.

“Your ticket, miss?” he said, and then checked it. He gestured at the packsack on the adjoining seat. “You may have to move that if there are enough riders later on. We aren’t full yet, but several should get on in Peterborough.”

William nodded in agreement, not wanting to speak. Mimiha had made him practice in a feminine voice back in England, as the plan was developed, but he was less than confident that he could sound like a girl. Even a little off, and the driver might look closer at the hefty shoulders and minimally convincing makeup and wig.

Right at four the bus pulled out. It was an express bus, stopping at the eastern end of Toronto, then in the city of Peterborough. Then the next stop was the tiny village of Actinolite, with a ten-minute stop at a little general store attached to a gas station. The passengers could get a sandwich or a coffee there.

William got out with his backpack and headed to the washroom in the store. Since there was a washroom on the bus, there was no one waiting for it, and he went straight in. He pulled off the dress and wig, and got his jeans and plaid shirt on. He tried to remove the little makeup he had by washing his face with warm water, but found that the stuff was pretty difficult to remove.

«You need some bear fat,» Mimiha suggested.

«Sorry, I don’t have any of that,» William thought back. Instead he went into the stall and found nearly a full roll of tissue, and brought out more than a yard of it.

He got rid of most of the lipstick and mascara eventually, and was about to leave when he heard the ‘all aboard’ call from the bus, and paused. Only after he heard the bus pull away did he come out. He managed to slip out a side door unnoticed by the staff, who were cleaning up after the rush of passengers.

William headed north immediately, and found himself 50 yards from the forest. Soon he was deep within the woods.

Chapter 2

Since it was December, and fully dark when the bus had gotten to the stop at 8 p.m. William didn’t travel far in the bush. Luckily Flint, Red Oak and Mimiha directed his steps in the dark. He walked for an hour, which they said was a mile into the forest. They directed him to a clearing, where he pitched his tent by flashlight, then crawled inside. He fell asleep almost immediately.

In the morning the Three led him onward once he packed up his tent and sleeping bag. There had been a snowfall during the night, which left an inch of the fluffy white stuff on the ground. It was not enough to cause problems walking, but it would cover his tracks from the night before, in case anyone was looking for him already.

He walked another four miles in a little over an hour. Travel was much quicker in daylight. Much of the trip was along the banks of a River.

«What river is this?» he wondered.

«It is Skootamatta,» Flint said. «In the language of your people that would be Burnt Shoreline. But for some reason they call it Skootamatta as we did.»

Even though he was only five miles from the highway, it was sufficiently remote that he was unlikely to see hunters or hikers. The river might occasionally see canoeists, but a quarter mile down river it broadened out into a wide, swampy area that was too shallow for even canoes except in spring runoff. Few enthusiasts would portage around the shallows, and those that did would be unlikely to go into the forest far.

«Make your permanent camp here,» ordered Flint. «There is a small spring about 200 yards to the north. The water in the river gets bad in the fall, but the spring runs pure and clean all through the year. Even in the coldest weather it still runs.»

William pitched the tent, and then started chopping down small saplings under the direction of Mimiha and Red Oak. Over the next three days he had built a traditional Ojibwe lodge, six feet wide, 14 feet long, and four feet high, with a birchbark covering that he hoped would keep the inside dry through the winter.

«It will leak,» Mimiha warned. «We need many deerskins to cover the roof and make it snug. In wet weather you can use your tent to keep dry. But you can make a fire in here to cook away from the snow.»

Later that night all three of the spirits gathered and announced that there would be a naming. «You have a white man name,» Mimiha said. «You need a name of the people.»

“My name is William Grey,” the boy insisted.

«There is no word in the language for William,» Flint said. «I would name you Waabijiizi ma’lingan.»

“Grey wolf,” William said, since he now spoke Ojibwe flawlessly. “I rather like that. I would use Waabijiizi (Grey) as a short name.”

Flint shuddered at the mispronunciation, but accepted it and from that point on William was gone, and Waabijiizi replaced him. (For this story we will use the English version – Grey Wolf -- in most cases. It is easier to read.)

Flint taught Grey Wolf how to make a bow and arrows, and how to use them. He also showed how to make traps for rabbits and squirrels. The traps paid off first, and a week after finishing the lodge Grey Wolf got his first meat for the pot: a rabbit. It was late in January when he shot his first deer, a young buck with four points. He feasted on the venison that night, after he cleaned the smallish animal. Mimiha told him that he could get three days out of the fresh meat before it started to go bad in the early winter weather, so he made the lodge into a smokehouse and dried strips of meat over the next two days, so that none would be wasted.

After he had smoked that meat, he decided to build a smaller smokehouse. At the same time, Mimiha taught him how to treat the hide of the deer. Flint sneered at that, saying that tanning was squaw’s work, but Mimiha sneered back that there were no squaws in the area to take on the work, so if Grey didn’t do it, the hide would spoil. In a few weeks the hide was cured and made a nice spare blanket for the cold February nights.

More snow followed that first inch back in December, and by mid-January it was several feet deep. Red Oak was the craftsman of the three, and he taught Grey Wolf how to make snowshoes. The first pair was heavy and rudimentary, but after he had killed the deer, there was ample gut to make a better pair with a woven mesh bottom. They made walking on the snow fairly easy he made another two pairs, each better than the last. He discovered that he had an artistic bent, and made carvings on the latter pair of shoes that actually looked good.

While the snow was at its highest Red Oak also taught Grey how to make a cedar strip canoe and over the next two months, into early spring, he completed a 19-foot canoe out of cedar trees he felled himself by hand, then split, cured, and shaped into pieced.

«It goes much faster with your steel tools,» Flint said as Grey worked. «With a stone axe it would take a year to fell the trees and shape the wood for a smaller canoe. I think perhaps your steel tools are a good idea.»

“That is good,” Grey said. “I hope to sell the snowshoes and the canoe down at the store. I will buy or order more tools that will make it easier to work with wood. I especially want a spoke-shave to make arrows and to work on the bow.”

It was early May when the last remnants of snow disappeared from the woods around the camp. The river was flowing rapidly with spring run-off, and Grey was running out of supplies. He had killed a larger buck in early March, and there was plenty of jerky left in the larder, but the beans and rice were nearly gone and he had completely used up the salt in curing the second deerskin.

So Grey loaded his snowshoes into the canoe, and paddled off down the rapidly flowing river downstream to the village of Actinolite. He had seen a few Dreamcatcher crafts on the wall of the bus station when he got off it last December. He planned to offer his wares to them first, and if they were not interested he would head on down to Tweed and try his luck there.

Just before coming to the place where the highway crossed the river, Grey happened to notice a huge house on a rise, looking over the river. It was two floors high, and massive, with a balcony surrounding the entire second story of the house. The house looked somewhat dilapidated, with areas of the balcony roof caved in. Grey soon had to stop staring at the old house, as the bridge was coming up, and he wanted to dock the canoe before then, near the general store.

Grey carried his snowshoes into the store, and showed them to the owner. “Those two pair are exquisite. We used to sell quite a few native things here, but most of our suppliers now sell online. I could sell those two pair for $399 each,” he said. “I can give you $200 a pair for them.”

“I want $300,” Grey said. “But it will be in store credit.”

“Done,” the shopkeeper said. He priced most of the goods in the store at nearly double what he paid for them, so with store credit it would be like paying $150 a pair.”

“I also have a canoe, if you want to bid on that?” Grey said.

They went out and looked at the canoe where Grey had pulled it from the river. “It has only been used once, on the trip down here from my camp. It doesn’t leak anywhere, and handles perfectly.”

The man looked over the canoe. It would sell fast for $4000. “I can offer you $2500 store credit for it,” he suggested, and was surprised when Grey accepted his offer.

Grey spent two hours in the store, and amazed the shopkeeper with his selections. He bought a spade head with a broken handle, three old axe heads, two galvanized pails, many 5-pound bags of beans and rice, and all the salt the store carried.

When the shopkeeper found that he needed the salt for curing pelts, he quoted good prices for deerskins. Grey said that he needed his skins. He did get prices from the storekeeper for beaver, rabbit, coon, and bear, in case he got enough of those to make a trip worthwhile. Apparently there were two trappers in the area who supplied the store, which then sent the hides to a wholesaler.

Grey did not find what he was really looking for: woodworking tools. The storekeeper did mention a farmer down the road a mile who had a lot of tools. He even told Grey that he would convert $200 of his store credit to cash.

“Just be careful with old Biggins. He think’s he is a master bargainer. Whatever he asks, offer him a quarter of that. He’ll probably settle for half what his first offer is. Then ask him to throw something else in. He doesn’t have a lot of cash since he retired, so he’ll probably deal fair for ready cash,” the shopkeeper warned.

Grey had a full load, and suggested that he come back in a week, when the man said he could get in some 20-pound bags of salt in his next delivery.

“How are you going to get back with no canoe,” the shopkeeper asked.

Grey smiled. “The river is too fast to paddle upstream anyway. I’ll just walk home.”

And he did, arriving back at the camp just before dusk and happy to make a stew with the jerky and a few vegetables he had bought at the store.

A week later Grey was back, and the storekeeper was happy to hand the $200 to the young brave. He had already sold one set of snowshoes to a man from Toronto for $500 and the canoe parked on the store porch was attracting attention from the people who just stopped for gas. The shopkeeper also had two bags of salt and a few other items that Grey had asked for waiting for him after he got back from the farmer down the road.

In the old farmer’s barn, Grey was in heaven. It contained a massive amount of tools, some antique, all rusted. He put together a collection of about 40 items, and asked for a price.

“That’s a big lot,” the old man said. “I s’pose I could let you have it for $150.”

“Two much,” Grey said. “Most of it is more rust than tools. It’ll take me hours till I can make any of it useful again. I could do $30, no $40.”

“That’s my retirement there,” the old man said. “Best I could do is an even hundred.”

They negotiated down to $80, which Grey considered fair. Then he pointed to a bushel at the edge of the barn. “But you have to throw in some of those taters there. Five nice good ones, and another five of the ones going to seed.”

“Done”, the old man said, and Grey loaded the tools into his knapsack. He was looking forward to potatoes in his stew tonight, and to planting a potato garden near his camp.

The summer and fall was spent with Grey building another canoe, this one of birch bark, and three more pairs of snowshoes. He lived on mainly venison, but did manage to shoot a bear in July.

«I think you are ready,» Flint said as the bear was approaching. «Use your best arrow, and have the big knife ready.»

“A knife? Why?”

«In case you miss. You won’t have time to draw another arrow. Just get the knife out and hope that you don’t get hurt too badly when it mauls you.»

Grey gulped, and then the bear turned towards him. Grey let fly with his arrow at the animal not 25 feet away. The arrow went into his chest, and he had to pull his knife as the roaring animal bounded towards him. He was knocked from his feet as the animal collapsed a yard in front of him. Grey used the knife across the animal’s throat, but he was pretty sure it was already dead.

It took all day to bring the black bear back to the camp, clean it and start to smoke the less fatty meats. Unlike the venison he had cleaned and smoked in the past, bear was tasty fresh, but less appetizing as jerky. The bear did provide him with bear fat, which Mimiha claimed was useful as soap, shampoo, and for other medicinal uses.

When he was not hunting or building, Mimiha had him wandering through the bush. She pointed out edible items like berries, good mushrooms, and roots. Red Oak accompanied them on most of these trips, and also pointed out many other plants that he said had medicinal purposes. He made Grey gather these, always taking no more than a quarter of a population so it would regenerate. What he took was put into a deerskin pouch, and eventually there were dozens of them in the camp.

One night in November, nearly a year into his stay in the camp, Flint woke him. «Emergency. Get a knife, ax and canteen and hurry. We are needed.»

The three made him run through the darkness towards the east, a direction he had seldom travelled in. After a few miles, Grey stopped, and thought he heard an engine in the distance. Another mile later, he stopped again, and indeed there was an engine. As he listened he heard the engine cough twice and then go silent.

They ran on, and soon came to a car, barely visible in the starlight. Grey saw that a plastic flex pipe was running from the exhaust up to a small hole in the rear window, with duct tape holding it in place on either end. He went across to the driver side, and found a girl slumped over inside. The doors were locked, so he took the axe he had brought, and smashed the rear window behind the driver so he could reach around and unlock the door.

As he unfastened the seatbelt he felt something was wrong. The woman was huge. Much larger than Grey. The inside of the car reeked of exhaust fumes. Grey tugged, and with a lot of effort managed to pull woman out of the car. Her wig fell off, and one of her boobs was caught by the seatbelt, and stayed up near her neck.

It wasn’t a woman, but a man dressed in a flowery sundress. A big man. And he wasn’t breathing.