The Tundra Shall Burn!

by Ken Altabef

  Aquppak shed the caribou hide, meteor blade in hand, and charged. The sudden rise to his feet made his head spin. Perhaps he had quaffed a bit too much of the brew. He lurched forward. Closing with Kullabak, he drove the point of the blade straight at his belly. Kullabak turned, surprised once again, but managed to twist his body at the last moment, causing Aquppak’s strike to slash through his parka at the flank instead of the abdomen. The resulting cut was not deep, and certainly not the mortal wound Aquppak had intended.

  Kullabak roared in outrage. He pulled his hand from the ground, the steel trap still attached, and swung for Aquppak’s head. Aquppak’s reactions, dulled once again by strong drink, left him unable to blunt the attack. The edge of the metal trap caught him along the line of the jaw, knocking him backward. The meteor blade flew from his hand. He stumbled backward, but didn’t fall. He hardly felt the pain from Kullabak’s strike.

  The big man rose to his feet. The steel trap on his hand, which had probably broken several fingers, did not seem to concern him. He towered over Aquppak, to whom the concept of face-to-face vengeance now lost all meaning. Kullabak was as powerful a man as any Aquppak had ever faced, but he thought he still might be able to win. For such a big man, the knees were always a weakness.

  Aquppak hastily concocted a plan of attack. He could still see the tip of his knife’s handle, black against the snow, sticking up out of the crust near Kullabak’s feet. He threw his body forward at a roll, striking at the back of Kullabak’s legs as he reached at the same time to snatch the knife from the ground. His tactic did bring the big man down, unfortunately directly atop the helpless Aquppak. Worse yet, his grab had missed the knife handle.

  Kullabak punched down at him, striking Aquppak at the back of the shoulder. “Drunken fool!” he raged. “This time I’ll kill you!”

  Aquppak, pinned beneath his adversary, searched frantically in the snow for his knife. No luck. Kullabak rained a few more angry blows down on him as Aquppak squirmed out from under. He took a knee to the face as he pulled free and stumbled once again to his feet. He stood stunned, hot blood dripping from his lips and chin. There must still be a chance to win…

  Kullabak faced him again. He took a moment to fumble with the steel trap but couldn’t easily get it off. Instead he reached down into his boot, a snarl of deadly malice on his face. He came away with his own hunting knife, its metal blade catching a glint of sunlight.

  Before Aquppak could react, Kullabak lunged.

  A resounding crack tore through the air, and Kullabak fell away, shot in the head.

  Aquppak, still dazed, watched him fall. The sled dogs, reacting to the noise, began barking madly.

  Aquppak whirled to find Niak standing behind him.

  Looking down at Kullabak, Aquppak felt a solid note of satisfaction. He spit on the dead man’s face. He watched the quivering gob hang from the big man’s nose as it froze solid. Then he collapsed down into the snow, wondering where he had left the flask of grog. Under the tarp, wasn’t it?

  Saying nothing, Niak walked away. He secured his rifle on Kullabak’s sled and bent to pacify the dogs. “I’ll get good trade for these fox furs,” he called out to Aquppak. “And we can keep the dogs too. But people know this sled belongs to Kullabak. We’ll have to break it down and get rid of it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  MOON RISING

  Within half a mile of the British East Asia trading post, or Old Bea as she was locally known, Gekko called his dogs to halt.

  Sharp eyes at the post must already have seen them coming, but even a train of three sleds was only a tiny dot against the immensity of white, a slow-moving insect creeping slowly along at this distance. One can skin a seal and sew an entire boot in the time such a caravan takes to move just a little against the vast backdrop of tundra.

  “Why are we stopping?” asked Doctor Harrington, who sat on the box beside him.

  “Propriety, my good man. Propriety.”

  Gekko stepped off the creaking sled. He took a deep breath of frosty air. It had been a miserable trip, what with their exhaustingly slow progress, his difficulty keeping the dogs in line along the slushy trail and the frequent breakdowns along the way. Add to that Harrington’s nonstop complaining and the trip had been nearly unbearable. But he wasn’t going to lose respect over it.

  Gekko stalked round the sled, tugging the sled-cover smooth and relashing the bundles so that they formed a perfectly straight, and perfectly British, line. He smoothed his jacket front, knocked the powder from his shoulders, relaced his boots and spit-polished the brass toggles. Then he gave the trace lines a once-over, laying heavy on the yipping mongrels with the long-handled whip. “Steady boys,” he said, “We’re almost there.”

  One last inspection and he climbed back onto the box. He lit a cigarette. “Right,” he said determinedly. “Now we can pull in.”

  As Gekko had expected, many at the post had been watching. Their caravan was immediately surrounded while still a dozen yards short of the hitching post. Sir Gekko paid the natives no mind, looking straight ahead and taking the last few puffs from the dog-end. Eager hands took the traces and helped them along, securing the lines in an instant. The natives gazed in anticipation at the boxes and crates, but these contained only Harrington’s equipment. Their supplies were all gone. Gekko had little to offer, but tossed a little pouch of tobacco to the nearest Eskimo and indicated he should distribute it around.

  McPearson came charging out of the post, flashing white teeth in a broad grin beneath his bristly red beard. “Ready for a mug up?”

  “Quite,” replied Gekko. “A cup of real tea’ll do me wonders. This local stuff tastes like piss-water. Better yet, coffee if you have any.”

  McPearson nodded. “I’m sure I can put my finger on some little bit,” he said. “Harrington?”

  “He’ll be along, just as soon as he’s finished complaining about the sleds and the rough treatment of his precious equipment.”

  McPearson chuckled. “If they don’t break his gear today, they will when they toss it in the ship’s hold. They love you when you arrive bearing gifts; they don’t give a whit about you when you go.”

  “The next transport?” asked Gekko.

  McPearson scratched behind his ear as the two trudged toward the post. “Not long. Just a week or two,” he said. “A cargo ship out of Halifax. The good Doctor will be pleased.”

  “Let’s hope,” remarked Gekko. “He isn’t pleased about much. That man can talk your head clear off your shoulders in a few days’ time.” Harrington’s incessant chatter, Gekko thought, might be especially distressing to McPearson. A man left out in the wild for years on end, even the most garrulous Scotsman like McPearson, quickly became accustomed to long, stony silences.

  McPearson pulled the heavy wooden door open. The two men passed through the large common room. A Primus stove burned in center, casting light and warmth on a bunch of natives loitering on benches around the wall. A ragged collection of men in dirty coats, sleeves dangling empty, arms clasped across their bodies for warmth, they regarded Gekko impassively as he crossed the room. Not a sly or subtle glance among them. Perhaps, he thought, he didn’t look so very different swathed in furs and skins, his face clean-shaven except for a well-trimmed mustache hidden beneath a seal-skin muffler.

  McPearson yanked open the door to the inner sanctum of the post — the ‘white man’s room’ where the others were never allowed. This room had its own little stove and furniture composed mostly of various crates and boxes containing trade goods considered too valuable to be left about where the Eskimos could get at them. A set of rusted tools lay scattered on the table next to a washbasin, half-full of soapy water, a stack of writing paper and pencils, and some old magazines.

  “All primed up and ready,” said McPearson. He indicated the wireless telegraph machine kept in secret here. He patted his little treasure lovingly on the grille, then paused to roll himself a cigarette.

  Gekko checked the device carefully.
A good day for sending, he thought, clear and dry. He had composed his full report on the long drive down. His assignment with the Anatatook was done. To the Crown they were neither a threat nor potential resource. Officially, he was finished with them.

  But he kept thinking of her. Of Noona. Gekko had traveled far across the world in service to the Crown and witnessed many astonishing things, but none had affected him so much as this native girl. And of native girls he had seen plenty. In the South Sea Islands he remembered scores of young women, scantily clad if at all, their copper-toned skin moist with sweat, lustrous hair flowing half-way down to their backsides. There was something about the tropical heat of the New Hebrides, and the women there, that stuck with you, their kisses a pleasant taste on the tongue that whispered of mangoes and sweet honey.

  And yet again, Noona. Bundled in her furs, her sweet face and shy smile half-hidden beneath a sheltering band of white fox trim, the light in her oddly gray eyes. And it seemed to Walter Gekko that poised in that strange light in her eyes was his happiness. A crazy notion, to be sure. A place without sun half the year, the most depressing and barren surroundings imaginable, shivering in an extreme cold just waiting to claim fingers and toes at the next blizzard, dogged by famine and abject poverty. And none of that matters, he asked himself, does it? Happiness is solely a disposition of the spirit; neither comfort nor warmth having the least bit to do with it.

  Had he ever glimpsed her figure? Not hardly. Clad always in bulky furs, his imagination supplied what eyes did not. Her hands were so delicate and fine, her silhouette just a little bit less stocky than the others. She moved with a confidence and grace that made the other women look like waddling ducks. He felt drunk thinking about her. He decided, whatever orders came from London, he was not yet done with the Anatatook. He would find a reason to go back.

  “You just about ready, then?” asked McPearson.

  “Oh,” chuckled Gekko. “Yes. Just thinking what to say. Got it.”

  McPearson puffed at his tailor-made, and blew out a waft of pale gray smoke. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Just one thing, and maybe you can add this to your report when you relay the signal through the Royal Northwest station. There’s been a murder here.”

  “Yes?”

  “A local tough named Kullabak. Nasty fellow really, but a good trapper. They found his body yesterday.”

  “You’d think the culprit would try to hide the body, cover it up with snow or something,” remarked Gekko.

  “Well they did. But you can’t hide a corpse in snow. The wolverines dig it right up. No sir, if you want to hide something like that out here you’ve got to put it in the lake. Nobody’s likely to find a corpse beneath two feet of ice.”

  “Right,” said Gekko. “I’ll remember that.”

  McPearson smiled. “You can add this too. The man who did the turn was most likely a fellow named Aquppak. He used to belong to the Anatatook tribe. Medium height, wiry build, usually drunk. Straight black hair, almost goes without saying. Handsome for a native unless you count the frost scars on his cheeks and left ear frozen off. The Mounties’ll want to talk to him.”

  “Got it,” said Gekko.

  “Say, I almost forgot,” added McPearson. “There’s a letter for you on the table. Came through a few days ago. It’s from your wife.”

  It was springtime, a perfect time for thoughts of romance and family.

  I shouldn’t look, thought Noona. I shouldn’t.

  She held the length of seal gut in her hand, slowly turning it over and over. Her slender fingers fiddled absently with the line, creating the figure of Two Bears.

  The game of ipiitaq aularuq, the string dance, was a favorite of many Anatatook children, and held a special significance for the shaman’s daughter. When she stared deeply into the figures she saw things, flashes and images of sights and sounds yet to come.

  These episodes had started at the age of ten winters. At first she thought they were just imaginings, random notions and dalliances, until sometime later one or another of the portents would come true — she would see her uncle holding up a huge trout with an oddly-shaped mouth and it was the same fish the strings had shown her; or she would see her brother sprawled clumsily on the ice, his leg twisted in the same awkward position the strings had shown her the day before; a knife slip, a cut hand with a pattern of blood on the ice foretold. Of these visions she told no one except her younger sister Tamuanuaq. Dear sweet Tama, who died that summer, drowned in a little wading pool on the beach.

  And then the string game showed her Tama’s spirit, her wayward soul, crying out from an unfamiliar place. Noona had heard her parents talking; she knew her sister’s soul was lost. So she worked the string more and she saw more. She saw her father Ben going to the other side, to the hidden world of the shadows. She couldn’t see what went on over there, but her father seemed guilty of something and that troubled her. She never wanted to look into the string figures again, but there was still the matter of her sister’s lost soul. Finally the string showed her Tama’s spirit as it lay inside Tooky’s belly, a new child waiting to be reborn.

  The visions continued only sporadically after that and Noona told no one about them. Who could she talk to?

  Not her father. He had suffered too much. Ben had nearly died while searching for Tama’s soul and had been sick for years afterward. He was still haunted by shadows. He wouldn’t allow talk of spirits in the house.

  Not her mother. Though she was the shaman, there was no discussing the visions with her. When Noona tried to talk to her about them her mother spoke harshly to her, telling her to look away. You don’t put your finger into a fire do you, her mother had asked. Look away.

  And no use talking to her brother Kinak about anything at all. His eyes didn’t see what they were supposed to, and he cringed from unearthly visions and strange noises every night. She couldn’t add to his troubles. And so she kept the images the string game showed her to herself until thirteen winters, when she became a woman, and her eyes changed. One day she woke, and it was in springtime just like this, and her grandmother Amauraq cried out when she saw her. Amauraq was struck speechless for an entire day, and everywhere Noona went looking for help, the people covered their eyes and hid their gaze, or ran away. Noona was terrified. She ran crying through the village. It was Old Higilak who showed her what had happened. In the polished lid from a tin box, she showed Noona her eyes, which had always been the same dark brown as everyone else’s, had now turned a shimmering gray.

  In the end she turned to Old Higilak for advice, telling her everything. After all, Higilak had been a shaman’s wife years ago. The old woman knew all the stories. Noona had a special affection for Higilak, as did all the children who listened to the old woman tell her wonderful tales. That old woman had so much to tell, nobody ever felt the winter cold when she was around. Noona had learned many of the old fables and could recite them almost as well as Higilak.

  Higilak’s advice proved contrary to the shaman’s. “Never look away,” she said. “You are shown these things for a reason. Your mother is shortsighted in this. She seeks to protect you, but no one can protect you from destiny.”

  She said it was unusual for a young woman to possess angakua, the shaman’s special light, no matter how small an amount. There were stories of a few others, all women who were best served by keeping their talents hidden.

  For Noona there was little chance of keeping anything hidden. When her eyes turned gray people began to distrust her and even her mother seemed saddened by the change. Noona, who had already entertained several prospective suitors among the boys, was suddenly turned away. Who wanted to marry a woman with gray eyes?

  “You pay a steep price for this gift,” said Higilak, “you might as well make use of it.” And it was Higilak who told her what to do. “Go out on the night of the full Moon, naked to the world and the spirits and sit upon the top of Eagle’s rock. Make the pattern of Moon Rising on the string and see what happens next.”

/>   Shivering with cold and fear, Noona sat upon the rock, her body curled against the wind, the string held taught before her eyes. She was lonely and distraught, but knew that Old Higilak would never steer her wrong. She waited upon the rock until the cold stole all feeling from her skin, until her fingers could work the string no more. She gazed deeply into the figure of Moon Rising but no vision came. She had waited too long, she had not the strength left to stand up. She should call out for help, little lost girl naked upon the rock, but after such an embarrassment she feared what might happen if anyone found her like that. It was no use. She thought she might just as well die on that rock.

  She was alone in the night, with the string and the Moon. Suddenly a silver mist rose around Eagle’s Rock like a curtain. Surrounding her, it rose higher and higher, not shifting and flowing as mists generally do, but rising straight up from the ground, and then arcing over her head. It was eerie and frightening, encased by that strange mist, as if the entire world had gone away, as if she floated numbly in midair. She felt nothing except a crushing loneliness. Perhaps this is what dying feels like, she thought. And then her guardian made herself known. The Moon beamed down, setting the mist to sparkling, glistening, twinkling so bright it made her dizzy. But she did not look away. Stepping through the curtain, came Tatqeq the Moon-Maid.

  Noona had never seen a woman so utterly beautiful. Her alabaster face, so round, framed with white shining hair, her full lips smiling, and silver-gray eyes. Tatqeq went naked and unashamed. Her belly rounded, her breasts full, hers was a luminescent figure of feminine beauty such as Noona had never seen.

  The Moon-Maid was all at once a doting aunt, a sisterly confidant, a wise old mother. Desperate words came pouring from Noona’s lips, and from her heart, as she described her disappointment and rejection by the young men and the dilemma of who she would marry, if she would ever marry. Tatqeq saw fit to comfort her. It was true, the Moon-Maid said, none of the Anatatook men were for her. But as Tatqeq was the spirit of romance, of love and fertility, she reassured young Noona that she would have all those things in the end. She must be patient. A soul mate would come in time.