The Cardinal Divide

by Stephen Legault

  Bears and salmon and the ancient forests that surrounded them had always been a holy trinity for Archie and his people. Grizzly bears fed on the salmon as the fish beat and bashed their way up through the ankle-deep waters of the tiny tributaries to their spawning grounds each fall. The grizzly bears grew fat on the fish, often eating only their brains, rich in nutrients they would need for their winter hibernation. The dead fish, left to rot in the woods, nourished the stalwart trees, which in turn held the entire ecosystem together with their wide, spreading roots. The trees sheltered and cooled the salmon rivers, and fed the many smaller creatures that made their homes among them. When the trees fell into the streams, downed logs created places for the spawning salmon to hide and rest as, exhausted and crazed, they struggled back to the source of life.

  Archie sipped his coffee, thinking about this cycle of existence. He pushed back the sadness that approached whenever he thought this way. There was some question as to whether there would be enough wild salmon in this year’s run to allow for a commercial fishery. Talk in the provincial capital, Victoria, and among senior federal officials responsible for the fishery suggested that a complete ban might be necessary to allow decimated salmon runs to recover.

  The people of the Lostcoast Band had been fishing for thousands of years but had never contributed to the decimation of the salmon fishery the way the modern industrial fishery had. Now Archie Ravenwing’s people would pay the price incurred by the greed and myopic short-sightedness of the commercial fishing industry and its protectors and proponents in government.

  In the years since the new BC Liberal government had lifted the moratorium on new salmon farms in the province, there had been an explosion of interest in new aquaculture developments all along BC’s knotted west coast. In the Broughton Archipelago, where Archie Ravenwing fished and lived, there were nearly thirty salmon farms in operation. Many of these open-net farms were located on the migration routes of native wild salmon. And though industry advocates argued that the two were unrelated, along with the development of salmon farms came a corresponding decline in the number of wild salmon. Archie knew that, in a recent count, only 150,000 wild salmon returned to the Broughton, down from the historical three and a half million. In 2002 the wild pink salmon stock collapsed, with only five percent of the native wild fish returning to spawn. Archie knew the numbers by rote.

  For Ravenwing, it was as if part of his own body, his own soul, had vanished. The part of his heart that swam through the waters of Tribune Channel to the north, and up the mouth of Knight Inlet, was gone.

  Archie tried to keep that darkening sadness at bay. How could it have come to this? he wondered. After a thousand years, his family wouldn’t be allowed to fish their ancestral waters? He turned his face toward the sky. A throaty call greeted him, and he opened his eyes to see a jet-black shape cruise overhead. The husky chortled again. Archie raised a hand in greeting. “Good morning, Grandpa!” he said quietly, waving at the raven, a smile creasing his face.

  “U’melth, Raven, who brought us the moon, fire, salmon, sun, and the tides,” he recited. “Trickster, grandfather of a thousand pranks. OK! I’ll lighten up!” he added, draining his mug and slinging the dregs into the water. Then he said: “Time to get to work.”

  Archie rose lightly and walked back to the wheelhouse, where he opened a large Rubbermaid bin and removed the tools he would need for his morning work. He put the long, flexible net together on its pole and readied half a dozen plastic sample jars. These he put on the fish box on the deck of the boat. Without ceremony he began his sampling, drawing forth the tiny salmon fry to be funnelled into the jars. So few, so few. Ravenwing shook his head as he dipped again into the waters.

  His work that morning lasted until almost noon. By then he had filled the jars with juvenile salmon, their tiny, finger-sized bodies being consumed by sea lice. This was what Archie Raven-wing was seeking – the irrefutable evidence that the wild salmon stocks of Knight Inlet, and the Broughton Archipelago, were being parasitized by sea lice.

  Archie considered the tiny pink salmon smolts in the sample jars. He held one up to the light and counted the lice clinging to it. On one smolt he counted four of the parasites from two different species. Adults might succumb when they had six or seven sea lice on their fins, gills, or skin. Smolts like those in Archie’s sampling jars would die with only a few sea lice feeding on them. Archie regarded his unfortunate catch. “Not doing so good, are you little friend?” He was finding more and more smolts with more and more sea lice. And he had yet to reach his day’s destination: Jeopardy Rock. There he expected to find the epicentre of sea lice contamination.

  “Not so good....” he said again, his voice trailing off.

  Ravenwing knew that sea lice were a natural parasite that preyed on wild salmon along British Columbia’s wild coast, and elsewhere across North America. But in the last ten years, there had been a shocking rise in the number of lice infesting wild salmon. Where before the numbers had been low, and very few salmon actually died as a result of playing host to the lice, now entire runs of wild pink and other salmon were being devastated by them. Despite protests from the salmon farming industry, irrefutable evidence pointed to the rash of farmed Atlantic salmon as the source of the outbreak. The Atlantic salmon could survive with many more sea lice than the native pink, chum, and Coho.

  Archie took a sharp, black felt pen from his shirt pocket and labelled the jars. He would return these to Dr. Cassandra Petrel for her study.

  Archie flexed his big hands and looked at the sky. “Starting to crowd in,” he said aloud to nobody in particular. “Fixing to churn up pretty good, I think.”

  He knew he should head back down the inlet toward Port Lost-coast before the storm set upon him, but he had one more thing to do that day. Something had been eating Archie Ravenwing that he had to set straight. So instead of turning the Inlet Dancer for home, he powered across the inlet toward the mouth of Tribune Channel, skipping the heavy boat across the small waves already being formed by the wind.

  Now the rain fell in torrents, churning the waves like so many knives thrust into the sea. The Inlet Dancer bounced and rocked, nose into the waves, powering past the fish farms at Doctor Islets and into the main body of Knight Inlet, making for home. Archie stood in the pilothouse near the stern of the boat, one hand locked on the wheel, the other clenching the throttle. This blow was bigger than he had foreseen and, though he was prepared to moor and wait out the storm, this stretch of water had few safe harbours.

  And after what he had seen at Jeopardy Rock, a new urgency filled Archie Ravenwing that made him push for home against what seemed prudent for the weather.

  A wave crashed over the bow of the Inlet Dancer and the boat dipped into the trough behind it, rising up the side of another stack of water. The swells topped fifteen feet now and came in irregular patterns, every fourth, fifth, or sixth wave taller than the rest, coming on faster than the others. Ravenwing held the wheel firmly, keeping the boat head on to the storm, not wanting the narrow vessel to get punched side-to by one of the rogue waves.

  He had suspected for some time that what was happening at Jeopardy Rock was more than just simple salmon farming. He had suspected for some time that the company was doing more than just breeding Atlantic salmon. Now he was certain. Now he would make his calls when he got back to Port Lostcoast and begin to set the record straight. He would begin to make amends. Did Archie Ravenwing believe in redemption? He believed in justice, even if his own actions hadn’t always seemed just. He believed that a man’s motivation sometimes compelled behaviour that appeared inconsistent with his espoused values. But we are complex creatures, reasoned Ravenwing.

  Another wave rocked the Inlet Dancer and Archie pitched forward. He patted the wheel and reminisced that she had survived worse.

  It was growing dark, the day slipping from the sky, and the clouds pressed down so low that the tops of the trees on mighty Gilford Island were hardly visible. Ravenwing swit
ched on his running lights, not so he could see, but so he could be seen. Sonar and radar would guide him down the inlet, through the darkness and the storm, but he worried about small pleasure crafts caught in the weather with no such second sight.

  Ravenwing counted the waves, counted the minutes. Half an hour passed and the hulk of Gilford Island started to recede. The waves still crashed on the Inlet Dancer’s bow, and now he was moving across the channel toward the eastern tip of Turnour Island. At his pace of seven or eight knots per hour, it would be another two hours or more before he would be abreast of Parish Island, and home.

  The VHF marine radio in the pilothouse crackled and, intuitively, Ravenwing set it to scan. Static filled the wheelhouse, the white noise being engulfed by the sound of the storm that darkened the archipelago around Ravenwing. Then a voice, clear as a bell: “Any craft in the vicinity of Deep Water Cove, this is the Rising Moon. I’ve lost my primary and am taking on water.”

  Ravenwing snatched the handset for the marine radio and spoke over the howl of the storm. “Rising Moon, this is the Inlet Dancer. I’m passing Ship Rock now, about to make the crossing. What is your position?”

  “Glad to hear your voice, Inlet Dancer. I’m about one mile west of Deep Water, but I’m getting pushed toward the rocks on Deep Water Bluff.”

  “Do you have secondary?”

  “I’m running on my little Evinrude 25, Inlet Dancer.”

  “OK, hold on, I’ll circle back for you.”

  “I’m glad to find you out here,” came the static-filled response.

  “I’m not,” Ravenwing said over the VHF and set the handset back on the radio.

  For a moment he would be side to the brunt of the storm, so Ravenwing determined to make that quick. He throttled up, pushing over the breaking waves, and counted. The big waves were pushing a wall of water over the boat’s bow onto the deck, momentarily flooding it until the water drained away through the breaks in the gunwales. He counted. A wave crested, ebbed, and Ravenwing throttled back, spun the wheel, and turned to lee, then powered back up again as the stern of the boat was engulfed in the next white breaker. The ocean flooded into the wheelhouse, washing Ravenwing to his ankles in icy water.

  In ten minutes he was adjacent to Deep Water Cove, the massive bluffs that guarded the opening black through the shadowless night.

  “Rising Moon, this is Inlet Dancer. Can you see my running lights?” Ravenwing spoke calmly into the handset.

  There was no response. He peered at his sonar and radar, watching the rocky coast weave its white line along the left side of the screen, searching for rocks and logs in his path, scanning for the tell-tale shape of a boat to emerge from the black.

  “Rising Moon, this is Inlet Dancer....”

  “I see you, Archie,” came the voice, clear through the radio.

  “What’s your location?”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Archie turned in the pilothouse and saw the Rising Moon’s running lights emerge from the cove.

  “I found some shelter to wait in. Can you come along side of me?”

  “Yup,” Archie said, turning again in the roiling channel waters. Another wave broke over his boat and Archie was slammed hard into the fibreglass wall of the pilothouse. He stayed standing, his fingers locked on the wheel and the throttle.

  The Rising Moon was a small pleasure craft, not twenty feet in length, which had seen better days. Archie cut his throttle as much as he dared so close to the shore, and eased toward the smaller boat. The canopy was up, the pilot eclipsed by the windshield and the rain that drove down on the inlet like an angry fist.

  “Do you want me to tow you into the cove, Rising Moon?” Archie asked into the handset.

  “Can you come alongside, and we’ll talk it through?”

  Archie cursed. It was always this way with this guy, it seemed. “Sure, but let’s make it quick, as it’s fixing to blow pretty good and I don’t want to be out longer than need be.” He put the handset down again and guided the Inlet Dancer along side the drifting Rising Moon.

  When the two boats were just ten feet apart, Archie killed his motor and stepped from the pilothouse, grabbing a gaff hook from the wall. He stepped onto the narrow deck of the boat and peered through the storm, holding onto the gunwale for support. Jesus Christ, man, come on deck and let’s get this over with, Archie cursed into the howling night.

  Finally a shape emerged from beneath the canopy of the Rising Moon. The man waved and moved to the stern of his vessel, holding on for dear life. Over the clamour of the storm he yelled, “Imagine me needing help from you.”

  “Imagine,” mocked Ravenwing. “So what exactly are you doing out on a night like this? And in that little tub?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” replied the man, who was using a gaff of his own to hook the stern gunwale of Ravenwing’s boat. Ravenwing used his tool to reach for the Rising Moon’s fore cleats.

  The boats rose and fell, waves raging against them, and they came together with a crash of the Inlet Dancer’s sturdy, fibreglass-covered wood against the Rising Moon’s aging hull.

  “Your boat is going to be crushed if we stay out like this,” Ravenwing yelled. “Let’s hook a line and I’ll tow you into the cove. We can find a place to secure this tub and we’ll motor back to Lostcoast on the Dancer.”

  The man on the Rising Moon gave the thumbs up and manoeuvred to the bow of his boat on hands and knees, clinging to the craft lest he be washed into the sea. He tossed his bow line to Archie. Ravenwing then secured the line from the Rising Moon to a cleat on the port side of the Inlet Dancer’s stern. The man on the Rising Moon held onto his line firmly in his right hand, the three-foot gaff in his right, and made it fast on the bow cleat, then turning and clambering for the safety of the stern of his boat.

  “Permission to come aboard, Captain,” he barked to Ravenwing, who had stepped back into the pilothouse to crank up the fishing boat’s powerful inboard motors.

  “You know the way,” Ravenwing yelled, shaking his head.

  The man, gaff still clenched in his hands, stepped onto the Inlet Dancer and grabbed the handrail on the side of the pilothouse for stability. Ravenwing engaged the throttle and the boats began to cut into the cresting waves again.

  “What the hell were you doing out on a night like this?” Raven-wing said, his voice disappearing into the storm.

  “I have my reasons.”

  “They must have been good ones. Only a fool would venture out on a night like this.”

  “Well, you’re out.”

  “I am. But everybody around here knows I’m a fool.”

  The two men stood next to one another as the Inlet Dancer began west toward the mouth of Deep Water Cove.

  “You said you took shelter. Where?

  “I just set the throttle to keep abreast of the cove and waited for you.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “I was there.”

  “What happened to that nice E-Tec 115 you bought last year?”

  “Don’t know. Think I took on too much water. Washed it out. Maybe water in the fuel line. I couldn’t get that thing going.”

  Ravenwing looked at the man, who looked straight ahead, his face hidden by the bill of his cap, his body snug in an orange float coat.

  “But you could use the 25 to keep abreast of this storm?”

  “You’re not the only one in this country who can pilot a boat, Archie.”

  “Who’s towing who?” Ravenwing spat. Then he sighed and said, “OK, let’s see if we can’t find a place to leave this tub for the night and make for home.” He looked at his sonar for the depth of the water beneath him and at his radar to read the shore for a safe harbour.

  “You’re still pissed at me,” the man said through the pelting rain.

  “You done anything that would change my mind otherwise?”

  “That’s the thing with you, Archie. You hold everybody to such a high standard, we can never live up
to your expectations.”

  “That isn’t true and you know it. But I do expect some common sense. And what you’ve done is beyond the pale. You know it, so don’t play dumb with me. I know you got plenty of brains in that thick head of yours. You’ve got a responsibility.”

  “You can be a real jackass, Archie.”

  “Don’t I know it? But at least I know when I’ve done something wrong. I aim to fix it. You? I just never figured this sort of thing from you. But then I should have guessed this was coming.”

  The man turned to regard Archie Ravenwing, who was watching his sonar, the VHF still crackling. He said, “Don’t you think that your people deserve better? Don’t you think that I deserve better?”

  “Of course we do. Of course you do!” Archie’s voice was coarse over the din. “So act that way. Act like you deserve better. Stop waiting around for someone to hand you things. Go out and get what you want.”

  The man stepped back a few feet from Archie. “I’m goin’ to.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you say it....”

  But Archie didn’t finish the sentence. The gaff hook caught him in the side of his head, just above the ear, behind the softness of the temple. There was no sound to the blow over the din of the storm. The curved hook pierced Ravenwing’s skull and he fell sideways and down, hard onto the pilothouse floor. There he lay as the water washed into the pilothouse. In the darkness the deep pool of blood from where the gaff pierced Ravenwing’s skull was indiscernible from the dark water that sluiced on the deck of the Inlet Dancer.

  The assailant dropped the gaff on top of the body and took control of the fishing boat. He pulled back on the throttle, easing the boat’s speed, and turned off its running lights so it could not be seen. He set the wheel so the boat would veer into the inlet, toward more open water. He flipped open the seat top in the pilothouse and found what he was looking for – a short, stout bungee cord. He used it to secure the wheel of the boat so that it maintained its current course. There was no time to set the boat’s autopilot.

  The killer dropped to one knee, looked at the body of Archie Ravenwing on the deck of the boat – his eyes open, lifeless – and then dragged Ravenwing from the pilothouse onto the narrow aft deck, pulling him to the lee side gunnels and heaving him into the ocean. He threw the gaff hook overboard next.