Travis had never seen Nish so quiet. They had all returned to their billets, and the Whiskeyjacks had put out hot chocolate and cookies for the boys, but Nish was hardly even sipping his.
Travis had no idea what Muck had said to Nish, but he knew Muck wouldn’t have minced his words. Nish was clearly out of sorts. As they’d washed up in the bathroom, he’d told Travis he wished he’d never come. “If there was a road outta here,” he said, “I’d hitchhike.”
“You haven’t even given it a chance,” Travis said.
“It sucks.”
“It’s just different.”
“Gimme a break. No movie theatres, no McDonald’s, no corner stores, no buses, no cable TV, no video arcade, not even a pathetic T-shirt for me to buy.”
“There’s more to going different places than getting a T-shirt.”
Nish made a big face. “This is backwards, man. Open your eyes. We’re in the Stone Age here–the Ice Age by the feel of it.”
There was no point in arguing. They went out and sat with Jimmy Whiskeyjack and his big family–father, mother, grandmother, two sisters, and three younger brothers–and drank hot chocolate and talked while Nish kept looking at the TV in the corner as if he wished he could turn it on just by staring at it.
Normally, that’s what Travis would have been doing, too, but the Whiskeyjacks showed no inclination whatsoever to turn to the TV. Instead of sitting in a half circle around it, they sat in a full circle around the kitchen table. The younger kids played and listened, and Travis and Jimmy–but not Nish–talked a bit about the hockey tournament. Most of the talk, however, came from the grandmother, translated either by Jimmy’s mother or father.
In this house, the grandmother was like the TV. They all stared at her and listened as if she were some special program they’d been allowed to stay up and watch.
It was fascinating. She and her husband had both trapped, and six of her nine children had been born in the bush, as she had been before them. Through her daughter, Jimmy’s mother, she told how two of them had died and how they had buried the babies in the bush and marked the graves, and how they would go back to visit them every year, right up until 1979.
The old woman took a long, long pause. Travis couldn’t help but ask: “Why 1979?”
Jimmy’s mother answered. There were tears in her eyes. “That’s when they flooded my parents’ trapline.”
“Flooded?”
“The dams,” Jimmy explained. “The hydro dams. The graves are under sixty feet of water.”
“Didn’t anybody tell them there were graves there?”
Travis’s question made Jimmy’s parents laugh. They translated this to the grandmother, and she shook her head angrily.
“We tried,” explained Jimmy’s father. “But they didn’t even tell us they were going to do it.”
The old woman clearly did not want to dwell on this part of her story. She launched into a tale that soon had everyone laughing again, but as Jimmy’s father translated, Travis realized it was really about her family almost starving to death.
The grandmother told how, one year, the beaver had all but vanished from their trapline, and her husband had left her alone with the children while he followed the trail of the caribou herd, hoping to return with food before the little they had left ran out.
He did not come back in time. The food was just about gone. Christmas was coming and she had nothing to give the children–usually she would have bought some sweets at the Hudson’s Bay store and hidden them until Christmas Day.
Christmas Eve it had snowed. And when they woke the next morning, the sun was bright and the new snow sparkled like white gold, so bright they had to squint when they turned back the flap of the tent. The old woman told her children that it had snowed sugar during the night: a Christmas present for them. She made them line up at the doorway, and then she took a spoon, went out into the snow, and very carefully scooped some up. She brought it back and told the oldest child to close his eyes. He did, and when she gave him his present he licked his lips, saying it was the most delicious snow he had ever tasted. She then did the same thing for each of the younger ones, who were already waiting with mouths open and eyes closed.
“It really tasted just like sugar,” said Jimmy’s mother. “I can still taste it today.”
Later in the day her husband returned with his sled piled high with caribou meat. They would make it through the winter. And none of them would ever forget the Christmas it snowed sugar in the bush.
Travis had never heard such a wonderful story. He was fighting back tears. His throat hurt. He looked at Nish, who was still staring longingly at the TV set as if he wished he were someplace else.
They talked a while, and Nish surprised Travis by suddenly turning and asking a question.
“What’s a Trickster?”
Jimmy’s mother looked at him, surprised. She glanced at her husband, then back at Nish.
“Where did you hear about the Trickster?”
“The Chief,” Nish said. “She said if I got lost in the bush up here it would eat me.”
Jimmy’s parents laughed. The old woman fiercely worked her jaw.
“It’s just an old story,” Jimmy’s mother said. “Like a fairytale.”
The old woman said something sharp. Everyone turned to listen, even Travis and Nish, who couldn’t understand a word.
Finally, Jimmy’s mother explained. “My mother says the Trickster is real, no matter whether you can actually touch it or just feel it in your head. She says her own father said he saw it, that the Trickster came and punished a family that was being too selfish one winter and wouldn’t share a caribou they had killed.”
“What happened?” asked Jimmy.
His mother answered, but she didn’t seem to believe. “The Trickster came and killed them and ate them.”
“The Trickster is legend,” Jimmy’s father explained to Travis and Nish. “Many tribes have it in their myths. It’s a monster that comes at night and either eats its victims or drives them insane. Myself, I think it probably grew out of tough times, people actually going mad in the bush and needing something to blame it on. People getting attacked by bears maybe and someone saying it was cannibalism.”
Again the grandmother said something sharp. Jimmy’s father answered her in an apologetic tone. Then he addressed the boys: “She says Cree hunters don’t make things up.”
“What’s it look like?” Nish asked.
“No one knows,” said Jimmy’s mother. “There are lots of drawings, of course. Sometimes a monster with three heads. Sometimes with just one. But always with a head like a wolf and eyes like hot coals in a fire.”
Jimmy’s father checked his watch. “It’s eleven o’clock, boys. We stay up all night, you’ll be in no shape for your game tomorrow. Let’s get to bed.”
Travis and Nish were in bunk beds in Jimmy’s room down in the basement. The three of them lay awake for a long time, talking quietly.
“You ever see this thing?” Nish asked.
“Of course not,” answered Jimmy. “They used to warn us that he’d come and take us away if we weren’t good.”
“Like the bogeyman,” said Travis.
“I guess,” said Jimmy.
“Sounds stupid to me,” said Nish. Then, after a long pause, he thought to add: “Sorry, Jimmy.”
“Sounds stupid to me, too,” Jimmy said. But he didn’t sound particularly convincing.