The Wolf Man

by Sandra Clark

  The Wolf Man

  By

  Sandra Clark

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE WOLF MAN

  Researching among an Eskimo tribe in the far North of Canada, Belinda knew, would be a fascinating and challenging job—but her hopes were dashed when the inscrutable Barron, on whom most of her success depended, refused to co-operate. Why did this man have to be so unnecessarily disagreeable?

  Another book you will enjoy

  by

  SANDRA CLARK

  MOONLIGHT ENOUGH

  Being a rich girl can have its disadvantages, as Vinny had already discovered when she realised that her money had been the biggest attraction for her boy-friend Zak. So she went to Spain for a while to sort herself out—where she met the mysterious Carlos, 'El Brasiliano', who showed every sign of wanting to follow in Zak's footsteps!

  First published 1982

  Australian copyright 1982

  Philippine copyright 1982

  This edition 1982

  © Sandra Clark 1982

  ISBN 0 263 74038 2

  CHAPTER ONE

  The little four-seater aircraft dropped suddenly, lurched to one side, then quickly began to climb again. Reassuringly the young pilot grinned at Belinda. 'Nervous?' he shouted above the roar of the engines. White-faced, she shook her head. She remembered a saying from somewhere: 'There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots'. She darted a sidelong glance at the man beside her. There was no doubt that the pilot with the curly reddish hair and humorous blue eyes sitting next to her was bold. He wasn't exactly old either. She gripped the side of the bucket seat and tried to concentrate on the view through the window.

  They had passed the last few stunted trees on the ragged edges of the vast pine forest which had seemed an hour ago to stretch endlessly beneath them, and now below was the naked tundra interlaced with countless wind-scudded lakes and tarns. In the late afternoon haze they seemed to form just one huge lake, and the land itself seemed to resemble no more than a scattering of innumerable little islands.

  Soon they would be approaching that region of Northern Canada called the Barren Grounds, and as Belinda took in the grey rock and scrub, and the icy slash of green-grey water, her blue eyes became troubled. Conversation was impossible above the noise of the engine and there were so many things she wanted to ask.

  Some time ago the pilot had taken off his moccasins, and his fur-lined parka was slung carelessly to one side in the cockpit. The warmth from the engine was beginning to have some effect on the bitter cold, but Belinda snuggled down in her pink quilted jacket and tried to resign herself without success to the noise, the hair-raising flight of the plane, and worse, the harshness of the inhospitable country below them.

  Silly, to have doubts about a little air shuttle between Paulatuk and the settlement, she told herself. The Eskimos and the whites who lived in this frozen country used light aircraft as casually as she would use her own little car back home. Despite the accident, she would still think nothing of buzzing off somewhere for the day as the fancy took her. She was letting the strange bleakness of the landscape drain her natural adventurousness. At times like these I need to give myself a good talking to, she admonished, under her breath, as the plane bucked again. Why, if it wasn't because I wanted to be here, I'd still be at home in England, trapped in the same old dull routine.

  'Well, penny for them!' The pilot raised his voice above the roar of the engine.

  Belinda shook herself. She grinned up at him sheepishly. 'Daydreaming,' she said. .'I was just thinking, this is a change from the same old dull routine back home.'

  The pilot shot her a quizzical glance. 'What's the old routine back home, then?' he grinned.

  Belinda hesitated. 'I guess I'm a sort of very junior assistant in a university,' she told him.

  She tried to make it sound boring. But in reality she had to admit she enjoyed her job as assistant researcher to the professor of linguistics at an English university, and not only because Derek was one of the dishiest men she knew.

  She let her mind go over the last few weeks in an attempt to distract it from the endless view of rock and scrub below. She still felt a flicker of pride when she recalled the day she had been called into Derek's study. He was standing by the window when she came in, and turned with that special smile as she burst breathlessly through the door. Married, with two sons almost as old as Belinda herself, he had successfully resisted the temptation to be unfaithful to his wife. He was not the sort of man to take advantage of his position as head of a large department in this popular university. He was no philanderer, though sometimes he idly speculated on the surprising fact that the girl students seemed to get prettier each year. Then one day Belinda had arrived, a fresh-faced undergraduate, straight from boarding school, and his idle speculations were swept away in the surge of a new and very disturbing emotion. She was a lovely girl, tall and blonde, with a wistful, piquant beauty which belied a sharpness of mind and a rather belligerent determination which Derek found wholly delightful. Carefully, and still faithfully, he allowed her into his more private fantasies, but she. would have been destined to remain in the realm of unfulfilled longings as a distant and unattainable distraction if fate had not taken a tragic hand in the matter.

  Belinda's father was a minor official in the Diplomatic Service, and one summer's day, while he was driving back through Europe with his wife, his car had skidded uncontrollably, and, as it proved, fatally, on a remote mountain pass. Belinda was stunned by the news. An only child, she turned overnight from being a bright, vivacious girl, into a pale and depressed shadow of her former self. It suddenly seemed to her that all her efforts to gain a degree had gone for nought.

  Derek had shared the pain of her loss. He had held her close, tenderly but briefly, on hearing of the accident, but from his position as her professor it seemed there was little he could do without compromising his own status. Irresistibly he felt himself sharing more and more deeply in her anguish as the days of that dreadful summer came and went. For a time he had made himself available just to listen and to wipe away the tears as she slowly came to terms with the fact that she was now alone in the world, and, with only token resistance, he had felt himself being drawn into a deep and possibly dangerous commitment.

  He had had to use every ounce of self-control in order not to exploit the situation, for he knew that in her grief Belinda was beginning to lean on him, to regard him as someone special, a friend, a father figure perhaps, an attachment of a romantic sort, who could perhaps fill the aching void in her life, and he in his turn longed guiltily to become more than just her academic mentor and guide.

  Although these unaccustomed sensations had filled him with a strange joy he was too honourable a man to put his desires into action. He loved his wife, he loved his children. But for Belinda and the maelstrom of emotions she aroused, there would have been no ripple to disturb the orderly calm on the surface of his life. How the relationship would have worked itself out, he had no idea, but a reprieve was granted by, of all things, the board of postgraduate studies.

  That august body had decided to make available certain funds, which, it advised, should be spent on sending a researcher to complete an essential study of the fast-disappearing language of a small and nomadic tribal group who inhabited the central region of the North-West Territories. Derek, as appointing professor for this interesting assignment, had forced himself to give serious consideration to the qualifications of the other resear
chers. All men, any one of them would have jumped at the chance to carry out the work, and there was much internecine warfare conducted in the usually hushed confines of the junior staff common room. But it had to be Belinda. It was a heaven-sent opportunity to get her out of his system. Six months apart and he knew he would have fought the temptation and won. Besides, he told himself as he looked at that lovely mouth now curved in an expectant smile, the girl needed to get away from this place, a change of scene would do wonders to dispel the still paralysing bouts of depression she occasionally still suffered six months after the tragedy. It was true, too, that she needed to get down to some practical research at this stage of her career, in order to add to her chances of getting a junior academic post later on. She had herself to support now, he argued, and this would be an ideal way to acquire incalculable experience.

  Briefly he told her of the proposal, outlining the main reasons why she should not hesitate to seize the opportunity with both hands. The university would pay all expenses for three months, he told her, and, he went on, before she could raise a protest, she would fly out to Canada in two weeks' time, make contact with a Professor Neilson at a Toronto college, who was an expert on Eskimo languages and would give her letters of introduction to one of the leading fur traders in the North. She would then stay at the trading post long enough to establish contact with the group under study. Armed with tape recorder and plenty of notebooks and common sense, she would have the rare opportunity to further the cause of linguistic research in this restricted but important field.

  He raised one eyebrow quizzically. 'You don't look overjoyed at the honour about to be conferred on you,' he said drily.

  Belinda spread her hands. 'What do I know of the Eskimo phylum?' she demanded. 'Next to nothing. Do you want me to make a complete fool of myself?'

  He regarded her with a wry smile of amusement. 'I wouldn't let you go if I thought you were going to make a fool of yourself. If you make a fool of yourself, you make a fool of the department, and that wouldn't do our egos any good in the Dominion, would it?' He moved one or two papers about on his desk. 'You have one of the best degrees in the department,' he told her. 'Arid I'm not one of these professors who likes to waste his best brains in simple pen-pushing duties. Here's a challenge for you, I think you're worthy of it.'

  He gave her a brief rundown on the tribe whose language she was to study. 'They number probably no more than a hundred people, men, women and children,' he told her, 'but owing to the changes in education, health and economic conditions in the last decade and the government's strenuous efforts to retrain them, they are beginning to give up their old nomadic way of life as hunters and trappers and to settle in the new townships which are springing up around the mining, canning and radar communication centres around the Arctic Circle.'

  'It sounds cold,' Belinda commented.

  'You'll survive it,' he replied, looking her up and down.

  She lifted her chin. 'Would I want to?' she sparred.

  Derek let his glance linger, almost without realising it, on that slim body which he so longed to explore. Belinda bit her lip. When Derek looked at her like that she could forget he was supposed to be her boss. Angrily she glared back at him, and he pulled himself together.

  'Before these people are assimilated entirely into the modern world some record of their language and customs has to be made. Several Norse words are in everyday use, for instance—' He stopped. It was difficult to talk seriously now, when every minute they were together seemed precious. 'In short, a more detailed knowledge of how their language has developed will give the sociologist something to chew over, as well as giving us something interesting to bite on too.'

  He finished with a wry smile, pleased to have got so swiftly over the problematical details of the assignment and on to the safe ground of academic detail, but Belinda was less easily won over.

  'I know nothing,' she repeated. 'Nothing!'

  'Don't tell me you know nothing when you've just spent three years on the taxpayers' money ostensibly studying,' he told her severely. Belinda's chin rose. 'Your recent work on a standard orthography will give you a sufficient background to be able to make some very useful contributions in this area.' He regarded her solemnly over the expanse of his desk. She still made mild protests, but he ignored her objections point blank. 'There are two main languages in the Eskimo stock, as you know,' he went on, turning to gaze out of the window where in the summer term the students and in particular Belinda had disported themselves so distractingly. 'There's Impik and Yupik and innumerable dialects based on these two. You will only concern yourself with Impik,' he told her.

  Belinda heaved a sigh of relief. Her knowledge of either root was scanty, but the more she thought about Derek's proposition the more excited by it she became. It would be a real challenge, something to get her teeth into at least, and maybe something to wipe away the pain of the last few months.

  She leaned forward, forgetting her earlier objections, her blonde hair brushing her cheek, her eyes alight with interest though guarded, lips moist and slightly parted. Trying to keep the note of interest out of her voice, she said coolly: 'Well, it will certainly be an experience, if I decide to say "yes", that is. It sounds like quite a challenge in its way. I mean, to live with people from a totally different culture. It might be fun. Who knows?' she added flippantly.

  Derek frowned a little. 'Don't think it's going to be easy,' he told her testily. 'I suppose I ought to warn you, these people are nomadic and have deliberately kept themselves away from white civilisation, and indeed from the members of their own Eskimo nation too. They're not noted for their approachability. They may refuse to have anything to do with you.'

  'In which case,' said Belinda quickly, 'my whole journey will have been pointless.'

  'Quite,' he replied drily, then a brief smile broke across his face. 'I know you won't let me down when I tell you how I have to go cap in hand to raise any finance whatsoever for the department. If we make a mess of this one it'll make any future fund-raising attempts even more difficult to pull off. But I know you'll let nothing stand in your way.'

  The boost to her confidence was just what she needed. 'I'd certainly hate to see all your efforts go to waste, Derek,' she said, with a tilt of her chin. She wasn't a fool. She knew why Derek was so eager to give her the opportunity. She too welcomed it, for she had been half afraid of the emotions he was beginning to arouse in her, realising that it was mainly out of weakness that she had begun to succumb to his mature charm. She smiled reassuringly. 'You can trust me,' she told him. 'I've never let you down yet.'

  'Still boasting about your double first?' he teased.

  A shadow crossed her face. 'It was all due to you, wasn't it? If you hadn't lent me a shoulder to cry on when I was all to pieces—' She paused. She knew she was treading dangerous ground.

  After the initial shock of finding herself an orphan she had become powerfully aware of Derek, his dry humour, his warmth and concern for her. She had no intention of stealing another woman's husband, but if circumstances had been different, she would have found it hard to resist him. He was, after all, a man in his prime, attractive, and in his own field, distinguished too. As it was, she was determined to learn all over again how to stand on her own two feet. This new assignment was just the shot in the arm she needed in order to launch the new, independent image she was determined to create for herself.

  It was later as she walked away from Derek's study that it dawned on her how lucky she was to have been chosen to make such an incredible journey. The men will be livid, she thought, but I'm certainly as well qualified as any of them. She smiled suddenly. To be free from the daily desk routine, the pen-pushing as Derek had disparagingly called it. To be free to walk alone beneath an open sky not knowing what the day was going to bring! Above all, to be free from memories of recent pain. The thought itself was like a tonic. She looked ironically at the white-capped lake below as the little plane flew steadily northwards. Well, I'm free f
rom routine now, she thought grimly. The plane pitched and rolled as if to taunt her.

  The previous day she had flown to Paulatuk on a scheduled inter-city flight. There was a thirty-room school there and the Eskimo children were flown in from the outlying districts at the beginning of every term. But in the place she was now heading for there was no school, no industrial complex, just a trading post at a junction between two rivers.

  Soon the plane began to lose height. The pilot shouted something to her and she strained her eyes in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, there on the horizon were signs of a settlement of some kind.

  As they approached she began to make out the shapes of several buildings, and when they drew even closer she Could see a long single-storey timber building together with several smaller frame houses set along the edge of a muddy track. There was a stand of sitka pines and beyond that a wide expanse of leaden-coloured lake.

  There was no snow. Belinda turned to Chuck, mouthing her surprise above the roar of the engine. Unable to make out what she was saying, he merely grinned in reply before pushing the nose of the plane down and taking them in close over the tops of the buildings. He buzzed the settlement once, then turned back and headed in to land. Belinda, tingling with a mixture of apprehension and eagerness, zipped up her jacket and leaned forward in excitement to catch her first glimpse of her new base. Already figures were beginning to appear from out of the buildings. They were looking up into the sky and one or two children waved and broke away from the rest of the group to come running and shouting along the edge of the runway. At least Belinda assumed that the stony track marked out by blue petrol drums was the runway. It looked more like a cart track. Soon the Anson was bumping along it and when it seemed as if they were about to crash into the little stand of pines, it jerked to a stop and suddenly everything was very quiet.