Five Days of the Ghost (9 page)

Monday Evening

Minnie cooked us baked spaghetti for supper and left it in the oven. By the time we got to it the pasta was dry and hard and tasteless. On the table was a note telling us she had gone to Barrie with some friends and she'd be back later.

After supper John went to call on Noah. They were going to work in the library until it closed, to find out more about the murder in our house.

I went into John's room and got his pack. I knew it would be hanging on the back of his closet door like it always was. When I opened it I saw that he had all the stuff in there—flashlights, knife, bug lotion—ready for another trip to Chiefs' Island. I stuffed my wool sweater into it, strapped it up and headed for the boathouse. I had decided not to take any of Noah's stuff—the camera or voice recorder or the big wooden cross. I had no use for all that.

I had a couple of hours of light left, so I might be able to get back before dark. I knew everybody would wonder where I had gone and that I'd get into a hassle when John and Noah found out I'd gone without them, but I didn't care too much about that.

I was lucky there was no wind. I made it across to the island pretty easily. I'm not too strong but I'm a pretty good rower. I had trouble hauling the boat up onto the shore, though, so I just tied it to a tree and let it float. I was in a hurry.

I stopped to rub on some bug dope and threw the pack onto my back and cut into the bush. I didn't know how to use a compass like John did, so I tried to walk in a straight line from the shore. I guessed I'd run across the clearing sooner or later. And I couldn't really get lost because it was an island.

It took about twenty minutes to get to the graveyard. When I stepped out of the trees I knew Chief Copegog was there because it was cold. I yanked my sweater out of the pack and pulled it on. The graveyard looked almost peaceful—not scary at all. There were bars of sunlight slanting across the long grass and the birch saplings looked as if they were lit up. A lot of white butterflies were fluttering around and birds were chirping in the trees.

I looked around, holding the pack in my hand. Chief Copegog was in his usual place, perched up on the headstone, smoking a cigar. In that bright clearing, washed in sunlight, he looked pretty relaxed, like one of the old guys we see on the main street in town resting on benches at the bus stop. But there was something else. He looked sad slumped over and staring into the trees like that. I wondered if ghosts could feel loneliness and decided they must, because Chief Copegog looked the way I felt a lot of the time. I felt alone because I didn't have Kenny anymore to hang around with or to talk to. I tried to imagine how Chief Copegog must have felt, surrounded by the graves of friends and relatives.

And that's when I knew that, no matter how scary he looked, he couldn't be evil. He couldn't be like the horrible murdering ghosts in the movies who tear people to pieces or frighten them to death. I decided Noah must be right—a ghost was somebody sad, not bad.

So, hardly believing I could do it, I walked right up to him and said hello.

He turned to face me and blew out a big lungful of blue smoke. The red pin-point lights glowed fiercely in his black eyes' hollows.

“Figured you'd be back pretty soon,” he said in his rough, faraway voice.

Then he smiled.

When he smiled, wrinkles creased the skin at the comers of his eyes and mouth. His cheekbones lifted and his eyes practically closed. And with those spooky eyes almost closed, he looked almost human. He had yellowy teeth and a few of them were missing, making black squares in his smile. He was ugly, to tell the truth, but only in a magazine way—if you compared him to the hunks in the TV Guide and the fashion mags. His eyes still threw me off a little—not even a smile could warm up those deep black pits. But, in that sunny clearing, he wasn't terrifying. I wondered, could this be the same ghost that scared the life out of me last Friday night?

“Hi,” I said again. “Hi, Chief Copegog.” I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I asked,

“How do you like the cigars?”

“Pretty good, I guess.” He looked at the glowing red end of the cigar, then at me. “This cigar, she's the last one.”

“Oh,” I said. Then I got his point. “I'd be glad to get you some more.”

He nodded. He took a long drag on the cigar, pulled it out of his mouth, and blew the smoke in a thin stream up into the cold air.

“You're pretty small girl, but you got big problems.”

“How do you know that?”

“Been around long time, I guess. Seen lotta sad little girls.”

I decided there was no point in trying to lead up to what I wanted to say to him.

“How … do you mind if I ask you something?”

“That's okay.”

“How come you're here?”

“I live this place.”

“No, I mean, you're … you died, didn't you?”

“Yep. Long time back.”

I felt stupid asking it. “So you're a ghost.”

“I'm spirit now. Lost real body long time ago. Still can smoke these, though.”

He took another long drag and sucked it deep into his lungs. Then he blew a couple of smoke rings and smiled, showing his yellow, stumpy teeth. His smile gave me confidence.

“What I'm wondering is, how come you're in … this life. I mean, I've never seen a ghost before.” I thought of Noah's dad. “And most of the people I know don't even
believe
in ghosts.”

When he talked, I noticed, he made his words at the back of his mouth, sort of. And his S's sounded halfway between a whisper and a whistle.

“Spirit world is all around us. My peoples always knew that. Most peoples now, though, even this one”—he pointed to the freshly dug earth at my feet—”don't believe no more. My job, I got to lead the new dead peoples to the spirit world. Been doin' that long time, now. This one,” he pointed to the fresh earth again, “I got to wait till he's ready to go across to the Other Side. Sometimes takes a while to let go this world.”

“How did you get that job?” I felt like we were talking about a job pumping gas at the Canadian Tire twenty-four-hour gas bar.

He looked uncomfortable and a little embarrassed and stared off above the trees in the direction of the lake. I thought maybe I had asked something I shouldn't have, but he answered me.

He tugged at his earlobe. “Somethin' I did wrong when I was still ‘live. Bad wrong. I got to pay for that.”

So Noah was right, I thought. Chief Copegog was doing some kind of atoning, or whatever the word was.

He stuck the cigar into his mouth—it was pretty short by this time— and looked away into the trees as if someone had called him.

“Got to go now,” he growled, getting down from the gravestone. He dropped the cigar stub onto the fresh earth.

“Wait! Please! I wanted to ask you something!”

I tried to grab his arm but my hand went through him, as if I had grabbed a handful of fog.

“I need to talk to you!” I shouted as he turned away. “Please stay!”

He turned back to face me. His face wasn't sad now. He looked like a kid does when he's done something really bad, and he's really sorry, and he feels … small. He wanted to go. I could see that, but I wanted him to stay. There was so much I wanted to ask him.

“You come back ‘nother time, maybe,” he said, and he started walking toward the trees, just like always. But before he got to them, he faded. Faded into nothing.

I stood there shivering for a minute, staring at the spot where he had been. I was so frustrated I could have screamed. But I just swore under my breath and stamped my foot. Then I turned and left the graveyard, stomping angrily across the rough ground in the slanting sunlight. The only sounds were the birds and the long dry grass swishing on my feet.

I got back to the rowboat without any problems, but I sure had problems when I got there. The northwest wind had come up like it often does at nightfall. There were waves out on the lake. And the wind had bashed the boat against the rocks and the bow was all scarred where the paint had been scraped off.

Oh, great, I thought, just what I need. Wait'll Dad sees
that
.

I tossed the pack into the bow and climbed in. I pulled on my life jacket, tied it, and started rowing, feeling really low, wondering if things were ever going to get better.

The boat lifted and fell as I rowed hard against the waves into the setting sun. The wind was blowing me down the lake as I went and my back and arms were already getting sore. I remembered what my dad told John and me one time when we were out fishing in the boat. I had hardly listened at the time. He said that you should row and let the wind move you down the lake as you went, then when you got closer to shore you swung the bow right into the wind and rowed straight. The main thing, he said, was not to fight the wind because it would always win.

I remembered that, and nothing terrible happened. By the time I got close to shore it was dark and I had been blown way down the lake from our house, past the park and the government dock. My arms and shoulders felt like they were made of lead. But all the lights from the buildings and the street made it easy to see what I was doing. Through the big windows of the Legion, I could see lots of people standing at the bar and crowding the tables and laughing. A couple of guys were throwing darts. Past the Legion, people were sitting out on the terrace of the seafood restaurant and there was cowboy music coming from the Champlain Hotel. The liquor store was still open.

But I was rowing alone on the dark water. And I was dead tired.

I steered the bow into the wind, which was a lot tighter this close to shore, and rowed up the lake toward our house. My shoulders and back were so sore they were almost numb. I passed inside the stone break wall near the government dock, past the jetties sticking out into the water at all angles.

Soon I was passing the Couchiching Park beach where the lifeguard towers were. I was so tired I decided to pull in there and rest.

It was easy to row when I got close to the beach because the wind was off shore. I clambered out into the knee-deep choppy water, hauled the rowboat up onto the dry sand and walked up on shore. There were a few kids playing on the swings, a couple of dogs sniffing around the big maple trees, and a few people strolling around.

I walked past the swings and slides, across the road and onto the grass. I plunked myself down on the grass to rest, feeling a little silly, because from there I could have almost
seen
our house if it hadn't been dark. Silly and sore. Every bone in my body ached and complained.

I glanced around and for the first time since I was really little I looked at the big shape looming above me in the dark, lit up by bluish floodlights. It was the monument, the big hunk of stone and bronze that, along with Stephen Leacock's old summer home, made Orillia famous. There was Samuel de Champlain, perched high on a grey stone slab, standing against the dark sky. He was dressed like one of the three musketeers, wearing a short cape and holding a wide-brimmed hat with a huge feather sticking out of it. His left hand was hooked in his belt and there was rapier hanging at his side. His boots came up to his knees. A pretty dashing figure, as Mom would have said. But he looked a little dumb standing on a rock down by the water as if he was guarding the swings so the little kids wouldn't have too much fun.

I got to my feet and walked up to the statue. I remembered from all the boring history we took that year that Sammy Dee, as we called him, had been a hot-shot French explorer in the 1600s and that he had come right past here. In fact, our teacher told us, there was a legend that he had lost an astrolabe right around here—one of those funny-looking things they used for navigation.

I always felt strange about all that stuff we learned in school, like how Sammy Dee discovered this and discovered that and how he claimed everything he saw for France. I couldn't figure out why the teacher said he discovered a place or a lake when the Natives knew it was there all along. I mean, they
lived
there. I talked to my dad about that and he agreed with me. He said that a bunch of the Chippewas from the territory across the lake ought to pile into a pick-up truck and go down and “discover” Toronto and claim it for their nation.

I walked around the statue. On the right side was a bald priest with a beard, wearing long robes. I remembered John had told me the Hurons had called the priests the Black Robes. This one was holding a cross up above his head and in his left hand he was holding a book—the Bible, I guessed. There were two almost naked Natives sitting at his feet on thick fur robes. They were sort of looking at the book, but not quite.

I walked around the back of the statue to the other side. There was a bronze fur trader standing there wearing a long coat, long pants and knee boots. He was holding a musket in his right hand and a string of beads in his left. There were two Aboriginals sitting at his feet too, with fur robes across their knees, holding axes. I guessed that represented a trade.

I went around to the front of the statue and tried to read the bronze sign that was cemented into the stone.

 

1615-1915

 

Erected to commemorate the advent into Ontario of the white race under the leadership of Samuel de Champlain the intrepid French explorer and colonizer who with fifteen companions arrived in these parts in the summer of 1615 and spent the following winter with the Indians, making his headquarters at Chiague, the chief village of the Hurons, which was near this place.

 

A symbol of good will between the French and English speaking people of Canada.

 

How come the Natives got left out of the “good will,”
I thought. And I stood there wondering if Chief Copegog could see the Natives sitting at the feet of the white men, getting religion on one side and beads on the other while Sammy Dee watched the show. I hoped not.