Please note the people and places mentioned in this story are entirely fictional. Trigger warning: This story touches on residential schools, and MMIWG.        

     Jake could not believe his luck when he finally bid into the job as a brakie on the passenger run through the whispering pines. Being a straight run it seemed a lot better than switch-dogging the yard, so it was strange nobody with real seniority wanted it. He rarely needed to jump out of the engine to throw switches and even if he did, the train was short enough he could swing up on the ladder of the last car and make it back to engine in a couple of minutes. The conductor might frown if he tracked any mud past the passengers but never said anything. Then again, nobody on this crew said much of anything. It was liked the gloomy run through the trees had stolen their voices.

Wind-a-go was the only whistle stop on the six-hour run up from Carmichael to Sioux River. Once or twice a month the flag would be up and they would hit the brakes to park by the rough platform with its sagging lean-to shelter. A handful of passengers would line up to get off, anxious for a smoke, but the crew had to warn them not to leave the platform since there was not much time for stretching their legs. Often after catching a whiff of the swamp gases the passengers thought better of stepping off the train to light up.

Every now and then, as the train rolled along on narrow ribbons of light running into the setting sun, a small band of women would edge out onto the narrow gangway at the back of the train. Standing in their long dark coats with their ribbon skirts fluttering above their tall moccasins the women would throw small bundles of fruit and nuts into the bushes. They would wipe tears off each other's cheeks and retreat inside before it was fully dark.

Jake asked around at the bunk house but nobody could tell him about the aunties, not even guessing which of the small tribes along the bay they may have come from. The waiter finally told him to stop asking. "Look boy if they are school survivors just let them be. They have been through enough without your white-ass nosiness stirring things up."

Jake was offended. He wasn't like that. His best friend all the way through school had bused into town from the reserve. They hadn't seen much of each other since Tommy did a stint in the penitentiary but they were still friends. He decided the next time he had a furlough in Carmichael he would look up Tommy and his sister. Jake remembered the girl fondly even if Tommy threatened to break his legs if he ever when near her. The visit started out fine, at least until Jake asked about Suzy. Tommy howled like a wounded bear and came after Jake with the only handy weapon, a stout piece of firewood he tried to slam into Jake's head. Tommy's uncle intervened before things got too far out of hand or the neighbours called the cops.

"Haven't you seen the red dresses?" Uncle Kyle asked. At Jake's blank face he explained the commemoration for the missing girls. Five gone in the last two years, two found dead, three still missing, Suzy among them.

"Oh God. I am so sorry." Jake sat on the sagging porch with his head in his hands. He had heard mentions about the murdered-and-missing on the news, but it had seemed like a city problem. If he thought about it at all, he put it down to drugs and maybe bad tricks. Not young girls being taken on their way home from a friend's party. "I'm such and idiot. I don't know why I didn't know."

"Yeah, well you ain't been 'round in a while, now have you," Tommy's muttered from behind him. "At least not since you took up the forest run. And how is that working out for you?"

Jake shrugged. "It's a bit of a strange ride some days. Gloomy."

"I'll bet," Uncle Kyle said. "None of our folks willing take that route. Not ever, but you do it pretty much everyday."

"What, why?" Jake felt completely clueless.

"Too many kids shoved onto the train to the missionary school never made it back. The Christian Brothers put a stop in the middle of the route to make it easier to pick up the ones trying to run away. By that point, the poor tykes would be near froze to death and ready to give up. But not all of them. Some took their chances in the woods." This history weighed in on them for several minutes.

"Oh. Now, I get what those women are doing. It's a remembering." Jake nodded to himself.

"What are you talking about now?" Uncle Kyle asked. His eyes went wide when Jake described the aunties. "You've actually seen them?"

"Yeah, I guess they make the run about every couple of months or so. Do you know them?"

"Why does he see the spirit-talkers? He is not one of our people." Tommy seemed even angrier than he had been earlier. Uncle Kyle shrugged and peered a bit closer, like he was looking at his nephew's friend for the first time.

Jake rubbed the toe of his boot into the ground. "Who can say, I sure don't know who my people are. Adopted. Remember?" His parents had dressed it up as being specially chosen by them but he had never forgotten how his blood-relatives did not want him. It made him all kinds of lonely, especially after Mike and Pam moved to a little apartment in the city. They could not understand why he stayed in Carmichael but he had never let go of the idea maybe someday, someone might change their minds and come looking. Then he wouldn't be the dark-haired boy with no tribe like he had been in school.

"Well. You just be extra careful out there. Don't stray away from the tracks." Tommy put out his hand and Jake accepted this as an apology.

It was not even a week later when the first passenger - a large man from the south - got left behind at the whistle stop. All trip he had bragged about his special hunts and fly-in fishing trips, and how he hoped to take down the white-stag rumored to range along the ridge overlooking the Sioux River. He was chomping on an unlit cigar as the train slowed and jumped onto the platform ahead of anyone else waving off the crew's warning, striding along the platform muttering to himself. Before he had gone ten steps the mist rose up and swallowed him. The conductor took out a lantern and waved it back and forth by the door and the handful of the desperate smokers ran back before the wooden step got picked up. The train whistled a couple of extra times but the southern hunter didn't not appear.

Watching from his jump seat behind the engineer, Jake asked, "We are just leaving?"

"Schedule to keep." The silver haired man pointed to the paper clipped on the board set beneath the front window of the cab.

"So, we will pick him up on the run back?" Jake asked.

"If he is smart enough not to go in the woods and he has an offering to give the hungry ones." The engineer clicked up the throttle making any further conversation impossible.

The outfitter who came to meet the train shook his head when his client didn't appear. He had a short conversation with the porter, then gathered up the man's gear. A few days later Jake read about a float-plane accident claiming the life of a wealthy tourist. He recognized the man in the grainy newspaper photo but could not make the dates in the story line up with when he knew the guy was on their train. He figured the reporter was probably just a bit careless about the dates and put it out of mind.

The next ones to go missing were a pair of miners. Hard-living, with coal dust permanently etched into the lines on their face, they smuggled drinks from a bottle in a brown paper bag and talked loudly about the city's different strip bars. The other passengers edged away as the men got louder. Everyone stayed out of the miner's way when they clambered down onto the platform and huddled together to light their smokes. The miners staggered over to the lean-to and one stretched out on the bench. One tried to rouse the other at the conductor's signal but even the loud whistles didn't make him budge. Jake could see the fear on the face of the man who was awake enough to stumble toward the train as it pulled away. The engineer glanced over his shoulder at the disappearing platform but tapped the schedule and notched up their speed without a word.

When they got to Sioux River, the driver of the mine's crummy watched all the other passengers disembark and wander away from the station. He spit out a mouthful of tobacco juice when it was clear the miners were no-shows and muttered, "Figures. Those two were never reliable. Don't know why the bosses kept them on." He didn't bother to wait for the men's packs to be unloaded.

Every now and then, another passenger would get themselves left behind at the whistle-stop. Most times, nobody seemed to care. The other passengers would drift out down the street and the porter would stack any left luggage on the baggage trolley to drag into the freight shed where it would sit in the lost and found until the station ran out of room and the agent put on a big jumble sale.

The only fuss over a no-show at the station was after a couple of missionary ladies had been stranded. The welcome committee of do-gooders got wound up, insisting something had to be done, getting on the radio phone at the station to threatening the higher ups in the rail company with bad press. A thin section man, whose wife was one of the faithful, reluctantly volunteered to run down with a speeder to look for the guests. He snuck the youth pastor along for the ride but returned alone, bug-eyed and pale, talking insensibly about strange animals and offered up a bedraggled bonnet and a blood-stained shawl as evidence.

Afterwards, an order came down to not let passengers off the train on-route so Jake got the extra duty of standing in the corridor by the baggage rack to block anyone from getting off the train at Wind-a-go. He was not allowed to use any kind of force so his presence only served as a deterrent. If someone was willing to push passed him to go grab a smoke, he was not going to stop them. He was just extremely clear it was not a place anyone would want to stay so they had better be back on the train before it pulled out.

Near Christmas and a friend of Jake's, who worked in a dining room, gave him a bucket load of little mint packages. Whenever he was heading to work Jake would stuff a few into his pockets figuring he might be able to use them bribe some of the smokers to stay on the train. It mostly worked and still nobody came looking for the stray passengers who had been left behind.

The seasons rolled into each other, the aunties came and went. Tommy ended up back in prison and Uncle Kyle stopped by. He spotted the mints by the door and nearly broke down talking about how Lucy would pester him to bring back mints when she knew he was going to eat at a restaurant. "She could never seem to get enough sweets," he said.

"Just like all us kids. I remember going crazy for the ones with chocolate in the middle." Jake rummaged around in the bucket and pulled out a couple. He pressed them into Uncle Kyle's hand and they went out back where the sun had warmed up the porch. Jake asked about Tommy but didn't get a straight answer. Instead, Uncle Kyle told some of the old stories about the times of great hunger when the devourer hunted men down, poisoning dreams, and making young ones run mad. He left when they ran out of beer but not before warning Jake about the train route, repeatedly saying, "Don't go into the forest when the moon is up."

After listening Uncle Kyle, and all the other ghost stories circulating around the bunk house, Jake had no intention of stepping any closer to the woods than he could help. He resented the freights that pushed him out into the cold and any delays that might follow. A derailment down east had all the regular runs backed up and they were forced off the main-line more than usual. He was hoofing it along the siding when he heard the tree rustle behind him. He glanced back and spotted silvery antlers moving away into the wood. He wondered if it was the fabled white-stag but when he asked the engineer the older man shook his head saying, "That's no deer." From then on, Jake dubbed the siding closest to Wind-a-go, "no deer," and took pride in how fast he could throw the rusty old switches and get back up into his jump-seat.

The engineer didn't much care for the small treats Jake had stuffed in his pockets. "Don't go littering with those wrappers" the man warned.

"I don't, but I guess I better remind the smokers not to be leaving butts around either," Jake said as he made is way to his unofficial guard post. He spotted the aunties gathering in the very last car and went over to warn them the chains across the back gangway sometimes worked themselves loose. They nodded their thanks for his warning and on an impulse, he handed over a few of his candies. As he held out his offering to the shy women a small hand snaked out from under a coat to snatch up all the treats scratching Jake's hand in the process. Jake shook his head and brought his hand up to suck on the small wound but one of the women stopped him. She grabbed his hand firmly and dabbed it with a pungent mixture. He could feel the train slowing so hurried back to where the other passengers were gathering. He didn't take much more notice of the incident until the poultice dropped off and he had a scar that looked more fox than human.

The next time he got a chance Jake asked the conductor about the aunties and their strange child but the man only stared. "What are you going on about?" The man pulled back his shoulders but he was still more belly than chest. "I ain't seen no women passengers like than, no children either. You better not be breaking Rule 19. You'll be out on your ear before you know it."

Jake swallowed hard. A couple of the men he started out with had been tossed for drinking. Rule was you were only allowed to drink if you were on furlough, and not even then if you were due on shift within thirty-six hours. Random drug tests took care of some of this but small-town snitches caught more. It had gotten worse when the mind closed and jobs dried up. Jake kicked himself for making the boss of this train suspicious. He vowed to keep his mouth shut and his nose clean.

Being friends with Tommy didn't help Jake's cause since the first thing his friend did when he got out of jail was tour all the bars. Then he went looking for skirts. Nice girls who wouldn't look down on a someone with the rough, dark blue tattoos a fellow might give himself when he was board of being locked up. Tommy's ink wasn't as bad as a lot of others but some girls got scared off when they spotted Lucy's name. If the girls took the time to listen to his explanation, he could milk their sympathy for all it was worth. If he was in the right mood Tommy could turn tears and comforting cuddles into giggles and tickles and the good things that might come from horsing around. Sometimes he would press Jake to join the party, or a least come on a double date, but everything felt off kilter, especially if they ran into one of Lucy's old friends.

Uncle Kyle showed up after a couple of weeks and dragged them both off to a sweat. The elders pitched their most potent purification rituals at Tommy telling him he needed to get free of the demons trying to drag him down. They called Jake a lost child and invited him to the ceremonies where they sat him between the drummers so he could start learning the songs. His heart kept time with their pounding rhythms and he felt like he had run a marathon by the time he got back home. That night he dreamt he was a raven flying above the woods, tracking a patch of darkness running from tree to tree. When he flew closer, he could see shining red eyes beneath an elk's skull worn like a hat and more darkness gobbling down any small animals it chanced upon. He woke with a start and whispered in the dark, "So-o not a deer."

Jake was so rattled he went out and bought himself dream catchers for his bedroom window. Then he bought one for the living room in case he drifted off on the couch. He also packed one into his overnight case to take to the bunkhouse. He knew the other guys might tease him if they spotted it but he would rather be teased than spend the night tracking the devourer in his sleep. He was also spooked enough to start running seriously again so he could do the switches faster. He was happy to speed things along at no-deer siding but it meant they sometimes got held on the main at Wind-a-go and a bigger struggle to keep the smokers on the train.

They were waiting on a freight when the largest raven Jake had ever seen flapped lazily alongside the train and perched on top of the lean-to at the end of the platform. The pitch-black bird had to be near two feet tall, and it made a low croaking sound. Jake couldn't stop himself. He hopped off the train to go take a closer look.

"Oh, hello there handsome. What are you doing here?" He asked with a warm voice. The bird gave a low singing answer. Jake couldn't quite understand, but just like when he sat among the drummers, it felt like he should be able to if he gave it time. He leaned in to concentrate but then the bird squawked and alarm and flew up and away. Jake turned and spotted the train pulling out. He was glad he had been training because he barely managed to catch the last car before the engineer cranked the speed. He wiped the sweat off his face and re-set his cap before heading up to the engine. The conductor frowned as he went by.

"Glad you decided to join us," the engineer sneered when Jake bounced into his usual seat.

"Sorry. Won't happen again." His promise was as much to himself as the rest of the crew and he worried whether he would be in for a demerit.

"Yeah, well just stick to running switches," the silver haired man grumbled. Jake nodded and turned to watch the sun setting behind the ridge. He thought he saw antler's moving through the bushes below where the raven was circling but knew better than to say anything since for sure they would have him hauled off for another drug test. He had nothing to hide in that department but it could easily eat up half of his day off and he had a lot of errands to run, including refilling his candy bucket since Tommy and his Uncle Kyle were regular snackers.

Tommy teased Jake about the dream-catcher when he spotted it in the window. "Take you to a couple of sweats and you start going all native," he laughed but stopped quickly when his uncle cuffed him on the back of the head.

"Yeah. Well say what you like, I would just as soon not have to stalk terrible things in my dreams. I'm not signing up to be a ghost hunter every night." Jake crossed his arms.

Tommy put his hands up, "Woah. Chill-ax, Man. You need to get yourself onto a better route if you have nightmares. Those woods have bad mojo." He looked at his uncle for confirmation and the man nodded slowly.

"Have you told anyone about the aunties?" Uncle Kyle asked.

"No. Not after the conductor threatened me with rule 19. I kind of figured it must have been a mind trick. One that bit me. Did I show you?" Jake turned over his hand and pulled back his sleeve to make it easier to see the scar that was finally starting to fade. Uncle Kyle gently ran a figure over the marks and then studied Jake's face.

"I need to talk to an elder about this. Make sure you keep coming to drum practice and you better start wearing this." Uncle Kyle untied the leather laces attached to the small moose-hide bag hanging around his neck. Tommy looked ready to jump up but the older man shook his head. "Oh, and if you see those ladies again maybe offer them a little bit of tobacco before you hand over any candy," he then reminded Jake about the right way to present a gift to an elder.

Jake had lots of question for Uncle Kyle but had learned from experience he was going to have to wait. He kept going to drum practice and even dragged Tommy over to the friendship center to help him pick out a small pouch for the tobacco. The girl at the reception desk was extremely helpful and the three of them ended up having coffee together. She invited them to come along to a march gave them both armbands to show they were missing someone.

"Don't know how this will do anything to bring my sister back," Tommy frowned as he pulled on the red band.

"It can't hurt and it shows other families they are not alone in all of this." Jake said putting the band back into place. "Come on. We don't have anything better to do this afternoon." He linked his arm through Tommy's but got shrugged off. Then Tommy spotted a worried look from the nice girl from the center so settled down and walked quietly along between Jake and a group of older women.

Jake gave the women a shy smile. He recognized a couple of them from the train and felt around in his pockets for gifts. When he thought he was ready he turned but the women were already walking away. He wanted to follow but saw the main group was pulling away in the other direction. As he looked back and forth trying to decide which way to go a pair of ravens swooped down and tracking the women. Jake tugged on Tommy's sleeve and pointed at the way the large birds had chased off some jays. "Let's head that way."

"What?" Tommy frowned then narrowed his eyes a bit. "You want to head across the train yard?"

"It's the shortest way up to the ridge."

"You sure about this?"

"No but I'm going with or without you."

"Ok. Just not empty handed." Tommy said then ducked into the gas station's convenience store. His eyes were glistening when he returned. "They still have Lucy's posters up, and are putting a red dress in their window. Wouldn't take my money. Not today."

Jake nodded and scanned the skyline again. The raven still circled overhead, dipping down then heading toward the ridge. Jake followed. He might have tried talking with the raven but thought it might spook Tommy, instead he picked up the pace. They scooted between the empty cars waiting to be lined up for the evening freight run. On the other side of the yard, they pushed through some brambles and scrambled up a muddy animal track. They followed along an old iron fence until they came to an opening, then crossed the overgrown lawn until they came to the edge of a pit full of charred lumber which marked the remains of the old school.

Jake looked up and saw the ravens landing near the top of a large spruce and pulled Tommy in that direction. There was a small tool shed at the back of a rough field and the Aunties were standing in a circle by its front door. The oldest of the women stepped forward then lifted her arm for a raven to land on. Jake swallowed hard then carefully presented the tobacco pouch to the woman and the little package of trail mix to the bird. This earned him a smile from the woman and a soft chuckle from the raven. He offered small gifts to the other women as well and accepted their welcome.

Things got more interesting when Tommy came over with his new store of candies. The women put up out their arms and ghostly children inched out from under their dark coats. A boy darted over grabbed up a candy and ran over to a small dip in the field, sat down, and waved back at them before disappearing. Tommy went to look and found a wrapper next to a crudely carved piece of wood poking out of the ground. He moved from one wrapper to another, uncovering markers on some, but certainly not all of the little depressions in the field. Tommy came back with eyes full of questions but Jake put up his hand.

Three small girls huddled against the side of the tool shed. A couple of them looked longingly at Tommy's candies but did not make a move. The aunties pointed at Jake and then to a metal bar on the ground. He got the message and levered open the lock on the shed door.

The first thing he spotted as the afternoon light hit the back wall of shed was a long cloak covered in dark feathers and leaves hanging next to a polished elk skull with a set of four-point antlers spray painted silver. Then he noticed piles of dirt on top of some sagging boards. He knelt down and started shoveling with his hands. Tommy dug as frantically and they soon pulled the boards back enough to see inside the hole. There seemed to be nothing more than a bundle of smelly rags in the bottom.

Jake held Tommy back saying, "Let me climb down and check. You go find a rope or ladder to get me back out again and be careful in case who ever has been playing dress-up decides to come back."

Jake slid down as far as he could then let go of the edge. Even though he had braced himself he couldn't help falling over when he hit the ground. He dug around for his phone and pulled it out to use as a flashlight. One of the bundles of rags moved. He hurried over but the girl shrank away from him. "No. Don't be afraid. I'm here to help. Honest." Jake put his hand flat out with the small pile of mints he had left in the middle of his palm. The candies were snatched away in a heartbeat. "Lucy Littlechild, if you just snatched my last choco-mint I am going to be mad at you," Jake teased. There was a sudden sob and thin arms wrapped tightly around his neck. "It's okay. You are going to be okay." He said this over and over, trying to make it true.

The boys decided the first priority was to get the girls safely to the nursing station. Then they got the local peace officer to set a watch on the abandoned shed. The section man who tried to use local myths to cover his tracks was soon caught but however awful his crimes, they did not compare to the outrage over the graves of one hundred children left forgotten in a barley field.

Even as he and Tommy were hailed as heroes, Jake did not know what to do with his anger and his sadness. He kept an eye out for the ravens to see if they had more to tell him. One day on the train a striking older woman, dressed like one of the aunties, stopped him and asked his name. When he told her she looked him up and down saying, "You just look so much like my Joe." Jake glanced over at the platform and thought he caught sight of a raven bobbing its head up and down on the lean-to. He smiled and asked the woman if she would like a mint.