Coppermine (28 page)

“Look at that. Two knives, hinged. The blades opposing each other to cut. It is so simple. These white men are not stupid. We should have thought of that.”

The white men were still not satisfied and went at them again with other very sharp knives that trimmed off the hair on their faces and heads. Sinnisiak panicked for a second when the man came at his neck with the knife. But the officer made reassuring noises, and Uluksuk told Sinnisiak again to be calm.

“We are at their mercy, and they seem merciful.”

When the white men were finished, the hunters’ heads looked like big clean rocks and they laughed at each other, but then wondered what was next.

TWO ENTHUSIASTIC OFFICERS
at first tried to process Angituk in a similar way. She held them off with her knife as she explained in fluent English who she was and that she could do her own ablutions. Angituk had expected to stay with Uluksuk and Sinnisiak beside their cell until a representative from the prosecutor’s office, named Mr. Ainsley, explained that as an official interpreter they needed her together with the other members of the court in the hotel.

“Will Corporal Creed be in the hotel?”

Ainsley checked his list. “Yes, he is. You can eat in the dining room and charge your meals to your room. Just sign the bill they bring you,” Ainsley told her. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

Even though the Hotel Macdonald was only a few blocks from the barracks, Angituk had to ask people on the street three times for directions to it. There were no bushes or big rocks or streams to identify the place. Carrying her knapsack past the bowing doorman, she found her way, in accordance with Ainsley’s directions, through the three-storey lobby. It caught her breath for a moment as she looked up at the ceiling and turned completely around. It reminded her of the pictures of cathedrals in Father Ducot’s book. Then she went on to the “check-in.” Ainsley had underlined “check-in.”

The assistant manager gave her a reserved smile. “What can I do for you?”

She wondered where to start, and after a moment of verbal stumbling under his inquiring gaze she finally thrust the letter toward him. His smile expanded and he told her, “Welcome to the Hotel Macdonald, Mr. McAndrew. We’re pleased to have you.”

An enthusiastic young man in a dark red uniform insisted on carrying her knapsack down the long hallway and around the corner. He talked very fast. He unlocked a door and welcomed her in, spreading curtains, turning on lights, and opening doors with such familiarity that at first she thought it might be his own room, but he insisted it was hers alone. The young man pointed out the bath salts, ran the water in the bath until it became steaming hot, then turned it off, and headed for the door.

“There’s always a good supply of hot water if you care for a bath. You can have extra towels if you like. Just ask. Dinner’s served between five-thirty and eight o’clock. Oh, and you have to press the door lock down hard in this room or it will flip up and open.” He showed her, tapping the lever with his finger. “Press down hard and it will stay. Any laundry or shoes to shine can be left outside your door before six a.m. And there is wakeup service if you need it.”

He stood in the doorway and smiled and put out his palm. She reached out and shook his hand enthusiastically in the way white people do. He looked slightly disappointed but smiled again cheerily.

“Good night and enjoy your stay with us.”

Angituk wandered around the room in awe for several minutes. It was more beautiful than any place she had ever been in her life. There were flower-print bedsheets on a bed easily big enough for four people, and a bathroom right through the door with running hot water and a dressing table with a big mirror. It was even nicer than Father Ducot’s house in Fort Norman. She tried switching the lights on and off a few times. She turned on the tap to fill the bath with hot water and threw in a handful of the granules that smelled like flowers, marvelling to see bubbles emerge; and while the tub filled, the slim girl spent her time bouncing up and down on the springy bed.

Fourteen

Early the next morning, Angituk sat beside the cells in the detachment reading a magazine from a pile beside her. She was not quite used to the isolation of her beautiful hotel room, and though she had enjoyed the bath and the soft bed she couldn’t shake the suspicion that someone would come and claim the room back. She still felt more at home with the prisoners.

She had never seen anything quite like the magazine she was inspecting. But she found the pictures fascinating. All the long thin women wore long thin dresses with their chins high and some with round hats pulled down to their eyes. This was beautiful, she guessed, to white people. Just like the yellow- haired woman on Creed’s arm. Angituk shook away the dark thoughts she had about the blond woman and continued leafing through the fashion magazine.

Uluksuk and Sinnisiak sat quietly in their cell. Uluksuk’s stomach had been giving him trouble for two days. The white food was not agreeing with him and he had thrown up twice that morning, feeling terrible embarrassment. It was the first time in his life food had come up. Angituk had given him wet towels to clean himself and water to drink. Overheated and restless, they had both had trouble sleeping through the night. Uluksuk’s eyes were closed and he seemed to be sleeping now. Sinnisiak was looking at one of the magazines too. It was called
Harper’s,
and he also marvelled at the skinny white women.

“Uluksuk. Look at this.” The old man opened his eyes, his stomach still giving him pain, and surveyed with disapproval the slender woman in the picture. “This one is obviously starving,” Sinnisiak continued. “Their men must be poor hunters.”

Uluksuk nodded and closed his eyes.

“They would be so cold and bony to sleep with. I can’t see them pulling a qamutik very far. I doubt they could even set a snare.”

Uluksuk nodded again without opening his eyes.

“Maybe good for a rich man.”

There were other compelling pictures in a different magazine. There were men with guns in the mud. Angituk showed them to Sinnisiak.

“Look. This is what Creed told us about. The war across the ocean.”

There were pictures of guns so big it took four men to load the bullets and fire them. There wouldn’t be much left of a caribou with that firepower, Sinnisiak thought. Other photos showed long holes in the earth where men lived like ground squirrels and where the mud was so deep that wagons and horses and men became stuck in it. There were pictures of dead bodies, men without arms or legs or even faces. This was how white men made a war. Angituk and Sinnisiak studied the pictures in silence. It occurred to Angituk that this was the source of the deep sadness she sensed in Creed.

She leafed back to pictures of things to buy: clothes and motor cars, and machines that could be hot or cold by pressing a button. One item that caught her eye was a woman riding something called a bicycle. Two round wheels. She would like that. A bicycle to ride along the road. But why didn’t it fall over?So many mysteries. She looked at the woman in the picture, who appeared quite confident. If she could do it, Angituk could. But the woman reminded her again of the yellow-haired woman and her mood darkened, just as Creed came in.

“Hello. How are you doing?”

Uluksuk woke up and he and Sinnisiak were very relieved to see him.

“Hello, Creed! Hello!” Sinnisiak spoke the English words well.

Creed took Uluksuk’s hand in his through the bars and smiled at the old man sadly.

“How are you doing?” Creed asked again.

Angituk’s response revealed more irritation than she wished, but she couldn’t help it. “You can see. They have cut off all their hair. And they put them in those white men’s clothes. Uluksuk is sick. He doesn’t like the overcooked white food. It’s mushy. They have taken away their dignity. And they don’t sleep well on the wool blankets. It is too hot. You have not cared for them very well.”

Creed turned toward Angituk, surprised by this attack. “Well, I can get cotton sheets and maybe a small fan and raw fish.”

“Maybe they should have run away from you after all.”

Creed looked down, studying her for a moment. “What’s wrong, Angi?”

“Nothing. You just went and left us alone.”

“Look, why don’t we go for a walk?” Creed suggested.

“No. Thank you. I don’t like Edmonton.”

“Come and see more of the city.”

“I have seen enough.”

“Come and see the river. There’s a beautiful new bridge.”

“I’ve seen plenty of rivers.”

“How do you like your hotel room?”

“It’s too hot and dark and smells like soap.”

“There’s a park you could see with pathways and gardens in bloom.”

“Then why don’t you take your yellow-haired friend?”

Creed was taken aback. “Oh. I see.”

Angituk would not look into his eyes.

“Angi? Look at me.” She did not. “Nicole is just a friend.”

“Does she know that? You say Uluksuk is your friend. I never see you kiss him like that.” Angituk sniffed away an angry tear with irritation.

“Well, you’re right. Once we were more than friends, but not now.” Creed caressed her cheek with his hand. “Angi, I do love you. That hasn’t changed.”

“No? I thought maybe it was a dream.”

“It’s real, Angi.”

Angituk looked up at him then for the first time, wanting so much to believe. “Yes?”

“I do have to make things clear to Nicole. And I will. I just haven’t had a chance. Things are complicated. She is the niece of the Justice, the
Ishumatok
who will be the judge of Sinnisiak and Uluksuk. She has a lot of influence on him. Just give me a little time.”

“All right.”

“Will you come for the walk?”

She looked at him pointedly. “Yes. After you make things clear to her.”

Creed didn’t hide his disappointment, or a whiff of irritation. “Okay, fine. Probably for the best.”

CHIEF JUSTICE HORACE HARVEY
threw a small dinner party for Creed at his mansion just off Saskatchewan Drive, overlooking the North Saskatchewan River. Nicole had helped her uncle through his grief for his wife and now looked after him like a daughter, filling the house with a warm and festive feeling. Harvey adored her.

He sat at the head of the table with Creed on one side and Nicole on the other. Harvey’s son, Harold, was a captain on leave from Edmonton’s Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He was friendly and pleasant with Creed, a goodlooking young man. He had been stationed at headquarters in London, England, and Creed hid his disappointment on hearing that after his leave he was set to assume a command for the first time on the Belgian front.

“I can’t wait to get there, Jack. I’ve been training for more than a year. I want my chance to teach the Boche a lesson.”

Creed nodded and smiled sadly. He had spoken those same words a lifetime ago.

Next to Harold was an English friend, Lieutenant Richard Wilkerson, who frequently played with his thin moustache and eyed Nicole’s cleavage too often. He had seen a bit of action the summer before at the Somme and would make the most of it with any encouragement at all.

When the staff had cleared away the dishes, the Chief Justice held up a glass, his eyes shining. His affection for Creed was obvious. “Let’s have a toast. To Jack Creed! For demonstrating courage, endurance, and fine police work. I hear there’s already a promotion to inspector in the works. And only fitting. To Jack!”

Nicole reached out and patted his hand as they all raised small stemmed crystal glasses that reflected the light from the huge chandelier above, reminding Creed of fresh, still Arctic snow at noon.

He lowered his eyes and smiled. “Thank you, sir, for your complimentary words, for this esteemed company you’ve gathered here, and for this excellent claret. But let me say again, the element most at work in my travels was blind luck.”

“Too modest, Jack!” Harold insisted good-naturedly. “You must have had at least one eye open.”

“Maybe one,” he said over the laughter.

The most recent newspapers were brought in and distributed.

“Have a look at these,” the magistrate directed them.

There were copies of the
Edmonton Journal,
the
Toronto Star,
the Montreal
Gazette,
the
Chicago Tribune
and
The New York Times.
The headlines read:
THE MOUNTIES—RED-COATED GUARDIANS
OF THE LAW—GET THEIR MEN,
and from the
Times:
CANADIAN LAWS ENFORCED IN ARCTIC DOUBLE MURDER.

“There’s the important one,” the Chief Justice declared. “We have enforced our laws in our land. And that’s what will resonate in Moscow and Washington when we begin to tax and regulate the whalers and lumber companies up there.”

“Yes, but the public doesn’t care about that, Father,” Harold said. “The press is covering it because of the murder investigation and the Eskimo and the sort of people they are.”

“And that they ate the livers,” his English friend, Wilkerson, added. “My God. That’s outstanding.”

“You know,” the Justice continued, “what makes the case fascinating is that the brutes seem so docile, so amenable—yet the crime reveals their duplicity. They have confessed to actions—and you yourself have seen the grisly results, Jack—that prove they are nothing less than savages!”

Creed calmed his angry reaction. “One thing I can say, sir, is they are not savages. I think you will find it interesting as an educated man, when all the facts are presented, how morally intact they are.”

“But we must send a message to their kind: you can’t get away with murder,” said the Justice.

“They are here to face judgment. With all due respect, sir, I hope you will keep an open mind.”

There was silence at the table at Creed’s remark, which verged on impudence.

“Do you actually think them anything more than primitive Neanderthals?” Wilkerson asked Creed.

“They are certainly more than that. They live a simple life, true, but they think and feel, show kindness, affection to their wives and children, have a very complex and subtle language, they tell jokes, appreciate beauty, are sometimes worried …”