by P W Ross
Another specialised in beaver-tails only. A fried dough pastry, hand stretched to resemble a beaver tail, topped most often with icing sugar, maple syrup and/or vanilla ice cream. Lo-cal.
Jack looked up from the map to see Pony dockside, watching swimming and canoe races, gunwale jumping, a casting competition and a kids’ fishing contest.
Across the bay he could make out the bomberos lining up and loading fireworks mortars on Ranger Island.
He rescanned the perimeter anxiously. Nothing. Pony returned, opened a pair of beers and they listened to the open mic sessions performed from the raised bed of a worn-out freight wagon.
“Hey Jack, watcha’ studyin’?” Bill Phipps solicited.
“Map.”
“Lookin’ for a way out?”
Phipps was accompanied by a trio of pugnacious looking characters that Jack recognised but didn’t know.
“No, the needle in an ever-shrinking haystack.”
“Somethin’ best happen soon Jack. There’s a crew forming to go out on patrol.”
“Billy, tell them to stand down. They don’t know what they’re dealing with.”
“You do?”
“Affirmative.”
“When you gonna make something happen?”
“It’s his move next. Not ours.”
Twilight saw Ralph Jenson paddle over in a 16-foot prospector and perform intricate manoeuvres consummated with two leisurely, exquisite 360 pirouettes. Something to see.
Dining on take-out Chinese and sipping beer, they took in the headliners, Gerry Barrows and The Northern Ramblers. Alt-country. The fireworks would follow.
The Chinese Song Dynasty first orchestrated firework displays. More than a thousand years later the tradition carries on worldwide.
The experts from Toronto used easy-to-control proximate pyrotechnics that can be deployed in close range to the public, dispersing almost zero debris. With the shoreline and docks packed, along with fifty anchored craft in the bay, the ingredients were ideal. Set-up took all day. The mortars would launch aerial projectiles, six to twelve inches in diameter, holding all combinations from fourteen elements of the Atomic Table that produced spectacular colours.
A resounding mortar thump announced the show had begun.
Jack and Pony reclined.
The theme was botanical. From two hundred feet, stunning representations appeared. Palms, peonies, clovers, willows, diadems, dahlias, chrysanthemum and spider shots. A celestial panorama. A colour palette full of orange, violet, gold and white. An assault on the senses.
It was a relentless cacophony of mortars, gunshot reports, crackling of fire, whizzing hummers, and high-pitched screaming whistles.
The display culminated with an immense, dazzling full bouquet.
The crowd was mesmerised shell shocked and exhilarated. The kids would say, “Epic!”
As the twenty-five-minute show had progressed with all eyes skyward, Norval had paddled stealthily, undetected along the north shore.
Six hundred yards from the crowd he had the audacity to pull the canoe up on a decaying dock. He left a cell phone in the canoe. Over his shoulders he slung the 30:06 BAR and a backpack containing a box of fifty rounds, three extra clips, two days of rations, toilette paper, water, binocs, six sticks of dynamite, and another cell phone.
Skirting east, behind the deserted town, Norval crossed the highway to the north, dodged the rail tracks and traversed to the tower.
Chapter Sixty-Three
It was coming dawn when Jack bolted upright in bed. Beside him, Pony startled.
“Jack, what!?”
“Christ Jesus, it was right in front of us!”
He leapt out of bed, hammering his knee on the dresser. “Goddammit!” he hissed and limped to the land line.
“Will... Will... he’s here! The Tower, he’s up the goddamn Tower! Just like his old man.
Two shots rang out from Norval’s semi-automatic. The first shattered one of the TV satellite dishes. The second pinged off the Anglican church bell.
“Fuck! What was that?”
Will sank to his knees behind the desk.
“Shots fired!... Everyone down!”
He didn’t have to say it twice.
“You got that right Jack, two shots out of the Tower. Wake up call. Get here, pronto! Keep your head down.”
From his vantage point, it was duck soup for Norval to hold the town hostage. The early morning crowd and newsies had scattered out of sight.
A resolved Norval muttered,
“Trick or Treat?”
Jill, Rummell, Rene, Will and Braxton rose from the floor avoiding the windows and huddled in a back office. Braxton was on the horn immediately to HQ in Toronto.
“Yes! I said now. Tell the Super to fuck off and get on it or I’ll go so far over his head he’ll be sweeping out cells.”
“No! I don’t give a rat’s ass. I mean now! SWAT Team, two snipers and a negotiator. Get me Christopher Ross. I want them here by noon. No... helicopter, land them half mile south of town and have two Suburbans there to bring them in. And... have Highway 11 closed from Marten River to the Aubrey Cousens Bridge in Latchford. I don’t care if it’s the Trans-Canada Highway.”
“Just get it fucking done.”
An officer, crouching low, hustled into the station. “Chief, we found the canoe, along with this.”
Rummell studied the cellphone, a burner.
Will said to Rummell, “He’s gonna want to light the pipe.”
“What?”
“Pow wow.”
“Whatever he’s got up his sleeve, we’ve gotta stall for time ‘till we get backup. Ideas?”
The cell went off to the ringtone of calling loons.
“Rummell?”
“Norval... what do you want?”
“Put Alexander on.”
“Not here.”
“Get him there, on the double.”
“On his way.”
Norval disconnected.
Jack and Pony approached the rear of the station from the east, out of Norval’s line of fire and stumbled through the back door. Didn’t bother to knock. Pony had a cooler-bag full of sandwiches, fresh coffee and water. Jack carried his lever-action 30-30 and stuffed in his belt was an old Smith and Wesson 32 caliber pistol. All heads swung toward them. Rummell and Braxton released the fingers from their holsters.
“Can you hit anything with that?” Braxton smirked.
“Don’t know. Never fired it.”
“He wants to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“Norval.”
“Why?”
“You tell me.” Rummell pointed to the cell on his desk.
Hesitantly
“Norval... Jack.
What do you want?”
“Cavalry coming?”
“Something like that?”
“When?”
“Sooner than you think.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world.
I want a press conference and a talk with the Premier.”
“How the fuck you expect me to pull that off?”
“I don’t care, just do it.”
Rummell got on to Queens’ Park. The Premier had been following the Temagami situation but he wasn’t going to bite on this one. No political currency to be had. Worse, he categorically stated there was going to be no press conference. He wasn’t going to provide a platform for a psychopathic terrorist.
Rummell turned to the crew, Rene, Jill, Brautigan, Will, Jack and Pony.
“So... once again, Ideas?”
As they scarfed the sandwiches and debated the press conference, Pony listened intently and then took Jack aside.
“You don’t need a press conference to give him what he wants.”
“Tell me.”
“We’ve known all along that there’s a declaration he wants to get out. He doesn’t need a press conference. He just needs Parker.”
Jack’s lights came on and he turned to the crew.
/> “Like Kaczynski, he wants to make his statement. After that, I think he knows he’s done for.”
“Are you nuts, Jack? I can’t send a civilian up there,” Rummell exclaimed.
“Why not? You need some time to get an assault set up. Make her sign a release, some freedom of the press shit, and she can buy you the time you need.”
“Find her.”
A fully briefed Parker sat stunned by the magnitude of the opportunity. She studied the release.
“I need a guarantee in writing that I can publish everything I get from him.”
Braxton and Rummell eyed each other pensively and nodded.
Neither had the authority, but this had to end. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
“Jill, draft something up. Parker, what do you need?”
“Send an officer to retrieve the black knapsack from my van.”
She tossed the keys. Jack retrieved the cell.
“Norval... Jack. Bad news and good news. Which first?”
“The bad.”
“The Premier is a no-go and there’s isn’t going to be a press conference.”
“Want me to start picking folks off until there is? I can arrange that. What’s the good?”
“We’re going to send the reporter up, Nancy Parker. I don’t know what the hell you want to say, but she’ll take it down and everything will be published the next day.”
A long pause. Hunched in the corner of the cupola, Norval considered his options. He was exhausted. None came to mind. Deep inhales and slow exhales.
“Send her up.”
“Ninety minutes.”
“Not goin’ anywhere.”
Chapter Sixty-Four
Norval spotted them easily coming from the east. Seven vigilantes, the armed Temagami posse, led by Bill Phipps, scrambling up to the base of the tower, overweight middle-age men huffing and puffing.
What are they thinking?
Thirty yards out they circled the tower. This would be easy-peasy.
Norval, not intending to kill, lit four sticks of dynamite and lobbed them off the corners of the cupola.
“Need a light, boys?”
The explosions reverberated throughout the town and rattled the bones of the old police station. The crew once again hit the deck. The dust settled and the loon cell called out.
“You doubled-crossed me, Jack. Naughty boy,” Norval said calmly.
“What you talkin’ about?”
“Vigilantes, Jack. Seven of them just surrounded the tower.”
“Norval, believe me, we knew nothing about it. They were on their own. Let’s not get anyone else killed here. You’ve made your point. You want your manifesto or whatever it is out? Parker’s still your best bet.”
“I’ll get back.”
Rummell stared stonily. “This is turning into a cluster fuck. Will, take two officers and go round up those crazies. Don’t get shot.”
As Will headed out, the SWAT Team, two snipers and the negotiator arrived. They were up for an immediate all out assault to take Norval, but Braxton backed them off. Sternly to the team captain he made it clear that nothing was going to happen without him giving the order. Norval rang another shell off the church bell to let them know he was aware the commandos had arrived.
“Get your men deployed, hunker down, and do nothing until you hear from me.”
Rene had briefed Ross, the negotiator, and he stepped forward to Rummell.
“Chief, not going to tell you how to run this operation but sending the reporter up the tower is... not... a... good... idea. What if he takes her hostage?”
“Won’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“He’s only one intention now and that’s to get the message out. She’s the carrier pigeon. When it’s done, my bet is that he kills himself or goes for suicide by cop.”
“Want me to try and talk him down?”
“Not really. The world’s gonna be a better place without him but you can give it a try when we get Parker back.”
“Jesus Rummell, your ass is so far out on a limb it might never get back to the tree.”
“I’m the cop. It’s my butt on the line. I’ll take my chances. Jack, Parker, you set? Call him.”
“Norval... on our way. Put the safety on.
“Okay, bring her up. No vehicles, walk all the way.”
As the pair set off for the tower, Rummell looked over, arm extended. “Gimme the thirty two, Jack.”
Nodding to the SWAT in passing, Parker and Jack approached the lookout at the foot of the tower.
Norval barked out, “That’s as far as you come Jack. Settle in and stay put till we’re done. Send her up, slow and easy.”
Jack gave Parker an encouraging smile. “Just let him talk. Don’t rile him up. You’ll be okay. He knows he’s done.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said and started up. At the entrance to the cupola she hesitated, dry-swallowed and murmured, “What the fuck.” She faced a haggard Norval huddled in the corner, the 30:06 across his knees.
“You’re the cub reporter?”
“Cub? Well… sort of, maybe, not quite.”
“You won’t be after this.”
“Picture?”
“Why not? Use it in my obit.”
“What’s your best side?
“Damn, you got some spunk girl.”
She snapped and reclined kitty corner, eight feet away. She started the tape.
“Where do you want to begin?”
“Who’s this goin’ out to?
“Front page of every major newspaper in North America and the international section of every paper in the world. How often you think this shit happens?”
Norval displayed a satisfied smile.
“Okay, the tourists, the houseboat?”
“You listen, I’ll talk. Figured I had to start the ball rolling with a real show-stopper. They were just unlucky, wrong place, wrong time. My time. Fuck the houseboats. Get any more on the lake and we’ll need a stoplight in the hub.”
“Wainright?”
“The Property Association. Nothin’ but NIMBYs. Always have been. In the thirties they actually had the balls to call themselves ‘the founding settlers’ here. Can you imagine? Used to think this was their private fishing club. Betcha over fifty percent of the membership is American. They’ll damn near support anything as long as it doesn’t affect their interests and if it does, they lawyer-up. To worthy causes they donate peanuts. Lobbyists, pure and simple, and I don’t like what’s in their lobby.”
“Sawchuck?”
“Good guy. Unfortunate victim of war, collateral damage. Sustainable logging is bullshit. You think the forestry business cares about the next couple of generations? Give your head a shake. Give ’em the ‘green’ light and they’d have the old growth forest clear-cut in three months. They’re after a fast nickel, not a slow dime.”
“The native boy?”
“Ah, the injuns. Politically correct and reconciliatory as we all aspire to be, they’re part of the problem. Yes, we stole their land. Yes, we stole their culture. Yes, we stole their children. But that was then. This is now. The hunter/gatherer days are history. Just ‘cause you got a green card doesn’t mean you have the right to over-hunt and over-fish. That card is not a get out of jail free card.”
“Sherwood?”
“Black sheep of the Sherwood family, big time steel company magnate. Carved out seven open pit mines behind the Northeast Arm and ruined one of the best pickerel fishing shorelines in the province. The legacy they left? Contaminated holes in granite and a fishless shore. Need I say more?”
“Where’s the Norval Manifesto?”
“You’re kidding? Who do you think I am, Ted Kaczynski? I read his shit but I’m not that smart. A terrorist for sure, a primitivist luddite. But you can’t fight industrialists, you gotta have the will and the way to rein them in.”
“What do you want?”
“Just leave “IT” all alone for a
while and I want it to start here. No more houseboats. A halt to logging all together. The revenue around here from that is jack-shit. Subsidise the loggers if you want. One fish species per day. Hell, you catch a lake trout, walleye and a pike in one day, how much do you need?
“The Property Association? Just tell them to back off or else you’re gonna hit ‘em over the nose with a rolled-up newspaper and send ‘em back to the States.”
“The mines? No more claims, no more drill-holes. With prices today, here it’s more profitable to do reclamation around old gold and silver mines or reopen some.”
“Hunting? We got boneheads down at the Ministry making regulations with no common sense, based on faulty stats. Nine out of ten haven’t seen a goddamn moose let alone shot one.”
“Nuff said.”
“Five years. It’s nothing. The blink of an eye that can start to make all the difference. Could start a movement. There are territories like this throughout North America. Folks just have to rise up and organise. Five years, ten years ain’t much, but enough to get the grass roots stirred up. Time for folks to say ‘no mas’.”
“What’s that make you, Norval? Murderer? Assassin? Terrorist?”
Another sardonic grin.
“All of the above. Yeah, an eco-martyr. Glad we covered that last base, ‘cause I’m rounding for home.”
“Where’s that?”
“Hell, I guess. Where martyrs daren’t tread.”
“You know, it’s the cause, not the death that makes the martyr.”
“Who?”
“Napoléon Bonaparte.”
“Right, too fast company for the likes of me.”
“Heard about your library.”
“How?”
“From Jack. Aren’t you the sleeper? The rough bushman cover cloaking the voracious reader, and terror ecologist.”
“Keeps them at bay.”
“What?”
“The books, they keep the nightmares away.”
Norval shrugged. “So... that’s all there is. It’s on you now Parker.”
He dug into a pocket and extracted a small deerskin pouch closed tight with a drawstring.
“Give this to Alexander.”
Then he shouted down. “Jack, it’s dusk, she’s coming down. We’re done here.”
“Parker.”
