Coppermine (12 page)

He worked through a theory for each murder based on the physical evidence and his experience. He believed Le Roux was killed first at the sled. The first wound was the knife to the torso, but he could still have fought back. The mortal wound was the knife cut to the throat, which would have killed him within a few seconds. The blow to the head was the finale. Unnecessary, but it finished the job.

As for Rouvière, he had been running away He had probably witnessed the attack on Le Roux, realized he was next, and made a run for it through the deep snow. A single shot from a high-powered rifle had brought him down but not killed him. Creed found three spent shells from a .44 calibre rifle beside the sled. He assumed the first two had missed the priest. A Copper Eskimo murderer was probably not too familiar with the workings of the high-powered rifle. But by the third shot he found his mark.

Unless it was Hornby.

Hornby. This was a thought Creed had considered more than once after the Englishman’s confessions about his feelings for Le Roux. But on reflection that seemed improbable. And it was doubtful Hornby would have needed three shots.

Creed followed the course of the bullet, which had entered the back, passed through the lung, bounced off a rib, and exited through the chest. Father Rouvière would have been knocked to the ground by the force of the gunshot, but then somehow he had turned around. Creed speculated that after his initial flight through the deep snow Rouvière knew he was finished. There was no escape. But he still had the strength to stand, turn, and face his killers. He might even have tried to reason with them. And their response? They put a knife deep into his stomach and then clubbed him with something hard enough to cleave his skull.

There was one final mystery. On both bodies the skin of the torso had been well enough preserved to permit observation of a large crescent-shaped incision to the right of the stomach. These were not kill wounds, more like the cuts a surgeon might make to perform an appendectomy. They had been inflicted after death, after the heart had stopped pumping blood; the fabric around the wounds was bloodless.

THE GROUND SQUIRREL
was surprisingly good and the boy was pleased that Creed was satisfied. Above them, though the glow of the sun on the horizon would stay with them through most of the night at this time of year, the northern lights put on an impressive show, pinging and sighing and whispering above Bloody Falls.
Maybe the Catholics have some kind of connection to the heavens after all,
Creed mused, studying the luminescent green curtains that draped the sky.

The boy looked up at Creed from time to time, and then nervously into the dusk that separated them by only thirty yards from the sled. The Corporal had left the bodies where they lay, just on the far side. Angituk’s people had always dealt with the dead very quickly, taking them to a place away from the living—a hilltop, into the ocean, onto an ice floe. The Corporal seemed intent on keeping the bodies close, studying them, poking at them with an irreverence Angituk didn’t understand. More than anything, the boy just wanted to leave this place.

When Creed had finished the ground squirrel, he licked his fingers, wiped them on some heather, and took out Rouvière’s notebook. “Do you want to hear?”

“Yes,” the boy said, though he didn’t.

Creed’s translation of the French was far from perfect, but the gist of the entry was clear. “Father Le Roux arrived in Fort Norman, and I am travelling up the Great Bear River once more,” the text began in Creed’s translation. “It is such a relief to have company as we head into the far north, and already we have enjoyed some great talks. Father Le Roux is in excellent physical shape. He is a very confident man and quite opinionated and likes to take the lead on things. It is a relief to have someone else of strong will, for without it the Arctic could gobble you up! I hope to teach him Wisk and to instruct him on the sensitive diplomacy that is the best way to approach the Eskimos. He seems like he might be quite receptive to my experience.”

Creed stopped reading and looked into the tiny fire for a moment, remembering what John Hornby had said of Le Roux and reading between the kindly lines of Rouvière’s journal. The temperament of this new priest did not sound suited to life in the Arctic. Creed’s mind drifted back to his examination of the bodies. He glanced up at the boy, who was lost in his own thoughts.

“Angituk.” The boy looked up, startled. “There are strange circular cuts in the stomachs of both these men, made after they were dead. Do you know what they would be for?”

The boy hesitated, worried he would anger the Corporal. He spoke quietly. “Yes. Do you remember the caribou you shot on the Dismal Lakes, and what I did? It is the custom of the Copper people. It is a sign of respect.”

“What is?”

“After a kill. To eat the liver.”

Creed stared at him with growing revulsion.

“While it is warm. You eat some and toss some to the spirits as a sacrifice.”

“You are saying they ate their goddamn livers?”

Angituk was warned by the disgust in Creed’s tone.

“It is out of respect for the animal you have killed, and it also makes sure their spirit will not rise against you.”

“All right! Enough about bloody spirits!” Creed snarled at him.

Angituk looked at the ground.

Then Creed thought of Begley smoking Ross’s leg over the smudge fire at the cabin in the Caribou Mountains. No one civilization had the patent on barbarity. But with the war in Europe escalating, that was a whole different discussion. He was about to tell the boy he was sorry for raising his voice, but Angituk suddenly stood and headed for the tent.

“I’ll sleep now.”

CREED SAT UP
in the small tent writing his report by the light of the oil lamp. Angituk slept beside him, but the boy was restless and dreaming. He moaned and cried out once. Creed put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Shhhhh. It’s all right,” Creed whispered.

Angituk settled again and Creed went back to his report. A fearful little moan escaped Angituk’s lips once more and he rolled over against Creed’s side. He tossed an arm around Creed’s waist and hugged him in a somnambulant embrace. Creed pulled up the boy’s sleeping bag and placed a comforting hand on his thin, bony back, and stroked him a little to ease him back to deep sleep.

Creed felt the boy’s arm around his waist, the long, thin fingers holding him with determination. He looked down at the long black hair fallen across the boy’s face, the gentle arc of his neck, his full lips parted, and suddenly Creed was startled by a strange burning in the skin of his face and a flush that went up and down his body. Creed took the boy’s tattooed hand from his side and folded it down between them, pushing the boy gently but firmly away. Angituk rolled over and within seconds was sleeping soundly again, but to Creed’s mortification the response by his body continued. Creed threw his report book to one side, unpeeled himself from his sleeping bag, and launched himself out of the tent.

AS THE GREEN AURORA
flickered above him, Creed stood naked, waist-deep, in the quiet pool at the bottom of the falls under a full moon, arms crossed, confused and disgusted with himself. As his lower body went numb, he reasoned that the aberration had some acceptable explanation to do with diet or exertion or exhaustion. Whatever it was, thank God the boy hadn’t seen. He would put this embarrassment behind him and simply carry on with his duty. This would never happen again.

Five

The next morning, Creed and Angituk buried the remains of the two priests. Creed kept Father Rouvière’s damaged skull for evidence, placing it respectfully in a small leather bag. The two distinct graves were shallow in the permafrost but well fortified by layers of rocks to prevent any more disturbance by animals. Creed broke apart the old sled and lashed together the runners to build and erect a large wooden cross between the graves. Though raised a Presbyterian, Creed appreciated what the priests had been trying to do. He said the Lord’s Prayer over them, putting in the Protestant ending, “For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, forever and ever,” just for good measure. He prayed to God to have mercy on their souls. He and Angituk sang two verses of “Rock of Ages,” which, to Creed’s surprise, the boy knew well. Creed spoke what he remembered of the “dust to dust” passage and tossed some granite sand onto the graves. Then they walked down through the tumble of big rocks to the bottom of the falls, where they had loaded and secured the gear in the canoe, and set off downstream to find the murderers.

IT WAS LATE NOW
in the brief Arctic summer and the heat of the sun on their backs reminded them to enjoy it while they could. The broad surface of the Coppermine was sparkling merrily, and Angituk was visibly relieved to be away from Bloody Falls with its violent history, old and new, and its ominous spirits. He paddled with enthusiasm, though the current did most of the work. They both looked up to watch a dozen northern pintails fly like artillery shells just above the surface of the water. At high altitude, a long V formation of Canada geese was heading south to warmer climes while Creed and Angituk pushed north into the Arctic.

THE RIVER MAINTAINED
its slowly weaving course between high sandy bluffs rising up on both sides of the riverbed, and the current moved them along easily. Rounding a bend, Creed could see downstream to where a headland on each side squeezed the river through a rocky narrows. He began to look for a place to land and portage. He said as much to Angituk, who was silent for a moment and then asked a one-word question Creed could not hear over the rushing drone of the river.

“What was that?”

Angituk said the word again. “Scared?”

The boy turned and gave Creed a teasing grin through his long hair. Creed glared at him, irritated by the challenge, studying the intimidating rapids up ahead. All right. Several mammoth rocks, but he thought he could see a reasonable line to take. It would save time, and the headland didn’t offer much of a path onshore.

“Okay, my friend. You’re on!”

The boy looked at him, tying back the hair from his eyes and smiling with excitement.

They were swept into the first of the moving water with an acceleration so abrupt Creed was unprepared. It was all he could do to keep the Peterborough’s stern from pulling them broadside, and he suddenly realized it was much worse ahead than he had thought. They should have scouted it first. Huge boulders loomed up. Standing troughs and a few ominous recirculating holes sought to pull them in and flip them over. Angituk drawed and cross-drawed like a madman, up on his knees, plunging his paddle into the churning ferment, his hands white-knuckled on the paddle’s shaft, guiding the bow away from granite outcroppings. They struck the first rock off the starboard bow and the cedar ribs protested with a sickening crack. Bouncing off, they continued straight and tried to regain control. The biggest boulder yet, a monolith, stood in the centre of their line. Heavy current boiled up in front of it, spreading out and back. Their strokes did nothing against the surge of water carrying them into the vacuum, and as they hit, the canoe turned broadside, riding the boils and slamming again and again onto the face of the boulder. The entire force of the Coppermine hammered against them. Creed was sure the Peterborough would either cave in or dump upstream but though the ribs cracked and water splashed over the gunnels, they braced against the boulder with all their weight and presented the river with the wide underbelly of the canoe.

Creed levered hard with his paddle against the rock and suddenly the canoe’s stern slid around the rocky face backwards and down into the boulder’s opposing eddy, which for a moment held the canoe still. Creed wedged his paddle in a cleft in the rock on the downstream side and held on as the force of the current moved the bow around in a 180-degree turn. Creed pulled the paddle blade free of the rock just in time, and they were headed downstream once more, bow first. Creed couldn’t believe it.

For a moment they were safe in deep water. They could see ahead one more set of rapids, as always the work of disgruntled spirits, before the Coppermine flattened out and became calm again. Angituk turned around, pushing his loose hair out of his eyes, and grinned at Creed, exhilarated.

“My friend,” Creed gasped, “we are two lucky bastards!”

“The spirits like us, Corporal!”

“I guess they must.”

Angituk let out a high-pitched whoop as the canoe dipped into the last of the rapids. They were swept, yelling and laughing, into the white water, paddling with a cocky confidence over the huge standing waves. They could see the calm water ahead. They were fifty yards out. Angituk looked back at Creed with a goofy grin.

“Want to do it again?”

“For God’s sake, keep paddling!” Creed commanded, spotting disaster ahead, but it was too late. The canoe slid over a massive submerged rock and into the frothing, bubbling hole on the other side of it, turning them broadside and dumping them upstream of the canoe into the ice-cold maelstrom. It happened so fast both paddlers came up sputtering and were held for a few moments in the hole with their betrayed vessel, one on each side, before being spit out into the main current. The overturned canoe and paddlers were swept along in the outwash of the set, feet bumping against the smooth-worn rocks on the bottom and deposited quite suddenly in the calm shallows of a wide basin. They were both still laughing, despite themselves, choking and spitting out water.

“Why did you stop paddling?”

“Why did you stop steering?”

Angituk’s fedora floated by upside down.

“Hey, you forgot something.” Creed grabbed the widebrimmed hat, dumped the water inside it over Angituk, and placed it firmly on the boy’s head. They laughed again at this.

“Life sure is wet with you, Corporal Creed.”

If the water were any colder it would have been ice, and they were both shivering, teeth chattering. Creed turned the canoe right-side up and surveyed the food and equipment tied securely under the thwarts. It was all there. Creed tilted the canoe over and drained some of the water out, and they stumbled toward shore, pulling the Peterborough with them. Onshore, they tilted her again, pouring most of the water out, and carefully dragged her up onto the pebble beach.