Unsmiling, Porter replied with a burst of Evenk, at which, the Russian held up his hands. ‘Bravo! But it’s the people I know, my friend, not the language. You are ahead of me.’
Porter was ahead of him in English, too. Although the Russian’s vocabulary was good, he was once or twice at a loss for a word; and Porter supplied the word. He could even supply it in Russian, and this was the language they were speaking – his professor having left them to get on with it – when a third man, an Englishman, was hauled in to join them.
The name of the Englishman was Lazenby and the most prominent thing about him was his own extraordinary head. The vast and gleaming cranium, knobbly and extending in various directions, was devoid of a single hair. It contrasted weirdly with Porter’s own powerful array and was the reason the ebullient Russian had called Lazenby over. But they were soon discussing a variety of topics – the Russian’s animation very infectious. Asiatic migrations, pigmentation, natural defects, blindness … In some way they were on to Siberia, and discussing it in a mixture of English and Russian by the time that Rogachev (Porter had at last got the Russian’s name) had located the whisky. Food had been amply available on the buffet tables but not much to drink. And Rogachev had found the drink.
This was one of the things that Porter remembered next day: that the Russian had found the drink, and could hold it. While the Englishman, reluctantly matching them glass for glass, could not; he was unsteady on his feet when they left, Rogachev jovially proposing that they stagger home together.
In fact the Russian was being accommodated in college and Porter’s own college was in another direction. All the same they had walked Lazenby home, and on the way Rogachev had arranged another meeting with the young Indian; whom by then he was calling Raven, having learned his clan and deciding the name was apter for him. In the same spirit he had allotted other names to himself and to Lazenby. But it was Lazenby who had suddenly discovered an urgent need to urinate. And Rogachev who had discovered the wall. And there the three of them had stood, companionably watering it, one set of chances having brought them there and another set, later on, to recall the scene.
11
Lazenby flew to Canada on a Tuesday, but it was not a Tuesday in April but in July; and not to Montreal but to Vancouver, several numbing hours farther. And so many changes of plan had occurred in between that he was half out of his mind before he started.
The fellow Raven seemed to be wholly out of his mind.
He had university jobs two thousand miles apart. He seemed to attend to them when he felt like it. He cut lectures, left classes, disappeared into woods. Lazenby would have kicked him out years ago; except Raven (Dr Porter, as they were calling him now) did not seem to be a person you kicked out so easily.
At Vancouver Lazenby was met by Hendricks, and a young colleague called Walters who had been making arrangements for him. These Lazenby heard about over dinner at the hotel.
Porter, it seemed, was at a place called Kispiox. It was up north, near Prince Rupert on the Skeena river. This was his home ground – Tsimshean Indian country – and he was in the forest there. His movements were not known from day to day but he was calling in regularly at the Kispiox post office.
‘He’s doing that twice a week, sir,’ Walters said. He was an abnormally clean young man with blue eyes and a blond moustache. ‘And he’s very prompt. He picks up his mail bang on mid-day, and answers it there, too. They all call him Johnny, he’s a favourite son. I was up there yesterday, and I phoned through this afternoon. He hasn’t been in this week but tomorrow’s Wednesday and that’s one of his days. So I’ve fixed this, if you agree.’
He had fixed a small jet to fly them to a place called Hazelton, not far from Kispiox, which would enable them to get there before noon. In case Porter did not look in tomorrow, he had also checked out hotel rooms where they could wait for him the following day.
Every bone in his body aching, Lazenby considered these arrangements somewhat sourly.
‘What time would that mean getting up?’ he said.
‘Not too early.’ Walters smiled. ‘It’s only about five hundred miles, so if we’re in the air by ten we’ll make it. I have transport laid on at Hazelton. From the airport there it’s just a drive through the woods to Kispiox.’
‘You’re coming, of course,’ Lazenby said to Hendricks.
‘No, George, I’m not.’ The relationship had flourished a little between them. ‘The fewer people the better. I only came to introduce this young fellow, your escorting officer. He’s done all the work anyway. He’s been around Porter for weeks.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’ Lazenby asked the young man.
‘No, sir, I haven’t. My orders were to make no contact.’
‘You make the contact, George,’ Hendricks told him. ‘He’s a very suspicious man, with a big phobia about us – probably warranted. This ethnic thing of his is quite wide-ranging, and we’ve been observing him a long time. He’s stirred up a lot of minority-group activity – in the States, too. But he’s on vacation now, and relaxed. The best thing is just to come on him and talk straight. Tell him what you know, and hope he’ll listen.’
Lazenby closed his eyes.
The idea of ‘making a contact’ with a very suspicious Indian 500 miles into the Canadian wilderness was not more surreal than the other things that had happened to him today. But he didn’t yet feel he had touched earth. A part of him seemed still to be floating between the Atlantic and the Rockies.
‘Yes. Yes, very well,’ he said.
So next day, the air again, in a small jet, buzzing north.
Mountains, lakes, forests drifted mistily below, veiled in rain. It was still raining at Hazelton, a dismal small airport with not much activity going on in it. The transport was waiting, however, a Toyota pickup, and they hurried into it.
They drove for some time on a hardtop road and then were off it and bumping and lurching along an old lumber track. Dense stands of spruce and hemlock dripped on all sides, and square stacks of trimmed logs, soaking gloomily in the dim light.
Kispiox itself, when they splashed into it, was not much cheerier. It lay in a large clearing, an Indian village with totem poles and frame houses and a white-painted frame church. Full washing lines were strung everywhere, clothes hanging like distress signals in the steady downpour. Apart from a few battered pickups there were no other signs of life.
The post office seemed to be a general store. It was empty apart from an old man smoking his pipe in a rocking chair.
‘Hi,’ he said, peering. ‘You the guy was over from Rupert – Mr Jackson, ain’t it?’
‘Right,’ Walters said amiably. ‘How you doing? I called up yesterday afternoon. You said Johnny would be in today.’
‘Oh well, shit!’ the old man said. He took his pipe out. ‘I clean forgot that. I should have told him you was in. I wrote down a note about it. Went right out of my head!’
‘He’s been in?’ Walters said.
‘Telephoned. About couple hours ago. He’s over at the Takla. Been there a few days, apparently. Hell, I’m sorry about that. Had him right there on the phone,’ the old man said. ‘You come over from Rupert special, then?’
‘Hazelton. Did he say how long he’d be at the Takla?’
‘Well, he wants his mail sent over. That takes two days. Has to go to Takla Landing, see.’
‘Where is Takla Landing?’ Lazenby asked.
Walters was worrying his small moustache. ‘About fifty miles,’ he said. ‘Maybe sixty.’
‘Seventy more like,’ the old man said. He was looking at Lazenby. ‘You English, mister?’
‘Yes,’ Lazenby said.
‘Thought that. Glad to know you.’ He was extending a hand and Lazenby shook it, observing for the first time that the man was an Indian. The big-boned face had quite a merry look, merrier than the recalled sombreness of Porter’s. He suddenly realised he remembered Porter’s face quite well. ‘It’s a shame you come special,’ the o
ld Indian said. ‘Still, if you’re only over at Hazelton … Maybe I can call him for you, leave a message? Since I forgot it before.’
‘No, don’t worry about it,’ Walters told him. ‘He’s staying at Takla Landing, is he?’
‘No, he ain’t staying there. The mail goes there. Then by floatplane over to Bear. That’s where he is. Least, he said to readdress everything to Noreen’s.’
‘What’s Noreen’s?’
‘North end of Bear. That’s Brown Bear – the lake. Floatplane is the only way in. It ain’t no trouble for me to call there. Only government money,’ the old man said merrily.
‘Is it a logging camp?’ Walters asked, puzzled.
‘No, Noreen’s ain’t a camp,’ the Indian said, amused. ‘She has that lodge down by the lake. Puts up a beer, chow, a few bunks – it’s like for guys come up fishing. It wouldn’t be no trouble at all,’ he told Lazenby, ‘for me to call and say you looked in. Mister what was it?’
‘This is Mr Brown,’ Walters said, ‘and it isn’t even worth mentioning. He wanted a look at Kispiox anyway.’
‘Nothing to look at, all this rain. Been raining for days,’ the Indian said. ‘It ain’t raining at Bear. Johnny found that out. Think he’s doing a bit of hunting, fishing there. Anything else I can do for you, then?’
‘Sure, I’ll take that note you wrote – could mix you up.’ Walters said.
The Indian found the note, behind the till, and they went back out in the rain, to the Takla.
The Takla was a chain of connected lakes and rivers stretching for 150 miles, and the Landing was somewhere over halfway up it. They left the pilot to wait with the jet there, and hired a floatplane.
Bear Lake was another half hour.
It was still not two o’clock when they touched down on it, the water very sombre. On all sides the trees stood like a wall around the lake. They taxied up an inlet to the jetty, and when the engine stopped the silence was massive. It was very grey and still here but, as the old Indian had said, not raining.
‘When you want picked up?’ the pilot asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Walters said. He mused. ‘You busy this time of year?’
‘Well, fish are rising. Char and Dolly Varden, big ones, all the way up. People are coming in. I could wait a while for you if you want, see if Noreen can take you. That smoke stack is hers, through the trees. But there’s other places.’
‘Okay, thanks. I’ll leave the bags,’ Walters said, and helped Lazenby out.
The air was very heavy as they tramped through the trees, and there were swarms of midges about. But they did not have to tramp far. Noreen’s was a rambling wooden structure with a broad porch and mosquito frames over the doors and windows. The hall inside was dark and empty, and Walters rang the bell on the desk.
Noreen came rubbing her hair with a towel, a round comfortable figure in dungarees, and she said she could take them, ‘long as you boys don’t mind bunking up together’.
Walters went out for the luggage while Lazenby, with some misgiving, was led to the room he was to bunk up in. He saw with relief that the bunks were at least on opposite sides of the room, which was spacious and cedar-clad. ‘Plenty of cupboards,’ Noreen said. ‘This one here is for tackle, but no smelly stuff. That goes in the fish room. You over from England, then?’
Lazenby said he was and asked if a Dr Porter was staying there.
‘Johnny Porter?’ Noreen said. She looked at him curiously. ‘No, he doesn’t stay here. You looking for him?’
With a sinking feeling Lazenby realised that Porter didn’t seem to stay anywhere. The elusive shadow was always somewhere else. He felt exhaustion sweeping over him again. Already today he had taken off and landed three times, and plenty of afternoon still remained to pursue the phantom elsewhere about the lake. Except that, as a roar outside announced, the plane had just taken off.
He was explaining the matter of the mail when Walters returned with the luggage, and Noreen’s face had cleared.
‘Well, if he arranged that,’ she said, ‘I guess he’ll be in. He does that – has mail sent on here. I don’t mind. He’s okay, Johnny. When you know him. You know him well, Mr –’
‘Lazenby,’ Lazenby said firmly. ‘Professor Lazenby.’ He had seen Walters’s mouth open, and had not come to terms with Mr Brown.
‘Nice to have you with us,’ Noreen said. But her eyes were on the luggage. ‘You boys not planning on any fishing, this trip?’
‘Not this one,’ Walters said. ‘The professor here just wants to see Johnny – college business.’
‘Well, he won’t be in till dark, if it’s just for mail. And not till tomorrow, any case. Don’t come till then. Can I fix you boys something to eat?’
They had a moody lunch, and after it Lazenby took a nap; and woke up rather more cheerful. Noreen had indicated that if he was a fishing man he could take a rod and a boat tomorrow. This seemed such a reasonable way of filling in the time until Porter showed up that he took himself briskly off to inspect the lake.
A few boats were coming in before dark, and he was encouraged still further by the splendid specimens they brought with them. Enormous great things; species of trout; presumably the char and Dolly Varden. And rainbows, glorious jobs, he’d never seen such a size. No salmon of course in this landlocked water, but things were definitely looking up.
And looking up to such an extent that as he sat with a sherry in a nook off the bar – Walters having discreetly taken himself off to play pool – he saw that the remarkable locality did indeed have salmon. Strange salmon, kokanee, lake-dwellers. A type of sockeye, no doubt. Yes, so they were: sockeye. His eyes fairly goggled through the fishing magazines. Rainbows over ten pounds. Char to thirty. God alone knew what the kokanee went to. Spin, troll or fly … The flies also of great interest. Variations of patterns he had used himself to good effect on the Spey. But also others that might get an even bigger effect. He mused over Mickey Finn, and the Goofus Bug – ‘good floater, deadly on fast water’. The Spey was the fastest water. He took note of the supplier of Goofus and was screwing up his eyes over the illustration when a voice spoke in his ear.
‘You were asking for me?’
He spilt his sherry.
A face like one of those on the totem poles was staring into his.
The cheekbones were high and flat, the eyes unsmiling. The long figure was bent over him, a pair of hunting boots on one end and drawn-back glossy hair on the other. The large face had a moustache on it now.
‘Raven?’ Lazenby said faintly.
‘Hi, Goldilocks,’ Raven said, answering another old question.
12
He was taller than Lazenby remembered, and quieter than he remembered. He was very quiet indeed: a grave, composed figure, exceedingly reserved. They had dinner together, and Lazenby took stock of him across the table.
The staring young bull of the seventies had gone. His fringe had gone and the heavy helmet of hair. It was drawn sleekly back now, lengthening the face and chastening it; an austere pigtail hung down the back. Only the moustache seemed to add a normalising touch.
Lazenby set the ball rolling by asking if he had met Rogachev again, and he said he had. He had met him again and talked with him again, two nights running – had talked both nights away, all on that same visit, those years ago; but afterwards had had no contact with him. Yet he showed no surprise at Lazenby’s story, and made no comment when it was over.
Lazenby chewed at his own meal for some moments.
‘Anything you’d like to ask me?’ he said.
The Indian consulted a neat forkful of food.
‘Well, he said I looked like his Siberians. I guess that’s why he wants me, is it?’
‘That and your other qualifications. But that, yes. I should think certainly.’
‘How does he suppose I could get there?’
‘This man Walters knows about that. That’s Walters of the CIA.’
‘Uhuh. These – messages. You have them wi
th you?’
‘No. I don’t. This man Walters has copies of them, I believe. Will you meet him?’
The Indian examined his forkful again, and ate it.
‘Yes. I’ll meet him,’ he said.
They found Walters having his dinner on a tray in the bedroom. He scrambled to his feet to be introduced; and he said he was honoured to be introduced.
The Indian merely shook his hand, and said nothing.
‘Well now,’ Walters said, as they were seated, ‘I guess we know why we are here. How do we feel about it?’
The Indian produced a small tobacco sack and rolled himself a cigarette.
‘Are you the one in charge of the arrangements?’ he asked politely.
‘No, sir, I am not. I am here as an escorting officer, and I would continue in that role for you. But I can answer any general questions you have.’
Porter lit the cigarette.
‘You have some messages for me,’ he said.
Walters reached in a breast pocket and produced an envelope. There was a wax seal on it. The Indian didn’t bother with the seal. He inserted a thumbnail under the flap and tore the top off. Two sheets marked A and B were inside. He read one and then the other, and smoke began slowly to issue from his mouth. Then he read them again, and carefully pocketed the sheets. His face had shown no change.
‘You know where I am supposed to go?’ he said.
‘Yes, sir, I do.’
‘And how I get there?’
‘Yes, sir. I know that too.’
‘Tell me,’ Porter said.
Walters looked at Lazenby. ‘I don’t know if you are authorised to hear this, sir,’ he said.
‘Not at all. I am sure not,’ Lazenby said hurriedly, and rapidly left them; and in the room behind him Porter smoked as the plan was laid out for him.
When it was over he carried on smoking.
‘Is there anything more I can tell you, sir?’ Walters asked presently.
‘I didn’t hear how I was to be dropped there,’ Porter said.
‘That part isn’t fixed yet.’
Kolymsky Heights Page 7
