Spook

Spook

Gail D Prentice

Over thirty grizzled old men with scraggly beards and unkempt hair filed into the small, white-framed church. The building was a bit on the dilapidated side. It was now used as a trading post for these old trappers and hunters. It also served as a community center for the town Far Lake, which used to be there, and a defensive fort from the frequent attacks of the French Voyagers.

The Voyagers were trappers and fur traders. They were viciously defensive of their territory and aggressive in acquiring more. Their skills of traversing the rivers and lakes were unsurpassed. Their sense of comradeship and family was strong. The offensive and defensive abilities of these hostile ruffians wrought fear to any who confronted them.

They often raided, killed, and stole furs and goods from the others who dared to get close. Mercy was not in their vocabulary or their heart.

Of these thirty men, one stood out among them. He was amazingly larger in stature. He towered above them and outweighed them considerably. His nature was quiet. He didn’t greet the other trappers and hunters as friends with words, he just nodded, barely smiled, and kept to himself.

For days, some trappers and hunters searched the wooded hills for Jeremy. He had not been seen by anybody for over three weeks. Jeremy was not a loner. He enjoyed hearing the stories of others and telling good tales of his adventures. He was respected and welcomed by all, except the Voyagers. Though he had tried to befriend them, they denied the advances. They were not hostile toward him but made sure that he knew to keep his distance from them and their territory. To ask the Voyagers of Jeremy’s whereabouts would be viewed as an accusation. Nobody dared to broach the subject with them.

Three days ago, they found a body in the hills out west. It was so badly mangled and torn that no one could recognize who it was. It had the same build as Jeremy. It had the same clothes as Jeremy, but all the trappers and hunters wore the same clothes. That, by itself, did not help identify the body. Because of the body’s condition, they made haste to get it in the ground. With warm weather upon them, time was of the essence.

No preacher came that way anymore. So, with the crudely made casket, the trappers made a few statements that they could think of to honor one of the good guys.

As they trekked to the burial site they had prepared, musket shots rang out with their billow of smoke. Lead balls struck the casket sending splinters flying. The Voyagers had taken this moment to attack.

The trappers dropped the casket on the ground and ran to the tattered old church to grab their muskets. A battle was now set in motion.

As the trappers ran to the church, Voyagers ran to the casket, picked it up, and ran as fast as they could into the trees.

As the trappers peered through the broken windows with their muskets at the ready, they were shocked at the transition that had taken place. There were no Voyagers, and there was no casket. The Frenchmen had chosen a very peculiar way to start a feudal battle. Why steal a casket with the body of one of theirs?

There was no sign of the Frenchmen Voyagers. They did not fire their muskets, there were no familiar battle whoops and no movement in the brush. They just grabbed the casket and ran away.

The big old trapper, Skinner by name, commented rather crudely, “Well, that saved us the labor of shoveling the hole in.”

Others laughed a bit. Then all the trappers with muskets ready for a skirmish cautiously left the church and headed back to their chores of running their traps. The day’s excitement was over.

Several weeks passed and there were no problems between the two groups. There had been no sightings of the Voyagers during that time. They stayed in their territories and trapped beavers and foxes. Questions arose periodically about that day.

Six months had passed since that unusual day at the church. The grave was still there, grass and weeds had sprouted in the soil which had been piled beside the grave.

Skinner, ventured farther than normal west in his daily trek for fresh areas to trap. He found an existing set of traps. These traps were arranged in the fashion of what he used. This was rather odd because he was the only person he knew who set double traps on sites that appeared to be of larger animals. Curiosity had set in.

He followed the pattern he would have used and found more traps exactly where he would have placed them. As he pondered this oddity, he slogged on.

The traps on his back getting heavier and heavier. The stream was getting smaller, and the hills were getting larger.

He felt as though something was stalking him, watching his every move. Was it a Voyager? Was it a new settlement of trappers he had never seen before? Yet the sense of being watched did not bring anxiety. He felt no reason to raise the musket to ready. After a few minutes of gazing at the surroundings, he moved on.

An hour later, he rounded the bend in the stream and saw a massive beaver dam. Larger-than-life-appearing beavers were gnawing at a tree. He stopped in his tracks and stared at such a site as this. He felt giddy, almost childlike as he slowly scanned the area for the best place to set the traps.

A loud slap sounded. Beavers scrambled to the water. Skinner began to move to the dam to start setting his traps when he heard a very familiar, “Woooo Hoooo.”

It startled him. The voice was somewhat recognizable, he knew the trap set. Who could this be? He laid his traps on the ground as quietly as he could. He picked up the musket, crawled to the edge of the dam, and peered over.

“Welcome, Skinner,” came a shouted greeting from his left.

Snapping his head around, Skinner’s mouth dropped. Standing not fifty feet from him was his brother, Gustav and Jeremy.

“Brother, it is so good to see you. I heard that a grizzly got you,” Gustav started. “If I would have known you were alive, I would have found you.”

Standing to his feet, Skinner quickly walked toward the two men as they walked to him.

“I’ve always wondered what happened to you. You just never showed up at camp.” Skinner began to quiz. “Jeremy… We thought that the Voyagers stole your body.”

Jeremy looked puzzled, then laughed. “That must have been the Frenchman I ran across a while back. It looked like it might become a shootout when a bear attacked. I escaped behind a tree for the first charge and the bear spotted the Frenchie and charged him instead. I ran like the wind the other way. I had left my musket about a quarter mile back. So, I just ran.

“I picked up the gun and kept going. That is how I found this place. I went back a day later, gathered up my traps, and started setting them along the way. It has been an amazing set.”

“That’s why the Voyagers attacked us then. They wanted their man back. He was mangled beyond recognition. We thought it was you.” Skinner said as he hugged his brother with vigor.

“I ran across Jeremy three weeks ago,” Gustav explained. “I asked him if I could join him. There are a lot of beavers, foxes, and raccoons to trap here. He graciously invited me to stay.

“Would you like to join us? You have your traps with you, I noticed”

“I would,” Skinner smiled. “Thanks. Things were getting pretty slim downstream.”

The three walked over to the water’s edge and gathered the reward for their work. As one retrieved the beaver, another reset a trap. They reminisced about their days and made plans to go upstream even further.

Breaking out a new territory thrilled them. The two brothers and Jeremy discussed if it were bountiful enough, they would send word to the rest of their friends to join them in the wealth.

Dead no more, Jeremy’s nickname became Spook.