So they set up camp between the men and the cliff and establish hour-long watch shifts. The group feels uneasy around the men but it is too late to move. The men invite the group to stay for the night. Lincoln says the resistance is stupid “you either run or you find other ways to fit it.” Later, Travis justifies his actions toward Wab, saying he never meant to get anyone hurt and that he is a changed man. Smoking tobacco around a fire, Miig and Travis discuss the armed Indigenous resistance in Espanola. But the men may have valuable information, and in the end they decide to stay. The men invite the group to eat, saying they’ve had a good hunt and stocked up supplies in the surviving city of Espanola. The pair turn out to be Travis, who speaks in the Anishnaabe language with Miig, and Lincoln, from the Hobemma Nation. And when the group approaches their campsite after three days of walking, the men fearlessly call out to ask who’s there. They leave a conspicuous trail of trash along their way. They show few signs of trying to hide: they have built an open, visible fire in the early evening. Wab insists they are the same people she saw in the woods, including the man who turned her over to the Toronto gang.

But from the outset the strangers are suspicious. The group decides they will catch up with the men, since they cannot avoid them and feel an obligation to see if they need help. Frenchie climbs a tree and spots two men, one wearing camouflage and another in a red hat. On their way, the group finds evidence that other people are camping nearby. As a steady snow falls, Miig directs the group eastward to avoid the new school. However, it isn’t necessary for the whole group to know that now. He tells French that what he saw up in the trees was a new school the Recruiters are building nearby. Miig finishes his story there and tells French the moral: that sometimes one must trust that people are making decisions for the good of the community based on things they know but that you don’t know. But Isaac refuses to believe the rumors and has faith that he will be able to reason with the agents. Miig tries to convince Isaac to escape through the yard. But it is too late: government vans have already pulled up outside and men are knocking at the door.

One night, the younger woman sneaks out of her room to show Miig her blinking ankle monitor. Miig is suspicious, but Isaac invites them in. The man says he’s sprained his ankle and the woman says she is pregnant. One night, they heard noise in the bush and found three apparently Native people there: a man, a woman and another younger woman. Isaac was half-Cree and a respected poet. In the early days, when the Recruiters were just beginning to hunt Indigenous people, Miig and his husband, Isaac, went to live in their semi-remote, off the grid cottage. Miig shares his coming-to story with French.

Book the marrow thieves