Full Curl

by Dave Butler

  “Don’t worry,” said Eastman, “it’s a shortcut for headin’ up the valley. Saves us some drivin’ time.”

  It was a quiet trip north up the Rocky Mountain Trench. Castillo had little in common with Eastman and Clark, so he was content to let the scratchy sounds of country music fill the cab. He had low expectations of conversation with the two men, and they never failed to deliver.

  Passing the small community of Skookumchuk, Castillo glimpsed the blinking lights and eerie plumes of steam coming from a pulp mill. He found it surreal, so different from Spokane or Mexico, as though a massive spaceship had landed in the middle of the dark valley. The multicoloured lights illuminated the ice fog lying along the Kootenay River — a common condition this late in March.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Castillo sensed Eastman’s uneasiness with the silence. The man fidgeted, shifted in his seat, his eyes bouncing from road to speedometer and back again. Castillo purposefully did nothing to ease the discomfort. In the dark, he heard the man try to engage him in discussion about the weather for the next two days. “Looks like we’ll have low cloud and some snow,” Eastman said.

  “The weather makes no difference to me,” said Castillo curtly. He was pleased when Eastman said no more.

  After ninety minutes on Highway 93/95, Castillo stayed in the truck while Eastman checked them into the Alpen Motel in Radium Hot Springs. Castillo had one room, Eastman and Clark shared a second. Castillo opened the door to his room, turned to the two men, and said slowly: “We will leave here at 5:00 a.m. Please have everything ready.”

  By six o’clock the next morning, the three men were climbing the south-facing slopes of Mount Wardle in Kootenay National Park. They’d left the truck parked in an abandoned gravel pit a few kilometres west of the Simpson River monument. The route was not easy, the ground steep and snow-covered. Castillo took the lead; the other two were labouring under packs, Clark falling farther and farther behind. All three were dressed in white insulated coveralls with white toques and gloves covering their faces and hands, partly for the cold, but mostly as camouflage. After two hours, they reached an elevation of 1,750 metres, 500 vertical metres above the truck.

  The men sat for a moment, sipping hot coffee poured from a beaten steel thermos and chewing partly frozen energy bars dug out from Eastman’s pack. They shared a dramatic view across the Simpson River valley to north-facing slopes carpeted in forest. Castillo continued to set the tone by saying nothing.

  After a short break, the three men were climbing again. They cut across two sets of fresh tracks in the snow. It was a meandering trail uphill and to the northeast.

  “Is that what we’re looking for?” asked Castillo, pointing to the tracks.

  He watched Eastman kneel and move his hands to check size and direction, then look up to where the trail disappeared behind a small ridge scattered with stunted subalpine fir.

  “Yes, it is,” Eastman said with conviction. “Two animals, one much bigger than the other.”

  This was the news for which Castillo was waiting. Rather than blindly following the animals on their haphazard route, he took a rifle from Clark when the man finally caught up with them. He verified that it was loaded and began to climb. He was slow and quiet. He kept his breathing under control with by pausing after every few steps.

  Thirty minutes later, Castillo was on his hands and knees, peering around a rock outcropping. At first, he saw nothing. The sky was overcast and there was little to help him differentiate between snow-covered ground and off-white clouds. After scanning the slopes, Castillo finally saw movement; a subtle shift of black against white. It was two mountain goats, both billies, to the east and slightly below him, no more than thirty metres away. Immediately, the smaller of the two goats moved uphill and away from him. The larger of the two stood still. As Castillo had hoped, his two companions were still below him and making enough noise to distract the animal, but not enough to make it flee. It was perched on a rock rib, nervously peering at the sounds below. Castillo knew he had little time before the animal scrambled further up the slope, following the other.

  Castillo pulled behind the rock, swung the rifle off his shoulder, and checked the safety. At the same time, he took deep, calming breaths. Inch by inch, he moved forward on his knees and elbows, ignoring the rocks and the frozen ground, until he could again see the big billy. The animal’s winter coat was as long as it would be all year. The hair was thick and only a slight shade yellower than the surrounding snow.

  Castillo studied the goat through the rifle scope. The razor-tipped horns were black and gleaming. He smiled, liking what he saw. He estimated the goat to be about 130 kilograms in weight, in the prime of its existence. As on most hunts, Castillo felt his entire biological system come to life. It was the same feeling he got when he saw a beautiful woman for the first time. Despite the cold creeping into his body from the snow on which he lay, his pulse quickened, his palms went damp, and he had an erection. Like foreplay, he thought, only better. He willed the animal to come closer to him. But it was alert, still, peering down the slope. The crosshairs of his scope wavered slightly on the goat’s chest. It was time.

  Three more deep breaths. In and out, in and out, in and out. On the outtake of the third, Castillo squeezed the trigger slowly and smoothly. By the time a loud crack reverberated across the valley, the goat was already down on its left side as though hit with a hammer. With an impressive effort of will, it climbed to its feet again and took two stumbling steps before falling off the ridge, disappearing from Castillo’s view. To the south, he watched a small avalanche slide into the trees on the north-facing slope of a smaller peak, a cloud of snow dissipating into the air above it. All was quiet.

  Castillo climbed noisily down the slope where the goat had disappeared. When he reached Eastman and Clark, he saw that they’d found the animal lying at the bottom of a small cliff. They stood waiting for Castillo to claim his prize.

  “Is it damaged?” Castillo asked the men as he slid down the final metres to where the goat lay against a pile of rocks.

  “The body’s kinda beaten up,” said Eastman, “but the head’s in good shape. The horns ain’t broke, and the hide looks good.”

  Castillo nodded in agreement and relief. He pulled a digital camera from the pocket of his jacket and, as in previous hunts, told Eastman to take his picture with the goat. With rifle in one hand and his other hand resting on one of the two horns, a black stiletto at least thirty centimetres long, Castillo stared directly into the camera. Despite his accomplishment, he did not smile.

  “Okay,” Castillo said. “Get started on it.”

  Charlie Clark had the job of using a large knife and a handsaw to remove the head of the animal, along with the entire hide down to the black hooves. It was messy, bloody work. Castillo watched him closely, ensuring he made no mistakes. Soon, Clark’s hands and white coveralls were coated in dark stains. The snow around him was red. Two ravens waited in a nearby spruce, clearly hoping that the men’s actions would lead to a meal.

  Forty-five minutes later, Clark finished the job. Snow began to fall in big, lazy flakes from a greying sky. He rolled up the hide and lashed it and the head to a wooden pack-board, covering the bundle with a canvas tarp. Two black horns poked out like thick radio antennae pointing to the sky. It was late afternoon. The men began the steep, slippery climb down the south side of Mount Wardle. Their morning’s uphill route was obliterated with new snow and the sky had closed in around them.

  “Let’s go down this gulley,” said Castillo, “I think it’s a direct line to the truck.”

  “No,” said Eastman, “we need to angle more to the east.”

  “You’d better have it right,” said Castillo as he followed Eastman.

  They reached the highway twenty minutes later only to discover they were a kilometre east of their parked truck, forcing them to walk along the edge of the snow-covered pavement,
exposed and vulnerable.

  “This is completely unacceptable,” Castillo hissed, his eyes dark with rage as he stared at Eastman. “If this causes us a problem, I will hold you personally responsible.”

  Walter Krawczyk had worked for the Parks Canada highways crew for over thirty years. He’d seen it all and little surprised him. Cars buried in avalanches. Overturned tour buses. Summer bear-jams and long lineups behind paving crews. No matter what was thrown at him, his job was to keep traffic moving through the park. Today, his biggest worry was the recent snowfall. The highway through Kootenay National Park was already icy from a previous storm, and this latest had turned the road into a treacherous ribbon from one end of the park to the other.

  As Krawczyk drove his green-and-white Ford pickup east on the highway, it was reaching that time of day when it was dark enough for headlights but not so much that they made a difference. After he passed a mineral lick that was an excellent place to see wild animals, he saw three men walking into an abandoned gravel pit on the north side of the highway. Krawczyk turned his head to the left and noted a dark truck tucked against the trees. One of the men held what looked to be a rifle, while another, who appeared to be coated in blood, carried a large pack.

  Krawczyk was travelling at the posted speed limit of ninety kilometres an hour, so he passed the three men quickly. “What the hell was that?” he asked himself out loud. He grabbed his microphone from its clip on the dash, ready to contact the duty warden he knew was near the north boundary of the park. Krawczyk paused, realizing the warden would be pissed off with him if he didn’t at least get a licence plate number. So he continued to the Simpson River monument, reversed direction, and headed west on the highway, back toward the spot where he’d seen the three men.

  When he came around the last corner, slowing to turn into the gravel pit, he saw that the pit was empty. “Fuck!” he said to the sky.

  But tire tracks were fresh in the new snow on the access road, showing skid marks out to the highway. It was clear to the park veteran that the vehicle had left the rest area in a hurry, heading southwest toward Radium.

  His mind raced. While bloody men carrying rifles and loaded packs were a common occurrence in hunting season outside the park, they shouldn’t be in the park. He needed to catch up to the truck, get a plate number, and then contact dispatch to call out the RCMP. He could follow the truck into Radium.

  As he came over a rise, Krawczyk glimpsed the truck as it raced along the highway beside the Simpson River below him. In the darkening sky of late afternoon, the truck’s headlights illuminated the path ahead, a trail of snow blowing like a churning wake behind a ship. He pounded on the gas pedal, roaring down the hill. He was leery of the icy road but confident that he had the weight of eight sandbags in his truck, the best studded snow tires the government could afford, and all four wheels powering in the same direction.

  Krawczyk closed the gap between himself and the other truck and again grabbed his radio mic, ready to call in the licence plate. He wasn’t surprised, however, to see the back of the truck obliterated by caked snow. Not only could he not read the plate, he couldn’t even tell the truck’s colour. It looked like a Dodge. In the swirling snow, he wasn’t even sure of that.

  Now Krawczyk was uncertain. He knew that getting a licence-plate number would be helpful, especially if he lost the truck on the highway to Radium. If he tried to pass the vehicle, there was no guarantee he could see the front plate. The caked snow could be as bad there, or the truck could be from Alberta, where only rear plates were required by law.

  “Screw it,” he said. “I better call it in. Maybe they can set up a roadblock and I can tell them which vehicle it is when we reach it.” Krawczyk looked down to his lap for the microphone, grabbed it, and began a call to dispatch in Radium.

  “Warden Office, this is Maintenance two-seven-one. I’m following a suspicious vehicle with three occupants that was parked when I first saw it. I saw one of the men holding a rifle. We’re heading —”

  At that moment, the truck in front of him slammed on its brakes. Even if Krawczyk had been more attentive, he wouldn’t have seen the red brake lights through the caked snow. His eyes widened and he sucked in his breath with a hiss as the rear of the truck came at him fast. His radio transmission ended. He dropped the mic into his lap and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. Without thinking, he turned the wheel hard to the right to avoid a collision. In the space of a heartbeat, he knew it was a mistake.

  The right front wheel of his truck rose up on a patch of thick ice along the concrete guard rail. It was enough to send the vehicle off the travelled portion of the road. The forty-five-centimetre-high concrete barrier, its top slightly rounded, launched the truck into the dark sky beyond the highway. It began a slow rotation to the left. A few seconds later, the truck hit the steep slope below the barrier. The full force of the crash came through the driver-side door. Krawczyk’s head snapped against the window, the impact breaking his neck. He died instantly. The truck cartwheeled down the slope, end over end in a storm of snow and flashing headlights. It came to a stop, lying on its roof, on a layer of ice covering a small pond. For a moment, there was silence.

  The weak ice cracked loudly and then Krawczyk’s truck dropped into the water, with only its wheels visible above the surface. One wheel continued to spin, with nowhere to go.

  The dark truck carrying three men and the remains of a mountain goat billy continued down the highway toward Radium.

  Chapter 9

  March 29

  Jenny Willson and Jim Canon leaned outside Giorgio’s Restaurant in Banff, their hands in their pockets, each with one leg bent against the wall of rounded river rocks. They knew they looked like two gunslingers waiting for the bad guys to appear at the other end of the avenue.

  Willson’s chin was tucked into the collar of her thick down jacket, a blue wool beanie pulled low on her forehead. She watched an RCMP cruiser pass slowly on the opposite side of the street, heading north. The car’s tires threw up a dusting of the snow that had fallen that afternoon. The lone Mountie inside gave her a quick glance and then, in a momentary salute of recognition from one colleague to another, touched his forehead with his hand. She watched him turn away, seeing nothing more of interest.

  She understood what a Banff posting must be like for that young constable. As it was with her job, in the summer he’d see everything and anything, all from people who left common sense at home when they went on vacation. He’d see dumb stunts pulled by drunken teens with more bravado than brains, and the reactions of families when Mother Nature created a sudden gap in their family tree. She also knew that the young officer would yearn for action at this time of year, faced as he was with mind-numbing shifts of nothing.

  Willson saw Canon pull up his puffy left sleeve to consult his watch. After spending the day in snowy meadows north of town shooting images of bull elk and bighorn rams, he’d invited her to join him and a friend for dinner. After a day in the office, she was ready for food and drink — and lots of them.

  Five stomach-rumbling minutes later, she saw a stout man approaching them from around the corner of the local fudge shop.

  “Hey, Jim,” said the man. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “No problem,” said Canon. “We were just watching the world go by. Bob, this is my friend Jenny Willson. Jenny, this is Bob King, my photo agent.”

  The man thrust his hand at Willson after pausing to remove a thick leather glove. “Hi, Jenny,” he said with a smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

  King was almost as wide as he was tall and he had an unfortunate nose that would be the envy of many Banff elk. Willson knew that he was one of the best photo reps in Canada and that his Halifax-based stock agency had sold Canon’s photographs for nearly ten years. Willson was no photographer, but she understood that the man did well by representing Canon, and that book publishers, advertising agencies, and websites al
l gravitated toward her friend’s work, even when given the choice of images from higher-profile shooters, because he had a photographic style that was unique and compelling.

  Willson, not one for social conventions, opened the restaurant door and stood aside to let the two men pass. She grinned at Canon. He was used to her antics and slapped her on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy,” he said.

  But King paused, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Go,” said Willson. “We’re never going to eat if you stand out here.”

  As the three entered the dark entryway of the restaurant, Canon said, “This worked out well, Bob. You don’t get out to Calgary much, so I’m glad you phoned me.”

  “Uh …” said King, clearly still wondering about Willson, “I had to meet with a book publisher there, so I’m glad, too. It was easy to rent a car and come out here.”

  In a few moments, they were met by a raven-haired hostess with a big white smile and dark-framed glasses. Willson shook her head. She knew that hiring attractive staff — female and male — was a conscious (and normally very successful) business decision made by many restaurateurs, but it still pissed her off as being blatantly sexist.

  Willson, Canon, and King followed the hostess through the restaurant and up the carpeted stairs to the second floor. She showed them to a sturdy table overlooking Banff Avenue, then opened the menus and listed the house specials in a sensuous voice that was clearly designed to appeal to the men at the table.

  “Too bad your wife couldn’t join us tonight, Jim,” said Willson, jumping into the role of shit disturber to show the hostess she knew this was a shallow attempt to increase her tip at the end of the meal. “She’d really like this.”

  She returned the hostess’s look with an innocent smile, knowing Canon was the last guy to fall for something so obvious.

  “This place is nice, Jim,” said King. “You come here often?”