Coppermine (48 page)

“Charlie then began to speak a mantra from our childhood: ‘Second star to the right and straight on till morning. Second star to the right and straight on till morning.’ I walked through firefights with bullets flying by. I sidestepped two soldiers in a knife fight. Mortars fell near me. A boy died an arm’s length away, but I was not touched. I passed like a ghost among the living and the dying. I was blessed. A bullet clipped my shoulder finally. It spun me around, but I stayed on my feet. I looked at the blood on my hand, which had flowed down my arm—and I suddenly wanted to live.

“I walked for hours with more determination, within sight of the trenches, past towns and forests equally brutalized, past bodies of men and rotting beasts. Bits of shrapnel, glass, and empty shell casings cut my feet, but I stayed mostly in the mud or patches of grass. It was late October. The night was strangely warm and I was not cold. I met a full British battalion moving east and I felt invisible as they passed by me. Frank Banes’s idea kept me moving west and Charlie’s spoken instructions made perfect sense to me. ‘Second star to the right and straight on till morning. Second star to the right and straight on till morning.’ We should all have had such clear directions given us.

“At some point I found a horse standing to the side of a bomb crater on a road, nosing around for clumps of churned-up grass. There was an English saddle in place, reins trailing in the mud. A short distance away her rider, a British captain, lay dead, face down in the mud. Though my wound had opened no arteries, I had lost a lot of blood and felt weak. I whistled to the mare and her ears perked. I approached her and she seemed almost as if waiting. The horse took two steps toward me. I mounted her and rode west, still with Charlie’s voice in my ear. ‘Second star to the right …’

“By dawn, we were well to the northwest of the battlefields. Coming over a rise, I made out in the distance the cranes and factories of the port of Boulogne on the coast of the English Channel.”

NOW, ON THE WIDE,
comfortable bed in the Hotel Macdonald beside Angituk, Creed stopped talking for a while, looking off as if from a clifftop into a distant memory on the horizon. Angituk tried to smooth the furrows of his brow with her fingertips, and when still he did not look at her she placed her hand gently on the side of his face and turned it toward her. He smiled back sadly.

“So? Then you became a mounted policeman and they finally gave you some clothes?” She was pleased to see the smile without the sadness for a moment.

“No. There was a barn near a sign that pointed to Cap Gris Nez and I found some overalls. People were good to me. At the docks in Boulogne I avoided the military police and found a ship, almost empty, headed back to New York. They needed crew. I spoke some French and no one asked questions. I stayed hidden while a military policeman and a customs officer inspected the ship. America had not yet joined the war, but everyone knew they were sending supplies to the French and English. The first night the captain cauterized my wound. Did a good job.” He showed her the small blue crater in his skin and muscle. She touched it and kissed it.

“Did your brother ever speak to you again?”

“No. He got me out of trouble. That’s what he always did. I have not heard his voice since then. When I got back over here, I thought of going home to Peterborough, but there were just too many questions to answer. My brother was dead and my father and I were not on good terms. And that is the first place the military police would look for me. So from New York I made my way to Chicago, then north to Winnipeg. I took Frank’s advice to heart and continued west. My money ran out in Regina, where I was informed by a Methodist recruiter that God had determined I should become an honourable member of the Royal North West Mounted Police. They needed good men. I liked the idea. It had been some time since God had said anything to me at all. In fact in Belgium I believed He was dead. So I became a new man and my name was Creed, and I had a mission: I would serve the force and bring order and law.”

Creed looked at Angi’s blue eyes studying him intently. He could see that she didn’t understand everything, but she understood and felt his pain, and loved him as he was. He realized in that moment how deep and complete and overwhelming his love for her was. She was the one his life had brought him to, the essential friend and lover. In spite of his desire for solitude and independence, his selfish moods and carelessness, his insensitivity and his stupidity, he would die for her. Or die without her. She was the lost life force that he had been searching for. Through her he could believe in a god again. He placed his hands around her face.

“Angi.” He spoke in an intense whisper. “I’ve been thinking what we should do. We’ll get a couple hours’ sleep then leave well before dawn. We’ll pick up horses at Walpole’s near the river and head south. Travel light. Cross country in case they’re watching the roads. In four or five days, we’ll keep the mountains in view and cross the border into Montana. Pick up the Missouri and follow it down west into northern California and head for San Francisco. I’ve always wanted to see San Francisco. And the Pacific Ocean. And they’ll never find us there. What do you think? Will you come with me?”

She looked at him, caught up in the question, then her brows knitted. “What about Nicole? I saw you kiss her in the dining room.”

Creed was surprised that she had seen them. “I needed her help to have the sentence commuted for Sinnisiak and Uluksuk.”

“So you don’t love her?”

“No, Angi, I don’t love her. I love you.”

In a sudden torrent of relief, she smiled at him and rubbed her face against his battered one, smearing some blood from his cheek onto her own.

“Yes, I will come with you.” And then she kissed him tentatively, aligning her lips carefully with his as she was learning to do, nose to the right, eyes open to assess how their faces fit, then closed. He kissed her back, gentle but firm. Before he could withdraw, she took his lip in her sharp teeth and bit until he gasped and pulled free. Then she smiled. They kissed again, their passion ignited, mouths locked together, arms wrapped around each other until they had to stop to catch their breath.

“You really love me? Say it again.”

“I swear it’s true. I want to swim in the Pacific Ocean with you. Or any ocean. I want to be with you forever, Angi. I love you, I need you. I am yours,” he told her, and she smiled again, eyes shining. She nuzzled him gently.

They knelt on the bed facing each other, their breath quickening together. She raised her slender arms and he slipped her undershirt from her broad, skinny shoulders and then slowly pressed the open palms of his hands against her breasts and cupped them gently. He was amused by the contrast between this elegant room, with its soft mattress and fresh linen, and the cold, wet love they had made in the Great Bear. Her undershorts disappeared and she helped him off with his. She pushed him back, climbed on top of him, and eased him inside her. Sitting on him with back arched, she made love to him as if at a gentle canter, her breaths quickening, pleasuring herself on his body until her eyes widened, muscles tensed, and a long breath escaped her in an animal moan. And then she laughed at her own pleasure and collapsed on him.

He rolled her over, exchanging places, and looking down into her eyes he held her beautiful face between his strong hands and kissed it and licked her lips and nose. He moved inside her for a long time, until they were both overwhelmed as if by the ocean tides surging up through the green ice caves. Then they collapsed side by side and floated on a dream into the deepest sleep of their lives.

Twenty-Six

Nicole Harvey conducted her search for Jack in a calm and authoritative manner. She did not show her desperation; she was too strong for that. And yet each time she said the charge out loud to herself, she could not believe it. Murder. She would help him escape. She had her own money and she had friends in Toronto she could count on. But first she had to find him. She started at the hotel, where she discovered several RNWMP officers waiting for him. She went to the detachment. They had sent out patrols. She took Cowperthwaite aside, but even he had no idea where Jack might be. She went to restaurants and two taverns Jack visited and called the houses of several mutual friends by telephone. But by then it was well after midnight and she didn’t want to alarm anyone. If they sensed her anxiety, it could compromise her plans for Jack’s escape.

Nicole was about to return to her uncle’s house and wait for Jack to contact her when she had an idea. The half-breed boy. The translator. She sensed a bond between them. He might know where Jack was.

She made her way back to the hotel. It was very late and the bar was closed and the lobby quiet. She nodded to two policemen she didn’t recognize at Jack’s door and made her way down the hall and around the corner. It was the third door, she believed, where she had seen the boy enter once. She didn’t want to disturb anyone else at this late hour or call attention to herself. She tapped as loudly as she dared, only then recalling the lad’s name.

“Angituk?” she whispered at the door. “Angituk.”

There was no response and again came her concern that she not wake any others in the hotel. She found her hand on the knob and turned it. It resisted at first but then, as she tried again, something gave way, the knob turned, and the door opened. She looked inside. She knew her presence in the boy’s room would be a little awkward, but this was an emergency. She felt for a light switch but couldn’t find one. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she moved slowly into the room, trying to sort out the tangled shadows on the bed in front of her.

“Angituk …?”

The word caught in her throat in surprise when she saw the strong, bare, familiar shoulders of the man on the bed. Before she could call his name, her joy was overtaken by a dark foreboding. What was going on? She moved slowly, reluctantly toward him. He was on his side, naked, facing away from her, sleeping soundly. As Nicole moved closer, she saw that he held the boy in his arms. But her moment of shock and revulsion was cut short when she noticed the incongruous shapes of the boy’s naked body. This was not a boy’s body at all. There was no mistaking the feminine curve of the slender thigh. Angituk was a woman! Grief and rage consumed her at first, and she was on the very verge of screaming. Then Nicole abruptly regained control of herself.

She looked down at the two of them. Completely naked. What held her spellbound was the way they lay—his left arm protectively around her shoulders, her tattooed left hand gently on his chest as if in a caress, right hands with fingers entwined, their faces close, turned almost eagerly toward each other, breathing together the same air, all in their own world. When Nicole and Jack had made love that one time, there hadn’t been this intimacy. She would have given anything she had, she thought bitterly, for a night like this with him. But he had chosen to have it with the half-breed.

She looked at them sleeping with the innocence of children. She hoped their dreams were sweet. She hoped it had all been worth it to them. Carefully she began to back away from the bed toward the door. Leaving them just so, she stepped over the threshold and closed the door silently behind her.

THE BIG MILITARY POLICE CORPORAL
was the first one through the door. He was followed by four of Creed’s fellow officers. The corporal drew his gun. They surrounded the bed. Creed sat bolt upright. Angituk awakened more slowly, looked at the man with the gun, and covered herself. Captain Crosswell was in the doorway. He stepped inside and approached the bed.

“Are you John MacKay?”

Creed took a deep breath. “I am.”

“You are under arrest for murder and desertion. We are to escort you back to Belgium to face a court martial. There you will be assigned an officer for your defence. I suggest you say nothing about your defence until then. Get your clothes on.”

Creed checked his watch: 1:45 a.m. He had planned to get up in two hours. How had they found him?

He sensed her presence before he saw her. Nicole Harvey stood in the doorway behind the officers, her face cold and aloof as she studied Creed. She had turned him in, he realized. There was pain and anger in her eyes, but no regret at what she was doing. He could not blame her.

The other policemen turned away as Creed and Angituk found their clothes, but the corporal and captain did not. Having spent so long and come this far, they weren’t going to take their eyes off him. Creed discreetly held a sheet around Angituk while she slipped into her clothes. Nicole watched his gentle ministrations toward the girl: his steadying hand, his whispered words. He put on Sedgewick’s suit and Oxford shoes. Two officers placed his hands behind his back and cuffed them. Corporal Dewey spoke for his colleagues.

“Terribly sorry about this, Creed.”

The little captain turned to Dewey. “Shut up!”

Creed again caught Nicole’s eyes. He was sorry to have hurt her like this. There was a moment of silence in the room and then Nicole suddenly, against her resolve, released a sob. She put a hand to her mouth, turned, and left the room.

BY 2:00 A.M.,
Creed was back at the detachment, locked in the cell beside Sinnisiak and Uluksuk by Captain Crosswell himself. Creed watched his nimble hand, marvelling at how agile the Englishman was with only one. Crosswell turned the key, slid it out, and gave Creed a thin smile.

“We’ll take the noon train Tuesday. The long trip back to civilization.”

“Is that what you call it?”

Crosswell ignored him and walked out into the main detachment office, closing the heavy door behind him.

The Eskimo hunters had awoken from a deep sleep. Sinnisiak was pleased to see him until it was explained why Creed’s cell was locked. But Uluksuk barely acknowledged him. The old man was gaunt and very ill. Sinnisiak had learned more English from Cowperthwaite over the last few days and was able to explain his concerns about his friend.

“Uluksuk no eat. No talk. Say he better dead. And look.” Sinnisiak lifted up Mainprize’s pocket watch, which Koeha had given Uluksuk. It had been dropped, and the glass was cracked. “Watch broke. Uluksuk say sun no come.”