Free Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden Page B

it’s a bull moose, a big one, charred and blackened. Smoke rises from what is left of it. “That doesn’t smell so bad to me,” Elijah says, looking to me for my reaction.
    I take my knife from its sheath and cut into the animal’s haunch. The rest of the meat will be poisoned by its fear. I cut past the blackened muscle to a large strip of warm, tender meat that’s under-cooked but not too bad. I taste it. “Good,” I say, cutting off more. Elijah takes his knife out as well. We work our way up and down the animal’s leg, choosing the best-cooked parts.
    When I’ve had my fill, I skim ash away from a spot on the river’s surface and take a long drink of water. Elijah drinks too, and we sit together looking out at the haze of darkness approaching.
    “Do you think we’d be safe to sleep here a few hours?” Elijah asks. We look around at the blackened stretch of stumps and smoking ground.
    “There’s nothing left to burn,” I answer.
    Elijah shivers. I realize how cold I am too. At least the ground’s warm. “Mind getting a little fire going?” he says.
    I laugh.
    The next couple of days remain the same. It is as if the river has taken the two of us down underground. The smoke refuses to lift and the lack of wind makes us feel as if we’re being suffocated. No birdssing. There are no trees for any wind to rustle through. The sounds of the river travel differently now, and it’s impossible to estimate distances, which only worsens the feeling of suffocation. Still, it’s the complete lack of animal sounds that makes me begin to feel more sad than I’ve ever been.
    We both find it better not to talk at all if we don’t have to. The scrape of paddles on gunwales as they dip into the ashy water is the only sound. The earth, in all directions, is burnt black and continues to smoke angrily.
    Elijah finally breaks the silence. “How far do you think the fire burned?”
    I’ve been wondering. “Miles and miles,” I answer. “Hundreds of them at least.”
    “I hope it doesn’t reach our home,” he says.
    It strikes me suddenly that I might not hear any news from home until I return, if I return at all. Something very much like regret begins to rise in me.
    I remind myself that I made the decision to do this. I will protect him. It is what I do, what I have always tried to do.
    By afternoon there’s less smoke. The world unfolds a little of itself around us. As far as we can see, the ground is scorched black. What must have been bush too thick to walk through is now a great dead plain. Charcoal stumps stick up from the ground.
    “I know this place,” I whisper to myself.
    T O KEEP MY HEAD CLEAR , I ask Elijah to teach me more English.
    “Good day, sir,” Elijah says. “Do you know the time?”
    I repeat, my tongue feeling thick and stupid.
    “You are the best shot in all of the world,” Elijah continues.
    “You are the best shot in all of the world,” I repeat, looking for birds, for anything with colour, only half paying attention.
    “Thank you,” Elijah answers. “You’re not a bad shot yourself. If you had a father, he would be a heathen like your Auntie.” We keep paddling. After a while he says, “The sky looks like rain.”
    “Rain will kill the fire,” I answer in English.
    “Good,” Elijah laughs. “Very good. You didn’t even sound much like a Frenchman. Now say,‘I am a Cree Indian from Moose Factory, and I have come to kill Germans.’ They will like that.”
    “Will they really ask questions like that?” I ask in our own tongue.
    “Maybe,” Elijah answers. “Better to let them know you’re an angry warrior than some fucking bush Indian.”
    I think about this for a while.
    I rely on Elijah to help me in their world. Since we were boys Elijah has always had a gift for wemistikoshiw language. Once the nuns taught him to speak English, they couldn’t stop him and soon learned to regret that they ever had. In school, it got so that Elijah learned to talk his way out