Coppermine (22 page)

Angituk finished coarse-stitching together the light, dry caribou bedding hides for the roughly triangular sail. Uluksuk and Sinnisiak were fascinated by the craft. They’d never seen anything like it. A huge sled without dogs. They knew about sails for boats, but nothing like this, on ice.

Creed proudly announced to them all that they should catch some sleep. They would “weigh anchor” at sunrise.

THE NORTH WIND
rose with the sun and the promise of a bright day, the lake a mirror of shimmering mirages before them. They tethered the ice boat to a scrub tree onshore, sails down, and, slipping and sliding, the passengers made their way aboard. There was little room for anything but their bodies. They packed their belongings, tent, sleeping bags, and the food they had saved on the sled towed behind. The two apprehensive sled dogs would ride on the frame with them, held by Uluksuk and Sinnisiak. In this sober morning light Creed had no idea if it would work, but what the hell.

When all were on board and settled on the triangular frame—Sinnisiak and Uluksuk positioned themselves on their bellies well forward on the outriggers, holding a sled dog each, Angituk crouched on her knees on the main beam in front of Creed, who sat upright on the helm at the back with the aft stay under his left arm and the tiller under his right—Creed ordered Sinnisiak to raise the caribou-hide sail. Sinnisiak did as he was told, hauling the heavy sail up to the top of the mast. It bent alarmingly in the steady wind, but it held. The craft strained at the tether. Creed smiled at Angituk, who looked back at him with excitement.

“Will it work?”

“Who knows? But I wish we had a bottle of champagne.”

“What’s champagne?”

“Never mind. Can I borrow your knife?”

Angituk gave him the little penknife that was her Christmas present. He opened it and held it above the tether. Angituk stared at him.

“Come on. Go! Why are you waiting?”

“It’s an important moment. I want to remember it.” He felt the north wind blow quite strong through his beard.

“Just GO!”

A sudden gust embraced the big hide sail, bent the mast, and strained the aft stay to the breaking point. Angituk took the little knife from Creed’s fingers, leaned past him over the stern, and quickly cut the tether. The craft bolted out across Dease Bay in the stiff wind toward the wide ice of Great Bear Lake dragging the qamutik behind them like a rag doll. Everyone scrambled to hang on to something. Angituk moved forward to find her place behind the mast. They were under way.

Creed was amazed by the speed. They must be doing thirty- five miles an hour in this old rig! The oscillating qamutik finally settled on its frozen rails and now rode smoothly behind. He hoped the hunters were enjoying the ride. They would never have experienced this speed. Luckily, the surface was smooth, for the craft had no suspension at all, and they rumbled along feeling every bump and imperfection in the ice. With the constant and intense vibration, each word Creed tried to say was a stutter. “How do you like it?” he shouted into the wind.

Uluksuk and Sinnisiak both turned back toward him. Their faces were masks of terror with tears streaming down. They were shouting something in Coppertuk that could only mean “Slow down!” The dogs too had caught their fears and their eyes were wild, jowls blown back, exposing teeth clamped shut as the wind unfurled their black lips.

“It’s okay. We’ll be fine,” Creed tried to reassure them over the howling wind in his ears. There was no way to reef the sail. No way to slow down.

Angituk, on the other hand, was loving it. She turned to grin back at him from time to time, her long loose hair flying around her face. “FAAAASTER!”

Creed grew very pleased with himself as they sailed past islands and rocks approaching the mouth of the bay, the big, wide, frozen lake opening before them. The gut lashings were holding the craft together so far. With the backstay as tight as a mandolin string the mast maintained its integrity. He took his compass from his pocket. The vibration and the sun glare made it difficult to see the needle. He set a course of 220 degrees, about fifteen degrees starboard of the peninsula on his left, a course he estimated would take them all the way to the mouth of the Great Bear River at the south end of the lake. At some small islands near the shore they passed a herd of caribou that gazed nonchalantly at the speeding ice boat as if such a thing sailed past them every day.

Seeing the caribou seemed to ease the hunters’ focus on their fears. They talked and pointed and discussed the caribou over Angituk’s head. When they were past the herd, Creed noticed that the hunters were still watching the shoreline and islands go by. They were getting used to the vibration and constant rumble. Uluksuk took from his bag several pairs of slotted eye protectors to ease the glare of the sun. He and Sinnisiak put them on and passed two back to Angituk, who put hers on and passed the other to Creed. He put his around his neck.

Creed called up to them, “Having a good time yet?”

The hunters turned back toward him, both lying on the cross boards to either side of Angituk. Each one now gave him a grin and a thumbs-up, wearing their slotted eye protectors. They would cover a substantial distance while the wind and light held. Star, who was in Sinnisiak’s arms, suddenly gave a long howl. Angituk laughed and joined her. Then Sinnisiak and Uluksuk began to howl too. Angituk leaned back and poked Creed in the stomach. The Mountie, his translator, the two prisoners, and both dogs howled with all the exuberance and joy they could muster as they careened across the sunlit mirror of the enormous inland sea.

BY THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY,
the glare from the sun off the ice was intense. They were well past the big peninsula and out of sight of any land ahead, so Creed checked his compass every few minutes.

Angituk called out to him, “Creed, put on the eye protectors!” She and the others were wearing theirs.

“In a minute.”

Creed squinted at the lake surface ahead, negotiating snowdrifts that would slow them down or even stop them and severely jeopardize the mast. The qamutik sled behind them had a tendency to begin to fishtail with any change of heading and he had to have a gentle hand on the tiller. The eye protectors remained hanging from his neck.

He had seen so many mirages during their peculiar passing that it did not alarm him at first to see the open water.
The lake ice must be four feet deep,
he reasoned.
This vision is merely some trick of the sunlight.
But as they ventured closer and the sparkling chop could be seen, his hair tingled as it became apparent that the lake was not fully frozen. An enormous open cauldron presented itself ahead! He adjusted their course hard toward the white ice to starboard, skirting the western edge of the open water. He finally breathed out when he saw they would make it around. He and Angituk exchanged a look.

“This is where the big lake breathes,” she called to him. “It is a living thing and needs oxygen like you and me.”

Creed looked out over the frigid water, watching the lake breathe as his primitive vessel rumbled past toward thick ice.

As the day wore on, Creed’s buttocks and tiller arm grew completely numb. His back was stiff and eyes red and sore, but he was happy. The sun was on its descent now and they were approaching a mass of land to their right, another peninsula jutting out from the west shore. If he followed this shoreline to the southwest, he would find the mouth of the river. Couldn’t be more than a couple of hours. They would make it before darkness fell. Almost three hundred miles in a day! If there were spirits out there, they were smiling on them.

AN HOUR LATER,
Creed squinted up at the distant horizon and saw the south shore. His idea had worked beautifully, but he was very tired and sore. They all were. They had gone over two pressure cracks that could have torn the runners off and ripped the boat apart if they were not descending. As it was, the drop had rattled their bones and severely tested the structure, but it somehow stayed together. The initial exhilaration of the voyage was long gone. He could see his weary passengers just wanted to get to land.

Creed studied the approaching shoreline. He could see the river mouth and looked for a place there to camp. It was late in the day and he was having trouble seeing. His eyes were painfully irritated. How far was the shore? And how was he supposed to stop this thing? The wind was still high and if he tried to turn into it they would topple and crash for sure. Damn, his eyes were hurting. He had to figure this out. The others were looking back at him apprehensively through their eye slits. How close were they to shore? He could hardly see.
Is that it right there?
he asked himself, staring through the blur.

The shore was quite flat and treeless near the river mouth where, at full sail, they left the ice and ploughed into a five- foot snowdrift. It was like being hit by an avalanche, but the snow was soft. The mast cracked in two and the sails came down on top of them. They all remained still for a moment as the snow settled around them. They had made it to the south shore. They clambered out of the wreckage, spitting out snow and testing their land legs. The dogs barked madly and wagged their tails.

Creed stumbled out of the drift holding snow against his burning, scratchy eyes. He was in pain.

Angituk noticed the eye protectors around his neck. “You wore the eye protectors, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Not all day?”

“I was going to …”

The others looked at Creed and at each other with concern. Creed took the snow away from his eyes and tried to focus on them. All he saw was a red haze and blurry figures.

“I can’t see.”

“You are snow-blind.” She knew it would get worse before it got better.

His eyes felt like a hundred needles were embedded in them.

“DAMN IT!”

He crouched down on his knees to find more snow. Star tried to lick him and he pushed her away. Breathing in between his clamped teeth, he scooped two handfuls and held it against his burning eyes again.

Angituk knelt down beside him. “We will make a shelter here. We’ll have to stay for a while.”

“When will I see again?” She didn’t answer. “Will I see again?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? Damn it! Look.” Creed grabbed her arm, upset and breathing hard. He took his Colt revolver out of the holster and put it in her hand. “You’ll have to guard them. You know how to fire this?”

“No.”

“Put your hand here.” She did so. “There’s the trigger. This is the safety.”

“Yes. Like a rifle.”

“Okay. You can’t let them go. Let me hear you fire it once.”

“Why?”

“Pick a tree. Shoot.”

Angituk pointed at a Jack pine twenty feet away and pulled the trigger.

Sinnisiak and Uluksuk jumped as the revolver fired. It kicked Angituk’s shoulder and put a dime-sized hole in the centre of the tree.

“Okay. Now you know how to fire it and they know you know. Don’t let them go.”

“I won’t,” she said defensively, rubbing her wrist.

“I’m sorry about this.”

“I told you—”

“I was stupid, I know.”

“Yes, but never mind—”

“No, I really was. Goddamnit, I’m sorry.”

Angituk held fresh snow up to his eyes and looked to where Uluksuk and Sinnisiak were already building a shelter for him from saplings and the caribou hides that had been the sail.

The first few hours of the night were the worst for Creed. He lay on his back in agony exacerbated by his feelings of stupidity. They had given him the protectors and told him to wear them, and he had ignored them. Now fire roared inside his eyeballs. He was furious with himself. Angituk continued to bathe his eyes with snow.

“Where are they?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“They’ve made their own house.”

“You’re sure they’re there?”

“Yes.”

It was long after midnight before Creed found his way to a restless sleep. Angituk put their sleeping bags together and lay down beside him to keep him warm. She had seen snow blindness before and she knew the extent to which the pain could cripple the sufferer. It was good he slept, for tomorrow the pain would be even worse. And for a couple of hours she slept too.

It was well before dawn when his bad dreams started. He was talking to someone and trying to get up.

“It’s coming from the box. The pillbox. No use till we blow it. Well, DELAY THE GODDAMN ADVANCE! Give me two good men and half an hour …”

Angituk stroked his face. He settled for a moment.

“WHAT! Is he trying to kill us all? Where is the idiot?”

Creed was sweating and feverish. Angituk wiped his face.

“Get your masks out. Everyone get out your masks! COOPER! WHERE THE HELL’S YOUR GODDAMN MASK? Well, take Riley’s—he doesn’t need it anymore.”

She spoke to him. “Corporal? It’s all right. You’re safe. It will be okay.”

“No. No, I’ve got to do the night patrol. Go get Hedley and Turkstra for me.”

“All right,” she said, stroking his face. “Okay.”

He settled again and his breathing became shallow and relaxed.

It was after sunrise when Creed suddenly sat up. He was blind.

“Where are they?” He was wide awake, his voice cold and hard.

“Who?”

“What do you mean ‘who’? The prisoners. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be guarding them!”

Feeling around, Creed grabbed the pistol on the floor and then slipped the .38-55 out of its long sheath and stumbled out of the shelter. He opened his eyes and the faint sunlight daggered them. All he could see was a red wash with hazy images beyond. He pulled on his boots and groped his way to the other shelter.

“Sinnisiak! Uluksuk! Where are they?”

The other shelter was abandoned. Creed felt around for his prisoners and their belongings. The shelter was empty.

“WHERE ARE THE PRISONERS?!”

Creed stormed and stumbled around the camp, waving the rifle left and right, tripping over some cut firewood and raging at his bad luck.

“Goddamnit! How could I let this happen?”

Angituk had followed him out of the shelter. He turned and confronted her, seeing only a vague image through the red.