“Nish!…Nish!”

“C’mon, Nish. Wake up!”

Nish twisted, tried to open his eyes. He thought he must be in heaven, but it didn’t make sense; God wouldn’t call him by his nickname. He must be in a hospital. Somehow he must have been saved.

“Nish, wake up!”

That was…Travis’s voice. Nish shook his head violently. A good sign: it didn’t fall off. At least the beast hadn’t ripped out his throat. But he couldn’t tell if he could feel his legs, and the pool of blood on his stomach was freezing cold now.

“WAKE UP!”

Nish opened his eyes. Travis was leaning over him, shaking his shoulders. So Travis hadn’t been eaten! Behind Travis, Nish could make out the others, all looking at him, concerned. And behind them–what was that? The beast? He could see something big, and dark, and covered with fur.

“Travis,” Nish said, “you’re okay?”

Travis laughed. “Of course I’m okay. It’s you we’re worried about. Jesse’s grandfather is here! We’re saved, Nish!”

Saved? How could they be saved when a minute ago they were being eaten by a wild animal? He shifted so he could see creature. It was an old man! An old man with thick eyebrows and long greying hair, wearing a big fur coat. The old man looked more like a bear than…Jesse’s grandfather. But that’s who it was.

Nish could feel his legs now. And his arms. But he could still feel the wet where the beast had ripped out his guts.

Oh oh!

Nish closed his eyes. He knew.

He had gone to the bathroom last night all right. But he had never left his sleeping bag.

When the old trapper found them, the fire had gone down to nothing. Cree hunters had frozen to death in the past in a good shelter with a fire going: sleep had tricked them. When he first got there, with his dogs barking and nobody waking up, he had become quite worried.

As he told them later, with Jesse translating, he had tried to shake one kid awake. He pointed to Nish, laughing. Nish, he said, had started screaming at him. And then he had fainted. The old trapper said something and laughed to himself, shaking his head.

“My grandfather says you saw the Trickster,” said Jesse.

“I saw an animal,” Nish protested. “I think it was a wolverine.”

“You wouldn’t know a wolverine from a skunk,” said Rachel, laughing.

“Get a life,” Nish snapped.

“Get a diaper,” said Rachel.

Nish shut up. What could he say? He’d made a complete ass of himself. They thought he was a scaredy-cat, a baby. And he’d done nothing to make them think otherwise. He’d lost the Ski-Doo through the ice; he’d almost drowned; he couldn’t do a thing to help when they built the camp; and he’d peed his bed.

They all helped themselves to the meat that Jesse and Rachel’s grandfather had brought. It was black and greasy–“Mostly goose, some beaver,” Jesse had said–and it smelled…well, delicious, Nish thought. He took a nibble of what Jesse swore was goose, and it tasted wonderful. He took a second piece. It tasted even better.

 

They rode quickly to the goose camp. The wind was down, and the morning was, unbelievably, as beautiful as the day before when they had started out from the village. They looked like a gang out for a casual ride in the forest: two snow machines and a dog sled, nothing to show that they had nearly drowned, or frozen to death, or, for that matter, been attacked by the dreaded Trickster.

Travis got to ride on the dog sled with the grandfather. It was wonderful, if a bit slower than the Ski-Doos. The dogs barked and pulled, more with a series of yanks than with the steady drive of the machines, but it felt better. He could sense them surging, he could feel their joy as they got onto an open stretch of the bay. The sun was fully out now, and glistening where the ice had been swept clear of snow by the winds. There was no open water around here.

Travis thought about what had happened to them and how incredibly lucky they were. Lucky that Jesse and Rachel knew how to get someone out of the water and build a fire and a shelter. Lucky that the old man had found them.

Nish was still acting as if the dream was real, not something he had dreamt at all. Travis couldn’t believe that Nish could have gone to the bathroom in his sleeping bag; he must have been truly terrified. He wondered why he hadn’t had a bad dream himself. And then he remembered. The dream catcher. Rachel’s present was in his pack. It was working!

The dogs began yelping and howling as they came closer to the island where the camp was. The snow machines had already arrived, and Jesse, Rachel, and Liz were hurrying about, checking out the camp.

 

Jesse and Rachel’s grandmother had all sorts of food laid out for them: bannock, caribou, goose, and big fat oatmeal cookies baked with the goose drippings she’d been collecting.

“I’m starving!” shouted Nish, and he began digging in. He winked at Travis.

Jesse radioed back to the village, and Travis, standing beside him, was sure he could hear whoops coming from someone who sounded a lot like Muck. He had never heard Muck whoop before, but he was still pretty sure it was him.

“We’ve all missed games,” Jesse said when he turned off the radio. “Rachel’s team won this morning.”

“All right!” shouted Rachel. “Go Wolverines!”

“We can’t get back in time for our game against the Northern Lights,” said Jesse. “My dad and some others are coming, but they can’t be here until at least two o’clock.”

“What’ll we do?” asked Nish.

“Play hockey,” Jesse said.

“Yeah!” agreed Rachel.

“Whadya mean?” Nish thought they were still making fun of him.

“Didn’t you see the ice on the way out here?” Rachel asked. “It’s better than Maple Leaf Gardens!”

“And a hundred times as big!” Jesse added.