Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas (3 page)

‘I might, if the wind wasn't acting like a giant broom today. No tracks to speak of left. Which is just as well for Willie, because I wouldn't like to think what'll happen to him if I don't get to him first.'

The old man was biting his lip now, genuinely worried. ‘All I know, he took his baby and his komatik.'

Edie thought about this for a moment. Then an idea bubbled up. She stood up, pulling on her mittens, snapping her snow goggles back over her eyes.

‘I'm gonna give it my best guess,' she said. ‘For Willie's sake, you better hope I'm right.'

■ ■ ■

The cabin was on the lee side of a bluff, out of the wind, which was a bit of luck, since the remnants of snowmobile and komatik tracks were just visible leading away from the outhouse to the east. This too was a good sign. The prevailing winds were north-westerly. Travelling east meant going in the same direction as the wind and snow, which wasn't just faster but made visibility much better too. She set off, the tracks quickly giving out as she rounded the bluff and moved out onto the windswept tundra, but now she had more of an idea where she was heading. She navigated around the bluff towards the coastline, keeping a steady speed, then turned in at the headland beside the glacier, making her way up a steep slope. Far, far into the distance, the pinprick taillights of the mayor's search party were bobbing along low, like stars kicked from the sky, in what she hoped was the wrong direction.

She went on, driving steadily across the tundra, up the ridge, then down, across a wide-spaced plateau which was a sedge meadow in the summer, up and over another bluff until finally she came to a long finger fiord, lined one side by cliffs, the other by low sloping foothills, which gave out eventually to the deep forever winter of the interior icecaps. She came to a halt just shy of the cliff-edge, walked along and looked out across the ice rubble of the fiord to the slopes on the other side. In the faint light of the moon she thought she could make out a handful of shapes moving slowly along the far margin of the fiord. Further away was another, longer shape that looked as though it just might be a vehicle pulling something behind it. She smiled, going back to her snowmobile and, taking a route that put her downwind of the moving shapes, she manoeuvred herself across the ice at the foot of the fiord. On the other side she dismounted and strapped on her cross-country skis. Silently, she made her way across the slopes.

The sky had cleared now and the moon seemed brighter, its light reflecting off the snow, throwing a deep blue gloam across the landscape. She was not far from the moving figures now; a herd, as she had suspected, though as she was downwind from them they had not detected her. She could see the light of Willie's snowmobile now and in its back beam, the man himself, untying the komatik. Inside, there was a small dark shape. She opened her mouth to call out, then decided against it. When he had finished detaching the komatik, Willie began to lay out something on the snow. When that was done, he stood back and, staying very still, began to whistle, softly at first, then more insistently. Edie waited for what seemed like a long time. She sensed the herd drifting slowly away. Then slowly, something seemed to emerge from the gloom and a juvenile caribou appeared in the light of the snowmobile, making its way slowly and deliberately towards the spot where Willie stood until it was right up close, nuzzling his pockets for food. He stroked and patted it for a while, whispering in its ear to reassure it, then slowly and with great delicacy, he lowered a harness over its head, tucking the sealskin straps around the animal's ears, its modest little rack of antlers and whisking bobtail.

When the animal was harnessed up, Willie went back to the komatik and, lifting the sleeping little girl out of the back seat, he clambered in and sat her down on his lap. As sleep released her, and she saw where she was, she began to leap up and down, gurgling with delight. Then picking up the reins, Willie shouted ‘
Ha! Ha!
' and the caribou began to move forward. Feeling the motion, the little girl squealed. Willie shouted ‘
Hoowoop!
' and the deer broke into a trot. Before long, they were going round and round in large circles, the little girl starting up ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', her father joining in.

And when they had sung all the verses of Rudolph four times over, Edie stood and skied down the small slope and positioned herself in the light of the snowmobile. She heard Willie shouting ‘
Iq! Iq!
' at the caribou and the komatik slowed. The little girl grew quiet again and finally Willie pulled up the sled alongside Edie.

Willie smiled. ‘I thought you'd figure it out eventually,' he said. He didn't seem angry, only perhaps a little sad.

‘Tommy got family too,' she said.

He flashed her a look, angry maybe, a bit regretful. ‘I'm real sorry how it turned out with Tommy. I never meant for him to die. I punched him all right, hard too. But when I left him he was on his feet, like I told you.'

‘Teacher!' the little girl said, pointing excitedly at Edie.

‘This teacher's a clever lady,' Willie said to his daughter.

‘Clever lady,' Aggie agreed.

‘You two get to spend much time together?' Edie asked.

Willie poked his finger into Aggie's belly and began to tickle her.

‘Her mother don't let me see her.' He picked up the little girl in his strong arms and began to fly her through space. ‘Says she isn't mine.' The baby began to shout joyously. ‘I guess she didn't want Tommy to find out. She was with him when we …' he tailed off. ‘She was scared of him, even then. I did her a favour in a way.' The wires in his neck grew taught and his nostrils flared and he looked up at Edie with a sour expression on his face. ‘Oh I know I'll have to pay for it. I know that all right.'

He stood the little girl in his lap and pretended to bite her nose. She squeaked happily and returned the favour.

‘You two seem to know each other pretty well.'

‘Oh yeah,' he said. ‘I used to wait until they put her down for her nap, in Alice's room. I used to come to the window, didn't I Aggie?'

Aggie nodded and jammed her finger in her mouth.

‘You been planning this a while, I'm guessing,' Edie said. ‘You tame that caribou?' She'd only ever seen reindeer pulling sleds on the TV, something that happened in Scandinavia. Up here on Ellesmere Island, caribou were strictly for consumption only.

‘I came across young Rudy here in the spring,' Willie said, chin-flicking towards the caribou. ‘He was just a calf then. His mother had abandoned him. I kept him at old man Koperkuj's house until he was old enough to go find the herd.' He patted the animal's flank. ‘I knew he'd come back.'

Then he shrugged and gave a resigned smile.

‘Well, I wanted to give my girl one more good memory of her daddy than I ever had. And now I guess I've done it.' He held up his hands as if in surrender.

‘Oh, blow that,' Edie said, ‘What's the hurry?' She gestured to the komatik. ‘You got room for me in there?'

Willie smiled. ‘Get in,' he said, then turning to his daughter, ‘OK, Aggie, you wanna see how fast this thing can go?'

THE END

Read on for the first chapter of M. J. McGrath's novel,
WHITE HEAT
, also available from Penguin Books.