How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2

by Barry Reese

  Testimony of a Policeman.

  Sealed in the year of Our Lord 1899.

  Not to be opened for a hundred years.

  “Of course we should,” said Bart. “It's our job to catalogue, re-sort, dust, annotate and file any and every record kept by the Mounties. Remember we are the official Mountie researchers. We get to open it, read it and then hide it for another hundred years.” He looked at the cover. “It's probably just someone's special recipe for pemmican made from dried moose droppings. I wouldn't get too excited. If I have to read another trapping report or outpost asset count I will surely die of boredom. God I can't believe we're stuck in here while the rest of Vancouver is out there doing their Christmas shopping.”

  “We're here,” said Erica, “because they are paying us to do this and we may find something useful to add to my thesis and your research project. And I don't think we're supposed to call them Mounties. Remember that Inspector who interviewed us?

  “Oh God yes,” said Bart, mimicking the stiffness of the little man with his polished uniform and clipped words. “‘We are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, formerly the North West Mounted Police. We are known as the RCMP or as the Police. We are not the Mounties, that is a Disney word, and we do not take kindly to jokes about always getting our man.’ What a little stuffed shirt he was. Well are you going to open it? It's coming up on a hundred and eleven years since it was sealed. I'll bet those recipes are worth a fortune.”

  “I'll get to it now,” said Erica.

  She retreated to a far corner of the storeroom and started to read. About half an hour later Bart felt her tapping him on the shoulder. “You better read this,” she said.

  “Yummy jerky?” said Bart. “Filling bannock? Saskatoon berry cider?”

  “Just read it,” said Erica. “It's not a recipe book, or a report. It's almost anecdotal. I...” She hesitated. “I don't know what to do with it.”

  Bart took the report and went and settled in the corner Erica had just left. Whatever it was had clearly unnerved her.

  He opened the folder to the first page.

  *

  Being an account of a most unusual visit to the trading post known as Fort McMurray at the conjoining of the Clearwater and Athabasca rivers, Western Canada, Spring 1899.

  One.

  Frasers have been bouncing back the names Bob and Ben for generations now. My father, a dour farmer who was unhappy he had lost my cheap labour and strong back when I joined the Northwest Mounted Police, was only called Benton by my late mother and the parish priest. His father, my grandfather, was always known by the abbreviation, Bob in his case, as well. Yet for some reason I have always been called my full name. Robert Fraser. Constable Robert Tiberias Fraser, based out of Fort Edmonton in the region known locally as Athabasca. Maybe one day when I have children the nature of the boy will determine whether he is a Benton, a Ben, or even a Benny. I suspect I will always be a Robert.

  It’s not that I am strait-laced. True I don’t drink, but I do try to be convivial with any of my fellow officers who like to convivialise while off duty. I, on the other hand, have never felt obliged to lose control, and while some of the policemen with whom I serve distrust me because I am not found with them at drinking time, I too find it hard to trust a man at my back who reeks of the previous night’s ale and has a hand too unsteady to hold his firearm.

  “Your trouble, Fraser,” said my sergeant, a big Scotsman called MacNab, who somewhere during his travels had picked up a smidgen of education as he had lost the teetotal side of his Methodist upbringing, “is that people don’t trust you. Oh the public do. Whenever they want to complain about something it’s always you they ask for. ‘Where’s that nice young man? He’s so polite.’” We were sitting in the local watering hole, the Sergeant because he conducted a lot of his business from there, while I was there as part of that business. MacNab paused to empty his tankard then requested a refill from a passing wench. “No the people love you, it’s your brother officers who don’t trust you.”

  “Yes sir.” I said.

  “And stop calling me sir. That’s another thing. You’re too damn polite. Go out and get with the girls down at the saloon, drink a little, have some fun. You need to be less tightly wound. What would the rest of us do if the impression of the Mounted Police force was that we were all like you? It would be an impossible standard to maintain. Who wants to be polite and kind all the time? You can never be both a bobby and a do-right. Our business is too tough for that.”

  I disagreed with his philosophy but I held my tongue, knowing that the conversation would go less well the longer I prolonged it and the more Sergeant MacNab drank. Indeed by the next day he seemed to have forgotten it entirely. I was wrong then, like I was to be wrong about so many of the subsequent events that unfolded.

  It was about a week after this conversation that Sergeant MacNab came looking for me. I was off duty at the time so I was sitting at the stables keeping company with my horse and working the leather of my riding boots. My grandfather had told me that good leather needs two hundred hours of treating to become truly pliable and comfortable. I was nearly halfway toward that goal.

  MacNab predictably was unappreciative of the way I spent my off-duty hours but the usual foul-mouthed com-ment was in abeyance, due no doubt to the presence of a short, slender civilian next to him. The Sergeant was a tall man, indeed I alone among the police detachment was taller, and when I stood at their approach it made the stranger seem even slighter. He was barely five foot in height but his eagerness seemed to make up for his diminution as he thrust out his hand and introduced himself . “A pleasure to meet you. Melmoth’s the name. So you’re the chap who’ll be taking me up to Fort McMurray. Delightful. Delightful.”

  He must have seen my puzzled look for he turned to MacNab and said, “I was assured of your very best for this mission, Sergeant MacNab. Please tell me this man is up to the task or I shall be forced to inform Ottawa...”

  The mere mention of the capital city and its inherent threat was enough to transform MacNab. “There will be no need, no need. Constable Fraser is one of our brightest and finest. He is a crackshot with a rifle, a phenomenal tracker and as strong as an Irish ox. He is also one of the bravest men I know and he will protect you or die trying.”

  As he said that I looked at him and realized that it seemed he meant what he said. So did he for he turned away, embarrassed, muttering only that my instructions would be waiting in his office and we were to leave on the morning barge.

  Melmoth looked me up and down and said, “Well you seem to come highly recommended, Constable Fraser. You’ll have to do.”

  Two.

  We left shortly after dawn the next morning, riding down the Athabasca River for most of the trip north. I was puzzled at my instructions, which came in a sealed envelope with a scribbled note written on the outside that was a command to read them only once we were on our way. I saw to our horses, then went to my cabin as we set sail. Although I had no need of it, having spent most of my life outdoors, my status as a representative of her Majesty Queen Victoria's police force meant I travelled in comfort while most of the passengers slept on the deck, a hazardous affair to those not inured to the local insect life. As the seasons changed, the mosquitoes became a pestilence cap-able of driving men mad, or so it was said.

  It was a twin berth room. I was sharing it with Melmoth and I waited until he went up on deck before I read the note. I could see that it was not in MacNab's handwriting. Although he had some education his hand was at best spidery and inelegant, as well as prone to spelling errors. I think that was another reason why few trusted me. It was unusual for someone of my station in life to be educated, for which I can only thank my mother, who came from money back east before she was disowned when she married my father. She took the time to teach me at home so although I am a farmer born, my secret passion has always been reading.

  The note was on top quality paper. The mystery of this was more easily revealed
because MacNab had left the instructing note in the envelope. I thanked him silently for what it was, his way of telling me how important this had become. It read as follows: “Give these written instructions to whomsoever you choose for this mission.” It was signed by the Prime Minister of Canada. With some trepidation I turned to the only page I was supposed to read,

  There have been some reports of unusual activities in the area known as the trading post of Fort McMurray. In addition to stories of oil oozing out of the ground and fires burning unhindered for months at a time, the latest reports are of strange, hairy, man-like animals spotted in the hills surrounding the post. This office is dutifully concerned in re matters of visions of hell and reports of demonic creatures. You are to investigate these rumours, confound them and lay them to rest. Mister Melmoth is to be used as an asset wherever you see fit. He has extensive knowledge of such goings on from foreign lands and his experience will be valid in proving for once and all that these stories are spurious.

  With the recent discovery of gold in the Yukon, the Athabasca Fort Chipewyan route is of much importance in the development of the hinterland for trade, resources and future income. Any reason that prevents or delays such development must be brought to a halt.

  I reread the instructions twice to make sure that I gained an honest grasp of what he was asking. Strange hairy creatures? Fires that cannot be put out? Oil leaking out of the ground? What manner of land were we heading into?

  There was another note in the envelope, this on cheaper quality paper and in the Sergeant's fist. “Fraser keep a ritten record of all you see for your own protecsion destroy this.”

  I did as he asked. For all our differences, MacNab had gone out of his way to provide me with what little informa-tion he could for what was surely the strangest of missions. I resolved to talk to Melmoth, and as if bidden he returned to our berth.

  “I see you are fully instructed. Splendid, splendid.”

  “Instructed yet confused, Mister Melmoth. If there is any light you may shed on our task, I would be most grateful. This talk of oil seeping out the ground. Are we heading for the portal of damnation, with fire and brimstone manifest on the land?”

  Melmoth leant back and roared with laughter. “That's what I love about the west,” he said. “You get to meet so many different types of people with such wide ranging beliefs and superstitions. Why do you think we are heading towards the fires of hell?”

  I explained about the content of my letter and he frowned.

  “Laurier is a fool.” He must have seen my shocked look because he continued hurriedly. “Oh don't get me wrong, the Prime Minister is a capable politician and a good man but he is plagued by his Judaeo-Christian ethics that not only expect the worst, but demand it. Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor.”

  “No sir, I haven't.”

  “It's a philosophical constraint that the simplest answer is often the right one. As an example, if you are in a forest, and you hear rustling sounds, you may almost certainly be safe to assume that you are listening to leaves in the wind, as opposed to... oh marauding Indians. Laurier would have you believe the worst so he sees only the danger. He is alarmed by what he cannot control, and he wants the riches that the gold brings for Canada. That is the real value of the region. The rest is mere panic about things he cannot understand. Take the oil leaking out of the ground. It does exist but because it is different it troubles him. It is merely another geological format than the oil that is pumped down south in Texas, Theirs has some use as a heating fuel whereas the oil we are heading towards has no real value as it burns too slowly, if at all. The only value it may have is if it could be separated from the sand in which it resides, and trust me, that will never happen in a thousand years. Besides, what use is the stuff? There was some talk of a man in Germany inventing a mechanical carriage powered by it, but why bother as long as there are horses in the world?”

  “And the never-ending fires of which he wrote?”

  “Pshaw,” said Melmoth. “You will see for yourself when we reach Pelican Rapids. Some drillers went up last year looking for natural gas. Well they found it. What they didn't find was a way to cap the hole, so there is a forty-foot jet of gas burning, and at night it lights up the sky. It is quite spectacular and Father Emmanuel back at Fort Edmonton tells me it has been the source for more than one Dama-scene conversion back to the arms of the Lord.” He chuckled then and made to leave, but there was one more question to be answered, the one he seemed to be avoiding.

  “And what of the reports of hairy creatures?”

  “Ah,” he said. “Well I think, I hope that they are just bears, maybe a new breed, although the men who have reported the sightings have been up and down the river a few times and they all swear they know what a bear looks like, and these were something different.”

  “You have an idea, Mr. Melmoth, do you not?” I realised as I said it. “This is the real reason why you are going up there, isn't it?”

  For a moment he said nothing. Then he seemed to come to a decision. “Sergeant MacNab said you were bright. He told me you could be the Commissioner of the Police one day except you were too intelligent and too honest.” He paused, “You are right. I am what you might call a student of anomalies. This is the latest in many quests I have taken. I have followed stories of rejuvenated bodies, canni-bals who feast on their fellow men, tales of others who drink the blood of their victims. And this, if this is what I think it is, then this is the pinnacle of all my studies.”

  “But surely they are just fables? I read Mary Shelley's story. It was amusing, but that's all it was surely. A tall tale.”

  “That's what she would have you believe,” said Melmoth. “She wrote it as fiction because how else could she couch such a fantastical story. Trust me, in essence it was true. I know because I was there.”

  Before I could query his statement, he changed the topic slightly.

  “Did you know that almost every culture has some sort of tale embedded in their history of large hairy monsters? None have been proven to any empirical satisfaction, but the questions that arise are interesting in and of them-selves. Just as most cultures and peoples seem to need to believe in a deity of some sort, which is in some circles the best argument to prove his existence, so too does the question arise as to the constancy of the wild mythical man-like animal. Is he the mostly harmless giant mountain dweller of Asian and local Indian myth, or is there something much more evil afoot? Something transforma-tional.”

  “What do you mean, transformational?” I said.

  “Well,” said Melmoth. If we accept the frequency of the stories as de facto proof that these creatures exist, how is it that they have been seen and hunted: yet in every case, no matter the skill of the hunter, they have disappeared? How is it possible for them to hide so well, unless they hide among us?”

  He left the conversation there, as if he had said too much. In truth he had, for I was uneasy not only at what he had said, but at what he missed. It was all very well believing that Occam's razor is right most of the time, but on the occasion when it is not, when the rustling of the leaves are caused by Indians breaking their treaty again instead of the wind, it doesn't matter that likelihood favours you, you'll be just as dead.

  More importantly how did a man who looked no older than forty years, claim to have witnessed events that were written about over eighty-five years ago?

  Three.

  The rest of the trip was uneventful. Melmoth avoided me except when impossible, and in truth I was glad as his thoughts, as far-fetched as they were, troubled me. I was beginning to realise that MacNab had done me no favour sending me on this trip. I was familiar with the stories of the Yeti in the mountains of Tibet as I was a voracious reader growing up. Once a passing traveller left some books as payment for lodging through a winter. They must have once been part of a set as the books were leather bound and expensive looking and in addition to Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle were books by Speke, Burton, Selous and a man calle
d Laurence Waddell, whose Among the Himalayas had been one of my favourites. In it he reported sightings and prints of large bear-like creatures in an area not known for bears, amid tales of mountain ranges that reached the skies The stories had fascinated me as a teenager, indeed were a reason I had left the farm in the first place, but I was not naive enough to believe that everything written was true, and the same could be said for tales from around the campfire, which were all that these were until proven otherwise.

  We passed the portage point at Pelican Rapids and it was as Melmoth said. There was a huge flame spurting out of the ground that could be seen for miles at night and I could understand that it might breed superstition among the guilty and susceptible. We had also passed signs of oil seeping out of the ground along the banks of the river and although unusual, they were another logical explanation for something the Prime Minister had feared, and I hoped the third mystery would seem just as easily rendered expli-cable.

  By the time we reached Fort McMurray I was eager to mount my horse and stretch his legs a bit. It was not to be. The trading post, which had a nominal population of about fifty people throughout the winter months, was at least four times as populous when we arrived, and there was tension as I walked through groups of people and into the Police detachment. Constable Jones seemed to have his hands full as there was a disagreement going on between himself and a swarthy trapper. There was one other man with them who was silent and seemed to retreat into the corner as I entered. I hardly saw him but I recall that although he had dark hair he was very light-skinned. They all looked up as I entered and they recognised my uniform. I detected relief on the face of my opposite number. Although my senior in service, he seemed to be glad to see me for he used my interruption to close the conversation.