But I didn’t want to be dependent on Laroche. ‘He might not…’ I hesitated. ‘He might get sick,’ I said.
‘You’re thinking of the survey party’s radio?’ His tone was preoccupied. ‘Well, yes, I guess it’d help if somebody besides Bert knew about it. We’ll have a word with the operator here some time this evening.’
We we’re at the store then, and for the next hour we were busy kitting-up. I came out of the hut completely re-clothed right down to string vest, long pants and bush shirt, and in one corner we left what seemed to me a mountainous pile of things that included axes and cooking utensils. By then it was time for lunch and the camp had filled up again, men streaming in from the grade on foot and in trucks. The big dining hut was full of the smell of food and the roar of men eating.
‘All set?’ Lands asked us as we seated ourselves at his table.
‘It’s coming along,’ Darcy answered. And Lands nodded and resumed his discussion with a group of contractors’ foremen. For him this was just one more project for which he was responsible.
We were halfway through our meal when Laroche and Paule came in, and the set, bleak look on her face as she sat down told me that something had gone wrong. Lands saw it too. ‘Did you see Mackenzie?’ he asked her.
She nodded. But she didn’t say anything — as though she couldn’t trust herself to speak. It was Laroche who answered. ‘Mackenzie wouldn’t come.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘The caribou. He’d got word of a herd on the move to the north.’
‘Dam’ sudden, wasn’t it?’ Lands was frowning as he stared down the table at Laroche. And Darcy said, ‘It’s just his way of saying he doesn’t want to go.’
Paule nodded. ‘Except for his tent, he was all packed up when we got there. He had one canoe already loaded. In another half-hour we would have missed him.’
‘And you couldn’t get him to change his mind?’ Lands asked.
She shook her head. ‘I did everything I could to persuade him. I offered him money, stores for the winter… but, no, he must have caribou. Always it was the caribou. They must come first. And when I said men’s lives came first, and that it was my father whom he knew and loved as a brother, he told me it was no good — my father would be dead by now.’ She was near to tears. ‘And then he was talking about the caribou again. I don’t believe there were any caribou,’ she cried. ‘It was just an excuse.’
‘He said there Were caribou,’ Laroche murmured. ‘A big herd three days to the north.’
‘It was just an excuse,’ she repeated. ‘I know it was.’ And then she looked at Darcy. ‘Why didn’t he wish to come? What is he afraid of?’
‘Spirits — that’s what he told me.’
‘Spirits! But he is not superstitious. And he was afraid of something — something positive. He would not look at me, not all the time I was talking to him.’ And then she turned to Laroche. ‘But he was looking at you. Every now and then he looked at you. I think if you had not been there …’ Her voice trailed away and then she gave a hopeless little shrug of her shoulders.
‘I only wanted to help.’ His voice sounded tired as though they had been through all this before. And he added, ‘Anyway, you went off into his tent and talked to him alone, but you still didn’t get him to change his mind.’
‘No.’
‘So we’re back where we were before.’ Laroche glanced uncertainly round the table. ‘I suggest a small party — just one other guy and myself. That’s what we agreed this morning, Bill.’ He was looking at Lands now. ‘A small party, moving fast, and I’ll see if I can trace my route out.’
‘No.’ Paule’s voice was clear and determined. ‘Whatever is decided, I go with you. You understand? I go, too.’ Her insistence might have been due solely to a determination to be present when her father was found, but I couldn’t help wondering whether it wasn’t something more, a feeling of distrust. And then she said, ‘Anyway, you have to take me. I have something here…’ She put her hand to the breast pocket of her jacket. ‘A map of how to get there.’
‘A map?’ Laroche’s tone was sharp with surprise. And Lands said, ‘Let’s see it, Paule. If it’s clear enough — ‘ He held out his hand for it.
She hesitated. ‘It’s very rough,’ she said. ‘I got Mackenzie to draw it for me in the tent.’ She pulled a sheet of paper out and passed it across to Lands. ‘It is not very good, but I think perhaps we can follow it.’ She watched nervously as Lands spread it out on the table. ‘At least it gives the lakes,’ he said. ‘Did he put them all in?’
‘No. I think just those that have a shape or something by which we can distinguish them. Also he has marked in some hills and some muskegs and a section of trail that is blazed. It is very rough, but I think it is possible for a party on the ground to follow it.’
‘I was thinking of an air reconnaissance. Bert, you come and look at it. See what you think.’ Laroche got up and peered at it over Lands’ shoulder. ‘Do you reckon you could follow it?’
Laroche hesitated. ‘Be difficult,’ he said. ‘His choice of landmarks is based on ground observation. You’d have to come right down on to the deck to get the same perspective. Even then-‘
‘Suppose you had the helicopter?’
‘I don’t know.’ He glanced quickly at Paule and then down at the map again, licking his tongue across his lips. ‘Worth trying.’
‘That’s what I think.’ Lands got to his feet. ‘I’ll get on to Two-ninety right away.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Laroche said.
Lands nodded, glancing at his watch. ‘If Len Holt got it down here by two-thirty, that’d give you four and a half hours. Okay?’
‘For a reconnaissance — yes, I guess so. But the weather’s not too good.’
‘No, but it’s going to get worse. The forecast’s bad.’
They went out and Paule Briffe watched them go with tenseness she didn’t bother to hide. ‘Do you think Bill can get them to send the helicopter down here?’ she asked Darcy.
‘Depends on the Grade Superintendent. It’s his machine. But he’s a reasonable guy, and Bill’s got a way with him when he’s made up his mind to something.’
She nodded and got on with her food. She ate like the men, fast and with concentration, and watching her, covertly, I was amazed that so much vitality and determination could be packed into such a small person, for she did look very small, seated there in that huge dining hall, surrounded by construction men. And yet she seemed quite at home amongst them, entirely oblivious of the fact that she was the only woman there. And the men themselves seemed to accept her as though she were one of themselves. Glancing round the hut, I saw that, though they were all conscious of her presence and glanced at her curiously once in a while, they were careful not to make their interest obvious. They had been up there, some of them for months, and in all that time this was probably the first woman they’d seen, and yet even the roughest of them was possessed of innate good manners in this respect. It was part of their code, and I realized that this was the same code that must have operated in every frontier town since the North American continent began to be opened up.
‘Cigarette?’
She was holding out the pack to me in a slim brown hand, and as I took one, I was conscious again that there must be Indian blood in her somewhere, the wrist was so thin, the fingers so wiry looking. If Briffe was really descended from the voyageurs, there’d almost certainly be Indian blood. I lit her cigarette and her dark eyes watched me through the smoke. ‘Don’t you find it strange that we should be going to this Lake of the Lion?’ she said.
‘How do you mean?’ I asked.
‘You will maybe find out the truth about your grandfather and what happened there.’
‘You know the story then?’
She nodded, and I remembered then that she’d said her father had always been talking about the lake. ‘It’s not all that important to me,’ I said.
‘But your grandfather is supposed to have been murdered there.’
‘Yes, I know. But it’s past history now.’
And then Darcy said, ‘He’d never heard of the expedition until he came to Canada. All he knows about it is what I’ve told him.’ He was leaning towards her and a quick glance passed between them. It was almost as though he were trying to warn her of something.