The Snowfly

by Joseph Heywood

  “Were you expectin’ the house of a country squire?” Bolt asked.

  I didn’t answer. Like Bolt himself, it was nothing like I had expected.

  “I built a log shack here in 1946. It’s the kitchen now. I wandered to hell and back through these hills. No geology to speak of, but I got hold of a Geiger counter, which was rarer than a virgin in those days. I had a boat with a little outboard and I used to run her up the Serpent from the big lake, all the way up to the Elliot area. I settled up this way, but eventually I found the ore down along the river. An Ojibwa trapper I knew told me of a place where deer and moose bred monsters. Two, three heads, eight legs. I asked him if it was holy ground. He said it was more like the devil’s. Exposed ore, right in the open. I staked claim and the rest is history. Who the hell told the likes of you about my books?”

  It was a different story than Pierrette had told but not surprising. We all revise our own histories, some more than others.

  “It was in a newspaper in London.”

  “The only reason I got fences is to keep the likes of you out. Dig into a body’s life. None-a your bloody business. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Times of London.”

  He grunted. “Why the interest? I may not be book educated, but I ­didn’t get where I am by being stupid.”

  “M. J. Key,” I said.

  “Whiskey?” he asked. He went to a cabinet, took out a bottle and two tin cups with handles, and poured a dollop of Bell’s in each. “What’s so special about this Key fellow?”

  How to explain it? “He’s to fishing what you are to mining.”

  Bolt handed me a cup. He looked amused. “Son, I don’t know the first damn thing about mining. I know how to find rocks. It’s up to somebody else to claw it out of the ground.” He sampled his drink and smacked his lips. “You still haven’t said what your interest is. You looking to buy? Excuse me, but you don’t look like you can afford your next squeeze, son.”

  “I just want to read.”

  He was caught off guard. “The hell you say?”

  “That’s the truth.”

  He took another slug of whiskey. “If I had the books by this fellow Key, you’d be welcome to them, but I don’t have ’em.”

  “But you did buy them.”

  “I did. It was just an investment. I have business representatives in London and Toronto. When there’s a chance to make money, they let me know. I didn’t have the collection a month and somebody wanted something by this Key fellow you mentioned. I sold it and made one hell of a profit. It was good business.”

  I felt weary and looked for a chair. “You have the collection, but not Key’s books?”

  “Are you okay, son?”

  “I’m just tired.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t surprise me. Bustin’ beaver dams’ll pop a strong man’s balls, Luc says you work like an Indian.”

  I couldn’t believe this. Key had been sold again, like some potentate’s crown jewels.

  “Can you tell me who bought the Key books?”

  “Hell, I’ve got no idea. I didn’t sell them all. Just one. The price was too good to refuse. It was all done through some Jew in New York.”

  “I’d sure like to talk to the buyer and know which one was bought.”

  “I can do that for you. Luc says you’re crashin’ at his place. I’ll get word to you there.”

  I nodded dumbly.

  When he finished his drink, he plunked the cup down. “Got work to do,” he said. “You can find your way out, I assume. The books that weren’t sold are all in New York and I can fix it for you to see them, if you want.”

  “Thanks.” I had a strong hunch that it was the manuscript that had been removed. There was nothing else in the collection I wanted to see.

  I walked and hitchhiked and didn’t reach Luc’s until the next morning just after daybreak. Luc was already at the woodpile. He didn’t ask how things had gone and I didn’t volunteer. I went into the cabin and straight to bed.

  When I awoke, I wasn’t sure if the sun was coming up or going down, but it turned out to be morning and June was sitting across from the bed patching one of her brother’s shirts.

  “Where’s Luc?”

  “He said to fetch you when you woke up.”

  “Another job?”

  “He just said to bring you.”

  We drove across the bottom of the reserve to Whalesback Channel, which divided the Serpent Peninsula from John Island, and watched a red floatplane flitting around as if the pilot was getting up the nerve to let down. He finally did on relatively calm water, bouncing and bucking several times before the small plane settled and pushed a wave up in front of it. When it taxied to the pebbly beach, June said, “Go with him.”

  I waded tentatively into the water then stepped up onto a pontoon and into the flimsy door that swung open. The man in the pilot’s seat had thick, curly black hair, a large head, a flat pug nose, a thick neck, huge scarred hands. His hands reminded me of Valoretev’s.

  “No belt, so hang on,” he said.

  I settled in and looked out to see June’s hand cupped over her mouth, as if she were holding her breath.

  “I’m Turk,” the pilot said. “If we go down, stick with the plane. If the plane don’t make it, you’re on your own.”

  Talk of crashes before takeoff has always bothered me. We made three long runs and got airborne a few feet several times during each attempt, but we always eventually pancaked hard back onto the surface, drenching the windscreen with our own splash. Turk looked at me before the fourth attempt and said, “Gordie Howe had a lotta no-goal games.”

  No doubt this was intended to comfort me. “Maybe we should wait for the wind to let up.” Or when elephants were born with wings. I did not want to take off in this plane with this pilot.

  “And make a night landing? Are you crazy?”

  Getting there, I thought.

  We got airborne on our fourth try, but Turk had to veer sharply to avoid a small island covered with stunted balsams. He cursed as we rounded the obstacle nearly on our wingtip. “All this water and there’s always some bloody thing in my way,” he shouted.

  I gulped. It was as if he had not noticed the island until we were nearly part of it.

  We rocked and yawed our way north through rocky air, though I had the distinct impression that my pilot’s technique made for most of the roughness.

  “Nice view, eh?” he said as we bucked along.

  We were barely above the trees. I did not look down. “A little altitude might give us smoother air.”

  “One,” he said, “everybody else also flies up there. I got enough problems, I don’t need nothing else to clutter my mind. Two, none-a my instruments work worth shit. This way I can keep her level.”

  Some explanations provide relief. This one didn’t. “How long to where we’re going?” I asked.

  “Hour-fifteen, depending.”

  I didn’t ask the obvious follow-up. I just wanted it over. Safely over. The sooner the better.

  At about an hour the engine began to cough and sputter and Turk mumbled, “Fuck,” and we dipped down toward a small lake, a finger of water that the setting sun turned red-orange like a narrow tongue of flame, and suddenly we were down, but not down, skipping along like a well-chucked flat rock until we finally lurched hard, the windscreen filling with green, followed by more hard bounces until we were at the water’s end and Turk’s powerful arm snaked out across my chest and there was a horrific crunch and the tail came up as the nose jerked down sharply and dirt, bark bits, and gas spewed.

  Then there was silence and a hissing sound. We were sore but not seriously hurt and crawled stiffly out of the wreckage.

  The shoreline was littered with fallen trees, their bark stripped away over time by wind and ice. We sat on a fir snag blown over
by wind. The aircraft was a few yards away, perched vertically, tail up, vertical stabilizer a tattered aluminum pennant, here marks the spot.

  “Wrong lake,” Turk said. “A bit short, eh?”

  “You bent your prop.” It looked like a wilted lily. My head throbbed but I felt a peculiar serenity, the comfort of earth under foot.

  “Short is not lost,” Turk said. “One bad shift isn’t a period. A bad period isn’t a game. We’ll have to walk from here.”

  “How far?” He was an idiot and I had come with him willingly.

  He scratched his whiskers. “Fifteen, twenty minutes by air.” He went to the plane, fetched a pack and a rifle with clothesline rope for a sling and hobbled back to me.

  “How far by foot?” I asked. “Timewise?”

  “We’ll just have to see.”

  “How fast were we flying?”

  Turk grinned. “Dunno. No instruments, remember?”

  The walk lasted fifteen minutes and covered what I guessed to be less than a mile, eventually emerging from a rocky spine through low, wet muskeg at the boulder-strewn shore of a large gray lake. The surface prickled like gooseflesh. Two loons paddled around offshore, diving now and then.

  “This is it?”

  Turk dropped his pack and began to gather driftwood.

  “This is here.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You ask a lot of questions,” he said.

  “It’s my job,” I said.

  “It’s not mine to answer,” he said.

  We built a large fire and kept it hot and smoky, which kept some of the insects at bay and, presumably, provided a marker of our position. I had no idea where we were and Turk turned silent and snoozed, then snored, with his back against a log.

  A boat came just before dark. Luc Brokendog hopped over the bow while Pierrette Rouleau lifted the small outboard at the stern.

  Turk slept through the rescue.

  “What happened?” Luc asked.

  “We went down,” I said. “Back that way.” I pointed in the approximate direction.

  Luc gave Turk a disgusted look and kicked the bottom of one of his boots.

  “What?” the muscular man asked. “I’m awake.”

  “Why were you flyin’?”

  “I’m not,” Turk said. “Now.”

  Luc kicked his boots again and glared at him.

  “There was nobody else to bring him,” Turk said defensively.

  Luc tried to kick the pilot again, but Turk pulled his feet out of the way and scuttled backward. “Get in the boat,” Luc ordered.

  I sat beside Pierrette on a hard bench in the middle of the aluminum boat. Luc handled the motor. Turk pouted up front with his arms crossed, staring straight ahead.

  “All right?” Pierrette asked.

  “What’s with that guy?” I asked her, stabbing a finger in Turk’s direction.

  “Later,” she said, taking my arm with both her hands and squeezing gently. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  We were on the water a long time. Sometime during the journey I realized I had lost my watch. The stars came out for a while, but clouds slid over us and the night got darker and the bow continued to pop-pop-pop and wobble against low rollers as we wallowed forward.

  When we finally beached the boat, my body was still vibrating and I stumbled into the trees led by Pierrette. Luc followed, but Turk was suddenly gone. Luc made a small fire and Pierrette unrolled sleeping bags. I was surprised that there were no insects. I expected we would eat, but Luc took his sleeping bag and went away into the darkness and Pierrette laid her bag beside mine. I was too tired and sore to talk and got into my bag and she got into hers, smiled at me, and then I was asleep.

  •••

  In the cool dawn, the beginning of a morning twilight, faint and wispy lavender feathers of clouds glowed in the east. The fire was out. I tried to move but my muscles had hardened to cement.

  “Good morning,” Pierrette said from the dawn.

  “I’m wrecked.”

  “That’s the only good thing about Turk’s piloting. He goes down a lot, but everybody seems to more or less walk away.”

  “I don’t think that guy has all his marbles.”

  She chuckled softly. “You don’t know who he is?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Practically everybody in Canada knows Turk Moon. He was a hockey player with the Leafs. Their warrior, their fighter. Hands like granite.”

  “It shows in his flying,” I said.

  Pierrette laughed out loud. Her hand touched my shoulder. “When he left hockey, he bought a bush pilot business. He has five planes and people working for him. He loves to fly. Has no fear.”

  “And no skill.”

  Another laugh. “That’s it. He just can’t do it.”

  “So you sent me up with a disaster.”

  “No. He’s not allowed to fly and Luc is really angry, but sometimes the desire in Turk gets so big he can’t help himself. I think it would be terrible to love something so much and be bad at it.”

  “How did you and Luc get here?”

  “By the long route. We thought a plane would be faster for you.”

  “For what?”

  “You’ll soon know,” she said.

  I was famished, but there was no food. Luc and Turk showed just after we got the sleeping bags rolled. Turk was sullen and looked like a chastised adolescent.

  Luc said, “Ready to walk?”

  “Where?”

  “This fella asks a lot of questions,” Turk said to Pierrette.

  Luc was wearing his pack. “Let’s do ’er,” he said and headed into the forest at a brisk pace.

  Pierrette gave me a gentle shove in the back. “Go ahead,” she said. “Follow Luc.”

  “What about you?”

  “Just go,” she said.

  We immediately climbed up a hill and followed a ridgeline. The sun popped in and out of mustard-colored clouds. Luc kept a punishing pace and I struggled to keep up. The terrain was steep and severe and there were small lakes and streams everywhere, but there was no game to be seen, not even birds, as we passed through stands of white and black spruce, hemlocks and balsams and white cedars, sugar maples, birches, various pines and poplars. All the trees had a lean to them and many of the trunks were twisted as if they had been under extreme stress. Rocks were gray and blue and some of them rusty and everywhere, trickles of water sweated from the rocks. It was early for ferns so the ground was relatively clear, but curled shoots covered the earth. They looked like tiny green question marks. Soon the forest would be lush green with a carpet of ferns.

  Eventually Luc stopped and, when I caught up to him, we stared out at a lake whose water had been replaced by grayish yellow sludge. All the trees and vegetation along the shores and on a couple of small islands were dead and black, lifeless and leafless.

  “Mines,” Luc said and then we headed away up a stone razorback. After a half hour we cut down into a narrow canyon with steep rock walls and a clear stream falling over gray-blue rocks. When the canyon split, we took the left branch. The sun was hot and I wondered if the rocks served as reflectors. I was sweating and my stomach growled and I had questions that were more emotions than words and all I could do was walk heavy-legged and stare at the ground so that I didn’t trip.

  The canyon dead-ended and widened some and we were left staring up at sheer rock walls, which seemed to hover overhead. At our feet there was a hole, five or six feet across at the opening. I approached it cautiously and saw that it was lined with stones.

  “Man-made?”

  Luc removed his packboard but didn’t say anything. The hole was dark, its bottom, if there was one, unseen.

  “Some sort of mine?” I asked again. “Or a well?”

  “The people say y
ou need a name,” Luc Brokendog said.

  I blinked. “What’s wrong with the one I’ve got?”

  “Nishnawbe name.” Anishnabe, pronouned Nishnawbe, was what the Ojibwa called themselves. “This is an honor,” Luc added.

  I was too tired to argue.

  Luc pointed at the hole. “You go down there.”

  “No fucking way,” I protested.

  “You don’t have to worry about snakes.”

  I stared at him and grimaced. “I wasn’t worried about them until you mentioned them. Is this really necessary?”

  “I’ll help you down.”

  Luc gripped my hand and I hung on and dropped, bumping my knee on the way down. The ground at the bottom was packed hard. The stones that lined the sides fit tightly. The hole was ten feet or so deep, shallower than I had anticipated, but deep enough to leave me feeling isolated.

  “Not much of a view,” I said up to him.

  He smiled down at me.

  “What am I supposed to do down here?”

  “Stay put.”

  I looked at my bleak surroundings. “How long?”

  “You’ll know.”

  It was ridiculous. “What about food?”

  “Feed on your spirit,” he said, and then he was gone.

  There was enough room to sit if I crossed my legs, but there was no way to stretch out. The hole was five or six feet across at the top, wider in the middle, but it narrowed to three feet or so at the bottom. The sun was over the top and lit the opening, but I was in shadow and soon chilled by my own cooling sweat. I had on only a light jacket. It wasn’t long until my legs ached. I tried to crawl out by bracing my back and shoulders against one side and using my legs to inch my way up, but I kept falling back at the place where the hole widened.

  “Goddammit, Luc!” And Pierrette, too. She was in on this. They all were. Another practical joke, like my Russian friends had played on me. Did I come across as an easy mark to everyone?

  No answer came from above. I was sore. Pissed. Uncomfortable. Hungry. Fed up.

  Trapped.