by Sandra Clark
'Well?' asked Mac, eventually breaking the silence.
'Did you see Ikluk?' asked Barron, ignoring Belinda altogether.
'Yes. Still no news?' Mac nodded in Belinda's direction.
The girl held her breath. There was a short silence. Unable to bear it for long, she finally gave in and said: 'News about the Nasaq?'
Barron's eyes avoided hers. He shrugged his broad shoulders in a sign of boredom. 'There was a story that they'd gone out to the ice fields after seal,' he told Mac, as if it was no concern of Belinda's.
'Who told you that?' broke in Mrs Mac, impatience leading her to join in the conversation at last.
'One of the men.'
'That doesn't sound quite right,' mused Mac half to himself.
'Are you trying to say I'm lying?' Barron raised his dangerously sparkling eyes to gaze long and silently at the older man. Despite his quiet tones there was an edge to his voice which seemed to make the old fur trader draw back in his chair and grip its edge.
Belinda felt a stillness fall over the little group and she became suddenly conscious of the distance stretching away outside the wooden building, the desolate, inhospitable wastes where a person could call for help in vain. She noticed with a sudden shock the proximity of Mac's gun on the wall by the door, and the knife, no toy, its hilt heavily bound, protruding from Barron's thick leather belt. With all her senses alert for danger she said quietly, 'Why should they go out to the ice fields at this time?' She felt Barron stir slightly as if becoming aware of her presence, but the danger in the atmosphere seemed to ebb as quickly as it had come, with the sound of her voice.
Barron gave a short laugh. 'Seal, of course,' he replied, his eyes momentarily piercing her steadfast glance with a look like a small stab wound. She recoiled from his sharpness and dropped her gaze. Fighting a rising tightness in her throat, she took a firm hold on herself and slowly, very slowly, raised her eyes to his. 'Why is it nobody seems to know anything for sure? You say "there's a story" as if it has no real foundation in fact. Someone, surely, must know something?'
Barron didn't reply at once. As if to break some spell of inactivity which had settled on them all, Mrs Mac got up to busy herself in the kitchen, and just then there was a rattle from the radio in the next room and Mac too got up.
'That's my call coming in for Paulatuk, by the sound of it. I'll have to leave you.'
Suddenly alone with Barron in the intimacy of the fireside glow, Belinda became acutely conscious of his narrowed blue eyes levelling on her. She licked her suddenly dry lips. 'How far away are the seal grounds?' she forced herself to ask.
He shrugged nonchalantly without letting his glance leave her face. 'Far enough,' was the reply.
'Surely there must be some way of tracking these people down?' She waited for some response, but the mocking gleam in his eyes told her nothing. 'I suppose I shall have to charter a small plane,' she went on.
'Have you the money?' His glance became narrowed with surprise. Now it was her turn to shrug noncommittally. She didn't see why she had to tell him all the details of her project as he had so far shown such marked lack of interest. She raised her chin. It was no concern of his that Derek had let her know that if unexpected expenses arose she should use her own discretion. She was fully aware that there was a ceiling on what she spent and she had no idea how much it would cost to charter a light aircraft, but Chuck would be able to advise her there. She set herself against asking Barron any further questions. Let him do the asking if he was so inclined. Unless he came up with some positive sign that he would help her, he could ask till he was blue in the face, she was answering nothing.
For a long moment there was unbroken silence, then slowly he turned his head as if bored with the whole business. 'Have you any idea of the vast area you would have to cover? The thousands upon thousands of square miles of tundra and pack ice?' he asked. 'There's no sure indication of where they are, just a vague hint that they might have gone north.' He waved his arm to include a ninety-degree angle, and Belinda had a shuddering vision of the vast desert wastes beyond the lighted settlement. Barron settled back with an air of finality as he spoke. 'Anyone can see you're wasting your time. Your damn fool professor should have given the matter some proper thought instead of sending you out on a wild goose chase like this. But then that's the academic world for you—no idea when it comes to practicalities.' He gave an infuriating grin, and added, 'At least you have a chance to get out before the big freeze comes. Those winter winds would play havoc with your hair.'
For a brief moment Belinda felt like hitting him. She seemed to hear a voice telling her to hold her tongue, but her blazing anger quenched any sign of caution, and she felt her fists bunch and her eyes shoot daggers at him as she told him in no uncertain terms precisely what she thought of him. 'Who do you think you are anyway?' she asked hotly. 'How dare you criticise a man like Derek? You haven't even met him. He's extremely well thought of in circles where academic excellence and personal integrity count for something.' Barron's lips compressed themselves into a hard line at this, but she went on regardless. 'He warned me exactly what I was taking on. What's more, he knows I'm not going to fail—because I'm not! So you can think again if you imagine I'm just going to turn tail and go home like a meek little girl on your say-so!'
She realised that she was beginning to sound prissy again, that for some reason he seemed to bring out the schoolmarm in her with his insulting remarks about her hair. It was as if he thought she was just an empty-headed young girl who could be easily put in her place. I'll jolly well show him, she told herself fiercely, gritting her teeth. His gibes about her seriousness really rankled.
'I must say you've been extremely unfortunate in the kind of women you've met up till now if you really think a little bad weather will send me scurrying back to England!' With a toss of her head she made as if to get up to go, but with alarming speed his hand shot out and pinned her back into her chair. Before she could object he was speaking in a hard, angry voice.
'Listen,' he hissed, 'it's a dead duck, this jaunt of yours. Forget it. All you'll be doing is making extra work for the rescue services. It's a hard country, no place for a white woman, you just haven't got what it takes. If you've an iota of common sense you'll get right back to where you belong.'
Vainly wriggling to free herself, Belinda raised a face to him scarlet with anger. 'Just get your hands off me!' she breathed. 'Do you want Mac to come in and find you behaving like a barbarian?'
'Mac?' scoffed Barron, his handsome face breaking into a brief, devilish grin. 'And what's old Mac going to do? Throw me out?'
He released her and stood up to his full height. He had a magnificent physique—enough to deter any man from mixing in with him.
Belinda glowered from her place in the chair. 'You're so tough,' she sneered, 'you only dare lay a finger on me because you know you can get away with it at the moment. If I wasn't alone you wouldn't dare come within a mile of doing such a thing.'
'If you weren't alone you could no doubt be persuaded to act sensibly,' he riposted. 'Any man would realise by taking one look outside that this is no time of year to be holidaying.'
Again the scorn in his voice and the choice of words brought flames of angry colour to Belinda's cheeks. Fearing to raise her voice in case Mac came running through, she answered him in a voice of repressed savagery. 'I've heard about as much from you as I want to hear,' she told him. 'Now just get out and keep your nose out of my affairs! I'll handle this my own way.'
As soon as the words were out she realised she had overstepped the mark. An angry glitter came into his mocking eyes and he stepped close up to the chair and gripped her tightly by both shoulders.
'Did you tell me to get out?' he whispered close to her face. She was acutely aware of his lips almost brushing her cheek. She tried to wriggle away, but he held her in such a tight grip with her head flung back against the cushion that she was unable to move.
'No one has ever, ever told me to
get out,' he whispered again. 'I certainly don't intend that a jumped-up little schoolgirl should start.'
Her heart was beating furiously, but she managed to croak out a few words of protest.
'You can't be allowed to get away with that,' he went on, pulling her hair a little to still her wildly moving head. 'You'll be getting ideas above your position.'
'You're just feudal!' she managed to say. 'I'm as good as you any day!'
'Is that a challenge?' he asked humorously. 'I'd like to see you last two hours out in the wilds when winter really comes.'
'You're pathetic!' she spat. 'And you're a bully. I hate you!'
Barron's eyes gleamed and Belinda was about to cry out as he tightened his grip on her when there was the sound of Mac coming through from the radio room. At once Barron straightened up, releasing her with a little push that sent her farther back against the chair, but when Mac came walking through, it seemed as if the two had merely been having a quiet conversation by the fireside. He came over to them, already reaching out for the bottle, and again offering Barron a drink.
Barron thrust his hands nonchalantly into his jacket pockets and said something about having to get back. He gave a sardonic glance at the flushed-faced Belinda.
'I've told Belinda all I know. I think we've exhausted that rather fruitless topic for the moment. What I really came to see you about, Mac, was those new traplines you were going to have sent in.'
The two men moved to the farther side of the room while Belinda, finding it difficult to conceal her fury, poked the logs in the fire and made the sparks fly. I'll show him! she told herself furiously. He'll have to eat his words. No man gets away with that. How dare he treat me with such contempt!
A few minutes later the men had finished their conversation and Barron was busy putting on his boots by the door. When he was ready to go out he gave a long, slow look in Belinda's direction. She had just raised her head and her glance was held for an instant before she turned away with an angry toss of her head.
He came over to where she sat and seemed to tower over her. There was a challenging look in his eyes when he spoke. 'If you're still waiting for the plane back to Paulatuk by the time I get back here, in two or three days' time, come and see me. You never know, there may be something of interest I can tell you.' His eyes mocked hers.
'I doubt that very much,' she replied coolly, 'unless you have definite news about the Nasaq.' She looked coldly up at him. 'I doubt whether there's anything else whatsoever you could tell me that would hold the slightest interest for me.' She got up suddenly and for a moment they stood body to body before she turned abruptly away, confused by the rush of feeling that such proximity brought in its wake.
In a few moments he was gone. Belinda ran agitated fingers through her hair. 'Well, Mac,' she said, trying to calm the shakiness in her voice, 'what do you think of that? Do you think the Nasaq have really gone to ground?'
'The whole thing sounds fishy to me,' muttered Mac thoughtfully. 'There's a very effective jungle telegraph out on the tundra. It's nothing for a group to be out hunting— they'll stop, set up a rough camp, have a mug-up, spread the word to other groups, they like to gossip, and there's always someone meeting up somewhere. News is passed on more rapidly than you'd ever imagine.'
'It seems strange,' chimed in Mrs Mac, 'nobody knowing anything.' She looked across at her husband.
Belinda leaned forward, her face tinged with a warm glow that came not only from the radiance of the stove.
'It seems there's only one thing for it—' she paused and took a deep breath, then she stopped. Suddenly Chuck's words came back to her—'There's only one man they seem to accept…' and she remembered how he'd paused and how his tanned young face had hardened momentarily, and how the warning, which he had tried to make as casual as possible, had made Mac and Mrs Mac exchange glances in evident embarrassment. True, they knew nothing specific against the man. Now Belinda was finding it difficult to use his name even in the privacy of her thoughts. He filled her with such distaste. She felt that where no specific accusation was made, room was left for all kinds of speculation. Perhaps he was simply a renegade, a man who despised society so much that he cast himself out of society rather than the other way around, or perhaps he had fled to this remote region for reasons of a personal nature—disappointment in love, a broken marriage.
Belinda snorted inwardly. Such a man had no tinge of gentleness in his make-up. It was impossible to imagine him touched by any hint or sign of compassion for another human being, let alone imagine him giving himself up to the love of a woman. His hard mouth, the chipped ice of those blue eyes that sent disagreeable shudders up and down Belinda's spine were enough to show that love or anything like it was foreign to his nature. Barron was like a dangerous animal, unpredictable, mysterious, with motives and manners far removed from the norm. The way he had spoken to her, articulate, obviously well educated and intelligent, made him more than some simple son of honest toil, trying to wrest a living with his bare hands from the inhospitable lands of the North, and the very fact that he was so cultured gave an added smell of danger to the man. It lent him the aura of a wolf, clever, subtle and unpredictable.
Fear momentarily made a coward of Belinda. She let her words tail off into silence. Surely, she argued with herself, it was common sense to think that if none of the natives knew of the whereabouts of the Nasaq this man, a foreigner like herself, would be unlikely to have access to any special information? Just because he had set himself up as some sort of guru, living outside the small community here, it didn't mean he was any better, despite what' he seemed to think of himself.
She was falling for the same line as everyone else, regarding him with a special kind of frightened awe. Witness the men in the store the other day, the way they had kept their distance from him. True, he was physically big, a tough, hard-muscled man, and must seem almost like a giant to these small-limbed people, and that in itself must have given him a certain standing in the community. But that was no reason for Chuck, a muscular young boy in peak physical condition, to have a similar attitude of awe towards the man. She sighed. Was his attitude due to fear or merely, as Mrs Mac had hinted, to a boy's sexual jealousy when a girl he was sweet on seemed destined to cross the path of another potential suitor? She thrust the thought aside as too fanciful. Her contact with Chuck had been brief, no more than a meshing of looks. Yet she knew it could be more if she so wished. It was nonsensical if Chuck actually believed such a man could hold any sort of romantic interest for a woman like herself. Without undue humility she knew she was an attractive woman, that her background was such that she could hold her own with anyone. It was surely taking fantasy too far to suspect that Chuck would even give a passing thought to the possibility of her and— Again she hesitated over the name. How could he dream of such a thing! As if a girl like her would look twice at a rough-hewn backwoodsman like— As if she would so lower her sights to include a man who, for all his fancy talk about civilisation, lived in the most primitive conditions imaginable. She? Indignation darkened her eyes for a moment. Only when she pictured Chuck's worried face did they soften. Of course it was nonsense to think that he had seriously considered the idea of her becoming attracted to such a ruffian.
It was surely concern for her safety which had prompted his dark warning. Instinctively he saw the threat of violence in the man, saw his lack of respect for the conventions of civilised behaviour. He would feel particularly helpless, flying around the country in a light aircraft, with no chance of developing a relationship properly. Poor Chuck. Her lips softened into a curve. He had no reason to fear for her on that score.
She leaned back and rested her head on the soft cushioned arm of the sofa. Her thoughts were once again in turmoil. When Chuck had issued his tentative warning Mac and Mrs Mac had immediately agreed with what he said. They had accepted Chuck's request that they should look after Belinda as if there was something perfectly reasonable about protecting her from the outcast. As i
f the danger from him was real.
Belinda eased the muscles at the back of her neck. She felt tired and tense, and not only from the day's unaccustomed activities.
She remained with Mac and Mrs Mac until bedtime. The crackling log fire slowly subsided amidst glowing embers, the fiery caverns of light in its depths glowed and faded, and Belinda's droughts, finding no solution to her questions, themselves gradually slowed and faded into a gently dreamlike state. Only when she felt her eyes involuntarily closing did she make an effort to shake herself awake.
Mrs Mac gave a soft laugh. 'You've been overdoing things, young woman,' she said gently.
'It's that or the rum toddy,' laughed Belinda, shaking herself awake. 'It's so nice here I could sit in front of the fire all night.' She yawned and stretched.
'No solution, then?' asked Mac, knocking out his pipe and beginning to put it away for the night.
Belinda yawned again. The strange, dreamy inner compulsion that had taken hold of her earlier was as strong as ever. No amount of rationalisation seemed to affect it. It was simply that now she felt no desire to talk about her plans. The decision, whatever the outcome, had been made, and further talk was unnecessary. She stood up to go. 'There is only one solution,' she told him, repeating her own words from earlier in the evening. She smiled down at her host and hostess. 'I'll just have to sleep on it.' With that, she bade them both goodnight and went up to bed.
CHAPTER FOUR
As casually as possible, Belinda walked down the track leading to the beach. Now that the supply ship was no longer out in the bay the shore of the lake was again deserted. Focus of attention today was on the store shed and there had been a constant coming and going between the houses and tents of the settlement and the big wooden warehouse which now stored the means for survival through the approaching winter months. It seemed as if every family group was busily engaged in preparations for the big freeze, and Belinda had inevitably found herself watching with fascinated admiration as the trappers had crowded round the stores, selecting and testing the new equipment with a seriousness and expert intentness which was in stark contrast to the mood of jollity which had prevailed during the previous day's task of unloading the same equipment. As everyone was now so busily engaged, no one noticed her slip away after lunch, and she reached the water's edge without exchanging a greeting.
