“Give the kid his time. Yes or no?”
“All right, I’ll do it.” He sounded like he was agreeing to a capitulation treaty. “But, man, oh man, you owe me big this time.”
“Oh, I won’t bug you for credit checks over the next month. That will do it.”
“That doesn’t even come close.” Jim began coughing after taking a big gulp of his pop.
“Or I can give you a Heimlich so you’ll stop choking.”
“I’m fine.” Jim regained his composure. “It’s these kinds of favors that will kill me one of these days.”
Justin consulted his wristwatch. “We’ll have to get back soon to avoid the rush of people during the last minutes.”
As he turned around, Olivier appeared out of the washrooms.
“Hey, little buddy,” Justin said, “Uncle Jim will get you some popcorn while I use the little boy’s room.” He leaned toward Jim and whispered, “You two bond.” He winked at Olivier.
“What do you do, Uncle Jim?” Olivier asked.
“Hmm, I am a fin… do you like monopoly?”
Chapter Three
The bright sun bounced off the hard sheet of ice covering the gravel road and blinded him for a second. Kiawak squinted. All he saw were yellow sparks and black dots. His Arctic Wolf sunglasses — coated for extra protection against the sunrays’ sharp reflection from the snow — and the semi-tinted windshield of his Toyota truck were nearly useless. The permafrost, which had been agonizing under the weight of several feet of snow for months, mirrored all of the sunrays.
At minus two degrees — but driven down to minus thirteen because of the wind chill factor — the sun, although bright and blazing its way across the skies for sixteen hours a day, provided absolutely no heat. A man stranded outside without heavy protective clothing could experience the first signs of the frostbite within minutes. The exposed skin would begin to freeze, the tissue turning red and burning at the lightest touch. Hypothermia would set in soon thereafter, and death could occur in the next hour.
Inside his truck cabin, however, the heater blasted hot air onto Kiawak’s unshaven face as he drove around the corner toward his destination. Parting Waters was the only bar, restaurant, and grocery store in Nanisivik. Kiawak ran it with Joe, his best friend. Waters, as Joe called their joint venture, stretched over the length of three construction trailers. They were soldered, converted, and insulated to accommodate Kiawak’s small apartment in the back and the business in the front. Waters was the right name for the joint, located on the edge of the old town site, overlooking the Strathcona Sound. The waters parted when icebergs in the spring and icebreakers in the summer cruised by the small town.
The truck let out a loud puff as Kiawak tapped on the brakes and turned right. The front wheels slid on the ice, but the truck responded to his command. Nanisivik used to have a lead-zinc mine, which spewed out enough ore to keep happy and busy about two hundred employees for many years. When the mine closed its doors, the managing company took away not only the jobs and the people, but also everything it could salvage: the machineries, the ship loader, and even some of the townhouses.
Recently, the Canadian government, alarmed by the so-called “black rush”—the race among Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States for ownership of the oil and the natural gas buried in the Arctic’s permafrost and seabed — announced its Arctic strategy. It was a well-elaborated and multilayered strategy to bolster Canada’s sovereignty in its northern territories. The strategy included the construction of the Canadian Forces Arctic Training Center in Resolute — two hundred and twenty miles north of Nanisivik — the expansion of the Canadian Rangers and the refurbishment and the expansion of the deep water port in Nanisivik.
Nanisivik was now crawling with DND employees surveying the proposed building sites, collecting samples, and carrying out environmental studies and technical assessments of the proposed work. New apartments and row houses were expected to start popping up. Kiawak had been flirting with the idea of investing in the promising real estate market and becoming a landlord.
For the time being, all these DND workers needed food, and Kiawak needed power to keep the kitchen running, the flat screen TVs on, and the grocery refrigerators in working condition. The trip to Arctic Bay scored him a diesel generator, sufficient to power up all the equipment. The current propane workhorse of the Waters proved to be less than reliable because of a sudden snap of hellish weather the previous week that had dipped the mercury under minus thirty-one.
Three black GMC pickups were lined up in front of the Waters and Kiawak recognized them as DND vehicles. The orange Ford Explorer parked farther to the left looked unfamiliar. As usual, a beat up Arctic Cat snowmobile occupied the last available space in the gravel parking lot. Kiawak sighed as he slammed the front bumper of his truck in a snowbank and turned around, backing up by the front entrance.
“Hey, boss, how was the trip?” Joe waved at him from behind the counter.
“Good.” Kiawak inhaled the warm air mixed with the appetizing aroma of fried pork chops as he entered the restaurant. Seven people sat around the small tables enjoying their lunch. Most of the patrons nodded at him.
“Where’s Amaruq?” Kiawak asked while Joe poured him a large mug of hot coffee. Before Joe could answer, Kiawak snatched the hot drink out of Joe’s hand. “I saw his Cat outside.”
“Back in the office. Nina gave birth to a boy, Gabriel, last night and e-mailed him a few pictures. I opened them for him on your laptop.”
“How are they doing? His sister and the baby?”
“Fine, I think. I mean, this is her fourth kid and according to Amaruq, everyone’s doing great.”
“Well, I’m happy for him.” Kiawak drained the mug down his throat. “You and I need to install the generator today, after the lunch rush. Help me move it to the back.”
“All right.” Joe scratched his long gray beard.
He turned down the heat of the stove’s burners, and put on his Taiga Gore-Tex jacket, the same as Kiawak’s. He took a pair of heavy-duty gloves from underneath the counter, fastened a black wool toque with long earflaps over his gray hair, and followed Kiawak outside.
“Man, you shouldn’t go out without a hat,” Joe said. “Your ponytail will freeze.”
“Oh, what about your Santa beard, eh?”
“I don’t need any stupid scarves.”
“It’s nice now,” Kiawak said. “The wind has died down, but it was quite strong in the Bay before I left.”
Joe helped him untie the orange straps securing the generator to the truck. “How was Tania?”
“I don’t know.”
“What? You went all the way there and didn’t see her?”
“No, I didn’t.” Kiawak waved his hand, as if to express his frustration with the tangled straps. In fact, he was getting annoyed at Joe probing into his personal affairs.
“Why not?”
“Joe, drop it.”
“OK, fine. I’m just looking out for you, boss.”
Kiawak snorted. “Thanks. Who’s the pumpkin?” he asked, gesturing toward the orange Ford Explorer.
“Couple of researchers from Ottawa. They’re doing some weather measurements, the humidity and such. Something about global warming.”
“Oh, those things.”
“Yes. You’re ready?”
“I’m ready.”
They lifted the two-hundred pound generator and slowly placed it on the gravel.
“I paid three Gs for it,” Kiawak said, responding to Joe’s curious stare at the gray metallic box, a little larger than the toolbox stretching the entire width of the pickup. “Brand new.”