“I think the yelling gave us away, not the whiskeyjacks,” I said.
“No one cares what you think,” Jim grumbled and pulled a jar of hooch out of his saddle bag. “Shouldn’t be too shooken yah think?” He took a big swig.
“Not many beavers around here,” I said.
“Oh they’re coming, believe me, those toothy motherfuckers are coming.”
Jim and I hopped down from our horses and tethered them to a couple birch trees. They immediately started pawing up the snow to get at the old grass underneath it. The horses both seemed more than content to bask in the sun and eat the grass while we figured out where the best place to watch for beavers was. Jim made sure to bring the hooch, rifle, and the rolling tobacco from his bag while I kicked snow out of the way to try and make a dry spot for us to sit. For the next couple hours, Jim and I sat beside the creek and he drank the first bottle of hooch, and then the second bottle of hooch, and then started to get into a third. At some point during the second bottle Jim started firing the 30-30 randomly at the ice.
“Think I got one there.”
“Think the bullet ricocheted off the ice, Uncle.”
“Yeah, ricocheted right into a beaver. Just like I was planning.” He fired another one. “See, got another one.”
“Don’t know if you did, Uncle.”
“How many men you ever shot kid? Huh? I think I know when I hit a beaver or not.” Jim’s dark brown eyes were rolling circles in his head. “Think that’s enough killing for today. Let’s head back and see what Granny’s doing,” he slurred.
I got the horses and saddled them up while Jim ‘kept watch for beavers’ while rolling smokes for the ride back. As soon as I helped Jim up on his horse, he lit one of the smokes and then immediately fell asleep. I grabbed the reins from his mare and hitched her up to my horse and we went down the trail. The animal noise and chatter had faded with the setting sun. The only sound now was the snorts and snores from Jim as he half dozed and half smoked from behind me on the trail. At one point he woke up from his drunk, looked at me and said, “You know any Cree?”
“Not much,” I answered. “How about you?”
He had already fallen asleep before I finished asking. The smell of hooch on him was so strong it overpowered the mare’s breath, which wasn’t exactly mint fresh. All I could think of was getting him dropped off in a bed back at Granny’s.
As we got closer to Granny’s cabin, I noticed something was happening. I could hear shouts coming from inside. I stopped the horses, hopped down, and snuck up to the cabin. The shouts kept getting louder. It sounded like a couple of rough male voices with Granny’s mixed in. As I got closer, I realized I should have grabbed the 30-30 from Jim. Then I decided that it might be some of the family from down the road getting into it after a few too many drinks. I eased up a bit with this thought and walked through the woods with a bold step. I was almost at the cabin when Granny came flying out the door, and not of her own free will; two mounties followed. Their pale cheeks red with rage. I ducked behind the wood pile and watched as the one hit Granny across the face, knocking her back down.
“Damn squaw, you’re going to tell us where the still is or we’re going to burn this all to the ground,” the one who hit Granny yelled. The other mountie went and kicked her while she was on the ground.
I panicked. Granny swore at them in Cree and got up. The mounties kept pushing her back down. I gotta get Jim I decided, forgetting that he was wasted off his tree. The mounties, too obsessed with Granny, didn’t notice me start running back towards where I had left the horses and passed-out Jim. The shouting from Granny and the mounties followed me. When I got there, I found the horses, but no Jim. Stupid drunk, probably passed out under a tree nearby, I thought. I had to figure out what to do about Granny and the mounties. I thought of riding to my parents’ cabin and getting my father. It was only about fifteen to twenty minutes at a full gallop. In the distance the screaming continued. I was about to hop up on the horse when I heard the gunshot. And then another gunshot. And then another.
Back at Granny’s cabin, I found Jim standing over the bodies of the two mounties pointing his 30-30 rifle at them, red blood splattered across the white snow. One had been shot in the arm and the leg, the other just in the arm. Their firearms had been thrown into a pile over by the cabin’s steps. They stared at Jim with horror. Both young men from somewhere in Ontario, never guessing that they would be facing death in the northern Alberta bush. Jim held the rifle with the authority of someone who had killed before.
“Well now, why would you two go and beat up on an old lady for something as silly as moonshine?” Jim asked, his voice calm now, lacking the drunken stupor of earlier. Both the mounties stared at him, neither daring to answer. The one who had been shot twice started hyperventilating. “Alright, go on both of you back inside the cabin. We gotta get you bandaged up.” Jim prodded them with his rifle. Neither of them could move on account that they had been shot up, so I took to dragging them inside on the sled we normally used for wood. They were both heavy boys, definitely had been eating well inside the depot back in St. Paul, and there was a good yellow piss stain on the snow mixed in with the blood under where the one guy had been laying. Inside Granny’s cabin she had been prepping bandages and tourniquets and got to fixing up their bleeding. She wrapped them both in wool blankets and sat them down by the wood stove to help with the shock.
“Relax, no one’s going to die tonight,” Jim said. “But if either of you ever think of coming back to this area, well, that’s going to be a different story.” He lit a cigarette from where he sat in the chair with the 30-30 pointing at them. Granny finished fixing the mounties up and started pouring tea. I stood back in the corner trying to stay as close to the door or a window in case Jim changed his mind.
“After we finish this tea, thank you, Granny, by the way, you two boys are going to head back into town and tell the sergeant that you got in a fight with a couple of beavers out by the Amisk River. Got it?” Both the mounties nodded their heads as fast as they could. “Or as we said in Quebec, a good old castor fight.” Jim exhaled smoke in the faces of the two mounties. “Now you going to thank Granny for being so kind to make you tea?”
“Th-th-th-thanks,” they both said.
“Now let’s get you boys on those horses.”
As the mounties set off on the horses towards St. Paul, Granny, Jim and I turned back to where the 30-30 cartridges sat in the snow surrounded by blood and piss stains.
“I think it’s about time you headed back to your parents for a bit,” Granny said to me. “At least until your goddamn trigger happy uncle figures out his place.”
“They would have shot all three of us if I hadn’t of stepped in,” Jim said. “Should of known they would have been waiting until after we took off. Goddamn beavers.”
“Mounties, Jim, mounties.” Granny said. Her eyes were fixed on the blood. “Hooch is getting to that brain of yours.”
“You know what, I think I’m going to go and fix those beavers up right now.” Jim said. Without turning back to face us he walked over to where his horse was still standing saddled up from earlier that night. He hopped on the horse and headed back down the trail we had come from, the darkness quickly enveloped him.
“Should I go after him?” I asked Granny.
“Leave him be. Come on, let’s get this cleaned up.”
Jim didn’t come back that night. Granny told me not to worry about him and to save my own skin and head back down to my parents. She figured the mounties would be coming back with everything they had. The next day, instead of heading in that direction, I went towards the river where I found Jim’s horse tied up to the same birch tree that he and I had tethered up to the day before. A couple of empty hooch jars lay haphazardly in the snow beside a dozen cigarette butts that led in a trail towards a hole in the ice that hadn’t quite frozen over yet.