Specimen Song (17 page)

Either way, I don’t much like it.

Lucky stood up. He peeled off his leather gloves and dropped them carelessly on the big round of wood the maul was buried in. He turned and walked away toward the outhouse.

One glove fell off.

Du Pré picked it up and tossed it on its mate.

He rolled a smoke.

When he lifted the match to his cigarette, he smelled gasoline, very faintly, and the tobacco bloomed with smoke.

L
UCKY LOOKED HAGGARD IN
the TV light. Cameramen elbowed one another viciously for prime shots. Reporters yelled questions.

Burn two canoes in the Canadian bush and you’d think a rock band’s plane crashed here or something, Du Pré thought.

Lucky said the expedition would proceed as planned.

Some RCMPs were around, asking questions headed toward blaming the fire on a drunken Indian.

Bart had showed up.

And, while Lucky was being pestered by the reporters, so had Paul Chase.

Du Pré had seen two floatplanes come in and had assumed that they bore more reporters.

“ ’Lo bro,” said Bart, behind him.

They stood watching Lucky. The guy was good. He managed to look both oppressed and fearfully determined.

The other woman from the first trip Du Pré had been on, Françoise, had showed up with the newspeople. She spent her time speaking softly into a small tape recorder.

Bart looked up and stiffened, like a dog at the sight of another on its turf.

Paul Chase was walking toward them, wearing a gleaming white smile nicely set off by his UV parlor tan.

“Hi,” he said.

Du Pré wanted to strangle him.

“You’re wrong about me,” said Chase. He smiled again. It was a smile blank as a clouded moon. His eyes were open too wide.

Bart and Du Pré just stared at him till his smile shriveled and he walked dejectedly away, one more little man cruelly misunderstood by everyone.

Lucky quit talking. The reporters fanned out and began jabbering at anyone who’d stand still for it.

The young woman from the paper who had talked to Du Pré the last time came stalking.

“Who did this?” she said.

Du Pré shrugged.

“Someone who doesn’t want this trip to succeed,” said Bart.

“Hydro-Quebec?” she asked.

Bart and Du Pré looked at something very interesting very far off. “Thanks,” she said, leaving to grasp more garrulous prey.

“This trip, it will be wet and cold,” said Du Pré.

“Yes,” said Bart.

“Why are we doing this?” asked Du Pré.

“Yes,” said Bart.

“Why are you saying yes yes?” said Du Pré.

“Yes yes,” said Bart.

They walked over toward Lucky, who was talking earnestly to the woman from the newspaper. He had a long braided thong in his hands, one with a piece of antler at each end. The leather was smooth and a deep red. He kept running the thong through his hands.

Du Pré and Bart stopped and waited.

“What is that cord made of?” said the reporter.

“Eel skin,” said Lucky, “best kind of
babiche
. Very strong.”

“Shit,” said Bart, whispering, “that’s the stuff the killer used on the second victim.”

Du Pré nodded. His people hadn’t made eel-skin
babiche
. They were a long damn way from eels. He remembered stretching the rawhide and slicing the reins from the hide, lacing up the snowshoes Catfoot made. Varnishing the
babiche
so that it wouldn’t get wet and stretch.

I wonder that shit Chase is going to follow along, Du Pré thought.

Probably.

“Did Hydro-Quebec do this?” said the reporter.

“Ask the mountains,” said Lucky dryly.

“Why did you choose the Rivière de la Baleine?” said the reporter.

“It’s very important to my people,” said Lucky.

“Do your people worship whales?” she said.

Lucky stood silent.

“Do they?”

Lucky didn’t move.

She scribbled something.

“Du Pré, Bart,” said Lucky, suddenly smiling, “let’s go get something to eat.”

“I have a couple more questions,” said the reporter, as though Lucky owed answers to her.

Lucky walked round her. She did not exist.

The three of them headed away from the ruck of people, heads down, each with his own thoughts. The reporter asked a couple more questions, but she got no answers and she gave up.

“Very smart,” said Bart. “The River of the Whale. Isn’t there a way you could get baby harp seals and the rain forest in on this, too?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Lucky. “And I never saw a harp seal in a rain forest on a whale’s back. I’d
like
to.”

“Among the primitives,” said Bart.

“Chase isn’t competent enough to follow us,” said Lucky, “so he’d have to hire paddlers, have to have flunkies. What a strange man.”

“He may have killed several of your people,” said Bart.

Lucky shook his head.

“No,” he said. “He is too weak, too frightened.”

Du Pré pulled out his pouch. The slingshot came with it. He wadded the thongs and pocket back up and stuck them in his jacket. I must practice where no one can see me, he thought.

Eloise was sitting in the front of the shack. She looked very angry.

Lucky went to her. He put his hand on her shoulder and she covered it with hers.

They murmured in Cree.

Bart and Du Pré walked away.

“We can carry rifles, at least,” said Bart. He was always ready to go to war.

Du Pré nodded.

“Michelle sends her best and says if you drown me, she won’t have you to supper for at least a month,” said Bart, “and she means it.”

“What if I pick another way?” said Du Pré.

“I’d have to check,” said Bart.

“These Hydro-Quebec people are to spend twenty billion dollars on these dams,” said Du Pré, “so I think they plan to make more than that. So with so much money in it I don’t think they play fair.”

“Capitalism and its absolutes,” said Bart.

“Just a bunch of poor Indians,” said Du Pré, “who would care?”

“A lot of people would,” said Bart, “if they knew about it. That Lucky is one smart man.”

The murmuring from the crowd of reporters and cops and Indians changed a little—a different rhythm, different notes. A woman screamed.

Du Pré looked at Bart. They began to walk fast, then ran.

The crowd was standing in a circle, looking down at something on the ground. A Mountie was moving around something, his hat in his hand.

Bart and Du Pré bulled their way through the crowd.

There was a big black raven on the ground, wings flapping.

It had two bleeding notches in its upper beak and one wing was injured.

The Mountie put his hat over the bird and tried to grab it. The bird scratched hard with its feet and the Mountie cursed and dropped it.

The crowd stood and stared.

The bird quit struggling and stared back.

Little ropy crimson strands of blood hung down from the deep notches.

Du Pré picked up a stick, stepped forward, and crushed the bird’s skull.

The Mountie opened his mouth. He shut it.

Du Pré picked up the dead raven and looked at the beak.

He was angry, breathing hard, his eyes seeing red.

He heard wings. Night.

Owls.

D
U
P
RÉ LOOKED AT THE
little telephone. Bart could call anywhere in the world or from anywhere at all in the world.

This twentieth century is a goddamned terminal disease. Du Pré thought. It is getting into every little corner of the world. We left beer cans on the moon. There’s no place to run.

Bart handed the little black folding phone to Du Pré.

“Hi,” said Detective Leuci. “I bet you hate this thing.”

“Yeah,” said Du Pré.

“At least you can check in on your trip,” she said.

“Yes, Mama,” said Du Pré.

“We didn’t even know where Chase was,” said Michelle. “Aren’t we good cops? Guy’s like water, any little hole. What do you make of the bird?”

“I don’t know,” said Du Pré.

“Is Chase going to follow you?”

“I ask him, call you back,” said Du Pré.

“We’re talking to the Mounties,” said Michelle.

Du Pré said nothing. So what the fuck some dumb cops from Montreal or Ottawa going to do for us? This guy is here somewhere, he knows us, and we don’t know him. How did Benetsee know about the bird? The bird is not a person, it is a sign, a badge, a calling card, a warning.

One guy with a rifle take us all out sitting on the water like them ducks. We can’t get in the water, it will be so cold, we will die in a few minutes. This guy, he knows the bush. This guy is a fox.

“You check out those two guys who were with Chase last summer?” said Du Pré.

“Of course,” said Michelle. “Sean St. George and Tim Charteris. Both working on doctorates. Both absolutely clean. Good students, good family, good this, good that.” Chase has a lot of weird stuff in his past, but no prosecutions.”

“These guys, what are they working on for this doctorate thing?” asked Du Pré.

“Anthropology,” said Michelle.

“I didn’t think it was rocket science,” said Du Pré, and then he felt bad, having been snotty.

“I am sorry,” said Du Pré. “I just wondered what exactly they are writing these things on.”

Michelle called over to someone, waited.

Du Pré could hear someone reading painfully, limping along a sentence full of words that were beyond his pronunciations.

“Tim Charteris is writing something on the Basque penetration—doo wah—of the Canadian wild. There were Basques there a long time ago.”

Du Pré had heard some stories about that, knew a couple of fiddle tunes. The Basques had been killing whales off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia centuries before Columbus had stumbled ashore in Dominica. Very clannish and closemouthed were the Basques. They would set sail from Bilbao and come back with barrels of whale oil and never a word where they got it.

“And St. George is doing something on …” She paused, struggling with the word in front of her. “Hungwitching shamanism.”

“Hungwitchin,” said Du Pré. The People of the Deer. Far, far to the north, in the forests. “Michelle, could you maybe do me a favor? You find out what those Hungwitchin believe in, you know, what they got for a religion, maybe?”

“Okay,” said Michelle.

“Also, you could maybe call Madelaine, have her see that old fart Benetsee is around,” said Du Pré, wishing to Christ the old fart was right here. Even some of his riddles would help.

Du Pré handed the nasty little black magic object back to Bart, who murmured into it for a while and then folded the talking piece back into it and stuck it in the pocket of his vest, which had about forty, the kind photographers wear to announce that they are photographers. If you filled each pocket, you probably couldn’t stand up.

Du Pré was happier in other times. Maybe a rifle, some salt and tea, a horse. Eat your way along. No telephones. You die, you are a skeleton long time before they find you. Now you can’t even
die
, they airlift you out, plug you full of tubes, give you a full set of new organs.

Twentieth century. Bah.

The air still smelled sour. Burned cloth.

A few people milled around down by the water. The Mounties were gone. They had taken the bird as evidence.

Maybe it’s got microfilm in its gizzard, Du Pré thought, a little videotape. Computer chips.

Shit.

Chase was off by a copse of old spruces, talking earnestly to the woman reporter, who was taking notes, and waving his hands a lot. He saw Du Pré and his speech stumbled. He turned away.

I scare him, thought Du Pré. Good.

But what about his Charteris and St. George? They are not here.

No, I just haven’t seen them.

Du Pré rolled a smoke, lit it, and went looking for Lucky.

Lucky and Eloise were in their cabin, going over the checklists of supplies for the trip, arguing in soft voices.

Du Pré found a box and sat on it.

“Anybody camp around here you wouldn’t know about it?” said Du Pré.

Lucky shook his head no.

“You sure?” said Du Pré.

Lucky shook his head yes.

Du Pré took out one of the soapstone balls and twirled it in his fingers.

A plane? He threw the bird out of a
plane
, Du Pré thought. Shit. So much coming and going.

And I am off and don’t look up.

Du Pré went looking for Bart. He left so quickly, Eloise came after him to see what was wrong, followed a ways, shrugged, and went back to the lists.

He couldn’t find Bart. Chase was still talking to the woman reporter. Du Pré’s eyes locked on him and he started running and so did Chase, leaving the woman shouting a question, pencil poised over paper.

Chase was fast, wearing running shoes and desperation. Du Pré’s rubber-soled boots were heavy and not made for such work. Chase made the mistake of looking back and tripped over a downed sapling and crashed into the brush. Du Pré was on him before he could struggle up and get to speed.

Du Pré lifted Chase clear of the ground, rage swelling his strength.

“I am tired of this shit,” said Du Pré. “So I tell you, you cocksucker, anything more happens I come after you, and not to tell you a funny story. I don’t care you got anything to do with it or not.”

Chase wriggled; his tongue crawled out of his mouth.

Du Pré just held him for a moment and then set him down.

Chase was wheezing hard, like he had asthma.

“DU PRÉ!” Bart yelled, “Goddamn it. Quit!”

Du Pré turned. Bart was standing there, looking stricken.

“I thought you were going to kill him,” said Bart, shaking.

“I might,” said Du Pré.

Chase ran.

They heard him fall again, hard.

They walked back to the village.

I
T TOOK TWO
D
E
H
AVILLAND
Otters to ferry the gear and the people to the canoes waiting in the malevolent forest along the Rivière de la Baleine. One whale, not two, or many.