The Stranger on the Ice

by Bernadette Calonego

Valerie sighed.

  “Her parents must be desperate. And they still don’t know exactly what happened?”

  “Somebody knows something. It’ll come to light sooner or later.”

  Valerie strained to hear her. The bus’s motor was running, and the snowmobiles were howling outside. The women smiled for a moment, overjoyed at seeing each other again. Valerie was grateful to Marjorie for her friendship. Inuvialuit women could be standoffish toward female tourists or women who moved there. Valerie could relate to their reserve. Many women traveling to Inuvik couldn’t be bothered about indigenous customs and relationships.

  Marjorie pushed back her hood.

  “Your friend is talking to people about your parents.”

  “What?”

  Valerie whipped forward against the steering wheel.

  “Peter Hurdy-Blaine was your father, wasn’t he?”

  Valerie nodded.

  “I don’t noise it about. It’s not easy having a father everybody knows.”

  Marjorie took Valerie’s hand for a moment.

  “My father chased polar bears, your father chased pucks.”

  She laughed. Valerie didn’t always understand indigenous humor, but sometimes it dispelled anxiety. Not that day, though.

  “My . . . friend, who you mentioned, who’s she telling about my parents?”

  “A couple of people here and in Tuk. She wants to find out exactly what happened when your parents followed the route of the Lost Patrol.”

  “Do you know where she is right now?”

  “She turned up in Tuk a few days ago.”

  In Tuktoyaktuk! Valerie had to let Clem know.

  Clem. Who’d slept with Sedna.

  It was a big mistake.

  “She was asking about a boy who was supposed to have gone on the trek with your parents.”

  “Did she talk to you? Was there anything you could tell her?”

  “She did. And no. I don’t know what she’s after.”

  “Me neither, Marj. What’s motivating her? It’s as if she wants to . . . torture me.”

  “Your poor mother. It was an accident, that’s the word around here. A hunting accident.”

  An accident. Apparently, no one here suspected suicide. Clem had already told her that.

  Valerie didn’t dare interrupt Marjorie.

  “Two local families moved to Yellowknife afterward. I don’t know how or why. They certainly didn’t have the money to fly, but they did.”

  Valerie felt her heart tightening.

  “Marj, do you mean to say somebody gave them money?” Hush money.

  “It might just be a coincidence,” she heard Marjorie say. “The money might have come from a government program in Ottawa. For educating the kids. I dunno.”

  Valerie stared straight ahead through the dirty windshield. A circle of warmly dressed people stood around several pyramids of piled twigs and branches, and flames were flickering up. Teakettles would be put on the fire in a few minutes, and whoever got the snow to melt and boil first would win the teakettle contest. She spied two familiar faces among the interested onlookers, a man and a woman: the caribou photographers.

  Once again, Marjorie’s fingers grasped Valerie’s hand.

  “You know it was your mother’s spirit that guided you here, don’t you? You do know that? Her body was flown to Vancouver or wherever, but her soul is still here. Talk to her, Valerie. She’ll give you counsel and guide you.”

  Valerie had to hold back tears with all her might.

  I have one mother who has Alzheimer’s and another who’s been dead for thirty years. I can’t talk to either one.

  Marjorie didn’t let up.

  “Maybe conjuring up her spirit will help.”

  “You mean with a shaman?”

  “With a good shaman. Why not?”

  Valerie thought of Pihuk Bart. And his prophecy.

  “We saw the caribou herd near Rock River. A sea of caribou. Pihuk prophesized to me two winters ago that when I saw the caribou migrating, I’d learn the secret of an involuntary death that same year. That it would be a beautiful and terrible year. And he said the caribou carry the souls of my descendants with them.”

  Marjorie Tama’s face brightened.

  “Yes, Pihuk knows a lot. Maybe too much. He—”

  The rear door opened quickly, and Jordan Walker heaved his tall body up inside the bus.

  “The snowmobile race hasn’t even started, and there’s already an argument,” he announced breathlessly. “Because the course was modified, if I understood rightly. I’m going back in a minute, but I’ve gotta warm up a bit first.”

  “There—the kettles are steaming!” Marjorie shouted. “Is that hot enough for you?”

  She broke into her irresistible laugh and got out of the car.

  “See you soon, Valerie!”

  Faye knocked on the driver’s side window. In her fur hat, she looked like the detective Marge Gunderson from the movie Fargo.

  “Changing of the guard!”

  The white steam from her mouth turned the window into frosted glass for a brief moment. Valerie felt a mounting wave of affection. Faye would never take off from Inuvik the way Sedna had last summer.

  And she wouldn’t come on to men Valerie knew. Maybe it wasn’t her fault that things had gone wrong with Sedna.

  Valerie whipped out her cell phone and sent Clem a text message: “Sedna is apparently in Tuk. Can you find out anything?”

  She looked at Faye.

  “Sedna’s in Tuktoyaktuk, or so I’ve heard.”

  Faye’s jaw dropped.

  “I was just about to tell you. Some guy told me he’d seen her here. About an hour ago.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Frenetic barking drowned out all other sounds. Alana Reevely’s sled was at the ready, her dogs all hitched up. Clem watched her going from dog to dog, checking the straps. It was the dress rehearsal for Sunday’s race. Alana’s assistants—young people from Inuvik—restrained the excited animals; bitten by race fever, they would have otherwise shot off immediately. Clem couldn’t see Duncan anywhere, not even behind the pickup he’d brought the dogs in. The cage hatches on the tailgate were open. He caught sight of Pihuk among the spectators; both he and Alana spotted Clem and came over.

  “Where’s Duncan?” Clem roared.

  Alana screwed up her pretty face.

  “Forgot something at the house. He’s been so absentminded lately.”

  Then she smiled.

  “I heard Valerie’s here. That’s fantastic! I was afraid she wouldn’t come because of Gisèle and Roy. Have you seen her yet?”

  Clem nodded. So now Alana was onto his weakness for Valerie. His sortie to Eagle Plains had probably made the rounds here too.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her. She’s got six people with her. They’re going to Tuk tomorrow.”

  “Is Tanya still locked up? Do you think she might have had something to do with Roy’s getting beaten up?”

  Clem blew a puff of white air upward.

  “I dunno. I’m going to Tuk to ask around. Say, has Meteor serviced Leila yet?”

  Alana reacted with surprise.

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “Toria was at your place. Duncan said she wanted a puppy.”

  Her face grew dark.

  “Well, she damn well won’t get a puppy from me. The way those people treated their last dog. It almost froze to death, chained up at minus twenty-five. No thank you. When was she at our place?”

  “Yesterday. When I wanted to pick up Meteor. You were out with him.”

  Alana turned toward the dog team again.

  Pihuk butted in.

  “I think Toria was snooping around your dogs, Alana. I see her red car at your place almost every week. I wouldn’t be surprised if Helvin shows up with his own team.”

  He laughed as if he’d told the funniest joke in his life.

  But Alana didn’t join in. Sharp creases appeared around her well-formed lips.
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  “I don’t give a damn about whatever Helvin and Toria are up to.”

  Clem attempted to defuse the situation.

  “In any case, I’ll be rooting for you on Sunday,” he promised.

  Alana raised an arm and would definitely have made a V for Victory sign if she hadn’t had thick gloves on.

  When Clem was sure that Alana was out of earshot, he asked Pihuk, “How come you keep seeing Toria’s SUV at Alana and Duncan’s place?”

  “I take my snowmobile past there on the way to my hunting cabin. Why?”

  “Just asking.”

  Clem escaped to his pickup before Pihuk could draw him into a longer conversation. Driving along the Ice Road, he saw Alana’s dog team bounding ahead. He kept the car even with the dogs and checked the speedometer: twenty miles an hour. Pretty good for dogs that young.

  The road curved gently away from the racecourse at the spot where Gisèle had died in the cold—the fluttering, black-and-yellow police tape was still up. No candles, no plastic flowers, no cross. Was Tanya Uvvayuaq involved in Gisèle’s death? And what might the ranger, Roy Stevens, have known that Tanya would want to keep him quiet? Whoever the perp was had certainly succeeded in that; Roy was still in an Edmonton ICU, unresponsive.

  Clem picked up speed. He couldn’t remember how often he’d driven across the Mackenzie ice to Tuktoyaktuk. At times in snowstorms and whiteouts that had caught up with him faster than he expected. Still, he couldn’t recall a greater feeling of tension than now. He feared for his friend Lazarusie and his family; he feared the worst.

  Everything seemed normal on the Ice Road: half a dozen oncoming trucks, drivers waving at him. The traction on the ice was amazingly good; his boys on the graders had done good work. Temperatures were rising, but the road would be passable for about two more weeks. He saw an occasional long crack in the ice—nothing to worry about as long as its thickness was checked regularly.

  He reached Tuktoyaktuk two and a half hours later. There were four snowmobiles in front of Lazarusie’s place. Electric cables hung like garlands from the poles lining the road and crept over the board front of the house. Clem mounted the snow-covered steps and noticed blood on them. He hammered on the door. Lazarusie opened it, holding a sharp knife in his blood-smeared fingers.

  “What the hell . . .” Clem gasped.

  Then he saw the gutted caribou on the kitchen linoleum.

  Lazarusie’s wife knelt beside it, cutting up pieces of meat that landed in plastic buckets. Every so often she popped a piece into her mouth.

  “Give some to our friend here,” Lazarusie shouted at her.

  “Tea wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Clem said, trying to circumvent the rules of hospitality without disrespecting them. They exchanged a few banalities about the postponed snowmobile race and last year’s winners at the Muskrat Jamboree before Clem got around to significant matters.

  “Where’d they take Tanya?”

  Lazarusie wiped his brown face with the back of his hand.

  “Inuvik. To a cell in the RCMP jail.”

  “For how long?”

  “Dunno. I’ve got no money to get her out. A ranger . . . it’s real serious. But she didn’t do it.”

  “Did Tanya—”

  “Damn right she did it.”

  A boy’s voice interrupted him. Only then did Clem see Danny standing at the door to the hall leading to the bedrooms.

  “I saw her,” Danny went on. “She hit Roy.”

  Danny had on a green hooded sweatshirt bearing the words “The True North Strong and Free,” a line from the national anthem. The left side of his head was shaved bare; on the right side, his straight black hair fell over his face.

  Lazarusie didn’t look at his son when he said, “Danny’s glad that Tanya’s in jail because there’s peace and quiet in the house now. But she—”

  “What crap, Dad! I. Saw. Everything. She was ready to grab the backpack and Roy came out and—”

  This time Clem interrupted the boy.

  “Came out of where?”

  “The ice house. Roy tried to snatch the backpack back, and Tanya flattened him with her mace.”

  “Mace? She has a mace?” Clem looked at him, thunderstruck.

  He shrugged.

  “Yeah, she gets stuff like that on the Internet. I told you already, Dad, but you don’t believe me.” He pushed at the sides of the doorframe with outstretched hands. “Something funny’s going on with Tanya, Clem. You know she’s Abel and Resa’s kid? She’s adopted. That girl was creepy before she could even walk.”

  Lazarusie muttered something, but Clem was thinking ahead.

  “Where’s the backpack now?”

  “Dunno. She hid it.”

  Danny’s father shook his head.

  “Boy, something’s not right. Since when does Roy go around with a backpack?”

  “It wasn’t Roy’s—it was way too small. I have no clue whose it was.”

  Clem got up and stood face-to-face with Danny.

  “Did you tell the police about the backpack?”

  Danny bit his lower lip.

  “No. Like I said, I dunno where she stashed it.”

  Clem turned to Lazarusie.

  “I’m going to the ice house. You’ve got a key, eh? Come with me—I’ll need you.”

  Danny stepped into the kitchen.

  “I’m going too.”

  “You stay here!” His mother hadn’t uttered a peep—until now.

  As they were leaving, Clem heard Danny’s loud complaints.

  “He’s a good kid,” Lazarusie said as they drove through the village. A snowmobile came toward them with four people on it—young parents and two little kids. Lazarusie was visibly upset and talking a blue streak.

  “He’s a good kid,” he repeated. “I know that. He doesn’t want to be a shaman, but he’s a good kid anyway. He wants to protect his mom—she’s scared of Tanya sometimes. That’s why he called the cops and gave them the dirt on her. She’s got the wrong friends. They come from Dawson and give her drugs. She listens to loud music and drinks.”

  To their right a white emptiness stretched out to the horizon: the frozen Arctic Ocean, known thereabouts as the Beaufort Sea. To their left, under a gray, impervious sky, they saw the little white church and its unoccupied manse.

  Clem pulled off the road when the plowed section ended and parked, leaving the motor running to avoid any trouble restarting. He stuffed a flashlight under his down jacket. They went the rest of the way on foot. A little wooden shack was built over the ice house entrance, and around it there were numerous footprints in the snow. Lazarusie turned the key in the lock, and it opened readily.

  “It wasn’t locked,” he said.

  The wooden lid lay as usual over the narrow square opening.

  “The rope.” Clem pointed to it.

  It lay unrolled and twisted up on the floor. Someone hadn’t put it back properly.

  “What was Roy doing here?” he asked. “Does he have a cold-storage chamber?”

  “Dunno,” Lazarusie murmured.

  Clem took a step to the side.

  “I’ll help you with the lid.”

  “Let me—wait, what’s that?” Lazarusie’s face tensed up.

  Now Clem heard it too. A faint cry some distance away. It cut through him like a hot knife through butter.

  “Quick, the lid!”

  It banged against the wall after they lifted it up.

  They stared into the pit below.

  “Hello?” they shouted simultaneously.

  They heard a whimper in reply. A human voice. A woman’s voice.

  Clem directed the flashlight beam downward.

  He saw a shadow at the bottom of the ladder. Then he heard the voice again. Weak, plaintive.

  “I’m going down. Give me some light,” he said, handing the flashlight to Laz.

  Clem held firmly on to the edge of the opening and slid down into the darkness until his feet felt the rungs.

 
Lazarusie pointed the flashlight below.

  That’s when Clem saw her. First her upward-turned face, with glittering ice crystals on her eyelids and eyebrows. Her skin was white, and there were more crystals on the scarf over her mouth.

  He could make out some words. A desperate plea.

  “Please, please.”

  “Good God!” The words slipped out of his mouth. He turned back toward Lazarusie. “The rope. Throw me the rope!”

  He looked down and shouted, “We’ll save you. You’ll be safe in a minute. We’ll get you out of there.”

  He tied the rope around his waist and climbed down the icy ladder rung by rung.

  As he reached the bottom, the eyes in the face—quite close now—blinked.

  Now he was positive. The prisoner in the cellar was not Sedna.

  So who was she?

  CHAPTER 28

  Valerie left the bar and went to the reception desk where Clem was waiting. His expression told her he’d been through some awful experience.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “Not the bar. They’re at it again. Phil claims Helvin tried to bump him off his snowmobile intentionally. That’s why he came in second. They’re looking at Glenn’s film footage to see what actually happened.”

  “A rerun of last year’s drama. Except Phil was the accused then. Good thing there’s a video this time.”

  She thought for a few seconds before speaking up: “I think it’s better if we go to my room.”

  When they got there, he took off his boots and jacket in front of the door. Then he sat down on one bed and she on the other.

  Valerie couldn’t contain her impatience.

  “What happened?”

  What he told her took her breath away.

  “Oh my God! How long was she stuck in there?”

  “Probably two days. Maybe Roy took her to the ice house. He probably had a key,” Clem surmised.

  She looked at him, horrified.

  “The ranger locked her in?”

  Clem rubbed his forehead.

  “No, I don’t think so. Why would he? It must have been a mistake. An accident. He certainly didn’t want to put her at risk. Even if . . . let’s assume . . . but no, that’s absurd. He’d have to have known that somebody would find her alive. Your tour group, say. That would have fingered him.”

  He unzipped his snowmobile suit and took off the top half. The heat was on full blast.