“You and Collin go left around the cabin,” says Dugan. “I’ll go right.” The two forensics specialists are dressed in frumpy hair nets and puffy white disposable coveralls they affectionately call bunny suits. They look silly, but the suit keeps both the scene and their clothes from contamination. I’m in grungy coveralls, which Dugan is prepared to tolerate, so long as I remain behind the specialists and follow instructions to the letter. Within the realm encompassed by yellow ribbon, Dugan is king. I’m just concentrating on making it through the day and not messing anything up. It is mid-afternoon and I feel faint, my head buzzing. I could beg off and head to the nursing station, get my arm properly treated, but they’re short-handed. I drop to my knees beside Collin Verdon.
“Look for anything unusual,” he says. “And plant a flag,” I finish for him. “You’ve done this before?”
“Plenty of fires and the odd bombing.”
“Bombings are nasty. Fragments everywhere.”
We chat as we move slowly and methodically, on hands and knees, around the outside of the cabin. There’s a fair bit of glass from a broken window, blackened on both sides, which Verdon explains indicates the window shattered after the fire started. At this point it doesn’t mean much, except that a Molotov cocktail wasn’t tossed through the window. Given the recent spate of other arsons, that’s a relief. We meet Dugan a third of the way around the cabin, processing from the other direction. He might be old, but he’s fast.
“You guys find much?” he asks, sitting back on his haunches. “Not much,” Verdon admits. “Glass, broken after the fact.”
We move to the front of the cabin, assess how we might start the heavy work of mining down through the debris. It’s a daunting task as we can’t just heave the debris out of the way. Disturbance to the underlying strata must be minimized. And it’s still hot, evidenced by my seared arm, which is throbbing. We spend a few minutes discussing how best to proceed.
“We could set up a sprinkler,” Verdon suggests. “Cool it with a steady drizzle.”
Dugan shakes his head, frowning. “Wouldn’t do much good, and contamination could trickle down. Normally, I’d just wait until it cooled on its own, but that could take days, and we need to see who’s under there. I think we just need to get in there and start working, carefully of course.” He looks at me. “Can I get a firefighter with a controlled water source to carefully hose down where I tell him?”
I look over to where Hendrigan’s men are working. “Sure.”
I tug free my radio and am about to call Hendrigan when Luke Middel appears from the periphery of my vision, peering over the yellow ribbon strung between the trees. He’s got a piss pack — a waterfilled black rubber bag with a hand pump — hanging from his bony shoulders. I swear he can read my mind.
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Well …” I picture further scene contamination. Jets of uncontrolled water.
Dugan looks at Luke. “You ever seen a dead body, son?”
“At funerals,” says Luke.
“This’ll be a lot worse. Can you handle that?”
Luke frowns thoughtfully. “I think so.”
“Okay,” says Dugan. “But you tell me if it gets to be too much.”
Luke nods, ducks under the yellow ribbon, tendons in his neck straining from the sixty pounds of water on his back. Dugan explains the process. The two specialists will clear a path into the cabin, handing me sheets of tin and other debris, which I will stack out of the way. Luke will apply controlled spurts of water where instructed.
“Are we clear on that?” Dugan says. Luke nods enthusiastically.
We get to work. The tin is difficult. During the heated collapse of the building, the metal buckled, twisted and bent. Overlapping sheets are held together by metal roofing screws. A ratchet is procured. I get the dubious honour of climbing onto sections of alarmingly warm metal. Slowly, a pile of twisted metal grows aside from the cabin. The smoking, blackened wasteland of the cabin floor develops. Luke stands in the cleared area of the cabin with Verdon, spritzing as directed. Once the roof tin and other large debris is cleared, a grid is established — a network of strings and pins stretched across the ground. More photos and measurements. I stand back, wait and watch.
It’s a gruesome sight. There’s a lot of smaller debris obscuring what lies beneath, but the outline of the body is obvious, sprawled on the charred black floor. The corpse looks a bit like those statuesque body casts from Pompeii. What’s different is this corpse is fresh and not nearly as complete. All that remains of the hands and feet are shards of dark grey burned bone. The skull is black, eye sockets vacant, jaw gaping. The smell is meaty and acrid.
Luke Middel looks at the corpse for the hundredth time.
“You good, son?” says Dugan.
Luke nods, looking pale but determined.
“I drink alone,” sings Verdon, in a rough, George Thorogood voice.
Gallows humour — without it a fellow could lose his mind. “You think it’s that simple?” I ask Dugan.
“Maybe,” he says, stretching out a kink as he stands up. His puffy white cap is flattened and he looks tired. “Although you never can tell for sure until all the data comes in from the scene and the medical examiner, but preliminary findings indicate a simple case of careless drinking. Looks like the stove was left open, and the body is positioned in a manner that is consistent with a person overcome with unconsciousness.”
“Basically,” says Verdon, “he got drunk and fell over.”
“Very drunk,” says Dugan.
My radio blares — dispatch calling Hendrigan that reinforcements are on the way. It’s late afternoon and the hac boys will soon be replaced by a crew of local Native firefighters, who will camp at the fire until it is extinguished. Dugan asks if they are driving or flying. Driving, says Middel, who doesn’t sound impressed that the trail into the fire is blocked by the RCMP, pending clearance from ident.
“You better go for a walk,” Dugan tells me. “Double check the trail.”
“You want me to tag along?” Verdon asks.
“I need you here,” says Dugan. “Cassel will be fine.”
I’ve been wanting to check the trail. I walk briskly away from the fire, relieved to get away from the cabin. The smell of charred human flesh is nauseating. On the trail, I walk slower, peering from side to side. I’m not expecting to find much — Waldren already scouted the trail, and Luke Middel contaminated it — but you never know. If someone started the fire which killed the occupant of the cabin, chances are they drove in along this trail. I peer intently at the ground in front of me as I walk, scan the forest on both sides. The ground is dry, which is not good for tire impressions. There’s no grade to the trail, just twin ruts scuffed into the sand and over tree roots. A few old beer and soda cans litter the side of the trail, which I pick up and sniff. They’re old and dry. After a few kilometres, I give up, call Hendrigan, who tells Dugan, who calls the RCMP guard at the gate. A few minutes later, a convoy of trucks rolls past. I hitch a ride, crammed next to a large Native, chewing tobacco.
“I hear there’s a dead guy at the fire,” he says.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Moccasin telegraph,” he says, leaning across me to spit his chew out the window. He’s only partly successful. I acquire a new stain.
“Really? We might have to subpoena the moccasin telegraph.”
“Yeah.” He finds this amusing. I’m less amused.
“What’s your name?” I ask, struggling to free my notebook from a pocket.
“Don’t sweat it, man. I heard it over the radio. We got a scanner.”
“Who’s cabin is it?”
“Rufus Hallendry,” says the driver.
“What kind of guy was he?”
“Just a regular guy. Good hunter.”
“Ah, he was a dink,” says a voice from behind me. I try to turn and look back at the source, but I’m in too tight, jammed between the door and a beefy should
er. I content myself with studying the side mirror. A brown face gazes back at me. Young. Cocky.
“Why do you say that?”
“Ah, he was just a dink. Typical fuckin’ white man.”
The face jerks, like someone gave him an elbow.
“Present company excluded,” he says, with a trace of sarcasm. “Bobo here is a dink, too,” says another, older voice from behind.
In the mirror, Bobo grins. I let it slide. Soon, the green branches and grey tree trunks give way to black poles and ashy ground. The truck pulls to a stop near the yellow crime scene ribbon, which blocks the path. For a moment, no one moves to leave the truck. The forensic specialists, in their white suits, contrast starkly with their blackened surroundings, lending the scene an air of clinical finality. The body is an angular black form and I wonder if the others have noticed. Behind me, Bobo opens the truck door.
“Come on boys,” he proclaims. “Let the white men play. We gotta get to work.”
He moves to the back of the truck, opens the canopy, pulls out a chainsaw. His companions seem to have ignored him and wait another minute, then they too exit the truck, quietly begin to unload their gear. I head to the ruins of the cabin, where Luke waves at me. I nod, vaguely annoyed by Luke’s childishness. Hendrigan makes his way through the black branchless trees, accompanied by Carter Spence, the junior local Forest Officer. Spence must have flown in while I was walking the trail. No doubt he’s been put in charge of the fire. He’ll supervise the local Native crew until he’s confident the fire has been extinguished. He shakes my hand as if we’re strangers.
“How you holding up, Porter?”
“Fine. You the new Incident Commander?”
“Yeah.” He frowns, looking at my arm. “What happened?” “Scratched myself, searching the cabin.”
He has me pull back my sleeve, inspects Hendrigan’s work.
“That’s more than a scratch.”
“I’m fine. I’ll clean it up later.”
“No,” he says, thinking it over. “You’d better head back.”
At the cabin, the two ident specialists are shovelling debris into a pail for screening. There really isn’t much more I can do here. I nod to Spence, who tells me that TRT is headed back to base to refuel and that I should thumb a ride. At the helipad, I climb into the helicopter, exhausted, watch the ground recede below, where I see yellow-clad men working hoses among black skeletal trees, white trucks parked like toys.
And the black sprawled form of a burned body.
3
•
THE BROAD EXPANSE of Lake Athabasca spreads out before us as the helicopter ascends. Bright blue, mirroring the sky. The far side of the lake, twenty miles away, is a thin line. The helicopter banks right, following the shoreline, and we skim above green trees speckled over the pink and grey granite of Canadian Shield. Thin strips of beach pass below, so white you would think you’re in the Caribbean, except for the horseflies, which attack in hordes as soon as you are wet, and water so cold it hurts. Everywhere I look is colour and life — an immense relief from the black mortal remains of the fire. The pilot’s voice crackles in my headset.
“Any more casualties?”
“No. Just the one.”
Normally on a flight you chat with the pilot. Lulls in conversation are spent in companionable silence. Today the silence is tense and uncomfortable. Firefighting is a dangerous business and we all know of lost friends and co-workers. The presence of a body at the fire has everyone on edge. I focus on the forest below, peering through the bushy crowns of pine, the conical tops of spruce trees, looking for deer or moose. With the population of nearby Fort Chipewyan mostly Aboriginal, and entitled to hunt year-round, chances of sighting an animal this close to town are slim. I shift my gaze inland, toward the area of the previous bottle fires. They’ve occurred in a relatively concentrated zone within the boundary of the Cree Band’s land claim — an undeveloped area of pine. It didn’t take long for the Cree Band council to notice and they’re looking for a direction to point their fingers. It’s caused some tension, particularly for Mark Middel, the Chief Ranger. Pressure he’s more than willing to pass on to me.
A few minutes later the airport and fire base come into view.
“Where do you want me to drop you?” asks the pilot.
“The IA base is fine.”
THE IA BASE — or Initial Attack base — is a collection of industrial trailers set among a stand of pine trees. The base is located adjacent the small airport, seven or eight miles out of town, to keep the noise of air traffic away from residents and provide a quiet place for firefighters waiting to be dispatched. This has been my home for the past two weeks. In addition to the bunk trailers, there’s a cook shack, warehouse and pumphouse. The compound is fenced with heavy wire mesh, topped with barbed wire. The helicopter touches down on a gravel pad, next to a collection of fuel drums. The pilot hot fuels — keeps the engine running — and I help him roll a barrel, flip it upright, then head to my truck, gingerly opening and closing my hand. The injured arm does not appreciate the work and is throbbing.
The drive into town is short and quiet. A black bear in the ditch watches me pass.
Fort Chipewyan is the oldest community in Alberta and has a unique personality. Houses are small and faded, set among trees and humps of granite. Yards are filled with vehicles on blocks or sinking into weeds. A fence made of old tires half buried in the ground is many colours. Another yard has a moose hide in a frame, drying in the sun. Snowmobiles in various stages of dissection are scattered like lawn ornaments. Dogs roam at will. No permanent roads lead to this small community. In winter an ice road is pushed through the snow for a few months. The rest of the year, you either fly in, or take a boat. It makes me wonder what young people here do to let off steam. There are no movie theatres, arcades, or bowling alleys. No shopping malls. I sense boredom lurking in the shadows as I cruise slowly into town, wind from the open truck window ruffling my hair. Perhaps this boredom is what lies behind the bottle fires.
I ease the truck to a stop at an intersection, look both ways.
The town is strung along the curving shore of a small bay in Lake Athabasca. To my left is the squat brown building of the ranger station and several older houses that attest to the lack of a building code. Across and slightly down the street is the government dock where the boats of the Forest Service, RCMP, Fish and Wildlife, and Wood Buffalo National Park are berthed. To my right is Main Street. Beyond the houses and metal-clad buildings, the lake shimmers, fringed with white scud from the wind, carrying a scent of damp rock. Small humped islands covered in trees decorate the outer edge of the bay. Gulls roost on power lines. If you didn’t know you were in land-locked Alberta, you would swear you’re in Newfoundland.
Mark Middel is at the ranger station, awaiting my report of the day’s activities. I’ll stop in later, after my visit to the clinic.
I turn right onto Main Street, which roughly parallels the lakeshore. Native children play in the street, kicking a ball back and forth, laughing. They make way slowly. An old dishevelled Native pauses and watches me pass. He’s a familiar sight — always pushing a bike, which I’ve never seen him ride. Two roughly built plywood boxes have been mounted on either side of the rear tire, giving the bike an awkward width. I see him several times a day, often far from town, wearing a faded florescent vest over his torn jacket, picking bottles. He’s always stooped as though under a great weight. He watches me with rheumy eyes, cheeks wild with stubble. I wave. He doesn’t wave back. I pull into the parking lot of the clinic — one of the few modern structures in town. Sided in corrugated metal, it looks more like an industrial facility than a place of healing.
As I open my truck door, I hear a familiar howling.
The dog from the fire is tied to a rail at the corner of the building. The parking lot is hot, sun baking off the brown metal wall. The dog has no water and obviously has not been attended to. He barks hoarsely, slobbering at my hand as I kneel in
front of him.
“Hey buddy, looks like they abandoned you.”
The poor animal is wheezing. A gelatinous mass has formed over one burned ear. I untie the leash, lead the dog up the stairs into the clinic. The small waiting room is crowded. The Native receptionist behind the counter looks me over.
“You can’t bring that dog in here. This is a hospital.”
“He needs medical care.”
“The doctor doesn’t see animals.”
“Is there a vet in town?”
She shakes her head.
“Then where do I bring him?”
“Anywhere but here.”
We glare at each other. An older nurse appears behind the counter. “Is there a problem?”
“This guy brought a dog in here.”
The nurse peers over the counter, looks at the dog, who sits obediently at my feet, tongue lolling, eyebrows bunched hopefully. “Oh my,” says the nurse. “So he did.”
“This dog has been through hell. He requires medical attention.”
“So do you, by the looks of it.”
In my anger at the dog’s neglect, I’d forgotten about my arm.
“We’ll take care of both of you but I’m afraid it may take a little while. The doctor only comes once a week.”
“What if there’s an emergency when he’s not here?”
“Our nurses have extra training.”
With the nearest fully equipped hospital two hundred miles away I’m not sure it’s a great compromise. I ask for a dish of water for the dog and settle into one of the hard plastic chairs, prepared for a long wait. I’m not disappointed. Finally, I get my turn, lead the dog into a small room to await the doctor. Ten more minutes, and the doctor enters.
“Ah — you are the one with the dog.”
The doctor is short and stocky, wears glasses. He’s Korean and looks weary.
“I am Doctor Cho,” he says. “What is trouble today?”
“I’ve injured my arm, but could you look at the dog first? He’s been through a lot.”
Whiskey Creek Page 4
