Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas (4 page)

Sometime soon these two were about to get a deal more High Arctic authenticity than they'd bargained for. Not that they knew it yet. While Edie had been fixing tea, the wind had changed; squally easterlies were now sweeping in from the Greenlandic ice cap, suggesting a blizzard was on its way. Not imminently, but soon. There was still plenty time enough to fill the flasks with tea and get back to the gravel beach where Edie had left the two men sorting out their camp.

She threw another chip of berg into the can and while the water was heating she reached into her pack for her wedge of
igunaq
and cut off a few slices of the fermented walrus gut. The chewing of
igunaq
took some time, which was part of the point, and as Edie worked the stuff between her teeth she allowed her thoughts to return to the subject of money and from there to her stepson, Joe Inukpuk, who was the chief reason she was out here in the company of two men who couldn't shoot. Guiding paid better than the teaching that took up the remainder of her time, and Joe needed money if he was to get his nurse's qualification. He couldn't expect to get any help from Sammy, his father and Edie's ex, or from his mother Minnie. Edie didn't spook easily – it took a lot to frighten an ex-polar bear hunter – but it scared her just how badly she wanted Joe to be able to go ahead with his nursing training. The Arctic was full of
qalunaat
professionals, white doctors, white nurses, lawyers and engineers, and there was nothing wrong with most of them, but it was time Inuit produced their own professional class. Joe was certainly smart enough and he seemed committed. If she was thrifty and lucky with clients, Edie thought she could probably save enough this coming summer to put him through the first year of school. Guiding hunting expeditions was no big deal, like going out on the land with a couple of toddlers in tow. She knew every last glacier, fiord or esker for five hundred miles around. And no one knew better than Edie how to hunt.

The chip of berg had melted and she was unscrewing the top of the first thermos when a sharp, whipping crack cut through the gloom and so startled her that she dropped the flask. The hot liquid instantly vaporized into a plume of ice crystals, which trembled ever so slightly in the disrupted air. The hunter in her knew that sound, the precise, particular pop of 7mm ammunition fired from a hunting rifle, something not unlike the Remington 700s her clients were carrying.

She squinted across the sea ice, hoping for a clue as to what had happened, but her view of the beach was obscured by the iceberg. Up ahead, to the east of the beach, the tundra stared blankly back, immense and uncompromising. A gust of wind whipped frost smoke off the icepack. She felt a surge of irritation. What the hell did the
qalunaat
think they were doing when they were supposed to be setting up camp? Firing at game? Given their lack of enthusiasm for the shoot, that seemed unlikely. Maybe a bear had come too close and they were letting off a warning shot, though if that were the case, it was odd that her bear dog, Bonehead, hadn't picked up the scent and started barking. A dog as sensitive as Bonehead could scent a bear a couple of kilometres away. There was nothing for it but to investigate. Until they got back to the settlement at Autisaq, the men were officially her responsibility and these days Edie Kiglatuk took her responsibilities seriously.

She retrieved the flask, impatient with herself for having dropped it and spilled the water, then, checking her rifle, began lunging at her usual, steady pace through deep drift towards the snowmobile. As she approached, Bonehead, who was tethered to the trailer, lifted his head and flapped his tail; if he'd picked up so much as a hint of bear, he'd have been going crazy by now. Edie gave the dog a pat and tied in her cooking equipment. Just as she was packing the flasks under the tarp, a sharp, breathless cry flew past and echoed out over the sea ice. Bonehead began to bark. In an instant, Edie felt her neck stiffen and a thudding started up in her chest. Until that moment, it hadn't occurred to her that someone might be hurt.

A voice began shouting for help. Whichever damned fool it was had already forgotten the advice she'd given them to stay quiet when they were out on the land. Up here, shouting could bring down a wall of ice or an avalanche of powder snow. It could alert a passing bear. She considered calling out to the idiot to stop him hollering, but she was downwind from the hunters and knew her voice wouldn't carry.

Hissing to Bonehead to shut up, to herself she said: ‘
Ikuliaq!
' Stay calm!

One of the men must have had an accident. It wasn't uncommon. In the twelve years she'd been guiding southern hunters, Edie had seen more of those than there are char in a spawn pond: puffed up egos, in the Arctic for the first time, laden down with self-importance and high-tech kit, thinking it was going to be just like the duck shoot in Iowa they went on last Thanksgiving or the New Year's deer cull in Wyoming. Then they got out on the sea ice and things didn't seem quite so easy. If the bears didn't spook them, then the blistering cold, the scouring winds, the ferocious sun and the roar of the ice pack usually did the job. They'd stave off their fear with casual bravado and booze and that was when the accidents happened.

She set the snowbie going and made her way around the iceberg and through a ridge of
tuniq
, slabby pressure ice. The wind was up now and blowing ice crystals into the skin around her eyes. When she pulled on her snow goggles, the crystals migrated to the sensitive skin around her mouth. So long as no one had been seriously wounded, she told herself, they could all just sit out the storm and wait for help to arrive once the weather had calmed. She'd put up a snowhouse to keep them cosy and she had a first-aid kit and enough knowledge to be able to use it.

Her thoughts turned, briefly, to what the elders would make of what was happening. All but Sammy didn't much approve of a woman guiding men. They were always looking for an excuse to unseat her. So far, they hadn't been able to come up with one. They knew that she was the best damned guide in the High Arctic. She'd never yet lost a client.

The snowbie bumped over an area of candle ice and brought her to her senses. Like Grandfather Eliah used to say: speculation is a white disease. But then, she was half-white herself, so maybe she couldn't help it. In any case, it wouldn't do now. The key to getting everyone out of the situation, whatever the situation turned out to be, was to focus on the present. The High Arctic only ever made room for now.

On the other side of the pressure ridge, a human shape emerged from the gloom, the skinny guy, Wagner's assistant. Edie struggled momentarily to recall his name. In her mind he'd become Stan Laurel, without the charm. Andy, that was it, Andy Taylor. He was waving frantically. As she approached the gravel beach, he ran back to where the body of his boss lay splayed on his back. Edie brought the snowbie to a halt on the ice foot and made her way across the snow-covered shale. Taylor was gesticulating, trying to get her to speed up, the asshole. She carried on at the same pace. Running equalled sweating equalled hypothermia.

Closing in, she could see things were more serious than she'd allowed herself to imagine and suddenly she understood something of Taylor's panic. The injured man was not moving. A large pool of blood had gathered under his right arm, melting the surrounding snow, freezing into a purplish sorbet. A tiny skein of steam rose from the spot.

‘What happened?'

‘I was over the other side,' Taylor muttered. ‘I heard the sound, I ran.' He pointed to some tracks, rapidly being erased by the wind. ‘Look, look, see, see?'

Think, woman
. Despite the company – or maybe precisely
because
of the company – she felt resolutely alone. The first thing to do was to call and speak to Robert Patma or Joe on the sat phone. Darling Joe, who had been volunteering in Patma's clinic for a year now and seemed to have accumulated almost as much expertise as the nurse himself. She glanced over at the injured man. No, on second thoughts, the
very
first thing would be to stop the bleeding.

She went back to the snowbie, took out the first aid kit, and bustled back up the beach towards the wounded man. Taylor was on his knees beside Felix Wagner now, a look of terror on his face, his hands scuttling across Wagner's body, loosening the fabric of the wounded man's parka. She fell to the ground beside him, gesturing Taylor out of the way.

‘I swear, the shot came out of nowhere.' Taylor's voice was querulous and high-pitched. Something flickered across his face, a momentary despair, and, as if sensing the implausibility of his observation, he repeated it. ‘Nowhere.'

Edie had never seen a man so wounded before; foam bubbled from his lips, he was panting and his eyes were darting blindly in their sockets. His face was the colour of limestone. A smell of urine drifted upwards, but Edie didn't know either man's scent well enough to tell which of them had pissed himself. She pulled aside Wagner's parka and inspected the wound through his polar fleece. It looked as though the bullet had penetrated his sternum, just above the heart. The wound was oozing, not fountaining, which she took to mean that the bullet had missed a major artery; the most immediate danger to Wagner's life would be if the lung collapsed. She turned briefly to Taylor.

‘You didn't see anything, anyone?'

‘I didn't fucking do it, if that's what you think.' Taylor's voice faltered and he held both palms out, as if surrendering. ‘I told you, I was over there, taking a leak.' She met the fellow's eye, remembering that she hadn't liked him when he'd stepped off the plane two days ago. Nothing he'd done in the last couple of minutes had made her change her mind.

‘Chrissakes, this has
nothing
to do with me.'

‘Wrong,' she said, turning her attention to the wounded man. ‘This has plenty to do with us both.'

Wagner's pulse was rapid and weak and he was sweating profusely. Edie had seen animals like this. Shock. Even if his lung held, it would be hard for Wagner to pull out of it. The immediate priority was to stem the blood flow and keep him warm. Given the position of the wound it seemed extremely unlikely that Wagner had shot himself accidentally but her instincts told her Taylor wasn't lying either. She glanced over at him: no discharge stains on his gloves. Unless she was very mistaken, the skinny one wasn't the shooter. Closing in on the wound site she picked a couple of bone fragments from the flesh and beckoned Taylor nearer. Wagner panted a little then calmed.

‘Press on the wound and keep up the pressure. I'm going to call for help.'

For a moment Taylor looked like he was going to faint. ‘Press? With what?'

‘Palm of your hand, who cares?'
Use your dick if you have to
. She pulled the scarf from round her neck to give him something to press into the wound. Taylor reached for it with his left hand and did as he was told.

‘What if the shooter comes back?'

She gave him a long, hard look. ‘You're a hunter, aren't you?'

The sat phone was sitting in its insulated cover at the bottom of the pannier where she'd packed it. It was Autisaq council of Elders policy that all local guides leading foreigners carried one; otherwise she didn't bother with them. The cold made the batteries unreliable and the line was often scrambled. In any case, she'd never had cause to use one until now.

Sammy's voice came on the line. Edie took a deep breath. Today of all days, her ex-husband was on duty in the comms office. She checked her watch. Another southern habit, Sammy would say. It was 2p.m.

‘We've got a hunting accident.' Keeping it simple for now. ‘It's pretty bad. Chest wound. If we're lucky it won't bleed out, but the guy looks like he might go into shock. We need Robert Patma and a plane.'

‘Where you at?'

‘On Craig. At Uimmatisatsaq. Patma knows it. Joe took him fishing there one time.'

Sammy sucked on his teeth. She could tell from the way the sound of his breath moved that he was shaking his head.

‘Hold while I check the plane schedule and the forecast.' Waiting, Edie dug around in her pannier, drew out a sheet of polyurethane, took out her knife and hacked off a rough square.

The phone crackled and for a moment she could hear the faint intimations of another call, two voices speaking in some language she didn't understand, then Sammy's voice tinkled through the handset.

‘Edie, there's a blizzard coming.'

‘Yeah.' Holy walrus, the man could be irritating. ‘Looks like one of those spring blow-overs.'

‘We can't send a plane until it's gone through.'

‘Air ambulance from Iqaluit?'

‘I checked already. They're weathered out.'

Edie scrolled through the options. ‘We get a medic here we might be OK. Robert Patma could make it on a snowbie.'

Silence on the phone, then another voice:

‘Kigga.' It was Joe. Edie felt her body give a little.
Kiggavituinnaaq
, falcon, his nickname for her. He always said she lived in her own world up in the air somewhere. Strictly speaking she wasn't his stepmother any more, not officially anyway. Still Kigga though.

‘Robert Patma left for the south yesterday. His mother was killed in a crash, dad's in hospital. They said they'd send a temporary nurse but no one's shown up.'

Edie groaned. ‘They' as in feds, held to be responsible for everything and nothing, as in, ‘The spirits were angry with my sister so they made sure the feds didn't get her treated for her TB in time.'

‘That gets out, Autisaq can forget its guiding business.' She was angry, not with Robert, but with a system that left them all so vulnerable.