The Curse of the Viking Grave (17 page)

Peetyuk joined him, and the Eskimo boy's face was sober.

“You feel it, Jamie? The Spirit of the Deer. Now you know how Eskimo feel about
tuktu. Tuktu
give Eskimo his life.
Tuktu
, he is our brother.”

 

CHAPTER
19

The Curse of Flies

T
HE BIG HERD WAS FOLLOWED BY
several smaller herds and Ohoto shot a particularly fat buck from one of these. Angeline went back to camp with a piece of back meat to cook for supper while the boys and Ohoto quartered the beast.

That night they stayed up late, talking by the fire. The next morning they would reach Big River, where Ohoto was to leave them.

Their knowledge of what lay ahead of them was very scanty. All they really knew was that the river would eventually take them to Hudson Bay; that there were several lakes along it; that it was almost one continuous rapid and ran with a tremendous current; and that they might hope to meet sea Eskimos near the coast. Consequently, the boys were not at all anxious to say good-by to Ohoto. Jamie was tempted to ask the Eskimo if he would go with them as far as the coast, but his pride would not let him. In any case, he knew that Ohoto would have found it almost impossible to fight his way back up the river. A trip on Big River was one-way—downstream only.

Next morning the campers were reluctant to wake up. It
was a gloomy, slow breakfast. Ohoto finally broke the spell. With a good-natured shout he tousled Angeline's hair, pushed Peetyuk flat on his face in the sand, and trotted off toward his kayak, his small bundle-bag on his back.

This little bit of horseplay roused the boys and they soon had the tent down and their gear in the canoes. Then, under a blue sky and with a light riffle of wind to help them along, they set out for the head of Big River.

They had barely entered Big River Bay, a couple of miles from their overnight camp, when Angeline held up her paddle.

“Listen,” she asked. “What is that?”

The boys strained to hear a low, muted muttering like the sound of distant summer thunder.

“Rapids, or a falls,” Awasin said in a small voice.

“
Big
rapids!” Peetyuk added. “We still many miles from end of bay. Very big, or we not hear upwind.”

Ohoto, who was well ahead, beckoned impatiently with his paddle and the boys and Angeline again took up the stroke. But they were very subdued and not a word passed between them as they paddled on. The thunder grew in volume as they neared the end of the bay.

They beached their canoes on a point of land at the river mouth and, led by Ohoto, climbed a low ridge to see what lay ahead.

What they saw was enough to shake the confidence of the bravest of canoemen. They seemed to be standing on the raised edge of an immense bowl. To the eastward the land sloped away to a dim and distant horizon, and down
this endless slope plunged one of the biggest rivers in the Barrenlands.

It did not flow between well-defined banks like an ordinary river. It spilled over the edge of the bowl and roared down the rocky slope in one mighty cataract of foam and spray that seemed to stretch for miles.

The river was formidable enough, but the land through which it ran was even more fearsome to behold. It was a totally dead land, so strewn with frost-shattered rocks that it looked like one titanic slag heap. Nothing, not even a caribou, could have crossed it on foot. Only the roaring river offered a passage to the east.

Ohoto stared glumly at the river for a long time. When he turned toward the boys again his usually jovial face was creased with lines of worry. He spoke to Peetyuk in a low voice.

“Ohoto say he never see Big River before except in wintertime when all frozen up,” Peetyuk translated. “He say he never know she such bad river. He say maybe better go back to Innuit camps and take canoes south by way we came, or wait till winter and take dogsleds south.”

Peetyuk and Awasin looked at Jamie.

“No, we can't do that,” Jamie said slowly. “Remember Elaitutna and the way the Eskimos were acting when we left? If we went back that old devil would say we had to, because of the curse, and then he'd have all the people on his side. They'd probably never let us get clear with the Viking stuff. Anyway, if we
did
go south the way we came the chances are we'd be picked up by the police even before we got to The Pas. And we'd never get past The Pas
without being caught. Either we have to go down Big River or admit we're licked and lose the Viking stuff. One thing though, I think it's too big a risk to take Angeline with us any farther. Anything could happen to us on this river. I think she ought to go back with Ohoto and come south to Thanout Lake with him in the wintertime.”

Jamie had meant well by this suggestion, but the girl's reaction was as furious as if he had struck her in the face. With blazing eyes she faced him, so tense with anger that Jamie backed up a step.

“You will
not
leave me behind!” she cried. “Many times you have tried to do that, Jamie. I think you hate me because I am a girl. But I am as good a traveler as you are. Perhaps I am better. After all you are only…only a white man!” She almost spat out the last words.

Roughly Awasin caught her arm and pulled her back.

“Be quiet, sister!” he said sharply. “Jamie does not hate you. He is afraid for you. And you will not have to go back to the Eskimo camps. You are almost a woman now and you may make your own choice. But act like a woman!”

It was Peetyuk who smoothed out the quarrel.

“We look after Angeline easy. We not able let her go back anyhow. Who would paddle with Awasin, eh? One fellow alone in canoe not live long on
this
river.”

“Look, Angeline,” Jamie said placatingly, “I wasn't trying to be mean. I was just scared something might happen to you. But you're pretty near as good a ‘man' as any one of us, and Peetyuk's right, we need you. No hard feelings?”

Angeline's burst of temper had been short-lived. Shyly now she touched Jamie's arm.

“I am sorry, Jamie. And you will see, I will be no trouble. Now I think we have talked long enough. Men always talk too much. Let us go before there is another argument.”

“Right,” Jamie said. “If we stand here looking at this mess of white water much longer we'll get too scared to lift a paddle.”

 

The leave-taking from Ohoto was brief and unemotional. Since they had made up their minds to go on, he accepted the decision without comment. He rubbed noses with Angeline, whacked each of the boys heartily on the shoulder and, singing a snatch of Eskimo song, trotted to his kayak, pushed off, and was soon winging up the bay with never a backward look. Eskimos believe it is bad luck to look back at a leave-taking.

The voyagers lingered a little longer on the ridge, assessing the river and the rapids and making a plan for running the first part of it. Now that they were committed, their lethargy seemed to vanish.

“It is best we start down the center channel,” Awasin suggested. “Once we are past that little island we can swing to the south channel. Beyond that we will have to see. I will lead for the first part if you wish. Then we can take turns picking the channels.”

“Good enough,” said Jamie. “Okay, you crowd of
voyageurs
, let's see what we can do with this Big River!”

 

As the canoes swung out into the oily funnel which marked the head of the first chute, all four paddlers were
tense and strained, their mouths dry, and their eyes staring. But as they entered the slick water and were swept swiftly into the first rapids the high excitement of the moment gripped them. In the lead canoe Angeline swung her paddle expertly, reacting instantly to Awasin's commands. And that normally staid youth was soon shouting and whooping like a movie Indian while his little canoe shot back and forth from eddy to eddy like a scared trout. Jamie and Peetyuk were close behind, Peetyuk's red hair flying in the wind of their passing, and Jamie's eyes as bright as a squirrel's as he searched the foam for signs of rocks ahead.

Once started there was no stopping. For what seemed like hours, but was in reality only fifteen or twenty minutes, the headlong plunge continued. Then, at a sharp bend in the river, the two canoes whipped out into a small lake and the paddlers had time to catch their breath.

“Wheee-ew!” Jamie shouted. “That's better than a roller-coaster! This old river's not so bad! We never so much as ticked a rock. How about you, Awasin?”

Awasin grinned and wiped his brow. “I have a good bow paddler. She is a better woman than I am, anyway.”

“I should
hope
so,” Jamie laughed. “Well, come on, sports, let's not hold back. At this rate we'll be in Churchill tomorrow night!”

For the next several hours the run continued. Alternating with long stretches of white water were several small lakes, but even in these the current flowed at two or three miles an hour. By mid-afternoon the constant excitement and tension had begun to tell on the youngsters, and when
Awasin detected a deeper note in the roar ahead he swung to shore, and the others followed, glad of a chance to rest.

It was as well they went ashore when they did.

When they clambered up on the bank to stretch strained muscles they saw ahead of them a cataract which made the rapids they had already run look like riffles in a gutter.

Up to this point Big River had been playing with them. Now it showed its teeth. As far downstream as they could see there was no water—only a mass of foam punctured by the sleek wet shapes of innumerable boulders. The river seemed to have spilled right out of its bed and to be running hog-wild over a land that sloped steeply down to the eastward.

The exhilaration of the past few hours vanished.

“
That's
not a rapid!” Jamie muttered. “I don't know what to call it, but I know one thing…no canoe can go down there.”

No one argued with him. For a long time they stared in apprehensive silence, broken finally by Peetyuk.

“Now I think maybe Ohoto right. Maybe should go back and try some other road.”

“We cannot go back,” Awasin replied. “We have been running more than five hours now. You forget the speed of this river. To go back we would have to track the canoes upstream for thirty or forty miles. We would be many days, and it is much more dangerous to track up on such a river than to run down it.”

“Awasin's right, we can't go back,” said Jamie. “We have to go on…but how?”

“Only one way,” said Peetyuk. “Make big portage. This country all flat. Not like country we just come through. Got no hills, no rocks, easy to walk. We got not much to carry. Canoe, they light. We do easy, eh?”

“It's walk or stay, I guess,” Jamie answered. “But let's camp here tonight. I've had enough of Big River for one day!”

 

The next day was one which none of the four would ever forget. Dawn brought gray skies but not a breath of wind. Long before daylight the mosquitoes arrived. And with them came the second of the Barrenland plagues—black flies.

Black flies breed in the eddies of swift water, and Big River mothered them in myriads. The flies swarmed over the youngsters in such numbers that a haze formed around their heads. Flies crawled into every crevice in their clothing, and when they found flesh they bit, leaving a little drop of blood and a rising welt that itched furiously.

Once out of their sleeping bags the travelers found it impossible to remain still long enough even to light a fire and get some breakfast.

“Come on! Come on!” Jamie yelped. “Grab the stuff! We got to get out of here!”

Wordlessly, Awasin seized one canoe and Peetyuk grabbed the other. Flipping them upside down they hoisted them to their shoulders and set off at a dog-trot over the saturated muskeg. Jamie and Angeline followed close be
hind, festooned with packs, robes and paddles. Not everything could be carried at one time and so some of the bundles were left for a second trip.

They fled, but they were hotly pursued. The cloud of insects kept increasing in size. Awasin and Peetyuk had to use both hands to hold the gunwales of the canoes steady, and so could not beat off the swarms which crawled over their faces, into their eyes, up their nostrils and into their panting mouths. They had not trotted more than half a mile when they were forced to fling down the canoes so they could flail away at their tormentors.

Jamie and Angeline were not much better off. When they caught up to the other two, they also flung down their loads and joined in the mad dance.

“I can't stand this!” Jamie cried. “We got to do something!”

“Open the packs! Get out the spare shirts,” Awasin commanded. “Wrap them around your heads and over your faces. Tie up the wrists of your jackets. It will help a little. We must go on. Maybe we can find a clump of willows by the river and build a smudge.”

“Leave canoes here,” Peetyuk added in a muffled voice as he wrapped a long flannel shirt around his head. “We run quick. Find wood, make big smoke!”

Thrusting the bundles under the canoes, the others followed his advice and soon the four of them were running over the sodden plains as if beset by devils.

Half crying with fatigue and misery, they stumbled into a little valley through which a tiny stream ran down to Big River and in this protected place they found a copse of
willows. Tugging and pulling at the green branches like wild animals, they soon piled up a high heap. With trembling hands Awasin touched a match to some dry moss which he stuffed under it.