I began to focus my mind on other things, on Langford, May and her Aunt Oona. I imagined myself and May at the edge of the lake, a beautiful fire blazing, while Oona wove her tales about native lore and sang in a soft, melodic voice. I imagined Langford and me...sitting on our balcony at home, the waves lapping at the shore, sipping a Canadian merlot, the setting sun spraying orange over the water. Anything but the dank, dark, fetid air around me and the cold, moist walls pressing in on my arms and head.
This path inside the mountain led straight up, although it was a gentle slope for most of the way. Once in a while we had to bend our knees even further and duck-walk through the narrow passageway. To this day, I cannot tell you how I made that slow, torturous journey. Every now and then a claustrophobic feeling threatened to overtake me. I would lose my breath and then feel Langford's steadying presence behind me. Once again I would plunge back into my imagination, assisted by the sensation of being almost blind in the dark, with only a spot of light to guide our footsteps.
It seemed to take a very long time before we began to climb further and slowly realize that we could stand upright. A small flash of light ahead soon became a large circle of day. With a rush of relief, we found ourselves standing in a small cave with a mouth that yawned into the sun.
We were now standing opposite to and slightly below the ridge from which we had gazed at these caves some time ago. It was a strange sensation to look down into the riverbed and up at the forested ridge and realize the sun was still shining and not that much time had elapsed. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon and the sun was hovering over the trees into our eyes.
Edgar stepped to the cave entrance and took his cell phone out of his pocket, glancing at its face intently. We are fortunate in Burchill. The proximity of Canada's capital city results in more communication towers than a town our size would normally warrant. We were also lucky that Edgar's phone had been specially equipped and should be powerful enough to pick up the signal even from this hidden valley.
"I can get a signal if I stand right at the edge," he confirmed, sounding satisfied and happy. "We'll have to spend the night here, though. Don't you think, May?"
She nodded, shifting her backpack and letting it fall to the floor of the cave. "Definitely. I don't think we're going to want to take the chance of hiking back through the forest in the dark. And don't worry. There's a way to scramble down without going through the cave again. It's almost impossible to go up, but we can swing down on the ropes." May looked at my face and laughed for the first time in ages. "It'll be okay, Em, really."
Everyone snickered at my expense then, letting their packs fall, stretching and taking deep breaths of the fresh air at the mouth of the cave. Langford kneaded my shoulders and kissed my cheek. I guessed that I must've looked as scared and shaken as I felt.
"This is a good cave for our little encampment though," Alain said. "It's dry and there's an escape route. Not that we'll need it, of course. And no animals can get to it from the mouth."
"You're not making me feel any better," I told him.
We spent the next few minutes arranging our packs, sipping water, munching on energy bars once more, and stretching our bodies for the next leg of the journey, whatever that may be. As soon as May was ready, she began to outline what we had to do next.
"At the back of this cave, there's a sort of rock hallway that leads to the next, and so on, all the way along." She pointed in the direction of the rear of the cavern. "We can search all the caves in a fairly short time, although there are some in behind as well. Let's just hope we don't have to go through them too."
But, I thought, what would we find that would make us not have to search further? Of course, I didn't voice my question.
"Let's go then," Edgar said, his voice betraying impatience and nervousness. He shifted his pack, emptied of sleeping bag, but full just the same, onto his back once more.
May dug in her own backpack and came up with a black bag, which she handed to Alain. Feeling my eyes on her, she looked up and said, "Doc Murphy gave me some stuff. Just in case." Later, I was to marvel at how accurate May's premonition had been.
Alain, Langford and I left our packs behind. We reverted to single file again and stepped from our little grotto into the next cave. This one was larger and damper than the first. Huge stalactites dripped from the ceiling. A bird had abandoned a nest on a ledge just by the mouth of the chamber. Someone long ago had sat around a fire here. The embers had charred and drifted into ash mixed with rusty water. Several small rocks were placed in a circle around the remains. The odour was musty and unpleasant. The next cave was small and barely fit the five of us even without our packs. It, too, had been the scene of a fire.
By the time we reached the tenth cave, we had become accustomed to the same scenery—the remains of fires, bird nests, animal droppings now and then, a fusty smell in the air. The only differences were the size of the cavern itself and its opening to the sky. Thus we were utterly unprepared for the sight that met us when we stepped into the eleventh cave.
Chapter 24
This chamber was high and much larger than the others, yet its opening was narrow and let in very little light. Already the sun had dipped slightly behind the trees, so the view was shadowy and dusky.
The odour of mildew and mould had been replaced with something that left a metallic taste in my mouth. It was mixed with feces and vomit and other smells that I could not name. My stomach rolled as my eyes adjusted to the dimness and my mind registered what lay before us.
Two bodies were in the cavern, one to the right of us and one propped up against the wall to the left. Their pasty skin made them look like marble, stiff and inhuman. Blood had poured down the slight incline at their feet and coagulated in a sludge pool. I am thankful to this day that the lighting was so poor. Otherwise, the nightmares afterward would have been even worse.
Their eyes were what haunted me the most. The glassy stare, the filming over, the absence of light and movement and spirit. And most especially, the moment when one of them blinked.
May and Edgar moved swiftly. Frieda was barely breathing, her eyes blinking slowly, as if she were struggling to retain life, a gaping hole in her side. She licked her lips, moaning softly.
"Who did this to you?" May's cry was indignant, angry.
"Walking Bear," she said clearly, plaintively, a lilting tinge to her words, as though she were singing the name. There was one rattling gasp, her chest heaved upward, and then Frieda Roote died.
Edgar turned and hovered over the other body, lying still and prone on the earthen floor, but it was clear that Victor Reeves was beyond assistance. A round hole in his head spread death and destruction on the wall behind him.
"Look. What's that?" I must admit my voice quavered with fear and shock, as I pointed at an object close to Frieda's side. Her outstretched arm seemed to be reaching toward it.
Though shrouded in the light and dark that strained very thinly through the narrow opening of the cave, the round curve of the shoulders within the heap of fur and feather gave a clear indication that this mound was real. It was animal, alive or dead.
Everyone turned. Edgar, his gun trained in its direction, crept slowly toward the object. When he knelt by its side and said loudly, "It—he—is still alive, but barely." We all moved forward as though mesmerized.
The bear's head was face down on the cave floor. Its fur was matted with blood.
"It looks like it's been beaten and then shot," Edgar said. With his foot, he kicked an object away from the body. To my dismay, I could see clearly that it was a gun. He began to turn the body over.
We all gazed in horror as the fur-covered object became someone we all knew and loved.
"Oona," May groaned, dropping on her knees, too, beside her aunt.
The large headdress had fallen to the side, exposing Oona's grey, taut face. Cleverly stitched and created, the diadem was designed to sit on its human's head, the fur and feathers hiding the face from th
e onlooker, yet allowing for sight from within. The bear's head was formidable, its jaws slightly open as though the animal were still capable of a threatening growl. The dead eyes glittered as if with anger and ferocity rather than marble. Oona's body was covered with fur and feathers, her hands wrapped in gloves that resembled paws, her boots encircled with what looked like real claws. It was a frightening, incredible sight. Walking Bear, the stuff of nightmares and legends reduced to a costume in the stark light that filtered into the cave.
Oona moaned and her body quivered. May became at once solicitous and professional, she began to peel away the layers that covered her aunt, exposing cuts and bruises and a dark hole that belied the devastating track of a bullet with its smallness. Kneeling, I tried to assist May as she dressed Oona's wounds and covered her in the warmth of the emergency blanket. We were even able to coax a small amount of water between Oona's parched lips, although her eyes never fluttered nor opened even a fraction.
In the meantime, Langford and Alain set up small flares to lighten the gloom. They discovered a long, wide shelf that had been used as a bed of some sort. There were small pots and bottles, sage and other scented twigs stacked neatly on the natural shelves of the rock outcroppings. A fire had been recently tended here. The cavern looked like the scene of some ancient ritual.
Edgar disappeared into the adjoining cave to lean out of the opening with his cell phone.
Chief Dan Mahdahbee was able to arrange for a native helicopter pilot who would bring emergency workers into the riverbed area. They'd prep Oona and then take her to Ottawa General Hospital. He was attempting to get another helicopter to lift the search party out as well.
When I heard that rescue might be available only for Oona, I admit to being selfishly very nervous that we might have to spend the night in the caves after all, with dead bodies only a short distance away.
While we awaited word from Chief Dan about what might transpire, Langford and I sat in the next cave. Edgar, May and Alain stayed at Oona's side. Langford and I huddled together in the mouth of the cave, the cell phone held out to catch the signal. We didn't speak, too shaken and shocked to put thought into word. But my mind raced, back and forth, mostly asking why.
Why would Oona do this? How could she kill Frieda, someone she had once loved and nurtured? How could she allow herself to murder Victor Reeves, whom she barely knew, even if he was responsible for the subdivision? It seemed so against reason, against her faith and beliefs, against everything Oona had ever stood for. Why would she dress as Walking Bear to frighten the village? Had Oona lost her mind while none of us noticed? I thought of May's reflections on how strangely her aunt had behaved in the weeks before her disappearance, but I'm certain that May had not suspected the seriousness of her disintegration, or May would've acted...or Henry, or any of Oona's sisters. Someone would have helped her, wouldn't they have?
Or was someone else responsible? And if so, where were they? Why had Frieda placed the crime as the act of Walking Bear, who was in fact, Oona? Who had beaten and shot Oona? Was it Frieda or Victor who had retaliated and then lost their lives anyway? I figuratively shook my head several times, trying to make sense of my thought patterns and the experience we'd just had. It was so unbelievable, so strange, so eerie. I was having trouble breathing from time to time and tried to focus on the trees, the riverbed, the soft hairs on Langford's hand, the cell phone.
When the call came through, it was as though the lifeline had already been flung from the helicopter to rescue us. Langford was told that Chief Dan's native pilot had been able to secure an army helicopter big enough to carry all of us out, even the deceased. At the landing strip near Burchill, Oona would be transferred to an air ambulance, while the remainder of us would be sent home. Langford and I grasped each other with relief and then went to tell the others.
As we waited for the emergency teams, Langford and Alain made their way back through the caves to retrieve as many packs as they could carry, while Edgar performed his crime scene ministrations, and May and I tended Oona.
I should not have been surprised that Edgar had come so prepared, but I was. As a result, I watched his movements with awe. He photographed the scene. A picture of Frieda's body against the wall, stiffening with recent death, blood all over her stomach and thighs, her leg wrapped in enormous poultices and bindings, her face pasty and china-like in the gloom. He snapped a picture of Victor Reeves crumpled on the ground, a flattened paper doll, the blood a thick sea of brown. And the gun, impossibly shiny, violent and frightening even though a hand no longer held it in anger or threat. The bed where someone had recently lain. The bear head that had, a short time ago, perched on Oona's broad, strong shoulders—shoulders which were now another photograph, not of strength and pride but of pain and injury, bloody and crumpled. A picture of the detritus of ritual that appeared empty without the direction of the faithful.
Edgar patiently and meticulously bagged any specimens that he found and obviously deemed to be evidence. When Alain and Langford returned from the first cave, Edgar mercifully covered the bodies with our blankets.
It was completely black outside when we finally heard the loud whirring sounds of the helicopter. The only area the pilot could land in was a couple of kilometres down the riverbed, where the valley opened into an ancient pond that was now parched and bereft of vegetation.
Alain and Langford had retraced our steps through the caves via the tunnel to set up vigil. Now below us, they stood silhouetted in the fire they'd built and the flares they'd placed all around.
Three people arrived in the cool of the night just as Edgar, May and I had finished eating our sandwiches and drinking hot coffee from our thermoses. We were feeling somewhat better, but far from comfortable, as we listened to Oona's soft moans and delirious mumbling, none of which was intelligible.
Soon the clang of ropes and hooks filled the cave, as Edgar and I scrambled to secure the ascent of the rescue team up into the cave next to this one. The native pilot was able to nimbly scale the side of the cliff, hand-over-hand up the rope, like a person half his size.
His sheer mass, the strong, wide shoulders, pleasant round face, huge and capable hands, all served to give comfort and security. "I'm Philip," he announced. "You'll be out of here soon, don't worry."
I felt tears in the back of my eyes and realized suddenly that the shock was deeper than I'd imagined.
Edgar directed Philip to Oona and he was soon a huge presence in the cave of death. They conferred about how to best get her down. It was decided that she should be lowered on a stretcher. By this time, another paramedic had reached the mouth of the cave, helped over the lip by Langford. She was a small, nimble person who exuded confidence and efficiency. She immediately went to Oona, and with May's assistance began to prepare her for the transfer.
Without realizing it, I had stepped back into the recesses of the cave, trying to allow room for everyone to do their work. When my boot connected with something foreign underfoot, I yelped and leapt back. My flashlight outlined a straight, flat object made of wood and bark, bound tightly together with some kind of leather.
"Look at this," I said loudly, to cover my embarrassment at squealing with fear.
Philip and Edgar came back to join me, and Philip's face broke into a smile.
"This is far better than any stretcher we brought with us," he said. "It's obviously been constructed by a native who knew the old ways."
So in the end, Oona was lowered carefully on ropes and hooks on a device that had been used by her ancestors for centuries. Hand-over-hand—reminding me of my high school days and the climbing ropes in the gym—I went down the rope after May, where Alain, Langford and the helicopter pilot swung us safely to the ground. Next, one by one, tied to the modern stretcher, came the bodies, wrapped and still, looking dark and sad in the moonlight. As much of the equipment and backpacks as could be strapped to the stretcher and the native sled, were lowered. Then finally, Edgar, Phillip and the paramedic lowered themsel
ves quickly and nimbly to the ground.
The helicopter was a huge, old-fashioned green bug with an enormous belly. Inside, Oona was soon hooked up to intravenous and sedated to calm her unconscious ramblings and moaning. The bodies had been placed somewhere below.
Although it was not crowded in our section, the four of us—Alain, May, Langford and I—huddled together in one corner, mostly silent. It seemed to take no time at all before the monstrous machine shuddered to a halt on the ground and everyone appeared to be running from or toward a smaller, more compact helicopter that sat waiting in the night.
Oona was carried carefully and swiftly to the air ambulance. May hugged all of us briefly, kissed Alain, and suddenly she was gone. We watched from a distance as the helicopter lifted, and pointing its beam of light struck off for Ottawa.
Chapter 25
I was sound asleep when I heard the noise below. I tried to awaken Langford, but he was too far away and I couldn't reach him. I lay there, my heart pounding, sweat seeping down the small of my back, wondering why the bed was so enormous, why I couldn't reach him, why those bars were there.
Suddenly the bedroom door swung open and I sat straight up. The creature in front of me was pale and trembling. Rivers of blood poured from its gigantic head. Bits of tissue and brain and white bone stuck to its face and hands, which were held out toward me.
"I know who you are," it said, the intonation low and growling, close to my ear.
Finally, I found my voice and screamed. Langford turned toward me with a jolt and put his hand on my cheek.
"Honey, honey…Emily…it's okay, you're just dreaming."
I opened my eyes in the darkness and the relief streamed through me. I kicked off the blanket to let the air cool my perspiration. Angel placed her paws on the side of the bed and licked my face gently.
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