Full Curl

by Dave Butler

  Willson’s mind was a blur of evidence, of emotion, of anticipation. She’d missed the poachers by only seven or eight hours. But in a park this big, with highways heading east to Alberta, west to British Columbia, and north to Jasper National Park and beyond, they could be anywhere. She had nothing more to go on than tire tracks, footprints, and, she hoped, a bullet buried somewhere in the elk’s chest. And while she’d dealt with poaching in other parks, those had been minor situations compared to this one — the loss of an iconic bull elk in Canada’s most iconic national park. She wondered if in future her investigation would be used as a case study in law-enforcement courses. Or would it be remembered as pathetic, worthy of scorn and derision, forgotten? She blew out a breath through pursed lips. No pressure.

  But ultimately, she knew that her biggest challenge was presenting the case to her superiors so they’d let her move forward professionally, thoroughly, and systematically. That meant spending money and time on an investigation. She was painfully aware that such a commitment was foreign to them because none had any training — or interest — in law enforcement, and few felt as she did about the park. And based on her experience to date, she knew that no one in the system liked surprises that rocked the boat or put them in the crosshairs of higher-ups in the food chain. She considered most of them to be ass-kissing, risk-avoiding pencil-pushers who cared more about moving upward than they did about the park.

  Again, she released a breath noisily as she thought of the internal battles to come. And then her father’s voice came to her, as it often did when she was faced with the greatest challenges life threw at her: “Remember, Jenny, where there’s a Willson, there’s a way.”

  As she drove along the snowy highway, Willson’s mind centred on the stark image of the slaughtered elk, the coppery smell of blood splashed on snow, the lonely whisper of wind in the grasses. This was personal, very personal. Against a background of radio chatter, Willson promised herself to follow the case to the end, even if her bosses didn’t approve. “You don’t know it yet, but I’m coming for you, you bastards,” she said. She would make her father proud.

  Chapter 4

  November 22

  The parking lot was empty when Jim Canon swung his truck off the Banff-Jasper Highway, two kilometres south of the stone, glass, and steel edifice of the Columbia Icefield Interpretive Centre. In this third week of November, he’d passed few other vehicles travelling either south or north. It was as if he had the entire national park to himself.

  He sat on the tailgate of his truck and pulled on his hiking boots, lacing them tightly. Even though he’d left the Waterfowl Lakes campground in the cold of pre-dawn, he’d been sufficiently awake to tape his heels with moleskin before pulling on socks, his only light the glow of a lantern.

  With boots tight, he inhaled the smell of the mountain autumn, smiling at the wisdom of his crack-of-dawn start. The only sounds he could hear were the whispers of the wind and the kroaks and tonks of ravens as they played in the cool currents of air sliding down the glacier to the west. Canon sipped the last mouthfuls of a special Kicking Horse Coffee blend he’d brewed on the gas stove that morning.

  Canon stood, turned, and dragged out his battered Lowe camera pack from under the truck canopy. He called it “the grey monster” because of its ability to carry large amounts of gear. Today, the monster was filled with camera bodies, lenses, memory cards, filters, his lunch, a thermos of coffee, an extra pile sweater, gloves, a toque, and rainwear. He lashed a water bottle and a sturdy ball head tripod to the pack, then shrugged into the shoulder straps and buckled the waist-belt, hefting the weight with an audible grunt.

  “Holy shit,” he said to a curious whisky-jack that studied him, head cocked, from a nearby Engelmann spruce, “this son of a bitch is heavy.”

  Finally, Canon locked and shut the driver’s door with a bang that echoed off the far slopes. He tucked his truck keys into the toe of one of his worn shoes and dropped the shoes under the canopy before pulling down and latching the door. No matter what happened to him or his pack during the day, the keys would be there, waiting for him. Not like the time they’d fallen from his pack into a crevasse, forcing him to walk ten kilometres to find a ride. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  Satisfied that all was secure, Canon strode across the parking lot and immediately cursed the sadistic park planner who had designed the trail from the parking lot to Wilcox Pass. It started uphill and left little warm-up time for a photographer trying to adjust to eighteen kilograms of gear on his back. It wasn’t long before his breathing was a chorus of heavy panting. But as he warmed up, Canon used the slow, steady cadence of his bootsteps on the trail to bring his heartbeat and breathing into a pattern he could maintain all day.

  After the first kilometre, he broke free from a thick, fir-spruce forest and got his first view across the valley to the Athabasca Glacier. He looked westward to Mounts Snow Dome, Athabasca, and Andromeda. All three were well over three thousand metres high and dusted with the season’s first snow. He loved this time of year because the thin layer of white produced dramatic definition of the steep rock faces, nooks and crannies that were otherwise invisible in the flat light of summer. He continued uphill, using short pauses to conserve energy for the long day ahead. The uppermost ridges and snowfields around him were now brushed with the first rays of the sun, and despite his rough start, Canon felt good. He smiled and pulled the crisp mountain air deep into his lungs like a tonic. He thought of the millions of people in places like Toronto or New York who fought traffic and each other in the shadows of tall, sterile buildings. He knew he was where he needed to be, and he felt sorry for them all.

  An hour later, he reached the edge of Wilcox Pass and sat on a dark boulder beside the trail. “Let’s see what’s here today,” he said, raising binoculars to his eyes, scanning the slopes around him. It was a spectacular place, and for the moment, all his to savour and appreciate.

  Even though the sun was still below Nigel Peak to his right, Canon saw the basin ahead of him as a tapestry of oranges, reds, and yellows. The stunted alpine plants that carpeted Wilcox Pass — the willows, mountain avens, fireweeds, and heathers — were in their annual transition to a long winter, throwing out a final burst of colour, a burst muted by early frosts. For a moment, he wondered whether he had enough memory cards. But then he thought back to the years he’d shot transparencies, remembering the plastic bags he always carried, filled with exposed and unexposed rolls of Kodachrome and Fujichrome film. Things had changed for the better.

  Canon sat marvelling at his surroundings, chewing on half of a Spam, pickle, and cheese sandwich. For Canon, Spam was a weakness and a source of friendly debates with his long-time girlfriend, Sue Browning. In his opinion, she was a serious food snob. When he pulled a can of Spam from the cupboard, he’d see Sue stick her finger in her mouth, gag, and leave the room. So Spam made a slurping noise when it plopped from the can. So it glistened with a gelatinous coating, part mucus and part slime. So what?

  Canon finished the sandwich, wrapped the remainder in wax paper, and sipped coffee from his thermos. He continued scanning the basin to locate the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep rams that hung out in the pass during the fall mating season. The main events of the season, usually occurring in November and December, were a violent series of head-banging fights often put to music on TV, contests that offered willing ewes as a grand prize and migraine headaches to the losers.

  After a few sweeps of the basin, Canon located a group of fifteen rams at the base of a rocky ridge in the northwest corner of the pass. “There you are,” he said, smiling. They were out in the open, each animal facing in a slightly different direction, watching for the few predators they feared — grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, and the occasional wolverine.

  Canon again hefted the heavy pack and climbed toward the sheep slowly, methodically. When he passed what he guessed was the halfway point, he lowered the pack to t
he ground, unstrapped his tripod, and pulled his camera from the depths of the pack, where it was wrapped in a fleece jacket. With a long zoom lens on the front, he ensured the exposure settings were right for the conditions and then clipped the camera to the tripod. He re-shouldered his pack and threw the padded legs of the tripod over one shoulder, the camera lens pointing downward.

  By mid-afternoon, Canon had filled two memory cards with images. He’d found and followed the rams for more than four hours and was pleased. Because it was just before the main part of the mating season, the rams had already sorted out who was dominant and who was left to stand on the edge of the party when they finally met up with females in estrus. As if winning the head-to-head fights wasn’t enough, the dominant rams continued to chase and threaten the smaller and now deferential rams, occasionally mounting them from behind to add to their humiliation. There were a few half-hearted attempts to butt heads, but Canon knew that he’d missed the best displays.

  Sometimes he was so close to the animals that he couldn’t focus on them in his viewfinder. “Could you move back a few steps, please?” he would ask. The sheep ignored him. None of this behaviour was a surprise; Canon had been to Wilcox Pass and always found that the more time he spent with the sheep, the more comfortable they became with him. He was slow and quiet, respectful, and always ensured that the sheep could move wherever they wanted to go. He knew they would never see him as one of them, but if they didn’t consider him a threat, that was all he needed.

  Canon sat amongst the rams when they rested and chewed their cud. He listened to their breathing. He heard the subtle squeaks as they pulled at tufts of grasses with their teeth. It was relaxing, almost hypnotic.

  Canon knew that his best images of the day would come from the hour he spent with a massive ram that lay on its own, away from the group, legs tucked under its body like a cat. The animal appeared unconcerned with his presence, so much so that he moved within five metres of it. He spread the tripod’s legs low to the ground and then lay on his belly in the meadow, his eye to the viewfinder, capturing stunning images of the animal with the rock ridges and icefields on the summit of Mount Kitchener as an impressive backdrop. In both horizontal and vertical shots, the ridges of the ram’s horns popped in the dramatic sidelight of the morning. Each horn, a triangle-shaped combination of bone core and horn sheath that grew over the core each year, showed the transverse ridges that marked the passing of time. Not unlike the rings of a tree, these ridges allowed biologists and hunters to calculate an animal’s age. The two horns curled down and backward from the top of the skull, and then upward and forward again, encircling its ears in a complete circle. It was full curl.

  Canon switched to a wide-angle lens so he could capture more of the meadow in which the ram was lying, contentedly chewing his cud. As the shutter purred, the images showed the whole world of the ram in its alpine splendour.

  As the sun dropped behind Snow Dome, Canon spoke to the rams one last time. “Thanks, guys, for letting me hang out with you today.” Then he slowly gathered his gear.

  His photographer friends often asked him why he did this, why he said thank you to his photographic subjects. Maybe it was because he believed it was an honour to be in their presence. Or maybe today he was relieved that none of the rams mistook him for a ewe in heat.

  Canon walked down the pass, his boots whispering in the low groundcover, his thoughts still on the sheep. Raising his eyes to the horizon, he saw a storm on its way from the west, the dark clouds boiling, moving quickly. From experience, he knew he would soon be in the middle of a violent tango between weather and darkness. He chose to make a beeline back to the truck rather than continue shooting.

  As he reached the distinct line between alpine and forest before heading down to the parking lot, he was surprised to hear voices. He wondered why someone would be walking uphill at the very time they should be racing for their vehicle. But hey, he thought, you can always count on park visitors to make bad decisions. He moved a few paces above the trail, sat to one side of a small clump of wind-shaped firs, and waited.

  In a moment, Canon saw two men trudge up the trail, both breathing too hard to speak. They staggered out of the trees and stopped at a viewpoint immediately below him. Neither looked in his direction.

  The first man, big and bearded and wearing a cowboy hat, knee-length raincoat, and heavy mountaineering boots, seemed to be in the better shape of the two. Canon saw him catch his breath fairly quickly and look back at the other man with what appeared to be contempt.

  Shorter than his companion, the second man was a sweating, heaving mess of a human. He had pointy, unattractive features and wore the ugliest down coat Canon had ever seen. A battered Kootenay Ice baseball cap, wet with perspiration, sat back on his narrow skull. His thick eyeglasses were clouded. Canon watched sweat run off the man’s nose, dripping onto his scuffed cowboy boots.

  Who’re these dumb-asses? Canon wondered. They were two of the strangest hikers he’d ever seen. Neither carried a pack, but both wore binoculars around their necks. They seemed unaware of their immediate surroundings, only focusing on the open pass ahead of them.

  Canon couldn’t contain himself. “Hey, guys,” he called, “where you headed this time of day?”

  Both men whirled in surprise, the smaller of the two tripping over a rock in doing so. He fell with a thud and a grunt. Canon watched his sweat-encrusted hat sail over the edge of the viewpoint.

  The bearded man’s body language — eyes glaring, fists coiled — made it clear to Canon that he didn’t like surprises.

  “What’n hell are you doing hidin’ up there?” the man said, scowling.

  “Sorry to startle you.” Canon chuckled, trying to disarm the man. “I was taking a rest before tackling the hill. Where are you guys heading? It looks like a storm’s coming in from the icefields.”

  The smaller man, after dusting himself off and casting a forlorn glance after his hat, answered first. “We weren’t doin’ nothin’ wrong, we were just —”

  The big man cut him off. “Shut the hell up!” he barked. He turned back to Canon. “Not that it’s any of your goddamn business,” he growled, “but we’re up here just takin’ a walk.”

  Canon had no doubt the man was bullshitting him. “Hey, no big deal,” he said. “I was taking pictures of the rams and decided to call it a day. There’s serious weather rolling in.”

  At the mention of sheep, the two men’s faces visibly changed. A look passed between them so quickly that Canon would have missed it if the two men hadn’t already put him on edge.

  “Sheep?” the big man said. “We didn’t know there were sheep up here. What did you see and where were they?”

  Canon became increasingly uncomfortable with the men. He considered their clothing, their lack of packs, and the fact that they were heading into the pass when chances were good they would be alone. None of it suggested just two guys out for a stroll. He didn’t buy their story for a second.

  At this point, the smaller man dropped out of sight below the trail, apparently in search of his hat. Canon heard grunts and falling rocks.

  “I saw a few smaller rams,” Canon said, intentionally downplaying what he’d seen, “but if there are any big ones, they’re probably already off somewhere else.”

  Canon saw the bearded man fill his barrel chest with air and take a step toward him. Leaving his pack on the ground, Canon pushed himself upright to his full six-foot-three frame, his shoulders broad and his legs solid from years of university rowing. If the man was trying to intimidate him, Canon was willing to show he wasn’t in the mood to take any crap. With elevation, gravity, and a lack of fear on his side, he knew he had the advantage, and he stared back at the man, unblinking. They were no different than two bighorn rams, ready to rise on their hind legs and then hurl themselves at each other with speed and force, each trying to dominate the other. Canon saw the man’s fire cool
when he realized that his adversary wasn’t about to back down.

  “C’mon, give me a fuckin’ break,” said the big man, his hands wide in fake surrender. “If there are small rams up there, then the big ones have to be there, too. Maybe you didn’t know where to look.”

  Canon was too smart to rise to the bait. “Why?” he asked. “Have you been up here before?”

  “Yeah,” said the man, “I’ve been up here before. Probably more times’n you. And every time, I seen big rams, lots of full curls, many over ten years old.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Canon saw the smaller man crawl over the edge of the trail, filthy and breathing hard. The baseball cap was back on his head.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know there were sheep here,” Canon said.

  “Don’t be a fuckin’ smartass,” said the man. “I know these mountains like the back of my hand.”

  “Well, good for you,” Canon replied. “If you guys want to get your asses soaked and stumble around in the cold and dark, have at it. Smart folks would head out of this weather, not into it.”

  “You call ’em smart folks,” said the man. “I call ’em pussies.”

  The first waves of a misty rain began to fall on the three men. A gust of wind blew the baseball hat off the smaller man’s head, sending it over the edge of the trail again. “Son of a bitch!” the man cursed.

  The larger man apparently realized that he’d get nothing from Canon. “Whatever,” he said. “Thanks for bein’ fuckin’ useless.” He spun and stomped up the trail.

  Canon turned to the smaller man to see his beady eyes peering and blinking through his thick eyeglasses. He looked frightened by the encounter between the two bigger men. He opened his mouth as if to say something to Canon. But then he clearly thought better of it and stumbled up the trail after his partner.

  Canon watched them go, the smaller man tripping awkwardly as he came into view a hundred metres along the trail. “Now that was bizarre,” Canon said to himself, shaking his head. “Those two dummies are going to be cold and wet by the time they’re done for the day.”