The Land God Gave to Cain (30 page)

“How do you know?”

“We've come a long way from the Indian trail and that last lake we identified. We should have reached the next one by now, the one where we landed yesterday.”

“But you said it was snowing and the visibility was bad. How can you possibly be certain that we're south of our course?”

“Because we're getting pushed south all the time.” He said it wearily, and then he turned to Darcy. “What do you think, Ray?” And Darcy nodded. “It's like Bert says,” he told Paule. “It's the way the darned country's built. It's edging us south all the time, particularly on the portages.”

She hesitated, glancing from one to the other of them. “Then we'd better head north-east for the rest of the day,” she said at length. “And if we don't find that lake by nightfall, then we must begin scouting for it.”

“Why bother about the lake?” Laroche said. “My view is we should keep going north-east till I pick up my route out.”

She was looking at him uncertainly and at length she said, quietly, “But how can you be sure you will recognise it? So far you have recognised nothing—not even when we started in from the Tote Road.”

And Darcy said quickly, “Well, anyway, we head north-east till nightfall. We can discuss this later.” And so it was decided. Nobody asked me what I thought, and, anyway, I couldn't have argued with them. It was perfectly true that the country was forcing us south. But I didn't like the thought of turning north, even for the remainder of the day. It was the way Laroche wanted us to go, and north lay the Arctic.

We crossed that lake and two more on the new compass course, and in the early evening we reached a broad sheet of water with a pebble bank in the middle of it, and for a moment my mind was thrown into confusion, for I thought Laroche had brought us to the third lake marked on the map, the one where we'd landed the helicopter in the storm. But then I saw that the shape of it was different and the pebble bank had a stunted growth of trees.

But Paule was instantly convinced that this was the lake we were looking for. So was Darcy. Laroche said nothing, and when I tried to tell them that it wasn't the place where we'd landed in the helicopter, she said, “But how can you be sure? There was a snowstorm and the visibility was bad.”

“But we landed on the pebble bank,” I said. “We'd have seen the trees if there'd been any.”

She asked Laroche to produce the map, and leaning over his shoulder as he squatted on the ground holding it for her, she cried, “There, you see! He has marked that bank. I remember he told me it only just showed above the water, an island of pebble he called it. I'm sure this is the lake he meant. Even the shape of it is the same.”

Laroche still said nothing and I turned to Darcy. “How far have we come to-day?”

He considered for a moment. “All of twenty miles, I guess. Maybe more.”

“Then we're about half-way.”

“If it's fifty miles altogether, yes.”

And we were in the same sort of country, flat, with the alluvial debris of the Ice Age. I glanced at Laroche, for it had occurred to me that perhaps this was really the lake Mackenzie had meant and not the one where we'd landed. He must have guessed what was in my mind, for he said, “There isn't much to choose between this and the lake where we landed yesterday.” He began to fold the map. “Either of them would fit a map like this.”

Paule frowned. “Let me have another look at it. Mackenzie is usually very accurate.”

But he had already risen to his feet. “However much you look at it,” he said, “you'll never be certain whether it's this lake or the other.” And he put the map back in the breast pocket of his parka.

She stood up and faced him then. “But I want to look at it again,” she said obstinately.

“You can look at it later,” he answered, moving away from her, down towards the canoe. “If we're going to cross before dark, we'd better get moving.”

Whether she had suddenly become suspicious, I don't know. It was a fact—and I had been conscious of it for some time—that Laroche had never once let the map out of his hands since we started. Maybe it was just that she was tired and in a petulant mood. At any rate, she ran after him and caught hold of his arm. “Albert. Give it to me. It's my map.” And when he told her it was quite safe in his pocket, she repeated, “It's my map. I want it.” Her voice was suddenly quite shrill.

“For heaven's sake, Paule.” He shrugged her hand off. “Just because you're not certain this is the right lake—”

“I am certain.”

“Then what do you want the map for?”

“Because it's mine.” She grabbed hold of his parka. “Give it to me. Please.” She was almost sobbing.

It would have been childish, except that it suddenly brought the tension between them out into the open. I remember the shocked expression on Darcy's face. He knew it was serious and he moved in quickly. “Steady, Paule.” He caught hold of her arm none too gently and pulled her away. “The map's okay and we've got to get across. A lake of the size of this could hold us up for days if it came on to blow.”

She hesitated, staring at Laroche as though she wanted to tear the map out of his pocket. And then abruptly the violence of her mood vanished. “Yes, of course,” she said. “You are right; we must hurry.” And she gave Darcy a quick smile and went quietly down to the canoe.

The temperature had fallen quite sharply and it was cold out on the water. We paddled in silence and the only sound was the dip-dip of the paddle blades and the whisper of water along the skin of the canoe. All the world seemed hushed with the gathering dusk and so still that the endless blacks and greys had the static quality of a photographic print.

And then, from beyond the pebble bank, came the call of a goose, so clear and perfect in the stillness that it took my breath away. We saw them as we glided round the end of the bank, four birds like white galleons swimming in line astern, and Darcy reached for his gun. He fired as they spread their wings; three birds thrashed the water and became airborne, the fourth keeled over and lay on its side. And when we'd pulled it into the canoe, the quiet returned, so that it was difficult to believe it had ever been disturbed by the shot and the frenzied beat of wings.

Darkness was falling when we reached the farther shore and we went straight into camp on a little promontory of stunted trees. Whilst Paule plucked and cleaned the goose, we got a roaring fire going, and in no time at all the bird, neatly skewered with slivers of wood, was hanging from a cross-pole supported by two forked stakes and turning slowly before the blaze, the frying-pan set below it to catch the fat. The sight and smell of that roasting bird was something out of this world in that remote wilderness. We sat round the fire, drinking coffee and talking, and eyeing it with the eager anticipation of children at a feast. The affair of the map seemed to have been entirely forgotten.

It takes a long time to roast a goose in front of a fire, but at last the juices ran at the prick of a knife and we cut it down and fell on it ravenously, burning our fingers with the hot fat. Paule used the same little thin-bladed Indian knife that she must have used at countless camp fires, and the sight of the worn steel winking red in the firelight reminded me that it was her father who had done the hunting then. But I was too absorbed in the flavour of that goose to worry about what she might be feeling. It was only afterwards, when my stomach was full, that I noticed the tense, withdrawn look on her face and became conscious of Laroche's moody silence.

After such a meal they should have been relaxed, like Darcy. But they sat so still and tense that it was impossible not to be aware of the atmosphere of tension between them. And if this were really the lake Mackenzie had meant, then to-morrow or the next day we'd be at the Lake of the Lion. Time was running out, and when Darcy got up and strolled off into the darkness of the timber, I followed him. “I've got to talk to you,” I said when we were out of earshot of the camp.

He stopped and waited for me to say what I had to say, standing quite still, his bulky figure in silhouette against the glimmer of the water. “It's about Laroche,” I said. But it was difficult to put my fear into words, and when I tried, he stopped me almost immediately. “Now, listen, Ian. You got to forget he's the grandson of Pierre Laroche. I told you that before. What happened at that lake between your grandfather and his is nothing whatever to do with the present.”

“I think it is,” I said. And then, in a rush, I poured out all my tears, not giving him time to interrupt me. And when at last I had finished, he stood there, staring at me in silence with the starlight gleaming frostily on his glasses. “You realise what you're saying?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe that? You think he tried to kill them?” His breath hung like steam in the night air. “Good God!” he breathed, and after that he was silent a long time, thinking it out. “He seems sane enough,” he murmured half to himself. “It was Paule I was beginning to worry about.” And he shook his head as though he still couldn't believe it. And then his hand gripped hold of my arm and he said, “Why have you told me this? What do you expect me to do about it?” His voice sounded angry and bewildered.

“Nothing,” I replied. “There's nothing either of us can do about it, except watch him.”

“Hell! There must be some other explanation.”

“What other explanation can there be?” I demanded impatiently. “It's the only possible explanation—the only one that fits all the facts.”

He let go my arm then. “It's bad enough having you along with us, believing a thing like that. But if it's true …” His voice was suddenly an old man's voice, tired and angry.

“If it isn't true,” I said, “why do you think he's always trying to get us to turn north? He daren't let us reach Lake of the Lion. He daren't even face the sight of it himself. Anyway,” I added, “I've warned you.”

“Yeah.” He stood for a moment longer with the sky behind him full of stars and the northern lights weaving a luminous pattern in the night. “Okay,” he said wearily. “Let's go back now. It's cold out here.” And he started towards the fire which showed a red glow through the sticks of the trees. “You haven't said anything to Paule about this, I hope?”

“No.”

“Well, don't,” he said.

But back at the fire I wondered whether she hadn't guessed it already, for they were sitting there just as we'd left them, sitting quite still and not talking, and I could feel the tension between them. Darcy noticed it, too. “It's late,” he said gruffly, and as though glad to be released by the sound of his voice, they got up at once and followed him to the tent.

I threw some branches on to the embers of the fire and watched the crackling flare as the needles caught. It was so peaceful, so unbelievably peaceful. And beyond the leap of the flames lay the immensity of Labrador, all still and frozen in the night. I sat down, cross-legged in front of the fire, and lit a cigarette, and let the stillness seep into me. It gave me a strange sense of peace, for it was the stillness of space and great solitude, a stillness that matched the stars and the northern lights. This, I thought, was the beginning of Creation, this utter, frozen stillness, and the fire felt to me then the way it must have felt to the first man who'd experienced it—the warmth of something accomplished in a cold, primitive land.

There was a movement behind me, the snap of a twig, and I turned my head to find Paule there. “You should come to bed,” she said. “If you sit here, you will be tired in the morning.”

I nodded. “It was the night,” I said. “It's so still.”

“And there is so much sky—all the stars. I know.” She seemed to understand my mood, for she came and sat beside me. “You have never been in country like this before?”

“No.”

“Does it worry you?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“I understand.” She touched my arm, a quick gesture of companionship that surprised me. “It is so empty, eh?” And she withdrew her hand and held it to the blaze. “My father always said it is the land of the Old Testament.”

“The Old Testament!” It seemed odd to compare this frozen country, so full of water, with a land of heat and desert sand, and yet I could see his point, for I suppose he'd never known anything but the North. “What was your father like?” I asked.

She didn't answer for a moment and I was afraid perhaps that I shouldn't have asked her that. But then she said, “When you are very near to a person, then I think per'aps it is difficult to tell what they are really like. Some men thought him hard. He drove them.” And she added with a little smile, “He drove me, too. But I didn't mind.”

She was silent for a moment, staring into the flames as though she could see him there. “You would like him, I think,” she murmured at length. “And you would get on together. You have guts, and that always appealed to him.” She sighed and shook her head sadly. “But I don't think you meet him now; I don't think he can still be alive.” She leaned forward and pushed a branch into the fire, watching it flare up. “It is a little sad if it is the Lake of the Lion where they crash. There is supposed to be gold there and that was his dream—to strike it rich and have a big mine named after him. It wasn't the money so much, though we never had any and my mother died when I was a little girl because he could not afford a sanatorium; it was more the need to justify himself. He was a prospector,” she added. “It was in his blood, and, like a gambler, he must always try his luck again—one more expedition, one more attempt to find what he is searching for.”

I nodded. “Like my grandfather. Ray says he was like that.”

She turned her head and stared at me, her eyes very wide in the firelight. “That was a terrible story,” she said at last, her voice little more than a whisper, and I knew it wasn't my grandfather she was thinking of, but Pierre Laroche. “But it has nothing to do with my father,” she declared, her voice trembling with the effort needed to carry conviction. “Nothing at all.”