The Darkening Archipelago (39 page)

Now the other men were on him. Cole got to his feet and staggered sideways, his hands in front of his face, when the first man stepped into him with an axe handle, swinging wildly for his head. Cole turned and took the blow on the side of his arms and threw his forehead into the man's face, breaking his nose, spraying blood across his own face. The second man stumbled back, dropping the axe handle and clutching at his face, cursing. Cole saw the third and fourth men hesitate before stepping toward him. Not waiting for them to seize the upper-hand their numbers gave them, Cole bolted toward the man on the right, striking him in the face with his right fist, using his bulk to send the man wheeling backwards. Cole went crashing down on top of him, kicking and punching him as he landed on the man.

Cole was on top of him, wild-eyed, face covered in his own and another man's blood, and the assailant looked suddenly fearful for his own life. Cole punched the man twice in the side of his head, connecting with his ear and temple, and the man appeared to black out. The final attacker kicked at Cole, knocking him off the unconscious man, and Cole rolled in the dirt, clutching at his ribs.

“You're one crazy motherfucker, aren't you?” the fourth man said. Cole rolled and stumbled backwards, skidding in the gravel on the road. “Come here, I'm going to fuck you up.” The man charged him. Dan Campbell had staggered to his feet and stepped toward Cole, the fish club held loosely in his hand.

“You're going to wish you were never born, Blackwater,” Campbell said, spitting blood. Cole had risen to his feet, staggering, his vision blurred by blood and pain and booze.

Dan stepped into him, swinging the club at Cole's head. Cole ducked and drove his head into Dan's solar plexus, driving him backwards. Dan tried to bring his knee up into Cole's body but tripped as he did, and both men were in the dirt again. Cole drove his head into Dan's gut, and he gasped for air, spitting his vomit onto Cole. The fourth man kicked Cole in the side and sent him spinning into the moonlit road. The assailant picked up the axe handle and started toward Cole, grinning. Campbell staggered to his feet, club in hand.

Cole stood, hands up, his hair a mess of blood and vomit and dirt, his eyes nailed to his two remaining opponents. They both came at him at once. Stepping lightly, feeling the glide he had once known in the ring, Cole managed to deliver a solid left cross to Dan Campbell's face, knocking the man off his feet for the second time that week. Campbell spun sideways and careened into the dirt road again. The second man delivered a vicious blow to Cole's back as this happened, and Cole dropped to his knees, blinded by the pain. The man raised the club above his head as Cole knelt before him.

“Hold it!” came a voice from behind them. “Hold it right now!”

Campbell staggered up and turned to look back toward the voice. A silhouette of a man was rushing toward them, his hulking features backlit by the moon. “Take one more step and I'll cut your goddamned heads off.”

Cole saw the shape moving toward them, could see the glint of moonlight off metal.

“He's got a fucking hatchet,” said the man to Campbell.

“You crazy fucking Indian,” said Campbell, his face a red smear, as he started to walk away. He watched the man with the axe. “This isn't finished, Blackwater. Get out of Lostcoast before you end up like your friend, at the bottom of the channel.” Then Campbell and other man were gone into the night, helping their beaten colleagues as they went.

The man with the axe reached Cole and knelt down beside him. First Moon.

“Nancy called. She was worried when you didn't come home,” said Darren. Cole tried to stand but collapsed to his knees and spat blood onto the ground.

Darren First Moon took him under the arm and helped him to his feet. “Wish those dudes had stuck around,” he said, fiddling with the axe. “Always wanted to use this thing on one of those bastards.”

26

Archie Ravenwing sat in his office and watched two ravens chase a bald eagle across the western sky. Despite his anger, he couldn't help but smile. “Me an' Grace should be chasing that peckerhead White Eagle just like that,” he said, grinning.

Grace would be disappointed in him. That was what hurt the most.

He didn't care about his own reputation. Didn't even mind if he went to jail, though he thought that was pretty unlikely. He'd have to repay what he took from the band council coffers. About ten thousand dollars. Maybe a fine on top of that. Do some community time. Talk to school kids about fraud. He laughed again. That would be a real barnburner, he thought.

Cole would be disappointed, too. That hurt almost as much as hurting Grace. Cole had never come around asking for his money, even though he needed it worse than Archie did. Archie looked around him at the office his skullduggery had built. He had justified it by telling himself that he needed the space to undertake his one-man war against the salmon farmers. But the truth was, it was pride and hubris, plain and simple. It was ego, always Archie Ravenwing's downfall.

The ravens had harried the eagle until it fled, flying west toward the inlet. That was where he would go tomorrow. Tomorrow he would rise before dawn and make for Jeopardy Rock, get the final proof he would need to blow the lid off this debacle. What would he be looking for? Records of some sort? A signed confession from Thurlow?

He'd know it when he found it, Archie Ravenwing thought to himself.

Archie rose from his chair and went to the kitchen, flipping on a light as he did. He turned on the marine radio to listen for the next day's forecast. He opened the fridge, took out a plate of cockles he'd collected that morning, and turned on the range, placing a heavy frying pan over the flame. He cut onions and smashed garlic and sautéed them in a pad of butter.

Something else saddened him. With his reputation in shatters, it would damage the effort to protect wild salmon. He'd have to turn the evidence over to someone like Carrie Bright in order to make his case. Or Cole. That's what he would do. While the butter and onions and garlic browned in the pan, he went back into the office and turned on his ancient fax/photocopier to let it warm up.

He returned to the kitchen and cut up some leeks, and set them aside in a small bowl. Then he dumped the oysters into the pan and listened to them sizzle. He poured some ginger marinade over them, and a heavy dose of tamari soy, and stirred them around in the pan. Then he added the leeks. When the oysters were lightly cooked, he removed them from the heat and went back into the office and started to feed pages from the brown envelope he'd received in Fan Tan Alley into the machine, slowly copying the entire package.

When he was done he sat down at this computer and typed out a note to Cole, printed it, and signed it. Just before he sealed it, he opened his wallet and took out a blank cheque. He made it out for one thousand dollars and enclosed it in the envelope. It was a fraction of what he owed Cole, but it was a start.

He sealed the envelope, put stamps on it, and placed it next to the front door to be dropped in the post box at the general store before he left in the morning.

“Grace, you want some dinner?” he called to her bedroom.

He knocked on the door, and nobody answered. “Grace, you there?”

“Hmm,” he said, and turned back to the kitchen, where he made a plate of food for himself.

A knock at the door stopped him from seating himself. He opened it.

“Hi, Archie,” It was Darren First Moon.

Archie stepped back without saying a word and walked back to the kitchen.

“Listen, I was pretty heated up down there before,” said First Moon. “I'm sorry for some of what I said.”

Archie looked at him long and hard.

“Aren't you going to say anything?”

“There's nothing to say,” said Archie.

“You're not going to say I forgive you? You're not going to say you're sorry, too?”

“Is that what you came up here for? For forgiveness and to ask me to apologize?”

Darren shuffled awkwardly in the entrance. “What's wrong with that?”

Archie shook his head. “You know, Darren, when I agreed to hire you, your probation officer told me that you were a little thick. I never believed it. I always gave you the benefit of the doubt. But now I'm not so sure.”

Darren looked away from him. “Grace isn't here, is she?”

“No, nobody's here.”

“Look, Archie, what Stoboltz is doing is real important. We need the jobs.”

“That's Greg White Eagle talking.”

“It's me talking. I can see what's happening here, Archie. I can see people out of work. Drinking. Doing crazy stuff. Kids are trying to kill themselves, Archie.”

“And you think that Stoboltz is going to save us? That fish farms are our salvation?”

“The government is going to help, too.”

“I heard all about it when I was in Victoria. A big announcement. Lots of money for the company to hire Indians and give them trinkets.”

“Don't talk like that. It's not like that, Archie.”

“Come on, Darren,” Archie said, exasperated. “Open your eyes. The government gives Stoboltz a bunch of money, and sure, they train some of our people to work on fish farms, but I guarantee that some of that money is going into the funny business up at Jeopardy Rock. I know it in my bones! That cold bastard Thurlow is using the money to bankroll his work with the sea lice. And I have no doubt that Lance Grey is in on it. And I'm going to get the proof tomorrow.”

“What do you mean, Archie?”

“I'm going to Jeopardy Rock first thing tomorrow. I'm going to sample around the area, and have a look at that old dfo research station that Stoboltz took over. I'll find out what they are up to and then I'm going to blow them out of the water.”

“Don't do that, Archie.”

“Why not?”

“You do that and Stoboltz won't get the money. They won't be able to hire folks.”

“It all comes down to that, doesn't it?”

“What?”

“Money.”

“I got kids, Archie. I work what, ten, twelve, maybe fourteen weeks a year with you. What else have I got? Nothing. I own a beater of a boat. I live in a shack that leaks and is cold in the winter and hot as hell in the summer. What have I got?”

“You've got pride, Darren. Pride. And a history. Our people have been fishing in the Broughton for ten thousand years. Longer than history. For as long as there has been a Broughton, our people have been here.”

“I can't feed my kids on that, Archie.”

“The world loves salmon. They'll pay a premium for wild salmon. If Stoboltz gets away with what they are planning on doing, there won't be wild salmon left. They get to control the market. Do you really think they are doing what they are doing to help your sorry ass?”

“Don't go to Jeopardy Rock tomorrow, Archie.”

“I'm going. If I don't, they will be getting away with murder.”

“I'm sorry,” said Darren looking down.

“For what?”

“For all of this. This isn't how it was supposed to turn out.”

“Still time left to tell Thurlow and Greg White Eagle and Lance Grey to shove it.”

“I don't think so, Archie.”

“Well, then, so long old friend.”

“So long, Archie.” And he was gone.

Archie couldn't sleep that night. He sat up, his office dark, and looked out over the harbour. The night was clear and cold, the moon past full. A pale circle of haze ringed its alabaster orb. Far off to the east and to the north he could make out the dim glow of lights that shone from one of Stoblotz' salmon farms. Recently they had started installing underwater lights that confused the Atlantic salmon, upsetting their diurnal rhythms and tricking them into faster growth. The lights also attracted food to the farmed fish: a free lunch.

He heard Grace come in around midnight. He rose to say hi, calling to her, “Hey ya, Grace.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Where you been?”

“I was over at Doreen's place. What are you still doin' up?”

“Just thinking.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it's good. I'm going to head up the inlet tomorrow, do some more sampling.”

“Okay, be safe. Hey?”

“I will. I love you.” They were both standing in the dark. He could see her silhouette in the moonlight that shone through the windows.

“Love you too, Dad.”

Around three am he stood and walked on stiff legs to his filing cabinet and found his will. He'd had it made up three years before. He thumbed to the third page, past all the legal jargon, and found the section that itemized his belongings. He read down to the
Inlet Dancer
. He circled the name next to it — Darren First Moon — and wrote in the margin “replace with Cole Blackwater.” He dated and signed it. When he could he'd go into Port McNeill and have a lawyer make it official.