Summer Wind was betrothed to the chief’s son. Several times the chief forced her back to the village, but each time she escaped and returned to Two Face Sky. And then, one winter, there was a great fire on the island, and in the spring, my people found their charred remains amongst the ruins.”
“How tragic, but I imagine back then it wasn’t all that unusual to be accidentally killed in a house fire.”
“Maybe not, but over the years there have been persistent rumours that it wasn’t an accident. Apparently, some years after the fire, hunters discovered bullets embedded in the burnt timbers of the lodge. Some people said they were left by a hunting party, others said Two Face Sky and Summer Wind had been murdered.”
“Anyone ever try to find out?”
“No. My people weren’t interested. Summer Wind had brought dishonour to the Migiskan. She and Two Face Sky had angered the spirits. It didn’t matter how they died. It only mattered that the harmony of the circle had been restored.”
“Intriguing. Strange name, Two Face Sky.”
“Not really. You know how descriptive Indian names can be. Look at mine.” Eric suddenly stopped walking. He looked back the way we’d come, then turned his gaze back to me.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Think someone’s out there?”
I peered around the surrounding trees, which seemed to be taking on a life of their own in the rising wind. A large branch knocked intermittently against another. Although gold leaves swirled around us, nothing resembling a person flashed into view.
“No. It’s nothing,” He quickly answered and continued walking.
We soon reached a steep rock incline that looked as if Eric’s kije manido had overturned a bowl of giant boulders. It marked the end of the second growth forest. Beyond, the ancients’ forest rumbled in the wind.
“So what’s your Algonquin name?”
“Angry Scar Man.”
I laughed. I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.
Grinning, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Not my choice, I can tell you, but then your Indian name never is. Three guesses as to what your name would be, and the first two don’t count.”
“Forget it, I don’t want to know.” But I knew it would have something to do with my flaming hair.
Eric chuckled.
We began the final climb to the top of the island. Eric climbed easily over the giant boulders, while I slipped several times on the moss covered rocks and almost twisted my ankle when a mat of pine needles turned out to be obscuring a hole.
I stopped to catch my breath and took the opportunity to ask another question. “Eric, Summer Wind must be related to some family on the reserve. Any idea who?”
“Why do you ask?”
“It looked as if someone had recently made some kind of offering to these crosses.”
Eric looked down at me through a curtain of hair. He shoved it behind his ears. “Interesting. I thought they were long forgotten.”
“By whom?”
Without answering, he turned around and scrambled effortlessly up the final layer of rocks to the top of the ridge. I clawed my way behind him.
When I finally reached the top, I asked him again whose relatives they were. But he replied that it wasn’t his place to say and walked away, leaving me wondering about his sudden lack of openness. Surely, it had nothing to do with my being white.
I watched him disappear behind a massive trunk and reappear again, rounding another. I followed. After the unforgiving hardness of the climb, the forest floor was like a soft springy carpet, one created by centuries of discarded pine needles. Eric stopped beside one particularly large specimen of pine, whose trunk would have taken the outstretched arms of four large men to completely encircle it. He stretched his eyes along its length. I did likewise.
“My people call this one kokòmis mitig, meaning grandmother tree,” he said.
I supposed that if any of these monsters were to be the parent of all the others, it could be this one. Its enormous trunk continued straight up through the foliage of the surrounding trees, its crown hidden far from view. Several trunk-sized branches gnarled and denuded with age interlaced with the green fringed branches of its neighbours.
“The ancients called this island Kà-ishpàkweyàg, Where the Big Trees Stand, because of these trees. My people have always revered and protected them. In fact, in the late 1800s, when this area was logged out, we were able to prevent the loggers from destroying this part of the forest.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Essentially a camp-in. My people set up camp and refused to move. I guess you could call them the first environmentalists, and successful ones at that, since the loggers decided not to challenge us. But we were only able to save this stretch of trees. As you know, they cleared the rest of the island and all the surrounding hills.”
The memory of one of Aunt Aggie’s old photos came to mind. It showed a stump-studded view of Echo Lake’s southern shore. It looked like the aftermath of a nuclear war.
I nodded sadly in agreement. “The pines on Three Deer Point were only saved because spring break-up came early that year. The loggers had to follow the already cut timber down the flooded rivers to the mills. The next winter they moved on to another area.”
We continued walking in silence. High above our heads, the forest canopy roared, almost as if the ancient pines were trumpeting their survival in the face of man’s greed.
For some reason, these trees seemed larger than the pines of Three Deer Point. But that was probably my imagination, for both forests should be about the same age, three hundred years and more. I knew, because I’d painstakingly counted all 316 rings of a dying giant that someone from the reserve had cut down when Aunt Aggie was afraid it would fall on the cottage.
Without warning, the giants suddenly stopped, and we found ourselves at the edge of the backbone of the island, a massive granite knoll, which cleaved the ancients’ forest in two. At the far end of the crest stood John-Joe and the others. They were frantically waving.
FOURTEEN
We’ve found the gold!” John-Joe shouted. He beamed and so did the other three standing next to him. “You were right Eric, it’s here, really is. Christ, it’s been here all along, and we didn’t know.”
“Slow down, John-Joe,” Eric said. “Show me what you’ve found.”
I could feel my heart quickening. Holy shit, there really was gold. Right here on Whispers Island. Real live gold. Almost at my doorstep. Maybe there was even some at Three Deer Point. Wait a minute, what was I thinking? I didn’t want there to be gold.
But what I was thinking was clearly revealed on the faces of the others, even Eric’s. His eyes gleamed, almost as if he were touching the gold.
“Remember, guys,” I said, “even if there
