"You're kidding." I exclaimed. "All on the same day?"
"No, no, all three were on separate visits. Except maybe…yes, I think Basil was here on the same day as the Reeves' guy. I can't remember the timing exactly. I'm sorry, I don't sign people in and out, and the days just…I have to admit, Emily, dates just mean so little to me. It's the past that…"
Again, Bird seemed to get my signal to move on with the story. "All of them wanted to read the legends book. I wasn't too surprised by Peter, because he often comes by. But Basil—he rarely makes an appearance in the museum. I think he's of the Agnes Lake school of thought. That Reeves' crony really threw me for a loop though. I hadn't seen him around town myself and I had no idea who he was. Gave me some crap about wanting to understand the ancient ways better so he could reach the native population and explain what they were really trying to do with the subdivision. He never offered his name either and I didn't bother asking. He just seemed so phony."
"What did he look like?"
"Kinda tall, good lookin', blondish hair. He wore one of those expensive suits that high-powered businessmen favour."
That could have described any of the Reeves' crowd, I thought, thinking back to the night we'd met them at the Main Street Pub.
"Did he stay very long?"
"Actually, yes, he did. I remember because I was very busy that morning and I was quite irritated. He did seem very engrossed in the stories, though. Asked me all kinds of questions."
"What kind of questions?"
Bird rubbed his chin thoughtfully and glanced upwards, as though the answer was written on the ceiling. "Mostly about Walking Bear. Then he wanted to know how headdresses are fashioned and how realistic they are. I briefly showed him the one I have in the back room by way of demonstration. He was very intrigued by it. I explained how the head of the bear is stuffed and how it fits over the shoulders, so the human behind the mask can see through the fur and feathers. It's extremely intricate and delicate, and no one seems to be able to make them anymore, so I have kept my grandfather's headdress in the back in a chest rather than up here. I show it only to very interested people. Someday I'll order a display case made that will allow it to be seen but not touched. That will be cool."
I couldn't resist. "Would it be okay for me to see it, Bird?"
"Of course. Hang on a sec." He placed a 'back in a minute sign' near the window, and then headed for a door concealed beside one of the bookshelves. A large, old-fashioned gold key hung on a hook under the shelf, which Bird used to unlock it.
The passageway led to a dark, musty, windowless room jammed full of boxes, clothing, stuffed animal heads, feathers, horns, books and papers, bits of material and plastic. An old spinning wheel stood in one corner, along with some other furniture that was covered in cobwebs. Bird turned on a small lamp, which threw shadowy light over everything, then went straight to a large chest in the middle of the room.
I stepped up alongside him as he reached down and lifted the lid. A fusty, rank scent burst into the air, which the remnants of the cedar lining did little to sweeten. A small downy feather flitted upward from the bottom, borne on the draft.
Bird sank involuntarily to his knees. The chest was empty.
Tears slid unapologetically down Bird's shocked face. "It can't be," he murmured.
I placed my hand on his shoulder, trying to give comfort, though I knew there could be none. "Who else saw this, Bird? Just Victor Reeves' colleague? Who else knew this was here?"
Bird put his head down on the edge of the chest and for a moment I thought he would not answer me. When he straightened up, his face was no long suffused with shock and agony. He was furious.
"There are not many who know, but certainly enough. Victor Reeves' crony was one of the few outsiders, that's for sure. I am such a fool for thinking he was truly interested. But Agnes, Oona, Frieda, Peter, Basil—they definitely all knew too. And one of them has stolen it. It could be ruined."
Hoping that I wasn't revealing an official secret, I told him about the headdress and costume that Oona had been wearing when she was found. Shocked and upset, he seemed to be far more interested in the state of the diadem than in Oona's health.
"How could anyone have gotten in here, though? You keep the museum locked up, don't you, Bird?"
Bird hung his head. "Everyone knows where to find the key to the front door," he admitted. "And I keep the keys to this room on the hook. I never thought I had anything worthy of a thief's attention. And this is Burchill for god's sake. Nobody would steal…" His face flushed, because it was obvious that someone in Burchill had, indeed, stolen.
This time, I dialled Edgar's cell phone. After a few rings, he answered.
"Edgar, it's Emily. Just one more thing. Did you get a good look at the Walking Bear attire? What kind of shape is it in? Is it ruined?"
"Yes, I did get a chance to examine it, actually. The headdress is still in pretty good shape, but the body of the costume is ruined from the beating. Why do you ask?"
I explained about the theft from the museum and before he could admonish me, I offered the information that I had, indeed, been on my way home when Bird had mentioned the bear headdress.
"Ask him what it looked like," the curator urged at my elbow.
Edgar was very detailed. As he spoke, I relayed the information to Bird. A large brown bear's head, its huge shoulders drooped and shaped as a nest for a human's face, long black and white feathers tipped with yellow and red placed in a circle around the bottom of the diadem, a small piece of leather with the emblem of an ink-drawn bear and paw prints.
Bird's agitated voice broke into my relating of Edgar's description. "That's not mine," he said, pulling on my sleeve in his urgency. "My grandfather's emblem was of the bear and the fish. I don't know whose emblem that is." The tears had appeared freshly in his eyes again. "I wished so fervently that it was mine, but it can't be."
Edgar's response was thoughtful. "Then there are two headdresses," he said. "May was right. Someone else is involved. Emily, I'm in the car heading back. It'll take me about three hours. Go right home and tell Langford everything. Then sit tight until I get there and Frances and I will come over to consider all the facts together. Four heads will be better than two."
I agreed and for once, did as Edgar said. When I jogged into our yard, having shed all my outer clothing except for my t-shirt and track pants, I found Will and Angel playing ball on the front porch. When they grinned up at me, my heart soared with love and gratitude. I wrapped my arms around them both, kissing Will long and deeply, feeling his warm strong body, solid and full beneath me. Soon I had let go of Angel and was engulfed in my husband's embrace.
We walked languidly through the door, Angel at our feet, as I told him everything I'd experienced that morning. Naturally, he agreed with May that I was the most intelligent woman he knew, and then he added a few other descriptors that had nothing to do with brains. One thing led to another, until Langford Will Taylor and I found ourselves in bed in the middle of the afternoon.
"I love March Break," I said to him later, trailing my fingers down the soft hairs of his chest, feeling the heat of him next to me and through me. A shiver of pleasure zinged its way from my fingertips to my toes and Langford smiled knowingly.
"Feel like doing that again?" he asked.
"Ha! Think you're still seventeen, don't you?" I laughed."Can you imagine, Will? We have known each other thirty-three years this summer. And I will be fifty years old for god's sake."
"You are still the most beautiful woman in town," he whispered, sending another shiver through me. "I can't wait 'til you retire and we can do this all day long."
"And you can still turn me into a teenager," I whispered back, licking his lips with my tongue, tasting the warm juiciness of him. I pulled away slightly, looking into his eyes. "Will, do you think we made a mistake changing your name and hiding out here?"
"What makes you say that?" he asked, propping his head up on one hand and looking
at me with a genuinely startled expression.
"I mean, it always feels like we're keeping a secret from our friends. I can never be completely myself with May. I'm always conscious of calling you Langford, not Will. I just feel like Vancouver is following us still, having an effect on our lives even now. Lately I've just had this—I don't know—feeling of dissatisfaction and I think maybe that's at the root of it."
He put his long arms behind his head in a thoughtful pose. "But, Em, if everyone knew, it would follow us even more, I think. It was such a sensational case. The newspapers splashed it all over the place in Ontario too, so everybody probably knows the story. We'd have reporters on our doorstep constantly, trying to see how we're doing. The villagers, maybe not May or Alain or Edgar or Frances, but to the rest of them, I think we'd be curios. I really think it would be worse."
I snuggled into the warmth of his arm, smelled his salty skin, touched the soft hairs just above his groin. "You're right, of course you are. I guess it's better this way." I was silent for a moment, wondering if I would ever feel content and free of the past. "But someday, do you think I could tell May?"
He rolled over toward me, gently caressing my breast. His lips were soft and tender on mine. "I think there will come a day when we will feel safe enough to do that, my love." And then he proved that he, indeed, was still like a teenager, because he made love to me again.
We had showered, changed, fed Angel, and prepared some food when Frances called. "Ed's home getting cleaned up," she said when I answered. "We thought we'd have some dinner and then come over."
"Don't have dinner," I told her. "Come here for that. Langford and I have already prepared it. Plus we have several bottles of wine that will lubricate the discussion."
"Fabulous," she said enthusiastically. "Thanks. I could really use a glass of wine, not to mention home-cooked food."
Thus, an hour or so later we found ourselves at the dining room table, wine glasses full, dinner plates heaped, Frances and Edgar's eager faces opposite us and the conversation swirling. It seemed strange to be sitting in our cozy dining room, the night sky clear and star-filled behind us, discussing a horror that most people would never have to face in their lifetimes. Yet all four of us around this table had actually seen far worse.
The central part of our arguments was Oona's guilt. We all took turns trying to theorize how she might have innocently been involved.
"Instead of Oona being the one who orchestrated everything, could someone else have stolen the bear headdress from the museum, pretended to be Walking Bear, and kidnapped all three?" Frances posited.
"That sure would be the way May would like it to play out. It might mean Oona is innocent," Langford said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
"But it doesn't explain why Oona was wearing the headdress," I said, hanging onto my own theory. "According to the legend, Walking Bear decided to kidnap the evil leaders to teach them a lesson. He also appeared to the village people to scare them into going back to following the rules. Whoever captured Frieda and Victor might have done so in some misguided attempt to teach them a lesson. I'm still convinced that it makes sense for Oona to have done that. I'm not sure what Frieda's crimes were, but it's obvious what Victor's was. The people of Burchill and Sahsejewon see him as a threat to the environment, a kind of plague on the land. But I do find it impossible to believe that Oona was involved in beating or killing anyone."
"Then perhaps somebody else entered the picture after the kidnapper." Edgar took up the thread of my thoughts. "Someone who stole the Walking Bear outfit from the museum. Bird hasn't looked at it since he showed it to Victor Reeves' colleague recently, so we have no way of knowing when it disappeared. It could have been before or after Walking Bear started appearing. If it was after, maybe this other person gets the idea and decides to take advantage of the situation for something even worse. Like murder."
"Not only Oona, but Frieda could have done the kidnapping," Frances said. "They both disappeared at the same time."
"Or Agnes Lake," I interjected, reluctantly opening the theory to include more than Oona as Walking Bear. "May said Oona had been acting strangely lately, talking about how she'd kind of missed out on things and maybe she shouldn't have been so goody-two-shoes. Maybe she and Frieda committed some crime together. And it could very well be a crime against the environment. Maybe it's Agnes who is the kidnapper. All of them had visited the museum within the last few weeks."
"That still doesn't explain how Oona ended up with the headdress and costume on, but it's a possibility," Edgar said.
"And none of this explains the murders. Why would this mysterious other person kill Victor and Frieda and almost murder Oona?" Frances asked.
"Maybe Oona or Frieda or Agnes had really lost it. Maybe she had metamorphosed into Walking Bear in her own mind. Maybe one of them actually killed the others. Maybe there was such a huge fight they were all mortally wounded. Maybe no one else was involved."
There was a moment of silence and then Frances, Edgar and I looked at Langford's serious face and burst out laughing.
"That's a hell of a lot of maybes in one speech," I giggled.
After a good, hearty, restorative laugh, we were all silent again, thinking about the endless possibilities and twists and turns.
I thought about Agnes, still out there somewhere. Was she alive or dead? Was she involved or simply on a vision quest and unaware of the tragedy? I pictured Frieda's dying face, Victor's lifeless body, Oona's blood and agony. What had happened in our forest, in those sacred caves? What kind of greed or anger could lead to such wanton destruction?
Chapter 27
He leaned on the frame in the doorway as though they were pals having a friendly chat. His hair was impossibly tidy. His clothes, though casual, had a rich, unwrinkled air that spoke of money. His voice was smooth and quiet. "Got anything yet?" he asked, his eyes boring into the other man's with ice-cold aggression, which contradicted the flashing smile.
The other man stood in front, almost protective, hiding her. "I told you. This will take some time. She will eventually reveal the secrets. She just has to know the reasons for doing so."
The answering voice did not change in tone or strength. "How about offering her money? How about a life of luxury and comfort? It worked with the other one, until there was outside interference. It worked with you. Will she go for that?"
The other man's shoulders rounded even more. His face struggled with the urge to weep. He knew he had no real option in this matter, he knew his previous choices had brought him here, but he managed to sound convincing as he retorted, "She isn't interested in material things. She's not like the rest of us. I need more time with her. She's strong. I will find out where the scroll is hidden. I am absolutely certain of it."
"Maybe you're a little too sure of yourself. Don't commit the sin of hubris. Don't forget, there is a life at stake here. One that seems to mean more to you than even money does." There was a solid click as he shut the adjoining door, chuckling.
The man sat for a moment, staring at the beige walls and the nondescript décor. Then suddenly he burst into tears of regret and fear, his shoulders hunched and shaking, his fists ground into his temples in anger and despair.
In that canyon that is mouth,
words align themselves in orderly fashion.
It is not what they want to say, but
afraid of committing themselves,
the legends properly fall,
scattering about the ground.
Chapter 28
She was here, but not here. Her weightlessness allowed her to float over her body, over the lake, the trees, the rocks. She could see the woman in the small wooden hut, breast rising and falling, huddled in the cold under a sleeping bag, wrists red and raw from fighting the handcuffs chaining them to the bed. The woman took small, pathetic sips from the water tube in between crying or sleeping. When she concentrated, when she entered the further plane, she could see the other woman in the white, ste
rile bed, eyes fluttering, brain waves jumping, there but not there.
She extended her breath and her sight and allowed her spirit to mingle with other souls. She expelled a mouthful of air into tortured bodies. She heard whimpering and sighs. She saw movement and colour. The colours were orange and red and purple and green, ribbons of light, fusion of spectacle. Her mind was at one with Manitou. She could see so clearly.
She drifted for a time, apart from the suffering, silent, still. The wind hummed in her ear and chilled her heated skin. She smiled. There would be a solution, liberation of all, for the Spirit's face was bent to hers, a touch so soft and smooth, a murmur so warm in her ear, the sound of her salvation.
She opened her eyes and cast her gaze upon the man whose cheeks were stained with tears of guilt and fear. Now he would act in the way that was foretold. Her words would give him the gift of understanding. Her eyes called him and he looked into her essence.
Chapter 29
We had settled into the living room, brandies and coffees in hand, quietly enjoying one another's company. The night was clear, with an emerging moon dancing its rays on the still water of the lake.
I leaned back in my chair and enjoyed the warmth of the friendship, the comfort of this room and this home we had created. Edgar and Frances were still new to us as friends. There remained a great deal to know about them.
Langford often told me I thought too much about that side of friendship—the knowing, the sharing, the understanding of the person. He was very at ease with the surface. His enjoyment was of the moment and the specific time. I wished I could be more like him. I continued to be bothered by the fact that I couldn't be truly open and honest about whom I was. I had learned to hide so much, to conceal feelings and keep so much of me to myself, but it was never easy.
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