Chapter One
They called him Crazy
George, and sometimes the Mad Trapper, but George McDonald didn’t mind very
much. He was a solitary man, always had been, and that was just fine by him.
Ever since the first time his pappy took him out on the land to show him how to
hunt and trap almost forty years ago, he had fallen in love with the wide-open
space of the barren tundra. But it wasn’t barren to George. Oh no. Maybe it
looked devoid of life to the throngs of tourists who flocked to Churchill every
fall to see the bears, but to George McDonald, it was teeming with life.
He enjoyed the fall
and winter for the trapping and hunting that sustained him, but truth be told,
summer held a special place in his heart. During the region’s short summers,
the arctic flora brought vitality to the land that, for George, was unmatched.
And now looking at the slate-gray October sky, he felt a pang of loss for the
beauty of those far too fleeting weeks.
Winter’s almost on us
now. Surprised she’s as late as she is.
"In’t that
right, Samik, old boy?" he asked his companion. But the large lab-
shepherd-cross had his own business to attend to as he busily sniffed at the
mossy rocks.
George surveyed the
bay, tinted gunmetal gray by the foreboding sky. Small whitecaps punctuated the
surface of the frigid water. The wind was picking up as well, possibly
threatening snow.
We could use some
snow. Gonna be a late freeze this year. Last thing we need ’round here’s hungry
polar bears.
He shouldered his
thirty-ought-six, glad he’d decided to bring it instead of the shotgun. Last
week a bear had roamed right into town in broad daylight, just as big as
Billy-be-damned. The Department of Natural Resources had gone out with their
cracker guns in the hopes of scaring it away, but the creature simply ignored
the ruckus and went about his rounds of the local garbage boxes. Finally,
someone - probably Randy Sparks - had had the good sense to get the dart gun.
They’d knocked the sumbitch out and airlifted it, via chopper, up the coast.
Usually the bears steered clear of town during the daylight hours, but lately
they had gotten bolder, and he had chosen to carry his rifle now more often
than not.
He blamed the tourist
trade. Though good for the local economy, it was bad for the bears. They just
didn’t possess the same wariness of humans anymore. They had grown accustomed
to the sight of all those damn Tundra Buses filled to capacity with ogling
southerners. It was a shame, really. It would take a real tragedy before
anything would be done about it, and by then it would be too late. Some poor
tourist, or maybe even a local, was gonna meet with a bad end; of this he was
sure.
A late freeze up of
the bay wouldn’t help matters, either. The sooner the bay froze, the sooner the
bears ventured out onto the pack ice to hunt the seals that sustained them over
the long winter months. No ice meant no seals, and no seals meant hungry bears.
And hungry bears were dangerous bears.
Samik continued to
huff and chuff as he went about, head bent, sniffing everything he could get
his snout on. George smiled. Looking for lemmings again.
"You never learn, do ya?" he chuckled. Last time, Samik had managed
to capture and eat two of the little critters on an outing just like this one.
They’d given him the trots something fierce and he’d slunk about the cabin with
a sheepish look on his face for two whole days. But here he was, at it again.
Apparently it hadn’t been a lesson learned.
He watched as the dog
disappeared over a rocky embankment. He’d let the dog have a few more sniffs
before heading back. To tell the truth, he liked their little walks as much -
if not more - than Samik did, although on a more profound level than his
four-legged friend. You only had to go ten or so miles down the coast, away
from town, before you found yourself in a land unspoiled by the encroachment of
modern civilization, if you could even call it that. Out here there were no
visible power lines, no garbage, and no graffiti-sprayed rocks: CHAZ ’91, RONA
LOVES T.J., EAT IT RAW, TINA IS A SKANK HO, and for this he was grateful. It
was his sanctuary, his safe haven. And if people wanted to call him Crazy
George, or even the Mad Trapper of Churchill, then they were welcome to it. To
George, out here was what really mattered. Out here was where he belonged.
Samik’s frantic
barking brought George’s thoughts back to the present. He still couldn’t see
the dog, but he could hear him clear enough, yipping to beat all hell. Christ,
he hoped it wasn’t a bear. Samik was a big dog, but he was a lover, not a
fighter.
George grabbed the
rifle from his back as he climbed the treacherous rock incline. He was careful
not to step in any holes camouflaged by weeds or spongy muskeg, all the while
keeping his eyes on the place where he thought Samik might be. The dog was
still barking frantically. He sounded more like a small poodle than a large
shepherd cross.
"I’m comin’
Samik, hold yer water."
He scanned the rocky
embankment as he crested the hill. All but Samik’s tail was obscured by a large
rock some twenty feet away; it waved frantically, as if in surrender. George
had a vision of Samik with his head caught in the jaws of a hungry bear and
chased the thought away just as quickly as it had formed. If Samik had caught a
bear off guard, the only thing that would be waving would be George, waving
good-bye to the best damn tracking dog he’d ever laid eyes on.
Just the same, he
thumbed the safety off and walked a wide berth around the boulder. He could now
see the dog’s rump and hind legs. It looked like he was pulling at something,
legs straining beneath him. George came around further, and could now see a
large mossy mound of carefully piled rocks in front of the dog. It looked like
some type of cache that someone had constructed, hoping it would be concealed
by the ridge’s rocky outcropping.
He let out his
breath, not realizing he had been holding it.
Samik, either sensing
or smelling the approach of his master, whined miserably.
"Well look at
you," George smiled, more with relief than amusement. "Ya gone and
got yerself stuck."
Samik scraped
half-heartedly at the paw that was wedged between two football sized rocks. His
tail had stopped its frantic dance and was now tucked snugly between his legs,
the whole of him shivering with fear, or shame, or both.
Little a both, George reckoned. He knelt beside the
dog and carefully laid his rifle down within easy reach, in case he needed it.
Samik licked his
master’s ear gratefully, then sneezed twice, loudly, spraying the side of
George’s face with warm dog spittle. It was his excited sneeze, something Samik
usually reserved for when George would come home from Sunday mass. George
didn’t mind too much. After all, it was better than piddling on the floor like
some dogs did when they got all fired up.
George slowly lifted
the topmost rock, careful not to let it slip and mash the dog’s paw. Samik
wasted little time pulling the appendage free, and retreated a safe distance to
nurse his wounded paw - and pride.
"There, that oughtta
learn ya," he admonished the dog, not unkindly, as he got to his feet.
"That lemming sure had yer number, dint he?" He chucked the stone
back onto the pile and stepped away just as the side of the structure, weakened
by the removal of the supporting stone, fell away in a miniature rockslide.
Samik sprang to his
feet, barking frantically at the rock pile as though it were a living thing.
"Samik, hush
now! Yer actin’ a damn fool!"
The dog quieted but
continued to circle the collapsed pile, eyeing it warily while growling a low
guttural sound like the soft purr of an idling engine.
George scratched his
beard thoughtfully. He was no expert, but it looked to him like the structure
had been there a long time. Whether it was fifty years or two hundred he didn’t
know, but he did recognize it. It was Inuit. Not as ornate as the
Inukshuks sometimes constructed as markers, but Inuit nonetheless - probably a
cache to protect their food from any curious or hungry animals that called the
area home.
Or it was a burial
cairn.
Christ, he hoped not.
The last thing he wanted to do was disturb a sacred burial site; not to mention
that Parks Canada would slap a fine on him just as quick as look at him for
tampering with an historic landmark. He regarded the mound more closely now. It
was certainly big enough to house a body.
Just put ’em back, he told himself. Put ’em back like
you found ’em and keep quiet. No harm no foul. Chances are, yer the first
person to lay eyes on this thing since it was built. It wasn’t exactly out in
broad daylight and this ain’t exactly a high traffic area, so just put it back
and git the hell out of here.
George hunkered back
down and began replacing the stones. He barely heard the growl that was rising
in Samik’s throat, no longer the gentle idle from a moment before, but an
alarmed crescendo. He was simply too busy trying to replace the stones in some
semblance of their previous order. So intent was he on getting it right that he
almost didn’t notice the skull in his hand.
"Jesus, please
us!" he gasped in alarm, almost dropping it where it would have shattered
into a million jagged pieces on the rocks.
Samik, sensing this
new turn of events, went off into a fresh gale of frenzied barks.
"Samik!"
George shouted, not turning to look at the dog, but keeping his eyes locked on
the small, parchment-white skull in his hands. "Shut the hell up!"
Samik obliged, but it
was only a temporary respite. He lowered his haunches and rested his head on
his paws, growling miserably to himself.
George turned the
skull over in his hands so it was face up. The orifices were partly obscured by
moss and filth and he gently rubbed most of it away until what he held in his
hands more closely resembled a skeletal face. As he worked away the muck from
the right eye socket, he noticed a small stick lodged there. He gave it a tug
but it wouldn’t give. Whatever it was, it was in there good. He worked more of
the gunk away from the opening and stuck his fingers between the bone and the
stick. There was something else in there - something cold and hard.
Just leave it, his mind warned him. Put it back
in the rock pile and just leave it the hell alone. Whattaya wanna poke around
in there for, anyway? It’s a goddamn skull. You know, as in formerly the head
of another human being. Shit, yer dog has more sense than you, so just leave it
alone.
But he couldn’t leave
it alone. He felt like a smoker trying to throw away that last pack. He just
couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He wriggled his
fingers some more. It felt like stone, and it felt sharp.
An arrowhead. It must
be an arrowhead. Christ, that means -
He almost dropped the
skull a second time. An arrowhead. Which meant that whoever this was, was
killed. Murdered, not to put too fine a point on it, he heard himself pun.
George felt icy
fingers caress his spine, a feeling that had nothing to do with the chill wind
that had risen. He had stumbled upon the hidden grave of a murdered man or
woman perhaps decades or centuries old. He now wished they had never come out
this way. He had actually meant to go out to Goose Creek and check on his small
trapper’s shack, take inventory and see what supplies he needed for the coming
winter. But instead they had come out here, seemingly on a whim. George wasn’t
a superstitious man, but it suddenly didn’t feel like such a whim.
So, what? You were meant to come out here?
He didn’t rightly
know.
Realizing he still
had his finger stuck in the skull’s eye socket, George yanked it out as if he’d
been burned. He rubbed his fingers absently on his coat, trying to wipe the
nasty, greasy feel from them.
Put it back! Put it
back! Put the fucking thing back,
an echoing voice shouted down a long forgotten corridor. His mind was screaming
at him now, but it seemed to be coming from very far away.
Samik whined
miserably, eyebrows arched in unhappy parentheses.
George couldn’t put
it back. Not until he knew for sure.
He grasped the
remains of the arrow’s shaft - greasy with age, rot, and mud - and tugged
gently. Nothing. He increased his grip and tried again. This time he felt give.
Samik growled with
sudden alarm, rose slowly to his feet, and began to back away cautiously. His
hackles were raised and he bared his teeth, lips twitching with each renewed
spate of growls.
George paid him no
mind. All his attention, all his energy, was focused on the skull in his hands
and the murderous object lodged in its eye. Had he been able to see himself at
that moment, he might have realized that he looked quite insane. And he would
have seen the truth, for at that moment George McDonald was completely off his
rocker.
Giving it one last
tug, the stick came free in his hand. At the end of it was indeed a flat and
chipped piece of stone fashioned into a crude but effective arrowhead, caked
with mud and slime.
I’ll be damned. I was
right, it is a-
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