Whiskey Creek

by Dave Hugelschaffer

  I nod and finally manage: “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She returns the nod, sets a cup of coffee in front of me.

  “The cops find anything new?” says Derrick.

  “They’ll do an autopsy. Other than that, I really can’t say.”

  “But you’re working with the cops, right?”

  I hesitate. “My part of the investigation is over. I’m leaving tomorrow. I just wanted to stop by and offer my condolences. I only wish I had been able to do more. Perhaps if I had started to look for her earlier —”

  My voice cracks and I clear my throat to hide my lapse.

  Helen Mercredi reaches across the table, takes my hand in hers, looks me in the eye. “It’s okay, Mr. Cassel. We know you did all you could. Like us, you too are suffering from this tragedy. I want you to take a sweat with us tonight. You also need to heal.”

  “Thanks, but I’m all right.”

  Her grip on my hand tightens. “It’s all set up. We have room for you.”

  I nod — it seems the least I could do.

  THE SWEAT HAS been set up out of town at a secluded location along the lake. Crammed into the Mercredi family minivan, we bounce and jostle along a dark narrow trail, headlights revealing a rutted path. The minivan thumps and spins as we climb an increasing slope to arrive at a high bluff overlooking Lake Athabasca. Seated in the back, I am the last to exit and, temporarily blinded from the interior door light, stand in the sudden darkness while my eyes adjust. No moon tonight. Below, the lake is nearly invisible but for a dim gun metal sheen of reflected starlight on the water. My eyes are drawn to the nearby orange glow of a simmering campfire and the small illuminated world it reveals. A group of Natives stand by the fire, men dressed only in swim trucks, women in long cotton nightgowns. Towels are draped over their shoulders as though ready for a day at the beach but their expressions are solemn. Next to them is a large waist-height dome which I take to be the sweat lodge. The new arrivals join the group. I tag along, am introduced to Rodger, the medicine man, and his wife Eva. Rodger appears to be in his early sixties, short, with heavy features, a pot belly and bandy legs, his dark skin shimmering with sweat in the firelight.

  “Welcome,” he says, shaking my hand. “Is this your first sweat?”

  I nod and he smiles. “We’ll go easy on you, then.”

  Around me, the men from the minivan strip down. They’ve worn their swim trunks under their clothes. I’ve made no such preparations and wonder if I’m expected to simply strip down to my underwear. Noticing my uncertainty, Helen Mercredi hands me a towel, inside which is a pair of swim trunks. I thank her, change in the dark behind the minivan, join the group in the circle of campfire light. We wait respectfully by the sweat lodge as Rodger holds a small cast iron frying pan in which he is lighting something on fire.

  I move next to Helen Mercerdi to get a closer look.

  “Sage,” she whispers. “He’s doing the blessing.”

  Rodger chants a brief prayer in Cree as he offers the sage in the four cardinal directions, then enters the sweat lodge, followed by his wife, disappearing into the darkness. I go next and crawl into the waist-high opening to a position at the back, until Rodger, a dim bulky shape, stops me.

  “Clockwise,” he says softly. “Always clockwise, like the path of the sun.”

  Obligingly, I crawl clockwise along the round perimeter of the dark dome. In the light entering from the campfire I see the arched willow branches that form the curve, overlain by heavy brown canvas. My nostrils fill with a coarse familiar scent, evoking memories of childhood campouts. There’s a pit in the centre of the floor, in which I see the dull glow of heated rocks. I skirt Rodger and his wife, seated near the pit, take a position against the curved wall. As others enter, crouched single file, I notice a bucket of water beside Rodger, with a bundle of willow twigs and a long hand-carved pipe. When everyone is seated, a dozen of us by my count, Rodger calls for the door to be closed and a heavy flap of canvas drops to cover the opening.

  The darkness is sudden and absolute.

  “Welcome home,” says a deep voice. “Mother Earth is here for you.” Around me the world has ceased to exist. The voice of the medicine man seems to originate somewhere inside my head, like an unexpected but not unwelcome thought. He sprinkles powdered herbs on the hot rocks in the pit, filling the air with a pungent aroma that stings my eyes. In the dark the specks of herb blaze on the rocks — a tiny universe of bright orange stars — before quickly winking out. Invisibly, water is mopped onto the rocks, a soft swoosh like a whale spouting, and there’s an immediate rush of heat.

  Sweat prickles on my bare skin as the medicine man speaks.

  “The sweat lodge is our spiritual womb. It is made from everything the Creator has given us. Rocks and wood and water and earth. The Creator provides everything for us, everything we need to live, and in exchange we give ourselves back to the Creator. I understand one of us has recently returned to the Creator. I encourage you now to think of this person, and of your family and friends, and of yourself, and to pray.”

  More swooshing as water is mopped onto the rocks. The heat increases dramatically, filling my nose and sinuses. The medicine man begins to sing — a loud, wailing song; sounds not words, but not unpleasant. I think of Bernice Mercredi at the fire camp, smiling at my corny joke. I try not to think of her in the river, or lying cold and pale on the tarp in the RCMP garage. I’m not a religious man, but I hope for her sake that there’s something good for her on the other side. Sitting cramped in the dark, holding my bare legs, head drooped, sweat dripping like hot beads down my neck and back, my thoughts begin to drift from Bernice Mercredi to her secret lover. Who might he be? What might he do if told of the rape? He would be furious, perhaps enough so to kill Hallendry. I shift to relieve a cramp in my leg, careful in the dark not to kick anyone. A new thought drifts — an image of two young Native women walking down the highway at night. I can picture this so perfectly in the sensory deprivation of the sweat lodge that it seems almost a memory. Why would Bernice, hungover and having been up virtually all night, walking many miles, even have gone to the fire? After the rape, that location would be the last place she would want to go. But for some reason she was there. Perhaps the arsonist responsible for the under-burned floorboards sent her, to watch the investigators and listen to talk among the firefighters, for any sign that foul play was suspected. This fits with her leaving after I discovered the burn indicators on the floorboards. It also explains the pictures deleted from my camera. I lean forward in the dark, try to focus on this thought. Bernice is dead. Collette, who claims she was at the cabin with Bernice, sent me to an ambush. Now Collette is out of town and can’t be questioned. Someone is attempting to control the situation and I picture Cork, introducing me to Collette. Telling me Collette has gone camping. He claimed to have picked up the girls after they left Hallendry’s cabin but didn’t ask them about where they were or what happened. I recall the look on his face when I questioned him, and the way he crushed the beer can when I mentioned that it had yet to be confirmed that Bernice’s death was suicide.

  If someone did this, I’ll kill the bastard.

  How would he have reacted if he learned of the rape the night he picked up the two girls?

  I shift in the dark to relieve a cramp in my legs. I’m trying to follow this line of thought but am losing focus. The singing has stopped and I wipe sweat away from my forehead. The medicine man calls for the lodge to be opened and from outside someone lifts the flap, revealing the bare and glistening legs of my silent companions. I wait, expecting the sweat is over, but it is only an intermission. I count as eight more large glowing rocks are passed in on the tines of a pitchfork. A few more words from the medicine man, which I barely register, and the flap is closed. Darkness reigns and once again I am alone in the heat with my thoughts and impressions. More glowing sparks when powdered sage is sprinkled on the rocks. As the sparks wink out I see in my mind’s eye the cabin by the river, gra
ss blowing in the wind of the helicopter rotorwash. Whoever attacked me had to be someone bigger and stronger than Collette, who could carry my unconscious body into a boat, then to the rotting moose carcass. I try to picture how this might have happened, as though the image will enter my mind as easily as the voice of the medicine man, who sings in duet with his wife — a steady ululating sound — but I can no longer control my thoughts. They have slipped away like the hot beads of sweat rolling down my back. I’m rocking back and forth to the rhythm of the singing, the swoosh of water mopped onto the rocks and the shake of the rattle. Sounds so ancient they seem to come from the earth itself. In a moment of understanding, startling in its simplicity, I sense a connection to a distant past. To roaming bands of ancestors, hunting, sitting around a campfire. The signing stops and the medicine man calls for the lodge to be opened.

  Cooler air wafts in. Another intermission.

  Rodger lights up a hand-carved pipe. He’s a dim bulky figure in the flickering orange light, primitive, eternal. He hands me the pipe and I draw a breath. The smoke is mild and tastes vaguely like a pine forest fire. I hand the pipe clockwise to the next person in the circle. Next is a plastic tub of blueberries, then a bottle of water, from which I take small samplings. The pipe returns to me and we continue to pass it and the berries and water around until they have all been consumed. A ceremony of sharing and community. The lodge is sealed again. More water; more heat; more singing. A scent like bread dough and hot stones. I slip into a trance, rocking slowly. The sweat lodge is womb-like in more than a spiritual sense. Hot and dark. The rattle sounds like a heartbeat. The song tapers off and Rodger confers with his wife in Cree. A question is asked and answered and, although the words are unfamiliar, I have the overwhelming impression it is my parents speaking and I am a child again, secure in a warm bed in the dark. The ceremony continues and my mind empties. Time becomes meaningless. The heat is ratcheted up to a level that causes mild delirium.

  Suddenly, it’s over and the flap is open.

  Helen Mercredi nudges me. “We go outside now.”

  I hadn’t realized she was so close to me, had in fact forgotten that I shared the small space with anyone. Bloated with heat, I move lethargically, have difficulty crawling out of the sweat lodge. Outside it is cooler, a breeze washing gently over my steaming skin. The campfire has died to a pocket of coals. Stars above are a dazzling panorama, impossibly vast. It feels like a rebirth and it occurs to me that the dull aching tension that’s been in my chest since shortly after arriving in Fort Chipewyan is finally gone.

  THE MOOD IN the minivan on the drive back to town is subdued but companionable. I have the driver drop me at the ranger station, thank Helen Mercredi and her relatives for the privilege of sharing a sweat with them, then use the unlocked back door to enter the ranger station and retrieve the spare key for my truck. I’m relaxed and a bit drained from the sweat but no longer impaired. I drive to the ia base, feed Scorch, spend a few minutes of quality canine time. He’s healing well. Despite the allergy, I’m growing rather attached to the mutt, although I can’t see a way of keeping him. It’s therapeutic, scruffing him under the chin, and I ponder the sweat lodge and my thoughts about Cork. Questioning him isn’t apt to be productive but surveillance seems in order and I head back to town, park in a dark alley where I can watch his house.

  Light seeps around the towels hung in the windows and an oldermodel pickup truck is parked in the driveway. I watch from my own truck, pondering. When I last visited Collette, just prior to the incident at the cabin along the river, she ducked back into the house to collect rented videos to return to the store. Perhaps this was just a cover. I wonder if she needed to speak with Cork, find out what she should tell me. Then, while I was driving around town with Collette, Cork headed down river in his boat to ambush me. This possibility sheds a different light on my initial encounter with Collette at the Trapline. Perhaps she wasn’t smitten by my rugged good looks but came on to me because Cork coached her. After all, he was the one who introduced me to her. The party that night was at his place. And, although my memory is a bit fuzzy, I think it was Cork who spilled the drink on me, giving Collette a perfect reason to get me alone. In retrospect it seems almost comical — the guy twenty years older thinking the woman is attracted to him — but I’m not laughing. The effect of this lapse in judgment on my part has reverberated through my time in Fort Chipewyan, affecting my ability to focus and, more significantly, my relationship with the RCMP. If Collette and Cork are involved in Hallendry’s murder, what better way to discredit my status as an investigator than by having Collette sleep with me?

  I grip the steering wheel and release a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The calm instilled by the sweat lodge has slipped a bit and I wonder if Collette really is camping. Perhaps Cork didn’t want me to talk to her and she’s at home, in the house, right now. I peer intently through the windshield of my truck at the house, as though by sheer force of will I can determine if she’s inside. No use — my X-ray vision isn’t what it used to be. I watch a few minutes longer, but nothing is happening. I can’t wait here all night; I’ll fall asleep. I leave my truck, walk quietly around the block to a back alley and approach Cork’s house from the rear.

  The alley is rocky and uneven and in the dark I stub my toe on something hard, thankful for my steel-toe workboots. They’re a wonderful piece of footwear; not only do they protect my feet and provide excellent ankle support, they’re black and suitable for almost any occasion. I once wore them to a dance, much to the horror of my girlfriend. On the bright side, my feet emerged unscathed from her three-inch stiletto heels. The alley is lined with crooked rotting fences over which I see crude A-frame doghouses, partially illuminated from back windows. The last thing I need is to arouse a pack of angry dogs.

  I tiptoe as quietly as my workboots will allow.

  A low-roofed ancient two-bay garage squats dimly behind Cork’s house. In the dark I nearly neuter myself on a tangle of sharp rusty metal which, when I click on my hand-dandy keychain flashlight, appears to be a failed attempt at modern art, stacked on an old table saw. Shielding the beam of my light so as not to arouse the curiosity of a neighbour across the alley, I peer through a dusty fly-specked window into the garage.

  I get a view of a dusty fly-specked window. I need a better flashlight. Stymied, I stand in the dark, wondering what I expected to find back here and, as a second thought, try the knob on the garage door. It’s unlocked. I hesitate for a moment, thinking about what might happen if I’m caught breaking and entering. How impressed the RCMP might be. But it’s really just entering, no breaking required, and, furthermore, I won’t even enter. I’ll just open the door and sweep the beam of my flashlight over the contents.

  Shelves, junk, more junk, and a boat are revealed progressively in the sweep of the weak beam. Something about the boat is familiar and I return the light to study it more closely.

  It appears to be the boat from the cabin by the river.

  I don’t need to debate a deeper incursion into the garage. I step carefully inside, use the pale beam to light my footsteps, swing the beam over and into the boat. Same small console. No windshield. Even the fishing tackle scattered on the bottom looks familiar. A mixture of dread and anger washes through me. I want to confront Cork but given his size and motivation to keep whatever has transpired hushed-up, I don’t think this would be wise. I click off the light, stand in the dark garage, appreciating the scent of grease and mouse turds, and wonder what to do. I could go to the RCMP, but they don’t believe my explanation of what occurred at the cabin. I leave the garage, hesitate in the alley. There’s an open route from the garage past the dark side of the house, which is shorter than retracing my footsteps through the alley. And I might be able to see in through a window on my way past, look for any sign of Collette. I tread slowly and quietly along a sidewalk, scuff over ridges of grass and dirt which have welled up between the slabs. The lighted side windows of the house have yello
wing drapes covering them, blocking my view into the rooms. As I pass the door a light blazes on, illuminating a wide circle around me, and I dart down the driveway, duck behind the truck, then cross the road to the safety of another dark alley and find my truck. Inside, I watch the house. After a few minutes, the exterior light goes out. It must have been triggered by a motion sensor. Fortunately, no one inside seemed to have noticed. On the other hand, I noticed a few things when the light went on. The truck was the same burgundy colour as the paint scrape on the tree to which Scorch led me from the Hallendry fire. And the truck had a scrape on the front passenger side, where a patch of paint had been rubbed off.

  Cork was involved in both the Hallendry fire and my attack.

  I IMAGINE A number of scenarios involving the RCMP but arrive at the same conclusion; they no longer believe anything I say. I have completely lost credibility with them. Any attempt to explain my loss of credibility with a story that is based solely on my word, and for which I have no direct evidence, would not be well received. I sit in the truck and stew over this Catch-22. I’m expected on a plane tomorrow afternoon so whatever I’m going to do will have to be done soon. Unfortunately, all I can think of doing is watching Cork’s house, to see if Collette shows herself, then getting her alone and challenging her with my theory. If anyone might let something slip, it’ll have to be her. So I wait.