The Wolf Man

by Sandra Clark

  'There are one or two Eskimos who speak enough English to be able to act as guide. I was only thinking he might have some information they haven't got,' answered Mrs Mac infuriatingly.

  Belinda sighed. 'No, you don't understand. I mean, if I'd happened to meet another white man on the station, it would be this—' she shrugged, not wanting to say the name again.

  'Barron?' put in Mrs Mac helpfully. 'Yes, I should think so. Unless some trapper had come staggering in from lord knows where.' Mrs Mac smiled. 'That's not very likely, though. We're five hundred miles from the nearest trading post and nobody's gone out from here recently.'

  Belinda sighed again. Her worst fears were confirmed. Not only was the disreputable Mr Barron again said to be the most likely source of help, he was also emphatically the last person she was ever going to go to, cap in hand, begging favours of any sort. Not when she knew what he thought of her and her colleagues. Not when she had had to suffer yet again the indignity of those lazy blue eyes exploring her body so insolently.

  She sighed again. The man was dangerous too, Mac had said as much. She had every reason to keep away.

  She made up her mind to be patient. She would do as they had advised her last night. Everything had its own time. Eventually the Eskimo would bring the news she wanted.

  All she had to do was wait till ship-time. She could do quite well without the help of Mr Clever Boots Barron. She would be patience itself.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the days that followed Belinda found it difficult to cultivate the frame of mind she had decided upon. Her natural quickness and desire to see results was difficult to bring under control, and every new arrival into the settlement was eagerly quizzed, by means of an interpreter, as to the whereabouts of the Nasaq.

  Sometimes Mac, sometimes the smiling Taqaq, would act as go-between, but so far both of them had drawn a blank.

  Belinda had to admit that after a certain person's criticism, she felt a bit of a fool having to rely on someone else in order to have even a half-way decent conversation with anyone. Her helplessness in this respect made her feel childlike and at the same time deeply irritated with herself. As a result she secretly started to pick up as much basic vocabulary as she could—secretly because she knew it was a crazy idea even to hope to learn more than a smattering of the language in the short time she was to be in the region, and also because she did not want anyone to think that she was just another jumped-up academic, arrogantly assuming that she could casually pick up sufficient of this intricate language for her own purposes, only to drop it all when she returned to the outside world.

  It was lucky that she had a natural flair for languages. Sometimes it seemed that she could just pick words out of the air. Slowly, but slowly, she made some progress. Fortunately Mrs Mac was very busy and left her to her own devices once she had established that Belinda was doing essential 'desk work'—and it was through many painstaking and rather lonely hours that she began to make sense of the unfamiliar grammatical structures of the local speech.

  'Don't spend too much time poring over your books and things,' remonstrated Mrs Mac one evening as Belinda started to make her excuses after dinner. 'You ought to take a rest now and then. Though I don't know—' she paused, worriedly, 'there isn't a great deal here for a girl your age.' Her kindly eyes took in Belinda's tired face and drooping shoulders. 'It's a pity there aren't any companions for you.'

  Belinda's thoughts involuntarily strayed to the someone she was resolved never to think of again. Companion was hardly the appropriate word anyway for that sardonic antagonist. She forced the thought back savagely. Neither hide nor hair had been seen of him since that day down by the lake. And a good thing too, she thought with venom. At least no one else had told her she was carrion. Everyone was kindness itself.

  She brought her thoughts back to the present. 'If you think I'm spending too much time alone,' she said, 'I'll take a stroll along to the club-room.'

  'Yes,' brightened Mrs Mac. 'Even if you can't say much they can practise their English on you.' She heaved a sigh of relief. It was more of a responsibility than she liked to admit, putting up a young career woman like Belinda. Although she was very fond of the girl, they really had very little in common. Why a pretty girl like Belinda should want to bother herself with a career when she could be married with a couple of bonny children was past Mrs Mac's understanding.

  By the time Mac came through to the club-room on his rounds before bedtime, there had been a good hour and a half of lively laughter and rapid quick-fire conversation in two languages. 'I'm teaching English,' Belinda told him as he came through the door. 'They're very quick.' She was surrounded by a group of children.

  'They're cheeky enough in their own language,' he replied, ruffling the hair of the nearest youngster, 'without giving them extra ammunition.'

  'Well,' yawned Belinda, 'I think I've had enough for one evening. There'll be new arrivals tomorrow, they say. Maybe we'll hear something about you-know-who.' She had already written to Derek, describing her flight and reception here, and she had thought it worth mentioning that there were already difficulties in establishing contact with his wandering folk. She thought it was as well to warn him so that it wouldn't come as too much of a shock if she did eventually fail in her quest. She pushed the disagreeable thought aside. She wouldn't fail. She would pull out all the stops. Indeed, she felt reasonably cheered by her evening's exertions. Come ship-time there would surely be some news, they had told her, and no one had actually said it was impossible to meet the Nasaq, merely that it required patience. Well, patience was something she had well in hand.

  A few days later she was abruptly snatched from her slumbers by a strange commotion going on outside her window. Unaccustomed shouts and running footsteps, the bark of dogs, strange in itself when so many of the Eskimo used motorised transport, and a deep and distant hooting from the direction of the lake like some sort of foghorn assaulted her ears. No sooner had she opened her eyes than she was out of bed and scrambling into some serviceable clothes. Time for a quick splash of cold water on her face and a hurried brushing of teeth and she was across the hall and into the kitchen at full pelt.

  'Is this it?' she called to Mrs Mac as she pulled on her parka. 'It is, isn't it? It's the ship!' A glance out of the window showed that it was true. Out in the lake, riding at anchor, was the supply ship.

  'Anybody would think you'd been starving for the last six weeks and were desperate for food supplies!' chided Mrs Mac to the retreating girl. 'Don't forget your coffee!'

  Belinda had got Mrs Mac's over-generous breakfasts down to a couple of slices of toast and honey and several cups of black coffee. Not enough on which to drive a team of huskies, as she remarked to Mrs Mac, but then it wasn't very likely that she would be doing that just yet! Mrs Mac put the coffee pot back on the hob and went over to the door. Belinda had already reached the shore.

  It seemed as if everyone had been up for hours. There was already a pile of crates heaped up on the beach, and the outboard motorboat conveying supplies from the main ship was busily chugging back with another load when Belinda arrived.

  She sauntered down to the water's edge, unsure how to fit into the scheme. Everything seemed smoothly organised with a chain of people throwing stores from hand to hand all the way up from the boat to the store shed. But she was soon left in no doubt as to her role when one of the women threw a small sack with signs that she was to follow to the store with it. Laughing, Belinda joined in. Soon she was part of a team which seemed to include everyone from the settlement. Even the smallest child seemed eager to take its part and a line of children trooped dutifully up and down the beach, adding another element to the happy almost party-like atmosphere that was beginning to develop. They worked steadily all morning.

  Mug-up was brief as everyone seemed eager to get as much equipment into store before nightfall. They were soon busy tramping back and forth again. Belinda watched as countless times the outboard chugged to and fro betwee
n the ship riding at anchor in the lake and the now well-trampled beach path. It was perhaps on the fifth or sixth time after mug-up when the boat turned and headed out, riding high and light in the water, that her glance, casually sweeping the shoreline, fell on a dark figure moving steadily away towards a bluff of rock at the far end of the inlet.

  There was only one person it could be. Only one, she thought, who was too stiff-necked and arrogant to join in with his neighbours. A real loner, she thought, anti-social in the extreme. What chain of events had brought such a man to this lonely place, a place made even more desolate surely by his resolute refusal to muck in with communal activities? How did he spend his days? How could he bear the solitude with no one to talk to from one day's end to another? She felt a surge of compassion which she quickly brushed aside. It was pointless shedding sympathy on a man who so patently did not want it. He had made it quite clear that he thought himself superior to any other living being.

  Especially blonde lady linguists from England.

  She realised she still smarted from the patronising tone in which he had said 'lady sociologist', as if she was some kind of dilettante, playing at academic research, whiling away her own time and wasting everybody else's in some pointless game. She would jolly well show him what she thought of that view!

  She lugged another load up the beach. It was only when she reached the bustle of the store shed with Mac standing calmly and in control amidst the apparent chaos that she allowed herself to frame the thought that had been troubling her all morning. She had become swept up in the air of anticipation and excitement that had been building up in the settlement as ship-day approached, with the result that she had somehow managed to shelve her anxiety about meeting the Nasaq. With every day bringing new arrivals it had seemed inevitable that sooner or later, as everyone had reassured her, someone would be able to tell her where the tribe were now hunting. But it was now, when ship day had arrived at last, that she began to feel a resurgence of her earlier anxieties, and she was beginning to have serious qualms about her adopted method of waiting so patiently for news. It had brought no result. And today, with the ship anchored out in the bay, and the last of the most distantly domiciled trappers having straggled in late last night, it looked as if her hopes of hearing something useful were to be dashed.

  She couldn't let Derek down, she simply couldn't. Nor could she let herself down now. The frown deepened.

  'What's up, love?' asked Mac, at once noticing her troubled face as he came inside. He paused for a moment in his tallying. 'If it's too much for you, you're free to go and sit down. Nobody expects you to work like this—' he looked with concern into her clear blue eyes.

  'It's not that,' she sighed, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair from her forehead. 'It's just that—' she haltingly explained her anxieties to him: For once he offered no consoling reassurances. Busy man that he was, he made as if to put down his tally book.

  'No, it's all right,' she said, noticing the movement, 'we can talk later.'

  With a slight look of relief Mac put another carbon between the pages. 'We'll be finished by nightfall,' he told her. 'We'll have a chat this evening.' As she started to turn he suddenly stopped her. 'On a lighter matter,' he said, 'I'd like you to do something for me.'

  'Of course,' replied Belinda. 'What is it?'

  Mac smiled. 'I forgot this last time and they sailed away with the lot,' he grinned. 'Just a few personal supplies,' he told her. 'I want you to go out in the boat next time and call in at the Captain's cabin. He's got one or two things for me under lock and key, and I want you to pick them up for me. Sign the bill of lading and check that everything tallies. There's a case of Scotch and one of rum—for Christmas,' he added with a grin. His eyes twinkled. 'It'll be a dry do if we let that damned skipper sail away with it again!'

  Half an hour later she was on board the supply ship and could look back at the shore where the scurrying figures were making short work of what remained of the previous load.

  Idly she noticed that young Ikluk, previously absent, was now walking along the beach towards the busy group. The girl started to lift a large box, but another woman came up and a short argument seemed to follow.

  Ikluk seemed to turn away, then she put the box down and went over to a pile of small bags. She picked several of them up and joined the others on the path to the stores.

  Belinda forgot the girl almost straightaway.

  Christmas! It was strange to think of Christmas in this place. A land of snow and ice, it should be appropriate somehow. She herself would already be far away in England, bracing herself against a cold that was nothing compared to what these people would be enduring.

  How could they stand this endless cold? she puzzled. It would have to be something very strong that could keep her here for more than a few months. Imagine giving up all the benefits of Central heating, and bright, clean, modern housing to live in a wooden shack, or worse, a corrugated custom-built unit like the ones beginning to spring up even as far north as this. Imagine not being able to go out to the cinema whenever one felt like it, she thought, pulling a face. Nothing, but nothing, could make her want to stay out here for good.

  Her gaze briefly roved the length of the beach. It was visible from end to end from this position out in the bay, but it looked as barren and desolate as the hills beyond it—apart from the orderly chaos on the landing dock. Belinda was angry with herself for letting her thoughts continually skirt dangerous ground.

  He must find something to keep him here, she speculated. Something. Or perhaps someone. She chided herself for allowing any space in her thoughts for such a man.

  It's as if there's a sort of vacuum in my mind which he seems to fill up, she mused, climbing down into the pitching boat. In normal circumstances I wouldn't attach any importance to such a trivial encounter. But somehow— somehow it seems to have acquired such mind-bending importance. She sighed. I suppose it's because I'm having to spend such a lot of time alone. I'm just lonely, that's what it is. A little tear of self-pity formed in the corner of her eye. If there was somebody other than the Macs to talk to—if Chuck and some of his friends could be here more often. She jutted her chin. She would not give way to tears like this. For a moment she longed to be back at home, to see Derek's grey eyes holding her own with the half ironic, half caressing gleam of old. How she longed to be back in the junior staff common room, bandying words with her colleagues over some tiny point of logic. She shook herself. Heavens, she was only here for three months! It wasn't forever. What was a little solitariness in all that time?

  By the time the boat's prow was gouging up the sand and the man with the painter was leaping ashore to drag the heavily-laden boat farther up the beach, she was momentarily restored to her former eager anticipation of events. It was certainly true that there was plenty to take her mind off things this morning. No time for tears. Once the day was over there would be time for taking stock and making a realistic assessment of her progress so far in furthering Derek's project.

  With a mournful farewell call on its foghorn the ship was starting to pull away. Belinda went to the window and watched as the lights slowly faded. The departing ship was soon out of sight. Ship-time was over for another year.

  'Well,' said Mac genially over a glass of hot rum as he sampled his Christmas package later that evening, 'what shall we do about that little matter that was bothering you earlier today?'

  'I don't suppose any news has come through, has it?' she asked tentatively. Her eyes looked up soberly to meet his. She both hoped and feared what his answer would be.

  Apologetically he spread his hands. 'If I didn't know these people better,' he said thoughtfully, 'I'd almost suspect a conspiracy. It's very unusual for nobody to know the whereabouts of a tribe like them.'

  'Talking about the Nasaq?' asked Mrs Mac. Her husband nodded. He looked across at her, his eyes clouding briefly before he spoke. 'There was a story that they'd gone out to the ice fields after seal,' he said at last. Then he
shrugged.

  'Who told you that?' asked Mrs Mac.

  Her husband paused tellingly. 'Barron,' he said. 'At least, that's what he told Taqaq.' He sighed deeply. 'There's something not quite right about it.'

  Before she could reply there was a commotion at the outer door and it flew open to reveal a figure in glistening furs. The man shook himself like some huge healthy animal before shooting a cold-eyed glance round the room. Belinda felt her face heat up as his blue eyes seemed to bore through her before he spoke.

  'A word with you, Mac?' he said, turning his head abruptly.

  'Well timed,' said Mac, indicating the newly opened bottle on the table.

  'No, thanks,' replied Barron curtly. He sat himself in an empty chair on the other side of the table as if reluctant to join the intimate little group round the fireside.

  Standoffish as usual, thought Belinda, her hackles rising. I suppose he thinks he's too good for us. She half turned away and took a sip from her glass. 'This is very nice, Mac,' she said, turning her eyes on him in a smile that effectively cancelled out Barron's boorishness.

  Mac acknowledged her with a tilt of his glass. Turning to the newcomer, he said, coldly this time, 'Well, what can I do you for?'

  By this time Barron had got up and was taking off his outer boots. He seemed to take a long time to get them off and when he finally came soft-footed back to his chair Mac had started to fiddle around with his pipe as usual. Belinda carefully avoided even the smallest glance in Barron's direction once he sat down and she waited for the two men to speak.