“Raven.”
“Raven …” Ray repeated. Fair enough. If someone was in charge of lifting the veil and allowing you to dabble in the supernatural, why not the chief character in Native mythology? He yanked the cord on the motor and it caught, revving with a brittle growl that echoed across the water.
“Uncle says there are lots of little gods—you know, the spirits of the caribou, the salmon, the bear, the moose, the wind, the rain …”
“And Raven?” he asked, steering along the shore to circumvent the strong current.
“Raven controls them all.”
They bounced upstream for nearly two minutes before Ray asked, “What about the evil woodsman—Nahani? How does he figure into the scheme of things?”
“Nahani is a name Uncle uses for devil.”
“Devil? You mean he thinks some kind of spirit murdered Farrell?”
“No. A devil person: someone who works darkness. Uncle says people who do bad things are Nahani.”
“Wouldn’t that make us all a little Nahani?” he submitted.
Keera’s face twisted up again, betraying a lack of comprehension.
“Never mind,” he mumbled. It was unfair, even mean-spirited to engage a ten-year-old in a discussion of the origin of evil. “I suppose a Lightwalker is someone who goes around doing good, tossing candy to the kids, planting trees like Johnny Appleseed.”
She scowled at this. “A Lightwalker is someone who …”
“’ … Walks in light,’” he said. “Yeah, so I heard. The problem is, I’m not one.”
“Yes you are. The Light is all around you,” Keera said. “Whether you like it or not.”
Ray laughed. This “Light” baloney was becoming a little obnoxious. But Keera … she was a trip. So sure of herself. So determined. You couldn’t help but respect her vibrancy. You couldn’t help but like her.
They passed the next forty minutes talking about the changes taking place in the Bush villages, lamenting the fact that most young people knew more about the characters on “Baywatch” than they did about their own heritage. It was a subject they both agreed on: the indigenous peoples of the Arctic were losing their identity, being engulfed by a white world.
Keera was in the middle of a description of her schoolmates, decrying their pathetic ethnic education, when her voice trailed off. Lifting a hand, she pointed. “There it is.”
Ray looked up and saw the mine: strips of bare earth running away up the hillside toward a collection of blood-red wooden prefabs. The largest building was perched on the edge of a ridge a thousand feet above the river. A grinning wolf peered down from the side of the barnlike structure, bearing an impressive set of fangs.
The shore below the operation was littered with crates, segments of pipe, sheet metal, a dozen fifty-five-gallon drums … A rusting pickup and an orange backhoe sat amid the debris. Ray noticed a decal of the toothy wolf watching them from the door of the truck.
Three sleek black rafts were lined up in an eddy a few yards from the crates. Anchored to a thick poplar, they looked like stallions waiting for their riders.
Behind the equipment a muddy double track snaked through a stand of dense alders, toward the elevated camp. To the right of the track, perhaps a third of the way up the slope, a quarter-acre parcel had been staked off, the tundra cleared away. Yellow twine formed a square around the lot and signs at the corners warned in large letters: KEEP OUT!
Ray aimed for the eddy and docked between two of the ebony rafts. After lashing the Zodiac to a tree, he helped Keera out and they started up the incline. They were weaving toward the alders, stepping over and around pipes and coils of cable, when they heard someone cursing. There was a metal clank, another curse.
It wasn’t until they had breached the bushes that the source of the sound came into view. A short, stout ATV hooked to an empty trailer was pointed uphill, seemingly ready to make the ascent to the camp. A short, stout man with a thick face and a perfectly bald head was bent over the vehicle, swearing under his breath as he alternately adjusted and swung at the engine with a wrench.
He was in the process of assaulting it with another flurry of profanities when Ray asked, “Need some help?”
The man flinched and cursed with wide eyes. “You scared me to death!”
“Sorry.”
The shocked expression quickly changed to a mix of curiosity and suspicion. “What are you doing here? This is private property.”
“We know. We came to talk to the foreman.”
The man looked them over warily, eyes darting from Ray to Keera and back again. “If you’re hunting for a job, I can save you a trip up to the camp. We’re not hiring.”
Ray glanced at the ATV. “What’s the problem?”
Glaring, he denounced it, then shrugged. “Thought it was the plugs, but …”
Ray fought to place the accent. Not quite New York. Not obnoxious enough. But it was eastern. Pennsylvania? Kneeling, he prodded the engine with a finger, joggled the distributor cap. It was loose and he snapped it back into place. “Try it now.”
The man snorted, as if there was no point, but toggled the ignition button. When it cranked and caught, he laughed, “How’d you do that?”
“The cap wasn’t quite on. I have that problem with my snow machine every time I change the plugs,” Ray confessed.
The man extended his hand. “Sam MacElroy. People call me Mack.”
“Ray Attla. This is Keera.”
“Hi there, Keera.” He shook her hand. “What brings you folks to Red Wolf?”
“Police business,” Keera disclosed matter-of-factly, as if she was an experienced detective and this was a routine part of her job. “We’re investigating a murder.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
“A MURDER?” MACK’S brow cracked into an array of furrows.
Ray frowned at his underage partner, before explaining, “I‘m a police officer. Barrow PD. And I’m checking into a possible missing person.”
“Missing person …” Mack nodded, as if he understood. “Who’s missing?”
“Dr. Farrell,” Keera submitted cheerily. “But he’s not missing. He’s just dead.”
Ray grinned apologetically and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s …” He tried to decide how to describe Keera: demented, gifted, unbalanced, wise beyond her years …? Giving up, he said, “Could we talk to the foreman?”
“That would be my son,” Mack admitted. “He and one of his buddies own and operate the mine. I can take you up to see him if you’d like.” He gestured to the trailer.
“Thanks.” Ray climbed into the steel cart and made room for Keera.
Straddling the ATV, Mack gunned the engine a few times before shifting into gear. The oversize balloon tires spun, showering Ray and Keera with gravel before gaining traction. Once they were moving, bouncing from rut to rut, Mack shouted over his shoulder, “I’m part owner too. A silent partner. That means I put up the money to lease the mineral rights, but I don’t get to say anything about how things are run.” He shook his head in an exaggerated motion, implying that he was a fool to have accepted the deal. “When they found gold two years ago, they promised I’d be rich if I would help them out. Kids …” Here he swore loudly in order to be heard over the blaring engine. “Problem was, there wasn’t enough gold to fill a cavity.”
“I thought they discovered zinc,” Ray said.
Mack nodded. “Thank God for the stuff. If it hadn’t been for zinc, I’d be in the poorhouse. As it is, I sold my business, took out a whopping loan, even had to get a second mortgage on my home to keep this blasted mine running.”
They reached a forty-five-degree incline, and the ATV coughed, slowing to a crawl.
“I understand Red Wolf is the second largest zinc deposit in North America,” Ray submitted.
Mack grumbled something obscene, his words muffled by the roar of the engine. When the track finally leveled off and the ATV relaxed, he said, “It is.
But getting it out of the ground isn’t easy or cheap. Hal and Gene keep promising that one of these days, this place will be worth all the time and effort we’re putting into it. I hope they’re right. But for now …” He cursed the mine. “It’s a heck of a lot of work. And I’m about this far from Chapter 11.” He reached back, displaying a forefinger and thumb just an inch apart.
“What’s that?” Ray asked. They were passing the lot cordoned off by string.
More swearing. “Pain in the neck, that’s what it is. This archaeologist stumbles in here along about May and finds some sort of relics—arrowheads or pottery or something. Next thing we know, he wants to turn the whole Range into a protected historical area.” He paused to assure them that the archaeologist was illegitimate.
Ray examined the square as they lurched past. It looked innocent enough: exposed dirt leveled and stepped like a yard awaiting landscaping. There was a shadow near the far edge. A pit, he assumed. Probably where Farrell had found whatever it was he had found.
“I’m telling you, if it’s not one thing, it’s another,”Mack continued. “Take my advice. Don’t invest in mining. Too risky. And it takes a wicked toll on your body.” He placed his free hand on his lower back.
The trail finally surrendered to the severe slope, weaving left to skirt the ridge rather than confront it head-on. Below them, the river had become a thin ribbon of quicksilver racing through a deep pile rug of burnt, autumnal orange.
The ATV chugged along the winding track until lichen and tussock gave way to limestone and shale. The final ascent was a bumpy, halting ride through a bowl of sliding talus that deposited them on a small plateau. There were two shedlike buildings at this lower camp, along with a narrow yard of equipment crates and machinery parts. Another pair of sheds sat 150 feet up on an even more modest terrace.
Dismounting, Mack brushed himself off, and told them, “I think Hal’s up there.” He jabbed a thumb at the sky. “Hang on a second, I’ll check.” They watched as he traversed the deserted yard and entered the closest shed.
While he was gone, Ray tried to imagine how, barring the arrival of a helicopter, they would get “up there.” He doubted the ATV was up to the task. There were rails, but the angle was too severe. Pulling a rail car up that would be nearly impossible.
“You okay?” Ray asked. Keera had been unusually quiet and had a strange blank look on her face. He wasn’t sure if she was sleepy, suffering from motion sickness, or engaged in some sort of otherworldly vision experience.
“Dr. Farrell found something down there,” she said, staring into space.
“Yeah, I know,” Ray said. “Thule artifacts.”
Keera shook her head slowly. “Something else … Something that’s not right.”
Mack popped out of the shed before Keera could elaborate. “Yep. They’re on top,” he informed them from across the yard. Waving, he called them over. “Come on.”
As they climbed out of the trailer, Ray realized that the rails ended at the far shed. Mack waited for them there. Opening the door, he ushered them inside. It was dark, cramped, and smelled of sulfur. Mack took hold of a handle directly in front of them and slid the wall sideways.
“Go ahead. Get in,” he said, still grasping the handle.
Ray helped Keera through, and they stepped into what looked like a Dumpster lying on its side. The enclosure was solid steel on three sides, the rear a waist-high barrier that offered an open-air view of the hillside.
“Hang on,” Mack warned, climbing aboard. He slid the door shut and jabbed a green button on the wall. A motor puttered in response and the Dumpster lurched forward, climbing the rails. As it rose, it tipped, maintaining a level position in relation to the slope.
“Designed it myself,” Mack announced proudly. “It’s basically just a copy of the Incline in Pittsburgh. That’s where I’m from. Worked in steel for thirty years. MacElroy Steel …” he said somberly, as if referring to a dead relative.
They continued to float smoothly up the mountain. Unable to look into the valley, they watched the ridge grow closer.
“Would have put benches in here. And another window,” Mack mused. “But it’s not for sightseeing. There’s three more cars. That’s how we get the zinc to the river.”
At the midway station, a cluster of workers was huddled around an enormous, disembodied engine that had been dissected on a canvas tarp next to the shed. Mack waved as they passed by. “Any luck yet, Jimmy?”
A tall man in greasy coveralls shook his head. “Looks like a bad carb.”
Mack swore at this. “Keep trying.” After a melodramatic sigh, he explained, “Getting parts in here is a real bear. Gotta fly them up from Fairbanks. Raft them down from Kanayut …” He cursed again, seemingly ready to give up on the entire venture.
“You guys work all summer?” Ray asked.
“All spring. All summer. All fall. As much of the winter as we can stand. And that’s just to keep the creditors at bay.” He smiled at Keera. “Got any other kids?”
Ray hesitated. Other? He followed Mack’s gaze. “Oh. No. She’s not mine. I don’t have any kids.”
“Yet,” Keera submitted helpfully.
“Yet,” Ray agreed. “My wife’s expecting.”
“Congratulations,” Mack offered warmly. “A word of advice. If you have a son, whatever you do, don’t let him become a miner. Let him play hockey and get his teeth knocked out, let him get himself an earring, let him grow his hair to his waist and play the electric guitar. But don’t let him go looking for gold in Alaska. You hear me?”
Ray nodded. “I’ll try to remember that.”
“Only leads to misery.” He sighed. In the next instant, his face was animated. “Of course, if we can make this baby put out …” He chuckled gleefully. “Next year at this time I might not be so sour on zinc mining. In fact, according to Hal, I’ll be retired and living in Hawaii. We all will.” He raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
Ray sneaked a look at his watch: 4:30. This was taking too long. Gazing at the upper house, he willed it closer.
Despite his attempts at telekinesis, it took ten long minutes to arrive “up top.” It turned out to be nothing more than a depression in the peak of the ridge that served to hold the wide, barnlike structure and the towering crane. The incline transport carried them inside a set of swinging double doors just to the left of the now massive wolf’s face. It continued through the barn and into the flat, grinding to a halt when Mack punched a red button with the soft flesh of his fist.
“That’s it,” Mack announced. He gestured to a dark square in the side of an embankment that had been framed with heavy beams. “That’s where we get the zinc. Or, I should say, that’s where we try to get the zinc.”
“It’ll come,” a voice promised. A man poked his head into the glassless window. He was short and husky, like Mack. His face bore a resemblance too: fewer wrinkles, better skin, a scruffy beard, but the same nose and cheek structure. He too was bald.
“Hal MacElroy,” he told them. “Don’t believe a word this old coot tells you.”
Mack laughed gruffly at this. “Coot, maybe. But old … I could whip you any day of the week.” He slic’. the door open. “Might just do that later this evening.”
“You wish.” Turning to Keera, he asked, “And who is this beautiful young lady?”
“Keera. She’s from Kanayut. And I’m Ray Attla.”
“He’s the policeman,” Mack specified.
“Really, Dad? I thought Keera was the cop.” He slugged Mack on the shoulder. “Go make yourself useful, will you?”
“I’ll show you useful …” Mack muttered as he disappeared into the barn.
“Dad tells me you’re looking for someone.”
Ray nodded. “That’s right. We’re looking for Dr. Mark Farrell.”
The mirth drained from MacElroy’s face. “Did you try the dig site upriver?”
“Yeah. He’s not there. Apparently he was on his way to Junea
u.”
MacElroy was nodding. “To file. The chump.”
“So you know Dr. Farrell?”
“Mark? He and I were frat brothers at the U-Dub. He’s the reason I’m up here. Two summers ago, I get this call. It’s Mark. He wants me to come on an expedition to Alaska.” He smirked at this. “I was working for Dad’s company back in Pittsburgh. It was dull—bookkeeping, accounting …. So a trip to the Last Frontier sounded pretty good.”
“How’d you go from archaeology to mining?”
“Turns out archaeology is even more boring than doing the books for a steel mill. I don’t know how Mark can do it. After a couple of weeks I was ready to scream. So I started doing some hiking, fishing, even a little gold panning. I found some nuggets in the river, followed the deposit up here. Last summer Gene and I came back with some shovels, picks, and a minisluice ready to strike it rich. Except the vein I discovered went dry after three days. A couple weeks later, we hit zinc.” He offered a lopsided smile that told them he didn’t understand it either. “Weird how things work out, huh? Here I sit on top of what could well be one of the world’s largest zinc mines, thanks to Mark Farrell.”
“Are you two still friends?” Ray asked incredulously.
MacElroy made a face: a mix of disgust and resignation. “Yeah. Except that he’s bound and determined to put us out of business. He’s a purist. In love with archaeology. Concerned that our operation is endangering precious historical artifacts. The dope.”
“Is the mine compromising the site down there?”
“Maybe. But … Mark’s anal. He was a compulsive nut in school. Still is. Don’t get me wrong. He’s my buddy. But he drives me crazy sometimes.”
Still confused, Ray said, “I talked to Janice Farrell and she said …”
“Ha! There’s no telling what sort of horror stories that witch laid on you.”
“Well, she said that there was a certain amount of animosity between your crew and the digging team.”
MacElroy rolled his eyes, frowning. “She’s full of it.”
“She said that there had been threats, sabotage …”
Season of Death Page 25