The Wolf Man

by Sandra Clark

  Chuck turned to her. 'All passengers for Two Rivers International Airport proceed to Customs.'

  'You didn't say anything about safety belts,' said Belinda drily, but then she turned to him with a delighted grin spreading prettily over her face. 'This is really, really it, then?' she cried. 'Journey's end?'

  'If it's the Nasaq you want to meet up with,' replied Chuck, laconically, 'it'll be more like journey's beginning.' Without elaborating he swung her gear easily across the back of the seat, opened the door and jumped athletically to the ground. A smiling group of dark-haired, golden-skinned children, all clad warmly in fur-lined parkas and leggings, clustered round the young pilot. They hung on to the sleeves of his jacket, chattering and giggling, until Belinda came to the door of the aircraft. Then at the sight of her blonde hair and stylish European winter sports clothes they stared open-mouthed until Chuck, the grin never leaving his face, made way for her. She swung lightly down into his arms. For a moment she was powerfully aware of the lean young body pressed against her own, and by the way his hands lingered on her body and his eyes held hers before setting her down on the runway, she knew he too had felt a physical magnetism pass between them.

  'I'll bring your gear,' he said gruffly, turning quickly back to the cabin.

  For a confused moment Belinda stood looking round her. There was really nothing very much to see. She was conscious all at once of the endless plateau lifting and falling imperceptibly to a distant horizon which circled the settlement without a break. No chimneys, no buildings broke the promise of an unending solitude.

  Belinda was already a little disorientated by the last few days—the air flight across the Atlantic was her very first time out of Europe, and then there had been the day and night spent on the campus of the university, meeting her contact for the assignment. It had been a sort of halfway house between the academic world she was used to, and the more down-to-earth world of hunters and trappers of the far north which she was entering. The people she had met on campus were much like academic types anywhere, but they had an added air of huskiness in both physique and clothing style that struck strangely to eyes that were accustomed only to English manners and fashions.

  The man Derek had called old Nielson turned out to be a youngish-looking fifty-year-old professor, with rugged good looks which his dark horn-rimmed spectacles, though giving him a professorial air, did little to disguise. The sort of man, Belinda thought to herself, who is equally at home in the seminar room or on the farm. A party of sorts had developed later, after he had given her exhaustive lists of words and orthographical memoranda, and she had had a pleasant evening, buoyed up by everyone's enthusiasm and encouragement for the long journey still ahead of her. Almost reluctantly she had boarded another plane to take her yet further north.

  Then after an overnight stop at one of the larger settlements, there had been one more flight, and here she was.

  Later, when she wrote her first letter to Derek, she was to describe how the planes had got smaller and smaller as she progressed northwards, as if, she whimsically told him, she was like Alice in Wonderland, growing larger and larger as time went on.

  Now she seemed to tower over the group of Eskimo women who had followed their offspring on to the runway and surged around her with smiles of welcome lighting up their almost oriental-looking faces. None of them seemed to be much over five feet tall, and she became suddenly very conscious of her five feet six inches, like being a teenager all over again, selfconscious and awkward in her new height—also, she realised, sort of speechless too, as she failed to make any sense of what anybody was saying. She glanced helplessly back at Chuck. He was already swinging the rest of her baggage down out of the cabin and was striding over the stony track towards the long frame building she had spotted from the sky. The group of Eskimos, still chattering and laughing, followed at his heels, while in the doorway of the building stood an elderly couple, smiles of welcome on their faces.

  Amidst all the confusion and noisy excitement of their arrival only one figure remained aloof.

  Sitting on a crate at the end of the runway was a motionless figure in traditional Eskimo gear of deerskins and fur boots. Man or woman, Belinda couldn't tell at such a distance, for the fur-lined hood of a parka was pulled up against the biting wind which came in from the lake.

  Automatically Belinda drew out a pink woollen hat from her pocket and put it on, leaving just a fringe of blonde hair showing.

  The Eskimo women had turned back and were gesticulating and saying something among themselves, then, obviously fascinated by this newcomer, they followed closely behind her, chatting all the while. Belinda smiled in mystification when one of the women had spoken directly to her in the not unattractive dialect of the region, but when the woman put out a hand to touch the blonde hair which showed underneath her hat, Belinda guessed what they were chatting about. She had nodded and smiled, like any tourist anywhere in the world, and smiled back, and pointed to their own straight raven-black locks. They had all laughed again and nodded approvingly, and one of the women squeezed Belinda's arm in a sudden show of friendship.

  'Blondes are a rare commodity around these parts.' A deep drawling voice made her look up with a start.

  Chuck, almost at the building by now, had been followed, after a moment's hesitation, by the group of women and children, so that Belinda suddenly found herself almost alone on the tarmac.

  She was looking up into the face of a white man. Evidently he had left his vantage point on the crate and, with the hood of his jacket still partly obscuring his face, he was standing only a couple of feet behind her. He must have moved very quickly and very silently to have reached the group without her noticing him. Now she could see a pair of blue eyes like chipped ice smiling sardonically into her own. She shivered. They were the bluest, the coldest eyes she had seen in a long time.

  The man's glance swept over her body appraisingly and a half smile played about his lips. She had an overwhelming sense of a formidable personality. But for his almost scruffy Eskimo-style attire, he could have passed for a figure of some authority. Unaccountably she felt a little knot of fear in the pit of her stomach, but it was soon fallowed by a resurgence of the Belinda Derek had first known. She glared at the man with ill-concealed antagonism. How dared this total stranger suggest she was a commodity? How dared he look at her in that blatantly appraising way, as if examining some prospective purchase? Two spots of colour showed in her cheeks. She knew she had now set foot in a man's world and that things would be tough, but so far she had been unaware of any chauvinism in the men she had met. Was this a foretaste of what was to come? With an effort she bit back the angry words which had come readily to her lips.

  The man shot a sardonic look at the fashionable quilted jacket she was wearing. Belinda noticed the direction of his glance and looked hurriedly down. She had thought it looked practical as well as attractive in the winter sports boutique where she had bought it in England, but now, in this tough environment, it seemed suddenly frivolous and not at all the good buy she had first imagined. The man's contemptuous look confirmed the misgivings.

  'What's this stuff?' He caught hold of her cuff between his thumb and forefinger.

  'Cire nylon,' answered Belinda defensively.

  The stranger gave a short, hard laugh. 'Synthetic junk,' he scoffed. 'Western man hasn't yet invented the material that can outdo caribou skin for lightness, warmth and watertightness,' he told her. 'Should you ever think of going gallivanting off into the wilds, you'll have to get yourself properly kitted out.' He grinned, and his eyes gleamed wolfishly.

  Belinda merely glared at him. His effrontery left her speechless. She gave a disdainful shrug and turned away without speaking.

  She half expected the man to follow, but he had fallen silent, and when she reached the building and glanced back, sure he was still watching, he had turned on his heel and was already walking off down the track which, she could see, led directly to the lake.

  She s
hrugged and turned her attention to the welcoming committee on the porch. A grey-haired, sweet-faced woman of about fifty came forward with outstretched arms. She took Belinda's hands in her own and drew her towards the house. 'Come on, Mac, you booby, give our visitor a big hello,' she said over her shoulder, and a tall, rather stooped but neatly bearded man stood talking to Chuck with his arms folded, a warm smile lighting up his face as Belinda approached.

  Chuck cuffed him on the arm. 'Mac Macdonald, I've never known you struck dumb before!' He turned to Belinda. 'Chief of Two Rivers Trading Post. And I'll be the first to admit he runs a tight little outfit around here.'

  Mac put out a large gnarled hand which almost swamped Belinda's delicate white one, then without releasing it he took over from his wife and led the girl inside the house.

  'O.K., Chuck me boy, you can go now,' he threw over his shoulder with a wicked grin. 'I can see why you've kept this one quiet—you might have told me you were bringing a little girl out for me.'

  'You don't get rid of me as quickly as that,' replied Chuck, hastening after them. 'Besides, I'm a better catch than you. I'm not already spoken for.'

  'Dash me,' said Mac, clutching his head in mock surprise. 'I knew there was something keeping me in check.'

  He went over to his wife, who turned her head in pretended disapproval. 'What a welcome!' she exclaimed. 'The poor girl must be wondering what she's got herself into! Look here, my dear, take no notice. He's supposed to be house-trained.'

  Mac was already taking her coat as his wife showed Belinda to an armchair on one side of a large open fireplace.

  'I'm kinda knocked for six,' admitted Mac, his grey eyes twinkling across at Belinda. 'The last professor we had visiting—well…' he shot a glance at Chuck and made a shape in the air with his hands. 'I guess they come in all shapes and sizes.'

  'Now that's enough of that,' reproved Mrs Mac. 'She'll be thinking she's got among a lot of roughnecks, not decent fur-trading folks, as you make out.'

  Chuck went to sit on the arm of Belinda's chair. 'So long as I'm around you watch your step, old man,' he said. Then with a grin at Mrs Mac he said, 'I always thought you had him under proper control, but I can see I'm going to have to keep an eye on things out here. You've been left to your own devices for too long.' He patted Belinda's arm. 'Don't worry. Civilisation is just a radio call away.'

  'You represent civilisation, do you, lad?' twinkled Mac, taking out one of his pipes and beginning to make it up. 'Gawd help us all.'

  'That's fighting talk, mister,' said Chuck from between clenched teeth, and pretended to square up to the older man.

  'Boys, boys!' cried Mrs Mac, 'let the poor girl have her tea in peace, coming all this way.' She brought a tray over and set it carefully down on a wooden table beside her guest, then poured everyone a cup of tea.

  Belinda noticed that the Eskimo women had come up to the door but had now wandered away.

  'We'll go down to the clubhouse later on,' Mrs Mac told her, 'and you can meet the rest of the folks. Things are a little quiet at the moment. But come ship-time, the settlement will fill up again.' The open-hearted warmth of the welcome made the unpleasant little incident on the runway fade from Belinda's mind, and in no time at all she was swapping talk with the Macs.

  Mac Macdonald himself had been a fur trader with one of the big companies for almost thirty years and his wife had come out to join him when she was in her early twenties. Two sons and a daughter had been born and the couple's spell in the far north had been broken only by a ten-year stint at the company's headquarters in Toronto while the children finished their schooling. Now that the family had grown up and spread their wings the two had returned to the post they had run in the early years of their marriage, and although Mac was approaching retirement now, it was clear that he would hang on as long as he could turn in a good day's work.

  Belinda told them that she didn't expect to be around the post for long as she was hoping to make immediate contact with the Nasaq and if possible travel around with them for a few weeks, until she had got all the information she had been instructed to—as she spoke she was aware of a partly-concealed look of surprise flash between Mac and his wife, and when she stopped talking Mac leaned forward, his cheerful face at once serious.

  'Have they told you these people are nomads?' he asked her closely.

  'Why yes, of course,' replied Belinda with a shrug, 'I know that.'

  Mac sat back, a look of puzzlement on his face. Mrs Mac put in a word.

  'It may be difficult to make contact just like that,' she said. 'They don't take kindly to strangers and they rarely come down to the trading post like the rest of the folks around hereabouts.'

  'You see,' said Mac, 'it might take a little time for you to get yourself adjusted to life out here. Take it easy, that's my suggestion. See how things pan out. Get to know some of the local customs, make friends with the Eskimos on the post already. They'll be your best source of information. In a few weeks we'll be due for the big freeze-up, then the place really looks like a fur trading station. There'll be people coming and going and then the news really flies.'

  He settled down, blowing huge billows of smoke in the air. 'When we first came out here the Eskimo would take his team of dogs and be gone for weeks at a time, following the herds of caribou or hunting deep into the north after seal or polar bear. But things are different now. He doesn't need to run a team of dogs, what with snowmobiles and such like, so he doesn't have to hunt merely in order to fuel his dog team. For that reason he need only be away for short periods of time. He can go after only the choicest furs. He can be much more selective. It means that the old style Eskimo is fast dying out.'

  'Yes,' agreed Belinda. 'That's why I'm here. To get on record what they were really like before they disappear completely.'

  Mac blew another plume of smoke. 'For all that, though,' he went on, 'things are very different here from anything you've experienced in the big city. Not just language, but customs, travel—'

  'If I can just ask a sort of greenhorn question,' Belinda butted in apologetically, 'if they no longer have dog teams, how do they usually travel?'

  So far as she had seen from the plane the tundra was unbroken by roads of any but the roughest kind around the settlements. Vast tracts of the tundra appeared to be totally without the means for conveying transport in any form.

  'That's where I come in,' said Chuck, putting down his empty mug. 'You'll have to charter me.' He grinned. 'I hope it won't be too long before you'll be taking me up on that.'

  Belinda looked puzzled. 'You mean I have to fly everywhere?' Her mind was aghast at the thought of what it might cost.

  Reading her mind, Chuck said, 'It's a good cheap . system.'

  'But what about when the snow comes?'

  'We put on skis,' said Chuck cheerfully. 'Or you can hire a snowmobile. That's a motorised sled,' he added, noticing her look of puzzlement.

  'Sounds fun.' She eyed him keenly.

  'It is. Remind me to show you how it's done next time I'm up.' He began to put on his jacket. 'I expect I'll see you after the freeze-up if not before.' He moved towards the door and then rather abruptly turned to look at her. He seemed suddenly shy for all his earlier brash good humour. 'Don't get too depressed if you don't manage to make contact with the Nasaq,' he told her. 'There's only one white man they seem to accept around here, and I wouldn't recommend my worst enemy having anything to do with him.'

  He shot a glance across the room to where Mac was tamping his pipe. No words were needed. The look of complicity which the two men exchanged was enough to convey Chuck's meaning.

  Belinda glanced enquiringly from one to the other. Mrs Mac, alert to the suddenly charged atmosphere, gave a short sigh and started to clear away the empty tea things. Her voice was harder when she spoke. 'Don't worry, young Chuck. We're here to keep an eye on Belinda. Mac will set her right.' Chuck grinned, his boyish face seemed to relax. With a lift of his hand and a last rather obviously telling gl
ance at Belinda, he was out of the door.

  The Macs and Belinda went to stand on the front porch. In a moment they heard the aircraft come alive and they watched until he tipped his wings at them and fast became nothing but a speck in the sky.

  When they went back inside Belinda turned to her new hosts. She was puzzled. 'What was Chuck trying to say just before he left?' A frown troubled her brow. 'I'm quite capable of looking after myself, you know. I don't know why he said I shouldn't have anything to do with the one white man who seems to know these people. I should think he's just the man I need.'

  Mac shifted in his armchair a trifle uncomfortably and began to fiddle around with his pipe as if too busy to answer her all at once. He seemed to take an age to clean it out to his satisfaction, but as he was refilling it with a fresh lot of tobacco he began to talk again, this time, with a grave expression. 'There are some tough customers in these parts,' he began. 'It's the nature of the country, of course. A weakling wouldn't survive a winter in a place like this. You've got to know how to make proper use of the natural resources in order to stay on top. Death is impartial when it comes down to it. Hunting, trapping, they're all simple enough when you know how, but a man needs to be skilled in all sorts of ways if he's going to live outside a trading post as far north as this one of ours.' He looked kindly at her over the top of his reading glasses which for some reason he had put on when he started to talk to her. It was as if he was trying to give her reassurance over something which he found difficult to put into words.

  Belinda looked back at him steadily. From what she had seen so far of the country there was nothing to contradict what he was now telling her. She shrugged, not sure where he was leading. 'What sort of man would choose this kind of life?' she asked.

  'Ah!' said Mac. 'My very point!' He paused. 'We do well enough on the trading post. Things aren't easy, but we're only a call away from the emergency services. But outside the post—' he gesticulated to the wild grey spaces beyond the settlement. 'Don't get me wrong—I'm not saying that everyone who comes to live in this part of the world is on the run from the law. Of course they're not all fugitives.' She gave him a careful look. 'Some come here because they have a need to prove themselves. Mebbe a lad has a highly developed sense of adventure. He wants to pit himself against the elements and come out fighting. What passes for civilisation nowadays is too soft an option for them.' His wife touched him gently on the shoulder, and for a moment something special seemed to pass between them both. Belinda was moved.