Читать книгу Meg Harris Mysteries 5-Book Bundle - R.J. Harlick - Страница 55

For the next couple of days I watched winter’s first big blizzard bury my twenty thousand dollar investment under fifty centimetres of snow, while I tried not to think about Eric’s princess. I figured it was safer to pour out my anger on something more tangible, like money. Love was too risky. Besides, I feared that if I confronted him about the woman, he might leave me out of his equation altogether. So I sat and stewed while Champlain’s granite nose vanished under a sheet of white.

Although such a dump of snow so early in the season would help to establish the base needed for the February timeframe of the ski marathon, it put an end to any further trail work that could be done by my depleted crew and the four other volunteer crews.

Eric would need to pay out big money, money he didn’t have, to bring in the professionals with their high-powered snowmobiles and log clearing equipment. Since the whole point of the venture was to make money for the Migiskan Band, he’d wanted to avoid this big cost by using band members and other volunteers, like my work crew. Now, with this unplanned expense added to the already incurred cost overrun for marketing, he would have difficulties breaking even. This would not only play havoc with band finances, but would also leave me with little to show other than a sore back and a depleted bank account.

At least he wasn’t quite ready to kiss all our money goodbye. After several brief phone calls over the past couple of days, during which neither of us referred to his surprise visitor nor discussed getting together, we agreed to survey the entire 65K course via snowmobile to determine the amount of remaining work. With the blizzard now finally over, we planned to set out at the crack of dawn the next morning. In the meantime, the other crew leaders and I would meet with him this afternoon at the Fishing Camp to review all possible options for completing the marathon course.

As I sipped my morning coffee at the kitchen table, I watched a small black-headed chickadee flit onto a perch of the bird feeder hanging from the roof of the back porch. He grabbed a seed from the plastic column filled with black sunflower seeds and flitted out again to be replaced by another. Three others waited their turn on the porch railing.

Suddenly they dispersed as a fury of blue and white feathers and loud squawks zoomed down onto the feeder, immediately joined by two other large blue jays. I watched with alarm as one terrified chickadee flew into the kitchen window with a dull thud and fell to the wooden floor. I rushed outside, fearful it had broken its neck. But the small grey ball of feathers roosted securely on it feet, its head moving slightly from side to side, blinking. It was alive.

Feeling it was best to let nature take its course, I left it alone and retreated inside, where I watched over its recovery. After about twenty minutes of almost no movement, it suddenly stretched its head, fluffed its feathers, and without so much as a cheep, lifted its wings and was gone. The only residue of this near tragedy was a tiny feather stuck to the window where the bird had struck.

I supposed if Eric had been watching by my side, he’d say that the Creator, kije manidu, had sent us a message. But not having the wisdom of Eric’s Anishinabeg ancestors to call upon, the only message that sprang to my mind was that the weak and the small would prevail despite what the large and the mighty dished out to them.

My thoughts turned to Yvette. Fragile she might look, but in the four days since her accident, she seemed to be showing a lot of resilience. When I’d visited her the day before, she’d appeared to be making a quick recovery. Despite her father’s restraining presence, she’d ventured downstairs to see me, served tea and cookies and chatted away for an hour or more with an unusual liveliness. Either her accident had loosened her up, or her expression of friendship had given her a confidence not previously felt in my presence. Maybe she would now be more open, more willing to share what lay behind her usual silence.

Another chickadee zipped onto the feeder, grabbed a seed and safely retreated before the blue jay sitting on the porch railing realized his territory had been invaded. Beyond, the expanse of snow gleamed invitingly under the noon day sun. Perhaps I shouldn’t view winter’s early arrival in a completely bad light. Better to enjoy its newness by skiing to the Fishing Camp for the marathon meeting than continuing to sit here for another hour-and-a-half stewing over Eric and my lost money.

Although Echo Lake offered the fastest ski route, with a straight run down Forgotten Bay to the camp at its far end, this early in the season most of the bay remained open water. With two hours to spare before the meeting, I set out along the longer, but more enjoyable route that would take me through Aunt Aggies’ old sugar bush to the neighbouring territory of the Migiskan Reserve. This circuitous route up the inclines and down the plunges of the hilly terrain would also enable me to celebrate the season’s first ski with some long, lingering downhill runs.

I hoped the thrill of the ski would keep me from worrying about seeing Eric. Although he had sounded his usual friendly self on the phone, I’d detected a certain distance, and I knew that I too would be maintaining my distance. I didn’t have the strength to pretend all was well. I knew as sure as my skis were sliding through the snow that my reaction would be to stand back and wait for him to say something. And if he said nothing, the memory of that woman’s gorgeous face and his happy greeting would grow like a cancer between us.

Soon I was pushing through the deep powder with Sergei bounding behind me. Last time I’d been this way, the woods had rustled with autumn leaves. Now the snow muffled all sound but the gliding hiss of my skis. I panted up the first steep hill with a near perfect herringbone, glad I’d finally bought wood touring skis. My old plastic skis would’ve had me cursing at the constant backsliding that invariably happened in such deep snow.

At the top, I stopped to enjoy the transformed hardwood forest, really more an excuse to allow me to catch my breath. Despite best intentions of getting myself into proper shape before the ski season began, I hadn’t. Now I would have to creak and groan through a month or more of rigorous skiing before my body even approached the finely-tuned firmness the sport demanded. Unfortunately, this state was invariably reached only at the end of the winter, when spring thaw gave me an excuse to put away my skis and return to less physically challenging summer activities like hiking or, more aptly, slow meandering rambles through the bush.

While I stood puffing, Sergei, not bothered in the least by the climb, chased a red squirrel up a lone pine, where it chattered its outrage to the rest of world. The only other occupant of this snow-shrouded forest was a woodpecker swooping from bare tree top to bare tree top. Although the snow had long since stopped falling, an occasional branch would shake its wintry load free and release a cloud of sparkling white. Some fell on my head and trickled icily down my neck, cold enough to spur me on.

I followed the broad track along the ridge that skirts the back end of my property, up and over small knolls, down into a steep ravine, across a burbling stream and back up the other side. I skied past abandoned rubber tubing used by my greataunt to collect the spring sap for her once-flourishing maple syrup operation. A few of the ancient maples were still marked by numbered pieces of tin used to identify good producers.

When I’d first moved to Three Deer Point, I’d thought of resurrecting the sugar bush operation, but quickly dismissed it as a venture requiring a lot of hard work with minimal return other than the satisfaction of having produced a quintessentially Canadian product. However, given the present future of my twenty thousand dollars, maple syrup would have been a better investment.

Finally, I reached the beginning of the long run which would take me into Migiskan territory. Unfortunately, in order to remain within the Three Deer Point property line, Aunt Aggie’s old track veered a sharp left at the bottom of the steep hill. Sometimes I made the turn; sometimes I didn’t and found myself entangled in brambles. This time I needed to go through this thorny snarl in order to get to the Fishing Camp.

Slowed by the deep snow, I glided, almost floated down the long incline, enjoying the thrill that made the long climb to the top worth the effort. Between my knees, I felt the soft furry snout of Sergei, who insisted on racing directly behind me in the narrow gap between the skis. Occasionally he’d miss his step and land on a ski, and the two of us would go tumbling into the snow’s iciness, but this time he showed his true athletic prowess.

As I descended, I looked for a path through the summer’s crop of tangled underbrush, one made either by animals or by band members trespassing on my land in search of game, an ongoing complaint I had with Eric. Unfortunately, I reached the bottom of the hill with no such sighting.

Unwilling to crash through the head-high blackberry canes and their inch-long thorns, I continued skiing along the trail for as long as it headed in the direction of the Fishing Camp, but I reached where it jogged back deeper into my land without encountering an easy passage through the brambles. I had little choice other than to whack my way as best I could through the spiked tangle.

I was on the point of raising my ski pole to begin smashing the canes aside when I heard a faint noise, which sounded amazingly like laughter. Sergei perked his ears in interest too. Silence, then another tinkling noise that sounded more like a giggle, which sent a barking Sergei leaping through the snow towards the sound.

Annoyed at the thought of trespassers, I followed. Although the dog quickly disappeared through the crowded trees, his track and continued barking led me to a clearing, where another discard from my great-aunt’s sugar bush operation still stood, a small wooden shack once used for storing supplies. Sergei barked in front of one of the many gaps in the exterior’s weathered planking. From inside came a sharp shush followed by a burst of giggles. I could see a line of fresh snowshoe tracks leading from Migiskan land to the other side of the shack.

Not again, I thought to myself. I’d already had one bad experience with band members using my abandoned property. I wasn’t keen on facing another.

“Who’s there?” I shouted. Silence. Convinced it was a couple of lovesick teenagers intent on escaping parental eyes, I skied around to the side, where a door once kept the elements at bay. Now it was a gaping hole partially blocked by a trampled snowdrift. At the sight of numerous pairs of snowshoes propped against the outside wall or abandoned in the snow, I ruled out teenage lovers.

Not sure what to expect now, I gingerly poked my head through the opening. As my nostrils twitched at a sharp, cloying odour, I saw about seven or eight kids, boys and girls, fully clothed, some sitting propped against the rough walls, some lying on the frozen dirt floor. The oldest couldn’t have been more than sixteen, the youngest about eight.

“Okay guys, time to leave,” I said, wondering what kind of trouble they were up to.

More giggles, with one or two dreamy stares turned towards me. At the sight of a young boy wedged into the far corner lifting what looked to be a cigarette to his face, I realized the significance of the smell and knew immediately what I was dealing with.

It appeared Eric’s ongoing battle with kids and drugs was far from over. He might have had some success in getting them away from sniffing gasoline, but that was all. They’d merely switched to a different kind of drug, marijuana. And while it might not be as harmful as inhaling gas fumes, it still wouldn’t do them any good if it led to a dependency on other, more damaging drugs, even alcohol, my own particular problem.

I shivered and watched my breath mist in the frigid air of the shack. I realized it would be dangerous to let these children lie for several hours passed out in this freezing cold. Best to get them out of there. I tried to hustle the nearest kid outside, but he roused himself out of his stupor and fought back, kicking and swearing. I gave up on him and tried a young girl with a mop of thick black hair who looked to be about twelve.

Her sweet but flaccid face made my heart weep. In fact, the sight of all these lethargic kids made my heart weep. They should be outside having fun, making snowmen, throwing snowballs, doing what all kids do with winter’s first snow. Instead, these poor souls were lost in their own drug-induced stupor, obliterating not only the bad but the good in their young lives.

Although the girl spat and tried to claw my face, I was able to half carry, half drag her outside, where she promptly crumpled into the deep snow, which made me wonder if it was such a good move. Still, the sudden jolt of cold might serve to erase the effects of the drug faster.

I returned inside to tackle a boy who couldn’t be more than eight. He lay curled up on the frozen ground. His eyes were closed and his thumb was in his mouth as if he were lying snuggled up in his warm bed, except he wasn’t. Even I could feel the icy cold of the abandoned shack through my layers of long johns and fleece. And I was dressed for it. He wasn’t. His unzipped jacket revealed a thin cotton T -shirt. His dirty bare feet stuck out from the bottom of his jeans. His boots lay beside him.

He rocked back and forth as tears trickled down his cheeks. I tried to rouse him as I felt his violent shivering. I looked to one of the older teens for help, but he only nodded his head drowsily and said, “Everything’s cool, man,” as if repeating words he’d heard on TV .

I realized there was nothing further I could do on my own. Trying to wake these kids up and get them moving was not going to work. I needed to get help. So I zipped up the boy’s jacket, put his boots on and brought the girl back inside the hut, where she would be marginally warmer. I had Sergei lie down beside the shivering boy to provide warmth and hoped the dog would stay put once I’d gone.

Then I did the one thing I could do, removed the source of their intoxication, a plastic bag filled with the dried weed, some cigarette wrappers and a lighter lying on the ground beside them. I clamped my skis back on and headed off to the Fishing Camp to get Eric.

I followed the path the kids had made through the blackberry canes. It appeared well used, suggesting this wasn’t the first time my abandoned shack had served as a drug den. I decided that once the kids were safely removed, I would rid my land of any further temptation and demolish it and any other unused outbuildings.

Thankfully, Sergei remained behind. Perhaps he recognized in his doggy intuitive way that the young boy needed him more than I did.

A hundred metres later, I encountered a single snowshoe track which split away from the tracks I was following. No doubt another kid doing drugs in the shed. Then I noticed with shock an all too familiar orange cap disappearing over the next ridge. John-Joe’s signature hat. What was he, an adult, doing smoking up with a bunch of kids? But then again, maybe drugs were at the root of his abrupt change in character.

Angered that he would leave those kids in such condition, I started after him, but quickly checked myself. Getting help for the drugged children was more important than giving John-Joe a piece of my mind. I continued along the kids’ path. Within a couple of hundred yards, I skied onto the plowed road of the Fishing Camp and hurried to find Eric.