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  “Just having someone else with me will help,” said Jack from the doorway. “I keep thinking there’s something I’m not seeing. I hope you, being RCMP, will see what’s wrong right away. I don’t believe in curses or supernatural stuff like that, but there’s something going on that I don’t understand. And, why is it only happening to me?”

  “Hang on there, buddy, remember, the ‘Mounties Always Get Their Man’, and I’ve got the paperwork to prove it,” said his friend with a grin and a twinkle in his eye as he shifted the cruiser into ‘drive’ and pulled away.

  Jack watched his friend and smiled. He really was one of the good ones, who else would volunteer for a shitty trip like this? Then he got into his own van and followed.

  The early sun was cheerful, the weather crisp and clear. It was a beautiful spring day.

  They pulled into town shortly after 9:00 am; Jack parked in the Merriweather grocery lot and locked up. He took his gear and walked over to the marina, the key for Pete Farmer’s boat was still on the peg, just where he left it last night.

  With key in hand, he went down to slot #43 and threw his gear on the rear seat of the speedboat. He didn’t bring the propane or white gas, he knew he wouldn’t be staying, he was planning on going home.

  The idea was for Sergeant Majors to follow Jack up to his cabin and see if anything odd happened. If everything was okay, they’d go down lake to Scuff Peak and see if they could find the old cabin again.

  It didn’t seem like much of a plan, but what else was there?

  Bill Majors backed his cop car with boat and trailer on the back down the ramp into the lake, put on the emergency brake in the vehicle and hopped out to push the boat into the water. He grabbed the long mooring rope from the front seat, turned the boat around and tied it to the small walkway beside the ramp.

  Jack was already on the lake, gassed up and waiting.

  He would lead. Bill would follow.

  With the happenings of the past day, both men were apprehensive. They checked the weather report again, clear, little wind, small chop.

  Most small lakes don’t have a lot of foul weather. But, Andover Lake was big, 11 miles in area and 15 miles long. The wind, when it blew from the north could raise a high wave capable of overturning a small boat. The locals watched the weather carefully.

  Jack wasn’t surprised that his own boat turned over, but to not have it float up, that was peculiar. What bothered him most was where was the dog’s body? It had to have floated up by now, where did it get to?

  Jack led up lake to his cabin. Bill Majors followed behind in the Company boat.

  Nothing happened.

  After a half hour, they arrived at the McKinnon cabin. Jack docked the boat and tied it securely. He didn’t want any ‘accidental’ accidents. Bill pulled in behind and took care to also tie his boat tightly.

  The two men stood on the wharf and looked at the cabin. It didn’t look any different than when Jack left it last fall. No doors pushed in, no broken windows. They both did a walk-around, and everything on the outside looked good.

  Jack took the key to the cabin out of his pocket. As he approached, he began to sweat. The day wasn’t getting any warmer but the perspiration was running off him. When he reached the front porch and put the key into the door lock, he was breathing heavily. The dread he felt almost overpowered him.

  The Mountie came up from behind, and moved ahead. His gun was now out of his backpack and in the back of his belt. He paused at the door, drew the gun and entered the building.

  Nothing there!

  Everything just the way it was left.

  Or... was it?

  Two sets of eyes swung to the fireplace. A largish feathery black form was lying on the grate.

  Jack McKinnon’s face drained of color, as he stood rooted to the spot. He remembered laying kindling on the grate so the fire would be easy to start the following year. The wood would be dry; the cabin would warm up fast.

  The Mountie, gun in hand carefully approached the fireplace. He looked down.

  What’s this?

  “It’s only a dead crow,” called Bill, peering into the dark fireplace.

  What a relief!

  Birds sometimes flew into a cabin in the fall and were locked in unintentionally and died over winter.

  “Hell no,” Jack called from the bottom stair of the front porch, “it’s black and dead, but it isn’t a crow! Take a closer look.”

  Bill went to the windows along the south wall and opened the curtains. Then he went back and looked again.

  Jack was down the path, into the boat, the motor almost started before Bill Majors could react.

  “Okay, okay,” he called to the man in the boat, “it’s only a dead bird. Come on back Jack. I’ll get rid of it for you.”

  “Leave it where it is, don’t you know what that is?”

  “Dead crow. So?”

  “It’s a dead Raven, I’m going to have to burn the cabin down!”

  “Are you crazy? Over a dead bird? What’s gotten into you?”

  “Come down here and I’ll tell you what I was told last year when some other spooky stuff happened, it wasn’t bad like this, just plants that wouldn’t grow right, and stuff disappeared, drove Rikki nuts.”

  “What does that have to do with a dead crow?”

  “Quit calling it a crow, it’s a raven, don’t offend it, even if it is dead.”

  “Now you’re not making sense Jack. I’ve known you for as long as you’ve been coming up here. I didn’t know you were so superstitious.”

  “Superstition has nothing to do with it; it has everything to do with the Indians. Last year they chose a new medicine man, the old one died. The new one came and visited us. I just passed it off, we’ve had the cabin here for over ten years now, and no one ever complained before.”

  “What did he say? Did he threaten you?”

  “No, he just said the Raven didn’t like us to live so close to their Ancestral Burial Grounds. I didn’t laugh at him, and I didn’t yell at him, I just listened, and said I’d think about it. Well, now, I’m thinking!”

  “Okay Jack, I don’t know what else to do, I’ve never run into this before. But I do know strange things happen when you fool around with Ancient Indian Burial Grounds.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Jack almost shouted, “I’ve never desecrated a graveyard of any sort, Christian, Indian, or any other kind. What do you mean?”

  “I’m saying, we have to go see the Xaali’pp medicine man. We’ll check every possibility. Think you’re up to it? I’ll make arrangements and tomorrow we’ll go see my Bureau Chief and he’ll fix it so we can speak to Running Wolf.”

  “The new man is Running Wolf? I thought it was Archie J.,” said Jack, “are there two now?”

  “No, no, only one new shaman, a lot of First Nation People have two names these days. One is an Indian name and the other one that he can use in the white man’s world. If you don’t have a last name, things can get complicated when you apply for a drivers licence, or have to sign legal papers,” Bill said as he busied himself with the boat.

  “I didn’t know,” Jack said with a troubled look on his face.

  * * * *

  “Now remember,” said the Sergeant next morning to Jack who was sitting in the passenger seat of the cop car, “let me do the talking.”

  The two men were waiting in the Xaali’pp Great House parking lot. The RCMP Detachment Chief arranged for them to meet with Chief George, the new medicine man and Band Council members first thing this morning.

  “Remember keep cool. No confrontations about who owns the land, dead ravens or anything else. I’ve been told you aren’t well liked by the band any more,” Bill said, “keep quiet no matter what’s being said. If someone asks you a direct question, answer, but no big speeches about who owns what.”

  Jack McKinnon looked at his friend who had just morphed into Big Bad RCMP! Wow, he thought, I wish I could do that.
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  The two men got out of the vehicle and stood talking to Chief George. He wasn’t too happy with the Mountie because of the embarrassment of having to get his mother and son out of the Carling Lockup.

  They both avoided talking about it.

  Although it took the RCMP the better part of yesterday to arrange this meeting, things looked calm today, everyone was smiling.

  Finally, the gathering began to get under way. Chairs were brought out of the Great House and the men sat in a loose circle.

  The meetinghouse was situated on old Cayoosh Flats land. Progress came in the form of a gold strike on the Fraser River in 1858. The area was renamed in 1860, after the Lil’mat Nations Chief, but it was hard for the white men to pronounce and deteriorated into ‘Carling’. It quickly became an important town on the route to the Cariboo and Fraser River goldfields. Until the Cariboo Road reached Lyon, 16,000 gold seekers were outfitted in Carling. Time passed and the land became a municipality in 1946 when it was incorporated as a village.

  In days past, this kind of meeting was held sitting on the ground, around a fire, smoking the Great Pipe, but that was then and this was now.

  Besides, the ground was cold and wet. There was a freak late spring snowfall yesterday. It would be gone by nightfall today, but it made the ground damp and muddy.

  According to custom, the Chief spoke first. Thank god, it wasn’t a long speech. Next came the shaman, Running Wolf, he spoke in the old Xaali’pp language and you could tell not everyone understood everything he said, but they all nodded when he finished. When he sat down, he looked at his hands, not at the speaker. His fingers never stopped moving.

  Jack watched and was spellbound.

  The meeting broke up with lots of talk, but no decision and the men took the chairs back to the Great House.

  Bill Majors and Jack sat in the cruiser in the parking lot talking it over and trying to understand what they just heard from the shaman and the lawyer.

  “Bill, have I got this right? They want me to go away, and take my cabin with me. They don’t care how I do it, burn it down, float it down the lake. I can’t just abandon it. It has to be gone, building, wharf, even the swing on the big tree. I don’t understand?”

  “Take it easy, we’ll go back to the office and I’ll make a phone call to Land Registry, there must be something somewhere about who the true owner of this land was, and could he sell it to you. From whom did you buy it? I’ll find out if the company is still in business.”

  “We didn’t buy through a Real Estate Agent; we bought from a local, someone my dad knew. Rikki has all that at home, she’s good at keeping track of things and I’m sure she’ll find the papers right away. Let’s go back to Merriweather and I’ll call her and get her started looking for them. There has to be some information about our property. I don’t remember being told it was in the middle of anybody’s graveyard. I never would have bought there if I’d known that. Who buys summer property in the middle of someone else’s graveyard?”

  As they were pulling away, Jack glanced over to the huge Totem Pole that told the history of the Xaali’pp Band.

  There was a large golden Ridgeback standing in front of it. It looked just like Big Guy. The dog turned and started to walk away; he stopped, turned and looked back at Jack...

  The red sun was still high in the noon sky when Jack McKinnon got out of the car in a daze. He paused by the Totem in front of the Great House. His eyes could only see the big golden Ridgeback.

  He had to know!

  There could be no answer for all the other questions until he found out what happened to Big Guy. In his head, he knew BG was dead, but in his heart, it didn’t matter. He had to follow.

  The big canine led him around back of the Great House to an old abandoned path that was overgrown with wild roses and stunted wheat. You could see no one used it for a long, long time. The dog knew where he was going; he kept just out of range. Jack hurried to keep up.

  Finally, they came to an ancient, decaying pit house that lay in a natural grove of towering old fir trees.

  The dog stood and looked at the entrance; the steps down were broken beyond repair. The area around the underground house was overgrown with brambles and dead brush. The People left this common house many, many moons ago.

  Why did BG stop here?

  Jack stood still; he was unable to look away. Slowly the pit house grew newer, the forest growth younger, wild fruit trees and lush green bushes with berries filled the grove.

  The path was wide and straight; the sun was shining.

  People were talking.

  He understood the words.

  There was to be a gathering of the Ganhaada! The Raven Clan sounded happy, and excited. They were getting ready to perform great feats of valour.

  They were getting ready for war!

  This couldn’t be. Who had enough status to call a war council?

  The ancient and venerated Tsimshaan Clan... that’s who!

  While he stood watching, he heard a faint sweet voice calling him, “Jack, Jack McKinnon, come home, come home right now!”

  He looked around and everything was old again.

  No dog, no people talking; just a heavy dusk settling into the abandoned grove. Panic began to crawl up the small of Jack’s back and nestled in the hair that was standing on end at the back of his neck.

  Someone or something was watching him!

  Frantically he raced back up the overgrown path to the Great House. Why was it taking so long to get there? The building seemed to be just out of reach, the faster he ran the farther away it was.

  A black bird appeared in the sky ahead of him and he stopped when he saw that it was a Raven. Something dangled from its’ claws. The bird sat on a branch, stretched his leg out and dropped it.

  It landed on Jack and flung him spread-eagled onto his belly, his face pushed into the mud and grass of the path, he rolled over to get his breath. When he saw what pushed him, his blood ran cold.

  It was the curved white shinbone of a wolf. Each end was carved into a stylized human head, one end had its’ mouth open, the other’s was shut. The strip of rawhide attached to either end was old and failing.

  Jack was dizzy from the fall, but he still knew what he was seeing; it was bad, very, very bad.

  He was looking at a ‘soul catcher’.

  He looked up through the trees and saw the sun right overhead; it must be 12:00 o’clock! How could that be right?

  In a daze, he got up and staggered towards the Great House, it didn’t move this time.

  He made his way to the parking lot on other side of the building and there was Bill Majors standing beside his car, a troubled look on his face.

  “Where the hell did you get to?” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve been over all the grounds; everyone’s been looking for you. The People at the Great House had no idea where you were. What’s going on?”

  “How long have I been gone?”

  “All morning.”

  “I got a call from Mrs. McKinnon,” said the Sergeant, “she said everything was fine, and you should stay as long as you liked.”

  “Really? How did you get a call from her? You don’t have one of those fancy phones in your car,” said a very uneasy Jack McKinnon.

  “There’s a message over at the Great House. I suppose she called the office in Carling and they told her you were here.”

  The color drained from his face! Rikki would never do that, he said under his breath. He knew something was happening again. His wife would never call the RCMP Detachment in Carling, or the Great House.

  “I heard her call to me back there on the path, how could she be talking to you on the phone at the same time she was talking to me?”

  The Bill Majors he was looking at became flustered and said, “whatever” got into the car and left Jack standing in the middle of the parking lot.

  But... as he looked around it wasn’t a park
ing lot anymore, he was alone in an open field.

  Chapter 20

  Meanwhile at the Adler household...

  “Have you kids got your homework done yet?” Carol Adler said as she finished preparations for the Saturday evening meal. “Don’t forget to wash; I don’t want poster paint from your homework project all over everywhere. Karen, I’m just going to run over to Mrs. McKinnon’s for a few moments, I won’t be long.”

  Carol was worried about her friend. I’m going to be upbeat, cheerful, and only ask about Harry, Carol lectured herself, no more spooky stuff, no sir, not by me.

  With this earnest talking to, she went out the back door, through the lane, and up the McKinnon back stairs.

  There was only one small light on, no music, no noise of any sort. Carol peeked through the window in the door and looked into the kitchen to see if anyone was home. There was no one in the room... it was empty.

  She turned to go back home when the door opened a small crack. A hand shot out, grabbed her, and pulled her into the house.

  “Get down, don’t stand up, they’ll see us,” Rikki whispered crawling on her hands and knees over to the basement door. “Come on down, they can’t see the light, and won’t know we’re here.”

  “What’s going on?” said her bewildered neighbor down on the floor on all fours creeping after her. “Why can’t I stand up, who’s going to see the light? Why haven’t you called the cops?”

  “Can’t call the cops.”

  “What are you talking about? Where’s Jack? Where’s Harry?”

  “Harry’s at my folks, this started right after Jack went back to the lake to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Okay, now you’ve lost me, what do you mean, ‘figure out what’s going on’?”

  “I’ve been so scared,” she said pausing half way down the stairs, “I didn’t even want to go outside to go to your house...”

  “This has got to stop,” said Carol sitting down on the top step, “I don’t know what it is, but it has to stop! Where’s Jack? I’ll call him and tell him his wife is scared out of her wits, he better come home and make this stop!”

  “Can’t do that.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “He never did call home; I phoned the grocery store and Freddy doesn’t know where he is anymore either.”

  Chapter 21

  “I’m sorry, Rikki,” Bill Majors said later that day, “I really don’t know where he went. One minute he was in the car with me in the parking lot of the Xaali’pp Band Great House, the next he was out the door heading toward their big Totem Pole. I don’t know what he saw, I didn’t see anything unusual.