Only the Dead Read Online Free Page B

answer. The man told her she was right, he was going to the woods every evening to see another woman. After that, his wife left him and went to live with the family of one of her brothers. The man was happy because finally he was alone in the house. Now he could bring the knife home. It would no longer have to live in the hollow tree in the woods. He tore out a piece of the lining in his jacket and used it to make a fine bed for the knife next to his own on the earthen floor. Then he went to the woods to get it. When he neared the hiding place, he caught sight of the back of a man disappearing among the trees.”
    Lance thought about what he’d seen at the creek a few hours earlier. As if somebody had quickly retreated so he wouldn’t be seen.
    Willy breathed hard as he straightened up in his chair and slowly reached for the glass of water on the table. Once again Lance saw how the old man’s hand shook as he raised the glass to his lips. Some of the water spilled over the side, running down his wrist and under his shirtsleeve, but Willy didn’t seem to notice. When he finally managed to get the glass into position, he tilted his head back and emptied it in three big gulps. Then the glass had to travel in the opposite direction, back to its place on the table. Lance realized that all his muscles had tensed up while the whole drinking ritual was under way. Willy straightened up and pressed one hand to his stomach. Then he proceeded to belch for several seconds. Lance could smell it from the other side of the table. Finally the old Indian exhaled audibly and sank back against his chair.
    “That’s better,” he said. “Now where were we?”
    “The man was approaching the hollow tree where he’d hidden the knife,” said Lance. “But someone was there.”
    “Yes, he saw the back of a man disappearing among the trees. He got worried, but when he looked inside the hiding place, the knife was still there. That night he was finally able to keep the knife at his side, and the next day he attached it to his belt and began using it, which was what he’d always wanted to do. Even though the knife was magic, it was still a knife. And it was a good one. He used it every single day. He cut off slices of moose meat, gutted fish, and whittled splinters of wood that he could use to light a fire in the hearth. But at night he would place the knife on the soft bed he had made for it. And there they would lie, stretched out next to each other like any other married couple.
    “One day when he went down to his canoe at the lake, he again saw a man disappearing among the trees. And even though he saw him only from the back, he felt sure it was the same man he’d seen near the hollow tree. He followed him into the woods for a short way, but the man was gone. He wasn’t happy about this, because he thought it had something to do with the knife. He wondered if the man might be a spirit who was looking for it. For a moment he even considered throwing the knife into the lake, but when he held it in his hand, he felt as if he were about to kill a friend, and he couldn’t do it. He continued to carry it with him in the daytime, and placed it beside him when he slept at night.
    “Until one day when he went over to Hat Point again to set out his nets. That was when he noticed a canoe drifting nearby. He had no idea where it had come from, because he hadn’t seen or heard anyone. When the two canoes were only a stone’s throw from each other, he realized the man in the other canoe was Swamper Caribou. He knew the medicine man had disappeared several months earlier. Everyone knew about it. He’d also heard that Swamper had been killed and eaten by an ice giant, a so-called windigo. Now he understood that it was Swamper he’d seen earlier, and it made sense that the knife belonged to the spirit world. Swamper Caribou’s spirit had come to take it back.
    “The man paddled for shore as fast as he could go, but the whole time he could hear