The Flight of Jim Charles -- Part 5

Hi,

I hope everyone is having a good December. Here is
the next part of the Jim Charles story.

All the best,
Laurie


Part 5

"This torment went on all summer. Every night he'd
hear the sounds, and he's have to run and hide in
some hole, where they couldn't find him. In the
daylight, he was fine. He was able to sleep, catch
fish, and eat berries.

"There were nights when Jim would find a beaver
house; then, he would dive under the water, and
enter that beaver house. The beavers understood
him. He would stay there all night with those beaver.

"Jim would hear the hounds on top of that beaver
house, scratching and digging, and whining until
daybreak. The beaver would stay close to Jim, and
keep him company. If those frogs would start calling,
the beaver would swim out and smack the water
with their tails. The sound would scare the frogs, so
they would scatter and stay quiet. In the morning,
Jim would dive back into the water, and leave that
beaver house.

"In the fall season, Jim found himself near Rossignol,
where fish were plentiful. One day he looked far
upstream and saw a canoe carrying a man, woman,
and little boy. But he was afraid to go closer. He
figured it was his brother, with Jim's wife and little
boy, on their way to his brother's winter camp,
where he would trap and hunt moose."

Here, Louis paused, to fill his pipe with tobacco. I
looked out over Kejimkujik lake, imagining how this
place must have looked to Jim Charles.

"Now, by this time, Jim wore only a few rags tied
around his body. When he finally decided to visit his
brother's winter camp, his wife and child were terrified
of the wild looking man that suddenly entered the
lodge! But Jim's brother knew him right away.

"The little boy, he never forgot how Jim looked that
day. Jim explained how he had been chased by
hounds all summer, but his brother assured him that
neither hounds nor white men had chased him.
But, Jim wasn't convinced. He said that he had heard
the hounds every night.

"So, Jim's brother said that maybe the ghost of the
dead man had chased him? Jim got to thinking that
his brother's words made sense. It explained why he
had such difficulty keeping the hounds off his trail.


to be continued . . . . (The final part of the story
will be posted on Sunday evening.)