by Scott Young
When we landed and the Beaver was tucked away for the night, still loaded for tomorrow, Stothers offered to drive me into town. We’d gone scarcely a half mile when he said, “My place is just ahead—feel like a drink?”
“I thought you’d never ask”
He glanced sideways at me and grinned.
“Line I picked up in a movie,” I said. “Has no Inuvialuit equivalent.”
He turned almost immediately in to park beside a long, low log house. The windows were dark and the wind had filled his path to the side door with snow and scoured it into ripples and peaks and bare spots. He grabbed a snow-scraper from a drift by the door and cleared the way with about three scoops and gestured me in. The door wasn’t locked and when I was in he reached around me to the light switch.
The house was unlike anything I could remember in the North. On the Quebec side near Ottawa, maybe. Outside blasts of ground-drift snow swirled against the windows but the dining table I recognized as mahogany, with high-backed chairs set around it. The rest of what I could see was like a northern adaptation of something in Ottawa’s up-market enclaves like, say, Rockcliffe—except that instead of a discreet Tom Thomson or Riopelle hidden away under its own lighting system over your run-of-the-mill deputy minister’s fireplace, these walls were hung with photographs of people old, young and in between. The most striking one was over the log fireplace, a young smiling woman in an officer’s uniform of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. The Wrens, they were called. No doubt there were still Wrens, I’d even met some of them in Ottawa, but if this one had been in the Wrens when Stothers was a young officer in the Royal Air Force, they’d be about the same age and somehow I had an idea that was the case. But he obviously lived alone, so if my guess was right she wasn’t here. Anyway, I didn’t ask about her or any of the others in the photographs. I figured he’d tell me if he wished. Bookshelves were everywhere. I didn’t ask what he read, either.
He poured me a Barbados rum and ginger and himself a Scotch, which he downed quickly and poured himself another.
“Living alone requires rules,” he sighed, coming back to his chair with his new drink. It looked darker than the first. “One of mine is two drinks per night. The only trouble is I drink mine too quickly and then have the whole rest of the evening to deal with.”
He sounded slightly melancholy but, perhaps fighting a rearguard action in defence of his second drink, firmly put it down and wandered over to a map of the western Arctic. He slowly trailed one forefinger along the course we’d followed today, then stood and stared at it.
“What do you see?” I asked.
He shrugged and shook his head. “Nothing.”
One question had been bugging me, I realized, ever since I saw that snowmobile headlight and tried to fit it in to everything else I knew about this case, its principals, and the shrinking space that had become the action area. Stothers knew the country better than I, better than Pengelly, better than anyone except maybe William Cavendish and No Legs and the friends they’d grown up with. Farther north among my own people I had always used—took for granted—what you might call insider information. I needed the same thing badly, here. How badly I hardly realized until I noticed that I still hadn’t finished my first rum.
I asked, “If you were in Fort Norman two nights ago and had just stolen a couple of cans of gasoline and wanted to get to where we saw that snowmobile’s headlight without anybody seeing you, is there a way it could be done?”
He didn’t have to think about it at all. “That’s really why I was looking at the map, trying to remember things. The thing is, I’ve rarely crossed the Franklins right where we went into them today. Never seemed necessary when I could fly safer inland like we were today, or down the Mackenzie . . .”
He stopped suddenly and commanded sharply, “Answer the question, Stothers!” and then turned his head, shrunk a little, and said obsequiously, “Right, sir,” as if re-enacting some long-ago incident in an RAF mess. He was maybe a little drunk. “So okay, I can’t say exactly how somebody could get from here to there without attracting attention. But I think it could be done, with a little luck. Or absence of bad luck—I mean, absence of the bad luck of running into someone who might ask questions, or notice more than you wanted anyone to know. It would also mean having a definite, probably mapped and pinpointed, destination. In the second or two, no more, that we saw the light, it was moving west. That means he was trying to reach someplace over near the Mackenzie, or even across it.”
“Could he get to where we saw him without running in the open where he’d be visible?”
Stothers wandered around the room, avoiding the rest of his second drink as if it were shooting out deadly gamma rays.
“The key would be two nights ago after he’d stolen the gasoline. If he’s your man, even if he has no firsthand experience of these parts but still knew where he had to get to, he’d sit around somewhere in the bush northeast of Fort Norman until he figured he’d be pretty safe, all the drunks and lovers home in bed, and then he’d move. There are lots of snowmobiles that run every day near the town, so even if somebody out late did see him he’d be pretty safe. He’d cross the Bear River a few miles east of here, go south a bit and then head west, again staying in snowmobile traffic areas. Up to there, clear night, there was a nearly full moon, he might even run without lights. He wouldn’t go too far west, wouldn’t want to chance the winter road with everybody in the North looking for him. But when he got what he figured was far enough west he could simply turn south. It’d be slow going, running at night, no trail broken.”
“And around daylight he’d have to stop,” I said. “That would mean making camp with both his tent—I assume he has one—and the snowmobile under cover so he couldn’t be seen from the air.”
“Right.” Stothers stopped pacing and finished his drink, quickly.
Everything made perfect sense. Out with Edie and No Legs and the dogs, I’d been fixated on William, forgetting there was someone else to look for, and, until I learned about the stolen gas, not suspecting he might be this close. Certainly he’d be holed up by day. Maybe he even saw us go by in the open, with the dogs. Then he’d move south again by night and make camp for the day, maybe by then close to the caribou trail. Hidden again, he’d probably been aware of the Beaver. But he’d be anxious to move as soon as he could and, as a guess, with the wind carrying our engine noise away from him, he might have lost us and thought we’d gone home while really we were still fooling around farther south. Add up that and darkness coming on, he must have thought it was safe to move. That would take him to where we saw whatever it was we saw.
While I was going through that, saying some of it aloud, Stothers poured himself a third drink, with a small apologetic smile. “I don’t have company every night,” he said, as if in explanation. “The thing is, tell me where you think he might have been going. You’ve got a theory. It’s been sticking out all over you. Maybe I can give it an outsider’s assessment.”
“I think the Cessna is down somewhere between where we saw that snowmobile and the river. It might have gone to a pre-arranged landing spot. Maybe it had been arranged that Morton Cavendish’s murderer was to hide out until the first heat of the search was off—after all, there aren’t enough Mounties in the world to cover every old trapper’s cabin or every snowbank in the bush—and then rendezvous with the people on the aircraft.”
“And after that?”
“If they came down at a safe, pre-arranged place, they would plan to take off from there and fly somewhere they’d figured out in advance, maybe even have a car waiting, take the money, ditch or hide the Cessna, and live happily ever after. There’s only one piece that doesn’t fit.”
“Young Cavendish,” he said.
“Yeah.” I wondered if William had chosen the safe landing place to start with. I still couldn’t think of him as part of the deal to murder his father. But may
be I was wrong. Everything else fitted.
Back at the detachment, Nicky was watching the Disney Sunday movie. He gave me his usual cheerful welcome. I read the day’s messages, which yielded nothing. Flights west of the Mackenzie in the widening grid laid out by the baffled Search and Rescue people again had come up zero. Nicky came out during a commercial and said, “Hey, that dog-team lady was in lookin’ for you. Wants you to call her or go see her when you have a chance.”
I thought of her frostiness at our last parting. I’d worry about her later, if at all. I called Inuvik and was patched through to Ted Huff’s home. In some respects I’d rather do a thing and explain later. But what I had in mind might wind up with a search party going out for me. If so, Ted, who would have to give that order, had a right to know what I was proposing to do.
“Matteesie!” he said. “Jeez, that was fast!”
I didn’t get it.
“Can’t be more than three minutes ago I got Pengelly at home and told him to find you for me!”
I didn’t tell him that the other phone was ringing and Nicky answering and then looking over at me and grinning while he said in a low voice, “Yeah. They’re talkin’ right now.”
At the same time Ted was saying, and not in any low voice, “We got a screw-up here. Bonner. I think I told you we didn’t hold him on the Gloria thing, beating her up.”
“Yeah, matter of fact I wondered why.”
“Two reasons. One, he might lead us to some evidence in the drug case, not bloody likely, him not being stupid, but possible. Two, the kind of assault charge we had in mind was confused somewhat by the number of stitches he needed from where Maxine hit him with the ski.”
I loved that image.
“Anyway, we just told him not to leave town. But he caught the flight out today. Told the agent he was going to Yellowknife for the service for Morton. Didn’t even use a fake name. Might even have gone on to Edmonton, the flight isn’t in there yet so we haven’t been able to check. Or he could have got off at Norman Wells. If so, and where the hell he’d go from there, Charlie Paterson is trying to find out. If we pick him up we’ll let you know. Meanwhile, if he shows up there . . .”
It was a lot to take in. It wasn’t all bad. Depending on where he did get off, it could have been just a decision to run and hide, or the kind of desperate move Bonner might make if he knew all along where the Cessna was heading and was trying to catch up to his share of the money.
Ted went on, “We’ve issued a warrant now on him beating up Gloria, so anybody who sees him can grab him.”
I thought of another way. “Maybe we shouldn’t grab him,” I said. “Just watch him, follow him. Even in Edmonton if he gets that far.” I was thinking, if Bonner really is trying to get to his share of the money before it disappears, it might be just the kind of break we’ve been waiting for.
Should I change my plans for tomorrow? I didn’t think so. But before I could tell Ted what I had in mind, the original reason for my call, he went on to say he’d heard from Yellowknife that William had arrived and was staying at the Yellowknife Inn.
“Maxine’s sister is there, too. One of our people said that she and William had been in the bar together.”
That reminded me. Gloria might be one person close enough to William to find out more than the rest of us had. Like what William’s snowmobile trip had been all about. After I’d told Ted my intentions, I’d give her a call.
So I told him that, forgetting Bonner until he showed up somewhere, I thought we should go on what I had. He listened without interrupting. When I was finished he still didn’t speak for a few seconds. Call it a thoughtful pause. “Well, sounds like you’re doing it the hard way, Matteesie,” he said finally. “Wouldn’t it be better to pick up the search by air where you left off today?”
I said I thought I could do better on the ground.
“Well . . .” I could imagine him thinking I was a stubborn bastard, but then that would be no surprise to him.
He went on, “Then how about I get on to Search and Rescue and have their aircraft comb that district again. If you’re on the ground and need help, you could radio. They’d be on you right away.”
“I could do that anyway,” I said. “I wouldn’t need a goddamn air force zooming around right in the area and scaring everybody under cover. The advantage of me being out there—the possible surprise—would be lost. If everything is the way I’m thinking it is, whatever shape that Cessna is in, it’s been well hidden and will stay that way until somebody comes at it on the ground. If I can do that, I won’t go riding in like the bloody cavalry. I’ll hole up myself and report by radio and then you can send in the troops.”
“But it’ll take you most of the day just to get to where you thought you saw that snowmobile. God knows where that guy will be by the time you pick up his trail, if you can find it at all.”
I said it wasn’t going to take me a whole day to get there.
“How you going to arrange that?”
“Stothers will fly me in, with the snowmobile, land me as close as he can to where we saw the light, unload the snowmobile, give me a compass course to where we saw the light, and I’m off.”
“You’re still taking a hell of a chance if that’s the murderer.”
“I’m willin’,” I said . “Barkus is willin’.” I don’t remember everything I read in Dickens, but I do remember Barkus, the one who, faced with whatever test of dumb determination, always replied, “Barkus is willin’.”
Ted got it. “Yeah, but Dickens never sent Barkus out on a snowmobile after a murder suspect and two or three accomplices.”
“He would have if the situation had called for it,” I said stoutly.
Reluctantly, “Okay. Be careful. We’ll keep in touch by radio if we get anything on Bonner or anything else. And you bloody well keep in touch, too. Every hour on the hour would do fine.”
When I hung up I thought very briefly of Edie. She should be warned against anybody, especially a plausible bastard like Bonner, applying for the use of her dog team. Nevertheless, I decided I’d try Gloria first.
She answered the phone in her room. She sounded strained, not much more together than she’d been in that bizarre conversation the night before. “I’ve been trying to figure out whether to phone you,” she said. “I had a couple of drinks with William, I mean I had a couple and he had six, and he was talking real crazy about those other guys . . .”
Her voice trailed off. Then, as if she’d taken a deep breath and decided not to stop now, went on. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I almost got the idea that he’d seen them! Kept saying he didn’t blame Harold Johns, he hoped he was okay. And once he said, like mumbling to himself, I mean he was really drunk, ‘I fixed those two bastards, though, and I’ll get the other one, too.’ Those were his exact words. What do you think he meant?”
Well, I had an idea. But it seemed too much.
I said, “Do you know where No Legs is?”
“No. I tried to find him, but he must be staying with friends. He’s probably a little short of cash for a hotel.”
“One more thing,” I said, and told her about Bonner. She listened to that in silence. The question running through my mind was whether Bonner was now desperate enough to be a killer himself.
Edie. Her place wasn’t far away. I walked. The wind had died a little but had left a frosty clear sky where northern lights were forming and reforming, audibly crackling. My beautiful North.
I really missed being able to talk to No Legs. Never mind Bonner for the moment. He might never show up. I had an idea we had almost everything we needed to know, if we could just jiggle it around a little: the caribou crossing, the second snowmobile, and William’s wild claim, if it was intended as a claim rather than a forecast, to have “fixed those bastards”. If anyone could project all these elements into a guess on where the centre of the action was, based
on knowledge and experience, it was No Legs. Before, there’d been no way of narrowing the search into one specific spot somewhere between that caribou crossing and the Mackenzie River. Maybe it was right in the middle of the Franklins, a hidden place that William might know and only a few others, Natives like No Legs, a place where a plane might land and nobody would suspect it was there.
But if I couldn’t find No Legs, I couldn’t find him. His sister had gone with him, so I couldn’t check with her either.
Edie’s dogs set up a clamor when I got close. I knocked on her door. She must have started for the door when she heard the dogs. But if she had any holdover annoyance from the previous night she didn’t show it, just looked past me to her dog lines and decided they didn’t need her attention, then said, “Come in. Tea? Just made a pot.”
Her space was small, neat, everything in place. She was wearing a pink sweatsuit, her hair neatly brushed, and without the bulky winter clothing she’d worn every other time we met, she looked fetchingly feminine. In contrast, I felt sweaty, harried, dirty, and somewhat masculine, oddly enough. She came to the point as soon as she’d poured my tea.
“I was rude to you the other night, Matteesie. I’m really sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
“I was disappointed because it seemed like such a great trip and then got blown to hell.”
“I was disappointed, too. I thought it would be sort of nice, you and I and No Legs snuggling up in the tent to keep warm and listening to the wind.”
