by William Bell
I made up my mind then. I was going to tell Chief Copegog about our house.
“Chief Copegog, let’s go sit in the sun, okay?” I said.
“Sure. Feel like a smoke too.”
He didn’t even look at our house when we stepped out into the sun. Squinting, I checked out the yard again to see if Minnie was there. She wasn’t. I heard music—Blonde Syrup, her favourite group—coming from the front yard. She probably hadn’t even moved since we left.
I led Chief Copegog to the dock and we sat at the end, our feet dangling, facing Chiefs’ Island.
“Umm, Chief Copegog,” I began.
He was unwrapping a cigar. Just before he stuck it into his mouth he said, “Yep, know that. Recognized it right away.” He laid the cellophane wrapper on the plank beside him.
“You … you read my mind!”
He struck a match from a matchbook that said Champlain Hotel on it and held the match to the tip of the cigar. He puffed a few times, jetting thick white smoke out of his mouth. He squeezed the burned match head to powder and placed the match on the plank beside the wrapper. He took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at it, then at me.
“I get pictures sometimes, what you’re thinkin’.”
“Is that how you knew … um, is that why you told me that night you knew I had troubles?”
He nodded and looked out over the green lake. He looked the same way he did in the graveyard when he stared off into the trees. The afternoon sun was bright on the shore of Chiefs’ Island. Chief Copegog pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb, back to our house.
“Looks better now, that house. Got a good feelin’ comin’ from it, mostly.”
I didn’t catch on to that “mostly” at first. I was too busy feeling relieved.
“Are you … are you sorry you … about what happened between you and Bond?”
Chief Copegog was silent for a moment before he answered. “Killin’, that’s never no good. He was bad man, that Bond. But I met lots of bad mens all the time I been alive. Some white mens, some my peoples. Can’t go ‘round killin’ all them mens you think is bad. But that time, I lost my smart thinkin’.”
He touched himself on his chest. “Thought with my heart. Kilt him for my family reasons.”
Chief Copegog heaved a big sigh. “Nope,” he said again, “killin’, that’s never no good.”
I looked down into the still water at my feet. I could see a school of minnows darting around, back and forth. A water spider skated across the surface, a dimple under each of his legs where it rested on the water.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to change your mind about helping me and Kenny, Chief Copegog. I mean, now that you know where we live. This place must hold really bad memories for you. Noah thinks that Bond the Cr—that Bond’s spirit might be there, as well as Kenny’s.”
Chief Copegog took a drag on the cigar and let the smoke roll out his nostrils. With his other hand he pulled at his earlobe.
His voice had a hard edge to it. “Know he’s there,” he said slowly. “Can feel him.”
I felt a pain like somebody just punched me in the stomach. A fear pain. Except fear isn’t a strong enough word. Now I knew why, a couple of minutes ago, he had said “mostly.”
I turned and looked at the house. It was shadowed now and the windows stared out across the yard at me like blank lifeless eyes. Suddenly it didn’t look like the home I loved. It looked like an enemy.
Bond’s ghost was in there.
“Is Kenny in there, too?” I asked Chief Copegog. “Can you feel him?”
“Could feel him when we was out on the water. Yep, he’s around here all right.”
“Is he … do you think Bond would hurt him?”
“Don’t know ‘bout that, little girl. My peoples, once they’re on the Other Side, they can’t hurt each other. But we’re all between worlds now. And the Whites, they’re strange peoples. Don’t know about them.”
It sounded strange, him talking like that. I mean, I was a White, but he never seemed to include me when he talked about them.
“Do you have any idea why Kenny is in our house?”
“He wants talk to you. You’re his born same minute sister. That Bond, I dunno why he’s here. Maybe trapped between Sides, like me.”
I wished he’d quit talking about Bond. I didn’t really care about him. He scared the life out of me and I wished he’d go wherever he was supposed to be. But all I cared about was getting Kenny back.
“I wonder why Kenny is in between Sides,” I said.
A shadow of surprise crossed Chief Copegog’s face.
“Thought you maybe knew that,” he said. “It’s you. You’re keepin’ him here.”
About fifteen minutes later John and Noah came walking across the yard. They came over to the dock. Chief Copegog had finished his cigar and was sitting staring out over the lake. He could do that, I learned—sit and say nothing and stare. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he scared, as scared as I was? Was he sad?
“Well,” John said, “guess we should go in.”
We walked across the yard and went into the kitchen.
“Let’s go upstairs, Chief Copegog,” I said.
And that’s when we heard it.
It was as if the house had been holding its breath. Waiting. As soon as Chief Copegog was inside it breathed out slowly in a long, long sigh, the way you do when you’ve been expecting something bad to happen and it finally comes along. Only this was worse. Lots worse. It sounded like hate. And fear. It made my skin crawl.
“What the heck was that?” John exclaimed from behind me.
The long wicked sigh sighed again, like a curse.
Noah said, “I don’t like the sound of it, whatever it was.”
“That’s spirit world talkin’,” Chief Copegog said.
Our feet thumped faster on the stairs. The closer we got to the top, the colder we felt. As soon as we got into the upstairs hall and turned toward my room the sigh changed to deep, fast, loud breathing. Like something chasing you in a nightmare.
Bam! Bam! Bam! One by one, all the bedroom doors slammed shut.
I looked at Chief Copegog. He didn’t seem as scared as I was. He didn’t seem scared at all. But his face was hard and dark and grim.
He led the way down the hall to my room and opened the door. He went inside.
We followed him. Before I got to the door I stopped and looked at the floor.
There was a large, dark brown stain on the hardwood. It filled the space in front of my door.
“What’s that?” I said, afraid to know.
“It looks like—” John began. His voice was shaking so badly I could hardly understand him.
Noah’s vocal cords weren’t working so hot either.
“Yeah, it’s a blood stain,” he croaked.
The heavy breathing sound began again, deep long breaths, as if the hallway was a throat. The sound rose, getting louder and louder, until it was like a roaring wind.
We rushed into my room, stepping over the blood, and slammed the door behind us.
Tuesday Afternoon:
My Room
I was the last one into the room so I locked the door and leaned against it, panting. Chief Copegog looked around and walked over to my desk. He pushed the lamp aside and climbed up on top, sitting there cross-legged and rigid. John sat on the windowsill and Noah pulled up the desk chair. I lowered myself onto the waterbed. We formed a sort of circle.
No one said anything. The roaring out in the hall suddenly stopped dead.
I heaved a big sigh and looked around. I could see past John out the window. The late afternoon sun lit up Chiefs’ Island and the far shore of Lake Couchiching. My eyes focused on John’s face. It was pale and he was chewing on his lower lip. Noah didn’t look too confident either. He kept fidgeting with his earring. I could hear the silver cross tap, tap, tap against his thumbnail. Chief Copegog stared straight ahead as if he was looking through the wall. I wondere
d what he was seeing.
It was warmer in the room than in the hall, but still chilly. I was hanging on hard to control myself. It felt as if the house was filled with some kind of weight—like when you’re worried bad about something it weighs you down and when you move, your arms and legs feel heavy. And inside my mind, hopes and fears spun around each other so fast I was starting to lose control like I did after Kenny died.
Even though I was cold and confused and more scared than I had ever been in my life, a strange thought slipped into my head. In the hall the ghost of a murdered man was making doors slam and bleeding on the floor and roaring, and there inside my room another ghost was perched on my desk—but outside it was a warm sunny day. It was all wrong. There should have been thunder and lightning and wind that tossed the wet branches, making them scrape against the windows, like in books. I almost laughed. I almost cried.
My eye was caught by the hook on my closet door. It hung down uselessly.
“Chief Copegog,” I said, but my voice cracked and I had to start again. “Chief Copegog, is Kenny in there?” I pointed to the closet.
“Nope. Can’t feel him anywhere this house.”
I felt disappointed and relieved at the same time. The thing in the house wouldn’t hurt him. But where was he?
Just then the house breathed again—different this time but just as terrifying. Instead of a sigh it was like a long, tired groan. It went on and on. John’s eyes bugged out and his knuckles went white as he squeezed the edge of the windowsill. Noah stopped tapping the cross with his thumbnail and linked his fingers together in his lap to make one tight fist.
We waited for Chief Copegog to do something, but he kept staring at the wall. His face was even more mask-like and wooden than usual. He seemed off in his own world. If he was, I didn’t blame him.
The groaning got louder, sort of seeping from the walls and ceilings. The groans were separated now, long and painful and angry, like a man was lifting something heavy, so heavy it hurt him.
I stared at my door. There was something outside in the hall. I looked at the wind chimes. Nothing.
“What’s that dragging noise?” John’s voice trembled.
Noah moved his head back and forth, slowly. His lips were pressed together. I bet he wished he’d never read a ghost book in his life, I thought.
The dragging noise continued along with the painful groaning. And it was getting louder. Someone was dragging himself toward my room.
“It’s him,” Noah said finally. “It has to be.”
He didn’t have to say who he meant.
All three of us stared at Chief Copegog as if we had realized at the same moment that it was his move next. His face was like a dark painting—no movement, not even a hint that anything was going on around him. Outside the room the groans got louder and louder and seemed to pound inside my skull. The dragging was a man pulling himself in agony along the floor—drag, pause, drag—a man drowning in pain.
I knew I was going to go crazy if somebody didn’t do something. I opened my mouth but didn’t get the chance to say anything.
Chief Copegog blinked. And with the blink his face came alive, as if he had been asleep all this time. His features seemed to sag. His wrinkles were like lines of pain across his face.
He nodded to himself and, a moment later, unfolded his legs and slid from the desk. He took a deep breath and began to walk toward the door.
“Chief Copegog, what are you going to—”
“Don’t open the door!” I cut John’s question off.
But it was too late. The door slowly opened.
Chief Copegog stood between me and the horrible thing in the hallway, but it was as if I could see through him. My arm raised itself, pointing into the hall.
“Look,” my voice said.
John stood and crept slowly toward me and gripped my hand so tight it hurt. He craned his neck to see out the bedroom door. Noah stood up slowly from his chair and moved toward me too, until his shoulder touched mine. The three of us stared at the thing we had feared would be there.
The man in the hallway lay on the floor, one arm stretched toward us, the hand on the end like a claw scratching at the wood. He raised himself a little, groaning, then dragged himself along the floor with his outstretched arm, then dropped to the floor with a painful grunt. He struggled toward us, little by little. But Chief Copegog blocked the way.
Bond’s face was terrifying—as white as flour, twisted with pain and anger and hate. He stared ahead of him out of bright colourless eyes that cut into you like razors. His black hair was long and stringy.
We could see now that his other hand was clutching a long-handled knife that stuck out of his chest. Around his hand his shirt was soaked with blood that left a long ugly smear down the hallway. Bond was dressed in a long black coat and dark grey pants with pinstripes. His shirt was white at the neck with a high collar and a black tie. The big diamond pin in the tie sparkled in a grisly background of gore.
He hauled himself forward again, coughing from deep down, and bright red blood ran out of his mouth. It dripped off the end of his chin onto the floor.
He raised his head higher and those razor-eyes caught sight of Chief Copegog.
Oh, oh, I thought. I gulped, and realized I had been holding my breath. John’s grip on my right hand tightened. I heard Noah catch his breath. We waited.
The feelings that twisted the man’s face into a knot of hate and pain must have changed, because his face went blank. Instantly. Then his eyebrows raised, like he was asking a question.
After a moment Chief Copegog nodded.
“What’s going on?” John asked. “What’s happening?”
Noah’s face was strangely calm. “I think we’re going to see an old, old crime being rubbed out. I think. We could be watching—”
“Shhhhhh!” I hissed. “Look!”
Chief Copegog leaned over. He gripped the knife—his knife—by the handle. He drew the knife slowly out of Bond’s chest.
“Oh, God!” John moaned as a gush of bright blood rushed out of the wound as the long blade came away.
Chief Copegog stood up straight, gore dripping from the blade of his knife. He stared at the knife for a moment.
Then he dropped it.
Bond’s wide eyes followed the knife as it fell in slow motion to the floor and hit the wood soundlessly. It bounced, flicking crimson droplets into the air, then lay still. Bond looked up at Chief Copegog again. Chief Copegog’s eyes moved from the knife to Bond and the eyes of the two men locked, like lasers coming at one another, locked on the same path. Both men were still, as if they were talking to each other along those laser beams, as if they didn’t need to use voices anymore, not after all these years.
All my fear disappeared in a flash and I felt suddenly very sad as I watched those two men staring at each other after a hundred and fifty years of wandering alone between two worlds. Bond must have been caught between two worlds just like Chief Copegog.
Noah must have been thinking what I was thinking. “This is it,” was all he said.
“What is what?” John asked, irritated.
“Chief Copegog has to forgive him,” Noah added. “Bond has to be forgiven by the guy he harmed, see? Because he used Chief Copegog to cheat the Chippewas out of their land. Yeah,” Noah was getting excited, the way you do when you solve some kind of problem, when everything suddenly gets clear, “and Chief Copegog has to be forgiven by Bond for killing him.”
“Why should anyone forgive Bond?” John said.
“Come on, John,” Noah said. “Bond paid. Take a look at him.”
John said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Look at that blood.”
Bond and Chief Copegog were still locked in on each other—a man in an old-fashioned formal suit with leather shoes and a diamond stick-pin in his tie and a guy with long hair, dressed in skins.
Then, slowly, each one of them nodded.
Bond slowly raised himself to his knees, then to his f
eet. As he stood, the blood that stained his shirt and coat gradually disappeared as if it was seeping back into his body.
Then Bond did a strange thing. He straightened his tie and buttoned his jacket as if he was expecting company and had just heard the doorbell ring. He turned without a sound and walked silently, floated, almost, down the hall. When he got to the top of the stairs he disappeared. He was there, then he wasn’t.
Chief Copegog turned and walked into my room. It might have been my imagination but I thought his shoulders didn’t look so slumped and the lines in his face didn’t seem so rigid.
Noah was staring down at the floor. He raised his arm and pointed.
“Look,” he said quietly.
The blood was gone.
Tuesday Afternoon:
Chief Copegog
The four of us stood in the doorway of my room, staring at the spot where Bond had disappeared a moment before.
I said to Chief Copegog, “Where did he go?”
“He’s goin’ to Other Side now.”
“I gotta sit down,” John moaned. “I think I’m gonna faint.”
Noah sat down on the desk chair again. John flopped full length onto my waterbed and rocked up and down for a second. I was about to ask Chief Copegog about Kenny when Noah began to talk.
“Chief Copegog, how come Bond can go to the Other Side and you’re still here? I don’t think that’s fair. We know what a bad man he was. You weren’t—I mean, aren’t. I don’t get it.”
I felt suddenly ashamed when he said that. I had been thinking about me and my twin brother. I had forgotten all about Chief Copegog. Here he was helping me and I was ignoring him.
“Not worry, little girl,” he said. He had read my mind again.
He turned to me and smiled. “Now I got somethin’ to say to all you kids, ‘specially Karen.”
Behind me I could hear John sloshing the waterbed, so he must have sat up.
Chief Copegog walked to the window. He turned slowly and stood there, his thick arms folded across his broad chest. It was strange, but he looked taller. He stood straight, with his shoulders back. He looked strong—not like an old man at all. I thought this must have been how he looked before he died—old, but powerful and straight.